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The Indo-Pacific: Defining a Region

Nov 15, 2017 | 01:17 GMT

Leaders pose during the 31st Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in Manila on Nov. 13.

(MANAN VATSYAYANA/AFP/Getty Images)

U.S. President Donald Trump's prominent tour of the Asia-Pacific ended with limited concrete success, but it has produced an important conceptual change to U.S. strategy in the region. On Nov. 12, leaders from the United States, India, Japan and Australia met in Manila to revive the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD) and to urge cooperation for a free and open Indo-Pacific. The term Indo-Pacific, and the policy implications that come with it, is an important indicator of how the United States and its allies are working to shape geopolitics, or at least how it's conceived. And the fact that Trump repeatedly referred to the Asia-Pacific region as the Indo-Pacific points to just how central the idea is to his administration's foreign policy....

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