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Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment 2020
Key Developments and Trends
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Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment 2020
Key Developments and Trends
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About This Book
The Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment provides insight into key regional strategic, geopolitical, economic, military and security topics.
Among the topics explored are:
- the deteriorating US?China relationship and great-power competition;
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- US alliances and security partnerships;
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- the collapse of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty;
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- diplomatic gridlock on the Korean Peninsula;
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- Japan's role in Indo-Pacific security;
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- the breakdown in JapanâSouth Korea relations;
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- Indonesian policy towards the South China Sea;
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- Australia's defence and security outlook;
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- the European security role in Asia.
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Authors include leading regional analysts and academics Douglas Barrie, William Choong, Aaron Connelly, Andrew Davies, Michael Elleman, Bonnie S. Glaser, Euan Graham, Christopher W. Hughes, Meia Nouwens, Brendan Taylor and William Tow.
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Yes, you can access Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment 2020 by The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Politics & International Relations & National Security. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
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CHAPTER ONE
THE DETERIORATING USâCHINA RELATIONSHIP AND THE INDO-PACIFIC
BONNIE S. GLASER
Bonnie S. Glaser is Senior Adviser for Asia and Director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The deterioration in United StatesâChina relations did not begin with the election of Donald Trump, but it has deepened and accelerated during his presidency. Hopes that ties between Washington and Beijing would remain relatively stable after the April 2017 Mar-a-Lago summit were dashed later that year when the Trump administration released its National Security Strategy (NSS), which labelled China, alongside Russia, a ârivalâ and ârevisionist powerâ seeking to âshape a world antithetical to US values and interestsâ.1 Following on its heels, the 2018 National Defense Strategy branded China a âstrategic competitorâ and charged that it was âleveraging military modernisation, influence operations, and predatory economics to coerce neighboring countries to reorder the Indo-Pacific region to their advantageâ.2 In December 2019, US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper declared that China is the top strategic concern for the Pentagon, ahead of Russia.3
Unlike prior downturns in USâChina relations, which were part of cycles of progress, stalemate and crisis, the current decline is driven by factors that are structural and deeply rooted.4 Strategic competition is now the dominant feature of the bilateral relationship and is likely to remain the primary animating force for years to come. Beijingâs goal of national rejuvenation includes realising the unification of Taiwan with mainland China, and making the country into a global leader at least on par with the United States in terms of comprehensive national power, international influence and innovative capacity.5 The US is determined to block Chinese efforts to use market-distorting policies aimed at overtaking the US in many next-generation technologies, and to prevent China from dominating Asia and undermining the rules-based order.
Spiralling tensions between the US and China have led many observers to fear the onset of a new cold war or, even worse, a collision between American and Chinese military assets that escalates out of control. Reactions from Indo-Pacific countries to intensifying USâChina rivalry have been mixed, but most are ambivalent: they quietly applaud the Trump administrationâs tougher approach and hope it will succeed in persuading China to modify its assertive and coercive policies, but they do not want to be forced to take sides between Washington and Beijing, and seek to avert a USâChina military confrontation.
TRUMPâS INDO-PACIFIC STRATEGY AND CHINA
The US pushback against perceived Chinese challenges has been manifested in both domestic and foreign policies. At home, the Trump administration has tightened rules on foreign investment in industries like telecommunications to thwart Chinese efforts to gain access to sensitive technology. It has also barred federal agencies and contractors from using telecommunications equipment made by Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE. To counter Chinese Communist Party (CCP) influence efforts, the US Department of Defense (DoD) has prohibited funding to US universities that host Confucius Institutes, which teach Chinese language and culture but are widely seen as conduits of Chinese propaganda and are partly backed by Chinese money.
A central element of the Trump administrationâs rejoinder to China in foreign policy is the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) strategy. In the first mention of FOIP by a Trump administration official, then-secretary of state Rex Tillerson called out China in October 2017, a month before the NSS was released, in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC. He accused Beijing of subverting the sovereignty of neighbouring countries, taking provocative actions in the South China Sea, using âpredatory economicsâ in financing Belt and Road projects, and challenging the rules-based order.6
When President Trump formally launched the FOIP strategy at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Da Nang, Vietnam on 10 November 2017, he highlighted Chinaâs unfair trade practices but absolved the Chinese of wrongdoing, instead blaming his predecessors for allowing China to take advantage of the United States.7 His administrationâs NSS, issued one month later, however, charged that China âseeks to displace the United States in the Indo-Pacific region, expand the reaches of its state-driven economic model, and reorder the region in its favorâ.8
At the first Indo-Pacific Business Forum on 30 July 2018, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made only oblique references to China, insisting that the US FOIP vision is inclusive but reaffirming Washingtonâs commitment to help regional countries âkeep their people free from coercion or great power dominationâ and âcompete fairly in the international marketplaceâ.9
In the autumn of 2018, however, the US sharply ramped up criticism of Chinese policies. At the Hudson Institute, US Vice President Mike Pence delivered the harshest speech on China to date, accusing Beijing of seeking to push the United States out of the Western Pacific, control 90% of the worldâs most advanced industries, meddle in American politics and use debt diplomacy to expand its influence around the world. In contrast to Chinaâs push to dominate the region, Pence pledged that the US vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific would be based on shared values and a âspirit of respect built on partnershipâ.10
Speaker | Speech | Date | Location |
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Assistant Secretary of State Kimberly Breier | Remarks: Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Kimberly Breier | 26 Apr | Washington DC, US |
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo | Looking North: Sharpening Americaâs Arctic Focus | 6 May | Rovaniemi, Finland |
Deputy Assistant Attorney General Roger Alford | Deputy Assistant Attorney General Roger Alford Delivers Remarks at the 2019 China Competition Policy Forum | 7 May | Hainan, China |
Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt-Gen. Robert P. Ashley, Jr. | Russian and Chinese Nuclear Modernization Trends | 29 May | Washington DC, US |
Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick M. Shanahan | Acting Secretary Shanahanâs Remarks at the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue 2019 | 1 Jun | Singapore |
Assistant Secretary of Defense Randall G. Schriver | Keynote Address at Asia Policy Assembly 2019 | 18 Jun | Washington DC, US |
Assistant Secretary of Defense Randall G. Schriver | Remarks on The Department of Defenseâs Indo-Pacific Strategy | 26 Jun | Washington DC, US |
Assistant Secretary of State Marie Royce | The United States Welcomes Chinese Students | 30 Jul | Washington DC, US |
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo | The US in Asia: Economic Engagement for Good | 2 Aug | Bangkok, Thailand |
Secretary of Defense Mark Esper | As Prepared Remarks by Secretary Esper at the Royal United Services Institute in London | 6 Sep | London, UK |
Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Ashley Ford | Bureaucracy and Counterstrategy: Meeting the China Challenge | 11 Sep | Virginia, ... |
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Table of Contents
- Common Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter One The Deteriorating USâChina Relationship and the Indo-Pacific
- Chapter Two The End of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty: Implications for Asia
- Chapter Three The United Statesâ Regional Alliances and Partnerships
- Chapter Four Diplomacy and North Korea
- Chapter Five Japan and Indo-Pacific Security
- Chapter Six The Breakdown in JapanâSouth Korea Relations
- Chapter Seven Indonesia and the South China Sea under Jokowi
- Chapter Eight Australiaâs Security and Defence Outlook
- Chapter Nine Europe and Regional Security
- Index