The United States said on Wednesday it would prioritize overcoming China, which it sees as its only global rival, while also working to rein in a "dangerous" Russia.

On Wednesday, the White House presented a long-awaited national security strategy that seeks to contain the rise of China, while reiterating the importance of working with allies to address the challenges facing democratic nations.

The 48-page document, which has been delayed due to Russia's war in Ukraine, does not include any major shifts in political doctrine and does not offer any new theories on Biden's foreign policy.

In its strategy, the White House declared that the 1920s would be a "decisive decade for America and the world" to reduce conflict and confront the major common threat of climate change.

"The most pressing strategic challenge facing our vision stems from the forces that combine authoritarian rule with a revisionist foreign policy," the report said.


China's biggest challenge

The document states that even after Russia's war on Ukraine, China remains the most important challenge to the world order.

"We will prioritize maintaining a permanent competitive advantage over the People's Republic of China, while constraining Russia, which remains very dangerous," its text read.

He added that Russia under President Vladimir Putin "poses a direct threat to the free and open international order, and today recklessly violates the basic laws of the international system, as demonstrated by its brutal war of aggression against Ukraine."

China, "in contrast, is the only competitor with the intent of reshaping the international order and increasingly possesses the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to achieve this goal."

Despite Beijing's repeated denials that it seeks hegemony, the US strategy document sees China as having "ambitions to create an enhanced sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific and to become the world's leading power."

The White House also linked a rising China to Biden's pledge to prioritize the US middle class, saying Beijing was seeking to make the world dependent on its economy while limiting access to its more than one billion consumer market.

America is the pillar

The document confirms the White House's view that US leadership is the cornerstone of overcoming global threats such as climate change and the rise of authoritarian regimes.

It also stated that the United States must win the economic arms race with the great powers if it hopes to continue exercising its influence on the world level.

Reconciled between Israel and the Gulf Arab states, the strategy called for a "more integrated Middle East" that would, in the long run, reduce "resource demands" from the United States, which has protected oil-producing nations for decades.

"I don't think the war in Ukraine has fundamentally changed the approach to foreign policy that Joe Biden adopted long before he became president," White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said.

"But I think it illustrates the core elements of our approach - the focus on allies, the importance of strengthening the democratic world and defending friendly democracies and democratic values," he told reporters.


global system

China is increasingly determined and able to reshape the global order in favor of one that will tilt the global arena in its favour, Sullivan said, "even as the United States remains committed to responsibly managing competition between our nations."

Sullivan said the United States must manage the relationship with China as it deals with a range of transitional challenges that affect people everywhere, including climate change, food insecurity, infectious diseases, terrorism, energy transportation, and inflation.

The strategy largely aligns with interim guidance set by the administration soon after Biden took office in January 2021, even as it has focused for most of this year on rallying allies against Russia's invasion of Ukraine and supplying the latter with billions of dollars in arms.