Britain Joins US In Unwise Confrontation In The South China Sea
by Brian Cloughley via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
ZeroHedge.com
Mon, 09/17/2018
The US research agency Stratfor has forecast that “the United States will solidify its naval presence in the South China Sea and continue building up defence and economic ties along China’s periphery from Taiwan to Southeast Asia,” and given the all-embracing belligerence that seems to envelope Washington, its analysts are probably right. There are few countries or international accords that are not targeted by the malevolence of a president who declared at his inauguration that “it’s going to be only America first, America first” and whose disciples applaud his erratic lurches from truculent insults to maudlin self-pity.
In November 2017 Trump visited Vietnam and “called for all South China Sea claimants to clarify and comport their maritime claims in accordance with the international law of the sea as reflected in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea [UNCLOS] and to implement their international legal obligations in good faith in managing or resolving these disputes.”
The main problem about this self-satisfied drivel is that, as Voice of America reported in 2016, “the US has not accepted UNCLOS because of opposition from Republicans in the Senate, where treaties must be approved by a two-thirds’ vote.” And in 2018 the Congress is still controlled by Republicans and they still haven’t agreed to ratify the Convention. Why should they? It goes against everything that Washington stands for in the way of America First, which sentiment excludes anything at all that might commit the US to international law.
So the Pentagon continues to send nuclear-capable bombers and missile-equipped warships and electronic warfare aircraft around and over the South China Sea, to make it clear to China that the most important thing to Washington in the region is its military domination of China’s coast. The most recent confrontational activity was three months ago when the US Navy’s Antietam, a guided-missile cruiser, and the Higgins guided-missile destroyer were sent to try to provoke Chinese reaction by operating within 12 nautical miles of the Paracel Islands. They didn’t just pass through the Paracels : they conducted tactical manoeuvres among the islets, but this didn’t prevent a spokesman for the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet telling Time magazine, presumably without a smirk on his face, that the operations “are not about one country, nor are they about making political statements.”
The Rest…HERE
