National security strategy: US singles out China as the sole global rival
President Joe Biden's administration said it would prioritize winning over China, seeing it as the only global rival to the United States, even as it also works to constrain a "dangerous" Russia.
"The post-Cold War era is over, and the competition is underway between the major powers to shape what comes next," Biden's national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, said in a speech at Georgetown University to unveil the national security strategy.
The strategy said the 2020s would be a "decisive decade for America and the world" -- for reducing conflict, promoting democracy over authoritarianism and confronting the key shared threat of climate change.
"We will prioritize maintaining an enduring competitive edge over the PRC while constraining a still profoundly dangerous Russia," the strategy said, referring to the People's Republic of China.
Vladimir Putin's Russia "poses an immediate threat to the free and open international system, recklessly flouting the basic laws of the international order today, as its brutal war of aggression against Ukraine has shown," the strategy added.
China, "by contrast, is the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to advance that objective."
The strategy said the United States was willing to work even with competitors on shared interests, amid the Biden team's talks with top carbon emitter China on climate change, described as "the existential challenge of our time."
Despite Beijing's repeated denials, it is seeking hegemony, the strategy said China "has ambitions to create an enhanced sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific and to become the world's leading power," using the favored US term for the broader Asia region.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning yesterday said at a press conference that China and the US "shoulder responsibilities for maintaining world peace and stability and promoting economic prosperity and development.
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