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In 2003, when several lawyers, including myself, visited North Korea to learn more about socialism there, we were shown US Army documents captured in 1950 by the communist forces when they seized control of Seoul and overran the American Army headquarters. The documents confirmed that it was the US and its puppets in South Korea that invaded the north, not the other way round, with the objective of crushing the local communist forces and then attacking China. Their plan failed and ended in an American rout. But what did surprise me was the evidence in the documents that the Americans also had the help and advice of Japanese Army officers who had remained in Korea at the end of the war between the US and Japan that ended in 1945. Two growing empires went to war in the Pacific against each other but in the end the defeated and occupied Japanese soon joined the growing American empire in its drive for world domination and Korea was the first proof of their fealty to the US, a fealty tolerated not only because of their defeat but also because American capital and Japanese capital have the same interest; the subjugation and exploitation of China.
On July 6 the Japanese Deputy Prime Minister stated at a Liberal Democratic Party function, that if China acted to take control of Taiwan, as is its right to do since it is an integral part of China, then Japan would defend Taiwan, because such an action by China would represent an “existential threat to Japan.”
“If a major incident happened, it’s safe to say it would be related to a situation threatening the survival of Japan. If that is the case, Japan and the US must defend Taiwan together.”
Why it would be an “existential threat to Japan” he did not explain.
That he spoke for the leadership of Japan is clear. That any interference in China’s actions in Taiwan would be an aggression against China and in violation of the Japanese Constitution that prohibits Japanese Self-Defence Forces from taking any offensive actions and a violation of the UN Charter is also clear.
In response China has stated time and again that it is prepared to defeat both the US and Japan if they try to interfere when China retakes control of Taiwan, which every action by the Americans and Taiwanese is provoking them to do. The Americans recognise that they do not have enough strength in the region to interfere alone and so have lured Britain, France, and Germany, as well as the ever-eager Australians, to send in naval forces to the South China Sea to support the American and Japanese plans. It is more than ironic to see four nations that were bitter enemies of Imperial Japan in World War II, now colluding with Japan to once again attack China and that Germany, an ally of Japan in the Second World War, once again is attempting to throw its weight around in the world. The Chinese have a long and bitter memory of the Japanese invasion and occupation of their lands in the 1930s and 40’s just as the Koreans have the same bitter memories of Japanese occupation.
But we realise now that the defeat of the fascists and militarists in Germany and Japan in 1945 was not their final defeat, for the governments who fought those two nations also had fascist elements within who hoped that the Nazis would crush communism in the USSR and the Japanese would do the same in China. Instead, the elements of world capital that supported or tolerated fascism and relied on imperialism to increase their profits quickly reorganised and, led by the far right in Washington, created the NATO military alliance to continue the assault on the USSR and now on Russia, China and other independent nations. They wear different clothes now, but use the same lies and techniques of propaganda as the Nazis and Japanese militarists as they prepare for another war against China and Russia.
On July 30 the Chinese government had to warn the British government and its naval task force, led by the new British aircraft carrier, Queen Elizabeth, to keep away from its territorial waters or face the consequences. Yet, at the same time the US and France conducted military exercise with dozens of US F22s and French Rafale aircraft near Hawaii as the French beef up their forces in Tahiti, while the Americans have dispersed their fleet of bombers and fighters including F35s from their big base on Guam, which the Chinese can destroy quickly, to smaller bases, making it more difficult for China to destroy those aircraft. This type of dispersal is usually seen in war settings, when war is on going or imminent.
At the same time the Germans announced that they will be sending a frigate to the South China Sea in support of the Americans and Japanese, while the Americans sent more ships into the Taiwan Strait this week. Some may see all this as sabre rattling. But that is a lot of sabres, and they are doing a lot more than just rattling them.
As Hans Rudiger Minow stated in German Foreign Policy,
“The intensification of western manoeuvres and their growing focus on combat missions, which are highly realistic under current circumstances, coincide with prognoses by high-ranking US military officials, predicting that a war between the United States and China is probable in the near future. For example, recently NATO’s former Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), Ret. Adm. James G. Stavridis, was quoted with the prognosis that “our technology, network of allies and bases in the region, still overmatch China” – for now. However, “by the end of the decade – if not sooner” the People’s Republic “will be in a position” to “challenge the US” at least “in the South China Sea.” Recently Stavridis published a novel in which he depicted a fictional war erupting between the USA and China in 2034. In the meantime, he considers “we may not have until 2034 to prepare for this battle – it may come much sooner.” Some of his colleagues in the military are predicting that “it is not about 2034,” the Big War could come earlier – possibly even “2024 or 2026.”
But it is not China that is seeking a war. So who is pushing this insanity? The propaganda machines in the west, all part of the military-industrial complex, are legion. But one of the worst is the Hudson Institute, founded in 1961 by Herman Khan, formerly of the Rand Institute, who was famous for playing nuclear war games and theorising on the possibilities of using nuclear weapons in war. Its current leadership and membership include fascists like Mike Pompeo, Seth Cropsey and many others who served in various US government regimes or the US military establishment.
Seth Cropsey’s bio states,
“Cropsey began his career in government at the US Department of Defense as assistant to Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and subsequently served as deputy undersecretary of the Navy in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, where he was responsible for the Navy’s position on efforts to reorganize DoD, development of the maritime strategy, the Navy’s academic institutions, naval special operations, and burden-sharing with NATO allies. In the Bush administration, Cropsey moved to the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) to become acting assistant secretary, and then principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict. Cropsey served as a naval officer from 1985 to 2004.
“From 1982 to 1984, Cropsey directed the editorial policy of the Voice of America (VOA) on the solidarity movement in Poland, Soviet treatment of dissidents, and other issues. Returning to public diplomacy in 2002 as director of the US government’s International Broadcasting Bureau, Cropsey supervised the agency as successful efforts were undertaken to increase radio and television broadcasting to the Muslim world.”
In other words he is a long time anti-socialist propagandist and war criminal.
Cropsey penned a recent article published in The Hill, a US right wing journal covering events in Washington entitled ,“Japan Signals An Opening for US in Countering China” in which he praised the statement by Taro Aso that Japan will support Taiwan in case of China acting to take control of its island, claimed that China seeks “world dominance” and predicted a war with the USA in the near future.
He further states that the Japanese have now made a “decisive shift” in foreign and military policy, dismisses the Japanese constitutional prohibition on Japanese offensive actions and calls for Japan to increase it military forces and support to “counter” China.
He wrote:
“Defending Taiwan is a difficult proposition. The PLA is at its strongest within the First Island Chain, particularly around Taiwan, given Beijing’s concentration of naval, air, and missile forces. To defend the island, the US and its allies would have to operate squarely within China’s missile range, jeopardizing the high-value capital assets upon which American combat power depends.
“However, Japan and the US both field significant submarine fleets — Japan’s small but quiet battery-powered boats are an effective counterpart to America’s larger nuclear-powered attack submarines. Submarines are immune to the missiles upon which the PLA would rely to gain sea and air control over Taiwan. If supported by a sufficient fast-boat mining effort, and a robust enough network of mobile ground-launched anti-ship and anti-air missiles, a Japanese-American submarine surge could defeat a PLA invasion of Taiwan, or at minimum prevent the fait accompli for which China hopes.
Given this strategic reality.”
He calls for more military exercises with the US and Japan, France, and Britain and their other allies to “prepare for war.” He then adds the lie that “preparing for war is essential to deterring it” when what he really means is that America is preparing for war in order to wage war.
The forces of peace and reason in the world must denounce these war preparations as a danger to the entire world for a war on China will bring in Russia and others, will lead to world war, to nuclear war and the end of humanity. We must denounce these criminals and demand the International Criminal Court prosecutor take action to warn the Americans, and indict the leaders of the US allies over which it has jurisdiction, their propagandists like Seth Cropsey, and all the rest who are conspiring to commit aggression, the supreme war crime, the final act of insanity, because it seems to me that is what war with China will be, the final act in the human drama. We wont have to wait for abrupt climate change to finish us off.
But the ICC says nothing about all this and the UN Security Council is rendered impotent. So who then is left to object, to say enough is enough, to hell with the criminals and their wars, except us, the people, But what can we the people do? Yes, protest, petition, write, shout, cry, join peace groups like the one I belong to, the Canadian Peace Congress, do anything you can but get up, stand up, as Bob Marley called for us to do, and as John Lennon demanded, Give Peace A Chance.
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Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto. He is known for a number of high-profile war crimes cases and recently published his novel Beneath the Clouds. He writes essays on international law, politics and world events, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
Featured image is from NEO