No one believes that the US-China relationship will end in tears any time soon, but the outlook a decade or two from now has already focused attention on the tensions that fester throughout the region. What, if anything, can the region’s other countries do to avoid the pain that they would certainly endure if US-China competition turned violent?
CANBERRA –As China gets closer to overtaking the United States as the world’s largest economic power, and its disinclination to accept US military dominance of the Western Pacific grows more obvious, America’s Asia/Pacific allies and friends are becoming increasingly anxious about their longer-term strategic environment. The nightmare scenario for policymakers from Seoul to Canberra is a zero-sum game in which they are forced to choose between their great economic dependence on China and their still-enormous military reliance on the US.
CANBERRA –As China gets closer to overtaking the United States as the world’s largest economic power, and its disinclination to accept US military dominance of the Western Pacific grows more obvious, America’s Asia/Pacific allies and friends are becoming increasingly anxious about their longer-term strategic environment. The nightmare scenario for policymakers from Seoul to Canberra is a zero-sum game in which they are forced to choose between their great economic dependence on China and their still-enormous military reliance on the US.