First, Obama must deal with the challenges of the international community in which power has become increasingly decentralized. Currently, U.S. decision-makers and scholars have formed a consensus that the distribution of international power increasingly decentralized, which is not only reflected in the rapid rise of emerging countries, but also in the expansion of various non-state actors, including terrorist groups, especially in Africa. The crisis in Mali and the Algerian hostage incident have reminded the international community that the main frontier against terrorism in the future may have turned from Central Asia to Africa. If this is indeed the case, the future of the international security situation will face greater challenges. Additionally, power decentralization is also reflected in the changes of the composition of some country’s internal powers, such as Egypt. Compared with the former Mubarak regime, foreign policy under Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has an obvious anti-American and Anti-Israeli feature. The power structure of the international community will have profound implications for the geopolitical situation and bring uncertain effects to U.S. interests in the region. 

Second, the Obama administration will be forced to reconcile how to maintain a strong and unified Western world. After World War II, the United States established a powerful Western world and kept its unity by providing economic support, and security guarantees to its allies. However, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the common imminent security threat no longer exists. Now, Europe, Japan and other traditional allies are showing greater separation tendencies. Due to the impact of the financial crisis in 2008, Europe plunged into the debt crisis, which is still difficult to resolve. Thus, European countries will make strengthening their internal policy coordination and boosting confidence in the economic recovery its primary task. At the same time, facing a weak economy and high unemployment rate, the United States had no choice but to slash spending, including military spending. In this context, the United States has actively sought out its European allies, urging them to assume more international responsibilities. Thus, the strategic will of the United States and its European allies have contradictions. This situation has weakened the effects of the United States on the integration of the European forces. Japan, a key U.S. ally in the Asia-Pacific, also suffered from poor economic performance. In order to regain power, political forces in Japan have resorted to nationalism, especially through territorial disputes over the Diaoyu Islands with China, resulting in high-tension relationships with neighboring countries. The overheated tension of Asian security situation does not meet the interests of the United States. Thus, one of the toughest challenges for the Obama administration has become how to unite U.S. allies, how to manage the differences between Japan and its neighbors, and how to maintain a powerful Western world. 

Third, the Obama administration must ensure the authority of international institutions and build new international norms. Many scholars will not deny that the international institutional system has an important role in the maintenance of U.S. hegemony. Current international mechanisms, however, still play vital functions, but also face significant challenges. On the one hand, these challenges are partly because some countries ignore and undermine the existing international mechanisms, such as nuclear weapons development programs by Iran and North Korea. On the other, the selective use and even violations of the international system by the U.S. pose a threat to the authority of international institutions. Additionally, establishing new international norms to deal with global problems is one of the urgent issues facing the Obama administration. 

Fourth, the Obama administration must deal with the challenges associated with the rise of China and other emerging countries. Challenges facing the U.S. from the rise of emerging countries are from more than just China. Today, when it comes to traditional security challenges facing the United States, many scholars and politicians in the United States intentionally or unintentionally take China for granted, instead treating China as a strategic adversary or even enemy. It is not beneficial for the United States to hold this assumption. As a matter of fact, China is not the only or the biggest competitor for the United States. For example, the disparity in power between China and the United States is still huge. China’s per capita GDP is still far behind the United States’. In 2011, China’s per capita income was $5,445 or approximately 11.3% of the per capita income of the United States. Furthermore, there is no obvious confrontation in strategic intentions between China and the United States. 

For China, it is main strategic goal is the building of a moderately prosperous society by 2020. To this end, China’s efforts must be put on addressing various challenges caused by the domestic development. Thus, China’s strategic intention is inward-looking. In contrast, since the end of Cold War, the U.S. goal has always been to maintain the leading position in the complex and volatile international environment, whose strategic intention is outward-looking. More importantly, a post-American world will not be due to the rise of China, but the massive rise of the non-Western world. Thus, as the challenges the United States faces are comprehensive and clustered, so is the solution. 

Chen Jimin, Ph.D, is an Assistant Research Fellow for the Institute for International and Strategic Studies at the Party School of Central Committee of C.P.C.

Liu Junhong

After the Asian financial crisis in 1997, the region developed a stronger sense of “Asians’ Asia” and a common understanding for peace, cooperation and win-win co-existence. Waves of cooperation in the form of free trade agreements swept the region over the past decade covering trade, investment, financing, monetary mechanisms and disaster prevention and reduction. The cooperative projects helped promote economic development, social progress and cultural exchanges in the region and led to the birth of a model of cooperation that is characteristic of Asia and features inclusiveness, diversity and openness. Asian-style cooperation played a vital role in helping the region withstand the impact of the financial crisis and maintain a steady growth of regional economies. Therefore, Asia has become a new engine propelling the global economy, bringing the world into the “Asian Times”.

Covering 30 percent of the earth’s total geographical area and making up 60 percent of the world’s population, Asia carries a lot of clout in global affairs. As the world’s economic, cultural, political and communication center long before the Industrial Revolution in Western countries, it was only in modern times that Asia declined as a result of invasions and colonial rule by Western powers and Japan.

After World War II, Asian countries were liberated from colonial rule, regaining independence and sovereignty. However, the world was soon plunged into the Cold War, and Asia’s economic development was once again delayed as it was positioned behind the United States, Western Europe and Japan.

In the early 1990s, the Cold War came to an end with ideological confrontation replaced by economic globalization. Asia began reform drives to embrace market economies and achieved vigorous development marked by the “East Asia Miracle”.

In early 1990s the United States and Europe set up their respective regional economic communities almost simultaneously – the North American Free Trade Area and the European Union. They used their powerful financing markets to dominate the international financing system and hence the global economy, while Asia was marginalized for failing to establish its own protective bloc against global competition.

China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001 marked the beginning of a new era in Asia’s economic development. Thanks to its enormous market and huge manufacturing ability, China drew massive international investment, which stimulated trade and economic development in Asia. In 2001, China and ASEAN reached agreements to initiate talks for establishing a free trade area. Ten years later, the agreement was finally established. The “China-ASEAN model” became an exemplar for cooperation among developing countries in the post-Cold War global competition.

Also in 2001, at China’s suggestion, political, commercial and academic leaders from 26 countries in the Asia-Pacific region gathered in Boao, Hainan, to launch the Boao Forum for Asia. Following the principle of cooperation and mutual benefit and calling for equality and respect of differences among nations, the forum played a positive role in promoting regional and international exchanges in economy, culture and politics for consensus and joint development. After these years, participants to the forum have developed a “Boao Spirit,” which advocates cooperation without binding force and emphasizes equality without enforced uniformity. The spirit respects differences but opposes the theory of “power centers.”

Today, developed nations such as the United States, Europe and Japan hope to again play the leading role in “local economic circles” through the TPP/TPIP and try to set rules for global economic development, widening the North-South disparity. Whether Asian countries will follow and promote the Boao Spirit to realize peace, cooperation and mutual benefit in the region will not only influence Asia’s development but will also bring opportunities to developing countries in other parts of the world.

Liu Junhong is a researcher fellow at the Chinese Institute of Contemporary International Relations.

Indeed, from the perspective of maritime security experts, there are differences. At present, China’s major maritime security concerns include disputes over maritime rights and interests. Major sovereignty disputes that China faces are mostly maritime ones. Especially in recent years, the South China Sea issue and the Diaoyu Islands issue have become regional hot issues and China’s maritime situation has become further complicated.

Another issue is national reunification. Although cross-Strait relations have witnessed a peaceful development since 2008, the social foundation for “Taiwan independence” has not been shaken, the recognition of “one China” in Taiwan people’s minds is still to be fostered, and there is still a long way to go to realize China’s complete reunification.

Safety of navigation presents a further challenge. The sea and ocean have become the lifeblood of China’s long-term development, and the safety of sea lines of communication plays an increasingly vital role in its economic development.

Furthermore, the US has been stepping up its rebalance towards the Asia-Pacific, reinforcing its military presence in the region, developing the Air-Sea Battle concept, consolidating its alliances, and frequently conducting reconnaissance. In addition, some of China’s maritime neighbors have been increasing their naval expenditures and competing in building up naval forces.

On the other side, US major maritime security concerns cover:

• Freedom of navigation, including that of merchant, surveying and military ships.
• China’s development of “blue water” navy. The US thinks China’s maritime strategy, as well as naval strategy and development, is not transparent enough, and thus worries about China’s ambition of global expansion.
• Development of anti-access/area denial capabilities. China’s R&D of middle- and long-range missiles, extension of PLA Air Force’s operational radius, increase of submarine activities in open seas, and development of the aircraft carrier, are believed to be potential threats to US maritime power projection. 

The different concerns reflect some deep-seated differences between China and the US in maritime strategy, understanding of maritime laws and the method for settling maritime issues. Firstly, China’s maritime strategy is to “enhance our capacity for exploiting marine resources, develop the marine economy, protect the marine ecological environment, resolutely safeguard China’s maritime rights and interests, and build China into a maritime power.”[1] Its aim is to promote China’s ecological progress and support peaceful development, while the US maritime strategy is to maintain its sea dominance, which is regarded as an important parameter of US future leadership.

Secondly, the US believes that the reconnaissance activities of its ships and aircraft in China’s EEZ are legitimate. While China thinks that, according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the surveying and intelligence-gathering activities of foreign naval ships in China’s EEZ violate its laws and threatens national economic security and military security on the sea.

Thirdly, the US attaches great importance to its alliances, places them above international morality and justice, and may resort to force to fulfill its obligations with its alliances. China has always judged maritime issues in accordance with the rights and wrongs themselves, and hopes to settle maritime disputes through peaceful negotiations.

On the one hand, differences between China and the US may have a negative impact on Sino-US security relations. On the other hand, in the Asia-Pacific, China’s economic advantages and the US military advantages are irreplaceable. The relationship between China and the US is not confrontational in an all-round manner, but complementary and competitive. It is time to build a bridge of cooperation over the troubled waters.

The maritime interests of China and the US can converge on such issues as economic development, safety of navigation, maintenance of the security of global commons, and guarantee of free flow of trade on the sea. Besides, the two countries may join hands to conduct scientific researches on marine environment protection.

The two navies may also strengthen cooperation, keep a safe distance, and conduct joint exercises and training on maritime search and rescue, counter-piracy, counter-smuggling, escort missions, disaster relief, humanitarian rescue, and others. Within the framework of the Military Maritime Consultative Agreement (MMCA), China and the US can still have exchanges of maritime information on a regular basis, and avoid accidents on the sea. During his visit to China in September 2012, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta invited the Chinese navy to participate in the RIMPAC 2014 exercise, which might serve as a model for practical cooperation between the two militaries. Additionally, China’s high-level naval officers may take an active part in the Western Pacific Naval Symposium (WPNS), making use of various multilateral platforms to build trust and reduce suspicions.

The stronger the Sino-US bridge built for cooperation, the more peaceful the waters will be, and the more stable and prosperous the Asia-Pacific region will become.

Dr. Zhao Weibin is a Research Fellow, Center on China-America Defense Relations (CCADR), PLA Academy of Military Science (AMS), China.

[1] Cited from Hu Jintao, “VIII. Making Great Efforts to Promote Ecological Progress”, FIRMLY MARCH ON THE PATH OF SOCIALISM WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS AND STRIVE TO COMPLETE THE BUILDING OF A MODERATELY PROSPEROUS SOCIETY IN ALL RESPECTS (Report to the Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China on Nov 8, 2012).

At the time, many analysts interpreted China’s new belligerence as a sign of the country’s growing confidence. Writing in The Washington Post, John Pomfret noted that Beijing was evincing “a new triumphalist attitude.” China was on the rise, the thinking went, and its newfound power had convinced its leaders that they could shape events in Asia as never before. And so in 2010, the Obama administration initiated what it called a “pivot” to Asia, a shift in strategy aimed at bolstering the United States’ defense ties with countries throughout the region and expanding the U.S. naval presence there. The diplomatic element of the strategy was on display in 2011, when Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta reassured U.S. allies, many of which harbor concerns about China’s rise, that “the United States is going to remain a presence in the Pacific for a long time,” and the following year, when he promised that the U.S. military would bring “enhanced capabilities to this vital region.” Worried that a newly assertive China was becoming a destabilizing force, the White House moved to counter any perceptions of its own weakness by strengthening the U.S. presence in the region.

Unfortunately, however, this shift was based on a fundamental misreading of China’s leadership. Beijing’s tough diplomacy stemmed not from confidence in its might — China’s leaders have long understood that their country’s military remains significantly inferior to that of the United States — but from a deep sense of insecurity born of several nerve-racking years of financial crisis and social unrest. Faced with these challenges, and no longer able to count on easy support based on the country’s economic growth, China’s leaders moved to sustain their popular legitimacy by appeasing an increasingly nationalist public with symbolic gestures of force.

Consider China’s behavior in such a light, and the risks of the pivot become obvious. The new U.S. policy unnecessarily compounds Beijing’s insecurities and will only feed China’s aggressiveness, undermine regionalstability, and decrease the possibility of cooperation between Beijing and Washington. Instead of inflating estimates of Chinese power and abandoning its long-standing policy of diplomatic engagement, the United States should recognize China’s underlying weaknesses and its own enduring strengths. The right China policy would assuage, not exploit, Beijing’s anxieties, while protecting U.S. interests in the region. 

THE PAPER TIGER ROARS 

The decision to pursue the pivot was based on the premise that a newly emboldened China was challenging U.S. interests and undermining regional stability simply because it could — that is, because its growing military power made aggressive diplomacy easier and more attractive than in the past. In his March 2010 testimony to the U.S. Congress, Admiral Robert Willard, then head of the U.S. Pacific Command, asserted that China’s recent military advances had been “pretty dramatic.” The truth, however, is that the United States has greatly overestimated China’s military capabilities. Although the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has made great strides since 1979, when it was embarrassed by its poor performance in a brief war with Vietnam, its power remains limited. Over the last ten years, the PLA has not deployed any new ships or aircraft that significantly enhanced its ability to challenge U.S. maritime superiority. China’s main tool to counter the U.S. Navy and deter an American intervention in Asian conflicts remains a fleet of diesel submarines that has been in service since the mid-1990s. 

For all the talk of China’s naval modernization, the PLA has only just begun constructing a next-generation guided-missile destroyer, the quantity and quality of which will pale in comparison to those of the United States’ Aegis-class destroyer fleet. It was only in August 2011 that Beijing launched its first aircraft carrier — the U.S. military has 11 — and it was an old and relatively small ship purchased from the Russians. China is developing antiship ballistic missiles that could target U.S. aircraft carriers, but it has not yet mastered the technology to deploy these weapons. And according to the Pentagon’s own 2011 report on the Chinese military, less than 30 percent of the PLA’s naval surface forces, air forces, and air defense forces and only 55 percent of its submarine fleet could be considered modern. In short, the PLA is still unable to challenge U.S. dominance at sea or upend the balance of power in the region.

Over the last few years, Beijing has had more to worry about than its military shortcomings. In late 2008, when Chinese leaders recognized that their country was not immune to the financial tremors rocking the globe, Beijing panicked at the prospect of a spike in domestic unemployment and hastily funded a massive stimulus package of four trillion yuan (about $570 billion). But this only made things worse, breeding short-term instability and long-term structural imbalances in the economy. The result was that in 2009–10, China experienced the worst economic turmoil since the 1960s, following Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward.

Between 2009 and 2010, inflation increased more than tenfold, and in February 2010, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao acknowledged that the worsening inflation resulting from the stimulus could “undermine social stability.” By 2009, housing prices in major cities had surpassed the average middle-class monthly income by 20–30 percent, far exceeding the World Bank’s suggested ratio. Meanwhile, throughout early 2010, in anattempt to constrain lending, China’s central bank repeatedly increased the amount of capital banks were required to hold in reserve. Nonetheless, inflation continued to increase. According to a June 2010 survey, nearly 60 percent of Chinese reported that prices were “too high to be acceptable.” Since the previous year, vegetable prices had gone up by approximately 25 percent, garlic prices had increased tenfold, and the price of tea was 20 percent higher. 

As high inflation took its toll, unemployment and inequality rose: the urban unemployment rate in 2009 was the highest since 1980. The government especially feared that unemployed college graduates would destabilize Chinese cities. Over seven million graduates were without work in 2009, so the government invested 42 billion yuan (roughly $6 billion) to employ them in rural areas. And as the economy deteriorated, even the state-run People’s Daily ran an article acknowledging the situation; a May 2010 headline read: “Income Divide Reaches Dangerous Point.” The article cited World Bank statistics that ranked Chinese inequality “among the highest in the world.” Reflecting the leadership’s concern that mass discontent could boil over into antigovernment hostility, the newspaper warned that inequality could “brew strong negative feelings against the affluent” and that “the alarm bell is ringing.” It continued: “Beijing must not, and cannot afford to ignore it.”

 This unemployment and inequality produced just the kind of unrest Beijing feared it would. According to Chinese government figures, the number of “mass incidents” — defined as illegal protests of five or more people that disrupt public order — increased from 120,000 in 2008 to over 180,000 in 2010. In a 2009 riot in Shishou, in Hubei Province, 70,000 people confronted police officers in what the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government-affiliated think tank, considered to be “the most serious street riot” since 1949. The social scientists at the academy argued that the increase in violent crime and civil disorder in 2009 reflected greater rural unemployment and the resulting growth of an idle, marginalized population. And in 2010, Guo Binsheng, a senior editor at the official Xinhua News Agency, warned that China had entered a period of “outstanding social conflict” and that “the task of stability . . . will be very arduous.” Faced with this growing unrest and needing to stave off a real crisis of legitimacy, Beijing had no choice but to appease a growing cadre of hard-line nationalists who wanted to project a tough image of China to the world. 

RED DAWN 

The Chinese Communist Party has long promoted nationalism to sustain its legitimacy, but during the recent decades of rapid growth, the Chinese public focused more on economic advancement than on politics. When the global financial crisis hit in 2008, however, Beijing could no longer simply rely on economic success. Meanwhile, nationalism was on the rise. Even though the party’s top policymakers understood the country’s deficiencies, many Chinese nonetheless believed that the global financial crisis signaled the culmination of China’s rise to great-power status. In 2008 and 2009, as the United States fell into a recession, China’s economy grew by ten percent. And the Chinese leadership’s touting of the PLA’s successes, including its antipiracy missions, space program, and tests of advanced military aircraft, suggested to the public that China was catching up to the United States and should thus adopt a more assertive foreign policy. 

Following the January 2010 announcement of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, Chinese opinion leaders and increasingly vocal Internet users argued for sanctions against the U.S. defense companies that had participated in the deal. Rear Admiral Yang Yi, former director of the Institute for Strategic Studies at the PLA’s National Defense University, called for China to “give a lesson to the U.S. government that harming others will harm yourself.” Similarly, Major General Luo Yuan, deputy secretary-general of the China Society of Military Science, insisted that it was time to “settle accounts” with the United States. Some Chinese Internet users on the Web sites of the People’s Daily and QQ, a popular instant-messaging program, quickly followed their lead, demanding that China break diplomatic ties with the United States and begin exporting weapons to Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan. 

Then, in September 2010, the dispute between Beijing and Tokyo over the detained fishing-boat captain became the most searched item on the Internet in China — a sign of just how enraged the public was over the issue. Online portals were overwhelmed with demands that Japan immediately and unconditionally release the captain. And in the official media, Feng Zhaokui, a senior Japan specialist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, argued that “it is no longer the era in which China can be bullied at will.” Despite the state’s attempts to quell them, calls for protests circulated on the Internet, sparking demonstrations in front of not only the Japanese embassy but also the Chinese Foreign Ministry building. 

As nationalist sentiment rose and economic and political problems roiled the country, Chinese leaders, concerned for the party’s public standing and fearful of popular unrest, accommodated the nationalists with tough diplomacy and rhetoric. The result was Beijing’s uncompromising posture of 2009–10, which alienated not only China’s neighbors but also countries around the world. This new diplomacy stoked alarm throughout East Asia about China’s rise, which in turn led the United States to resolve to sustain the balance of power in the region. 

THE END OF ENGAGEMENT 

Some aspects of President Barack Obama’s Asia strategy have built on the policies of previous administrations. Washington has been devoting more resources to the region since at least 1997, when it first moved a submarine from Europe to Guam. The Clinton and George W. Bush administrations then deployed every type of major naval and air weapons system to Guam and Japan, cooperated with Singapore to build an aircraft carrier facility at the Changi Naval Base, and strengthened U.S. defense cooperation with Japan and the Philippines. The Bush administration assigned an additional aircraft carrier to the Pacific theater, and the Pentagon announced in 2005 that it would deploy 60 percent of U.S. submarines to Asia. Throughout the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, military funding for the Pacific theater remained at high levels.

These policies constituted an effective response to the rise of China. But following China’s uncompromising stances of 2009 and 2010, Washington faced a credibility problem: its East Asian allies questioned whether the United States, mired in its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, could contend with a seemingly more confident and capable China. Largely to assuage these fears, the United States set out to prove that it could maintain the balance of power in the region.

The Obama administration’s pivot has included a doubling down on the efforts of previous administrations. Washington expanded its joint naval exercises with Japan to prepare for the defense of disputed islands, reached new agreements to sell arms to the Phillipines, and, most recently, in April 2012, agreed to send U.S. marines to Australia. The administration also restored defense cooperation with Indonesia and New Zealand. These measured policies have reassured U.S. allies of Washington’s commitment to the region’s stability.

But the administration has also reversed Washington’s long-standing policy of engagement with Beijing, turning instead to costly initiatives whose force is disproportionate to the threat from China. Regarding territorial disputes over the Spratly Islands, in the South China Sea, past administrations were able to deter regional powers from resorting to aggression by making clear the United States’ interest in maintaining freedom of navigation. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, however, directly inserted the United States into these legally complex disputes. In July 2010 in Hanoi, after extensive discussions with all the claimants to the islands except China, Clinton declared U.S. support for the negotiating positions of the Philippines and Vietnam. What makes this decision puzzling is that these islands have little economic value (apart from fishing) and no mineral resources, and they are of minor strategic importance since they are too small to support military activities. 

 The United States has also unnecessarily challenged Beijing by boosting its military presence on the East Asian mainland. Recognizing that South Korean forces required less U.S. assistance to manage the threat from North Korea, the Bush administration withdrew 40 percent of U.S. troops from South Korea, ended the deployment of U.S. troops between Seoul and the demilitarized zone that divides North and South Korea, and reduced the scale and frequency of U.S.–South Korean military exercises. The Obama administration has reversed this trend. Over the last three years, the United States has carried out its largest joint military exercises with South Korea since the Korean War and increased the U.S. troop presence in South Korea. Washington and Seoul have also reached multiple new defense agreements, and earlier this year, the Pentagon announced plans to upgrade U.S. military capabilities on the Korean Peninsula, despite the fact that South Korea’s military capabilities have vastly improved relative to the those of the increasingly dysfunctional North Korean regime.

At the same time, the United States has reinforced its presence in Indochina. Since the early 1990s, successive U.S. administrations had rebuffed Vietnam’s desire for more substantial defense ties. Washington understood that if it wanted cooperative relations with Beijing, it would need to acknowledge that China had a far greater strategic stake in the region than the United States. But in 2010, Clinton and then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates both visited Hanoi (Clinton went twice). The secretary of state called for a U.S.-Vietnamese strategic partnership, and in late 2010, for the first time since the end of the Vietnam War, the United States carried out joint naval training with Vietnam. Since then, the U.S. Navy has held annual exercises with the Vietnamese navy, and in 2011, the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding on defense cooperation. Meanwhile, the United States has also strengthened its cooperation with Cambodia, which in 2010 joined the U.S.-led Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training, a series of annual bilateral naval exercises in the region. That year, Clinton explicitly warned Phnom Penh not to become “too dependent” on China. 

Finally, the Obama administration has promoted a maritime coalition in the South China Sea. To complement U.S. ties with the Philippines and Vietnam, Japan signed strategic partnerships with the two countries, expanding their defense cooperation and military exchanges. This year, the Australian, Japanese, and South Korean militaries for the first time participated in the annual U.S.-Philippine military exercise called Balikatan (meaning “shoulder to shoulder”). 

ASSUAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE

Even if the United States had limited its response to China’s nationalist diplomacy to improving defense ties with its maritime allies in the region, China’s leaders would not have been pleased. But those steps were necessary for U.S. security, occurred far from China’s borders, and built on the policies of previous administrations. When Washington got directly involved in China’s sovereignty disputes and increased its presence on China’s land borders, however, Beijing predictably saw this departure from past U.S. policy as gratuitous, expansionist, and threatening. As might be expected from a great power faced with a deteriorating strategic environment, China has pushed back against the pivot with concrete policies rather than the merely aggressive rhetoric it employed in the past. 

One result has been that China has all but given up its effort to use its leverage over North Korea to get it to abandon its nuclear program. Since 2011, Beijing has substantially increased its food aid to Pyongyang, imported more of North Korea’s mineral resources, and made significant investments in North Korean mining, infrastructure, and manufacturing. China has also withdrawn its support for the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program, forcing Washington to pursue bilateral negotiations with Pyongyang. Meanwhile, North Korea continues to develop its nuclear weapons capability.

The PLA has also put pressure on those of China’s neighbors that have boosted their defense cooperation with the United States. In the spring of 2011, tensions between Beijing and Hanoi escalated as Chinese patrol ships harassed Vietnamese seismic survey boats in disputed waters, and several Chinese military officers advocated the use of force against the Vietnamese navy. Similarly, China’s maritime confrontation earlier this year with the Philippines over the contested Scarborough Shoal suggests that Beijing will push back against countries that rely on the United States to support them in sovereignty disputes. China sent combat-ready patrols to defend its claim to the shoal and, after the Philippines withdrew its ships, established a permanent presence there. Also this year, Chinese national oil companies announced unprecedented plans to drill for oil in disputed waters — the other claimants have been active in these waters for years — and the PLA formed a new military garrison charged with defending the country’s territorial claims in the South China Sea. Since then, China has continued to actively strengthen its presence throughout the disputed waters and islands.

As all these events suggest, the Obama administration’s pivot has not contributed to stability in Asia. Quite the opposite: it has made the region more tense and conflict-prone. Military aircraft and naval ships now crowd the region’s skies and waters. And the United States risks getting involved in hostilities over strategically irrelevant and economically marginal islands.

The pivot will be further complicated by an environment of growing nationalism, not only in China but also in Japan, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Consider what happened in September, when anti-Chinese sentiment in Japan pressured Tokyo to purchase an island chain that both it and Beijing claim. (The territory is known in China as the Diaoyu Islands and in Japan as the Senkaku Islands.) After Tokyo’s governor, Shintaro Ishihara, who is an outspoken anti-China activist, expressed interest in buying the islands — a move that would certainly have provoked Beijing — the Japanese government purchased them itself, instead of simply blocking the sale. Like the Spratly Islands, these islands are of little strategic or economic value. Nonetheless, Japan’s move challenged China’s claim to the islands and provoked anti-Japanese demonstrations throughout China, sparking vandalism of Japanese businesses and government property there. This nationalist outcry led Beijing to escalate tensions with Japan. At least 14 Chinese government surveillance ships accompanied hundreds of Chinese fishing boats to the islands, where they entered Japanese-claimed territorial seas. 

Meanwhile, China has challenged U.S. interests beyond East Asia, forsaking the cooperation that the two countries had managed to sustain in the years leading up to the pivot. Whereas between 2006 and 2010, China voted for five UN Security Council resolutions imposing sanctions on Iran, in 2012 Beijing threatened to veto sanctions on Iranian oil exports. After the United States, European countries, and Japan independently agreed to sanction Iranian oil exports in January 2012, Beijing reached new agreements with Tehran to purchase Iranian oil. What is more, Beijing has blocked Washington’s attempts to halt the bloodshed in Syria, stymying its initiatives at the UN and backing Moscow’s support for the Syrian leadership.

Washington’s increased activity on China’s periphery has led Beijing to conclude that the United States has abandoned strategic engagement, the cornerstone of U.S. policy toward China since the end of the Cold War. In contrast to previous administrations, the Obama administration has dismissed China’s legitimate security interests in its border regions, including even those that are not vital to U.S. security. By threatening China and challenging its sovereignty claims over symbolic territories, Washington has encouraged Chinese leaders to believe that only by adopting belligerent policies will a rising China be able to guarantee its security. Herein lies the great irony of the pivot: a strategy that was meant to check a rising China has sparked its combativeness and damaged its faith in cooperation. 

The pivot has already damaged U.S. security interests, and the cost will only grow. If Washington continues down its current path, Chinese resistance to U.S. policies will inevitably increase, preventing bilateral cooperation on crucial issues from trade to global economic stability. The outbreak of hostilities in the region will become a real possibility, as China pushes back against the United States’ growing presence on its borders and nationalist tension rises between China and U.S. security partners over disputed but inconsequential islands. 

This need not be the case. The United States could respond to China’s tough diplomacy with policies that would both sustain the regional order and minimize the chances of a U.S.-Chinese conflict. Over the next several years, Washington should reshape its Asia policy to restore the consensus of previous administrations: that increasing the United States’ military presence on the East Asian mainland is not vital for U.S. security and that the United States should avoid entanglement in complex sovereignty claims in the region. Because the U.S. Navy will continue to dominate Asia’s seas, the United States can reassure its allies of its resolve to counterbalance China while still quietly disengaging from maritime disputes and reducing its presence on China’s land borders. As China rises, a policy of restraint, rather than alarmism, will best serve U.S. national security.

Robert S. Ross is Professor of Political Science at Boston College and an Associate at the John King Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University. He is the author of Chinese Security Policy: Structure, Power, and Politics.

© 2012 Council on Foreign Relations, Inc., all rights reserved.

Over the past three years the relationship has become more strained, fraught, and distrustful in a number of realms. The competitive elements in the relationship are growing and now becoming primary, while the cooperative ones are secondary and declining. Taken together, this condition can be described as “coopetition.”But the inter-governmental meetings meant to forge cooperation are becoming more pro forma and increasingly acrimonious. Beneath the surface of official exchanges, mutual distrust is pervasive in both governments and one now finds few bureaucratic actors on either side with a strong mission to cooperate (educational and tourist exchanges are exceptions). The two sides wrangle over trade and investment conditions, technology espionage and cyber hacking, global governance challenges like climate change and Syria, nuclear challenges like Iran and North Korea, their respective military postures in the Asia-Pacific, and other issues. As China's global footprint has emerged on to every continent, it is increasingly bumping up against longstanding American interests—thus adding a global dimension the relationship has never had.

This increasingly uneasy situation has been brought about by a number of factors intrinsic to both nations, but also as the result of systemic changes in world affairs. It is not unnatural that frictions should arise between a rising power and an established power. Nor is it unusual for difficulties and suspicions to arise in the above policy areas. Rising discord also goes beyond the governments to society. A recent Pew poll, released on September 18, reveals that 66 percent of the general American public and 80 percent of experts view China as a competitor, while 26 percent of both groups say China cannot be trusted. Chinese attitudes are more positive (based on minimal available survey data) but Chinese hyper-nationalism and anti-American invective is pervasive.

While this increasingly competitive relationship is likely to be the “new normal,”and both sides need to get used to it and not indulge in naïve pursuit of harmony, Sino-American ties are also characterized by deep interdependence.  They are each other's second largest trading partner, the U.S. is the third largest source of foreign direct investment in China while China is the largest foreign creditor of the United States, China is the world's largest exporting nation and the United States the largest importer. Every day about 9000 people travel between the two countries, nearly 150,000 Chinese students study in American universities with about 20,000 Americans studying in China. There are 38 sister province/state and 169 sister city relationships binding localities together and offering opportunities for exchanges. There are 300 million Chinese learning English and approximately 200,000 Americans learning Chinese.

History has never witnessed, and neither nation has any experience in, a competitive major power relationship that is simultaneously so deeply interdependent. To some extent, this helps to buffer the strategic competition and keep the relationship from becoming fully adversarial (although President Obama described China as an “adversary”in the recent presidential debate on foreign policy), but in other areas interdependence breeds intensified competition and frictions. This leads to the odd mixture of a cooperative-competitive dynamic—whcih can be described as competitive coexistence.

Given the global importance of US-China relations, this is a marriage in which divorce is not an option. The stakes are high. Yet the competitive trend is likely to continue into the future—absent a newly emergent global threat that challenges both nations to forge greater cooperation. U.S.-China relations have really not faced such a common threat since the 1970s-1980s (despite common opposition to al-Qaeda and terrorism). Absent such a galvanizing mutual threat, managing competition becomes the overriding task of the new American and Chinese governments. In his recent book On China, Henry Kissinger hopes for what he calls “co-evolution”between the two powers, but even he admits that this will require “wisdom and patience.”It will also require mutual pragmatism and mutual accommodation. It is not at all clear that the respective political cultures and political systems, national identities, social values, and worldviews are conducive to a newly cooperative US-China relationship. It will be all the new leaders in Beijing and Washington can do to maintain a modicum of stability between the two sides.

The author is professor and director of the China Policy Program at George Washington University, and recent author of Tangled Titans: The United States and China.

With the US-Japan bilateral alliance as the cornerstone of U.S. Asia-Pacific engagement, Japan is viewed by the US as the most important ally in the region. The achievement of Panetta’s visit to Japan is mainly reflected in further strengthening US military maneuver and surveillance capabilities there. Panetta met with Japanese Defense Minister Satoshi Morimoto and Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba. He discussed the U.S. deployment to Okinawa of V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, which had been a controversial topic for its poor safety since the aircraft was first shipped to Japan in July. Deployment of the aircraft will enable the US to more effectively fulfill various roles since it provides twice the speed, three times the payload, four times the range compared with the platform they replace. 

To increase US missile defense capabilities, both Panetta and Morimoto have agreed to add a second U.S. anti-ballistic missile radar installation in Japan. The AN-TPY-2, to be deployed somewhere in the south of Japan, will augment one previously set up in Shariki on the northern part of Honshu island. According to a US Missile Defense Agency fact sheet, the AN-TPY-2 is a X-band, high-resolution, phased-array radar designed specifically for ballistic missile defense, capable of tracking all classes of ballistic missiles and identifying small objects at long distances. The US has similar early warning radar systems on ships in the Asia-Pacific, and the second Japan-based system will allow US vessels to spread out and cover other parts of the world as needed.

Panetta also discussed with his Japanese counterpart the future of US-Japan alliance including the roles of the defense forces, the types of missions the alliance will undertake, and the capabilities both nations will need in order to invest in. 

The US views China as a key to developing a peaceful, prosperous, and secure Asia-Pacific in the 21st century, therefore, building a healthy, stable, reliable, and continuous military-to-military relationship with China is of great significance. 

Panetta’s China visit has been a great success. He met with Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping who is also vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission Xu Caihou, Defense Minister Gen. Liang Guanglie, and State Counsel Dai Bingguo who serves in a position roughly equivalent to the U.S. national security advisor. His high-level interaction offered him a chance to discuss the U.S. strategic rebalance with China’s leaders and listen to their concerns. According to Gen. Liang, the two sides exchanged views on a number of issues confronting the two countries, including US arms sales to Taiwan, maritime disputes over Diaoyu Island, territorial issues in the South China Sea, cyber-space and outer space security. The talks were held in a “friendly and candid” manner with “some consensus” reached.

During his visit, Panetta invited China to join the next Rim of the Pacific exercise in 2014. The RIMPAC, held by the US Pacific Command in Hawaii since 1971, takes place every even-numbered year. This year’s drills, from late June until early August, were the largest ever, with 22 nations and 25,000 personnel participating, but China was excluded. On September 17, the same day Panetta began his China visit, Chinese frigate Yi Yang participated in a counterpiracy exercise with guided-missile destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill and other U.S. Navy assets near the Horn of Africa, which is the first bilateral counterpiracy exercise ever conducted between the two major powers. The recently regained momentum of exchange and cooperation are of great value to take the bilateral military relationship out of the on-and-off circle they have had in the past.

Considering the complexity of Asian security and the defects inherent in the US Asia-Pacific security strategy, however, Panetta might find himself puzzled by a few contradictions. First is the contradiction between satisfying both US allies and China. Strengthening US bilateral alliances needs to exaggerate regional threats and create a mighty enemy big as China, but by doing so the US pushes China to the opposite side and finds it increasingly difficult to have good relations with China.

Second is the contradiction between standing neutral over the dispute of Diaoyu Islands and emphasizing US-Japan security alliance. Panetta repeated that the US did not take a position on the islands during his China visit, but some US high-ranking officials often claims that the islands fall within the scope of the US-Japan security treaty. If Washington is truly impartial about the substance of the dispute, namely, it doesn’t decide whether the islands belong to China or Japan, then clearly the US-Japan defense treaty should not cover those islands.

Third is the contradiction between maintaining US commitment to its bilateral alliances and maintaining regional peace. The US takes its bilateral alliances in the region as a significant part of its pivot-to-Asia strategy, but at the same time US commitment to some allies encourages their provocations against China over territorial disputes, which in turn endangers regional peace that has been enjoyed for decades. In his visit, Panetta urged “calm and restraint on all sides” in all cases of disputed territory involving Pacific waters, but what he may not know is that the seeds of conflict are sowed by US policy itself.

Zhao Xiaozhuo is deputy director of Center on China-America Defense Relations, Academy of Military Science, PLA.

The first development is the continued growth of China, and the accompanying fast paced defense modernization, which has in one way or another changed the regional military power balance. After surpassing Japan in 2010 and becoming the second largest economy, China’s GDP increased to 7.3 trillion USD last year and is expected to reach 7.9 trillion this year, nearly half the volume of the US. Chinese defense budget increased to $105 billion this year, the largest in Asia and the second largest in the world, although it makes up only one sixths that of the US. China's development of new weapon systems, acquisition of new military capabilities, and development of new doctrines have all been, in recent years, the focus of media coverage, academic research and policy debate.

The second development is the recent US “rebalance toward Asia”. The rebalance is driven by three factors: the rise of Asia-Pacific region as the main driver for global economic growth calls for more US engagement to help economic recovery and future prosperity; the end of the two hot wars in Iraq and Afghanistan provides for the US opportunities to redirect resources, redeploy troops and reorient policies; and China’s defense modernization have changed the balance of power in an area where the US has dominated for decades. Some US allies and partners have requested more robust US presence to offset China’s rise. Although the rebalance has created a fanfare and caused genuine concern in China, the declared measures are piecemeal and will take years to achieve.

The third new development relates to maritime security issues in East Asia. Disputes over sea territory and maritime rights are not something new, but disputing parties in the past had been able to put them aside, in order to keep bilateral relations friendly and regional situation peaceful. However, with expanding demand for energy and resources, the advance of technology to explore and employ undersea resources, and the extension of interest sphere, maritime disputes have increased in recent years. They occur not only between China and its neighbors, but also between and among China’s neighbors. For example, the disputes over 5 islands and maritime demarcation between the two Koreas in the Yellow Sea, over Dokdo/Takeshima between Japan and South Korea, over the northern territories between Japan and Russia and over islands in the South China Sea between and among ASEAN states. However, it is China who finds itself facing the most daunting challenges from its maritime neighbors.

The three developments interact to exert an impact on regional security. China’s continued growth and defense modernization cause concerns from the US as well as China’s neighbors. They question the sincerity of China’s peaceful rise and the intention of China's defense modernization. China is accused of lack of transparency in military affairs, of selectively developing asymmetric capabilities to offset US military advantages, and most recently, of possessing AD/A2 capabilities to counter US force projection effort.

Meanwhile, US rebalance toward Asia is perceived as part of the hedging or even containing effort against China. Even though the rebalance has political, diplomatic, economic and military elements, measures in the last category received most attention. For example, the US will not reduce defense investment in the Asia-Pacific region even though it is going to cut its defense budget by 500 billion USD. The forward regional presence would be reinforced by rotationally deployed marines to Darwin, Australia, on board ships and even to the Philippines, and by up to 4 littoral combat ships near Singapore. The 9000 marines withdrawn from Okinawa will be redeployed to Guam, Hawaii or Alaska, and up to 60% of US naval vessels will be in the Pacific by 2020. The US is planning with its allies to set up a BMD system in East Asia. And the strengthening of alliance ties and development of partnerships are scrutinized in China for future security implications. Thus, China’s rise (together with military modernization) and US rebalance seem to place both in a “security dilemma”, in which action by one to increase security reduces the other’s sense of security. And the interactive process is leading to deeper strategic distrust.

The security dilemma between the US and China complicates the security choices of others in the region. It is particularly true with the ASEAN states, some of which have clashed with China over maritime issues. When the US jumped into the South China Sea in 2010 and took the side with the ASEAN claimants by reiterating alliance obligations, forming new partnerships, organizing joint military exercises, and issuing statements (the most recent one is released on the third of August.), these countries are happy that the superpower is back to deter China. At the same time they are worried that the good relations, especially the economic ties from which both China and the ASEAN states have benefited, would be victimized. The worst choice for Asian-Pacific states in general, and ASEAN states in particular, is to be forced to choose between the US and China.

In short, if the three new developments interact negatively, they could pose challenges to Asia-Pacific security. China, the US and all other regional players, have to find more common ground to cooperate in keeping shared interests and facing common challenges. It is especially important for the militaries of China and the US, and other militaries in the region, to devote more efforts to engage each other, to focus on cooperating in things they can do together, and to cultivate trust that will lead to more spontaneous security cooperation in the region.

Major General Yao Yunzhu is Director of Center on China-American Defense Relations, Academy of Military Science

Some observers in the West view these disputes as evidence of China’s increasing assertiveness in dealing with the outside world. However, omitted is a key point that in all the above events China has been a defender, not an offender. China sent surveillance ships to Huangyan Island because the Philippines had tried to drive Chinese fishing ships away from the nearby waters. China announced the establishment of Sansha city in the wake of the Vietnamese National Assembly passing Vietnamese Law of the Sea. China started a surveillance ship patrol in response to Japanese purchase of Diaoyu Islands. If we analyze the issue from a historical point of view, more evidence in favor of China’s restraint can be found. Most of the disputed territory or sea between China and its neighbors is actually controlled by the latter. Nevertheless, over the past 30 years China has not fought a single border battle and has not deployed a single combat soldier abroad except its contribution to UN peacekeeping operations and international anti-piracy activities.

That said, the trigger of the disputes is not China’s assertiveness, but its neighbors’ aggressiveness, particularly backed by their bilateral alliances with the US. Actually it is not accidental that their collective aggressiveness coincides with the unfolding of the US Asia Pivot strategy because there is a consequent connection between the two. The Obama Administration often says that it takes no position in East Asia’s territorial disputes, but at the same time it plays tricks to indicate its position, making the tension more complicated. For example, amid the increasingly tense standoff between Beijing and Manila over Huangyan Island, the USS North Carolina, one of the stealthiest submarines in the world, docked in Subic Bay. While Diaoyu Island dispute heated up between China and Japan, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the Diaoyu Islands came within the scope of the US-Japan security treaty, and the US navy undertook joint exercises with the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. US words and deeds under the guise of regional alliances obviously encouraged Filipino and Japanese aggressive actions towards China, forcing China to take countermeasures to defend its national interests.

Although the Asia-Pacific region is generally viewed as the engine to pull the global economy out of recession, the region has become the largest weapon market in the world. Over the past five years, Asia and Oceania accounted for 44 percent in volume of conventional arms imports, according to a study released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in March. The trend also has close connections with US regional alliances. The US “hub and spoke” model in Asia-Pacific, primarily based on a system of bilateral alliances with Japan, South Korea, Australia, Thailand, and the Philippines, originated from the Cold War. Its existence is based on the existence of a common enemy, which often becomes a game of searching for enemies. The more specific the enemy is, the more energetic the alliances are. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in early 1990s, US regional alliance system lost direction for a couple of years because its confrontational characteristics were incompatible with the general trend of peace and development. However, with China’s rise in recent years US regional alliances look like having found an ideal “enemy” and regaining momentum.

The Cold War mentality and confrontational characteristics inherent in US regional alliances will ultimately result in Asia-Pacific region’s chaos and division. Unlike security-oriented organization such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which takes collective security as its primary mission, US bilateral alliances are defense-oriented, excluding countries other than its allies and forcing its potential competitors to the opposite. Unlike the security-oriented organization, US bilateral alliances do not have the mechanism of discussion, accommodation and compromise, but leave the potential competitors only two choices: accepting the US alliance system unconditionally or being forced to fight with it. Most of the time, the potential competitors are forced to become realistic competitors. Considering the dominant position that the US alliance system has enjoyed in regional security affairs, not surprisingly Asia-Pacific division can be expected, which will be a disaster not only for China, but also for the US, its regional allies and the world as a whole. Thus, now is the time for the US and the region to rethink the role that US bilateral alliances have played in Asia-Pacific security and to establish a security-oriented organization covering all the major players in the region.

The author is deputy director of Center on China-America Defense Relations, Academy of Military Science, PLA.

In my observation, Panetta’s visit will be helpful for China to better understand US strategic intentions. This year marks a great change in US military strategy. The US Department of Defense released an unclassified version of the defense strategic guidance entitled “Sustaining US Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense” on 5th Jan., declaring a shift in US strategic focus from the Middle East to the Asia-Pacific region. On 2nd Jun. Panetta outlined details of the US plan for its "rebalancing" act towards the Asia Pacific in a speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue, saying the US Navy will reposition 60 percent of its warships to the Asia-Pacific by 2020, as part of its new strategic focus on Asia. When the disputes between China and the Philippines heated up over sovereignty of Huangyan Islands in the South China Sea in April, the US-Philippine joint military drills were underway, obviously supporting the Philippine’s aggressive attitude and fueling its tensions with China. Now, when China is increasingly at odds with Japan over the Diaoyu Islands, the US is undertaking another island-recapturing joint exercise with Japan in Tinian, Guam, and Saipan.


Conflicting signals sent by the US government exacerbate general suspicions in China on US strategic intentions. Although high-ranking US officials have denied on different occasions that the above actions are aimed at China, the encirclement around China organized by the US looks to be tightened. Although the US government declares it takes no position on the disputes regarding the Diaoyu Islands, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the Diaoyu Islands came within the scope of the US-Japan security treaty. Although Washington says it does not intend to get involved in the disputes in the South China Sea, it has criticized China's establishment of a military garrison in newly created Sansha City. These conflicting signals make people more confused about the overall strategic intentions of the US. These intentions need to be explained by Panetta to the Chinese military leadership face to face and to the Chinese people as a whole.

Panetta’s visit will also be helpful to promote China-US mil-to-mil strategic trust, to reduce misunderstanding and miscalculation. There are significant differences between China and the US in many respects, including social systems, degrees of development, culture and tradition, and international perceptions, which often lead to different interests and views on a broad range of issues. Over the past 20-odd years, the bilateral mil-to-mil relationship, the most fragile relationship overall between the two powers, has experienced multiple ups and downs and has been suspended outright at least six times mostly due to US arms sales to Taiwan. It demonstrates that the mil-to-mil relationship lacks an inherent driving force, and behind it is the strategic distrust. This distrust leads the bilateral military relationship to an on-and-off cycle, with too frequent suspensions of ties, which in turn causes more anxiety and less trust, drawing the relationship into a vicious circle.

Against this backdrop, bilateral exchanges are extremely important to promote understanding and reduce miscalculation, particularly at the higher leadership level. It seems that the US and Chinese approaches to military exchanges are diametrically different. While the US has pursued a “bottom-up” approach, starting with lower-level contact to work toward mutual understanding and then strategic agreement, China has sought a “trickle-down” relationship in which agreement on strategic issues results in understanding and then allows for specific activities later. The US may believe that military trust is an outcome of frequent exchanges at different levels and establishment of people to people understanding, thus putting more emphasis on various kinds of exchanges. However, China thinks that political trust is the prerequisite of military trust, not vice versa. If there is no basic trust at the political level, how can military trust be established? Recognizing the importance of higher level exchanges, high-ranking military visits between the two countries have maintained a positive momentum over the past two years. This year so far the Chinese Defense Minister Gen. Liang Guanglie and Deputy Chief of General Staff Gen. Cai Yingting visited Washington respectively in May and in August, while the US Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Locklear visited Beijing in July.

Panetta’s visit will be conducive to promoting China-US military cooperation. As China plays an increasingly important role in the international arena and non-traditional security threats pose a real and urgent need for China and US to cooperate, more common ground can be found when dealing with security challenges of a global nature between the two countries, such as on the issues of international terrorism and the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). No country is able to deal with each of these issues alone, and no country can remain distant and immune to them. In coping with such challenges, China and the United States share common interests.

During General Liang Guanglie’s visit to the US this May, both countries agreed to enhance exchanges and cooperation in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief and to conduct joint humanitarian relief and anti-piracy exercises later this year. Panetta’s coming visit to China is expected to further promote the momentum of bilateral military cooperation, which will be extremely important for the long-term bilateral mil-to-mil relationship, especially considering the possible military leadership changes this year both within the US and China. The expanding and deepening of military cooperation will facilitate joint strategic mutual trust, forging conditions necessary for solving bilateral differences and sensitive issues. Although one probably should not expect too much from Panetta’s coming visit, considering the complexity and fragility of the China-US military relationship, it is hoped that momentum for better cooperation based on mutual trust will continue. 

Zhao Xiaozhuo is a senior colonel and Deputy Director of the Center on China-America Defense Relations at the Academy of Military Science for the People’s Liberation Army.