WASHINGTON, DC: "Don't push China." Even as the Chinese and America's Philippine allies engage in their latest standoff at sea over the disputed Scarborough Shoal, the message from an array of elder statesmen is that the U.S. needs to avoid any kind of confrontation with China -- and the Obama Administration seems to be listening.
"We are often accused of this so-called pivot to the Pacific being all about China," said the Vice-Chief of the Joint Staff, Adm. James Winnefeld on Wednesday morning, addressing the annual conference of the relentlessly centrist Center for Strategic and International Studies. But the US has many other interests in the region -- most notably at the moment North Korea, but also the reform process in Myanmar (aka Burma) -- where it and China have common ground. "It should be viewed not as containing China, it should be viewed as balancing China," Winnefeld said of the new strategy. "I don't think China should view this as a threat....We can all get along out there."
That's music to Singaporean ears, but the Filipinos aren't so sure. "We all want to settle this dispute peacefully, but the question I have is how would this be settled peacefully if China refuses to abide by international law, which is the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea?" asked the Philippine ambassador to Washington, Jose Cuisia, rising from the audience at a CSIS forum later in the day on the oil-rich and much-disputed South China Sea. (Ironically, China has signed the Law of the Sea treaty, but the US has not).
Read the full story at AOL Defense