This is a very serious article written by an academic, Robert Beckman, Director, Centre for International Law and Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, NUS etc…in the ST today. It discusses about China’s claim to the group of islands in the South China Sea that were also claimed by a few of the littoral states. By posing such a question it takes a supposedly neutral stand, to question whether the claim is legitimate or illegitimate. So thought provoking.
Would the professor also discuss about the legitimate claims of Europeans as the owners of the USA, Australia and New Zealand and other colonized islands all over the world, like Guam, Gan, the Falklands? Or were the ownership of these continents and islands is now legitimate and a fait accompli because no one is there to challenge it or to write about it?
The concept of planting a flag in someone else backyard and claiming to have found it for the King or Queen sounds funny today, or not really?
The only way to resolve this non-violently is for claimants to argue their cases in a court the claimants all agree to act as adjudicator.
ReplyDeleteEven the question of whether claims are legitimate or not need to be determined by due process in court, and is not the opinion of one claimant cuntree or journalists or even lawyers with both an arsehole and an opinion.
Personally I favour a military solution: let the claimants fight it out. Winner take all.
China should just say that it follows the Americans, the British, the Spanish, the Dutch, the Portugese and other European powers, that it had planted its flags on these islands hundreds of years ago. What is there to dispute some more. The islands were in the old Chinese maps written when the littoral states were not even known as states, with no written language or maps.
ReplyDeleteWah redbean, you obviously love yourself enough to have THE final say on the matter.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the world world should just shut the fuck up and listen to you because you have the best argument in the world, for all time, since the beginning of time, until the end of time.
Lucky I just woke myself up to remind myself that everyone has an arsehole and an opinion, and they both stink.
Now won't that be nice if the world were to listen to me: )
ReplyDeleteI can live with that and with only one Matilah to annoy me. Wow, nice, nice.
Then Singapore must dissolved and return to the Johor sultanate...or wait a minute, is it the Majapahit? No, i think the Srivijaya...
ReplyDeleteAiyoh, Singapore is never a country or state or whatever. It's been a trading post all along and does not belong to anybody, anyone or whatsoever. If not for Raffles who went 'You must be the boss here. Sign this please and I give you money'
ReplyDelete'Huh? Got this place meh? Ok lor. Got money for something that I don't even know belongs to me but I like the title of boss. Why not'
There is always a need for a "boss" to keep the peace. Other than that small but necessary role, everything is "free trade".
ReplyDeleteThat's what Raffles introduced, and Singapore boomed.