US threats over South China Sea could exact a heavy price

In his latest book, A Promised Land, former US president Barack Obama writes that his black presidency had “triggered a deep-seated panic, a sense that the natural order had been disrupted”.

No doubt Michele Flournoy’s threat, in suggesting that the United States has the ability to “sink all” PLA Navy vessels in the South China Sea in 72 hours (“Possible Pentagon chief has the PLA navy in cross hairs”, November 15), stems from the same paranoia and arrogance – that China’s navy in the South China Sea has disrupted the natural order whereby only Western powers are entitled to govern and freely traverse the waters.

A China acting in defence of its territorial sovereignty in the South China and East China seas is usurping this Western prerogative and must be deterred with full US military might.

Flournoy’s suggestions included the “capability to credibly threaten” to sink even unarmed Chinese merchant ships. Such a move would undoubtedly provoke an all-out nuclear war between the US and China.

She obviously forgets that, unlike all US foreign wars to date where civilian casualties have been outside its borders, China’s nuclear weapons can reach the US mainland.

The US will incur great cost to itself on its own soil if it initiates unrestricted warfare against China under the false pretext of deterrence, while the real motive is dictated by the malignant notions of supremacy and entitlement.

It is therefore the US which needs to consider the high price that it would have to pay, were it foolish enough to put into action Flournoy’s imperialistic threats against China if she were appointed defence secretary.

W.L. Chang, Discovery Bay