by Diego Morra
China’s dynastic rulers were not only incompetent but also bad military planners that they successively lost wars to Japan, Russia and, in the distant past, were slaughtered by Mongol hordes, forcing them to surrender and cede land to those who vanquished them.
Now, China is trying to erase such dynastic defeats and reframe them as errors of the past that should be corrected, never mind if the entire civilized world had abided by the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 that set the boundaries of various countries and ended prolonged wars. In the case of the Chinese dynasts, even if they had a superior navy, the Japanese and the Russians destroyed their armadas, proving that the Chinese forces were a paper tiger. To correct the stupidity of the dynasties, China now resorts to pressure, military threats and outright invasion to impose the expansion of Chinese territory.
To provide themselves with a queer justification for their ludicrous claims, they are simply printing new maps to legitimize Beijing’ squatting in at least eight countries, including Tibet, Bhutan and India, as well as to lay claim on nations where Chinese immigrants settled centuries ago, like in Okinawa, Japan and parts of the Korean Peninsula. They are not talking about the 1602 Ricci-Li map that showed all lands south of the 24th parallel were not part of the Chinese empire. This map, commissioned by the Ming dynasty and adored by the Chinese emperor, showed there were hundreds of countries worldwide, many of them wealthier than China.
The Ricci-Li cannot be the historical basis for the China’s claim to Scarborough Shoal since it is located far from any Chinese land. The three Spanish colonial maps that put the shoal firmly within Philippine territory has destroyed China’s basis for squatting in Panatag. The Treaty of Paris did not exclude the shoal from the territory that the US also grabbed from Spain but a subsequent pact established that Panatag was part of the archipelago. Another illusion foisted on the Philippines and the entire world is that China was entitled to its original 11-dash line calligraphy of points inside of which Beijing could claim islets. There are no metes and bounds of this 11-dash-line that was reduced to 9-dash-line and later reconstituted as the 10-dash-line. It appears that China cannot even be adept at cartography and perhaps Sen. Rodante Marcoleta could them valuable lessons in putting coordinates on paper.
Now, China has summoned the gumption to redraw its boundary with Russia and reclaim two islands in the Ussuri River, the reason why the two countries clashed in 1966. Yet, imperial China actually ceded those areas to the Russian empire after the Russian navy spanked Chinese warships and destroyed Beijing military units during the Second Opium War. China was never a naval power and the wars it had fought always ended in ceasefires and it never scored a decisive victory, as was the case in Vietnam when retreating tank units were destroyed and infantry regiments. decimated. It was a retreat after Deng Xiaoping learned his lesson but rationalized that the goals of the invasion were met, to the chagrin of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) generals.
Yet, it was politics in command, and politics is the reason why China published its 2023 map to show that all the areas that it yielded to Russia in the 1848 Treaty of Aigun magically returned to Chinese sovereignty. That treaty, and a deal hatched the following year under the Peking Convention, yielded up to 800,000 square miles of Chinese territory to the Russian czar. This explains why Russia gobbled up a territory that is now known as the Russian Far East. The new Chinese map that irks Russia no end is but the latest edition of Beijing’s abuse of historical claims, that mushy argument for reinventing colonial acquisition of territories so beloved of European powers.
There is neither rhyme nor reason for the undiplomatic and misplaced anger of the Chinese Embassy over the caricature of a China man holding a Philippine boat. The embassy might regard the caricature as insulting their President Xi Jinping but the Chinese have to be reminded that there are no lese majeste laws that operate here. The Philippines has no king. Does China have an emperor? The Philippine Coast Guard need not squabble with Chinese spokespersons about their threats of economic perdition on the Philippines if the country does not apologize to their king. The Philippines will not perish if their hardly edible food products would not land on our shores. Economic blackmail won’t work to win arguments against the 2016 arbitral decision that tossed China’s mysterious historical claims on a rabbit hole.
PCG Commodore Jay Tarriela is not under the command of the Chinese Embassy and must continue to report on Chinese depredations in the West Philippine Sea (WPS.) Prof. Jay Batongbacal, director of the Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea of the UP College of Law, said Manila should stop treating “dialogue” as a slogan and start demanding clear, verifiable signs of good faith before agreeing to talks that produce only press releases and do not make the Chinese behave in a civilized manner. “To call for dialogue, ang sagot dyan is we will agree only to meaningful and effective dialogue. Hindi yung puro salita lang,” he added. “Kasi nga parang ganoon nangyari magme-meeting sasabihin, ok na kami dahil nag-meeting kami, nag-usap kami pero in reality wala namang nangyayari. Hindi na-address ‘yung mga cases na dinadala sa table,” he concluded.#
