Page:Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community Unclassified 2016.pdf/20

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REGIONAL THREATS
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Emerging trends suggest that geopolitical competition among the major powers is increasing in ways that challenge international norms and institutions. Russia, in particular, but also China seek greater influence over their respective neighboring regions and want the United States to refrain from actions they perceive as interfering with their interests—which will perpetuate the ongoing geopolitical and security competition around the peripheries of Russia and China, to include the major sea lanes. They will almost certainly eschew direct military conflict with the United States in favor of contests at lower levels of competition—to include the use of diplomatic and economic coercion, propaganda, cyber intrusions, proxies, and other indirect applications of military power—that intentionally blur the distinction between peace and wartime operations.

Although major power competition is increasing, the geopolitical environment continues to offer opportunities for US cooperation. In addition, despite the prospect for increased competition, the major powers, including Russia and China, will have incentives to continue to cooperate with the United States on issues of shared interest that cannot be solved unilaterally. A future international environment defined by a mix of competition and cooperation among major powers, however, will probably encourage ad-hoc approaches to global challenges that undermine existing international institutions.

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China
}} China will continue to pursue an active foreign policy—especially within the Asia Pacific—highlighted by a firm stance on competing territorial claims in the East and South China Seas, relations with Taiwan, and its pursuit of economic engagement across East Asia. Regional tension will continue as China pursues construction at its expanded outposts in the South China Sea and because competing claimants might pursue actions that others perceive as infringing on their sovereignty. Despite the meeting between China’s and Taiwan’s Presidents in November 2015, Chinese leaders will deal with a new president from a different party in Taiwan following elections in January. China will also pursue efforts aimed at fulfilling its “One Belt, One Road” initiative to expand China’s economic role and outreach across Asia.

China will continue to incrementally increase its global presence. Mileposts have included symbolic and substantive developments, such as the IMF’s decision in November 2016 to incorporate the renminbi into its Special Drawing Rights currency basket and China’s opening of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in early 2016. China will increasingly be a factor in global responses to emerging problems, as illustrated by China’s participation in UN peacekeeping operations, WHO’s Ebola response, and infrastructure construction in Africa and Pakistan.

Amid new economic challenges, Chinese leaders are pursuing an ambitious agenda of economic, legal, and military reforms aimed at bolstering the country’s long-term economic growth potential, improving