How China could feel a US-led economic squeeze in the Indo-Pacific
- The White House’s new regional strategy puts the focus back on Beijing, despite other geopolitical distractions, analysts say
- The United States will try to build a strategic environment ‘that makes it tough for China’
“This intensifying American focus is due in part to the fact that the Indo-Pacific faces mounting challenges, particularly from the People’s Republic of China,” the White House said.
“[China] is combining its economic, diplomatic, military, and technological might as it pursues a sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific and seeks to become the world’s most influential power.
“The United States will defend our interests, deter military aggression against our own country and our allies and partners – including across the Taiwan Strait – and promote regional security by developing new capabilities, concepts of operation, military activities, defence industrial initiatives, and a more resilient force posture.”
Renmin University international relations professor Shi Yinhong said the release of the strategy signalled that the US strategic focus remained in the Indo-Pacific.
“US pressure on China may ease in the short term, but in the long run, it is China, rather than Russia, that is considered as the most serious competitor to the US,” Shi said.
Aaron Rabena, a research fellow at the Asia-Pacific Pathways to Progress Foundation in Metro Manila, agreed, saying conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan had sapped US “resources and bandwidth”.
“After decades of being drained in the Middle East, the US realised that they have neglected Asia – to China’s benefit,” Rabena said.
“The US should see to it that despite tensions or conflict in Ukraine, the Indo-Pacific strategy stands and that American resources will remain focused on the Indo-Pacific.”
The new strategy includes an Indo-Pacific economic framework to cover everything from digital trade, labour and environmental standards, to trade facilitation and supply chain resilience.
In the document released on Friday, the US said its objective “is not to change China but to shape the strategic environment in which it operates, building a balance of influence in the world that is maximally favourable to the United States, our allies and partners, and the interests and values we share”.
Shi said the new economic framework was likely to exclude China, and the US might seek to build a “strategic environment” that would prove to be difficult to China particularly in the economic sphere.
“The US has said it won’t seek to change China, which means it won’t seek to change China’s political system but build a strategic environment that benefits its allies and partners,” he said. “It will try to make it difficult for China.”