The evolving matrix of the twenty-first century world order is based on community disposition and correlation of nation-states, limited peace-enforcement by militarily powerful nations with or without general consensus, a globalisation process overseeing freedom of international trade and traffic as well as the well being of the planet and its human population, and several pockets of destructive and dehumanising conflicts for socio-political domination and strategic resources, so far regionally contained. That matrix has remained in continual flux since the end of Cold War at the fag-end of the last century. The Cold

War logic of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) as deterrence to military engagement on a global scale continues also to hold good in the evolving matrix of the world order, although danger of small arms, declared and undeclared capacity and possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction, and advanced technology of regular, irregular as well as robotic combats have proliferated. Power balance, both in military and economic terms, has therefore become all the more important a factor in securing a peaceful evolution of the post-Cold War world order.
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China, which has grown from the rag-tag forces of Chinese Workers and Peasants Red Army of China’s civil war through anti-Japanese national resistance into the World’s largest military force today, and is celebrating its 86th anniversary of birth from the Nanchang uprising, is emerging as a determinant factor with a difference particularly in Asia and potentially in the global matrix. As the former US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton who along with former US Defense Secretary Robert Gates laid the foundations of the Obama administration’s “Strategic Turn” from Atlantic to Pacific region after Bush era misadventures, acknowledged in her candid article entitled “America’s Pacific Century” in Foreign Policy magazine, November 2011 issue: “The Asia-Pacific has become a key driver of global politics. Stretching from the Indian subcontinent to the western shores of the Americas, the region spans two oceans, ­the Pacific and the Indian, ­that are increasingly linked by shipping and strategy. It boasts almost half the world’s population. It includes many of the key engines of the global economy, as well as the largest emitters of greenhouse gases.

‘Building mature security’
“At a time when the region is building a more mature security and economic architecture to promote stability and prosperity, U.S. commitment there is essential.
“As secretary of state, I broke with tradition and embarked on my first official overseas trip to Asia. In my seven trips since, I have had the privilege to see firsthand the rapid transformations taking place in the region, underscoring how much the future of the United States is intimately intertwined with the future of the Asia-Pacific.
“Our strategy will have to keep accounting for and adapting to the rapid and dramatic shifts playing out across Asia. With this in mind, our work will proceed along six key lines of action: strengthening bilateral security alliances; deepening our working relationships with emerging powers, including with China.
“Like so many other countries before it, China has prospered as part of the open and rules-based system that the United States helped to build and works to sustain. And today, China represents one of the most challenging and consequential bilateral relationships the United States has ever had to manage. This calls for careful, steady, dynamic stewardship, an approach to China on our part that is grounded in reality, focused on results, and true to our principles and interests.
“A thriving America is good for China and a thriving China is good for America. We both have much more to gain from cooperation than from conflict.
“As we build trust together, we are committed to working with China to address critical regional and global security issues. This is why I have met so frequently, ­often in informal settings, ­with my Chinese counterparts, State Councilor Dai Bingguo and Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, for candid discussions about important challenges like North Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and developments in the South China Sea.

‘US-China for global growth’
“The United States and China need to work together to ensure strong, sustained, and balanced future global growth. In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, the United States and China worked effectively through the G-20 to help pull the global economy back from the brink. We have to build on that cooperation.”
But US engagement in Asia is avowedly “to secure and sustain America’s global leadership”. And its express “new vision for a more economically integrated and politically stable South and Central Asia, with India as linchpin” has thus far failed to translate into reality. As such, concerns have been expressed in the Chinese official media that America’s China policy was being increasingly contaminated by residual “containment mentality in danger of becoming self-fulfilling prophecy.”
A recent Global Times article’s countered US scholar Robert A. Manning’s argument that US actions relative to China, including its pivot to Asia strategy and its alliances with China’s neighbouring countries such as Japan and South Korea, do not constitute a strategy of containment aimed at preventing China’s rise, by the following commentary:
“Containment was a US policy in response to a series of Soviet Union moves to expand its communist influence. The main doctrine was to break economic ties with the Soviet Union, which doesn’t apply to the current Sino-US relationship given the deep economic interdependence of the two. Containment dominated US-Soviet Union relations in the Cold War era, while both cooperation and containment exist in Sino-US relations. But as China’s influence in the international community grows, which the US views as a threat to its hegemony, the US feels wronged. Asian countries, which witness the most strategic rivalry as well as economic integration, are particularly concerned about China’s rise. Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines and some other countries certainly want to balance China’s power in the region, which provides an excuse for the US to lend a helping hand to its little brothers. Washington euphemistically describes this as counterbalancing.

‘Counterbalancing’ is accurate
“In a political sense, counterbalancing is a more accurate term than containment for the US. It implies that China is subverting the regional order and the US is coming to the rescue. The cause and effect of the current situation in the Asia-Pacific need to be agreed upon by both China and the US.
“China believes that its policies have not changed. The disputes between China and its neighbouring countries mainly originated from the latter’s provocations and China had to act accordingly. However, the US and some of China’s neighbouring countries don’t think this way. They feel wary of China’s assertiveness because of its growing military capabilities that break regional balance. If the US aims to be a responsible world power, it should persuade those small countries not to stir up tensions. Simply blaming China for the break of the power balance is not justifiable.
“The (western) media often use the word containment to make Sino-US relations sound more dramatic. They would speculate that the US is aiming to contain China with acts such as promoting the Trans-Pacific Partnership and conducting military exercises with the Philippines and Japan. They also hype up the US strategy of a C-shaped encirclement ring.
“These are just excessive interpretations. The (western) media does not have a clear understanding of containment, which requires the countries involved to have Cold War mentalities. Nonetheless, neither China nor the US want to resort to this mentality to confront each other at the current time. If stressed too much, this concept may create a self-fulfilling prophecy, which will result in the containment theory becoming a reality.
“As promoted by Chinese President Xi Jinping, currently the best approach that should be taken by both China and the US is to establish a new type of great power relations.”

Unconvincing statement
More specifically, at the Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore on June 1, Major General Yao Yunzhu, the director of the Centre for China-America Defense Relations at the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Academy of Military Science, expressed doubts that Washington’s strategic shift into the Asia-Pacific was not an “attempt to counter China’s rising influence and to offset the increasing military capabilities of the Chinese PLA. China is not convinced.”
In the inaugural session of that security conference US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel had expressed hope for better military ties between the United States and China, and said Beijing and Washington needed a “continuous and respectful dialogue” to build trust in order to avoid military miscalculations.
Yao addressed Hagel and asked the Pentagon chief how the US can assure China that its military build-up in the region is not a threat to China. Beijing had repeatedly criticized the increasing military presence of the US in the Asia-Pacific as well as its moves to increase military ties with regional countries such as Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines. China thus looks askance at what the US calls the “rebalancing” of its forces, as it winds down the war in Afghanistan.
The annual report released by China’s Defense Ministry in April this year warned that Beijing faces “multiple and complicated security threats.” It noted that Washington’s deployment of additional ships and personnel to Asia meant “profound changes” for the region.
Whether or not such “profound changes” prove to be benevolent or belligerent, we in Bangladesh, a country that is just breaking out of the poverty trap and going through a rigorous phase of development endeavours, may only express our August wish on the PLA day that China-U.S. engagement obtains “win-win cooperation” objective and provides Bangladesh necessary regional peace and stability for rapid growth.