China threatening the Philippines

The local news has been following Chinese threats against the Philippines. This is not only against the Spratlys area (which is claimed by a couple other countries and much of it lies outside of the 200 mile economic exclusion zone recognized by most countries, but is now threatening us off the coast of Luzon within the exclusion zone, claiming an area that has been part of the Philippines since at least the time of the Spanish takeover (as one old map showed). So now the leftists/patriots are planning a protest

 

map from the Inquirer

green is the 200 mile exclusion zone, the purple what China claims they own.

China claims virtually all of the South China Sea as its territory, even waters close to the coasts of the Philippines and other Asian countries.

Since April 8 it has been locked in a stand-off with the Philippines over the disputed Scarborough Shoal, with both sides maintaining ships in the area to assert sovereignty.
The shoal sits about 230 kilometers (140 miles) from the Philippines’ main island of Luzon. The nearest major Chinese landmass is 1,200 kilometres northwest of the shoal, according to Filipino navy maps.
China warned this week it was ready for “any escalation” in the dispute, after an editorial in a newspaper run by the ruling Communist Party called for a small-scale war to end the standoff.

But China is hyperventillating about it, threatening to stop importing our fruit, and stop their tourists from visiting here. But now we hear that an "anchorman" there made the "mistake" of saying that the entire Philippines belongs to them....


which led to one wag from pointing out that they claim everything because the Han dynasty claimed them 2000 years ago

While the Chinese have been coming to the Philippines since ancient times as traders selling their stuff or as pirates like Limahong robbing and pillaging the locals – there is no historical proof that the Philippines was ever a colony of China or that China ruled the Philippines or even some parts of it....
To illustrate the absurdity of China’s claim: Let’s say Italy found an ancient map that shows that the Roman Empire owned most of Europe and some parts of Africa and Asia, can the Italian government now claim these countries and territories belong to them? Governments and national territorial lines keep changing. That’s a reality every nation has to live with.

Why is China pushing a 2000 year old claim against the Philippines? Because we are the weak link. The helpful USA has said it will defend us, but then someone else from the state department claims they want to be "neutral" in the dispute.

another reason for going against the Philippines: because VietNam has a better army, and unlike the Philippines, was once part of China and had to fight China for their independence. The last Vietnam/Chinese war was in 1979, and although China officially "won", their army got their puit kicked by Vietnam....

so yes, the US had joint military exercizes with the Philippines in the last month, but we have them every year, but what you might not know is that the US Navy also held joint exercizes with VietNam last month.

a good article that summarizes much of what I've seen written in our local papers can be found at StrategyPage, and Austin Bay also has an article about China's problems, including some snide comments on how the Obama administration is showing weakness by not protecting Chen, the human rights activist who sought asylum in the Embassy last week....

and another Chinese problem not getting much attention in the US press: The cyberwar of China against the west. StrategyPage has some articles on it...

the Philippines have had our websites taken down by hackers, presumably at the instigation of the Chinese government, and some of our Univ Phil hackers hacked them back...