China's "geostrategic position is more difficult"

Robert Kagan has a longish article “Not Fade Away: The myth of American decline” in the New Republic. It, of course, mentions China in many places. One such is (here, p.5):

Today, in the case of China, the situation is reversed. Although China is and will be much richer, and will wield greater economic influence in the world than the Soviet Union ever did, its geostrategic position is more difficult. World War II left China in a comparatively weak position from which it has been working hard to recover ever since. Several of its neighbors are strong nations with close ties to the United States. It will have a hard time becoming a regional hegemon so long as Taiwan remains independent and strategically tied to the United States, and so long as strong regional powers such as Japan, Korea, and Australia continue to host American troops and bases. China would need at least a few allies to have any chance of pushing the United States out of its strongholds in the western Pacific, but right now it is the United States that has the allies. It is the United States that has its troops deployed in forward bases. It is the United States that currently enjoys naval predominance in the key waters and waterways through which China must trade. Altogether, China’s task as a rising great power, which is to push the United States out of its present position, is much harder than America’s task, which is only to hold on to what it has.