Effect of the Children’s Healthy Living Program on Young Child Overweight, Obesity, and Acanthosis Nigricans in the US-Affiliated Pacific Region

In the twenty-first century, the Indo-Pacific region has become the new centre of the world. The concept of the ‘Indo-Pacific’’, though still under construction, is a potentially pivotal site, where various institutions and intellectuals of statecraft are seeking common ground on which to anchor new regional coalitions, alliances, and allies to better serve their respective national agendas. This book explores the Indo-Pacific as an ambiguous and hotly contested regional security construction. It critically examines the major drivers behind the revival of classical geopolitical concepts and their deployment through different national lenses. The book also analyses the presence of India and the US in the Indo-Pacific, and the manner in which China has reacted to their positions in the Indo-Pacific to date. It suggests that national constructions of the Indo-Pacific region are more informed by domestic political realities, anti-Chinese bigotries, distinctive properties of twenty-first century US hegemony, and narrow nation-statist sentiments rather than genuine pan-regional aspirations. The book argues that the spouting of contested depictions of the Indo-Pacific region depend on the fixed geostrategic lenses of nation-states, but what is also important is the re-emergence of older ideas—a classical conceptual revival—based on early to mid-twentieth century geopolitical ideas in many of these countries. The book deliberately raises the issue of the sea and constructions of ‘nature’, as these symbols are indispensable parts of many of these Indo-Pacific regional narratives.

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Under the shadow of the giants: The ASEAN in search of a common strategy in a fluid and perilous Indo-Pacific region

Asian Journal of Comparative Politics ◽

10.1177/20578911211014598 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 205789112110145

Author(s):

Renato Cruz De Castro

Keyword(s):

South China Sea ◽

South China ◽

The South China Sea ◽

Pacific Region ◽

Regional Power ◽

Security Threat ◽

The South ◽

China Sea ◽

The Us ◽

Common Strategy

This article examines how the ASEAN is managing the quintessential security challenges of the 21st century, particularly China’s emergence as a regional power, its expansive territorial claim in the South China Sea, and the US–China strategic rivalry in the Indo-Pacific region. As an organization tackling these security concerns, the ASEAN lacks the essential mechanism for conflict resolution, operates through informal diplomacy and moral suasion, and relies on consensus in making decisions. As a result, China has effectively divided the association during the talks on the peaceful settlement of the South China Sea dispute. China is currently formulating with the ASEAN a Code of Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea. All the same, China has made sure that any future agreement with the ASEAN imposes no constraints on its expansionist moves in the contested waters, and contains provisions that benefit its interests in the long run. Meanwhile, US–China strategic competition has prompted the ASEAN to think of ways to deal with this potential security threat. However, the association has failed to come up with a common strategy. In conclusion, this article argues that China’s emergence as a regional power, its maritime expansion into the South China Sea, and the US–China geopolitical contest are testing both the capacity and the limits of the ASEAN in resolving these security issues.

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US INDO-PACIFIC STRATEGY AND EURASIA

Urgent Problems of Europe ◽

10.31249/ape/2021.01.06 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 135-153

Author(s):

Vladimir Batyuk

Keyword(s):

American Foreign Policy ◽

The Philippines ◽

Asia Pacific ◽

Pacific Region ◽

Middle Kingdom ◽

Asia Pacific Region ◽

American President ◽

National Security Strategy ◽

The Us ◽

The Indian Ocean

Despite the critical attitude of the current American President towards his predecessor, the Trump administration actually continued the course of the Obama administration to turn the Asia-Pacific region into the most important priority of American foreign policy. Moreover, the US Asia-Pacific strategy was transformed under Trump into the Indo-Pacific strategy, when the Indian Ocean was added to the Asia-Pacific region in the US strategic thinking. The US Pacific command was renamed the Indo-Pacific command (May 2018), and the US Department of defense developed the Indo-Pacific strategy (published in June 2019). The Indo-Pacific strategy is an integral part of Trump’s national security strategy, according to which China, along with Russia, was declared US adversary. The American side complained about both the economic and military-political aspects of the Chinese presence in the Indo-Pacific region. At the same time, official Washington is no longer confident that it can cope with those adversaries, China and Russia, alone. Trying to implement the main provisions of the Indo-Pacific strategy, official Washington has staked not only on building up its military power in the Indo-Pacific, but also on trying to build an anti-Chinese system of alliances in this huge region. Along with such traditional American allies in the region as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore, the American side in the recent years has made active attempts to attract India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam to this system of alliances as well. These American attempts, however, can only cause serious concerns not only in Beijing, but also in Moscow, thereby contributing to the mutual rapprochement of the Russian Federation and China. Meanwhile, the Russian-Chinese tandem is able to devalue American efforts to strategically encircle China, creating a strong Eurasian rear for the Middle Kingdom.

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American Mistakes

Taming Sino-American Rivalry ◽

10.1093/oso/9780197521946.003.0003 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 34-58

Author(s):

Feng Zhang ◽

Richard Ned Lebow

Keyword(s):

Asia Pacific ◽

Pacific Region ◽

Regional Strategy ◽

Management Issue ◽

Asia Pacific Region ◽

Obama Administration ◽

The Us ◽

Made In

This chapter examines the policy mistakes that the Obama administration made in managing the Sino-American relationship. The Obama administration developed no distinct China strategy and was in fact averse to developing such a strategy. It chose to embed largely reactive China policies within a regional strategy of the so-called “pivot” or “rebalance” to the Asia-Pacific region. While China was relegated to a management issue, the rebalance strategy damaged the US-China relationship by deepening strategic mistrust between the two countries and agitating China to seek strategic adventures in Asia. The rebalance did not cause Chinese assertiveness by itself, but the geopolitical setting it created served to exacerbate China’s already fermenting assertive inclinations and prompted its strategic adventurism.

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Regional Middle Powers and the Indo-Pacific Strategic Narrative

The Rise and Return of the Indo-Pacific ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198739524.003.0007 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 110-142

Author(s):

Timothy Doyle ◽

Dennis Rumley

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

Cold War ◽

Great Powers ◽

Pacific Region ◽

Economic Competition ◽

Middle Power ◽

The Us ◽

Foreign Policies ◽

Middle Powers ◽

Policy Interest

In this chapter we argue that, in the Indo-Pacific region since the ‘end’ of the ‘old’ Cold War, there has been a process of political and economic competition among regional great powers for influence over Indo-Pacific core middle powers. One of the essential aims of this process is to create a regional middle power coalition in opposition to either China or the US, one of the elements of the new Cold War. As a result, the foreign policies of US-co-opted states will exhibit a shift in emphasis towards support for the US pivot and an expression of a greater foreign policy interest than heretofore in the Indo-Pacific region, following the US. The result is that an Indo-Pacific self-identification and an ‘Indo-Pacific narrative’ become important components of the foreign policy rhetoric and debate of US-co-opted states.

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The US pivot to the Asia-Pacific region and Japan’s responses

Japan’s Search for Strategic Security Partnerships ◽

10.4324/9781315672359-4 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 47-74

Author(s):

Yoneyuki Sugita

Keyword(s):

Asia Pacific ◽

Pacific Region ◽

Asia Pacific Region ◽

The Us

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China’s Relations with the United States

China and the World ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190062316.003.0010 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 211-232

Author(s):

Robert Sutter

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Communist Party ◽

General Pattern ◽

The United States ◽

Asia Pacific ◽

Pacific Region ◽

Republic Of China ◽

The Us ◽

The World ◽

Us Government

This chapter reviews Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and People’s Republic of China (PRC) interactions with the United States since the 1940s, and it reveals a general pattern of the United States at the very top of China’s foreign priorities. Among those few instances where China seemed to give less attention to the United States was the post-2010 period, which saw an ever more powerful China advancing at US expense. However, China’s rapid advance in economic, military, and diplomatic power has progressively alarmed the US government, which now sees China as its main international danger. Looking forward into the future, deteriorating US-China relations have enormous consequences for both countries, the Asia-Pacific region, and the world.

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