Obama’s Geopolitical China ‘Pivot’: The Pentagon Targets China
By F. William Engdahl
Global Research, August 24, 2012
URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=32474
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the
nominal end of the Cold War some twenty years back, rather than reducing
the size of its mammoth defense spending, the US Congress and all US
Presidents have enormously expanded spending for new weapons systems,
increased permanent military bases around the world and expansion of
NATO not only to former Warsaw Pact countries on Russia’s immediate
periphery; it also has expanded NATO and US military presence deep into
Asia on the perimeters of China through its conduct of the Afghan war
and related campaigns.
Part I The Pentagon Targets China
On the basis of simple dollar outlays for military spending, the US Pentagon combined budget, leaving aside the huge budgets for such national security and defense-related agencies of US Government as the Department of Energy and US Treasury and other agencies, the US Department of Defense spent some $739 billion in 2011 on its military requirements. Were all other spending that is tied to US defense and national security included, the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies estimates an annual military spending of over $1 trillion by the United States. That is an amount greater than the total defense-related spending of the next 42 nations combined, and more than the Gross Domestic Product of most nations.
On the basis of simple dollar outlays for military spending, the US Pentagon combined budget, leaving aside the huge budgets for such national security and defense-related agencies of US Government as the Department of Energy and US Treasury and other agencies, the US Department of Defense spent some $739 billion in 2011 on its military requirements. Were all other spending that is tied to US defense and national security included, the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies estimates an annual military spending of over $1 trillion by the United States. That is an amount greater than the total defense-related spending of the next 42 nations combined, and more than the Gross Domestic Product of most nations.
China officially spent barely 10% of the US outlay on
its defense, some $90 billions, or, if certain defense-related arms
import and other costs are included, perhaps $111 billion a year. Even
if the Chinese authorities do not publish complete data on such
sensitive areas, it is clear China spends a mere fraction of the USA and
is starting from a military-technology base far behind the USA.
China today, because of its dynamic economic growth
and its determination to pursue sovereign Chinese national interests,
merely because China exists, is becoming the Pentagon new “enemy image,”
now replacing the earlier “enemy image” of Islam used after September
2001 by the Bush-Cheney Administration to justify the Pentagon’s global
power pursuit, or that of Soviet Communism during the Cold War. The new
US military posture against China has nothing to do with any aggressive
threat from the side of China. The Pentagon has decided to escalate its
aggressive military posture to China merely because China has become a
strong vibrant independent pole in world economics and geopolitics. Only
vassal states need apply to Washington’s globalized world.
Obama Doctrine: China is the new ‘enemy image’
After almost two decades of neglect of its interests
in East Asia, in 2011, the Obama Administration announced that the US
would make “a strategic pivot” in its foreign policy to focus its
military and political attention on the Asia-Pacific, particularly
Southeast Asia, that is, China. The term “strategic pivot” is a page out
of the classic textbook from the father of British geopolitics, Sir
Halford Mackinder, who spoke at various times of Russia and later China
as “pivot powers” whose geographical and geopolitical position posed
unique challenges toAnglo-Saxon and after 1945, to American hegemony.
During the final months of 2011 the Obama
Administration clearly defined a new public military threat doctrine for
US military readiness in the wake of the US military failures in Iraq
and Afghanistan. During a Presidential trip to the Far East, while in
Australia, the US President unveiled what is being termed the Obama
Doctrine.[1]
Obama told the Australians then:
With most of the world’s nuclear power and some half of humanity, Asia will largely define whether the century ahead will be marked by conflict or cooperation...As President, I have, therefore, made a deliberate and strategic decision -- as a Pacific nation, the United States will play a larger and long-term role in shaping this region and its future...I have directed my national security team to make our presence and mission in the Asia Pacific a top priority...As we plan and budget for the future, we will allocate the resources necessary to maintain our strong military presence in this region. We will preserve our unique ability to project power and deter threats to peace...Our enduring interests in the region demand our enduring presence in the region.
The United States is a Pacific power, and we are here to stay. Indeed, we are already modernizing America’s defense posture across the Asia Pacific. It will be more broadly distributed -- maintaining our strong presence in Japan and the Korean Peninsula, while enhancing our presence in Southeast Asia. Our posture will be more flexible -- with new capabilities to ensure that our forces can operate freely .. I believe we can address shared challenges, such as proliferation and maritime security, including cooperation in the South China Sea.[2]
The centerpiece of Obama's visit was the announcement
that at least 2,500 elite US Marines will be stationed in Darwin in
Australia’s Northern Territory. In addition, in a series of significant
parallel agreements, discussions with Washington were underway to fly
long-range American surveillance drones from the remote Cocos Islands —
an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean. Also the US will gain
greater use of Australian Air Force bases for American aircraft and
increased ship and submarine visits to the Indian Ocean through a naval
base outside Perth, on the country’s west coast.
The Pentagon’s target is China.
To make the point clear to European members of NATO,
in remarks to fellow NATO members in Washington in July 2012, Phillip
Hammond, the UK Secretary of State for Defense declared explicitly that
the new US defense shift to the Asia-Pacific region was aimed squarely
at China. Hammond said that, "the rising strategic importance of the
Asia-Pacific region requires all countries, but particularly the United
States, to reflect in their strategic posture the emergence of China as a
global power. Far from being concerned about the tilt to Asia-Pacific,
the European NATO powers should welcome the fact that the US is willing
to engage in this new strategic challenge on behalf of the alliance."
[3]
As with many of its operations, the Pentagon
deployment is far deeper than the relatively small number of 2,500 new
US soldiers might suggest.
In August 2011 the Pentagon presented its annual
report on China’s military. It stated that China had closed key
technological gaps. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for East Asia,
Michael Schiffer, said that the pace and scope of China's military
investments had "allowed China to pursue capabilities that we believe
are potentially destabilizing to regional military balances, increase
the risk of misunderstanding and miscalculation and may contribute to
regional tensions and anxieties." [4] He cited Chinese refurbishing of a
Soviet-era aircraft carrier and China’s development of its J20 Stealth
Fighter as indications of the new capability requiring a more active US
military response. Schiffer also cited China's space and cyber
operations, saying it was "developing a multi-dimensional program to
improve its capabilities to limit or prevent the use of space-based
assets by adversaries during times of crisis or conflict." [5]
Part II: Pentagon’s ‘Air-Sea Battle’
The Pentagon strategy to defeat China in a coming
war, details of which have filtered into the US press, is called
“Air-Sea Battle.” This calls for an aggressive coordinated US attack. US
stealth bombers and submarines would knock out China's long-range
surveillance radar and precision missile systems deep inside the
country. This initial "blinding campaign" would be followed by a larger
air and naval assault on China itself.[6] Crucial to the advanced
pentagon strategy, deployment of which has already quietly begun, is US
military navy and air presence in Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Vietnam
and across the South China Sea and Indian Ocean. Australian troop and
naval deployment is aimed at accessing the strategic Chinese South China
Sea as well as the Indian Ocean. The stated motive is to “protect
freedom of navigation” in the Malacca Straits and the South China Sea.
In reality it is to be positioned to cut China’s strategic oil routes in
event of full conflict.
Air-Sea Battle's goal is to help US forces withstand
an initial Chinese assault and counterattack to destroy sophisticated
Chinese radar and missile systems built to keep US ships away from
China's coastline.[7]
US ‘Air-Sea Battle’ against China
In addition to the stationing of the US Marines in
the north of Australia, Washington plans to fly long-range American
surveillance drones from the remote Cocos Islands — an Australian
territory in the strategically vital Indian Ocean. Also it will have use
of Australian Air Force bases for American military aircraft and
increased ship and submarine visits to the Indian Ocean through a naval
base outside Perth, on Australia’s west coast.[8]
The architect of the Pentagon anti-China strategy of
Air-Sea battle is Andrew Marshall, the man who has shaped Pentagon
advanced warfare strategy for more than 40 years and among whose pupils
were Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. [9] Since the 1980s Marshall has
been a promoter of an idea first posited in 1982 by Marshal Nikolai
Ogarkov, then chief of the Soviet general staff, called RMA, or
'Revolution in Military Affairs.’ Marshall, today at the ripe age of 91,
still holds his desk and evidently very much influence inside the
Pentagon.
The best definition of RMA was the one provided by
Marshall himself: “A Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) is a major
change in the nature of warfare brought about by the innovative
application of new technologies which, combined with dramatic changes in
military doctrine and operational and organizational concepts,
fundamentally alters the character and conduct of military operations.”
[10]
It was also Andrew Marshall who convinced US Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his successor Robert Gates to deploy the
Ballistic Missile “defense” Shield in Poland, the Czech Republic, Turkey
and Japan as a strategy to minimize any potential nuclear threat from
Russia and, in the case of Japan’s BMD, any potential nuclear threat
from China.
PART III: ‘String of Pearls’ Strategy of Pentagon
In January 2005, Andrew Marshall issued a classified
internal report to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld titled “Energy
Futures in Asia.” The Marshall report, which was leaked in full to a
Washington newspaper, invented the term “string of pearls” strategy to
describe what it called the growing Chinese military threat to “US
strategic interests” in the Asian space.[11]
The internal Pentagon report claimed that “China is
building strategic relationships along the sea lanes from the Middle
East to the South China Sea in ways that suggest defensive and offensive
positioning to protect China’s energy interests, but also to serve
broad security objectives.”
In the Pentagon Andrew Marshall report, the term
China’s “String of Pearls” Strategy was used for the first time. It is a
Pentagon term and not a Chinese term.
The report stated that China was adopting a “string
of pearls” strategy of bases and diplomatic ties stretching from the
Middle East to southern China that includes a new naval base under
construction at the Pakistani port of Gwadar. It claimed that “Beijing
already has set up electronic eavesdropping posts at Gwadar in the
country’s southwest corner, the part nearest the Persian Gulf. The post
is monitoring ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and the Arabian
Sea.” [12]
The Marshall internal report went on to warn of other “pearls” in the sea-lane strategy of China:
• Bangladesh: China is strengthening its ties to the
government and building a container port facility at Chittagong. The
Chinese are “seeking much more extensive naval and commercial access” in
Bangladesh.
• Burma: China has developed close ties to the
military regime in Rangoon and turned a nation wary of China into a
“satellite” of Beijing close to the Strait of Malacca, through which 80
percent of China’s imported oil passes. China is building naval bases in
Burma and has electronic intelligence gathering facilities on islands
in the Bay of Bengal and near the Strait of Malacca. Beijing also
supplied Burma with “billions of dollars in military assistance to
support a de facto military alliance,” the report said.
• Cambodia: China signed a military agreement in
November 2003 to provide training and equipment. Cambodia is helping
Beijing build a railway line from southern China to the sea.
• South China Sea: Chinese activities in the region
are less about territorial claims than “protecting or denying the
transit of tankers through the South China Sea,” the report said. China
also is building up its military forces in the region to be able to
“project air and sea power” from the mainland and Hainan Island. China
recently upgraded a military airstrip on Woody Island and increased its
presence through oil drilling platforms and ocean survey ships.
• Thailand: China is considering funding construction
of a $20 billion canal across the Kra Isthmus that would allow ships to
bypass the Strait of Malacca. The canal project would give China port
facilities, warehouses and other infrastructure in Thailand aimed at
enhancing Chinese influence in the region, the report said... The U.S.
military’s Southern Command produced a similar classified report in the
late 1990s that warned that China was seeking to use commercial port
facilities around the world to control strategic “chokepoints.” [13]
Breaking the String of Pearls
Significant Pentagon and US actions since that 2005
report have been aimed to counter China’s attempts to defend its energy
security via that “String of Pearls.” The US interventions since 2007
into Burma/Myanmar have had two phases.
The first was the so-called Saffron Revolution, a US
State Department and CIA-backed destabilization in 2007 aimed at putting
the international spotlight on the Myanmar military dictatorship’s
human rights practices. The aim was to further isolate the strategically
located country internationally from all economic relations, aside from
China. The background to the US actions was China’s construction of oil
and gas pipelines from Kunming in China’s southwest Yunnan Province,
across the old Burma Road across Myanmar to the Bay of Bengal across
from India and Bangladesh in the northern Indian Ocean.
Forcing Burma’s military leaders into tighter
dependency on China was one of the factors triggering the decision of
the Myanmar military to open up economically to the West. They declared
that the tightening of US economic sanctions had done the country great
harm and President Thein Sein made his major liberalization opening, as
well as allowing US-backed dissident, Aung San Suu Kyi, to be free and
to run for elective office with her party, in return for promises from
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of US investment in the country
and possible easing of US economic sanctions. [14]
The US corporations approaching Burma are hand-picked
by Washington to introduce the most destructive “free market” reforms
that will open Myanmar to instability. The United States will not allow
investment in entities owned by Myanmar’s armed forces or its Ministry
of Defense. It also is able to place sanctions on “those who undermine
the reform process, engage in human rights abuses, contribute to ethnic
conflict or participate in military trade with North Korea.” The United
States will block businesses or individuals from making transactions
with any “specially designated nationals” or businesses that they
control — allowing Washington, for example, to stop money from flowing
to groups “disrupting the reform process.” It’s the classic “carrot and
stick” approach, dangling the carrot of untold riches if Burma opens its
economy to US corporations and punishing those who try to resist the
takeover of the country’s prize assets. Oil and gas, vital to China,
will be a special target of US intervention. American companies and
people will be allowed to invest in the state-owned Myanma Oil and Gas
Enterprise.[15]
Obama also created a new power for the government to
impose “blocking sanctions” on any individual threatening peace in
Myanmar. Businesses with more than $500,000 in investment in the country
will need to file an annual report with the State Department, with
details on workers’ rights, land acquisitions and any payments of more
than $10,000 to government entities, including Myanmar’s state-owned
enterprises.
American companies and people will be allowed to
invest in the state-owned Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise, but any
investors will need to notify the State Department within 60 days.
As well, US “human rights” NGOs, many closely
associated with or believed to be associated with US State Department
geopolitical designs, including Freedom House, Human Rights Watch,
Institute for Asian Democracy, Open Society Foundations, Physicians for
Human Rights, U.S. Campaign for Burma, United to End Genocide— will now
be allowed to operate inside Myanmar according to a decision by State
Secretary Clinton in April 2012.[16]
Thailand, another key in China’s defensive String of
Pearl Strategy has also been subject of intense destabilization over the
past several years. Now with the sister of a corrupt former Prime
Minister in office, US-Thai relations have significantly improved.
After months of bloody clashes, the US-backed
billionaire, Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra , managed to
buy the way to put his sister, Yingluck Shinawatra in as Prime Minister,
with him reportedly pulling the policy strings from abroad. Thaksin
himself was enjoying comfortable status in the US as of this writing, in
summer 2012.
US relations with Thaksin’s sister, Yingluck
Shinawatra, are moving in direct fulfillment of the Obama “strategic
pivot” to focus on the “China threat.” In June 2012, General Martin E.
Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, after returning from a
visit this month to Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore stated: “We
want to be out there partnered with nations and have a rotational
presence that would allow us to build up common capabilities for common
interests.” This is precisely key beads in what the Pentagon calls the
String of Pearls.
The Pentagon is now quietly negotiating to return to
bases abandoned after the Vietnam War. It is negotiating with the Thai
government to create a new “disaster relief” hub at the Royal Thai Navy
Air Field at U-Tapao, 90 miles south of Bangkok.
The US military built the two mile long runway there,
one of Asia’s longest, in the 1960s as a major staging and refueling
base during the Vietnam War.
The Pentagon is also working to secure more rights to
US Navy visits to Thai ports and joint surveillance flights to monitor
trade routes and military movements. The US Navy will soon base four of
its newest warships — Littoral Combat Ships — in Singapore and would
rotate them periodically to Thailand and other southeast Asian
countries. The Navy is pursuing options to conduct joint airborne
surveillance missions from Thailand.[17]
In addition, Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter
went to Thailand in July 2012 and the Thai government has invited
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who met with the Thai minister of
defense at a conference in Singapore in June.[18]
In 2014, the US Navy is scheduled to begin deploying
new P-8A Poseidon reconnaissance and anti-submarine aircraft to the
Pacific, replacing the P-3C Orion surveillance planes. The Navy is also
preparing to deploy new high-altitude surveillance drones to the
Asia-Pacific region around the same time. [19]
PART IV: India-US Defense ‘Look East Policy’
US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta was in India in
June of this year where he proclaimed that defence cooperation with
India is the lynchpin of US security strategy in Asia. He pledged to
help develop India's military capabilities and to engage with India in
joint production of defence "articles" of high technology. Panetta was
thr fifth Obama Cabinet secretary to visit India this year. The message
that they have all brought is that, for the US, India will be the major
relationship of the 21st century. The reason is China’s emergence. [20]
Several years ago during the Bush Administration,
Washington made a major move to lock India in as a military ally of the
US against the emerging Chinese presence in Asia. India calls it India’s
“Look East Policy.” In reality, despite all claims to the contrary, it
is a “look at China” military policy.
In comments in August 2012, Deputy Secretary of
defense Ashton Carter stated, "India is also key part of our rebalance
to the Asia-Pacific, and, we believe, to the broader security and
prosperity of the 21st century. The US-India relationship is global in
scope, like the reach and influence of both countries." [21] In 2011,
the US military conducted more than 50 significant military activities
with India.
Carter continued in remarks following a trip to New
Delhi, "Our security interests converge: on maritime security, across
the Indian Ocean region; in Afghanistan, where India has done so much
for economic development and the Afghan security forces; and on broader
regional issues, where we share long-term interests. I went to India at
the request of Secretary Panetta and with a high-level delegation of U S
technical and policy experts.” [22]
Indian Ocean
The Pentagon “String of pearls” strategy against
China in effect is not one of beautiful pearls, but a hangman’s noose
around the perimeter of China, designed in the event of major conflict
to completely cut China off from its access to vital raw materials, most
especially oil from the Persian Gulf and Africa.
Former Pentagon adviser Robert D. Kaplan, now with
Stratfor, has noted that the Indian Ocean is becoming the world’s
“strategic center of gravity” and who controls that center, controls
Eurasia, including China. The Ocean is the vital waterway passage for
energy and trade flows between the Middle East and China and Far Eastern
countries. More strategically, it is the heart of a developing
south-south economic axis between China and Africa and Latin America.
Since 1997 trade between China and Africa has risen
more than twenty-fold and trade with Latin America, including Brazil,
has risen fourteen fold in only ten years. This dynamic, if allowed to
continue, will eclipse the economic size of the European Union as well
as the declining North American industrial economies in less than a
decade. That is a development that Washington circles and Wall Street
are determined to prevent at all costs.
Straddled by the Islamic Arch--which stretches from
Somalia to Indonesia, passing through the countries of the Gulf and
Central Asia-- the region surrounding the Indian Ocean has certainly
become the world's new strategic center of gravity.[23]
No rival economic bloc can be allowed to challenge
American hegemony. Former Obama geopolitical adviser Zbigniew
Brzezinski, a student of Mackinder geopolitics and still today along
with Henry Kissinger one of the most influential persons in the US power
establishment, summed up the position as seen from Washington in his
1997 book, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and It's Geostrategic
Imperatives:
It is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges,
capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America. The
formulation of a comprehensive and integrated Eurasian geo-strategy is
therefore the purpose of this book. [24]
For America, the chief geopolitical prize is
Eurasia.... America's global primacy is directly dependent on how long
and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is
sustained. [25]
In that context, how America 'manages' Eurasia is
critical. Eurasia is the globe's largest continent and is geopolitically
axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world's
three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance
at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost
automatically entail Africa's subordination, rendering the Western
Hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral to the world's central
continent. About 75 per cent of the world's people live in Eurasia, and
most of the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its
enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for 60 per cent of
the world's GNP and about three-fourths of the world's known energy
resources. [26]
The Indian Ocean is crowned by what some call an
Islamic Arch of countries stretching from East Africa to Indonesia by
way of the Persian Gulf countries and Central Asia. The emergence of
China and other much smaller Asian powers over the past two decades
since the end of the Cold war has challenged US hegemony over the Indian
Ocean for the first time since the beginning of the Cold War.
Especially in the past years as American economic influence has
precipitously declined globally and that of China has risen
spectacularly, the Pentagon has begun to rethink its strategic presence
in the Indian Ocean. The Obama ‘Asian Pivot’ is centered on asserting
decisive Pentagon control over the sea lanes of the Indian Ocean and the
waters of the South China Sea.
The US military base at Okinawa, Japan is being
rebuilt as a major center to project US military power towards China. As
of 2010 there were over 35,000 US military personnel stationed in Japan
and another 5,500 American civilians employed there by the United
States Department of Defense. The United States Seventh Fleet is based
in Yokosuka. The 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force in Okinawa. 130 USAF
fighters are stationed in the Misawa Air Base and Kadena Air Base.
The Japanese government in 2011 began an armament
program designed to counter the perceived growing Chinese threat. The
Japanese command has urged their leaders to petition the United States
to allow the sale of F-22A Raptor fighter jets, currently illegal under
U.S law. South Korean and American military have deepened their
strategic alliance and over 45,000 American soldiers are now stationed
in South Korea. The South Koreans and Americans claim this is due to the
North Korean military’s modernization. China and North Korea denounce
it as needlessly provocative.[27]
Under the cover of the US war on Terrorism, the US
has developed major military agreements with the Philippines as well as
with Indonesia’s army.
The military base on Diego Garcia is the lynchpin of
US control over the Indian Ocean. In 1971 the US military depopulated
the citizens of Diego Garcia to build a major military installation
there to carry out missions against Iraq and Afghanistan.
China has two Achilles heels—the Straits of Hormuz at
the mouth of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Malacca near Singapore.
Some 20% of China oil passes through the Straits of Hormuz. And some
80% of Chinese oil imports pass through the Strait of Malacca as well as
major freight trade.
To prevent China from emerging successfully as the
major economic competitor of the United States in the world, Washington
launched the so-called Arab Spring in late 2010. While the aspirations
of millions of ordinary Arab citizens in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and
elsewhere for freedom and democracy was real, they were in effect used
as unwitting cannon fodder to unleash a US strategy of chaos and
intra-islamic wars and conflicts across the entire oil-rich Islamic
world from Libya in North Africa across to Syria and ultimately Iran in
the Middle East. [28]
The US strategy within the Islamic Arch countries
straddling the Indian Ocean is, as Mohamed Hassan, a strategic analyst
put it thus:
The US is...seeking to control these resources to
prevent them reaching China. This was a major objective of the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan, but these have turned into a fiasco. The US
destroyed these countries in order to set up governments there which
would be docile, but they have failed. The icing on the cake is that the
new Iraqi and Afghan government trade with China! Beijing has therefore
not needed to spend billions of dollars on an illegal war in order to
get its hands on Iraq’s black gold: Chinese companies simply bought up
oil concessions at auction totally within the rules.
[T]he USA's...strategy has failed all along the line.
There is nevertheless one option still open to the US: maintaining
chaos in order to prevent these countries from attaining stability for
the benefit of China. This means continuing the war in Iraq and
Afghanistan and extending it to countries such as Iran, Yemen or
Somalia.[29]
PART V: South China Sea
The completion of the Pentagon “String of Pearls”
hangman’s noose around China to cut off vital energy and other imports
in event of war by 2012 was centered around the increased US
manipulation of events in the South China Sea. The Ministry of
Geological Resources and Mining of the People's Republic of China
estimated that the South China Sea may contain 18 billion tons of crude
oil (compared to Kuwait with 13 billion tons). The most optimistic
estimate suggested that potential oil resources (not proved reserves) of
the Spratly and Paracel Islands in the South China Sea could be as high
as 105 billion barrels of oil, and that the total for the South China
Sea could be as high as 213 billion barrels. [30]
The presence of such vast energy reserves has not
surprisingly become a major energy security issue for China. Washington
has made a calculated intervention in the past several years to sabotage
those Chinese interests, using especially Vietnam as a wedge against
Chinese oil exploration there. In July 2012 the National Assembly of
Vietnam passed a law demarcating Vietnamese sea borders to include the
Spratly and Paracel islands. US influence in Vietnam since the country
opened to economic liberalization has become decisive.
In 2011 the US military began cooperation with
Vietnam, including joint “peaceful” military exercises. Washington has
backed both The Philippines and Vietnam in their territorial claims over
Chinese-claimed territories in the South China Sea, emboldening those
small countries not to seek a diplomatic resolution.[31]
In 2010 US and UK oil majors entered the bidding for
exploration in the South China Sea. The bid by Chevron and BP added to
the presence of US-based Anadarko Petroleum Corporation in the region.
That move is essential to give Washington the pretext to “defend us oil
interests” in the area. [32]
In April 2012, the Philippine warship Gregorio del
Pilar was involved in a standoff with two Chinese surveillance vessels
in the Scarborough Shoal, an area claimed by both nations. The
Philippine navy had been trying to arrest Chinese fishermen who were
allegedly taking government-protected marine species from the area, but
the surveillance boats prevented them. On April 14, 2012, U.S. and the
Philippines held their yearly exercises in Palawan, Philippines. On May
7, 2012, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Fu Ying called a meeting with
Alex Chua, Charge D'affaires of the Philippine Embassy in China, to make
a serious representation over the incident at the Scarborough Shoal.
From South Korea to Philippines to Vietnam, the
Pentagon and US State Department is fanning the clash over rights to the
South China Sea to stealthily insert US military presence there to
“defend” Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean or Philippine interests. The
military hangman’s noose around China is being slowly drawn tighter.
While China’s access to vast resources of offshore
conventional oil and gas were being restricted, Washington was actively
trying to lure China into massive pursuit of exploitation of shale gas
inside China. The reasons had nothing to do with US goodwill towards
China. It was in fact another major weapon in the destruction of China,
now through a form of environmental warfare.
F. William Engdahl author of, Es klebt Blut an Euren Händen (FinanzBuchVerlag)
Notes:
[1] President Barack Obama, Remarks By President Obama to the Australian Parliament, November 17, 2011, accessed in
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/11/17/remarks-president-obama-australian-parliament.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/11/17/remarks-president-obama-australian-parliament.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Otto Kreisher, UK Defense Chief to NATO: Pull Your Weight in Europe While US Handles China, July 22, 2012, accessed in http://defense.aol.com/2012/07/19/uk-defense-chief-to-nato-pull-your-weight-in-europe-while-us-ha/?icid=related4 .
[4] BBC, China military 'closing key gaps', says Pentagon, 25 August 2011, accessed in http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14661027 .
[5] Ibid.
[6] Greg Jaffe , US Model for a Future
War Fans Tensions with China and inside Pentagon, Washington Post,
August 2, 2012, accessed in http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/139681/us-model-for-a-future-war-fans-tensions-with-china-and-inside-pentagon.html.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Matt Siegel, As Part of Pact, U.S. Marines Arrive in Australia, in China’s Strategic Backyard, The New York Times,
April 4, 2012, accessed in http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/world/asia/us-marines-arrive-darwin-australia.html.
[9] Greg Jaffe, op. cit.
[10] F. William Engdahl, Full Spectrum
Dominance: Totallitarian democracy in the New World Order, Wiesbaden,
2009, edition.engdahl, p. 190.
[11] The Washington Times, China Builds up Strategic Sea Lanes, January 17, 2005, accessed in http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2005/jan/17/20050117-115550-1929r/?page=all#pagebreak
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Wall Street Journal, An Opening in Burma: The regime's tentative liberalization is worth testing for sincerity,
Wall Street Journal, November 22, 2011, accessed in http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204443404577049964259425018.html
[15] Radio Free Asia, US to Invest in Burma’s Oil, 7 November, 2011, accessed in http://www.rfa.org/english/news/burma/sanctions-07112012185817.html
[16] Shaun Tandon, US eases Myanmar restrictions for NGOs, AFP, April 17, 2012, accessed in http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jmwmJ3e0yIjyD-7N52GAFISnweAA?docId=CNG.a8c1c3e2edf92a30cc1b3c9bd5ed11c1.131
[17] Craig Whitlock, U.S. eyes return to some Southeast Asia military bases, Washington Post, June 23, 2012, accessed in http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-seeks-return-to-se-asian-bases/2012/06/22/gJQAKP83vV_story.html
[18] Ibid.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Premvir Das, Taking US-India defence links to the next level, June 18, 2012, accessed in http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/slide-show-1-taking-us-india-defence-links-to-the-next-level/20120618.htm
[21] Zeenews, US-India ties are global in scope: Pentagon, August 02, 2012, accessed in http://zeenews.india.com/news/world/us-india-ties-are-global-in-scope-pentagon_791212.html
[22] Ibid.
[23] Gregoire Lalieu, Michael Collon, Is
the Fate of the World Being Decided Today in the Indian Ocean?, November
3, 2010, accessed in
http://www.michelcollon.info/Is-the-fate-of-the-world-being.html?lang=fr
http://www.michelcollon.info/Is-the-fate-of-the-world-being.html?lang=fr
[24] Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And It's Geostrategic Imperatives, 1997, Basic Books, p. xiv.
[25] Ibid., p. 30.
[26] Ibid., p. 31.
[27] Cas Group, Background on the South China Sea Crisis, accessed in
http://casgroup.fiu.edu/pages/docs/3907/1326143354_South_China_Sea_Guide.pdf
http://casgroup.fiu.edu/pages/docs/3907/1326143354_South_China_Sea_Guide.pdf
[28] Gregoire Lalieu,, et al, op. cit.
[29] Ibid.
[30] GlobalSecurity.org, South China Sea Oil and Natural Gas, accessed in
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/spratly-oil.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/spratly-oil.htm
[31] Agence France Presse, US, Vietnam Start Military Relationship, August 1, 2011, accessed in http://www.defensenews.com/article/20110801/DEFSECT03/108010307/U-S-Vietnam-Start-Military-Relationship
[32] Zacks Equity Research, Oil Majors Eye South China Sea, June 24, 2010, accessed in www.zacks.com/stock/news/36056/Oil+Majors+Eye+South...