Even Vietnam, via Deputy Defense Minister Nguyen Chi Vinh, made it clear -- in the same plenary session as Admiral Jianguo -- that Vietnam prefers solutions via the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea as well as negotiation between China and ASEAN.
Bend over to our rules -- or elseAfter Shangri-La's rhetorical excesses, the action moved to Beijing, the site of the 8th China-US Strategic and Development Dialogue. That's the annual talkfest launched in 2009 by Obama and then Chinese President Hu Jintao.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang painted a rosy picture, stressing the exchange of "candid, in-depth views on important and sensitive issues of shared concern." Chinese Ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai once again needed to point out that the relationship is just "too important" to be "hijacked" by the South China Sea. And yet this is exactly the Pentagon's agenda.
Beijing though won't be derailed. As State Councilor Yang Jiechi put it, ASEAN-China dialogue is progressing via what Beijing calls the "dual-track" approach, according to which disputes are negotiated between the parties directly involved. That implies no Washington interference.
Well, Beijing has already made its own choice; and that entails a multipolar world of sovereign nations with no primus inter pares. The Beijing leadership under Xi Jinping clearly sees how the so-called international "order," actually disorder, is a rigged system set up at the end of WWII.
Wily Chinese diplomacy -- and trade -- knows how to use the system to advance Chinese national interests. That's how modern China became the "savior" of global turbo-capitalism. But that does not mean a resurgent China will forever comply with these extraneous "rules" -- not to mention the morality lessons. Beijing knows "Exceptionalistan" would not agree even to divide the spoils in a geopolitical spheres-of-influence arrangement. Plan A in Washington is containment -- with possibly dangerous ramifications. There is no Plan B.
The bottom line -- thinly disguised by the somewhat polite responses to Pentagon threats -- is that Beijing simply won't accept anymore a geopolitical disorder that it did not create. The Chinese could not give a damn to the New World Order (NWO) dreamed up by selected "Masters of the Universe." Beijing is engaged in building a new, multipolar order. No wonder -- alongside with strategic partner Russia -- they are and will continue to be the Pentagon's top twin threat.
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