Why Obama’s Rebalance towards Asia-Pacific Was Unsuccessful?

Abstract

The Asia-Pacific rebalancing strategy has been the core of America’s global policy adjustment since the Obama Administration came into office. While this strategy has been the subject of great controversy since its implementation, it has made some progress and clearly generated benefits. Most importantly, it has strengthened the US strategic influence and strategic presence in the Asia-Pacific region, which has brought some pressure on China’s rise. This article holds that as the rebalancing strategy continues to progress, the USA has faced more increasing costs, including the huge financial pressures, the entrapment of regional alliances, the rising of the Sino– US strategic distrust, the abortion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the failure of strategic retrenchment in a global scale. These costs finally outweighed the benefits of the strategy. Therefore, from the perspective of cost–benefit, the grand strategy of rebalancing towards the Asia-Pacific was unsuccessful. Given this, the USA Asia-Pacific strategy may shift to limited retrenchment to maintain its strategic interests and hegemonic position while minimizing the strategic costs in the near future.