President Yoon Suk-yeol used the ASEAN Summit in Phnom Penh to outline South Korea’s Indo-Pacific strategy. Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly has announced that Ottawa will be inaugurated within a month. Clearly, for a number of actors in Asia and the Pacific, implementing the Indo-Pacific concept and operationalizing it will take a long time. Our collaborator and columnist François Guilbert looks at a map of the Indian Ocean. And here’s the observation…

China is not (anymore) content with the folding chairs it has welcomed over the years in subregional organizations (eg Indian Ocean Commission (IOC), Association of Indian Ocean Rim Countries (IORA), Pacific Islands Forum (PIF)). While many countries are still contemplating their Indo-Pacific policies, the PRC is already implementing them on both sides of the ocean.

After visiting seven countries in Oceania (Solomon, Kiribati, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea) in May-June 2022 and meeting his counterparts twice in less than a year, Foreign Minister Wang Yi proposed to the interlocutors of the islands Pacific to not only to regularly resume their ministerial exchanges set for October 21, 2021 but also to support a General vision of development and one Five year action plan on joint development. Desiring to see the adoption of the document as binding because it was put together without consultation, communist leaders suffered a severe diplomatic setback in Oceania. The texts submitted by Beijing were sharply criticized in public and then officially rejected by most of the island nation. Never mind, Waijiaobu has returned work and hopes his proposal will find takers soon.

Failing to showcase the unnamed consolidation of the P pillar of the Indo-Pacific strategy, the People’s Republic of China has recently worked to institutionalize its relationship with the group of nations in the Indian Ocean. . The maneuvers this time were led not by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs but by the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA). A view with a less “political” environment than in the Pacific islands, it is true that in the Indian Ocean basin China does not only have friends.

On November 21, 2022, China successfully established the first China-India Regional Cooperation and Development Forum (C-IORFDC). The first ! So far no other country in the world has attempted to gather around itself such a heterogeneous group of countries that have the Indian Ocean as their common property. This exercise remains corbelling as it complements the South Asia Forum created in 2018 and its third edition was held on November 19 at the same venue.

The C-IORFDC exercise was attended by 19 countries and 3 international organizations. Here, however, unlike the Pacific islands where there is no fertile Taiwan, the geographical architecture chosen underscores the growing scope of the PRC’s ambitions. On January 9, 2022, while visiting Sri Lanka, Minister Wang Yi was “satisfied” proposed establishing a Development Forum for island nations in the Indian Ocean. Not only did his project materialize in record time, showing how Beijing is often in a hurry and also determined to build its influence strategy, but he brought together representatives from East Africa, the Middle East, from Indianoceania, the Indian subcontinent, and Southeast Asia. Asia.

Admittedly, at the end of the meeting at the ministerial level there was no joint declaration, but sufficient material for a joint press release. Prior to the meeting, nothing was less certain, as the concerns of countries on the western side of the Indo-Pacific often had little to do with one another. Other than that, the hitch was surprising.

Geographers will be surprised that one can see the states of Afghanistan or Nepal in the Indian Ocean region. Their coastline is not immediately visible. Strategists will not fail to note that almost all of India’s neighbors have responded (Pakistan, Nepal, Burma, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives). If we know how Timphu was most careful to avoid getting caught up in the Sino-Indian rivalry, New Delhi’s absence at the Kunming meeting was symbolic of first-order rejection and given how bitterly the Sino-Indian antagonism played out (ra) in the Indian Ocean. The non-participation of three of the five Asean actors who have a place in the inter-State body devoted to the Indian Ocean (Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore) also speaks volumes about the reluctance of certain countries to consider contributing to a platform whose agenda is essentially. guided by Beijing’s strategic interests. It wasn’t Australia’s association with C-IORFDC that changed the situation so radically.

If Southeast Asia does not occupy as much of the new Chinese scroll in the Indian Ocean area as possible, the same is true for the Arab-Persian Gulf region. Only Iran and the Sultanate of Oman participated in this first C-IORFDC meeting. on the contrary, the African facade is very well represented. It is true that Wang Yi’s project is following its path in Eritrea, Kenya, Comoros (4-7 January 2022) and Maldives (7-8 January). Of the six states stretching from the Horn to the Cape, five have responded (South Africa, Djibouti, Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania). As for the Indian Ocean Commission, three of its five members (Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles) took part in the discussions, unlike France and the Comoros, which are heavily courted by China.

This institutional geography shows how much Beijing’s bi-oceanic strategy encompasses the broadest definition of the Indo-Pacific, from the coast of Africa to the Polynesian Triangle. And by holding demonstrations in Kunming and under the leadership of the governor and deputy secretary of the Yunnan Communist Party, Wang Yubo, China underlined that its goal with respect to the Indian Ocean is to open up its province from the southwest and to secure the inland passage of the Malacca Strait. Yunnan in Beijing’s eyes is the center of its influence on South and Southeast Asia although it is not easy to reach the Indian Ocean from the mythical birthplace of Admiral Zheng He (1371 – 1433). A policy that requires close ties to the existing powers in Nay Pyi Taw to access the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal. Consequently, and whatever doubts Beijing may have about the Burmese State Board of Directors, it must invite a member of the junta government. This is how Minister of International Cooperation Ko Ko Hlaing joined in via a video conference arranged by the Forum in a hybrid manner on November 21.

The immediate participation of Nay Pyi Taw propaganda to show how the country in the hands of the generals is not isolated in the regional arena due to the recurring tensions with ASEAN and some of its member states. The better operations came as Burma was excluded from the main Indian Ocean regional organization. In this case, Beijing and Nay Pyi Taw can be satisfied to see the C-IORFDC prepared 24 hours before the 22nd^th IORA Ministerial Meeting in Dhaka. This calendar maneuver shows how much Beijing is challenging existing regional multilateral bodies by enclosing a reticulation platform around China alone. However, the countries of the region are certainly not ready to immediately abandon the regional organizations they have established over time as these serve to determine the general approach of their members, while maintaining a certain distance from collective decision-making centers of regional extra-powers such as China, Russia, the United States and even Japan and the European Union. At the IORA meeting in Bangladesh, 23 members and 10 dialogue partners gathered, which is 1.5 times more participants than the new China Forum.

Essentially, while accentuating through its initiatives the proliferation of foreign regional bodies at the expense of consolidating indigenously developed and led platforms, Beijing masks its opposition to the existing multilateral order by trying to stay as close to the political pronunciation of islanders as possible. So, the theme of the Kunming meeting was ” Development for all » and implementation provisions brought about by the political grammar of the island support for the « blue economy », protection of the oceans or support for cooperative mechanisms for the prevention and mitigation of marine disasters. But in order not to lose the advantage in repeating cooperation and to nurture future initiatives, China has proposed on its territory to set up a think tank devoted to the blue economy of the Indian Ocean. To ensure the possibility of refractory, CIDCA assured state partners of the financial support provided by Yunnan province. China has built its exchange arena with countries in the Indian Ocean, sketched lines of cooperation, offered intellectual, administrative and financial tools to support projects, still has to live up to this strategy over time, to articulate the C- IORFDC with other Chinese subgroups (eg South Asia Forum, Maritime Silk Road, etc.) and to ensure that the stables installed on 21 November can become the main decision center for future regional cooperation with the so-called Indian Ocean Countries.

François Guilbert