I think risk aversion partly explains the timid U.S. response to China.  In particular, fears of provoking China probably influenced the Obama administration’s decisions.

Several interrelated assumptions underpinned this reluctance to confront China more forcefully.  It should be noted that these assumptions informed Obama’s predecessors as well.  First, the United States assumed that engagement could coax China into becoming a responsible stakeholder.  Second, Washington was convinced that it needed China’s cooperation on a host of global challenges, ranging from climate change to nonproliferation to North Korea.  Not surprisingly, preserving stable Sino-U.S. relations was the prime directive while confrontation with China was anathema.

As China continues with its policy of expansionism in the region, combining military intimidation and economic inducements toward its neighbors, we publish in 3 parts an instructive interview by the Sankei Shimbun’s Washington bureau chief, Yoshinari Kurose with Dr. Toshi Yoshihara. Yoshihara is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, an independent, non-profit think tank based in Washington, DC. The center specializes in US defense planning, budget, and strategy.

Now a great power with global interests, China has been intensifying its presence and influence, particularly in the Indian Ocean, considered an essential sea lane linking the Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea, and South China Sea.

Rowden and other commanders often shy away from naming the potential enemies these strike groups might fight, but the opening day of the conference spotlighted speeches by Toshi Yoshihara, a senior fellow at the nonprofit Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments; plus Thomas Fedyszyn and Richard A. Moss, both professors at the Naval War College. Yoshihara is one of the world’s foremost experts on the Chinese navy. The professors specialize in analyzing Russia’s military.

As Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments senior fellow Toshi Yoshihara put it, speaking to Asia Times: “Sino-Russian military drills are mostly about political signaling, even though Chinese naval reach will increase as Beijing maintains a permanent presence in the Indian Ocean.”

Toshi Yoshihara, a leading U.S. expert on Chinese maritime strategy and a senior fellow at U.S. policy think-tank Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, was interviewed by Sankei News. Mr. Yoshihara pointed out that China’s unilateral assertion of territorial rights in the South China Sea, and its militarization by China, pose “a challenge to the international liberal order spearheaded by the U.S.” At the same time, he stressed the importance of strengthening U.S. cooperation with its allies, including Japan, as well as “front-line states” bordering the South China Sea, e.g., the Philippines and Vietnam.