Barack Obama’s pivot to Asia puts the U.S. on a collision course with Beijing. At the same time, the U.S. bosses’ economic crisis could threaten their long-term ability to prevail militarily over China. As a result, they’re seeking a worldwide coalition against their imperialist rivals.
Meanwhile, Chinese expansionism is already threatening near-term conflict that the U.S. ruling class may be unable to avoid, ready or not. Obama is “rebalancing” U.S. forces to East Asia while maintaining bases in the Middle East to control oil and gas resources and supply lines — the reason it has fought two wars in the region and murdered millions of workers since 1991. But China’s bosses need the same resources to supply their expanding economy, another threat to U.S. domination.
That’s why China’s capitalists, in addition to launching a blue-water (deep-sea) navy, are forcibly claiming title to oil-rich islands in the South China and East China seas. Their goal is to turn their rivals’ operations in the area into acts of war. In fact, ExxonMobil and Chevron are already drilling there, both for oil and to enlist potential U.S. war partners the Philippines, Japan and Vietnam.
Ironically, these three nations have all suffered mass murder by the U.S. war machine: the conquest of the Philippines in 1898, which launched the U.S. as an imperialist power; Japan in World War II, with the atom-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and fire-bombing of other Japanese cities; the invasion of Vietnam two decades later, which killed three million workers and peasants there.
The nationalist outlook among leaders in these countries (criticized by the Progressive Labor Party as far back as the Vietnam War) could lead them into an alliance with the capitalist butchers of the U.S. Then again, popular opposition to uniting with U.S. bosses could upset the applecart.
U.S. Bosses’ Main Option:The Military
Given this emerging crisis, U.S. rulers must rely on their military. New Navy warships, originally designed for inshore fighting in Iran and Saudi Arabia, have been redirected to the east. On March 1, the first four of 55 U.S. Navy Littoral Combat Ships left San Diego for Singapore. According to Foreign Policy magazine, “the fast-moving ships are intended to patrol maritime traffic with allied navies, including private oceangoing cargo ships and pirate threats, while monitoring the increasingly tenuous intent of Chinese vessels, all at the contested southern door to the South China Sea” (2/28/13). Singapore commands not only the strategic China seas but also the Malacca Straits, a major chokepoint for Middle East energy supplies headed to China.
On the webpage of Foreign Affairs magazine (2/22/13), the mouthpiece of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and U.S. finance capital, Professor Michael Klare of liberal Hampshire College foresaw less than smooth sailing:
In the East China Sea, China and Japan are squabbling over a cluster of small, uninhabited islands called the Diaoyu by the Chinese and the Senkaku by the Japanese. Japan has administered the islands since the end of World War II, but China, Taiwan, and Japan all lay claim to them. In the South China Sea, meanwhile, tensions have flared over several island groups, most notably the Spratly and Paracel islands.... China, Taiwan, and Vietnam claim all of these islands, and Brunei, Malaysia, and the Philippines claim some of them. Little more than rock formations, the islands possess hardly any value in and of themselves. But they are believed to sit astride vast undersea reserves of oil and natural gas — lucrative caches for whichever country can get to them. Beyond the economic boon it would be, the Chinese view acquisition of the islands (along with the recovery of Taiwan) as the final dismantling of the imperial yoke of Western powers and Japan.
According to a recent report from the U.S. Department of Energy, major firms such as Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and ExxonMobil have partnered with the state-owned oil companies of Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Philippines to develop promising reserves in maritime territories claimed by these countries as well as China.
[R]egardless of whether it was Obama’s intention when he pivoted to the Pacific, he has surely increased the chances that rash and potentially incendiary behavior by any one of the countries hashing it out in the South and East China seas could lead to war.
Rulers Prepare for Future Wider War
U.S. rulers recognize the probability — and the necessity — of a future wider war with China. Though they may not be fully prepared for it at present, they may soon be drawn into one. Their economy is stagnating. Bitter if unfocused anti-capitalist anger rules popular sentiment. According to Major Fernando Lujan, an Army strategy planner and fellow at the imperialist CFR, the bosses would prefer U.S. War Lite, where Special Forces troops can go anywhere at a moment’s notice:
Looming budget cuts, ground forces worn down by years of repeated deployments, and a range of ever evolving security challenges from Mali to Libya and Yemen are quickly making “light footprint” military interventions a central part of American strategy. Instead of “nation building” with large, traditional military formations, civilian policymakers are increasingly opting for a discrete combination of air power, special operators, intelligence agents, indigenous armed groups, and contractors, often leveraging relationships with allies and enabling partner militaries to take more active roles (Foreign Policy, 3/8/13).
But if things heat up in, say, the South China Sea, a quick remobilization is on the boards, regardless of budgetary or political constraints:
As the Army and Marines begin to cut 100,000 personnel during the next few years, policymakers and senior military leaders have announced plans to retain an expansible, experienced force that can be reconstituted rapidly in the event of a major war.
What the U.S. war machine prefers is a slow but steady ramp-up to a potential world war. Julia Gillard, prime minister of stalwart U.S. ally Australia, has pledged loyalty — along with working-class cannon fodder — to war-maker Obama: “[W]e are delighted with the pivot or the rebalance. The U.S. has been a continuing presence in our region....We have fought alongside America in every war” (Washington Post, 3/10/13). Aiming at the South China Sea region, Obama has already posted 2,500 U.S. Marines to Darwin, Australia’s northernmost city. Washington also threatens to use its post-WWII “right” to defend Japan and the Philippines by armed force.
Imperialist Crisis A Revolutionary Opportunity for Our Party
Out of their weakness, U.S. capitalists have yet to reveal their schemes for militarizing the U.S. for global war. They disagree fiercely among themselves and know that working-class loyalty to them is thin. The rulers also know they need a military draft, which could provoke mass popular opposition based on U.S. workers’ and students’ experience with the slaughters in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The imperialist crisis over China can be a revolutionary opportunity for our Party and the working class. Millions of workers worldwide may not be ready to lay down their lives in the service of U.S. capitalism. Their reluctance can enable PLP to organize to expose and oppose the rulers’ war plans in the shops and unions, schools and universities, churches and communities — and especially in the military.
A good start is to win our friends and co-workers to march this year on May Day. The international workers’ day represents the antidotes to the poison of capitalism: anti-racism, anti-sexism, strikes against mass racist unemployment. May Day reflects workers’ commitment to turn imperialist wars among the bosses into class war against the entire system.
March on May Day! Join Progressive Labor Party!