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Beijing sees Washington’s pivot to selective engagement and reliance on allies as an opportunity to recalibrate posture and prepare for long-term multi-domain competition in the Indo-Pacific
Image Source: Getty Images
Although US President Donald Trump’s 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) mentions Taiwan eight times, Beijing, particularly the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)—does not regard the document as overtly hostile. At a granular level, the PLA perceives Washington’s attitude as reflecting a subtle but substantial shift. The US is moving away from potential direct confrontation to deterrence, while exhibiting reduced willingness to bear unilateral costs. The deployment of US forces is shifting from a model of global presence and universal engagement to selective commitments and resource prioritisation in key focus areas, while seeking greater reliance on allies and partners. Moreover, Washington is recalibrating its posture for a prolonged competition in key technological, economic and strategic areas where it still has clear advantages. This evolution raises two crucial questions for the PLA: how will it shape the Chinese military’s perception of future conflicts, and what adjustments in force planning and combat preparedness will be required to face this US recalibration?
The US is moving away from potential direct confrontation to deterrence, while exhibiting reduced willingness to bear unilateral costs. The deployment of US forces is shifting from a model of global presence and universal engagement to selective commitments and resource prioritisation in key focus areas, while seeking greater reliance on allies and partners.
The official Chinese response to the US NSS 2025 has been restrained. Barring the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson’s comments and some internal commentary, the strategy document has not received China’s standard triangular attack. There has been no party outlet unleashing a coordinated ideological attack, no strategic document issued and dissected by multiple official channels, and the Chinese state media has avoided its usual nationalistic coverage.
Rather, there is quiet satisfaction in Beijing that Washington has stepped back from explicit ideological and political confrontation with the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese state. The NSS grudgingly acknowledges China as a near-peer economic power and its long-haul advances in economic and technological domains, and seeks to hedge American exposure by revitalising its industrial base and fortifying critical supply chains. This kind of competition is more sustainable than ideological confrontation, but for China, this shift offers no surprise. Beijing has already encountered Washington’s capricious high-technology restrictions since the first Trump administration and through the Biden presidency. China has long anticipated this competition and is prepared for it.
Washington’s repositioning from outright containment toward deterrence and greater reliance on allies in the military domain, however, leaves the structural competition intact, amounting to a recognition of China’s expanding military capabilities. Although the NSS reiterates US commitments to the defence of the First and Second Island Chains, Taiwan, and the South China Sea, Trump’s insistence that Indo-Pacific allies and partners take initiative, assume greater burden-sharing, and increase defence expenditure, underlines a gradual but noticeable American pivot away from leadership, especially in China’s neighbourhood. Washington prefers to be the convenor, enabler, and ultimate supporter. This posture conveys two messages: the US no longer assumes clear regional military superiority, and Trump seeks to capitalise on regional insecurity through expanded arms sales. The latest arms transfer to Taiwan underscores this transactional approach to Indo-Pacific security.
The NSS expands the PLA’s operational space while simultaneously creating a pathway towards regional, if not global, prominence.
For Beijing, this emerging regional power architecture is broadly advantageous. China understands that the restraint in US rhetoric stems from domestic political pressures, ballooning debt, and growing resource constraints. Even as Trump promotes a revitalised Monroe Doctrine, China’s engagement in Latin America remains deep and resilient, thereby demanding Washington’s sustained attention, potentially diverting focus from other theatres. Therefore, the NSS expands the PLA’s operational space while simultaneously creating a pathway towards regional, if not global, prominence.
In light of the NSS, the PLA assesses that challenge to its strategic ambitions— especially over Taiwan, the South China Sea, and adjacent areas—is evolving, not receding. Although the probability of an outright confrontation has diminished, the US intends to maintain adequate deterrence in the region. Washington can achieve this through three main routes: technological and qualitative superiority, alliance reinforcement, and standoff weapons and munitions.
In military terms, US forces no longer appear to be seeking absolute air supremacy in the region, nor do they want to risk their carrier battle groups amid the growing threat of hypersonic and long-range anti-ship missiles. Instead, the focus is shifting towards cross-domain escalation, where the US maintains a qualitative advantage. With Trump expecting allies to take the initiative, American interventions are therefore expected to become more selective—centred on high-value contingencies and localised to achieve political objectives.
The NSS reinforces the PLA’s adherence to its long-standing Local War doctrine, refined for short, sharp, and high-intensity conflicts aimed at achieving political objectives.
In addition, the US prefers a managed escalation with clear and identifiable off-ramps to control risk and limit the duration of conflict. US forces would seek a decisive advantage in the early phases of a potential confrontation to preserve deterrence in subsequent stages. The PLA, therefore, expects only a narrow warning window before high-intensity operations begin, reinforcing its emphasis on front-loaded readiness and rapid response over prolonged mobilisation.
The NSS reinforces the PLA’s adherence to its long-standing Local War doctrine, refined for short, sharp, and high-intensity conflicts aimed at achieving political objectives. As such conflicts would be system-on-system contests, the role of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), command and control, logistics, and space and cyber capabilities would assume greater prominence. The operational focus would be on ensuring a pre-emptive operational paralysis of the adversary’s battle network rather than entering an attritional war. To counter an anticipated larger allied role, including access to bases, logistics, and troop contributions, Beijing would aim to capitalise on alliance fissures using political, cognitive, cyber, and influence operations. China’s recent overreaction to Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s statement that Taiwan’s security is inseparable from Japan’s offers an appropriate example. Beijing has staged a pre-emptive uproar to deter other US allies in the region from making similar statements.
Geographically, the PLA’s Eastern and Southern Theatre Commands will regain primacy, attracting major investments, while the continental and expeditionary force developments are likely to recede. In the naval domain, the PLA would focus on layered sea denial, aimed at disrupting the adversary’s logistics and replenishment chains, as well as targeting forward bases. The sea-land coordination model exemplified by the Type-055 destroyer and DF-26 missiles reflects this operational logic. Submarines—especially nuclear-powered ones—long-range anti-ship missiles, maritime domain awareness, unmanned ISR, and targeting networks will prove crucial.
To counter an anticipated larger allied role, including access to bases, logistics, and troop contributions, Beijing would aim to capitalise on alliance fissures using political, cognitive, cyber, and influence operations.
In the aerospace domain, the PLA is developing a dense kill web integrating precision missiles, electronic warfare assets, unmanned systems, and space and counter-space capabilities in addition to traditional fighter and bomber forces. Therefore, a shift from prestige platforms to scalable and replaceable systems has become crucial, placing a premium on industrial endurance, rapid repairability, and sustained combat availability.
The PLA’s reading of the NSS and its response in the form of a recalibrated force posture, rapid response cycles, and intelligent multi-domain operations will shape the security situation in the Indo-Pacific region. In the short term, a sharper focus on Southern and Eastern theatres is expected to stabilise the Western Theatre Command and reduce the propensity for border skirmishes, miscalculation, and inadvertent escalation. However, the PLA’s forward deployment and infrastructure development along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with India remain formidable. Nearly 60,000 troops are still deployed with no clear plan for their withdrawal. The PLA’s eastern focus will, however, provide India a strategic pause to enhance its own capabilities along the LAC in equal measures.
Simultaneously, the PLA Navy’s focus on the near seas and adjacent waters, especially the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean, is intensifying. Even the US Navy now concedes that East Asian waters have become effectively bipolar, with American predominance no longer assured. America’s chronic underinvestment in shipbuilding capacity and Trump’s renewed focus on the defence of the Western Hemisphere will further strengthen support for the ‘retrench to reload’ approach for the future of the US Navy. Suggestions that the US Navy step back from overextension, strengthen its core war-fighting capabilities, and emerge better prepared for future competition are increasingly gaining prominence.
America’s partial pullback from leadership roles in the Indo-Pacific shifts the major burden of countering China’s military preponderance onto allies and partners, especially Japan and India. In this context, the strengthening of institutionalised military cooperation frameworks among Indo-Pacific powers sans US leadership becomes an urgent strategic imperative.
Atul Kumar is a Fellow – National Security and China Studies with the Strategic Studies Programme at the Observer Research Foundation.
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Atul Kumar is a Fellow in Strategic Studies Programme at ORF. His research focuses on national security issues in Asia, China's expeditionary military capabilities, military ...
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