U.S. China-Bashing
hysteria against China. The CSIS, which
occasionally
and U.S. Policy.” The persistent
underlying assumption
speakers, the entire world’s peace and
prosperity.
ship of a conference in the U.S. capital,
defining China
the massing of U.S. and NATO forces and
anti-ballistic
few of Obama’s impeachable crimes.
chose to invite Republican hawk Rep. Mike
Rogers (R-
who is calling for immediate U.S. air
strikes against
Iraq, to open their “confront-China”
conference. He did
not disappoint.
the world is distracted,” to expand at the
expense of its
neighbors. “This has to change,” Rogers
inveighed.
“This is death by a thousand cuts,”
creating “brewing
clouds of conflict—this is as serious as
it gets.” He
praised the U.S.-Philippine agreement to
allow U.S. air,
sea, and land forces to occupy bases in
the Philippines;
he praised Japan’s decision to scrap the
postwar pacifist
constitution, and to prepare to join in a
U.S. war in Asia;
he praised Vietnam for sending military
ships to disrupt
a Chinese oil rig near the Paracel
Islands, which are
under Chinese control; but, he said,
“This is not enough,
it is getting more serious every day.
This could lead to
outright conflict—we’re on that
matrix.”
Rogers added that
the U.S. “must aggressively
pursue deterrence,” and provide Japan with
“state of the
art weaponry.” We must stop normal
diplomatic ap-
proaches, “be more direct, more
aggressive, empower
our friends—now is the time to confront
China’s glut-
tonous, naked aggression.”
Incredibly, Rogers
charged that China is not only
strategically dangerous, but that it is
responsible for de-
stroying the economies of the region—in
fact, of the
whole world! China, he said, “uses its
power to bully,
intimidate, and destabilize the economy of
the world.”
This points to the
real target of this exercise. China,
together with Russia, India, and other
Eurasian nations,
including all of the Southeast Asian
nations other than
the Philippines and Vietnam, are engaged
in collabora-
tion with China in massive infrastructure
develop-
ment—in energy, rail, water, space,
nuclear, and more,
even while the U.S. and Europe are in
economic freef-
all, pumping trillions of newly printed
dollars and euros
into bailing out the gambling debts of
the trans-Atlantic
banking system, while massively cutting
investments
into the real economy. Obama and his
British/Wall
Street controllers would rather have war
than accept
Eurasian growth and new international
economic insti-
tutions, such as those coming into being
at the BRICS
meeting in Brazil this week, while the
West collapses.
China’s Response
To the credit of
CSIS, they did invite two prominent
Chinese scholars from Tsinghua University
to address
the conference: Jia Bingbing, a law
professor who de-
fended China’s legal position regarding
the contested
territories, and Chu Shulong, a political
science profes-
sor. Professor Chu provided a cogent and
damning
analysis of the U.S. intentions and
actions in the South
China Sea, notably directly contrasting
them to the “last
Democratic Administration” under President
Bill
Clinton.
Under Obama, Chu
said, the policy in the
South China Sea is not actually about the
South
China Sea, but is part of the “larger
strategic
framework” of the Asia Pivot, or
Rebalancing,
pronounced by Obama in 2012. In the past,
U.S.
policy in the region included economic
issues,
human rights, and strategic concerns—but
now, it
is “almost all strategic, dependent on
troubles,
disputes between Asian countries.” When
the
Philippines or Vietnam construct things
on the is-
lands, or send warships to the islands,
“the U.S. is
silent—only China is the bad guy in
Asia.”
Chu noted that
there is much talk about inter-
national law, but that “the U.S. will not
join the
International Criminal Court, or the
UNCLOS, or
even some human rights conventions—the
U.S.
wants international law for others, but
ignores it
for itself when it wants to, including
Iraq and other
countries.”
Of course China
is building its navy, Chu said, as a
maritime country with rapidly expanding
trade. But is
there a reason, he asked, “for the
massive build up of
U.S. military forces in the South China
Sea, which
threatens China? Is this not
coercion?”
The
Empire’s Toadies
From British
Commonwealth member Australia,
where the U.S. is setting up extensive
air, sea, and land
military facilities directed at China,
Cabinet Minister
Malcolm Turnbull went further even than
Congress-
man Rogers. Speaking at Australian
National Univer-
sity on June 20, Turnbull claimed China
has no friends
in Asia! “It has really no allies in the
region, apart from
North Korea,” he said. “And the
consequence has been
[that] now China’s neighbors are drawing
closer to the
United States than ever before.”
Ironically, Chinese
President Xi’s visit to Seoul in early
July demonstrated
that China is closer to U.S. military ally
South Korea
than it is to the North, while nearly all
the nations of
Southeast Asia and Central Asia,
including India, are
strengthening their cooperation with
China.
U.S. Secretaries
of State and Treasury John Kerry
and Jack Lew, along with Adm. Samuel
Locklear, head
of the Pacific Command, were in Beijing
July 9-10 for
the annual U.S.-China Strategic and
Economic Dia-
logue. Despite the Obama Administration’s
growing
confrontation with China, the U.S.
military has insisted
on maintaining close relations with
China—Joint
Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin
Dempsey has re-
peatedly warned against the “Thucydides
Trap” (be-
lieving that because China is a rising
power, it must
necessarily lead to conflict with the
U.S.), and Admiral
Locklear invited China, for the first
time, to the recent
Rimpac naval exercises in the Pacific,
and has invited
them to return next year.
Otherwise, the
Dialogue provided far less an ex-
change of ideas than what is required by
the current
state of the global war danger. Kerry
again demanded
that China submit the territorial issues
to international
arbitration under the UN Convention on the
Law of the
Sea (UNCLOS)—a Convention which the U.S.
has
itself refused to ratify, based on the
claim that it would
entail a loss of sovereignty! Yet, China
has signed the
Convention, and is following its rules
precisely, includ-
ing that arbitration is only allowed when
both parties to
a dispute agree to it.
In fact, the
Philippine spokesman at the CSIS con-
ference, after extended denunciations of
China’s re-
fusal to submit to supposedly impartial
international
arbitration, admitted in his closing
statement that he
had met with the Chinese 120 times, and
that China has
repeatedly called for “joint development”
of the
region—which the Philippines rejects.
Clearly, Obama
doesn’t want development—he wants imperial
“divide
and conquer” conflict.
No comments:
Post a Comment