9-Dash(ole)
History. What history? The convenient kind? The one that expands exactly where the oil, ships, reefs, and military advantage are, and somehow skips every empire that ever shoved China around?
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History. What history? The convenient kind? The one that expands exactly where the oil, ships, reefs, and military advantage are, and somehow skips every empire that ever shoved China around?
The Chinese Embassy is back. Very upset again. This Guo Wei. Said Filipinos went to Sandy Cay. “Illegally.” Which is amazing. Because the place is right by Pag-asa Island. Within the Kalayaan Group. West Philippine Sea. Not beside Shanghai.
The embassy calls it Tiexian Jiao. Very solemnly. Very alarmed. Like Japan is back in Nanking.
Commodore Tarriela’s reply: Filipinos went there. Civilians by the way. Not a government invasion force. Not Marines parachuting into Tiananmen. Civilians. China has no lawful sovereignty there. And calling a reef by a Chinese name does not turn Filipinos into burglars in their own neighborhood.
Big-brain Guo Wei returns with China’s nuclear bomb of logic: distance doesn’t matter. Brings up Hawaii. Hawaii is far from the US mainland too.
But Hawaii is a recognized US territory. It has voters, senators, taxes, police, Spam musubi, actual state things.
Hawaii does not require America to redraw the ocean around five other countries. Unlike your nine dashes: draw a circle around houses in the next town because your great-great-great-grandfather supposedly once jogged past their gates.
Because, apparently, some Chinese fisherman in the 1400s was out there on a little wooden boat, sweating, famished, looking lost, confused, like Guo Wei after Tarriela intoned: “2016 arbitral ruling.”
Guy was holding one sad fish, fighting the wind, praying the boat doesn’t split, maybe looking for a bathroom, frankly. Then he sees the cay and says, “Thank God. Land.”
Six hundred years later, Guo Wei walks into the conversation with a straight face and argues ancient presence creates modern rights.
Brother, guy was not expanding China. He was expanding his chances of surviving the afternoon trying not to drown and found a place to rest his wet ass.
Guo Wei can’t even explain precisely what the nine-dash line even means. Which is very convenient when you want it to mean everything.
Imagine if America used China’s exact logic on the moon. Armstrong: “One giant leap for mankind.” Beijing: “One giant leap for China, and mankind is advised to stop illegal lunar activities. Mankind is trespassing.”
Honestly, America has a cleaner claim to the moon than China has to the nine-dash line. They have video. Footprints. Rocks. A flag. Buggy. And even with all that moon evidence, America still doesn’t own the moon. That’s the point. Presence is not ownership.
The nine dashes are not even brave enough to be a real line. They’re broken. Dashes. Nervous little pieces. Even the pen had doubts.
It says, “Trust history.” Then the world’s biggest navy says: “Or else.”
History. What history? The convenient kind? The one that expands exactly where the oil, ships, reefs, and military advantage are, and somehow skips every empire that ever shoved China around?
Because history is also Japan in Manchuria. Britain in Hong Kong. Portugal in Macau. Germany in Qingdao. Funny how fast China becomes a modern-law country when the history is China getting bullied.
Russia. Your friend now by the way. Big friend. Strategic friend. Smiling-for-the-camera friend. Doesn’t stand at China’s border with an old Qing treaty saying, “Don’t panic, Beijing. We’re only here to respect history.”
Because countries do not live forever in the past but choose present interests. China knows the rule: old maps are not allowed to run the world anymore. They move on when it suits them.
Now take that principle, put it in a box, wrap it nicely, and send it to your embassy in Manila: If old maps should not own China, old maps should not own the West Philippine Sea.
