Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Al Jazeera — Obama denies US role in Hong Kong protests


President downplays tension between China and US, saying Washington's "pivot to Asia" is not about containing Beijing.
Regarding HK, NGO's provide plausible deniability, and intelligence services operate on the mission to protect and advance US interests. They do not record or report on tactics and so it is unlikely that the president is brief on this level of operations. So, in essence, the president's statements in this regard are meaningless, which the Chinese surely realize. It's more for the home media.
"These issues are ultimately for the people of Hong Kong and people of China to decide," the US president said.

"But I did describe for him that the United States - as a matter of foreign policy but also as a matter of our values - are gonna consistently to speak out on the right of the people to express themselves and encouraged that the elections that take place in Hong Kong are transparent and fair and reflective of the opinion of the people there."
The people in Crimea and eastern Ukraine? Not so much. And the US warned Russia not to recognize the election results. Double standard?

Regarding containment, actions speak louder than words.
But Obama said that the conversation he had with Xi gave him the "opportunity to debunk the notion ... that out pivot to Asia is about containing China".
"I have repeatedy reiterated and displayed through the actions of our administration that we want China to succeed," Obama said.
Did President Obama explain the fine print, "on our (neoliberal) terms"?

Al Jazeera
Obama denies US role in Hong Kong protests










3 comments:

Ryan Harris said...

I think Lavrov said that Russia "respected" (uvazhaet) the election in Donbass but clarified his comment by saying that Russia didn't formally, "recognize" (priznaet) the result. When questioned why he made the comment, he said, "We in principle respect elections that express the will of the electorate."

Fairly clear.

The media likes the idea of "containment" what the hell is that? How do you contain a sovereign country? You contain fruit when you put up a jar. You don't contain a country. They create an illogical concept and they claim the US is trying to do it, then claim it is a stupid idea.

I've not seen a single US action that would indicate the US was trying to contain China. We have the pacific fleet that defends allies. China has disputes / claims on the phillipines, vietnam, japan, korea, india. They are very aggressive in capturing territory from their neighbors and some of which are our allies and we are obligated to defend. So we have to at least appear as if we are willing to defend, even if we aren't.

Tom Hickey said...

Can the U.S. Military Really ‘Pivot’ to Asia?

Tom Hickey said...

China and America: Dancing Around the Containment Question

As the president said in Manila,“Our goal is not to contain China. Our goal is to make sure international rules and norms are respected and that includes in the area of international disputes.”

That would be the (neoliberal) rules and norms of order written by?