Comments by "Angry Kittens" (@AngryKittens) on "CaspianReport"
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@Finn Hansen LOL. So you think all Asians are Chinese? Southeast Asians and Chinese have been different people since the early stone age. Our languages are not even related.
The Han Chinese come from the Sino-Tibetans, whose original homelands were in Northern China, near the borders of Mongolia. They were a steppe people, with pale skin and straight long hair, and "slanting eyes" adapted to cold climates. They domesticated yaks, pigs, dogs, and ducks, built houses half-buried in the soil, invented writing, and cultivated millet and soybeans. They did not learn to build sea vessels until the 900 AD.
Maritime Southeast Asians (as well as Polynesians, Micronesians, Melanesians, and Malagasy) descended from Austronesians whose homelands were in southeastern China (which was conquered by the Han Chinese at around 2000 BC, during the "Warring States period") as well as Taiwan (which was connected to the mainland, back then because of lower sea levels).
From Taiwan, Austronesians became the FIRST HUMANS EVER to invent sea-going ships at around 3500 BC, inventing technologies like the catamaran, trimaran, and pacific lateen sails. Unlike the Han Chinese, Austronesians had short wavy hair, had round eyes, and were brown-skinned. They had tattoos, built stilt houses, cultivated rice and taro in unique paddy field agriculture techniques, had aquaculture technology, and domesticated the water buffalo, dogs, chickens, and pigs. Our ancestors sailed from Taiwan and settled Maritime Southeast Asia, 1500 years BEFORE the armies of the Han Chinese even reached the shores of the South China Sea.
At around 200 BC, the Han Chinese also continued invading southwards. Forcing the rest of the Southeast Asians (who are closely related to the Austronesians culturally) like the Kra-Dai, Hmong-Mien, and Austroasiatic groups to migrate to Indochina. Their furthest extent was northern Vietnam, whom they conquered for more than 1000 years, before the Vietnamese rebelled and threw them out.
All of these are in Chinese records. They even have a name for us Southeast Asians, the "Baiyue". They called us "barbarians." So no, dear white man. We are not Chinese. Never have been. The Chinese genes some of us have now is because of very recent Chinese migration from the mainland during the tyrannical Qing Dynasty in the colonial era, when thousands of Chinese (overwhelmingly Fujianese/Hokkien, but also some Cantonese) fled China to settle in the islands.
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Um no? It's a treaty. Whether you "like" it or not has nothing to do with it. There are ZERO mechanisms. No laws. No safeguards that force either the US or the Philippines to obey it. What it is, however, is an honorable agreement. If you break the treaty, you lose geopolitical trust henceforth, and other countries will find it harder to believe your promises. As simple as that.
Especially so in this case, given that the Philippines is more than just an ally. It's actual former US territory. Part of the reason of Duterte's anger at the US and his seemingly more neutral stance with China shortly after his election, is because he does not trust the US to honor the treaty. He actually admits that in his speeches. He has stopped going against China because he believes the US will abandon the Philippines if China attacks. And he knows the Philippines has no chance of surviving a war with China.
And it's kinda justified given that the US did nothing when the Philippines was bringing up the UNCLOS case against China; as well as the fact that the US has basically ignored the Philippines in the last 30 years after they lost access to military bases. Other newer US allies (and even enemies) are getting trade deals and advanced military gear, while the Philippines was basically forgotten.
The US gave free cobra helicopters to Pakistan in the 80s. Pakistan. Then actually have Pakistan free money in 2017 to keep those helicopters up to date. The same country that hid Bin Laden. They also sold billions of dollars worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia and did free bombing runs for them on Yemen and Iran. The same country that created Bin Laden and exported the Wahhabist doctrine of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and the Taliban.
When the Philippines asked to buy the same helicopters so it could fight ISIS insurgents, the US Congress literally blocked the sale. Because they didn't "trust" the Philippines. Hilarious, right?
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@watermirror There is also supreme irony in your quote about "lions" and the "opinions of sheep". That has to be one of the most commonly misquoted lines within the last few years.
That quote isn't some ancient wisdom or something. It's by Tywin Lannister from the TV adaptation of Game of Thrones. You can watch the full scene here:
https://youtu.be/8s0eMrUE1Bg
SPOILER ALERT if you've not watched the show or read the books, but Tywin isn't exactly a good guy. And he is killed by his own son. The son he had underestimated and ridiculed for so long because he was weak. The morality of it should be pretty clear even though it's fiction. Even lions must pay their debts.
Tywin's understanding of the quote, like yours, seems to be that lions are so powerful that they can do whatever they want, even awful things, and they will remain invincible to the consequences. Basically another way of saying "Might Makes Right", the credo of totalitarian tyrants, sociopaths, and bad guys in movies (like Tywin). The quote by your misunderstanding justifies elitism and brushing off the "little people". Which is, incidentally, exactly what China is doing right now.
Funnily enough, the original quote does nothing of the sort: ‘A truly strong person does not need the approval of others any more than a lion needs the approval of sheep.’ It's a quote by Vernon Howard, a hippie author from the 1960s. It has nothing to do with absolute power or anything idiotic like that. It's a simple uplifting message about ignoring the haters. .
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@watermirror Calling something "law" doesn't make it enforceable. Don't mix that up.
And China refusing to follow UNCLOS may be an example of superpowers bending treaties. But it certainly does not prove your point that it has no consequences. China's freefalling popularity worldwide, dwindling investments, trade wars, and increasing isolation proves the opposite of your point. A country can be powerful af, but their global influence (and even internal stability) still depends on their reputation. Not military might alone.
The desperate use of propagandists by Beijing to artificially boost both their internal and external reputation says that lions do care about the opinions of sheep, and that sheep can actually hurt lions.
You're also pushing the false equivalence that what China is doing right now is the same thing as what the US will do to us if we continue opposing China. Basically implying the US wants to colonize the SCS too. And that's ridiculous.
You seem to believe the choices are like this:
1. We let China invade our seas.
2. We "balance" between US and China, so they can invade us half-and-half and keep the peace while losing the territory anyway.
3. We let the US invade us.
Except it's not. This is not, and never has been, about choosing sides between the US or China. It's about China stealing territory from other countries in Asia. Period. The US (like all other countries not directly affected) are merely third parties who may or may not help ASEAN, Taiwan, and India.
There is no middle ground because there are only two sides:
1. We oppose China's invasion (with or without international help)
2. We let China invade our seas.
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@watermirror No. My point was treaties are not enforceable, but breaking them have consequences in terms of international trust. It's not a matter of simply "liking" it or not.
Secondly, it's weird how you think I love the US so much given how I spent paragraphs detailing how they've ignored the Philippines for decades. I'll make it easier for you: I don't love the US, but I despise China's actions.
You're stuck in the Cold War mindset of thinking that the only thing that matters are the superpowers, which is why you think this issue is a China vs. the US thing, rather than what it actually is: China vs. ASEAN (as well as China vs. India, China vs. Taiwan, China vs. Japan, etc.). Smaller countries are just pawns on a chessboard to you to be divided up like pie. And I deeply resent that. That's called imperialism.
We are sovereign countries being invaded by a superpower. We hope other superpowers can help stop that. But we don't want the other superpowers to invade us in turn, and the thing you don't seem to understand is that they aren't trying to invade us in turn.
For all of America's faults, it's not threatening us with invasion or demanding allegiance or messing with internal governance, like China is. Although they have done that during the Cold War, that's irrelevant.
What the West is offering ASEAN is a guarantee of independent sovereignty.
If China was offering that in turn, then sure, it's a real choice with a middle ground. But they're not. Either China owns us or we're free. Those are the only choices. Acceding to any Chinese demand, even partially, means we already gave up the second choice.
The other superpowers aren't demanding anything. US/Western support is merely incidental to the equation, they don't seek to own us like China. Asking for western help isn't the polar opposite of bowing down to China, because they offer very different results in terms of maintaining our ability to be independent. It doesn't even need to be the US. It could be the EU, India, Japan, Taiwan, the entire UN, or none of them.
All that BS about us becoming or already being "American dogs" by opposing Chinese expansionism is Chinese propaganda. NOT bowing to China does not mean bowing to the US. Bowing to both is not a middle ground, when our goal is to NOT bow to anyone in the first place.
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