‘Indo-Pacific strategy’ recipe for regional disaster

To implement its “Indo-Pacific strategy” which aims to save its supremacy in the region, the United States has repeatedly made unfounded charges against China to rally countries to its contain-China banner.

Addressing a US think tank on Tuesday, Jung Pak, deputy assistant secretary for East Asia at the US State Department, accused China of increased “provocations” in the South China Sea and said China’s “aggressive and irresponsible behavior” meant it was only a matter of time before there is a major incident or accident.

Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, also harped on the same theme when attending a meeting of defense chiefs from 26 regional countries in Sydney. In a news conference on Wednesday, he said that China’s “much more confrontational” behavior “seems to imply that they want to bully or dominate, as opposed to having a free and open” Pacific.

Such allegations do not hold water. It is the strategic maneuvering of the US that is making waves, and which threatens to become a tsunami.

While unfolding its “Indo-Pacific strategy”, the US is behaving like a villain who sues his victim before he himself is prosecuted.

And speaking of bullying villains, no country can match the US, which has for decades built numerous military bases around the world and stationed tens of thousands of military personnel in many countries worldwide so that it can flex its muscles at will. And more worryingly, the US has never hesitated to resort to the gun to impose its will on other countries.

The massive military exercises the US stages with allies near sensitive waters and the frequent “freedom of navigation” surveillance and intimidation operations it carries out in Chinese territorial waters and airspace along with its oppositional clique-building endeavors belie the claim that it acts to ensure a peaceful and stable “Indo-Pacific”.

Under such circumstances, it is brazen effrontery for US officials to still have the nerve to tout their lies that the US’ “Indo-Pacific Strategy” is all about “a free and open Pacific”.

With its actions, the US is transforming its competition with China into confrontation.

Unless the US changes course and behaves like a responsible power, the gloomy assessment of Jung Pak may prove to be right: It will only be a matter of time before a major incident or accident happens.