China’s state news agency warned against growing US militarism today, citing President Obama’s new military spending strategy, which Chinese experts see as an effort to encircle them and reduce their influence in the region.
A number of news stories in China focused on this story, with a Chinese newspaper owned by the nation’s ruling Communist Party warned against “appeasement” of the US and urged China’s military to adopt an “assertive” policy in response.
President Obama’s strategy has been presented primarily as a “cut” in the US media, even though it amounts to an overall spending increase. It reduces the number of ground troops but increases spending on both warplanes and naval power.
The change, particularly the increased focus on naval power, is seen by the Chinese as focusing on an inevitable intervention in the South China Sea, where China is in an ongoing dispute with other nations over some key islands.
