How policy on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief has evolved in the Australia-Japan-US Trilateral Strategic Dialogue

Within a wider debate about whether or not the Trilateral Strategic Dialogue (TSD) is a containment mechanism developed by the United States, Japan, and Australia to block China’s rise, some important elements that have emerged in the TSD process have been overlooked. Accordingly, this paper examines one of these overlooked issues – in particular, the topic of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HA/DR). The paper focuses on how HA/DR has evolved in the TSD and what this suggests about the importance of a “community building” dimension within the TSD. It argues that, despite initial doubts as to the significance of HA/DR in the TSD, HA/DR has evolved substantially, suggesting that the reality of HA/DR has been a more complex than was perhaps initially anticipated.