21st Century U.S. Policy on an Emergent China: From Strategic Constrainment to Strategic Competition in the Indo-Pacific Region

Authors

  • Renato Cruz De Castro International Studies Department De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines

Keywords:

Indo-Pacific region, Sino-U.S. competition, Trump Administration, China, constrainment, rebalancing policy, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)

Abstract

During his second term as U.S. president, former President Barack Obama made the Asia-Pacific region the focal point of American strategic attention. In November 2011, he announced the U.S. pivot to Asia. His goal was to constrain China from easing out the U.S. as East Asia’s strategic offshore balancer. Contrary to expectations, the 2016 election of Donald Trump, did not spell the end of the strategic rebalancing to Asia. For the Trump Administration, the Asia-Pacific remains a top security priority because of China’s naval expansion, island-building activities, and militarization efforts in the South China Sea threaten not only the freedom of navigation but also the rules-based international order. Consequently, the Trump Administration has directed the U.S. military to proceed with the rebalancing of its forces and their capabilities to the Asia-Pacific region. This decision indicates that, despite its initial opposition to the rebalancing policy to Asia, the current administration believes that on the basis of geography, interests and values, the U.S. is a Pacific power which plays an important role in shaping the future of this dynamic region. This is because the Trump Administration has engaged China in a strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific region. In conclusion, this article warns that the Trump Administration`s policy of engaging China in a strategic competition will set back the hands of time to the U.S.-Sino conflict in the early years of the Cold War, when American and Chinese values, interests and polices were simply adversarial without any convergence. However, this 21st Sino-U.S. competition is different because both countries’ materiel/technological capabilities and global reach are considerably greater
than they were in the 1950s. 

 

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Author Biography

Renato Cruz De Castro, International Studies Department De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines

Renato Cruz De Castro is a professor in the International Studies Department, De La Salle University, Manila. He was a visiting fellow in the National Institute for Defense Studies (NIDS) of the Japanese Ministry of Defense in the summer of 2018. From June to August 2017, Professor De Castro was invited
by the Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA) as a visiting research fellow. He was based in East-West Center in Washington D.C. as the U.S.-ASEAN Fulbright Initiative Researcher from the Philippines from September to December 2016. He is an alumnus of the Daniel Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Hawaii, U.S.A. In 2009, he became the U.S. State Department ASEAN Research Fellow from the Philippines and was based in the Political Science Department of Arizona State University. Professor De Castro has conducted several courses on International Relations and Security Studies in the National Defense College and Foreign Service Institute.

He earned his Ph.D. from the Government and International Studies Department of the University of South Carolina as a Fulbright Scholar in 2001, and obtained his B.A. and two master’s degrees from the University of the Philippines. As a member of the Board of Trustees of the Albert Del Rosario Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ADRI), he contributes his two monthly opinion columns to the Business World and Philippine Star. He has written over 100 articles on international relations and security that have been published in a number of scholarly journals, monographs, and edited works in the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Malaysia, France, Singapore, Taiwan, Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States. He can be reached at <renato.decastro@dlsu.edu.ph>.

 

 

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Published

31-12-2018

Issue

International Journal of China Studies Vol.9 No 3 December 2018

Section

Articles