Is President Obama Miscalculating China’s Military Goals And Capabilities?

President Obama and China's President Xi Jinping hold a joint news conference in the Rose Garden of the White House on Sept. 25. (Gary Cameron/Reuters)

Carlo Muñoz, The Washington Times: Obama, Pentagon ‘dangerously’ miscalculating China’s military goals and capabilities

As Washington and Beijing spar in a dangerous game of one-upmanship to determine who will control the strategically critical waterways of the South China Sea, some defense observers and regional analysts worry that the U.S. effort will prove an exercise in futility in the long term against the full weight of China’s growing military and economic prowess.

China’s strategy of slowly but methodically building up military installations in the Spratly Islands, the Scarborough Shoal, the Fiery Cross Reef and other strategic points within the sea, coupled with Beijing’s increasingly assertive territorial claims, has elevated tensions in Washington and unsettled U.S. allies in the region.

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WNU Editor: President Obama is trying his best to diffuse what he knows will be an explosive situation over time if no effort is done to counter China's territorial claims .... but he is limited by the reluctance of allies to be firmly committed, as well as having limited U.S. resources in the region. This is especially glaring on the South China Sea dispute where the U.S. is in a poor position to counter Chinese claims .... after-all .... the Chinese are there and the U.S. is thousands of miles away. On a side note this analysis also explains why China has an edge in this dispute .... Who Has an Edge in the South China Sea: China or US? (VOA).

So current U.S. policy has become one of engaging with China on a diplomatic level, showing the U.S. flag via through naval patrols and exercises (once in a while), forming and/or deepening alliances and agreements with countries that are currently in a dispute with China over territorial claims, and to encourage a general build-up in defence budgets. Is this the action of a White House that is miscalculating Chinese military goals and capabilities .... I will have to say no. But it is also a policy that has no end game .... in fact .... I see this policy more not as a means to "one-up" China, but  as a policy to maintain the status quo as best as possible so that it can then be dumped on the next President's lap .... whether it is Trump or Clinton.