China Slams New Asia-Pacific-focused U.S. Defense Strategy
Barack Obama and Leon Panetta Announcing New Defense Strategy
China on Monday slammed the new American Asian-focused defense strategy, announced by the American president Barack Obama, and the US defense secretary Leon Panetta over the weekend. Beijing also rejected the charge that the Chinese military policy lacks openness as “groundless and untrustworthy.”
Barack Obama announced last week that the United States wants to assert its presence in the Asia-Pacific zone, thus shifting its focus from Afghanistan and Iraq on the Chinese growing defense strategy.
The Pentagon added that the increased military power of China must be accompanied by a clarity of its intentions, so that frictions could be avoided in the region. China responded that the country was committed to peace development and to and was defense-oriented.
The spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of China said that the objectives of the Chinese defense system was clear, and was focusing on self-defense and fostering peace in the region. He added that Chinese military development poses no threat to anyone and that maintaining peace and harmony in the region of Asia-Pacific was in the best interest of all the people living in that part of the world.
US defense secretary Leon Panetta said last week that the new focus was not due to foreseeable conflict but as a correction of the strategy used for the last decade, when the focus was on Iraq and Afghanistan, leaving America little possibility to strengthen its presence anywhere else in the world.
He added that the region is growing in importance for the national security and the economic interests of the United States, and maintaining a presence there would ensure the Americans freedom of action.
India seems to be the new partner of the United States, with which it will seek to cooperate in the Indian Ocean region. The new strategy also refers to maintaining military bases in Japan and South Korea and establishing a permanent presence on Australian soil by deploying Marines, navy ships and aircrafts in the Australian northern territories.
The new strategy comes at a time when the situation changes rapidly in the region, as the Chinese military announced last year the acquiring of different cutting edge military technologies, such as radar-evading stealth planes, shield-penetrating torpedoes or the first carrier ship. All these were deemed by the neighboring countries, especially Japan, as dangers to their own national security.
China and Japan entered last year in a skirmish over some deserted islands, the underlying reason being the natural resources in the waters around those islands. The display of political aggressiveness convinced the Japanese that the rising China could be a problem in the region at some point.
China and the United States had their annual disagreement over the American support for Taiwan’s defense capabilities. Last year, the Obama administration was faced with the demand to sell Taipei the most sophisticated air jets available but succeeded in convincing the Taiwanese to acquire more less sophisticated types.
Taiwan has been depending on the American support to keep Beijing at arm’s distance ever since its membership of the United Nations was taken over by the Communist countries, in the 1970s, when the two ideological blocs dividing the world made it possible for the Communist China to enlist the vote of most socialist and emerging countries in the world, thus making the People’s Republic of China the representative of the Chinese people.
The demise of the North Korean Kim Jong-il seemed at some point to bring some closure to the nuclear file of this small Communist country, but the people of North Korea moved quickly to replace the name of the worshipped leader, and the new rising star in Pyongyang promises that the policies of his father will continue.
In fact, even the South Korean people hope that the unification of the two Koreas will not be done hastily, unexpectedly, but at a slow pace, that would allow the North to catch up with their southern brethren.
A Germany-like unification is feared in Seoul, because the effort would collapse both economies. So, the South Korean bet on Kim Jong-eun Western education and hope he will bring the North Korean some life standard. Meanwhile, they are counting on the Americans too to defend them if young Kim decides to apply a different vision of Korean Peninsula.
Last year, in New Dehli, Barack Obama, playing China against India, told his Indian hosts that they were the most populous democracy in the world and the rightful leaders of the region.
US State Secretary Hillary Clinton went on to tell them a few months after that power was there for the taking and that they had to step up and assume the status of leaders. Now it seems that it is exactly what the new American defense strategy is doing: helping India assume its role in the region in maintaining the peace and regional development.
