The greatest threat to world peace may well be the military build-up in the South Pacific – but it's not China we should fear, it's the United States.
That, at least, is the thesis of The Coming War on China, the latest polemic from the award-winning documentary-maker John Pilger.
The military build-up in the region "is now a flashpoint for a war between China and America," 77-year-old Pilger says in the film. "The United States and China may well be on a path to war, and nuclear war is no longer unthinkable."
That China is building military bases on reclaimed reefs and disputed islands in the region has "rightly" been big news in the Western media. But, he adds, "What is not news is that China itself is under threat. The aim of this film is to break a silence."
It's dramatic stuff. But is he perhaps over-emphasising the American risk and downplaying the significance of the Chinese build-up in order to make his point?
No, he insists. "The point I make in the film is that one-sided news suppresses the degree of danger we face," he says. "The fact that China itself is surrounded by US bases, with American ships, missiles and bombers on its doorstep, has been virtually ignored. Once you fill in the whole picture, the pattern is clear. With every American move in the region, China reacts."
Citing David Vine's 2015 book Base Nation, Pilger claims the US has 4000 military bases on its own territory and almost 1000 more scattered across the globe. Of these, some 450 are in the South Pacific, and collectively they "form a giant noose encircling China with missiles, bombers, warships".
Traditionally, Pilger's talking heads say, China has not been expansionist (though the citizens of Tibet might disagree). Only last year did it announce plans for its first ever military base on foreign soil, in Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa (the reef bases are in disputed territory, to which China argues it has claims).
Pilger's argument, supported by the talking heads he interviews, is that China's current military expansion should primarily be understood as a defensive response rather than an aggressive one.
"This is not to say that in a region now echoing with Trump-like threats, it won't change," he says. "One strategist in China said to me, 'We have no wish to be America's enemy, but if that is how we are perceived, we have to prepare'.
"And there is no doubt they are preparing. Recently, a senior Chinese military officer said that since Trump came to power, war was 'no longer a slogan' and was becoming 'a practical reality'."
That, says Pilger, is why he spends so much of his near-two-hour film recounting the history of nuclear testing in the South Pacific. If there is a war, the use of nuclear weapons is a genuine possibility, and we need to be reminded of how devastating that would be – the immediate death toll, the nuclear winter that would soon follow, the deaths by starvation in its wake and, for those who might survive, the cancers and other illnesses.
The great lunacy of all this, he argues, is that the brinkmanship is driven not by America's defensive needs but by the hunt for profits.
"As the US has declined as a manufacturing country, its war industries have prospered," he says. "The military-industrial-complex in the US is so ubiquitous politically that it has been called the one true power in America."
Readers Comments
The greatest threat to world peace has always been America as they have always had the ability to turn conflicts between other countries into a war situation. If the US can't control a country financially, they will control them with military action. They will run a negative media campain against whatever country that doen't want to play their game and turn turn that country's leader into a tyrannical dictator so the rest of the main stream media believing world are led to believe that the good old USA are the saviors of the free world. So congratulations America, I'm afaid of you and the greedy people you represent. I'm afraid for the people that are going to die because of your need for world domination. I'm afraid for the people who believe your propaganda about other countries that are a threat to the US, when all these other countries want to do is defend themselves from an aggressive greedy counytry whose main economy is driven mainly by the world sales of military hardware.
I read that in a Moscow newspaper a month ago.
Ian Hollingsworth and did you believe it or do you think its propaganda
Michael Flood Take note..Iran is always brought upas a target..as the Pawn..Iran's allies are Russia and CHINA..so using Iran as bait adn a false flag... the rest falls into the equation..and it's Bingo .. same as Iraq..WMDs..which were never there ..but the destruction has never encded!!
The Fourth Turning is a book worth reading as it seems Steve Bannon is using it as his step by step instruction manual to lead America to a war. China? Russia? Middle East? US Civil war, I don't think he cares as long as he gets a war with somebody.
This article states the truth the real power in america is it money men who own the military industrial complex companies making weapons they treat all presidents hillary obama trump etc.as puppets and send america to war so they make money.
I agree totally. Democracy has become a farce. The big companies control the world and the USA just voted for more of the same. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, GE. The USA just played into their hands.
The U.S,A is not and has never been a Democracy
Guns Rule America and they Rule its Politicians!
America just cannot stop flexing its muscle..worldwide!
China is a threat because they can outproduce america with cheap labor!
So from a Capitalists viewpoint.....China is good! They make the product cheap...export it...and the Capitalist flogs it as 2 sometime 3 times the Price they paid! But in the meantime China's wealth also grows and because of the Volume and Communist Control over their economy....they are catching up Fast!
The Artilcle has one valid Point......No other Country has War Bases.....all over the Planet!!!
So why don't people in the rest of the world stop buying "Made in China" stuff that has made their country rich. Don't make them rich. Trump is only looking after his country and wants to make it great so why don't people all over the world look after their own and make it great. It is no different than looking after your own family, would you truly allow 'outsiders' who are going to end up destroying your family come in. Yes there are good people in this world, but look after your own first.
Have you seen any chinese products that were really fantastic. People only buy them because their cheap, but they know they won't last eithier. If another product of the same type hit the market that is of better quality, people ditch the chinese made and buy the other product.
China got to the islands before anyone else who allowed this to happen on whose watch did this occur, it's too late game over China won let them have the bases and work towards peace and mutual respect
You do realize how far away from China's mainland some of these islands are don't you in comparrison to their location near other country's? China won, let them arm themselves to the hilt whilst we work towards "peace and mutual respect"? Are you serious? There is nothing mutual in the respect they show the rest of the world...
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