(Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III / The Daily Tribune / 06-11-201
Last Monday the University of the Philippines Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea sponsored a round table discussion with Georgetown University professor and former Central Intelligence Agency China expert, Prof. Robert G. Sutter, on the US role in the China Sea crisis. The Malcolm Hall seminar room was packed with eminent experts in relevant fields aplenty, such as former UP President Dodong Nemenzo, acclaimed international correspondent Chito Sta. Romana, writer Richard Javad Heydarian, former ambassador to ASEAN Wilfrido V. Villacorta, security expert Romel Banlaoi, journalist Ellen Tordesillas, and many others.
Prof. Sutter’s books take up two pages on Amazon.com. On the Internet I found Sutter involved in a controversial refusal of cooperation with a Federal Bureau of Investigation “sting,” as well as in appeals for help in tracking Chinese spies, urging others to do likewise. Sutter covered a very wide range of issues and never left any doubt as to his view of China as an “aggressor” and the usefulness of the US to its ASEAN allies in counterbalancing China. Even though Sutter maintained a scholarly demeanor in his talk, to my mind, several lines betrayed the disingenuousness intention.
Sutter admits that a power shift has occurred in Asia with the ascendance of China and the decline of the US. In explaining the US “rebalancing” (a.k.a. “pivot”) to Asia, Sutter admitted US perception that the future is in Asia and that Barack Obama is giving the “pivot” high priority. He reiterated several times that the US is here to stay because Asia is important for “US jobs” and in order “to pursue free trade policies”--reflecting a US fear of growing Asian skepticism of US reliability. But Sutter emphasized that the US is not out to isolate China; only to engage it. One of what I thought was a very disingenuous line of his was when he posed this question regarding China’s peaceful intentions vis-à-vis its economic success: “Why are they (the Chinese) building their military if they are peaceful?”
As echoed by former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in his speech at the Pentagon in 2005, every student of international relations and diplomacy knows that “Weakness is provocative.” As such, defense and military capability is essential for nation-states serious with their sovereignty; and China is no different.
Another Sutter line that struck me as utterly disingenuous was “(the) US does not like war, neither does it like appeasement,” which reminded me immediately of the destruction of the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, now Syria; the US drone wars in Pakistan, Sudan, and Yemen; the West’s deployment of new troops to Africa; and US destabilization of Venezuela (and now, likely, Brazil to weaken BRICS), ad nausea.
Sutter emphasized what he sees as tense relations of China with its neighbors such as India, Pakistan, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and Indonesia while leaving out growing trade ties between India and China, the $4-billion gas deal between Russia and China, or how South Korea criticized Obama on Japan, etc.
Moreover, Sutter didn’t explain that the US “free trade” scheme in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which demands that other countries open their agricultural sector to US dumping, was rejected by South Korea and Japan, or that the TPP violates national sovereignty and prioritizes corporate power over human and economic rights of nations, which the Chinese trade pact, the Regional Cooperation Economic Partnership (RCEP) rejects in favor of respect of national economic sovereignty.
Sutter insists that the US is the “leader of Asia” (his words) because it provides “security and stability,” which Asians need because, as he claims, “Asians don’t like each other” and would require the US to mediate. And so, the US is willing to spend “$50-billion to stay” (perhaps militarily) in Asia.
When the open forum started, the first to raise a question was Dodong Nemenzo who inquired about how “ironclad” the guarantee of Obama was to defend the Philippines, to which Sutter had no satisfactory answer. Richard Heydarian then asked about the “nexus” of the Chinese people and the Chinese government’s policy on the China Sea claims, which Sutter had to admit was a serous factor as the Chinese have to respond to popular expectations.
Chito Sta. Romana asked whether China is claiming the seas or the islands (which has implications on adjacent waters). I later stood to lament the myopia of Philippine forums missing the timeline and broad geopolitical panorama: Tensions started with Obama’s “pivot,” followed by (US pawn) Japan’s “nationalization” of the Diaoyus, and the Philippine naval ship BRP Gregorio del Pilar’s arrest of Chinese fishermen at Scarborough.
Finally, I asked Sutter, “What is US retired Marine Colonel T.X. Hammes’ ‘Offshore Control’ war doctrine (which is the US plan to choke off China’s economy by closing the Malacca and Lombok straits)?”--to which he pleaded ignorance.
Is China then building the “artificial islands” as forward defense to preempt the US shift of 60 percent of its forces to Asia by 2020?
(Watch GNN Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 213, and www.gnntv-asia.com, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., this week on “Tiananmen: The whole truth”; tune in to 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m.; search Talk News TV and date of showing on YouTube; and visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)
Last Monday the University of the Philippines Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea sponsored a round table discussion with Georgetown University professor and former Central Intelligence Agency China expert, Prof. Robert G. Sutter, on the US role in the China Sea crisis. The Malcolm Hall seminar room was packed with eminent experts in relevant fields aplenty, such as former UP President Dodong Nemenzo, acclaimed international correspondent Chito Sta. Romana, writer Richard Javad Heydarian, former ambassador to ASEAN Wilfrido V. Villacorta, security expert Romel Banlaoi, journalist Ellen Tordesillas, and many others.
Prof. Sutter’s books take up two pages on Amazon.com. On the Internet I found Sutter involved in a controversial refusal of cooperation with a Federal Bureau of Investigation “sting,” as well as in appeals for help in tracking Chinese spies, urging others to do likewise. Sutter covered a very wide range of issues and never left any doubt as to his view of China as an “aggressor” and the usefulness of the US to its ASEAN allies in counterbalancing China. Even though Sutter maintained a scholarly demeanor in his talk, to my mind, several lines betrayed the disingenuousness intention.
Sutter admits that a power shift has occurred in Asia with the ascendance of China and the decline of the US. In explaining the US “rebalancing” (a.k.a. “pivot”) to Asia, Sutter admitted US perception that the future is in Asia and that Barack Obama is giving the “pivot” high priority. He reiterated several times that the US is here to stay because Asia is important for “US jobs” and in order “to pursue free trade policies”--reflecting a US fear of growing Asian skepticism of US reliability. But Sutter emphasized that the US is not out to isolate China; only to engage it. One of what I thought was a very disingenuous line of his was when he posed this question regarding China’s peaceful intentions vis-à-vis its economic success: “Why are they (the Chinese) building their military if they are peaceful?”
As echoed by former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in his speech at the Pentagon in 2005, every student of international relations and diplomacy knows that “Weakness is provocative.” As such, defense and military capability is essential for nation-states serious with their sovereignty; and China is no different.
Another Sutter line that struck me as utterly disingenuous was “(the) US does not like war, neither does it like appeasement,” which reminded me immediately of the destruction of the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, now Syria; the US drone wars in Pakistan, Sudan, and Yemen; the West’s deployment of new troops to Africa; and US destabilization of Venezuela (and now, likely, Brazil to weaken BRICS), ad nausea.
Sutter emphasized what he sees as tense relations of China with its neighbors such as India, Pakistan, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and Indonesia while leaving out growing trade ties between India and China, the $4-billion gas deal between Russia and China, or how South Korea criticized Obama on Japan, etc.
Moreover, Sutter didn’t explain that the US “free trade” scheme in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which demands that other countries open their agricultural sector to US dumping, was rejected by South Korea and Japan, or that the TPP violates national sovereignty and prioritizes corporate power over human and economic rights of nations, which the Chinese trade pact, the Regional Cooperation Economic Partnership (RCEP) rejects in favor of respect of national economic sovereignty.
Sutter insists that the US is the “leader of Asia” (his words) because it provides “security and stability,” which Asians need because, as he claims, “Asians don’t like each other” and would require the US to mediate. And so, the US is willing to spend “$50-billion to stay” (perhaps militarily) in Asia.
When the open forum started, the first to raise a question was Dodong Nemenzo who inquired about how “ironclad” the guarantee of Obama was to defend the Philippines, to which Sutter had no satisfactory answer. Richard Heydarian then asked about the “nexus” of the Chinese people and the Chinese government’s policy on the China Sea claims, which Sutter had to admit was a serous factor as the Chinese have to respond to popular expectations.
Chito Sta. Romana asked whether China is claiming the seas or the islands (which has implications on adjacent waters). I later stood to lament the myopia of Philippine forums missing the timeline and broad geopolitical panorama: Tensions started with Obama’s “pivot,” followed by (US pawn) Japan’s “nationalization” of the Diaoyus, and the Philippine naval ship BRP Gregorio del Pilar’s arrest of Chinese fishermen at Scarborough.
Finally, I asked Sutter, “What is US retired Marine Colonel T.X. Hammes’ ‘Offshore Control’ war doctrine (which is the US plan to choke off China’s economy by closing the Malacca and Lombok straits)?”--to which he pleaded ignorance.
Is China then building the “artificial islands” as forward defense to preempt the US shift of 60 percent of its forces to Asia by 2020?
(Watch GNN Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 213, and www.gnntv-asia.com, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., this week on “Tiananmen: The whole truth”; tune in to 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m.; search Talk News TV and date of showing on YouTube; and visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)
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