Pacific dilemma traps US and China in mutual tension
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China's military modernization is causing growing distrust among neighboring countries and regions.
Last week, Japan announced that it would deploy troops on a number of southern islands to watch the Chinese navy. India has made the decision to step up its military presence along the Chinese border with 50,000 more soldiers, new fighter jets and main battle tanks.
As the chorus of countries suspicious of China's military modernization continues to grow, Asia looks less and less like the harmonious environment that Chinese leaders hoped to create.
What makes this even more unfortunate is that China isn't really concerned about the growing military capabilities of its neighbors.
Russia is no longer seen as a threat to Chinese security interests. China does not consider India as an offensive power that might try to settle the border dispute by military means. Japan used to be more cautious about Russia or North Korea than about China, and certainly hasn't been doing a lot to enforce its territorial claims in the East China Sea by military means.
How then could we explain the growing military distrust between China and its neighbors?
The most important driver of military tensions has been the Pacific dilemma in which China and the US are caught. As much as the US is uncertain about how China will behave if it were to become a new great power, China cannot be certain about whether the weakening superpower will accept a strong China.
From China's perspective, it is not reassuring to see America delivering arms to Taiwan, strengthening its security alliances in the region and to turn Guam and Hawaii into military fortresses.
Moreover, as long as the superpower has military dominance in the maritime margins of East Asia, China will not feel secure and, hence, cannot lay to rest the memories of past humiliation.
On the other side, a long struggle for independence bred a strong sense of strategic vulnerability in the US and impelled its leaders to protect the young developing state against great power interference.
In the last 150 years, three important events have strengthened the US interest in the Pacific.
First, there was the budding of a new naval nationalism, which claimed that the US would not be safe without a reasonable amount of sea power.
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