The Problem With the Pivot
Obama’s New Asia Policy Is Unnecessary and Counterproductive
Robert S. RossROBERT S. ROSS is Professor of Political Science at Boston College and an Associate at the John King Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University. He is the author of Chinese Security Policy: Structure, Power, and Politics.
Ever since the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping opened up his country’s economy in the late 1970s, China has managed to grow in power, wealth, and military might while still maintaining cooperative and friendly relations with most of the world. Until a few years ago, that is, when Beijing seemed to change tack, behaving in a way that alienated its neighbors and aroused suspicion abroad. In December 2009, for example, Beijing’s resistance to compromise at the UN Climate Change Conference angered European countries and the United States. Then, following the January 2010 sale of U.S. arms to Taiwan, the Chinese government suspended a senior U.S.-Chinese security dialogue for the first time and announced unprecedented sanctions against U.S. companies with ties to Taiwa