Japan urged the Philippines to sign an agreement to send troops, and hurriedly jumped on the South China Sea pirate ship. The navies of 29 countries gathered in Hawaii, and the US think tank named and named China to deter China, what is the real purpose of the RIMPAC exercise? Compared with the 29-nation coalition, what is China's advantage?
Japan gets on the Philippine pirate ship, and the old and new hatreds are counted together?
As far as the current situation in the South China Sea is concerned, the attitude of the United States will determine whether China and the Philippines will be at war or at peace. However, it is clear that the fact that US officials have repeatedly reaffirmed the US-Philippine mutual defense treaty has proved from the side that the United States wants the Philippines to provoke in the South China Sea, but also does not want the situation to completely get out of control and let the two countries exchange troops.
Although this move is logical and in line with the need to stabilize the external environment facing the US election at this stage, the Philippines, as a pawn, has thus become a clown, and under the premise of a clear lack of US military support, the Philippine army on the front line resolutely does not dare to act rashly, which can also explain why the Philippine army did not dare to fire the first shot in the confrontation on the 17th.
Seeing that it could not count on the United States, the Philippines set its sights on Japan, the United States' number one ally in East Asia, and sought Japan's support through various diplomatic means.
According to a report by Arab News Network on June 29, the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs issued a statement saying that Japanese Defense Secretary Minoru Kihara and Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa will hold talks with Philippine officials in Manila, Philippines, on July 8 to discuss bilateral "defense and security issues" in the region.
At the same time, Japan and the Philippines are also discussing the signing of a Reciprocal Access Agreement, which will allow the Japanese Self-Defense Forces to be rapidly deployed to the Philippines and vice versa once the agreement is finalized.
Japan's former defense minister, Itsunori Onodera, stressed on Friday that he hoped negotiations on the agreement would "make rapid progress." Yoshiaki Wada, another Japanese official who accompanied him on a visit to the Philippines, also said that Japan is committed and prepared to provide the Philippines with "the necessary assets" to protect the Philippines' security.
As for the conflict between China and the Philippines at Ren'ai Jiao, Japan also expressed "great concern" and opposes any attempt to unilaterally change the status quo by force and any action to exacerbate regional tensions.
Obviously, this series of moves by Japan shows that they have become a little impatient to board the Philippine pirate ship, and have even taken the initiative to urge the Philippine side to push for the signing of an agreement on the stationing of troops. But for the Philippines, there is no such thing as a free lunch. The logic behind Japan's series of actions is nothing more than an attempt to use the hands of the Philippines to achieve Japan's national normalization, and at the same time to carry out the US Government's anti-China policy at the present stage, so as to send a letter of surrender to seek further political "relaxation."
From the perspective of China's interests, this is also a good opportunity to count old and new hatreds together, and if the situation in the South China Sea is completely out of control in the future, then these Japanese Self-Defense Forces stationed in the Philippines will be a group of fish on the chopping block.
29 countries gathered in Hawaii, and experts named China by name
At the same time that Japan and the Philippines are in full swing in consultations, the Hawaii Naval Base, which is located in the Asia-Pacific fulcrum of the United States, has launched an extremely large-scale joint exercise. According to the Pentagon's report on June 29, the navies of 29 countries led by the US military started the 2024 "Rim of the Pacific" military exercise, and the end time was set for early August. Compared with previous RIMPAC exercises, this year's scale has set a new record, with more than 40 ships, more than 150 combat aircraft and three submarines participating in the exercise. The participating countries include Asia-Pacific countries such as Japan and South Korea, as well as "non-Asia-Pacific countries" such as the United Kingdom and France.
Markus Garraskas, director of the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative of the Atlantic Council, a U.S. think tank, claimed that the United States invited China to participate in the Rim of the Pacific military exercise from 2014 to 2016 and made efforts to make friends with China, but China regarded participation as an "opportunity to gather intelligence", so China was not invited to the RIMPAC military exercise, but anyone with a discerning eye knows that the main reason why the United States did not invite China to participate in the RIMPAC exercise is because of tensions between China and the United States, not other factors.
Galaskas also took the liberty of saying that the exercise was also intended to send a "strong message" to China urging it to "stop bullying," especially since the exercise included the sinking of a 40,000-ton warship to tell China that when it "targets," it would face a response not only from the United States, but also from "countries in the wider region."
Obviously, the RIMPAC military exercise, which did not invite China to participate, is to use China as an imaginary enemy.
And it is envisaged that under the leadership of the United States, the "allies" of the entire Asia-Pacific region will be twisted together to jointly respond to the "threat", demonstrating the so-called "unity" under the US alliance system.
It is useless for the United States to exert pressure, and China will not be intimidated
But from a practical point of view, this move by the United States does not frighten China at all.
Because in the context of modern warfare, the key factor in determining the outcome of the war has never been to look at the "stock", but to look at the "increment", China is not only the world's largest manufacturing country, but also a large country with a large population, if one day China and the United States really go to war, perhaps in a short period of time, the coalition forces under the leadership of the United States will achieve a certain advantage, but once China really enters the rhythm of the war, including warships, the cutting-edge equipment will be produced in accordance with the specifications of "dumplings", and it will only be the US coalition forces that will be dragged down.
And on the other hand, in addition to the total tonnage of the navy, the US military has a great disadvantage in operations between the first island chain and even the second island chain.
In peacetime, allies such as Japan and South Korea can certainly provide supplies, but once war starts, they will also be targets for medium-range ballistic missiles, resulting in the United States having to establish an ultra-long supply line across the Pacific Ocean from the mainland, and once this supply line is cut off, all US deployments in the Asia-Pacific region will be in vain.
What's more, in the PLA's equipment sequence, there are also hypersonic anti-ship ballistic missiles, such unreasonable equipment, the existing anti-aircraft firepower of the US aircraft carrier battle group, can not pose a threat to it, under the heavy blow of heavy losses in the front-line troops, the cut off of logistics supply lines, the United States at that time only had two choices, either to fight a nuclear war and end together, or to sign a surrender.
Therefore, in essence, the scale of the U.S. RIMPAC exercises is getting bigger and bigger year by year, and it is more like a political propaganda statement than a deterrent statement in actual combat, and the current U.S. military is not qualified to frighten China.