GOOD MORNING FROM LONDON
The UK knew that sailing the HMS Defender into disputed waters off the coast of Russia-annexed Crimea would provoke a reaction from Moscow. Trouble Lay ahead. The Russians fired warning shots. Russia says it chased the UK warship out of their waters. The UK says it defended the freedom of navigation. But was this incident just about Russia + the Crimea? Or was it a pointer to China + the S China Sea?
China’s maritime power is growing rapidly + the world focus is on East Asia at just the time UK’s new Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier will lead a multinational fleet through the S China Sea. Brinkmanship Beckons. Watch for the Flashpoints. These are dangerous times.
Critics of China will say that China is expansionist, acquisitive + needs to be curbed. China will say the US military/academics, dominated by the Thucydides Principle, are determined to attack China + that defence is their right/entitlement.
Yesterday, NATO’s most senior military officer, Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach, called China’s modernisation of its armed forces as “shocking” + last week NATO leaders warned that China “poses systemic challenges”.
The stage is set. As I see it, the West is determined to knock China back. They know that China will become #1 economic power + with the growing reach of BRI, the world is facing a fundamental re-alignment of the world balance of power with China leading the challenge of a New World Order not, I hasten to add, to establish Chinese Hegemony, as Historians predict.
More on that tomorrow in #263 but foe today “Eyes Wide Open”.
