It is only the US as principal sponsor, supported by Australia and United Kingdom, a co-broker in building and supply of nuclear-powered submarine
The US is again promoting to form an alliance from among its allies in Asia principally aimed at containing China’s alleged aggressive behavior in the South China Sea.
What is rather strange to the formation of a new alliance is that it comes at a time when there exists an unavoidable competition between the US and China with respect to the maintenance of who should dominate the area and an indigenous power in the SCS.
Geographically, China is a part of the SCS, yet has not done anything to solidify its position in a manner of asserting US-like hegemonistic control of the area.
Examining this eagerness of the US to form an alliance, US motive is exposed not only for fear that China might economically overtake the US as the dominant power and witness how the region of South East Asia is slowly put under the firm control of China’s economic domination.
It is not only the fear of seeing China overtake the US in the field of economy it once mightily monopolized.
There are also fear and anxiety for it seems the US feels uncomfortable with China as a powerful nation to reckon with.
As said, the US is not part of the SCS.
Its shore is across the Pacific Ocean which is more than 9 thousand kilometers (straight line flight distance) measured from the shores of Hawaii which is located midway across the Pacific.
Its eagerness to have as many allies is to secure its economic interest.
With many states in the region falling to its hegemonic control, it is better for US to secure its insecurity through the exercise of the infamous Monroe Doctrine in Asia.
The US could not do anything because many of its allies it has enticed to join have their reservation and have their bad experience in dealing with them.
Many of these ethnic Asians had their sad historical dealings with them. They did not only suffer discrimination but have often been treated as inferior.
Take the case of Filipino soldiers who served during the war against Japan.
As soldiers, many of them received a much less amount of pension pay, not to mention the delay in giving them their pay plus the promise to pay damages to every nipa hut and carabaos killed during the war.
In fact, it took more than 25 years for the Filipinos to get their war damage claim.
Not only ethnically Asians have their reservation to receiving their benefits.
For instance, inviting Japan and South Korea to join the alliance is believed by many as a risky proposition.
Maybe they do not share the same mentality as the Vietnamese to set aside their animosities but as it is, the Japanese and the South Koreans maintain their sense of patriotism.
It is doubtful whether they could easily forget the grim past done to them after the Second World War.
Let us enumerate the countries lined up by the US that now stand as the leading crusaders in the renewed Cold War against China.
First, the US itself. Unlike the previous alliances spearheaded by the US during the Cold War against the communist states of the then Soviet Union and China, practically all the blocs created to contain these two socialist giants were all spearheaded by the US.
That stand taken by the US removes all the doubts of any ulterior motivation the US has against these two countries like promoting the unique concept of proxy war against China.
Unlike the alliances formed during the height of the Cold War in the 50s like the defunct Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), that bloc was formally organized by the US.
Countries in Southeast Asia have no other reason not to join. Nonetheless, France and Pakistan withdrew from SEATO while Indonesia remained loyal to the non-aligned bloc.
Nonetheless, during the period of our country’s interlude to political enlightenment when the US engineered the ouster of President Ferdinand E. Marcos, SEATO almost became a defunct alliance.
That of course was aggravated by the US defeat in Vietnam in 1973.
SEATO was almost a dead organization with the Philippines working on a formula that would allow it to have graceful exit which was finalized in September 1991.
In fact, the Philippines is the only country in the world today that dutifully ate what we have regurgitated by begging the US to return their bases, ignoring that the US, as our colonizer, decimated 10 percent of the nation’s population then.
Many of our political analysts wonder what kind of spell did the US give to our current leadership that they completely forgot that our current woes with China stemmed from the fact that the US and Spain signed the Treaty of Paris on December 10, 1898, and now questioning China for the boundaries they demarcated.
The two other countries the US is goading to join the bloc to effectively contain China are Japan and South Korea.
Asians should bear in mind that Japan and South Korea are both Asian countries.
Second, both have been bombed by the US with Japan being nuked twice in WWII, resulting in the evaporation of 250 thousand Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
After Second World War, the US waged a relentless economic war against the sale of Japanese cars.
To offset the huge trade deficit, it compelled Japan to revalue the yen to make the importation of US cars and other Japanese manufactured goods saleable in the US.
This put pressure on Japan’s economy that resulted in a decade-long recession and prolonged unemployment.
As a result of that US economic decision, Japan was overtaken by Germany, South Korea, Taiwan and many European countries.
South Korea may have fought against North Korea and China combined but every North Korean could not forget that there was no building standing intact as a result of US carpet-bombing of North Korea, not to mention the use of chemical and biological weapons by the US during the Korean War.
If one would ask, can the US trust these two Asian countries as allies against China which has its legitimate position being there in the SCS?
Unfortunately, there is a building up of tension by a country which is alien to the region.
As most political observers noted, this new alliance formed by the US has all the marking of a proxy war principally because it is sponsored by country alien to the South China Sea, an area way far off from its territory.
In fact, it is only the US as principal sponsor, supported by Australia and United Kingdom, a co-broker in building and supply of nuclear-powered submarine.
Japan and South Korea are made eager to join on the lucrative promise made by US arms dealers that they will have a splice in the arms deal should they join the bloc and participate in containing China in the South China Sea.
(rpkapunan@gmail.com)
