ASIA AND CHINA/US RIVALRY

UP-AND-COMING ASIAN ECONOMIES CAUGHT BETWEEN CHINA-US RIVALRY

Jean-Pierre Lehmann

The Jakarta Globe, May 2, 2012

As Europe dithers and the United States nervously watches its unemployment rate, a China-led Asian rise is accepted as the new reality. Less noted is the anomaly of an Asia increasingly integrated with the Chinese economy and militarily more reliant on the United States.

At a retreat on Hayman Island, Queensland, for Australian CEOs, a security expert noted that this was the first time in Australia’s history that its major economic partner was not concurrently a major strategic partner — initially the United Kingdom followed by the United States.

China has become for Australia — as it has for many nations in the Asia Pacific and around the world, especially those engaged in commodity exports — its key engine of growth. Yet Australia has been one of the United States’ closest strategic and military allies from World War II to Korea to Vietnam and Iraq. The planned stationing of 2,500 US troops in Darwin, reflecting the Obama administration’s tilt to the Pacific, is meant to consolidate these ties. The United States and China are not belligerent, yet a rivalry is growing. Being between the two is uncomfortable, to say the least.

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