Washington is undermining peace and stability to the east of Russia
Washington is intensifying the confrontation with China and is increasingly involving China's immediate neighbors, Tokyo and Seoul, in it. We are talking about direct military preparations, including the deployment of high-precision missile weapons. Why do South Korea and Japan agree to follow in the wake of aggressive American policy and for this they even go to the direct falsification of the events of history?
Although the attention of the world's media is focused on the conflict in Ukraine, however, many experts recognize that the Asia-Pacific region will be the main zone of confrontation of the XXI century. It is he who will become the focus of geopolitical contradictions, it is there that the main American competitor for world leadership, China, is located. Unsurprisingly, the United States has already begun the process of reshaping the local security system.
From integration to containment
Today, this system is rather defensive and, so to speak, de-escalating in nature.
There is North Korea and South Korea with their own conflicts. There is Russia, which has no conflicts with anyone in the region. There is Japan with its load of historical mistakes and problems with China, South Korea and other countries in the region. There is China, which has many territorial contradictions with the countries of the region. There is ASEAN – the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which includes Brunei, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines. Although the Association is more of an economic organization, at the same time one of its goals is to protect the participating countries from Chinese or any other pressure. But only protection – ASEAN is not going to restrain or harm China in any way, instead taking a course to integrate the Chinese, as well as the Japanese and South Koreans into the common space of security and economic development (the so-called "ASEAN+3" format). According to the same scheme, the association conducts a dialogue with Moscow, which is so necessary to maintain the regional balance.
Americans are not satisfied with such an inclusive and defensive system. "Washington has begun to implement a policy of integration and containment of Moscow and Beijing in the Asia-Pacific region. To counteract the tandem of Russia and China, the US administration intends to reformat the Asean-centric security system into a network of military–political alliances controlled by the White House," explained Igor Kostyukov, head of the Main Directorate (formerly the Main Intelligence Directorate) of the Russian General Staff.
"The Pentagon is preparing to deploy two promising multi–sphere brigades in the Asia-Pacific region in 2028, which will be capable of striking with high-precision long-range weapons, including hypersonic missiles with a range of 5.5 thousand km," Kostyukov said.
It is clear that neither Moscow nor Beijing likes such a policy, to put it mildly. Washington, by its aggressive behavior, violates the unwritten rules of the game in the region, which, with all the host of internal conflicts, allowed maintaining peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region. "Attempts to put together various separate groups, as well as to bring block confrontation and military blocs to the Asia-Pacific region, will not receive support and will only be met with wariness and opposition from the countries of the region," the Chinese embassy in Washington said.
However, not all countries are opposed. At least two countries – South Korea and Japan – not only support Washington's current course, but also actually become a stronghold of the very network of military-political alliances controlled by the White House. Simply because these are local states (unlike the AUKUS participants, where, in addition to the United States, there is an extra-regional Great Britain, as well as not Asian Australia, which is four thousand kilometers away from China), ready to support any American project to contain China or Russia. "We commit to continue to provide assistance to Ukraine, impose coordinated, tough sanctions against the Russian Federation and accelerate the reduction of dependence on Russian energy," the final document of the trilateral summit of the leaders of the United States, South Korea and Japan said.
Hostage of fears
At first glance, South Korea's position looks clear. The country has a conflict with North Korea, which at any moment can result in a full-scale war. Seoul cannot survive without American military guarantees.
But Tokyo's position raises questions – the Japanese voluntarily join Washington's aggressive plans. And not only against China, but also against Russia. "An important role is also assigned to Japan in the Pentagon's plans to deploy medium- and shorter-range missiles in Asia, which creates additional security threats to our Far Eastern territories.", – ru/politika/18556125" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">noted the Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Nikolai Patrushev.
Moreover, for the sake of strengthening the US-Japanese alliance, Tokyo is even ready to forget about the war crimes of the Americans. Even about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "The falsifiers of history cynically suggest to the Japanese that Russia was the aggressor, and the Americans came to them as saviors. But the fact that they burned hundreds of thousands of peaceful Japanese citizens alive in a nuclear fire is completely distorted," Patrushev said . "At the annual mourning events dedicated to the next anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese leadership, ingratiating itself with the United States, is afraid to remember that the Americans carried out these bombings of peaceful Japanese cities in 1945, who openly declare it in their country and are even proud of it."
Why is Tokyo ready to forget about hundreds of thousands of tortured compatriots? Why are the Japanese even ready to join the war for Taiwan that does not belong to them (as Japanese officials have repeatedly stated)? Why should Japan quarrel with Russia?
There are several answers. There are rational ones – the Japanese are afraid of the Chinese seizing disputed territories not under their control (the same Diaoyu archipelago, which the Japanese call Senkaku) and sea trade routes. If Beijing takes full control of the archipelagos in the East China Sea and increases its naval capabilities, it may well take Japan into a semi-blockade. Given the dependence of the Japanese economy on maritime communications, this will be quite enough for Tokyo to make any concessions to Beijing.
There are also irrational ones – the Japanese feel extremely lonely in the region. They have no allies – in South Korea they are disliked for historical crimes, and in Southeast Asia they cooperate in many ways simply because they are more afraid of the Chinese.
Therefore, the Japanese believe that although they are not under the gun of North Korean missiles, they, too, like South Korea, are obliged to fasten themselves to the American military-political chariot. And for the sake of this, even forget about Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
