by Diego Morra
China Daily may have thought that millions would be riled up by its racial slur on Filipinos after some mindless propagandist depicted 120 million Filipinos as monkeys and puppets of the United States and Japan, both of which support the July 12, 2016 Arbitral Award by the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague that junked the “historical claims” of Beijing over maritime features in the South China Sea (SCS), including Panatag Shoal.
Filipinos do not worship monkeys and other primates but the Chinese do, elevating the monkey king Sun Wo Kung to a god, a wily operator in a Chinese novel who beat the shit out of the Jade Emperor. In fact, the Chinese have been calling their country Zhongguo after many warring warlords agreed to consolidate their fiefdoms into a kingdom less than 5,000 years ago. The Chinese should worship Filipino “monkety kings” and stop monkeying around the map. Remember, the people of Formosa had administered their own affairs for 6,000 years, long before the savages of China organized themselves into a fictional empire. Unless the Chinese see the bitter truth that Beijing is now regarded as no better than US imperialism, it would never stop claiming lands everywhere. Indeed, China now wants to control Benham Rise. Next? the seas surrounding Latin American countries.
Thus, the claim that Taiwan is indisputably Chinese territory is as bogus a claim as that of pigs flying and birds having teeth. As the French would say “fils de pute.” Or the Argentines disgusted at marauding Chinese squid ships would howl: “Come mierda!” China never administered Taiwan for a single second in 6,000 years while Japan did control the territory while Filipino troops sent by the Spanish colonizers to Northern Taiwan controlled the territory for six years. What is the basis for China’s expansive claims in SCS, a Chinese astronomer divining the extent of the Middle Kingdom down to the Sunda Strait in the 13th century, or the retouched 1602 Ricci-Li map in Liaoning that actually showed the Asian region as comprised of wealthier, more modern and certainly more advanced economies?
The original 1602 Ricci-Li map showed that Panatag Shoal was beyond the 24th parallel claimed by China, along with other maritime features that a Kuomintang oceanographer drew up as encompassed by 11-dash line. China never conquered any foreign land throughout dynastic rule, from the marauding Mongols to the Han and the Manchus, and emperors were busy trying to organize their own kingdom as to be bothered by expansive forays overseas. The tributes given to emperors did not equate to sovereignty or territorial control. The Chinese wanted trade and trade was what they got.
Why did the China Daily resort to portraying Filipinos as monkeys? The Peking Man also resembled a money, as well as fossils recovered in China, when Beijing was actually theorizing that Homo sapiens sapiens originated from Zhongguo (the Filipino term for monkey could have been derived from Zhongguo that, through metathesis, became tsonggo or unggoy. There must have been millions of monkeys in China that China’s name became synonymous with monkeys during the time when Austronesians developed various languages and dialects spanning a wide area from the Pacific up to Madagascar. So, it is no wonder, too, that the Chinese must have also feasted on monkey meat just as they devoured anything with four feet, except a table, or engaged in cannibalism by transforming fetuses into protein-rich soups.
The Chinese government’s insistence on reminding the Koreans and the Japanese as being part of the Greater Chinese people and must unite with Beijing is a throwback to the ugly idea that China was responsible for human speciation, the peopling of the Earth and the equally despicable idea that they must be accorded deference since they are the chosen, like the Jews who are engaged in genocide in Gaza and the West Bank. Thus, they are entitled to exceptionalism, and the whole world must quake when Beijing roars. The Philippines bears no responsibility for the Chinese debacles of the past. The Opium Wars were not the handiwork of Manila but aggression inflicted by the British and the opium traders of Singapore. China should punish them for centuries of shame since China suffered a string of bloody defeats to Japan and Russia.
At any rate, it is the Chinese who venerate monkey kings and gods, not Filipinos who are condemned by geography to forever confront Chinese revanchism and bullying and its complete disregard for treaties it has signed. Beijing has also proven that its word, its signature and its diurnal pledges amount to nothing but toilet paper or adult diapers commonly used by Chinese bureaucrats. Since it produced its magical historical claims of 1947, China has deliberately razed its solemn promise to abide by the provisions of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and respect the decisions of the PCA, which was established precisely to adjudicate disputes under UNCLOS. China reneged on this, betraying its lack of sincerity and its resort to big power chauvinism.
As a matter of course, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) protested the racism of the China Daily tirade. It is far worse than the caricature of a Chinese leader that earned the goat of the Chinese Embassy. Yet, the Chinese should be true to their myths and their firm belief in monkey kings by worshipping Filipinos who oppose the Jade Emperor and who are not scared of fire or water. The naked truth being what it is, the Chinese should take a good look at the map and find out that monkey kings have their own exclusive economic zone (EEZ) more than 800 kilometers from China. Spare the monkey kings of your harassment and abuses. It is fairly easy to be civilized. Remember the admonition of Socrates: Those who lose arguments resort to slander.#