yorkfoto / Getty Images

Indonesia tries to maintain neutrality

Indonesia's model, announced by former Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa in 2013, is based on regional cooperation. It was developed as a means for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to maintain its unity. Natalegawa said the initiative was open to all countries that participated in the 2011 East Asia Summit, which includes China and Russia. President Joko Widodo's government has echoed that all-embracing approach, with Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi describing the program as inclusive and comprehensive.

Indonesia wants an independent foreign policy and prefers to remain neutral when it comes to rivalry between major powers, researchers at the ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, a Singapore think tank, wrote in a recent note. Marsudi intends to bring up her country's Indo-Pacific blueprint at the 13th East Asian Summit later this month, but it will be difficult for participating nations to accept the neutral and inclusive concept, the note continued. That's because the U.S. and Japan are pushing to counterbalance Beijing's diplomatic, economic and military reach through their own schemes. "It will take much effort by Indonesia to resist the push towards a counter-China, liberal Indo-Pacific," according to a note published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute last week. The Indo-Pacific idea "may already be too deeply entangled with U.S.-led strategic maneuvering," wrote the note's authors. Like Indonesia, India has stressed a broad view of the Indo-Pacific. Speaking in Singapore earlier this year, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the term Indo-Pacific included all nations in the geography as well as others with stakes in the area.

US and Japan try to counter China