This special issue explores great power rivalry in the Indo-Pacific by moving the analytical focus away from the great powers and onto those they seek to influence. It asks what strategies states and international organisations employ to maintain their economic and security interests, how they push back on competing great power demands and avoid stark choices or being dragged into US-China strategic competition. Articles in this special issue present a complex picture of competing domestic interest groups and positions and shows how maintaining autonomy and an independent foreign policy in the age of US-China strategic competition has become a more precarious challenge.