Check this out....via Philippine News.
The United States will not take sides in the territorial dispute between the Philippines and China in the South China Sea, new US Ambassador to the Philippines Philip Goldberg said.Now you could call this simple diplomacy. You could say that its a complex issue and that several nations have claims on certain pieces of territory in the region.
"We don’t take sides and we are not a claimant state on any of these territorial features," Goldberg said in a press conference after meeting President Benigno Aquino III at the Palace.
Goldberg instead pushed for the peaceful and legal resolution to the conflict in the disputed waters.
"But at the same time, we strongly support the countries of this region coming together for a Code of Conduct, which will help set out the rules of the road or the rules of the sea, and will be a way for tensions to decrease. The same is true of any legal recourse that the Philippine government has taken," he added.
I say bullshit.
This was in response to whether or not the US supports the Philippines against Chinese aggression.
We blinked.
And just like a bully on a playground, if they sense fear, they will strike. China just setup a ADIZ. They just got this concession.
The US just got bitch slapped courtesy of our Ambassador in the Philippines.
Sidenote: How do we keep doing this? We respond well to the Typhoon then we make unforced errors like this. If I was in the Philippine govt I would extract every last dime I could out of the US...especially when we can't seem to show any spine when it comes to the Chinese.
To be honest, Sol, I think you might be reading a little too much into this one statement. The moment China declared the ADIZ we immediately sent B-52s into it, which sent a pretty clear message. I think the US ambassador in the Philippines is simply trying to show that we don't want any blood spilled over this. The moment we take a side it becomes us verses them diplomacy, which doesn't often lead to a peaceful solution.
ReplyDeleteUnless China sends in military forces of their own and we don't show up at all I don't think this is the US backing down. So far, we have sent in forces and shown that we will oppose any Chinese expansion. Actions speak louder than words and when it comes to diplomacy talk is cheap.
i don't think so. the Chinese have been very aggressive in their actions with their neighbors. you can just take a look around the region. listen to the leadership. Japan, S. Korea, Singapore, the Philippines are all alarmed by Chinese actions and while we're trying to get basing rights in the Philippines we just told the people of that country that despite being pushed around by a bully China, we're not taking sides.
Deletethis is a bad sign. a sign of weakness. Clinton was once called the first black president. Obama has been called both the first female and first gay president. in Obama's case thats an insult to gays and women. i don't know many that are as weak as he's shown.
Dude, you need to relax.
ReplyDeleteYou're a couple of posts away from becoming a full on conspiracy theorists.
Everything is ominous & borderline black helicopters.
hmmm. i don't remember holding a weapon to your fat, ugly face and demanding that you read my blog.
Deletesmh awesome rejoinder.
DeleteSemper...Haeret in Stultum
no it was quite appropriate. a blog is just the opinions of the writer being shared with the world. some will agree, others won't. but to tell me that i need to relax over an issue is to say that your opinion is more valid than my own. thats bullshit. i'd have preferred for you to do like others and to tell me why i'm wrong and like i did with Drake i'll respond appropriately, but don't come to my page, talk shit and expect NOT to get called on it.
Deleteoh and your attempt at Latin is jacked up....try again.
DeleteHaha my Latin is perfect. And your general attitude sucks. Big shock though; some uninformed nobody with a blog has a bad attitude. It's almost a proverb by now. You have a good one.
Deleteuh. no. and i don't have a bad attitude, i'm just allergic to arrogance, bullshit and know it alls. bye now. don't come back.
DeleteI see this as a continuation of the status quo, but the State Department's announcement to America’s commercial airlines concerning China’s ADIZ rules were harmful.
ReplyDeleteThat said, the way the Chinese are making moves in the region, we will have to take a side sooner rather than later.
sorry Drake, but i don't see this as a continuation of things as normal.
Deletethere is something called normalcy bias that gets people into trouble.
ever wonder why someone can see a group of people being disorderly and on the verge of violence but they continue on their way as if all is well? normalcy bias. how can a person drive through standing water and then call police to aid them instead of acting to save themselves? normalcy bias.
how does a nation observe a peer competitor act in aggressive ways in a region and yet act as all is good? normalcy bias.
the reaction to the ADIZ was the first time i've seen people shaken out of their complacency but its all late. China is a threat and i'll keep shouting it from the roof tops.
Well, for all intensive purposes, the Chinese have already taken territory from the Philippine's, and threatened them at gunpoint. We didn't act.
DeleteWell they pretty much said the same thing with regards to the current ADIZ. Plugs Biden conveyed the United States's "deep concern" while stating that they are taking no sides in the Senkaku matter. I wonder what the response will be when China seizes control of Taiwan.
ReplyDeleteIf it occurs while this President is in Office....the response'll amount to paper pushing.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
Delete...unless....some local commander(s) decides to respond appropriately BEFORE the White House has a chance to shut it down. ;)
ReplyDeleteI don't really feel all that emotional when it comes to the Philippines or to be more precise about the statement. If I recall correctly, this administration and the previous one pretty much said they wanted some kind of common regional agreement/negotiation and that the USA wasn't really taking sides. China wanted no part of the collective negotiation stuff and would much prefer to deal with each individual country, kind of picking the regional powers off one by one.
ReplyDeleteFor me, the B52 response was the one that did it, I thought it was pretty timid after all and supposedly US administration has told US airlines to comply with Chinese AIDZ, my understanding is Japan and SK have told their airlines not to ask for permission/talk to Chinese control and not comply. That's pretty lame from USA, not sticking to our allies more than the Philippine issue,IMO....
Playing weak against communists never ends well. Having said that, we don't have any political leaders with a spine.
ReplyDeleteextremely well said. i wish i was that eloquent, straight forward and to the point.
Deletebut what has me scratching my head is why are so few people thinking like we do? we created this entwined economy and we can deconstruct it. lets be honest. all we would do is see a revival in US/allied produced goods. we might experience a little price pain but industry would return and we'd see increased spending.
are the trinkets we get from China so valuable that we as a nation, as an allied group are willing to sell our souls and futures to a country that wants to destroy us?
i know that our president doesn't have any guts but i thought the American people did.
and for the doubters consider this. our president has been humiliated by the Russian President on several occasions. was found to be doing the same thing that he accused his predecessor of doing in spying on US citizens. engaged in a drone war. got pushed back when he tried to go to war with Syria. is being made a fool out of by the Chinese. has put forward the biggest tax increase in many decades in the form of Obama care and hasn't put forward a budget in many years (with the aid of the Democrats in the Senate).
we're fucked. we're proper fucked and 2014 and 2016 will determine the future of our country.
my view? i'm looking at land in Montana.
I still think you're reading a little too much into this one statement, but you have a point here. Actually, I think the president's incompetence has sent the message to our enemies that now is the time to make their move. All of our enemies have become increasingly aggressive as of late and we are losing ground in almost every major region on the globe: the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia, even the halls of power in Europe.
DeleteThey also know that Obama is president for three more years and I'm betting we can expect to see more advances made by our enemies within these next three years. What I'm wondering is what moves our not-so-incompetent allies will make are in response, such as Israel. I'm willing to bet my next paycheck that if Obama continues to pussyfoot around with Iran on sanctions, Israel just might take matters into their own hands and strike.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7XKk5H2b4U&feature=youtube_gdata_player
ReplyDeleteWhile I can personally appreciate the military style rhetoric here, I don't feel that is the correct way to deal with the situation at all. Here is why, regardless of which empire waxes or wanes the fact will remain that we don't live in the 1600's anymore. In the 1600's you could send a few thousand marines, establish a colony and effectively set the dynamic for centuries to come. Today the global flow of information and nuclear weapons strictly prohibits such acts.
ReplyDeleteLike it or not we are in the long game here, and each generation will be faced with the challenge of how to coincide on our respective sides of the pacific without having to launch nuclear warheads at each others major population centers.
There is no doubt that the that the government within the PRC is so aggressive that its behavior and theory that it makes maintaining a sustainable relationship difficult. But the other side of that is how do we go about doing that without having full scale war. The answer is that war must remain an unfeasible option with little to no gain. Now part of doing that does involves supporting regional allies to make the war unfeasible, but the other part of it involves not bringing it to a head and getting them hurt by giving them a foolhardy regard to China and bringing things to a head unnecessarily.
The US and China aren't the only people in the pacific ocean and the other Asian countries have been independent through the eons and have done so on their own steam.
If we cant get along in Asia the ability to isolate and maintain own autonomy is possible through some very abrupt trade measures and a degree of US nationalism not seen in this century. But the necessity nor benefit from this does not exist.
The economic ties the US has in Asia are designed to make peace the most favorable option and if those don't work and they attack their neighbors our alliances in the region create a strength that puts the PRC at a military disadvantage.
But the presence in the pacific isn't about defeating the PLA or the PRC its about perpetuating the unfeasible nature of military conflict as time marches on.
The government of the PRC is certainly a pain in the ass but an individual Han may be as friendly as Jackie Chan or the little old lady at the Chinese restaurant in your city.
The ancestors of the peoples that comprise the populations of the US and China have been through more governments than I have socks in my dresser and managed to survive this far. So the question about how one government can be stronger than the other as much as it is how the hell are the world's peoples going to survive our transient governments and the our collective ignorance to get from this side of time to the other together. We will live and die, our descendants will oscillate between wealth, fame, and poverty and they will migrate or not. And the governments will wax wane and transition so much it would make your head spin if you didn't die from old age first. The trick is to make it through this little period where the PRC government is a bunch of dicks until we get the government over there that easier to get along with, without having to war.
you mean this artificial construction called globalization that's been around for about a decade or two at best? a construct that has effectively off shored our manufacturing base and artifically strengthened a mortal enemy? that's the bases of this trade that you're saying is going to keep the world safe?
Deleteha-ha-ha!!!! too funny!