The regional answers to Australia’s strategic quandaries

In Australian foreign policy, there has long been a tension between those who place preponderant weight on our alliance relationship with the United States and those who argue for drawing a greater sense of security from within the region.

For almost a generation, the former view has prevailed. We may now be witnessing some rebalancing towards the latter.

Stimulated by Chinese regional ambitions and President Trump’s tomfoolery, our regional friends are developing agency. 

In the neighbourhood, concerns about China’s ambitions have run high for years, particularly in Japan and the Philippines. Vietnam is cautiously watchful.

China’s recent missile test directed towards the South Pacific is the sort of thing big powers do. But it did not win friends.

Self-evidently, the impact on the region of the shift in United States’ international conduct in Trump’s second term has been severe.

American tariffs hit most of the region hard. Trump’s war on Iran has inflated fuel costs.

Trump has left American alliance structures in East Asia alone. However, worries exist that Trump’s scorn for NATO could be replicated towards allies in this region or that he could be attracted towards some form of power-sharing arrangement with China. 

Worries exist that Trump’s scorn for NATO could be replicated towards allies in this region or that he could be attracted towards some form of power-sharing arrangement with China.

And whatever perception of American commitment that still exists in East Asia is lacking elsewhere in the Indo-Pacific, namely India and Southeast Asia.

From the early part of this century the United States elevated its relationship with India to a genuine strategic partnership. A key component was a 2008 treaty allowing India to import nuclear fuel and technology for peaceful purposes.  

That treaty and the consequent bolstering of the US-India bilateral relationship was driven largely by mutual apprehension about the rise of China. 

But since 2025, things have gone bad between the United States and India. Two rounds of tariffs on India hurt. And following clashes between Indian and Pakistan in May 2025, India perceived a United States’ tilt towards Pakistan.

The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or QUAD, the concept whereby the United States, India, Japan and Australia work together with common regional objectives, has lost its mojo. 

More recently other doubts have arisen about the extent of United States commitment to security in the Indian Ocean region. 

Until the beginning of the 21^st century, allied strategic focus was on East Asia and South-East Asia. The area covered was termed the Asia-Pacific. There was ambiguity about whether India belonged in it.

In the event, the term Indo Pacific, as a strategic construct designed to include South Asia and the Indian Ocean and first mooted by the late Japanese Prime Minister Abe in New Delhi in 2007, became increasingly common. 

The term was adopted by the United States in Trump’s first administration. The United States Pacific Command in Honolulu changed its name to the Indo-Pacific Command.  

But during Trump’s current administration, there have been scant references to the Indo-Pacific or indeed to the Indian Ocean. The Pacific Command has now dropped its Indo prefix.

This is not to suggest that the Americans will sail away from the Indian Ocean. They could argue that they are merely encouraging regional self-reliance. But nomenclature and symbols count, perhaps the more so when they are changed or removed.

When historically the United States has talked about East Asia, it has tended to mean Northeast Asia: China, Japan, the Koreas and Taiwan. The Vietnam war aside, it has never placed the same emphasis on Southeast Asia.  

This remains the case today. The United States strategic focus is on the so called First Island Chain, which runs from Japan and South Korea through Taiwan and the Philippines, touching Vietnam.

In most of Southeast Asia, including its engine room, Indonesia, and its intellectual hub, Singapore, the United States is missing-in-action. 

The plus is that the bigger regional countries—Japan and India—want to help fill the gap in South and Southeast Asia.

The Japanese have the best diplomatic system in the region. Surveys show them as the most respected of ASEAN partner countries.

In recent years, Japan has put its relationship with South Korea, sullied by Japan’s occupation of the latter between 1910 and 1945, into a better state of repair. 

A visit by Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi to India in July placed an emphasis on Japanese investment in that country and defence and technology cooperation.

For its part, India has put more substance into its long-heralded push into Southeast Asia. It no longer talks of “Look East”, but of “Act East.”

An outcome of a visit by Indian Prime Minister Modi to Indonesia in July was an agreement to sell Indian missile systems.

Australia is now looking more to the region for answers to our strategic quandaries. 

Ms Takaichi’s visit here in May focused on defence issues, energy security and supply chain resilience.

Political hooplah apart, outcomes of Mr Modi’s visit to Australia in July included an agreement on the export of uranium to India and a joint declaration on defence and security.

There are other good stories: 

The Keating era treaty with Indonesia—the “Agreement on Maintaining Security”—abrogated during the Timor Crisis, was in practice revived in February 2026 with the “Australia-Indonesia Treaty on Common Security”.

In October 2025, Australia and Papua New Guinea signed a mutual defence treaty. 

In the past month, Australia has signed two treaties with Fiji and an agreement with Vanuatu.

These developments follow earlier agreements with Tuvalu and Nauru. Future arrangements are foreshadowed with the Solomons, Tonga and Samoa.

Adding all this up, regional countries are adopting double hedging strategies. They are hedging against the regional ambitions of China and against both the Trump Administration’s unreliability and uncertainty about what comes after Trump. Australia is part of this process.

John McCarthy AO is the former Australian Ambassador to the US and several Asian countries.