Committee on Armed Services United State

Maritime Security Strategy in the Asia-Pacific Region Committee on Armed Services United State

America's national interests in the Asia-Pacific region are deep and enduring. We seek to maintain a balance of power that fosters a peaceful expansion of free societies, free trade, free markets, and free commons, air, sea, space, and cyber. These are values that we share with increasing numbers of Asia's citizens. For 7 decades, administrations of both parties have worked with our friends and allies in the region to uphold this rules-based order and to enlist new partners in this shared effort, an effort that now extends to states like Indonesia and Vietnam. No country has benefited more from a peaceful regional order in the Asia-Pacific region than China. Unfortunately, we increasingly see a pattern of behavior from China that suggests that some of our highest hopes for our relationship are not materializing and that call into question for nations across the Pacific whether China's rise will, in fact, be peaceful.