Washington and Beijing Draw Battle Lines over South China Sea
Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore
By James Cogan
Global Research
June 06, 2016
Last weekend’s Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual conference hosted in Singapore by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, was utilised by the Obama administration and US military to threaten China over its territorial claims in the South China Sea. Beijing responded with categorical assertions that it will not retreat and, in the words of its representative, Admiral Sun Jianguo, has “no fear of trouble.”
The ominous character of the conference reflected the preparations by all parties for the UN International Court of Arbitration ruling in The Hague on a US-backed challenge by the Philippines to China’s territorial claims in the Spratly Island chain. The court, a body stacked with appointees of the major imperialist powers, is expected to decide against Beijing this month. The Chinese government has categorically rejected the court’s jurisdiction and said it will ignore the decision.
Washington was represented at the Shangri-La Dialogue by Defence Secretary Ashton Carter and Admiral Harry Harris, the head of US Pacific Command.
Carter’s speech on June 4 was arrogant, provocative and menacing. He boasted that the US military had deployed “its most advanced capabilities to the Asia-Pacific” as part of the Obama administration’s “rebalance” or “pivot” to the region. It would “take decades,” Carter asserted, for “anyone to build the kind of military capability the United States possesses.”
Carter gloated over the fact that the US “military edge” had “been honed by unrivalled and hard-earned operational experience over the past 15 years”—a reference to the brutal, neo-colonial wars waged by the United States in the Middle East, which have claimed millions of lives and created the greatest refugee crisis since World War II.
Carter sought to intimidate Beijing with the list of US alliances and partnerships in Asia. He first named Washington’s two main allies in Asia—Japan and Australia—whose military forces would be expected by Washington to contribute to a US-led war against China. The Philippines, which is serving as the US proxy in the UN court, was named next, followed by India, Vietnam and Singapore. South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Laos were subsequently included in the US camp.
Carter asserted that Washington’s network was “not aimed at any particular country.” He immediately proceeded to make clear China was the target. He declared there was “growing anxiety in this region, and in this room, about China’s activities on the seas, in cyberspace, and in the region’s airspace.”
China, Carter threatened, “could end up erecting a Great Wall of self-isolation.”
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