US seeks to disrupt China’s relations with neighbors: Analyst

The United States is exploiting China’s territorial disputes with its neighbors as a pretext to justify its so-called pivot to the Asia-Pacific region and “contain” Beijing, a peace activist and analyst in Washington says.

“This announced pivot to Asia was announced prior to the current controversies over disputed islands and disputed territories in the South China Sea and East China Sea,” said Brian Becker, national coordinator for the ANSWER Coalition, a US-based protest umbrella group consisting of many antiwar and civil rights organizations.

“Those are in fact simply pretextual incidents and conflicts, allowing the United States to do what it really has sought to do from a strategic point of view, which is to move large numbers of military forces into the region, to contain China, to intimidate China, to disrupt China’s relations with other Asia-Pacific nations,” Becker told Press TV on Friday.

Becker said recent comments by Admiral Scott Swift, the new commander of the US Pacific Fleet, constitute “an escalation of potential conflict between the United States and the People's Republic of China.”

“Admiral Scott’s recent message is just one of many, a string of pronouncements by Pentagon officials seeking to camouflage the Pentagon’s aggressive intervention in the Pacific as somehow defensive in character and providing protection for smaller nations in the Pacific,” Becker observed.

On Friday, Admiral Swift assured allies in the region that American forces are ready to respond to any unpredicted incident in the South China Sea, amid tensions over the disputed waters.

The US Navy could increase deployment of combat ships, if necessary, and ramp up training exercises with its regional allies, Swift told journalists in the Philippines capital of Manila.

He said his 200-vessel US Pacific Fleet, the world’s largest, “was ready and prepared to respond to any contingency that the president may suggest would be necessary.”

Beijing claims sovereignty over nearly all of the South China Sea, which is also claimed in part by Taiwan, Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines.

Tensions have escalated between China and its neighbors over the South China Sea, where territorial disputes have fueled widespread uncertainties.