Countries in the Indo-Pacific-region are beginning to take a stand against Chinese attempts to manipulate them through debt-trap diplomacy, coercion and bullying, a senior U.S. naval-commander said. Adm. Philip S. Davidson, commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, told a foreign policy think-tank in Sydney that all nations in the region were involved in a strategic-competition "between a Beijing-centric-order and a free and open Indo-Pacific.''