[ANU Pacific.Institute] CFP for Conference in Tahiti on "Indo-Pacific and the Silk Road", November 2019

[Christopher Ballard]

The Indo-Pacific and silk roads: New global strategies

Call for papers



Conference organised by the

Maison des Sciences de l’Homme du Pacifique

USR 2003 CNRS-UPF



Recent work by the organisers (Sémir Al Wardi, Jean-Marc Regnault, Jean-François Sabouret (eds.), L’Océanie convoitée. Histoire, géopolitique et sociétés, Paris, CNRS Éditions, 2017, 636 p) has highlighted the fact that whilst the Pacific might appear to lie outside the major global hotspots, it has attracted interest from unexpected quarters as well as serving to reveal new strategies of the major powers. On the one hand, there is the ‘Indo-Pacific axis’ that principally concerns India, Japan, Australia, the United States (President Trump talks about a ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’) and France; and on the other, the ‘new silk roads’ planned by China.


This might appear to be a clash between two world views, but that is not necessarily the case. President Trump, for example, has announced his intention to pursue discussions with India and Australia, not, so he says, in order to counter China directly, but ‘to maintain a rules-based approach to development’, a ‘regional balance’, and to avoid ‘domination’ by any single power. It is not difficult to imagine, however, which country he has in mind.


As regards France, it is all the more an interested player in that it sees itself, thanks to its overseas territories, as a regional power. President Macron confirmed as much in his speech in Noumea on 5 May 2018: ‘France is a major Indo-Pacific power on account of having several territories in the region: New Caledonia, Wallis-and-Futuna, and French Polynesia in the Pacific; Mayotte and Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, without forgetting the French Southern Ocean and Antarctic Lands [TAAF]’. A few days earlier, the French President had stated that the Paris-New Delhi-Canberra axis is made possible because ‘the Indo-Pacific has 1.8 million French citizens, 8,000 military personnel and 80% of our Exclusive Economic Zone’.


This axis is of interest to scholars in fields ranging from climate change to cyber security and military and diplomatic strategy. In a speech he gave in Australia on 2 May 2018, Emmanuel Macron made the following declaration: ‘We share the same concern about the risks and threats across the Indo-Pacific region, those of great power rivalry, tensions over questions of identity, and trafficking of all kinds that profit from a lack of development associated in large measure with climate change’. He went on to say that ‘Our common priority is to build up this strong Indo-Pacific axis to ensure both our economic and security interests’. In commenting on the result of the recent self-determination referendum in New Caledonia, President Macron looked to see ‘New Caledonia remaining within the French Republic and as part of the destiny of its Oceanic and Indo-Pacific context’ (Paris, 4 November 2018).


Against this background our conference aims to address a number of specific questions: What geographic space is delimited by the term ‘Indo-Pacific’? What are the objectives of this axis, and which powers support or oppose it? For example, how do Russia, Canada, the countries of Latin America, Indonesia or various States of South-East Asia position themselves? Is the ‘Indo-Pacific axis’ about a counter-strategy in response to China’s politics in the Pacific and Indian Oceans? Is it a new attempt to promote a rules-based approach to international relations (but which rules?) or a strategy to contain China? What is to be the role of the French territories in the Pacific and Indian Oceans in this axis? This last question is particularly relevant given the location of the conference, and in a context in which New Caledonia seems to be tending to seek ‘emancipation’ from France in spite of a majority of its population voting to remain within the French Republic, and where French Polynesia would appear to want to see a greater transfer of powers from France. Further, and still with reference to the geographic focus of the conference, along the lines of the one we organised in 2011 in Noumea on the future of the polities of Oceania[1][2], we would like to see this problematic extended to the whole of the Pacific by trying to show the ‘shared destiny of the States and Territories that lie in the vast ocean’.


The conference aims therefore to engage diplomacy, geopolitics and geostrategy by bringing a comparative perspective to bear on the implications of climate change and economic exchanges for international relations encompassing a number of global powers (China, the United States, France, Australia, the United Kingdom post-Brexit, India, New Zealand, the EU and others). We hope that understandings derived from the conference may also be of practical use to the smaller island States and Territories of the Indo-Pacific region, from the Comoros to Pitcairn, which can either benefit from - or be subject to – big power rivalry.

Beyond consideration of the objective power of certain States, we will aim to explore the various self-representations that they seek to project and will try to understand how these are viewed by secondary powers, or indeed by marginal powers.



Practical information

Call for papers (in French or English) for a conference to be held at Papeete November, 5th, 6th, 7th, 2019.



Proposals, of no more than 10 lines in length, are to be submitted, together with a title, by the end of march 2019 to the joint organisers, as follows:



Dr Sémir Al Wardi >>> semiralwardi01 at gmail.com<mailto:semiralwardi01 at gmail.com>

Dr Jean-Marc Regnault >>> regnaultjm at yahoo.fr<mailto:regnaultjm at yahoo.fr>



Please include details of possible funding (partial or full) to be provided by your home institution.



The organising committee of the Université de la Polynésie française (UPF) will draw up a list of selected proposals.

Participants will undertake to provide a written copy of their presentation (respecting the conventions that will be specified in due course) before  December, 15th, 2019, with a view to an opportune publication of the proceedings.



The conference will conclude with a gala evening.
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