stability and tranquility? What are the critical causes leading to changes in China’s periphery?
The most common line of analysis is to attribute the change to the extra-regional power — the United States. It was Obama’s strategy of “Pivot to Asia” or “Asia Rebalance” that triggered all these changes. This strategy started soon after Obama came to power and intensified since 2010 with the purpose of regaining the strategic superiority or initiative lost to China in recent years because of the war on terror. Encouraged by this strategy, some of China’s peripheral countries such as Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam, for their own interest, began to challenge China on territorial and maritime disputes to test its base line of tolerance. Another thrust of this returning to Asia strategy is to promote domestic changes in some of China’s traditional allies such as Myanmar, leading to its alienation from Beijing.
The Asia Rebalance strategy indicates that the role of the U.S. factor in China’s periphery has changed significantly. The strategic priority of the U.S. policy altered from changing the rising China to managing the rising China. Washington began to project more military and diplomatic resources to the region continuously. From almost all new changes and hot spots in China’s periphery, one can see the shadow of the United States. The increase of the U.S. factor disrupted the peripheral security order painstakingly cultivated by China in recent years and seriously challenged China’s peaceful development.26
Along the same line of arguments, some Chinese analysts point out that the U.S. “Asia Rebalance” strategy indicated three major changes in American diplomatic and security policy. First, the United States looked at the Asia-Pacific as its strategic priority, with no more ambiguity on this issue. Second, the United States completely gave up the G2 policy in dealing with China at the initial period of the Obama administration. From now on, the United State attempts to curb and contain China and also encourage its allies and security partners to do the same. Third, the United States increased its intervention into China’s maritime territorial disputes with its neighbors by taking sides so as to enhance its military, diplomatic and political presence in the region.27
Another important feature of the U.S. “Pivot to Asia” strategy, in the eyes of some Chinese observers, is its emphasis on the security alliance system in East Asia and its impact on East Asia’s security structure. The Asia Rebalance strategy led to new changes in East Asia’s security structure and the alliance politics entered a new period of strategic planning in full swing. This is the fundamental reason behind the tensions in the South China Sea. As a result of this structural change, China is facing a series of new issues and unprecedented new pressures and new challenges in its peripheral security.28 The U.S.– centered Asia-Pacific security system continuously squeezes China’s strategic space.29
This is manifested in a series of events that have produced significant impact upon China’s security environment causing complicated changes in China’s peripheral security environment. United States was building a C-shape ring of encirclement against China. As a result, there emerged the so-called wild goose security model in which the United States formed a multi-layer security structure with the U.S. occupying a central position. The first tier is the United States which plays the role of a wild goose. The second tier is the U.S.–Japan and U.S.–Korea security alliances. The third tier is the U.S. security alliance with Australia, Thailand and the Philippines. The fourth tier is the U.S. partnership with India, Vietnam and Indonesia.30 The goal of this strategy is to limit the scope of the influence of China’s rise and prevent it from challenging the U.S. leadership position in the region.31
More specifically, the threats to China’s peripheral security mainly come from two directions. One is the Korean Peninsula. China suffered from the war brinkmanship policy of the parties involved. The growing tensions on the peninsula pushed up the military and security coordination between the United States, Korea and Japan. The first formal U.S.–Japan–Korea trilateral security mechanism emerged imposing serious challenges to China’s national security. The other threat is from the sea, namely the maritime disputes. China’s conflict with Japan in East China Sea and with Southeastern Asian countries put a lot of security pressure upon China. Many peripheral countries formed “a community of common interest” on the maritime issues to confront China.32
In sum, Washington is the troublemaker in China’s periphery, making its otherwise benign and quiet environment grimmer. From the above cursory survey, one can clearly detect the negative evaluation of Chinese foreign policy elites of the U.S. Asia Rebalance strategy. This strategy, however, was largely discarded after Donald Trump came to power. One of the first things that Trump did after he took over power was to withdraw from Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a key component of the Asia Rebalance. U.S. State Department Officials also made it clear that words like “pivot” and “rebalance” were something of the past and Trump administration will have its own formulation of Asia-Pacific policy.33 Yet, what is President Trump’s own Asia-Pacific strategy? Until very recently most Chinese analysts agreed that the Trump administration does not have a clear and complete Asia-Pacific strategy. But some analysts argue that although Asia rebalance is no longer mentioned, the goal of American policy to contain China will not change. To fulfill this objective, the main tactics for the United States is to create trouble in China’s periphery. The Korean issue, Taiwan issue and South China Sea issue can all be used by the United States to make China suffer.34
Starting from the late 2017, however, senior government officials began to use the concept “Indo-Pacific” more frequently. President Trump mentioned it during his trip to Asia last November. The new U.S. national security strategy and national defense strategy also used the term. Is this the new Asia-Pacific strategy of the Trump administration? Initially most Chinese analysts agreed that Indo-Pacific concept was not a strategy yet. Although Trump administration officials used the term many times, it lacked substantive content and had a lot of uncertainty and strategic ambiguity. The more recent movement on Trump’s Indo-Pacific strategy seems to support some of the points made by Chinese analysts. The speeches and remarks made by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis at Shangri-La and Secretary of State Michael Pompeo in Washington and Southeast Asia convince Chinese analysts that the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy has been substantiated.35 The name change of Pacific Command to Indo-Pacific Command is symbolic, but indicating the Trump administration significantly raised the strategic importance of the Indian Ocean. For Chinese observers, the new Indo-Pacific strategy is characterized by two pillows: geopolitics and geo-economics. Although both Mattis and Pompeo declared that the Indo-Pacific strategy aims at no one and excludes no one, there is no doubt in the eyes of the Chinese that its main target is China. In terms of geopolitics, the focal point is to maintain America’s dominance of the seas and contain China’s maritime rise. In terms of geo-economics, United States intends to offset China’s increasing regional influence by enhancing trade and investment with countries in the Indo-Pacific region. In this regard, some Chinese scholars argue there is a strong connection between Obama’s Asia Rebalance strategy and Trump’s Indo-Pacific strategy. The latter is the “enhanced” or “upgraded” version of the former. They believe that one major purpose of this strategy is to counter China’s “One Belt One Road” strategy.36 For a while, no government officials including President Trump clearly defined Indo-Pacific as a strategy.37 One reason, some pointed out, is that Trump is not very interested in the so-called “strategy” as he does not want to be tied up by it. He wants to have more flexibility to promote his “America First” objective. His main focus is on the domestic economic development.38
While the Trump administration has not put forward a full-fledged “Indo-Pacific strategy” yet, its main goal, motivation and contour are nevertheless quite clear. The central objective of this strategy is to maintain its long-term dominant position in the region and to prevent China from controlling the region economically.39 Put it differently, the United States intends to use this strategy to contain China’s rise and weaken China’s influence by comprehensive political, diplomatic and military means so as to maintain America’s hegemonic position in the region. 40 More specifically, among other things, it is aimed at building a new security architecture of the United States, Japan, India and Australia and offsetting the economic influence of China’s BRI. In words of a Chinese