Eyes on the Indo-Pacific

As Trump's tariff war continues to add new and increasingly absurd chapters, it is highly recommended to readIndo-Pacific, by Juan Manuel López Nadal, who throughout his long diplomatic career has served as Spain's ambassador to Thailand, Cambodia, Burma, and Laos, and as consul general in Hong Kong. This Mallorcan diplomat now uses his accumulated experience to write an absorbing book, which, with clear prose, describes the world from an angle we are not used to considering, but which is where the keys to power in global politics lie. In fact, the full title of the book is Indo-Pacific. Axis of global geopolitics.

Indo-Pacific It is a concept under construction, although it is embraced by the international community, both in the political and academic spheres. Modi" have become recurrent in the media, but many of us have a poor, or blurred, idea of the concentration of power in these countries and the area to which they belong. Therefore, reading a paragraph like this (which I translate from Spanish) helps open mental windows: "In addition to addressing the increase in presence and balancing it as much as possible, Narendra Modi's India has strengthened its activity in the subregions of East Asia and Southeast Asia with a shift from the so-called Look East policy – initiated by Narasimha Rao in 1991 – to a more proactive and ambitious one with Japan in strategic ones, strategic in strategic ones with Strata with ASEAN and promoting the establishment of partnerships with countries such as Australia, South Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Singapore, in addition to stimulating the revitalization of the QUAD." The acronym ASEAN refers to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and brings together the United States, Japan, Australia, and India.

There is, therefore, a world that is simmering, far away and almost completely independent of Western current events, currently marked by the decadent rhythm sounded by American Trumpism and the European far right. This is well captured in the maps section, with world maps showing Asia in the center, the US on one side, and Europe in a small, remote space. Russia evidently plays a key role in this new composition of power on the planet, and this makes me think about the last book by Llibert Ferri, Putin is watching us, which I commented on here a few days ago and which ties in well with López Nadal's. Both are useful and rigorous tools for trying to broaden our perspective and better understand the direction (but not the direction) of this violent and demoniac world in which we sometimes live and in which we will most likely die.