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The Balkans of Asia

Could a crisis in Asia spark a larger war dragging in China, Russia and America? Many leaders feel this could happen. So why does this matter to you?

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[Darris McNeely] There's a crisis that is brewing in Asia that could impact our lives, and you need to understand why and what is taking place.
Recent articles have talked about the fact of China's growing influence and exerting itself within Asia. There was an article I was reading in the New York Times just a few days ago that was quoting the leader of the Philippines and essentially seeking support from the United States especially in regard to certain claims that have been made in the Philippine islands by China upon certain grounds that they have there. I've got a map up here to show this. The Philippine islands are of course in the Asian area, the Southeast Asia sits over here, and just off to the west of the Philippines there's a group of islands that this larger map down here shows that are called the Spratly Islands. And even more remote in one small part of the Spratly Islands there's a very small section that China is claiming for itself in a sense taking away from the sovereignty and land that belongs to the Philippines. It deals with fishing rights. It deals with essentially power and a power grab.
And the Filipino leader Benigno Aquino has recently made an appeal to the United States to essentially help them because this in his eyes is reminiscent of another land grab that was made prior to World War II when Adolf Hitler grabbed the, what was called the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia, and the western powers allowed him to do that in appeasement, but it did not prevent World War II.
This is all interesting because this region is being called kind of the Balkans of Asia and some of these events that are taking place with China's encroachment into other areas. Japan has recently had a conflict with China as well over another section of islands and land closer to Japan in dispute between China and Japan. In fact, recently just last month the Japanese Prime Minister made a comment where he said that Britain and Germany went to war in 1914 even though they had close economic ties much as China and Japan have now.
It was basically sounding an alarm that China and Japan could go to war over something like—even though they have close economic ties—they could go to war over a piece of land that is in dispute between them and drag in the larger powers of China, Russia, even the United States. The United States has treaty obligations with both Japan and the Philippines. And that's why this is important because should China assert itself and continue to encroach, grabbing land, seeking resources throughout Asia? Big problems could develop.
What happens between the Koreas and frankly all the way to India matters for our global economy. We are interconnected just as the world was in 1914 when the world erupted into World War I. The first global economy of that period was something that people felt, leaders felt at that time would prevent the great powers from going to war. It didn't happen. World War I erupted.
So there is concern that this could happen today. Again, I ask you to question why does this matter. Why is this important to you and I? Because of the global economy in which we live, and because what we are seeing is basically unbridled lust for resources and for power, economics is all intertwined in this.
It brings us back to a scripture, James chapter 3, that shows what is at the heart of war and conflict. Actually it's in James 4 where James says, "Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and you do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war, yet you do not have because you do not ask." That's in James:4:1-2 [1] From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?
[2] Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.. You lust. You covet, and eventually that leads to war. That's what happens on a small level, and it certainly happens among nations at the international level.
We're watching events develop. It's important you watch and that you understand because one day it will impact you, your job, and your pocketbook, every piece of the world. That's why it matters. That's why it is something that we should understand.
That's BT Daily . Join us next time.