Column of the Day A letter on the China rift
A letter on the China rift
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- Published on Friday, 27 April 2012 00:00
- Written by DUCKY PAREDES
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‘Why should China fear a nation whose leaders are so easy to corrupt? A little bit of grease money, the Chinese found when ZTE was negotiating with us, can go a long way with Pinoys.’
HERE’S an interesting take on our China concerns:
“The Chinese actions on the South Seas dispute is aggression pure and simple. It is far worse than the actions of Hitler and Mussolini on the eve of World War II. Hitler’s claims on the Sudetenland and German-speaking parts of Poland have at least some historical basis. At one time these areas were part of the First Reich i.e. Charlemagne’s Holy Roman Empire. Mussolini’s claims to parts of the Balkan Peninsula like Albania and parts of Yugoslavia also have historical basis. They were once part of the Roman Empire. In the case of the Chinese claims to the South China Sea its only basis is that their fishermen have been fishing in these waters since way back.
“Fishing in distant waters does not confer ownership. The Japanese, the Americans and the Scandinavian countries have been whale fishing in Antarctic Waters since the l7th Century, but this was not used as a pretext by these countries to claim ownership of the Antarctic. The accepted principle in International Law is ownership is conferred on a country by right of discovery, which must be followed by effective occupation. Moreover, the occupation must be continuous. This is the reason why the acts of Hitler and Mussolini drew universal condemnation before WW II because they did not have continuous occupation of the territories they were claiming. In the case of China now, they have never occupied the Scarborough Shoal at all in the past. They have not even claimed right of discovery; it is more likely that our pre-Spanish ancestors reached these waters before the Chinese. Thus, their claim to Scarborough Shoal is on far more shaky ground than Hitler and Mussolini’s territorial claims before World War II.
“What we are seeing now is a plain and simple case of bullying. The Chinese have been engaged in stand offs with Vietnam and us, but not with the other claimant countries like Malaysia and Taiwan. The reason for this is evident. We don’t have a single jet fighter; the Vietnamese have antiquated Vietnam era jet fighters. By way of contrast, the Malaysians have state of the art F-18 Hornet Fighters, while the Taiwanese have over one hundred fifty F-16 Falcons. The solution for us is clear. We must at least have a credible deterrent to encroachment on our territory. While we do not expect to win an all-out war with China, it goes without saying that if the cost of aggression is high enough that will be an effective deterrent.
“It is nice to talk about settling international problems through diplomacy. However, as a retired diplomat I know the limits of diplomacy. No less than Winston Churchill had pointed out that no amount of diplomacy could have saved the Ethiopians from Mussolini or the Czechs from Hitler before World War II.
“The best use of diplomacy under the circumstances is to form alliances with other countries. Negotiations between a lion and a rabbit will always have a predictable outcome.” -- Hermie C. Cruz, Ambassador (ret.)
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The retired ambassador is absolutely correct. Still, one remembers being in Laos, a country that has to be a rabbit dealing with the lion that China has always been. I don’t really know how this rabbit did it but it was always a step ahead of China and without getting into a war -- whether cyber or a word war -- with their Lion. (In truth, at the time that I was there, the Internet did not yet exist).
In our present predicament, the fact that we announced to the world that our Foreign Secretary and our Defense Chief would be meeting with the American counterparts and that the China problem would be brought up by the Philippines seems to me like an obvious veiled threat: “We will tell you to our Big Brother!”
We can only hope that this was done under American direction. Imagine how naked the Philippines would be if there were an unlikely statement by the US that they will not interfere in our disagreement with China!
As for our lack of military hardware, this was something that our ultra Nationalist Senate should have thought off when we kicked out the American bases. In truth, our congress did plan on putting aside billions to beef up our military. Somehow, however, the money set aside disappeared but no jet fighters, tanks or destroyers were bought.
Everything that we got from our chief ally -- the US -- were second-hand surplus equipment even as we bought brand-new Italian jet trainer planes that killed off many of our trainees, Where did all that money go?
Thus are we naked (militarily) before our enemy, the bully. Unfortunately, this world has only tears for those who suffer at the hands of bullies, especially when this country has been so foolish as to go forth on its own, naked and defenseless, while at the same time showing the lion its crass and corrupt face.
Why should China fear a nation whose leaders are so easy to corrupt? A little bit of grease money, the Chinese found when ZTE was negotiating with us, can go a long way with Pinoys.
To them, we have no sense of nationhood. It’s every man or woman for himself.
As for the Americans, perhaps, they will soon have a gilded invitation to again to set up a large military base, this time in Mindanao?
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The news that Globe and Smart are selling Nokia Lumia Windows-powered Smartphones does not excite me much. As Smartphone software goes, it is Apple’s IOS first, followed by Google’s Android with Windows a poor third. In fact, it is expected (according to reports from the trade) that the present Windows Smartphone software will eventually be phased out hopefully with a better one. What happens then to the phones with the present software?
So, caveat emptor, as they say in Rome.
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