Some Asian Leaders Back Obama’s ‘War on China’

Some Asian Leaders Back
Obama’s ‘War on China’
by Michael Billington


Dec. 17—Although the majority of the Asian nations
have clearly rejected President Obama’s insane
demand for military confrontation with China, which
he pushed during his November trip to Asia, the wouldbe
dictator has won a few adherents to his war policy.
On Dec. 12, Philippine President Benigno “Noynoy”
Aquino, took steps to prepare the nation’s paltry armed
forces for a military engagement with China over contested
islands in the South China Sea—a move which
is militarily absurd, but openly positions the Philippines
as a U.S. asset (and target) in Obama’s planned
war with China.
Meanwhile, the secretary general of Japan’s opposition
Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), Nobuteru Ishihara,
speaking at the right-wing Hoover Institution in
Washington, called for Japan to build military bases on
the Senkaku Islands, contested by Japan and China, in
the East China Sea, threatening to rekindle tensions between
the two Asian powerhouses.
This follows Obama’s announcement during his
stop in Australia last month, that extensive U.S. Air
Force and Naval capacities are being introduced into a
new U.S. military facility in Darwin, out of range of
Chinese ballistic missiles. In addition, Singapore has
agreed to allow the U.S. to “station several of our
newest littoral combat ships at Singapore’s naval facility,”
according to the chief of U.S. Naval Operations,
Adm. Jonathan Greenert. Greenert said that
the ships would focus on the South China Sea, the
site of conflict between China and several other nations,
regarding sovereignty over various islands
and raw material rights. Greenert added: “Similarly,
2025 may see P-8A Poseidon aircraft or unmanned
broad area maritime surveillance aerial vehicles periodically
deploy to the Philippines or Thailand to
help those nations with maritime domain awareness.”
The “Ring around China” policy, long the dream of
the neo-conservative China-hawks in the Bush/Cheney
Administration, is being implemented by British puppet
Obama as part of his global war plan.
The Japan That Says Yes to Obama
The call by the LDP’s Ishihara for Japan to build
military bases on the Senkaku Islands (called the
Diaoyu Islands by China) is very much in keeping with
the racist anti-China sentiment of famous father, Shintaro
Ishihara, the Governor of Tokyo since 1999.
Known as the spokesman for the right-wing resurgence
in Japan, the governor was the co-author with Sony
chairman Akio Morita of The Japan That Can Say No,
promoting Japanese cultural superiority, and calling for
a break from U.S. domination of Japan. Now, with a
British asset in power in Washington, Ishihara is ready
to say “yes.”
Son Nobuteru, whose LDP governed Japan for half
a century, until its defeat in the 2009 election, has called
for building Japanese military bases on the contested
islands in the East China Sea. In the Nov. 14 Hoover
Institution speech, Ishihara said, “I further believe that
we must seriously begin contemplating the establishment
of a permanent post for the Self-Defense Force”
in the Senkaku Islands. He said China has become “assertive,
one may even say aggressive. Emboldened by
its new economic weight and growing military might,
China’s proclamations of its ‘peaceful rise’ appear more
and more at odds with the emerging reality.”
Nobuteru also announced during his visit to Washington
that he is preparing to run for the presidency of
the LDP. He met with many senior Administration and
Congressional figures while in Washington, parading
his belligerence towards China as a credential for U.S.
support for his bid to run the LDP, and potentially the
Japanese government.
Aquino: NerObama’s Clone
Philippine President Aquino played front-man for
Obama during the U.S. President’s Asia tour, by insist-
ing that China be denounced as an aggressor with respect
to the territorial issues in the South China Sea, in
the various Asian conferences which Obama attended.
On Dec. 12, at the inauguration of a newly appointed
chief of staff of the Philippine Armed Forces, Aquino
announced a military mobilization against China. “We
need to prepare for external challenges,” Aquino blustered.
“There are claimants to territories that are clearly
ours. If before, the focus of the Armed Forces was on
internal threats such as the MILF [Moro Islamic Liberation
Front] and the New People’s Army [communist
insurgents], now we have to prepare for external challenges.”
This is in keeping with Obama’s pronouncement
during his Asia tour that the “counter-insurgency
wars” of Iraq and Afghanistan were being superceded
by the large-scale war plans needed for confrontation
with China. This is known as the “Air-Sea Battle”
strategy, recently adopted by Obama to prepare for his
war (on behalf of the British Empire) against Russia
and China.
Noynoy Aquino is the son of former puppet President
Cory Aquino (1986-92), who was placed in office
by U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz and his Deputy
Paul Wolfowitz, after running the so-called “People’s
Power” coup against Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. Cory
Aquinto obediently shut down the industrial and agricultural
policies implemented under Marcos, including
the first nuclear power plant in Southeast
Asia; her polices caused the collapse
of the nation which continues
today.
In addition to declaring the Philippines
to be a launching pad for the
U.S. military campaign against
China, Noynoy also demonstrated
that he is trying to beat Obama to the
punch in creating dictatorships in
their respective nations.
On the same day as his declaration
against China, Aquino (1) declared
war against the Catholic
Church, perhaps the most influential
institution in the largely Catholic
nation; and (2) initiated impeachment
proceedings against the Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court, to
finish off the “separation of powers”
in the (American-modelled) Philippine
Constitution.
While announcing his war mobilization against
China, Aquino simultaneously boycotted the installation
of Bishop Luis Antonio Tagle as the new Archbishop
of Manila. Another influential Archbishop,
Ramon Arquelles, said of the boycott: “The absence of
the President for the very first time in the history of the
Philippines was very conspicious. He snubbed the most
important religious group in the country.”
It is of crucial importance that the Church has mobilized
massive opposition to a population-reduction bill
known as the “Reproductive Health Bill,” which is virtually
the only issue Aquino sponsored during his years
in the Senate, before following his mother into the Presidency
on behalf of the same foreign financial interests
who ran her administration, and virtually all subsequent
Philippine governments.
Assault on the Court
Even more blatant is Aquino’s assault on the Supreme
Court. Chief Justice Renato Corona, a former
top aide to former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
(2001-10), is accused of being overly partial to his
former boss in judicial proceedings against her by the
Aquino Administration. In particular, when Aquino attempted
to prevent Arroyo from leaving the country to
receive medical care, the Supreme Court ruled against
him. Aquino disregarded the Court’s ruling, and depolitekon.
blogspot.com
Philippines President Aquino (right) is one of the few Asian leaders to join Obama’s
“Ring around China” policy; he is also mimicking the U.S. President’s dictatorial
ambitions. The two are shown here at the ASEAN-U.S. summit in New York,
September 2010.
40 International EIR December 23, 2011
tained the former President when she tried to leave,
spitting in the face of the Supreme Court’s Constitutional
powers.
The Philippine House of Representatives, controlled
by Aquino’s party, impeached Chief Justice
Corona on Dec. 12, and the Senate was sworn in to try
the impeachment over the coming weeks. Corona,
speaking on the steps of the Supreme Court, called
Aquino a would-be dictator: “If this impeachment
succeeds, what will happen? Mr. Aquino already has
his cabinet, he controls the Congress, and he will
have the Supreme Court in his hands. What he is
sowing will surely yield a dictatorship—a dictatorship
that results from deception and the poisoning of
the minds of the people. I will resist the emerging
dictatorship of President Benigno Simeon Aquino
III.”
Corona added, “The real objective is to destroy the
judiciary, destroy democracy and impose the will of the
‘beloved king.’ ” Several Filipino commentators have
compared Aquino’s actions to those of Adolf Hitler in
destroying the only checks and balances to his personal
absolute power. The Philippine LaRouche Society has
prepared a poster of Aquino modelled on the now
world-famous LaRouchePAC poster of Obama sporting
a Hitler mustache.
Aquino’s Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, asked
how she could order the detention of Arroyo, in violation
of the Court’s ruling, responded that the Constitution
must be considered “fluid”—as in Alice in Wonderland,
words and institutions can mean whatever they
want them to mean.
De Lima went even further following the impeachment
of Corona, declaring that any Justice who defended
the Chief Justice would face the possibility of
impeachment.
While it is true that former President Arroyo was
wildly corrupt, fixed elections, and packed the Supreme
Court with faithful allies, Aquino is lying when he
claims that his actions against her are based solely on
considerations of justice. As Philippine LaRouche
Movement chairman Butch Valdes has suggested,
Aquino may have made a deal with Arroyo before the
elections to prevent or delay criminal prosecutions
against her and her family in exchange for her control
of the electoral process to allow his victory in the Presidential
elections of 2010.
Aquino protected Arroyo for over a year, but when
the Supreme Court ruled that the massive feudal estate
known as Hacienda Lucita, owned by the Aquino
family (including Noynoy and his mother Cory), must
finally live up to the land-reform laws requiring them to
make the land available for sale to the peasants who
worked on it, this was too much for the Aquino feudal
blood. The assault on the Supreme Court was then unleashed.
It is ironic, if not surprising, that the Ishihara family,
which favors restoring feudal relations in Japan, and
joining Obama in precipitating a nuclear confrontation
with China, is famously close to the Aquino family in
the Philippines.
Impeach Obama—and Aquino?
Lyndon LaRouche has insisted that the current
total collapse of the Western financial system in
Europe and the U.S., and Obama’s mad dash for war
against Russia and China, can only be stopped with the
removal of Barack Obama from office through impeachment
or other Constitutional means. There are
those in the Philippines who recognize that the potential
for the nation to contribute to the Great Pacific Alliance—
the alliance of Russia, China, and the U.S.
under post-Obama leadership, to join forces in replacing
the bankrupt global financial system with a credit
system to facilitate great infrastructure development
as joint endeavors of the Pacific nations—will require
removing Aquino from office through Constitutional
means.
The bishops who have battled Aquino over his population
control bill are also speaking out in regard to his
effort to assert a dictatorship in the Philippines. A
member of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the
Philippines, Deogracias Iniguez, has warned that the
next high official to face impeachment could be President
Aquino, once it is proven that he is employing a
dictatorial style in running the government.
Biship Arguelles said that Aquino’s impeachment of
the Chief Justice will fail, because many sectors of society
will oppose dictatorial rule, and he doubts if the
military would throw its support to him.
It is crucial for those opposing the dictatorial policies
of Aquino that they also identify the most drastic
aspect of this policy as Aquino’s subservience to President
Obama’s insane push for global war, and work
with those internationally who are fighting this threat to
the survival of civilization.