China at risk of being seen as an outlier

SINO-AMERICAN relations are poised to worsen despite another summit meeting between Xi Jinping and Barack Obama being planned for September. Both the China academic community in the US and the Obama administration are adopting an increasingly hardline position towards China, with the Pentagon apparently proposing air and sea patrols in the South China Sea in the vicinity of artificial islands being created by Beijing.

The Council on Foreign Relations, the leading US international affairs think tank, recently issued a "special report" that said US efforts to "integrate" China into the international order have resulted in "new threats to US primacy in Asia". The report, written by Robert Blackwill, a former ambassador to India who is now a senior fellow at the council, and Ashley Tellis, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, calls for a "new grand strategy" aimed at "balancing the rise of Chinese power rather than continuing to assist its ascendancy".

In plain language, it is calling for containment to replace engagement, which has been American policy ever since Richard Nixon visited China in 1972. The report asserted that China's goal was to "replace the United States as the primary power in Asia".