SYDNEY, Dec 1, Reuters - China is trying to break the U.S. ally, contributing to increased anxiety about Beijing in the region, Kurt Campbell, the White House's Indo Pacific coordinator, said in a speech to a think tank in Sydney on Wednesday.
U.S. President Joe Biden raised the treatment of Australia, which has been subject to trade reprisals by Beijing, in a meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping, as an example of behaviour that was backfiring because Xi's advisers were not providing effective feedback, Campbell told the Lowy Institute foreign policy institute. Campbell said Australia was on its knees to drive it to its knees.
Campbell underlined the United States' commitment to new security and economic alliances in the Indo Pacific, including the defence technology pact with Australia and Britain, known as AUKUS, and the Quad of India, Japan, the U.S. and Australia. He said that these groups would focus on technology, education, climate and pandemic cooperation to show that the U.S. was bringing value to Asia.
He said the United States is not leaving the Indo-Pacific, and that there appears to be a belief among ideological advisers around President Xi that somehow the United States is in this hurtling decline Beijing's lack of communication over its build up of nuclear deterrent capabilities, hypersonic and anti-satellite systems is of concern to the U.S. He said the U.S. was looking for dialogue on the issue and had told Beijing it wanted competition that was peaceful.