THERE are aplenty of burning issues that have erupted through the past week. One such issue is the U.S. regime change operation against a friend of India, Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh, for refusing to grant the strategically vital St. Martine Island for a U.S. military base.
Another such issue is the persistence of the U.S. with the collective West in prolonging and escalating the Ukraine War, with tacit permission stated by US State Department spokesman Mathew Miller for Ukraine to use American weapons to hit Moscow.
It amazes not only me but even the highest officials and intellectuals in India that the U.S. would still do what it did to its friend, Sheikh Hasina, and hurting the geopolitical security of its QUAD ally India just to grab a strategic military site.
Likewise, the U.S. is not playing coy anymore in its war against Russia with its aid to the latest Ukraine Kursk offensive deep into Russia’s border. Meanwhile, in Asia, the U.S. continues to prep its proxy war.
The latest imbroglio with China the Philippines has stirred up is over the alleged “unjustified, illegal, reckless” actions of two Chinese Air Force jets that “harassed a Philippine Air Force plane on August 8 as it flew over the country’s territorial waters near Bajo de Masinloc in the West Philippine Sea” (see https://www.inquirer.net/410910/marcos-chinas-actions-in-wps-illegal-reckless/?utm_medium=gallery&utm_source=(direct)
Scarborough Shoal is 241 km. to the nearest point in the Philippines, Zambales or, 130.13 nautical miles. The Philippines’ territorial waters is only 12 nautical miles, and the Philippines at best only has a disputed claim of EEZ over Bajo de Masinloc with several other countries.
The Scarborough Shoal has also been conceded by the Philippines under PNoy’s administration by default after the 2012 Scarborough standoff with China when the Philippines’ navy ships unilaterally abandoned the shoal.
Chinese newspaper Global Times reported, “A Philippine Air Force NC-212 aircraft had illegally intruded into the airspace over Huangyan Dao (Scarborough Shoal) in the South China Sea on August 8, interfering with China’s regular training activities despite repeated warnings from the Chinese side, read an official release by the PLA Southern Theater Command on Saturday.” China has occupation, control, and administration of the shoal, hence sovereignty over air, sea, and the subsea territory of the shoal.
It is not known but it is speculated that China has an ADIZ (Air Defense Identification Zone) upt to theScarborough Shoal as it is already alerting and warning “unauthorized intruders” into its airspace.
This is part of China’s assertion of its jurisdiction over the shoal, and the action its air force undertook on August 8 aimed at the PAF plane is, from its perspective, totally justified and imperative.
The Philippine military authorities are certainly fully aware of these conditions and consciously challenging Chinese sovereignty over the shoal, while the Philippines’ diplomatic authorities are conducting “de-escalation” and “easing of tension” in the false notion that the forked strategy can keep alive the country’s tenuous claims while serving to appease the U.S. strategy of tension imposed on the PBBM government under living under the U.S. Sword of Damocles.
The U.S. is biding its time in Asia, prepping the installations of intermediate range ballistic launch sites around China, capturing new bases such as St. Martin’s Island in Bangladesh, expanding and extending its bases and launch sites in the Philippines, as well as conducting regime change operations – winning some such as Bangladesh, losing some such as in Thailand where its proxy political party Move Forward was banned by the Thai Supreme Court for taking U.S. funds, and in the Philippines prepping a “pre-emptive” regime change thru the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte.
The belligerent reception the Philippine Air Force plane received from the Chinese Air Force is a signal that China does not take the Philippine AirForce violations of its air space kindly anymore, and for all intents and purposes sees such Philippine incursions as deliberate provocations and probes being directed by the U.S. which should not surprise anyone.
These can be seen as preparations for the U.S. strategic initiatives leading to the next global war.
Let me just end with a reminder to all those in the Philippines serving as proxies to the U.S. be he or she in the government as DPAs (like BBM, Locsin et al), media shills (like Rappler’s, Inquirer’s, Manhit, Batongbacal and Heydarian’s gang), you are working for the U.S. and collective West, to paraphrase Oppenheimer” …Death, the Destroyer of Worlds…”
You will not be forgotten as the unipolar world ends and the multipolar world rises to establish “Forever Peace.” ###”