With the end of the Cold War the United States, Australia, and Japan had the luxury of taking widely different approaches to democracy and development in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. The collapse of the Soviet Union and opening and reform in China seemed to remove the threat of revolution and falling dominoes. American air and naval power in maritime Asia ensured that regime change anywhere in the region did not threaten overall deterrence and stability. While the three countries adhered to the norms of the advanced industrialised democracies, they also diverged and sometimes clashed. In the early 1990s, Japan challenged the so-called 'Washington consensus' at the World Bank and claimed to speak for Asian values and non-interference in domestic affairs. The US Congress moved to condition diplomatic and trade relations more on human rights without having to fear the geopolitical consequences of blowback in the region. Australia sought to straddle the Anglo-American 'Washington consensus' and the imperative to be a good neighbour in Asia. There were disagreements and clashes, but geopolitics did not hang in the balance.

That has changed, of course. Xi Jinping has articulated a vision for Chinese regional hegemony built on normative leadership and a Global Civilisational Initiative meant to deny the universality of Western democratic norms. The Peoples’ Liberation Army Navy and Air Force are contesting US air and naval dominance in the region and coercing maritime rivals from Japan to Indonesia and India. Beijing is exploiting weak governance and rule of law in smaller states to build influence and dual-use civil-military ports and facilities on the back of 'elite capture'. The stand-off between the United States and its allies on the one hand and China and Russia on the other is creating a permissive environment for egregious human rights violations in Myanmar and North Korea and democratic backsliding elsewhere. This only reinforces a dangerous spiral.

Geopolitics, democratic values, and development are intersecting with sudden velocity. In this emerging geopolitical contest and struggle to define democracy and development strategies, Japan and Australia will remain first movers in terms of shaping approaches among other democracies, including the United States.

The United States Studies Centre is delighted to publish this collection of analytical essays on Japan’s and Australia’s respective approaches to geopolitics, Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, and the overlay of democracy on development and diplomacy towards those subregions. There are no comparable studies available, and policy-makers and scholars alike will find this volume a valuable blueprint to strengthen Japan-Australia strategic cooperation on democracy and development — and by extension both countries’ influence on US strategy and ultimately the approaches of other key donor countries like Korea, Canada or the European Union. In short, Japan-Australia cooperation could be the catalyst for a more successful alignment of international approaches to democracy in a contested Indo-Pacific.