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 scholar, preventing China from economically predominating the region is the hidden goal of the Indo-Pacific strategy.41
But why Indo-Pacific? Basically, the United States wants to use India and Japan’s contradiction with China to put more pressures on China42 and to consolidate its strategic superiority in both regions. Some Chinese analysts argued that the most important factor in this strategy is India. Indo-Pacific strategy actually is “India–Asia-Pacific strategy”. This is the real way to surpass Obama’s Asia Rebalance stra tegy. But one reason why India was picked up as the main instrument for this strategy is that India was alarmed by China’s BRI considering it a strategy of geopolitical expansion to harm India’s interest in the region. Therefore, the most effective way to balance out this strategy is to stabilize China’s relations with India and encourage India to adhere to its strategic autonomy. India has not publically backed the Indo-Pacific strategy. It still could make a different strategic choice. To pull India over, China would be better not to incorporate its cooperative projects with India under the scheme of BRI. Another possible way to pull this strategy apart is to improve relations with Japan to include Japan in the BRI.43 Either way, the focus of China’s response to the Indo-Pacific strategy should be on improving relations with its key peripheral countries.
While attributing the deterioration of China’s peripheral environment to the United States is still the mainstream thinking in Chinese perception, increasingly Chinese analysts began to find causes for China’s periphery change in China itself. For some analysts, “China factor” is the main driving force to cause the environmental transformation in Asia-Pacific. The substantial increase in China’s comprehensive national power has changed the regional geopolitics. Almost all countries in the region, no matter what their relationship with China is, have reacted to China’s rise. In particular, the unexpected rapid improvement of China’s military might has changed the geopolitical power structure in the region.44 According to one scholar, in terms of purchasing power, China’s military spending is very close to that of the United States. Given the fact that the United State has global military commitments and China does not, one can argue that China could spend much more than the U.S. military in the region.45 That of course could make China’s neighboring countries unsettled and concerned.
Other scholars agree that the complex periphery environment China is facing now was mainly caused by China’s rise, so-called “China-driven”. This is inevitable during the process of rise. Because of China’s rise, its periphery environment has entered a period of transition. The dominant power, major power, and middle and small powers are bound to react to China’s rise in a more or less negative way. China has to find a way to cross this threshold before China can truly rise peacefully. How long will this kind of situation last? Not until China has completed its rise. In other words, the current problems were largely caused by the fact that China is getting stronger, but not strong enough. This could be called the “dilemma of rise”46 or “China syndrome”.
As a result of this dilemma, different from the past when the regional flashing points usually did not directly involve China, now China often is at the center of the conflict.47 On the other hand, while the challenges facing China are bigger and more rigorous, China’s capacity of handling the challenge is also becoming bigger. Consequently, China’s rapid rise has directly led to the emergence of “dual centers” structure of China and United States in the region.48
That is exactly why some Chinese observers are more optimistic about the continuation of China’s period of strategic opportunities. They point out that one significant change of the content and condition in the concept of the period of strategic opportunities (PSO) is that the validity of the strategic opportunity is more and more dependent on China itself rather than on other forces. As long as China can sustain its strong economic growth, the period of strategic opportunities can also continue as China’s development per se is the fundamental foundation for the PSOs.49 Consequently, China could no longer wait for others to spare a PSO for China as it was the case in the post-9/11 period. China needs to do more to shape its periphery environment and create PSOs.
Some analysts pay more attention to the function of mutual action and reaction between China and key players in the region in bringing about changes in China’s periphery. On the one hand, with its rise, China is seeking more and broader interests. On the other hand, China’s expansion of its interest caused strong reaction from the concerned countries in the region. The typical example is the rise of tension on the South China Sea issue. In other words, the concerned countries in and outside of the region formed a “quasi-consensus” and “quasi-coalition” to deal with a “strong China”.50 Others saw the interaction between the U.S. Asia Rebalance and China’s response. The U.S. Asia Rebalance strategy stimulated some of China’s neighboring countries to be more willing to take risks to challenge and
