US Foreign Policy vs. China Continues Under Trump

November 21, 2024 (NEO - Brian Berletic) - The incoming Trump administration is poised to pick up where the Biden administration has left off on the decades-spanning centerpiece of US foreign policy - the encirclement and containment of China. This includes through an intense US military build up across the Asia-Pacific region, provocations over the island province of Taiwan, and continued interference in nations along China’s periphery. 

It also means a continuation of opposing cooperation between China and nations around the globe seeking alternatives to the debt, division, and destitution decades of US domination have imposed upon them, including across Latin America. 

With the appointment of leading neo-conservative war hawks to key positions including US Secretary of State, the US Secretary of Defense, and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, far from ending America’s wars abroad, the incoming Trump administration is poised to reprioritize and pivot toward the largest and most dangerous confrontation of all. 

Target China and the Continuity of Agenda

US foreign policy since the end of World War 2 has fixated on the elimination of all peer and near-peer adversaries including China. A 1965 memorandum from then US Secretary of State Robert McNamara to then US President Lyndon B. Johnson identified China as chief among these adversaries.

The memorandum noted that ongoing US military operations in Vietnam, “make sense only if they are in support of a long-run United States policy to contain Communist China.”

It stated explicitly, “China looms as a major power threatening to undercut our importance and effectiveness in the world and, more remotely but more menacingly, to organize all of Asia against us.”

The same memorandum would identify 3 fonts along which the US sought to contain China, “(a) the Japan-Korea front; (b) the India-Pakistan front; and (c) the Southeast Asia front,” fronts along which US efforts to contain China including through the stationing of tens of thousands of US troops continues to this day - US troops closer to Chinese territory than America’s own shores. 

When the Cold War ended, the US renewed its pursuit of global primacy in what is often referred to as the “Wolfowitz doctrine,” articulated in a 1992 New York Times article titled, “U.S. Strategy Plan Calls for Insuring No Rivals Develop,” stating: 

In a broad new policy statement that is in its final drafting stage, the Defense Department asserts that America's political and military mission in the post-cold-war era will be to insure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge in Western Europe, Asia or the territory of the former Soviet Union.

The same article noted that US foreign policy, “makes the case for a world dominated by one superpower whose position can be perpetuated by constructive behavior and sufficient military might to deter any nation or group of nations from challenging American primacy.” 

And from the end of the Cold War to present day the US has fought wars of aggression cutting a swath of death and destruction from North Africa to Central Asia, spanning the presidencies of George Bush Sr., Bill Clinton, George Bush Jr., Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden, often with one administration helping set the stage for subsequent wars launched under successive administrations. 

Examples of this include preparations by the Bush Jr. administration for the overthrow of the Syrian government, a policy eventually executed during the 2011 so-called “Arab Spring” under the Obama administration, and continued throughout both the subsequent Trump and Biden administrations. 

The ongoing war in Ukraine likewise involved incremental steps pursued by US administrations stretching back to 2004 under President Bush Jr. where regime change was pursued, finally succeeding under the Obama administration in 2014, continuing under the Trump administration when US arms began flowing to Ukraine, and finally pulling Russia into direct conflict with Ukraine under the Biden administration. 

While supporters of the incoming Trump administration have claimed President-elect Donald Trump represents a break from these special interests and their agenda of US-imposed domination around the globe, both the first Trump administration’s National Security Strategy published in 2017 and the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) connected to President-elect Trump proposed and pursued policies indistinguishable from those laid out by America’s neo-conservative establishment for decades. 

The Trump administration’s 2017 National Security Strategy would claim: 

The United States will respond to the growing political, economic, and military competitions we face around the world. China and Russia challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity. They are determined to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and data to repress their societies and expand their influence.

The same strategy paper would insist in regards to the projection of American power abroad that, “we will advance American influence because a world that supports American interests and reflects our values makes America more secure and prosperous.”  

It is no surprise then that US political interference, proxy wars, and actual wars all continued under the Trump administration from 2016-2020 without exception. 

The subsequent Biden administration’s 2022 National Security Strategy would say of China: 

The PRC is the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it. Beijing has ambitions to create an enhanced sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific and to become the world’s leading power. It is using its technological capacity and increasing influence over international institutions to create more permissive conditions for its own authoritarian model, and to mold global technology use and norms to privilege its interests and values. Beijing frequently uses its economic power to coerce countries. It benefits from the openness of the international economy while limiting access to its domestic market, and it seeks to make the world more dependent on the PRC while reducing its own dependence on the world. The PRC is also investing in a military that is rapidly modernizing, increasingly capable in the Indo-Pacific, and growing in strength and reach globally – all while seeking to erode U.S. alliances in the region and around the world.

This sentiment does not represent a separate or different strategy from that under the Trump or even Obama administration before that, or the 1992 Wolfowitz doctrine or those presented by Secretary MacNamara in 1965, but instead the evolution of a singular strategy pursued post-World War 2, continued post-Cold War, up to and including today.  

AFPI’s current website under a section titled, “Hold Communist China Fully Accountable for Chronic Unfair Trade Practices, Stealing American Technologies, and Polluting our Planet’s Air and Oceans,” says: 

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) and its ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) represent the premier national security threat to the United States. China’s concerning activities include chronic unfair trade practices, stealing American technologies, aggression against its neighbors, abuse of the environment, and an accelerating nuclear weapons program. Additionally, China has displayed a complete lack of transparency about the origins of COVID-19. We must hold China fully accountable for its actions.

Just as with the 1965 State Department memorandum, the 1992 US Department of Defense strategy paper, the 2017 and 2022 Trump and Biden administration National Security Strategies, AFPI insists that China’s rise is a threat to US interests abroad and that military and economic measures must be taken to contain this rise. 

Beyond baseless accusations, no explanation is provided by any of these documents spanning half a century as to why the US is entitled to dictate the means by which nations beyond American borders interact including through trade and security cooperation or why China’s rise in the Asia-Pacific region and its growing influence around the globe somehow threatens the actual security of the United States within its own borders.

Instead, these documents are concerned that America’s own unwarranted influence abroad, built on political interference, as well as economic and military coercion, will be displaced by a more attractive and constructive relationship with China amid a greater balance of global power through what is often referred to as multipolarism. 

Chinese Infrastructure vs. American Interference 

Most recently, developments in the Latin American nation of Peru provide a showcase of China’s role in driving development, economic trade, and the construction of infrastructure with the completion of the Chancay Megaport, investments in energy infrastructure as well as the development of 5G telecommunication networks.  

The Chancay port not only supercharges imports and exports from Peru itself, but because of its strategic location in South America including a shared border with Brazil, it enables the movement of goods and people from one side of the continent to the other, transforming Chancay into a regional logistics hub. 

The US government has opposed Chinese investments, infrastructure projects, and growing trade around the world, including in Latin America. On US government-funded media platforms like Diálogo Americas, maintained by US Southern Command, a clear policy of opposing Chinese influence is pushed using fabricated claims of “dual-use infrastructure,” providing a “foothold for a future military presence in the region.” 

US War on China is a War on the Entire World

September 7, 2024 (NEO - Brian Berletic) - US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has recently claimed the US is not “looking for a crisis.” This is said, of course, with an important caveat – no crisis is sought as long as China subordinates itself to the United States. 

Because China, like any other sovereign nation, based on international law, is obligated to resist foreign subordination, the US continues speeding toward inevitable war with China. Although China has formidable military capabilities, causing doubt among many that the US will actually ever trigger war with China, the US has spent decades attempting to create and exploit a potential weakness China’s current military might may be incapable of defending against.

Washington’s Long-Running Policy of Containing China 

Far from a recent policy shift by the Biden Administration, US ambitions to encircle and contain China stretch back to the end of World War 2. Even as far back as 1965 as the US waged war against Vietnam, US documents referred to a policy “to contain Communist China,” as “long-running,” and identified the fighting in Southeast Asia as necessary toward achieving this policy.

For decades the US has waged wars of aggression along China’s periphery, engaged in political interference to destabilize China’s partners as well as attempt to destabilize China itself, as well as pursued likewise long-running policies to undermine China’s economic growth and its trade with the rest of the world.

More recently, the US has begun reorganizing its entire military for inevitable war with China.

Cutting Chinese Economic Lines of Communication  

In addition to fighting Chinese forces in the Asia-Pacific region, the US also has long-running plans to cut off Chinese trade around the globe.

In 2006, the US Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) published “String of Pearls: Meeting the Challenge of China’s Rising Power Across the Asia Littoral,” identifying China’s essential “sea lines of communication” (SLOC) from the Middle East to the Strait of Malacca as particularly vulnerable and subject to US primacy over Asia.

The paper argues that US primacy, and in particular, its military presence across the region, could be used as leverage for “drawing China into the community of nations as a responsible stakeholder,” a euphemism for subordinating China to US primacy. This, in turn, is in line with a wider global policy seeking to “deter any nation or group of nations from challenging American primacy.” 

Under a section titled, “Leveraging U.S. Military Power,” the paper argues for and expanded US military presence across the entire region, including along China’s SLOC, augmenting its existing presence in East Asia (South Korea and Japan), but also extending it to Southeast Asia and South Asia, recruiting nations like Indonesia and Bangladesh to bolster US military power over the region and thus over China.

It notes Chinese efforts to secure its SLOC, including with a mutually beneficial port project in Pakistan’s Baluchistan region, part of the larger China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and the construction of a port in Sittwe, Myanmar, part of the larger China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC). Both projects seek to create alternative economic lines of communication for China, circumventing the long and vulnerable sea route through the Malacca Strait and the South China Sea.

How is the US Convincing the Philippines to Destroy Itself?

August 29, 2024 (NEO - Brian Berletic) - As China rises, Asia rises with it. The Southeast Asian state of the Philippines stood to rise alongside the rest of the region until relatively recently as the United States successfully convinces the Philippines to do otherwise. 

Before the current administration of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. took office, China was working with the Philippines to build badly needed modern infrastructure. Now, rather than working and trading together with China, the Philippines is pointing missiles at China. It has “invited” the United States, the Philippines’ former colonial master, to build new military facilities across its territory, using semantics and legal loopholes to sidestep the Philippines own constitution and undermine its sovereignty in the process.

Instead of rising with the rest of Asia, the Philippines continues to escalate toward a conflict that could set the entire region back decades or more.

Just as the United States politically captured Ukraine in Eastern Europe in 2014 and transformed it into a geopolitical battering ram against neighboring Russia at the expense of Ukraine’s population, economy, sovereignty, and possibly even its existence, it is repeating the same process with the Philippines vis-à-vis China.

How has the United States convinced a nation of over 115 million people to forego economic progress and development in exchange for an escalating confrontation with its own largest trade partner? What are the mechanisms Washington uses to convince an entire nation to race toward conflict and self-destruction?

A Vast Network of Propaganda 

There is growing awareness of the means by which the US interferes politically in targeted nations through the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and adjacent organizations, agencies, and foundations, compromising a nation’s leadership and reshaping national policies to serve Washington at the expense of the targeted nation.

The NED does this through targeting every aspect of a nation-state, from its political system, to academia, from its courts and legal system to a nation’s information space.

Philippine information space, like many nations around the globe, has been targeted by a vast media network built up by the US government as well as corporate money funneled through intermediaries including foundations and endowments, to poison the Philippine people not only against China specifically, but against the Philippines’ own best interests in general.

Part of this vast network are so-called “fact-checking” projects the US government together with the largest names in Western media as well as US-based tech giants like Google uses to paradoxically reinforce US government disinformation and attack and undermine people and organizations working to inform the public – including the Philippine public – of what the US is really doing and why.

In the Philippines, this network includes PressOne. Its “fact-checking” activities have repeatedly targeted those exposing US interference in the Philippines’ internal political affairs and undermining Philippine sovereignty.

Washington’s Use and Abuse of the Philippines Takes Next Step

August 4, 2024 (NEO - Brian Berletic) - The United States has taken yet another step toward shaping the Southeast Asian archipelago nation of the Philippines into an Ukraine-style proxy with which to encircle and contain China, this time in the form of a $500 million military assistance package for Manila. 

By exploiting the more emotional themes of superficial nationalism, the US is successfully clouding the Philippine population’s ability to focus on the more practical necessities of trade and development, shaping a national policy prioritizing the former at the expense of the latter, leaving the nation mired in poverty as it continues to fall behind the rest of the region.

Predicated on the supposed “threat” China poses to “freedom of navigation” in the South China Sea, the US has encouraged Manila to reverse previously growing cooperation with China in the realm of infrastructure and development, and instead, invest in the nation’s militarization against China.

Amid the military build up, no alternatives to the economic prosperity and development China offers is even being discussed, let alone implemented.

Just as was the case for Ukraine from 2014 onward, the Philippines faces a future where, at best, it suffers irreversible economic decline, and at worst, finds itself at the center of a losing proxy war with China.

US Belligerence Over Chinese Building  

According to a July 26, 2024 Defense One article titled, “Austin heads to Asia with $500M for the Philippines,” the US is providing hundreds of millions of dollars in “foreign military financing” to “help the island nation bolster its defenses.”
The article would elaborate further, stating:

The $500 million in assistance is part of what a second official described as the “first-ever security sector assistance roadmap, which provides a framework for efficiently investing this $500 million in foreign military financing as well as Philippine national funds investments. Initially, we’ll focus those shared investments on maritime self defense and cybersecurity capabilities.”

The same article cites tensions in the South China Sea between China and the Philippines stemming from a territorial dispute over the Second Thomas Shoal as an example of why the Philippines needs to “bolster its defenses,” which includes allowing the US military to expand its footprint across the nation.

Even a cursory examination of history proves, however, that China does not pose a threat to the Philippines, and that the nation’s biggest and most enduring threat is the United States itself.

A Sordid History of US Use and Abuse 

The current US military presence in the Philippines is a legacy of America’s colonization of the archipelago nation from 1898-1945 during which the US brutally suppressed a war of independence, killing over 20,000 Filipino fighters and over 200,000 Filipino civilians. US abuses at the time included the use of concentration camps and torture, according to the US State Department’s own Office of the Historian.

Since the Philippines gained independence from the US, Washington has sought to reassert itself over the nation and use it as a means of advancing its much wider regional agenda of encircling and containing China.

In a 1965 memo from then US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to then US President Lyndon B. Johnson, it was admitted that

“there are three fronts to a long-run effort to contain China (realizing that the USSR “contains” China on the north and northwest): (a) the Japan-Korea front; (b) the India-Pakistan front; and (c) the Southeast Asia front.”

A continuous US military presence in the Philippines clearly falls under “(c) the Southeast Asia front.” Today, it is not even a secret that US forces continue expanding their presence in the Philippines as a means of containing China.

Manila Regime Change Brings Growing Chinese-Philippine Tensions 

Omitted from reports of growing Chinese-Philippine tensions is the relative calm regarding such disputes under the previous administration of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte (from 2016 to 2022), who not only worked with China bilaterally to resolve such disputes, but also moved forward Chinese-backed development projects while pressing to reduce the presence of US military forces in and around the Philippines.

The Philippines: Why it is Choosing US Destruction Over Chinese Construction

July 3, 2024 (NEO - Brian Berletic) - While the ongoing conflict in Ukraine continues to dominate headlines, occasionally news stories surface regarding growing tensions in the Asia-Pacific region as well. Driven primarily by the US, these headlines also include the proxies Washington is using to stir up an Ukraine-style conflict in the region. 

Among these proxies is the Southeast Asian archipelago nation of The Philippines.

The South China Morning Post in a late June 2024 article titled, “China-Philippines ties on ‘brink of total breakdown’: unpacking the collapse,” would claim to provide an explanation as to why once constructive ties between Beijing and Manila have deteriorated into what may possibly become a destructive confrontation.

The article describes how concrete pillars of a rail project being built with China, have since been torn down, and instead, construction in the Philippines now consists of military bases to be used to point missiles at China.

The article claims:

What began as a story of infrastructure cooperation has morphed into an epic tale of betrayal and confrontation, the once-chummy relationship between Manila and Beijing giving way to escalating geopolitical rivalry.

As with many pro-Western accounts of growing Chinese-Philippine tensions, the article omits the political transition from the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte to that of now President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., and how the independent foreign policy of President Duterte was overwritten by the pro-Washington policy of President Marcos Jr.

Reuters Exposes Washington’s Global Disinformation Campaign: The Rest of the Story

June 18, 2024 (NEO - Brian Berletic) - In a recent article, Reuters confirms what many knew for years, that the United States government and its various departments and agencies have been conducting global disinformation campaigns targeting nations it seeks to undermine, and whose governments it seeks to overthrow.

Washington was Deliberately Harming American “Allies” 

The article titled, “Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic,” admits:

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. military launched a secret campaign to counter what it perceived as China’s growing influence in the Philippines, a nation hit especially hard by the deadly virus.

The clandestine operation has not been previously reported. It aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied by China, a Reuters investigation found. Through phony internet accounts meant to impersonate Filipinos, the military’s propaganda efforts morphed into an anti-vax campaign. Social media posts decried the quality of face masks, test kits and the first vaccine that would become available in the Philippines – China’s Sinovac inoculation.

The article reveals that the campaign was not conducted only in the Philippines, but across the rest of Southeast Asia and far beyond.

The US government campaign, carried out by the US military, was not conducted because it was actually believed that China’s Sinovac vaccine or any of the protective equipment it manufactured was faulty, but purely to undermine China.

Cambodia Doesn’t Owe Washington an Explanation Over China Ties

May 14, 2024 (NEO - Brian Berletic) - Associated Press (AP) in a May 8, 2024 article titled, “Chinese warships have been docked in Cambodia for 5 months, but government says it’s not permanent,” attempts to depict the Southeast Asian country of Cambodia as covering up growing Chinese-Cambodian military cooperation.

Satellite images of Chinese warships docked at Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base for several months have prompted “questions” and “worries” over the possibility of a “new outpost for the Chinese navy on the Gulf of Thailand.” 

No actual evidence has been presented by Western governments or its various think tanks, including the US government and arms industry-funded Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) whose report documented the presence of Chinese warships at Ream Naval Base, to suggest a permanent Chinese military presence has been established in Cambodia.

The AP article notes:

Defense Ministry spokesperson Gen. Chhum Socheat told the AP [the Chinese warships] were due to take part in a joint Cambodian-Chinese military exercise later this month, and that they were also involved in training Cambodian sailors.

Even the most basic of military training can span a period of several months, and more advanced training can take up to a year or more.

AP cited Cambodian officials who claimed:

“We have been clear that Cambodia is not allowing any foreign forces to be deployed on its territory,” he said. “That won’t happen; that point is in our Constitution, and we are fully following it.”

To explain the root of US “worries,” AP would explain:

Controversy over Ream Naval Base initially arose in 2019 when The Wall Street Journal reported that an early draft of a reputed agreement seen by U.S. officials would allow China 30-year use of the base, where it would be able to post military personnel, store weapons and berth warships. 

The base sits adjacent to the South China Sea, where China has aggressively asserted its claim to virtually the entire strategic waterway, and also provides easy access to the Malacca Straits, a critical shipping route leading from it to the Indian Ocean. 

The U.S. has refused to recognize China’s sweeping claim and routinely conducts military maneuvers there to reinforce that they are international waters.

Ironically, it was CSIS who also published data regarding maritime shipping moving through the South China Sea Washington accuses China of threatening. The shipping is overwhelmingly moving to and from China itself. It is clear that China has no interest in disrupting its own maritime trade, Washington obviously does.

Washington’s Proxy War in Myanmar Continues Along China’s Borders

May 7, 2024 (NEO - Brian Berletic) - Overshadowed by ongoing fighting in Eastern Europe and the Middle East as well as growing tensions between the US and China, the ongoing conflict in Myanmar nonetheless constitutes a critical component of what is a larger global conflict.

Depicted by Western governments and Western media as an isolated, internal conflict between a “military dictatorship” and the forces of “democracy,” in actuality the conflict represents decades of Anglo-American attempts to reassert Western control over the former British colony.

Much of the fighting is taking place between the central government and armed ethnic groups that had at one point been a part of the British Empire’s occupation force, utilized by the US and UK during World War 2 against the Japanese, and used ever since to disrupt Myanmar’s ambitions for independence and self-determination.

Alongside these armed ethnic groups, the US has constructed a parallel political establishment, eventually installed into power through compromised elections in 2020.

In 2021, Myanmar’s military removed from power the US client regime headed by Aung San Suu Kyi, advised by literal British and Australian citizens, and supported by a collection of US government-funded and backed political organizations, media platforms, and educational institutions both within and beyond Myanmar’s borders. The US has been semi-covertly backing attempts by the ousted regime to retake power through armed violence ever since.

Psychological Warfare Aims to Break Central Government Resolve 

The fighting has continued mainly along Myanmar’s frontiers, regions that have hosted US-backed armed ethnic groups pursuing separatism for decades, but also at times and to a lesser degree, inside some of Myanmar’s urban centers.

Washington’s Political Capture of the Philippines: A Former Colony, a Future Proxy

April 9, 2024 (NEO - Brian Berletic) Tensions continue to grow in the Asia-Pacific region and more specifically in the South China Sea where China faces off against the United States and its collection of regional proxies including Japan and Australia.

While the US claims these growing tensions stem from China’s desire to undermine “freedom of navigation” and stability in the region, it is instead part of a decades-long US policy of containing China.

As the US continues to implement this policy, the prospects of an Ukraine-style conflict-by-proxy erupting in the Asia-Pacific region grow.

The US Seeks to Control Asia-Pacific, Not Protect It 

In US State Department documents from as far back as the 1960s, it is admitted that America’s military presence in Asia is maintained, “in support of a long-run United States policy to contain Communist China.”

These same documents admit that the US maintains three fronts to “contain China” including, “(a) the Japan-Korea front; (b) the India-Pakistan front; and (c) the Southeast Asia front.” 

Washington currently maintains tens of thousands of US troop along the “Japan-Korea front.”

Along the “India-Pakistan front” the US has attempted to undermine Chinese-Pakistani ties through the backing of armed separatists in Baluchistan province, targeting infrastructure projects of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) all while the US courts India as part of its anti-China “Quad” alliance.

Along the “Southeast Asia front,” the US has attempted to build up and install into power anti-Chinese political parties. In Myanmar, the US is backing an armed conflict attempting to overthrow the China-friendly government and replace it with a US client regime. But at the very center of current and growing tensions between the US and China is the Southeast Asian state of the Philippines.

Far from “supporting” the Philippines, Washington fully intends to pit the nation against China at the full expense of the Philippines’ own best interests.

While China stands as the Philippines’ largest and most important trade partner and Manila’s best prospect for developing badly needed modern infrastructure, Washington would have Filippino public funds diverted instead to military spending, fueling tensions that will jeopardize trade and infrastructure cooperation with China.

Instead of Chinese-built roads, rail, ports, hospitals, and schools amid growing bilateral trade, the archipelago nation will instead invest in ships, warplanes, and military facilities to host US troops.

Thailand’s Kra Land Bridge (Might) Reshape Asia

December 26, 2023 (NEO - Brian Berletic) - Thailand’s government has put together a serious proposal to build a land bridge across the Thai Kra Isthmus connecting ports on either side, providing an alternative for maritime shipping transiting the Malacca Strait, saving several days of travel in the process.

The project, if completed, would transform Asia’s economic and even security architecture. The land bridge, along with the still-under-construction Thai-Chinese high-speed railway, would solidify Thailand’s role as a regional logistics hub connecting the Indian Ocean with the Pacific Ocean, and also moving freight and people from across Southeast Asia to and from China and the rest of Eurasia.

The development would seriously undermine US economic and military dominance over the region, prompting Western commentators to disingenuously condemn the project as damaging and dangerous in a bid to generate opposition to it.

The Kra Canal and Land Bridge: Old Ideas, New Impetus 

The idea of creating a Panama or Suez-style canal across Thailand’s southern Kra Isthmus isn’t new. It has been proposed in many different forms over the years, with feasibility studies conducted periodically. Because of the difficulty of building a canal, the idea of building a land bridge instead has not only been proposed, but Thailand’s Highway 44 completed in 2003 was built as the first stage of a much more ambitious land bridge infrastructure project.

Highway 44 was constructed with a particularly large median to accommodate the future construction of rail tracks and pipelines. Ports on either side of the isthmus also have yet to be built. While the project remains incomplete, the roadway serves the dual purpose of connecting other forms of traffic crossing the isthmus.

Under the previous Thai administration of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha, a new feasibility study was conducted along with the drafting of proposals. More recently, the current administration of Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin formally proposed the construction of a fully functioning land bridge during the 2023 APEC summit in San Francisco, United States.

In his statement at the summit, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin discussed the growing congestion through the Malacca Strait and the need for alternative routes. He described the land bridge as “an additional important route to support transportation and an important option for resolving the problems of the Malacca Strait. This will be a cheaper, faster, and safer route.” 

The land bridge will reduce travel time by between 3 and 14 days, depending on the particular origin and destination of cargo.

The Thai prime minister’s statement also made it clear that the land bridge would not serve as a replacement for routes passing through the Malacca Strait, but rather as an alternative to existing routes, capable of moving up to 23% of the shipping currently passing through the Malacca Strait.

Thailand to Speed Up Construction of Joint-Chinese High-Speed Railway

December 12, 2023 (NEO - Brian Berletic) - Thailand’s recently renewed commitment toward finishing the already under-construction Thai-Chinese high-speed railway may help move the Southeast Asian nation forward, out of the shadow of years of Western-induced political instability, and into the light of peace and prosperity as it and the rest of the region rise with China.

The recent announcement has triggered condemnation from Western commentators who support Washington, London, and Brussel’s agenda of maintaining dominance over Asia and shaping Southeast Asia into a united front against a rising China.

As Thailand takes the final steps toward finishing this and other ambitious joint projects with China, the US and its extensive network of political opposition groups both within Thailand and beyond its borders are likely to make an attempt to both block these projects and undermine the government and other interests seeing them through.

Speeding Up Thailand’s High-Speed Railway 

China’s Xinhua news agency in an article titled, “Thailand to accelerate construction of China-Thailand railway: PM,” would report that Thailand’s Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin highlighted the importance of the high-speed railway project for regional development and announced plans to speed up construction after years of delays.

The article reported:

“Logistics is one of the significant issues for Thailand regarding BRI cooperation and Thailand will enhance the connection between its domestic railways and the China-Laos Railway, a flagship BRI project in the region,” Srettha said in an interview with Xinhua before his official visit to China earlier this month, during which he also attended the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

Thailand has already benefited greatly from the already completed Lao-Chinese high-speed railway. The high-speed railway, connecting Laos (Thailand’s neighbor to the north) to China, also serves as a new route for Thai products to reach Chinese markets, as Global Times reported in its April article, “China-Laos-Thailand freight train completes first heavy-load return trip.”

Currently, Thailand moves goods to the border with Laos via its existing rail and road networks. The completion of a high-speed railway within Thailand itself will supercharge the movement of goods and people both between Thailand and its neighbors, but also within Thailand itself.

A high-speed railway connected to China’s vast domestic high-speed rail network means even greater numbers of Chinese tourists (who already make up the largest number of tourists visiting Thailand) will arrive not only in the capital city of Bangkok, but also in more remote areas so far relatively inaccessible to most tourists.

China has already demonstrated the benefits of its high-speed rail network domestically toward economic development. Expanding it across Southeast Asia means sharing its benefits far beyond China’s own borders.

Asian Cooperation Undermines Western Primacy 

Despite Thailand’s eagerness to expand what is clearly already beneficial cooperation with China and the rest of the region, Western publications argue there are “consequences” that await if this and other projects move forward.

The Diplomat, a Western publication partnered with a network of Western government and corporate-funded policy institutes, in its article, “Thailand’s High-Speed Railway: On the Fast Track to Ties With China, But at What Cost?,” attempts to argue against the completion of the Thai-Chinese high-speed railway.

It claims:

While the project aims to stimulate economic growth and regional development, it has generated significant concerns. They are apprehensive about Thailand’s deepening partnership with China and the resulting increase in integration with the southern neighbor. These concerns encompass worries about potential impacts on Thai national sovereignty, doubts regarding the project’s necessity due to the existing rail connection to Nong Khai, and concerns about the financial involvement of foreign partners, particularly China, which could lead to debt accumulation and economic vulnerabilities.

Nowhere in the article is an attempt made to argue against the Thai administration’s belief that the project will act as “a catalyst for stimulating economic growth and fostering progress in the region.” 

And while the article waves around the familiar narrative of Chinese “debt trap diplomacy,” it eventually admits deep within the article that:

Currently, no immediate issues exist, but potential challenges may arise in the future, particularly in the context of maintaining a balanced relationship with major powers like China when engaging with foreign partners.

The article refuses to openly and plainly say what the collective West actually thinks. The West, which had at one point colonized most of Southeast Asia, sees China’s rise and the rest of Asia with it as a closing window of opportunity for reasserting Western primacy over the region.

Washington’s Expanding Military Footprint on China’s Doorsteps

September 13, 2023 (Brian Berletic - New Eastern Outlook) - A series of announcements by the US reflect its large and still growing military presence across Asia-Pacific, particularly in East and Southeast Asia. Together, they reflect a continued and increasingly desperate desire by Washington to encircle and contain China.

These announcements include plans for expanding the number of US air bases across the region as part of the US Air Force’s (USAF) new “Agile Combat Employment” (ACE) doctrine. It also includes plans for a “civilian port” in the Batanes islands, less than 200 km from the Chinese island province of Taiwan. Then there were recently announced plans by the US Department of Defense to create drone swarms for countering China’s growing advantage in materiel and manpower.

Washington’s “ACE” in the Hole? 

A recent article published by Defense One titled, “Air Force expanding number of bases in Pacific over next decade,” reported on the Pentagon’s plans to expand the number of air bases across the Pacific over the next decade to fulfill the requirements of the USAF’s “ACE” doctrine.

More than simply increasing the number of air bases in the region, ACE seeks to disperse US aircraft, ammunition, and personnel among a larger number of smaller bases, thus creating more targets for potential adversaries and increasing the overall survivability for USAF assets.

The article notes:

The U.S. Air Force will increase its number of bases across the Pacific over the next decade, in an effort to spread out and become more survivable in conflict.

And that:

In the ACE concept, a few airfields serve as central ports, or hubs, while several smaller airfields serve as spokes. The idea is to be able to distribute weapons and assets over a large area and to increase survivability, versus just having a few large airfields throughout the geographically enormous region. 

Despite USAF assets being distributed, command and control would be able to mass together assets from across multiple smaller bases for each specific mission or “force package.”

The concept is meant to make it more difficult in a potential conflict with China for it to target and destroy US air bases with its large missile arsenals and by doing so, significantly disrupting US air capabilities in the region.

While ACE doctrine may be a realistic shift away from the relatively centralized nature of US military bases across the Pacific, it will take many years to implement and only if the Pentagon’s budget is adjusted to do so. By then, China’s missile arsenal will only have increased in size and capabilities, possibly neutralizing any advantage the US seeks to achieve by pursuing this doctrinal shift.

And while an eventual dispersal of US air assets may complicate China’s ability to target and destroy US warplanes before even leaving the ground to perform missions, China also possesses a large and very capable integrated air defense system able to intercept both US warplanes and the munitions they would be using against Chinese targets.

US Seeks “Civilian Port” Dangerously Close to Taiwan 

Reuters, in an article titled, “Exclusive: U.S. military in talks to develop port in Philippines facing Taiwan,” would report:

The U.S. military is in talks to develop a civilian port in the remote northernmost islands of the Philippines, the local governor and two other officials told Reuters, a move that would boost American access to strategically located islands facing Taiwan. 

U.S. military involvement in the proposed port in the Batanes islands, less than 200 km (125 miles) from Taiwan, could stoke tensions at a time of growing friction with China and a drive by Washington to intensify its longstanding defence treaty engagement with the Philippines.

The article also notes:

The Bashi Channel between those islands and Taiwan is considered a choke point for vessels moving between the western Pacific and the contested South China Sea and a key waterway in the case of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The Chinese military regularly sends ships and aircraft through the channel, Taiwan’s defence ministry has said.

The article fails to mention a much more important fact, that this “choke point” leading into the “contested South China Sea” is already “a key waterway,” one for Chinese maritime shipping.

Will the US Pressure Southeast Asia into Arming Ukraine?

August 24, 2023 (Brian Berletic - New Eastern Outlook) - In mid-August as Ukraine’s offensive remained stalled on the battlefield, Russian officials claimed the US was pressuring Southeast Asia to transfer Soviet-made arms to Ukraine.

In a TASS article titled, “US twists arms of Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia to send Soviet weapons to Kiev — top brass,” it was claimed that the purpose of doing this was to “prolong the conflict in Ukraine by all possible means.”

The development reflects a much larger problem the US and its allies face as they continue encouraging Ukraine to fight Russian forces.

The Desperate Search for More Arms 

The desperate search for more arms for Ukraine has been a central theme amid US and European support of the conflict since it began. Russia’s military reduced Ukrainian forces, both in terms of trained manpower and equipment in the opening months of the Special Military Operation (SMO). What weaponry Ukraine had left was quickly running out of ammunition.

A desperate bid to scour the planet for spare Soviet-era arms and ammunition was made along with the decision to incrementally replace all of Ukraine’s Soviet-era weapons with NATO equipment. This included sending M777 howitzers, M109 self-propelled guns, the HIMARS multiple launch rocket system, and eventually even NATO main battle tanks like the Leopard 2 from Germany, the Challenger 2 from the UK, and possibly even the M1 Abrams from the US.

There is now also ongoing talk of replacing Ukraine’s dwindling number of Soviet-era warplanes and munitions with US-made F-16s and associated ordnance.

The next problem that presented itself was the reality that NATO was incapable of producing enough of its own equipment and ammunition to meet the rates of fire and losses Ukraine faced on the battlefield.  US and European artillery shell production, for example, is vastly outpaced by Russian shell production. Even after a planned expansion of production expected to be completed by 2027, the US and EU will still be producing fewer shells per month than the Russian Federation currently produces.

In the meantime, the US and the rest of NATO have insisted that Ukraine change its methods on the battlefield to conserve ammunition and equipment, relying more on NATO-style maneuver warfare and even on unmounted soldiers with small arms, exacting a tremendous casualty rate on an already badly battered Ukrainian military.

The recent Ukrainian offensive, launched in early June, proved that this was not plausible and that the only hope of Ukraine succeeding on the battlefield, or at a minimum, to continue fighting on, was indeed for the US and the rest of NATO to provide Ukraine with many more weapons and ammunition.

Recruiting a Reluctant Southeast Asia 

Toward this end, it appears the US is pressuring Southeast Asia, which has so far attempted to remain neutral in the conflict. The goal is to transfer what Soviet-era and now Russian-made equipment Southeast Asia has on hand to Ukraine.

While the TASS article mentions no specifics, Vietnam and Thailand, especially, have plenty of compatible equipment and ammunition that would indeed help perpetuate the conflict.

Vietnam has long considered Russia to be a close ally, stretching back to the days of the US-led Vietnam War and continuing to today. Vietnam is by far the largest importer of Russian-made weapons, including systems that would be compatible with Ukrainian stockpiles and inventories including everything from warplanes and helicopters, to tanks, artillery systems, and air defense systems.

Thailand, while widely viewed as a close non-NATO ally of the United States, has in recent years diversified away from US and European-made weapons and has acquired a growing number of Russian and Chinese-made equipment as well as systems compatible with both.

For example, Thailand has a growing collection of Russian-made Mil Mi-17 transport helicopters, a cheaper and more capable aircraft compared to Thailand’s existing fleet of US-made Blackhawk helicopters. Ukraine has been sent whatever Mi-17 helicopters the US and its allies could find, including those originally meant for the now extinct US client regime in Afghanistan, US state media Voice of America reported last year.