COVID-19 reduces China’s power in the Indo-Pacific, a “significant” risk of war

MELBOURNE (Reuters) – The Coronavirus pandemic has weakened China’s power in the Indo-Pacific, and growing regional security uncertainty poses a “significant” risk of war, the Lowy Institute said in a report on Sunday.

Key regional allies such as the U.S. and India have never been dependent on the ability and willingness of the United States to maintain a military and strategic counterweight to China’s rise, the Sydney foreign policy think tank said.

At the same time, Beijing has sought to dissuade Southeast Asian countries from joining the U.S. coalition, while improving its military exchanges with Russia and Pakistan and North Korea and creating a huge trio of nuclear-aligned forces aligned with China. region.

“The question is whether the balance of military power in the Indo-Pacific is contributing to deterrence and strategic stability in the Indo-Pacific,” the report said.

“The depth of the wars, the breadth of the US-China competition and the presence of multiple potential points mean that the risk of war is significant.”

The impact of the pandemic has undermined the region’s prosperity, undermining China’s comprehensive power.

“By the end of the decade, Beijing does not have the full power to outperform its peers, which suggests that China’s rise is nothing short of essential in the world,” the report said. “It seems very unlikely that China will ever be as dominant as the United States.”

The thought was that Australia, as its relations with China have deteriorated significantly in recent years, is facing China’s growing strength than most of its U.S. partners, but it is growing in Washington.

In 2018, Australia banned China’s Huawei Technologies Co 5G from its telecommunications network. Relations deteriorated last year when Canberra called for an independent investigation into the origin of the coronavirus, which sparked some trade retaliation from China.