U.S. Fails To Find Allies For Waging War On China

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DISPATCHES FROM MOON OF ALABAMA, BY "B"
This article is part of an ongoing series of dispatches from Moon of Alabama


The U.S. wants to counter China's growing economic and political standing in the world.

The Obama administration had attempted a 'pivot to Asia' by building a low tariff economic zone via the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). It would have excluded China. The Trump administration rejected the TPP and withdrew from it. It launched an economic war against China by increasing tariffs on Chinese products, prohibiting high tech supplies to Chinese manufacturers, and by denying Chinese companies access to its market. 

Obama's TPP never really took off. Here he is flanked by regional leaders, the most important representing the Japanese satrapy.

It has also tried to build a military coalition that would help it to threaten China. It revived the 2007-2008 Quadrilateral Security Dialogue and rebranded it as the U.S.-Australia-India-Japan Consultations Quad. The aim was to turn it into an Asian NATO under U.S. command:

The U.S. State Department’s No. 2 diplomat said Monday that Washington was aiming to “formalize” growing strategic ties with India, Japan and Australia in a forum known as “the Quad” — a move experts say is implicitly designed to counter China in the Indo-Pacific region.

“It is a reality that the Indo-Pacific region is actually lacking in strong multilateral structures. They don’t have anything of the fortitude of NATO, or the European Union,” U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun said in an online seminar on the sidelines of the annual U.S.-India Strategic Partnership Forum.

“There is certainly an invitation there at some point to formalize a structure like this,” he added.

But it turns out that neither Australia nor Japan nor India have any interest in a hard stand towards China. All look to China as an important trade partner. They know that any conflict with it would cost them dearly.

On October 6 Secretary of State Mike Pompeo flew to Tokyo for a meeting with the other foreign ministers of the Quad. He soon found that no one would join him in his militant talk:

In a meeting with foreign ministers from Japan, India and Australia in Tokyo, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged on Tuesday that they strengthen their quartet of democracies to resist an increasingly assertive China.
...
If, as it appeared, Pompeo was pushing other members of the Quad to take the U.S. side in a confrontation with China, he did not score any ringing public endorsements, and his remarks clashed with those of his host.

Pompeo aimed straight at the Chinese Communist Party in remarks before the four nations' top diplomats sat down to talk.

"As partners in this Quad, it is more critical now than ever that we collaborate to protect our people and partners from the CCP's exploitation, corruption and coercion," he said.

But Japan's chief government spokesman, Katsunobu Kato, insisted at a press briefing Tuesday: "This Quad meeting is not being held with any particular country in mind."

Australia and India were similarly reluctant to say anything that would potentially offend China.

Pompeo's initiative has failed. The former Indian ambassador M. K. Bhadrakumar explains why the Quad won't fly:

China cannot be beaten since, unlike the USSR, it is part of the same global society as the US. Look at the sheer spread of the US-China battlefields — global governance, geoeconomics, trade, investment, finance, currency usage, supply chain management, technology standards and systems, scientific collaboration and so on. It speaks of China’s vast global reach. This wasn’t the case with USSR.

Above all, China has no messianic ideology to export and prefers to set a model by virtue of its performance. It is not in the business of instigating regime change in other countries, and actually gets along rather well with democracies.
...
The US created the ASEAN but today no Asian security partner wants to choose between America and China. The ASEAN cannot be repurposed to form a coalition to counter China. Thus, no claimant against China in the South China Sea is prepared to join the US in its naval fracas with China.

China has resources, including money, to offer its partners, whereas, the US budget is in chronic deficit and even routine government operations must now be funded with debt. It needs to find resources needed to keep its human and physical infrastructure at levels competitive with those of China and other great economic powers.

Why on earth should India get entangled in this messy affair whose climax is a foregone conclusion?
...
China has no need to fight wars when it is already winning.

The U.S. also tried to incite its European NATO allies to take a stand against China:

NATO's Jens Stoltenberg continues to distinguish himself for loyal service to the empire. A modern Quisling to Europe and the world.


NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned Saturday that China's increasing influence had created a "fundamental shift in the global balance of power" that should not be overlooked.

In an interview with Germany's Welt am Sonntag newspaper, that was released in advance, the Norwegian official said that Beijing had the second-largest defense budget in the world after the United States, and was investing heavily in nuclear weapons and long-range missiles that could reach Europe.

"One thing is clear: China is coming ever closer to Europe's doorstep," he said. "NATO allies must face this challenge together."

That initiative will sink in Europe just as fast as the Quad initiative has sunk in Asia and for the very same reasons. China is not an ideological or military danger to Europe. It is an economic behemoth and relation with it need to be carefully handled. They require respect and talks and not saber rattling.

China has overtaken the U.S. as the EU's biggest trading partner:

In the first seven months of 2020, China surpassed the United States to become the biggest trading partner of the European Union (EU), said Eurostat, the EU's statistics organisation.
...
The EU's imports from China increased by 4.9 per cent year-on-year in the January-July period, noted Eurostat.

According to the Federal Statistical Office of Germany, the largest economy in the EU, China, Germany's biggest trading partner since 2016, surpassed the United States for the first time in the second quarter of this year to become Germany's largest export market, and Germany's exports to China in July have rebounded almost to last year's level.

It is time for the U.S. to look into a mirror and to awake to reality. It is highly indebted country with a way too expensive but ineffective military. Over the last decades its economic role in the world has continuously declined. The constant militant positions and 'do as we say' attitude has alienated its allies. Without allies the U.S. has no chance of defeating China in any potential conflict.

What the U.S. still could do is to honestly compete with China. But that would require humility, a strong industrial policy and a well paid and competitive work force.

None of that is in sight.

Posted by b on October 14, 2020 at 17:07 UTC | Permalink

Comments Sampler

 

Instead of competing honestly, the US engages in massive propaganda, subversion and destabilization in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, sanctions, extortion and mafioso thuggery (ex. waylaying and threatening a very long US incarceration of Huawei's founder's daughter, Tik Tok), making up rules, etc.

Or put in the words of "We lied, we cheated, we stole" Pompeo's Orwellian projections, the US engages in "exploitation, corruption and coercion."

A psychopath/sociopath often seeks to turn others against their target. Such is the behaviour of the US as well-personified by Pompeo.

Posted by: Canadian Cents | Oct 14 2020 17:39 utc | 1

The little US vassal that could...

Trudeau Vows to Stand Up to China's 'Coercive Diplomacy'

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-trudeau-vows-to-stand-up-to-chinas-coercive-diplomacy/

"Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada intends to work with allies to challenge the Chinese government's 'coercive diplomacy'."  And it's working...

Toronto Launches Campaign to Combat Rise in Anti-East Asian Racism

https://dailyhive.com/toronto/toronto-campaign-anti-east-asian-racism-covid-19

"...More than 600 incidents of anti-Asian racism have been reported across Canada since the onset of COVID-19. Assault accounted for nearly 30% of the reported incidents. Verbal harassment - including name-calling, swearing, racial slurs and threats - occurred in 65% of reports. Sixty percent of all incidents were reported by women."

Posted by: John Gilberts | Oct 14 2020 17:53 utc | 2

U.S. compete honestly against China? Ho, ho, ho, the U.S. is not in any position to do so, because so much of their "work force" is incompetent for lack of education, or on drugs.

Posted by: Robert | Oct 14 2020 17:56 utc | 3

In order to maintain the US Dollar as a world reserve currency, we need to run trade deficits. Offshoring to China does this and solves other problems as well such as increasing corporate profits, suppressing wage growth and masking inflation with cheap imports. It even stimulates military spending due to obsolescence from industrial espionage and to counter PRC investments in their military from profits made from US businesses that relocated to China.

It’s a win-win! Just not to the average US citizen.

Posted by: Kevin | Oct 14 2020 17:59 utc | 4

The problem is the ussa is losing the means to ‘reach out and touch’, other than its vast military machine ...and it is becoming increasingly difficult to fund. If we can get past the next 5 to 10 years, the ussa will be past any real ability to screw with the world as they have, since 1945.

Posted by: James j | Oct 14 2020 18:03 utc | 5

Oh, the sweet delusions of a dying empire!

Posted by: Nathan Mulcahy | Oct 14 2020 18:03 utc | 6

Australia has actually been an eager accomplice (rather pathetically so along with the rest of the Five Eyes countries) of the US in the economic war on China, and India's desire to not participate in OBOR while offering their own (not very good) counterpart also makes them an ally of the US. However, there's a difference between having the courage to join the US in sanctions and propaganda to actually be ready to field forces...

Posted by: worldblee | Oct 14 2020 18:04 utc | 7

thanks b.... so true everything you say...

@ 2 john gilberts... canada is quickly becoming irrelevant... i guess it is doing what the usa is presently doing - becoming irrelevant... remember we are swamped with msm bs 24-7 in canada coming from the usa.. it is no surprise some of this shit sticks in small people's minds... the fiasco with hauwei is a good example of how wrong canada has got all of this...

Posted by: james | Oct 14 2020 18:07 utc | 8

"What the U.S. still could do is to honestly compete with China. But that would require humility, a strong industrial policy and a well paid and competitive work force."

Totally agree with the US needing some serious soul searching and finally ending this "if i dont get laid, then no one else gets laid" cockblocking attitude to international affairs... but as far that 'well paid workforce'.. i'm afraid that is precisely why it has been losing out to China: even US companies have outsourced their labour there to save costs.

It could compete like Germany does, in quality products and high end manufacturing, but time is fast running out there too. Just look at how Japan's car manufacturing has gone from cheap tin can crappy cars, to winning LeMans and Formula 1 titles in just a few decades Toyota is now the world's largest car manufacturer and a leader in electric mobility going forward. How long before China joins them?

Posted by: Et Tu | Oct 14 2020 18:15 utc | 10

Who'll fight China? Pomp-ass by himself, supposedly the first in his class?

Senior Lebanese political analyst Anees Naqqash predicts that an American ‘civil war’ will ensue from the 2020 US presidential election on November 3, regardless of whether Donald Trump wins or loses the election.

https://thesaker.is/naqqash-i-predict-us-civil-war-after-2020-presidential-election/

Posted by: Nathan Mulcahy | Oct 14 2020 18:31 utc | 11

Shit hits the fan when dollar hegemony ends.

The Empire's power-elite would rather have war than see that happen.

Western elites/Deep State crossed the Rubicon when they chose to enrich themselves and trample on human rights as they helped their main future strategic rival to rise. Who will fight - and die - for these corrupt asshats and their pampered progeny?

We will look back and marvel at the legendary hubris and greed. And the disastrous aftermath.

!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Oct 14 2020 18:31 utc | 12

SEATO - 1954 - 1977 did not work either.

Posted by: Dorian | Oct 14 2020 18:36 utc | 13

. It may be a bit of a mouthful to swallow, but whenever there is some doubt about his meaning you can always reach out for the POPCORN which will bring much needed clarity.
-----------

Seriously, I am wondering why some of the wonkier Politicians and military industrial types are not subject to obligatory tests for their mental abilities. At the same time that the US navy was sailing ever closer to fully armed Chinese troops in the Pacific and the Chinese mainland, the US airforce has been parading 48 nuclear warheads in B-52's at 100 kms from Murmansk, and even closer to the enclave of Kalingrad.

Obviously the "Thinking heads" are safely hidden in Bunkers in New Zealand or false ski-resorts in South America. But we in Europe are where all the fallout will happen. They are calmly considering about 750 million deaths in the EU as "collateral damage", plus the millions (billions?) in China, Russia and other places on maps in front of them.

MAD was mad because "they" (incuding scientists) would have overkilled the entire human population many, many times. (100x ?) This time, the same type of people are only planning to kill the entire populations of a couple of continents.

Posted by: Stonebird | Oct 14 2020 18:36 utc | 14

 

 

 


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About the author(s)

"b" is Moon of Alabama's founding (and chief) editor.  This site's purpose is to discuss politics, economics, philosophy and blogger Billmon's Whiskey Bar writings. Moon Of Alabama was opened as an independent, open forum for members of the Whiskey Bar community.  Bernhard )"b") started and still runs the site. Once in a while you will also find posts and art from regular commentators. You can reach the current administrator of this site by emailing Bernhard at MoonofA@aol.com

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