Barack Obama and his key aides have repeatedly professed that their rebalance policy to the Asia-Pacific region is not designed to contain China, much less to prepare for war with China. Their constant claims seem in much the same vein as the old Chinese saying, "no 300 taels* of silver buried here," which is basically a clumsy denial resulting in self-exposure.

As reported by Foreign Policy magazine, Gen. Herbert J. "Hawk" Carlisle, Commander of the U.S. Pacific Air Forces, likened the U.S. Air Force build up in Asia to the Cold War in Europe. He said: "Back in the late, great days of the Cold War we had a thing called Checkered Flag: We rotated almost every CONUS (Continental United States) unit to Europe. Every unit would go and work out of a collateral operating base in Europe. We're turning to that in the Pacific."

Carlisle did not explicitly name the adversary of the new Cold War. But he accused China of "aggressive, assertive behavior," which is a stock phrase of both the Obama administration and the American media. But it is a phrase which blatantly ignores the facts. It is America's allies, Japan and the Philippines, and its "new friends" which have occupied territories that first were discovered, named and have always belonged to China. Despite this, China proposes to settle all disputes by negotiation rather than recover its territories by force.

Who indeed is "aggressive and assertive"? Gen. Carlisle declared that the U.S. air force would rotate its "most capable platforms" into the Pacific, including F-22 Raptors, F-35 Joint Strike Fighters and B-2 stealth bombers. He also said that the first permanent overseas base for the F-35 would be in Asia.

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