Multipolar Competition and the Rules-based Order: Probing the Limits of EU Foreign and Security Policy in the South China Sea

ABSTRACT

Deepening multipolar competition has imposed constraints on European Union foreign and security policy (EUFSP). In the South China Sea (SCS), the European Union (EU) faces a complex foreign policy terrain for three reasons. First, the EU’s geographic distance from – and relatively limited capabilities in – the region may lend itself to a de minimis mitigating strategy, especially when considered against the backdrop of the broader imperative to mitigate the impact of multipolar competition on its foreign policy more generally. Second, multipolarity can be compatible with the preservation of a rules-based international order (RBIO) if the latter term is interpreted less stringently. And third, rather than being a factor purely to mitigate, multipolar competition in the wider Indo-Pacific theatre offers the EU certain opportunities – albeit not without risks – to strengthen the character of its foreign and security policy by actively participating in a competitive dynamic. Together, these facts should encourage us to rethink whether ‘mitigation’ always captures the entire essence of the EU’s response to multipolar competition.

KEYWORDS:

• South China Sea
• Indo-Pacific
• rules-based international order
• European Union
• EU foreign policy
• multipolarity

Acknowledgments

This article is an adapted version of a report published within the JOINT project to which Gilang Kembara, Andrew Mantong and Steven Blockmans contributed. JOINT has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement N. 959143 (www.jointproject.eu). This publication reflects only the view of the author and the European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains. The author would also like to thank Riccardo Alcaro and Hylke Dijkstra for their feedback on earlier versions of this paper.

Notes

1 While regional fragmentation in the SCS and intra-EU divisions both help to shape the nature and context of the EU’s regional engagement, for purposes of conceptual and methodological clarity, this article focuses largely on the dynamic of multipolar competition.

2 Sakwa (2023) goes so far as to note that the official norms and institutions of an international order provide merely the structures in which a more free-flowing and competitive realm of international politics unfolds.

3 For more on how zero-sum competition – including between actors who hold divergent ideological or teleological viewpoints – affects the foundations of international order, see Little (2009, 26).

4 The ‘island chain strategy’ is a US strategic doctrine conceived during the Cold War, concerned with the containment of Soviet influence in the Far East. In the post-Cold War era, American and Chinese analysts have repurposed it to make sense of Beijing’s possible strategic encirclement or the strength of Washington’s forward presence in East Asia. The concept references first, second and third ‘island chains’, with the first of these being the most geographically proximate to the PRC’s shores.

5 For more on how the US approaches the question of sharing regional power with the PRC, see White (2013).

6 India also finds itself outside these two trade blocs, raising further doubts over Washington’s ability to shape a wider Indo-Pacific order in which the leading Indian Ocean power (India) and Pacific power (the US) do not fully participate in regional dynamics. See Feigenbaum (2022). The CPTPP currently consists of Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam, with the United Kingdom also set to join. RCEP signatories include all ten members of ASEAN, in addition to the PRC, Japan, South Korea, Austria and New Zealand.

7 See, for example, European Commission (2023).

8 See, for example, Council of the EU (2016).

9 Europeanisation here is defined not as the pursuit of institutional integration but rather the increasing decision to address and pursue a policy file at the European level.

10 For an illustration of how the EU may struggle to manage this equilibrium, see Lau (2023).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Zachary Paikin

Zachary Paikin is a Senior Researcher at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP), Geneva, Switzerland. He is also a Research Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, Washington, DC and Senior Fellow with the Institute for Peace & Diplomacy, Ottawa, Canada.