Chinese Princelings Gone Wild: Is There A Gang Mentality in Beijing?

Do China’s Taishito Govern as Gang Bangers Would?

Brazen China Announces Ownership of World’s Third Largest Sea. 

China Taking Control of Over Half the World’s Shipping Lanes in 2013?  

Bonus: The Possible Largest Untapped Fossil Fuel Deposits on Earth. 

Southeast Asia in Crisis:
Part I: The Schoolyard Bully
©  Millennium Media Entertainment, Inc.

Do you remember when you were in school and a kid bigger than everyone bullied them? Even though he was from a wealthy family, the bully took the smaller children’s lunch money, threatening to beat them up if they resisted. A few other kids joined in with the bully’s bad behavior, since he rewarded them.

The bully made excuses to the teachers for his bad behavior toward the other children. And, for a while you and your classmates lived in daily fear. 

 

One of your new friends decided not to give his lunch money to the bully and his gang. They announced that after school they were going to beat this kid up. After school, the bully and his entourage, found the kid who had defied them. But, they had misjudged their situation.

 

This kid had a big brother, who was fed up with all the bully’s bad behavior. He gave the bully a choice to either fight or behave toward his brother and the other children. The bully was finished that day. His credibility as some one to fear was over, from which, he couldn’t ever recover from.  

 

 

This is what has been going on in Asia for almost three years.  It’s pretty easy to spot the real cast of characters in my little fable. 

 

If you don’t understand the metaphors, the school is the Western Philippines (South China) Sea.  The bully is China and kids are Southeast Asian nations.  The bully’s gang is Laos and Cambodia. 

The kid with the older brother is Philippines.  This metaphorical older brother is the United States, who behind closed doors warned China against any military misadventures with The Philippines.

 China terribly misdiagnosed America three years ago.  They felt that America was too preoccupied with the Middle East to take note with their aggressive plans for Asia, let alone stop them.  Looks like we will get to find how much China will get away with or not, next year.

America is disengaging with the Middle East wars as fast as it can and today has the most powerful, well seasoned, high tech war machine in the world,  if it’s needed.  Iran will not be a distraction since there are many ways to deal with that problem.

American Pacific Naval forces are being increased to 60%, including Marines.  The Pacific Fleet is actually comprised of two Fleets, each led by a Carrier.  Guam is bristling with personnel and bombers.  There are 30,000 US Marines based on Japan’s Okinawa, which also claimed by China’s media.

It is doubtful there will be a military conflict between China and the US, in Asia.  But, what China is attempting would be like the US claiming all of the Gulf of Mexico or the Caribbean Sea.  That would be as ridiculous as what China is planning in Asia.

China has been ratcheting up the pressure on its neighbors, over the last few weeks.  They have threatened to stop and board ships traversing in their Hainan Province’s territorial waters, which according to them, reaches into international waters and other nations’ territory.

I wonder if they will try that with the USS Washington and the carrier’s escort ships, should they enter international waters claimed by China?  

The new Chinese passports, which show China’s claims in the Western Philippines (South China) Sea, (including Taiwan) have outraged Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines.  India is furious over China also detailing ownership of one Indian state and region, in the new Chinese passports.  Vietnam, India and Philippines have announced steps to thwart any legitimizing of the new Chinese passport maps.

 
All of this and Obama’s recent Asia trip is waking up some of my news colleagues in the US.  One of them asked me recently what was so important about Southeast Asia and why is Obama so interested with the region?

I replied that at the end the day it’s about our long standing Asian allies and money, as most things are.  I told him that the only region on Earth that is stable and economically growing is Southeast Asia.  Obama correctly believes that trade with this region is essential to America’s future.

It is conceivable that the disputed islands have more untapped fossil fuel reserves than the Middle East.  The shame of it is, that nobody can benefit yet from these natural resources, given China’s behavior.  This is silly.  Everyone on Earth could benefit from new abundant oil and gas production, including China.
 

China's New Standing Committee (Princelings)

The Chinese base their claims on ancient maps drawn up during the reign of some long gone Chinese dynasty.  To follow this logic, then US could claim the Moon and now, Mars.  The UK, France and Spain could reclaim North America.  China argues that both France and the US have Pacific islands, so why shouldn’t they?  That is a non starter as an argument for claiming new territorial possession, now.

I told my friend that the Southeast Asian economies have continued growing considerably, seemingly immune to the rest of the world’s severe economic problems.  He asked what the problem was then?  I told him that China wants to control how this goes, possibly controlling the smaller nations politically and economically, in the future.  This isn’t just about real estate and oil.

It appears that left unprotected, that the SE Asian democracies could someday be like China’s near puppet governments as in Cambodia and Laos.  I told him to consider that over the long term, China may be wishing for a necklace of Tibets in SE Asia and a weakened Japan they can control.  He was shocked.

A major problem for China is Obama believes that these same countries are America’s economic future.  China complains that the US to trying to fence in their growth.  It’s not clear what they mean by this.  No one is trying to inhibit the Chinese economy.  If their complaints are about some planned expansion by conquest, then China has a real serious problem with the US.

No one is talking about China’s amazing historical economic success as much as people are about their increasingly aggressive, brutish behavior.

Not much has been reported about Asia until now, except for China and Japan’s economies.  There have been stories about North Korea’s comical generational leadership changes and their ongoing nuclear arms development and testing missiles.

One reason is that the US major media organizations don’t really know that much about Asia.  When they have done reports, they were very flattering to China.  Other acts of Chinese dishonest mischief and bad faith, only surfaced in the press, during the last presidential election.

We have Mitt Romney to thank for this.  Romney did increase the awareness about China’s brazen commercial export fraud, cheating and ongoing intellectual property theft.  The world press has been reluctant to report about these matters, until Romney forced them to.

The days of news bureaus throughout Asia, are pretty much over, mostly due to media corporate greed and ignorance. They have relied on the wire services for most their coverage, since it cheaper.

Plus the majors were too busy, with their cameras and live feeds, covering wars and terrorism in the Middle East, to pay any real attention to SE Asia.  Maybe they should take a page out of Obama’s playbook and redeploy more of their resources here.

As I told my friend, the world press really isn’t up to speed about developments here or even China itself.  This is part of the reason a crisis of this proportion has emerged in Asia.  No one reported on the events that led to where things stand now.

The world press loves reporting on poverty, corruption and how people are exploited in emerging and developing countries.  But, rarely do they report how many Southeast nations, like The Philippines, have taken steps to correct these problems.  Nor is much being said about the Philippines record breaking financial performance this year.  Same goes for Thailand and Indonesia.

It’s a major game changer if in fact there is more oil and gas in SE Asia, than the Middle East or Africa.  The Southeast Asian nations are not even close to being as unstable as the governments in the Middle East.  Most of these countries are functioning democracies.  The Philippines is the oldest democracy in all of Asia and wrote the first constitution.

The US and world Press is starting to wake up.  Obama’s trip and China’s recent stunts, put the region back in the news, though most it has been done via the wire services and the New York Times.  No camera crews and hordes of reporters have been in the region, at the same level as in the Middle East.

It took a major crisis like China’s plans for the busiest sea lanes on Earth and their bogus passports to get any world press attention.  Wonder if the pundits on MSNBC, CNN and the Sunday morning Network news talk shows will discuss this?
That is a disservice to the American people, who the press claims to serve. 

Granted what is going on in the Middle East is very important, but will not affect the average American, unless a family member is in the Military, in the future.

Southeast Asia’s economic journey affects every American directly and that is what matters.  The American public should know why this matters to them and they don’t.  The media has barely explained Obama’s Asia Pivot Policy to the public.

The Fiscal Cliff thing is now top of mind to the Media.  I personally believe that most Americans are sick of the Republicans obstructing anything Obama proposes.  Obama was elected by a considerable majority and most people simply want to get on with things.
 
How come the polling companies never ask any questions about how the top 1% is or should be taxed, in their surveys?  Never is survey done about how Americans feel about corporate tax write offs for corporations exporting American jobs? 

This too shall pass, but Asia’s dangerous, looming problems will not anytime soon.