Kenneth Lieberthal is talking in riddles. Some say he is quoted out of context by the Chinese media. Others thought that he was speaking with a conscience. Or was this a Freudian slip?
China's economic and military leverage has certainly strengthened in recent years. Unlike most who sided with Japan recently, Lieberthal ought to know the history well. Japan's acquisition of the islands was a gift on the silver platter from American troops at a time when China was weak and rebuilding the country, unable to resist losing its territories to aggressors. Japan and its supporters cannot change the facts that the islands were under Chinese jurisdiction during the Ming dynasty with documented evidence and the recognition accorded by the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Declaration. If Japan indeed believes that it has a strong case, it would not need to posture, nationalise or buy up the Diaoyutai islands. Whether by historical or territorial boundaries, Japan lacks ammunition to stake claims, except with its loud complaining voice and encouragement of its military ally. It is orchestrated with the Philippines and Vietnam to exert pressure on China when it's vulnerable during leadership change.
JapanbrokeconsensuswithChinaonDiaoyu Islands
Updated: 2012-09-21
WASHINGTON - TheJapanesegovernment'sbidto "nationalize" theDiaoyuIslandshadbrokenitsconsensuswithChinatoshelvetheterritorialdispute, aUSexpertsaidThursday.
Nevertheless, China should not, has not and would not throw away what its hard won respect and gains built up over the years through diplomacy. As we write, both countries are holding consultations. Clearly escalation would neither benefit China nor Japan. The onus is really on Japan to resolve the crisis fairly. This is unlikely with a right-wing domination of the Japanese government bent on militarising bilateral issues at the expense of economic benefits and regional stability. However, China unlike the US does not partake in regime change around the world.
Understanding the reasons behind Russia and China's UNSC veto against purposeful and engineered regime change are desperately lacking.
Do the West and Arab despots really care about human rights in Syria? The dim prospects in Syria go beyond human rights in the short terms.
Foremost, the concern should be the rise of Sunni and Zionist collaboration aimed at weakening Iran and Iraq, and the consequences on Shia and Christian minorities in authoritarian Arab states.
Rather than picking on falsified and exaggerated massacres which even the Arab League was hard pressed to find evidence to support Western claims, look out for the sinister agenda. The world is deceived yet again but many never seem to learn any lessons.
We have only Russia and China who saw through the ruse to prevent the dominos falling and worse human rights disasters. Ex-commis from the Cold War period continue to be demonized for not supporting colored revolutions in selective abhorrent countries.
Independent minded leaders are clearly obstacles to neo-imperialism propagated since earlier British colonial and American expansionism post-WWII. The US and NATO are not reliable allies. Just look at the villain turned darling Gaddafi’s downfall.. Having seen developments of Islamists hijacking the revolution in Egypt and Libya, would Assad be stupid enough to accelerate the demise of his government and all that he has built for the country without a fight?
National sovereignty and territorial integrity should be respected, the very rules set up by the West, but are constantly altered to serve their interests. To be fair, the United Nations should not be an extension of US and NATO but look after all states and humanity.
Warning: be careful who you depose
BY: JOHN R. BRADLEY
Fro The Australian
February 13, 2012 12:00AM
IS the Syrian regime hellbent on political suicide? There can be no doubt President Bashar al-Assad is determined to crush rebellion, but if he had really carried out a massacre in the city of Homs (as was reported by most of the Western media) it would have been an act of complete madness.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague has been deploring the Russian and Chinese veto of a Western-backed UN resolution against Syria, but a look at the Russians' reservations reveals legitimate concerns.
The West seems keen to portray the uprising as a simple story of freedom fighters opposing tyranny, when the situation is much more complex. An awful repeat of the Libyan debacle is beginning to unfold: Western reporters embed themselves with self-declared former al-Qa'ida fighters and bands of tribal fanatics, but fail to report this so as not to undermine the "Arab Spring".
The result of this in Libya is plain to see. Once the Islamist militias had established their rule in Tripoli, they imposed sharia law on the once secular country and set about torturing their enemies in a way that would have put even Gaddafi to shame.
Now the same voices that helped the Islamists to take over Libya - and then feigned surprise when they introduced a new and even worse type of despotism - are calling for another armed revolution in Syria. It doesn't seem to matter to them that should their insurrection succeed, the new regime might cause untold suffering for the Syrian people, most of whom (it is not often reported) have not joined the uprising. Why would they? They have plenty of reason to fear that what would come after Assad could be far more repressive and potentially murderous.
The NATO-sponsored government in exile, the Syrian National Council, is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood and supported by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The ranks of the rebel Free Syrian Army have been swelled by radical Islamists from Iraq and Libya, who are being armed and funded by Qatar via Lebanon and Turkey.
The Emir of Qatar, darling of the West, has at least had the decency to make his intentions clear: he has declared he wants to overthrow the last secular Arab regime. He has installed proxies of the insane Wahhabi cult in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen, and now aims to do the same in Syria.
The House of Saud cares nothing for ordinary Syrians - its interest in the conflict is simply strategic. Along with its undeclared ally, Israel, it would like to see a group of Sunni and Wahhabi despots, hostile to their common enemy, Iran, replace Assad, who has collaborated with Tehran.
But what of Syria's religious minorities, the moderate Alawites, the Christians and the Shi'ites? What of the women? What of the dwindling number of free-thinking intellectuals, or Syria's ordinary moderate Muslim "folks", in Obama parlance, who do not wish to live under a backward Wahhabi theocracy? They can suffer in silence, it seems. US and Israeli "security interests" must come first, and are best served by a pact with the devil.
Of course, the veto by Russia and China at the UN had nothing to do with concerns about human rights. For China, it was revenge for being duped by NATO after the UN approved a no-fly zone over Libya, supposedly strictly to protect civilians but which was used as an excuse for all-out war and subsequently to ensure China no longer had access to Libya's vast oil reserves.
Russia has extensive economic investments in Syria, whose main port is leased to the Russian navy; and it sells billions of dollars of arms to the Assad regime.
But we sell many billions more to Saudi Arabia, which is Britain's main trading partner. We installed the al-Saud dynasty back in the 1920s, and we'll continue to be silent, as we always have been, on that regime's repulsive human rights record.
What goes around certainly comes around in the Middle East, and it comes around with depressing regularity. The Arab Spring was never going to end the cycle.
John R. Bradley is the author of After the Arab Spring: How Islamists Hijacked the Middle East Revolts
This is an edited version of an editorial that appeared this week in China Daily:
When China joined hands with Russia on Saturday to veto an Arab-European draft UN resolution backing an Arab League plan to promote a regime change in Syria, its stance was consistent with its approach to international issues.
The draft resolution that sought to realize a regime change in Syria did not adequately reflect the state of affairs in this Middle East country.
In putting the resolution to the vote, western powers hoped to further exert pressure on Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down, thus paving the way for the removal of a regime that is an obstacle to their policies in the Middle East.
By only exerting pressure on the Syrian government and explicitly trying to coerce its leader to step down, the resolution sends the message to armed groups and opponents of his regime that they have the support of the international community. This will undoubtedly make the Syrian situation even more complicated and make it impossible for all parties to reach a conciliatory agreement that is in the best interests of the country and its people.
We’ve seen what happened in Libya. With the armed intervention by some major western powers, the Libyan regime was overthrown. But instead of the democracy and freedom they were promised, Libyan people cannot even live in peace as the country is in the danger of falling into a sectarian civil war.
It is not a question of whether Assad should step down or not. It is whether the ever-worsening crisis in the country will be brought to an end in such a way that the country will not be plunged into a sectarian civil war and its people plunged into even greater misery.
China maintains that any attempt by the international community to help Syria solve its crisis must respect the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of the country.
A messy civil war in Syria will not be conducive to peace in the Middle East.
Russia’s stance that conditions should not be imposed on dialogue, and that any efforts should influence not just the government but also the armed groups is reasonable.
The draft resolution was presented too hastily and the international community should give the Russian diplomatic endeavour time to soften the positions of all the parties in Syria so that an agreement can be reached that is for the good of the country.
The Chinese government believes that, in line with the UN Charter, political consultations are the best way to help a nation solve any political crisis.
China Sided With Russia on Syria out of Defensiveness, Not Strength
Tired of being pressured to follow rules set by the West, fearful that an Arab Spring could take root in its own soil, China’s controversial U.N. vote is all about subtext.
This is an old game, well orchestrated at various levels of influence, soft skills and hard military power to get what they want - anti-communism, energy resources, compliance and continued world domination by post-war victors.
Nevertheless, life is not as simple and the unexpected could spring up to unravel all the hard work. Unintended surprises that came out of Arab spring and the uncontrollable factors may challenge the . US withdrawal from Iraq is not enough to redeem past errors in strategic management and judgement in the name of pursuing high sounding democratic and humanistic goals.
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The ultimate goal of the US is to take the resources of Africa and Middle East under military control to block economic growth in China and Russia, thus taking the whole of Eurasia under control, author and historian William F. Engdahl reveals.
The crisis with the US economy and the dollar system, the conduct of the US foreign policy is all a part of breakdown of the entire superpower structure that was built up after the end of WWII, claims Engdahl.
“Nobody in Washington wants to admit, just as nobody in Britain a hundred years ago wanted to admit that the British Empire was in terminal decline,” claims the author, noting that “All of this is related to the attempt to keep this sole superpower not only intact, but to spread its influence over the rest of the planet.”
William F. Engdahl believes the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa is a plan first announced by George W. Bush at a G8 meeting in 2003 and it was called “The Greater Middle East Project”.
It was masterminded to take under control for the “democratization” of the entire Islamic world from Afghanistan down through Iran, Pakistan and the oil producing Persian Gulf area, across North Africa all the way to Morocco.
“The so-called Arab Spring had been planned, pre-organized and used by the instigators of the ‘spontaneous’ protests and Twitter revolts in Cairo and Tunisia and so forth,” insists the historian.
Engdahl exposes that the some of the leaders of the protests had been trained in Belgrade, Serbia, by activists of Canvas (the Center for Applied Non-Violent Actions and Strategies) and Otpor (a youth movement that played a significant role ousting the former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic), organizations financed by the US State Department.
Engdahl names two reasons for the US State Department’s designs on the Islamic world.
The first reason is a vast wealth in the hands of the Arab world’s leaders, sovereign wealth funds and resources. The agenda – exactly as it was done with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 – is “the IMF privatization, ‘free market’ economy and so forth so that Western banks and financial agencies and corporations could come in and take the plunder.”
“The second agenda is militarize the oil sources in such places as Libya and the so-called Republic of South Sudan, that are directly strategic to China’s future economic growth,” points Engdahl.
“This is all about controlling Eurasia, something Zbignew Brzezinski talked about back in 1997 in his famous book The Great Chessgame, especially about controlling Russia and China and any potential cohesion of the Eurasian countries economically and politically,” he says.
And the results are already there – in Egypt and Tunisia the democracy has already brought weak economy, while Libya, the country with the highest living standards in all of Africa before the NATO bombings, today is in ruins.
The concern of the Western powers, especially the Pentagon, is the military control of the troubled region, not restoring normality, the historian evaluates. The NTC puppet government’s main concern is giving NATO prominent basing rights – something unheard of during the 42 years of Gaddafi rule.
“The AFRICOM [the Pentagon’s Africa command] is co-ordinating the scene,” William F. Engdahl says, mentioning that “interestingly enough [AFRICOM] was created just after 2006 China’s Africa diplomacy, when 40 heads of African nations were invited to Beijing and enormous deals were signed on oil exploration, building hospitals and infrastructure – anything the IMF did not do in Africa over the last 30 years.”
It is true that the US is acting against Chinese interests and national security but Beijing, that gets around $300 billion every year of trade income, simply has to invest this money somewhere and as there are no markets big enough to absorb such money – Beijing has to buy American treasuries – thus sponsoring the American wars that ironically are directed against Chinese interests.
“For the ‘Gods of Money’ of Wall Street, the only chance of survival and keeping dollar now is finding new areas of loot. The Arab Spring is directed at grabbing and privatizing the vast wealth of the Arab world,” Engdahl concludes.
But the future of the eurozone also looks grim because the Greek financial crisis was planted under the EU back in 2002 by none other than Goldman Sachs.The money trail shows, states Engdahl, that “the Greek crisis was programmed to be detonated at command by Wall Street and the US Treasury, as well as the Federal Reserve in order to defend the reserve currency – the US dollar.”
Engdahl warns that the US is building more and more bases around the world, like 17 new, mostly Air Force, bases in Afghanistan to be ready for the new war with China or probably Russia.
“Given the history more than the Cold War era, Russia can play a very stabilizing and constructive role as a counterforce to this highly dangerous strategy of The Greater Middle East project of NATO and the US,” Engdahl claims. “I would hope they do.”
The logical thing for the US Administration and any government in dire economic straits is to cut budget, withdraw troops, turn ammunitions into economic capital, and focus on getting the economy out of the doldrums. But no, Obama has not lived up to expectations. He is desperate to prove to his political opponents and some American voters that he is hawkish and means business (in the military sense). Start a fire in your competitor's backyard and pretend that you mean no harm and act surprised that neighbours are alarmed. American Presidents have not learned from lessons in history when they have no qualms about bringing on the Cold War!
Dictating terms and playing patron to another developing country is not new in US policy. Unfortunately, US has not been exemplary in its observance of international rules and norms, nor paying its fair dues.
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... the United States would deploy 2,500 Marines in Australia to shore up alliances in Asia, but the move prompted a sharp response in Beijing, which accused Mr. Obama of escalating military tensions in the region.
The agreement with Australia amounts to the first long-term expansion of the American military’s presence in the Pacific since the end of the Vietnam War. It comes despite budget cuts facing the Pentagon and an increasingly worried reaction from Chinese leaders, who have argued that the United States is seeking to encircleChina militarily and economically.
“It may not be quite appropriate to intensify and expand military alliances and may not be in the interest of countries within this region,” Liu Weimin, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said in response to the announcement by Mr. Obama and Prime Minister Julia Gillard of Australia.
Some analysts in China and elsewhere say they fear the moves could backfire, rsiking a Cold War-style standoff with China.
The United States will not build new bases on the continent, but will use Australian facilities instead. Mr. Obama said that Marines will rotate through for joint training and exercises with Australians, and the American Air Force will have increased access to airfields in the nation’s Northern Territory.
Analysts say that Chinese leaders have been caught off guard by what they view as an American campaign to stir up discontent in the region. China may have miscalculated in recent years by restating longstanding territorial claims that would give it broad sway over development rights in the South China Sea, they say. But they argue that Beijing has not sought to project military power far beyond its shores, and has repeatedly proposed to resolve territorial disputes through negotiations.
The United States portrays itself as responding to a new Chinese assertiveness in the region that has alarmed core American allies. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton wrote a recent article in Foreign Policy laying out an expansive case for American involvement in Asia, and Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta characterized China’s military development as lacking transparency and criticized its assertiveness in the regional waters.
Mr. Obama reached out to China even as he announced the new troop deployment. “The notion that we fear China is mistaken; the notion that we are looking to exclude China is mistaken,” he said.
The president said that China would be welcomed into the new trade pact if Beijing was willing to meet the free-trade standards for membership. But such standards would require China to let its currency rise in value, to better protect foreign producers’ intellectual property rights and to limit or end subsidies to state-owned companies, all of which would require a major overhaul of China’s economic development strategy.
Obama is under immense pressure as his precarious standing becomes more obvious as the presidential re-election nears. His belligerent attitude and proactive alignment with Asia Pacific ally Australia defies rationality. Despite rhetoric for change, Obama has succumbed to neo-Cons to put on an aggressive cowboy front to stir up peaceful waters in the region. While China has thousands of years of diplomacy and peaceful coexistence even at the zenith of the Tang and Ming dynasties, post-war US has seen more invasions in distant lands, resulting in painful casualties and fatalities on all sides (not to mention mammoth economic losses), within half a century. More than any other imperialistic and hegemonistic nations had chalked up in history.
As long as US continues its ranting on China's currency manipulation instead of reflecting on and redressing weaknesses in domestic economic fundamentals, it is not getting out of the rut. There are lots of hard work to be done to curb its credit manipulation, raise fiscal standards, improve productivity and bring about more equitable distribution of wealth. Carbon trading and taxes are not on the US government's agenda either, preferring to put the blame and burden on Third World countries trying to pick up from lost years of development to eradicate poverty by sacrificing their health and environment taking on the role as factories of the world.
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Obama's tough-minded and bluntly worded message to China was that rising power brings with it rising responsibilities. China has an obligation not only to follow the rules, but, in Obama's words, to help underwrite them.
Obama's comments were in answer to a question about trade. But his bluntness with China reflects a deep disappointment in Washington with China's performance over a wide range of economic, security and global governance issues.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership is not designed to exclude China, Obama says, but if a country wants to join it has to open up its economy. This is shrewd diplomacy by Obama. The TPP is open to any nation that meets the criteria. Because China won't meet the criteria, the emphasis of the discussion is not on the US beating up on Beijing, but Beijing's refusal to liberalise.
It is well known that many US officials who are keen to learn more about Asia, especially the rise of China, has sought the views of elder statesman Lee Kuan Yew, the former Prime Minister of Singapore. Much of the speculations from dubious sources (also stemmed from Wikileaks) do not have the connections and profound understanding of Chinese history, system of government, economy and people.
WikiLeaks: What Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew told Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg (on May 30, 2009)
MM Lee said he believes Japan may well ‘go nuclear’ (if North Korea becomes a nuclear power).
MM Lee said the Chinese do not want North Korea to have nuclear weapons. At the same time, the Chinese do not want North Korea, which China sees as a buffer state, to collapse. The ROK (South Korea) would take over in the North and China would face a U.S. presence at its border. If China has to choose, Beijing sees a North Korea with nuclear weapons as less bad for China than a North Korea that has collapsed ...
MM Lee expressed worry about the effect on Iran if the DPRK (North Korea) persists (in its nuclear ambitions). MM Lee said he believes the DPRK can be contained and will not proliferate, but Iran has very high ambitions, ties to Shiite communities outside Iran, and oil wealth.
MM Lee said the ROK (South Korea), after seeing what had happened with German unification, does not want immediate unification with the DPRK (North Korea). There is ‘nothing there’ in the DPRK, other than a military organization. Kim Jong-Il has already had a stroke. It is just a matter of time before he has another stroke. The next leader may not have the gumption or the bile of his father or grandfather. He may not be prepared to see people die like flies. China is calculating all this. They have their best men on the job. They want to help the United States to advance common objectives. But they do not want the South to take over the North, MM Lee said.
... in the absence of a social safety net in China, the Chinese savings rate is 55 percent, exceeding even Singapore’s 50 percent level. Consumption accounts for only 35 percent of Chinese GDP, as opposed to 70 percent of U.S. GDP. The Chinese leadership may be loath to shift permanently to a more consumption-oriented economy, but the leadership will do so temporarily, if only to avoid unrest… The pragmatists are in charge. There is nothing Communist about it. They just want to preserve one party rule…
MM Lee said China is following an approach consistent with ideas in the Chinese television series The Rise of Great Powers. The mistake of Germany and Japan had been their effort to challenge the existing order. The Chinese are not stupid; they have avoided this mistake. China’s economy has surpassed other countries, with the exceptions of Japan and the United States. Even with those two countries, the gap is closing, with China growing at seven-nine percent annually, versus two-three percent in the United States and Japan. Overall GDP, not GDP per capita, is what matters in terms of power. China has four times the population of the United States. China is active in Latin America, Africa, and in the Gulf. Within hours, everything that is discussed in ASEAN meetings is known in Beijing, given China’s close ties with Laos, Cambodia, and Burma, he stated.
... the best course for the US is to build ties with China’s young people. China’s best and brightest want to study in the United States, with the UK as the next option, then Japan. While they are there, it is important that they be treated as equals, with the cultural support they may need as foreigners…Why not have Chinese cadets at West Point alongside Vietnamese cadets and Indian cadets?… MM Lee noted that his own experience as a student in the UK had left him with an enduring fondness for the UK. When he spent two months at Harvard in 1968, an American professor had invited him home for Thanksgiving. This was not the sort of thing that happened in the UK, and Lee had realized he was dealing with a different civilization. In the future, China’s leaders will have PhDs and MBAs from American universities, he predicted.
Two leaders but with totally different assessments. You would recall that in another Wikileaks revelation, Australia's Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd (last Prime Minister) talked tough and told his US counterpart Hilary Clinton that Australia to go to war with China should the latter fail to integrate with the international order. The US despite being a strong miliary ally of Taiwan, Japan and North Korea would not fathom this as a likely scenario. Given that China enjoys economic properity under peaceful circumstances, alternative avenues have been built to avoid using force for reunification and foreign policies. Rudd has been described as a boastful Mandarin speaking control freak by his own colleagues. His belligerent advice is uncalled for. There is much the western world could learn from LKY who is seen as the bridge between East and West.
