US media reports indicate that there is possibility that US military ships and planes will attempt to enter the 12 nautical miles zone around Chinese reefs near the Nansha Islands.

Such a possibility is the latest, and a particularly dangerous, part of a proto-war, so far an indirect one, being waged by the US government against China.

This proto-war appears to be aimed at intimidating, weakening, and even possibly overturning the Chinese government and social order. It includes attempts to militarily, economically, and informationally encircle and isolate China.

Referred to in US political circles as “the pivot to the Asia-Pacific,” the military wing of this proto-war aimed at encirclement of China is part of the strategic change known as the “Air-Sea Battle Plan.” It involves progressively moving up to 60 percent of US military forces into the Asia-Pacific region, alongside the placement of new and advanced military equipment and new military bases and alliances with countries like the Philippines, South Korea, and Japan.

The economic wing of the proto-war aimed at encircling China is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The TPP is a proposed regional regulatory and investment treaty which would exclude China and which currently involves negotiations between Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the US, and Vietnam.

The informational wing of the proto-war is the constant reiteration of unfounded allegations by political figures, and the US mass media, that there is a “China threat,” despite the fact that the US has about 650 military bases in other countries and wages continual wars, while China has no bases overseas and has not been to war for over three decades.

All of these proto-war measures – military, economic, and informational measures aimed at China – correspond to two doctrines which are highly influential in US foreign policy circles: the “Brzezinski doctrine” and the “Wolfowitz doctrine.”

These doctrines essentially call for the US government to exert every effort to attain complete dominance over the Eurasian continent, a continent on which the currently independent countries of Russia and China occupy central positions.

Adhering to these doctrines, and striving to dominate China and Eurasia through warfare and other means, is playing with fire.

The US government should take warning that tampering with China’s sovereignty is not like invading Iraq or using proxies to destabilize and destroy the previous social order in Libya.

China is a powerful nuclear armed state, supported by the majority of its 1.3 billion people, and has a long history of struggle against imperialist encroachments on its territory and rights.

Shortly after the victory of the revolution in 1949, then Chinese leader Mao Zedong made a speech in which he mirrored the deep anti-imperialist feelings of Chinese people, in which he said: “No imperialists will ever again be allowed to invade our land.”

In the 19th century British armies twice invaded China – and massacred large numbers – for the purpose of forcing the addictive narcotic drug opium on the Chinese people. In the 20th century, as part of WWII, Japan invaded and brutally occupied large parts of China, resulting in the deaths of 20 million Chinese people. None of this is forgotten.

Attempting to renew the old imperialist relationship to China will not work. Surrounding China with military bases, or attempting to assert US military dominance of the South China Sea, will not lead to a good end for the US.

Eric Sommer is a Canadian independent journalist and researcher based in Thailand. [email protected]