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16 July 2010 By Rick Rozoff Three news features appearing earlier this week
highlight tensions between the United States and the
People’s Republic of China that, at least in relation
to the language used to describe them, would have
seemed unimaginable even a few months ago and are
evocative more of the Korean War era than of any time
since the entente cordiale initiated by the Richard
Nixon-Mao Zedong meeting in Beijing in 1972. To indicate the seriousness of the matter, the
stories are from Global Times, a daily newspaper
published in conjunction with the People’s Daily,
official press organ of the ruling Communist Party of
China, and Time, preeminent American weekly news
magazine. Both accounts use as their point of
departure and source of key information a July 4
report in Hong Kong’s major English-language daily. On July 6 writer Li Jing penned a news article for
Global Times called “US subs reach Asian ports:
report,” which detailed the following recent
developments: “Three of the largest submarines of the US Seventh
Fleet surfaced in Asia-Pacific ports last week, the
South China Morning Post reported Monday [July 5]. The
appearance of the USS Michigan in Pusan, South Korea,
the USS Ohio in Subic Bay, the Philippines, and the
USS Florida in the strategic Indian Ocean outpost of
Diego Garcia was a show of force not seen since the
end of the Cold War, the paper said, adding that the
position of those three ports looks like a siege of
China.” [1] The piece from the Hong Kong newspaper cited was
entitled “US submarines emerge in show of military
might: Message unlikely to be lost on Beijing as 3
vessels turn up in Asian ports,” and was in fact dated
July 4. The author, South China Morning Post Asia
correspondent Greg Torode, described the simultaneous
arrival of three “Ohio-class submarines” equipped with
“a vast quantity of Tomahawk cruise missiles” as a
reflection of “the trend of escalating submarine
activity in East Asia….” [2] He further added this noteworthy data: “Between
them, the three submarines can carry 462 Tomahawks,
boosting by an estimated 60 per cent-plus the
potential Tomahawk strike force of the entire
Japanese-based Seventh Fleet – the core projection of
US military power in East Asia.” The author quotes without identifying his name or
nation a veteran Asian military attache with reported
close ties to both Chinese and U.S. military
officials: “460-odd Tomahawks is a huge amount of
potential firepower in anybody’s language. “It is another sign that the US is determined to
not just maintain its military dominance in Asia, but
to be seen doing so…that is a message for Beijing and
for everybody else, whether you are a US ally or a
nation sitting on the fence.” [3] On July 8 Time magazine’s Mark Thompson elaborated
on the earlier report with language, including that of
his title, “U.S. Missiles Deployed Near China Send a
Message,” derived from the South China Morning Post
piece, which Thompson claims contained information
planted by “U.S. officials…on July 4, no less” [4] in
a clear signal to the government in mainland China. The Time journalist added details, though, not in
the original story, replete with a good deal of
editorializing that perhaps serves the same source he
attributes the contents of the Hong Kong article to
and for the same reason: As a shot across the bow to
China. His account of last week’s deployments included: “A
new class of U.S. superweapon had suddenly surfaced
nearby. It was an Ohio-class submarine, which for
decades carried only nuclear missiles targeted against
the Soviet Union, and then Russia.” The U.S. has eighteen nuclear-powered Ohio class
ballistic missile submarines, fourteen still armed
with nuclear warhead-tipped Trident missiles and four
which “hold up to 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles each,
capable of hitting anything within 1,000 miles with
non-nuclear warheads.” “The 14 Trident-carrying subs are useful in the
unlikely event of a nuclear Armageddon, and Russia
remains their prime target. But the Tomahawk-outfitted
quartet carries a weapon that the U.S. military has
used repeatedly against targets in Afghanistan,
Bosnia, Iraq and Sudan.” [5] With the arrival of the USS Ohio in the
Philippines, the USS Michigan in South Korea and the
USS Florida “in the strategic Indian Ocean outpost of
Diego Garcia” [6] on the same day, “the Chinese
military awoke to find as many as 462 new Tomahawks
deployed by the U.S. in its neighborhood.” [7] The Time report also revealed that all four Ohio
class Tomahawk-armed submarines were operationally
deployed away from their home ports for the first
time. Thompson wrote that the coordinated actions were
“part of a policy by the U.S. government to shift
firepower from the Atlantic to the Pacific theater,
which Washington sees as the military focus of the
21st century.” Regarding the submarines still carrying Trident
missiles, he rhetorically added, “Why 14 subs, as well
as bombers and land-based missiles carrying nuclear
weapons, are still required to deal with the Russian
threat is a topic for another day.” [8] All three journalists cited – Jing, Torode and
Thompson – place the U.S. submarine deployments within
a broader and also a more pressing context. The South China Morning Post writer stated: “In
policies drafted under then-president George W. Bush,
a Republican, and continued by the administration of
his successor, Democrat Barack Obama, the Pentagon is
shifting 60 per cent of its 53 fast-attack [as
distinct from ballistic and guided missile] submarines
to the Pacific – a process that is now virtually
complete. “But the presence of the larger cruise-missile
submarines shows that, at times, the US forward
posture will be significantly larger.” The USS Ohio, for example, “has been operating out
of Guam for most of the last year, taking advantage of
the island’s expanding facilities to extend its
operations in the western Pacific. “It is due to return soon, but the Florida and the
Michigan are likely to remain in the region for many
months yet, using Guam and possibly Diego Garcia for
essential maintenance and crew changes.” Additionally, “The presence of the Florida, based
on the US east coast, appears to confirm the US is
still routinely bringing submarines under the arctic
ice cap to East Asia.” [9] Just as the Pentagon is moving nuclear submarines
under the northern polar ice cap to the Indian Ocean,
so it has recently reached an “agreement [that] will
allow troops to fly directly from the United States
over the North Pole” to Afghanistan and “the region”
by way of Kazakhstan, which borders China as well as
Russia. [10] The U.S. military “siege of China” is proceeding on
several fronts, on land as well as under water and in
Central as well as South and East Asia. But what
primarily had been a policy of surveillance and
probing China’s perimeter is now entering a new phase. That the U.S. currently has over 60 per cent of the
Tomahawk cruise missiles assigned to its Japan-based
Seventh Fleet near China emphasizes the qualitative
escalation of Washington’s show of strength vis-a-vis
Beijing. One related to, as was seen above, a
strategic shift of attack submarines nearer China and
also to the crisis on the Korean Peninsula that was
exacerbated by the sinking of a South Korean warship,
the Cheonan, in March. There has even been speculation that U.S. submarine
deployments and other “messages” delivered to China of
late were designed to pressure Beijing into taking a
tougher stance toward North Korea over the Cheonan
incident. What journalists have been referring to as
messages would in an earlier age have been called
saber-rattling, brinksmanship and gunboat diplomacy. U.S.-China relations sharply deteriorated this
January when the Obama administration finalized an
almost $6.5 billion arms sales package for Taiwan
which includes 200 Patriot missiles. [11] An article
on the subject in the New York Times on January 31 was
titled, revealing enough, “U.S. Arms for Taiwan Send
Beijing a Message.” China suspended military ties with the U.S., and
bad blood has persisted throughout the year, resulting
in Secretary of Defense Robert Gates scrapping plans
to visit Beijing early last month when he was
effectively disinvited by Chinese officialdom on the
prompting of the military. The White House and the Pentagon have been sending
a number of unequivocal – and increasingly provocative
– messages to China this year. The new U.S. administration signalled a
confrontational approach early on. In May of 2009
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, barely three
months in her post, stated, “The Obama administration
is working to improve deteriorating U.S. relations
with a number of Latin American nations to counter
growing Iranian, Chinese and Russian influence in the
Western Hemisphere….” [12] Later in the year then Director of National
Intelligence (and retired admiral and former
commander-in-chief of the Pacific Command) Dennis
Blair released the latest quadrennial National
Intelligence Strategy report which said “Russia,
China, Iran, and North Korea pose the greatest
challenges to the United States’ national interests.
[13] While Blair headed up the Pacific Command (PACOM)
from 1999-2002, his role included overseeing a vast
area of the planet that includes China (since the
Ronald Reagan administration assigned it to that
military command in 1983). Arrogating the right to divide the entire world
into military zones, areas of operation, has never
been attempted by any other nation, any group of
nations, not even all the nations of the world
collectively (in the United Nations or otherwise). But
the U.S. has and does do just that. It has even added
two new Unified Combatant Commands – Northern Command
and Africa Command – in recent years, in 2002 and 2007
respectively. The Pacific Command is the oldest and largest of
the six current regional commands (the others being
the Africa, Northern, European, Central and Southern
Commands), and was formed during the dawning of the
Cold War in 1947. Its area of responsibility takes in
over 50 per cent of the world – 105 million square
miles – 36 nations and almost 60 per cent of the
world’s population. 300,000 troops from all major branches of the U.S.
armed forces – the Air Force, Army, Marine Corps and
Navy – are assigned to it, 20 per cent of all active
duty American service members. Pacific Command is in charge of military defense
treaties with Australia, Japan, the Philippines,
Thailand and South Korea. The U.S. is also alone in assigning the world’s
oceans and seas to naval commands. Washington has six
naval fleets – the Fourth Fleet (the Caribbean,
Central and South America) was reactivated in 2008
after being disbanded in 1950) – and just as Pacific
Command is the largest unified, multi-service command,
so the Seventh is the largest forward-deployed fleet,
with 50-60 warships, 350 aircraft and as many as
60,000 Sailors and Marines at any given time. It is
based in Japan and its area of responsibility includes
over 50 million square miles of the (largely western)
Pacific and Indian Oceans. The U.S. also has eleven aircraft carriers, ten of
them nuclear-powered and all eleven part of strike
groups. [14] (China has no and Russia one carrier.) The Time magazine article quoted from earlier
mentioned that the deployment of four U.S. guided
missile submarines to East Asia and the Indian Ocean
is not the only development that China needs to be
concerned about. The U.S. is simultaneously presiding
over six-week biennial Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC)
military exercises in Hawaii with over 20,000 troops,
36 warships and submarines (25 American) and 180
planes and helicopters. This year’s RIMPAC, which began on June 23 and is
to be completed by the end of July, includes for the
first time the participation of France, Colombia –
with which the U.S. has recently concluded an
agreement for the use of seven of its military bases
[15] – and the Southeast Asia nations of Malaysia and
Singapore. The other countries involved are Australia,
Canada, Chile, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands,
Peru, South Korea and Thailand. The five-week war
games involve “missile exercises and the sinking of
three abandoned vessels playing the role of enemy
ships.” [16] The combined task force commander for RIMPAC 2010
is commander of the U.S. Third Fleet, whose area of
responsibility is approximately 50 million square
miles of the eastern Pacific, Vice Admiral Richard
Hunt, who stated, “This is the largest RIMPAC that
we’ve had,” and one which “clearly focuses on maritime
domain awareness dealing with expanded military
operations across the complete spectrum of warfare.”
[17] Time’s Mark Thompson also wrote: “Closer to China,
CARAT 2010 – for Cooperation Afloat Readiness and
Training – just got underway [July 5] off Singapore.
The operation involves 17,000 personnel and 73 ships
from the U.S., Singapore, Bangladesh, Brunei,
Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and
Thailand. “China is absent from both exercises, and that’s no
oversight.” [18] This February Cobra Gold 2010, “the largest
multinational military exercise in the world,” [19},
was launched in Thailand (separated from China by only
one nation, either Laos or Myanmar) and as with all
previous Cobra Gold war games was run by U.S. Pacific
Command and the Royal Thai Supreme Command. Joining
the U.S. and Thailand in this year's exercises,
designed "to build interoperability between the United
States and its Asia-Pacific regional partners," [20]
were the armed forces of Japan, Indonesia, Singapore
and, for the first time, South Korea. From June 8-25 the latest U.S. Air Force-led Red
Flag Alaska air maneuvers were held near the eastern
Pacific. “The Red Flag exercises, conducted in
four-to-six cycles a year by the 414th Combat Training
Squadron of the 57th Wing, are very realistic aerial
war games. The purpose is to train pilots from the
U.S., NATO and other allied countries for real combat
situations.” [21] Over a thousand airmen from five nations – the
U.S., Japan, South Korea, Romania and Belgium –
assembled at Alaska’s Elmendorf and Eielson Air Force
Bases for air combat training which “unites forces
from all over the world.” “South Korea, a country already accustomed to
working with U.S. troops, is also in Alaska to
strengthen the two nations’ ties after the sinking of
a South Korean warship by a North Korean submarine. “‘We have the American Air Force in Korea, and the
coalition and the combined working environment is very
important,’ said Lt. Hoon Min Kim, a member of South
Korea’s air force. ‘And being able to perform under a
combined environment is therefore essential as well.’”
[22] The incorporation of progressively more
Asia-Pacific nations into what has been referred to as
an Asian NATO is by no means directed solely at North
Korea nor is it understood as such by officials in
Beijing. Participants in that arrangement, among them
Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and
Mongolia, have troops serving under NATO in
Afghanistan. Recently 140 new South Korean forces
arrived at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan to
reinforce a base in Parwan province recently subjected
to repeated rocket attacks. Seoul’s troop strength in
the war zone is now at 230. This month the government of Singapore announced it
will increase its soldiers in the NATO-led
International Security Assistance Force to “a record
162, from 97 last year.” “Next month, the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) will
send a 52-man unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) team – its
biggest deployment to Afghanistan – to Oruzgan [Uruzgan],
one of two provinces where Singapore has troops.” [23] Australia has the largest troop contingent serving
under NATO in Afghanistan of any non-full member state
– 1,550 – and 17 of its soldiers have been killed, 143
injured in NATO’s first war in Asia. Earlier this year NATO announced that Mongolia and
South Korea have become the 45th and 46th nations to
provide it with troops for the war in Afghanistan.
Mongolia borders both China and Russia and is the
object of intense efforts by the U.S. to increase
military cooperation and integration. [24] On July 6
NATO’s Assistant Secretary General for Political
Affairs and Security Policy Dirk Brengelmann paid a
two-day visit to South Korea, where he stated, “Our
security interests and security interests of countries
like Korea coincide today more than ever.” A news report of his visit paraphrased his comments
as asserting that “The world’s biggest military
alliance, NATO, is looking to increase cooperation
with South Korea and other partners beyond Europe and
North America,” and added that “Speaking of
cooperation, Brengelmann noted NATO’s show of support
for South Korea in light of the sinking of its
warship Cheonan….The diplomat said some NATO members
also serve on the U.N. Security Council and that the
NATO members will try to ensure any Security Council
action on the Cheonan sinking will represent their
views expressed in the NATO statement.” [25] Another country that shares borders with China and
Russia, Kazakhstan, has allowed the U.S. and NATO
transit and overflight rights for the Afghan war and
last week the nation’s president, Nursultan Nazarbayev,
signed a law permitting the Pentagon to ship “special
cargo” – armored vehicles – through his country. The U.S. and NATO have transited hundreds of
thousands of troops through the Manas Air Base (now
Transit Center at Manas) in Kyrgyzstan, which also
borders China, since 2001 and in recent months troops
have passed in and out from Afghanistan at the rate of
55,000 a month, 660,000 a year. [26] Washington has
announced plans to open new training bases in
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, the second nation also
adjoining China. With Afghanistan and Pakistan, which also have
borders with China, the U.S. and NATO have a military
presence in five nations on China’s western flank and
a foothold in Mongolia. The U.S. and NATO war in South
Asia will enter its tenth year this autumn with no
sign of Western military presence departing from
China’s backyard. The U.S. military remains ensconced in Japan and
South Korea, has returned to the Philippines
(including camps in Mindanao), is solidifying
bilateral and multilateral military relations with
practically all nations in Southeast Asia, and for the
past five years has cultivated India as a military
partner. [India is currently an observer at the RIMPAC
exercises.) Japan, Taiwan and Australia are being
integrated into a U.S.-designed regional and broader
global interceptor missile system. The U.S. is conducting regular military exercises,
building military partnerships, stationing troops and
opening bases around China's periphery, in addition to
the positioning of warships, submarines and aircraft
carriers in the waters off its coasts. What alarms China most at the moment, though, is a
proposed joint U.S.-South Korean military exercise in
the Yellow Sea, enclosed by both Koreas to the east
and China to the north and west. China's Global Times recently quoted Xu Guangqian,
military strategist at the People's Liberation Army's
Academy of Military Sciences, issuing this warning:
"China's position on the Yellow Sea issue demonstrates
its resolution to safeguard national rights and
interests. It also reflects that China is increasingly
aware of the fact that its strategic space has
confronted threats from other countries." [27] China, which just concluded six days of naval
drills of its own in the East China Sea, had more
reason to be concerned when it was disclosed earlier
this month that a U.S. aircraft carrier would join the
maneuvers off its Yellow Sea coast. On July 8 China renewed its opposition to the
planned U.S.-South Korean war games, with Foreign
Ministry spokesman Qin Gang telling reporters, “China
has expressed its serious concerns with relevant
parties. We are firmly opposed to foreign military
vessels engaging in activities that undermine China’s
security interests in the Yellow Sea or waters close
to China.” [28] An unsigned editorial in the Chinese Global Times
of July 8 stated, “Beijing sees the joint exercise not
only as being aimed at Pyongyang, but also as a direct
threat to its territorial waters and coastline,” and
blamed South Korean President Lee Myung-bak for
worsening relations between the two nations: “It is not known whether Lee had thought of China’s
reaction when he announced in May the drill with the
US. “Did he foresee Chinese people’s anger? Or, did he
intend to provoke the country on the other side of the
Yellow Sea? “It is a shame and a provocation on China’s
doorstep. “If a US aircraft carrier enters the Yellow Sea, it
will mean a major setback to Seoul’s diplomacy, as
hostility between the peoples of China and South Korea
will probably escalate, which Beijing and Seoul have
been working for years to avoid.” [29] President Lee met with his American counterpart,
Barack Obama, on the sidelines of the Group of Eight
summit in Toronto late last month, during which a
previous arrangement to transfer wartime command of
South Korean forces to the nation in 2012 were
postponed if not abandoned. In Obama’s words, “One of
the topics that we discussed is that we have arrived
at an agreement that the transition of operational
control for alliance activities in the Korean
peninsula will take place in 2015.” In the five-year
interim “if war were to break out on the Korean
peninsula the United States would assume operational
command of South Korean forces.” [30] If Washington is planning direct intervention on
the Korean Peninsula as its military buildup in the
region, including off China’s shores, might indicate,
the words of former South Korean president Kim
Young-Sam a decade ago are worth recalling. Two years
after stepping down as head of state, Kim revealed to
one of his nation’s main newspapers that he had
intervened to prevent a second Korean war, that his
government “stopped US President Bill Clinton from
launching an air strike against North Korea’s nuclear
facilities in June 1994.” He initiated a last-minute phone conversation with
the U.S. president which “saved the Korean peninsula
from an imminent war,” as “The Clinton government was
preparing a war” by deploying an aircraft carrier off
the eastern coast of North Korea “close enough for its
war planes to hit the North’s nuclear facilities in
Yongbyon.” Furthermore, Kim warned the U.S. ambassador in
Seoul that “another war on the Korean peninsula would
turn all of Korea into a bloodbath, killing between 10
and 20 million people and destroying South Korea’s
prosperous economy.” [31] Any catastrophic event on the Korean Peninsula, and
war is the ultimate cataclysm, could lead to hundreds
of thousands of North Korean refugees fleeing to
Russia and millions to China. The nearly nine-year war in Afghanistan being waged
by the U.S. and NATO has led to an explosion of
violence and destabilization in three nations flanking
China: Afghanistan itself, Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan. Also, since 2001 Afghanistan has become the world’s
largest producer of opium and hashish, flooding the
European and other drug markets. A forum entitled
“Afghan Drug Production – A Challenge to the
International Community” was held in Moscow a month
ago. A Russian report on the meeting stated “The
situation around drug production in Afghanistan has
gained a catastrophic character. Some 100,000 people
died globally from Afghan drugs in 2009 alone. In all,
Afghan-made opiates have claimed one million human
lives in the past decade, and 16 million more ruined
their health.” [32] 30,000 of the drug-related deaths
occurred in Russia. The United Nations estimates that
Afghanistan currently accounts for 92 per cent of
world opium cultivation. China and Russia are viewed as, if not challengers
to U.S. global dominance, impediments to its further
consolidation. And not in the military sphere but in
the fields of economics, trade, energy and
transportation. Destabilization of their neighborhoods
and frontiers is one manner of limiting competition. All means fair and foul are employed to eliminate
obstacles to uncontested supremacy, and what the
world’s sole military superpower (the term is
President Obama’s from his Nobel Peace Prize
acceptance speech) truly excels at is expanding its
international military machine with an unflinching
willingness to use it. 1) Global Times, July 8, 2010 http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2002378,00.html?xid=rss-topstories 5) Ibid http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/../kazakhstan-u-s-nato-seek-military-outpost-between-russia-and-china 11) U.S.-China Military Tensions Grow http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/../u-s-china-military-tensions-grow 12) Associated Press, May 1, 2009 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/../s-consolidates-military-network-in-asia-pacific-region 15) Colombia: U.S. Escalates War Plans In Latin
America http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/../colombia-u-s-escalates-war-plans-in-latin-america 16) Time, July 8, 2010 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/../mongolia-pentagon-trojan-horse-wedged-between-china-and-russia 25) Yonhap News Agency, July 6, 2010 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/../kyrgyzstan-and-the-battle-for-central-asia 27) Global Times, July 6, 2010 |
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