Despite Russia’s war, China still top threat to US, Pentagon says
- The US military’s new national defence strategy document outlines efforts to prevent Beijing’s ‘dominance of key areas’
- Defence chief Lloyd Austin calls China the only competitor ‘with both the intent to reshape the international order, and increasingly the power to do so’
China remains the greatest security challenge for the United States despite Russia’s war in Ukraine, and the threat from Beijing will determine how the US military is equipped and shaped for the future, according to a new Pentagon defence strategy.
While the document released Thursday says that conflict with China “is neither inevitable nor desirable”, it describes an effort to prevent Beijing’s “dominance of key regions” – a clear reference to its aggressive military build-up in the South China Sea and increased pressure on the self-governing island of Taiwan.
It warns that China is working to undermine American alliances in the Indo-Pacific and use its growing military to coerce and threaten neighbours.
At the same time, the 80-page, unclassified report notes Russia’s war in Ukraine and says Moscow is a serious threat to the US and its allies, with nuclear weapons, cyber operations and long-range missiles. And it warns that as China and Russia continue to grow as partners, they “now pose more dangerous challenges to safety and security at home, even as terrorist threats persist”.
China “is the only competitor out there with both the intent to reshape the international order, and increasingly the power to do so”, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said at the Pentagon.