A new era is dawning in the Pacific, where the United States is reasserting long unchallenged dominance in the face of China’s burgeoning power.<\/p>\n
President Barack Obama deliberately made waves with his \u201cPacific pivot\u201d speech in early November, vowing to shift the United States’s focus to Asia and staking out a leading role for the superpower that some assumed was in decline.<\/p>\n
From leadership change in North Korea to undersea oil wealth in the disputed South China sea to jockeying for influence in Myanmar and announcing the powerfully symbolic basing of U.S. Marines in northern Australia, the rim of the western Pacific is emerging as a volatile arena for 21st-century jousting between big powers.<\/p>\n
It may take decades to play out but Sino-American relations are under strain. The two countries may eventually become amicable rivals or \u2013 worse \u2013 increasingly hostile adversaries, but the not-so-peaceful Pacific will be centre stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt no time since the end of the Cold War have U.S.-China relations been worse,\u201d wrote Robert Ross, a political science professor at Boston College, in an essay this fall in The National Interest.<\/p>\n
That was before Mr. Obama pointedly proclaimed: \u201cThe United States is a Pacific power, and we are here to stay.\u201d That Pacific pivot speech to Australia’s Parliament, a day after announcing a deal to deploy U.S. Marines in northern Australia, was warmly welcomed by America’s allies.<\/p>\n
It was just one in a series of interventions, announcements and high-profile visits that constitute \u201cforward-deployed diplomacy,\u201d to use Hillary Clinton’s phrase.<\/p>\n
For more than two decades, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the first Gulf War, successive American presidents have been preoccupied with turmoil and conflict in Europe, the Middle East and \u2013 since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 \u2013 Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the war in Iraq winds down and America begins to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan, the United States stands at a pivot point,\u201d Ms. Clinton said as the Obama administration unveiled its shift in focus.<\/p>\n
\u201cAsia-Pacific has become a key driver of global politics,\u201d she said, and the U.S. priority will be \u201cto lock in a substantially increased investment \u2013 diplomatic, economic, strategic and otherwise \u2013 in the Asia-Pacific region.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite assurances \u2013 apparently not much believed in Beijing \u2013 that America’s new \u201cPacific-first\u201d focus isn’t about containing China, a throwback to Cold War strategic thinking, the Obama administration has been frenetically active in the Pacific.<\/p>\n
On trade, on arms sales, on stridently reaffirming superpower interests such as unfettered sea lanes, America’s first president to grow up in the Pacific has been increasingly assertive. Washington has sold sophisticated warplanes to Indonesia, pointedly backed Philippine claims to disputed South China Sea islands and slowed a long-planned drawdown of military forces on the Korean Peninsula. It has also accused China of cyber espionage and publicly championed Chinese dissidents.<\/p>\n
The President has also wooed Asian nations and firmly backed long-standing allies \u2013 such as Japan and South Korea that fear China’s rise \u2013 by playing the democracy card.<\/p>\n
\u201cOther models have been tried and they have failed \u2013 fascism and communism, rule by one man and rule by committee,\u201d the President said in his Pacific speech. \u201cThey failed for the same simple reason: They ignore the ultimate source of power and legitimacy \u2013 the will of the people.\u201d<\/p>\n
The message was clearly directed at China. The President has evidently decided that getting on the right side of history means opposing tyranny and authoritarianism in Asia, not just the Arab world. To drive home the point, he sent Ms. Clinton to Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, another Chinese client ruled by an aging clique of generals, where she dined with the long-imprisoned Aung San Suu Kyi.<\/p>\n
While America’s allies in Asia welcomed Mr. Obama’s high-profile \u201cpivot,\u201d some analysts fear it may have raised unrealistic expectations.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany in Asia have been worrying about American decline. Obama projected American optimism, principles, determination and leadership,\u201d wrote Kenneth Liberthal, a China expert and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, in the journal Foreign Policy. \u201cBut this new integrated Asia strategy risks overreach by creating expectations that Washington will not be able to meet [and] feeding suspicions in China that may lead to a far more irascible U.S.-China relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/news\/world\/us-vows-to-flex-muscles-in-asia-pacific-region\/article2283463\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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