US wants to control energy access to China: L. Dinh

Although this is similar to another recent Press TV interview, I make a few other points here:

Press TV has conducted an interview with Linh Dinh, author and political analyst, Philadelphia about the American air base in Okinawa, which after much protest by the population has been relocated.

The following is an approximate transcript of the interview.

Press TV: Yes it’s been relocated and it’s actually going to be relocated to an area I believe is less densely populated but at the same time there are still angry Japanese. Why are they angry regarding American soldiers and personnel being on their soil?

Dinh: This has been a many-decades long problem so for the US to move some of its troops out of Okinawa it is to be expected.

But once you see the bigger picture, it's that they are moving troops out, but they are moving more sophisticated airplanes and drones in.

So, that’s the tactical picture. The US and Japan are beefing up their military in the area to confront China. So the fact that US troops are moving to Guam, for example, is not all that significant, since the US has been moving away from using human soldiers to drones for the last decade or so.

So they are moving drones onto Okinawa; they are moving anti-submarine airplanes onto Okinawa so that’s more significant.

The US and Japan are trying to build an alliance to contain china – this is not necessarily to go to war against China but to contain the sea links so that China will hesitate in any future confrontation because the US can cut off China’s access to energy.

That’s really what’s happening here.

Japan is also building a military alliance with India; and the US is moving into Myanmar.

So, all these tactical moves are in a sense to blackmail China into not upsetting the status quo because the US and Japan and its allies can cut off China’s access to energy.

One must remember that it was the US oil embargo on Japan, which started World War II. So this can get quite serious in the future – we could have world war III because of this similar oil threat, a US threat of cutting off oil to China.

China is building up its navy to counter balance this. So you have Russia and China renewing its alliance so in a sense you have a cold war all over again, but there is no ideological basis this time, it’s just the big boys confronting each other - the big powers trying to build alliances to contain each other and there is no ideological basis this time.

Press TV: We talk about the US pivot to the Far East and we obviously see that; and of course the dispute over China claiming the China Sea as a zone in which the US has condemned along with its allies in the region.

But in the big picture do you really think the US is after a confrontation with China? We do hear about China increasing its military budget over the years and of course that does send a message that they are getting ready in turn to send a message to the US and regional allies of the US that, hey, we’re not going to sit back while countries like the US build up its military bases such as in Myanmar?

Dinh: Yes because the status quo cannot continue. The US is depending on Chinese money to survive. Since China has cut back on its US bond purchases, the US is basically lending itself money.

It is the US dollar that is at stake here. It’s this quantitative easing is basically the US lending itself money, which is a farcical situation. But the US dollar though has not declined because it is still the reserve currency of the world.

And China and Russia are moving away from this. They are moving towards a future where the US dollar will not be dominant.

The US sees what is happening - China is trading with many countries in their own currencies so they are setting up a situation where the Yuan will replace the US dollar as the dominant currency. But it’s not going to happen in the next three months, there is still a while to go yet.

So basically, although they appear to be partners and friends – commercial partners, they are doing everything they can to subvert each other.

The US industrial base is gone because the US has moved so many factories over to China. It would be suicide right now to start a war with China because they would lose all these factories obviously. So, it’s not that the US is eager to start a shooting war tomorrow, it’s just trying to contain China.

But, you know, this is such a volatile situation and war could break out at just about any moment. With the ships chasing each other at seas an accident can happen just about at any time. Although they are not planning wars on either side, this could spiral out of control at any moment.

SC/AB



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