Declan Hayes
The real tragedy is that Australia, the Philippines, Japan and America's other patsies are adopting NATO's policy of fighting China in Chinese waters.
Since I last wrote about the Philippines, matters have gotten so much worse not only there but across the entire South China Sea that an air and sea war now looms between China and a gaggle of America's regional proxies. Although the Philippines is in the eye of the storm, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and even far away Australia can also expect NATO's Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to wreak havoc on them. This war will dwarf anything that has recently happened in Ukraine. Bad news for Asians but good news for America's predatory arms' industries and, as far as Washington is concerned, that is all that matters.
A land war can be excluded because China has no intention of invading anywhere, Taiwan included and, as Australia clearly shows, air and sea warfare offer far richer pickings for NATO's defence industries. The trick is to goad China enough to keep the profits from defence contracts rolling in but not too much that the South China Sea becomes a furnace. Better to follow the Ukrainian model, to use proxies to goad China and, with luck, then do a Russia on China, to slap sanctions on her, confiscate her assets and lecture to the world that NATO has, as always, the high moral ground, even in the Philippines, whose most vulnerable children have traditionally been the prey of choice for the U.S. military's more depraved sexual predators.
Although the putative reason for this latest concocted war is Chinese expansion in the South China Sea, the underlying reason is Uncle Sam's need to militarise the entire planet and collect levies from all its satrapies, most notably, in this case, Japan and Australia which is being made fork out a staggering A$368 bn for berthing facilities for a handful of nuclear powered Anglo American submarines, which are totally unfit for the purpose of defending Australia and her interests.
Australia is, in effect, going to permanently bankrupt herself to enable the British and Americans flaunt their war ships off the Chinese coast for no other reason than to buttress their own defence industries and to tether Australia to their economic coat tails for generations to come. Instead of deepening ties with China, Australia's major trading partner, the Ossies, NATO's Antipodean poodles, are determined to bankrupt themselves antagonising Beijing for Washington's benefit; be sure to check out this excellent one hour interview with former Ossie Prime Minister Paul Keating, who slices and dices the Sinophobic policies of today's crop of Australian (excuses for) leaders.
Much the same goes for the Philippines, whose President, Bongbong Marcos, is being criminally irresponsible in relentlessly tweaking China's tail. Yet, whether it is the Philippines, New Zealand, Australia or the failed states of Western Europe, it seems that today's leaders exist only to serve Uncle Sam's war machine, no matter what the costs are to their own electorates. Talk about the curse of living in interesting times.
A far more adult alternative for the Philippines and her neighbours would be to return to the jaw jaw strategy of former President Rodrigo Duterte and, with her ASEAN partners, to see what can be achieved through quiet diplomacy with China. First off, China would have to accept that her nine dash line, which lays claim to almost all of the South China Sea, is unacceptable poppycock and, though China's legitimate defence concerns regarding American aggression need to be fully accommodated, so also must the economic needs of the Philippines and her ASEAN partners be met with regard to fishing, mining, freedom of navigation and allied rights.
Much the same applies to Japan and her first class navy, which would give as good an account of herself against China as the Japanese Imperial Navy did 80 years ago against the British and American navies. As with ASEAN, so also should Japan build bridges with Taiwan and Korea and negotiate as a sovereign group with China. The United States should play no role whatsoever in any of that as they have no business in East Asia, which they have militarily controlled since Imperial Japan's 1945 surrender.
No one, except the Americans, who have no business whatsoever in the South China Sea, wants a return to those battles of Okinawa, Iwo Jima, Leyte Gulf and Manila. Certainly, no one besides the Americans and their British toadies stand to benefit from such a conflagration. Paul Keating sees that. Duterte sees that. China sees that. And so, of course, do the Americans, who are determined to again burn South East Asia to the ground if that is what it takes to maintain their top dog status. The abiding mystery in all this is how the Americans can get so many of their satraps to serve only America's military interests and not their own.
The real tragedy here is that Australia, the Philippines, Japan and America's other patsies are adopting NATO's policy of forward defence, of, in effect, fighting China in Chinese waters to supposedly avoid having to fight them on home turf. What this means in practical terms is allowing the U.S. to build naval and air bases and to suffer the collateral damage such hospitality brings in its wake.
Although the Americans and their Filipino puppets are boasting of the security and jobs such bases will bring, given America's track records in Subic Bay, Clark Airbase and Olongapo naval base, to say nothing of their stomach churning war crimes during their original conquest of the Philippines, we can expect their sexual abuse of glue sniffing rugby Filippino boys and girls to again return to the levels that made People Power demand the 1991 closure of America's vast military and child grooming bases.
The Philippines, as my previous article pointed out, is a country awash with all of the problems poverty, American neo-colonialism and the other Horsemen of the Apocalypse bring with them. Those problems do not have magic bullet solutions, such as those the Belt and Road Initiative or the vampirish embrace of Uncle Sam represent. The solution lies in taming corruption and in politicians and diplomats doing the jobs they are charged with. In the case of the Philippines, that must entail closer economic ties with China to ensure the Philippines gets its due entitlement from its waters. What it does not entail is going back to the dark old days of having an economy built around the carnal needs of America's GIs and the predatory needs of the British and American arms' industries.
When one considers the fate awaiting the Philippines' rugby boys and girls, when one considers Bongbong is determined to pauperise the Philippines' struggling transport drivers through NATO's Green Agenda, when one considers the disreputable role BongBong's parents played when they ruled the Philippines, Dantean despair is the most natural of reactions. But then, politicians like Keating and Duterte show that there is hope leaders who are something more than American toadies might, with People Power, re-emerge and that the Philippines will rid itself not only of Ali Baba but the 40 thieving families who rule the Philippines as well. That can only happen by breaking the American link and building fresher, unfettered ones with China, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam and all other Asian countries that divest themselves of the Yankee yolk. If, as I hope, there is to be true hope in the Philippines not only for the rugby children but for all Filipinos, that hope can, as Paul Keating says, only be grounded in abandoning the old Anglo-American colonial masters, denying them naval and air bases and instead forging mutually beneficial alliances with Asia's powerhouses, who likewise have no need for America's 7th fleet and all the ugliness and depravity it epitomises.