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Russell wrote:Sweeping ruling against China on South China Sea will have lasting impact globally
Ouch, that must hurt them.
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China has as rich and sophisticated a tradition of statecraft as any nation, and a capacity for diplomacy of great subtlety. What the new Chinese leader has openly declared that he wants, though, is an Asia administered by Asians, and this is an idea that runs straight through Hainan island, and should be taken seriously. To grasp what it might mean requires thinking about the past as much as looking to the future.
There is nothing more central to the China dream than China’s idea of its rightful place in the world – which, Chinese people are relentlessly taught, they were robbed of first by European imperialism and then by an American-imposed Asian order that has been in place since the end of the second world war. Prior to this, for nearly the entire run of their nation’s long history, save for the occasional parenthetical setback, the Chinese understand themselves to have enjoyed well-deserved paramountcy in the vastness of the east. This has meant not just preeminence, but deference from neighbours eager to curry favour and share in the fruits of China’s brilliant culture.
“In East Asia’s tribute system, China was the superior state, and many of its neighbouring states were vassal states, and they maintained a relationship of tribute and rewards,” writes Liu Mingfu, a retired People’s Liberation Army colonel, in The China Dream, a hugely popular recent book that lays out plans for the country’s return to preeminence. “This was a special regional system through which they maintained friendly relations and provided mutual aid. The appeal and influence of ancient China’s political, economic and cultural advantages were such that smaller neighbouring states naturally fell into orbit around China, and many of the small countries nominally attached to China’s ruling dynasty sent regular tribute … The universal spread of China’s civilisation and the variety of nations that sent emissaries to China were simply a reflection of the attractiveness of the central nation, and the admiration that neighbouring countries had for China’s civilisation.”
It is true that many territories paid tribute to China, which they may have judged to be a small price for gaining access to trade with the world’s richest economy. But it is also true that China often used force to gain dominance over others, whether the Koreans or the Burmese or, most famously, Vietnam, which China occupied for 1,000 years. Through the teaching of history in this selective fashion, however, Chinese supremacy is made to appear to be the natural order of things, and never something that was forcibly imposed; hegemony, in Chinese usage, is a state of affairs that can only result from the actions of ill-intentioned foreigners.
Lingering threads of this kind of thought are evident in Beijing’s interactions with Japan, its only conceivable rival in the region. That status is one that a fast-rising China appears increasingly unable to abide. Similar motivations can be detected in the recent proliferation of extraordinary infrastructure schemes, in which all new roads will lead to the Rome of the East, otherwise known as Beijing. These include new transcontinental rail lines with high-speed passenger service and immense freight capacity that will completely outclass Russia’s badly aging Trans Siberian Railway, as well as the integration of south-east Asia into the Chinese rail network through Chinese-built railways in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos. It also includes a maritime trade network of ports and depots that span the Indian Ocean, culminating in east Africa, an important frontier of China’s expanding interests. Under one variation or another, Beijing has called all of these “new Silk Roads”, an appellation that is meant to conjure Chinese centrality and grandeur.
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As immensely ambitious projects such as these proceed, the gap in wealth and power between China and its maritime neighbours will continue to widen. Beijing’s hopes for the future seem to align with the way China teaches the history of its imperial past – in which nearby states will pragmatically accept that the price of China’s favour is deference.
[..]
The onset of a fever in the region around maritime issues can be traced to China’s revival of an artefact of its early-20th-century history, known as the Nine-Dash Line. This line, which made its first official appearance in 1947, under the nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek, encloses virtually all of the South China Sea in a loop that dangles southward from the Asian mainland in a shape that has been likened to a cow’s tongue. Chiang was defeated two years later by the forces of Mao Zedong, after a long and brutal civil war, and for decades afterwards almost nothing was heard of the Nine-Dash Line. China set off alarms in the region when it began resuscitating the line early in this decade, giving it renewed prominence in state propaganda, and including it on a map contained in all new Chinese passports. At a 2010 ministerial conference of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Hanoi, the Chinese foreign minister responded to criticisms of its moves in the region by dressing down his Singaporean counterpart, telling him: “China is a big country and other countries are small countries, and that’s just a fact.” This created a feeling held widely in the region that despite a decade of soothing talk from Beijing about good-neighbourliness and win-win relations, China was reverting to an old form of behaviour, whether that of the wounded revanchist, or the central kingdom demanding obeisance.
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It would be wrong to conclude that the Chinese position merely consists of cosmological bluster, even if it is true that there is plenty of that. Beyond the often glorified and euphemised imperial past, when neighbours reputedly prostrated themselves before the emperor in order to enjoy the privileges of trade, China draws on far fresher sources of motivation. Beijing’s attitudes toward the South China Sea, like much of the country’s behaviour as an emerging superpower, is bound up in an entirely modern Chinese obsession: overcoming the humiliations of the recent past.
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But there is an even more recent imperative at work in Beijing’s calculations than the matter of overcoming the humiliations of the last two centuries, and its name is the US. Today, it is that country and not Europe or even Japan, which is seen as the main obstacle to Beijing’s regional ambitions. There is simply no way for China to reign supreme in the South China Sea so long as the US has a free run of the western Pacific. Even more than cowing its neighbours, China’s island-building strategy would seem to have the US navy as its primary focus.
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On the eve of a recent tour of the region, where he attended an annual Asian security conference in Singapore, the US defence secretary Ashton Carter vowed to frustrate any Chinese efforts to limit the movements of American vessels in the South China Sea. “The United States will fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows, as we do all around the world,” Carter declared in Pearl Harbor. And to this, he joined another vow. “We will remain the principal security power in the Asia-Pacific for decades to come,” he said.
Unsurprisingly, in China, people have begun to take a different view of the future. “In 10 years, our GDP will be bigger than the US, in 20 years our military spending will be equal to the US,” said Shen Dingli, one of China’s most prominent international relations scholars, who I met in Washington. “Thirty to 40 years from now, our armed forces will be better than the US. Why would the US defend those rocks? When you have power, the world has to accept. The US is a superpower today, and it can do whatever it wants. When China is a superpower, the world will also have to accept.”
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Hijinx wrote:That be a whole lot of words when the simple answer is: "Keeping the oil shipping lanes open, stupid!" If China could secure enough overland oil pipelines that were completely immune to possible U.S. interference, they would let the corrupt Filipino monkeys dynamite fish the whole S. China Sea.
Chinese state media on Friday reported again that China aims to launch a series of offshore nuclear power platforms to promote development in the South China Sea. Experts said little progress had been made on the plan, which would likely stoke further tensions.
All new MRT trains assembled by a Chinese rolling stock company in Qingdao, not just the 26 defective ones, will have a key component cast in Japan instead of China, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) said yesterday.
Takechanpoo wrote:All new MRT trains assembled by a Chinese rolling stock company in Qingdao, not just the 26 defective ones, will have a key component cast in Japan instead of China, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) said yesterday.
http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/t ... tor=CS1-10
https://www.facebook.com/TheStraitsTime ... 5441552115
thanks to chinas unstoppable messes, ironically the reputation of made in japan is soaring.
the developing world ppl is becoming increasingly convinced that buy china and waste your money.
Grumpy Gramps wrote:The great thing about the "Made in [$country]" concept is that I can bang together a ramshackle book shelf made from punk wood and rusty crooked nails and in the end it is "Made in Japan" and, therefore, wonderful. Can't fail
Takechanpoo wrote:as for the mess of takata air bag, its because of made in mexico.
Russell wrote:Takechanpoo wrote:as for the mess of takata air bag, its because of made in mexico.
And designed in...?
Russell wrote:More developments...Chinese state media on Friday reported again that China aims to launch a series of offshore nuclear power platforms to promote development in the South China Sea. Experts said little progress had been made on the plan, which would likely stoke further tensions.
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden left some none-too-subtle hints that America would intervene in the South China Sea dispute if needed, and potentially laid the groundwork for a request that Australia join the fray also.
Biden's speech at Sydney's Paddington Town Hall was the centrepiece of a whirlwind Australian visit, where he focused on emphasising the U.S.-Australia alliance and relationship, as well as hinting at greater American involvement in the Pacific and the disputed South China Sea.
"We are not going anywhere. And that is vital because our presence in the region... is essential to maintaining peace and stability, without which the economic growth and prosperity I believe would falter," Biden told a packed hall.
"America is the lynchpin and we want to ensure the seas are secure, the skies remain open. That is how to maintain the free flow of commerce, that is the life-blood of this region. This the only way our nations will be able to grow and succeed together."
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Biden did not explicitly reference the South China Sea dispute, but raised his hopes to strengthen alliances and increase co-operation with Asian nations including the Philippines, Japan and Korea, as well as mentioning that he had discussed American involvement in the Pacific with Chinese president Xi Jinping, making it clear that "we are a Pacific nation. That is who we are. And we will maintain that posture, as long as we exist". Biden also spoke at length about the military power that his country would dedicate to the region.
"Anyone who questions America's dedication and staying power in the Asia-Pacific simply is not paying attention. Our commitment to our military strength is unparalleled. We continue to outpace our competitors spending more on our overall defence than the next eight nations in the world combined. We have the most capable ground forces in the world and unmatched ability to project naval and air power to any and every corner of the globe, and simultaneously," he said.
"We've committed to put over 60 percent of our fleet and our most advanced military capabilities in the Pacific by 2020. At the same time, we are stronger and more effective when we were side by side with our closest and most partners -- trusted partners. With those nations who their our interest, our concerns and our commitment to upholding a rules based international order, that means as we continue to address the full range of persistent challenges in the immediate threats to our shared security, the United States has kept and will keep a laser focus on the future in the Asia-Pacific."
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Takechanpoo wrote:z-korean related things are already regarded as taboo in damn english medias, too?
wagyl wrote:Takechanpoo wrote:z-korean related things are already regarded as taboo in damn english medias, too?
Are you saying that her father is native American? Or is the northern European ethnicity of a significant number of American people a taboo subject for you too?
Takechanpoo wrote:how about the case they chose to be korean nationality while rejected to get naturalized to japan? actually her mother havent gotten naturalized and she herself chose merican nationality.
and i guess she made the vid to imply "i dont have j-blood, so forgive me!" while she ever have promoted her with japanese name Mizuhara in china land. its sneak and a cheap trick. at least it appears to most japanese as when she conveniently use japanness only when its a advantage for her but as soon as it become disadvantage, suddenly abandon the japanness with no hesitation. it cannot help but strength the stereotype.
"I KNEW IT. TOLD YOU. so i dont believe Zs. "
Russell wrote:
Woman left car because of family row.
Mum went to rescue her and was killed.
How stupid can one be?
matsuki wrote:What is "family row?"
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