By Ankit Panda
In order to boost its credibility, the US is gearing up to respond in kind to unilateral Chinese provocations in Asia.
The United States has a vested interest in maintaining the strategic status quo in the Asia-Pacific given that its position as a power in the region could be undermined should China succeed in changing the regional security landscape. As anxiety has grown about China’s intentions following an increase in tensions over the Senkaku/Dioayu dispute between it and Japan, and a host of territorial disputes in the South China Sea, the U.S. military has set up several symbolic responses to possible Chinese moves. A report in the Wall Street Journal highlights the U.S. military’s broad contingency planning for responding to Chinese provocations in the East and South China Sea where territorial disputes abound with several important U.S. allies.
According to the report, the plans comprise everything from a symbolic show force by flying B-2 bombers to more provocative aircraft carrier exercises in the waters around China. The WSJ‘s sources noted that the U.S. response to the Russian annexation of Crimea has unnerved important allies in the region and that this new action plan for the Asia-Pacific strives to make U.S. intentions known to China, which may continue to attempt to coercively change the status quo. The issue driving U.S. planning seems to be credibility — ensuring that the United States’ presence in the Asia-Pacific remains a credible deterrent for China as it strives to pursue its claims to territorial disputes.
Read the full story at The Diplomat