The U.S. Steps Up Weaving to Contain China's "Military Net" (Hot Dialogue)
Recently, the U.S. Department of Defense announced the non-confidential content of the "Global Posture Assessment" report on the deployment of the U.S. military.
The report shows that the Indo-Pacific region is a priority area for the deployment of US troops in order to cope with the so-called "step-by-step pressing challenge" of China.
One of Washington's outstanding moves is to strengthen its military presence in Guam and Australia.
"Relevant reports by the US military fully exposed the true intention of the US to militarize the Indo-Pacific and spare no effort to contain and contain China." said Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
What are the characteristics of the US Indo-Pacific strategy at present?
What is the purpose of the high-profile military pressure of the United States?
What are the difficulties in the actual weaving of this "military net" to contain China?
What impact will the U.S. advancement of the Indo-Pacific militarization have on the regional and global security situation?
This newspaper invited 3 experts to conduct in-depth interpretation.
What are the characteristics of the current US Indo-Pacific strategy?
Recently, the US Department of Defense issued a "Global Situation Assessment" report, recommending that the United States conduct more cooperation with allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region to contain China's potential "military aggression" and threats from North Korea.
Specific measures include: seeking greater regional access capabilities for military partnership activities; strengthening infrastructure in Australia and Pacific islands; rotating military aircraft in Australia; permanently stationing an attack helicopter squadron and an artillery unit in South Korea.
In addition, the National Defense Authorization Act for the Fiscal Year 2022, which the US House of Representatives recently voted on, also focuses on China.
The Biden administration requested US$5 billion for the "Pacific Deterrence Program" this year, but the bill actually allocated US$7.1 billion.
Wang Xiaopeng: The current Indo-Pacific strategy of the United States presents two major characteristics.
1. Objectively speaking, the current Indo-Pacific strategy of the United States has inherited the Indo-Pacific layout of the previous two administrations, namely the “Asia-Pacific rebalancing” during the Obama era and the “Indo-Pacific strategy” during the Trump era. The Indo-Pacific strategy is regarded as The United States maintains its global hegemony and the main focus of its Western-style global governance model.
Second, the United States is building a differential alliance and partnership system in the Indo-Pacific region.
This system presents a "wheel-like" characteristic, with the United States as the main axis, Japan as the spokes, and other countries as the spokes.
Guo Xiaobing: The US has shifted its strategic focus to the Indo-Pacific, trying to deal with China with an integrated deterrence strategy.
The so-called integrated deterrence refers to the integration of all aspects of politics, economy, military and diplomacy. It also refers to the integration of various methods such as land, sea, air, and sky network, nuclear, guided, artificial intelligence, and the further integration of military cooperation between the United States and its small partners.
The core is to coordinate the use of various means to carry out competition among major powers.
Wang Peng: The current Indo-Pacific strategy of the United States has obvious characteristics: First, it strengthens strategic interaction with allies.
Second, introduce external forces from the Indo-Pacific region, such as the United Kingdom and the European Union, to join the Indo-Pacific region to strengthen the containment of China.
What is the purpose of the United States to show off its military force globally and to exert military pressure on other countries?
The 2020 Global Military Expenditure Trends Report released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in Sweden shows that the US military expenditure ranks first in the world all the year round. Even in the face of economic crisis and financial difficulties, its military expenditure in 2020 will still increase by 4.4% over the previous year. The total global military expenditure is The proportion is close to 40%.
A report issued by the US anti-war organization "Pink Code" shows that in the past 20 years, the United States and its allies have dropped more than 40 bombs and missiles every day, causing countless casualties.
The "Los Angeles Times" commented that the United States was intoxicated by its post-Cold War power and selfishly focused on its own politics and interests.
Guo Xiaobing: The global strategic goal of the United States is to fight for hegemony and maintain hegemony, that is, to maintain its self-proclaimed global leadership.
It always suppresses any opponent that might threaten its dominant position. This is true for the Soviet Union and Japan.
Every time it suppresses it, it will start from the perspective of competitive strategy and use its strengths and avoid weaknesses, or launch a war, or engage in an arms race, or economic pressure, or a war of public opinion. It will use whatever method is effective.
Compared with China, the United States has a clear advantage in the military field, so it plays a big military card and must introduce competition into areas it is familiar with and good at.
Wang Xiaopeng: At present, the West, headed by the United States, is crippled by its old global governance model, and its governance thinking is still based on the Cold War mentality and zero-sum game consciousness.
Therefore, the United States is accustomed to using military deterrence and even war methods to solve what it calls the "great power confrontation" issue.
Its fundamental purpose is to use military means as the forerunner and comprehensively various means to delay and deter China's development in an all-round way; use military cooperation as a cut to provoke regional hotspot disputes and entrap regional countries on the US tank.
Wang Peng: This is in line with the usual behavior of the United States: seize the moral high ground and place the targets of suppression at a moral and legal disadvantage; draw on allies with ideological slogans such as "democracy" to consolidate the united front; strengthen arms investment and provoke an arms race , Forcing the opponent to follow up.
The United States weaves a "military net" to contain China. Will its allies "take chestnuts from the fire" for the United States?
Some U.S. defense experts pointed out that the non-confidential version of the assessment report does not involve major adjustments to U.S. military power in Asia. This shows that the U.S. wants to "contain China" while maintaining influence in other regions, or it will face resource allocation. , The challenge of balance.
Moreover, considering that the United States’ current military resources are quite limited, the Biden administration’s security strategy will further highlight the role of allies and encourage major partner countries in the region to "charge into battle." Therefore, another purpose of this report is naturally to give these countries "Painting the pie", but the effect remains to be verified.
Wang Peng: First, the United States has limited financial resources and cannot launch a high-intensity arms race against the Soviet Union as it did in the latter part of the Cold War and use it to destroy the Soviet Union.
This trick does not work well for China, and it may even threaten itself.
Second, the motivation and motivation of American allies to contain China is lower than the motivation and motivation of cooperating with the United States to contain the Soviet Union.
Most of the US allies have no security conflicts with China, and many of them even regard China as their main economic and trade partner or the most important export market.
Third, China's win-win cooperation and opening-up policy is conducive to China's unity with the international community.
China did not adopt the Soviet Union to force other countries to submit and be included in the sphere of influence by force. Therefore, it has been welcomed and supported by the international community.
Guo Xiaobing: Although there are many small partners in the United States, each has its own careful thinking.
Japan's closeness is to "borrow a boat to go to sea" and use this opportunity to develop its offensive force, thereby getting rid of its status as a defeated country in World War II and moving toward a so-called "normal country."
Once they have strategic weapons, the Americans may not be able to accurately predict whether Japan will aim west or east.
Australia does not ask right from wrong, and rushes with the United States all the way to purchase safety insurance to ensure that the United States can help it in times of crisis.
However, insurance needs to be moderate. Now its weapons procurement plan completely exceeds its reasonable security needs, which is also very controversial in China.
South Korea's center of gravity is still on the peninsula, and it is unlikely to follow the United States to intervene everywhere in the Indo-Pacific.
Southeast Asian countries want peace and development, worry about elephant fights, and are unwilling to choose sides.
Although the Philippines and Thailand are allies of the United States, because the United States is keen to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, their relations with the United States are lumpy and not harmonious.
Therefore, there are only three Anglo-Saxon countries in the US-UK-Australia Tripartite Security Initiative (AUKUS) that the US secretly engaged in.
In addition, the United States is a "ten-finger flea". Although it is a shift in its strategic focus, it does not want to give up or lose money anywhere. It does not forget Russia in Eastern Europe and Iran in the Middle East.
To suppress China too hard in Asia, the side effects are very serious, and the United States has recently begun to show signs of moderate corrections.
Wang Xiaopeng: The United States faces two difficulties.
First, the current comprehensive strength of the United States is seriously incompatible with its strategic ambitions.
From a macro point of view, the United States is trying to “fight on two fronts” in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region and simultaneously contain Russia and China. This creates a structural contradiction with the US’s Indo-Pacific layout. From a micro point of view, the United States has restarted the island chain deployment to build the Indo-Pacific. The military base network is insufficient for deployment of navy and air forces.
In addition, the United States cannot achieve its global strategic goals without the close cooperation of its allies and partners.
However, in recent years, the United States has continuously provoked the uncertainty brought about by the tensions in various regions and the hastily withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, which has caused serious distrust of its allies in the United States, and has increasingly strengthened its prevention and guard against the US "Indo-Pacific strategy."
What impact will the U.S. advancement of the Indo-Pacific militarization have on the regional and global security situation?
The US magazine "National Interest" quoted Dakota Wood, a senior researcher on the Defense Project of the Heritage Foundation, as saying that the United States is involved in a war every 15 years on average.
From Asia to the Americas, from Europe to Africa, wherever the black hands of the United States reach for war, there will be no peace.
In order to maintain its hegemony, the United States maintains a huge war machine and even establishes a network of military bases all over the world.
Since 1945, the United States has established nearly 800 military bases in more than 70 countries, continuously strengthening its global military presence.
American columnist David Wayne pointed out in his book "U.S. Overseas Military Bases: How They Endanger the World" that American overseas military bases have increased geopolitical tensions and actually made the world and the United States more insecure.
Guo Xiaobing: The United States is good at fighting and also likes to use military means to solve problems.
So wherever its strategic focus is, there is no peace.
In the 30 years after the Cold War, the Middle East has been its focus, so the Middle East has been in chaos for 30 years.
The mess can't be cleaned up, and the U.S. leaves without wiping its butt.
Today, the United States has to rely on its strong military power to open a new game in the Indo-Pacific region, which means that the Indo-Pacific region, which has enjoyed peace and prosperity for 30 years, may again face the risk of conflict.
The United States prides itself on pursuing the "golden rule" of "doing what you want to others".
But history tells us that as long as the United States focuses on any place, there will be countless unnecessary wars and countless innocent souls.
Countries and people in the Indo-Pacific region have to guard against this.
Wang Xiaopeng: The US's militarization of the Indo-Pacific will bring about three major impacts.
First, peace and development are still the themes of the world today. Faced with the background of the intertwining of the international epidemic and major changes unseen in a century, all mankind should focus on cooperation in fighting the epidemic and common development. However, the US's militarization measures will give this The process casts a heavy shadow.
Second, the United States advocates "great power confrontation", provokes regional disputes, and forces regional countries to choose sides, which will bring great unpredictability to some disputes in the Asia-Pacific region, which have stabilized and improved, and the risk of conflict and confrontation will once again. Backflow.
Third, in the context of the Indo-Pacific strategy, the United States clamored for “global supply chain reorganization” and politicized and militarized economic and trade issues. This will have a huge impact on the healthy global trade structure and will have a great negative impact on the economic recovery of various countries. Hurt self and others.
Wang Peng: The United States has three major influences in advancing the militarization of the Indo-Pacific region. First, it stimulates the major powers in the Indo-Pacific region to strengthen their armaments and worsens the regional security situation.
Second, enable the EU and NATO to find new points of interest outside of the Europe-North America region to which they belong, and strengthen the unity within the EU and NATO at the cost of harming the security of other countries and other regions.
Third, to accelerate the division of the Indo-Pacific and the entire world, use the so-called "democratic values" to artificially divide the Indo-Pacific region into the camp of so-called democracies surrounding the United States, with China, Russia, and Iran as hostile targets.
Zhang Hong