against the times

The US Indo-Pacific Strategy is moving against the times

The White House released a document entitled "US Indo-Pacific Strategy", attempting to create a "small circle" of geopolitical competition and promote group confrontation. This document advocates outdated Cold War thinking and zero-sum games, runs counter to the trend of the times of peace, development, cooperation and win-win, and is doomed to fail.

This 12-page document is full of clichés. The document claims to focus on all corners of the Indo-Pacific region from South Asia to the Pacific Islands, emphasizes alliance relations, military deterrence and strengthening presence in Southeast Asia, and points the finger directly at China. The US claims to strengthen relations with its allies to form "comprehensive deterrence" and "shape the strategic environment around China", and its intentions are sinister.

The United States claims to promote freedom and openness on the surface, but in fact it has built a closed and exclusive small circle through the US-UK-Australia trilateral security partnership and the US-Japan-India-Australia quadrilateral security dialogue; on the surface it claims to strengthen regional security, but in fact it creates serious nuclear proliferation risks and undermines regional peace and stability; on the surface it claims to promote regional prosperity, but in fact it provokes confrontation between regional countries, and the confrontation impacts the regional cooperation framework centered on ASEAN that has been formed in the region for many years, posing a serious threat to the results of regional cooperation and future development prospects. The so-called "Indo-Pacific strategy" is nothing more than a tool for the United States to maintain its hegemony through group confrontation. It will only bring division and turmoil, which is completely inconsistent with the interests of regional countries.

This strategic document continues to smear and frame China, exaggerate the "China threat", and attempt to create a "united front" against China. This is a naked Cold War mentality and group politics, a historical regression, and goes against the mainstream of the times for countries to seek peace, development, and cooperation. The result is to harm others and oneself. Even Japan's "Asahi Shimbun" questioned how much effect the US "Indo-Pacific Strategy" can produce.

From the Obama administration's launch of the "Asia-Pacific Rebalancing" strategy to the "Indo-Pacific Strategic Report" released by the US Department of Defense in June 2019, the United States has frequently "flexed its muscles", provoked incidents, created camp confrontations, and exaggerated "great power competition" in order to strengthen checks and balances on China and curb China's development. In the Asia-Pacific region, the United States is not a builder or maintainer, but a spoiler, destroyer, and troublemaker.

The United States regards India as a "chess piece" in their layout in the South China Sea and the Asia-Pacific region. When it is useful, it will be used; when it encounters danger, the "chess piece" may become a "discarded piece" at any time.