By Andrew S. Erickson
The U.S. isn’t “returning” to the Asia-Pacific, it never left in the first place. Here, in the world’s most strategically and economically dynamic region, China is already demonstrating great potential to undermine American strategic interests and the efficacy of the global system – and is doing so in practice. Though Beijing and Washington have considerable shared interests and potential for cooperation, the most difficult period for them to achieve “competitive coexistence” may already have begun. Assuming that high-intensity kinetic conflict can be avoided – fortunately, a highly likely prospect – China’s greatest challenge to U.S. interests and the global system might thus be the already unfolding strategic competition, friction, pressuring, and occasional crises in the three “Near Seas” (the Yellow, East China, and South China Seas).
China is already a world-class military power – but not in the ways that many have charged. Beijing’s “blue water” naval expansion beyond the Second Island Chain, which isn’t proceeding at the highest level, does not pose a serious problem for Washington. Indeed, as a growing great power, it is only natural for China to develop an increasing presence in this realm, and in many respects it should be welcomed.
Read the full story at The Diplomat