The Battle for the Indo-Pacific

A book of essays explores Asia’s geopolitics.
 

Guy Sorman August 21, 2020

Asia’s New Geopolitics: Essays on Reshaping the Indo-Pacific, by Michael Auslin (Hoover Institution Press, 263 pp., $29.95)

Michael Auslin, an historian at the Hoover Institution, argues that the United States has no global strategy to contain China’s overwhelming ambitions. Moreover, he believes, the U.S. does not understand the collective destiny of Asia. Local agreements, whether economic or military, with India, the Philippines, or Japan cannot balance the power of Beijing, which aims to control this part of the world. 

In his new collection of essays, Asia’s New Geopolitics: Essays on Reshaping the Indo-Pacific, Auslin argues that China’s economic growth, the foundation of its strategic ambitions, reveals the extent of the Communist regime’s cheating, propaganda, and massive theft of intellectual property. If Chinese stealth fighters look very much like U.S. planes, he observes, the only rationale is copycat and theft.

Auslin reviews the Beijing regime’s incremental advancements: the creation of artificial islands in the South China sea, for instance, illustrates its long-term strategy. Indeed, China acts as a patient chess player. China’s gamesmanship, concurs British historian Niall Ferguson in the foreword, is the greatest strategic challenge of the next generation.........To Read More......