Introduction to special issue: ‘Foreign policy signaling in the Indo-Pacific: Responses to the US-China rivalry in a multipolar world’
| Published date | 01 February 2025 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13691481241306387 |
| Author | Johannes Plagemann |
| Date | 01 February 2025 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/13691481241306387
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2025, Vol. 27(1) 3 –19
© The Author(s) 2024
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DOI: 10.1177/13691481241306387
journals.sagepub.com/home/bpi
Introduction to special issue:
‘Foreign policy signaling in the
Indo-Pacific: Responses to the
US-China rivalry in a
multipolar world’
Johannes Plagemann
Abstract
The Indo-Pacific is a laboratory of foreign policy signaling. It has seen a plethora of novel
diplomatic phrasings and formats emerging in the recent past – from the adoption of the Indo-
Pacific terminology itself, to a series of strategy papers from regional as well as extra-regional
governments to varying multilateral naval exercises. Playing host to the rivalry between the US and
China that is set to define 21st century world politics, it is not surprising that both major Asian and
external powers have intensified their foreign policy signaling towards and within the Indo-Pacific
region. What is more puzzling is the simultaneity of often very public signals and their vagueness.
In fact, a multipolar Asia replete with interdependencies from safe sea lanes to infrastructure
investments and arms supplies is one that is full of ambiguous signaling – raising questions about
the reasons for this as well as its consequences and effectiveness. The introduction of this special
issue highlights this central feature of signalling in the Indo-Pacific. Moreover, with reference
to the rich signalling literature it suggests an understanding of foreign policy signalling outside
immediate crises as communication that is costly, public, and intentional for the contributing
authors to work with.
Keywords
ambiguity, hedging, Indo-Pacific, multipolarity, signalling, US-China rivalry
Introduction
Signalling has always been a core component of foreign policy and diplomacy. However,
as argued in this special issue, contemporary Asia is a particularly interesting field for the
study of foreign policy signalling. More than any other world region, it mirrors the
multipolar distribution of power globally with a rising economic hegemon (China), an
established power (the United States) keen on maintaining its dominance in hard security
German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA), Institute for Asian Studies, Hamburg, Germany
Corresponding author:
Johannes Plagemann, German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA), Rothenbaumchaussee 32, 20148
Hamburg, Germany.
Email: johannes.plagemann@giga-hamburg.de
1306387BPI0010.1177/13691481241306387The British Journal of Politics and International Relations X(X)Plagemann
research-article2024
Special Issue Article
4The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 27(1)
terms, and a variety of other major powers from India to Japan. Asia also has been the
stage of a plethora of types and novel means of signalling employed within an interna-
tional system with unclear future power capabilities. Deepening tensions between China
and the United States go along with the intensification of regional and global interdepend-
encies. On the one hand, ‘omni-enmeshment’ (Goh, 2008) promises to best safeguard
Asian small and secondary powers’ autonomy. Benign relations with all major powers
also promise substantial benefits in terms of economic assistance, aid, and infrastructure
development in times of competing connectivity initiatives in Asia. On the other hand, the
intensification of the US-China rivalry increases the pressure on individual countries to
align more clearly with one or the other side, thus contributing to fears of entrapment in
a major power conflict not of their choosing.
Thus, a more assertive China and the intensification of tensions between China and
some Asian countries as well as the United States have made foreign policy signalling
more consequential. Sino-Indian relations have frayed not only because of border ten-
sions but also, in a wider sense, because of Indian preoccupations over its self-ascribed
status as the preeminent power in South Asia and a deep suspicion towards Chinese
intentions (see Khan and Sullivan de Estrada in this special issue). Meanwhile, the fear
of abandonment in East Asian countries reliant on US security guarantees has become
more salient as China rises and US foreign policy has become less predictable due to
the vagaries of US domestic politics. A widely shared sense of US decline as well as
isolationist tendencies among Republicans question existing alliances, such as those
between Washington and the Philippines, South Korea, or Japan. This, too, poses new
challenges for mid-ranking Asian powers in terms of both reading major power signals
and sending signals that contribute to avoiding the escalation of major power rivalries
(Korolev, 2019: 420).
Consequently, signalling their foreign policy intentions has become difficult for exter-
nal powers, too. The US adoption of the Indo-Pacific terminology itself illustrates this
(also see Pu in this special issue). To the United States, the term both underlines the cen-
tral role attributed to India and a desire to close ranks vis-à-vis China. At the same time,
the phrasing is not overtly offensive so that other regional states with their characteristic
animosity towards taking sides can engage. In fact, its very vagueness has been a precon-
dition for its popularity from Southeast Asia to the Middle East and Europe. Exploring
foreign policy signalling in the Indo-Pacific region is promising precisely because we
have witnessed a plethora of such novel diplomatic phrasings and formats in the recent
past – from the adoption of the Indo-Pacific terminology to a series of European strategy
papers on the region, varying multilateral naval exercises, or India’s curious self-descrip-
tion as a ‘net-security provider’ (now abandoned, at least officially).
By exploring signalling in the Indo-Pacific, we learn more about international politics
in an increasingly multipolar world. In fact, a closer look at geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific
reveals that although the US-China rivalry captures minds (and media attention), regional
actors are keenly aware of an ever more multipolar distribution of power within Asia as
well as globally. As will be seen in the signalling behaviour detailed in the contributions
to this special issue, governments and societies from across the global South tend to wel-
come multipolarity as it promises alternative partners and reprieve from western hector-
ing. Whereas western states only vary in the degree of support they lend to US attempts
in containing China, most governments from the global South reject the contest. Instead,
as within Asia, most states across the global South seek to hedge and thus signal ambigu-
ity (Ikenberry, 2024). Conventional signalling theory assumes that states have an interest
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