Funny, I thought the pseudo-Left would have put something up in support of socialist imperialism by now. Early days.

There are so many ironies about this ridiculous situation. Which Chinese imperial 'authority' [Since when did imperialism have any respectability in Leftists' eyes ? Ah sorry, yes Putin, Georgia, the Crimea and Ukraine, I forgot] are the neo-imperialist Chinese relying on ? The Mings of the 1420s, via Admiral Cheng Ho ? The Manchus, i.e. the Manchurian invaders of China ? Chiang Kai-Shek and the Kuomintang ? So Chiang Kai-Shek is now a great patriot in Beijing's eyes ?

As for any claim, on the grounds that some Chinese boats fished around those shoals, so did Thai, Javanese, Macassan, Filipino, Vietnamese, etc. fishing fleets worked around all of those shoals, as they did all across south-east Asian waters - even down to Australia. Macassans were still trading with Aboriginal groups barely a hundred years ago. So northern Australia belongs to Indonesia on those grounds ?

Actually, Chiang Kai-Shek's claim, 'the nine-dash line', may have been a response to Sukarno's post-War aspirations to unite all of Indonesia, Papua, New Guinea, Malaya, the Philippines into one country, straddling all of island south-east Asia. That too died in the arse.

It is also well-known that Imperial China disparaged any maritime role until the 1420s and Cheng Ho's visits to trading ports around south-east Asia, the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, and destroyed his maps and retreated to its land-based empire-building after then.

Their little toe in the water came after thousands of years of trade and fishing activity across all of those seas by all the island and coastal peoples of south-east Asia from the Coromandel Coast of India across to Melanesia, perhaps even Korean and Japanese fishermen as well. The notion that Chinese ships were the first to use those shoals as fishing grounds is so ludicrous, so easily disproven, that I feel a bit silly bringing it up.

TBC]

[continue]

Imperialism never seems to die. Most dangerously, it is usually open-ended, never satisfied until it has - logically - extended its power across the world. Alexander wept at the Ganges when he thought that there were no more worlds to conquer. Would the Nazis and the Japanese have stopped, if they had won the Second World War ? Or would they have been at each others' throats within a few decades, each drooling for total world domination ?

And how many shoals and reefs are there around the world ? Millions ? How hard would it be for any country to start pouring concrete on a shoal or reef just off another country's coast, plonking an airfield on it and then claiming 200-mile exclusion zone around it ? And then, after the event, inventing a back-history of love and longing to join their historic territory to the beloved mainland ?

Don't forget that New Zealand was once part of New South Wales. It has many shoals off its north coast. Many ships from NSW sailed through them, mapping and measuring. 'Our beloved country, now cruelly exploited by so-called New Zealanders (really Australians). Our hearts ache to get our stolen shoals back.'

I.e., make it up as you go. Well, it worked for Hitler with Danzig, and the Sudetenland. In this case though, just don't mention oil.

Joe

The 9 dash map is a bit late for China, eh . 1940's?
"Though Marco Polo never produced a map that illustrated his journey, his family drew several maps to the Far East based on the wayward's accounts. These collection of maps were signed by Polo's three daughters: Fantina, Bellela and Moreta. Not only did it contain maps of his journey, but also sea routes to Japan, Siberia’s Kamchatka Peninsula, the Bering Strait and even to the coastlines of Alaska, centuries before the rediscovery of Americas by Europeans."
--
In 1271 he travelled for Republic of Florence and China is legally signed-up to EU.

Hi Nicknick,

My bet is Marco Polo didn't get the information for those maps from coastal Chinese traders, but from Japanese, Korean and/or Thai traders - perhaps from Indian and Arab traders, as well as Sumatran and Javanese traders.

The seas were busy even in those days. I read somewhere that trade between Thai city-states and Japan, mainly for ceramics, was greater than all of Chinese trade. And around 1200, I don't think even Taiwan was under the Chinese, although Chinese fishermen would have used their waters, alongside Filipino, etc. fishermen.

Joe

The US Navy & perhaps our navy know what seismic work is going on in
the Sth China Sea. That would tell everyone what is going on.

We have been greedy fools in the west cashing in on the great emerging China and its economic opportunities.. very much like putting all our eggs into the one basket so to speak.. now we have fed the great Dragon and its big enough to arrogantly disregard a branch of the UN with its judgement in the south china sea. At the same time they remain a permanent member of the UN security council!... bit like Dracula in charge of the blood bank. Imo, they should be removed immediately.

Today, we hear in the news how our foreign affairs minister was "politely" told to go away and mind your own business when confronting the Chinese government about this disregard for the UN ruling. Bit like an ant telling an elephant to get out of the room!

In a worse case scenario which funnily enough, was proposed on ABC news 24 last night, (gotta love those lefties!)
The great Dragon could bribe Indonesia and setup ICBM bases in Papua and East Java or thereabouts, frighteningly close to Australia no doubt.

Is this country of less than 25 million going to stand idly by and pray that our US military alliance will save us? or will US politicians and the voting public over there think they have had enough of propping up their allies against this great Dragon?

I am geopolitical pragmatist, not trying to scare folks but is the world big enough for 2 superpowers to live peacefully side by side on the one planet?? I really don't think so and the mother of all global wars will happen one day soon no doubt... seriously can we have an economic trading position with the great Dragon while they steadily expand their military reach in this general part of the world?

Perhaps we should start "fighting back" by boycotting Chinese goods & services... pity they make about 90% of the world's goods!