Tensions soar internationally following US deployment in South China Sea
By
James Cogan
28 October 2015
Yesterday’s US deployment of the destroyer USS Lassen and surveillance aircraft into the 12-nautical mile zone surrounding the
Chinese-controlled Subi and Mischief reefs in the South China Sea has
qualitatively escalated tensions across Asia.
The aim of the US action is to humiliate the Chinese regime and
present it with only two options: either make a forceful response or bow
down to Washington’s flagrant trampling on its long-standing
sovereignty claims. The pretext for the military provocation is the
claim that the US is asserting its “right of freedom of navigation” in
international, not Chinese, waters. This assertion has no more
credibility than the claims that Iraq was attacked because of “weapons
of mass destruction” or that the US waged war on Libya to defend “human
rights.”
