Earlier, senior Pentagon officials mentioned concerns about China's growing diplomatic, economic and military clout around the world, including over Sub-Saharan Africa, where prospective Chinese military bases could “threaten US freedom of manoeuvre” on the continent in the near future.
The Pentagon is concerned about China's alleged “desire to erode US military advantages” in the Middle East by using their major investments among major US allies to ‘coerce' them to move away from the US, deputy assistant secretary of defence for the Middle East Michael Mulroy has said.
“Many investments are beneficial, but we're concerned countries' economic interests may blind them to the negative implications of some Chinese investments, including impact on joint defence cooperation with the United States,” Mulroy noted, speaking to the Financial Times.
According to Mulroy, the US is particularly concerned about China's alleged “intellectual property theft and acquisition” efforts. With this in mind, the official stressed that although while the US would remain committed to helping its partners “fight terrorism” and “promote stability” in the region, Washington was also ready to make “hard decisions” if US technology were threatened.
Mulroy did not expand on what he meant about “hard decisions,” but FT indicated the recent case of the US move to drop Turkey from the F-35 programme after it…
