The Coming War on China

- I pity a country that would come up against us.

The synergy with air, land, and sea forces

and our ability to control the battle space

and seize the high ground is devastating.

All countries respect the power of the United States

and they respect how dominant we are in this region.

And we get better and better and better.

Tonight to ten,

a rare glimpse of China's ambitious expansion

in one of the world's most contested regions.

We report from the South China Sea,

where the Chinese are warning off anyone

who comes too close to their building program.

We continue our look this morning

at what China does not want you to see.

The United States says the superpower

is reclaiming land in the South China Sea.

- The fact that we're dealing with a situation right now

where we, the US, has to be much more aggressive

in dealing with the Chinese government.

CNN has learned that the US Navy

is about to send a destroyer there.

Let's go to our CNN chief--

- CNN got exclusive access to classified

US surveillance flights over the islands.

- The threat of China is becoming big news.

The media is beating the drums of war

as the world is being primed to regard China

as a new enemy.

China's alarming creation of

entirely new territory in the South China Sea

is one part of a broader military push

that some fear is to challenge US dominance in the region.

- China is building airstrips

in the South China Sea on disputed islands

condemned by an international tribunal.

This is now a flashpoint for war

between China and America.

What is not news is that China itself is under threat.

These American bases form a giant noose,

encircling China with missiles, bombers, warships.

All the way from Australia through the Pacific,

to Asia, and beyond.

If you were in Beijing looking out,

you stood on the tallest building in Beijing

and looked out at the Pacific Ocean,

you'd see American warships.

You'd see Guam is about to sink

because there's so many missiles pointed at China.

You'd look up at Korea and see

American armaments pointing at China.

You'd see Japan, which is basically,

Japan's a glove over the American fist.

I think if I was Chinese, I'd have a little to worry about

about American aggressiveness.

And we have China surrounded

and we're doing more all the time to try and

keep it surrounded and deepen that containment of China.

But China presents a fascinating case

of a country that is independent,

doesn't have foreign bases on its territory,

growing very rapidly,

not as rapidly now as it did for 30 years,

but still the second-ranking economy in the world.

We have an adversary

and that adversary is China and that adversary,

unless there is dramatic reform inside China,

will be our enemy someday.

- One myth I think really needs to be dispelled

is that somehow China's aiming to replace America

and gonna run the world. (laughs)

First of all, the Chinese are not that stupid.

The West, with its Christian roots,

are about converting other people into their beliefs.

The Chinese are not about that.

Again, I'm not degrading the Western culture.

I'm just pointing out the inherent nature,

the DNA's of two different cultures.

The Chinese 2000 years ago built the Great Wall

to keep the barbarians out, not to invade them.

- As the world's economic power

moves rapidly to Asia, the response of the Untied States

is to deploy the majority of its naval forces to Asia

and the Pacific.

This massive military buildup is known in Washington as

the "Pivot to Asia."

The target is China.

The great power game in the 21st century

is called perpetual war.

For America's unchallenged arms industry,

the annual prize is huge profits

from almost 600 billion dollars of military spending.

- Once an imaginary weapon on Star Wars,

the electromagnetic gun is now reality.

You're sitting here thinking about these

next-generation and futuristic ideas

and we've got scientists who have designed these

and it's coming to life.

- And the smartest weapons need enemies.

As a Pacific nation, the United States

will play a larger and long-term role

in shaping this region and its future.

I have directed my national security team

to make our presence and mission in the Asian-Pacific

a top priority.

- In one sense, is the US already at war with China?

Yes.

On the ground and in the air.

The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, President Barack Obama,

has committed to trillions

of dollars to our nuclear arsenal.

He's committing trillions of future dollars

to war in space and we need an enemy for all this money

and China's the perfect enemy.

- The aim of this film is to break a silence.

The United States and China may well be on a path to war

and nuclear war is no longer unthinkable.

In a few years, China has become the world's

second biggest economic power.

The United States is the world's biggest military power,

with bases and missiles and ships

covering every continent, every ocean.

China is a threat to this dominance, says Washington,

but who is the threat?

This film is about shifting power and great danger.

It's also a film about the human spirit

and the rise of an extraordinary resistance among people

on the front line of a coming war

where the words "never again" have an urgent meaning

for all of us.

This is Bikini,

the rim of an ancient underwater volcano

in the Marshall Islands.

With its necklace of 23 islands,

Bikini is a place of beauty and silence and menace.

Look closely where the Emerald Lagoon

suddenly falls into a vast black hole.

This is the crater of one of

the greatest manmade explosions,

the hydrogen bomb they call Bravo.

It vaporized an entire island

and poisoned almost everything and everyone.

As our plane flew low, we seemed to touch its deathly void.

The Marshall Islands lie in the vast Pacific Ocean

between the United States and Asia.

Captured from the Japanese in World War Two,

they've long been America's strategic secret,

it's stepping stone to Asia and China.

People here sustain themselves for thousands of years

with abundant fish, breadfruit, and coconuts.

They were skilled navigators who sailed by the stars.

Westerners might call this paradise.

All that changed in 1946

when the United States took over the Marshall Islands

as a Trust Territory with an obligation

to protect the health and wellbeing of the people.

A nightmare began.

The islands were turned into a laboratory

for the testing of nuclear weapons

and the people into guinea pigs.

Crossroads, scene 24, take two.

- In this propaganda film,

the Bikini islanders are being deceived.

Unknown to them, plans were already underway

to destroy their paradise forever.

- Will you ask King Judah that the United States government

now wants to attempt to turn this great,

destructive force into something good for mankind

and that these experiments here at Bikini

are the first step in that direction.

Tell them that's fine,

everything being in God's hands, it must be good.

- 87 ships take position three miles

off Bikini to suffer the shattering impact

of the fifth atomic bomb.

An armada of warships

was assembled in Bikini Lagoon

in order to blow them to bits.

- The decks of the 73 test ships

anchored in Bikini Lagoon

are scenes of feverish activity

as scientists plot experimental programs

designed to furnish data on blast effects

of the mighty atom bomb.

Animals of many kinds--

- Animals were strapped to the decks

like a perverse Noah's Ark.

The experiment was to see how they died,

how they burned.

- Special ointments are applied

to determine their protective quality.

Other parts of the exposed areas

are being left bare to the atom blasts.

Three, two, one.