Revealing China’s obsession

For more than two decades, the OFF TANGENT column of this paper, has been my simple way of conversing with you twice weekly, Thursdays and Sundays. It is quite discernible that this corner is called off tangent because I do not take up issues, especially controversial ones, which other opinion makers dabble in. That way, I avoid disputes. Or, I sound off tangent, at times, because when the topic inevitably harps on a legal matter, I sprinkle the discussion with emotions and conversely when the issue is admittedly laced with emotional touch, I tend to speak in legal lingo. I cleared this rather unusual concept with Sir Dodong, I mean Dr. Jose R Gullas, when I took his challenge to write this column

This column writing, actually, is but a happy continuation of a writing journey that began many years ago. Then, I was authoring college textbooks. Just imagine how gladly surprised I was to receive a letter from the New York City Library asking for a revised copy of the book Marine Laws and Ship Business. The library had the 1979 edition which was the first pioneering effort on the subject. That book was used as standard text by most Philippine nautical schools. The academe, where I began teaching Constitutional Law and law practice diminished my book writing time such that I could not revise that work. But lately, I have been entertaining a thought that feels entirely foreign yet increasingly persistent: the thought of stopping. Maybe the retirement years which I am using planting and growing hard wood are less intellectually draining than composing essays.

Just when I was on the brink of deciding to really park my pen, I witnessed a vicious liar of a foreign spokesman weaving a despicable falsehood. I cannot just stop writing and be silent on this issue. In diplomatic jargon, Mao Ning, reportedly a spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry said: The Philippines is a country with a growing strategic importance in Asia. Well said from International Law perspective but hidden behind such acceptable language is a veiled threat coming from a giant super power. Ignoring it would not just be a grave mistake. It is abandoning our national cause. Indeed, what lies behind the supposed cautionary statement of Mao Ning was a threat of a foreign country against our independence. The “growing strategic importance” that the Chinese spokesman referred to is the obsession of Communist China, (also pretending to be called Peoples Republic) to overrun the Philippines and make our country its province. Just look at how they patrol the West Philippine Sea and usurp it from us using their enormous maritime assets in total illegal disregard of the July 2016 ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration that said that the West Philippine Sea is within our Exclusive Economic Zone.

A recent declaration of Professor Zhang Wei, of the Tsinghua University revealed the hidden Chinese obsession. According to him, the “Philippines has become a bridge between the west and south east Asia.” Behind this diplomatic declaration I can see the Chinese intention to lord over south east Asia. A Chinese subjugated Philippines converts our country into a first communist China’s line of defense abutting the Pacific Ocean. Militarily speaking, in an eventual conflict with the USA, China can use our string of island as its protection from whatever forces America can launch.