{"id":60108,"date":"2016-10-27T12:34:45","date_gmt":"2016-10-27T19:34:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=60108"},"modified":"2016-10-27T12:34:45","modified_gmt":"2016-10-27T19:34:45","slug":"washingtons-pivot-to-asia-a-debacle-unfolding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/10\/27\/washingtons-pivot-to-asia-a-debacle-unfolding\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington\u2019s \u2018Pivot to Asia\u2019: A Debacle Unfolding"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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By James Petras\u00a0Courtesy\u00a0“Information Clearing House<\/a>“<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

October 25, 2016 “Information Clearing House<\/a>” – In 2012 President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Ashton Carter launched a new chapter in their quest for global dominance:\u00a0 a realignment of policies designed to shift priorities from the Middle East to Asia.\u00a0 Dubbed the \u2018Pivot to Asia\u2019, it suggested that the US would concentrate its economic, military and diplomatic resources toward strengthening its dominant position and undercutting China\u2019s rising influence in the region.<\/em><\/p>\n

The \u2018pivot to Asia\u2019<\/em> did not shift existing resources from the Middle East, it added military commitments to the region, while provoking more conflicts with Russia and China.<\/p>\n

The pivot to Asia<\/em>\u201d meant that the US was extending and deepening its regional military alliances in order to confront and encircle Russia and China.\u00a0 The goal would be to cripple their economies and foster social unrest leading to political instability and regime change.<\/p>\n

The US onslaught for greater empire depended on the cooperation of proxies and allies to accomplish its strategic goals.<\/p>\n

The so-called \u2018pivot to Asia<\/em>\u2019 had a two-pronged approach, based on an economic trading pact and various military treaty agreements.\u00a0 The entire US strategy of retaining global supremacy depended on securing and enhancing its control over its regional allies and proxies.\u00a0 Failure of the Obama regime to retain Washington\u2019s vassal states would accelerate its decline and encourage more desperate political maneuvers.<\/p>\n

Strategic Military Posturing<\/strong><\/p>\n

Without a doubt, every military decision and action made by the Obama Administration with regard to the Asia-Pacific Region has had only one purpose \u2013 to weaken China\u2019s defense capabilities, undermine its economy and force Beijing to submit to Washington\u2019s domination.<\/p>\n

In pursuit of military supremacy, Washington has installed an advanced missile system in South Korea, increased its air and maritime armada and expanded its provocative activities along China\u2019s coastline and its vital maritime trade routes.\u00a0 Washington has embarked on a military base expansion campaign in Australia, Japan and the Philippines.<\/p>\n

This explains why Washington pressured its client regime in Manila under the former President \u2018Nonoy\u2019 Aquino, Jr., to bring its territorial dispute with China over the Spratly Islands before a relatively obscure tribunal in Holland.\u00a0 The European ruling, unsurprisingly in favor of Manila, would provide the US with a \u2018legal\u2019 cover for its planned aggression against China in the South China Sea.\u00a0 The Spratly and Paracel Islands are mostly barren coral islands and shoals located within the world\u2019s busiest shipping trade routes, explaining China\u2019s (both Beijing and Taipei) refusal to recognize the \u2018Court of Special Arbitration\u2019.<\/p>\n

Strategic Economic Intervention: The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The US authored and promoted Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP) is a trade and investment agreement covering 12 Pacific countries designed to ensure US regional dominance while deliberately cutting out China.\u00a0 The TPP was to be the linchpin of US efforts to promote profits for overseas US multi-nationals by undercutting the rules for domestic producers, labor laws for workers and environmental regulations for consumers.\u00a0 As a result of its unpopular domestic provisions, which had alienated US workers and consumers, the electorate forced both Presidential candidates to withdraw their support for the TPP \u2013 what one scribbler for the Financial Times denounced as the dangers of popular democracy<\/em>\u201d.\u00a0 The Washington empire builders envisioned the TPP as a tool for dictating and enforcing their \u2018rules\u2019 on a captive Asia-Pacific trading system.\u00a0 From the perspective of US big business, the TPP was the instrument of choice for retaining supremacy in Asia by excluding China.<\/p>\n

The Eclipse of Washington\u2019s Asian Century\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

For over seventy years the US has dominated Asia, ravaging the continent with two major wars\u00a0 in Korea and Indo-China with millions of casualties, and multiple counter-insurgency interventions in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Timor, Myanmar, Pakistan and Afghanistan.\u00a0 The strategic goal has been to expand its military and political power, exploit the economies and resources and encircle China and North Korea.<\/p>\n

Under the Obama-Clinton-Kerry Regime, the imperial structures in Asia are coming apart.<\/p>\n

Washington\u2019s anti-China TPP is collapsing and has been replaced by the Chinese sponsored Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) with over fifty member countries worldwide, including the ten nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASAEN), plus Australia, India, South Korea and New Zealand.\u00a0 Of course, China is funding most of the partnership and, to no one\u2019s surprise, Washington has not been invited to join\u2026<\/p>\n

As a result of the highly favorable terms in the RCEP, each and every current and former US ally and colony has been signing on, shifting trade allegiances to China, and effectively changing the configuration of power.<\/p>\n

Already Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Indonesia have formalized growing economic ties with China.\u00a0 The debacle of the TPP has just accelerated the shift toward China\u2019s new trade pact (RCEP).\u00a0 The US is left to rely on its \u2018loyalist four\u2019, a stagnant Japan, Australia, South Korea and its impoverished former colony, Philippines, to bolster its quest to militarily encircle China.<\/p>\n

The Dangers of \u2018Popular Democracy\u2019: President Duterte\u2019s Pivot to China and the End of US Supremacy in SE Asia?<\/strong><\/p>\n

For over a century (since the invasion of the Philippines in 1896), especially since the end of WWII, when the US asserted its primacy in Asia, Washington has used the strategic Philippine Archipelago as a trampoline for controlling Southeast Asia.\u00a0 Control of the Philippines is fundamental to US Imperialism: Washington\u2019s strategic superiority depends on its access to sea, air, communications and ground bases and operations located in the Philippines and a compliant Philippine ruling class..<\/p>\n

The centerpiece of US strategy to encircle and tighten control over China\u2019s maritime routes to and from the world-economy is the massive build-up of US military installations in the Philippines.<\/p>\n

The US self-styled pivot to Asia\u201d involves locating five military bases directed at dominating the South China Sea. \u00a0The Pentagon expanded its access to four strategic air and one military base through the \u2018Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement\u2019 signed by the Philippine President Aquino in 2014 but held up by the Philippine Courts until April 2016.\u00a0 These include:<\/p>\n

(1) Antonio Bautista Airbase on the island of Palawan, located near the contested Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.<\/p>\n

(2) Basa Airbase 40 miles northwest of the Philippines capital of Manila, overlooking the South China Sea.<\/p>\n

(3) Lumbia Airbase located in the port of Cagayan de Oro, Mindanao, a huge US facility under construction.<\/p>\n

(4) Mactan \u2013 Benito Ebuen airbase located on Mactan Island off the coast of Cebu in the central Philippines.<\/p>\n

(5) Fort Magsaysay located in Nueva Ecija, on Luzon, the Philippine Army\u2019s Central Training and command center, its largest military installation which will serve the US as the training and indoctrination base for the Philippine army.<\/p>\n

Pentagon planners had envisioned targeting Chinese shipping and air bases in the South China Sea from its new bases on western shores of the Philippines.\u00a0 This essentially threatens the stability of the entire region, especially the vital Chinese trade routes to the global economy.<\/p>\n

Washington has been intensifying its intervention in the South China Sea relying on decrees issued by its previous proxy President Benigno (Noynoy) Aquino, III (2010-2016).\u00a0 These, however, were not ratified by the Congress and had been challenged by the Philippine Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Washington\u2019s entire pivot to Asia<\/em>\u201d has centered its vast military build-up on its access to the Philippines.\u00a0 This access is now at risk.\u00a0 Newly elected President Rodrigo Duterte, who succeeded Aquino in June 2016, is pursuing an independent foreign policy, with the aim of transforming the impoverished Philippines from a subservient US military colony to opening large-scale, long-term economic trade and development ties with China and other regional economic powers.\u00a0 Duterte has openly challenged the US policy of using the Philippines to encircle and provoke China.<\/p>\n

The Philippine pivot to China\u201d quickly advanced from colorful rhetoric to a major trade and investment meeting of President Duterte and a huge delegation of Philippine business leaders with his Chinese counterparts in Beijing in late October 2016.\u00a0 During his first 3 months in office Duterte blasted Washington for meddling in his ongoing campaign against drug lords and dealers.\u00a0 Obama\u2019s so-called \u2018concerns for human rights\u2019 in the anti-drug campaign were answered with counter-charges that the US had accommodated notorious narco-politician-oligarchs to further its military base expansion program.\u00a0 President Duterte\u2019s war on drugs expanded well beyond the alleged US narco-elite alliance when he proposed two strategic changes: (1) he promised to end the US-Philippine sea patrols of disputed waters designed to provoke Beijing in the South China Sea; and (2) President Duterte announced he would end military exercises with Washington, especially in Mindanao, because they threatened China and undermined Philippine sovereignty.<\/p>\n

President Duterte, in pursuit of his independent nationalist-agenda, has moved rapidly and decisively to strengthen the Philippines \u2018pivot\u2019 toward China, which in the context of Southeast Asia is really \u2018normalizing\u2019 trade and investment relations with his giant neighbor.\u00a0 During the third week of October (2016) President Duterte, his political team and 250 business leaders met with China\u2019s leaders to discuss multi-billion-dollar investment projects and trade agreements, as well as closer diplomatic relations.\u00a0 The initial results, which promise to expand even more, are over $13 billion dollars in trade and critical infrastructure projects.\u00a0 As the Philippine\u2019s pivot to China advances, the quid pro quo will lead to a profound change in the politics and militarization of Southeast Asian.\u00a0 Without total US control over the Philippines, Washington\u2019s strategic arc of encirclement against China is broken.<\/p>\n

According to a recent ruling by the Philippine Supreme Court, the controversial US military base agreement (Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement) imposed by the former President Aquino by fiat without congressional ratification can be terminated by the new President by executive order.\u00a0 This ruling punches some major holes in what the Pentagon had considered its \u2018ironclad\u2019 stranglehold on the strategic Philippine bases.<\/p>\n

The Duterte government has repeatedly announced its administration\u2019s commitment to a program of economic modernization and social reconstruction for Philippine society.\u00a0 That agenda can only be advanced through changes that include multi-billion dollar infrastructure investments, loans and technical cooperation from China, whereas remaining a backward US military colony will not only threaten their Asian economic partners, but will condemn the Philippines to yet another generation of stagnation and corruption.\u00a0 Unique in Southeast Asia, the Philippines has long been mired in underdevelopment, forcing half of its qualified workforce to seek contract servitude abroad, while at home the society has become victims of drug and human trafficking gangs linked to the oligarchs.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

Washington\u2019s \u2018pivot to Asia\u2019, enshrined in its effort to corral the Asian countries into its anti-China crusade is not going as the Obama-Clinton-Kerry team had envisioned.\u00a0 It is proving to be a major foreign policy debacle for the outgoing and (presumably) incoming US presidential administrations.\u00a0 Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton has been forced to denounce the Transpacific Trade Partnership (TPP), one of her own pet projects when she was Secretary of State.\u00a0 The Pentagon\u2019s military base strategy stuck in a 1980\u2019s time-warped vision of Southeast Asia is on the verge of imploding.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0The Philippines, its former colony and vassal state, is finally turning away from its total subservience to US military dictates and toward greater independence and stronger regional ties to China and the rest of Asia.\u00a0 Southeast Asia and the South China Sea are no longer part of a grand chessboard subject to Pentagon moves for domination.<\/p>\n

In desperation, Washington may decide to resort to a military power grab\u2013 a coup in the Philippines, backed by a coalition of Manila-based oligarchs, narco-bosses and generals.\u00a0 The problem with a precipitate move to \u2018regime change\u2019 is that Rodrigo Duterte is immensely popular with the Philippine electorate \u2013 precisely for the reasons that the Washington elite and Manila oligarchs despise him.\u00a0 The mayor of Manila, Joseph Estrada, himself a former victim of a Washington-instigated regime change, has stated that any US backed coup will face a million-member mass opposition and the bulk of the nationalist middle and powerful Chinese-oriented business class.\u00a0 A failed coup, like the disastrous coup in Venezuela in 2002 against Hugo Chavez could radicalize Duterte\u2019s policy well beyond his staunchly nationalist agenda and further isolate the US.<\/p>\n

James Petras is a Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York.<\/em>\u00a0 James <\/strong>latest book from Clarity Press: ISBN: 978-0-9972870-5-9, $24.95 \/ 252 pp. \/ 2016\u00a0http:\/\/www.claritypress.com\/PetrasVIII.html<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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By James Petras\u00a0Courtesy\u00a0“Information Clearing House“ October 25, 2016 “Information Clearing House” – In 2012 President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Ashton Carter launched a new chapter in their quest for global dominance:\u00a0 a realignment of policies designed to shift priorities from the Middle East to Asia.\u00a0 Dubbed the \u2018Pivot to Asia\u2019, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60108\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}