CHINA HAS WON THE TRADE WAR ALREADY

US hegemony is now on the Defensive Militarily...

US Exceptionalists are in a state of deluded denial of reality.

'For more than 70 years, since the end of the Korean War in 1953, tens of thousands of American troops have been based in South Korea to deter a North Korean invasion. Now the future of the long-established alliance has been thrown into doubt as the Trump administration seeks to reorder its forces against what it identifies as a greater threat: China.

Behind the scenes, and without any significant public debate in South Korea, senior United States officers have been briefing foreign governments, security experts and journalists on their plans for a profound change.

Instead of defending only against North Korea, American forces stationed on the peninsula will be called upon to respond to conflict in other parts of east Asia - above all a Chinese attempt to invade Taiwan.

The adoption of what is referred to as “strategic flexibility” will require a change to the composition, and perhaps the numbers, of US personnel in South Korea - more than 28,500 at present.

And it will infuriate China, and alarm those South Koreans who are reluctant to be enlisted in the emerging superpower struggle between Washington and Beijing.

“Strategic flexibility is what everyone pursues,” General Xavier Brunson, the commander of US Forces Korea, told an online seminar recently, according to reports in South Korean media. “We must be able to deploy our forces outside of South Korea to ensure peace through strength.”

At a security conference in Singapore this month, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said Beijing was “credibly preparing to potentially use military force to alter the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific”, and that the Pentagon was “reorienting toward deterring aggression by communist China”.

In practice, this means that US troops based in Japan and the US Pacific islands of Hawaii and Guam, as well as South Korea, will all be prepared to play a part in responding to moves by China.

However, none of this has been discussed with people in South Korea, which has a long history of left-wing opposition to the presence of the US military.

Most South Koreans accept the need for American help in defending against North Korea, but many will object when it becomes clear that the troops they are hosting are also preparing for war against China.

The new doctrine presents a dilemma for Lee Jae-myung, South Korea’s newly elected president, who represents the left-leaning Democratic Party. He says he wants to engage with North Korea, but will want to do so from a position of strength and security, with the backing of US troops in the country.

But accepting South Korea’s status as what Brunson has described as “a fixed aircraft carrier” risks dragging Lee into a future conflict with China, America’s biggest trading partner.

In 2017, Beijing was enraged when the US introduced into South Korea an advanced missile defence system, which it believed threatened its own missiles. It halted tourism to Seoul, and blocked access to South Korean companies for several years.

US President Donald Trump has expressed resentment at what he sees as an unfair alliance under which South Korea enjoys protection but makes an inadequate financial contribution.

Victor Cha, of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, wrote: “Resisting strategic flexibility will likely be interpreted by US military planners not only as out of step with the administration’s policies, but also seen by Trump as ‘free-riding’ by the Korean ally, which might cause him to take vindictive actions to express his displeasure. This could even include pulling all troops out of South Korea.”

Andrei Lankov, an associate professor at Kookmin University in Seoul, said: “But they [South Korea] face a choice: either accept strategic flexibility, housing forces which are actually aimed at China - or complete loss of US military support.”'