by MICHAEL S. CHASE and BENJAMIN S. PURSER III
On January 5, US President Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta released new defense strategic guidance, highlighting national-defense priorities and underscoring America’s determination to maintain its global leadership and military superiority despite budgetary constraints. [1]
The strategy indicates that the United States will continue to focus on counterterrorism, and highlights the Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions as key regional priorities. Specifically, it states that the US military “will of necessity rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific region” in keeping with the broader “pivot” toward that region illustrated by Obama’s Asia-Pacific trip last November, progress toward the Trans-Pacific Partnership economic agreement, and plans to rotate US military forces through bases in Australia – moves that many Chinese analysts have interpreted as aimed at countering Beijing’s growing power and influence.
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Official responses from the ministries of National Defense and Foreign Affairs focused on transparency. The National Defense spokesman stated on January 9 that criticism of China in the new strategy was “completely groundless” because the strategic intentions motivating China’s national-defense modernization were “consistent and clear” (China News Service). Similarly, on the same day a Foreign Affairs spokesman declared that China’s strategic intentions were “clear, open and transparent” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs).
Rather than responding directly to the individual elements of the US strategic guidance, Chinese scholars and analysts tended to extrapolate on the potential results of its implementation. For example, many addressed what they portrayed as US “interference” aimed at creating problems and exploiting tensions between China and other countries in the region.
Yang Yi charged that the US was attempting to portray the Asia-Pacific security situation as a “mess” to intensify regional concerns about China and “pave the way” for America’s “return to Asia”. In addition, he cast the United States, rather than China, as the “troublemaker” that was responsible for recent regional instability (People’s Daily, January 7). Other commentators also asserted that US “interference” had increased regional tensions (China Daily, January 9).
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