Thursday, May 30, 2019

Top U.S. General: Chinese President Xi Broke His Promise To President Obama On South China Sea

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Joseph Dunford (C) says "collective action" is needed to counter China's militarization of the South China Sea

AFP: Xi broke promise on South China Sea: Top US general

The US military's top general said Wednesday that Chinese President Xi Jingping reneged on promises not to militarize the South China Sea and called for "collective action" to hold Beijing responsible.

General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he was not calling for military action, but stressed that there was a need to enforce international laws.

"The fall of 2016, President Xi Jinping promised President Obama that they would not militarize the islands. So what we see today are 10,000-foot runways, ammunition storage facilities, routine deployment of missile defense capabilities, aviation capabilities, and so forth," he said in a talk on US security and defense at the Brooking institution.

"So clearly they have walked away from that committment."

Read more ....

Update: Top US military official says Beijing achieving immediate South China Sea goals, but further moves should be challenged (SCMP).

WNU Editor: Sadly .... my commentary in this 2015 post has been proven right .... The U.S. Retreats From The South China Sea (December 1, 2015). Beijing did sense a lack of focus from the White House at this time. Made promises that they were never going to respect, and then took advantage of it. Flash forward to today. The problem is bigger, and it is not President Trump's problem.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

If it is not Trump's problem, then whose is it?

Bob Huntley said...

Why did China make such a promise?

Anonymous said...

leaders often make promises they either do intend to keep or simply do not keep. Health care here? bring back coal and industry? a great tax break for the middle class? infrastructure?

Anonymous said...

Obama made promises to Americans that he never kept. You can keep your doctor being famous, but hardly the only lie he told Americans. Xi was simply lying to another liar. They both knew it and winked as they went their ways.

Roger Smith said...


Xi had the measure of the prior president. As did Putin. They recognized he was not going to meaningfully respond to their maneuvers.
Maybe the Asia Pivot got buried by all those shovel ready jobs.

Anonymous said...

But China doing this now, under Trump presidency. Putin has more than measure of Trump. Name one time in two years that Trump ever said one bad word about Putin/Russia, despite clear evidence that Russian messed in our elections. Obama has made and kept more promises than Trump...Trump has not made one promise he has kept but for the tax break and as is clear in info today, that break was for very wealthy and NOT for middle class and also it was for our deficit

Bob Huntley said...

Sorry, I guess I should have put more detail in the question, why did China make such a promise. Was it just made out of the blue or was it asked for and if so what was given as an incentive?

As for Presidential promises, anyone who puts faith in them is a fool. If they are kept it is a bonus.