Asian countries want to leverage the U.S. to balance China’s growing power and the U.S. wants to strengthen its influence there, too, comments Study Times regarding U.S. Secretary of State Clinton’s signing of the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation. The article dismissed the speculation that this is a major challenge to China. "The current economic interdependence of China and the U.S. has gone beyond the economic relations between any two great powers." But then it said, “However, undeniably, recently the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and other countries that have intensified disputes and conflicts with China over the ownership of the South China Sea Islands want to leverage the power of the United States to balance China’s influence. The U.S. is more than willing to participate.”

Source: Study Times, October 26, 2009
http://www.studytimes.com.cn/WebPage/ny1.aspx?act=1&id=3003&nid=10940&bid=2&page=1

Zhang Zhixin, a researcher at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, wrote an article about President Obama’s China strategy. Zhang indicated that the US recently came up with a new concept called:"strategic reassurance," which was first mentioned by Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, who also suggested on September 24, that the US invites China to be a prosperous nation as long as the growth is not at the cost of other nations’ safety and welfare. According to Zhang, the message from the US seems to be that Obama is willing to acknowledge China’s status as a rising world power – if China honors the status quo and does not challenge the leading position of the United States. Zhang’s article also asks: what can the US "assure" China of, when they are seeking a promise from China?

Source: Xinhua, October 15, 2009.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/herald/2009-10/15/content_12237086.htm