DC, Washington The Pentagon has identified China as a “pacing challenge” and asked for an urgent increase in deterrence against Beijing in a periodic assessment of US defence needs and priorities. Russia, Iran, and North Korea have also been identified as dangers.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is still the United States’ most “contextual strategic competitor for the future decades,” according to the National Defense Strategy (NDS), which was unveiled on Thursday. The report, which is created every four years, identifies dangers to the US and provides the Department of Defense with long-term direction.
The assessment was released two weeks after the White House published a report of a similar nature in its National Security Strategy. In that report, China was referred to as “the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it.”
The National Defense Strategy was declassified and made public for the first time by this administration, following receipt of a secret copy by the US Congress in March.
President Joe Biden has carried on the approach taken by his predecessor Donald Trump, who regarded China as the nation’s most significant geopolitical foe.
Relations between Beijing and Washington have deteriorated recently due to a number of causes of contention, such as trade disputes, Taiwan’s legal status, territorial disputes in the South China Sea, and the US’s ongoing campaign against China’s expanding influence in the Indo-Pacific.
Beijing criticised the US strategy for relations with China in response to the National Security Strategy released earlier this month, urging Washington to embrace “win-win collaboration.”
