Thank you. That is a fundamental question that brings us to the strategic situation.
As all of you are aware, the core strategic challenge in the Indo-Pacific is how to manage the power and assertiveness of the People's Republic of China in ways that do not lead to major conflict or escalate to major war. That's an incredibly difficult balancing act, and it's only going to work through a combination of deterrence, diplomacy and other methods, including development assistance to swing states between China and the U.S. That requires solidarity, strategic postures and diplomacy, and that's where the Indo-Pacific concept comes into play.
I've been a strong advocate of the Indo-Pacific idea for a long time now. It's heartening to see the number and range of countries and institutions, such as the EU and ASEAN, that have developed some kind of Indo-Pacific outlook, strategy or policy framework. It's very important that it's more than just words, of course. At its core, the Indo-Pacific idea is about building solidarity across a two-ocean region where we can develop a broader range of partnerships to manage Chinese power, deterring and engaging in equal measure. We can build a broader range of partnerships than we could if we worked in a much smaller strategic space defined by China. China much prefers to look at subregions such as southeast Asia in isolation and assume that any country not resident there somehow has no business there. Of course, that's partly behind China's attempts to dominate the South China Sea.
How are we doing? I think, on balance, the commonalities among all the various Indo-Pacific visions and policies of the nations and institutions engaged, such as the United States, India, Japan, Australia, European partners, Canada, some southeast Asian players—particularly the Philippines and Vietnam—and institutions such as ASEAN and the EU.... The level of commonality is substantial. There are principles that unite all these positions around the rule of law, the sovereignty of states, large and small, and non-coercion and non-use of force.
However, we could do better. We—