1. Wang Jisi, one China's most influential foreign policy and U.S. experts, maintains that “the Chinese projection of the ‘inevitability of multipolarity’ does not prevent them from noting, at least privately, the ‘tide of the day’ is otherwise—the United States will remain the only global hegemonic power for decades to come. Chinese policy analysts, being realists, have few illusions about the feasibility of formulating a lasting international coalition that could serve as the counterforce to U.S. power. China has neither the capability nor the desire to take the lead in formulating such a coalition, let alone confronting U.S. hegemony by itself.” Wang Jisi, “China's Changing Role in Asia,” republished by the Atlantic Council of the United States, January 2004, www.acus.org/Publications/occasionalpapers/Asia/WangJisi Jan 4.pdf.
2. See, for example, John F. Mearsheimer, “The Future of the American Pacifier,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 80, No. 5, September/October 2001. For a critique of Mearsheimer and the Realist's assessment of China's rise, see Banning Garrett, “The” Strategic Straitjacket: “The United States and China in the 21st Century,” in Strategic Surprise: U.S.-China Relations in the Early 21st Century, edited by Jonathan Pollack (Newport, R.I.: Naval War College Press, 2004), also available at: http://www.acus.org/Publications/occasionalpapers/Asia/Garrett Strategic Straitjacket Oct 03.pdf.
3. The National Security Strategy of the United States of America (The White House: September 2002), p.4.
4. “Defining U.S. foreign policy in a Post-Post-Cold War World,” Ambassador Richard N. Haass, Director of Policy Planning Department, Department of State, remarks to the Foreign Policy Association, New York, 22 April 2002.
5. Speech to Parliament of Singapore, 5 June 2004. Rumsfeld stressed the importance of multilateral approaches to deal with the threats facing the United States and the rest of the world. “People in the United States understand that no country can function in this world unilaterally. There are things that simply can’t be done by any one country or any small aggregation of countries. It requires the cooperation of like-thinking people all across the globe. That's what the United States has tried to do.” As are a result of this new strategic reality, Rumsfeld said, the United States is: strengthening its partnerships with existing allies and friends and working with new ones; developing greater flexibility to deal with the unexpected; focusing on more rapidly deployable capabilities and power rather than simply static presence and mass; and breaking down artificial barriers between regions in planning. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, Speech to Parliament of Singapore, 5 June 2004.