Mauro Gia Samonte
Gone evidently are the days of sleeping by the Chinese dragon. Back in the 1920s all the way to the 1930s when the great Chinese territory was apportioned among Western imperialists, it was not uncommon for restaurants in Shanghai to carry a sign at the entrances that read: “Dogs and Chinese not allowed.” In these modern times, the sleeping Chinese dragon had long awakened from amazing forbearance to assert Chinese pride tit-for-tat against Western arrogance.
In the Indo-Pacific region, the hegemonic designs of the United States do continue to manifest in concert with its traditional allies, but its effort in this regard on the military front can no longer prosper without meeting with strong Chinese deterrents. Of late, the United States’ conduct of its sponsored freedom of navigation operations (Fonops) saw the participation of the G7 or Group of Seven, which includes Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Canada, Italy and Japan, in an obvious show of force to counter the increasing Chinese presence in the South China Sea. And it is always at the instance of the United States through its local cohorts led by the tandem of retired associate justice Antonio Carpio and former Foreign Affairs secretary Albert del Rosario to seize upon every opportunity to fan anti-Chinese rage among Filipinos. The gambit is evidently to create a war hysteria that would justify US military intervention in the otherwise regional dispute between China and certain members of the Asean, the Philippines included, over the South China Sea. While the US has not succeeded in intensifying the military conflict to a degree beyond bare bullying, China has gone on undeterred in building forward military bases out of the islands, reefs and maritime features it has occupied in the region. This should serve as a warning to American hegemonic intentions that they can no longer push on without encountering determined Chinese countermeasures.
A lot of noise continues to be created by US rah-rah boys about the so-called Chinese intrusions into Philippine territory. But if only to make use of the good old Mao Zedong adage, “Turn a bad thing into a good thing,” I am prompted to take another look at the issue. From the Scarborough Shoal on Bajo de Masinloc in Zambales waters that is now regarded to have been asserted possession of by China as a consequence of the stand-off in 2011, all the way to the Kalayaan Island Group (KIG) off the Palawan coast, over which China has built enormous naval and air installations, I could gape at a vista of a formidable military protective barrier against intruders. And what intruders can there be other than those comprising the G7, which already in quite a time has turned the region into veritable military exercise grounds.
In other words, what China has been building on the Western front of the Philippines’ pregnability is a maritime wall through which no more Western power may come freely aggressing.
Given this evident Chinese military resolve to counter US machinations toward the Philippines (the Mutual Defense Treaty continues to be effective, ditto with its offspring treaties, the Visiting Forces Agreement [VFA] whose abrogation by President Duterte in August last year continues to be suspended to this day and the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement [EDCA], which deals the country the paramount insult of having the very bases of the Armed Forces of the Philippines at the disposal of America for its military adventures in the Asia Pacific region; only America knows what war materials and capabilities it has coddled by the Philippine military in its bases, because American use of these facilities is not at all subject to inspection by Philippine authorities), it would be foolhardy to expect China to relent on its military buildup in the South China Sea.
On the military front, the US can only be engaging in psywar.
It is on the economic front that the US could still hope to put one over China. It was an economic war that Trump ventured into toward the end of his term, increasing fabulously the tariff on Chinese exports. The measure boomeranged though, with both American entrepreneurs and consumers protesting the increased cost of commodities from China. The situation for America worsened the minute China retaliated with its own tariff increase on American exports.
It would look now that both on the military and economic fronts, America could no longer get anywhere in its confrontation with China. No other way for America to regain lost ascendancy than to lie to the world and make it take its damning of China.
Of the recent criticisms delivered by the United States against China, appearing to gain credence are the so-called crimes against humanity committed against the Uyghurs of Xinjiang. The controversy has already raged in international media over the past months, and China has opened up the Muslim community in the region to disprove what American dirty propagandists have been telling the world. Authorities from the United Nations and other concerned world organizations were allowed to visit homes and leisure places of the Uighurs and they found none of the widely-promoted charges of violations of human rights. Instead of alleged concentration camps for the Muslims, what world authorities found were factories for training workers in; and as to alleged sterilization of males, nonesuch malfeasance, and we may be more right in attributing the crime to purveyors of US coronavirus vaccine which. according to my source from the United States, make vaccinated males forever sterile.
In any case, China is alert to every US move. The Chinese legislature has rushed into effect a law which experts deem as aimed at boosting Beijing’s power against international pressure. One such pressure is the one being currently exerted by the ongoing “Uyghur Tribunal” reportedly convened to hear “firsthand testimony of alleged crimes in the north-western Chinese region of Xinjiang, including forced sterilization, torture, disappearances and slave labor.”
According to the reports, “the organization has no state backing but plans to use the London hearings to issue a verdict on whether Beijing has perpetrated genocide or crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim groups in China.” The tribunal comes only a week after US President Joe Biden expanded a blacklist of Chinese companies in which Americans are not allowed to invest.
In one report, China has called the UK hearings “lies and disinformation.”
The rush passage of the anti-sanctions law serves to demonstrate Chinese readiness to meet the US head-on wherever and however it wants to do battle. Some couple of years ago, Canada, upon urging by the United States, arrested and detained a Huawei woman executive for alleged cyber espionage. Promptly, China arrested and detained two top Canadian officials based in Beijing. We are not privy to the current transpirations in connection with the case, but what is important is that China is ever ready to confront the United States tit-for-tat.
For a world gone anxious over the unending war adventures of the United States, this Chinese readiness amounts to a refreshing whiff of fresh air.
Republished from Manila Times 13-06-2021