US Fueling Terrorism in China

October 24, 2018 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - The West's human rights racket has once again mobilized - this time supposedly in support of China's Uyghur minority centered primarily in the nation's northwestern region of Xinjiang, China. 

Headlines and reports have been published claiming that up to a million mostly Uyghurs have been detained in what the West is claiming are "internment camps." As others have pointed out, it is impossible to independently verify these claims as no evidence is provided and organizations like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Uyghur-specific organizations like the World Uyghur Congress lack all credibility and have been repeatedly exposed leveraging rights advocacy to advance the agenda of Western special interests. 

Articles like the BBC's, "China Uighurs: One million held in political camps, UN told," claim (emphasis added):

Human rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have submitted reports to the UN committee documenting claims of mass imprisonment, in camps where inmates are forced to swear loyalty to China's President Xi Jinping. 

The World Uyghur Congress said in its report that detainees are held indefinitely without charge, and forced to shout Communist Party slogans.

Nowhere in the BBC's article is evidence presented to verify these claims. The BBC also fails to mention that groups like the World Uyghur Congress are funded by the US State Department via the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and has an office in Washington D.C. The NED is a US front dedicated specifically to political meddling worldwide and has played a role in US-backed regime change everywhere from South America and Eastern Europe to Africa and all across Asia. 

What China Admits 

According to the South China Morning Post in an article titled, "China changes law to recognise 're-education camps' in Xinjiang," China does indeed maintain educational and vocational training centers. The article claims:

China’s far-western Xinjiang region has revised its legislation to allow local governments to “educate and transform” people influenced by extremism at “vocational training centres” – a term used by the government to describe a network of internment facilities known as “re-education camps”.

The article also claims, echoing the BBC and other Western media fronts: 

The change to the law, which took effect on Tuesday, comes amid an international outcry about the secretive camps in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

But observers said writing the facilities into law did not address global criticism of China’s systematic detention and enforced political education of up to 1 million ethnic Uygurs and other Muslims in the area.

Again, the "1 million" number is never verified with evidence, nor does the article, or others like it spreading across the Western media address the fact that China's Uyghur population is a target of foreign efforts to radicalize and recruit militants to fight proxy wars both across the globe, and within China itself.

Also omitted is any mention of systematic terrorism both inside China and abroad carried out by radicalized Uyghur militants. With this information intentionally and repeatedly omitted, Chinese efforts to confront and contain rampant extremism are easily depicted as "repressive."

China’s Uyghur Problem — The Unmentioned Part

October 8, 2018 (F. William Engdahl) - In recent months Western media and the Washington Administration have begun to raise a hue and cry over alleged mass internment camps in China’s northwestern Xinjiang where supposedly up to one million ethnic Uyghur Chinese are being detained and submitted to various forms of “re-education.” Several things about the charges are notable, not the least that all originate from Western media or “democracy” NGOs such as Human Rights Watch whose record for veracity leaves something to be desired.

In August Reuters published an article under the headline, “UN says it has credible reports that China holds million Uighurs in secret camps.” A closer look at the article reveals no official UN policy statement, but rather a quote from one American member of an independent committee that does not speak for the UN, a member with no background in China. The source of the claim it turns out is a UN independent advisory NGO called Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The sole person making the charge, American committee member Gay McDougall, stated she was “deeply concerned” about “credible reports.” McDougall cited no source for the dramatic charge.

Reuters in their article boosts its claim by citing a murky Washington DC based NGO, the Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD). In an excellent background investigation, researchers at the Grayzone Project found that the CHRD gets hundreds of thousands of dollars from unnamed governments. The notorious US government NGO, National Endowment for Democracy, is high on the list of usual suspects. Notably, the CHRD official address is that of the Human Rights Watch which gets funds also from the Soros foundation.

The ‘Uyghur Problem’

The true state of affairs in China’s Xinjiang Province regarding Uyghurs is not possible to independently verify, whether such camps exist and if so who is there and under what conditions. What is known, however, is the fact that NATO intelligence agencies, including that of Turkey and of the US, along with Saudi Arabia, have been involved in recruiting and deploying thousands of Chinese Uyghur Muslims to join Al Qaeda and other terror groups in Syria in recent years. This side of the equation warrants a closer look, the side omitted by Reuters or UN Ambassador Haley.

According to Syrian media cited in Voltaire.net, there are presently an estimated 18,000 ethnic Uyghurs in Syria most concentrated in a village on the Turkish border to Syria. Since 2013 such Uyghur soldiers have gone from combat alongside Al Qaeda in Syria and returned to China’s Xinjiang where they have carried out various terrorist acts. This is the tip of a nasty NATO-linked project to plant the seeds of terror and unrest in China. Xinjiang is a lynchpin of China’s Belt Road Initiative, the crossroads of strategic oil and gas pipelines from Kazakhstan, Russia and a prime target of CIA intrigue since decades.

West Decries Mainland-Hong Kong High-Speed Rail

September 28, 2018 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - China recently opened yet another high-speed rail line, this one linking Hong Kong to China's mainland, cutting the trip to Beijing from 24 hours to just 9.

Yet progress made by China in expanding what is already the largest high-speed rail network in the world, has been decried by Western media organisations. AFP in their article, "Fear and fanfare as Hong Kong launches China rail link," would transform the accomplishment into controversy, claiming:

A new high-speed rail link between Hong Kong and mainland China launched Sunday, a multi-billion dollar project that critics say gives away part of the city's territory to an increasingly assertive Beijing. 

Chinese security have been stationed in semi-autonomous Hong Kong for the first time at the harbourfront West Kowloon rail terminus, as part of a new "special port area" that is subject to mainland law.

AFP would further complain:

Under Hong Kong's mini-constitution -- the Basic Law -- China's national laws do not apply to the city apart from in limited areas, including defence.

Hong Kong also enjoys rights unseen on the mainland, including freedom of speech, protected by a deal made before the city was handed back to China by Britain in 1997. But there are growing fears those liberties are being eroded. 

AFP's story is part of a wider US-European narrative aimed at driving a wedge between Hong Kong and Beijing, the latter of which resumed control over the territory after nearly 140 years of British colonial rule.

Bloomberg: "America's New World Order is Officially Dead"

July 23, 2018 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Hal Brands - the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies and a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments - pines of waning American hegemony in his op-ed in Bloomberg titled, "America's New World Order Is Officially Dead."

The sub-headline would further elaborate, "China and Russia have fully derailed the post-Cold War movement toward U.S.-led global integration."

And while Brands blames Russia and China for America's decline - it should be noted that the "US-led global integration" Brands and others within the halls of corporate-financier funded policy think tanks promote, was little more than modern day empire.

Post-Cold War, the United States abused and squandered its monopoly over military and economic power. It led serial wars of aggression across the globe, destroying entire regions of the planet. It proved that whatever the rhetoric was used to sell its unipolar world order to rest of the world, it was in practice an order that ultimately served Wall Street and Washington at the expense of everyone else on the planet.

Russia and China's vision of a multipolar world order is not predicated on institutions the world must surrender its sovereignty, trust, and future to. It is an order built on a much more realist balance of power - where national sovereignty holds primacy and a balance of economic and military power defines and protects the boundaries of international norms. This is in stark contrast to America's vision in which an easily co-opted and manipulated UN made it easy for the largest, most powerful nations to sidestep national sovereignty and even international law, and expand wealth and power through sanctions, invasions, perpetual military occupations, and the creation of subordinate client states.

An Order Built on Betrayal and Brutality 

The international order Brands mourns began with the immediate betrayal of Western promises not to expand its NATO military alliance eastward toward Russia's borders. At the time of the Soviet Union's collapse, a buffer zone existed between Russia's borders and NATO member states - many of these states choosing to benefit from the best of both Eastern and Western relations.

Today, NATO sits on Russia's borders, particularly in the Baltic states where US troops train just shy of the Russian border - in Lithuania which surrounds Russia's Kaliningrad oblast, and in Ukraine where US and NATO members have installed a regime in power dependent on literal Neo-Nazi militants and their respective political wings. 

It is also an international order which saw in Russia's moment of weakness, an opportunity to impose its order by force on former Soviet client states. This not only included NATO's process of expansion in Eastern Europe through sanctions, subversion, and all out war, but also in the Middle East and Central Asia.

It would be US Army General Wesley Clark who best summarized US foreign policy in the proper, realist context it was actually executed in.

In a 2007 Flora TV talk titled, "A Time to Lead," General Clark would reveal this post-Cold War agenda by relating a conversation he had as early as 1991 with then US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Paul Wolfowitz, by stating (emphasis added):

I said Mr. Secretary you must be pretty happy with the performance of the troops in Desert Storm. And he said, well yeah, he said but but not really, he said because the truth is we should have gotten rid of Saddam Hussein and we didn't. And this was just after the Shia uprising in March of 91' which we had provoked and then we kept our troops on the side lines and didn't intervene. And he said, but one thing we did learn, he said, we learned that we can use our military in the region in the Middle East and the Soviets wont stop us. He said, and we have got about five or ten years to clean up those all Soviet client regimes; Syria, Iran, Iraq, - before the next great super power comes on to challenge us. 

And of course, that is precisely what the US embarked upon doing. General Clark would also mention a later conversation he had at the Pentagon, regarding how the US planned to use the attacks on September 11, 2001 as a pretext to expand from military operations in Afghanistan and accelerate this process to invade and overthrow the governments of at least seven other nations.

General Clark would state (emphasis added):

 I came back to the Pentagon about six weeks later, I saw the same officer, I said why why haven't we attacked Iraq? We are sill going to attack Iraq, he said, oh sir he says, its worse than that. He said he pulled up a piece of paper of his desk, he said, I just got this memo from the Secretary of Defense's office, it says we are going to attack and destroy the governments in in seven countries in five years. We are going to start with Iraq and then we are going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran seven seven countries in five years.

While all of these nations were part of a singular, cynical, hegemonic agenda, each nation has been targeted and attacked under false pretenses ranging from false accusations regarding "weapons of mass destruction," to the use of the "responsibility to protect" (R2P) - leveraging "human rights" as a pretext to intervene in wars of Washington's own engineering.

Shangri-La Dialogue: Mattis Hawks Weapons and Hegemony

June 29, 2018 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO)  - The International Institute for Strategic Studies's (IISS) annual Shangri-La Dialogue brings together diplomats, ministers, and representatives from around the world to discuss Asian security.

Researchers at Western think tanks including from the IISS itself have been promoting this year's forum as an opportunity to sell Washington's re-branded "Indo-Pacific" strategy and the continued primacy of the US and its "rules-based international order" across the region.

IISS researcher Lynn Kuok in her piece, "Shangri-La Dialogue: Negotiating the Indo-Pacific security landscape," would also attempt to spin America's strategy as anything but "anti-China."

Yet US Defense Secretary James Mattis' remarks at the forum opened almost immediately by referencing the 2018 National Defense Strategy (.pdf) in which China is described as:

...a strategic competitor using predatory economics to intimidate its neighbors while militarizing features in the South China Sea.

Mattis would draw heavily from the NDS document throughout his opening remarks and repeatedly during the following question and answer session.

By the end of his session it had become abundantly clear that the US sought to maintain the status quo including enduring security threats the US would use to justify its military presence across the region and to arm its various allies, treaty members, and other partners to meet - much to the delight of the Shangri-La Dialogue's sponsors this year - including Boeing, Raytheon, Airbus, Lockheed Martin, and BAE Systems.

Hawking Weapons 

Repeatedly referring to China and the South China Sea, as well as North Korea and Taiwan - Mattis declared that part of American leadership in the Indo-Pacific region would be the building up of allied military, naval, and law enforcement capabilities.

He also stated that the US seeks military integration through "the promotion and sales of cutting-edge US defense equipment to security partners."

As if to dispel any doubts regarding the context of Mattis' comments, Bloomberg would make mention of the forum - and forum sponsor Raytheon - in its article, "Raytheon Sees Demand for Patriot Missiles as U.S. Pushes Exports," stating:

In Singapore for the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual Asian security conference that this year includes defense ministers and military chiefs from more than 20 countries including U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, [John Harris, chief executive officer of Raytheon International Inc.] said “last year about 32 percent of our sales were international and 30 percent of that was here in the Asia Pacific region. We see this as a growth market.”

The article also noted:

Harris [said] some of that growth was coming from emerging regional customers, and from providing new capabilities to longstanding customers such as South Korea and Japan, which continue to pursue their defensive capabilities even as they endorse Trump’s efforts to seek a deal for North Korea to give up its nuclear arsenal.

Bloomberg's article highlights the intertwined relationship between security risks the US intentionally cultivates throughout the region and the profits of US and European arms manufacturers like Raytheon.

The US itself cultivates several of Asia's most pressing security challenges.

Hong Kong's Paradoxical "Independence" Movement

June 21, 2018 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Prominent Hong Kong opposition leader Edward Leung was sentenced to 6 years in prison for assaulting police and his role in leading riots in 2016.

The Guardian in its article "Hong Kong jails independence leader Edward Leung for six years," would report:

Hong Kong’s leading independence activist has been jailed for six years for his involvement in some of the city’s worst protest violence for decades.

Edward Leung was convicted in May of rioting over the 2016 running battles with police, when demonstrators hurled bricks torn up from pavements and set rubbish alight in the commercial district of Mong Kok.

Western pundits decried the jail sentence as the breakdown of the "rule of law" in Hong Kong. Yet the riots were violent and destructive, and most certainly against the law. For Hong Kong not to jail Leung for his role in criminal activity would constitute an actual breakdown of the rule of law.

Edward Leung had been serving as spokesman and by-election candidate for the Hong Kong Indigenous political group. The group seeks the unrealistic goal of stopping influence from mainland China as part of a wider Western-sponsored political movement to maintain Hong Kong as a pressure point vis-a-vis Beijing.

The movement also attempts to hold Beijing to the parting demands made by British occupiers in 1997 including the "One Country, Two Systems" principle which serves as the legal framework Western-sponsored agitators use to justify their activities and notions of "independence."

Hong Kong "Independence" = Dependence on Washington  

And while the Hong Kong "independence movement" claims to represent the "indigenous" people of Hong Kong and its autonomy - it is in reality a creation of Washington and in no way represents the people of Hong Kong or the concept of "independence" in any way.

Other groups among Hong Kong's opposition have already been exposed as US-sponsored agitators. This includes the entire core leadership of the 2014 so-called "Occupy Central" protests, also known as the "Umbrella Revolution."

Tales of North Korean Abuses: No Facts, All Fiction

June 16, 2018 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Claims of North Korean human rights abuses spearheaded attempts to undermine US-North Korean negotiations in Singapore. While the talks are unlikely to change the long-laid agendas of special interests across the West who have cultivated and profit from the ongoing conflict, it is important to confront these claims and diminish the intended effect they are meant to have in buttressing the notion of American exceptionalism and justifying American interventionism. 

Tales of North Korean human rights abuses are so pervasive and persistent that even those opposed to US exceptionalism and interventionism have shied away from confronting and refuting them. 

Rumors Built Upon Rumors 

One would expect such significant accusations to be backed up by an equally significant amount of evidence. Yet - like most of what the Western media produces and spreads among the public consciousness - there is little evidence at all. 

In most cases, tales of North Korean abuses are derived from hearsay by alleged witnesses and supposed defectors who no longer reside in North Korea.

The New York Times provides a prime example of the sort of abuses unquestioningly cited and repeated by pundits, politicians, and political "experts" alike. In its recent article, "Atrocities Under Kim Jong-un: Indoctrination, Prison Gulags, Executions," the New York Times would claim:

Mr. Kim rules with extreme brutality, making his nation among the worst human rights violators in the world. 

In North Korea, these crimes “entail extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions and other sexual violence, persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds, the forcible transfer of populations, the enforced disappearance of persons and the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation,” concluded a 2014 United Nations report that examined North Korea.

The source of the New York Times' assertions is admittedly a "2014 United Nations report that examined North Korea," officially titled the, "Report of the detailed findings of the commission of inquiry on human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea" (PDF).

The 372-page report - however - admits under an introductory section titled, "Methods of work," that (emphasis added):

In the absence of access to witnesses and sites inside the DPRK, the Commission decided to obtain first-hand testimony through public hearings that observed transparency, due process and the protection of victims and witnesses. Victims and witnesses who had departed the DPRK, as well as experts, testified in a transparent procedure that was open to the media, other observers and members of the general public. More than 80 witnesses and experts testified publicly and provided information of great specificity, detail and relevance, sometimes in ways that required a significant degree of courage.   

In other words, the entirety of the UN's 372-page report - cited as "evidence" of North Korean "atrocities" by prominent media organizations like the New York Times - is based on hearsay gathered by an investigation that never stepped foot once inside North Korea. Despite a lack of actual evidence to substantiate these claimed abuses, the New York Times depicts the UN report's conclusions as fact.

Asia Shutting Down US-Turkish Ugyhur Terror Pipeline

April 27, 2018 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - The US government and organizations it funds posing as "human rights advocates" have decried Malaysia's recent decision to deport 11 Uyghurs suspected of links to terrorism back to China. 

The US State Department's Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in its article titled, "U.S. Voices Concern Over 11 Uyghurs Beijing Wants Malaysia To Deport," would report:

The United States on February 9 voiced concern over Malaysia's possible deportation of 11 Uyghur Muslims to China. 

The Reuters news agency reported on February 8 that the 11 ethnic Uyghurs from China, who were among 20 that escaped from a jail in Thailand last year, have been detained in Malaysia, and that Beijing was in talks with Malaysia over their deportation.

Human Rights Watch, a front posing as human rights advocates funded by convicted financial criminal George Soros and his Open Society Foundation, would also decry Malaysia's decision.

In a statement titled, "Malaysia: Don’t Send 11 Detainees to China - Group Members Face Possible Torture, Ill-Treatment," HRW would claim (emphasis added):

The government of Malaysia should ensure that 11 detained migrants are not forcibly deported to China, Human Rights Watch said today. The migrants should have urgent access to refugee status determination proceedings by the United Nations refugee agency. 

The detainees appear to be among a group of 20 people who escaped from immigration detention in Thailand in November 2017. China claims that they are Uyghurs, a predominantly Muslim, Turkic minority that originates from western China. After group members were initially detained in Thailand, they identified themselves as Turkish citizens and asked to be sent to Turkey.

It is important to note Turkey as the suspected terrorists' alleged destination. They are part of a pipeline run by US-Turkish intelligence agencies to funnel foreign fighters into Syria. They, along with foreign fighters from around the globe, stage in Turkey, where they are armed, trained, and eventually sent into Syrian territory.

The HRW statement would even concede that (emphasis added):

Malaysia is one of several countries that in recent years has forcibly returned Uyghurs to China in violation of international law. In September 2017, Malaysia’s deputy prime minister, Zahid Hamidi, said Malaysia had arrested 29 Uyghur “militants” involved with the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) since it began sharing biometric data with China in 2011. 

The US government - which itself routinely detains, tortures, and extrajudicially executes what it considers "terror suspects" globally - has attempted to impede Malaysian-Chinese joint security in dealing with the threat of Chinese-based terrorists transiting the region, moving onward to Syria.

By doing so, the US is attempting to strain Malaysian-Chinese ties as well as jeopardize the security of the entire region.

In 2015, when the Thai government deported 100 suspected terrorists back to China, the United States government and its "human rights" fronts similarly decried the move. Months later, Ugyhur terrorists detonated a bomb in downtown Bangkok, killing 20 - mostly Chinese tourists.

The New York Times in an article titled, "Thailand Blames Uighur Militants for Bombing at Bangkok Shrine," would admit:

Nearly a month after the deadliest bombing in recent Thai history, Thailand’s national police chief made his most explicit comments on Tuesday about who carried out the attack here and why. 

The perpetrators, he said, were linked to Uighur militants, radical members of an aggrieved ethnic minority in western China, who struck to avenge Thailand’s forced repatriation of Uighurs to China and Thailand’s dismantling of a human smuggling ring.

The attack was professionally planned and executed with the target picked to maximize tensions between Bangkok and Beijing - suggesting that it was designed to serve high-level US strategic objectives.

US State Media Admits Uyghurs are Fighting in Syria 

In a December 2017 Associate Press article titled, "AP Exclusive: Anger with China Drives Uighurs to Syria Fight," it would admit (emphasis added):

Since 2013, thousands of Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority from western China, have traveled to Syria to train with the Uighur militant group Turkistan Islamic Party and fight alongside al-Qaida, playing key roles in several battles. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's troops are now clashing with Uighur fighters as the six-year conflict nears its endgame. 

AP would also admit that Ugyhur terrorists traveled specifically through Southeast Asia on their way to Turkey and then onward to Syria, stating (emphasis added):

As Uighur refugees traveled along an underground railroad in Southeast Asia, they said, they were greeted by a network of Uighur militants who offered food and shelter — and their extremist ideology. And when the refugees touched down in Turkey, they were again wooed by recruiters who openly roamed the streets of Istanbul in gritty immigrant neighborhoods like Zeytinburnu and Sefakoy, looking for fresh fighters to shuttle to Syria.

With the Western media admitting thousands of Uyghur terrorists are travelling through Southeast Asia on their way to Syria to fight alongside Al Qaeda and assumably its affiliates including the so-called "Islamic State" (ISIS),  it is obvious that attempts to decry Malaysian and Thai cooperation with China in closing down this "underground railroad" are meant to perpetuate not only the threat to Syria, but also the threat to China and the rest of Asia when these battle-hardened militants return home.

AP would explain:

...the end of Syria's war may be the beginning of China's worst fears.

"We didn't care how the fighting went or who Assad was," said Ali, who would only give his first name out of a fear of reprisals against his family back home. "We just wanted to learn how to use the weapons and then go back to China."

Other groups, funded directly by the US government and based in Washington D.C. - such as the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) - have also attempted to impede Asia's collective efforts to stem the tide of terrorism flowing through their territory and onward to Syria. Organizations like WUC have been key in advocating separatism driving terrorism inside China's Xinjiang province.

The US Protecting Terror Pipeline Behind Faux-Rights Groups 

And in both Malaysia and Thailand - two nations taking the forefront in disrupting the terror network in Southeast Asia - the United States government is also funding fronts to condemn local government efforts to work with China . These organizations are also attempting to impede local security operations under the pretext of defending "human rights."

US Decries Chinese High-Speed Rail in Laos

April 24, 2018 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - China's plans to build high-speed rail connecting Kunming in its Yunnan province with the rest of Southeast Asia are already underway. In the landlocked nation of Laos, tunnels and bridges are already under construction.

The United States has, in general, condemned China's One Belt, One Road (OBOR) sweeping infrastructure programme, with US and European policy circles accusing Beijing of what they call "debt trap diplomacy."

Quartz in an article titled, "Eight countries in danger of falling into China’s “debt trap”," would claim:

Beijing “encourages dependency using opaque contracts, predatory loan practices, and corrupt deals that mire nations in debt and undercut their sovereignty, denying them their long-term, self-sustaining growth,” said US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on March 6. “Chinese investment does have the potential to address Africa’s infrastructure gap, but its approach has led to mounting debt and few, if any, jobs in most countries,” he added.

The report continued, stating:

Some call this “debt-trap diplomacy“: Offer the honey of cheap infrastructure loans, with the sting of default coming if smaller economies can’t generate enough free cash to pay their interest down.

While nations should protect themselves from the dangers of being indebted to foreign interests, the US and supposedly international institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are hardly innocent of wielding debt as a geopolitical weapon themselves.

However, while some of China's projects may be questionable, others offer tangible benefits not only for China, but for the regions they will be interlinking.

Laos' Escape from Colonial Shadows  

The real concern in Washington, London and Brussels is regarding infrastructure projects that are successful, bringing profit and benefits to both Beijing and partner nations, allowing them to collectively move out from under centuries of Western primacy.

Future of Asia: China's Economic Opportunities or America's Perpetual Conflict?

April 21, 2018 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - The US recently announced possible plans to deploy thousands of addition US Marines to East Asia as part of the recently revealed 2018 National Security Strategy which designates China along with Russia as the US Department of Defence's "principal priorities."

The Business Insider in its article, "The US is considering sending heavily armed Marines to Asia to counter China," would state:

The possible MEU [Marine Expeditionary Unit] deployments could reassure Asian allies that the US is not a waning power in the region, something that has become a concern for partners in the Indo-Pacific.

However, if a nation needs to arrange a token redeployment to convince its allies it isn't a waning power, such gestures seem to only confirm such suspicions.

China is the New "Threat"  

Within the pages of the 2018 National Security Strategy, the US has justified its increasingly direct, adversarial posture towards China by claiming:

China is a strategic competitor using predatory economics to intimidate its neighbors while militarizing features in the South China Sea.

The document continues:

China is leveraging military modernization, influence operations, and predatory economics to coerce neighboring countries to reorder the Indo-Pacific region to their advantage. As China continues its economic and military ascendance, asserting power through an all-of-nation long-term strategy, it will continue to pursue a military modernization program that seeks Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and displacement of the United States to achieve global preeminence in the future.

The paper also makes mention of what it calls an "international order," a reoccurring theme throughout several decades of US policy papers. While this particular paper claims it is "free and open" and "rules-based," other papers have more candidly described it.

Prolific US policymaker and neoconservative pro-war commentator Robert Kagan would claim:

The present world order serves the needs of the United States and its allies, which constructed it. 

In other words, the "international order" is merely the world as the US sees fit. US policy in Asia, attempting to maintain hegemony in a region a literal ocean away from its own shores validates Kagan's interpretation of what "international order" actually means. It is neither "free and open" nor "rules-based" unless it is understood that the world is considered "free and open" for Washington to do with as it pleases, with "rules" used only to constrain the actions of others in order to prevent competition.

In reality, the "international order" is predicated on a more timeless geopolitical maxim, "might makes right." Reflected in the pages of the 2018 US National Security Strategy then, is a United States attempting to cope with the fact that very soon it will no longer be the mightiest in the zero-sum world it created.

Targeting China's "strategic competition" across Asia with a military build-up in East Asia, however, reveals the United States' fundamental weaknesses, its overdependence on military might and its reliance on geopolitical coercion based on outdated administrative institutions similar to those of the bygone British Empire. The US appears to have made its long-term containment policy regarding China based purely on the assumption that it could maintain its military supremacy over China and continue monopolising global economics indefinitely.

It assumed wrong.

Building Together Versus Dividing and Destroying 

In contrast, China is building an alternative order upon economic opportunities, binding Asia together through infrastructure, manufacturing, enterprise and trade. Absent from Beijing's methodology is the political coercion, preconditions and interference ubiquitous throughout US foreign policy.

Countering the Quad: Chinese-Pakistani Relations

February 12, 2018 (Ulson Gunnar - NEO) - The US recently included India in its shifting Asia Pacific policy, as part of its Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (often referred to as the "Quad"). The Quad also includes Australia and Japan along with the United States itself.

The nascent alliance is openly arrayed against China, with member states openly declaring their intent to contribute toward containing Beijing's activities in the region and compete against Chinese efforts to establish greater ties with its immediate neighbors. This includes Japan and Australia pledging to more aggressively patrol the South and East China Seas.

For India's part, it seeks to become a greater power within the Indian Ocean. Additionally, New Delhi has increasingly postured its military against China against the backdrop of greater tensions along the Chinese-Indian border.

China appears to be pursuing its own strategy to break out of the Quad's containment policy, including measures to place India in check.

Beijing's Pakistan to Washington's India  

Part of this strategy includes growing ties between Beijing and Islamabad. This includes a number of major joint infrastructure projects across Pakistan. Collectively known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the ambitious network of projects connects Gwadar port in Pakistan's Balochistan province on the Arabian Sea with the Pakistani-Chinese border near the western Chinese province of Xinjiang.

Railways and roads provide China with access to the Arabian Sea, eliminating the need to move certain goods past Singapore and through the Strait of Malacca.

CPEC also includes a gas pipeline from Gwadar to Nawabshah which will eventually enable gas imports from Iran.

Continuity of Agenda: US Encirclement of China Continues Under Trump

January 20, 2018 (Ulson Gunnar - NEO) - The United States has pursued a decades-long policy of encircling, containing and if possible, undermining China as part of a larger strategy of achieving and maintaining what US policy papers call "primacy" over Asia.

US policy has led to deeply-rooted networks operating within China's borders and along China's geopolitical peripheries to divide and destabilize the immense and increasingly powerful Asian state. These networks are funded and supported regardless of who occupies the White House. While the rhetoric shifts from president to president regarding "why" the US is providing so-called "activists" and "opposition" fronts aid, the aid and the agenda it serves continues.

Under current US President Donald Trump's predecessor President Barack Obama, this ongoing policy was marketed to the American and international public as the "Pivot to Asia." It was spun as a means for the US to reengage with Asia but in reality constituted an overt attempt to co-opt the governments of China's neighbors and break up the region's growing ties with Beijing.

Obama's "Pivot" was a failure, but one within the greater context of a general decline in US primacy both in the Asia Pacific region and around the world.

Under Trump, this policy of encircling and containing China continues. It is now marketed to the public as an "Indo-Pacific" strategy, with the US forced to court India, Australia and Japan on the fringes of Asia Pacific after failing to make progress within Asia Pacific itself.

It is important to understand just how long-term these polices are so that when Trump announces them to the public, the public understands that it is not "Trump's" policy, but simply Trump continuing to carry out the agenda of the very special interests (the so-called "Deep State") he vowed to resist upon taking office.

Understanding that these policies serve special interests and at the cost of the American public helps inoculate the public to rhetoric claiming that confronting China and destabilizing Asia is somehow part of "making America great again."

Tibet

Tibet is one of the oldest and most clear-cut examples of a political controversy used by Washington to target and undermine Beijing's credibility.

The centerpiece of US strategy in Tibet has been an independence movement led by the Dali Lama, the so-called spiritual leader of Tibet and a political figure the US through the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has backed both politically and militarily since at least as early as the 1950s.

Flaunting British Neo-Imperialism in Asia-Pacific

January 10, 2018 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - For over a century, the British Empire exerted control over Asia-Pacific, outright colonising India, Burma, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia while influencing and encroaching upon greater China, Siam and beyond.

It exploited the people and natural resources of the region, fuelled conflict as it waged war with rival European powers seeking to carve out their own colonies in Asia and left an enduring impact on the region, including ethnic and territorial feuds still unfolding today, e.g. the Rohingya crisis in present-day Myanmar.

Rather than make restitution for its decades of war, conquest and exploitation, the United Kingdom today eagerly seeks to reassert itself in the region alongside the United States who has also spent over a century in the region pursuing what US policymakers openly admit is American "primacy."

The Diplomat, a US-European geopolitical publication focused on Asia-Pacific, described this development in its article, "The British Are Coming (to Asia)."

The article featured a single image, that of the HMS Queen Elizabeth, one of the UK's newest warships and its largest. It is one of two "colossal warships" UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson recently pledged to send across the globe to aid Washington in its growing confrontation with Beijing.

The author, US Air Force Major John Wright currently serving as Japan Country Director, International Affairs, Headquarters Pacific Air Forces, Honolulu, Hawaii, attempts to construct a positive argument for the UK's involvement thousands of miles from its own shores.

The article admits that the US has few capable allies in the region willing to "comply with mutual defence needs beyond their own territory." It admits that the US has increasingly looked beyond Asia for partners. The UK then, is about as beyond Asia as any potential partner could be.

The article notes that the UK has already deployed warplanes to Japan in addition to the aforementioned future deployment of British warships to the region. It also suggests that:

...the U.K. could revive the old trick of acting as a “fleet in being;” its ability to steam where and when it pleased while possessing no major territory would throw off regional rivals’ military calculus and force them to commit precious reconnaissance assets to monitoring the United Kingdom.

In other words, a European military would be deployed in and harass "rivals" across Asia alongside US warships already engaged in regional meddling. This, the author concludes, "would be a great benefit to stabilising the security troubles of the region."   

Yet, when considering what actually drives "security troubles of the region," it is evident that the presence of US forces far beyond US territory, for example, stationed in South Korea and conducting military exercises along North Korea's borders in a deliberate attempt to provoke Pyongyang is the problem, not the solution. The addition of British warships and aircraft in the region will only further multiply "security troubles" evident in the author's own comments regarding the need for "regional rivals" to commit to tracking and keeping in check British warships.

Omitted from Major Wright's nostalgic review of the UK's historic role in Asia-Pacific was the concept of "gunboat diplomacy," where the British Empire coerced Asian states into making lopsided concessions to London or face British naval firepower. Chunks of Siam were carved off under threat of British "gunboat diplomacy," Hong Kong was outright seized by it and other nations likewise were forced by threat of military aggression to make concessions that benefited only the British.

US "primacy" in Asia-Pacific today closely resembles British "gunboat diplomacy." While literal gunboats training cannons on the capitals of targeted states is no longer feasible, other means of coercion are. These include options categorised under "soft power" including US-European-funded opposition groups which may or may not include armed components. There is also economic warfare. When Thailand ousted US-proxy Thaksin Shinawatra and his political allies from power, the US pursued a campaign of economic sabotage aimed at Thailand's seafood industry and tourism sector.

The Quad: US Searches Edge of Asia for Allies to Contain Beijing

December 28, 2017 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - There has been a recent buzz promoted around the so-called Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) - a coalition of sorts counting the United States, India, Australia, and Japan as members. Promoted by familiar corporate-financier funded policy think thanks, the Quad is being portrayed as a step past Washington's ill-fated "pivot to Asia" to address its waning power in the region.

Understanding that the US "pivot" was meant to co-opt and coerce Southeast Asia into forming a united front aimed at containing China's economic, diplomatic, and military rise in the region in order to preserve and perhaps even expand US primacy in Asia Pacific, helps explain why it ultimately failed, and goes far in explaining what the Quad is and why it is being so eagerly promoted.

The Pivot's Failure and Declining American Power 

Southeast Asia, through the supranational Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) resisted attempts by Washington to realign regional policy to suit US interests at the cost of ASEAN's growing ties with Beijing.

There were various components to the pivot including US efforts to undermine, overthrow, and replace with obedient client regimes the governments of several ASEAN states including Myanmar, Thailand, and Malaysia.

The expansion of US "soft power" across ASEAN was a part of this component, particularly through the US State Department's ongoing long-term efforts via the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and its "Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative" (YSEALI) launched in 2013.

These efforts have so-far failed, with only limited success in placing a US client regime in power in Myanmar in the form of Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

Image: Thailand's Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has sealed several pivotal economic, infrastructure, and military deals with China since ousting the US-backed government of Yingluck Shinawatra from power in 2014. 

Elsewhere - in 2014 - the US-backed government of Yingluck Shinawatra, sister of long-time US ally Thaksin Shinawatra, was ousted in a military coup. Protests in Malaysia led by the US-funded and directed "Bersih" front have yet to materialize substantial results. And in Cambodia, the government under Prime Minister Hun Sen has begun an aggressive campaign to uproot and expel the US State Department's media and opposition fronts including the arrest of opposition leader Kem Sokha and the dissolution of his Cambodia National Rescue Party - a move that may be replicated in some form or another by other ASEAN states if successful.

Another component was a series of artificial conflicts the US manufactured and then served as mediator in resolving surrounding the ongoing South China Sea territorial dispute. ASEAN collectively refused to become involved, and even supposed claimants in the dispute - Vietnam and the Philippines - have drifted away from the hardline approach proposed by the US to confront Beijing.

Exporting "Information" Arms

November 10, 2017 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - Nations like Russia and China make billions of dollars a year in the arms industry. Their arming of other nations with the latest in defence technology is not only a means of supporting their respective economies, it also fits into a diplomatic and national defence strategy of their own.

As information technology increasingly shapes the future of economics, society, politics and even warfare, the export of "information arms" appears to be an emerging opportunity not only for a nation's economy, but also in enhancing a global balance of power that may help guard against rogue global super powers.

Defending Information Space 

Russia and China also have begun developing infrastructure, platforms and indeed, entire strategies for defending their information space as well as their physical territory and their economic interests. These include information technology alternatives to large, predominately United States-based technology corporations and the products and services they provide.

In Russia, VKontakte, or VK, is the Russian version of America's Facebook. Among Russian speakers, VK is by far more popular. With some 450 million users worldwide, it is one of the most popular social media networks on the planet.

In addition to the economic benefits of a large, popular social media platform being based in Russia, VK allows the Russian government and the Russian people to decide how social media is used within their borders rather than such decisions being made in California, or less desirably still, in Washington.

Yandex is Russia's answer to Google. An Internet search engine, e-mail host, cloud service and engaged in research and develop regarding cutting-edge technology like artificial intelligence, Yandex gives Russia a means of closing the technology gap between itself and the United States, not only in economic terms, but in terms of national security as well.

China also has a large and growing number of information technology companies, keeping the profits made off of China's growing online population within China as well as giving China the ability to also decide how this technology is used within its own sociocultural, economic and political context.

Sina Weibo, considered a combination of US-based tech companies Twitter and Facebook, has over 500 million registered users. Decisions about appropriate content are made by China, for its primarily Chinese user base, not by California or Washington.

Platforms like Baidu are not only engaged in traditional IT goods and services, but also engages in research and development in regards to artificial intelligence and other breakthroughs that may serve China's economic growth by exploiting future opportunities and guarding against future threats.

News Media

Additionally, both Russia and China have developed their own media organisations capable of competing directly against US and European platforms that had until recently, dominated global media for decades.

Russia Today (RT), China Global Television Network (CGTN) and other networks have helped offset the monopolistic power and influence of the Western media.

Shifting Blame as US Agenda Unfolds in Myanmar

October 25, 2017 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - As violence continues to unfold in Myanmar's western Rakhine state against the nation's Rohingya ethnic minority, the agenda driving the conflict is likewise unfolding in a more transparent and direct manner. 

As was predicted - the US is shifting blame away from the US-backed client regime headed by Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League of Democracy (NLD) party the US installed into power in 2015 - and toward Myanmar's independent institutions, including the nation's still powerful military. 

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in a recent talk before the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C. (PDF) laid the blame squarely on Myanmar's military, claiming: 

...we’re extraordinarily concerned by what’s happening with the Rohingya in Burma. I’ve been in contact with Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the civilian side of the government. As you know, this is a power-sharing government that has – that has emerged in Burma. We really hold the military leadership accountable for what’s happening with the Rakhine area.

Reuters in an article titled, "Lawmakers urge U.S. to craft targeted sanctions on Myanmar military," would report: 

More than 40 lawmakers urged the Trump administration on Wednesday to reimpose U.S. travel bans on Myanmar’s military leaders and prepare targeted sanctions against those responsible for a crackdown on the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority.

And Freedom House - a subsidiary of the US government and corporate-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) - would also publish a piece titled, "Does Democracy’s Toehold in Myanmar Outweigh the Lives of the Rohingya?," shifting the blame away from the very regime it worked for decades to put in power, and target Myanmar's military.

It claimed:

In less than two months, more than half a million Rohingya have fled to neighboring Bangladesh to escape the destruction of entire settlements, systematic rape, and the mass slaughter of men, women, and children. This horrendous violence is perpetrated by the military, with assistance from elements of the local Rakhine Buddhist population.

It is clear that the confined nature of Myanmar's ongoing Rohingya crisis will not lead to the same type of nationwide militancy observed in Syria. It is also clear that the United States is likewise confining its condemnation for the violence not to the ultra-violent elements that it cultivated under Suu Kyi's political movement for decades, but on the military who often stood between Rohingya communities and violent onslaughts. 

The pressuring and weakening first, then either co-opting or overthrowing of Myanmar's current military leadership under the pretext of the current crisis will invite a larger and expanding US and European role in Myanmar's internal affairs. Secretary Tillerson alluded to precisely that in his recent remarks, claiming: 

And so we have been asking for access to the region. We’ve been able to get a couple of our people from our embassy into the region so we can begin to get our own firsthand account of what is occurring. We’re encouraging access for the aid agencies – the Red Cross, the Red Crescent – U.N. agencies to – so we can at least address some of the most pressing humanitarian needs, but more importantly so we can get a full understanding of what is going on. 

Someone – if these reports are true, someone is going to be held to account for that. And it’s up to the military leadership of Burma to decide what direction do they want to play in the future of Burma, because we see Burma as an important emerging democracy, but this is a real test.

With US ally Saudi Arabia fueling a militancy under the guise of a Rohingya "resistance," the US will also be able to justify military aid, joint-operations, and even permanent US military facilities - however meager - that will present a serious obstacle to Chinese influence in the nation and in the region. It will also be an obstacle that once erected, will be difficult to dismantle as America's enduring and unwanted military presence in the Philippines is proving to be.  

China and Thailand: Tank Tracks and Train Tracks

October 21, 2017 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - While Thailand undergoes a sensitive transition with the October funeral for its head of state, the widely respected and revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the Southeast Asia constitutional monarchy, home to 70 million and one of the strongest regional economies, continues forward with solid footing in its, and the region's realignment with its neighbours and East Asia, particularly China.

The Royal Thai Army took delivery this month of the first 28 Chinese-built VT4 main battle tanks (MBTs), with possibly over 100 additional tanks to be acquired in the near future. The growing fleet of VT4 MBTs joins other Chinese-built armoured vehicles in Thailand's inventory including over 30 VN-1 and over 450 Type 85 armoured personnel carriers.

The acquisition of Chinese military equipment by Thailand's armed forces also includes 3 submarines as well as joint-development of multiple rocket launchers. There is also a growing number of joint Thai-Chinese military exercises including Blue Strike 2016, which followed Falcon Strike 2015. The exercises involved both nation's marine and air forces respectively and represent an alternative to what was once the United States' exclusive domain in Southeast Asia.

In addition to growing Thai-Chinese military ties, both nations are moving forward with infrastructure projects including massive railway initiatives. Construction is set to start in November of this year on the Thai-Chinese high-speed rail network. The first stage will link Thailand's capital of Bangkok to the northeast province of Nakhon Ratchasima. Eventually, China and its Southeast Asian neighbours plan to create a high-speed rail network running from China all the way to Singapore via Laos, Thailand and Malaysia. Construction in Laos is already underway.

American Counterstrokes 

It is clear that Bangkok benefits from its growing relationship with Beijing. Washington, which openly and for decades has sought to hinder Beijing's regional and global rise, has little to offer as an alternative. Worse still, Washington has filled the void left by its inability to offer constructive military and economic ties with a regiment of political interference, coercion and even confrontation.

Bangkok is home to numerous foreign governmental organisations posing as "independent" nongovernmental organisations (i.e. Prachatai, Thai Netizens, Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, the New Democracy Movement and iLaw) fully funded by the United States government and a number of private US and European-based foundations, serving US and European interests. These foreign fronts seek to pressure the Thai government to adopt a system of economics and government that interlocks with and is subservient to US and European institutions, while overwriting Thailand's own independent institutions, particularly the military and the constitutional monarchy.

Additionally, the US has attempted to push through one-sided free trade agreements including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which eventually unravelled and was abandoned by Washington itself.

Image: Disingenuous foreign-funded fronts hiding behind rights advocacy used to project US power and influence into Thailand are a poor substitute for the sort of economic and military cooperation China has chosen and goes far in explaining America's waning influence in Asia Pacific. 

Thailand, which possesses a unified population, a formidable military and a strong, resilient economy, has weathered multiple attempts by the United States and its European partners to impose a client state through politicians like the recently ousted Yingluck Shinawatra and her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra.

Fact Check: Updating Cold War Myths About Thailand

September 23, 2017 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - Many honest, busy analysts outside established media circles in the United States and Europe are plagued by mythologies stemming from once pseudo-truths they simply lack the time or energy to dig into and finally correct.

Among them are enduring myths about the Southeast Asian state of Thailand and its relationship with the United States. These myths stem from its role during the Vietnam War and are now not only outdated, they are destructive to the truth to a point where they aid rather than impede the very special interests upon Wall Street and in Washington many of these analysts seek to expose and confront.

US-Thai Relations During the Vietnam War  

During the Vietnam War, Thailand hosted US forces on its territory. It contributed a number of its own troops in supporting roles throughout Southeast Asia and conducted its own military campaign domestically against heavily armed Communist militants. It is easy to conclude that Thailand was an eager ally then, and easy to see why many analysts assume this is still the case today.

However, in reality, the history of Thailand is of the only nation in Southeast Asia to avoid Western colonisation. It is also the story of a nation that survived the World Wars by expertly aligning itself amid greater powers, neither significantly contributing to nor suffering from contests of powers between more powerful nations.

During the Second World War, Thailand tenuously aligned with the Japanese. It played no significant role in a war the Japanese ultimately lost. Upon Japan's defeat, Thailand would once again balance its relationships evenly among its Asian neighbours and the Western victors of the war.

The Vietnam War was likewise a regional war started by foreign powers. It devastated not only Vietnam itself, but neighbouring Laos and Cambodia as well. Despite escaping the worst of the fighting, Thailand lost over a thousand soldiers and police amid security operations within its own borders. It fought allegedly Communist fighters, based primarily in Udon Thani, coincidentally where the US maintained its intelligence apparatus.

In hindsight of the current so-called "War on Terror," where the US uses terrorism both as a proxy force against its enemies and as a pretext and pressure point for manoeuvring against its supposed allies, it appears a similar arrangement unfolded in Southeast Asia. Readers should keep in mind that this includes the supposedly leftist Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia backed by the United States being ultimately overthrown by Communist Vietnam forces. Geopolitically, it appears the US supports allies and agents of convenience rather than those who share their supposed ideologies.

Despite supplying Thailand with a large amount of US weapons, conducting annual military exercises with the Royal Thai Armed Forces and claiming Thailand as one of America's oldest and closest allies in Southeast Asia, upon America's withdrawal in Vietnam, America's influence and ties with Bangkok incrementally diminished over time.

Thailand Today is not the Vietnam-Era US Ally of Yesterday 

Claims that Thailand ever was a "close ally" of America are tenuous at best. Regardless of how one splits hairs regarding Bangkok and Washington's past, Thailand today is undoubtedly in the process of yet another historical realignment, reflecting the geopolitical shifts taking place worldwide as America's global influence declines.

In 2000, billionaire and politician Thaksin Shinawatra assumed power. He had previously been an adviser to the US equity firm, the Carlyle Group, and upon taking office, boasted that he would continue his role in pairing US business interests with Thailand's resources. He would also privatise Thailand's large oil conglomerate, inviting foreign corporations to buy shares. He would also unilaterally pursue a US-Thai free trade agreement that was ultimately obstructed by Thailand's sovereign institutions.

As ASEAN Shifts East, ISIS Follows

Where US interests are threatened, ISIS coincidentally appears, threatening those standing in the way. What is behind this increasingly transparent pattern of geopolitical coercion? 

July 18, 2017 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - As protracted warfare continues in southern Philippines between government forces and militants linked to the so-called "Islamic State" (ISIS), fears that the US is leveraging the terrorist group far beyond Syria and Iraq where it was created are rising. Nations opposing or obstructing US interests beyond America's borders now find themselves likely targets of this covert form of armed coercion.

The United States is increasingly at odds with nations and political orders across Southeast Asia it had once counted among its closest allies in the region. Included is Thailand, a nation of nearly 70 million people, who as of 2014, ousted a US-backed client regime in a bloodless military coup.

Since then, Bangkok has definitively shifted further away from Washington's influence, toward Beijing, Moscow, and virtually any other nation-state that can provide Thailand with alternatives to Washington's monopoly on geopolitical, economic, and military influence.

Much of Thailand's military inventory - for decades consisting of US hardware - is now being replaced by a combination of Russian, Chinese, European, and even domestically developed weapon systems. These include orders of Chinese main battle tanks, Russian helicopters, Swedish warplanes, and both armored personnel carries and rocket artillery systems developed by local industry.

More recently, Thailand sealed a significant arms deal with China for the purchase of the Kingdom's first modern submarines. In total, three submarines will be bought, enhancing Thailand's naval capabilities across the region - and more specifically - drawing the navies of Thailand and China closer together in both technical and strategic cooperation.

Following Thailand, is a number of other nations including the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and even to certain degrees, Myanmar and Vietnam.

As Thailand and other members of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) pivot East, the US has predictably increased pressure on these states through the use of US-funded fronts posing as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) as well as opposition parties created, backed, and directed by Washington.

In nations like Myanmar where the ruling party is already a long-supported US client regime, pressure is placed upon it through the exploitation of human rights advocacy when it is perceived by Washington to be tilting too far in Beijing's favor.

As these methods of coercion become increasingly futile, the US has also pursued more direct means of coercion - terrorism.

US-Linked Terrorism in Southeast Asia 

In 2015, when Thailand refused to heed US demands to allow Chinese citizens wanted for terrorism to travel onward to Turkey where they would inevitably join US-backed efforts to overthrow the government of neighboring Syria, terrorists detonated a bomb in the center of Bangkok leaving 20 dead and many more maimed. Even Western analysts concluded the likely culprits were members the Turkish Grey Wolves front, created by NATO and cultivated as a means of asymmetrical warfare by the United States itself for decades.

Also increasing across ASEAN is the presence of the so-called "Islamic State" or ISIS.

Trump's ASEAN Policy Isn't "Confused," It's a Continuation of Decades of Coercion

July 14, 2017 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - In an effort to reinforce public perception that policy changes when a new administration assumes the White House, US and European analysts have made several attempts to push forward narratives describing US President Donald Trump's foreign policy as "confused" or "unclear" in contrast to his predecessor, President Barrack Obama.

However, upon closer examination, from the Middle East to Asia Pacific, US foreign policy has continued, virtually uninterrupted, for decades.

Thailand-based newspaper, The Nation, in an article titled, "Asean under pressure due to uncertain US policy, China’s ambitions: researchers," would illustrate this by claiming:

Asean will be under tremendous pressure as the United States under Donald Trump’s administration tries to be more engaged without a clear strategy while China competes for the grouping’s favour, experts at the Hawaii-based East-West Center said. 

While it was still hard to see what the Trump administration wanted to do regarding the relationship with Asean, it was expected that the US would continue to see Asean as a useful partner, said Denny Roy, senior research fellow at the research and education institute.

The article also cites former US diplomat Raymond Burghardt reporting:

Burghardt, former US ambassador to Vietnam and deputy envoy to the Philippines, said Vietnam needed to take a crucial role in leading Asean to deal with China regarding the South China Sea as the Philippines seemed to be taking a softer stance to please Beijng. 

However, the article reveals that:

Of the 10 members, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam claim sovereignty over islands, rocks, shoals and reefs in the contentious sea. Indonesia is not a claimant but has some conflicts over fisheries. 

The US, which is not a claimant in the area, has championed freedom of navigation as well as urged Asean to speak with one voice in dealing with China.

Thus, nations allegedly involved in claims in the South China Sea are not actually seeking confrontation with Beijing, while other ASEAN members have categorically abstained from becoming involved altogether. The United States, which has no claims whatsoever in the South China Sea, serves as chief antagonist, pressuring states to seek and expand confrontation with Beijing.

It is a process that heightened drastically amid the Obama administration's "pivot to Asia," including a high-profile court case fought by American lawyers on behalf of the Philippines. Despite a predictably successful verdict being delivered, the Philippine government itself refused to use the ruling as leverage against Beijing and decided instead to open bilateral talks, excluding Washington.

A Pattern of Coercion 

In response, the US has increased pressure on the Philippines both openly and covertly.

Overtly, the US has cancelled weapon shipments to Philippine police forces supposedly on humanitarian grounds regarding the government's current "war on drugs" and allegations of sweeping extrajudicial killings. However justified withholding weapons on such grounds may be, US policy presents a paradox when considering record arms deals being simultaneously made with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two nations notorious for their human rights abuses and two nations currently engaged in brutality both within their borders and beyond them specifically enabled by torrents of US weaponry.

Covertly, terrorism and now even armed combat allegedly linked to the Islamic State has coincidentally made its way to Southeast Asia, targeting not only the Philippines, but also Indonesia and Malaysia for their continued, incremental shift eastward toward Beijing. While US and European media sources insist that terrorist organisations like the Islamic State carry out their atrocities independent of state sponsorship, US intelligence reports and leaked e-mails from among American politicians have revealed otherwise.