Asserting that the US is not seeking to act in conflict with a rising China, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said her country is preparing for new security challenges not a Cold War in the Asia.
Denying that the US wanted to halt China's rise as an emerging power, Clinton said just as the US is not losing old friends, it is not seeking new enemies.
"Today's China is not the Soviet Union. We are not on the brink of a new Cold War in Asia," Clinton said.
"Geopolitics today cannot afford to be a zero-sum game. A thriving China is good for America and a thriving America is good for China, so long as we both thrive in a way that contributes to the regional and global good."
"Let me go one step further. We will only succeed in building a peaceful, prosperous Asia Pacific if we succeed in building an effective US-China relationship," Clinton said said delivering the Forrestal Lecture at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
Clinton said some emerging powers in Asia are acting as selective stakeholders, which she cautioned would not be beneficial to them in the long run.
"Some of today's emerging powers in Asia and elsewhere act as selective stakeholders, picking and choosing when to participate constructively and when to stand apart from the international system,"
"While that may suit their interests in the short term, it will ultimately render the system that has helped them get to where they are today unworkable. That would end up impoverishing everyone," she said.
Clinton said they need to work together to adapt and update them and even to create new institutions where necessary.
But there are principles that are universal and that must be defended: fundamental freedoms and human dignity; an open, free, transparent, and fair economic system; the peaceful resolution of disputes; and respect for the territorial integrity of states, she noted.
Clinton said that rising Asian powers -- naming China, India and Indonesia -- have been able to prosper thanks to an international system supported by the United States.
"These are norms that benefit everyone and that help all people and nations live and trade in peace. The international system based on these principles helped fuel, not foil, the rise of China and other emerging powers such as India and Indonesia. Those nations have benefited from the security it provides, the markets it opens, and the trust it fosters," Clinton said.
"And as a consequence, they have a real stake in the success of that system. And as their power grows and their ability to contribute increases, the world's expectations of them will rise as well," she said.
