Build unified ASEAN in South China Sea: McCain

[Guest guest]

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/build-unified-asean-south-china-sea-mccain-062838521.ht\

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Build unified ASEAN in South China Sea: McCain

By Shaun Tandon | AFP – 24 minutes ago

Senator McCain called Monday for the United States to expand military and

political support to Southeast Asian nations to stand up against China in the

increasingly volatile South China Sea.

McCain, a senior member of the Republican Party, said the United States should

help members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to develop and deploy

an early warning system and coastal vessels in contested waters.

The former navy captain said the United States should also turn to diplomacy to

help ASEAN nations sort out their own disputes and " establish a more unified

front, " hailing a recent agreement between Malaysia and Brunei as an example.

" China seeks to exploit the divisions among ASEAN members to play them off each

other to press its own agenda, " McCain told a conference at the Center for

Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

McCain, a champion of an assertive military policy who lost the 2008

presidential race to Barack Obama, welcomed the administration's defense of

freedom of navigation in the South China Sea but said it should go further.

He said it should let " other countries know, where possible, which claims the

United States accepts, which ones we do not, and what actions we are prepared to

support, " especially in defense of the Philippines, a treaty ally.

Tensions have been rising in the potentially resource-rich South China Sea and

East China Sea, where Beijing has myriad territorial disputes.

In recent weeks, Vietnam has carried out live-fire naval drills and the

Philippines has announced plans to send its naval flagship in contested waters

after incidents at sea.

The United States and Vietnam, which have growing ties, last week jointly called

for a peaceful resolution to disputes in the South China Sea.

But the United States as a general rule does not take positions on territorial

disputes to which it is not party.

McCain said he welcomed a cooperative relationship with China and did not seek

conflict, but laid the blame squarely on China's " aggressive behavior " and

" unsubstantiated territorial claims " for recent tensions.

McCain, who has voiced alarm at what he sees as isolationism within his party,

said the United States had an interest in working to prevent any nation from

using " persistent bullying " to impose itself on the South China Sea.

" It could create a troubling incentive for rising powers everywhere to take by

force what peaceful legal means cannot secure for them, " McCain said.

China insisted last week that it would not resort to the use of force in the

South China Sea and urged other countries to " do more for peace and stability in

the region. "

Speaking at the Washington conference, Su Hao, a scholar at China Foreign

Affairs University in Beijing, insisted his country was not becoming more

assertive.

Su, who said he was not representing the government, described China as a

" benign giant " that sought cooperation but happened to be in a less friendly

neighborhood than the United States.

" For China, we prefer peace and stability rather than conflict, " he said.

He questioned why tensions have risen rather than calmed down in the nearly one

year since Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on a visit to Hanoi, issued a

call for freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.

Su said that the Chinese feel " scared sometimes, or feel some kind of

uncertainty to make us try to say something to support our claims in the South

China Sea. "

" The reason why China looks a little bit assertive is because there is some sort

of reaction to some things happening against China, " he said.

[Guest guest]

McCain may have been a captain in the Navy, but he was a Zoomie. They are naturally selected to be aggressive types which might be suitable for air combat, they aren't necessarily fit for command beyond the squadrons. McCain's comments in particular bear that out.

He is right that we should work against Chinese aggression, but we can't do that by sending out shrinking Navy over there. It would be one thing if the US still have 500 plus ships as it did under Reagan, but now we are down to 300 or less, including support ships. The combat ships are so few, so expensive and so slow to replace that losing even one will be a terrible blow. Its not unlike the situation the British and Germans faced during WWI with their Dreadnoughts. Each ship represented a great deal of national capital and the thought of losing even one ensured that only a handful of major engagements happened in the whole course of the war.

We also have the problems of China holding much of our debt, even though it is cutting back and selling some off, controlling much of our manufacturing and increasing is soaking up the design and creative aspects as well, and their armies of hackers targeting our wide open and defenseless internet, corporate and utility sites.

Well, I'm not going to beat this dead horse anymore. I'll just say that Obama is wrecking the economy, but McCain would have followed some of the same policies and wrecked the economy AND started many wars around the world to boot.

In a message dated 6/21/2011 2:59:26 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, no_reply writes:

McCain, a champion of an assertive military policy who lost the 2008 presidential race to Barack Obama, welcomed the administration's defense of freedom of navigation in the South China Sea but said it should go further.