Transformation of Pacific Regions in the Second Half of the 20th Century – Beginning of the 21st Century

The paper is devoted to transformation of international political regions in the Pacific. In the late 1960s to early 1970s the formation of the Indo-Pacific started as a consequences of US military and political activities and the intensification of bipolar confrontation. But an emphasis on military aspects at the expense of the economic ones as well as US foreign policy planning based on classical, smaller regions, weakened the unity of the Indo-Pacific space. The end of the Cold War and economic growth in East Asia turned Indian Ocen region into a periphery. Then, for 25 years, economic architecture of the Asian-Pacific, rather than its military-political framework, was at the core of US foreign policy interests. India, Japan, and China used the appeared vacuum to shape a common Indo-Pacific space in accordance with their perspectives. All three had economic foundations and military-political superstructures. In the 2010s, the USA reacted to China’s growth and suggested their own politically motivated version of the Indo-Pacific region, based on political-military presence and interaction later solidifying this in official strategies. So, the formation of the Indo-Pacific is related to space-based objective mutual interests and military and politically motivated regions.

Indo-Pacific, Asia-Pacific region, USA, Japan, India, China, Belt and Road Initiative