US-China Strategic Triangles: Theory and Reality of Indo-Pacific Insecurity

Abstract

This chapter outlines evolving geopolitical constructs rooted in terrestrial-vs.-maritime, and continental-vs.-oceanic formulations, used in analysing inter-state competition. It introduces the security complex framework, and builds on it to identify strategic triangles as a key tool for assessing the Trump-era Indo-Pacific insecurity milieu. It establishes the form and content of US-Chinese competition defining Trump’s strategic inheritance. It traces the trajectory of US post-Cold War policy of encouraging Beijing to acknowledge Washington’s systemic primacy while offering it limited shared influence. It records Beijing’s rejection of subordination, a hardening of America’s views of an apparently intransigent, even revisionist, actor, and China’s responsive strengthening of its national substance and its diplomatic carapace, thereby triggering competitive dialectics.