From Asia-Pacific to Indo-Pacific: Diplomacy in a Contested Region (Global Political Transitions)

This book brings together a unique team of academics and practitioners to analyse interests, institutions, and issues affecting and affected by the transition from Asia-Pacific to Indo-Pacific. The Indo-Pacific has emerged as the world’s economic and strategic centre of gravity, in which established and rising powers compete with each other. As a strategic space, the Indo-Pacific reflects the rise of geo-political and geo-economic designs and dynamics which have come to shape the region in the early twenty-first century. These new dynamics contrast with the (neo-)liberal ideas and the seemingly increasing globalisation for which the once dominant ‘Asia-Pacific’ regional label stood.

Robert G. Patman is one of the University of Otago’s inaugural Sesquicentennial Distinguished Chairs, and his research interests concern international relations, US foreign policy, great powers, and the Horn of Africa. Publications include Strategic Shortfall: The ‘Somalia Syndrome’ and the March to 9/11 and co-edited books titled China and the International System: Becoming a World Power; Science Diplomacy: New Day or False Dawn; New Zealand and the World: Past, Present and Future. Robert is currently writing a volume called Rethinking the Global Impact of 9/11.

Patrick Köllner is vice president of the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA), director of the GIGA Institute for Asian Studies, and professor of political science at the University of Hamburg. Recent publications include coedited special issues on think tanks in East Asia (Pacific Affairs, 2018) and political transformation in Myanmar (Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 2020), the co-edited volume Comparative Area Studies: Methodological Rationales and Cross- Regional Applications (Oxford University Press, 2018) and an article on Australia and New Zealand’s changing China policies (The Pacific Review, 2021).

Balazs Kiglics is a recent Ph.D. graduate and teaching fellow in the Languages and Cultures Programme at the University of Otago, New Zealand. His thesis explored the role of values in contemporary Japanese elite perceptions of Japan–China relations. He also coordinates the annual Otago Foreign Policy School and Otago National Security School. Balazs has co-edited the volume New Zealand and the World: Past, Present and Future. His research interests include Japanese and Chinese studies, international relations of the Asia-Pacific, and intercultural communication.