China, which just concluded six days of naval drills of its own in the East China Sea, had more reason to be concerned when it was disclosed earlier this month that a U.S. aircraft carrier would join the maneuvers off its Yellow Sea coast.
On July 8 China renewed its opposition to the planned U.S.-South Korean war games, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang telling reporters, "China has expressed its serious concerns with relevant parties. We are firmly opposed to foreign military vessels engaging in activities that undermine China's security interests in the Yellow Sea or waters close to China." [28]
An unsigned editorial in the Chinese Global Times of July 8 stated, "Beijing sees the joint exercise not only as being aimed at Pyongyang, but also as a direct threat to its territorial waters and coastline," and blamed South Korean President Lee Myung-bak for worsening relations between the two nations:
"It is not known whether Lee had thought of China's reaction when he announced in May the drill with the US.
"Did he foresee Chinese people's anger? Or, did he intend to provoke the country on the other side of the Yellow Sea?
"It is a shame and a provocation on China's doorstep.
"If a US aircraft carrier enters the Yellow Sea, it will mean a major setback to Seoul's diplomacy, as hostility between the peoples of China and South Korea will probably escalate, which Beijing and Seoul have been working for years to avoid." [29]
President Lee met with his American counterpart, Barack Obama, on the sidelines of the Group of Eight summit in Toronto late last month, during which a previous arrangement to transfer wartime command of South Korean forces to the nation in 2012 were postponed if not abandoned. In Obama's words, "One of the topics that we discussed is that we have arrived at an agreement that the transition of operational control for alliance activities in the Korean peninsula will take place in 2015." In the five-year interim "if war were to break out on the Korean peninsula the United States would assume operational command of South Korean forces." [30]
If Washington is planning direct intervention on the Korean Peninsula as its military buildup in the region, including off China's shores, might indicate, the words of former South Korean president Kim Young-Sam a decade ago are worth recalling. Two years after stepping down as head of state, Kim revealed to one of his nation's main newspapers that he had intervened to prevent a second Korean war, that his government "stopped US President Bill Clinton from launching an air strike against North Korea's nuclear facilities in June 1994."
He initiated a last-minute phone conversation with the U.S. president which "saved the Korean peninsula from an imminent war," as "The Clinton government was preparing a war" by deploying an aircraft carrier off the eastern coast of North Korea "close enough for its war planes to hit the North's nuclear facilities in Yongbyon."
Furthermore, Kim warned the U.S. ambassador in Seoul that "another war on the Korean peninsula would turn all of Korea into a bloodbath, killing between 10 and 20 million people and destroying South Korea's prosperous economy." [31]
Any catastrophic event on the Korean Peninsula, and war is the ultimate cataclysm, could lead to hundreds of thousands of North Korean refugees fleeing to Russia and millions to China.
The nearly nine-year war in Afghanistan being waged by the U.S. and NATO has led to an explosion of violence and destabilization in three nations flanking China: Afghanistan itself, Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Also, since 2001 Afghanistan has become the world's largest producer of opium and hashish, flooding the European and other drug markets. A forum entitled "Afghan Drug Production - A Challenge to the International Community" was held in Moscow a month ago.
A Russian report on the meeting stated "The situation around drug production in Afghanistan has gained a catastrophic character. Some 100,000 people died globally from Afghan drugs in 2009 alone. In all, Afghan-made opiates have claimed one million human lives in the past decade, and 16 million more ruined their health." [32] 30,000 of the drug-related deaths occurred in Russia. The United Nations estimates that Afghanistan currently accounts for 92 per cent of world opium cultivation.
China and Russia are viewed as, if not challengers to U.S. global dominance, impediments to its further consolidation. And not in the military sphere but in the fields of economics, trade, energy and transportation. Destabilization of their neighborhoods and frontiers is one manner of limiting competition.
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