European Union’s Indo-Pacific Strategy: Policy Implications For India

Abstract

With China penetrating markets across the world, its influence over the European economies has reached an unprecedented level. Though the European Union (EU) has significant economic presence in many parts of Asia, it has not yet figured prominently in emerging strategic calculations revolving around the Indo-Pacific region. However, the increasingly fraught relationship between the United States and China, coupled with the prospects of slowing global economy, offer the EU member-states with the opportunity to enhance its agency in shaping the geoeconomic and geopolitical future of the Indo-Pacific region. The article argues that the EU is currently undergoing a significant recalibration in its relationship with an authoritarian China even as it faces the challenge of having to balance security imperatives with economic interests and, not least, having to contend with a lack of unity among member-states. The article recommends that the emergence of the Indo-Pacific construct should prompt both the EU and India in enhancing their cooperation to realise the collective vision of a democratic, open and rules-based international order.