Causes And Objectives Of The U.S."Pivot To Asia" Strategy

From the end of2009, the newly inaugurated Obama Administration announcedthe "Pivot to Asia" strategy, moving the U.S. strategic center to the Asia-PacificRegion, which is manifested by a series of actions such as strengthening its Asianalliances, joining TPP, enhancing its military presence in Asia and interfering inmultilateral issues. This essay analyzes, from political, economic, and militaryperspectives, the various backgrounds of this strategy, and believes that the adoptionof such a strategy was a result of concerns on the part of the U.S. in the face ofChina’s growing influence over the rising Asia-Pacific region. Through this strategy,the U.S. aims to assure its allies of the American leading power in Asia, to check therising capacity and influence of China in the Asia-Pacific region, to expand itseconomic interest in Asia, and to restrain China’s military power. Although the ObamaAdministration has extended in some public speeches their friendliness toward China,its actions have in fact brought tensions to Sino-U.S. relations and made existingconflicts between China and other Asian countries more complicated, which hasposed a big challenge to Chinese diplomacy.