US containment in China
Stratfor has a really nice article discussing the development of US containment policy in south/southeast Asia. China's export model desperately requires as much control over the South China sea as possible, which is surrounded by countries that the US is trying to (re-)engage.
In particular the article starts off by noting that the US military has agreed to re-start some training and support for the special forces/anti-terrorism group Kopassus in Indonesia (it had cut off such support because the group has been accused of human rights violations as recently as 2009). Nasty a move as that may be, the potential competition with China is nontrivial:
"U.S. moves to reopen relations with Southeast Asia have caught the attention - and caused some anxiety - in Beijing. China is dramatically increasing its influence in the region through trade, investment and cooperation of various sorts, including with Indonesia, and a competition between Beijing and Washington over the region has consequently emerged. It is not a coincidence that the Kopassus commander, Maj. Gen. Lodewijk Paulus, recently suggested that the unit was looking at developing closer ties with the Chinese military if the U.S. training ban was not removed." [emphasis mine]
Aside: I want to start writing physics stuff, and LJ has zero support for writing math. Also I'd like to keep any physics blog kinda separate from any sporadic personal stuff I put on here. So, http://danielcarney.wordpress.com/. For the time being at least I'm just going to copy/paste anything relevant (i.e. anything not requiring equations) from there into here. Of course this assumes I actually write something more than twice a year...