{"id":82168,"date":"2016-10-15T03:09:12","date_gmt":"2016-10-15T07:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=82168"},"modified":"2016-10-15T03:09:12","modified_gmt":"2016-10-15T07:09:12","slug":"clinton-said-us-ring-china-missile-defence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/10\/15\/clinton-said-us-ring-china-missile-defence\/","title":{"rendered":"Clinton said US would ‘ring China with missile defence’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Clinton's<\/a>
Clinton’s remarks were revealed by WikiLeaks in a hack of the Clinton campaign chairman’s personal account. (Photo: Hillary Clinton\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

BEIJING\u2014Hillary Clinton privately said the U.S. would \u201cring China with missile defence\u201d if the Chinese government failed to curb North Korea’s nuclear program, a potential hint at how the former secretary of state would act if elected president.<\/p>\n

Clinton’s remarks were revealed by WikiLeaks in a hack of the Clinton campaign chairman’s personal account. The emails include a document excerpting Clinton’s private speech transcripts, which she has refused to release.<\/p>\n

A section on China features several issues in which Clinton said she confronted the Chinese while leading the U.S. State Department.<\/p>\n

China has harshly criticized the U.S. and South Korea’s planned deployment of a missile-defence system against North Korea, which conducted its fifth nuclear test this year. But Clinton said she told Chinese officials that the U.S. might deploy additional ships to the region to contain the North Korean missile threat.<\/p>\n

If North Korea successfully obtains a ballistic missile, it could threaten not just American allies in the Pacific, \u201cbut they could actually reach Hawaii and the west coast theoretically,\u201d Clinton said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re going to ring China with missile defence. We’re going to put more of our fleet in the area,\u201d Clinton said in a 2013 speech. \u201cSo China, come on. You either control them or we’re going to have to defend against them.\u201d<\/p>\n

China is North Korea’s economic lifeline and the closest thing it has to a diplomatic ally, and has been criticized by the U.S. and others for not doing enough to rein in Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions. Chinese officials and state media have responded by saying that North Korea is not solely China’s responsibility, and that Beijing has limited influence with secretive leader Kim Jong Un’s hard-line communist regime.<\/p>\n

Clinton also privately criticized China’s position on another sensitive issue, the South China Sea. China claims almost the entirety of the strategically vital waterbody and has lashed out at an international tribunal’s July ruling rejecting its claims.<\/p>\n

Clinton told a different audience in 2013 that by China’s logic, the U.S. after World War II could have labeled the Pacific Ocean the \u201cAmerican Sea.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy counterpart sat up very straight and goes, ‘Well, you can’t do that,\u201d’ she said. \u201cAnd I said, ‘Well, we have as much right to claim that as you do. I mean, you claim (the South China Sea) based on pottery shards from, you know, some fishing vessel that ran aground in an atoll somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

In another remark revealed in the Wikileaks hack, Clinton called Chinese President Xi Jinping \u201ca more sophisticated, more effective public leader\u201d than his predecessor, Hu Jintao. She noted Xi’s plans for economic and social reforms, but blamed what she called \u201ca resurgence of nationalism\u201d on the Chinese government.<\/p>\n

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond Friday to faxed questions about Clinton’s remarks.<\/p>\n

As secretary of state, Clinton visited China seven times and engineered Washington’s \u201cpivot\u201d to Asia, which has long been viewed with suspicion by Beijing. The policy shift has seen a tighter focus on the region along with an increased military presence and fortified alliances with allies such as Australia and the Philippines, although the latter has been cast in doubt with the election of China-friendly President Rodrigo Duterte.<\/p>\n

She also drew condemnation from Chinese state media last year after describing Xi as \u201cshameless\u201d as he prepared to speak on women’s rights at the United Nations, shortly after China detained five young feminists who’d campaigned against domestic violence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BEIJING\u2014Hillary Clinton privately said the U.S. would \u201cring China with missile defence\u201d if the Chinese government failed to curb North …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":78108,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,1145,16,17],"tags":[420,2000,12486,10176,12000],"class_list":["post-82168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-headline","category-news","category-news-w","tag-china","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-missile-defence","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-wikileaks","mauthors-nomaan-merchant","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}