By Aaron Kesel
While half the media is distracted and obsessed about an extramarital affair that U.S. President Donald Trump allegedly had a decade ago with Stormy Daniels, U.S. geopolitical policy has been shifting towards China, putting us all in danger of conflict with the Communist superpower which has recently become a dictatorship with moves against human rights and presidential rights shifting back to a dynasty style of government.
Over the past few weeks, several events have elevated the U.S. geopolitical tension with China which since the Obama administration has been in turmoil after failed diplomatic discussions. It all started in 2012 when China and the Philippines engaged in a lengthy maritime feud which resulted in rejections of the verdict by China in 2016, increasing the chances of potential conflict in the region.
In 2016, an arbitration court ruled that China had(s) no historic title over the waters of the South China Sea and that it in doing so breached the Philippines’ sovereign rights with its actions.
China reacted by boycotting the proceedings, rejecting them and stating that the ruling was “ill-founded.”
Last November, China announced the creation of two Chinese-controlled international maritime courts that would be used to provide China’s interpretation of maritime law, Epoch Times reported.
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte responded by stating the man-made islands aren’t pointed at us.
“It’s not intended for us. The contending ideological powers of the world or the geopolitics has greatly changed. It’s really intended against those who the Chinese think would destroy them and that is America,” Duterte noted. “We did nothing.”
The Philippines also just announced possible discussions for joint South China Sea projects only last week, which may be an attempt to ease the tension, Japan Times reported.
China insists that it has “historic rights” over the region which the countries dispute.
For centuries various countries have fought over the territory in the South China Sea – two specific island chains known as Paracels and the Spratlys – and fought over areas alongside the sandbanks and reefs, such as the Scarborough Shoal (known as Huangyan Island in China).
These waters are a main import and export point that allows the passing of five trillions of dollars worth of global trade flow annually through the waters, according to Forbes.
“It’s a question of if those islands are in fact in international waters and not part of China proper, then yeah, we’re going to make sure that we defend international territories from being taken over by one country,” former White House press secretary Sean Spicer said.
Beijing states its right to the area goes back centuries to when the Paracel and Spratly island chains were regarded as integral parts of the Chinese nation. In 1947 the Communist nation issued a map detailing its claims.
However, in the past few years, China has begun building man-made islands that many dispute as being military bases.
Last year, former Secretary Of State Rex Tillerson during his confirmation hearing attacked China for “declaring control of territories that are not rightfully China’s,” comparing China’s deployment of its military to other islands, to Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
“The island building in the South China Sea itself in many respects in my view building islands then putting military assets on those islands is a kin to Russia’s taking of Crimea,” Tillerson stated.
China responded to Tillerson’s statement telling the U.S. “speak and act cautiously” after the White House said it would act to foil Chinese attempts to “take over” the South China Sea.
Another key factor rising tensions is the U.S. recognizing Taiwan and encouraging to send senior officials to Taiwan to meet Taiwan counterparts under the Taiwan Travel Act, which detested China, Yahoo News reported.
This may be the red line drawn in the sand on U.S. and Chinese relations. The act, though not legally binding, is said to “severely violate” the One-China principle, as well as the three joint communiqués the US signed with the People’s Republic of China.
The situation with China has since erupted further with recently issued U.S. tariffs and “trade restrictions” against the Chinese Republic. China has since retaliated by issuing sanctions on steel and aluminum imports, as well as food imports and other U.S. products.
U.S. president Donald Trump is now seeking diplomatic cooperation and negotiations with the country to avoid a trade deficit war, ABC reported.
Speaking to global business leaders at a development forum, Vice Premier Han Zheng appealed for cooperation to make economic globalization “beneficial for all.”
“A trade war serves the interests of none,” Han said at the China Development Forum. “It will only lead to serious consequences and negative impact.”
Right now it’s just the potential for a trade war, but things could escalate well past economics; and Bejing’s state media has previously warned any attempt to prevent China accessing its interests in the region risked sparking a “large-scale war.”
There is also the added factor that Trump recently promoted Bush war-hawk John Bolton out of retirement to be his new head of National Security Council (NSC), and the promotion of former CIA director Mike Pompeo to Secretary of State — not one but two foreign policy war-hawks.
Bolton is a big surprise since he was once a key part of Bush’s Iraq invasion WMD lie in 2003, which the U.S. president himself once lambasted was “a big mistake.”
Bolton is famously known for being one of eighteen signatories, along with future Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Iraq reconstruction genius Paul Wolfowitz, to a 1998 letter from the neocon think tank Project for the New American Century to Bill Clinton advocating for America starting a unilateral war with Iraq to stop Saddam Hussein from building “weapons of mass destruction.”
It was also revealed by an Israel’s ex-Defense Minister, Shaul Mofaz, that Bolton tried to convince him that Israel should strike Iran first.
“I got to know John Bolton when he was the US ambassador to the United Nations,” Shaul Mofaz said at a conference of former IDF chiefs. “He tried to convince me that Israel should attack Iran.”
Stephen Hadley, a former national security adviser for the George W. Bush administration, said people shouldn’t be concerned about newly-appointed national security adviser John Bolton’s hawkishness because President Trump is ultimately the one who decides if the U.S. goes to war, The Hill reported.
“On the issue of a lot of concern about whether Bolton will take the country to war … it is the president that makes those decisions,” Hadley told ABC’s This Week. “I think the rhetoric out of John Bolton has been a little bit extreme for my taste.”
One single day after signing the economic tariffs and China retaliating the U.S. sent the USS Mustin destroyer within 12 nautical miles of the Chinese-claimed islands, which China warned off, Asia Times reported.
Aaron Kesel writes for Activist Post. Support us at Patreon. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Steemit, and BitChute. Ready for solutions? Subscribe to our premium newsletter Counter Markets.
The 1943 Cairo Declaration and 1945 Potsdam Declaration “clearly state that Japan had to return to China all Chinese territory taken by Japan. This includes the Nansha Islands,” he added, using China’s name for the Spratly Islands. “In 1946, the then-Chinese government with help from the United States openly and in accordance with the law took back the Nansha Islands and reefs that Japan had occupied, and resumed exercising sovereignty,” “Afterwards, certain countries around China used illegal methods to occupy some of the Nansha islands and reefs, and it’s this that created the so-called South China Sea dispute.”
So the US may start a war with both China and Russia as well as Iran and North Korea. How very intelligent of it!
Tillerson’s comment ” a kin to Russia taking over Crimea” is beyond ignorant of historical fact and current circumstance. The Soviets had a naval base in Crimea when it was an integral part of the USSR, many decades ago. The Crimean people asked to rejoin Russia after the US destroyed Ukraine’s legitimate, if corrupt, government. The people had every right to do so, as Fascists had gained undue control of the new puppet and illegal Kiev government.
and on top of that, there is supposedly a risk for civil war in the US (Soros financially supported Antifa against the Patriots)!
But what is r-e-a-l-l-y going on is the fact that we are past the warm period, now our sun is in a n-a-t-u-r-a-l cycle of hybernation/Grand Solar Minimum, which means we are in a new Ice Age which may bring global shorter growing season (later Spring and earlier Fall) so crops won’t ripen and there will be global food shortages and global starvation just like during the last Ice Age when a million ppl died in Europe, only now we are many more ppl on this planet so billions of ppl may die this time around! Many 3rd world countries don’t grow enough food to feed their own ppl so they import surplus production from US and Europe, some of the countries import as much as 60% of their grain need (wheat and other crops), but US and Europe may not be growing any surplus in the near future b/c of change in climate and growing conditions, those 3rd world countries won’t have anything to buy and their ppl will starve to death! So this is what is really going on! Global depopulation due to climate change!
So isn’t it convenient to start wars so ppl have something e-l-s-e to focus on, not the governments who fail to take care of their own ppl, to feed them, so we survive? US and Europe and other parts of the world may also have food shortages, not just poor countries.
But nobody needs to starve to death on this planet, we have the technology to grow food indoors on a large scale! The small European country, Netherlands, has been growing food in greenhouses on a large scale all across their country for a very long time with great success! Any country can do the same, copy their success! There are greenhouse models designed for cold climate and other models designed for hot climate, there are models for any climate, the technology controls heat/cold air, humidity, amount of oxygen, amount of CO2 which plants breathe, everything is automated (just like in those US states which grow medical cannabis indoors on a large scale, fully automated, to perfection), so we can grow anything, you can eat tomatoes any time of the year and if you have the logistics you can transport it around the globe, and we do have the logistics too! The governments, the countries, companies, we all have what it takes to feed the world but we don’t have the politics to do it! And that’s why ppl will starve to death! War is the solution, the governments will go blame free, it wasn’t their fault that the other countries started the war and now we have no money to feed our ppl! Sorry, folks, such is life! Right? Bloody hell W R O N G!!!!!! What a frikkin circus!!!