TOKYO – When U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta arrives in Singapore this week to talk about containing China – and that’s really what this trip is all about — he’ll find plenty of support from friends in the region. But that might not make his job any easier. Allies old and new will be looking for assurances that America’s “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific region is more than just rhetoric and that the U.S. will help them stand up to an increasingly powerful and demanding China.
“It’s going to be a delicate
dance,” says Brad Glosserman, executive director of the Pacific Forum CSIS, in Honolulu. “You want
to send a message to your allies that you support them, but without emboldening
them. We don’t want to send the signal that we are using proxies to bait the
bear. But at the same time, we don’t want to give the impression that we are
somehow deferring to China.
So Panetta’s job will be to walk that fine line.”
Panetta and other top U.S. defense officials will arrive as an armed
standoff between China and
the Philippines
over a disputed fishing reef enters its seventh week. China claims sovereignty over vast tracts of the
South China and East China seas already
claimed or controlled by six other countries.
A U.S. nuclear-powered submarine
made a highly publicized port stop at Subic Bay earlier this month, and
Philippines officials are expected to ask Panetta for a squadron of F-16
fighters, a Coast Guard cutter, and other concrete demonstrations of support
when they meet at the Shangri-La Dialogue defense conference in Singapore.
Panetta is also scheduled to meet
with defense leaders from Japan,
Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and other nations during the
conference, which begins Friday and last through the weekend. He may meet there
with officials from China.
After Singapore, Panetta is
scheduled to spend two days each in Vietnam
and India.
It will be his first trip to the
region since the Pentagon announced its “pivot” to Asia
earlier this year. He’ll be accompanied by the Chairman of the U.S. Joint
Chiefs of Staff and the commander of the U.S. Pacific Command — next to a
presidential visit, that’s about as high-powered as it gets.
China’s
rising ambitions and territorial claims throughout the region, and planned cuts
in U.S.
defense spending, will provide the backdrop for the talks. While regional
officials will be looking for Panetta to say all the right things, they’ll be
looking for actions, as well.
The U.S.
has already agreed to station Marines in Australia
and new Littoral Combat Ships in Singapore. Talks are underway with
the Philippines to allow
access to bases there for U.S.
troops and ships. Vietnam
is expected to ask for radar and anti-aircraft defenses and for defense-related
infrastructure and training. India
may ask for an increase in joint-training exercises and to re-open talks to buy
F-35 fighters planes.
The U.S.
will have to decide case-by-case what’s in the U.S. and partners’ best interests,
but already Panetta appears to be setting a tough tone. With a clear nod
towards China, he told
graduates at the U.S. Naval Academy this week that despite planned defense
cuts, the U.S.
is prepared to “defeat any opponent, any time, any where.”
“America’s
future prosperity and security are tied to our ability to advance peace and
security along the arc extending from the Western Pacific and East Asia into
the Indian Ocean and South Asia,” Panetta
said.
That does not mean Panetta will
be looking to ring the region with U.S.
bases, however, or that every country in the region would welcome that, says
Raoul Heinrichs, of the Australian National University’s
Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, in Canberra.
“It’s a complicated picture out
here. In broad terms, people want from the U.S.
what they’ve had for a long time – that is, to prevent the domination of the
region by any other power, and now that’s increasingly China,” Heinrichs
says. “But it would be a mistake to think that everybody is simply lining up
behind the U.S. and that
they will accommodate every U.S.
preference.”
And that could make for a full
dance card for Panetta.
Courtesy: battleland.blogs.time.com
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