Obama Nuclear Summit Increases the Danger of Nuclear War

President Obama met with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Obama-crafted Nuclear Security Summit, held in Washington, D.C. on March 28-29. The discussions were characterized as “frank and constructive,” indicating that there was little agreement on anything but peripheral issues like climate change and nuclear “security.”

Obama has used the presence of many world leaders at the summit to move forward his agenda for nuclear war. After a carefully choreographed meeting with Japan and South Korea in the morning, he then got together with the Chinese President. After reiterating U.S. “concerns” about human rights, he then went on
to assert the U.S primacy of human rights. Obama then started in on cyber security, which the Chinese have already agreed to cooperate on, saying that the U.S. would be carefully “monitoring” China’s compliance with the agreement. Obama then preached about the need for China to keep open the door to foreign businesses and to settle the maritime disputes in the South China Sea peacefully, adding that the U.S. had a “global interest” in maintaining freedom of navigation and overflight in the region.

President Xi no doubt listened patiently to the President’s tirade, and responded coolly but clearly, saying that China was “firmly opposed” to the missile defense plans of the U.S. in the region and considered it a destabilizing measure. He also said that he hoped the U.S. would maintain its declared policy of not involving itself in the South China Sea, and that China would accept no violation of Chinese territorial integrity under the cloak of “freedom of navigation”.

The same day, the Chinese Foreign Ministry, in reply to a question at the press conference in Beijing, reiterated China’s right to declare an ADIZ (air defense identification zone) in the area of the South China Sea. While such a declaration has not yet been issued, U.S. Undersecretary of Defense Robert Work had warned on Wednesday that such an ADIZ would not be deemed legitimate by the U.S.

While the media in China will paint the meeting between the two presidents in bright colors, it is clear that the “nuclear clock” is now ticking more loudly than ever. Russian media such as Sputnik International seem tuned in to that reality, covering March 31 comments by Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Yang Yujan regarding repeated U.S. naval incursions into China’s territorial waters in the South China Sea (“As for the US ships which came, I can only suggest they be careful”), under the following headline: “Beijing Ominous Threat to Washington Over South China Sea: `Be Careful’.”