US to China: Move along, nothing to see here...

[mota bhai 2,675]

The annual India-US bilateral Malabar naval exercise which kicked off today in the Asia Pacific region is not aimed at containing China, the Pentagon has said.

"It has absolutely no relations anything to do with China ... It is totally a routine exercise with no relations to China," the [Pentagon] official said.

The war games this year has Japan as a special invitee. China had in the past raised objections over Japan's participation in the drills.

...

Over 7,000 American defence personnel are participating in the exercise.

...

India and the US have held 17 editions of the Malabar-series war games since 1992 and had involved Japan, Australia and Singapore in 2007 in the Pacific Ocean after which the Chinese government raised objections.

...
The three Indian warships taking part in the war games earlier held exercises with the Russian Navy in Vladivostok last week.

http://week.manoramaonline.com/cgi-bin/MMOnline.dll/portal/ep/theWeekContent.do?programId=1073754900&contentId=17241275

[rlogan 2,036]

It seems illogical that the media would act as a propaganda arm of the government in a democracy, but it makes perfect sense logically. The media wants access to officials. You can't sell copy if the government closes you out of the news and you have to report yesterday's news.

To get that access you have to play by the government's rules. We are entering the age of the "Asian Pivot" where the express policy of the USA is "Containing China", which is very nearly a declaration of war on the face of it. How would we frame the Chinese making a declaration of "Containing the USA" and doing war exercises with Cuba?

What does it actually mean to "contain China"? Behind the propaganda rhetoric are concrete objectives: retarding their growth economically. Oh great - tell people you are going to do everything they can to make sure their food, housing, transportation etc. is unaffordable. Another is to make sure they don't have any allies internationally. That's great too: we'll try to get other people to fight with you instead. Isolate you.

Warships? Who, us? These are not the droids you are looking for.

Edited July 26, 2014 by rlogan

[Peikko 1,575]

Must be wonderful to have so much paranoia running around your head that you can't navigate the media without resorting to such hyperbole.

[rlogan 2,036]

Excellent example there of name-calling with zero content. Paranoia, lol.

Beyond the lamestream media are a lot of papers specifically addressing the inherent contradictions in the "Asian Pivot" and "Containing China". Like the paranoid Forbes piece here:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stephenharner/2013/01/29/the-asia-pivot-our-dsyfunctional-china-policy-japan-and-the-upcoming-abe-obama-summit/

High on Abe’s agenda will be U.S. support for Japan’s territorial claims in the East China Sea and strong reassurances of immutability of the U.S.-Japan security “alliance.”

Joint military exercises with Japan and joint Military exercises with Philippines are mostly geared towards threatening China over these territorial disputes in the oil-rich Spratley area.

This author along with the others he cites indicates that the affects of our "contain China" policy are more likely to be the opposite of what we intend, and the article asks a pretty good question: what exactly is the threat posed by China becoming economically and militarily stronger?

Good question.

[Darnell 8,479]

contain China? That's easy - get a time machine and prevent all intellectual property theft that they've done since 1982.

[Karee 4,191]

This author along with the others he cites indicates that the affects of our "contain China" policy are more likely to be the opposite of what we intend, and the article asks a pretty good question: what exactly is the threat posed by China becoming economically and militarily stronger?

Good question.

I see one problem with it.

[rlogan 2,036]

Exactly. You can't muster an argument.

If you had one, you would have made it.

[Karee 4,191]

Exactly. You can't muster an argument.

If you had one, you would have made it.

Guess you never heard of that saying "a picture is worth a thousand words"

[mota bhai 2,675]

People who prefer to use thousands (and thousand and thousands) of words don't really understand that.