Bullying: China rulers' strategy for dominance

China is bullying East Asia into submission. Sea-lanes and civil airspace in the South and East China Seas are being targeted for control. The ruling communists desire domination for economic and military edge, as well as domestic legitimacy and regional propaganda. In bully disposition, Beijing intends to get what it wants and or else use armed might to enforce its “core interests.” Watchers on both sides of the Pacific see this as the cause of China’s increasingly frequent maritime quarrels.

China is playing big bully over the Philippines in Scarborough Shoal. The latter was accosting seven trespassing and poaching Chinese boats last April when three Chinese patrol craft intervened. In reply to Manila’s protest, Beijing dispatched a dozen more armed vessels and a hundred destructive trawlers.

Only 120 miles off Luzon, Scarborough is within the Philippines’ 200-miles exclusive economic zone under international law. But China, 850 miles away, claims ownership by (unfounded) ancient right. Amidst Manila’s suggestion to settle the dispute before an international tribunal, a Chinese general growled of war. “If the Philippines gives us such an opportunity, we will certainly seize it,” Lo Yuan sneered.

China then employed economic blackmail. Over 2,000 containers of Philippine bananas, mangoes, pineapples and papayas were turned back Chinese ports. Payments were stopped for imported Philippine mine products. A Filipino-owned hotel suddenly was downgraded from the five-star status it had enjoyed since 2007. Beijing reduced the grant of entry visas, discouraged tourists and investors to Manila, and lessened flights. Other ASEAN countries subtly were warned of similar “economic punishment” should they side with Manila.

Jingoist Chinese media and news blogs were incited to join in. A TV anchor acknowledged her gaffe of twice claiming, “everyone knows the Philippines is part of China’s territory.” But her apology came with numerous comments deriding the Philippines. A blogger pressed readers to sign up for invasion, closing with: “If all Chinese spat at the same time, we will drown the Philippines.” A TV reporter planted a Chinese flag on Scarborough. His footage showed the absurdity of Beijing’s assertion, though. Its Huangyan Island is actually an uninhabitable collection of reefs and rocks as Manila says. The un-submerged portion of the shoal was barely large enough for him to stand on.

The Scarborough standoff is but China’s latest muscle flexing in the region. In September 2010 two Chinese poaching craft rammed a Japanese coastguard patrol in the East China Sea. In August 2011 Chinese warships challenged an Indian research vessel transiting between two Vietnamese ports. December 2011 saw the death of a Korean coastguard captain in the hands of trespassing Chinese fishers. The whole of that year China planted buoys and markers on Philippine shoals and islets. And in March 2012 China overran two Vietnamese fishing vessels in the Paracels close to Vietnam’s coast. Perhaps to taunt Taiwan and the Philippines, China has started drilling in the seas 320 kilometers southeast of Hong Kong.

The United States, which considers the South and East China Seas crucial to freedom of navigation, has not been spared. A Chinese jet fighter collided with a US patrol plane, forcing the latter to land in Hainan. In June 2009 a Chinese submarine cut the sonar array cable being towed by a US navy warship only 140 miles off the Philippines’ Subic base. China’s message seemed to be, if we can do this to powerful America, what more to puny neighbors.

Beijing’s communist leaders have been getting away with it. Right in a 2010 meeting of ASEAN members, Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi impolitely blurted out why his country has been acting that way: “China is a big country, and all other countries are small countries, and that is just a fact.”

But then, do ordinary Chinese revere or revile bullies?

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On school opening today, Education Sec. Armin Luistro expects the usual reports about classroom, book and teacher shortages. So last week he met with some newspaper and broadcast commentators to emphasize some points:

• Of 45,000 public schools nationwide, only 771 are congested. These are mostly in the big cities where people flock for work and housing. And the situation arises as much from poor urban planning as it does from meager funding for school buildings.

• The average teacher-to-student population ratio is 1:39.

• The shortage of 66,900 classrooms in 2010 has been reduced to 52,000 this school year, despite an increased need from new enrollees. The government has built 16,000 new classrooms, and has money for 40,000 more this year. The Philippine Business for Social Progress and other NGOs will construct a sixth of the backlog, and install toilets in old schoolhouses.

• The K-to-12 formally begins this year with the introduction of free Kindergarten, to be followed by the first of two additional years in high school.

• For this, 140,000 of the 510,000 teachers will be retrained, along with the 45,000 school principals.

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