The US response to China (catch all)

[davidbfpo]

About pivot! A thought provoking article id'd by The Lowy Institute blog on Sino-US relations, which reverses the two nations positions:

Historically, it is somewhat unusual for one great power to have a tight set of alliances in the immediate neighborhood of another great power and to maintain a lot of military force in its vicinity, without the other power having a compensating presence in close proximity to its rival.

Which goes on:

What if we lived in a geopolitical bizarre world, in which, instead of the US having two treaty allies on China's doorstep with accompanying naval and air force bases and tens of thousands of troops, it was China which held the strategic upper hand in the Americas? A naval base in Cuba, perhaps. An alliance with Canada which included the permanent basing of 100,000 Chinese troops. Near-constant surveillance flights and regular submarine patrols off the California coast.

I'm not saying this is China's ambition, merely that the idea of it exposes how unusual the current Asian balance of power arrangement is, and how understandable it would be for the US to chafe at such treatment, particularly if, in this bizarre world scenario, the US was just blossoming into an economic giant which wanted to take its proper place as a world power.

Link:http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/...e-in-Asia.aspx

The original article which led to the Lowy piece was by Stephen Walt on FP, which is slightly longer, is called 'How long will China tolerate America's role in Asia':http://www.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2...e_us_and_china

There is a long-running thread 'China's Emergence as a Superpower', with 712 posts and nearly 83k views since February 2006. Maybe this thread will be merged there one day:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=4366

[davidbfpo]

Not that such incidents have not happened before in the 'Cold War', indeed the super-powers had an agreement to prevent such incidents. IIRC there is no such Sino-US agreement, although there is a military-to-military "hot-line".

The guided missile cruiser USS Cowpens...was confronted by Chinese warships in the South China Sea near Beijing’s new aircraft carrier Liaoning....

“On December 5th, while lawfully operating in international waters in the South China Sea, USS Cowpens and a PLA Navy vessel had an encounter that required maneuvering to avoid a collision,” a Navy official said.

Link:http://freebeacon.com/chinese-naval-...tional-waters/

[davidbfpo]

An IISS Strategic Comment on the newly declared ADIZ into the East China Sea, beyond internationally recognised boundaries and so affecting Japan, RoK and PRC let alone others. Being published today it is als behind a pay-wall:http://www.iiss.org/en/publications/...nal-fears-9a92

So far restraint has been exercised.