China’s Bull Connor Treatment of the Philippines
Racism as a Driver in CCP Decisions in the South China Sea
It's a favorite pastime of academics and the more liberal arts inclined in Hong Kong and Taiwan to discuss how racist their respective societies can be at times. I’ve always pushed back on their premise. I have witnessed plenty of discrimination over my nearly 30 years of living in both Hong Kong and Taiwan. Yet the improvements in attitudes on race and policies have been significant since I first arrived in Asia. Not perfect, but it’s vastly improved, and at this point praise is getting more results than scorn.
On the other hand, there is China. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is by design, racist and xenophobic. As an African American friend from Virginia said; “There are Klansman who’d find the Chinese a bit too much”. She’s not wrong. Mongolians, Tibetans, Uyghurs, all have conflicts underway with the Chinese Communist Party, where racism is openly used at every turn against these domestic ethnic groups.
Those traits are at work in China’s activities and policies, not only inside China, but more dangerously for the world, in their aggression in the South China Sea in dealing with the Philippines. The CCP uses racism and xenophobia in all aspects of gaining domestic support inside China in justifying their actions in the South China Sea.
We won’t have a war because Chinese racism is at work against those inside China’s borders. However, we may well be driving towards conflict, in part, driven by Chinese bigotry and the undying belief in China of Han superiority over Southeast Asian ethnicities. The CCP’s theme is clear for China in the South China Sea. We own it. We always have. These lesser peoples have no business opposing us.
Chinese diplomats telling small countries they should remember their size in relation to China is in line with the CCP, and its People’s Liberation Army and Navy, reminding Southeast Asia that they have always been ruled by Han, and still are. The message to Filipino’s and others in Asia has become, “listen to your bettors.”
During the recent Shangri-La dialogue in Singapore, Asia came face to face with Chinese military officers not only playing the, “we are the biggest kids on the block” theme, but an obvious disdain for the rights of Filipinos and others who border a South China Sea that China claims as its own. The attitude on display in Singapore is not one based on “respect for equals”.
If you didn’t see racial overtones to the PLA generals challenge and tone in badgering Philippine President Marcos, my bet is you probably think there’s nothing awkward about your golf club located just outside Atlanta having no black members.
I was once told by a Sinologist, who most would consider a leader in the field of China studies, the world will be a more dangerous place when we see a China emerge under Xi Jinping where, “the desired retribution on the West for perceived slights against China from the past are married up with the ever-present sense of Han Superiority.”
What drives the actions of the CCP in Southeast Asia is not just a knowledge of military superiority but rather a sense of racial superiority that shows in everything from the incredulous response from the CCP to the Filipinos even thinking they have a right of response to China in terms of territorial claims, to the treatment of the Filipino people and their leaders that only comes from the sin of racism.
As concerning as it is that the CCP cannot even conceive of being challenged by an ethnicity they consider inferior; there is also a very worrying belief, a retired former senior diplomat recently told me, that the Chinese don't think the United States would come to the aid of the Philippines, as why would somebody aid the Filipinos?
Racism has had a strong hand in most conflicts. Name the tyrant and one can name the bigotry that played a role in their decision to go to war. It’s not a question of racism and xenophobia being an ugly factor of life inside China. What is more concerning is if the CCP’s promotion of those two evils will contribute to launching a war in the South China Sea.
Between the anti-Japanese outburst yesterday and the 4 Americans, this is right on the money...