{"id":57611,"date":"2020-08-27T05:34:10","date_gmt":"2020-08-27T05:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/uncategorized\/2020\/08\/27\/esper-visit-to-tiny-palau-highlights-us-china-competition\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T10:42:31","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T10:42:31","slug":"esper-visit-to-tiny-palau-highlights-us-china-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/news\/pentagon-congress\/2020\/08\/27\/esper-visit-to-tiny-palau-highlights-us-china-competition\/","title":{"rendered":"Esper visit to tiny Palau highlights US-China competition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 No nation is too small or too distant from Washington, it seems, to be excluded from the Trump administration\u2019s campaign to counter China\u2019s efforts to supplant America as the dominant Pacific power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evidence of this is Defense Secretary Mark Esper\u2019s decision to fly nearly halfway around the world partly so he can spend several hours in Palau, a Pacific archipelago<\/a> of barely 20,000 people southeast of the Philippines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no suggestion of a direct Chinese military threat to Palau. Instead the island nation is an example of the sometimes obscure battleground on which the United States and China are pursuing a \u201cgreat power\u201d competition for global influence in an era of a more inward-looking Washington and an increasingly assertive and ambitious China. The power struggle is intensifying on multiple fronts and is seen by some an an emerging \u201ccold war\u201d akin to the mostly non-shooting conflict that played out between the United States and the former Soviet Union until the collapse of Soviet communism in 1991. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In defiance of Beijing, tiny pro-American Palau is one of only 15 states with official diplomatic relations with Taiwan, the self-governing island that China claims as its own territory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are concerned about China continuing to try to flip countries that recognize Taiwan today to establish diplomatic relations with China instead,\u201d said Heino Klinck, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia. \u201cWe find that destabilizing, quite frankly.\u201d The United States made that very switch itself when it recognized Beijing as the sole legal government of China in 1979, although Washington maintains unofficial relations with Taiwan and sells arms to Taiwan under the Taiwan Relations Act. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

More broadly, Klinck said in an interview, Esper wants to reinforce the U.S. commitment to a long-term relationship with Palau. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA little country, maybe, but they punch above their weight when it comes to enlistment rates in the U.S. military,\u201d Klinck said, adding that six Palauans have been killed in a U.S. uniform in Iraq and Afghanistan. Under a 1994 Compact of Free Association, Palauans are eligible to serve in the U.S. military. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The list of the Trump administration\u2019s complaints about China is long and extends far beyond Palau. Washington derides China\u2019s militarization of the South China Sea, regards with suspicion its expanding nuclear arsenal, and has retaliated this year for its alleged use of diplomatic facilities in the United States to coordinate theft of economic and scientific secrets. The coronavirus pandemic and commercial trade, too, are sore spots. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For its part, China sees U.S. policy as designed to limit its rise as an economic and military power. <\/p>\n\n\n\t