The dramatic creation of AUKUS has focused attention on the military response to China’s increasing capacity to project force across the Indo-Pacific. The furore it sparked, highlighted by the predictably strong Chinese claims of retaliation, has fixated global attention on hard power and the prospects of a new cold war.
Yet, economic rather than military might poses the gravest threat to the Indo-Pacific island states. President Xi Jinping is aggressively using China’s growing economic power to achieve political aims, and that is proving much easier than physical intervention.