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President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan has declared the US is a resident power in the Indo-Pacific, telling Australians he rejects claims it doesn’t have the staying power to remain in Asia in the face of a rising China.

Mr Sullivan’s declaration that America is “not going anywhere” is in stark contrast to former Australian prime minister Paul Keating, who on Wednesday said while the US should remain in East Asia as a “balancing and conciliating” military power it would be significantly eclipsed by China over the coming years.

After delivering a wide-ranging address to the Lowy Institute on Thursday, Mr Sullivan also conceded there had been “some challenges” in the rollout of the AUKUS defence pact with Australia and Britain but he stopped short of criticising the Morrison government.

It came on the same day Chinese President Xi Jinping warned the region must not “relapse” into Cold War-style confrontation, which was widely seen as a criticism of groups such as AUKUS and the Quad partnership of Australia, the US, Japan and India.

Mr Sullivan also rejected comparisons to the Cold War, saying the US was instead moving forward with what President Biden calls “stiff competition”.

He said the US was going to “compete vigorously across multiple dimensions” and “stand up for our values”, but it also recognised that China was “going to be a factor in the international system for the foreseeable future – it’s not going anywhere”.

“And the United States is not going anywhere, and we’re not going anywhere in the Indo-Pacific either. And so we’re going to have to learn how to deal with that reality,” he said.

“We are a resident power in the Indo-Pacific. You know, we’re resident as far west as Guam, in terms of actual American territory... We’re resident with substantial long-term troop presence in Japan, in Korea, in Australia.

“And at any given moment, American surface and undersea assets are at work, enforcing freedom of navigation, engaging in exercises, engaging in work on humanitarian assistance and disaster response. And so we have been a resident power in the Indo-Pacific for decades. It is core to our being as a geopolitical actor. It is fundamental to our identity.”

Read more:

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/biden-s-security-adviser-tells-australia-the-us-will-be-a-power-in-asia-for-decades-.html

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