Axis new alliance strategy to isolate U.S. from its allies before war

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Companion Threads:

• Obama isolating America from its Allies
• Obama agrees to give Russia Britain's nuclear secrets
• Growing China-Japan ties
• Obama Administration opens the door for the Axis to join NATO
• Russia and Germany restart their special partnership
• Is NATO as we know it dissolving?

China's alliance strategy aims to contain U.S.

Beijing to press for wide-ranging ties with NATO members

Published: 03/26/2012 at 8:45 PM



WASHINGTON – China is considering a change in its historical policy of avoiding alliances and is looking to establish military and strategic ties with other countries in an effort to counter U.S. military influence worldwide, according to a report in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

Chinese strategists suggested the move in a conference sponsored by China’s National Security Policy Commission, which is led by senior military officers who are virulently anti-American.

Already, recent Chinese strategic decisions have indicated a new policy already is under way.

“History of the world tells us that, whether it’s in political, economic or military arenas, Western nations, without any exception, always resorted to alliances,” said one Chinese security analyst.

“China must change its non-alliance policy,” he said. “We must consider forming alliances. Otherwise, in a future war with the U.S., we will not be able to politically or militarily counter America’s global alliance network just by ourselves.

“Without an alliance system of our own,” he said, “we will never be able to win.”

Yang Mingje of the Chinese Institute of Contemporary International Relations, China’s largest strategic think-tank run by the Ministry of State Security, said the view among Chinese strategists is that while the U.S. is looking to put more of its military forces in the Pacific, the U.S. continues to have a global agenda, since “China has become a global power.”

To fight a globalized China, he said, the U.S. also must act globally as it did during the Cold War.

Any alliance with neighbors may be questionable, since Beijing has upset many of them with claims of historical rights to disputed islands and in regions where there are disagreements over offshore drilling access.

[American Patriot]

"contain the US".......


Wow.

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Companion Thread:

• Chinese PLA official to Australia: Choose between us or America

Will Canada follow the U.S. into China's seas?

By Brian Stewart, special to CBC News
Posted: May 17, 2012 7:16 PM ET
Last Updated: May 18, 2012 10:03 AM ET

Read 138 comments


China's defence spending, the second highest after the U.S., is set to rise 11 per cent in 2012 to $106 billion, according to recent reports. (Reuters)

This summer, the largest international naval exercise in the world will see Canada's navy take on the second-largest role and Canadian officers share key commands — a remarkable prominence that Ottawa seems uncharacteristically reluctant to boast about.

Why so shy?

Well, the exercise is called Rim of the Pacific or RIMPAC 2012. It is held every two years and is primarily concerned with a potentially hostile China — and Beijing is hardly pleased.

China's antipathy toward this exercise may explain why highly informed Canadian reporters, such as David Pugliese of Defence Watch, have complained of an almost total clampdown on information about Canada's impressive participation.

The federal government no doubt finds it a bit sensitive to be wooing Chinese business interests one moment, while embracing efforts to contain China's naval ambitions the next.

Of course the 22 nations, which are sending 47 surface ships and subs as well as possibly 200 aircraft and 25,000 personal, deny that their combined five-week exercises, beginning June 29, has China's rapidly expanding navy in mind.

But no one is fooled, least of all Beijing.

China and North Korea are the only countries excluded from the exercise — at Washington's insistence. Even Russia is to take part for the first time.

Obama's 'pivot'

RIMPAC is held every two years, but this one is significantly larger than the last and shows the growing strategic interest in the Pacific by a number of countries, the U.S. in particular.

January saw President Barack Obama set out his famous "pivot" in U.S. foreign policy, designed to turn America's strategic interests away from its traditional preoccupations with Europe and the Middle East and toward the Pacific.

It is a shift in which Canada may decide it has little choice but to follow suit, and RIMPAC would show the way.

A decade ago, under the Liberals, Canada sent only three small mine-clearing vessels and a few aircraft to this exercise.

This summer it is sending six surface vessels including a fast destroyer and frigate, plus the submarine Victoria, and soldiers for landing exercises. The air component will include CF-18 fighters and a mix of helicopter and patrol aircraft.

This represents, by a substantial margin, the second-largest contingent — larger than Australia, Japan or any other Pacific Rim nation — after the giant American force, which will include the aircraft super-carrier USS Nimitz.

Sending a message

What is also striking about this year's exercise is the way in which the U.S. has gone out of its way to involve more nations and spread command responsibilities, usually tightly held by Americans, among the other participants.

This, too, is part of the Obama shift that would have other nations join this new U.S. focus with an increased effort of their own, including shared leadership, to ensure the "security and stability" of Asia.

In a nod to Canada's contribution and experience in coalition warfare in the past, Canadian officers are being given unusually high responsibilities — including deputy command of the whole task force and, for Brig.-Gen. Michael Hood, command of the large air component.

In strategic terms, the main point of these exercises is not so much about a future all-out war with China.

It's really more to find ways to counter China's ability to use its growing arsenal of anti-ship missiles, aircraft and submarines to negate the influence of the U.S. and its allies in the Western Pacific.

Pentagon planners call it A2/AD for "anti-access/area denial."

The way China is progressing, the thinking goes, it may become strong enough to checkmate U.S. power across the Western Pacific and turn itself into the new maritime warden over some of the world' s most important sea lanes.

RIMPAC hopes to reassure nervous Pacific nations that a show of collective strength can prevent this from happening.

Step it up

China's defence budget is the world's second largest, behind America's, and big enough to provide, within a decade, for many thousands of new anti-ship missiles, more than 60 conventional subs and six nuclear attack ones to go along with its impressive force of missile-cruisers and destroyers.

But the apparent rush to support RIMPAC this year may also be tied to heightened jitters over China's recent claims of economic interest in the South and East China seas, where its ships have clashed over rich territorial rights with vessels from Japan, Vietnam, South Korea and the Philippines.

Given the vital importance of the Pacific region to the whole global economy, and the number of flashpoints there (from the dangerous Korean Peninsula to territorial disputes in South East Asia and piracy) a growing number of countries are starting to consider mutual defence alliances.

This is a development predicted in a strategic-options paper written by George Petrolekas and Paul Chapin last fall and much discussed in Ottawa defence and foreign policy circles.

It raised the question of how Canada should respond to pressure to play a larger military role in a new Pacific security coalition — a pertinent question in that Canada has never really had a clear Pacific strategy to begin with.

Chances are the Stephen Harper government will seek to keep any new alliances involving some of those RIMPAC nations informal, but we'd be foolish not to notice that Washington is gearing up to insist that we increase our military contributions in the Pacific at the same time.

Canada's sterling service in Afghanistan bought Ottawa a respite from Washington's repeated tongue-lashings over our puny defence spending (never more than 1.3 percent of GDP, despite our NATO pledge of two per cent).

But with Afghanistan now yesterday's news and the Pacific the new focus for Washington, the U.S. ambassador to NATO recently blasted Canada, specifically, and other alliance slackers for placing "an unfair burden on those who spend the resources."

Ottawa best get used to such dressing downs, along with the strong message that positioning more of our ships and planes in the Pacific would be the best way to meet our coalition obligations.

Caught between Washington's nagging and Beijing's displeasure, the federal government understandably wants to say as little as possible at this point about our Pacific commitments.

But in the world of military alliances, actions always speak far louder than words.

[American Patriot]

It's because of the damned aliens....

They will be at RIMPAC too...


(Movie Reference to Battleship) lol

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Australia Warily Eyes Its Neighbours With 'Asian Century' Strategy



CANBERRA // Australia's government has issued its first major Asian strategy paper in more than two decades, aimed at cashing in on the "Asian Century".

Focusing on improving skills, infrastructure, productivity and business, "Australia in the Asian Century" also warns of the growing potential for conflict over territorial claims among the increasingly affluent and confident nations of the region.

"The scale and pace of Asia's transformation is unprecedented and the implications for Australia are profound," says the paper prepared by a team headed by former Treasury Department chief Ken Henry.

It highlights Australia's delicate balancing act between critical, mainly commodities, markets such as China and the Canberra government's main military ally, the United States.

The US is using Australia to boost its force projection in Asia under a new policy of boots on the ground announced a year ago by US President Barack Obama and Australian prime minister Julia Gillard.

"It's not enough to rely on luck - our future will be determined by the choices we make and how we engage with the region we are engaged in," Ms Gillard, the leader of the minority Labor government, said in releasing the Henry report.

"We must build on our strengths and take active steps to shape our future."

But "Australia in the Asian Century" comes amid strong opposition to Asian investment, particularly in rural Australia where there is mounting anger at foreign buy-ups of prime farming lands, including vital and expensive irrigation rights to limited water supplies on a dry continent.

Many of Australia's family farms are dying. Many are almost bankrupt. But there is a deep-rooted resistance to the international investment needed to revive them.

Polls show four out of five Australians oppose "selling the farm" to foreign investors.

"I may go under," says Peter, a second-generation rice farmer in the rich irrigation belt along the border of southern New South Wales and northern Victoria. "But I want my land to stay Australian."

Australia's ANZ Banking Group estimates the country needs to invest 1 trillion Australian dollars (Dh3.8 trillion) over the next 40 years to improve production and delivery.

The new report, or White Paper, adds little to the last Asian White Paper produced in 1989 under an earlier Labor government.

"If you've been awake and paying attention, there's nothing much in the paper that should surprise you, but the vast majority of Australians really have no idea of just how big Asia is already, let alone what it's becoming," said newspaper and TV commentator Michael Pascoe.

White Papers are a broad outline of government policy that may be further refined and many of their measures still require parliamentary approval before they can be implemented.

"What's new in this one?" asked a senior Australian foreign department official. "We've been hearing this from both sides of the fence [government and opposition] for as long as I have been doing this," she said.

The 1989 paper was prepared at a time of more stability and less economic uncertainty among Australia's Asian partners.

In 1989, Indonesia's president Suharto and Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad were in firm control and China's communist leadership had just put down the Tiananmen Square revolt.

Critics say the Henry paper is aimed more at shoring up domestic support for a struggling Gillard government less than a year from elections than producing a cohesive long-term regional vision.

Its key aims - with a target year of 2025 - are raising per person income, moving Australia higher in world education rankings - foreign students are a significant income earner - making every schoolchild learn an Asian language and making it easier for foreign firms to do business here.

Despite a strong Australian dollar, demand from energy-hungry economies such as China and India have boosted Australian resource exports and underpinned one of the fastest growing-economies among industrialised nations.

The Canberra government's midyear review released last month forecast annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth of three per cent, compared with about two per cent for the US.

In 1989, the then Labor prime minister Bob Hawke commissioned Australian National University academic and former ambassador to China Ross Garnaut to write a report on trade prospects in Asia, Australia and the North East Asian Ascendancy.

The Garnaut report was the first comprehensive review of Australia's relationship with Asia after the end of the White Australia Policy, a restrictive immigration programme only effectively ended in 1973.

But Australia's focus on the Garnaut report was derailed by the mid-1990s South East Asian financial crisis that destroyed export markets and political stability in the region.

The major difference between the latest report and the Garnaut report is twinning economic and military security.

"We support China's participation in the region's strategic, political and economic development," the Henry paper says.

"We will work with the United States to ensure it continues to have a strong and consistent presence in the region, with our alliance contributing to regional stability, security and peace."

The increased US military presence in Australia - including more naval visits, a permanent Marines presence in the north and pre-positioning of supplies - announced during the Obama visit - sparked a stern rebuke from China.

And the region is torn by intractable and volatile territorial disputes between the countries within the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations, Japan, China and the Koreas.

Australia's business leaders welcomed the Henry paper, although critics say it is short on details about how exactly to achieve its aims.

But Richard Leupen, chief executive officer of engineering, rail and infrastructure company United Group and one of the country's richest businessmen, said that the white paper was "a useful start - a common sense framework for now". "We need to engage with this huge opportunity," he said


Read more: http://www.thenational.ae/news/world...#ixzz2BFhwZAog
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China Warns Australia Not to Side with America in War


Print Article Send a Tip


by John J. Xenakis 22 Jan 2013 post a comment View Discussion

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com:

• China warns Australia not to side with America in case of war
• Philippines seeks U.N. arbitration over South China Sea dispute
• China increases surveillance in the South China Sea
• U.S. begins transporting French soldiers to Mali

China warns Australia not to side with America in case of war

Senior Colonel Liu Mingfu of China's National Defence University has raised the specter of a nuclear war, and warned Australia not to side with America and Japan. Liu is not an official spokesman for China, but his views are approved. Referring to the dispute between Japan and China over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, Liu said that China was prepared to fight "to the death":

America is the global tiger and Japan is Asia's wolf and both are now madly biting China. Of all the animals, Chinese people hate the wolf the most.
If this Japanese wolf again attacks America's Pearl Harbor or Australia's Darwin, how do you know it wouldn't receive another nuclear bomb? The world would hail if Japan receives such a blow.
I don't want to mention China here, as it is sensitive...
[Australia should play the role of a] kind-hearted lamb. Australia should never play the jackal for the tiger or dance with the wolf.

See also: "19-Jan-13 World View -- China's directive to the People's Liberation Army: Get Ready for War"
The Age (Australia) and International Business Times (Australia)

Philippines seeks U.N. arbitration over South China Sea dispute

The Philippines took a desperate legal step on Tuesday, formally notifying China that it's seeking international arbitration under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). China has used its military to block Philippines' access to the Scarborough Shoal, which is part of Philippines exclusive economic zone (EEZ) under UNCLOS. China has made it clear that they are going to use their military power to take control of the entire South China Sea, including several regions that have historically belonged to other countries, following a policy similar to Hitler's "Lebensraum" policy. They've announced that they intend to begin boarding and seizing control of other countries' ships in the South China Sea. At a news conference, Philippines Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said:

This afternoon, the Philippines has taken the step of bringing China before an arbitral tribunal under... the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos) in order to achieve a peaceful and durable solution to the dispute over the West Philippine Sea. [Since 1995, the Philippines has exhausted almost] all political and diplomatic avenues for a peaceful negotiated settlement of its maritime dispute with China.
On numerous occasions, dating back to 1995, the Philippines has been exchanging views with China to peacefully settle these disputes. [However, up until] this day, a solution is still elusive.

According to one Chinese diplomat, "We are not afraid of UNCLOS. Manila underestimates our knowledge at its peril." Manila Standard and South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)

China increases surveillance in the South China Sea

Two additional fleets of Chinese marine surveillance ships are carrying out separate patrol missions in the South China Sea. (I assume that these are the fleets that will support China's announced policy of boarding and seizing foreign ships.) China says that it will continue to carry out regular patrols in the East and South China Seas "to secure the nation's maritime rights and interests." Xinhua

U.S. begins transporting French soldiers to Mali

U.S. Air Force C-17 transport planes have begun flights from the French base in Istres, France, to Bamako, carrying French troops and equipment. 3,150 French troops will be involved in the Mali operation, code-named "Operation Serval," and the transport missions will operate for several more days, according to the U.S. military's Africa Command, which is based in Stuttgart, Germany. AP

[American Patriot]

Warning?

LOL

Fuck China.

The Aussies will side with us.

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Shun US paper 'tiger' and Japanese 'wolf', Chinese colonel warns

Date January 22, 2013

John Garnaut

China correspondent for Fairfax Media


Colonel Liu Mingfu ... warns Australia not to 'dance with the wolf'.

• Read Colonel Liu Mingfu's supplementary comments (in Chinese)

EIJING: A Chinese military officer has raised the spectre of nuclear weapons and warned Australia not to side with the United States and Japan as a territorial dispute in the East China Sea continues to escalate.

America is the global tiger and Japan is Asia's wolf, and both are now madly biting China.
Colonel Liu Mingfu

Senior Colonel Liu Mingfu, of the National Defence University, blamed America’s ‘‘orchestration’’ and Japan’s ‘‘militarism’’ for rising tensions over disputed islands known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China.



Colonel Liu Mingfu asked that his views be conveyed directly to Julia Gillard.

‘‘America is the global tiger and Japan is Asia’s wolf and both are now madly biting China,’’ Colonel Liu said. ‘‘Of all the animals, Chinese people hate the wolf the most.’’

China was a peaceful nation but it would fight to the death if seriously attacked, he said.

Both sides and the US have in recent days traded strident warnings over alleged territorial incursions, while holding out hopes of a diplomatic breakthrough. Diplomats privately warn of a growing risk of accident or miscalculation.

Asked about the People’s Liberation Army fighting capability, Colonel Liu referred to the PLA department that houses China’s strategic missile and nuclear arsenal. He raised a hypothetical scenario that he said would justify a nuclear attack, while clarifying that he was not calling upon China to take such measures.

‘‘If this Japanese wolf again attacks America’s Pearl Harbour or Australia’s Darwin, how do you know it wouldn’t receive another nuclear bomb?’’ Colonel Liu said. ‘‘The world would hail if Japan receives such a blow.

‘‘I don’t want to mention China here, as it is sensitive,’’ he added.

Colonel Liu is one of a group of outspoken hawkish PLA officers who do not claim to speak on behalf of the leadership but are given licence to speak stridently on some issues at certain times.

Foreign diplomats say they can serve to provide unofficial warnings, test foreign reactions and rally nationalistic support for the Communist Party or sections of it.

They can also complicate China’s diplomatic objectives and place leaders under pressure to demonstrate their nationalistic credentials.

Colonel Liu directly warned Australia not to follow the US or Japan into any military conflict with China. He said Australia should play the role of a ‘‘kind-hearted lamb’’ and China would discourage it from being led astray.

‘‘Australia should never play the jackal for the tiger or dance with the wolf,’’ he said.

Colonel Liu asked that his message be conveyed directly to the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, as she prepares to deliver a major speech on national security.

Like her predecessors, Ms Gillard has maintained that Australia will not have to choose between its economic and security interests.

‘‘American hegemony is not at its dawn and not at its zenith,’’ Colonel Liu said. ‘‘It is at its sunset and night is coming.’’

A consultant to the US Pentagon and author of The Rise of China Versus The Logic of Containment, Edward Luttwak, said China was ‘‘grossly overestimating’’ its military capability and underestimating the regional response.

He said deep geopolitical forces were at work that could be managed but not reversed.

‘‘Militant nationalism is the only possible substitute for ex-communists who seek to retain power,’’ Mr Luttwak said.

‘‘And for the US, its entire political culture mandates the containment of China’s new territorial revisionism.’’

Colonel Liu and other military figures have been buoyed by the ascension of the new Communist Party and PLA boss, Xi Jinping. One of Mr Xi’s new political mottoes, the ‘‘China Dream’’, echoes the title of a best-selling book by Colonel Liu, which has had sales restrictions removed since Mr Xi’s arrival.

Colonel Liu said his views did not represent Chinese government policy, but were consistent with what mainstream political and military leaders think, if not what they say.

In separate written comments he said the US was building ‘‘a mini-NATO’’ to contain China, with the US and Japan at its core and Australia within its orbit.

[American Patriot]

really now?

‘‘American hegemony is not at its dawn and not at its zenith,’’ Colonel Liu said. ‘‘It is at its sunset and night is coming.’’

No Red Dawn coming.....

[vector7]

When are people going to start grasping the Axis are seriously preparing to remove America from her superpower roles?

China:
North Korea, Pakistan...etc

Russia:
Syria, Iran, Cuba...etc


A still from "Glorious Mission", a video game created by the Chinese government during an invasion of the US.

[American Patriot]

I don't know Vector.

I don't think they will get it until the first nukes fall or an EMP event occurs and we find ourselves fighting Russian, Cuban, Chinese and North Korean troops on our own soil, not to mention the hundreds of Muslims embedded here biding their time.

Seriously, if America goes that we're pretty much screwed - at least this generation and our kids and grandkids. It will three or four generations before we come back if at all.

[vector7]

Companion Threads:

• Red Dawn Alert: Red China’s DM arrives in Mexico to Promote Military Cooperation
  
• Chinese DM meets with Latin American nations to develop military relations
  

Rising Red tide: China encircles U.S. by sailing warships in American waters, arming neighbors

By Bill Gertz - The Washington Free Beacon
Friday, June 7, 2013


Related Stories

• Best frenemies: U.S. wants closer military ties with China
• Obama urged to 'punch' China

China has been quietly taking steps to encircle the United States by arming western hemisphere states, seeking closer military, economic, and diplomatic ties to U.S. neighbors, and sailing warships into U.S. maritime zones.

The strategy is a Chinese version of what Beijing has charged is a U.S. strategy designed to encircle and “contain” China. It is also directed at countering the Obama administration’s new strategy called the pivot to Asia. The pivot calls for closer economic, diplomatic, and military ties to Asian states that are increasingly concerned about Chinese encroachment throughout that region.

“The Chinese are deftly parrying our ‘Pivot to the Pacific’ with their own elegant countermoves,” said John Tkacik, a former State Department Asia hand.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to question President Barack Obama about the U.S. pivot during the summit meeting set to begin Friday afternoon in California. Chinese state-run media have denounced the new U.S. policy as an effort to “contain” China and limit its growing power.


The Chinese strategy is highlighted by Xi’s current visit to Trinidad, Costa Rica, and Mexico where he announced major loans of hundreds of millions of dollars that analysts say is part of buying influence in the hemisphere.

U.S. officials say the visit to the region has several objectives, including seeking to bolster Chinese arms sales to the region amid efforts by Russian arms dealers to steal market share.

States including Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Mexico recently purchased Chinese arms but are said to be unhappy with the arms’ low quality. For example, Chinese YLC radar sold to Ecuador in 2009 did not work properly and sales of Chinese tanks to Peru also ran into quality problems. Both states are now looking to buy Russian weaponry, a U.S. official said.

Venezuela, a key oil-producing U.S. adversary, announced Thursday that China agreed to a $4 billion loan for oil development.

And in Mexico this week, Xi announced China is extending a $1 billion line of credit for oil development and pledged another $1 billion trade deal.

Ajoint Mexico-China statement said Mexico pledged not to interfere in China’s affairs on Taiwan and Tibet, a reference to the previous government of Mexican President Felipe Calderon who in 2011 invited exiled Tibetan leader the Dalia Lama, a move that angered Beijing.

U.S. officials say there are concerns that the pro-Beijing shift by the current government of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, who visited China in April, will be exploited by China for such political goals, and could be used to generate support for China’s claims to Japan’s Senkaku Islands.
U.S. officials said there are growing fears that some type of military confrontation could break out between China and Japan over the disputed islands that are said to contain large underwater gas and oil reserves.

North of the U.S. border, Canada this week concluded a military cooperation agreement with China during the visit to Beijing by Canadian Defense Minister Peter G. Mackay. The agreement calls for closer cooperation between the two militaries, including bilateral military exchanges.

Chinese ambassador to Canada Zhang Junsai said China is deepening ties to Canada for infrastructure development, in Calgary last month. Chinese state-run companies have spent $30 billion for Canadian oil sands and natural gas, he said.

At a security conference in Singapore last month, the commander of U.S. military forces in the Pacific, Adm. Samuel Locklear, confirmed the earlier disclosure by a Chinese military officer that China’s military has been conducting naval incursions into the 200-mile U.S. Economic Exclusion Zone around U.S. territory.

The locations of the incursions were not given but they likely included submarine or warship visits to the western Pacific island of Guam, a key U.S. military base.

A Chinese military official initially stated at the conference that the incursions were part of a People’s Liberation Army Navy effort at “reciprocating” for frequent U.S. Navy transits through China’s 200-mile EEZs along the coasts. The zones aretechnically international waters and China has claimed U.S. transits are “illegal” under international law.

It is not clear why China is conducting naval operations it considers illegal for its maritime boundaries inside U.S. EEZs.

“They are, and we encourage their ability to do that,” Locklear said, without explaining why the activity was encouraged or where the Chinese vessels had transited.

Larry Wortzel, a former military intelligence official and specialist on China, said the Chinese military has sent intelligence collection ships into Guam’s economic zone and also the zone around the Hawaiian islands.

“The EEZ transits may indicate that in the future they could revise their position on the Law of the Sea and military activities,” Wortzel said.
Wortzel said he does not see China’s efforts in South and Central America as a counter to the U.S. Asia pivot.

Chinese arms sales, military exchanges, investment and developmenet has been underway for a decade, he said.

The Financial Times, which first disclosed the Chinese EEZ forays, quoted one Chinese military source as saying, “we are considering this as a practice, and we have tried it out, but we clearly don’t have the capacity to do this all the time like the U.S. does here.”

On Chinese inroads in the western hemisphere, Rick Fisher, a China military affairs analyst, said China is moving strategically on Latin America, working methodically as part of a decades-long effort to build economic and political clout there.

“It has cultivated far better military relations with the openly anti-American regimes in the region and could become a sort of political-economic godfather to ensure the survival of the Castro dictatorship system in Cuba,” said Fisher, with the International Assessment and Strategy Center.

Intelligence cooperation with Cuba is “substantial,” Fisher says, and will expand sharply in the region through the activities of its state-run telecommunications firms such as Huawei Technologies and ZTE in the region.

China currently is “promoting almost all of its non-nuclear weapons in that region,” Fisher said.

“It has promoted the Chengdu J-10 4th generation fighter in Venezuela and Argentina, and even Peru may be considering the J-10 for its future fighter program,” he said.

A State Department spokeswoman declined to comment.

At a recent arms expo in Peru, China was selling a 22,000-ton helicopter amphibious assault ship and an export version of its relatively advanced Yuan-class attack submarine.

In Venezuela, China is helping the Caracas government circumvent U.S. arms embargoes by helping repair Venezuela’s U.S.-made gas turbine engines on frigates, he said.

“Another company was marketing several short range ballistic missiles—with no apparent consideration about how it might promote a regional missile arms race,” Fisher said. “The basic U.S. policy is to ‘welcome’ China’s growing influence in Latin America but it is now time for Washington to use both positive and negative pressures to limit China’s strategic military reach into this hemisphere.”

Tkacik said China is quietly evolving on the global stage and implanting itself across the map with major overseas Chinese communities.

“And if they [Chinese nationals] get in trouble, as they did in Libya in 2011, China’s navy and air forces can coordinate to support them,” he said. “This support of émigré Chinese communities around the world has become an overt dictum of China’s new security policy.”

China also has set up commercial bases in key chokepoints around the Caribbean, through its Chinese-run port facilities in Panama, Bahamas, Trinidad, and Venezuela over the past decade.

Tkacik said those facilities are partly aimed at drawing American attention and easing U.S. geopolitical pressure in Asia.

China also is investing heavily in Africa, the Middle East, and Indian Ocean region.

“At bottom, however, China’s strategic targets are closer to home: East Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific,” Tkacik said. “That’s why Washington’s Pivot to the Pacific unsettles Beijing so. It threatens to check Beijing’s rising new influence in the Asia-Pacific.

Tkacik said Chinese naval patrols in U.S. economic zones have been carried out for years through Chinese ocean fishing fleets.

“It doesn’t need to send out military vessels to Guam or Hawaii or the Aleutians except to ‘tweak’ the U.S.,” he said.

[Ryan Ruck]

“They are, and we encourage their ability to do that,” Locklear said, without explaining why the activity was encouraged or where the Chinese vessels had transited.

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Russia accepts Japan's invitation to begin new peace treaty

MOSCOW Tue Jan 21, 2014 8:16am EST
1 Comments


Credit: Reuters/Alexei Nikolsky/RIA Novosti/Kremlin

Related Topics

• World »
• Russia »
• Japan »

(Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has accepted an invitation to visit Japan, and the two countries will soon start consultations on a peace treaty, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday.

Lavrov made clear that despite the visit, the dates of which have not been agreed, there would be no swift solution to a territorial dispute that has prevented the signing of a formal peace treaty following the end of World War Two.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe invited Putin to visit Japan in 2014 while on a trip to Moscow last April, during which they agreed to revive talks on resolving the dispute over a chain of islands known in Russia as the Southern Kuriles and in Japan as the Northern Territories.

"President Putin has accepted the Japanese prime minister's invitation to visit the country," Lavrov told a news conference. "I am certain that we will agree on a date that is convenient for both sides."

Lavrov said an "improvement in the general atmosphere of Russian-Japanese relations in the last couple of years" had led to the resumption of talks on the disputed islands.

The islands northeast of Hokkaido were seized by the Soviet Union after it declared war on Japan in August 1945, forcing about 17,000 Japanese to flee, days before Japan surrendered.

Lavrov said the first round of talks on the islands would be held in Tokyo in several weeks. Recognition of the outcome of World War Two would be vital, he said.

Putin visited Japan as president in 2005 and as prime minister in 2009. Abe's visit in April was the first official visit to Moscow by a Japanese prime minister in a decade.

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China under Australian wing in military drill

April 4, 2014 1:59 AM

.View photo

The USS Higgins sails into Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in support of Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2012 exercise on Friday, June 29, 2012 in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (AFP Photo/Kent Nishimura)

Sydney (AFP) - China has asked to operate under Australian command when it takes part in a major international military exercise led by the United States later this year, a report said Friday.

Beijing's reported decision comes as Australia leads the arduous Indian Ocean search for missing Malaysia Airlines jet MH370 which was carrying 153 Chinese when it vanished.

The Sydney Morning Herald said it understood that the request from China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) was expressed through defence channels last week, without quoting any sources.

Until recent years China rarely took part in international military exercises and the newspaper said it was the first time the PLA would operate under Western command in such a drill.

Australia's Defence Minister David Johnston would not comment on the Chinese position but has welcomed China's involvement in the Rim of the Pacific exercise which involves more than 20 nations.

"China has a central role to play in contributing to regional stability," his office said in a statement.

"We welcome the positive contributions it has made to date, and look forward to continuing to work together to enhance mutual understanding and facilitate transparency, and build trust throughout the region."

The RIMPAC exercise will be led by the US and involve more than 25,000 personnel. In the previous RIMPAC in 2012, Australia led the maritime component of the war game, coordinating some 40 ships and six submarines.

It is not known which countries besides the US will take leadership roles this year, but nations taking part include China's traditional rival Japan.

The report on China's request comes as Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is preparing for his first visit to the country since becoming leader last September, a trip which also includes Japan and South Korea.

China is Australia's biggest trading partner and Abbott is pushing for the completion of a free trade deal with the Asian giant but ties have been complicated by Canberra's opposition to China's air defence zone over East China Sea islands claimed by Beijing and Tokyo.

Australia summoned China's ambassador to voice opposition to the Air Defence Identification Zone, earning a strong rebuke from Beijing.

The United States invited China to take part in RIMPAC in 2012 as it tried to reassure Beijing over its strategic "pivot" to the Pacific.

The latest round of the international maritime exercises, described by the US Navy as the world's largest, will take place in July around the Hawaiian Islands.

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Beijing, Seoul agree to direct trade in national currencies

China designated a clearing bank in Seoul for yuan transactions in South Korea on Friday, coinciding with a visit by President Xi Jinping, as Beijing promotes greater use of its currency overseas, AFP reports.

China's central bank has authorised the Bank of Communications, the country's fifth largest lender, to undertake yuan clearing business in the South Korean capital, the People's Bank of China (PBoC) said in a statement.

The announcement came as Chinese President Xi Jinping wrapped up a state visit to South Korea on Friday.

China is seeking to make the yuan - also known as the renminbi - used more internationally in keeping with the country's status as the world's second biggest economy behind the United States.

A joint communique endorsed Thursday by Xi and his South Korean counterpart Park Geun-Hye also pledged to strengthen efforts to launch direct trading between the yuan and the won.

Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_0...rrencies-4477/

Seoul-Beijing Warmth + Seoul-Tokyo Chill = US Impotence

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SEOUL – American and Japanese officials may well have looked on in discomfort as Chinese President Xi Jinping and South Korean President Park Geun-hye held a summit here that is emblematic of the increasingly cozy relations between the two nations.

The personal rapport between Park – who speaks Chinese – and Xi appears particularly warm: The two have met five times since they assumed office in, respectively, February and March 2013.

There could be no greater contrast to this chummy relationship than the frost that has settled over Seoul-Tokyo ties, stemming from distrust, if not outright dislike, between Park and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

These realities are likely to irk a United States that seeks to draw Seoul and Tokyo into a trilateral security alliance with itself, in order to counterbalance an expansive China and a threatening North Korea.

China and South Korean were enemies during the 1950-53 Korean War, but after establishing diplomatic relations in 1992, have drawn ever-closer. A key milestone was reached in 2004 when South Korea’s trade with China surpassed its trade with the U.S.

Today, China is South Korea’s largest destination for investment and for trade, which last year hit US$266 billion. If the two nations sign a free trade agreement (during their summit, the two leaders agreed to complete negotiations on this by the end of the year, which may be over-ambitious, but the deal is likely at some point) there will be a further spur.

Much has been made here of the fact that Xi is the first Chinese leader to visit South Korea before visiting North Korea. And indeed: Pyongyang has been busily firing missiles into the sea in recent days in what looks like a tantrum designed to draw attention and/or signal displeasure.

But speaking of snubs…

It was always customary for incoming Korean presidents to make Tokyo their second overseas stop off after Washington but Park, who assumed office in February 2013, overturned this tradition when she chose Beijing as her second destination. Since then, she has steadfastly refused to meet nationalistically minded Abe – even before his provocative visit last December to Yasukuni Shrine, where war criminals are enshrined alongside war dead.

This is odd, as previous South Korean presidents have met Japanese prime ministers with equally problematic historical or revisionist opinions as Abe. Some speculate that Park wants to distance herself from her Japanophile father, the late President Park Chung-hee, who served in Emperor Hirohito’s army, then in 1965, established diplomatic relations with Tokyo in return for colonial-era compensation which he used for economic development, rather than handing it to war- and colonial-era victims.

Abe has made no secret of his desire for a summit with the South Korean president and has tried a charm offensive, turning up unexpectedly at Park speeches and attempting to converse with her in Korean during multinational gatherings. But to no avail. The only time Park has sat down with Abe was at a trilateral summit stage-managed by U.S. President Barack Obama in March. To nobody’s surprise, Park looked far from charmed during that event.

Since then, relations have worsened.

In addition to turning a repeated cold shoulder to Abe’s diplomatic courtship, South Korea continues to criticize Japan for what it alleges is Tokyo’s lack of contrition and compensation for atrocities committed during its colonization of Korea (1910-1945), most notably during the Pacific War (1937-1945).

Abe’s administration has recently been returning fire, launching an undiplomatic investigation into a 1993 landmark Japanese governmental apology to “comfort women” – girls recruited, largely through coercion or trickery, to serve as prostitutes for Japanese wartime troops. (In the end, though, Tokyo refrained from altering the apology.)

Tokyo’s announcement this week that it is upgrading the deployability of its military – a move supported by Washington – has exacerbated the freeze and given Seoul and Beijing, who share a historical distrust of Tokyo, further common cause.

That historical controversies dating to the 1940s – in addition to an ongoing territorial dispute over a pair of Korea-occupied islets in the Sea of Japan – are chilling current political ties so icily is puzzling, given that Japan and South Korean are both democracies, sharing similar economic structures, lifestyles, cultures and values. After all; many national leaders differ over specific issues, but still meet and thrash out “big picture” issues.

Moreover, on the security front, both nations have (separate) alliances with the United States. Washington would love to formalize these into a trilateral partnership, but the Abe-Park split makes this unlikely in the near future.

Yet – ironically – while Washington studiedly avoids taking sides in the Japan-Korea squabbles, it is not Tokyo but Beijing that has been most persistently disregarding Seoul’s (non-economic) priorities.

A long-standing thorn in relations is Beijing’s policy of forcibly repatriating (to a very uncertain fate) North Korean defectors it captures on its soil, rather than handing them over to the South. And last year, Beijing stunned Seoul with its announcement of an Air Defense Identification Zone over a Yellow Sea reef whose ownership is disputed by South Korean and China.

The latter issue may be clarified, post-summit, as Park and Xi agreed to discuss their Exclusive Economic Zones. But – perhaps in order to keep things diplomatic – it is unclear if the former issue was even raised.

Above all, many South Koreans share Washington’s frustration with Beijing, which consistently and predictably pays lip service to Pyongyang’s denuclearization, but applies no leverage – such as halting fuel supplies or trade – to that end. Instead, after their summit, Park and Xi urged a restart of the Beijing-sponsored Six-party Talks. These tortuous negotiations, attended by China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States, were held multiple times between 2003 and 2008, but failed to halt Pyongyang’s nuclear programs.

Meanwhile, Pyongyang is a rare – albeit pesky and embarrassing – regional ally for Beijing, one that routinely gives Washington the finger. Moreover, it provides a strategic buffer between democratic South Korea and its own hinterland. That buffer was guaranteed when Mao Zedong’s intervention turned the tide of the Korean War, succored Kim Il-sung (grandfather of current North Korean leader Kim Jong-un) and overturned the de facto reunification of the peninsula by South Korea and its free-world allies in winter 1950.

China’s mastery of Northeast Asia’s diplomatic board leaves the United States and South Korea in different quandaries.

A frustrated Washington can’t frog-march a resisting Seoul into an alliance with itself and Tokyo.

Yet while Seoul basks in pleasantries from Beijing in return for its economic engagement, it seems unable to parlay the good-will into strategic or diplomatic gains. So, as South Korean businesses profit from their ongoing engagement in, and with, the fast-rising economic superpower, troubling strategic questions loom on the horizon.

Japan’s move to take a firmer military stance than at any time since 1945, combined with strategic regional competition between the United States and China, suggest that Washington may start leaning closer to Tokyo than to Seoul on military-security issues.

In similar fashion, Seoul may find itself out of step with other regional nations, notably the ASEAN bloc, which are wary of China’s maritime ambitions.

Of course, Seoul does not need to make an “either-or” choice between Beijing and Washington. But the contradictions implicit in an economic-focused China policy and a strategic-focused US policy confront its diplomats with an increasingly slippery regional tight-rope to traverse.

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Philippines suddenly announces 'separation' from US for closer ties with China

October 20, 2016


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcLEYsZF6Mc

Beijing (AFP) - Philippines' President Rodrigo Duterte declared his "separation" from longstanding ally the United States in Beijing on Thursday, as he rebalances his country's diplomacy towards China.

Duterte is in China for a four-day trip seen as confirming his tilt away from Washington and towards Beijing's sphere of influence -- and its deep pockets.
"I announce my separation from the United States," he said to applause at a meeting in the Chinese capital.

"America does not control our lives. Enough bullshit," he added in a rambling speech that flipped between languages.

"How can you be the most powerful industrial country when you owe China and you are not paying it?"

His comments came after he met his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square, with the two men pledging to enhance trust and friendship, while playing down a maritime dispute.

Xi called the two countries "neighbours across the sea" with "no reason for hostility or confrontation", the official Xinhua news agency said.

Under Duterte's predecessor Benigno Aquino the two countries were at loggerheads over the South China Sea -- where Beijing has built a series of artificial islands -- but since taking office in June the new head of state has changed course.

In a statement, the Chinese foreign ministry cited Xi as telling Duterte their emotional foundation of friendly good neighbourliness was unchanged, and difficult topics of discussion "could be shelved temporarily".

Duterte called the meeting "historic", it added.

His visit to Beijing capped a series of recent declarations blasting the US and President Barack Obama.

Addressing the Filipino community in Beijing Wednesday, the firebrand leader said the Philippines had gained little from its long alliance with the US, its former colonial ruler.
He also repeated his denunciation of Obama as a "son of a whore".

China, he said earlier, was "good". "It has never invaded a piece of my country all these generations."

- 'Candid and friendly' -

Duterte has also suspended joint US-Philippine patrols in the strategically vital South China Sea, and has threatened an end to joint military exercises.

The South China Sea is of intense interest to Washington and it has repeatedly spoken out on the various territorial disputes between China and its neighbours over the waters.

Tensions have risen between the US and China over Washington's so-called "pivot" to the Asia-Pacific, a move that Beijing says is intended to contain it.

In 2012, China seized control of Scarborough Shoal, a fishing ground in the Philippines' exclusive economic zone.

In a case brought by Aquino, the Philippines won a resounding victory at an international tribunal earlier this year over Beijing's extensive territorial maritime claims in the area, infuriating the Asian giant.

But Duterte, who took office in June shortly before the tribunal ruling, has made a point of not flaunting the outcome.

Asked whether the leaders had discussed the South China Sea, the foreign ministry's spokesperson Hua Chunying said they had a "candid and friendly exchange of views on how to resolve relevant disputes".

Their meeting represented a "return to the right track of dialogue and consultation" she said, adding China was willing to make "relevant arrangements" to cooperate on fishery issues.

The meeting between Xi and Duterte marked a "full recovery" of the "traditional friendship" between the two countries, Chinese vice minister Liu Zhenmin said, according to a transcript released by the Philippine president's office.

They oversaw the signing of 13 bilateral cooperation documents on business, infrastructure, and agriculture, among other fields, he added.

Beijing also has offered the Philippines a $9 billion soft loan for development projects, a statement from the Philippine presidential press office said.

About $15 million of the promised loans will be earmarked for drug rehabilitation programmes amid Duterte's anti-drug campaign, which has killed thousands of people and raised concern abroad of human rights violations.

China will also lift bans on 27 Philippine tropical fruit export companies. Previous sanctions on fruit were intended to punish Manila for its South China Sea stance.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/duterte-m...044808788.html