The United States is offering little to counter China’s massive infrastructure drive, failing to invest the attention and resources needed to make its Indo-Pacific strategy a major force in the region, according to David Shear, a former US ambassador to Vietnam. Shear, who was also assistant secretary of defence for Asian and Pacific security affairs from 2014 to 2016, said China and the US were competing for dominance in the region and both countries needed to build strong bonds with regional leaders. “[But] it’s not clear to what extent [US President Donald Trump] is committed to the strategy,” he told the South China Morning Post . Trump first drew attention to the strategy in 2017 in what was widely seen as a response to China’s growing economic and political influence in the Asia-Pacific through infrastructure, investment and energy deals. US commander pushes for more funding to counter China’s influence in Indo-Pacific The strategy covers an area from the US west coast to Southeast Asia and India, and was supported by US$113 million in development initiatives and the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act, legislation meant to foster economic and security ties with six of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ 10 members. Meanwhile, China has committed billions in US dollars to its global trade and infrastructure push, the “Belt and Road Initiative”. He said US moves so far to fund infrastructure in the region were “baby steps” while the Chinese diplomats were promoting China as a new business model to the region. “They’re saying China is Netflix, the United States is Blockbuster Video. Stick with us. Go with China and you’d get rich. Go with the US and all you get is the Seventh Fleet,” Shear said in a speech at the Asia Society in Hong Kong on Friday. “[China] are engaged in a big infrastructure buildout. [The countries in the region] need financing. America isn’t bringing financing to the table.” He said the Indo-Pacific strategy was mainly a diplomatic strategy and the most precious resource it could have “the time senior most leaders can spend on the issue”. “And right now I think the president isn’t spending enough time on implement it filling out and implementing the Indo-Pacific strategy. He’s spending a lot of time on Korea and he’s spending a lot of time on bilateral US-China trade friction,” Shear said. “When it comes to resources, the United States government is like a supertanker. When you, want to shift resources, for example, from one region to another, just like a supertanker, it takes a lot of effort and a lot of time to turn it around. And our supertanker has yet to turn around fully and we’re not fully resourcing.” Shear said that while the US needed to shift military resources to the region, the United States and China were not involved in a cold war. “I think it’s clear that Chinese military spending is growing at a very strong rate and for the United States to keep up in the region, we’re going to have to continue looking at how to shift those resources,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean that cooperation remains impossible and it certainly doesn’t mean that we seek to conduct a cold war with China. And if we did, President Trump wouldn’t be negotiating as enthusiastically as he is on trade issues.” Submarine arms race seen heating up in Indo-Pacific amid ‘great threat’ from China On the trade war between the two countries, Shear said he expected Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping would meet in May or before or after the G20 summit in Osaka in June. “Given the difficulty of issues like structural reform in China, IPR protection, subsidies for [state firms], it’s no surprise that it’s taking longer than everybody expected to achieve a deal,” he said. “It could take them until as late as June, the G20. It could happen in May. If the White House agrees to a state visit President Xi.” As for US extradition request of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, Shear said it would take longer to resolve but it was possible that Meng would be released. “Some sort of a deal might be possible in which Huawei pays a fine and Meng Wanzhou returns to China. But I think it’s too early. She’s ... just started her extradition hearings in Canada, in which the Canadian court must decide whether or not she should be extradited to the US,” he said. “It could take months, if not years for a decision to be made.”