By Ben Blanchard
BEIJING, Oct 21 (Reuters) - The United States is not seeking
to "decouple" from China and not asking any country to choose
sides, a senior U.S. defence official said on Monday, offering a
softer outlook on relations bruised by a bitter trade war.
China has been nervous that the United States is seeking to
sever, or at least severely curb, economic ties in what has been
called a "decoupling". Beijing fears that the Trump
administration wants a complete separation with China.
The two countries have been working to resolve their trade
dispute, with the United States announcing a "phase 1" deal with
China on trade matters and suspending a scheduled tariff hike
for October. Speaking in Beijing at a high-profile Chinese military
forum, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Chad Sbragia
sought to place relations in a more positive light.
"One area that I would comment and challenge on is - I've
heard this on this panel and other panels - the idea that the
United States approach is fundamentally based on decoupling,"
Sbragia said at a panel on the sidelines of the Xiangshan Forum.
"I'll tell you from personal experience that's not only not
official U.S. policy, that's not even a policy discussion that I
hear in my day-to-day business. That's not even how we think
about that," he said.
"If decoupling was actually the practice, what you would see
on a day-to-day basis would be fundamentally different than what
you see."
What the United States is trying to do is "rebalance and
right relationships to ensure that we have equity", Sbragia, who
is leading the U.S. delegation to the forum, added.
Both countries want to enhance stability and deepen their
relationship to reinforce crisis avoidance, he said.
"It's just the opposite of decoupling. It's not to pull
apart. It's actually to in some ways deepen those
relationships."
The United States and China have bickered over other areas,
including the disputed South China Sea and Chinese-claimed
Taiwan, with Beijing especially nervous about U.S. military
activity in what it views as China's backyard.
Sbragia said Washington wanted an open, free and inclusive
Indo-Pacific region based on certain principles, including
peaceful resolution of disputes, freedom of navigation and
overflight, and fair trade and investment.
"Our treaty alliances in the Indo Pacific are not maintained
as a relic of Cold War thinking, as some contend, but are
manifestations of our enduring commitment to ensuring our allies
and partners are secure in their sovereignty," he added.
"Our inclusive vision extends to China as well. Competition
with China does mean conflict, and the United States will not
ask any country to choose between Washington and Beijing. That's
not how the logic of our framework, our approach, is set."