No. 1/2023 | June 2023

Europecraft in the Indo-Pacific Region: Towards Pragmatic or Principled Partnership?*
Jittipat Poonkham** 

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Abstract

This article argues that European statecraft, or Europecraft, in the Indo-Pacific is fundamentally shaped by, and thereby juggling between, the bifurcation of contending positionalities, namely its economic partner (pragmatic power) and principled player (normative power). This article first addresses and analyses the EU’s Indo-Pacific Strategy through key concepts, namely Preferences, Priorities, Policies, and Principles. Overall, the ultimate aims of Brussels are to strengthen comprehensive partnership with like-minded regional players particularly ASEAN and to build its resilience, robustness and relevance in the Indo-Pacific region. The article concludes with the challenges and ways forward for the EU, especially under Spain’s presidency of the Council of the EU during the second half of 2023, starting in July.

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* This article is a revised version of my presentation given at the first Thailand-Spain Forum (Tribuna) on 8 June 2023 at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Thailand. I would like to thank Casa Asia, Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Studies Center, Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs for their kind invitation.

** Associate Professor of International Relations, Associate Dean for Academic and International Affairs, and Director of International Studies Program in the Faculty of Political Science, Thammasat University. He is the author of “A Genealogy of Bamboo Diplomacy: The Politics of Thai Détente with Russia and China” (ANU Press, 2022) and coeditor of “International Relations as a Discipline in Thailand” (Routledge, 2019).