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 Monday (Aug 10).Seeking to counter concerns about Washington's reliability, Elbridge Colby, Undersecretary of Defense 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 ensure a favourable balance of power where it matters most."The Philippines, the United States' oldest treaty ally in Asia, is the first stop on a Southeast Asian