US/West Confronting the “China Challenge”

US/West Confronting the “China Challenge”

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)

In October 2019 public remarks, Mike Pompeo addressed what he called “the China Challenge.”

In stark contrast to Washington’s imperial agenda, its endless wars by hot and other means, and threat to everyone everywhere, China seeks cooperative relations with other nations, confrontation with none.

Its rise in prominence on the world stage over the past 40 years got US policymakers from both right wings of its duopoly rule to try undermining the country’s political, economic, technological, and military development — the latter for defense, not offense the way US-led NATO operates.

In his year ago remarks, Pompeo said the Trump regime has “taken on the challenge from the People’s Republic of China in a way that the time is calling for (sic),” adding:

“(W)e…need to confront…challenges from the PRC head-on (sic).”

“China…poses (a) risk…to American national security (sic).”

It’s “hostile to the United States and our values (sic). China threatens American freedoms (sic).”

Hostile to China rhetoric continued throughout his address and in subsequent ones.

Sino/US relations have been on a downward trajectory since before the Obama/Biden regime’s so-called Asia pivot (2013).

Washington seeks dominance over all parts of the world not its own — notably over the oil-rich Middle East, areas near Russia’s borders, and Indo-Pacific.

Its agenda includes advancing its military footprint in these areas and elsewhere — to check, contain, weaken and isolate nations it doesn’t control, notably ones able to challenge its hegemonic aims.

US trade and sanctions war on China seeks to achieve these objectives.

If Biden/Harris succeed Trump in January, anti-China hardball tactics will surely continue, perhaps escalate ahead.

Last week, China’s Global Times warned about possible US “military provocations and so-called diplomatic moves toward Taiwan” in the coming weeks, adding: 

“Once the US makes malicious provocations, China must resolutely strike back.”

The Trump regime “greatly sabotaged China-US relations,” stressing that Beijing’s leadership “is able to deal with various challenges.”

On November 16 in a WaPo op-ed, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and his German counterpart Heiko Mass called for transatlantic “New Deal” unity against China, Russia and Iran.

If Biden succeeds Trump, “greater transatlantic unity will be possible with regard to autocrats and countries that seek to enhance their power by undermining international or regional order,” they jointly claimed, adding: 

“Under a Biden (regime), the compass needle of US foreign policy will continue to gravitate toward China, which we see as a partner, competitor and systemic rival at the same time.”

Both foreign ministers called for a “coordinate(d)” Western approach in challenging China.

France and Germany “need(s) to be aligned with other (Western states) so that we can set the rules of the road instead of having China and others dictate outcomes…”

On Tuesday with confronting China in mind, Trump regime Navy Secretary Kenneth Braithwaite said the following:

The US “can’t just rely on (its) Seventh Fleet in Japan (alone). We want to stand up a new numbered fleet.” 

“And we want to put that numbered fleet in the crossroads between the Indian and the Pacific Oceans, and we’re really going to have an Indo-Pacom footprint” — to confront China.

The US and its imperial partners need “a much more formidable deterrence.”

“(W)e’re going to create the First Fleet…and move it across the Pacific…”

His remarks came when so-called Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) countries Australia, India, Japan, and the US were holding joint naval exercises in the northern Arabian Sea.

Separately on Tuesday, Axios obtained a copy of an about-to-be-released unclassified paper, titled: “The Elements of the China Challenge.”

Saying “(m)eeting the China challenge requires the United States to return to the fundamentals,” it adds: 

Washington must have “sturdy policies that stand above bureaucratic squabbles and interagency turf battles and transcend short-term election cycles.” 

Ten so-called “tasks” are discussed. According to Axios, they include:

“1. Promoting constitutional government and civil society at home (sic).

2. Maintaining the world’s strongest military.

3. Fortifying the rules-based international order (meaning US rules).

4. Reevaluating its alliance system (that includes control over partnered countries).

5. Strengthening its alliance system and creating new international organizations to promote democracy and human rights (sic).

6. Cooperating with China when possible and constraining Beijing when appropriate (minimizing the former while maximizing the latter).

7.Educating Americans about the China challenge (promoting state-sponsored propaganda).

8. Train (aka brainwash) a new generation of public servants who understand great-power competition with China.

9. Reform the US education system to help students understand the responsibility of citizenship in a complex information age (manipulating the minds of children, youths, and young adults).

10. Championing the principles of freedom in word and in deed (sic).”

US geopolitical policies are all about dominating other nations.

Where it exists, mutual cooperation aims to bend them to Washington’s will.

The so-called “China challenge” is about countering its growing prominence on the world stage by whatever it takes to achieve US objectives.

China doesn’t seek “to remake the world” to serve its interests, as an unnamed Trump regime official claimed.

Beijing seeks cooperative relations with other nations, including with the US and other Western ones.

Washington’s aim for unchallenged global dominance risks possible military confrontation with nations that are rising in prominence on the world stage — notably China and Russia.

They’re the nations most able to challenge the US militarily if attacked.

It’s why hardliners in Washington and at the Pentagon consider them America’s main adversaries.

At peace with their neighbors and worldwide, it’s not for any threat they pose.

So threats are invented to create and perpetuate the myth of barbarians at the gates in pursuit of US imperial interests.

VISIT MY WEBSITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

My two Wall Street books are timely reading:

“How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion, and Class War”

https://www.claritypress.com/product/how-wall-street-fleeces-america/

 

“Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity”

https://www.claritypress.com/product/banker-occupation-waging-financial-war-on-humanity/