Beijing Seeks UNCLOS Intervention on Diaoyu

this is just a face-saving gesture to the Chinese masses... obviously, Beijing has bitten more than it can chew...

had the Japanese been as defenseless as the Vietnamese at Johnson Reef, Beijing would have mowed them down with 40mm AA fire too... but Beijing perfectly knows that the Japanese Self-Defense Force would make mince-meat out of its budding navy and air force in a conventional war scenario...

which will leave it with just one viable military option... and that is to lob ballistic missiles across the East China Sea... which is a very expensive proposition if one is diplomatically-constrained in using only conventional warheads... and if those missiles have to run the gauntlet of US ABM technology...

Beijing is now back-pedalling... and remember what Sun Tzu said on a back-pedalling adversary: "when the enemy retreats, we pursue"...

the Philippines should grab this opportunity to quash in an international court all the historically fraudulent "Nine-Dash Line" claims of Beijing in the West Philippine Sea...

so that we can all live happily ever after...

West Philippine Sea is now official

Philippines, Japan, China: Will History Repeat Itself?

The Philippines and Japan once contributed to the collapse of the last true Chinese Imperial Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty (the last Imperial Dynasty which ruled China, the Qing, was a Manchu dynasty, not a Chinese one).

"During the last years of Wanli's reign and those of his two successors, an economic crisis developed that was centered around a sudden widespread lack of the empire's chief medium of exchange: Silver...

Philip IV of Spain (ruled in 1621–65) began cracking down on illegal smuggling of silver from Mexico and Peru across the Pacific towards China, in favor of shipping American-mined silver directly from Spain to Manila...

In 1639, the new Tokugawa regime of Japan shut down most of its foreign trade with European powers, causing a halt of yet another source of silver coming into China...

These events occurring at roughly the same time caused a dramatic spike in the value of silver and made paying taxes nearly impossible for most provinces. People began hoarding precious silver as there was progressively less of it, forcing the ratio of the value of copper to silver into a steep decline...

In the 1630s, a string of one thousand copper coins was worth an ounce of silver; by 1640 this was reduced to the value of half an ounce; by 1643 it was worth roughly one-third of an ounce...

For peasants this was an economic disaster, since they paid taxes in silver while conducting local trade and selling their crops with copper coins..." (Wikipedia)

This time around, it is not about Silver... 

But about Islands, Shoals and Reefs... 

Will history repeat itself?

China vs. Japan at Diaoyu

China and Japan is about to come to blows as a result of Tokyo's decision to nationalize the remaining privately-owned Diaoyu islands...

but while the PLA (People's Liberation Army) has proven in Korea that it is a force to be reckoned with in land warfare... the PLAN (People's Liberation Army Navy) has nothing noteworthy to show that it too deserves the respect of the major navies of the world... the video clip currently circulating in YouTube showing how it literally massacred defenseless Vietnamese sailors at Johnson Reef just further casts doubts on its reputation as a true warfighting formation...

at Diaoyu, the PLAN will be testing its mettle against the descendants of one of the most powerful naval force of the 20th Century...

unless, it reaches for its nuke arsenal... i do not see how the PLAN can stand up to the current reincarnation of the JIN (Japanese Imperial Navy)...

so the leaders of Beijing should tread carefully on this issue... because they might end up getting humiliated in this confrontation...

and humiliated men often resort to irrational means...

Divide et Impera at Vladivostok

At Vladivostok...

Beijing took the time to talk to Vietnam... but not the Philippines...

Beijing took the time to talk to Brunei... but not the Philippines...

it is starting to emerge that Beijing's pet peeve vis-a-vis its Nine-Dash Line territorial grab in the West Philippine Sea... is the Philippines...

but then... as former subjects of Western Colonial Powers... the peoples of Malaya Irredenta (and Vietnam) already have extensive experience with Divide-and-Rule tactics...

so it is doubtful whether Beijing's latest bag of tricks will work...

by now, Malaya Irredenta and Vietnam are fully aware that their only chance of holding on to their West Philippine Sea territories is to confront as a unified force the seemingly overwhelming economic and military muscle of Beijing...

and Beijing knows this too... so expect the not-so-subtle Divide et Impera moves to continue...

Is it time to form a MAPHILINDO Anti-NINE-DASH-LINE Alliance?

Before there was ASEAN... there was MAPHILINDO (Bung Karno, post-WWII)...

Before there was MAPHILINDO... there was Malaya Irredenta (Wenceslao Q. Vinzons, pre-WWII)...

The Core Group of ASEAN is really Malaya Irredenta...

In case you have not noticed... 4 of the 5 contra-Beijing claimants in the West Philippine Sea (WPS) are Malaya Irredenta countries (Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei)... if Beijing succeeds in grabbing everything within its fraudulent Nine-Dash Line... the biggest loser would be Malaya Irredenta...

This the main reason why non-WPS Claimant ASEAN members have difficulty taking a much stronger anti-Beijing stance on this issue... they are not direct stakeholders...

So in case non-WPS Claimant ASEAN will continue to hew and haw about Beijing's imperialist territorial grab in the WPS... the best next course of action would be to form an Anti-Nine-Dash Line Alliance composed of the 4 Malaya Irredenta countries... plus Vietnam...

For neutrality, and lower susceptibility to Beijing's economic muscle (remember the Phnom Penh fiasco?), the Alliance HQ should be based in Brunei...

Does the Name "West Philippine Sea" Have Any Cartographic Basis?

European cartographers named the sea south of China and west of the Philippines as "South China Sea"... while they named the sea east of the Philippines as "Philippine Sea"...

it appears that the choice of "South China Sea" was a matter of cartographic convenience (i.e. to simplify navigational directions) rather than an acknowledgement of China's control over the sea... as Beijing now would want the world to believe...

since "Philippine Sea" already exists as a cartographic reference (the two Battles of the Philippine Sea in WWII are now considered as some of if not the biggest naval battles in history)... it is not a big leap to rename the sea to the west of the Philippines as "West Philippine Sea"... and the sea to the east of the Philippines as "East Philippine Sea"...

and the whole world would probably welcome this change... because unlike Beijing... Manila will never have the temerity to claim the entire territory covered by these seas as its own... except for those areas that it is entitled to claim under international law...

The Real Basis of Beijing's Nine-Dash Line

The first full-time military garrison in the Paracels and the Spratlys was established by France in 1933...

When WWII officially broke out in 1939, Axis-member Japan grabbed these islands from France and used them as submarine bases...

After Japan's surrender in 1945, the Republic of China (now officially known as Taiwan) attempted to take over Japanese control over the islands under the rationale that Japan used to administer the islands together with Taiwan as a single political entity during WWII... this explains why the now-infamous "Nine-Dash Line" was first mentioned in 1947...

In substance, therefore, Beijing's (and Taiwan's) claim on the Paracels and Spratlys is based on the Japanese conquest of the islands (from France) in 1939... and not on the historical jurisdiction exercised by certain ancient Chinese dynasties dating back to thousands of years ago... this explains why authentic old Chinese maps always show Hainan Island as the southernmost territory of Imperial China...

This is a historical fact which Beijing will find very hard to swallow... so expect the Orwellian tra-la-la pronouncements to continue..

The Death of ASEAN

the ease with which Beijing was able to employ "divide et empira" tactics against ASEAN in the recently-concluded Phnom Penh Summit may be an indication that the Organization has already outlived its original purpose... it was originally conceived as a bulwark against communist expansionism in SE Asia at the height of the Cold War in the mid-60s... the Cold War and communism... are long dead...

former communist bedfellows Beijing and Hanoi are now sworn adversaries... and are just one sneeze away from another shooting war... judging by its behavior during the Summit, Thailand is in the process of going to bed with Beijing...  Cambodia, on the other hand, is seemingly suffering from a severe case of "Killing Fields Amnesia"... and is back in the arms of the Killing Fields Sponsor...

with the threat of communism gone... ASEAN has recently re-focused its efforts towards economic targets... maybe one day... a common market... or even a common currency... the EU of SE Asia...

but Beijing will not just stand idly by and let 600 million SEA people build an economic empire that could rival its own... while the short-term impetus for Beijing's belligerent acts in the WPS (West Philippine Sea) appears to be territorial gain... i suspect that there is something more to it than what meets the eye... it is maybe part and parcel of a grand strategy to stop the formation of an ASEAN Common Market dead on its tracks... and by all appearances, Beijing was able to accomplish that at Phnom Penh...

with Cambodia and Thailand now perceived, rightly or wrongly, as the stalking horses of Beijing in ASEAN... any effort to obtain the support of the Organization on measures that have an anti-Bejing smell will be presumed as doomed to fail...  and ASEAN members like the Philippines and Vietnam, who have serious territorial disputes with Beijing, will have to look for support elsewhere...

one option is to form a new defense-oriented regional organization of SEA countries which have direct territorial disputes with Beijing...  this would include the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia... with a combined population of about 450 million... this organization will have more manpower than the US of A... and if properly equipped with the latest weaponry... will be a formidable force to be reckoned with...

Unstoppable Beijing Guided Missile Frigate Meets an Immovable West Philippine Sea Rock

Philippine media is now abuzz with the news that a PLAN guided-missile frigate has accidentally grounded itself into Hasa-Hasa Shoal about 2 days ago... while conducting patrols in Philippine waters...

the ship in question is probably the Dongguan (Hull No. 560)... a Jianghu V-class frigate... which normally carries eight (8) NORINCO YJ-83 SSMs in two (2) four-box launchers...

since this is a fairly inexpensive export-class ship (Egypt, Thailand, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar also operate them)... which only costs about USD100M new... we should not discount the possibility that this was a deliberate act... that would provide the pretext for Beijing to occupy Hasa-Hasa Shoal...

the Philippine Military should investigate this matter immediately... and, if possible, subject the warship to the applicable international salvaging laws...

Cambodia: Hun Sen the Over-Staying Survivor

by now, everyone has realized that the recent ASEAN Summit was a diplomatic coup for Beijing... even Mrs. Clinton proved no match to the duplicitous minions of Hun Sen... for the first time in its history, ASEAN failed to issue a joint communique after a formal summit... all because of the Beijing-orchestrated machinations of an upstart member... which was only accepted to the organization barely 13 years ago... thanks and no thanks Mr. Hun Sen...

but it was not really surprising move... the man is a time-tested survivor... he was with the original Beijing Cambodian Stooge, the Khmer Rouge, when they were winning... then he went over to the Vietnamese side when they were winning... then he went to bed with... and then launched a coup against Prince Norodom Ranariddh... and now he is back in Beijing's arms... this man changes spots more often than a snow leopard...

but his recent betrayal of the West Philippine Sea interests of fellow ASEAN members the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei has a silver lining... it brought him back to the center stage of world opinion... and the first thing that the world will probably say is: "oh my! we didn't realize he is still there!"...

it is time for regime change in Cambodia...

otherwise, this ASEAN Domino will fall again...

and the "Killing Fields" will once again harvest millions of Cambodian lives...

Of Mosquitoes and Dragons

"Compared to the Chinese Dragon, the Philippines is just a Mosquito" said a prominent Philippine Senator (Miriam Defensor-Santiago)...

This got me thinking, "is Beijing is really a Dragon?"... in the five-animal style of Chinese martial arts... the Tiger relies on strength (doer)... the Snake on technical precision (thinker)... the Crane on evasion (feeler)... and the Leopard on cunning (dreamer)... once a martial artist has the ability to select accurately and apply effectively any of the aforementioned animal styles to a particular situation... then he becomes a Dragon... 

Beijing's recent behavior in the West Philippine Sea cannot be associated with someone who is already a Dragon... it is more of a Tiger behavior... which is basically relying on brute strength to get what you want...

The one who behaves like a true Dragon is Uncle Sam... which, depending on the situation, will act like... a Tiger (Desert Shield)... a Snake (Predator strikes)... a Crane (Mrs. Clinton)... or a Leopard (SEAL Teams)...

How about the Philippines?...

Initially, i was a bit offended by the "Mosquito" tag... but after some serious thought, i said to myself: "why not?"... after all, i doubt if there is any other animal on earth that can match the human body count of a Mosquito... 

How many humans have Tigers killed in the last two millenia?...  a few thousands would probably be tops... how about Dragons?... i won't even dare speculate... 

But Mosquitoes... just say... Yellow Fever... Malaria... Dengue... and it could easily run into the hundreds of millions... maybe even more than a billion...

So take heart fellow Filipinos... we may be a Mosquito to Beijing's Tiger... but it will only take one bite from our Mosquito... to fatally infect Beijing's Tiger with an incurable pathogen...

And by the looks of it... Beijing is already infected... with the pathogen of... GREED...