Last week, we noted that Japan and India were allying to protect themselves against China’s regional ambitions.
These developments finally seem to have made it to the “Resolute Desk”, which has responded with another of its classic “strongly worded messages” in regards to China’s intentions to expand its defense zone.
The Obama administration has significantly sharpened its rhetoric about China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea over the last week amid growing pressure from allies in the region for Washington to take a firmer line.
In public statements in recent days, senior US officials placed the blame for tensions in the region solely on China and warned that the US could move more forces to the western Pacific if Beijing were to declare a new air defense zone in the South China Sea.
China’s reaction was as expected by those who are versed in the Obama Administration’s foreign policy approaches.
China has accused the United States of undermining peace and development in the Asia-Pacific after a senior U.S. official said concern was mounting over China’s claims in the South China Sea.
“These actions are not constructive”, Hong Lei, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, said in a statement issued late on Saturday.
To say that other world leaders are worried would be an understatement. For example, the President of the Philippines is sounding the alarm.
President Benigno S. Aquino III called on Tuesday for nations around the world to do more to support the Philippines in resisting China’s assertive claims to the seas near his country, drawing a comparison to the West’s failure to support Czechoslovakia against Hitler’s demands for Czech land in 1938.
Like Czechoslovakia, the Philippines faces demands to surrender territory piecemeal to a much stronger foreign power and needs more robust foreign support for the rule of international law if it is to resist, President Aquino said in a 90-minute interview in the wood-paneled music room of the presidential palace.
Meanwhile, Iran is targeting our the Atlantic Coast with some of their ships.
Sick of the American navy’s ongoing presence in the Persian Gulf, an official with the military of Iran announced this week that they will be sending ships over to be stationed off the coast of the United States.
…”Like the arrogant powers that are present near our marine borders, we will also have a powerful presence close to American marine borders,” reads a statement from Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyar to the official Islamic Republic News Agency this week. The IRNA adds that Sayyar, the commander of the entire Navy of Iran, will call for “the help of our sailors who follow the concept of the supreme jurisprudence” to send a flotilla towards the Atlantic coast of the United States.
Finally, how about the Egyptian journalists who landed in jail for their alleged connections to terrorist organizations?
U.S. President Barack Obama is calling for the release of three journalists, including a Canadian, who have been imprisoned in Egypt for more than a month.
I suspect these media men will be remaining in jail well into the foreseeable future.
This week’s Canto Talk show featured a detailed discussion of global flash points, including the Ukraine (which Legal Insurrection has also been following). Despite all the platitudes offered during the Olympics, it looks like things are heating up around the world and there is little our current leadership seems able to do stop it.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
China is like the runty kid who was picked on his entire childhood then one summer goes off to work at his uncle’s farm. When summer is over, the kid returns to his neighborhood a big strong muscular man and has some scores to settle. Unfortunately China isn’t the only one, the Korea’s have scores to settle with Japan. The Vietnamese are terrified by an unchecked China. India has fought wars against the Chinese.
Now with feckless American leadership, a new nightmare is appearing. Nobody is talking a a nuclear arms race in Asia. If the group of countries worried about China’s aggressive behavior becomes convinced the USA won’t confront China, nuclear weapons acquisition is the logical outcome. Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Australia, Indonesia all have the technology base and financial means to build nukes.
Unless Obama launches a preemptive attack on China, he has been neutered and is impotent to offer a meaningful response. The Japanese, Indians, and other American allies are on their own.
I used to think an economic and military partnership with India would be just the thing to keep Chinese influence in check, but now I doubt we could manage to sign a treaty before Biden strip searches the Indian ambassadors or Obama decides to pivot to Eskimo inequality.
Strip search for control. Exploit inequality for leverage. While we perceive them to be incompetent, they are actually masters of their alternate (i.e. “progressive”) morality.
Well, that’s evolution. If we could identify the hidden sources and sinks, then we would at least understand their ulterior motives.
You tell ’em, Barry! Strongly-worded is the only way to go.
Hey – threaten to tear up all the IOU’s we’re holding. That should set things right…
China lacks the infrastructural depth to do what it is threatening. They don’t seem to realize that a big military must be bolstered by the ability to sustain the populace in the event of war. When your agricultural land is so polluted that you must buy grain from other countries, you really ought to shut the hell up and behave yourself.
China can be restrained, but not by the feckless and weak Obama.
Japan needs to start talking more openly about acquiring nuclear weapons for its own defense. If South Korea could be convinced to mention it too, that would be a huge help, but it is not a popular position even to discuss there.
But as Phillipines President Aquino notes, the location of these islands make the assertion of ownership far more important than the more or less worthless properties themselves. It is the corresponding “territorial waters” claim which is important and even critical, as they sit in the main trade lanes by which oil comes to Japan and ROK. This isn’t about controlling tiny rocky islands, it’s about controlling the sea lanes.
The world isn’t getting any less dangerous and, unfortunately, Obama’s term isn’t going to be any shorter for his lack of competence.
Elections matter. Whenever some idiot tries to tell me there was “no difference” between Obama and McCain or Romney, I have to ask: foreign policy doesn’t matter? Regulations don’t matter? Judicial appointments don’t matter? They matter, all right.
Look at the map, they are east of Taiwan. Pretty clear why Main Land China wants this territorial position. The Taiwanese need to get nukes so they can tell the ChiComs to back off.
When the Global Policeman is perceived to be weak, flashpoints heat up. That’s been true since Roman times.
Look what happened when the US stupidly elected Kennedy.