Preoccupazioni ben espresse dal Ministro della Difesa Gates in occasione del suo viaggio in Cina. Nonostante i programmati "tagli" al bilancio, infatti, il Pentagono ha confermato il finanziamento di sistemi di arma funzionali al contrasto di tale build-up*.
Ulteriore prova- se mai ve ne fosse bisogno – di quanto le priorità geostrategiche degli Stati Uniti siano focalizzate in Asia.
Scrive la Stratfor:
"(…) There has a lot of talk recently about the Chinese military improvements, about Chinese development of anti-ship ballistic missiles, talk and rumors of the Japanese press of the Chinese removing their non-first strike nuclear policy, and these have raised a lot of concerns – not only the region, but globally and certainly in the United States.
The Chinese have shifted recently their attention, though, from what traditionally was a focus on the ground forces to a focus on more modern technology and particularly on creating greater stand-off distance on their coast.
The Chinese have a long-standing policy of building defensive buffers around their core territory — this is part of why the Chinese hold Tibet, why the Chinese are in Xinjiang — the maritime frontier is now where they see the most security threat and where they see themselves needing to push out. This runs square into a U.S. strategic imperative of maintaining secure and clear open sea lanes, because the United States feels it vital to be able to position itself anywhere on the globe in case of conflict and also to pre-empt conflict from coming to the United States*. What we now see is that as China grows economically, as China feels it’s more secure politically, it’s pushing its own regional interests and those interests are pushing square against what would be a strategic imperative for the United States.
What we’re watching for now is how the United States and the Chinese play Gates’ visit. There’s often differences in the emphasis that they put on it, and that will let us know whether the two sides have come to a better understanding or whether they seem to be moving further and further apart on this contentious issue.".

A tal proposito segnalo anche la pubblicazione dell'ultimo Adelphi Book "Trapped Giant: China's Military Rise".

* Per un approfondimento sull'argomento consiglio il bellissimo studio della RAND (edito nel 2007) "Entering the Dragon's Lair: Chinese Antiaccess Strategies and their Implications for the United States". Gli appassionati di strategie militari sicuramente apprezzeranno questo lavoro…