torsdag 4. mars 2021

US sets out security agenda ‘to prevail in strategic competition with China’, other nations

US President Joe Biden has released a national security agenda outlining how the country would compete with an increasingly assertive China, including by moving to restore its global leadership and boosting alliances to both counter and leverage cooperation from Beijing. The interim strategic guidance released on Wednesday described China as the only competitor that had the power to “mount a sustained challenge to a stable and open international system”, placing a firm emphasis on US interests in the Indo-Pacific region compared to a focus on the Middle East during the Barack Obama era.

National security priorities included defending and bolstering the US and its democracy at home, promoting a “favourable distribution of power” to deter or prevent adversaries from threatening the US and its allies, and leadership in a rules-based international order underwritten by democratic alliances.