Sweet hypocrisy — US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin — accused China of bullying — immediately after the US Navy had provoked the People's Republic just off Taiwan's coast

05 June 2023

We Americans are known for oozing hypocrisy . . .

. . . all day, every day.

For immediate instance, just three days ago, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was chastising China for not talking to our eminently godly American selves:

I am deeply concerned that the PRC has been unwilling to engage more seriously on better mechanisms for crisis management between our two militaries. But I hope that will change, and soon.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:

Great powers must be beacons of transparency and responsibility. And the United States is deeply committed to doing our part.

An astonishingly hypocritical sentiment, to say the least

Consider, in parallel instance, how the United States has ignored Russian security interests for decades. And, thus, intentionally provoked the current Ukraine War.

And now — similarly after having reviled China for months — Austin dares to critique China's communist leadership for ignoring our continually warmongering selves.

Still more absurd, Austin made the above anti-China critique, after — in the same speech — implicitly having announced that the United States is going to squash China — my explanatory addition in bracketed italics:

[W]e’re stepping up planning, and coordination, and training with our friends from the East China Sea to the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean.

That includes staunch allies such as Australia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand.

And it includes as well such valued partners as India, Indonesia, Vietnam, and clearly our hosts here today in Singapore.

Consider the historic strides forward in the U.S.-Philippine alliance.

We will forward-station our 12th Marine Littoral Regiment—which is the most advanced formation in the U.S. Marine Corps—in Japan by 2025 to deepen stability in the First Island Chain.

[The First Island Chain encircles China and Russia's eastern shores. No accident, that.]

We have committed to increase the rotational presence of U.S. forces in Australia, including rotations of fighters and bomber task forces, as well as future rotations of ground and maritime capabilities.

And then, today . . .

. . . comes the following fully illustrative topper:

The US further provoked China by sailing through the narrow (110 mile/180 kilometer wide) Taiwan Strait.

The Taiwan Strait borders mainland China, as well as Taiwan

This means that the US Navy gets pretty darn close to China's mainland in what cannot be misconstrued as anything other than a hostile naval maneuver.

Hypocritically indicatively, after the US Navy committed its intentionally threatening (jingoistic) posturing — Austin complained how 'bullying' China had been in making its symbolic response to the American provocation:

The U.S. military Monday released a video of what it described as an “unsafe” Chinese maneuver in the Taiwan Strait over the weekend in which one of Beijing’s navy ships cut sharply across the path of an American destroyer, forcing the U.S. vessel to slow to avoid a collision.

The close encounter occurred as the American vessel and the Canadian frigate HMCS Montreal were conducting a so-called "freedom of navigation" transit of the strait between Taiwan and mainland China, which China claims as part of its economic zone, while the U.S. and its Western allies say it is governed by the freedom of international passage.

The incident came on a day when both U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chinese Defense Minister Gen. Li Shangfu were in Singapore for an annual defense conference.

Li defended his country’s response Sunday, contending that the passage of the allied Western vessels on “freedom of navigation patrols” was a provocation to China.

Li suggested the U.S. and its allies had created the danger and should instead focus on taking "good care of your own territorial airspace and waters."

In China we always say, 'Mind your own business.'"

Austin told the same security forum Saturday that Washington would not "flinch in the face of bullying or coercion" from China and would continue regularly sailing through and flying over the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea to emphasize they are international waters, countering Beijing's sweeping territorial claims.

Imagine how the United States would react . . .

. . . if China were sailing its navy around Guam, American Samoa, the Northern Marianas, Puerto Rico and/or the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Much less along the New Jersey or California coasts.

The moral? — One does not have to look far . . .

. . . to see why so much of the world dislikes or despises the 'official' United States.

Neocon America's consistently threatening forms of hypocrisy do not become the love-and-respect powder of humanity's dreams.

PeteFree.com

Sweet hypocrisy — US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin — accused China of bullying — immediately after the US Navy had provoked the People's Republic just off Taiwan's coast