This photo taken on August 23, 2022 shows a US military Osprey aircraft at the US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in the centre of the city of Ginowan, Okinawa prefecture. Photo: AFP

The US Marines plan to deploy to Guam a littoral regiment capable of a flexible and rapid response in a "few years," media revealed on Saturday, which Chinese observers said is aimed at preparing for great power competition, blatantly exposing the US's combat intentions against China.

On Saturday, Japanese media outlet Kyodo News reported that General Eric Smith, commandant of the US Marine Corps, told a press conference in Washington that the Marine Littoral Regiment is "designed as a counter to PRC aggression," to protect Japan, South Korea and the Philippines.

Smith said the regiment, due to be based on Guam, "will have responsibility to rapidly deploy inside the first island chain into the Philippines in order to spread the battlespace out and to protect those strategic lines of communication that emanate from Japan, back to the Philippines, back to Hawaii."

The island chain refers to an area that includes Japan as well as the island of Taiwan and the northwest Philippines.

In the event of potential conflicts with China, such as China advancing its cause of national reunification, or conflicts erupting between China and the Philippines or Japan over territorial disputes, the US may use these deployments to strike against China, Chinese observers noted. 

"This demonstrates the US' relentless preparation to compete with China, with a clear Cold War mentality," Zhang Junshe, a Chinese military expert, told the Global Times on Sunday.

The plan to establish a littoral regiment in Guam again demonstrated that the US is engaging in camp confrontation, seeking to rally countries like Japan and the Philippines, as well as to strengthen its control over these allies through military deployments and cooperation, enticing them to join the US' chariot and making these countries work for its anti-China strategy, Zhang said.

This will undoubtedly add fuel to the fire and stir up regional tensions, Zhang warned, noting that the US wants to benefit from the chaos, such as selling more military equipment. 

Kyodo reported that the new regiment in Guam will be the third of its kind that is capable of long-range detection and engagement using mobile missile batteries, as well as deploying small groups of marines to remote islands. The first unit was activated in March 2022 on Marine Corps Base Hawaii and the second was set up in Okinawa in November last year.

This exposed the US attempt to adopt a strategy of dispersion of its military forces, as the commandant of the US Marine Corps confirmed that the relocation of US Marines from Okinawa to Guam will begin in December.

Some observers believe that the US military forces' shift from Okinawa to Guam is a strategic retreat, indicating a lack of security in Okinawa.

But Zhang sees it differently.

"Strategically, the US military is not retreating from Okinawa; it may withdraw its forces, but some weapons and firepower will remain in place. On the one hand, the US is instigating conflicts, while on the other hand, it does not want its forces to suffer losses. Therefore, it is pushing countries like the Philippines and Japan to be firmly tied to its warship as cannon fodder," Zhang remarked.

Zhang also revealed the ongoing competition between the US Army and the Marine Corps for roles, funds and functions. He noted that the deployment of these assets is not actually the Marine Corps' expertise, but should instead be a focus of the US Army.

The US Marine Corps primarily focuses on amphibious operations, but now there is a need for the corps to undergo a tactical transformation toward littoral operations, emphasizing land-sea integration. This in itself will bring about significant changes to the Marine Corps' functions, which presents a considerable challenge, said another Chinese military expert, who requested anonymity.

If the Marine Corps insists on transformation, these disputes with the US Army will intensify, making the regiment's implementation more challenging, some military experts warned. They believe that in reality, it is impractical for the regiment to target China.