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Thread: Mounting US Pressure on China over South China Sea

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    Default Mounting US Pressure on China over South China Sea

    Planted Media Stories Grossly Skew Perception and Policy:

    Regarding the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visit to Washington for three days of talks:

    'The stage was set for the visit through a series of
    articles in the American media implicitly accusing
    China of “militarising” the South China Sea and
    bullying its neighbours, thereby putting Foreign
    Minister Wang on the back foot. All the reports had the
    character of stories planted by the US military and
    foreign policy establishment, or sections of it.

    Last week, Murdoch’s Fox News claimed, on the
    basis of satellite photographs obtained from a
    commercial Israeli-based provider, that the Chinese
    military had placed surface-to-air batteries on Woody
    Island in the Paracel Island group. China has occupied
    Woody Island for 60 years, uses it as its administrative
    centre in the South China Sea, and has previously
    based military hardware on it, including fighter aircraft.

    The inflated accounts of the “missile threat” posed by
    China were followed by a report on Monday by the
    Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
    that Beijing was installing what appeared to be a
    high-frequency radar system in the Spratly Islands that
    “would significantly bolster China’s ability to monitor
    surface and air traffic in the South China Sea.” The
    CSIS is the Washington think tank most closely
    involved in the US military build-up in the region as
    part of the Obama administration’s so-called pivot to
    Asia.'


    Given the US 'freedom of navigation' operations in the area, frequent US patrols there, and last month's incursion of the destroyer, USS Wilber Curtis into the 12 nautical mile zone around Chinese territory, it seems arguable that the leading cause of militarization of the South China Sea is the US operations conducted in the area.

    1] It seems to me that Wang's point is good, that non-militarisation is not the responsibility of one party alone. Am I missing something, or is it that the Obama administration and Secretary of State John Kerry are bring hypocritical on this?

    2] If obvious inconsistencies do exist, how is it that the media do nothing to illuminate but rather exacerbate the tensions? Why would media do this? From where does the pressure to do this come?

    IMT
    Last edited by IMT; 02-24-2016 at 12:43 PM. Reason: Add Paragraphing for better reading

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