Harris
Indo-Pacific Perspective │2
and Indonesia. They are academ-
ics, expert analysts, and seasoned
policy advisers. Tasked with shed-
ding light on the concept of a rules-
based order in the Indo-Pacific,
they have provided a range of per-
spectives to clarify just how
fraught and contentious such an
order-building (and order-defend-
ing) project will be.
The roundtable begins with Nilan-
thi Samaranayake’s keen analysis
of US foreign policy toward the
Indo-Pacific. She points out that,
despite the inclusive rhetoric and
phraseology of a “free and open
Indo-Pacific,” America’s leaders
sometimes betray a preoccupation
with the Asia-Pacific at the ex-
pense of the Indian Ocean. For ex-
ample, US officials sometimes dis-
cuss the entire Indo-Pacific region
as bedeviled by maritime boundary
disputes, whereas such disagree-
ments are much more prominent
and consequential in the Asia-Pa-
cific than the Indian Ocean. If
states from India to Japan are to
remain committed to the idea of
belonging to a single Indo-Pacific
region, it will be important to clar-
ify the interests that these states
are supposed to share in common
with one another.
Benjamin Ho turns to analyze the
foreign-policy motivations of
China, America’s supposed rival in
the Indo-Pacific and another
potential driver of a rules-based
system for the region. According to
Ho, China’s leaders are open to the
broad concept of a rules-based in-
ternational order, even if they (un-
surprisingly) tend to support a dif-
ferent configuration of rules than
that put forward by the United
States. One of Ho’s major insights
is that Chinese leaders desire a
rules-based international system
that will help them to ward off ex-
ternal threats to domestic security.
This is the reverse of how interna-
tional order is discussed in the
West—that is, as a straitjacket to
prevent domestic actors from up-
ending international security.
Laura Southgate agrees that
China has an interest in using in-
ternational rules as tools to serve
its national interests—and, moreo-
ver, that its growing power means
that Beijing must be taken seri-
ously as a rule-shaper in the re-
gion. This is true whether China
chooses to be an active “maker” of
new rules for the Indo-Pacific or
whether it is expected to be a mere
“taker” of rules made by others.
Simply put, China is so powerful,
and its interests are so expansive,
that China’s willingness to comply
with rules will be a decisive factor
in determining the success of any
rule-based order. Southgate pro-
vides a case study of the United
Nations Convention on the Law of