Originally a biogeographic term, “Indo-Pacific” is increasingly replacing “Asia-Pacific” in political discourse. This is not merely a linguistic matter but also has political implications. However, the meaning of “Indo-Pacific” remains unclear, and its implications are contested. While it has attracted the attention of a wide spectrum of political pundits, the regional designation “Indo-Pacific” is used to describe a space of global cooperation and geopolitical competition. This study makes two contributions by reexamining this debate. First, it helps lift the fog around the Indo-Pacific to gain a deeper understanding and encourage reflection on its current rise. Thus, it is situated within a growing body of literature that excavates the complex history of the Indo-Pacific by revisiting its Japanese wartime origins. Second, drawing on the emergent literature on multiplicity, this study shows how the term has historically invoked two different kinds of international relations in Japan. This suggests the importance of examining multiple socio-spatial imaginations internalized by diverse collectivities in the social space of international politics that goes beyond modern European state borders. Introduced by the Japanophile German geopolitician Karl Haushofer, the term was originally used to express the area of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, a region that aimed to create a world order that differed from the Western one. This significantly contradicts contemporary usage by the Japanese government, which claims that universal values exist in the region.

中文翻译：

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世界政治中的社会空间多样性：印太地区的非西方区域想象


“印太地区”最初是一个生物地理学术语，在政治话语中正日益取代“亚太地区”。这不仅仅是一个语言问题，而且还具有政治意义。然而，“印太地区”的含义仍不清楚，其含义存在争议。虽然它吸引了广泛的政治专家的关注，但“印太”这个地区名称被用来描述全球合作和地缘政治竞争的空间。本研究通过重新审视这一争论做出了两个贡献。首先，它有助于驱散印太地区的迷雾，以更深入地了解并鼓励人们反思印太地区目前的崛起。因此，它位于越来越多的文献中，通过重新审视日本战时起源来挖掘印太地区的复杂历史。其次，借鉴关于多样性的新兴文献，本研究展示了该术语在历史上如何在日本援引两种不同类型的国际关系。这表明在超越现代欧洲国家边界的国际政治社会空间中，审视由不同集体内化的多重社会空间想象的重要性。该术语由亲日的德国地缘政治家卡尔·豪斯霍弗尔 （Karl Haushofer） 提出，最初用于表示大东亚共荣圈的区域，该地区旨在建立一个不同于西方的世界秩序。这与日本政府的当代用法大相径庭，日本政府声称该地区存在普世价值。