Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News
Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News |
| China unlikely to budge on thorny South China Sea dispute Posted: 12 Nov 2011 03:55 PM PST "ASEAN does not even have a common stand on the South China Sea dispute and has a poor track record in settling issues like this," said Rommel Banlaoi, executive director of Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research. Reuters Pressured at home and increasingly sensing a concerted regional effort to contain its territorial claims, China will be in no mood to make concessions on vast areas of the disputed South China Sea at two key east Asian summits in Indonesia this week. China has the most extensive historic sovereignty claims in the potentially oil and gas rich South China Sea, including uninhabited atolls near the equatorial northern coast of Borneo. Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei are the other claimants to parts of the sea, and along with the United States and Japan, are pressuring Beijing to try and seek some way forward on the knotty issue of sovereignty, which has flared up again this year with often tense maritime stand-offs. But China, growing in confidence and military power, will see no reason to back down, a foreign policy analyst said. "It's pretty prominent and pretty powerful now, so why back down now?" Kerry Brown, head of the Asia Programme at Chatham House, a London foreign policy institute. "It would be odd for it to do so when you consider how big its strategic needs are, its energy needs, and the potential that these disputed territories have to fulfil those," he added. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is attending first a summit with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), followed straight after by the East Asia Summit on November 19, both on the Indonesian resort island of Bali. The East Asia Summit has been held every year since 2005. It gathers senior officials or leaders from Southeast Asia, China, Japan, India, Australia, South Korea and New Zealand. US President Barack Obama is also due to attend this year. Diplomats say the South China Sea will most likely be raised during the two meetings. Claimants to the sea have been trying to cool tension after a series of disputes this year, including when Chinese patrol boats threatened to ram a Philippine-contracted survey ship in the Reed Bank in March. China and Vietnam last month signed an agreement seeking to contain the dispute, but the wording was vague and contained little new that the two sides had not agreed on previously. "It's really only a question of time before we see another incident of the kind we saw earlier this year," said Ian Storey, a fellow at Singapore's Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. "China opposes any discussion of the issue at these kinds of forums," he added. "It opposes the 'internationalisation' of the problem. That's a limiting factor because China is obviously the key player in all of this and if it doesn't want to talk you're not going to make much headway." China insists the dispute can only be resolved by bilateral talks between the parties directly concerned and has reacted angrily to attempts by the United States or old enemy Japan to get involved. India too has entered the frame via an oil exploration agreement with Vietnam. With US bases to the east in Japan and South Korea, China fears its southern flank could be threatened if the United States stepped up its naval presence in the South China Sea, even if, as Washington says, it only wants to protect freedom of navigation. Expecting ASEAN to play a role could also be wishful thinking. "ASEAN does not even have a common stand on the South China Sea dispute and has a poor track record in settling issues like this," said Rommel Banlaoi, executive director of Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research. China's state-run press has given wide coverage to the dispute. Last week, the overseas edition of the People's Daily warned East Asian countries against letting the United States poke its nose in prickly questions like the South China Sea. "Everything shows that the United States will provoke the contradictions which exist between countries in this region for its own benefit," it said in a commentary. As well, more than 80 per cent of respondents to an on-line survey the Global Times' website said force should be used to resolve the issue, putting a degree of public pressure on the government not to surrender or weaken its claims. "Whatever happens, I hope the country does not let its people lose face over this," wrote one on-line reader of the popular tabloid, run by Communist Party mouthpiece the People's Daily. A former Chinese naval officer and academic at China's National Defence University warned in the Global Times on Friday that China risked "leaving fallow one's own land" if it were not more active in the South China Sea. "Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines have all established a presence. We should be more proactive in strengthening our presence and control," Fan Jinfa wrote.
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| Shall we dread or welcome the dragon? Posted: 12 Nov 2011 03:40 PM PST Chinese astrologers have no clear answer about what to expect next year. There may be turmoil ahead, or there may be peace At present, one of the mostly hotly debated controversies is the end-of-the-world prediction of the Mayans. According to the calendar of that ancient civilisation, the end will come on Dec 21, 2012. It has been speculated that it will come about as a result of Earth colliding with some object from space, or a coronal mass ejection from the sun, or an explosion of a black hole. Stanley Koh, Free Malaysia Today The water dragon will rule in the Chinese year of 4709, which runs from Feb 4, 2012 to Feb 9, 2013. What do the energies of this fabulous creature have in store for humanity? The optimists would like to think that we are entering a period of civility, compassion and spiritual advancement, the kind of fairy tale world you see depicted in so many of those traditional Chinese paintings. The realists, however, see little good news on the horizon. Recent reports about the world population exceeding seven billion, coupled with fears of extreme weather conditions, have raised new concerns about the future of humanity. According to some astrologers, some of the energies brought by the dragon are similar to those brought by the dog in terms of their karmic effects on society. They say many natural disasters and manmade catastrophes have happened in dragon or dog years or even in months, days, hours or seconds in which one of these animals was on the ascendant. The South Asia tsunami of Dec 26, 2004, for example, happened during the hour of either the dragon or the dog. The Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attack on New York happened in the hour of the dragon. The 2010 massacre of Hong Kong tourists in Manila took place in the hour of the dog. However, not all is bleak in dragon years. In 1952, which was also a water dragon year, Elizabeth II was crowned Queen of England. The Mousetrap, a play based on an Agatha Christie story, opened in London and became the longest continuously running theatre production in history. And medical history was made with the first separation of Siamese twins at Mt Sinai Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. Many successful personalities were born in 1952, and they include people who have become CEOs of Coca Cola, Exxon, Mobile, Time Warner, Colgate and ITT. Dragons, as characters in mythology and folklore, are not exclusive to Chinese tradition. They appear in Mesopotamian lore as well as many European myths. The English word "dragon" is derived from the Latin "draconern" for "huge serpent". In Western myths, dragons are fearsome creatures. They destroy villages, abduct maidens and wreak all kinds of havoc on mankind. The Chinese, however, regard this creature with a respectful awe. Many emperors and dynasties adopted the image of the dragon as symbols of power and wealth. To pessimists, the global scene in the 21st century will continue to be unpleasant, if not more so, regardless of astrological changes. They believe the powerful and influential are likely to go on seeking more power, fame and wealth and dominating this dog-eat-dog world. Nobody has ever won any prizes for accurately predicting disasters and catastrophes, but Chinese astrologers were not too far off the mark when they predicted that the current Year of the Rabbit would be a year of social and political upheavals in some parts of the world.
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