Isaac Kardon

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China Is Trying to Have It Both Ways in the Middle East

MundoAsia

There has been plenty of hand-wringing in the West about the prospect of China displacing — or at least rivaling — the United States as the world’s leading superpower. But the evolving security crisis in the Red Sea makes clear that this remains a distant prospect.

China, with a trade-led economy dependent on the free flow of commerce through chokepoints like the Bab el-Mandeb strait off Yemen, relies on the United States to protect international sea lanes. The U.S.-led military response to the Houthi militia attacks on international shipping may not ultimately be the answer to the current crisis — the Houthis, so far, appear undeterred — but the United States has at least demonstrated a clear commitment to keeping open vital trade routes that connect China to the Middle East and Europe.…  Seguir leyendo »

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis at the port of Piraeus, Greece, November 2019. Orestis Panagiotou / Reuters

MundoAsia

Over the past several years, U.S. national security officials have been intensely focused on China’s growing military power. Having not faced such a powerful challenger since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Washington now describes Beijing, as the U.S. Annual Threat Assessment put it in February, as a “near-peer competitor”. For the U.S. military, China has also become the “pacing challenge”, the benchmark for just how fast and how far it must adjust to provide effective defense in a more competitive international system.

Yet U.S. defense strategy appears poorly calibrated to the central challenges that China poses. The breakneck modernization of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), showcased in its impressive blue-water navy and increasingly lethal rocket forces, obscures another, equally important foundation of China’s global power projection: its economic position.…  Seguir leyendo »