Special to WorldTribune.com

By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com

Even as the world awaits new foreign-policy initiatives expected after leadership changes at the 18th Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Congress this fall, Beijing has significantly fine-tuned its policy toward the Asia-Pacific arena.

A leitmotif of the far more aggressive foreign and military policies crafted by President and military chief Hu Jintao is to derail President Barack Obama’s “pivot to Asia” strategy by sowing dissension among the United States’ Asian allies.

This policy will likely continue beyond the 18th CCP Congress because it is highly likely that Hu will retain his chairmanship of the policy-making Central Military Commission even after he has retired from the Politburo.

Recent developments in the intriguing triangular relationship among China, Japan and South Korea illustrate the CCP administration’s strategy of driving a wedge between Japan and South Korea, which harbor mutual suspicions because of the decades-long Japanese occupation of the Korean Peninsula.

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  18th Chinese Communist Party Congress, Beijing exploits Seoul-Tokyo tension in bid to derail U.S. ‘pivot’ to Asia, Central Military Commission, Hu Jintao, Lee Myung-Bak