19 August 2010
U.S.-China Conflict: From War Of Words To Talk Of War
Part II By Rick Rozoff Relations between the U.S. and China have been
steadily deteriorating since the beginning of the year
when Washington confirmed the completion of a $6.4
billion arms deal with Taiwan and China suspended
military-to-military ties with the U.S. in response. In January the Chinese Defense Ministry announced
the cessation of military exchanges between the two
countries and the Foreign Ministry warned of enforcing
sanctions against American companies involved with
weapons sales to Taiwan. The Washington Post reported afterward that during
a two-day Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Beijing
this May attended by approximately 65 U.S. officials,
Rear Admiral Guan Youfei of the People’s Liberation
Army accused Washington of “plotting to encircle China
with strategic alliances” and said arms deals with
Taiwan “prove that the United States views China as an
enemy.” [1] During the 9th Asia Security Summit (Shangri-La
Dialogue conference) in Singapore in early June a
rancorous exchange occurred between U.S. Secretary of
Defense Robert Gates and Major General Zhu Chenghu,
director of China’s National Defense University. The
Chinese official lambasted the U.S. over more than $12
billion in proposed arms transactions with Taiwan in
the past two years, stating they were designed to
prevent the reunification of China. The preceding week China had rebuffed Gates’
request to visit Beijing after the Singapore summit. At that conference Gates spoke of “our collective
responsibility to protect the peace and reinforce
stability in Asia” in reference to the sinking of the
South Korean corvette Cheonan in late March. Major General Zhu reacted by casting doubts on the
U.S. account of the ship’s sinking and indicated that
“America’s stance over the Cheonan was hypocritical
given its failure to condemn the Israeli commando raid
on a flotilla of ships carrying supplies to Gaza on
May 31, which resulted in the death of nine
activists.” He also warned that the latest Taiwan arms
package threatened China’s “core interests.” [2] At the same event, General Ma Xiaotian, deputy head
of the People’s Liberation Army General Staff
Department, itemized obstacles to the resumption of
U.S.-China military relations, including Washington
providing weapons to Taiwan and “frequent espionage
activities by US ships and aircraft in the waters and
airspace of China’s exclusive economic zones.” [3] Matters went from bad to worse after Gates and
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited South Korea
in late July, accompanied by Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen and Admiral
Robert Willard, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, and
on July 20 Gates, Mullen and Willard announced the
U.S. would conduct a series of war games with South
Korea in the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan. The first such exercise, the four-day Invincible
Spirit naval maneuvers, started on July 25 and was led
by the USS George Washington Carrier Strike Group,
named after the 97,000-ton nuclear-powered
supercarrier at its core, and involved 8,000 military
personnel, 20 warships and 200 warplanes, including
F-22 Raptor fifth generation stealth fighters,
deployed to the region for the first time. Shifted
from the Yellow Sea, which borders the Chinese
mainland, to the Sea of Japan (on which Russia has a
coastline) at the last moment, the drills nevertheless
antagonized China and were transparently intended to
produce that effect. While in South Korea five days before the naval
exercises began, Admiral Willard – head of the largest
U.S. overseas military command, Pacific Command –
announced that future war games of comparable scope
would be held in the Yellow Sea, where China has an
extensive coastline and claims a 200-mile exclusive
economic zone. (For a map of the Yellow Sea, see:
http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/infopage/yellowsea.htm
) Joining a chorus of major U.S. military and
civilian officials making statements that could only
be intended to taunt China, “Willard said he is not
concerned about China’s feeling about U.S.-South
Korean naval exercises in that area.” In his own words, “If I have a concern vis-a-vis
China it’s that China exert itself to influence
Pyongyang to see that incidents like Cheonan don’t
occur in the future.” [4] His comment is entirely in line with others issued
before and afterward. During the Group of 20 (G20) summit in Toronto on
June 27 U.S. President Barack Obama held a “blunt”
conversation with Chinese President Hu Jintao and
accused him of “willful blindness” in relation to the
Cheonan incident. [5] In mid-July Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell
dismissed and belittled China’s concerns over not only
large-scale but ongoing U.S. naval exercises on both
sides of the Korean Peninsula by stating, “Those
determinations are made by us, and us alone….Where we
exercise, when we exercise, with whom and how, using
what assets and so forth, are determinations that are
made by the United States Navy, by the Department of
Defense, by the United States government.” [6] On
August 5 Morrell confirmed that U.S. warships will
lead exercises in the Yellow Sea in the near future. Shortly afterward, while preparing to leave for
South Korea, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Mullen said, “the Yellow Sea specifically is an
international body of water and the United States, you
know, always reserves the right to operate in those
international waters. That’s what those are.
Certainly, you know, I hear what the Chinese are
saying with respect to that, but in fact we’ve
exercised in the Yellow Sea for a long time and I
fully expect that we’ll do so in the future.” [7] On July 21 Deputy Secretary of State James
Steinberg, who had recently returned from visits to
Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia and
Japan, spoke at the Nixon Center in Washington, D.C.,
and in addition to speaking of “our traditional
alliances with Japan, South Korea, Australia,
Thailand, and the Philippines,” stated: “I think the most important [problem with bilateral
relations] is the continued unwillingness of China to
deepen the mil-to-mil engagement between the United
States and China. “At the same time, so that there is no mistake
about our intentions, we made clear that we will
exercise when and where we want to when we need to
consistent with international law. And that, as I’ve
said, we’ve clearly indicated in the past. We’ve
exercised in the Yellow Sea. We will exercise in the
Yellow Sea again.” To rub the salt deeper into the wound, he added:
“We do not consult with China on Taiwan arms sales. We
make a judgment based on what we believe are the
legitimate defensive needs of Taiwan for arms sales.”
[8] While in South Korea last month for the first “two
plus two” meetings between the U.S. Secretaries of
State and Defense and South Korean counterparts “to
commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Korean War,”
[9] Hillary Clinton and Pentagon chief Robert Gates
visited the Demilitarized Zone separating North and
South Korea, still technically at war, to “show
solidarity with their allies in Seoul.” [10] The following day Clinton arrived in the capital of
Vietnam for the 17th Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum and a U.S.-ASEAN
post-ministerial meeting on July 23 and 22,
respectively. While in Hanoi she spoke of territorial
disputes over the Spratly and Paracel island chains
between China on one hand and Vietnam, Brunei,
Malaysia and the Philippines (the last four members of
ASEAN) on the other. On July 23, in a blunt reference to China, she said
that the U.S. “has a national interest in freedom of
navigation, open access to Asia’s maritime commons,
and respect for international law in the South China
Sea,” where the islands are located, and that “We
oppose the use or threat of force by any claimant,” as
“America’s future is intimately tied to that of the
Asia-Pacific.” [11] Clinton formally initiated a campaign to recruit
the ten members of ASEAN – Vietnam, Brunei, Cambodia,
Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma), the
Philippines, Singapore and Thailand – into a rapidly
evolving Asian NATO aimed against China. After seven months of unrelenting challenges to
China, when it appeared that enough gratuitous insults
and mounting threats had already been issued, the USS
George Washington aircraft carrier arrived in the Sea
of Japan on July 25. Three years before, the U.S. Defense Department
released a report on China which claimed it was
“pursuing long-term, comprehensive transformation of
its military forces to enable it to project power and
deny other countries the ability to threaten it.” [12] Proceeding from that perspective, Washington is
ensuring that China will be so thoroughly boxed in by
U.S. warships, submarines, interceptor missile systems
and advanced deep penetrating stealth bombers – and a
ring of U.S. military client states ready to host
American ships, planes, troops, missile shield
installations and bases – that it indeed will not be
able to protect itself from the threat of attack. Eleven days after the completion of the U.S.-South
Korean naval exercises in the Sea of Japan, the U.S.
Seventh Fleet began a weeklong series of naval
maneuvers with Vietnam, the first-ever such joint
exercises. USS George Washington, fresh from the recently
concluded naval war games with South Korea, arrived in
the South China Sea for the occasion. “The formidable USS George Washington is a
permanent presence in the Pacific, based in Japan. As
one of the world’s biggest warships, it is a floating
city that can carry up to 70 aircraft, more than 5,000
sailors and aviators and about 4 million pounds (1.8
million kilograms) of bombs. It lurked Sunday [August
8] about 200 miles (320 kilometers) off the central
coast of Danang, Vietnam’s jumping-off point for the
disputed [Spratly and Paracel] islands.” Captain Ross Myers, commander of the George
Washington’s air wing, was quoted echoing Clinton’s
earlier assertion that “The strategic implications and
importance of the waters of the South China Sea and
the freedom of navigation is vital to both Vietnam and
the United States.” He was interviewed “as fighter
jets thundered off the flight deck above.” [13] Several high-ranking Vietnamese military and
civilian officials as well as the U.S. ambassador to
the country were flown onto the supercarrier “to
observe the strike group as it operates in the South
China Sea,” [14] near the contested Spratly islands. With senior Vietnamese government and military
officials aboard, USS George Washington “cruised near
the Paracel Islands – another chain claimed by both
China and Vietnam.” [15] On August 10 the guided missile destroyer USS John
S. McCain docked at Da Nang in central Vietnam, in its
first visit to the country, to join the joint naval
maneuvers in the South China Sea. Rear Admiral Ron Horton, commander of Task Force 73
of the U.S. Seventh Fleet, said, “This is indicative
of the increasingly closer ties between the U.S. and
Vietnam. Exchanges like this are vital for our navies
to gain a greater understanding of one another, and
build important relationships for the future.” [16] The U.S. Seventh Fleet is “the largest of the
forward-deployed U.S. fleets, with 50–60 ships, 350
aircraft and 60,000 Navy and Marine Corps personnel.”
[17] That is, the mightiest seaborne military machine
in the world. As the U.S.-Vietnamese naval exercises were
underway in the South China Sea, an article by a
former commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet (assigned
to U.S. Pacific Command), Retired Admiral James Lyons,
appeared in the editorial pages of the Washington
Times which advocated that “The United States should
consider leasing big-ticket military hardware to the
Philippines to give it the capability to defend its
sovereign territory against Chinese expansionism in
the South China Sea….” In particular, he said “the US should consider
leasing a squadron of F-16 along with T-38 supersonic
trainers, an aircraft for maritime patrol, and two
FFG-7 guided-missile frigates to provide a recognized
capability to enforce the Philippines’ offshore
territorial claims.” He also wrote that “now that President Barack
Obama’s administration has directly challenged China,
the US should expand its relations with ASEAN ‘by
building on our Mutual Defense Treaty with the
Philippines.’ “The US should negotiate a commercial agreement for
access to logistic support facilities in Subic Bay,”
[18] where the U.S. maintained a naval base until the
Philippine Senate ordered it closed in 1991. Washington’s project for an Asian NATO designed to
surround and neutralize China is not limited to
Southeast Asia and ASEAN. The U.S. is currently leading this year’s Khaan
Quest (pronounced like conquest) military exercises in
Mongolia on China’s northern border with troops from
military partners Canada, France, Germany, India,
Japan, South Korea and Singapore. Previous Khaan Quest
exercises going back to 2003 trained Mongolian troops
for deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan. [19] On August 16 U.S. and British troops will begin ten
days of military drills in Kazakhstan, on China’s
northwest border, in the 2010 Steppe Eagle
“multinational exercise, part of NATO’s Partnership
for Peace programme….” “The exercise is intended to assist Kazakhstan’s
Ministry of Defence in its stated aim to generate a
NATO inter-operable peace support operational
capability,” according to British military attache
Simon Fitzgibbon. [20] Kazakhstan deployed a
“peacekeeping” contingent to Iraq in 2003 and may be
tapped for one to serve under NATO in Afghanistan. To China’s south, a senior Indian Air Force
official recently disclosed that his government is
upgrading another air base near the Chinese border to
accommodate warplanes. According to the U.S. Defense
News website, “The moves are part of the effort to
strengthen India’s defenses against China.” In June India approved a $3.3 billion deal to
purchase 42 more Su-30 air-to-air and air-to-surface
jet fighters, bringing the planned total to 272 by
2018. Regarding a joint Russian-Indian long-range
multirole jet fighter/strike fighter adaptation of the
Su-30, the same Indian official said “a nuclear-armed
Su-30MKI could fly deep inside China with midair
refueling.” [21] On China’s Western flank where a narrow strip of
land connects the two countries, the U.S. Defense
Department announced on August 11 that, in addition to
30,000 U.S. forces not so assigned, “The NATO-led
International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan
now has almost 120,000 troops from 47 different
countries assigned to it,” [22] including forces from
Asia-Pacific nations South Korea, Mongolia, Malaysia,
Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. The noose is tightening around China and the
nation’s military knows it. 1) Washington Post, June 8, 2010 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/07/16/
u-s-risks-military-clash-with-china-in-yellow-sea 6) Agence France-Presse, July 14, 2010 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/03/31/
mongolia-pentagon-trojan-horse-wedged-between-china-and-russia 20) Reuters, August 13, 2010 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/04/15/
kazakhstan-u-s-nato-seek-military-outpost-between-russia-and-china 21) Defense News, August 12, 2010 Comments 💬 التعليقات |