At the end of September, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or QUAD met in Delaware. This is the most comprehensive of the new network of alliances created by Washington to combat China. The Quad is comprised of India, Japan, Australia, and the United States. This is in addition to AUKUS which has a more robust security element. What's important about the Quad is that it incorporates India and as such is critical to the US 'Indo-Pacific' framing of geo-politics and strategy vis-à-vis Beijing. AUKUS has more teeth but the Quad has the potential to be more important.
In the meeting, Biden was caught on an open microphone speaking candidly about the scope of Chinese confrontation and thus the real motivation for their meetings. Up until now the Quad has attempted to maintain the fiction that the group is not directed toward any specific nation - even while everyone knows it exists to counter China. Chinese interests in the region and US aggression are effectively non-existent for the Quad leadership. China is the enemy.
Myanmar also received some attention. While largely ignored in the West, the ongoing civil war and resistance receives some coverage from outlets like the BBC. It is supposed that Yangon receives support from Beijing and yet it could also be said the US has a long history of backing Burmese rebel groups. The fact that the Quad is calling for more intelligence gathering stations in India indicates not just a focus on Beijing but across their eastern border as well.
At the same time the Biden administration upped the ante with Beijing by introducing a new series of economic sanctions and formal boycotts in the name of security.
While US intelligence agencies are known to hack the devices of Western users - including allies, Chinese capabilities are presented as especially pernicious. The Right in particular stokes the fires with talk of massive infiltration and a proliferation of spies. A survey just might reveal that a surprising number of Americans are actually far more concerned about their own government spying and invading their privacy than any threat posed by far off Beijing. Obviously the whole TikTok debacle (as stupid as it is) is related to these questions and the attempts by Washington to intensify economic and technological warfare against Beijing.
The language around subsidies also strikes the reader as absurd. Every a cursory survey of American and certainly European corporate success and technological innovation is inseparable from subsidisation. China and others have long complained about US subsidies to its tech and business sectors - electronic cars and the Biden instigated Inflation Reduction Act are only the latest such examples. One can easily point to corn and soybeans as well as perhaps the biggest of all - Boeing and other weapons contractors. And on a macro level it would be remiss not to mention how the US government greased the rails and at times all but sponsored and encouraged the offshore migration and outsourcing of US manufacturing to China - to exploit Chinese labour and maximize profits. The US markets boomed in the 1990's and early 2000's as a result of this practice - and Chinese-made US products were not just sold to the American public but these companies opened global markets as a result. Even after the crash of 2008, the markets continued to benefit from these practices and have continued to climb.
Of course a great deal of the present struggle over microchips and the like are due to rising technologies and capacities and US desperation to remain in the top position of power and leverage. And this position is embraced by both US Establishment parties as the vice-presidential candidates all but admitted in their debate. Biden has not only perpetuated Trump-era policies but has enhanced them and by every indication Harris would do the same. Trump has upped the ante promising sweeping tariffs but as economists across the spectrum know full well - such a move will result in inflation. Biden and the rest of the Establishment are open about a coming war. Trump takes the extra-aggressive posture and argues that his policies will keep the peace. The reality is that Trump's policies create instability and help create the conditions for war or in other cases simply harm the US more than any adversary.
Trump also seems to be weaving 'dollar supremacy' into his speeches indicating that Wall Street is concerned about the course of things in the larger world and the challenge of China. But his threats of a 100% tariff on such 'disloyal' nations will only drive them into the arms of BRICS and other frameworks that will weaken the American ability to control the global economy. This is why everyone is watching closely to see what happens. Trump is full of hot air of course, but he's also reckless. He presents (potentially) a greater headache for Beijing but he's erratic. With Biden and Harris, they know they will face measured but predictable resistance.
And on that front we see Biden continuing to push the anti-China agenda even in the waning days of his presidency. Medium-range missiles brought in for a military exercise are now a permanent fixture in the Philippines - the Typhon system was developed in the aftermath of the 2019 US withdrawal from the 1987 Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), a move long sought by the US but blamed on Russian violations. Numerous outlets including the New York Times openly state Pentagon planners wanted this system for Taiwan's defense - which also reveals the bogus nature of US justifications for its unilateral withdrawal from the treaty. The whole narrative always smelled funny but when mentioned in media reports, the Russia angle is pushed without missing a beat.
The truth is the Typhon system would have already been in development long before the US pulled out of the treaty. They didn't develop and deploy this in five years. The whole narrative is disingenuous. The US was involved in pursuing an illegal programme. They waited until it was far enough along and just tore up the treaty in a kind of 'gotcha' moment directed at Moscow - and certainly Beijing, even though China was never a signatory.
This was big news in Eurasia but you wouldn't know it in the West, where the story has hardly been covered, let alone the geopolitical implications that are a result. And alongside this, the US continues to unveil plans for further military expansion in the Philippines. Marcos Jr. has positioned his country as a front-line state and it will necessarily be a major target in a coming war. One hopes the people of the Philippines understand just what their leaders have done.
These systems are capable of nuclear arming and for Beijing this is a threat on par with the Soviet placing of missiles in Cuba. But again, any counter move made by Beijing will be surely painted as aggression. The US is not interested in negotiation but capitulation. Has there been a debate about this within the United States? Does the public understand what it's government is doing? Is this talked about during the presidential election campaign? How can democracy function when most of the public has no clue as to what's happening and what their government is doing?
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