Tag: Asia

A Pacific NATO

Closing Thought–07Mar19

I was watching an interview on MSNBC of Rep. Moulton (D-Mass) when Trump was in North Korea and he was asked how he would handle NK and its nukes and the pressure that China is exerting in the region…..he stated that he would set up a Pacific NATO to deal with the problem……

A Pacific NATO?

Really?

I got to checking if he was just spouting crap or if there was such a creature……

While Europe’s importance to the United States is declining, Asia figures to continue to grow in importance to the security and stability of the US.  The primary reason for this increasing focus on Asia is the incredible rise of Chinese power in recent decades.  Should China decide to pursue its ambitions in the region aggressively, it will force the US and its regional allies to react in concert with one another.  In fact, China poses a much greater threat to the US’ position in Asia than the Soviet Union ever did in Europe, given the fact that China’s potential economic and military power is much greater than the Soviet Union’s ever was.  Moreover, Asia is now the world’s leading economic center, so its stability has an influence on the rest of the world, much as Europe’s stability did a century ago.  With arms spending in Asia soaring, and with a number of dangerous flashpoints across the region, this stability is in serious jeopardy.

https://www.isa-world.com/news/

https://isnblog.ethz.ch/uncategorized/pacific-nato

Is a NATO like organization possible for the Pacific region?

John Mearsheimer argues: “There is already substantial evidence that countries like India, Japan, and Russia, as well as smaller powers like Singapore, South Korea, and Vietnam, are worried about China’s ascendancy and are looking for ways to contain it. In the end, they will join an American-led balancing coalition to check China’s rise, much the way Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and eventually China, joined forces with the United States during the Cold War to contain the Soviet Union.”

This is at odds with most analyses which postulate that Asia is not ripe for a NATO style containment block against China. For instance, in summing up the conventional wisdom on the subject, the Council on Foreign Relations’ Stewart Patrick opined last summer that: “Despite its strategic ‘rebalancing’ toward Asia, the United States is unlikely to sponsor a collective defense organization for the Asia-Pacific, for at least three reasons: insufficient solidarity among diverse regional partners, fear of alienating China, and the perceived advantages of bilateral and ad-hoc security arrangements.”

https://thediplomat.com/2014/04/is-an-asian-nato-possible/

Let me add my two cents……

We already have an empire building organization with NATO….do we truly need another for the rest of the world to worry about?

Just another organization that can help the M-IC expand and grow even richer than they are now….and that would make the possibility of further conflicts more possible.

So NO! There is no need for another NATO!

No Deal, Lucille

Looks like the trip Trump took to Hanoi may have been a fart in a hurricane……..the MSM made it to be something grand in scale and it ended with a whimper of a presser……

A planned signing ceremony between President Trump and Kim Jong Un capping the summit was scrapped Thursday in Vietnam, with no agreement reached and talks ending about an hour and a half early.

This led to a conference from President Trump, during which he called the meeting a “very productive time.” He said there were options, but that the US “decided not to do any of the options,” and that sometimes, the US “has to walk.”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also talked of progress, but said it “didn’t make sense for the United States.” He claimed to be optimistic for a “really good outcome” in the future, adding that meant total denuclearization of North Korea.

Trump said all North Korea sanctions will remain in place, and confirmed to reporters that this was the sticking point. He said Kim had “wanted sanctions lifted but weren’t willing to give us the areas we wanted.” He added North Korea would ultimately give in “at a certain point in time.”

Trump said Kim has a “certain vision, and it’s not exactly our vision.” He also called Kim “quite a character,” despite praising him repeatedly throughout the talks. Trump did, however, say he trusts Kim, and that Kim has promised not to resume any testing.

(antiwar.com)

Oh God the press conference was all about Trump and his ego…..we still do not know what if anything was accomplished with our dear Beloved Supreme Leader and Li’l Kim…..

Stay Tuned….More To Come!

China Versus Taiwan

Let me say from the onset that I am by no means an expert in Chinese affairs…..but this is something that has been boiling for 5 decades or longer.

For over 50 years there have been two Chinas…Mainland and the island of Taiwan….and in all that time they have been at the others throat.

But why have they been hating each other all that time?

Let me make this situation as simple as possible.

Now that you know why the hatred is there and simmering just below the surface of geopolitics….

In the first week of 2019, as China grabbed headlines for landing a spacecraft on the far side of the moon, a New Year’s Day editorial in the nation’s official military newspaper told its readers that “war preparations” should be a top priority for the year. The following day, President Xi Jinping offered a forceful reminder of what Beijing considers its most likely focus of conflict to be: Taiwan.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apps-taiwan-commentary/commentary-will-china-go-to-war-over-taiwan-idUSKCN1P11IT

And to help with the understanding of this situation….a short video may help…..

Taiwan is an ally of the US and if push came to shove with China I think the US would side with Taiwan and act accordingly….even if it meant going to war.

In his opening speech of 2019, and his first ever on the subject of Taiwan, the Chinese president Xi Jinping was characteristically uncompromising. Forty years after Beijing agreed to stop its daily shelling of the Taiwanese islands of Quemoy and Matsu, and launched a policy of commercial seduction, relations have coarsened. Addressing an audience of military and party officials and his country’s wider public on 2 January, China’s nationalist president-for-life signalled his impatience with the status quo, refused to rule out the use of military force and warned “foreign powers” against intervening in what Beijing regards as a domestic matter. For any Taiwanese viewer, it was a chilling moment.

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/observations/2019/01/china-and-taiwan-s-dangerous-face

With that said there has been a study that does not think the US could win a state vs state war with China……

One of the first things one learns as an infantry platoon leader is that he who tries to secure everything with his soldiers on the battlefield usually ends up securing nothing. Unfortunately for U.S. national security, this old maxim appears to have been forgotten at the strategic and political level by some of America’s brightest minds in the defense community as evidenced in a recent report.

The November 2018 study Providing for the Common Defense, issued by the National Defense Strategy Commission, a congressionally-mandated blue-ribbon panel led by former U.S. Undersecretary of Defense Eric Edelman and retired U.S. Navy Admiral Gary Roughead, recommends that the United States should spend more on its armed forces and reinforce its global military presence lest Washington be confronted by a national security emergency at a period when the nation is at a “greater risk than at any time in decades.”

https://thediplomat.com/2018/12/would-the-us-really-lose-a-war-with-china-and-russia/

I know that everyone thinks the US is the bees knees but is it possible that we could not win a state vs state war with China?

Meanwhile Back In North Korea

About 6 months ago Our Dear Supreme Leader (people you do realize that I am being sarcastic when I type that title, right?) stood before the world and told us that NK would be an ex-nuke developer soon…..that we have a handshake agreement.

And while we are being lied to the North Korean leader keeps building his missiles to carry those weapons that he has promised to give up……

A Washington think tank released a report Monday identifying more than a dozen hidden missile bases North Korea has kept up and running even as President Trump touts his work on denuclearization with Kim Jong Un. The Center for Strategic and International Studies says it suspects North Korea has 20 missile operating bases that are undeclared by the government, and it has located 13 of them. The New York Times says the revelation “suggests a great deception,” with Pyongyang quietly continuing its ballistic missile program and even making improvements at these secret sites while publicly declaring its intention to dismantle its main missile launch site. Fox News notes that the report comes as denuclearization talks between the US and North Korea have stalled—Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s planned meeting with his North Korean counterpart last week was delayed indefinitely.

“What everybody is worried about is that Trump is going to accept a bad deal—they give us a single test site and dismantle a few other things, and in return they get a peace agreement” that formally ends the Korean War, says the North Korea expert who leads the CSIS’ Beyond Parallel program, which released the report. Another expert on nuclear nonproliferation called the program’s analysis “excellent” but disagreed with the Times‘ assessment of the situation, noting on Twitter: “To call this a ‘deception’ is deeply misleading. Kim Jong Un publicly stated that North Korea would shift to the mass producing nuclear weapons in 2018. These bases and their missiles are well-known, long-standing and have never been offered for dismantlement by the DPRK.” Per CNBC, the largest ballistic missiles possibly housed in the bases identified in the report are believed to be able to reach the US. (Read more North Korea stories.)

But Dear Trump just cannot admit that he was played like a cheap drum by Kim……..

A story emerged Monday suggesting that North Korea was violating the spirit of promises to reduce its nuclear arsenal. Not so, says President Trump. “The story in the New York Times concerning North Korea developing missile bases is inaccurate,” he tweeted. “We fully know about the sites being discussed, nothing new – and nothing happening out of the normal. Just more Fake News. I will be the first to let you know if things go bad!” The Times story he’s referring to was based on a new study by Center for Strategic and International Studies, whose researchers say they have found more than a dozen secret ballistic missile bases in North Korea. The newspaper acknowledges, however, that US intelligence agencies have long known about this network.

Here is how the Times frames the issue: “The satellite images suggest that the North has been engaged in a great deception: It has offered to dismantle a major launching site—a step it began, then halted—while continuing to make improvements at more than a dozen others that would bolster launches of conventional and nuclear warheads.” South Korea objected to this characterization even before Trump did, also using the phrase “nothing new.” A spokesman for President Moon Jae-in adds: “North Korea has never promised to dismantle its missile bases, nor has it ever joined any treaty that obligates it to dismantle them. So calling this a ‘deception’ is not appropriate.” That didn’t stop Democratic Sen. Ed Markey, who sits on the Foreign Relations panel, from asserting that Trump was “getting played by Kim Jong Un,” per Bloomberg.

Yet another pile of bovine fecal matter fed to the American public.

Enjoy your meal!

Closing Thought–29Oct18

It seems that there is always a movie or show or book or documentary or……about the Holocaust.  Before I get some well meaning d/bag….the Holocaust happened and the world should not forget it and should make sure that something like that NEVER happens again.

Really?  Never again?

The problem is that it is happening again and the country committing the crimes is the every country that does not want the world to forget what happened to them.

Israel has policies against the Palestinian people similar to those that they ran away from in Europe.

But beyond their policies “back home”….they are supporting a country that is doing all they can to eliminate a ethnic group from their country….the country is Myanmar (Burma) and its deadly policies directed to the Muslim minority, the Rohingyas…..

Israel does not owe its existence to the genocide of the Jews during the Second World War but, without a doubt, the Holocaust played a significant role in speeding up the creation of the Zionist State. If nothing else, that happened in order to salve the world’s conscience for, whether we like to admit it or not, the rest of the world had a rough idea of what Adolf Hitler had planned for the Jews of Europe when he rose to power in 1933. Admittedly, few imagined that he would actually exterminate six million people, although the fact that European Jews were fleeing from their homes throughout that decade was an indicator of their very real and justified fears.

The Central British Fund for German Jewry was established in the 1930s to try and help those Jews living in Germany and Austria. It was through the Fund’s network that around 10,000 Jewish children arrived safely in Britain via the Kindertransport programme and were saved from the Nazis, unlike the parents they left behind, most of whom did not survive the Holocaust.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20181016-israel-aids-genocidal-myanmar-while-urging-the-world-to-remember-the-holocaust/

I have said on numerous occasions that Israel is acting no better than the pigs that persecuted them in the 1930’s and 40’s.

Plus the West, US and its allies, are acting as enablers of the deadly policies of Israel……timed for that to end.  Israel needs to stand on its own….if it cannot then it is NO problem of the US or its Allies.

After word…..one of the victims in the Pittsburgh shooting was a 90+ year old woman who was a Holocaust survivor……that is just not right.

Plus stop saying “thoughts and prayers”…that is disingenuous and insulting!

Peace Out!

Above All–Peace

I have always heard people say that the US was the “purveyor of peace”….of course it is total bullsh*t for if a nation was truly dedicated to peace it would not go around the planet looking for a fight.

Recently Our Dear Leader held a “summit”(I think the idea that this meeting was a stretch of the use of the term) with North Korea’s Kim and has proclaimed that NK will get rid of all their nukes and the Peninsula will become a haven for peace…..

How true is that statement?

South Korean President Moon Jae-in arrived on Tuesday in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang for the third summit of the year between the two Koreans. While the other visits were highly aspirational, this summit has a more direct goal – reaching a peace treaty.

Moon was very frank about this, saying “what I want to achieve is peace. Not a tentative change which could be volatile dependent on international situation, but irreversible, permanent, and unwavering peace, regardless of what might happen on the global area.”

That’s likely to be difficult, with the Trump Administration having made clear repeatedly in recent months that they aren’t willing to reach a peace deal yet, and are intending to hold that out as something North Korea can only get after years of additional concessions.

North Korea has resisted giving up any more without being certain they’ll get a peace deal, ending the Korean War that began in 1950. Likewise, South Korea’s President Moon has set himself up as wanting such a deal, with or without US endorsement.

This risks a split between the US and South Korea, as the two sides have seen differences shaping up in the past several months on how to approach North Korea diplomacy, and the US has increasingly chosen to negotiate independent of the wishes of its long-time allies in South Korea.

(antiwar.com)

This is where I am on this….any peace should be between the two Koreas….the US should facilitate but any peace agreement should be between the two Asian nations.

The M-IC will not allow a peace deal….after all a war footing makes for good business…..there is no profit in peace.

Turn The Page!

After writing this draft more news from the Korean Peninsula has broken…..

The leaders of the two Koreas have signed what President Trump calls a “very exciting” agreement on the second day of a three-day summit in Pyongyang. South Korean President Moon Jae-in announced in a joint press conference with Kim Jong Un that they had agreed to turn the peninsula into a “land of peace without nuclear weapons,” the Guardian reports. Moon said Kim had agreed to permanently close the Tongchang-ri missile launch facility in the presence of international experts, reports the BBC. The Yongbyon nuclear site could also be closed, depending on “reciprocal action” from the US. The leaders also agreed to file a joint bid to host the 2032 Summer Olympics.

Trump praised the agreement in a tweet. Kim has “agreed to allow Nuclear inspections, subject to final negotiations, and to permanently dismantle a test site and launch pad in the presence of international experts,” he said. “In the meantime there will be no Rocket or Nuclear testing. Hero remains to continue being returned home to the United States.” Analysts described the agreement as a small step in the right direction. “Remember that North Korea is still taking baby steps,” Melissa Hanham at the James Martin Centre for Nonproliferation Studies tells Reuters. “We don’t have a timeline, and we also don’t have any guarantees about the larger nuclear and missile programs.”

Looks like the 2 Koreas are making head way……how long before the US craps on this progress?

How About Some News From China

I do not write much on the China situation for I do not dwell in the Asia for much time.  But I would like to rectify that oversight on my part.

These are the biggest stories that I found while researching on the world wide web…….

Something Christians need to know….

China’s government is ratcheting up a crackdown on Christian congregations, destroying crosses, burning Bibles, shutting churches, and ordering followers to sign papers renouncing their faith, according to pastors and a group that monitors religion in China. The campaign corresponds with a drive to “Sinicize” religion by demanding loyalty to the atheist Communist Party. Bob Fu of the US-based group China Aid said that the recent closure of churches in Henan province and a prominent house church in Beijing is a “significant escalation” and that the “international community should be alarmed and outraged for this blatant violation of freedom of religion and belief.” Under President Xi Jinping, believers are seeing freedoms shrink dramatically even amid a religious revival. Activists say Xi is waging the most severe suppression of Christianity since religious freedom was written into the constitution in 1982.

Fu also provided video of piles of burning Bibles and forms stating that the signatories had renounced their Christian faith. He said that marked the first time since Mao’s radical 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution that Christians had been compelled to make such declarations, under pain of expulsion from school and loss of welfare benefits. Chinese law requires believers to worship only in congregations registered with the authorities, but many millions belong to so-called underground or house churches. In Beijing, the Zion church was shut on Sunday by around 60 government workers, said Ezra Jin Mingri, the church’s pastor. Zion is known as the largest house church in Beijing, with six branches. The officials declared the gatherings illegal and sealed off church properties, Jin said. “Churches will continue to develop. Blocking the sites will only intensify conflicts,” Jin told the AP.

There is more religious news coming out of China……

President Trump has been quick to go after China on trade issues, but the New York Times reports his administration is poised to penalize Beijing on a human rights issue for perhaps the first time. The administration is considering sanctions in response to China’s crackdown on minority Muslims, specifically ethnic Uighurs, in the name of national security.

The AP reports an estimated 1 million Uighurs and other Muslims have been detained in interment camps in Xinjiang province for indoctrination by the officially atheist government, and their plight is a cause of growing international concern. Human Rights Watch, for example, declared in a report over the weekend “that the human rights violations in Xinjiang today are of a scope and scale not seen in China since the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution.”

Dear Leader going to put Muslims first (for a change)…..fascinating.

The US seems to be always have “war games” with this country or that….and now the 2 main opponents to US foreign policy have teamed up…….

Russia launched a massive military exercise on Tuesday, its biggest since the Cold War, reports the BBC. That alone would be enough to make headlines, but another twist has cinched it: China is taking part in the war games as well—the first time Russia has invited any country beyond its former Soviet satellites, notes the Wall Street Journal. The bulk of the troops taking part in the five-day drills in eastern Russia near the Chinese border are Russian: 300,000 vs. about 3,200 from China. Mongolia also sent a small contingent. The stories note that the joint military exercise is taking place as both nations’ relations with NATO in general and the US in particular have soured of late.

“The exercise is an opportunity to prepare for a range of large-scale war and crisis scenarios,” an analyst at the think tank Rand Corp. tells the Journal. “The focus is on the Pacific theater for contingencies, in North Korea, for example. But the capabilities tested could apply to a conflict with the West.” This is China’s largest such exercise outside its own borders, reports the AP. The first day coincided with a visit to Russia by Chinese President Xi Jinping. “We’re obviously aware of it, we’re watching it closely,” said Army Col. Rob Manning, a Pentagon spokesman. “We’re aware of Russia’s right to sovereignty and to exercise in order to ensure their readiness.”

These are stories that the American news outlets will not offer up to its listeners…..so chuq has made it his duty to give this type of info to my readers.

North Korea, Along The Way

North Korea is once again in the news….NO we do not have a peace treaty and we have not got a deal to dump all nukes on the Peninsula……basically something nice was said by Kim about Trump and that warranted a couple days of news reports.

Some have said that the US is going about the situation with North Korea all wrong……

U.S. President Donald Trump came to office clearly determined to reverse his predecessor’s policy toward North Korea, one that he saw as stagnant and ineffective. “The era of strategic patience is over,” Trump declared in 2017. Other Republican voices echoed this promise to chart a new path. When Trump’s first approach, rooted in threats and bellicosity, offered little reason for optimism, the president shifted to diplomatic engagement.

What harm, many asked, could come from negotiations? “I don’t believe this is a situation where the president has anything to lose,” explained former homeland security adviser Tom Bossert. In most cases, such confidence would be justified. What harm could possibly come from diplomatic engagement? North Korea, however, is not most cases, and the harm to American interests that appears to be emerging as a direct result of the Singapore talks may prove to be quite significant indeed.

https://thediplomat.com/2018/09/where-the-us-went-wrong-on-north-korea/

The news now is in a parade to celebrate 70 years of a Kim at the wheel….there were the usual suspects marching in review but what was not usual was the lack of missiles in the parade make-up….

North Korea rolled out some of its latest tanks and its best-trained goose-stepping units through Kim Il Sung Square in a major military parade Sunday to mark its 70th anniversary, but held back its most advanced missiles and devoted nearly half the event to underscoring Kim Jong Un’s new strategy of putting economic development front and center. Tens of thousands of North Koreans waving brightly colored plastic bouquets filled Pyongyang’s Kim Il Sung Square as the parade began, reports the AP. Pyongyang residents have been training for months for the anniversary and held up the bouquets to spell words and slogans that can be seen from the VIP viewing area. Those unable to attend at the square lined the streets around town to cheer convoys carrying the troops after they complete parade duties.

Although North Korea stages military parades almost every year, and held one just before the Olympics in South Korea in February, Sunday’s parade came at a particularly sensitive time. Kim’s effort to ease tensions with President Trump has stalled since their June summit in Singapore. With tensions again on the rise, a parade featuring the very missiles that so unnerved Trump last year, and led to a dangerous volley of insults from both leaders, could have been seen as a deliberate provocation. The “new line” of economic development has been Kim’s top priority this year. He claims to have perfected his nuclear arsenal enough to deter US aggression and devote his resources to raising the standard of living. This year’s celebrations also mark the revival of North Korea’s iconic mass games, which involve tens of thousands holding up placards or dancing in precise unison in a display of national unity

This should send the analysts into a frenzy trying to explain what Kim is doing.

Is this something positive or negative?

Well Trump has received another letter and a request……

President Donald Trump has received a request from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for a follow-up to their historic June summit, and planning is in motion to make it happen. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday that no details had been finalized, the AP reports. Trump had told reporters last week that he was expecting a letter from Kim. Sanders said Trump has received the letter, which she described as “very warm, very positive.” The White House will not release the full letter unless Kim agrees it should be made public, she said. “The primary purpose of the letter was to request and look to schedule another meeting with the president, which we are open to and are already in the process of coordinating that,” Sanders said at her first press briefing in nearly three weeks. She cited the letter as “further evidence of progress” in relations between the leaders.

On Sunday, Trump offered praise for Kim following a North Korean military parade that, unlike past parades, downplayed the missiles and nuclear weapons that brought North Korea to the brink of military conflict with the United States just a year ago. “This is a big and very positive statement from North Korea,” Trump tweeted Sunday about the parade. “Thank you To Chairman Kim. We will both prove everyone wrong! There is nothing like good dialogue from two people that like each other! Much better than before I took office.” Sanders also cited the parade in her comments Monday. “The recent parade in North Korea, for once, was not about their nuclear arsenal,” she said, characterizing the event as “a sign of good faith.” Trump, she said, had achieved “tremendous success” with his policies so far toward North Korea “and this letter was further evidence of progress in that relationship.”

I think a second meeting would benefit only Kim…..the US would get little out of it and in turn would look like we were graveling to Kim.

And the beat goes on!

1950’s–What Happened To Peace In Korea?

A war ends with a ceasefire and there is no further attempts to bring about a lasting peace…..after 60+ years why is that?

Most recently Our Dear Leader help a “summit” with the leader of North Korea, Kim…..and after this meeting we were promised that the Korean Peninsula would be nuke free soon…..

But let’s step back in time shall we…..the the 1950’s we and our allies fought a war on the Korean Peninsula and after a couple of bloody years a ceasefire was signed and the hostilities halted….a ceasefire but why no peace pact?

Yep a history question so that I can flex my historical muscle…..try it it is fun…….

In the long history of Korea, nothing compares to the 20th century division of the peninsula or the war that followed. That war has not finished, and a peace treaty remains elusive. China, North Korea and South Korea all seek a peace treaty, but 11 U.S. presidents since 1953 have been unwilling to agree.

If President Trump turns out to be the exception, that shift could help put an end to more than a half-century of conflict — and the role of the United States in determining whether peace arrives is not a small one. Neither is it coincidental: in fact, the U.S. has played a key role in keeping the conflict going as long as it has.

http://time.com/5360343/korean-war-american-history/

What is the reason that the US needed this conflict to continue?  Of course it is all about the Military-Industrial Complex……greed is a prime motivator.

In closing the Nuke News…….

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has issued its latest report on North Korea’s nuclear program, with its usual language expressing “grave concern” about any ongoing nuclear developments which might be active.

These reports on North Korea are a lot less specific than the IAEA reports one would be used to seeing on Iran, which is awash in IAEA inspectors since the nuclear deal. The IAEA has not a single inspector in North Korea, meaning everything in the report is based on second-hand reports and allegations.

Which means the IAEA report is in great measure just a reiteration of media reports we’ve already seen, with the conclusion that they haven’t seen any indication North Korea has stopped all nuclear activity. With no inspectors, they don’t really know, however.

The watchdog says that North Korea’s nuclear power plant is believed to still be running. It likely is since there’s never been report of a shutdown. The other speculations about activity are based heavily on media reports of what’s been seen in satellite images, and what third parties have guessed those may imply.

(antiwar.com)

Is there a de-nuke deal or not?  We were told that there was a deal and that denuclearization would commence…..I know it is early in the process but so far nothing seems to be progressing as we were told.

China Is Weaponizing

Of course these days most Americans are concerned with China and our on-going policies of a free and fair trade…..there are other aspects of the American-China policies that needs attention…..

If not trade then what?

China is flexing its military muscles, according to a Pentagon report that gets right to the troubling point: “Over the last three years, the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] has rapidly expanded its overwater bomber operating areas, gaining experience in critical maritime regions and likely training for strikes against US and allied targets.” While the Pentagon doesn’t say exactly why China is undertaking these operations, per the BBC, the report posits that Beijing may try to demonstrate its ability to strike centers of American operations in the Pacific, including Guam. Beijing is also “likely preparing for a contingency to unify Taiwan with China by force,” with any American intervention to be warded off with a “high-intensity, limited war of short duration.”

China’s military spending ballooned to $190 billion in 2017 and the assessment estimates it will grow even further to $240 billion over 10 years, reports Reuters. The US is trying to keep China in line with regular military flights over the South China Sea, but China’s presence in the region has grown to landing bombers on small islands that are disputed territory with American allies. As Reuters notes, the report arrives during a tense time in US-China relations amid new tariffs imposed by the Trump administration and a burgeoning trade war. Meanwhile, as the White House plans a sixth branch of the military it has branded the “Space Force,” the Pentagon report underscores the rapid growth of the Chinese space program.

China’s military spending is approaching the total that the US spends yearly…..while dicker about the crap they send to the US their military is preparing for a possible conflict…..I feel that there are those analysts in the Pentagon that are watching this situation….but I would not bet on it.

A trade war should be the least of our worries…..since I am not an expert on Asian situations I must depend on those that are…..please bear with me as I try to acquaint myself with China and its policies.

A trade war is to divert attention from the real policies…we will always have the cheap crap made in China…..we need to look beyond cheap crap and look at their military and international policies.