PRESS RELEASE
China Warns of U.S. Nuclear War Threat
Feb. 1, 2016 (EIRNS)—Global Times, a publication put out by People’s Daily, China’s official government paper, published a lead editorial today warning that the United States is preparing for war, nuclear war, against China. It called for China to "accelerate its speed of building up strategic strike capabilities, including a nuclear second-strike capability."
Titled "Build up defense to thwart U.S. provocation," the editorial references the U.S. deployment of a warship within the 12-mile limit of one of its islands in the Xisha (Paracel) Islands on Jan. 30, noting that this is not an unoccupied island, nor an artificially created island, as in cases of the U.S. provocations in the Nansha (Spratly) Islands; but rather, the Zhongjian Island is
"under China’s actual control, and China has released the territorial sea baseline of the Xisha Islands, including Zhongjian Island. Therefore, the U.S. provocation this time is more vicious."
The Obama Administration used the excuse, in the case of entering the 12-mile territorial limit of the island artificially created by China, that the UN Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) does not recognize territorial sovereignty around such islands. This is clearly not the case in the case of Zhongjian, and explicitly demonstrates Obama’s lying pretense that he does not take sides in the territorial claims themselves. The fact that about 90% of the trade which passes through China’s claimed territory of the South China Sea (the "nine-dash line") is with China itself, demonstrates that it is China alone that must be concerned about "freedom of navigation" from the U.S. provocations and the ongoing U.S. military occupation of the Philippines.
The Global Times editorial also notes that
"China’s military strength still significantly lags behind that of the U.S. If the U.S. is ready for a face-off in the South China Sea, it can quickly gather its military strength despite the far distance.... China’s military budget only takes up 2% of its GDP, much lower than the U.S. figure of 4%."
The paper concludes with the above call for a military build-up to prepare a response to a nuclear assault from the United States.
