Press TV has interviewed Micheal Penn, a journalist and political commentator from Tokyo, to get his takes on the US interference in the South China Sea region, after Barak Obama’s recent remarks in the Asian Summit.

Press TV: What is the US doing in the South China Sea?

Penn: Broadly, what they are doing is they are trying to arrange a coalition of small states along China’s borders in order to contain its expansion, military expansion first, but other kinds of political expansion otherwise; so, the United States does not want to see China become a hegemonic power throughout Asia and by taking advantage or working with the smaller states, they are hoping to hem them in to some extent.

Press TV: Isn’t this some sort of interference by Washington in the regional affairs of Southeast Asia and in this particular case the South China Sea region?

Penn: The United States is a global power, I don’t think there is a single country in the earth where the United States doesn’t interfere in one level or another. This has been the case at least since 1945.

Press TV: What was interesting in the remarks by the US \president Barak Obama that we just had at the ASEAN Summit? He talked of resolving disputes peacefully, lowering tensions and bringing diplomacy and stability to Southeast Asia, to the South China Sea. What is interesting is that Washington is stoking further tension in the sensitive region of Southeast Asia through its unwanted military presence there, for instance the planned deployment of the THAAD missiles system in South Korea. What do you think of that?

Penn: I think the answer is somewhere in the middle. The United States does want a certain degree of tension in order to get these smaller countries along the edges of China concerned enough that they are willing to go into various political, economic and military alliances with the United States, but at the same time I do not believe that the United States is interested in provoking a hot war with China, because this would be a disaster for everybody, including the global economy and the United States is deeply invested in the global economy; so, yes, some degree of tension does serve the US interests, but they also don’t want it to get out of control.

Press TV: What about what’s happening with South Korea and North Korea? Doesn’t it have anything to do with the US wanting to promote its arms sales in the region as some analysts believe?

Penn: Of course, there are sections of the US establishment that do want to have arm sales. I’m not sure if East Asia is the area where they are doing most of their sales, probably other regions get more of them, but certainly North Korea is a little bit of a special case, because I think everybody is generally concerned about the predictability of that regime and what they might do and that includes China.

China does not feel they control North Korea very much anymore either. So, North Korea is an X-factor for everybody, but especially if it begins to internally collapse somehow. Certainly, the United States wants to have a military presence in the region and stoking tensions - at least to some smaller level - is part of what they are doing.

Press TV: We had the Chinese prime minister saying that peace and stability can only be achieved, if regional countries themselves deal with their problems. Isn’t this true that regional countries can come to a better conclusion to achieve peace and stability, for instance in the sensitive South China Sea, if the US stays away out of the region?

Penn: Of course that makes perfect sense for China to say this, because if the United States stays away and if all of the mechanisms are regional, then who’s the great superpower in East Asia. It is China. So, this leaves them a basically uncontested influence in the region. So, you shouldn’t idealize, China’s also trying to maximize their influence and for them to say the United States butt out or Japan butt out, these sort of things are what maximize their influence and their degree of hegemony in the region. So, both sides are playing to what they think is their strong card.