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China sees US stretched thin with Middle East wars. It takes away focus from Indo-Pacific

An irreversible process of de-Americanisation may already be underway, according to Chinese discourse.

Amid multiple ongoing conflicts, the United States’ strategic bandwidth is increasingly overstretched. Few would have anticipated Washington’s main role in the Middle Eastern war, alongside a markedly transactional and unpredictable posture. This reorientation has strained US resources and attention, diverting focus from the Indo-Pacific. It marks a departure from the regionally-oriented policy trajectory that has defined American policy over the past decade.

In China, a prevailing view holds that US commitments in the Indo-Pacific are gradually losing effectiveness. Chinese discourse, however, frames this more as part of a longer-term pattern dating back to the end of the Cold War. More fundamentally, it underscores a belief that the US has been struggling to maintain its primacy and to counter China effectively. 

Structural sources of US overstretch

Zhang Yao, associate researcher at the School of Public Administration, Nanjing Normal University, argues that the US global strategy, highlighted by its involvement in the US-Israel-Iran conflict, reveals deeper, long-term structural flaws. As the sole superpower after the Cold War, the US became overly focused on maintaining dominance, resulting in strategic overextension, short-termism, and declining global credibility. 

Focusing on Asia, Zhang contends that although US strategic investment has increased since........

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