By Diego Morra
With 14 nations and the 27-member European Union (EU) backing the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) ruling junking the “historical claims” of China to maritime features in the South China Sea (SCS) as well as to the Panatag Shoal, it would be to China’s diplomatic gain if Beijing finally recognizes the validity of the decision and show to the entire world that it is civilized and would comply with the provisions of the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) that it had signed.
As a state party to the UNCLOS like the Philippines, it behooves China to admit, even belatedly, that the maps, the geography, even the 1602 Ricci-Li map drawn by a Jesuit oceanographer to show the expanse of the Chinese empire, as well as the 1947 calligraphy for the SCS by a Kuomintang oceanographer, never bestowed sovereignty to imperial China. Simply put, all the “territories” now being claimed by China, with Taiwan and Batanes added, were never conquered or administered by the hordes of the Han.
As oceanographers studying the 1602 Ricci-Li maps kept by Japan, South Korea and US Library of Congress noted, Panatag Shoal and the Spratlys were beyond the 24th parallel that the Chinese claimed to be the outer limit of imperial territory. Moreover, the Chinese themselves are confused since tributaries are not vassals or subjects of the Chinese empire. Zheng He, the eunuch admiral, was not an admiral of the Chinese fleet sent to conquer foreign lands. He simply wanted to expand the trading routes of China using ships borrowed from riverine fleets. Worse, it has been reported that the Chinese copy of the 1602 Ricci-Li map in Liaoning was retouched, with the legends or descriptions of foreign lands plastered with images of waves.
From the standpoint of international law, China’ insistence that its sovereignty over the contested maritime features is vacuous. Japan administered Taiwan and the Formosans administered themselves for 6,000 years while the Philippines even controlled ports in Taiwan for six years without any interruption by the Han Chinese. While the Chinese emperors were busy smoking opium, the kindred communities of Northern Luzon and Taiwan were trading. Why is this easy to achieve? Because the trade currents made this possible. China is more than 800 kilometers from Panatag while Yami or Orchid island is very near Ivatan communities in Batanes. For the edification of the Chinese, it is grossly dishonest of their academics to claim that Batanes is part of China’s continental shelf. What have they been smoking?
Earlier, China also claimed that Palawan was part of China and must be “reunited” with the mainland. The entire trouble with this is not only bad geology but the misplaced *revanchism that lives rent-free in the brains of purported Chinese scholars. Add to this the equally egregious stupidity that the Philippines was never entitled to take control of Benham Rise, which the United Nations ceded to the Philippines. China is using bogus geology, bogus astronomy and bogus maps to mythologize China’s imperial ambitions and promote uncivilized discourse, perhaps thinking that arrogant, condescending behavior can bamboozle Filipinos into yielding on such a serious issue as large-scale landgrabbing.
It is apropos to remind our Chinese comrades that Mao Zedong scratched one of the 11 calligraphic dashes and ceded an island in the Gulf of Tonkin to Comrade Ho Chi Minh in preparation for the war against the US and France. Out of his proletarian internationalist duty, Mao yielded territory to North Vietnam and Uncle Ho. Why can’t Xi Jinping do the same? And why is China promoting geographic lies, cartographic illusions and reinforced dogmatism to justify big-power chauvinism? China will never gain goodwill by staking claim all over the world in its fanatical desire to carve out a wide swathe for their fisheries. Its internal waters may already be barren but why punish the rest of the world for your overfishing and ecological destruction?
The worst that the Chinese can do is to act haughtily, like the way their pooh-bah legates do at their embassy. No less than 88% of Filipinos surveyed do not favor the Chinese, which is worse than the attitude of Filipinos to the Americans as represented by the bloody clown Donald Trump. Could you imagine 77% of them still trust Americans, including the forever crapping Trump? This is a bad sign as Filipinos trust the devil they know rather than the devil they don’t know. They despise the Chinese government and would not change their mind for all the tea in China. The Chinese government is responsible for its grievous foreign policy errors and these errors, if we were to believe the mavens of China’s Higher Party School, are directly traceable to Xi Jingping, who is not be best tool in the shed.
The rest of the world should be warned that China, like any other imperialist nation, believes in exceptionalism, and would raise Cain in the event Beijing is assailed for its irrational conduct and its vain attempt to inflict its National Security Law on foreigners wherever they may be. That is the reason why they have set up quasi-police stations or secret state security units in many Chinatowns, the US and UK not excluded, since China law contemplates extraterritoriality. In our case, the Chinese have already deployed pan de sal chomping trolls, often with cheap pay. That, in reality, gives a bad rap to treachery. #
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WORD OF THE DAY: Revanchism – A political or foreign policy aimed at seeking revenge or reclaiming lost territories.