2024.2.19.

Ri Ji Won, a researcher of the Institute for American Studies of the DPRK Foreign Ministry, released the following article titled "Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy is a geopolitical confrontation scenario that disturbs regional peace and stability":

On the lapse of two years since the release of the report on the "Indo-Pacific strategy of the U.S.", the U.S. administration recently claimed that a "historic advance" was made in implementing the Indo-Pacific strategy, praising the intensified attempt to manipulate and expand the regional bloc as the major "achievement".

It also praised itself that the project for building the free and open Indo-Pacific has been accelerated, the ties with states inside and outside the region strengthened, the regional prosperity promoted, the regional security reinforced and the ability to cope with threats in the 21st century beyond the border provided.

What does the Biden administration’s overheated celebration show?

It is not so hard for anyone to see that the U.S., driven into a tight corner in Ukraine, the Middle East and other parts of the world, is trying hard to advertise as if it is achieving "success" only in the Asia-Pacific region.

However, the present situation, two years after the publication of the report on the "Indo-Pacific strategy of the U.S.", clearly shows the absurdity of the "construction of the free, open, prosperous and stable region" advocated by the present U.S. administration.

First, the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy has brought about "closure and confrontation between camps" in the region, instead of "freedom and opening".

As known, the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy’s basic mission is to contain anti-U.S. independent countries in the region and gain unchallenged position.

The Indo-Pacific strategy, which originated from the Asia-pacific rebalancing strategy proposed by the Obama administration in 2012, was conceptualized and evolved into a more comprehensive strategy during the period of the Trump administration.

During the period of the Trump administration, the U.S. expanded the scope of its strategy, which had been limited to the Asia-Pacific region, to the Indian Ocean, advocating the "building of a free and open Indo-Pacific region", and in 2019 the Department of State and the Defense Department of the U.S. released reports on the "Indo-Pacific strategy" codifying this strategy.

The hegemony-oriented and aggressive nature of the Indo-Pacific strategy was more clearly revealed in the period of the Biden administration.

The Biden administration has made clearer the confrontational nature of QUAD since the beginning of its office. In September 2021 it invented AUKUS, sparking off concern about nuclear proliferation and tensions in the region.

Meanwhile, the moves to enroll the vassal forces in bellicose and irreversible blocs have become undisguised such as institutionalizing the U.S.-Japan-puppet ROK and U.S.-Japan-Philippines tripartite cooperation.

The U.S. also forced the member states of ASEAN and other regional countries, including the Pacific island nations, to select one alternative between the two ideological stands - pro-U.S. or independence.

This made the countries which chose the pro-U.S. move at the U.S. beck and call, shackled by the U.S. regional strategy, and the countries which chose independence undoubtedly become the target of the U.S.

Second, the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy has caused "instability of situation and war crisis" in the region, rather than "stability".

The U.S. directed primary efforts to pressurizing regional countries through tightened military collusion with its followers in order to carry out the Indo-Pacific strategy.

In particular, it has intensified the triangular military cooperation with Japan and the ROK puppets and frequently sent strategic assets to the Korean peninsula and its vicinity, talking about the "offer of extended deterrence".

Last year alone, a U.S. nuclear submarine called at the puppet ROK region in 40-odd years and a U.S. nuclear strategic bomber landed on the region for the first time in 30-odd years. The two rounds of meetings of the "Nuclear Consultative Group" discussed the plan for using nuclear weapons against the DPRK in a practical way.

The U.S. also deliberately strained the situation and sparked disputes among regional countries by sending warships and fighters one after another into the hot spots, including the South Sea and the East Sea of China and the Taiwan Strait, under the pretext of "freedom of navigation".

In addition, it has staged joint military drills under various codenames such as Ulji Freedom Guardian, Pacific Dragon, Resilient Shield, Noble Fusion and Cope North in the Asia-Pacific region every day to escalate the danger of military conflict as never before.

Moreover, the dark war clouds hanging over Europe are coming to Asia as the U.S. is instigating NATO to advance into the Asia-Pacific region.

It is a prelude to NATO’s aggression on Asia and Pacific looming ahead that NATO mentioned "threats" by the Asia-Pacific countries in its new strategic concept in June 2022 and is recently inveigling regional countries into the ranks of its strategic partners.

Owing to the reckless military confrontation hysteria of the U.S. and its followers, the outbreak of a nuclear war in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly, the Korean Peninsula - the world’s biggest nuclear arsenal - has already become a matter of point of time beyond possibility and regional countries had to make an inevitable option of bolstering up the military capabilities for self-defence to deal with the current security situation.

The era of a new Cold War looms large in the region due to the attempt of the U.S., Japan and puppet ROK to establish the Asian version of NATO and the black tentacles of NATO stretching to the Asia-Pacific region.

Third, the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy has fed "confusion", not "prosperity" of the region.

The U.S. has got undisguised in its sinister intention to exclude and isolate a certain state from the regional economic system and expanded the security concept into the economic field. As a result, the economic development and growth in the Asia-Pacific region are seriously hampered and hindered.

The Biden administration adopted the "CHIPS and Science Act" and put forward the plan for establishing the "Chip Four Alliance", thus declaring an illegal economic war aimed at deterring the sci-tech development of regional countries by making vicious use of semiconductor.

In addition, it puts the brakes on its domestic companies and Western countries’ cooperation with the U.S. rival countries in the field of cutting-edge technology, touting "separation of relations and risk reduction".

Notably, the U.S. is attempting to build an exclusive supply chain that excludes regional countries by means of the India-Pacific Economic Framework.

Much upset by its waning economic influence in the Asia-Pacific region, the present U.S. chief executive officially initiated the India-Pacific Economic Framework by rallying its 13 vassal countries during his trip to Japan in May 2022.

During the APEC summit held in San Francisco last November, he organized a summit of the India-Pacific Economic Framework, at which the U.S. revealed its attempt to put collective economic pressure on some countries in the region.

The U.S. arranged a "small-group meeting" against the backdrop of the meeting for seeking regional economic cooperation and development to enter into the "core mineral dialogue". This fact clearly showed what object the U.S. is seeking through the India-Pacific Economic Framework.

The U.S. is also resorting to rampant interference in the internal affairs of developing countries while attaching all sorts of political strings to the unctuous signboard of "financial aid". As a result, the economic damage to the region is growing and some countries fail to find a way for independent development, driven into constant chaos.

In the long run, the economic war being waged by the U.S. against independent sovereign states has made the regional economy a political scapegoat, with the result that a stable supply network has not yet been built and the process of integration of the Asia-Pacific economic and trade cooperation seriously damaged.

It is the "biggest gift" the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy brought to the region that the U.S. bound regional countries to the structure of inter-camp confrontation and caused security uneasiness and economic confusion.

It is by no means fortuitous that international media and experts claim that no matter how ostentatiously the U.S. wraps the strategy, it is to serve the interests of the U.S. from A to Z and it brought unprecedented confusion and instability to the Asia-Pacific region.

The U.S. is talking about its "devoted efforts" and "threats" from the anti-U.S. and independent states in the region to sustain its declining hegemonic position and the old international order. However, it can never cover up the aggressive nature pervading the Indo-Pacific strategy.

The countries in the Asia-Pacific region should keep strict vigilance over the U.S. moves to turn the region into a checkerboard for geopolitical gambling for the sake of the establishment of uni-polar hegemony and its own interests and should categorically reject them.

Rodong Sinmun