US not disengaging from Asia, seeks ‘partners, not protectorates,’ says Pentagon official

MANILA – The United States is not disengaging from Asia and is instead “digging in” to maintain a favourable balance of power in the Indo-Pacific, but wants its partners to shoulder more responsibility for their defence, a senior Pentagon official said on Aug 10. Seeking to counter concerns about Washington’s reliability, Elbridge Colby, under-secretary of Defence for Policy, reiterated the US interest in the region as he called for greater burden-sharing and “partnership, not dependency”. “America is definitely not disengaging from Asia,” Colby said in a speech in Manila. “We are not leaving; in fact, we are digging in, to…