Constructing the Indo-Pacific: Discursive Power, Functional Cooperation and Competing Regional Imaginaries

This article investigates how the Indo-Pacific has been constructed as a geopolitical region through the discursive and functional practices of China, Japan and the USA. Drawing on constructivism and functionalism, the study analyses government documents, strategic speeches and aid initiatives to uncover divergent regional imaginaries. While Japan and the USA converge on a liberal Indo-Pacific vision, they diverge in tools of implementation, contrasting with China’s sovereignty-driven alternatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative, Global Development Initiative and Digital Silk Road. Functional domains such as infrastructure, digital connectivity and climate cooperation show overlapping scopes but conflicting normative logics. The article also examines how other regional actors such as Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), India, Australia and Pacific Island states accept, reinterpret or contest these visions. Finally, it argues that the Indo- Pacific is not a static construct but a contested space of layered geopolitical imaginations.