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September 30th, 2011 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
AAP
China’s muscle flexing over the South China Sea has led south east Asian states to seek security reassurances from Australia’s global ally the United States, a regional analyst says.
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) analyst Dr Rod Lyon on Friday said the outcome of recent Australia-US Ministerial (AUSMIN) talks in San Francisco had reinforced the idea of US re-engagement with Asia, as conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan wound down.
Dr Lyon said while regional nations disagreed on which Asian country was more important to the US, or where Washington’s strategic priorities lay, it was most likely China.
Renewed US interest in Asia comes as China vigorously asserts its interest in the South China Sea, which is one of the world’s potential conflict flashpoints due to neighbouring nations making various claims for rights in those waters.
China is claiming an exclusive economic zone covering more than half the area.
“Because of the South China Sea controversy, south east Asian states are in the market for stronger reassurances from Washington,” Dr Lyon said in an ASPI paper.
But the dilemma for the US is how to strengthen its presence in a sub-region with no dominant power and where nations prefer to keep external powers at arms length.
Dr Lyon said the Obama administration is increasingly talking of reconfiguring the US footprint in Asia to one that was operationally resilient and politically sustainable.
“In some ways, south east Asia is the testbed for a different kind of US engagement – one that attempts both to reassure and deter from a position of more contested primacy within a sub-region where partners are by nature strategically ambivalent,” he said.
Taken in that light, US interest in Australia’s help was obvious.
“A stronger ANZUS alliance helps offset south east Asian ambivalence,” he said.
“And it gives the US time to build partner capacity within the sub-region.”
Dr Lyon said everything could change in event of a drastic scenario, such as a North Korean attack on South Korea or increased Chinese militancy.
“But absent such events, US engagement in Asia is likely to remain centred on current US priorities – reassuring allies, strengthening its economic connection to the region, and building partner capacities over the longer term,” he said.
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