Tuesday, May 27, 2014

China Outlines Vision for Asia

While tensions in the South China Sea have gone from bad to worse, with riots in Vietnam targeting Chinese businesses and a range of ASEAN states exploring ways to counter Chinese actions, Xi’s Wednesday speech at the Shanghai Conference on Interaction and Conference Building in Asia (CICA) seemed to take place in a different world. Rather than focusing on conflict, he spoke about China’s role in building a “peaceful, stable and cooperative new Asia.” Xi’s speech called for the construction of a new regional security architecture based on the organization, which China will chair for the next two years.

While recognizing the existence of U.S. interests in Asia, and its right to a role in the region, Xi made it clear that the United States’ current role is far too large. He called upon Asian states to settle their problems “among locals,” dismissed alliances as threatening to regional security and sought to put CICA, an organization which includes Russia and Iran but not the United States, at the center of regional security issues­.

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