Vietnam Is Precedent as US Prepares for War with China / By W. T. Whitney

_{^{Near Da Nang, South Vietnam, Marines move through ankle-deep mud carry their poncho-covered comrade towards higher ground were, when the weather permits, he will be air-lifted to the rear areas, Jan. 16, 1968. (AP Photo/John T. Wheeler)}}

_{South Paris, Maine}

Popular struggle for national independence under socialism has regularly provoked U.S. war or hostile interventions, as with Cuba, North Korea, China, Vietnam and other nations. We explore both the extreme danger of possible U.S. war with China and also the changing U.S rationale for fighting wars. This shows in the difference between why the U.S. war in Vietnam was fought and why U.S. war with China may be on the way.

Vietnam recently commemorated agreements reached 70 years ago in Geneva that on July 21, 1954 ended war between Vietnamese revolutionary forces and the French military, defeated two months earlier at Dien Bien Phu. According to official media, the object of a “scientific conference” held on July 19 was “to emphasize the historical importance of the agreements for the struggle for national liberation of the Vietnamese people and the peoples of the world.”

Also on July 19, Nguyen Phu Trong died. Once chairperson of the National Assembly and president of Vietnam, this paramount leader, a student and teacher of Marxist theory, had long served as general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam. His death is a reminder, if such is needed, that for Vietnam revolutionary socialism and national liberation were kindred struggles.

To prevent the unification of Vietnam as a socialist nation, the U.S. government went the last mile, first diplomatically and then militarily – from the 1954 Geneva agreements that established Vietnam’s national independence to the departure of defeated U.S. troops on April 30, 1975. The U.S. leadership class, involved in spreading U.S. power and influence across the globe, created and then defended South Vietnam, while attempting to defeat Vietnam’s Revolution, all at enormous human and material cost.

The enclave remaining after a U.S. victory might have ended up as a beachhead for counter-revolution and U.S. control in Southeast Asia. In their various situations, that’s the role performed by South Korea, Taiwan, and even Ukraine in relation to Russia, and Israel vis-a-vis the rest of the Middle East.

U.S. planners, in thinking about what to do about Vietnam, were not entirely devoid of reason. For U.S. imperialists, to beat back Vietnamese Communists – think “domino theory” – and heat up the Cold War against the Soviet Union had a certain logic, according to their own lights.

After the Vietnam disaster, official U.S. planning for war has built upon a variety of ostensible reasons for fighting. Having emerged from World War II well-resourced and strong, the U.S. government consistently demonstrated limited tolerance for the risings of oppressed, colonialized peoples. However, once newly formed independent states showed signs of strength, regional prominence, or even strategic rivalry, U.S. strategists turned to action.

War materialized as the ultimate U.S. fix, no matter the circumstances and under a variety of pretexts, as shown with U.S. war-making in Libya, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The rationales for fighting were more diffuse. The threat of U.S. war now looms over Iran and, more ominously, over China. Each is under the gun because they are strong, assertive states.

Anti-communism was a safer kind of rationale. Vietnam won its “American War,” and the U.S. government backed off. That’s the story. Incidentally, the Vietnamese people scored a clear win. They live according to plans and socialist purpose in a free and independent nation.

Vietnam has established diplomatic relations with 190 countries. A Vietnamese writer cites “important achievements with infrastructure gradually meeting the needs of industrialization and modernization.” Since reforms in the 1980s, an economy resting mainly on foreign direct investment in manufacturing and tourism has expanded. Economic growth ranged between 9.5 and 5.5 percent between 1993 and 2022, save for sharp drops in 2020 and 2021. GDP rose 5.05 percent in 2023. By 2022, the poverty rate was down to 4.3%.

Vietnam’s government since 2008 has spent 20 percent of its budget on education. The same report mentions “high primary school completion rates, strong gender parity, low student/teacher ratios,” and school attendance rates that are high. The British medical journal Lancet indicates that, “Along with the economic growth, the health of the Vietnamese people has significantly improved between 1990 and 2020, whereby the life expectancy grew from 69 to 75 years, and the under-five child mortality rate decreased from 30 to 21 per 1000 live births.”

*_{^{Image credit: Friends of Socialist China}}*

Socialist China restored dignity to the vast majority of its citizens, has afforded them decent lives, and created a well-functioning state that responds effectively to the climate crisis and other challenges. It too warrants a pass from the U.S. government.

That’s not happening: the U.S. government, in the hands of a divided leadership class, deals only haphazardly with major problems afflicting U.S. society. It satisfies the material wants of the upper echelons, and presides over war preparations as part of what is, in effect, a new Cold War.

Indeed, the USA has accumulated over 750 bases in 80 countries and posted 173,000 troops in 159 counties. The U.S. share of global arms exports in 2019-23 was 42 percent, up from 34 percent during the previous four-year period, according to sipri.org.

*_{^{The US has two island chains around the coast of China. The stars indicate major US bases}}*_{^{| via solidarity.net.au}}

In the Pacific waters surrounding China, the United States has expanded the capabilities of its bases; it operates nuclear-equipped naval vessels, arranges for multi-national naval exercises, has vessels engaging in provocative “freedom of navigation exercises,” and will be introducing nuclear-powered submarines.

The idea of multiple and varied reasons for fighting wars, presented above, folds neatly into the overarching notion of a new Cold War, something that by nature is ambitious, far-reaching, and long term. Where is the justification for that?

Here is a guess: The United States decades ago turned to a great variety of activities related to military preparation, financing, and recovery. These now intrude massively in the U.S. economy and in society itself, so much so that, in theory, something has to happen to explain and justify such a state of affairs. War provides meaning, without which the whole apparatus might disappear. What then of the economy and of the collective experience of a U.S population variously oriented to the military?

The Costs of War Project of the Watson Institute of Brown University weighs in. Author Heidi Peltier points out that:

Federal spending on the military and on veterans makes up more than half of the federal discretionary budget. Employment in the federal government is dominated by civilian defense workers and uniformed military personnel. Because the majority of taxpayer dollars and federal resources are devoted to the military and military industries, and most government jobs are in the defense sector, the political power of this sector has become more deeply entrenched and other alternatives have become harder to pursue. Instead of having a federal government that addresses various national priorities … the U.S. has a government that is largely devoted to war and militarism.

Unfortunately, protecting both the U.S. economy and habituation to the military has its downside, specifically extreme danger to humanity itself. Writing in the most recent issue of Monthly Review magazine, John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clark explain, pointing to China. Discussing “Imperialism in the Indo-Pacific,” they state that:

“Most U.S. strategies for winning the New Cold War directed at China are aimed at a strategic-geopolitical defeat of the latter that would bring down Chinese President Xi Jinping and destroy the enormous prestige of the Communist Party of China, leading to regime change from within and the subordination of China to the U.S. imperium from without … (It) is the United States, which sees China’s rise as a threat to its own global preeminence, with the Indo-Pacific super-region increasingly being viewed as the pivotal site in the New Cold War, that is propelling all of humanity toward a Third World War.”

_{W.T. Whitney Jr. is a political journalist whose focus is on Latin America, health care, and anti-racism. A Cuba solidarity activist, he formerly worked as a pediatrician, lives in rural Maine. W.T. Whitney Jr. es un periodista político cuyo enfoque está en América Latina, la atención médica y el antirracismo. Activista solidario con Cuba, anteriormente trabajó como pediatra, vive en la zona rural de Maine.}

A U.S. general hypes China as threat in Latin America / by W.T. Whitney Jr.

_{^{General Laura Richardson, Commander of United States Southern Command testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee. | Jose Luis Magana / AP}}

_{Published in the People’s World on March 29, 2023}

The U.S. government has long intervened in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Now, the U.S. military is paying attention to China’s economic activities there.

Gen. Laura Richardson on March 8 reported to the Armed Services Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives on the actions and needs of the Southern Command, which she heads. She has charge of all U.S. military operations in the region.

Citing the 2022 National Security Strategy, Richardson declared that “no region impacts the United States more directly than the Western Hemisphere… [There,] autocrats are working overtime to undermine democracy.” And security there “is critical to homeland defense.”

Richardson stated that “the PRC (People’s Republic of China) has both the capability and intent to eschew international norms, advance its brand of authoritarianism, and amass power and influence at the expense of the existing and emerging democracies in our hemisphere.” The Southern Command’s “main priority…is to expose and mitigate PRC malign activity.”

She sees a “myriad of ways in which the PRC is spreading its malign influence, wielding its economic might, and conducting gray zone activities to expand its military and political access and influence.” A “gray zone,” according to the NATO-friendly Atlantic Council, is a “set of activities…[like] nefarious economic activities, influence operations, …cyberattacks, mercenary operations, assassinations, and disinformation campaigns.”

Richardson highlighted China’s trade with LAC that is heading toward “$700 billion [annually] by 2035.” The United States, in her view, will be facing intense competition, and presently “its comparative trade advantage is eroding.”

She added that “The PRC’s efforts to extract South America’s natural resources to support its own population…are conducted at the expense of our partner nations and their citizens.” And opportunities for “quality private sector investment” are disappearing.

Competition extends to space: “11 PRC-linked space facilities across five countries in this region [enable] space tracking and surveillance capabilities.” Richardson complained of “24 countries [that] have existing Chinese telecommunication infrastructure (3G/4G), increasing their potential to transition to Chinese 5G.”

She expressed concern both about surveillance networks supplied by China that represent a “potential counterintelligence threat” and about Latin Americans going to China “to receive training on cybersecurity and military doctrine.” Richardson denounced China’s role in facilitating environmental crimes and pointed to “potential dual use for malign commercial and military activities.”

“Relationships absolutely matter,” she insisted, “and our partner democracies are desperate for assistance from the United States.” Plus, “if we’re not there in time, they…take what’s available, creating opportunities for the PRC.”

Moving beyond China, Richardson indicated that “many partner nations…see TCOs [transnational criminal organizations] as their primary security challenge.” That’s because drug-cartel violence leads to deaths and poverty, and “illicit funds exacerbate regional corruption, insecurity, and instability.”

Her report avoids mention of particular countries other than offering brief references to Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. She criticized Russia for “military engagements with Venezuela and Nicaragua” and for spreading “false narratives.” Richardson praised Colombia for providing military training in other countries.

The Southern Command gains “exponential return” on supplying various countries with U.S. weapons and supplies. It conducts joint military exercises, and “provides professional military education to personnel from 28 countries.”

Richardson reported at length on processes she sees as fostering useful relationships between her command and the various governments and military services. The tone of urgency characterizing her discussion on China was entirely lacking.

Economic intervention

Gen. Richardson’s view that China has greatly expanded its economic involvement with the LAC nations is on target.

Since 2005, China’s state-owned banks have arranged for 117 loans in the region worth, in all, more than $140 billion. They averaged over $10 billion annually. Since 2020, China has made fewer loans.

Chinese trade with Latin America grew from $12 billion in 2000 to $448 billion in 2021. China’s imports of “ores (42%), soybeans (16%), mineral fuels and oils (10%), meat (6%), and copper (5%)” totaled $221 billion in 2021. The value of exported manufactured goods that year was $227 billion. By 2022, China had become the biggest trading partner in four Latin American countries and the second-largest in many others.

China’s foreign direct investment (FDI) has long represented China’s strongest economic tie to the region. FDI signifies funding of projects abroad directed at long-term impact. China’s FDI from 2005 to mid-2022 was $143 billion. Energy projects and “metals/mining” accounted for 59% and 24% of the total, respectively. Of that total, Brazil and Peru received 45% and 17%, respectively.

The FDI flow since 2016 has averaged $4.5 billion annually; worldwide, China’s FDI has contracted.

Chinese banks and corporations have invested heavily in lithium production in Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile, which, together, account for 56% of the world’s lithium deposits. China is the largest investor in Peru’s mining sector, controlling seven large mines and owning two of Peru’s biggest copper mines. Brazil is the world’s largest recipient of Chinese investments.

China’s government has linked FDI to its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) that began in 2013. As of May 2022, 21 Latin American and Caribbean countries were cooperating with the BRI and 11 of them had formally joined.

On the ground

U.S. military intervention in LAC is far from new. Analyst Sergio Rodríguez Gelfenstein complements Richardson’s report with a three-part survey, accessible here, here, and here, of recent U.S. military activities in the region.

He indicates the United States now has “12 military bases in Panamá, 12 in Puerto Rico, 9 in Colombia, 8 in Perú, 3 in Honduras, 2 in Paraguay, as well as similar installations in Aruba, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Cuba (Guantánamo), and in other countries.”

Rodríguez maintains that “levels of aggressive interference by Washington in the region have increased dramatically,” and that U.S. embassies there are supplied with more military, National Security Council, and CIA personnel than ever before.

_{^{Honduran Foreign Minister Eduardo Enrique Reina Garcia, left, and Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang shake hands following the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, at a ceremony in the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing Sunday, March 26, 2023. Honduras formed diplomatic ties with China on Sunday after breaking off relations with Taiwan, which is increasingly isolated and now recognized by only 13 sovereign states, including Vatican City. The U.S., meanwhile, is upset about China’s growing ties of cooperation and trade in Latin America. | Greg Baker / Pool Photo via AP}}

Rodríguez notes features of the LAC region that attract U.S. attention, among them: closeness to strategically important Antarctica; reserves of fresh water and biodiversity in Amazonian regions; the Guarani Aquifer near the triple frontier of Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina, the largest in the world; and huge reserves of valuable natural resources.

Among ongoing or recent U.S. military interventions are these:

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is implementing a “master plan” for the navigability of the Paraguay River and Plata River Basin. The nearby Triple Frontier area supposedly harbors international terrorism and drug trafficking.
The U.S. military facility in Neuquén, Argentina, is turning from its alleged humanitarian mission to activities in line with local preparations for oil extraction.
S. officials on Oct. 13, 2022, announced that 95 military vehicles were being donated to Guatemala for drug-war activities.
In Brazil in September 2022, General Richardson indicated that U.S. forces would join Brazilian counterparts to fight fires in the Amazon.
The Southern Command’s fostering of good relations with Peru’s military has borne fruit. Under consideration in Peru’s Congress is a proposal to authorize the entry of foreign military forces. To what nation would they belong? Hint: former CIA operative and U.S. Ambassador Lisa Kenna met with Peru’s Defense Minister the day before President Pedro Castillo was removed in a parliamentary coup on Dec. 7, 2022.
In March 2023, two U.S. congresspersons proposed that U.S. troops enter Mexico to carry out drug-war operations.
Presently the United States is making great efforts to establish a naval base on Gorgona island off Colombia’s Pacific coast. It would be the ninth U.S. base in Colombia, a NATO “global partner.”
In Colombia, U.S. troops acting on behalf of NATO, are active in that country’s Amazon region supposedly to protect the environment and combat drug trafficking.
The U.S. National Defense Authorization Act of December 2022 awarded the Southern Command $858 million for military operations in Ecuador.
In a second visit, the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Stone was plying Uruguayan waters in February ostensibly to train with local counterparts for search and rescue operations. The ship was also monitoring the nearby Chinese fishing fleet.

Rodríguez does not comment on U.S. interventions in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. That’s because they’ve persisted for “more than 60, 40, and 20 years, respectively” and each requires a “special report.”

John Quincy Adams returns

Proclaiming the Monroe Doctrine 200 years ago, Secretary of State Adams informed European powers that the United States regarded “any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety.”

Gen. Richardson would apply the warning of that era to the PRC. Yet signs of hegemonic aspirations from that quarter are absent.

Commenting recently, Argentinian economist and academician Claudio Katz notes that “China concentrates its forces in the economic arena while avoiding confrontations at the political or military level.… Investments are not accompanied by troops and bases, useful for guaranteeing return on investments.”

Besides, China “does business with all governments, without regard to their internal politics.” That tendency, Katz writes, stems from the PRC having “arisen from a socialist experience, having hybrid characteristics, and not completing a passage to capitalism.” He maintains that China, with its economic involvement, contributes nothing to advancing socialism in the region.

Peace Forces Mobilize as NATO Summit in Madrid Plans for War / by W.T Whitney Jr.

_{^{‘Yes to peace, No to NATO’: Anti-imperialist activists organized by the World Federation of Democratic Youth march against the NATO Summit that opens in Madrid on June 29. | via WFDY}}

The NATO Summit taking place in Madridon June 29-30 “will be transformative,” asserted NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg; it will project “a new Strategic Concept for a new security reality.” At its 50^th anniversary summit, in Washington in 1999, NATO had expanded its Cold-War era mission of collective defense of Europe to include protection for democracy “within and beyond our borders.”

According to Stoltenberg on June 27, NATO will provide “support to Ukraine now, and for the future.” The “Allies consider Russia as the most significant and direct threat to our security.” NATO “will address China for the first time …[and also] the challenges that Beijing poses to our security, interests, and values.” Pacific nations – Australia, Japan, the Republic of Korea and New Zealand – will be attending a NATO summit for the first time.

The Summit provoked opposition beforehand. A “Peace Summit,” described as “the People’s Alternative to NATO and War,” gathered in Madrid on June 24-25. A conglomeration of Spanish and European anti-capitalists, environmentalists, feminists, anti-imperialists, peace activists, and spokespersons for struggles in the global South attended workshops, panel discussions, cultural presentations, and plenary sessions.

The Peace Summit made demands. First, NATO will be disbanded: “NATO violates the UN Charter … authoritarian, fascist, and colonial regimes are included in its alliance …NATO’s military interventions have destabilized and destroyed Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Libya. Now NATO pursues a new Cold War against China and Russia. … NATO leads the worldwide arms race … NATO’s nuclear agenda greatly endangers our survival.” Regarding environmental contamination: “The U.S. army “is the most contaminating institution on the planet … NATO generates poverty and inequalities.”

The Summit then declared, “Yes, to Peace … we need a non-militarized system of security, without nuclear arms, without foreign bases, and with a drastic reduction of military expenses. We defend a politics of active peace … [We want] investment in social progress, not in war … Europe and North America must commit to disarmament.”

The statement concluded with an invitation: “March with us against NATO and for building a world of peace.” Indeed, on June 26 thousands marched through central Madrid, their banners flying. Organizers claimed 30,000 marchers. The government reported considerably less.

The Communist Party of Spain (PCE) and the United Left (Izquierda Unida) were the only political parties that joined with dozens of Spanish and international organizations endorsing the declaration and march. The PCE belongs to the United Left electoral coalition that, after the November 2019 general election, combined with the larger United We Can alliance (Unidas Podemos) to form a government under the leadership of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, head of the Socialist Party.

Sánchez issued a statement welcoming the NATO summit to Madrid. He mentioned concerns about Spain’s “southern flank,” a reference, presumably, to migrants from Africa.

PCE member Yolanda Díaz serves as labor minister and second deputy prime minister in Sánchez’s government. Even so, Enrique Santiago, secretary general of her party, on June 7 offered ideas at odds with those of the prime minister: “We don’t want the NATO summit in Madrid. The story of the Ukraine conflict is of a war foretold, what with the continuing expansion of NATO to the East … And in wars, the peoples, the workers, always lose out.” Santiago cited the risk of “nuclear confrontation” and commended the upcoming Peace Summit and “international demonstration against war on June 26.”

In remarks two days prior to the Summit, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg greatly heightened the urgency of the peace proponents’ fears. “At the summit,” he said, “we will strengthen our forward defenses. We will enhance our battle groups in the eastern part of the alliance.”

One report predicted that, “NATO allies will decide at a summit this week to increase the strength of their rapid reaction force nearly eightfold to 300,000 troops … The NATO response force …currently numbers around 40,000 soldiers.” As part of efforts “to shore up the defenses on Europe’s eastern flank,” the NATO Summit will speed up arrangements for the entry of Finland and Sweden’s into the alliance

Stoltenberg spoke of a “strengthened Comprehensive Assistance Package for Ukraine” and “about the military build-up in Kaliningrad … with highly advanced weapon systems.” Partly because of Kaliningrad, “we have modernized our armed forces, our capabilities, and also increased our presence in that part of the region”.

According to the Brookings Institute, Kaliningrad, a tiny Baltic Sea, Russian-controlled enclave, located between Poland and Lithuania, “could become a new flashpoint in Russia’s war on Ukraine.” That’s because Lithuania is blocking the passage of EU-sanctioned Russian goods into the territory for delivery beyond.

_{The original version of the article appeared in People’s World, June 28, 2022, http://www.peoplesworld.org/}