Mr. Galbraith favored a more assertive posture.
However, "China notably took steps to ease relations with Japan and dampen suspicion among rival South China Sea claimants after China's assertive posture in 2010 increased regional tensions.
In certain significant ways, they dovetailed as well with the assertive posture taken by President Obama since taking office, like his expanded use of drones to kill terrorism suspects around the world — including a United States citizen.
China's increasingly vocal and assertive posture was a defining theme of the meeting, as was the candid American acknowledgment that the recovery of the United States — essential for global economic growth — requires outside help.
Mr. Obama's assertive posture may well have stopped the clamor of concern from supporters that had been weighing on his campaign with three weeks and one more debate to go before the election.
Michael Stephens, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute in Qatar, speculated that the rich but tiny Gulf state wanted to drag Saudi Arabia into "a more assertive posture that produces a genuine sense of threat among Syrian decision makers".
The country's lack of transparency about this, it says, is fuelling concern in the region about China's intentions, with some of its neighbours fearing that China's growing military and economic weight is "beginning to produce a more assertive posture, particularly in the maritime domain".
In the late 1990s that again meant Indonesia, in turmoil after the end of the Suharto dictatorship, sparking fears of disintegration and mass flight.Now, though it is a fear that dares not speak its name, it means China, and the assertive posture it has adopted in recent years towards disputed territorial claims, such as in the South China Sea.
The approach — part carrot, part stick — reflected the delicate balance the administration is trying to strike in a campaign year by taking a newly assertive posture over China's trade and commercial policies, while pursuing delicate negotiations as an alternative to confrontation.
At UCS, Rosenberg advocates a somewhat more assertive posture.
