America’s new approach to the Indo-Pacific is disappointing

Washington does not seem to view China as an ideological threat

- MIHIR SHARMA is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist.

Asian countries may not be able to count on the US to defend the region.

(AP)

Most of the world has shown clarity in its response to America’s new National Security Strategy. Russia loves it, liberal Europeans are dismayed and the Gulf monarchies overjoyed.

In the rest of Asia—and what, until now, Washington has called the Indo-Pacific—the dominant emotion is uneasiness. There are words, phrases and entire sections in the document that are exactly what we want to hear. But the underlying worldview is at odds with its rhetoric. The US strategy document promises that the US will build a military capable of deterrence in the First Island Chain and Taiwan Strait and insists that the South China Sea cannot be controlled by any one actor. There is a promise to defend “global and regional balances of power” and to fight “predatory” economic practices.

The Indo-Pacific shares all these priorities and many are relieved that the second Trump administration has taken the trouble to restate them. And yet there's disquiet, because some of these commitments look like they have been grafted on to a strategy that could push American policy in a fundamentally different direction.