“Beijing’s public statements are punctuated with mantras (peace, regional stability, cooperation, etc.) which are nothing more than rhetoric”
The People’s Republic of China (PROC) is a communist state. Its totalitarian government does not tolerate dissent.
Although it claims to be a republic, the PROC is a dictatorship run by the Communist Party headed by its President, Xi Jinping.
Being a communist state, the PROC depends on well-crafted propaganda not only to control the minds of its own people, but to propagate its version of the truth. Lies are alright for Beijing, as long as they suit its own interests.
Beijing never means what it says. When Hongkong reverted to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, Beijing promised that free speech and assembly will be tolerated there. Today, those rights are inexistent in Hongkong.
While Beijing professes to respect the sovereignty of other nations, it refuses to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Beijing’s public statements are punctuated with mantras (peace, regional stability, cooperation, etc.) which are nothing more than rhetoric.
Take the letter of President Xi to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on the latter’s recent inauguration as the new, democratically elected leader of the Philippines.
In that letter, Xi said he is looking forward to “good neighborly friendship” between the Philippines and the PROC. He also talked about Manila and Beijing “joining hands for common development.”
Xi likewise said he hopes to “continue to write a great chapter of the China-Philippines friendship and cooperation for the new era, so as to benefit the two countries and their people.”
If Xi really meant what he wrote to President Marcos, why then does the Chinese navy continue to bully Filipino fishermen in what is actually Philippine maritime territory in the West Philippine Sea?
Evidently, Xi’s pompous statements are nothing more than nice-sounding but insincere words designed to deodorize Beijing’s illegal expansionist activities in the West Philippine Sea. Xi’s language is the stuff the cosmetic atmosphere of “friendship” in the diplomatic community the world over is known for.
Yes, I say Beijing’s activities are illegal because the international arbitration tribunal at The Hague in The Netherlands has ruled that the Chinese claim to the disputed maritime area has no legal basis.
Here’s more.
Right after Xi’s letter reached the press, a paid advertisement appeared in a number of local newspapers. The advertisement is a one-sided commentary composed of several paragraphs, and written by Mme. He Tiantian, who claims to be an academic at the Institute of International Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Science.
Although the material is written in poor English, He describes herself as an expert in International Law, particularly on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
In sum, He criticizes Manila’s claim to the West Philippine Sea, discredits the ruling of the international arbitration tribunal which ruled in favor of the Philippines, and even suggests that a decision of the Supreme Court of the Philippines impugns the validity of the arbitration ruling.
I’ve read He’s discourse carefully and it is filled with contradictions and self-serving conclusions.
For one thing, He claims that the arbitration tribunal has no jurisdiction over the case lodged by Manila against Beijing, but she ends up citing passages from the tribunal’s ruling to support the PROC’s alleged “traditional” sovereignty over large maritime areas off the coast of Palawan.
How can a ruling, which He says is void for want of jurisdiction on the part of the tribunal that rendered it, be the source of her arguments in support of the PROC’s “traditional” sovereignty which she mentioned?
Further, the issue in the decision of the Supreme Court of the Philippines cited by He concerns a local government’s share of tax revenues. Local taxes in the Philippines have nothing to do with Beijing’s unjustified insistence on claiming Philippine maritime territory as its own.
If He truly believes in the PROC’s “traditional” sovereignty over Philippine waters, then He should explain why it took centuries before Beijing decided to press its claim to the disputed maritime area. It’s very obvious that China got interested in the West Philippine Sea only after the United States closed down its military bases in the Philippines in 1992.
The PROC’s claim to the disputed maritime area is based on its dubious “nine-dash line” argument, derived in turn from ancient Chinese maps which purportedly indicate that the area had always been Chinese territory.
That argument is groundless because there are authenticated maps, older than the oldest Chinese maps with the “nine-dash line,” which show nothing about the Chinese claim.
At any rate, that “nine-dash line” argument has been rendered meaningless by the UNCLOS, which recognizes Philippine rights over the disputed maritime area. Somebody should tell He that the PROC is a signatory to the UNCLOS.
In sum, Filipinos should not believe what Beijing says. The PROC says one thing, and does something else.