Beijing making a counterplay to Washington's Asia-Pacific pivot
China appears to be responding to US muscle-flexing in Asia, with moves including its own development bank and a bid to reopen the Silk Road
The Silk Road, an obscure Kazakh-inspired security forum, and a US$50 billion Asian infrastructure bank are just some of the disparate elements in an evolving Chinese strategy to try to counter Washington's "pivot" to the region.
While Chinese leaders have not given the growing list of initiatives a label or said they had an overall purpose, Chinese analysts and diplomats said Beijing appeared set on shaping Asia's security and financial architecture more to its liking.
"China is trying to work out its own counterbalance strategy," said Sun Zhe, the director of the Centre for US-China Relations at Beijing's Tsinghua University, who has advised the government on foreign policy.
Added one Beijing-based Western diplomat who follows China's international relations: "This is all clearly aimed at the United States."
US President Barack Obama's pivot, as the White House initially dubbed it, represented a strategy to refocus on Asia's dynamic economies as the United States disentangled itself from costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
China sees the pivot as an attempt to contain its growing influence, especially given that the United States is strengthening its ties with Asian security allies such as Japan and the Philippines, which have bitter territorial disputes with Beijing in the region's waters. Washington denies this.