Bolster India’s ability: US on limiting China
NEW DELHI: The US sees China as a strategic competitor bent on circumventing international rules and norms and a key security concern across the Indo-Pacific region, where Beijing wants to establish “new, illiberal spheres of influence”, according to a newly declassified strategy document.
The document framed in 2018 envisaged bolstering India’s capacities so that it could work with other like-minded countries to act as “a counterbalance to China” and maintain the capacity to counter challenges from Beijing such as “border provocations”.
According to the US Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific, one of the main national security challenges for the US in the region is maintaining its primacy and promoting a “liberal economic order while prevent
ing China from establishing new, illiberal spheres of influence”.
The 10-page document, declassified on January 5 by the outgoing Trump administration’s national security adviser Robert O’Brien, also states that China’s economic, diplomatic
and military influence will “continue to increase in the nearterm and challenge the US ability to achieve its national interests in the Indo-Pacific”.
Under President Donald Trump, the US adopted a confrontational approach to China on both trade and security issues and called out Beijing for not doing enough to contain the initial spread of the Coronavirus in early 2020. The incoming Biden administration hasn’t fully spelled out its China policy though most experts believe president-elect Joe Biden will be less confrontational even as he counters challenges from Beijing.
The strategy document states that China “seeks to dominate cutting-edge technologies, including artificial intelligence and bio-genetics”, and use them in the “service of authoritarianism”.
China’s dominance in these technologies poses “profound challenges to free societies”, and China’s proliferation of “digital surveillance, information controls, and influence operations will damage US efforts to promote our values and national interests in the Indo-Pacific region” and even in the Western hemisphere, the document adds.
The strategy also envisages China taking “increasingly assertive steps to compel unification with Taiwan”.
One of the strategic goals of the US, according to the document released on Wednesday with slight redactions, is working with partners on every continent to resist “Chinese activities aimed at undermining their sovereignty, including through covert or coercive influence”.
In a specific section on China, the document points to US efforts to counter China in the trade and military spheres, including Beijing’s industrial policies and “unfair trading practices” that distort global markets, and its use of military force against the Washington and its allies or partners.
On the military front, the US’s objective is deterring China “from using military force against the United States and US allies or partners”, and developing capabilities and concepts to “defeat Chinese actions across the spectrum of conflict”.
According to the document, the US will work to “enhance combat-credible US military presence and posture in the Indo-Pacific region, to uphold US interests and security commitments”, and help its allies and partners “improve their security posture, including military capabilities and interoperability, to ensure strategic independence and freedom from Chinese coercion”.