Pirates and Chinese frontier expansion

Pirates and Chinese frontier expansion

I would like to comment on the letter from Mr. Santo
Darmosumarto (The Jakarta Post, Feb. 3, 2000) titled Making sense
of Beijing's conduct in the S. China Sea, as it contains not only
inaccuracies but distorted facts.

Mr. Santo has written and suggested that China is trying to
attain the state goal by turning a blind eye on illegal fishing
and piracy by Chinese citizens in military fatigues with the
calculated intention of extending China's maritime jurisdiction
and through establishment of a reign of terror. He has also
suggested that Chinese pirates are indirectly exerting Chinese
influence over the disputed territory. I would advise Mr. Santo
to read more newspapers.

The Straits Times reported on Dec. 23, 1999 that China
sentenced 13 pirates to death and one of the co-ringleaders was
Indonesian. On Jan. 29, 2000, the Times reported the execution of
the 13 pirates, including the Indonesian ring leader, ending
their "reign of terror" of murdering 23 Chinese crewmen. And on
Jan. 29, 2000, in the Singaporean Straits Times, it was reported
on page 3 that one of the three pirate attacks around the world
last year took place in and around Indonesian waters. And there
were 113 reported attacks in Indonesian waters according to the
Indonesian Maritime Bureau (IMB). The director of IMB, Mr.
Pottengal Mukundan in London, has also praised China for its
action.

On Feb. 3, the same day, Santo's letter was published, The
Straits Times also reported in its East Asia File that a Chinese
court jailed 14 Myanmar pirates for hijacking a Taiwanese cargo
ship. Actually, China has been a victim of pirates since the
early 1500s by the Japanese Wokou pirates.

The silk route was opened not by military conquest or by force
but by peaceful efforts. The great emperor, Han Wuti, sent the
legendary Chinese emissary, Zhang Qian, in 138 B.C. with 100 men
to establish diplomatic relations and allies with the Central
Asian kingdom and its people in order to officially open the silk
trade routes. Zhang Qian came back 13 years later with only one
other man after surviving two abductions, committed respectively
by the barbarian Xiongnu and the Tibetans.

The frontier strategy being traced to the Qin Dynasty (221
B.C. to 208 B.C.), as stated by Santo, was also very much
misleading. The Chinese frontier strategy from the Qin Dynasty
till the Ming Dynasty (1368 to 1644) built and reconnected the
great walls in its northern border to try to fend off invasions
and lootings by marauding nomadic barbarians. But China was never
successful in containing such invasions by the great walls. Soon
after Shi Wangti unified China, he ordered to build and connect
the existing Great Wall to almost 2,200 km.

Despite the great walls, China was always attacked and invaded
by nomadic barbarians, who were finally driven out of China not
by China, but by foreigners during the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty and
later by the foreigners during the Manchurian Dynasty. A few
other previous kingdoms also successfully conquered the northern
part of China (Northern Wei in South and North dynasty period).
Yuan Mongolian and Manchurian Ching conquered China completely,
but they then adopted the conquered Chinese civilization. If the
conquerors adopted the conquered's civilization, we will have to
admit the superiority of the Chinese civilization. And inherent
in Chinese civilization, is cultural pacifism and in it,
Confucian's thoughts, which despise military violence, and reward
and punishment as advocated by Han Fei Tzu legalists, which
played a big role.

Civilian control over the military was also officially
instituted a millennium ago since the Song Dynasty. And
traditionally the military commanders tended to be Confucian
scholars who would write and recite poems in the battlefield. All
these led to Chinese military deficiencies and weaknesses.
However, as JFK Fairbanks points out, that has also made China to
be an indestructible political unit since the Song Dynasty.

The Sun Tzu art of war is also no match for Machiavellism,
which is being studied in western and Indonesian Military schools
here.

SIA KA MOU

Jakarta