As
usual I am passing this very intriguing and enlightening article of
your to AFBP and others. "Understanding 21st Century China: Under the
Heavens"was discussed in a forum held at AIM last Wednesday. I may be
able to share with you next week the summary posted by a fellow AIMer
and a Negrense and Atenean like
you.
Jerry
On Thursday, April 3, 2014 9:44 PM, Jose Ma. Montelibano wrote:
China defies Deng Xiaoping warning
GLIMPSES
Jose Ma Montelibano
"If
one day China should change her color and turn into a superpower, if
she too should play the tyrant in the world, and everywhere subject
others to her bullying, aggression and exploitation, the people of the
world should identify her as social-imperialism, expose it, oppose it
and work together with the Chinese people to overthrow it." ~ Deng
Xiaoping speech at the United Nations, April 10, 1974
In less than a week, it will be April 10, 2014,
or forty years to the day when China's great leader and architect of
its unstoppable march to superpower status said this speech. And the man
who knew enough about human weakness, about the lust for power, himself
a victim but persevered, would now be on the verge of a revolution to
overthrow the Chinese government. For today, China is bullying, not just
the Philippines, but almost every neighbor it has.
It
matters little if China has a 9 Dash Line; it can be 10 for that
matter. Any country is free to dream, even free to make claims no matter
how absurd. But that freedom does not carry with it the license to
bully, to use or threaten superior force, and actually grab territory
that belongs to another nation. That is what China has done with
Scarborough Shoal. This is what China wants to do with the Ayungin Reef.
In both cases, threat and the use of superior force are the tools that
China has decided to apply. It is China that has closed the door to
bilateral negotiation and forced the Philippines to seek justice
somewhere else.
Again,
China is being reminded if it still has the capacity to listen, if
arrogance has not blinded it from reason and the long history of two
peoples with overwhelming blood ties. The Philippines is a small country
that has only the warmth of its hospitality as its foremost character.
Filipinos welcome others - not grab territory. But history has seen
territory being grabbed from Filipinos, by the Spanish, by the British,
by the Americans, and by the Japanese. History cannot point to Filipinos
grabbing the territory of others.
It
is not only the natural hospitality of Filipinos, it is also the size
and war equipment of the country - meaning how limited these are. It is
not just character that stops us from bullying others and grabbing their
islands, it is also that Filipinos are not stupid. We love life, we are
not suicidal, and we have endured being the conquered people because we
avoid conflict, not look for it. I do not know if China realizes how
ridiculous it sounds when it accuses the Philippines of initiating a
conflict. Officials or news agencies speaking for China obviously do not
care about what their audience think or feel about what they say. China
can use a little of the media freedom of the Philippines.
Deng
Xiaoping was a political survivor, a visionary, a street-wise leader,
and obviously was profound. He could not have led China out of the dark
ages into the irreversible journey towards superpower status by simple
brute force (he used that, too). He had power and he knew how to wield
it, but he had shrewdness, precision, and wisdom, too. He knew China
would be a superpower, and he tried to warn those who would succeed him,
and the world at large, that China could get drunk with power.
Instead
of internal propaganda that would have restrained China's rapid
transition from vassal to world leader, Deng simply pushed the
transition even faster. But he took the stage in the United Nations, as
if to allay fears that China would one day go haywire, and delivered a
prophecy hidden China in a warning, "If one day China should change her
color and turn into a superpower, if she too should play the tyrant in
the world .... the people of the world should identify her as
social-imperialism, expose it, oppose it and work together with the
Chinese people to overthrow it."
Our dreams are the seeds we plant in Life itself.
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