Www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R41108.pdf. China, US and Militarization of Asia Pacific at the Center of Gravity of 21st Century Economics and Politics. Broken clocks are right twice a day, and sometimes even propaganda can reveal a truth. And although I would be the last person on the planet to recommend Hillary “We Came, We Saw, He Died” Clinton as a source of information on any subject, she was nonetheless on the mark in her address to the East-West Center in Honolulu in November of 2011: “It is becoming increasingly clear that in the 21st century, the world’s strategic and economic center of gravity will be the Asia-Pacific, from the Indian subcontinent to the western shores of the Americas.
And one of the most important tasks of American statecraft over the next decades will be to lock in a substantially increased investment – diplomatic, economic, strategic, and otherwise – in this region.” All of this is undeniably true. Forget all the rest of her warm and fuzzy claptrap about “democracy and human rights” in the region and helping to “settle disputes before they escalate.” This fear is reflected in the Pentagon’s battle plans. Evidence Suggests That Chen Guangcheng’s Wasn’t Under House Arrest At Time Of ‘Escape’
16 escape stories with only one that makes sense The blind Chinese dissident, Chen Guangcheng has finally “escaped” the “brutal” treatment of the Chinese “regime” and landed in the “free” world. The world – in particular the American media – called this a human rights win for America. While a million American students are reportedly homeless, Chen and his family of four were given two apartments for free: one for his personal security, the other at the “ideally located (but expensive)” graduate residence hall in Washington Square Village. While 48% of American students are burdened by debt, Chen and his family are enjoying free education in the US: Chen is reportedly having two hours of English lessons in the morning, and he “spends many afternoons meeting legal experts one on one.” A columnist in the Toronto’s Globe and Mail watching Chen’s saga from a distance believes that Chen has managed to “leverage the propaganda possibilities into free emigration.”
Escape Story 1 Escape Story 2. Www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32496.pdf. The US’s New $7 Billion Super-stealth Ship Will Contain China. A super-stealthy warship that could underpin the US Navy’s China strategy will be able to sneak up on coastlines virtually undetected and pound targets with electromagnetic “railguns” right out of a sci-fi movie. But at more than $US3 billion a pop, critics say the new DDG-1000 destroyer sucks away funds that could be better used to bolster a thinly stretched conventional fleet. One outspoken admiral in China has scoffed that all it would take to sink the high-tech American ship is an armada of explosive-laden fishing boats.
With the first of the new ships set to be delivered in 2014, the stealth destroyer is being heavily promoted by the Pentagon as the most advanced destroyer in history – a silver bullet of stealth. It has been called a perfect fit for what Washington now considers the most strategically important region in the world – Asia and the Pacific. The Navy says it’s money well spent. Now, just three are in the works. “It would be a goner,” Rear Adm. U.S. Exemptions From Iran Oil Sanctions Leave Out China.
Administration officials said the United States was continuing to negotiate with China, the world’s No. 1 buyer of Iranian oil, after a confusing period in which Chinese purchases dropped sharply during a price dispute with Tehran but later rebounded. Secretary of State announced that the administration had issued waivers to India, Malaysia, South Korea, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Taiwan. They joined Japan and 10 European countries that the United States had previously said would be exempt from sanctions for six months. “Today’s announcement underscores the success of our sanctions implementation,” Mrs.
Clinton said in a statement. “By reducing Iran’s oil sales, we are sending a decisive message to Iran’s leaders: until they take concrete actions to satisfy the concerns of the international community, they will continue to face increasing isolation and pressure.” The sanctions law gives Mr. This Week at War: An Arms Race America Can’t Win - By Robert Haddick. In a speech delivered on June 2 to the Shangri-La Security Dialogue conference in Singapore, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta attempted to convince his audience that America's "rebalancing" strategy to the Asia-Pacific region -- previous called a "pivot" -- is serious and will be backed by expanded military power. Panetta announced that by 2020, 60 percent of the U.S.
Navy will be positioned in the Pacific. He also openly discussed the controversial Air-Sea Battle concept, while denying that the reinforcements and new plans are a challenge to China. He also promised to step up the presence of U.S. military forces in the region, both through new basing arrangements and by an expanded list of training exercises with partner military forces. Panetta likely hoped his remarks would bolster the credibility of the administration's strategy. On the other hand, the U.S. Of course, counting ships does not tell the whole story.
The most powerful U.S. advantage is the alliance network itself. Panetta’s Pacific Vision. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s declarations the past weeks that the U.S. remains a Pacific power, and will be even more involved there in the future, is far less a reiteration of an old doctrine but actually a search for a new strategy to find a justification for the vast sums the Pentagon will spend over the coming years after the defeats or, at best, stalemates in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The anti-Chinese aim of his visits to the Philippines, India, and Vietnam, was clear. Without building permanent bases, the U.S. will want rights to use those that exist already. The Philippines will allow the U.S. to use the immense installations at Subic Bay and the Clark Air Base again, which the Americans built and from which in 1992 the Filipinos expelled them.
The U. But China is already far too strong militarily and economically. It holds over a trillion dollars — $1.15 trillion to be exact — in longer-term U. S. So much can go wrong with the Administration’s ambitious not-so-new, strategy. China Vice Minister Aide Arrested On Suspicion Of U.S. Spying. HONG KONG, June 1 (Reuters) - A Chinese state security official has been arrested on suspicion of spying for the United States, sources said, a case both countries have kept quiet for several months as they strive to prevent a fresh crisis in relations. The official, an aide to a vice minister in China's security ministry, was arrested and detained early this year on allegations that he had passed information to the United States for several years on China's overseas espionage activities, s ai d three sources, who all have direct knowledge of the matter.
The aide had been recruited by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and provided "political, economic and strategic intelligence", one source said, though it was unclear what level of information he had access to, or whether overseas Chinese spies were compromised by the intelligence he handed over. He had been paid hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars and spoke English, the source added. Related on HuffPost: Are We Headed for a Fight with China? SHANGHAI -- The Soviet Union is gone, al-Qaida is decimated, and Iran may never acquire nuclear weapons. But don't get too relaxed. If you're looking for reasons to be anxious about world peace, China offers an abundance. It's a huge country with a growing economy, an expanding military and ongoing disputes with several neighbors.
Nationalist sentiment has grown. China is a rising power, and history indicates that rising powers often assert themselves in ways that lead to bloodshed. If you demand immediate evidence, look only to the South China Sea, where the Chinese are locked in an ominous standoff with the Philippines over fishing rights. Pessimism is a perfectly reasonable response to China's rise. One encouraging fact is that the Chinese people are not naturally hostile to the United States. American multinational corporations, he says, are regarded as good places to work. That consensus seems to be the prevailing view here. That could change. 5 Things the Pentagon Isn't Telling Us About the Chinese Military - By Trefor Moss. Think of it like an iceberg: The top lies in plain sight, but a lot more hides beneath the surface.
In its annual appraisal of the Chinese military published last week, the U.S. Department of Defense seems to be describing an object it finds both familiar and mysterious. The report certainly answers many of the important issues concerning China's military, including its attempts to develop an anti-ship ballistic missile and its continuing fixation on Taiwan.
Yet for many crucial aspects of China's strategy, the Pentagon seems like it's just guessing. 1. Although China's official 2012 defense budget is $106 billion, an 11 percent increase over last year and a fourfold increase from a decade ago, the Pentagon places China's total military spending at somewhere between $120 and $180 billion. There have been no credible estimates of Beijing's long-term defense spending plans. 2. 3. 4. China is becoming increasingly proficient in space. 5. Salah Malkawi/ Getty Images. Exclusive: U.S. lets China bypass Wall Street for Treasury orders. Is this Cold War 2.0? - GlobalPost. HONG KONG, China — With a US ally engaged in a tense standoff with China over disputed territory in the South China Sea, America risks wading into increasingly perilous waters. The conflict began in mid-April, when a Filipino frigate — a 1960s Coast Guard vessel bought from the United States — attempted to stop several boats of Chinese fishermen who had taken live sharks, giant clams and coral from waters claimed by the Philippines around a rocky patch called the Scarborough Shoal.
The Chinese dispatched several larger, more modern boats from one of its civilian maritime agencies, which intercepted the frigate, allowing the fisherman to escape with their catch. Filipino fishermen say they have since been barred from fishing in the lagoon. Now, after nearly a month, ships from the two nations have refused to budge from the waters surrounding the shoal, while populists back home have whipped up a nationalist frenzy. “China certainly shares much of the blame for the current standoff.
New Pentagon spy agency to focus on Iran, China. The Pentagon is creating a new intelligence agency that will focus on Iran and China as it begins to pivot away from war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan, the New York Times reported. This file photo shows Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak (R) speaking with then NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) chief, US Major General Michael Flynn, in 2010. Flynn has been nominated by the Pentagon to head a new US intelligence agency, Defense Clandestine Service. The newspaper said late Monday that the new Defense Clandestine Service would make use of existing agents, authorities and assets and work closely with the Central Intelligence Agency to track emerging threats.
"It will thicken our coverage across the board," it quoted a senior defense department official as saying. Defense officials did not immediately respond to AFP requests for further information. US Marines Arrive in Australia. April 04, 2012 Phil Mercer | Sydney U.S. Marines have started to arrive in northern Australia as Washington strengthens its presence in the strategically vital Asia-Pacific region. Two hundred troops touched down in Darwin late Tuesday as part of a deployment outlined during a visit to Australia by President Obama in November, a move that has irritated China. The detachment is the first batch of an expected deployment of 2,500 military personnel to be posted to northern Australia. The troops are based in Australia’s Northern Territory on a six-month rotational basis and will be stationed at Robertson Barracks on the outskirts of Darwin. The Australian government says the arrangement was the latest chapter in a six-decade military alliance with the United States.
Australian Defense Minister Stephen Smith says the stationing of U.S. marines in Darwin is in the interests of global peace and stability. Www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R42448.pdf. Www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33153.pdf. Trade Tensions With China Are Flaring Again. Peter Parks/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Chinese workers assembling solar panels. Five separate issues — involving auto parts, cars, solar panels, anti-subsidy laws and metals — are the subject of separate initiatives by American officials, European officials or both.
On Tuesday, in fact, the United States, the European Union and Japan filed a formal “request for consultations” with China at the World Trade Organization about restrictions on exports of rare earths plus two other minerals, tungsten and molybdenum. Underscoring the diplomatic sensitivities of the case as well as the importance of trade in an election year, President Obama announced the move from the White House on Tuesday, a senior administration official said. The request for consultations is the first step in a process that will lead to a full-fledged legal case in 60 days at the trade organization unless China unexpectedly agrees to the demands. Selling KONY.