US has no intention of trying to contain China

"There you go again" has become one of the most memorable lines in US presidential debate history. It was 1980, and Ronald Reagan used it famously to dismiss president Jimmy Carter's repeated misrepresentations of his plans for social security reform.

I am reminded of this line every time I hear someone, usually a Chinese official, think tank, or academic refer to US policy in Asia, the so-called "pivot" or rebalancing, as a grand plot to contain China. But even the Western media are prone to such loose characterisations.

One of the latest iterations came from China's former ambassador to Japan who, speaking in Hong Kong earlier this month, cautioned the US against "restraining China's influence in the region". Another was Commerce Minister Chen Deming's statement last week that the US was employing a "cold war mentality" in its review of two Chinese telecom companies' proposed investments in the US.

President Barack Obama's upcoming trip back to the region, including a historic visit to Myanmar, will no doubt spark new protests from some quarters that the US president, emboldened by his re-election victory, is taking the "pivot" to the next level.

It's unclear whether such assertions are mere talking points or reflect a genuine perception, but to view US policy in Asia as containment is to misread history and ignore deeper trends under way in the global economy.

Then, unlike now, US containment against the former USSR was a foreign-policy and military strategy designed to respond to real and existential threats to the Western democratic way of life. Moscow's belief that there could be no peaceful co-existence between communism and capitalism cried out for a response.