The Main Features of and Response to The Current Asian Security Situation

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The Main Features of and Response to The Current Asian Security Situation

By Dr. Hu Shisheng

Institute of South Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania Studies,China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations

Ⅰ.The Main Features of the Current Asian Security Situation

The strategic game between China and the United States becomes the most powerful driving force to change the Asian traditional security situation.

The United States has tried its best to delay China’s rising pace or “to standardize” China’s rising path by using its huge military advantage and forward military deployment and strengthening its security network of alliance and friends, so as to maintain its dominant position in the Asia-Pacific region, especially in the Western Pacific region for as long as possible.

By constantly speeding up the pace of military modernization, especially the pace of navy modernization, enhancing asymmetric military strike capability and strengthening mutual military trust and even cooperation with as many countries as possible, China has made great efforts for having a strong discourse in its peripheral security affairs and reshape the Western Pacific security environment favorable for it to become a strong land and sea power, and maximize the avoidance of a security situation like “a whale trapped on shoal”.

Most of other Asia-Pacific countries between them have pursued the policy of balance of power, especially pursued such a policy to China.

Since lack of an effective trans-regional security cooperation mechanism, neither the American security strategy to maintain its hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region, nor China’s security strategy to break the security situation like “a whale trapped on shoal”, nor the balanced strategies towards China pursed by some other countries can hardly deal effectively with the difficult and hot problems in the Asia-Pacific region. Instead, those security strategies may easily lead to regional strategic competition and tension, or even confrontation and conflict.

Under the background of China-U.S. strategic competition, the security situation in Asia shows the following features:

In stark contrast to the ever opening and integrated regional economy, the Asia security form is more conservative. The transformation of economic system and the transformation of security system are completely not on the same track and their directions are different.

On one hand, in the field of economy, all the big economies have promoted economic integration. The ASEAN economic integration has made steady progress, expecting to attain a grand goal by the end of 2015 to become ASEAN Economic Community with a unified market and production base, a very competitive economic zone, a balanced economic development zone and an economic zone compatible with the global economy. Besides, as a hub region connecting the Indian Ocean with the Pacific Ocean, the ASEAN is still trying hard like a small horse pulling a big cart to play a big role in the Asian cooperation mechanisms and to consistently promote economic cooperation with China, the United States, India, Japan and Australia, etc.

India, in recent years, has invested more resources in the process of regional integration and actively promoted regional interconnection and interoperability. Firstly, with India’s active promotion, the SAARC integration process has made initial progress. In 2007, the SAARC conference of ministers of transport made quite a few interconnection proposals; the main theme of the 17th SAARC Summit in 2011 is “Building Bridges”, making great efforts to promote regional physical connection and cultural exchanges, emphasizing to break through the border areas obstacles and establish bridges to connect the SAARC with Asia and the whole world and speed up regional integration. Secondly, India has actively promoted the process of interconnection and integration with the ASEAN countries. In 2010, India and the ASEAN signed the Plan of Action to Implement the India-ASEAN Partnership for Peace, Progress and Shared Prosperity (2010-2015), in which India attached great importance to the sea, land and air interconnection with Myanmar and considered Myanmar to be the hub of connection for India to enter into Southeast Asia. Thirdly, India intentionally strengthens cooperation with coastal countries of the Indian Ocean and has established the IORA based on the IOR established in 1995 and the IOR-ARC in operation in 1997, which has increased more partners of dialogue. India has transformed the IORA from “a talk shop” into a regional cooperative platform capable to conduct activities and promote those coastal countries of the Indian Ocean to carry out pragmatic cooperation in the field of agriculture, fisheries, climate and culture.

The TPP negotiation dominated by the United States is under progress. Up to now, the TPP negotiations have experienced the third round of expansion to 12 countries. The Negotiations have established 20 negotiating groups and completed 20 rounds of official negotiations and tens of high-level official meetings. In terms of strategic influences, the TPP has finished its initial task; the Asia-Pacific economic cooperation has returned to “the U.S. track” once again and become a key pillar of the Asia-Pacific rebalancing strategy. Besides, the American “Indo-Pacific” concept has become the policy of the U.S. State Department and the United States has proposed a plan for Indo-Pacific economic corridor. Sine the end of 2012, quite a few senor officials of the U.S. State Department have frequently mentioned the concept of building “the Indo-Pacific economic corridor” so as to promote regional economic integration by establishing interconnection network centered on India linking South Asia and Southeast Asia and enhancing free trade in relevant countries. While visiting India in July 2014, John Kerrey, Secretary of State emphasized that the United States is committed to tap the potential of the Indo-Pacific economic corridor. Fatema Z. Sumar, Assistant Secretary of State, responsible for the South Asian and Central Asian affairs also pointed out that just like India’s Look East Policy, the United States expects to establish the Indo-Pacific economic corridor linking South Asia with Southeast Asia, which is also the confluent place of the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.1

As a major regional country, China holds a main responsibility and has energetically promoted construction of the interconnection with the ASEAN countries, and has initiatively formed a land, sea and air connection network. In November 2012, the first meeting of China-ASEAN Interconnection and Interoperability Committee was held in Jakarta. Both sides agreed that the Committee would hold conferences regularly or according to needs, implement the consensus agreed by the leaders of both sides, should make an overall plan on the interconnection cooperation between the two sides, coordinate various resources, and provide assistance to cooperative programs, operation and management. Besides, China also actively participates in the infrastructural construction in Central Asian and South Asian countries and strengthens its sea, land and air connections with them. By the end of 2014, the China-South Korea FTA and the China-Australia FTA may complete the substantive negotiations. The mutual investment negotiations between China and the United States and between China and Europe are forging ahead. What is worth mentioning is that the Chinese Government has proposed “the One Belt and One Road” strategic concept, the BCIM Economic Corridor and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor construction initiatives. The implementation of these strategic concepts and initiatives will shape China and its neighboring countries into a more closely linked community of development.

Although the Eurasian Union proposed by Russia is seriously influenced by the Crimea and the Ukraine crisis and can not realize integration of the CIS according to the original design, yet, to upgrade the Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan Customs Union will not be a problem in 2015.

However, the Asia security systems are still closed and conservative, and can hardly deal with the current Asian hot and difficult problems, even have made the current hot and difficult problems sharper and more difficult to solve, and seriously interrupt the regional economic integration.

Under the catalysis of the U.S. Asia Rebalancing Strategy, the security alliance system in Asia established by the United States after the Second World War has further expanded and strengthened. Besides, the United States has encouraged strengthening security interaction between its allies, between its allies and strategic partners and between its strategic partners too. These security interactions are often specifically targeted. For example, in December 2011, the United States, Japan and Australia held the first trilateral dialogue, and up to now have held 4 rounds of dialogues, and the main theme of which is how to deal with China’s rising. For another example, the U.S. military has returned to the Philippines, the United States and Vietnam have strengthened defense cooperation, the United States and Australia have strengthened military alliance for the first time since the end of the cold war. All theses moves mainly target at rising China. Japan and India have established 2+2 dialogue (the two countries defense ministers and foreign ministers), and the bilateral and trilateral 2+2 dialogues among Japan, Australia and the United States have become increasingly active. How to deal with China in the field of security has become the main content of those 2+2 dialogues.

In addition, since the United States and its led-NATO have endlessly made strategic squeeze on Russia’s traditional spheres of influence in Eastern Europe, which has not only led to the total outbreak of the Ukraine crisis but also to the obviously changing security interaction pattern in Europe and Asia. On one the hand, the relations between Russia and Europe and between Russia and the United States have fallen into the trough and the strategic confrontation between Russia and the United States has clearly elevated. On the other hand, the strategic coordination between China and Russia in the Asia-Pacific region has obviously deepened. The collapsed confrontational pattern of the cold war period seems vaguely reappearing.

With the financial constraints, the United States has to tighten its defense spending. According to the data of the U.S. BEA, the ratio of the U.S. military spending to its GDP started declining since 2010. In the financial year of 2012, the U.S. military budge reduced from US$ 711 billion to US$ 668 billion, which is the biggest drop in a single financial year since 1991. President Obama proposed to reduce the U.S. military budget to 2.4% of its GDP by the year of 2023, and this ratio will be the lowest since the end of the Second World War.2

As its defense spending shrinks, in order to cope with China’s high speed navy modernization and continue to maintain its hegemony in the Asia-Pacific security, the United States has to encourage its allies and strategic partners to share the cost of maintaining the old security mechanism.3It is in the U.S. interests to see and support its allies and strategic partners to carry out military modernization and enhance their ability to share the cost in the regional security strategy. It is just under this background that the arms race in Asia is heated up.

India has been the largest arms import country for a long period of time among the developing countries. On March 17, 2014, the SIPRI research report reveals that the armaments that India imported in 5 years from 2009 to 2013 accounted for 14% of the global arms import, which was nearly three times of that of China, which is the world No. 2 biggest arms importer, and also nearly three times of that of Pakistan, which is the world No. 3 biggest arms importer. Among which, the U.S. military sales to India has grown quickly. The United States has sold C-J130J transport planes, P-81 maritime patrol aircrafts and C-17 strategic transport planes. The United States became India’s biggest arms exporter from 2010 to 2013. The U.S. Defense Strategic Guidelines in 2012 points out that the United States is investing in its long-term strategic relations with India, supporting India to become the backbone of the regional economy and acquire capacity to provide security in the broad Indian Ocean region.4

The defense spending in East Asia and Southeast Asia grows the fastest and the momentum of the arms races in the two regions is strong. Take submarines for example, Vietnam has bought 6 submarines, Indonesia has ordered 3 submarines, Australia intends to buy 6-12 submarines, Japan plans to buy 16-22 submarines before 2020, South Korea has bought 12 submarines since 1990s, and Malaysia has bought 2 submarines already. India has 15 conventional submarines and its first nuclear submarine officially launched in April 2012. Submarines have become the most favorite vehicles of navies in the region, which undoubtedly make it difficulty for Chinese navy to safeguard its marine rights and interests. Some relevant military persons expressed in the Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore on June 2, 2014 that the numbers of submarines in the India Ocean and the Pacific Ocean would reach 170 by 2025, which is three times the current number.5

Japan has broken through the three principles of arms export and tried to amend the Peace Constitution, which has got the full support from the U.S. President Obama. Obama made it clear in the Joint Declaration issued during his visit to Japan in April 2014 that Diaoyu Island dispute is applicable to Article 5 of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, which is the first such public statement by the U.S. side. The U.S. side urges Japan more boldly to carry out military modernizations and use the right of collective self-defense. Just as Onodera Inori during his visit to the United States said that Japan is able to defend the United States now. The Japanese Government has announced that it will spend US$ 24 billion to enhance its defense capability within five years from 2014 to 2018. Presently, Japan is negotiating with India on exporting US-2 water planes to India.

The United States has constantly increased military input in the West Pacific region. On the one hand, the U.S. military deployment has further leaned towards the Asia-Pacific region. Panetta, the U.S. former Secretary of Defense declared the plan that the United States would deploy 60 % of its overall naval forces in the Asia-Pacific region so as to enhance its allies and partners’ confidence in the U.S. military strategy in June in the Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore. The U.S. military actual use of aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships from 2010 to 2011 is as follows: the naval force in the Asia-Pacific region accounts for nearly 50% of the U.S. total naval force, in the Middle East and the Indian Ocean for 30% and in the Atlantic Ocean for only 25%. That is to say, in terms of actual naval deployment, currently, the U.S. naval force in the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean already amounts to 3/4 of the total.6On the other hand, the United States has increased advanced military equipments deployed in the Asia-Pacific region. Although the U.S. military spending shrinks and the conventional military spending is reduced, the U.S. military input in missiles, anti-missile systems, outer-space and cyber space is increasing in the Asia-Pacific region. For example, the aircrafts over five Mach developed by the United States have greatly strengthened the U.S. ability to target and hit any place in the world within one hour. This weapon flies in space with high speed and tremendous destructive power, but, there is no effective means to stop it, which has dramatically reduced the traditional nuclear threat of China and maintained the U.S. strategic advantage over China. Since 2010, the United States has started deploying X-band radar in China’s neighboring regions, which has greatly enhanced the U.S. reconnaissance capability. There are X-band radars both in north and south Japan. The United States is still planning to deploy a X-band radar in the Philippines. Besides, it is deploying its main forces to the second chain of islands from the first chain of islands, especially deploying its aircraft carriers on the seas 3000 kilometers away from China, which is out of China’s missiles’ hunting range. In the meantime, the United States has used more and more unmanned aerial vehicles with 4000 kilometers combat radius. Therefore, it can safely use the unmanned aerial vehicles on its aircraft carries to conduct reconnaissance or even strike China’s mainland and its peripheral areas.

Third, the possibility to spark a conflict accidently is increasing.

Firstly, the possibility to spark a conflict between China and the U.S. allies and strategic partners is increasing, which means that the China-U.S. relations may be kidnapped by the third party. The U.S. obvious partiality to those Western Pacific countries on the maritime sovereignty disputes in the Western Pacific region has tremendously stimulated their military adventures impulse and strengthened their intentions to erase China’s sovereign interests, and made the disputes more difficult to solve. During his visit to East Asian countries, Obama openly stated that the Diaoyu Islands is applicable to the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, the United States supports the Philippines or even Vietnam to protect self-claimed rights in South China Sea through legal procedures, which have given these countries an edge on the sovereign disputes. Secondly, the possibility to spark a conflict accidently between China and the United States is increasing. The Chinese and American fighter planes had close confrontation in the air over the South China Sea in September 2014, which cannot but lead us to recall the planes-collision incident on April 1, 2001 over the South China Sea.

In nontraditional security, Asia faces more serious terrorist threats from the rivalry for base areas by the Al Qaeda and the ISIS.

Obama announced the end of the war on terrorism in Egypt on May 23, 2013. However only after one year, facing the ever growing threat from the IS, the Obama Administration officially declared war on the IS on September 10, 2014. Some people called it the U.S. third war against terrorism. (In fact, the Iraq war is not a war against terrorism but has led the U.S. war on terrorism in Afghanistan to become ever more terror and Iraq itself is dismembered by the IS.) Therefore, the global war against terrorism has entered a new stage.

What is worth mentioning is the current war on IS launched by the United States may lead to worse regional turmoil. In the four-point plan against the IS announced by Obama, there is a plan to extend air raid from Iraq to a sovereign state Syria, and there are also plans to provide armaments assistance to the Kurdish in Iraq and the opposition parties in Syria. (Actually, the IS is still the most powerful branch of the Syrian opposition parties, but split.) Therefore, the four-point plan is to “use today to gamble on tomorrow” and “rob Peter to Pay Paul”. There is no end of trouble for the future. The United States is trying to solve an old problem, but meanwhile has created more than one new problems.

Currently, as the Al Qaeda and the IS are constantly competing for terrorist resources (especially young followers) and terrorist base areas in the Northern Indian Ocean region, Asia faces increasingly serious anti-terrorist situation. Unwilling to be suppressed by Baghdadi, leader of ISIS, Zawahiri, leader of Al Qaeda, announced establishment of an Indian Subcontinent Al Qaeda organization in September 2014 and declared its spheres of influence include India, Bangladesh and Myanmar and the new branch will remain loyal to the Taliban leader Omar in Afghanistan.

Sometime earlier, Baghdadi has declared to establish a Harry State with Sunni Supremacy in the world and he himself would be the global Muslim leader. Now, many Islamic terrorists and extremist organizations in many countries have declared allegiance to Baghdadi. There is even a map on the internet, which shows the ISIS plans to build a huge country in five years with its western range to North Africa and eastern range to Southeast Asia.

Now the two big terrorist organizations have entered the stage of competition and deteriorated the worse terrorist situation. The terrorist forces bring double threats. Firstly, the lifelines of Asia’s main economies are under serious threat. Since the two main terrorist forces and its supporting networks are active in the northern Indian Ocean region, which is just the lifelines of the major economies in the Indo-Pacific region. Secondly, the internal security of many countries in northern Indian Ocean and Western Pacific region face serious threats from terrorist forces. These threats become more urgent since these countries face internal social disorders or are in the chaotic political pluralism (for example, Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, even India,) or political pluralism pressures (such as Central Asian countries, Vietnam, Laos). The regional turbulence and the disorder at grass roots are providing fertile soil for all kinds of extreme-terrorist groups to incubate and grow up. The secular governments of these countries are facing tremendous threats.

Ⅱ. The Current Security Mechanisms Have Defects.

In summary, whether the main theme of the times in Asian and even in the Asia-Pacific region is changing from “peace and development” to “peace and war” faces a big question mark. However, a hard fact that Asian and even the Asia-Pacific region face in security is lack of a regional security architecture adapting to development of the times.

Up to now, the Asia-Pacific region has not yet established a security cooperation mechanism participated by all major regional players. In current Asia, the biggest security mechanism is the U.S.- dominated alliance mechanisms, which however have not only excluded other major regional players such as China, Russia and India, but have also targeted at China and Russia. As a result, those mechanisms can not provide security but can easily trigger more conflicts.

Besides, the CICA Conference already has 26 countries and covers 90% of Asian population including observer countries. However it is still a forum for security dialogue and is not a regional security organization that can provide public products. Since it is a multilateral organization without Western countries’ participation, it may face strong interferences from the United States and its allies in Asia as it develops pragmatically.

There is no shortage of regional security mechanisms in the Asia-Pacific region. However these mechanisms have acted according to their own wishes with prominent regional orientation. For example, the ASEAN Regional Forum still focus on the security issues in Southeast Asia; the Shanghai Cooperation Organization still focus on dealing with the Central Asian security problems. The mechanism of the Six-Party Talks mainly deals with the DPRK nuclear issue, which is always powerless, not to mention to be upgraded to become a Northeast Asian security forum.

areCurrently, South Asia has no regional security forum. The existing Indian Ocean Naval Forum can hardly solve the problems between India and Pakistan, and the terrorist problems in the Sub-continent. There is no effective means to respond to the Afghanistan issue.

Asia is far short of an effective mechanism to deal with the security problems in West Asia and the Middle East. These regions used to be contended by the United States and the Soviet Union. At present, in addition to the contention by the Americans and Russians, Saudi Arabians and Iranians have involved in geopolitical competition and the increasingly growing extreme-terrorist groups are also joining. The security situation in West Asia and the Middle East is losing control and this security turmoil is infiltrating from the edge of Asia to the Asian hinterland and the Indo-Pacific region.

There is lack of a security cooperation mechanism adapting to economic cooperation and integration.

In the Western Pacific region, many countries have relied on China economically and on the United States for security. The economic community and security community do no match each other but on the contrary disrupt each other.

In Central Asia, the economic integration and the security integration maintains a lukewarm relationship. In regional security cooperation, China and Russia need to develop a closer security cooperation relationship. Russia always views Central Asia as its backyard.

South Asia is divided into sub-regional confrontation both in security and economy along the India-Pakistan border line. Before the complete normalization of the Indian-Pakistan relations, the divided situation in the sub-continent will be difficult to improve. The balancing diplomacy of non-regional major powers, either in economy or in security, can hardly promote South Asia to establish an effective security cooperation mechanism.

In the Middle East and Western Asia, although all major Asian economies are increasingly dependent on its energy, this energy dependence has not given Asian major powers enough impacts to promote this region to establish a security cooperative mechanism with irreconcilable geographic competition between the two regional powers, Iran and Saudi Arabia, and deep contradictions between Palestine and Israel, between the Arab countries and Israel, and between Israel and Iran.

Ⅲ. Some Observations on Structuring a New Security Mechanism

The security situation faced by Asia is so severe and the existing security mechanisms are so ineffective to deal with the security problems, therefore, it is imperative to establish or improve regional security cooperation mechanisms.

Currently, conditions to establish or improve the regional security cooperation mechanisms are relatively mature, which reflects in two respects. On the one hand, all major countries not only have this demand, but also actively implement their own Asia-Pacific security strategies. The United States is implementing its rebalancing strategy in the Asia-Pacific region. Russia’s interest in the Asia-Pacific region is growing since the APEC Summit in 2012. Now Russia is more inclined to join the Asia-Pacific region to seek security and development as Europe and the United States have strengthened sanctions against it due to the Ukraine crisis. China’s neighborly diplomacy has become more active and has proposed the concepts of “One Belt and One Road” and “Two Corridors” strategic plans. China has convened the Central Peripheral Working Conference for the first time since the founding of new China. India’s interest in the Asia-Pacific region is growing fast and is becoming a true “Indo-Pacific country”. Japan vigorously takes steps to become a “normalized country” and maintains its position in the first matrix in Asia. South Korea, Australia and the ASEAN countries as middle powers or groups have tried to play a bigger role in regional security or integrated cooperation.

On the other hand, the overall Asia-Pacific region has a huge space for strategic reconciliation. Firstly, all major countries in the region emphasize development and market economy, and there are no irreconcilable ideological obstacles or antagonistic contradictions in their relationship. Secondly, China, Russia, the United States and India do not belong to a confrontational or a hostile camp any more and all want to be major responsible regional and global powers. Although, there are still some problems, which, however are different from the cold war period and do not constitute obstacles unable to be overcome in the process of establishing new security architecture. Thirdly, the economic interdependence in the Indo-Pacific region is continuously deepening and the sharp contradictions between the regional powers will not be easily turned into a military and political conflict.

Countries in each sub-region have different influence and traditional regional powers have their traditional spheres of influence. The whole Asia needs to respond to the increasing serious security threats and so do all sub-regions. The new security mechanism needs to coordinate and adjust itself to the local conditions. In detail:

In Southeast Asia and East Asia, under the ASEAN Regional Forum, dialogues between the member countries' ministers of defense and ministers of foreign affairs, especially between the ministers of defense from China, the United States, Russia, Japan, India and Australian should be strengthened. In Central Asia, the security function of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization should be strengthened especially in dealing with the regional difficult problems such as the Afghanistan problems, anti-terrorist problems and the political transition of Central Asian countries, in which China, Russia, India, Pakistan and Uzbekistan shoulder a responsibility to play a leading role. The Istanbul Process which seeks to find a way to solve the Afghanistan problems should be brought in the mechanism of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Meanwhile, establishment of cooperative relations between the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the CIS Collective Security Treaty Organization and Eurasia Economic Community should be promoted so as to avoid vicious competition. Regarding the mechanism of the Six-Party Talks, which should be revitalized and whose functions should be expanded. It should not only discuss the Korean Peninsula issues but also the main disputes among China, Japan, South Korea and Russia. It can also provide a channel of dialogue for the United States and Russia to ease their tensions. Therefore, these can develop the mechanism of the Six-Party Talks into an important security forum in Northeast Asia.

. In South Asia and the Indian Ocean region, the priority is to upgrade the Indian Ocean Naval Forum into the “the Indian Ocean Maritime Security Dialogue”, in which countries surrounding the Indian Ocean and the countries that increasingly depend on the Indian Ocean lanes should participate. Of these countries, China, the United States and India should play a leading role in the Dialogue.

The dialogue should focus on Asia’s common threats such as terrorist threats, energy problems, environment and climate problems, economic problems. Annual dialogue mechanisms should be established between various regional security mechanisms and chairs-in-rotation of all regional organizations, which focus its consultations on common threats. Thus, it is through chairs-in-rotation to lead the regional security mechanisms and regional organizations to discuss the similar security threats and form trans-regional consensus. What imperative now is to establish a new anti-terrorist mechanism?

In addition, the CICA Conference may be developed into a important consensus-building platform, i.e. shaping Asian consensus on security, on which all Asian countries jointly respond to common threats and collectively solve the main threats faced by Asia, and appeal to all sub-regional security organizations to implement the consensus concretely.

The Current multilateral security dialogues among China, India and Russia, among the United States, Japan, India, and among the United States, Japan, Australia and India are likely to catalyze mutual strategic distrust, which is unfavorable for Asia to unite to meet common threats and solve the existing difficult problems in Asia.

It is worth considering establishment of a multilateral security dialogue mechanism among China, the United States, India and Russia. This dialogue can be held separately or can be held regularly during a multilateral meeting. The establishment of a dialogue mechanism of ministers of defense and ministers of foreign affairs from China, the United States, India and Russia should be considered. While the sub-regional differences in Asia are unbridgeable, it is necessary to establish collective leadership of the four countries on the Asia-Pacific security issues, which could not only promote strategic coordination among major powers, but also can effectively prevent some small countries from kidnapping major powers and making misfires.

(1)Fatema Z. Sumar, “State’s Sumar on Future of Trade, Connectivity in Indo-Pacific”,May 8, 2014.http://translations,state.gov/st/English/ textrans/2014/05/20140520299499.htm/#axzz3BSrFUZdw

(2) Dinah Walker, “Trends in U.S. Military Spending”, Council on Foreign Relations, July 30, 2013, http://www.cfr.org/defense-budget/trends-us-military-spending/p28855

(3)Since the cold war, U.S. Asia strategy is always taking allies as its core. Since 2012, the United States has more partners in Asia.

(4) U.S. Department of Defense, Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense, January 2012. p.2

(5) Le Monde, a report by Gubar “South Asia Submarines Race”, June 6, 2012.

(6) Japan Senkei article “Is the U.S. Truly Returning to Asia?” June 4, 2012