In 2012 President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Ashton Carter launched a new chapter in their quest for global dominance: A realignment of policies designed to shift priorities from the Middle East to Asia.
Dubbed the “pivot to Asia,” it suggested that the US would concentrate its economic, military and diplomatic resources toward strengthening its dominant position and undercutting China’s rising influence in the region.
The “pivot to Asia” did not shift existing resources from the Middle East, it added military commitments to the region, while provoking more conflicts with Russia and China. It meant that the US was extending and deepening its regional military alliances in order to confront and encircle Russia and China. The “pivot to Asia” had a two-pronged approach, based on an economic trading pact and various military treaty agreements. The entire US strategy of retaining global supremacy depended on securing and enhancing its control over its regional allies and proxies. Failure of the Obama regime to retain Washington’s vassal states would accelerate its decline and encourage more desperate political maneuvers. Without a doubt, every military decision and action made by the Obama administration with regard to the Asia-Pacific Region has had only one purpose — to weaken China’s defense capabilities, undermine its economy and force Beijing to submit to Washington’s domination. In pursuit of military supremacy, Washington has installed an advanced missile system in South Korea, increased its air and maritime armada and expanded its provocative activities along China’s coastline and its vital maritime trade routes. Washington has embarked on a military base expansion campaign in Australia, Japan and the Philippines.
The US authored and promoted Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a trade and investment agreement covering 12 Pacific countries designed to ensure US regional dominance while deliberately cutting out China. The TPP was to be the linchpin of US efforts to promote profits for overseas US multi-nationals by undercutting the rules for domestic producers, labor laws for workers and environmental regulations for consumers. As a result of its unpopular domestic provisions, which had alienated US workers and consumers, the electorate forced both presidential candidates to withdraw their support for the TPP — what one scribbler for the Financial Times denounced as “the dangers of popular democracy.” The Washington empire builders envisioned the TPP as a tool for dictating and enforcing their “rules” on a captive Asia-Pacific trading system. From the perspective of US big business, the TPP was the instrument of choice for retaining supremacy in Asia by excluding China. However, under the Obama-Clinton-Kerry Regime, the imperial structures in Asia are coming apart. Washington’s anti-China TPP is collapsing and has been replaced by the Chinese sponsored Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) with over 50 member countries worldwide, including the ten nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, plus Australia, India, South Korea and New Zealand. Of course, China is funding most of the partnership and, to no one’s surprise, Washington has not been invited to join. As a result of the highly favorable terms in the RCEP, each and every current and former US ally and colony has been signing on, shifting trade allegiances to China, and effectively changing the configuration of power.
The US self-styled “pivot to Asia” involves locating five military bases directed at dominating the South China Sea. Pentagon planners had envisioned targeting Chinese shipping and air bases in the South China Sea from its new bases on western shores of the Philippines. This essentially threatens the stability of the entire region, especially the vital Chinese trade routes to the global economy. Washington’s entire “pivot to Asia” has centered its vast military build-up on its access to the Philippines. This access is now at risk. President Rodrigo Duterte is pursuing an independent foreign policy. Duterte has openly challenged the US policy of using the Philippines to encircle and provoke China.
According to a recent ruling by the Philippine Supreme Court, the controversial US military base agreement imposed by the former President Aquino by fiat without congressional ratification can be terminated by the new president by executive order. This ruling punches some major holes in what the Pentagon had considered its “ironclad” stranglehold on the strategic Philippine bases. Washington’s “pivot to Asia,” enshrined in its effort to corral the Asian countries into its anti-China crusade is not going as the Obama-Clinton-Kerry team had envisioned. It is proving to be a major foreign policy debacle for the outgoing and (presumably) incoming US presidential administrations. The Pentagon’s military base strategy stuck in a 1980s time-warped vision of Southeast Asia is on the verge of imploding. In desperation, Washington may decide to resort to a military power grab — a coup in the Philippines, backed by a coalition of Manila-based oligarchs, narco-bosses and generals. The problem with a precipitate move to “regime change” is that Duterte is immensely popular with the Philippine electorate — precisely for the reasons that the Washington elite and Manila oligarchs despise him.
• James Petras is a Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York. He is the author of more than 62 books.
Transcend Media Service
