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Biden has promised the UN an end to relentless war

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Biden has promised the UN an end to relentless war

PostAuthor: Anthea » Thu Sep 16, 2021 8:55 pm

US-UK-Australia pact against China

China has criticised a historic security pact between the US, UK and Australia, describing it as "extremely irresponsible" and "narrow minded"

The deal will see the US and UK give Australia the technology to build nuclear-powered submarines for the first time.

It is being widely viewed as an effort to counter China's influence in the contested South China Sea.

The South China Sea has nothing to do with the US, it just cannot stop interfering and causing trouble

The region has been a flashpoint for years and tensions there remain high.

Chinese Foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the alliance risked "severely damaging regional peace... and intensifying the arms race".

He criticised what he called "the obsolete cold war... mentality" and warned the three countries were "hurting their own interests".

Chinese state media carried similar editorials denouncing the pact, and one in the Global Times newspaper said Australia had now "turned itself into an adversary of China".

The US is sharing its submarine technology for the first time in 50 years, having previously only shared it with the UK.

It means Australia will now be able to build nuclear-powered submarines that are faster and harder to detect than conventionally powered fleets. They can stay submerged for months and shoot missiles longer distances - although Australia says it has no intention of putting nuclear weapons on them.

The new partnership, under the name Aukus, was announced in a joint virtual press conference between US President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning.

And while China was not mentioned directly, the three leaders referred repeatedly to regional security concerns which they said had "grown significantly".

"This is an historic opportunity for the three nations, with like-minded allies and partners, to protect shared values and promote security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region," a joint statement read.

Who has nuclear-powered subs?

The Aukus alliance is probably the most significant security arrangement between the three nations since World War Two, analysts say.

It means Australia will become just the seventh nation in the world to operate nuclear-powered submarines.

While they are the big-ticket item in the deal, cyber capabilities and other undersea technologies will also be shared.

"This really shows that all three nations are drawing a line in the sand to start and counter [China's] aggressive moves," said Guy Boekenstein from the Asia Society Australia.

Boris Johnson later said the pact would "preserve security and stability around the world" and generate "hundreds of high-skilled jobs".

UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told the BBC that China was "embarking on one of the biggest military spends in history... Our partners in those regions want to be able to stand their own ground."
media captionWhy is everyone fighting over the South China Sea?

In recent years, Beijing has been accused of raising tensions in disputed territories such as the South China Sea.

It has been increasingly assertive over what it says are centuries-old rights to the contested region, and has been rapidly building up its military presence to back up those claims.

The US has bolstered its military presence too, and has been investing heavily in other partnerships in the region such as with Japan and South Korea.

Having the submarines stationed in Australia is critical to US influence in the region, analysts say.

Tensions between China and Australia

China is Australia's biggest trading partner, and in the past, the two have maintained good relations.

But in recent years, political tensions have created a deep rift, stoked by Australia criticising China's treatment of ethnic Uighurs, banning some technology from telecom giant Huawei and supporting an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.

Western nations have also been wary of China's booming infrastructure investment on Pacific islands, and have criticised its heavy trade sanctions against countries like Australia - last year it slapped Australian wine with taxes of up to 200%.

On Thursday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US stood solidly behind Australia in its defences against China.

"Beijing has seen over the past months that Australia will not back down and the threats of economic retaliation and pressure simply will not work," he said.

'A stab in the back'

But France has also reacted angrily to the new pact, because it means Australia will now abandon a $50bn (€31bn; £27bn) deal with it to build 12 submarines.

"It's really a stab in the back," France's Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told France Info radio. "We had established a relationship of trust with Australia, this trust has been betrayed."

The European Union's foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell said he understood why France was disappointed by the deal, adding that the EU was not consulted about the new alliance.

"This forces us once again... to reflect on the need to make the issue of European strategic autonomy a priority. This shows that we must survive on our own," he said on Thursday.

Secretary Blinken said the US cooperated "incredibly closely" with France and would continue to do so, adding that "we place fundamental value on that relationship, on that partnership".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-58582573
Last edited by Anthea on Tue Sep 21, 2021 11:22 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Biden has promised the UN an end to relentless war

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Re: US not happy unless causing trouble this time it's for C

PostAuthor: Anthea » Mon Sep 20, 2021 6:18 pm

Deal between Britain, US and Australia

The Aukus defence deal between Britain, the US and Australia grows murkier by the day

Essentially it is the outcome of an industrial dispute over who will build eight submarines for the Australian military. Australia ordered £48bn-worth of diesel-powered ones from France and then changed its mind, reneging on the deal. It now wants nuclear-powered ones from the US and Britain.

Crewed submarines are approaching obsolescence, near useless in an age of “transparent” oceans and underwater drones. Like tanks, they drip with cost, inefficiency and a craving to fight outdated wars. But defence contracts have a corporate and political existence that transcends utility. If Australia seriously thinks China is a threat, it might as well have some new gold-plated weapons ready.

However, this particular equipment contract appears to have morphed into a new military alliance in the Asia-Pacific region. Johnson’s defence adviser, Stephen Lovegrove, declares it to be “a profound strategic shift”. Unless Downing Street is clueless, it was clearly intended to enrage China, which it duly has, as well as humiliate France, which it also has.

Boris Johnson protested that it was “not adversarial” toward China, but, when Theresa May asked if he seriously envisaged war over Taiwan, he refused to say no. “The United Kingdom remains determined to defend international law and that is … the strong advice we would give to the government in Beijing.” Is he just playing with words? In July he sent an aircraft carrier near a disputed region in the South China Sea, prompting warnings from Beijing. This would be merely a mouse trying to roar, were vast sums of public money not involved in sustaining Johnson’s vanity.

Pompous remarks made for political effect, like sudden alliances and needless snubs, have consequences. Western defence interests born of the cold war refused to let Nato redefine its purpose in the 1990s, with the demise of the Soviet Union. Which is how Britain got sucked into Afghanistan and Iraq, ostensibly to protect the US from the new threat of terrorism. High rhetoric and military chest-beating likewise fuelled the preliminaries to the first world war.

Britain has no conceivable reason for adopting an aggressive position in the Pacific. It is all arcane post-imperial nostalgia. If the US is mad enough to return to war in south-east Asia over Taiwan, it is nothing to do with Britain, any more than Vietnam was. France, too, claims concern for its “citizens” in the Pacific. Europe’s second-rank states seem unable ever to let go of their empires.

China’s emergence as a world economic power in the past quarter-century has been a politico-economic miracle. It was achieved by marrying the disciplines of capitalism to those of dictatorship. The west may not like some of its manifestations and is free to say so. They are not the west’s business. China does not fall under the west’s sovereignty.

With its newly powerful status, China has embraced military aggrandisement, sensitivity to criticism and a regional sphere of influence, all syndromes that should be familiar to the US. Time alone will tell where this leads. But for the west now to open a cold war with China must be beyond stupid, and for Britain especially fatuous.

So-called western diplomacy is currently a disaster area. It has failed to adjust to post-communist Russia, and its handling of the Muslim world has been ham-fisted and tragic. In Afghanistan the most expensive armies in the world have been sent packing by a fistful of AK-47s.

It is half a century since Harold Wilson formally withdrew Britain from “east of Suez”. Johnson clearly aches to return, to prove that he can somehow punch above his weight and put Britain back on the world stage after Brexit. Foreign policy so vacuously formulated is reckless. British diplomacy should now be concentrated on Europe, overwhelmingly so. One thing Brexit did not alter was geography.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... lgia-aukus
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Re: Deal between Britain, US, Australia causing trouble forC

PostAuthor: Anthea » Tue Sep 21, 2021 11:20 pm

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Biden promises end to relentless war

Joe Biden has promised to the United Nations that the withdrawal from Afghanistan is a turning point in history, in which “relentless war” would be supplanted by “relentless diplomacy”, pledging a renewed commitment to the UN and to his nation’s alliances

“As I stand here today, for the first time in 20 years the United States is not at war. We’ve turned the page,” Biden said in his first address to the UN general assembly as president. “All the unmatched strength, energy, commitment, will and resources of our nation are now fully and squarely focused on what’s ahead of us, not what was behind.”

In a hastily-arranged change to the schedule, China’s president, Xi Jinping, addressed the assembly a few hours later. A deputy premier had been expected to speak for China, giving it a slot far back in the running order, on Friday afternoon. Xi’s decision to speak remotely from Beijing, allowed him to speak on the first day and respond directly to Biden.

“One country’s success does not have to mean another country’s failure,” the Chinese president said in a prerecorded speech. “The world is big enough to accommodate common development and progress of all countries.”

Without mentioning the US by name, he warned that “military intervention from the outside and so-called democratic transformation entail nothing but harm”.

Xi claimed China had a long record of multilateralism, a claim also met with scepticism in the chamber, as its aggressive expansionist approach on the border with India, the South China Sea and towards Taiwan, have been anything but collaborative.

Biden backed up his speech with a pledge to give $11bn a year to developing nations to support their response to the global climate emergency.

His tone was in dramatic contrast to his predecessor. Donald Trump made no secret of his distrust of the UN. Biden called it a “noble institution”. But world leaders responded with scepticism to Biden’s appeals for peace, made just a few days after it was revealed that the US, UK and Australia had been secretly negotiating for months over the construction of a new fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.

Biden was also making his presidential debut just weeks after the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, widely viewed among UN member states as having been rushed for domestic political reasons, with little regard for the Afghans left behind to face the Taliban.

In his address, Biden sought to place the withdrawal in a broader, more positive historical perspective.

“We’ve ended 20 years of conflict in Afghanistan, and as we close this period of relentless war we’re opening a new era of relentless diplomacy, of using the power of our development aid to invest in new ways of lifting people up around the world, renewing and defending democracy,” he said.

Biden insisted that the US would continue to defend itself and its allies, including mounting counter-terrorism operations, but would be far more conservative in resorting to force, to avoid falling back into more protracted struggles like Afghanistan and Iraq, which have come to be known in US political parlance as the “forever wars”.

“The mission must be clear, and achievable, undertaken with the informed consent of the American people and, whenever possible, in partnership with our allies,” Biden said, in remarks which echoed his address to the nation following the withdrawal from Afghanistan, in which he talked about “ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries”.

But on Tuesday, Biden made clear that the withdrawal from Afghanistan was also a question of switching attention and resources to the far east. This long-heralded “pivot to Asia” in US foreign policy has accelerated under Biden’s presidency. It is seen in the White House as an imperative to contain and compete with China, a rivalry that Biden addressed only obliquely.

“The United States will compete and will compete vigorously and lead with our values and our strength,” he said “We’ll stand up for our allies and our friends, and oppose attempts by stronger countries to dominate weaker ones through changes to territory by force, economic coercion … exploitation or disinformation. But we’re not seeking – I’ll say it again – we’re not seeking a new cold war or a world divided into rigid blocs.

“US military power must be our tool of last resort, not our first,” the president added. “It should not be used as an answer to every problem that we see around the world. Indeed, today many of our greatest concerns cannot be solved or even addressed through the force of arms.”

As an example, Biden observed: “Bombs and bullets cannot defend against Covid-19.”

As the world mourned 4.5 million people killed so far in the pandemic, Biden called for “a collective act of science and political will”.

“We need to act now to get shots in arms as fast as possible,” the president said. He said the US had shipped more than 160m doses of Covid-19 vaccine abroad, and invested $15bn in global pandemic response mechanisms.

He was speaking shortly after an urgent and angry address from the UN secretary general, António Guterres, who had pointed out that while large majorities in the rich world were already vaccinated, more than 90% of Africans were still waiting for their first dose.

“This is a moral indictment of the state of our world. It is an obscenity,” Guterres said.

“We are on the edge of an abyss – and moving in the wrong direction,” the secretary general warned. “Our world has never been more threatened, or more divided.”

Like Guterres, Biden did not mention China by name, but substantial passages of his speech were devoted to outlining the fundamental rivalry between the world’s democracies and authoritarian regimes, asking the UN member states if they were prepared to allow universal principles enshrined in the organisation’s charter “to be trampled and twisted in the pursuit of naked political power”.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... -diplomacy
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