Edited and translated by People's Daily Online
Recently, the PLA Daily interviewed Lin Zhiyuan, an expert on U.S. issues from Department of World Military Research under Academy of Military Sciences on the U.S. strategy to "return to Asia."
Reporter: While talking about Asia recently, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, "The United States is back," making it clear that the United States has paid more attention to the Asian-Pacific region than ever, and it will shift its strategic focus to Asia in the future. What do you think of the move?
Lin Zhiyuan: It aims to fully restore the U.S. influence in the Asia-Pacific region. The United States implements a global strategy, which has respective focuses on deployment.
Since the end of the Cold War, the United States started to shift its strategic focus on Asia. However, the American focus on Asia was always interrupted by some major events, such as Asia’s financial crisis and the war on terrorism. Especially over the past 10 years, the United States paid all attention to anti-terrorism and got entangled in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but made slow progress in Asia.
Today's United States has taken "reviving the United States, leading the world" as its core objective. It changed the past practice of giving top priority to anti-terror, withdrew troops gradually from battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan, accelerated its pace of shifting strategic focus to Asia, and has taken a number of substantial measures.
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