OCTOBER 28, 2016
by T.J. COLES
TJC: Please tell us about your new
film, The Coming War on China.
JP: The Coming War on China is
my 60th film and perhaps one of the most urgent. It continues the theme of
illuminating the imposition of great power behind a facade of propaganda as
news. In 2011, President Obama announced a ‘pivot to Asia’ of US forces: almost
two-thirds of American naval power would be transferred to Asia and the Pacific
by 2020.
The undeclared rationale for this was the
‘threat’ from China, by some measure now the greatest economic power. The
Secretary of Defense, Ash Carter, says US policy is to confront those ‘who see
America’s dominance and want to take that away from us’.
The film examines power in both countries and how
nuclear weapons, in American eyes, are the bedrock of its dominance. In its
first ‘chapter’, the film reveals how most of the population of the Marshall
Islands in the Pacific were unwittingly made into nuclear guinea pigs in a
programme whose secrets – and astonishing archive – are related to the presence
of a missile base now targeting China. The Coming War on China will
be released in cinemas in the UK on December 1st and broadcast on ITV (in the
UK) on December 6th.
TJC: How do you assess Australia’s role
in America’s ‘Pivot to Asia’?
JP: Australia is virtually the 51st state of the
US. Although China is Australia’s biggest trader, on which much of the
national economy relies, ‘confronting China’ is the diktat from Washington. The
Australian political establishment, especially the military and intelligence
agencies, are fully integrated into what is known as the ‘alliance’, along with
the dominant Murdoch media. I often feel a certain sadness about the way my own
country – with all its resources and opportunities – seems locked into such an
unnecessary, dangerous obsequious role in the world. If the ‘pivot’ proceeds,
Australia could find itself fighting, yet again, a great power’s war.
TJC: With regards to the British and
American media, how can the US get away with selling China as a threat when it
is encircling China?
JP: That’s a question that goes to the heart of
modern-day propaganda. China is encircled by a ‘noose’ of some 400 US bases,
yet the news has ignored this while concentrating on the ‘threat’ of China
building airstrips on disputed islets in the South China Sea, clearly as a
defence to a US Navy blockade.
TJC: What was your impression
of Japan and the political situation there?
JP: Japan is an American colony in all but name –
certainly in terms of its relationship with the rest of the world and
especially China. The historian Bruce Cumings explores this in an interview in
the film. Within the constraints of American dominance, indeed undeterred
by Washington, Japan’s current prime minister Shinzo Abe has developed an
extreme nationalist position, in which contrition for Japanese actions in the
Second World War is anathema and the post-war ‘peace constitution’ is likely to
be changed.
Abe has gone as far as boasting that Japan will
use nuclear weapons if it wants. In any US conflict with China, Japan – which
last year announced its biggest ever ‘defence’ budget – would play a critical
role. There are 32 US military installations on the Japanese island of Okinawa,
facing China. However, there is a sense in modern Asia that power in the world
has indeed moved east and peaceful ‘Asian solutions’ to regional animosities
are possible.
TJC: Do you think the new trade and investment
deals like the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and
especially the Transpacific Partnership (TPP) will affect China’s business
operations?
JP: It’s difficult to say, but I doubt it. What
is remarkable about the rise of China is the way it has built, almost in the
blink of an eye, a trade, investment and banking structure that rivals that of
the Bretton Woods institutions. Unknown to many of us, China is developing its
‘New Silk Road’ to Europe at an astonishing pace. China’s response to threats
from Washington is a diplomacy that’s tied to this development, and which
includes a burgeoning alliance with Russia.
T.J. Coles is
the author of Britain’s
Secret Wars (2016, Clairview Books).
This interview was originally published
by the Plymouth Institute for Peace
Research.
More articles by:T.J. COLES
Dr. T. J. Coles is director of the Plymouth Institute for
Peace Research and the author of several books, including Voices
for Peace (with Noam Chomsky and others) and the forthcoming Fire
and Fury: How the US Isolates North Korea, Encircles China and Risks Nuclear
War in Asia (both Clairview Books).
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