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Senators Warn China That Escalations In South China Seas Threaten US "National Interests", China Likely To Retaliate
Just because China was already delighted with Obama's reception of the Dalai Lama, here come John McCain and John Kerry warning China to mind it territorial waters, because apparently US national interests are threatened. Per the FT: “We are concerned that a series of naval incidents in recent months has raised tensions in the region,” said John Kerry, the Democratic chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, and John McCain, the former Republican presidential candidate. “If appropriate steps are not taken to calm the situation, future incidents could escalate, jeopardising the vital national interests of the United States.” The logical follow up is glairngly obvious but here it is: "China is likely to see the comments as a provocation as they echo remarks by Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, last year that infuriated Beijing. Speaking at the Asean Regional Forum (ARF) in Hanoi last July, Mrs Clinton angered Beijing by saying the US had “a national interest in freedom of navigation . . . in the South China Sea." What is surprising is that the US is dumb enough to bait China with such provocations as the US Treasury market is now, more than at any other point in the past 3 years, reliant on Chinese bond purchases. And for all those who claim that China has no other alternative where to recycle its trade surplus dollars, we bring you exhibit i) the EURUSD, where China sells dollars and buys euros, and ii) Eurozone bonds over the past months, which it has been gobbling up ravenously. So yes: it does have alternatives, and it may very well make a rather forceful statement to that extent.
From the FT:
The South China Sea includes vital sea lanes for most of north-east Asia’s oil imports and other trade with Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India and south-east Asia. China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan claim all or parts of the area, but China’s claims are the most extensive.
The comments from the US senators follow a period when the Obama administration has publicly toned down criticism of China’s increasingly aggressive behaviour in the contested energy-rich waters.
At the Shangri-La Dialogue regional defence summit in Singapore in June, Robert Gates, then US defence secretary, disappointed some south-east Asian officials by taking a relatively soft public line on China, which partly reflected a desire not to harm improved military relations between the powers. However, Mr Gates reassured US allies in the region that Washington would maintain a “robust military engagement” in the region.
China is already not too happy with the latest developments:
Underscoring the mounting tensions, five Filipino lawmakers on Wednesday plan to fly to an island claimed by Manila in the disputed Spratlys archipelago, prompting the immediate ire of China.
China said on Tuesday that the mission “serves no purpose but to undermine peace and stability in the region and sabotage the China-Philippines relationship”, according to Agence France Presse.
Both the Philippine government and the leadership of the country’s House of Representatives distanced themselves from the visit. A government spokesman said the move was unofficial and a private initiative of the lawmakers.
However, the politicians who organised the visit said they had secured the permission of the Philippine military commander in the area to fly a private aircraft to the island.
Then again, since the source of this consternation are US politicians, these days better known as the best diversionary actors outside of Hollywood, we won't take it far too seriously until such time as China gives an indication such a stance is wrong.
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Wow. That is awe-inspiring and disturbing all at the same time.
And that's even before starting to consider the Fed analogy.
Yep, now shut up and sell your life for green cotton-linen blend. If you're lucky, you'll die before you go bankrupt.
I guess that's one way of getting rid of the debt problem. Eventually declare our biggest debtor a hostile or rogue threat and therefore should not be paid...
who gives a fuck what China thinks. If anyone thinks they do about us, they're an idiot.
If anyone thinks they do about us, they're an idiot.
Speaking of idiots....
You don't piss in your neighbor's backyard. This is China's backyard. Are you saying that we owe the Communist Vietnamese military protection???
Mexico is America's back yard.
Does that give us the right to violate their territorial waters and steal their oil?
China respects no law other than might makes right.
I don't give a shit about Communist Vietnam myself. Why do you?-- remember, they killed quite a few Americans there, "to be left alone and independent." Okay, fair enough. You're alone and independent, deal with China yourselves. Why must EVERY world conflict somehow implicate the U.S.?
Congratulations, the most stupid commentf I have read today... but I just started, so hang in there and hope.
Let China shoot one bullet, or missile any where near US interests and we can reduce the nat debt by what? 2 Trillion? And we can bring what? 3-10 MILLION jobs back to the US.
I say, SHOOT BITCHEZZ SHOOT!!!
I think you meant 3-10 million corpses. China could easily muster up 2-3 million soldiers, lose them to the last man, and not even feel it. What would losses of that magnitude do to the US? China has been very busy building the world's mightiest army. Plus the Russians are in their corner. If the shooting starts it will get U-G-L-Y. 500 years of payback coming at you at 2000 ft/s
Sunburn, bitches.
Numbers mean dick in modern warfare with our efficient killing machines...
You mean nukes? I think China has those as well. Maybe not as many, and not as lethal, but seriously, how many do you really need?
I was thinking more along the lines of assault rifles versus shovels, but those too...
China's military is so overrated it is hilarious. Every headline now reads how the Chinese are "catching up" and so on. Who do those headlines help? Who benefits from fear of Chinese power rising?
The Chinese aren't REMOTELY capable of projecting their power outside their borders. They have ONE (recycled) aircraft carrier and ZERO airlift capability for their ground forces on any scale that matters.
Yes they have alot of soldiers. So do many nations. Unless you can actually SEND those soldiers abroad to fight though, they are a DEFENSE force.
The Chinese are in NO position to wage a global war and they know it.
Look, ,maybe in 20 or 30 years they will be a globa MILITARY superpower, but not anytime soon. For now they have to be content with economic power, and even that is quickly eroding in the face of a global slowdown and apocalyptic monetary policy.
So for the NWO conspiracists, now is EXACTLY the right time to provoke a conflict with the chinese because they are incapable of winning an offensive action. Having said that, why would we try and crush the source of our inexpensive lifestyles?
And as for the Russian being "on the Chinese side", ARE YOU INSANE??
The Russian and Chinese have been at each others throats for years. The number of "skirmishes" between their border units over the last 30 years has been epic. The Chinese are LUSTING after the siberian oil fields and the Russians know it.
The Russians gain NOTHING from siding with the Chinese in a conflict. They do however gain from FIGHTING the Chinese with the West in that scenario because they could go after valuable natural resources in Mongolia and North/West China.
If the balloon ever goes up globally, the Chinese will SIEZE the Siberian oil fields within weeks and the Russians will be throwing glow bombs at Shanghai shortly thereafter.
China, for all it's POTENTIAL, is isolated both culturally and politically, and it has MANY hurdles to overcome before it can even BEGIN to contemplate taking on the West militarily.
In closing, the chinese Navy AND Air Force would be rendered irrelevant within the first 2 weeks of a shooting war. At that point, China could do NOTHING but A) Sit and wait or B) Lob nukes at the West Coast. One option is bad, the other is M.A.D.
Power is NOTHING if you can't project it.
excellent analysis! I myself have over-rated the Chicom's, thinkng of fielding 100 million young lads, even with just pitchforks. but having read further I question their ability to structure, organize, equip & motivate sufficiently to create anything but a clusterfuck. we speak of "diversity' in US...ha! the Chinese are like 30 cultures & languages in a salad bowl
You are dead on in your reply. Wars are not won simply on the basis of technology and numbers. The ability to SUSTAIN an Army in the field over time and miles is far more important. Logistics play an incredibly critical role. You can have all the men you want, but if you can't get food and bullets to them over thousands of miles, it doesn't matter. Just ask the Germans outside of Moscow, or the 6th Army in Stalingrad.
And the Chinese are definitely a fractured nation. If you are not of HAN descent, you are a second class "citizen".
China IS a powerful nation these days, but not nearly as powerful as people like to pretend for the sake of having a new boogieman.
China does not have to war with US - all it has to do is stop buying US Treassuries.
Hardware wars are useless, except to keep an empires own masses down.
If China stops buying treasuries, how would Americ then afford to buy all the cheap exports from China?
They CAN stop buying Treasuries if they want to , but they collapse with us when that happens.
Nope. They sell their crap to EU, Africa, India, Russia, South America...
They're already piling into all these countires bonds.
US is going down. No one wants it or needs it.
Watch the fall from today through 2013.
US Hubris gets some Nemesis.
I think the EU has its own problems... and, when the united states collapses, so too will an obscene amount of foreign wealth tied up in us/dollar assets... essentially, the top two currencies in the world would fail, at least.
If you were going to make a point on china, I would think that it would be that china was better suited, post collapse, to take over world market share and dictate the world economy... unfortunately, I think this view is largely predicated upon massive increases in the rates of domestic chinese consumption, which at this juncture seems to be a pipe dream...
The chinese are just getting a seat at the table for whatever comes... they're willing to buy the paper with the hopes that they'll be able to exert more political influence when the world governments are explicitly united... it's a gamble... but, there are only so many shoddy ghost cities that need to be built before moving on to other things... but, I wouldn't view their purchases of other bonds as anything more than this...
The united states' goose is cooked... there can be little dispute about that... the only question is who fills the power vacuum... and, frankly, china has an incredible amount of headwinds... whether it be political, historical, demographic, you name it.
huh no, they cant. It is the famous now pull the plug plan by Peter Schiff. On the paper, they have best to stop buying treasuries and increase trade with other BRIC, using third world countries as a commodity supply base.
Trouble is that in this US world order, the US runs a business of extortion and an extorted does not simply walk away just like that. If the Chinese or any one start to attack the US world currency big business, they have better to be heavily prepared for very lethal reliation.
In an extortion business, the extorted just does not walk away, waving goodbye and no hard feeling from the extorter.
US is falling apart - and will continue to do so.
US will break up into different countries.
US has no real muscle - only useless protein mass and hardware.
Everybody is tired of the US.
US citizens are tired of US.
US is done.
notwitstanding our common ground, I'd still not be surprised by the scenario of PLA coup if things get dicey (civilian-wise); caveat is they can instead simply [continue to] control Politburo.......
Things have changed a lot geopoliticaly in the past 10 years. China and Russia are now ally and are even doing joint military excersise. It is called the " Shanghai Co-operation Organisation" SCO. They are also including other Asian countries.
The western power has pissed a lot of people off recently you know, and this most likly have a cost.
Also about China's military power: they demonstrated anti- satellite technology. It's all that matter really since a big part of the U-S dominance comme from them. What are you gonna do with all your strategic fighter-bomber if you can't find a target to shoot at? Sure you can find them by other mean, but then you come to the level of the Chinese. Also, last I heard the Chinese had developped land-based anti-carrier missile.
good ponts, all. change gears from ground troops to tech, different ball game. and the bastards had not the courtesy even to say "thanks" for all the tech they stole. the whole high-tech wiz-bang is a vulnerability, maybe also for China, though.... can't wait to see how it plays out - ha!
Ah, ah. Sure, sure. Another propaganda cheap trick.
Russia gaining nothing in kicking the world reserve status of the US? At present times, and coming along the powerless jigs by Putine, the US keeps monetizing Russia resources by emitting credits and all.
Russia seizing the chinese resources (or many other resources accross the world) wont change the deal a bit. They simply be the new owner of the resources soon to be monetized by the US.
Kicking the US and destroying the world reserve currency status will give them once again ownership on their own russian resources.
China or Russia owning this or that resources at the present date in this US world order changes nothing: they are just names to be next on the fleecing list.
They already did!
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/mystery-missile-launched-missile-off-california-coast/story?id=12097155
Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez
If you could me anywhere on the planet which isn't "Near US interests" which appear to change from time to time as the warmongering cunts dictate, I'd be grateful.
The name is a bit of a giveaway, isn't it? Telling the Chinese not to play in their South China Seas isn't at all stupid, right?
By that logic shouldn't Mexico be able to claim sovereignty over all that happens in the Gulf of Mexico?
Wipe out their debt? They have our entire manufacturing sector over there (plus Europe and japan's). They have US over a barrel. We don't have them. Nit wit.
Hey Sheeple! Look!! Look!! Over here! A nice, shiny object for you to stare at while we continue to destroy what little is left of your once great country.
AND IT'S MADE IN CHINA!!!!!!!!
Lookie HERE!!!
Ooooooooh... shiiiiiiiiiiny...
When China perfects Chocolate and meat from raw sewage, they will have won
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sp-VFBbjpE 0:18
They have Taco Bell too?
What, other than cat here in the US, do you think is the mystery meat in pot stickers?
budget talks at hand, with Osama in the bag, we need a new boogie man, china's it. Shame we have sent them all of ou manufacturing capacity as well
China should do manoeuvres off San Francisco and fire some missiles
"fire some missiles"--Don't you mean contrails?
They preloaded the steel for the Bay Bridge with thermite. Firing missiles off the USSA coast has already been done by them. Time to move on to something bigger.
Hmm, doing that might harm repeat business....
I think they already did about 4 or 5 months ago right off the coast of Cali, but it the MSM turned it into a "jet contrail" the day after what is very clearly a missile contrail was caught on video...the DOD even confirmed that is what it was and also stated they did not know where it came from, some speculated it was a chinese boomer sending a not so subtle message...
Nobody in the government really wants war or even conflict with China. They do want to tank the USA's economy and induce hyperinflation so that the wage/price structure of the USA is comparable to the BRICs and our debt (both international and domestic) gets inflated out of existence. It's going to happen someday anyway. Better to do it now before China and the BRICs get stronger and richer, the USA gets weaker and the oil starts running out in a big way.
A faux conflict with China might be just the ticket to scare the bond markets and get us on that runaway train to mass deflation followed by hyperinflation. China knows this, of course, and will ultimately back down from any conflict. Either way, the USA wins this one.
Don't be so certain that peace is so desirable. A bloody war right now would distract everyone nicely from the unraveling of the wold financial system.
Dude, US hasn't won anything since WWII - US is a dead fish - game over - US loses.
Not so! The U.S. was the clear victor in the Grenada War!
Also successfully invaded Panama in 1989 to regain the full control there, sent its leader, Manuel Noriega, to life sentence in the USA prison.
Rolling back to much earlier time, in 1967 successfully toppled down the widely supported leader, Soekarno, the founding father of the Republic of Indonesia, to begin the nonstop over three decade reign of the totalitarian regime under Soeharto at the cost of the over one million of butal mass killings! All thank to the CIA's successful operations.
Don't miss the bloody coup d'état in Chile in 1973 either, the assasination of its elected President then, Salvador Allende.
Ferdinand Marcos in Philippines; General Zia-ul Haq in Pakistan; Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi in Iran; Hosni Mobarak in Egypt; Al Saud Dynasty in Saudi Arabia; Al Sabah Dynasty in Kuwait; Al Khalifa Dynasty in Bahrain and so on.
One may add up the successful operations to make up a long list of many successes of the USA Imperium :)
I understand both sides of view...I mean how would we (the USA) like it if China was telling us how to use the Gulf?
I think some of these politicos think another war will "stimulate" us out of this recession. I prefer trade, production, real GDP growth...
how would we (the USA) like it if China was telling us how to use the Gulf?
Pakistan will allow China to build Persian Gulf naval base - The ...
China is moving a big step closer to global military power with the news that Pakistan is permitting the Middle Kingdom to build a naval base at Gwadar, on the ...
www.nationalreview.com/the-feed…base - More from this site - Similar pages
We'd tell those chi.coms to piss off! The Persian Gulf is ours...fair and square.
Sorry World! The USA has the sole, heavenly bestowed privileges!!!
They will decide what's allowed and not allowed, what can and can't, what the do & don'ts of the rest of the world, including China! Just try at best to behave well to abide by their own rules! What an amazing world :)
Our national interests? You mean JPM bank branches are located there.
Both these senators are fully aware of what they are saying, and are steering the situation in this direction to lesson trade with china and eventually impose trade restrictions. This is the only way the American Empire can continue by bringing back jobs from china to the America.
I hope you gave the magic lantern an extra hard rub when you made that wish.
I hope you are right. But I doubt this will ever happen. Politicians, all talk and no walk. Raise tariffs already!
Eurozone bonds? That's the next best thing to treasuries?
Methinks you've forgotten something. Something shiny, perhaps.
But that's not money- just as Big Ben.
Listen ChinaMan, you stay in Kitchen, cook food.
You no go outside and wrangle steer.
You build railroad tracks, you no ride horses.
You do laundry you no design fashion suits.
You ChinaMan, and as long as you not Christian
by birth, we own you as ape of field.
I put nice sauce in wonton soup for you!
You have to admire or despise China's shamelessness - take your pick - in claiming waters thousands of kilometers from its shores as its national waters and that who Obama meets with is its internal affairs. I mean, really, China reminds me of that Jon Lovitz character, Tommy Flanagan, The Pathological liar," Yeah, that's right, Indonesia is in our territorial waters, yeah, that's right. The whole ocean is our territorial waters. Yeah, Yeah. We invented territorial waters. That's right."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkYNBwCEeH4
Really? USA set the precedent on this one. 200 miles out to sea...
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/coastalzone.htm
US Presidential Proclamation 5030 Creating The Exclusive Economic Zone
On March 10, 1983, U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed proclamation 5030, which established the U.S. Excusive Economic Zone (EEZ). This consists of those areas adjoining the territorial sea of the U.S., the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and U.S. overseas territories and possessions. The EEZ extends up to 200 nautical miles (370 km) from the U.S. coastline. About 15 percent of this area lies on the geologic continental shelf and is shallower than 200 meters. Within its EEZ, the U.S. has sovereign rights over all living and non-living resources. Other nations may exercise freedom of vessel navigation and over flight within the U.S. EEZ (Source: Year of the Ocean Discussion Papers 1998; 2nd Ed. of Coastal and Ocean Law by Kalo et al. 1994)
From NOAA Coastal Services Center
By the stroke of a pen and in an act that cost the United States nothing, America had in essence more than doubled in size. Debate continues over the exact size of the U.S. EEZ, but it is probably around 4 million square miles ... the territory around Hawaii alone is about 1 million square miles, or an area larger than Mexico. Historically, this action is comparable to the Louisiana Purchase of 1802. Yet because the seas draw so little attention, this proclamation was hardly reported in the news.
From Wilder, R. J. (1998). Listening to the Sea: The Politics of Improving Environmental Protection. Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press.
200 miles is not the same thing as 2000 km.
USA claims 2 mile nautical limit for souvereignty, does not ram ships in the economic zone for being there and has no claims on other countries waters.
Why should the U.S. give a wet fart about Vietnam, Indonesia, or the Phillipines??
What vital "national interests"?
double post
Johnny Carson puts the senators on a lie detector
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKgmScYcK6g&feature=related
Classic
ROFL..... "thanks...I needed that"
Like burglars who sets a house aflame to cover their crimes, the NWO is provoking world war to cover up their crimes. The same MO used to provoke the last 2 world wars.
"What is surprising is that the US is dumb enough to bait China with such provocations as the US Treasury market is now, more than at any other point in the past 3 years, reliant on Chinese bond purchases."
China can't crash the economy that buys all of their garbage. Who else is going to buy lead tainted milk and paints?
SYMBIOSIS IS A BITCH!
80% of Chinas trade is non-US. And that share is growing each and every year. It is why the Chinese have been investing so heavily in Africa, Middle East and South/Central America this past decade. Not only to procure cheap resources but also as markets to sell its cheap goods. Diversify away from US centric trade, which it has pretty much now managed to do. Once the death of the US meant death of Chinese trade, that's not true anymore.
At the end of the day, we all know China isn't going to be honored regarding its dollar and trasury hoardings and they know the US economy is 'dead man walking'. Soon enough there will be no excuse stopping them from reacting militarily if Chinese interests are threatened by the US in East/South East Asia or elsewhere (Central Asia or Pakistan).
So 20% of their trade IS US centric. So crashing 20% of your economy WOULDN'T be catastrophic??
And the 80% that isn't "US Centric" is heavily funded through US company supply chains as the big foriegn companies work hand in hand with the Fortune 500.
So again, THERE IS NO WAY for China to untangle itself from the United States economically without collapsing its own economy.
just adding more fuel to the fire...just look at the MENA region right now, vast amounts of military assets crammed into one very small, very resource rich and highly unstable box. You've got an alliance of uber broke nations on one side and a energy starved nation and it's allies on the other, both wanting to establish control over the area and secure access to those resources. now I ask you what could possibly go wrong?
and all the while the elites are rubbing there hands together with glee in anticipation of all there plots and schemes comming to fruition.
We are all just gonna get blown up while these fucking morons keep having their big dick contest aren't we. Seriously. I wouldn't be surprised if Hillary had a surgically attached 9incher.
I've been saying it for years, why the fucking imbeciles in Washington seem hell bent on alienating key "allies" and partners in this most delicate of economic times is beyond me.
You fuck with China, they will smack you right back. Simple as that. And they have the economic clout to do it without resorting to bombs or missiles.
They provoked Russia regarding Georgia in summer 2008 and the Russians rolled their tanks in and the US was nowhere to be seen, even though the US had defence agreements with Georgia to assist them in eventuality of war.
They're now provoking the Pakistani's (the one nation they desperately need on their side regarding the Afghan war, no Pak, no war. And pushing them closer and closer to China, it's pretty much Chinese terrirtory now. Well done.)
Everything Washington has done this past decade in particular has been nothing short of shooting itself in its foot and strengthening adversaries such as China and Iran.
In Realist theories of International Relations, the US is at times acting 'irrationally', in that it is choosing options that end up hurting it severely, over and over again. Many of the choices the US has made has severely hurt US interests domestically and abroad. This is compounded when you think of the delicate economic circumstances the US finds itself in.
Who is going to buy or debt now?
China would like to get to the point where they tell US to fuck off. They already are sick of competing with US.
With one billion plus eyeing at our standard of living, conflict is only a matter of time.
No ifs about it. Shark bump coming.
China won't be buying Greek or Italian bonds because they are afraid of being duped in the same way the Chinese are duping every other national in the world: by embezzlement of foreigners' assets such as investment funds, bank accounts, brands, intellectual property, copyrights et cetera.
Wait a second, the last "big ship location map" published here at ZH showed the CVN 73 George Washington in (drum roll please) the South China Sea. Damn! An aircraft carrier battle group just south.
I wonder how our illustrious senators would react if a Chinese carrier battle group settled in the Gulf of Mexico to protect their drilling efforts in Cuba?
The world is safe because a super power controls the oceans. The south china sea are serious shipping lanes and if you want to cut of china from deliveries you need to control the approach and passage through there. The mega oil under there is still up for grabs?
The ASEAN trade agreement helps China maintain open ports on the south. Funny how Philippines loves America again!
Maybe Vietnamese will import house keepers soon.
"Senators Warn China" is ridiqulous enough. No need to add "US national interests"...
What a bunch of moronic comments! China is planning to have your guts for garters! EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU BLEATING MORONS.
The Resource Wars are coming, and The United States better be positioned to protect the interests of the West. And ceding all of Southeast Asia in one swoop of idiotic ambivalence will give China a "march" on the approach to Hawaii and our Pacific Coast.
And China wants the whole South China Sea as an undisturbed staging area for its upcoming nuclear submarine ballistic missile strike force for furthering their second-strike capability.
China will exterminate you like cockroaches when it serves their interests, (and they think they can get away with it). And biowarfare will be the coup de grace. THAT is the asymmetrical ace up their sleeve, (which PLA generals have declared more than once to be a favored means of clearing areas around the world for Lebensraum).
You who believe there is a moral equivalency between the West and China remind me of the European Socialists who fawned over dear old Stalin while he killed millions through calculated famine and in the Gulags.
M.A.D. I don't think there is moral equivalency but our government is doing it's best to emulate China with TSA gropes, militarization of the police, and the Patriot Acts.
Oh yeah and notice the "Gang of Six" language used for the new fiscal plan.
Let the Vietnamese get smacked around in the South China Sea through some gunboat clashes, I say. Since when are they "the West"? Indonesia??? It will also send a message that killing 56,000 Americans has long-term geopolitical consequences. If the ChiComs were so foolish as to test their "nuclear submarine ballistic missle strike force," with a live fire exercise, it would mean M.A.D. They know it, too. These warmed-over RAND Corporation scare stories are way past their sell-by date, as in 30 years too late.... they might convince people inside the Beltway, but a lot of Americans are getting pretty skeptical about the latest fairy story designed to sell big-dollar weapons systems....
Another discredited neocon heard from. LOL - don't you guys ever get off that 60 year old tripe?
Why is Senator's Dodd, Feingold, and Kaufman listed on the letterhead as committee members? Please make them go away.
McCain is, of course, bonkers to begin with, but what the hell happened to John Kerry? He has evidently forgotten everything he learned from Vietnam, caved in on the 2004 election (when he swore he wouldn't), and stands by while people are tasered when they ask probing questions at a public address. Kerry should crawl into a cave and die. When people like this are responsible for negotiating with the Chinese, nothing good can come if it. The Chinese are more than willing to have a symbiotic relationship with the U.S., exploiting the rest of the world; but they ain't stupid. Or weak. The U.S. - what a bunch of death-wish dweebs!
China is the great chameleon. Sure, the govt will allow the cell phones, cars, miniskirts and cosmetics for the masses but underneath a very ambitious military. It needs to strike a very carefully crafted balance between military ambitions and domestic "bliss".
Not enough military development to project power like US...(yet), but ceratinly can raise hell in the immediate environs. First, testing of world (US) resolve through minor incidents like demanding damages for Chinese Fishing Boat hit by Japanese naval vessel, disabling of US recon plane and forced landing into China, saber rattling in Taiwan straits, disputes over Spratleys, etc. From the look of the map, it is incredulous to belive China seriously has any claim over the Spratleys- sounds more like a dispute between Indonesia, Vietnam and Philippines, unless I am lacking some serious historical precedent. Talk about seriousinternational water "Gerrymandering".
So back to 1930s we go when Japan started empire , needed raw materials (OIL) and threatened by US embargo...well the rest is history. China must be thinking, let's start out with the Spratleys and see if US gives a Faulklands response, if not, 2.)take back Taiwan, then 3.)Hey Japan, remember the rape of Nanching? We can't let that happen ever again, besides, paybacks are hell. 4.)from there, it's Korean Penninsula because N Korea is a powder keg and we (Chinese) have to protect ourselves, and while were at it keep going South. And don't forget Vietnam, and what the hell might as well get the rest of Southeast Asia. We need to understand Chinese philosophy about the virtues of time and patience. (Apologies to my sister-in-law who is a good mother, and educated chemical engineer working in US, and concerns for my mother-in -law and family in Philippines.)
.
This post and this extract
is another fine example of the gang mindset that prevails in US citizenism (so called americanism)
"We do it, it is fine. They do it, this is wrong."
Then why do our neighbors not only not fear us, but tell us to get bent so often?
WE (China and US) are both wrong!!
If the US does not bitch slap China on this, get your money out of Singapore.
The Singaporeans are all lovey-dovey with the ChiComs. The elite is ethnically Chinese to begin with.
singapore was built on laundered chinese drug money and banking cp party hidden assets. the whole "Lee built Singapore from a swamp with his brains and hard work" mythology is just that, mythology. Say it loud and say it proud, Singapore is Lee's little company town. But dont say it in Singapore. They have a very aggresive "independent" judiciary and criminal defamation laws to mainttain the "truth"
Will somebody please tell China that we've removed the aerial defenses around Pearl Harbor? The fleet is a group of sitting ducks.
China knows all they have to do is wait us out another 30 years. By then the US will be France -- a former world power, now all talk and no action. At that time they can declare their own Monroe doctrine and claim to be protecting the entire hemisphere.
Ron Holland at The Daily Bell mentioned recently: "...there's always war to distract the public and frame future historical accounts. There are lots of wars already and more on the way.
In these sour economic times, the elites start wars. It's a fact of life. History teaches us that. Of course war puts an even greater stress on the economy.
War is a great distracter. A full-scale world war probably isn't feasible any longer because of the nuclear threat but you can certainly have a bad war in the Middle East. And it will probably have a continuing impact on oil prices."
More here: http://bit.ly/paE7VV
As the domestic situation in the USA is becoming worsening, the elites at the helm of this waning imperium may desperately resort to staging wars in various regions to divert the people attention at home from those real-life difficulties.
Just pay a close attention :)