Greatness

Asians should be glad that an Asian state is becoming a principal player on the world stage. Instead the emergence of China as a world power is being viewed with distrust and concern right in its own neighborhood, destabilizing the region and threatening its own prosperity.

This happens when a nation thinks its growing prosperity and military might give it superiority and the right to run roughshod over weaker or less prosperous states.

History is replete with lessons about the folly of believing that might makes right. Yet this has not stopped nations from thinking that their perceived entitlements based on might would be wholeheartedly embraced by the rest of the world.

Imperial Japan learned its lessons the hard way during World War II, when its neighbors including the Philippines refused to accept its vision of a so-called Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Pinoys instead opted to starve and drop dead from exhaustion as they marched with fellow American POWs from Bataan to Nueva Ecija and Tarlac during the war.

Today Japan is strengthening its alliance with the Philippines as the two countries face a common problem: China’s creeping invasion of all the waters around it.

Initial hesitation about the use of “invasion” has been eliminated by reports, backed by photos and not disputed by Beijing, that it has built an artificial island on Mabini Reef or Johnson South Reef off Palawan and appears to be constructing an airstrip on the reclaimed area.

Images of the artificial island, which is also claimed by Vietnam, were released by the Department of Foreign Affairs and corroborated by satellite images from European aerospace giant Airbus Defence and Space, according to a report last month in IHS Jane’s Defence Weekly.

A look at the map will show how close Mabini Reef is to Palawan, and how far from the 200-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of the southernmost tip of China.

Beijing is, of course, claiming nearly the entire South China Sea, so it probably believes its EEZ, as defined by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to which it is a signatory, extends all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

Occupying reefs far beyond the mainland extends the EEZ of China under UNCLOS. With its occupation of Mabini Reef, Beijing may soon lay claim even to the Sulu Sea and Tubbataha Reef, the World Heritage Site that is a favorite poaching ground of its fishermen for turtles, corals, giant clams and other endangered species.

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It’s unfortunate that ties have deteriorated so much in such a short period between our countries, which have always been at peace and have strong historical and cultural ties dating back to ancient times.

We like to say that almost all Filipinos have Chinese ancestry. Our language, cuisine, beliefs and way of life bear heavy, unmistakable Chinese influence. I myself am a Tsinoy although hilaw, unable to speak the language but with verified maternal roots in a village in Xiamen.

At the height of the corruption scandal involving the aborted ZTE broadband deal, a Chinese official in Manila was overheard wondering aloud why Filipinos didn’t want the highly concessional loan facility made available by Beijing for development projects here.

The amount – about $1.5 billion – was the largest official development assistance allotted by China for a single country, the official sighed as he emphasized that his government wanted to strengthen ties with the Philippines. I’m not sure if the loan facility is still available, but after the ZTE scandal and now with the maritime dispute, it’s doubtful that Manila is interested in borrowing anything from China, even at near-zero interest.

China is a newcomer in the international donor community. With its economic prosperity, it knows that providing foreign aid is a good way of projecting soft power around the world. The despots of Africa like Chinese ODA because unlike aid from OECD states, this one has no conditions attached for democratic reforms. The only condition is that Chinese companies undertake projects funded by their ODA – a provision that the Chinese point out is also done by countries such as Japan and South Korea.

“Soft power” and “peaceful rise” were Chinese buzz phrases that other countries accepted as Beijing repeatedly reassured the world that it had no plans of shattering the peace that allowed China to prosper in the past three decades.

That peace is now being rattled in its own backyard – by China itself.

China probably thinks it has no use for other nations cheering it on as it claws its way to global preeminence.

But international good will is what makes the difference between being great and simply being a large or militarily strong country. Asia’s emerging power is not ready for greatness.

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VIP JAILBIRD, PART II: Anyone healthy and youthful enough to serve as a senator, with P200 million in pork barrel funds plus a few millions more in people’s money at his disposal every year, should be healthy and youthful enough to be detained without bail for plunder. Any senator who says he’s too old to go to jail or who invokes poor health to demand house arrest should quit the Senate and stop seeking public office.