The Indo-Pacific: Containing China at the New Global Epicenter

The gradual shift of the world’s strategic center of gravity toward the Indo-Pacific represents one of the most consequential changes in the current international order. This region, spanning two oceans and home to more than half the world’s population, has become the stage for the defining rivalries of the twenty-first century. China is pursuing a project of geopolitical expansion that combines military, economic, and technological dimensions. Its competition with the United States over control of sea lanes, trade routes, and emerging technologies makes the Indo-Pacific the true arena of the new cold war. In this context, Western democracies can no longer treat it as peripheral: the stability of the region will directly affect European security, NATO cohesion, and the capacity to defend an open international order.