[News] Reinforcing Washington's Asia-Pacific Hegemony

[Anti-Imperialist News]

    One thing we learned during our recent trip to Hawaii was the large
    amount of resistance to US military expansion that is taking place
    throughout the Pacific. It largely also coincides with anti-colonial
    and anti-imperialist demands and movements. Hawaii itself, remains a
    colony - despite being called a state.


    Reinforcing Washington's Asia-Pacific Hegemony

By Joseph Gerson, September 13, 2012

http://www.fpif.org/articles/reinforcing_washingtons_asia-pacific_hegemony?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FPIF%2FAsiaPacific+%28FPIF+Regions%3A+Asia+%26+Pacific%29&utm_content=FeedBurner

/In the coming weeks and months, Foreign Policy in Focus will run weekly 
features on the Obama administration's military "pivot" to the 
Asia-Pacific region, examining both its geopolitical impacts and the 
response from regional civil society groups./ /This is the first piece 
in the series./

A year ago, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signaled a major 
transformation in U.S. foreign policy in an article titled "America's 
Pacific Century 
<http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/11/americas_pacific_century?hidecomments=yes>," 
which announced the U.S. "pivot" toward Asia, the Pacific, and the 
strategically important Indian Ocean. "One of the most important tasks 
of American statecraft over the next decade," she wrote, will be "to 
lock in a substantially increased investment --- diplomatic, economic, 
strategic, and otherwise--- in the Asia-Pacific region." The increased 
engagement, she wrote, would be underwritten in part by "forging a 
broad-based military presence."

Shortly thereafter, the Pentagon published its new "strategic guidance" 
paper, which, signaling at a shift away from Iraq and Central Asia, 
named the Asia-Pacific region and the Persian Gulf as the nation's two 
geostrategic priorities. To emphasize the new commitments, Clinton, 
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and President Barack Obama made 
high-profile visits to allied Asian and Pacific nations. Republicans, in 
Mitt Romney <http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/romney_mitt>'s 
foreign policy white paper 
<http://www.mittromney.com/collection/foreign-policy>, upped the ante, 
insisting that the United States "expand its naval presence in the 
Western Pacific" and pressure its allies to "maintain appropriate 
military capabilities."

*The Continuing Pursuit of Asia-Pacific Hegemony*

The pivot is best understood as an extension of a century and a half of 
U.S. foreign and military policies. In the 1850s, U.S. Secretary of 
State William Seward argued that if the United States were to replace 
Britain as the world's dominant power, it would first have to dominate 
Asia -- hence the purchase of Alaska, the northern route to Asia. By the 
1890s, Washington had finally assembled the navy needed to challenge 
Britain's mastery of the seas. Meanwhile, amidst an economic depression 
and related domestic turmoil, policymakers saw access to the Chinese 
market as a way to put the unemployed to work while increasing corporate 
profits and establishing the United States as a global power. The 
turn-of-the-century sinking of the /USS Maine/ in Havana harbor provided 
an excuse for the United States to declare war on Spain, seize the 
Philippines and Guam (as well as Puerto Rico and Cuba), and annex Hawaii 
to secure the refueling stations needed to reach China.

After Japan's defeat in the Second World War, the Pacific became an 
"American Lake." Hundreds of new U.S. military bases were established in 
Japan, Korea, Australia, the Marshall Islands, and other Pacific nations 
to reinforce those in the Philippines, Guam, and Hawaii, which were 
greatly expanded. Together these bases "contained" Beijing and Moscow 
throughout the Cold War, serving as launching pads for the Korean and 
Vietnam wars as well as for military interventions and political 
subversion from the Philippines and Indonesia to the Persian Gulf.

In the late 1990s, when China was first seen a potential strategic 
competitor for Asia-Pacific hegemony, the Clinton administration adopted 
a two-track policy of engagement and containment. Deng Xiaoping was 
welcomed to Disneyland, President Clinton was welcomed in Beijing, and 
China was given the green light to join the World Trade Organization. 
Meanwhile, the U.S.-Japan military alliance, which has long functioned 
as the NATO equivalent in East Asia, was reinforced. The Clinton 
administration sent nuclear-capable aircraft carriers through the Taiwan 
Strait and accelerated missile defense deployments designed to 
neutralize China's missile capabilities. Before they were sidetracked by 
the "war on terror," President George W. Bush and company promised to 
"diversify" U.S. Asia-Pacific military bases, reducing their 
concentration in Northeast Asia in order to distribute them more widely 
along China's periphery.

Although the Bush administration extended the "war on terror" to 
Indonesia, the Philippines, and southern Thailand, it otherwise largely 
neglected Asia and the Pacific. This opened the way for growing Chinese 
influence, deepening the integration of ASEAN nations into China's 
surging economic orbit. With the pivot, the Obama administration has 
signaled its determination, according to the /Guardian/'s Simon Tidal, 
"to beat back 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/06/china-barack-obama-defence-strategy> 
any Chinese bid for hegemony in the Asia-Pacific," even at the expense 
of a new Cold War. As General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff, put it, "the U.S. military may be obliged to overtly 
confront China just as it faced down the Soviet Union."

*The New Cold War and Its Footprint*

Joseph Nye, Bill Clinton's Deputy Secretary of Defense and a primary 
author of U.S. Asia-Pacific policy, previewed the pivot's intellectual 
foundations in a piece 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/05/opinion/the-right-way-to-trim-military-spending.html> 
for the /New York Times/. He warned of the potential dangers of rivalry 
between rising and declining powers. Twice during the 20^th century, Nye 
noted, the United States and Britain failed to integrate Germany and 
Japan into their world order, resulting in two catastrophic world wars. 
To avoid an apocalyptic repeat of history, he urged the United States to 
simultaneously engage and contain China. Months before the "pivot" was 
launched, in words reminiscent of the 1890s, Nye wrote that "Asia will 
return to its historic status, with more than half of the world's 
population and half of the world's economic output. America must be 
present there. Markets and economic power rest on political frameworks, 
and /American military power provides that framework/" (emphasis added).

Now, even as the Obama administration repeats that "a thriving China is 
good for America 
<http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/11/americas_pacific_century?hidecomments=yes>" 
and pursues engagement via various diplomatic channels, it is hedging 
its bets.

Military alliances with Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, 
and Thailand, which serve as "the fulcrum for our strategic turn to the 
Asia-Pacific," are being revitalized. Having adopted an air-sea battle 
doctrine, the Pentagon has committed to deploying 60 percent of its 
nuclear-armed and high-tech navy to the Asia-Pacific. According to the 
/New York Times/, this includes 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/02/world/asia/leon-panetta-outlines-new-weaponry-for-pacific.html> 
"six aircraft carriers and a majority of the Navy's cruisers, 
destroyers, littoral combat ships and submarines, [and] an accelerated 
pace of naval exercises and port calls in the Pacific."

Recognizing that relying on military power alone is not a winning 
strategy, especially given the near-equal influence of economic power, 
the Obama administration has also pressed a diplomatic campaign to 
negotiate a "Trans-Pacific Partnership." The goal is to create the 
world's largest and most demanding free-trade area in ways that deepen 
the economic integration of the U.S. and its Asia-Pacific allies while 
simultaneously reducing their economic dependence on China.

The expansion has come at a price for the region's people.

In Japan it means reaffirming the nuclear alliance, despite President 
Obama's ostensible commitment to creating a nuclear-weapons-free world. 
It also means amplified efforts to pacify Okinawan resistance to decades 
of U.S. military colonization, the continued and dangerous basing of the 
nuclear-capable USS George Washington aircraft carrier in Tokyo Bay, the 
deployment of accident-prone Osprey aircraft in the urban Futenma base 
in Okinawa, accelerated missile defense deployments, and expanded joint 
intelligence operations targeting China and North Korea.

In South Korea, where the U.S. military continues to have authority over 
all South Korean military operations in wartime, joint military 
exercises have been expanded --- including in the Yellow Sea, where in 
defiance of Chinese warnings, the United States recently deployed the 
George Washington. To take the naval challenge closer to the Chinese 
coast, a massive Korean naval base is being built at a World Heritage 
site in Jeju Island's Gangjeon village, which according to Yonhap News 
will "accommodate 
<http://www.alternet.org/world/south-korean-island-takes-center-stage-battle-over-regional-dominance-and-environmental;> 
submarines and up to 20 warships, including U.S. Aegis-equipped 
destroyers and their missile defense systems." This has sparked intense 
and disciplined nonviolent resistance in Korea.

In Southeast Asia, the Obama administration upped the military ante by 
responding to China's increasingly militarized claims to nearly all of 
the mineral-rich South China Sea---through which 40 percent of the 
world's commerce passes---by declaring (U.S.-policed) free navigation of 
the seas a U.S. strategic priority. Reinforcing Philippine claims to the 
"West Philippine Sea," the Pentagon has also increased weapons sales to 
the Philippines, accelerated joint military exercises, and explored the 
return of military bases. The pivot also entails strengthening the U.S. 
military's relationships with Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, 
and Vietnam, with the latter engaging in joint military exercises and 
under its "friends with all nations" policies, providing access for U.S. 
and allied navies at Cam Rahn Bay. Washington's renewed ties and 
military-to-military contacts with Burma, which could restrict China's 
access to the Indian Ocean, have also raised serious concerns in Beijing.

To complete China's encirclement, the Obama administration has 
established a new Indian Ocean base in Darwin, Australia, pursued a 
tacit alliance with India, and is expanding its "partnerships" with New 
Zealand and Mongolia. In April, the United States even won an agreement 
to keep a yet-to-be-determined number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan 
through 2024 
<http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2F3164a16e-8c9f-11e1-9758-00144feab49a.html&ei=FIlGULr8CfS-0QGB2IBo&usg=AFQjCNE4iZhSgT-gHL9SnLm9KjqhN9-_Ww>. 
Closer to home, Hawaii is to host nearly 3,000 more Marines, Osprey 
warplanes, and further base expansions.

Meanwhile the Chamorro people of Guam, whose tiny island nation's 
strategic location makes it an ideal fallback site for the day when U.S. 
troops are finally ejected from Japan, are bearing the brunt of the 
pivot. Even though U.S. bases already occupy 28 percent of the 
500-square-mile island, 3,000 more U.S. Marines and their families are 
scheduled to be redeployed to Guam from Okinawa, and there are plans for 
massive expansions of existing bases.

In an August 2012 speech in Japan, Cara Flores-Mays of Guam explained 
what the pivot will mean for her Chamorro grandfather: "He has not known 
freedom," she said, "and it's likely that he never will." The same 
applies to the peoples of many other Asia-Pacific nations, who have 
largely been shunted aside in the great-power calculus governing U.S. 
policy in the region.

*The Peace Movement's Pivot*

The United States and China, joined by other Asian and Pacific nations, 
are now engaged in a dangerous, expensive arms race reminiscent of the 
Cold War.

When great powers compete, the peoples and interests of smaller nations 
are often sacrificed. Caught between China's rising influence and the 
U.S. pivot, the people of "host" nations and communities are paying the 
greatest price. Over two centuries ago, the authors of the U.S. 
Declaration of Independence identified the peacetime presence of British 
troops in their communities as the source of "abuses and usurpations" 
necessitating rebellion. Now it is the peoples of the Pacific and Asia 
who are suffering and increasingly resisting the impacts of the pivot, 
be they land seizures, harassment by U.S. soldiers, terrorizing 
low-altitude flight exercises, assaults on the environment, distorted 
national budgets, or the increased dangers of catastrophic warfare.

If catastrophic wars are to be prevented and limited national resources 
devoted to ensuring genuine economic and environmental security, the 
U.S. peace movement must begin challenging the pivot and its 
consequences. Already, there are indications that the movement's own 
"pivot" has begun.

Among the most encouraging indications are the solidarity actions in 
support of anti-bases forces in Okinawa and Korea and the creation of 
the Working Group for Peace and Demilitarization in Asia.

Okinawa has served as a U.S. military colony since its conquest in 1945, 
with massive U.S. Marine, Air Force, Navy, and Army bases continuing to 
occupy more than a quarter of its land area. Since the 1995 kidnapping 
and rape of a 12-year-old school girl by three U.S. Marines sparked a 
mass movement that shook the U.S.-Japan alliance to its core, the 
centerpiece of Washington's and Tokyo's campaign to pacify Okinawan 
resistance has been the agreement to relocate the dangerous Futenma 
Marine air base, located adjacent to schools and people's homes, from 
the center of Ginowan City to Henoko, a small community in a more remote 
part of the island. Sit-ins led by octogenarians at the proposed 
construction site to prevent the corruption of their community and 
destruction of a vital reef and the sea life it supports sparked a 
movement that has transformed Okinawan politics. Instead of settling for 
the closure of Futenma at the expense of the people of Henoko, Okinawans 
have demonstrated, gone to court, sent delegations around the world, and 
elected political leaders who refused to sacrifice either Ginowan City 
or Henoko and --- won the withdrawal of half of the 16,000 Marines based 
in Okinawa (albeit to Australia, Guam, and Hawaii).

A similar struggle, led by farmers and environmentalists, is being waged 
on Jeju Island in Korea. There, on a UNESCO World Heritage site 300 
miles from the Chinese coast, the U.S.-supported South Korean government 
has begun building an ostensibly Korean naval base that will be home to 
U.S.-made Aegis destroyers and missile defenses. The construction is 
destroying a sacred rock formation and reefs and preventing fishermen 
from earning their livelihood. The military housing that will follow 
will overwhelm farmers and villagers. For the past five years, activists 
have resisted with an imaginative, militant, and disciplined campaign of 
nonviolence that has made the Jeju struggle a national and international 
issue. There have been near-daily arrests as villagers and other base 
opponents block construction vehicles, squat on land seized to build the 
base, and cut through barbed wire barriers. Farmers and religious 
leaders have won hearts and minds with fasts, a painful campaign to make 
a thousand bows a day, and the profound form of Korean protest of 
publicly shaving their heads.

Although the U.S. peace movement largely turned away from East Asia in 
the aftermath of the VietnamWar, several U.S. peace organizations and a 
handful of dedicated activists have acted in solidarity with Asian and 
Pacific peace and justice movements. But with the Obama administration's 
pivot now in full swing, the movement as a whole must challenge 
Washington's increasingly militarized and dangerous campaign to 
reinforce its regional hegemony. Even as it works to prevent a war with 
Iran, bring all U.S. troops home from Afghanistan, and move money from 
the Pentagon to fund human needs and job creation, the U.S. peace 
movement has a responsibility to turn U.S. Asia-Pacific policy away from 
its militarized course and toward peaceful common and human security.

One promising incipient network is the newly created Working Group for 
Peace and Demilitarization in Asia and the Pacific 
<http://www.asiapacificinitiative.org/>. Growing out of a series of 
conferences and exchanges initiated by the American Friends Service 
Committee, the Working Group brings together figures from the 
traditional peace movement, Asian-American activists, the religious 
community, and scholars. It has begun to provide the analytical 
foundations for a broader movement. It has won endorsements from partner 
organizations across Asia and the Pacific to use the framework of 2013 
as "The Year of Asia-Pacific Peace and Demilitarization" to build our 
movements.

The pivot and the resulting new Cold War are undermining the real needs 
of Americans and Asians alike. But another world is possible.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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