April 8, 2022 (Brian Berletic - NEO) - The Solomon Islands are in the process of cementing into place a security pact with China. According to an alleged leaked draft, this pact includes provisions allowing the Solomon Islands to request the presence of Chinese police and military personnel to “assist in maintaining social order, protecting people’s lives and property, providing humanitarian assistance, carrying out disaster response, or providing assistance on other tasks” agreed upon by the Solomon Islands and China.
There also appear to be provisions for Chinese ships to visit ports among the Solomon Islands to carry out logistical replenishment as well as provisions for Chinese forces to “protect the safety of Chinese personnel and major projects” in the Solomon Islands – with the consent of the Solomon Islands’ government.
The urgent necessity for the pact is mutual. This urgency was most recently illustrated in late 2021 when riots targeted the Solomon Islands capital of Honiara. Several were killed, hundreds injured, and sections of Chinatown were burnt to the ground according to the Guardian in its 2021 article, “Solomon Islands unrest: three bodies found in burnt-out building.”
December 17, 2020 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - New Zealand, despite being among the "Five Eyes" intelligence alliance alongside the US, Canada, the UK and Australia has resisted attempts by the Eyes' larger members to join the ongoing and ever-expanding propaganda campaign being waged against China.
There are several reasons for this, but the fact that China is New Zealand's largest trade partner, is among the most important.
New Zealand has also enjoyed a much closer relationship with China than the other "Eyes" over the last several decades. It was the first to enter into a free trade deal with China. It is home to a large and growing ethnic-Chinese population making up 5.3% of New Zealand's population as of 2018.
New Zealand is also the only "Eye" who has signed onto China's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
So close are China's and New Zealand's ties that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had suggested the possibility of the "Five Eyes" "disconnecting" from New Zealand if its ties with China and its involvement in Beijing's BRI posed a "security risk" to the national security of the remaining "Eyes," New Zealand's Stuff would report in its article, "NZ still plotting place in China’s Belt and Road."
New Zealand's New Foreign Minister Putting National Interests First
Providing a microcosm of New Zealand's increasingly paradoxical relationship with China and its status among the "Five Eyes" was a recent news segment on Qatari state media, Al Jazeera, where Al Jazeera's Richelle Carey needled New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta over New Zealand's refusal to pressure China over allegations made regarding Uyghurs in Xinjiang and the crackdown on anti-government protesters in Hong Kong.
Foreign Minister Mahuta was firm in stating that China was New Zealand's largest trade partner and that while New Zealand has made it clear to China (and that China fully understands) how New Zealand views matters of human rights and governance, it was not an issue that should interfere with the ties between the two nations.
August 8, 2020 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Upon reading Australia's new defense strategy, one might think its authors believe they are surrounded by nations invaded and destroyed by China with Australia next in line.
The "threat" of China - the articles and the new defense strategy argue - requires Australia to spend billions on weapons bought from the United States and to depend more heavily on the US for Australia's protection.
Yet in the same breath, Australia's media openly admits that up until now, Australia's military has spent much of its time contributing to America's many and still-ongoing wars of aggression around the globe from Libya and Syria to Iraq and Afghanistan. Most recently, Washington has recruited Australia to help bolster its presence in the Strait of Hormuz in an effort to menace Iran as well.
In one of the above mentioned articles it's admitted that:
For decades Australia has been quick to send troops, naval vessels and planes to help the United States wage wars on distant shores.
Despite all but admitting the US - not China - is engaged in a global campaign of armed aggression and that Australia is a willing accomplice - Australia's new defense strategy points the finger at China as the ultimate global threat.
A likely explanation for this contradictory worldview among Australian policymakers is the possibility that deep-pocketed lobbyists from Washington still hold more sway over Australia's political levers than Australian businesses and certainly the Australian public - and plan to collectively squeeze Australia for billions in arms sales for missiles and other weapon systems pointed at what is otherwise Australia's largest and most important economic partner - China.
Not only does this fill up the coffers of corporations like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and others, but Australia's apparently hostile posture toward China will most certainly taint relations between the two nations, creating further conflict, and requiring continued and increased weapon sales well into the future.
Should any conflict erupt between the US and China, Australia will find itself a much closer target than the US - a sacrificial pawn of sorts that will bear the full brunt and consequences of any potential US-Chinese hostilities.
Well-Timed "Cyber Attacks" Help Sell an Otherwise Unappealing Defense Strategy
The new defense strategy - long in the works - was unveiled only after a healthy dose of recent and mysterious "cyber attacks" Australian security agencies attributed with no evidence to China.
Again - the irony here is that the US has by far demonstrated itself to be as much a threat in cyberspace as it is to sovereign nations and their physical territory, and much more so than China.
Regarding Australia specifically, a 2013 Guardian article titled, "NSA considered spying on Australians 'unilaterally', leaked paper reveals," would note that a:
The US National Security Agency has considered spying on Australian citizens without the knowledge or consent of the Australian intelligence organisations it partners with, according to a draft 2005 NSA directive kept secret from other countries.
The US National Security Agency (NSA) has been revealed to have compromised communications worldwide, hacked the phones of national leaders both friend and foe, infiltrated and created backdoors in Western-manufactured high tech hardware, and carried out offensive cyber attacks against nations around the globe.
There is also a growing body of evidence that suggests many attacks attributed to nations like Russia and China - like the one recently carried out against Australia - were either fabricated entirely, or in fact carried out by actors in the US itself.
But what better way is there to sell the otherwise unpopular idea of Australia buying billions of dollars of weapons from America and poisoning relations with China than to cite an alleged act of aggression from China that is nearly impossible to attribute one way or the other? The Western media's clout has in the past and continues to be much more persuasive than fact or common sense in the short-term.
Other analysts have pointed out Australia's new defense policy is out of touch with reality. It will also do much more to undermine Australia's national security than underwrite it.
February 27, 2017 (Ulson Gunnar - NEO) - The Pacific Ocean is large. Since World War II, weapon systems operating in this theater have required special provisions regarding extensive range, long duration performance and relative self-sufficiency during operations.
From America's Gato-class submarines and PBY Catalina flying boats used to fight the Japanese and reassert American hegemony across Asia-Pacific during WWII, to America's continued presence in Japan, South Korea and islands throughout the region, it is clear the lengths the US has gone through then and now to remain "engaged" in the Pacific.
More recently, a report by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), commissioned by the US Navy titled, "Restoring American Seapower: A New Fleet Architecture for the United States Navy," obsesses over not how to defend American shores, but how to remain involved in Asia-Pacific despite the immense distances between there, and America.
The report's introduction includes:
Great power competitors such as China and Russia increased their military capabilities over the last two decades and now appear willing to challenge the international order.
However, the report never addresses Chinese or Russian forces landing on American shores, or even threatening to do so. Rather, the report revolves around maintaining hegemony within spheres of influence much more appropriately (and likely inevitably) Chinese or Russian.
The report coins a term, "deny-and-punish" to describe the use of US power abroad to "stop aggression," not in defense of America itself, but in "adjacent theaters." Ironically, the report cites Iraq as an example, a nation the US, not China nor Russia, invaded, occupied and destroyed with considerable, unchallenged "aggression."
...a 2000-mile mission would strain human endurance and an unrefueled range of more than 10 hours would require an enormous aircraft that might not fit on a carrier flight deck. Thus, the CSBA proposal calls for a smaller aircraft that would be supported by a tanker.
In other words, in order for the US to project considerable force beyond its own borders, across the Pacific Ocean, and within China's logical, proximal sphere of influence, it needs not only drone aircraft capable of 10 hour sorties, it needs drone tankers to refuel them.
Defense contractors surely welcome the report's findings, since it will require the development of not one new aircraft carrier-based vehicle, but two, including the tanker.
The CSBA report concludes by stating:
To be deterred in the 2030s, aggressors must be presented with the possibility that their
goals will be denied or that the immediate costs to pursue them will be prohibitively high.
In reality, the "aggression" the United States fears is not the unjust encroachment on other, innocent nations, but rather the undoing of every aspect of its own global order, put together piece by piece through just such aggression. It is an order constructed not within any rational US sphere of influence, rather, one spanning the globe, so far from American shores combat pilots lack the endurance to fly the sorties required to "deter" other nations from reversing America's grip upon it.
June 10, 2016 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Never has US intentions in Asia been so obvious. Attempts to portray America's role in the region as constructive or necessary have been ongoing since the end of World War II, however, recently, with Asia able to begin determining its own destiny for itself, the tone from Washington has become increasingly curt and direct.
US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter's remarks during the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore were all but a proclamation of US hegemony over Asia - a region of the planet quite literally an ocean away from Washington.
The United States will remain the most powerful military and main underwriter of security in the [Asian] region for decades to come – and there should be no doubt about that.
The US, besides implied exceptionalism, never fully explains why it believes underwriting security for an entire region of the planet beyond its own borders is somehow justified.
Reuters would also report (emphasis added):
Any action by China to reclaim land in the Scarborough Shoal, an outcrop in the disputed sea, would have consequences, Carter said.
"I hope that this development doesn't occur, because it will result in actions being taken by the both United States and ... by others in the region which would have the effect of not only increasing tensions but isolating China," Carter told the Shangri-La Dialogue, a regional security forum in Singapore.
The term, "isolation" is key - and has defined US foreign policy toward rising powers in Asia since before even World War II.
US Policymakers Make No Secret of Aspirations of Primacy in Asia
Robert Blackwill, a former US ambassador, a senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR), a lobbyist, and US National Security Council Deputy for Iraq during the US invasion and occupation in 2003, penned last year a paper for the CFR titled, "Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China" (.pdf), in which no secret was made about US designs toward Asia Pacific.
The paper states explicitly that (emphasis added):
Because the American effort to “integrate” China into the liberal international order has now generated new threats to U.S. primacy in Asia—and could eventually result in a consequential challenge to American power globally—Washington needs a new grand strategy toward China that centers on balancing the rise of Chinese power rather than continuing to assist its ascendancy.
The paper elaborates by enumerating precisely how this will be done (emphasis added):
...preserving U.S. primacy in the global system ought to remain the central objective of U.S. grand strategy in the twenty-first century. Sustaining this status in the face of rising Chinese power requires, among other things, revitalizing the U.S. economy to nurture those disruptive innovations that bestow on the United States asymmetric economic advantages over others; creating new preferential trading arrangements among U.S. friends and allies to increase their mutual gains through instruments that consciously exclude China; recreating a technology-control regime involving U.S. allies that prevents China from acquiring military and strategic capabilities enabling it to inflict “high-leverage strategic harm” on the United States and its partners; concertedly building up the power-political capacities of U.S. friends and allies on China’s periphery; and improving the capability of U.S. military forces to effectively project power along the Asian rimlands despite any Chinese opposition—all while continuing to work with China in the diverse ways that befit its importance to U.S. national interests.
It should be noted that in particular, the point regarding "concertedly building up the power-political capacities of U.S. friends and allies on China's periphery" is not as innocuous as it sounds. Blackwill himself in his capacity as a lobbyist represented one of those "friends and allies on China's periphery,"the client regime of Thaksin Shinawatra in Southeast Asia's nation of Thailand.
February 9, 2016 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - For decades the US has sought to stitch together a united front stretching from Central Asia, across Southeast Asia, and even into East Asia itself to encircle and contain China.
From the 70 year occupation of Japan, to the Korean and Vietnam wars, to the 15 year occupation of Afghanistan, to political meddling and attempted regime change in Southeast Asia up to and including today, the United States has invested untold of sums in its bid to maintain what US policymakers openly call American "primacy" in Asia.
The most recent manifestation of this policy of encirclement and containment has focused prominently on Southeast Asia, both through the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement, and the US' sponsorship of an ongoing South China Sea dispute.
A summit with Southeast Asian leaders that US President Barack Obama is hosting later this month is “not anti-China”, a State Department official said. The meeting will bring leaders from the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) at the Californian resort of Sunnylands on February 15-16. It is the same venue where Obama and President Xi Jinping held an unusually informal summit in 2013. This time, however, China is not invited.
However, several lines down, AFP admits:
The US administration has focused on bolstering Asean as a counterpoint to Chinese regional power.
AFP then mentions the ongoing conflict in the South China Sea:
Several Asean states are embroiled in an increasingly bitter spat with China over disputed territory in the South China Sea.
AFP admits that US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia Daniel Russel has this "bitter spat" in mind as the summit nears:
“This is a direct challenge to the question of whether the countries in the region and the claimants in the South China Sea, and particularly China... would be guided by the universal principles and the rule of law.”
And of course, it is the United States who has declared itself arbiter in all maters regarding "universal principles and the rule of law." In fact, the chief justification the United States cites regarding its continued presence in Asia Pacific is the perceived need of its military and political might to preserve international "rule of law," even as it tramples such principles both in Asia, and worldwide.
September 3, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Political and business circles across Asia face a shifting geopolitical environment driven by the inevitable rise of China. Several fundamental factors are driving this shift that if fully understood should help established political orders, business interests, and ruling elite across Asia position themselves for a peaceful, stable, prosperous future. Failure to position oneself carefully as this shift takes place, can see a political dynasty or business empire swallowed whole in the fissures of geopolitical tectonic change.
What Asia Looked Like and Why It's Changing
For centuries Asia was dominated by first European colonial hegemony, then for nearly a century, American hegemony. The United States itself admits that it possesses "primacy" over Asia and that its primary geopolitical objective in Asia is to maintain that "primacy."
For the better part of a century, maintaining that primacy was enabled by vast economic and military disparity between Washington and the collective resources of Asia. Victory in World War 2 and America's subsequent involvement in both the Korean War and the Vietnam War allowed the United States to maintain an immense military, political, and economic footprint in the region.
In the wake of the Vietnam War, however, an exhausted American Empire began its slow and inevitable retreat. In the void left by this expanding retreat, nations across the region, not the least of which is China, have built themselves up socioeconomically, militarily, and geopolitically.
US Admits It is a Losing Proposition
American efforts to contain China have proven futile - points made in the US' own policy papers who have attempted on multiple occasions to reformulate their antiquated concept of "primacy" and impose it upon Asia. The most recent of which was published by the influential Council on Foreign Relations - a corporate-funded think tank that represents the collective interests of some of the most powerful Western corporate-financier interests on Earth.
