America has bases at the western edge of the Pacific. South Korea, Japan, and Guam host key facilities. When China was poor and Russia was only in northeast Asia, that was all we needed. I've long wanted more focus on smaller islands further east to cope with China's lengthening military reach.
China is already trying to undermine that potential:
President Xi Jinping made a push to expand China’s influence in the Pacific on Friday, holding a forum with leaders of eight small island countries in Papua New Guinea.
But Chinese officials barred most media, including reporters from the Pacific, from the forum at which Xi met leaders from the Cook Islands, Fiji, Micronesia, Niue, Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu, as well as Papua New Guinea, in its capital Port Moresby ahead of an APEC summit this weekend.
China’s efforts to win friends in the resource-rich Pacific push have been watched warily by the traditionally influential powers in the region - Australia, New Zealand and the United States - who were not invited to Friday’s forum.
Indeed. Britain is worried about Chinese influence too, and acting.
If China can strike and crush our forces close to them, they don't want reinforcements to reach their shores too quickly. To guard against having just a thin crust of defense I've called for gaining access to potential bases to increase our depth facing China.
China's outreach has the potential to undermine that depth.
Of course, we'd like the threat to the first line of defense reduced, too:
The Trump administration is demanding that China remove all advanced missiles deployed on disputed islands in the South China Sea, the first time such a demand has been made public.
The call to take out the anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles was disclosed in a fact sheet from the State Department on Friday outlining the results of a strategic dialogue between senior U.S. and Chinese officials.
We'll have more luck building depth to backstop our first line of defense.
