US’s Campbell on the US ‘Pivot’ and Not Containing China

Posted by david on Feb 3, 2013 in Blog | 0 comments

While I can agree it isn’t ‘containment’ in the Cold War sense, US-China competition, particularly in Asia-Pacific, is the biggest story in international relations for decades to come.  It’s not about China displacing the US as the pre-eminent hegemon.  It’s all about China finding its rightful place in the world characterized by several major powers. 

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“China is predominant in every aspect of political, financial, economic and security relations. India is still a nascent player in Asia.” Kurt Campbell, the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said at the Aspen Institute, a think-tank, on January 29.

By judgments, he said, the lion’s share of the history of the 21st century’s going to be written in Asia, and the United States has to play a role in that history. “To do so, we must be much more actively engaged, not just for one or two administrations, but for several over a period of years, in every element of our strategy and diplomacy, particularly diplomacy, economic and trade engagement, people to people, cultural exchange,” he said.

“Although the military dimension, which is actually quite modest in this regard, has gotten the most attention, this in many respects, I think what has been under-reported generally is that this has been a diplomatic initiative, by and large,” Campbell said.

“There’s lots of questions about should this be called the rebalance or the pivot or the tilt or, something else. I like ‘rebalancing’, and what I like about the term rebalancing is that it suggests a process that’s going to be in continual evolution, which I believe any aspect of Asian policy necessitates. It requires constant fine tuning. It requires listening carefully to what the region tells us and adjusting our approach accordingly,” he said.

Campbell said the U.S. policy towards the Asia Pacific region is not to contain China.

“I have never heard a senior Chinese diplomat in a formal setting describe American policy as containment,” he said, adding both sides recognise that this is a difficult endeavor, that we have to make our way through very complex challenges.

“Each side has to deal with domestic politics, we have to deal with regional concerns, and we have to recognize that it is natural for two strong players to have areas of tension in the relationship.

– Indolink