United States Approved $920 Million in Arms Sales to Japan and Singapore to Balance Against China’s Growing Influence

On July 25, 2022, the United States government approved the potential sale of a $920 million package of arms and equipment  to Japan and Singapore. 

Under this sales package, Japan would receive advanced missiles while Singapore would receive munitions.

According to Press TV, Japan’s arms package consists of 150 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM), which will be installed on the country’s F-35 fighter jets. These missiles are worth over $290 million.   

Singapore is set to receive $630 million to outfit its F-15 S-G fighter jets with air-to-air missiles. 

The US government is providing arms to East Asian countries largely to counter the rise of China. This is part of the “pivot to Asia” that then-Secretary of State Hilary Clinton announced back in 2011, where the US would shift most of its foreign policy and military resources towards containing China.  

The Press TV report noted that military experts have observed Japan’s armed forces and the US military plotting on multiple occasions to help the US Deep State deploy intermediate-range ballistic missiles on Japan’s southwestern islands. This move was done to attain a state of “integrated deterrence” against China.

As it has grown wealthier, China has invested significant resources in its military infrastructure. This has resulted in China exerting itself more in its historical domain, which has sparked tensions between it and the US over Taiwan, the South China Sea, and the broader Indo-Pacific. 

The US’s pivot to Asia has ruffled China’s feathers, and it has accused the North American superpower of generating instability and tensions in the region.

In the last few years, Chinese war vessels have sailed close to Okinawa, where the majority of American troops in Japan are stationed. This is part of China’s broader grand strategy to keep an external actor like the US out of the western Pacific. 

Japan has responded by bolstering ties with the US to counter China’s perceived threat. Australia has made similar moves with the US.

General Mark Milley, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, said on July 25 that China was carrying out “dangerous intercepts” against American military aircraft and vessels. He also asserted that China was targeting other American allies such as Australia, Canada, and Japan.

“The number of Chinese intercepts at sea and in the air has increased significantly over five years,” Milley remarked. 

While China is an economic adversary that exploits trade deals and uses immigration as a mechanism to project influence, the US’s current foreign policy approach to China is misguided at best, and potentially nuclear at worst.

The US has already failed with regards to engagement with Russia. If the US Deep State pursues the same hawkish path towards China by continuing to encroach on its historical domain, a security crisis will invariably emerge.

Right-wing populists should offer a more rational, realist alternative of engaging China that involves restricting immigration and economically decoupling from it.

The DC strategy of military confrontation will undoubtedly put the two countries on a collision course to thermonuclear war. In that scenario, no one wins. 

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