US using Korea tensions to contain China: Analyst

The United States is using escalating tensions in the Korean Peninsula to continue with its massive military buildup in the Asia-Pacific region to contain China, an analyst says.

The US is invoking the usual scaremongering tactics about North Korea in order to increase its military footprint in South Korea, Barry Grossman, international lawyer in Indonesia, told Press TV on Monday.

Washington’s real aim is to provoke South and North Korea against one another and use Pyongyang’s threats as a cover to ramp up its regional military preparedness as US tensions with China rise, Grossman said.

“It is not surprising, therefore, that we are now being treated to reports of supposedly massive military movements spotted near China-North Korea border,” he added.  

“There certainly has been an escalation of rhetoric and the usual posturing between the North and South in recent weeks, but as the US prepares for yet another round of provocative joint military operations in the area, it would be naive to expect anything less,” the analyst said.

“The US  military-industrial complex is heavily invested in South Korea and, even though the Soviet Union is now just a footnote in the history books, America’s post war treaty with South Korea provides an easy cover for regularly using outdated Cold War tactics as a cover for advancing strategies that are unrelated to North Korea,” Grossman observed.

On Friday, General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the US and South Korea will cooperate against any possible threats by North Korea.

Dempsey made the comments in a phone call to his senior South Korean counterpart, according to a Pentagon statement.

South Korea and the US are holding large-scale war games amid heightened tensions in the divided Korean peninsula.

The annual military drill, known as the Ulchi Freedom Guardian, runs from August 17 to 28 and involves 30,000 American troops alongside 50,000 South Korean soldiers.

The Korean Peninsula has been locked in a cycle of military tensions since the Korean War, which lasted from 1950 to 1953 and ended in an armistice. No peace deal has been signed since then, meaning that Pyongyang and Seoul remain technically at war.

North Korea is under UN sanctions over launching rockets considered by the US and South Korea as ballistic missiles aimed at delivering nuclear warheads, but Pyongyang says its numerous missile tests seek to boost its defense capabilities in the face of enemy threats.

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