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frameworks and campaign plans that have steered the U.S. approach to specific issues of importance to the Indo-Pacific region and beyond, such as the U.S. Strategic Approach to the People’s Republic of China, the U.S. Strategic Framework for Countering China’s Economic Aggression, the U.S. Campaign Plan for Countering China’s Malign Influence in International Organizations, and others. Together with its subordinate documents, the Framework has guided U.S. whole-of-government actions to advance regional prosperity and stability, including sovereignty, freedom of navigation and overflight, reciprocity in trade and investment, respect for individual rights and rule of law, and transparency.
Beijing is increasingly pressuring Indo-Pacific nations to subordinate their freedom and sovereignty to a “common destiny” envisioned by the Chinese Communist Party. The U.S. approach is different. We seek to ensure that our allies and partners – all who share the values and aspirations of a free and open Indo-Pacific – can preserve and protect their sovereignty.
The Framework recognizes that a free and open Indo-Pacific depends on robust American leadership. The United States has a long history of fighting back against repressive regimes on behalf of those who value freedom and openness. As the world’s largest economy, with the strongest military and a vibrant democracy, it is incumbent on the United States to lead from the front.
The Framework seeks to strengthen our wide and diverse network of allies and partners, which has long underwritten stability and peace in the Indo-Pacific. To that end, the Framework reflects the importance of supporting allies’ and partners’ complementary approaches to regional engagement. These approaches include Japan’s Free and Open Indo Pacific concept, Australia’s Indo-Pacific concept, India’s Security and Growth for All Regions
policy, the Republic of Korea’s New Southern Policy, Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) Outlook on the Indo-Pacific. Many of these concepts and approaches are resonating globally, with countries such as France and Germany publishing their own policy frameworks for the Indo-Pacific.
This growing alignment of strategic approaches in the region is perhaps nowhere more noteworthy than in the growth of the U.S.-Japan alliance during the last four years. President Trump grasped the strategic resonance of the concept of a free and open Indo- Pacific, first advanced by Japan. In a speech in 2007 in India, then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called for a “broader Asia” spanning the Pacific and Indian Oceans – “seas of freedom and prosperity, which will be open and transparent to all.” In Nairobi, Kenya, in 2016, Prime Minster Abe further articulated the concept’s panoramic reach, calling for the region, from Africa to Asia, to develop as “a place that values freedom, the rule of law, and the market economy, free from force or coercion, and […] prosperous.”