‘US not excluding China in Indo-Pacific strategy’

MANILA, Philippines — The United States’ Indo-Pacific strategy is open to any country – including China – and is not meant merely as a reaction to Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative.

“I would say the Indo-Pacific strategy sets up a system that is inclusive. It’s for every country. It’s not aimed against anybody,” Walter Douglas, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and Public Diplomacy in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said at a media briefing.

“It’s not meant to exclude any country but rather set up an open, transparent, rules-based system that every country can participate in,” he said.

The US Indo-Pacific investment plan is seen as Washington’s answer to China’s Belt and Road.

The plan is meant to defend US interests and deepen its engagement in the region as China forges ahead with its own trade and infrastructure investment program, the Belt and Road Initiative.

The senior US official believed that the South China Sea ruling and international law play a role in shaping the US Indo-Pacific strategy.

The United Nations-backed arbitral tribunal based in The Hague ruled that China’s nine-dash line does not have legal basis and that Beijing violated its commitment under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) when it built artificial islands within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.