Asian NATO-like project to be stopped (I)

By Andrew KORYBKO (USA)

Benigno Aquino III, current filipino president

Benigno Aquino III, president of the Philippines, the third (or fourth?) Aquino to hold the title, and poster boy for a comprador dynasty of notorious American colaborators. The US is good at finding such “dynastic” leaders among the native bourgeoisie of underdeveloped countries. In Nicaragua they found a close equivalent, the Chamorros. The US plutocracy and its agents in the government feel instinctively comfortable with the well off of other nations, with whom they form strong alliances to maintain a reactionary status quo. Is it any surprise that this imperial puppet should be the linchpin of the new anti-China coalition?

The US’ Pivot to Asia (P2A) is obviously aimed against China, and Washington’s ultimate plan has always been to assemble a coalition of countries that can contain the global supergiant. As the Pivot enters its fourth year soon, the contours of the Chinese Containment Coalition (CCC) are beginning to take shape, and it’s become evident that it’s going to be centered on the Philippines.
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The island chain’s geopolitical connectivity potential can easily be harnessed to link together the CCC’s various players, and it’s also subservient enough to the US to the degree that it has ignored the exceptionally dangerous consequences of potentially hosting multilateral forward operating bases against China. As apocalyptic as the US’ end game scenario may be for regional multipolarity, it’s not at all assured to succeed, as there are quite a few contingencies that could develop between all of its assorted partners in preventing them from linking up in the Philippines and actualizing the Asian NATO. The article is thus divided into two parts; the first one describes the forecasted composition of the Asian NATO and explains the bilateral relationships that make it possible, while the second one investigates the multitude of factors that could impede its formation and/or lead to its eventual unravelling.

The Asian NATO

Prior to commencing the study, one must first understand exactly what is meant by the “Asian NATO”. The author explored the genesis of this concept in his earlier work on how The US Is Juggling Chaos And Coordination To Contain China, and it boils down to formalizing the CCC in order to simultaneously split ASEAN between anti-Chinese states (like the Philippines) and those that behave pragmatically towards it (like Cambodia), and create a formalized mechanism for the US to coordinate further anti-Chinese moves in the region. The Philippines are the logical staging ground for this endeavor owing to its de-facto mutual defense guarantee with the US and the overlapping strategic partnerships that it has with Japan and soon Vietnam (which are its first and second respectively, not counting the ‘special relationship’ with its former American colonizer).

Baits and Lures

The overall idea is for the island chain to act as a geographic facilitator in linking together both of its strategic partners under American guidance in order to enhance their combined ability to coordinate anti-Chinese actions in the East and South China island disputes. Additionally, because of the Philippines own spat with China, it could also be used as a ‘sacrificial lamb’ in provoking a small-scale military engagement with China (one in which the US would purposely refrain from participating in) in order to test the People’s Liberation Army-Navy’s responses and assist with the crafting of more effective anti-Chinese tactical maneuvers by the Asian NATO. Or, in a variation of this scenario, it could become the Asian application of the Reverse Brzezinski policy of luring China into a strategic military trap by using its small and provocative neighboring maritime state as bait. Unlike Ukraine, which has no formalized mutual defense relationship with the US, the Philippines could call upon the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement in order to turn even the tiniest exchange of fire into a global hot spot of brinksmanship between the US and China, thus giving it a freakishly disproportionate weight in international affairs.

The ‘Backwards L’

Japan:

Shinzo Abe, chauvinistic and militaristic leader of Japan, and eager player in the American maneuver to encircle China and rearm Japan. Abe stands out among the corrupt, pathetically servile politicians of postwar Japan, which is something of an accomplishment.

The function of a Japan-Philippines-Vietnam axis is to create a ‘backwards L’ of military containment in order to ‘box’ China inside mainland Asia, with the Philippines being the fulcrum of this entity. Japan is the most active Lead From Behind proponent of this policy, taking the initiative (under American instruction) to authorize both the sales of weapons and the deployment of troops abroad. Considering the strategic partnership between them and how each has their own island disputes with China, it’s logical to conclude that Japan will seek to make the Philippines the central focus of both anti-Chinese policy manifestations. The Diplomat reported at the end of June that this certainly seems to be in the cards, with Tokyo preparing to sell Manilla a slew of naval and air units in exchange for a “Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA)” that could allow it to deploy its first foreign forces since World War II. One should also be reminded that both sides held their second-ever naval drills this summer together with the US, showing that there’s actual substance to their strategic partnership and that it’s not just rhetorically based.

Vietnam:

The other end of the ‘backwards L’, Vietnam, is also increasing its interactions with the Philippines, as the slated strategic partnership attests. Last May, military units from the two sides symbolicallyenjoyed a game of football together on one of the South China Sea’s disputed islands (the second time they have done so), showing that each of them is serious about working together to confront China in this region. The aforecited article also details some of the bilateral military cooperation between both sides, with each country’s navy calling port at the other and even holding informal discussions on setting up joint patrols in the area. It’s highly predicted that the signing of a strategic partnership between them will lead to an acceleration of military cooperation, and furthermore, will even put Vietnam and Japan’s militaries into direct contact with the other via the Philippines’ geographic intermediary function, which also accomplishes a contingent goal of the US’ P2A by having both CCC anchors enhance their full spectrum bilateral relations (especially in the military field).

Incorporating South Korea

In essence, there are actually two CCC axes that the US is building and wants to unite, and these are the ones between Vietnam-The Philippines (already discussed) and Japan-South Korea. To say a few words about the latter, it’s still not entirely certain that Seoul will commit to joining the CCC. For example, even though it’s part of a trilateral information sharing mechanism between it, Japan, and the US ostensibly against North Korea (which could realistically be turned against China in the future), it’s also being wooed by China through the recently inked Free Trade Agreement and has been ambivalent about hosting the US’ THAAD “missile defense” units (potentially even going it alone to produce its own domestic version instead).

Still, this hasn’t halted the country’s interest in cooperating with the Philippines, the magnetic center of geopolitical attraction to all members of the CCC community. The country’s Defense Minister visitedthe island nation earlier this month to discuss future military collaboration (as of now, just weapons sales and technical assistance), but such a big step could also help further last year’s proposal for the two countries to enter into a strategic partnership with one another. While South Korea doesn’t have any island disputes with China and behaves moderately friendly towards it in a military sense (not counting the anti-Chinese agenda of the thousands of US troops that are based there), if it got caught up in the CCC’s intrigue inside the Philippines, bilateral relations could certainly suffer as a result of the heightened and warranted suspicions that China would inevitably have towards its maritime neighbor.

With or without South Korea’s incorporation (which is still questionable), however, the central axis of Japan-Philippines-Vietnam still represents a formidable threat to China, but the auxiliary participation of the peninsular state would definitely contribute to its enhanced effectiveness, and it’s worthy to monitor any forthcoming decisions that its leadership takes in this regard.

The Greater CCC

India:

On the topic of auxiliary members in the CCC, one must inevitably consider India’s inclusion and the anticipated role that Australia will also play. Looking at the first, New Delhi under Prime Minister Modi has been increasingly assertive of its foreign interests, and this includes the evolution of its “Look East” policy to one of “Act East”. One of the highlights of the US’ new National Security Strategy is to assist India in the application of this new policy, with the understood overtone that it’ll be directed against China in Southeast Asia and the South China Sea. As India finally grows out of its South Asian neighborhood and begins exploring its role in the global context, it’s entirely possible that it could take on the role of anti-Chinese vanguard if certain American-hoped-for conditions are met, specifically the intensification of Indian-Filipino military relations that seem to be directed against China. If the Philippines go as far as establishing a strategic partnership with India that draws the country into contact with the nascent Asian NATO that’s forming there, then it would confirm Beijing’s suspicions that India does in fact intend to challenge it in the region, likely on the US’ Lead From Behind behalf.

Australia:

The second auxiliary anchor, Australia, has an entirely self-interested reason to get involved, and this is to counter its regional Indonesian rival and open up a second front of pressure that could possibly be applied against it in the future. The two countries have been competing with one another for some time, and Australia bases all of its regional policies around the issue of how they relate to this rivalry. Thus, the twin military exercises that it plans to hold with the Philippines this year (built on the basis of a 1995 defense cooperation memorandum) aren’t so much directed against China as they are against Indonesia, at least in Australia’s strategic calculations. The island-continent just signed a free trade agreement with China earlier this summer, so it would be entirely schizophrenic for it to totally turn against its largest economic partner at this moment. Rather, it’s paying superficial homage to the US’ CCC in order to please its ‘big brother’ while simultaneously maneuvering itself into a more beneficial position vis-à-vis Indonesia, which incidentally, also satisfies another American goal pertaining to the P2A.

To explain, the US wants to ensure that Indonesia does not become too pragmatically friendly in its relations with China, preferring instead for the country to remain the ‘Asian Yugoslavia’ as long as possible in the context of this New Cold War. To prevent Indonesia from acting out of line with American grand strategic interests, the US is using Australia to ‘box’ the country in, following the ‘backwards L’ template that it’s directed against China. Australian-Filipino military cooperation is the northern point of this construction, with the fulcrum being Australia’s political influence over former colony and LNG-rich Papua New Guinea and the de-facto protectorate that it’ll likely form over Bougainville Island after the mineral-rich province predictably votes for independence sometime before the referendum scheduled by 2020. Pertaining to Papua New Guinea’s LNG potential, between Total and Exxon’s investments, it has the capability of producing 13 million tons of LNG per year, or about 1/6 the output of Qatar, and about Bougainville, if it restarts operation of the world’s largest copper mine in Panguna and returnsoperating rights to Australian mining giant Rio Tinto, then Canberra would inevitably gain a strategic foothold over its government. Concurrent to its influence on the eastern part of the New Guinea island and its surroundings, Australia could also become a de-facto state sponsor of the West Papua independence movement (“Indonesia’s Katanga” in terms of its mineral wealth), which while havingstrong arguments in its favor and a lengthy list of documented and legitimate grievances, could see its cause hijacked by abroad for geopolitical ends and marketed as an “Asian Darfur”.
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Rounding out the ‘backwards L’ of Indonesian containment, over 1,000 US Marines are now routinely rotated out of the North Australian city of Darwin, thus adding a third lever of external pressure against the archipelago’s authorities. If one adds in the US’ regime change attempt in Malaysia (meticulouslyexposed by Tony Cartalucci), then an actual containment square emerges, whereby the country is faced with potentially hostile elements in its northwest (a Color Revolution government in Malaysia), northeast (the CCC/Asian NATO that could also turn against Indonesia), southeast (foreign influence over the Papuas), and southwest (American Marines in Darwin, Australian control over Christmas and Cocos Islands and American military interest there). Therefore, it’s becoming apparent that the containment of Indonesia is inseparable from the containment of China, as the former is entering into effect via moves euphemistically made in advancement of the latter, and this underreported element of the P2A certainly deserves further analytical attention from other researchers.

To be continued…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andrew Korybko is the American political commentaror currently working for the Sputnik agency.

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American plan for a South Asian “Kosovo” in Rohingyaland (I)

Andrew Korybko (USA)

Fleeing Myanmar for obscure reasons, many Rohingya try to escape to Bangladesh. The “Boat People” refugees are becoming a global problem.

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s complex as it may appear at times, the main consistency of US foreign policy is that it covers its pursuit of geopolitical self-interest with humanitarian and democratic rhetoric. There’s always an ulterior motive behind the US lecturing countries about ‘human rights’ and ‘democracy’, and those two key words should raise immediate red flags to any concerned decision makers in the targeted state that the US is addressing.
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Being the expert image manipulator that it is, the US never shies away from exploiting human tragedy for its own strategic ends, a lesson that everyone would do well remembering when considering the Rohingya issue in Myanmar. While there certainly are some legitimate grievances that the Rohingya are leveling against the authorities, it’s evident that the US is already exploiting them for its own geopolitical ends. Washington wants to establish a military presence in the Bay of Bengal in order to control China’s pipelines through Myanmar (both of which go through Rohingya-inhabited Rakhine State), but in order to get to that point, it first needs for the Rohingya to have their own autonomous or independent government there.

The first part begins by unravelling the layers of complex context related to the issue, before going into the specifics of the current migrant crisis. Part II then explains how the US aims to create an autonomous or independent Rohingyaland by capitalizing off of this tragedy, and concludes with an examination of the multifaceted benefits it would receive through the creation of the South Asian “Kosovo”.

Unscrambling The Context

The plight of the Rohingyas and their place in the bigger picture of American geostrategy against China can appear to be an overwhelmingly complex topic, but it can be subdivided into three simpler categories of general understanding; American grand strategy; Myanmar’s domestic affairs; and the Rihingyas’ situation. By breaking down the bigger, thematic picture into smaller, finer details, one should be able to acquire a more solid understanding of how the US is relentlessly pursuing its own self-interest at the Rohingyas’ expense.

American Grand Strategy:

The US’ post-Cold War foreign policy has hinged on adhering to Brzezinski’s ‘Eurasian Balkans’ concept, which essentially stipulates that the US could manipulate preexisting ethnic, religious, and territorial issues in Eurasia in order to prolong its control of the supercontinent. This can be done in two ways: the method of indirect disorder has the US utilizing proxy actors to stir endless chaos, much as it’s currently doing with ISIL in the Mideast; while direct control involves the US conventionally asserting its on-the-ground dominance, just like it did by building Camp Bondsteel (one of its largest European bases) in occupied Kosovo after the 1999 War on Yugoslavia. Indirect disorder can be used as a modus operandi for establishing direct control, and this is precisely the game that’s at play with Rohingyaland along the Bay of Bengal.

Myanmar:

No place in South or Southeast Asia is more susceptible to the Eurasian Balkans concept of American-directed strategic state fragmentation than Myanmar, which has been fighting the world’s longest-running civil war since 1948. To unduly simplify the conflict, it involves the majority Burmese ethnic group in the central part of the country fighting against the myriad minority groups along its periphery, with the rebels seeking a federation but the government fighting for the status quo unitary nature of the state. While the war has been at a stalemate for quite some time, the opening of a new rebel front in the Rohingya’s Rakhine State could be the strategic shift that’s needed to turn the tide against the government, as none of the other rebelling regions or ethnicities is located along the coast.

This factor is exceptionally important since it could enable a slew of foreign patrons to ship massive amounts of material support to the rebels, perhaps even using plausibly deniable methods such as flying other nations’ flags above their arms-running vessels. The inland rebels have no such tactical advantage in this regard, which may be part of the reason why they have yet to be successful in their half-century-long campaign. The addition of a pro-federation rebel movement capable of receiving such supplies could make the decisive difference in finally tipping the balance of power against the government’s forces.

Rohingya refugees picked up in Thailand.

Rohingyas:

The demographic subject of the present article is at odds with the Myanmar government over its identity. The 800,000–1-million-plus Rohingyas claim that they constitute a unique ethnic group, but Naypyidaw sees them as nothing more than the descendants of illegal Bengali migrants, some of whom even fought against the state on several occasions. As such, the government refuses to confer them with citizenship, thus leaving them stateless and unwittingly complicating the present migrant predicament (to be described in the next section). Worse still, because they’re not considered to be citizens, the state is reluctant to actively protect them from the sectarian purges carried out by the ‘Buddhist Bin Laden’ and his pro-Western hyper-nationalist thugs. Instead, it’s settled on a policy of segregation, preferring to force them into separate communities ostensibly out of concern for their own safety. Many Rohingya protest these living conditions that some claim are contrary to their human rights, hence why so many of them have decided to flee the country. Sensing a convenient opportunity for geopolitical benefit, the US has taken up the torch of Rohingya guardianship, advocating loudly in their favor and becoming their de-facto international patron.

The Current Crisis

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Rohingya had already been on the Western media radar since their 2012 persecution, but it’s the current migrant boat crisis that’s made their cause seemingly more urgent. While there are no clear-cut numbers available, the UN estimates that around 100,000 of them have fled by sea in the past three years, which would represent between 10-12% of their total population in Myanmar. These discomfiting numbers clearly indicate that there are some serious domestic issues in Myanmar motivating their exodus, but in and of themselves they’re not cause for direct humanitarian concern. The problem arose when it was reported in early May that around 6000 Rohingya were thought to be lost in the Andaman Sea after having been abandoned by their human traffickers, and genuine horror was experienced when 139 graves were later unearthed in Malaysia, believed to be of dead Rohingyas who perished before reaching their ultimate destination. The squalid camps alongside the Thai-Malaysian border that the illegal Rohingya migrants are regularly kept in have led many to believe that they’re either being abused or held captive by their traffickers. All of these dangers have combined to generate what the UN referred to early last month as a “looming humanitarian crisis”, and the deluge of fake images and internet memes related to the issue have contributed to a feeling of global urgency in addressing it.

Rohingya girl. Her beauty might spare her some of the hardships dealt to so many others.

Regional Response:

The destination states of Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia don’t want to accept any more migrants, having already absorbed tens of thousands of them in the past couple of years, and previously refused to let the stranded boats land on their territory. According to officials, Malaysia already has received 120,000 Rohingyas, while Thailand claims to be housing 100,000 as it is. Nonetheless, because of the exorbitant international pressure directed against them, all three states countries have agreed to temporarily house the at-sea migrants until they can be sent back home or to a third country, thereby abandoning their earlier policy of turning back the boats. While this may temporarily de-escalate the crisis and give the floating migrants a safe reprieve from the dangerous high seas, it doesn’t address the root cause of why the Rohingya are risking their lives to leave Myanmar in the first place, which is something the US intends to resolve.

Some are ready to "solve" the Rohingya at sword point. Anti-muslim sentiment is high in some areas.

Some are ready to “solve” the Rohingya problem at sword point. Anti-muslim sentiment is high in some areas.

Official Myanmar And Bengali Positions:

The issue becomes even more complicated when one takes into account Myanmar’s official position on the matter. Naypyidaw asserts that human trafficking networks are to blame, not government persecution, and that many of the illegal migrants in question are actually from Bangladesh. Government representatives have accused some of them of pretending to be Rohingyas so as to receive preferential aid from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees that they wouldn’t be able to procure with their actual Bengali identity. While critics might hark that Myanmar is lying about Bangladesh’s connection to the migrant boat crisis, the latter’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina decreed that those leaving the country illegally would be punished because they’re “tainting the image of the country in the international arena and putting their life into danger”, on top of being “mentally sick” in their pursuit for money abroad. No matter how one feels about Hasina’s comments, the fact that she addressed the topic in such a way confirms that the Bengali government acknowledges that their citizens are involved in this crisis and that it’s not completely about Rohingyas. Her statement lends credence to Myanmar’s claims that many of the migrants may actually be Bengali and inconveniently dismantles the Western media myth that anti-Rohingya persecution is to blame for the boat crisis.

To be continued…

[box] Andrew Korybko is a political analyst and journalist with Sputnik who currently lives and studies in Moscow, He publishes primarily on ORIENTAL REVIEW. [/box]

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