Mr. President, Isn’t it High Time We Rebalance our “Asia Rebalance” on Terrorism?
Before I pose my question to President Obama, please allow me to first lodge an official complaint with Mr. George Martin, the author of the very popular “Game of Thrones” (GoT). While I am a big fan of GoT, I am very concerned about the way things are going in GoT: a terrible winter is arriving, and the White Walkers (i.e., the terrorists) are marching down south relentlessly, threatening to breach the Wall, but Mr. Martin is “killing off” our favorite characters one by one, with the latest victim being Jon Snow. So Mr. Martin, who will be left to fight those nonhuman, bloodcurdling White Walkers?
Now that I have got my GoT complaint out of the way, let’s get back to the pressing issue of terrorism that is threatening to breach the Wall of our modern civilization. Terrorists, like the White Walkers in GoT, are sprouting up everywhere, stealthy and deadly, and are trying to attack us everywhere (9/11 in New York and in the U.S., Kunming train station attack in 2014 in China, and the recent Paris attack…). And they won’t stop until they have conquered this world with their jihad. Now one would think that any reasonable person could agree that terrorism is the single biggest threat to our way of life today. However, the Obama administration appears to have taken its eyes off the ball on terror in the past few years. Instead of focusing on containing and fighting terrorism that is originating from a fertile ground of religious extremism in the Middle East, we have decided to, so very cleverly, “re-balance” to Asia. With the so-called “Asia Rebalance” strategy, we have already re-deployed a huge chunk of our naval tonnage and spent billions of dollars in Asia to contain China.
But why? It appears that China has not provoked any major military conflict in modern history. And for better or for worse, China has steadfastly stayed away from any major military conflict in the world (recently China has been increasing its peacekeeping support for the UN). China is not expansionistic, nor predatory (China is a Panda bear not a polar bear, get it?), and has no interest whatsoever in taking over the world. As a matter of fact, China has openly stated that the Pacific is big enough for both America and China, and it has no intention of challenging America’s dominancy.
Now some clever politicians may argue China has on-going territorial disputes with Japan (over a piece of uninhabited rock, which by the way, is near Taiwan, and not even close to Japan) and with Philippines etc. over some semi-submerged atolls in the South China Sea. But again, why do we want to be diving into those murky island/atoll disputes? And some equally clever pundits have also argued we should protect the sea lanes in the South China Sea. But has China ever interfered with shipping there (and any reasonably smart person will know this would not be in China’s best interest at all)?
In 2014, after being thwarted in their attempt to sneak across China’s southern border to join the jihad in the Middle East, some Xingjiang jihadists broke into the major train station in Kunming and started to butcher a packed crowd in the station. They turned the station into a slaughterhouse with nearly 200 casualties. But some of our esteemed western journalists somehow felt that kind of murderous butchery did not quite qualify for terrorism (I guess they thought those hooded machete-slashing Xingjiang jihadists were quite cuddly). And when our government was working very hard to release some Xingjiang jihadists from Guantanamo, our government tried to call them “friendly enemy” (an oxymoron?) or just some naïve ethnic separatists in Xingjiang. But why then were these “friendlies” fighting our American soldiers in Afghanistan? And have we not learned a single lesson that the “friendly” jihadists we trained and armed to fight the Russians in Afghanistan turned their guns on us later and carried out 9/11?
Shortly after the appalling and tragic terrorist attack in Paris, Reuters, with nothing better to do, somehow decided to run an idiotic piece about China. It insinuated while the Paris attack was indeed atrocious, terrorism in China was somehow different, and may be partly China’s fault. Now, Reuters, could you at least have some basic human decency — we are talking about innocent people being murdered in cold blood, and why was that different in Paris vs in Kunming?
So wake up everyone, the long winter of terrorism is coming upon us. Let’s stop being petty and self-absorbed like those smartass princelings trying to outmaneuver each other in the Game of Thrones. Terrorism is knocking on your door, whether you have your eyes closed or not, and whether you have your own Machiavellian agenda or not! The ISIS has already broadcast loud and clear that they want to establish their new glorious extremist caliphate across Middle East, Europe, and Asia. And they have repeatedly threatened to attack us in the U.S.
So let’s all call terrorism for what it is — a heinous crime against all humanity, and there is only one ugly shade, not 50 shades to it. It doesn’t matter whether it happens in New York, Kunming, Paris, or other places. Let’s all condemn terrorism unequivocally.
So President Obama, isn’t it high time we re-balance our “Asia Rebalance” to refocus on and fight against terrorism before those White Walkers breach our Wall, and before it is too late. And while you work on the re-rebalance and re-refocus on terrorism, let me also check with Mr. Martin to see if he can bring back Jon Snow to help fight those deadly White Walkers…
Edited by: Joanne Zeng
