Description
The principal aim of this paper is to analyse the EU strategy towards challenges and opportunities related to the emergence of the Indo-Pacific region in a period of growing U.S-China competition. The importance of the region and its emergence, as well as the rise of China in the region, for the purpose of this paper, are perceived as the independent variable. The dependent variable is the role of Indo-Pacific region in the EU external strategy. The intervening variable, which had an impact on the above-mentioned variables, constitutes the US Strategy in the Indo-Pacific region. The paper will attempt to answer the following research question: Why, despite the divergence of interests in the Indo-Pacific between the EU member states and the differences in defining the region in geographical terms, was the EU successful in adopting its strategy towards the Indo-Pacific?
Answers to this question will allow verification of the adopted hypothesis indicating that within the EU, despite the differences in policies and strategies of particular EU members towards the Indo-Pacific, in 2020-2021, under the influence of the dynamics of intra-regional relations (the Chinese factor), they began to redefine their role and position towards the Asian continent. It is to be implemented based on the assumptions of China's soft balancing policy and unequivocal support for the Indo-Pacific concept, based on a democratic and liberal order (as an alternative to the order proposed by China).
