By Robert Farley—Commentary by
Douglas Macgregor
The sand islands in the SCS and
Senkaku/Daiyou island in the ECS are militarily irrelevant. We know from
WikiLeak sources that the Obama State Department was actually very irritated
with the Japanese who deliberately initiated this “Island Crisis” in both
locations.
We also know from publicly available
Japanese documents that the Chinese and Japanese in the 1970s both agreed to
shelve this issue indefinitely. The Chinese can’t nor are they willing to
invade the SE Asian countries. It’s beyond the limits of their resources and
military capabilities. The only country China has ever threatened to invade is
Taiwan and this is based on Taiwan’s use as Japan’s unsinkable aircraft carrier
and staging base from 1937 to 1945. However, China knows that directly
attacking Taiwan will result in conflict with Japan. Japan treats Taiwan’s
independence from China as a vital strategic interest. Thus, why would the
Chinese risk war with Japan when doing so could involve the United States as
well? Bottom Line: As long as Taiwan is not used as a launching point for
attack on and invasion of China, Beijing will register their discontent, but
otherwise leave Taiwan alone.
Trade with China should continue,
however, as President Elect Trump argues, the uneven trade regime must change
for the sake of American workers. Americans are unaware that President Clinton
set the terms of trade with China as part of the globalization strategy. These
favorable terms were based on the false assumption that trade with China would undermine
the Chinese Communist Government and produce democratic reform. Instead,
our trade with China simply made China wealthy and strengthened the Communist
Party’s legitimacy to rule. It was yet another monumental misunderstanding and
miscalculation by US and Western globalizationists. President-elect Trump can
change these terms because large American companies are already leaving China
for India and SE Asia. These moves are likely to disappoint, but the
urgency associated with leaving China is the suffocating corruption and
government demands inside China for greater profit sharing. It’s also part of
the relentless search for cheap labor. In the end, President-elect Trump’s
determination to end the American Left’s policies of punishing US industries
will do more to return industry to the US than any new, negotiated trade deal
with Beijing.
When it comes to North Korea, any
U.S. and ROK attack on North Korea will produce forgiveness in Beijing for all
of North Korea’s ridiculous and dangerous behavior. The outcome for Pyong Yang
would be Beijing’s readiness to support North Korea. In truth, our strategic
interests and those of our allies in the region would be better served by the
unilateral withdrawal of US ground forces from both the Korean Peninsula and
Okinawa. This would send an unambiguous signal to Beijing that we are totally
disinterested in attacking China and facilitate an agreement worked out by the
three parties with the greatest interest in North Korea: Japan, the ROK and China.
In this connection, Washington’s
efforts to cultivate India as a strategic partner are wasted. India is Russia’s
strategic partner, not America’s. In addition, India is not a nation; it’s a
collection of very diverse states and peoples that coexist inside the construct
called India. With few exceptions, India’s population, unlike China’s, lives
under conditions of unimaginable poverty. Changing these conditions will likely
require a century or more of development. Wise policymakers realized this truth
decades ago and have adjusted their expectations of India’s role in the
international system and global economy accordingly.
These points notwithstanding, a
stable Pakistan is in Western interest. No one in Washington wants Pakistan and
its nuclear weapons to fall into the hands of Islamist extremists. Pakistan’s
harsh regime is an unavoidable necessity given the character of Pakistan’s
society. We should accept this reality and move on to more productive topics
for discussion with Islamabad.
Finally, no country in the SCS, or
for that matter in East Asia, wants to obstruct US access to Asia’s markets and
resources. None of Asia’s nations including China wants to lose access to US
markets. For that reason our dealings with Asia should be economically focused.
Thus, U.S. military action in the SCS or NE Asia is necessary. In fact, it
would be strategically self-defeating and misguided.
December 25, 2016
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