Tag: South Asia

Tensions Are High!

While everyone was laser focused on the drama around the Supreme Court….there was an incident in the South China Sea that may be just a fluke or the precursor of things to come……..

A tense encounter unfolded Sunday between US and Chinese vessels in the South China Sea. Per CNN, the American destroyer USS Decatur was aggressively approached by a Chinese warship while conducting what are called freedom of navigation operations in the Spratly Islands. in a statement, Capt. Charles Brown with the US Pacific Fleet said a Chinese Luyang destroyer approached the US vessel in an “unsafe and unprofessional” maneuver. According to CBS News, the Chinese vessel came with 45 yards of the Decatur, a dangerous proximity that forced the Decatur to maneuver away in order to prevent a collision.

The encounter is an extreme example of the recent tense US-China relations in the region. Just last week, China refused a request for the US Navy’s amphibious assault ship, the USS Wasp, to dock in Hong Kong next month. In spite of these and other setbacks, including his own canceled state visit to Beijing, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Monday that US-China relations are not worsening, per the AP. “There’s tension points in the relationship, but based on discussions coming out of New York last week and other things that we have coming up, we do not see it getting worse,” Mattis told reporters in Paris. “We’ll sort this out.” Back in the Pacific, Capt. Brown affirmed that US forces will continue to operate “anywhere international law allows.”

Is this an accident or is it something to do with our trade war with China?

Does anyone remember Tonkin incident?

WE should have known something was up…..

Defense Secretary James Mattis is downplaying the mounting tensions between the US and China, saying he doesn’t expect ties to worsen any further. The signs are, however, that the situation is still getting worse.

On Monday, China announced that they are cancelling the annual high-ranking US-China security meeting in Beijing. This was supposed to see Mattis meeting top Chinese military officers, but Mattis’ visit has been cancelled.

(antiwar.com)

Duterte Seeks Alliances with Russia, China

While you were watching the “Frick and Frack Show” and the battling babble….the world got a little more interesting…..

For decades the Us has had a military deployment in the Philippines……mostly Air Force and Navy….and recently the new president of the country, Mr. Personality, Duterte, has told the US to take a hike…..and is looking for new “friends”……

PRESIDENT Duterte said on Tuesday he would build by next year “new alliances” with China and Russia to cushion the fallout from the possible withdrawal of the United States from the Philippines.

In a speech in Pampanga province, Mr. Duterte said Filipinos would have to make a small sacrifice for what he had previously declared “crossing the Rubicon” in his ties with the United States while pursuing partnerships with its rival countries or what he called countries on the “other side of the ideological barrier.”

Source: Philippines President Duterte Seeks Alliances with Russia, China | World Affairs Journal

This is significant because of the situation in the South China Sea, where China is making its military presence known…..

This situation could become a lot uglier in the very near future…..

The Little War That Could–Part 2

While the world was debating the benefits of war……China is creeping!

Kashmir has been a bone of contention between India and Pakistan for years, even decades, to the point that they have fought several short lived wars over the region…….and more recently there has been a stand off between the two countries over possession of the region…….it is always a crucial conflict that the world needs to intervene since both countries have nuke weapon capability…….

But recently a new twist has been added to the conflict…..that twist is…….wait for it……… China.

Hundreds of Indian and Chinese troops have dug into positions on a high Himalayan plateau, leading India’s army chief to cancel a foreign trip and monitor a standoff that underscores deep differences between the Asian giants as they seek closer ties.

Military officials in New Delhi and Kashmir said on Tuesday that Chinese troops set up a camp about 3 km (2 miles) into territory claimed by India in the Chumar region of the Ladakh plateau more than a week ago.

The alleged incursion by Chinese troops into territory claimed by India dominated a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping last week, overshadowing his pledges to invest $20 billion over five years and a bid to warm personal ties with new Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Indian government on Monday (September 22) cancelled the clearances of Chinese mediapersons coming to New Delhi for an interaction with Indian counterparts, after reports came about China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers pitching tents within the Indian territory.

India has deployed about 1,500 troops in the Chumar area and there are about 800 Chinese soldiers, an Indian government official said. The two sides are not in an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation and are well separated from each other.
Small incursions are common across the Line of Actual Control between the nations, the de facto border that runs some 4,000 km (2,500 miles) across the Himalayas, but it is rare for either country to set up camp deep within disputed territory.

 

A situation that needs to be watched…….there are three (3) nuclear armed countries vying for control of a region……all it would take is one rogue general to start World War Three….is that important enough for you skeptics?

 

Lost City Found

In my youth I spent several months stomping through the jungles…..oh my bad!—-rain forests of Cambodia.  But all my adventuresw I never came across a lost city….but yet…there was one…..

(Newser) – Deep in the Cambodian jungle, Australian archaeologists have made a major discovery: a 1,200-year-old lost city, NPR reports. They made their find using laser sensors known as Lidar, which outlined the city, called Mahendraparvata. “With this instrument—bang—all of a sudden we saw an immediate picture of an entire city that no one knew existed,” one of the archaeologists tells the Age. Atop a mountain, Mahendraparvata belonged to the Khmer Empire of southeast Asia, which dates between 800 and 1400 AD, NPR notes.

Researchers then made their way to the site itself, using the Lidar data to navigate—along with help from an ex-Khmer Rouge soldier who lost a leg to landmines. The team discovered temple sites, signs of canals and roads, a cave full of ancient carvings, and a series of mounds that remain unexplained. “We are still trying to work out what these things were,” says a researcher; tombs are one possibility. The Age has more.

I wonder if and when it is restored will it match the splendor of Anger Wat?  Believe me…it is something to behold….

Can Democracy Be Dangerous?

I know we all hold our ‘democracy’ up as something to be strive for in the future by many countries….but can it be a dangerous move?  Or is it the only answer for the government of a country?

A couple of countries that are trying the democracy thing come to mind……Pakistan and Indonesia……..

Indonesia and Pakistan are plagued by sectarian violence despite their embrace of democratic ideals—but why? According to Pankaj Mishra, writing at Bloomberg, their democracy is actually the problem. While officials secretly wield power through extremist groups and conservative Islamists flame religious tensions, elected officials are only making things worse: “In the absence of substantive democracy,” writes Mishra, leaders “cynically deploy radical groups to practice power politics.” In Pakistan, for example, mainstream leaders allegedly pay off a Shiite-killing terrorist group because it gathers votes for elections due this year. In Indonesia, lighter political restrictions have allowed militias and terrorist organizations to be officially recognized. Governments, meanwhile, are too fragmented to face extremists or grapple with poverty. And progressive parties have been unable to overcome decades of crushing blows from the ruling elite. “One day, this dyad of dupes and extremists may well be regarded as a byproduct of a particularly unstable and grim phase in the evolution of democracy,” writes Mishra. “But that day will come only if democracy amounts to something more than … a way of further empowering the rich and the powerful.” Click for Mishra’s full column.

And that is why democracy can be a dangerous thing…..corruption and empowering the rich to do as they choose with no regard for the country and its people……but is what they have really democracy?