The United States military is preparing for a major military confrontation with China and Russia, an American peace activist and analyst in Washington has warned.

Brian Becker, national coordinator for the ANSWER Coalition, a US-based protest umbrella group consisting of many antiwar and civil rights organizations, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Sunday.

Becker said the United States wants China to recognize South China Sea as an American lake although it is thousands of miles away from any US territory.

On Friday, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis warned that Washington will “compete vigorously” if China continues its actions in the South China Sea.

"China's policy in the South China Sea stands in stark contrast to the openness our strategy promises, it calls into question China's broader goals," Mattis said in prepared remarks at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.

Becker said, “It’s clear from James Mattis’s statement and the general orientation of the Pentagon in recent weeks and months that the United States has decided to compete with China for control over the area right around China.”

“The United States feels that South China Sea and East South China Sea should be understood by China to be an American lake. In other words whereby the American Navy and Air Force exercise sovereignty even though this area of the world is thousands of miles away from any US territory,” he added.

“It’s a symbol of imperial ambition directed against China and will be perceived by China as a grave threat,” the analyst stated.

“This is just not the work of the Trump administration even though James Mattis is Secretary of Defense. The so-called the ‘Asian pivot’ was announced by Barack Obama in 2011 in Australia. The real goal of ‘Asian pivot’ was to position in the Asia-Pacific -- what is now the US is calling the Indo-Pacific region -- sixty of all US naval assets and Air Force assets. We are experiencing or witnessing reorientation of US foreign policy,” he noted.

“At the same time that Mattis made these comments which come just months after the Pentagon announced its national security strategy and nuclear posture review that announced to the world that the United states that the Pentagon was preparing for a major confrontation in the coming decade or decades targeting China and Russia in particular. Mattis’s most recent comments have to be seen in that context,” the commentator concluded.

US officials confirmed to the media last week that two US Navy warships had sailed within 12 nautical miles off Chinese islands in the South China Sea.

The United States is reportedly considering intensified naval patrols in the South China Sea to counter what it sees as China’s militarization of the strategic waterway, a move that could further increase tensions with Beijing.

The Pentagon is planning to step up its program of so-called freedom-of-navigation operations close to Chinese installations on disputed reefs, two US officials and Western and Asian diplomats close to discussions told Reuters.

China has repeatedly warned the United States against sending warships to patrol the South China Sea.

Washington claims such operations are meant to protect “freedom of navigation” in the sea, a gateway for trillions of dollars in maritime trade each year.