Indo-Pacific Strategy 2025: How can the US and its allies deter China from war, increase resilience and protect economic growth?

Indo-Pacific Strategy 2025: How can the US and its allies deter China from war, increase resilience and protect economic growth?

Strategic competition has intensified, with President Trump aiming to use tariffs both to reduce American exposure to Chinese supply chains through re-industrialisation and to achieve a more equal trade balance for American exports. China has responded with equal determination, raising its own import tariffs in retaliation but also restricting the export of selected rare earths. Trade negotiations are currently in a state of ongoing flux, marked by periods of escalating tensions, negotiations, and temporary agreements. Across these discussions, there is a clear imperative to limit the economic damage on both sides, potentially expressed in empty shelves, job losses, and inflation. Even so, the situation is still fraught and confrontation, intended or otherwise, between the US and China is an increasingly plausible risk. This conference will explore the balance between deterrence, increased resilience amongst allies, and protecting economic growth. What must the US and its allies need to do to strengthen deterrence in the Indo-Pacific? How do we win hearts and minds and grow new alliances in the region, without provoking China into action? When does deterrence tip over into a dangerous conviction in China that reunification with Taiwan will become impossible if China waits too long? How can we increase the resilience of democratic and allied societies to potential conflict in the Indo-Pacific, bearing in mind that the conflict would not necessarily be geographically bounded and could affect whole societies? Whilst doing all this, how do we keep growth in the Indo-Pacific humming as the engine driving the global economy?