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Truth behind frequent US military exercises in Asia-Pacific region
by Zhen Zehao (Associate Professor)
[National Defence University, China]
Ever since U.S. President Barack Obama proposed the high-keyed ”return to the Asia-Pacific” at the end of 2011, the U.S. has begun to frequently organize joint military exercises in the Asia-Pacific region. For those exercises conducted in 2012 by the U.S. in the Western Pacific region alone, there were as many as 17 code names. Why is the U.S. so interested in Asia-Pacific region? Why does it frequently conduct such “exercises”?
In geostrategic sense, containing China in the Asia-Pacific region is the basic content of the U.S. policy toward China.
There are three major means for the U.S. to conduct deep involvement in the Asia-Pacific region: first, wide alliance to win over various countries in the Asia-Pacific region; second, military forward deployment to realize strategic “re-balancing”; and third, occupy a “leading” position in the region to play “pro-active role”.
The U.S. believes that the time span from the end of the Cold War to 2015 is a period of “strategic opportunity”, during which the rise and development of such major regional countries as China and Russia will pose serious challenges to the U.S. around 2015. Among the two, China “is more likely to become the challenger”.
Therefore, the U. S. began to pay more attention to putting more pressure on China over Asia-Pacific issues.
‘Powerful striking means’ touted as missile fears continue to grow
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea delivered a fresh round of rhetoric on Thursday with claims it has “powerful striking means” on standby for a launch, as Seoul and Washington speculated the country is preparing to test a medium-range missile during upcoming national celebrations.
TOKYO (AP) — The U.S. Geological Survey says a magnitude 7.3 earthquake has hit the waters off of far eastern Russia. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries and no tsunami was generated.
The quake hit just before 1 p.m. local time Tuesday. It was centered in the Pacific Ocean 160 kilometers (100 miles) east of Poronaysk, Russia, at a depth of more than 625 kilometers (388 miles).
In Japan, the Meteorological Agency reported that there was no risk of a tsunami from the quake. Its readings showed the quake was mildly felt on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido and in the northeastern section of Honshu, Japan’s main island.
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Friday, Apr. 12, 2013 Politics Pacific Partners Outlook: Paradise Lost: Fiji’s Failing Democratic Transition Shared by PacificPartnersDC csis.org – By Elke Larsen, Research Assistant, and Kathleen Rustici, Research Associate, Pacific Partners Initiative (@PacPartnersDC), CSIS Fiji’s prime minister, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, released a draft… Tax evasion on May European Union summit agenda Shared by Asia Pacific [...]
What really is behind frequent US military exercises in Asia-Pacific region?
Truth behind frequent US military exercises in Asia-Pacific region by Zhen Zehao (Associate Professor) [National Defence University, China] Ever since U.S. President Barack Obama proposed the high-keyed ”return to the Asia-Pacific” at the end of 2011, the U.S. has begun to frequently organize joint military exercises in the Asia-Pacific region. For those exercises conducted in 2012 by the [...]