Page 160 - 《国际安全研究》2022年第5期

Journal of International Security Studies
initiatives such as Build Back Better World, Partnership for Global Infrastructure
and Investment, Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity, and Partners in
the Blue Pacific have been launched with countries within and beyond this region;
U.S. cooperation with other countries has been deepened and expanded to all fields
including politics, economics, technology, and security, aiming to build a network
excluding China’s participation and reducing China’s influence. Starting from the
Biden administration, the U.S. Asia-Pacific strategy has completely transformed into
the Indo-Pacific strategy featuring a complete geographical coverage of the region,
clearer policy objectives and more diversified policy instruments, with the relationship
between the United States and its allies shifting from a vertical, hierarchical one to a
more flattened one. The Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy will significantly
affect the direction of American domestic and foreign policies, the political and
economic development of countries in the Asia-Pacific region, and the strategic
competition between China and the United States. After three decades of economic
globalization, coordination and cooperation among major powers on regional and
global issues, as well as various attempts to promote regional integration, the
Asia-Pacific region is facing the risk of transforming from a region of economic
cooperation to the geopolitical arena for major powers’ strategic competition. This
paper intends to examine the components and influencing factors in the U.S.
Asia-Pacific security strategy over a long historical period, analyze its adjustments and
changes in different time periods, and explore the actions and reactions between the
U.S. Asia-Pacific security strategy and Sino-U.S. relations.
[Keywords] Asia-Pacific security strategy, Indo-Pacific strategy, Biden
administration, Sino-U.S. relations
[Author] FAN Jishe, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director, Institute for International
Strategic Studies at Party School of the Central Committee of C.P.C. (National
Academy of Governance) (Beijing, 100091).

53 Adjustments to U.S. Conventional Deterrence Strategy toward China
ZUO Xiying

[Abstract] The U.S. strategic community believes that China’s military
modernization over the past two decades has greatly eroded the absolute military
predominance of the United States in the West Pacific and therefore undermined the
credibility of U.S. conventional deterrence against China. With the rise of China’s
conventional deterrence capability, the U.S. strategic community has been
advocating making fundamental changes to the conceptions and strategies of
conventional deterrence against China by putting forward the concept of “integrated
deterrence” and conducting deterrence by denial that aims to make China believe
that no goals could be achieved in its military operations. Faced with strategic
competition among major powers, the United States is trying to reinforce the
deterrence effectiveness against China by strengthening its defense science and
technology, enhancing its capability of deterrence by denial and consolidating its
alliance system in the Asia-Pacific. Changes in the conventional deterrence
capabilities of the U.S. and China have profoundly affected the strategic competition
between the two countries as well as the world and regional security order. Such
changes not only prompt the United States to consider and plan as a whole its
nuclear and conventional forces, but also push China to rethink the relationship
between its nuclear and conventional forces, which gives the United States an
excuse to adjust its arms control policy, thus exerting a long-term impact on the
global arms control regime.
[Keywords] Sino-US relations, deterrence by denial, conventional forces, strategic

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