Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Tuesday, 22 January 2013

TomDispatch.com: A Regular Antidote to the Mainstream Media
January 22, 2013
Tomgram: Michael Klare, The Next War?
[Note for TomDispatch Readers: Thanks to you, Jonathan Schell’s recent TD post (“How Did the Gates of Hell Open in Vietnam?”) about Nick Turse’s new book, Kill Anything That Moves, practically turned that book into a bestseller.  At least, it hit #200 at Amazon last week!  Contributions for personalized, signed copies of the book also helped start the TD year off with a financial bang, for which many thanks.  Theoffer of a signed book in return for a contribution of $100 (or more) remains open.  Just check out our donation page byclicking hereTom]

Once upon a time, former Chinese leader Deng Xiaopingsuggested that Asia’s Pacific powers and wannabes should “put aside differences and jointly develop resources.”  That was, of course, when China itself was still something of a wannabe and no one was talking about it becoming theworld’s largest economy.  Now, it’s the rising power on planet Earth, achieving a more-than-century-old dream of returning to national greatness -- as well as an eye-blistering, health-endangering level of industrial and car pollution that has its own name, “airpocalypse.” Problem is the idea of regional cooperation turns out to have been the real dream and now, it seems, everyone in the Pacific basin has woken up.

“Jointly develop”?  What an ephemeral thought at a time when the urge to power up ever more cars and factories (sending yet more pollution, not to speak of greenhouse gases, into Asian and planetary skies) has merged with advances in drilling technology for “extreme energy.”  Together, they have made a series of previously unremarkable islets in the Pacific -- which just happen to have prospective oil and natural gas reserves under them -- look too valuable to resist claiming. So China, Japan, and various other Asian countries are insisting those bits of land are theirs and theirs alone.  Toss in that hideous imponderable national pride and, as TomDispatch regular Michael Klare points out today, you have the potential for one of the dumber, more destructive face-offs in recent history.  With its usual fabulous timing, the U.S., already heavily garrisoning parts of Asia, has jumped in with both feet, only exacerbating tensions in the region, while promising to bring more of its own weaponry to bear, and sell more of that weaponry to its allies.

As Klare, author of the invaluable The Race for What’s Left(just out in paperback), indicates, this couldn't be more ludicrous.  After all, China, Japan, and the U.S. are so economically intertwined that one can’t twitch without the others suffering.  In other words, any kind of conflict among them is bound to make mincemeat of their collective economic wellbeing.  In fact, last October, after a confrontation over some of those islands, angry anti-Japanese protests and calls for boycotts of Japanese goods swept China.  The uproar briefly closed Japanese plants in that country, took a bite out of Japanese car sales, and knocked down Japanese stock prices.  Japan's economy took a serious hit as well, which should surprise no one since China has recently pulled ahead of the U.S. as that country’s major export market.  All of this, until tamped down, threatened the wellbeing of the global economy, and yet it was a mere hiccup in terms of what might be coming.

What better argument could there be for self-interested cooperation in the Pacific, if only anyone in the involved countries, including ours, were actually walking the walk, instead of just intermittently talking the talk? Tom
Powder Keg in the Pacific 
Will China-Japan-U.S. Tensions in the Pacific Ignite a Conflict and Sink the Global Economy? 
By Michael T. Klare
Don’t look now, but conditions are deteriorating in the western Pacific.  Things are turning ugly, with consequences that could prove deadly and spell catastrophe for the global economy.
In Washington, it is widely assumed that a showdown with Iran over its nuclear ambitions will be the first major crisis to engulf the next secretary of defense -- whether it be former Senator Chuck Hagel, as President Obama desires, or someone else if he fails to win Senate confirmation.  With few signs of an imminent breakthrough in talks aimed at peacefully resolving the Iranian nuclear issue, many analysts believe that military action -- if not by Israel, than by the United States -- could be on this year’s agenda.
Lurking just behind the Iranian imbroglio, however, is a potential crisis of far greater magnitude, and potentially far more imminent than most of us imagine.  China’s determination to assert control over disputed islands in the potentially energy-rich waters of the East and South China Seas, in the face of stiffening resistance from Japan and the Philippines along with greater regional assertiveness by the United States, spells trouble not just regionally, but potentially globally.
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