Beijing, 14 May (Xinhua) -- The nearly 20-day "shoulder-to-shoulder" joint military exercise between the United States and the Philippines came to an end a few days ago. More than 16,700 military personnel participated in the exercise, including 5,000 Filipino personnel and 11,000 U.S. personnel, the Philippine military said. According to reports, the scope of the military exercise covers parts of the South China Sea.
The recent escalation of the situation in the South China Sea is inseparable from the US intervention. Recently, the Philippines has sent ships to intrude into China's islands and reefs in the South China Sea, and the Chinese Coast Guard has regulated, blocked and driven them away in accordance with laws and regulations. As an extra-regional country, the United States not only baselessly accuses China of being "dangerous" and "offensive" in its maritime behavior, but also threatens the US-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty to brazenly support and embolden the Philippines' violation of China's sovereignty, which seriously violates the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and seriously jeopardizes regional peace and stability.
The United States and its allies are accustomed to infringing on the interests of other countries under the banner of "common defense" in order to cover up their true nature of "ganging up and robbing." In order to maintain its hegemony, the United States has long formed alliances around the world to create alliances against specific countries, provoke confrontation and cause chaos in the world. Countries allied with the United States are actually tied to the chariot of the United States and become instruments of US hegemony, which will only suffer from it in the end.
The United States has strengthened its ties with the Philippines and Japan
On the South China Sea issue, the United States has frequently used the US-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty in an attempt to threaten China. John Aquilino, commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said at a hearing before the U.S. House Armed Services Committee in March this year that the Philippines could activate Article V of the U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty, the collective defense clause, if a Filipino sailor or soldier dies. U.S. President Joe Biden recently declared that any attack on Philippine aircraft, ships or armed forces in the South China Sea would trigger the U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty.
The United States has also used the same tactics to support Japan on the issue of the Diaoyu Islands, including the Diaoyu Islands, which are part of China's territory, in the defense scope of the US-Japan alliance. Biden said at a joint press conference on April 10 after talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visiting the United States that the United States has always firmly fulfilled its defense commitments to Japan based on the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, which applies to the Diaoyu Islands.
The military alliance between the United States and the Philippines and Japan is in the name of "defense", but it has a distinctly offensive nature. During Kishida's visit to the United States, the two sides carried out the "largest upgrade in more than 60 years" of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, positioning the bilateral relationship as a "global partner," and the United States supporting Japan's efforts to strengthen its offensive capabilities and strengthen the coordination of the two militaries. Last year, the Philippines opened four more military bases to the United States, located close to China's Taiwan and the South China Sea. The United States also recently deployed the "Typhon" land-based intermediate-range missile system in the Philippines for the first time. According to the Navy News website, the system may be deployed on the island of Luzon, and its range can reach the coast of China and the South China Sea.
The United States also brought Japan and the Philippines together, holding a meeting of the leaders of the three countries in Washington on April 11. The statement of the meeting smeared and attacked China, and vowed to deepen trilateral cooperation in "supporting a free and open Indo-Pacific."
In this regard, Anna Marindog-Uy, deputy director of the Philippine "Asian Century" Institute for Strategic Studies, recently wrote an article on the website of the "Manila Times" and pointed out that building a trilateral alliance between the United States, Japan and the Philippines is a key step for the United States to promote the "Indo-Pacific strategy", with the aim of maintaining the United States' hegemonic status and strategic influence in the region. Koh Keng Kee, chairman of Malaysia's New Asia Center for Strategic Studies, said the United States is seeking to bolster its military power in the first island chain by consolidating ties with regional allies to contain China.
Gangs up to maintain hegemony
For a long time, driven by interest groups such as the domestic military-industrial complex, the United States has created enemies around the world, provoked confrontation, and formed gangs to infringe on the interests of other countries in the name of "common defense."
In Northeast Asia, the U.S.-South Korea alliance is nominally designed to defend against the "North Korean threat," but in fact it is the lever for U.S. intervention in Northeast Asian affairs. The U.S. military presence on the peninsula is maintained not only against North Korea, but also against neighboring powers. For example, the deployment of the THAAD anti-missile system in South Korea has the intention of monitoring China and Russia. In recent years, the United States and South Korea have also jointly criticized the situation in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.
In Oceania, U.S.-Australia defense cooperation began during World War II, but when the two countries formed a military alliance after the war, Australia did not face a clear external security threat. Since then, Australia has sent troops to participate in many wars launched by the United States, including the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Afghanistan War, and the Iraq War. In recent years, the United States and Australia, two countries outside the region, have colluded with each other and frequently carried out military operations in the South China Sea under the banner of "freedom of navigation".
In Europe, the United States continues to strengthen its dominant NATO. NATO, known as a "defensive" military alliance, was originally established to prevent the so-called "Soviet invasion", but it was not dissolved after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. After the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, NATO has continuously provided military assistance to Ukraine, and has gradually escalated and increased its weight, in an attempt to use Ukraine to weaken and drag Russia down. At the same time, NATO has also further strengthened its strategic deterrence against Russia from the north with the help of Finland and Sweden joining. As a matter of fact, since the end of the Cold War, NATO, a "defensive organization," has carried out military intervention everywhere under the leadership of the United States and taken military action against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and other countries, causing a large number of civilian casualties and a serious humanitarian crisis.
In recent years, the United States has integrated various alliances in an attempt to build a larger-scale alliance system, including the establishment of security cooperation mechanisms such as the United States, Japan, South Korea, the United States, Britain and Australia, the United States, Japan and Australia, and the United States, Japan and the Philippines. All these military alliances forged in the name of "common defense" fundamentally serve the hegemonic interests of the United States and are a tool for the United States to safeguard its hegemonic interests.
"The United States is originally a warring country that has mastered world hegemony through the normalization of war." Professor Emeritus of Japan's Yamaguchi University, Ayu Takeshi, pointed out that in Asia, the United States wants to continue to maintain its hegemonic position and relies more than ever on allies such as Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines.
Murder with a knife to destroy the peace
Some allies seem to have a lot of confidence with the support of the United States' "common defense" commitment. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos recently claimed that if a Filipino soldier dies in an "accident" in the South China Sea, Manila will activate the "US-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty."
In fact, "common defense" is a means by which the United States controls its allies, whose fundamental purpose is to serve U.S. strategic interests rather than to secure them, and these allies are often at greater risk by being exploited. Former Philippine Senator Francisco Tatade recently published an article on the website of the Philippine "Manila Times" and bluntly said that if the Philippines starts a war with China with the support of the United States, it will be a "stupid suicide."
Jan Obery, founder of the Swedish Foundation for Transnational Peace and Future Studies, noted that "NATO's fundamental role is to ensure the influence of US imperialism in the world and to control its allies as vassals". U.S. allies are all at risk of being the first to suffer the effects of the conflict, and they must provide soldiers and weapons when the U.S. needs them, which would compromise the security of those countries.
Facts have shown that gangs and gangs engage in confrontation will not resolve disputes and bring security, but will only intensify contradictions and differences. Seeking a solution acceptable to all parties through peaceful negotiations is the right way to truly resolve contradictions and differences.
Bambang Suryono, chairman of the ASEAN South Seas Foundation, an Indonesian think tank, said that the bilateral and multilateral cooperation framework established by the United States to maintain its dominant position in the Asia-Pacific region poses a great threat to regional peace and stability. Veronica Saraswati, a researcher at the Indonesian Center for Strategic and International Studies, believes that the military activities of the United States and its allies in the South China Sea will not have a positive impact on ASEAN countries and the world economy, and the intervention of foreign forces will only exacerbate tensions in the South China Sea, and peaceful negotiations are the only way to resolve the South China Sea issue.
Speaking about how to resolve the issue of the Diaoyu Islands, he said that Japan and China should deepen exchanges, maintain friendly relations, and find solutions through repeated dialogues. "I believe that Japan-China friendship is the greatest security guarantee for both countries." (Participating reporters: Liu Kai, Wang Xiaowei, Deng Xianlai, An Xiaomeng, Ye Pingfan, Zheng Shibo, Sun Lei, Jiang Qiaomei, Fu Yiming, Mao Pengfei, Cai Shuya, Liu Kai)