ABSTRACT
39Beijing regards the United States as the most significant threat to China’s national security in the Asia-Pacific region, the key battleground of US–China competition for global influence. It considers the US the primary obstacle to the most important item on its national-security agenda – unification with Taiwan. Moreover, a growing China, flexing its muscles, inevitably runs into the US alliance system spanning the first and second island chains. The rise of great-power competition in the Asia-Pacific has key implications for China’s regional security policy. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781003336112/c5ee45f6-e22a-492b-9855-d32a10653759/content/fig_pg_38.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> A satellite image of Subi Reef, one of China’s artificial islands in the South China Sea, 4 September 2016 (USGS/NASA Landsat data/Orbital Horizon/Gallo Images/Getty Images)
