World Affairs in perspective: S.China Sea & Diego Garcia

South China Sea     ( PART  1  )

The native Americans say " Whitemen speak with fork tongues and cannot be trusted. " This truth can be reflected in USA's position in the South China Sea and in US huge military base in Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. In the South China Sea, China owns the Paracels and Spratly Islands in which it has sovereignty and historical rights for thousands of years. In the Indian Ocean, USA stole Diego Garcia from the Chagossians of Mauritius and secretly and illegally built a military base for aggression and world hegemony.

US is ten thousand miles away and is not a claiment to the disputed islands in the South China Sea. For over two thousand years China hold sovereignty over the Paracels and the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. During the Second World War Japan invaded and occupied these islands. At the end of the Second World War Japan handed back these islands to China officially and legally through the League of Nations and later the United Nations and through legal documents signed at the Cairo Conference 1943, the Potsdam Treaty 26-07-1945, the Yalta Treaty 11-02-1945 and the San Francisco Treaty 08-09-1951.

At that period of time the Kuomintang under Chiang Kai Shek was the party in power in China. The Kuomintang was defeated in the Chinese civil war and fled to Taiwan with the help of US which then blockaded the Taiwan Strait with its Seventh Fleet to prevent Chairman Mao's People's Liberation Army from taking Taiwan to consummate the unification of China. US had wrongly and callously interfered in Chinese internal affairs. If US had not interfered there would not be a Taiwan problem or divided China today.

However, after the defeat of Kuomintang, the reign and sovereignty over the Paracels and Spratly Islands remain to be under China though under a new government of Mao's People's Republic of China.

In the mid 1970s many South East Asian littoral states under the behest of US, stole some Chinese islands largely in the Spratly island archipelago. China then was not able to do much except to lodge some protest because of the presence of the US Seventh Fleet in the region. Vietnam stole 25 of the Chinese islands, Philippines 9, Malaysia 7 and Brunei 5.

Vietnam, Philippines and Malaysia began to build forts and military naval strongholds with airstrips for harassing Chinese fishing boats. While these illegal activities were going on there was total silence in US, Japan and the whole of the western world and no one condemn the illegal provocative activities of these American minions except the only the official protests of China. China could have easily evicted Vietnam, Philippines and Malaysia from the islands they stole from China but choose not to do so for the sake of peace.

In June 1986 US and the West tried to supplant China's sovereignty and historical rights over the islands in the South China Sea by floating a new concept of economic rights of a country within 200 KM of its continental sea shelf. Since China has a long coastline it agreed to the new treaty but only on the proviso that the treaty would not infringe the existing Chinese Sovereignty and historical rights of these islands. Incredulously US and a few western countries did not even want to sign and submit themselves to this treaty. On hindsight it can be seen US and the West were using this treaty as a ploy and strategy to rob off the Paracels and Spratly islands from China. Fortunately China had foreseen this chicanery and signed with the proviso that stated clearly that the new treaty would not be allowed to infringe on the Chinese South China Sea islands. In short the new treaty should not supercede Chinese sovereignty and historical rights over the Chinese territorial islands, shoals, atols and reefs in the South China Sea.

Thus US is speaking with fork tongues when it says China should not claim those islands especially those islands stolen from China by Vietnam, Philippinnes and Malaysia. US is being dirty when it tries to invoke the 1986 treaty to supercede China's sovereignty and historical rights.

With encouragement and some finance from US , Vietnam, Philippines and Malaysia have seen fit to militarise the islands they occupy by building airstrips and naval stations to harass Chinese fishing boats. Of course China will not allow these wrongs done to her in her own territorial islands and seas. Instead of using force to take back her stolen islands China choose to dredge some of her islands and build light houses and selfdefense facilities in them to forestall American and perhaps Japanese aggression. Now America and the West and Japan were quick to raise a furore and accused China of militarising the South China Sea while at the same time US was sailing aircraft carriers and other naval vessels in the region and conducting overflights with jet fighters and bombers as a show of force to awe the Chinese. Who then is militarising the South China Sea?

US has no business to interfere in the issues of the South China Sea since they do not concern them. US is speaking with fork tongues when its says the South China Sea is of strategic importance to US security though it is ten thousand miles away. On the other hand US conveniently forgets that the South China Sea is vital to China's security and survival. China and South East Asian states are able to talk, negotiate and hold peace in the region. US should cease its military activities and illegal naval patrols in the region for the sake of peace and tranquility in South East Asia. South East Asian countries should bear on warmongering US not to turn the region into a second Middle East turmoil and destructive wars.

It must be pointed out before 2010, US like the rest of the world was supportive of those agreements and treaties that Japan officially and legally returned the Paracel and the Spratly islands to China. However in 2010, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in their streaks of insanity somehow reneged on those treaties in their pivot to Asia to contain China.

Southernglory1

Monday, 27th February,2017

NB:   PART   2  will be published on Tuesday, 28th February, 2017