 |
| After Obama's statement about shifting the focus from the Middle East to Asia Pacific he may find himself surrounded by a far bigger enemy than just China. |
This development is manifested in the ominous message from Barack Obama in a 25-minute address to the Australian parliament, where he stated it is his "top priority" to shift the focus from the Middle East to Asia Pacific.
The tangible product of this new strategic commitment is 2,500 US marines stationed in Australia, but also in the way USA antagonizes Pakistan, Iran and Syria.
Considering the devastating nature of US "focus" on the Middle East, this is as good as a declaration of war on all Asians.
Obama's bold statement gave rise to the predictable concern for increased tension between Washington and Beijing, expressed by the Australian Defense official, Hugh White to The Telegraph:
"Everybody in Asia wants the US to stay engaged – and nobody wants to live under Chinese hegemony. But nobody wants the US-China relationship to become contested, because nobody wants to have to choose between the two, especially not Australia."
"How far can USA run on the fact that they abolished slavery after exploiting it to produce an industrial boom that made her also a military superpower? How much credit has she left from helping to beat fascism in WW2, particularly after squandering the victory with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and after that Vietnam?"
Destabilizing China Rests on Turning Up Heat on ASEAN
Why is the new Washington consensus a threat to all Asians? Because it is a threat to peace, stability and development in the entire Asian region.
In essence, the Chinese business plan is to grow strong by developing its middle class and forging solid and amiable business relations with every region of the world.
The American business plan is to cut off China by the knees to regain unchallenged superpower status.
This is why USA are pounding on a number of weak spots, key financial or strategic interests to China.
In Libya Russian and Chinese oil companies lost out after the ousting of Ghadafi.
Tibet is the source of water for China's vast irrigation system, crucial to its agricultural project, hence the peculiar American love affair with Dalai Lama.
The South East China Sea, with its contested oil ressources, is a convenient place for America to sow discord. The same goes for North Korea, Taiwan and Pakistan.
Beijing, the capitol of China, is also a hot spot, which can be triggered by use of human rights rhetoric in combination with social upheaval and remote triggered revolutionary tendencies.
Even the growing number of Christians in China can be exploited or even employed as a mean to destabilize China, destroy her global reputation or as a method of espionage.
In fact, some of the earliest American missionaries to China, canonized by right-leaning US think tanks as "martyrs", were CIA agents.
"America, by way of imperial hubris and irresponsible warfare, is reduced to a third world country without the capability to maintain her own social institutions and in a constant state of decision paralysis. The European Union, for 66 years the guarantee of European peace and a source of growth, prosperity and refinement, is teetering on the edge of collapse, with the public debt crisis migrating freely between not only the weaker national economies, but to the German heartland."
A Desperate, Unstable, Warfaring West Promises "Peace and Prosperity"
These are some of the buttons Washington and the Western media will push in the future, and the focus on these areas and the growing tensions in the East will be the proof of the conflict and the hot symptoms of a war of attrition mainly carried out through politics, information and financial means.
Obama is not two feet away from McCain's position on Asia, which can be summarized as the forging of a "leage of democracies" to counter what is officially a threat from "Chinese hegemony" and, quite evidently, economic frustrations about a 5 percent growth rate, Chinese overtaking of global manufacturing, leading position as exporter and upcoming position as number one size economy.
"The Western economies are responsible for the collapse of the global economy and their armies the most active warfaring forces in the world. Even so, they will continue to pursue Western hegemony at the cost of other races and nationalities, and pretend they are capable of guaranteeing "peace and prosperity."
On top of this, China is taking giant leaps in education, research and development, and technological innovation, all key parameters in the contest for superpower, as it is defined by the Western observers.
In contrast, America, by way of imperial hubris and irresponsible warfare, is reduced to a third world country without the capability to maintain her own social institutions and in a constant state of decision paralysis.
The European Union, for 66 years the guarantee of European peace and a source of growth, prosperity and refinement, is teetering on the edge of collapse, with the public debt crisis migrating freely between not only the weaker national economies, but to the German heartland.
The Western economies are responsible for the collapse of the global economy and the most active warfaring nations in the world. Even so, they will continue to pursue Western hegemony at the cost of other races and nationalities, and pretend they are capable of guaranteeing "peace and prosperity."
In the Middle East a new pan-Arab identity has arised, with revolt sweeping across MENA in all of 2011, reshaping the political landscape, even where revolutions did not succeed yet.
Similarly, in spite of historical or current conflicts between Asian countries, and concerns about Chinese imperialism, American intervention will be at the cost of stability and peace, also for countries in the ASEAN.
The Rise of Pan-Asian Identity
The hotter USA makes these conflicts, the more succesful the foreign policy planners are with their subversive agenda, the more protests will arise even in the US-friendly nations. Eventually Western prejudices will kick in, and Asians will have no choice but to forge a new Pan-Asian Identity.
Racism against Asians in the West is so pervasive, fierce and largely uncountered, it will be a very easy task to accomplish, even without a unifying religious-ideological doctrine like Islam.
Asians are also likely to employ a much more systematic approach, involving all aspects of attrition warfare, including cultural imperialism.
The battle will be relentless, because it is forced upon Asians, just as it was forced upon Arabs and Persians.
The "cool response" from China to Obama's statement should be viewed as it is, as the most chilling rejection of what is effectively a continuation of neoconservative doctrine.
The expansion of the Grand Area Strategy to involve Asia will not go unnoticed in other Asian countries either. All over the world, even in Japan, South Korea and India, pan-conservative values thrive and balk at the introduction of "Western decadence".
"At the end of the day, even in a Western-leaning culture like South Korea, even an African-American and liberal US president, ultimately represents a foreign system, a foreign culture."
Liberalism and neo-liberalism in the economic sense are, in the East, pragmatic positions, but the concept of "Westernization" - particularly introduced as a method of aggressive destabilization - is a global concern that can send even Western-leaning Asian countries right into strong nationalist and racialist positions, and even forge new Pan-Asian unions for economic and strategic purposes.
When Barack Obama visited South Korea in 2010 to work out a free trade pact, he was met by a Chinese journalist who insisted on asking a question, even if Obama wanted to give the first question to the Korean hosts.
"We're all Asians here", the journalist from China told Obama. Nobody objected.
It was widely circulated and cited as a sign of Chinese rudeness, but when given the option to ask before the Chinese reporter, the Korean journalist refrained.
Western Diplomacy is Always Alienating - the Arrogant Language of Power
From this episode Western leaders should take four key lessons:
1) Asian standards of conduct and politeness are not the same as in the West. The Korean journalists refrained out of courtesy for their colleague, even if Barack Obama gave them an opportunity to shame him. The Chinese was, just like Obama, a guest, and the guest takes priority in the East, where hospitality is the great virtue.
2) From this you can also draw the observation that the alleged animosity between China and "free" Asian nations are not as thorough as Westerners would like to think.
3) At the end of the day, even in a Western-leaning culture like South Korea, even an African-American and liberal US president, ultimately represents a foreign system, a foreign culture.
4) If pressed hard enough by Western powers, Asians will respond to Western imperialism by withdrawing to racial default lines, and McCain's "League of Democracies" may backfire to the point, where it gives rise to the Chinese empire it allegedly seeks to curb.We have seen this tendency already, with Sino-Pakistani relations steeling under the pressure from ham-fisted American "diplomacy", waves of secret intelligence operations of a very murky nature and predator drone strikes with immense "collateral damage".
"All this should make the hawks in Washington, which is all there really is, reconsider their position when comes to instigating in Asia."
On a core level, some accusations made by the US State Department, against Pakistan, against China, in favor of Taiwan, in favor of Tibet, are accurate enough. They're not all pulled out of the thin air.
The problem is the way they are used, how they are presented, when and why. The agenda is obvious, the ploys transparent, and the way the criticism is formulated, to the Asian ear, almost constantly crude and insulting.
That is the nature of Western diplomacy and communication, so accustomed to being the master and never the servant, that even when exercising "charity" or expressing sympathy, it always comes out with a ring of arrogance and a touch of racism.
Forgetting a Past Everybody Else Remembers
Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and to some extent Asia, has been in the receiving end of this "third world treatment" for ages.
Asia, however, is not in the position of Vietnam, when it was destabilized and invaded, or China when British gunships lingered outside of her ports to force the great nation to produce opium, in spite of the dire consequences for the Chinese population.
Asians do not have a guilt complex for hundreds of years of colonialism, imperialism, occupation and genocide. Genocide has been perpetrated in Asia, wars have been fought, but Latin America was not destabilized by China, and Asians did not carve out Africa at the 1884 Berlin Conference.
Democracy in Chile and Iran were not overthrown by Chinese agents. Two world wars were not triggered by Asia, and neither Pakistan nor Iran dropped nuclear bombs or murdered 6 million Jews, historically speaking rather recently.
"Australia, so far, is more outspoken than her Asian neighbours, who are culturally habituated to cautious observation and taciturn expression. But whatever rings true for white Astralia, you can bet rings twice as true for East Asia."
All this should make the hawks in Washington, which is all there really is, reconsider their position when comes to instigating in Asia.
Asia has observed what US focus on the Middle East means, and these countries are not so stupid they do not understand the economic incentives behind the propaganda.
Neither are they so compliant to the West they will not stage the full measure of counter-operations to such a vast destabilization strategy from Washington and Pentagon.
Even if terrorism is abhorrent to China and ASEAN, Asians naturally consider Arabs a brother people, Asians by the extention that Arabia is a part of the Asian continent.
How Far Can You Run on Past Achievements?
The question Washington should ask itself, before venturing into this long-drawn conflict, a de facto war of attrition, where smaller countries become squeezed between the continental plates of two superpowers, is if the West is really ready for a conflict of this nature and scope.
Asia is prepared and confident enough. Several years ago a retired Chinese general warned an astonished Western press that US military interference in Chinese territory would be perceived as a declaration of war.
And, since China - like any nation in the world - does not have the conventional force to counter the US army, a conflict would be taken directly to thermonuclear war. China would sacrifice significant land mass, but the entire US west coast would be destroyed.
Between where we are now and such a scenario stands the ASEAN countries, duped as the most of the world into supporting the Western neo-liberal paradigm. But when push comes to shove, the modern China is not such a vicious beast that many of the Western loyalist will not drop out to support China against an aggressor, if it is proven that the alternative is worse.
"We're all Asians here", the journalist from China told Obama. Nobody objected.
This tendency will grow stronger, as China grows wealthier, a tendency we can already see expressed in the Australian position on China, which is to form amiable ties, because it is good for the economy and good for security.
How far can USA run on the fact that they abolished slavery after exploiting it to produce an industrial boom that made her also a military superpower? How much credit has she left from helping to beat fascism in WW2, particularly after squandering the victory with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and after that Vietnam?
Australia, so far, is more outspoken than her Asian neighbours, who are culturally habituated to cautious observation and taciturn expression. But whatever rings true for white Astralia, you can bet rings twice as true for East Asia.
Malaysia, one of the founding ASEAN members, has just started its formal war crime hearing against Bush and Blair.
Obama, there is the detailed answer you are looking for, but will not get from Asia.
