The US is trying to build an Asia-Pacific version of NATO through its Indo-Pacific strategy to maintain its hegemony in the region, a Chinese defense official has said, stressing that Washington’s attempt to advance its selfish “geopolitical interest to serve is doomed to failure.
The comments by Lieutenant General Jing Jianfeng, deputy chief of staff of the Joint Staff Department of the Central Military Commission, came in response to US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s speech at the Shangri La Dialogue on Saturday, in which he spoke of strengthening of alliances and partnerships. throughout the region.
The Shangri La Dialogue, held annually in Singapore, is Asia’s most important defense summit.
Lt. Gen. Jing warned that if regional countries were to join the US Indo-Pacific strategy, they would be tied to the US chariot and lured into taking bullets for the US.
He called Austin’s comments “rhetoric” that “sounds good but does no good, a rhetoric that serves the US’s selfish geopolitical interests and is doomed to failure.”
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance of 32 member states, 30 European and 2 North American member states.
The Indo-Pacific strategy creates division and confrontation, he said.
The Indo-Pacific is a biogeographic region consisting of the Indian Ocean and the western and central Pacific Ocean, including the South China Sea.
The U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy is the nation’s vision for a free, open, connected, prosperous, resilient and secure Indo-Pacific region in which all countries have the power to adapt to the challenges of the 21st century and to take advantage of its many opportunities.
China claims almost all of the South China Sea, although Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam claim parts of it.
The US and several other world powers have discussed the need to ensure a free, open and prosperous Indo-Pacific, against the backdrop of China’s increasing military assertiveness in the resource-rich region.
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First print: June 2, 2024 | 10:07 am IST