Washington has sought to use this year's Rim of the Pacific, or RIMPAC, naval exercises, to make the US club look as large as possible. The purpose of this large-scale muscle flexing is to give a veneer of legitimacy to the United States' military posturing in the Asia-Pacific region.
"Every nation in the world that has interests in the Pacific and will adhere to the same values is more than welcome to participate," said a RIMPAC deputy commander.
Although that seems to make the naval exercise an open family, the family law is clear-cut — adherence to US "values". Even if a nation has interests in the Pacific, if it is deemed to be unwilling to obey the "law" laid down by the US as the head of the family, it is to be cut adrift from the other family members.
That being said, the world's largest naval exercise this year, which involves 40 surface ships, more than 150 aircraft, three submarines and 25,000 people from 29 countries, with the US at the helm, will focus on "attack skills needed for war". This is to signal to those not willing to accept their allotted role in the family that they will be punished, and to deter any in the family from breaking the family "law" in the future.
The Pentagon has not singled out the simulated enemy for the exercise. But there must be one as one hand alone cannot clap. In an interview with Markus Garlauskas, director of the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council, Voice of America made it clear that the unspoken enemy is China.
On the one hand, Garlauskas sought to portray Beijing as a warmongering party in the Pacific citing its tensions with Manila and Taipei — without mentioning at all the ugly roles the US has been playing in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait. On the other hand, he tried to baselessly smear China as a "thief" of intelligence, claiming it took advantage of its participation in RIMPAC 2016, which was why it had not been invited to take part in the exercise after that.
Featuring the theme "partners, integrated and prepared", the exercise this year, as anonymous US officials told VOA, is intended to send a strong message to China.
Apart from the US, the major players in the exercise include several NATO members and Japan, as the Pentagon hopes to take advantage of the exercise to coordinate their naval actions in the "Indo-Pacific". Both the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Japan have expressed interest over the past two years in doing Washington's bidding to weave together the US' Atlantic and Pacific security networks.
That means the US is doing nothing with the exercise but trying to marshal its gang for the mass brawl it has long planned with China. As Garlauskas put it: China is "potentially going to have to deal with a response from a wide range of countries that have common interests in deterring and confronting Chinese aggression as threats to a free and open Indo-Pacific".
However, Washington should be reminded that almost all the 28 RIMPAC nations appearing in the exercise this year have stable and healthy relations with China, including some major economic and trade partners with the country.
They not only have "value" ties with the US, but also attach tremendous significance to relations with China. They can see clearly Washington's intention of downgrading them into pieces in the US' geopolitical games, in which the US tries to cook up a nonexistent security threat and offers them lip-service security protection in exchange for their surrendering of real strategic autonomy.
If Washington tries to pour too much anti-China poison into its RIMPAC wine bottle, it is the US that will foot the bill alone at last.
