Taking RP and Filipinos for saps?

Taking RP and Filipinos for saps?

(Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III / The Daily Tribune / 07-10-2013 WED)

For over a week now, a Reuters report on China’s supposed threat of a “counterstrike” has riled and wildly agitated Philippine media and officialdom.  Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Secretary Albert del Rosario was quoted as having branded the alleged “official” statement as “irresponsible.” Countless media commentators, including “military experts” and “diplomats”--from BusinessWorld’s Rafael Alunan to Manila Standard Today’s Ambassador Alejandro del Rosario--lambasted the supposed counterstrike threat.  I hope they had watched Global News Network (GNN)’s Sunday show with Kit Tatad that featured his interview with the premier China expert in the Philippines, Chito Sta. Romana, where the latter revealed Reuters’ error in translation.  We would love to give them copies just so that they’d sober up.

 

Chito sent us a comparison of the Chinese characters used by Reuters and the exact words used in the opinion piece in the People’s Daily.  I don’t know if Tribune’s printing press is able to print these characters so I’ll also supply the phonetics.  According to Chito, the “Chinese characters used in the original article are 反制, which means ‘counter-measures’ (pronounced “fanzhi”).  Somehow it got translated by the international media as ‘counter-strike,’ which is 反击 (pronounced “fanji”).  I read the Reuters article with the ‘counter-strike’ translation, which was carried by our media.  Here is the link to the Chinese article on ‘counter-measures’: http://world.people.com.cn/n/2013/0629/c1002-22014733.html.  “Fanzhi” (反制) can be found in the second line of the last paragraph.”

 

Did the erroneous Reuters translation intend to take the Philippines (and Filipinos) for a wild ride on anti-China vituperations?  We’ll never know that for sure; but clearly, many of our so-called “intelligentsia” had been too easily aroused to rabid anti-China and war-mongering sentiments.

 

These Filipino pundits are perhaps only too eager to show their abiding obedience to the unspoken desires of the traditional Western masters of this land that ever since they read between the lines of Obama’s “pivot to Asia,” they’ve been falling all over each other to outdo the US hawks in portraying China as “the bully” and the new “hegemon.”  Yet no matter how much they can be reasonably excused for their rabble rousing (if not utter stupidity), for the DFA to be caught in such a wrong-footed interpretation of the “counter-measure” reply is just sheer incompetence.

 

Indeed, the obsequiousness of these pundits and officials inevitably lead to their silliness.  Take for instance this report, “Palace welcomes US diplomat’s stance against China bullying.”  Who was the “diplomat” in question and what the context in which he stated his opinion?  Don’t be surprised but the story was based on comments made during a US Senate confirmation hearing for the promotion of Director for Asian Affairs Danny Russell to Assistant for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, both of which are actually very low posts in the totem pole of the US State Department.  His comments were, however, made front page headlines by the local mainstream media.

 

Chito Sta. Romana observed that the Philippines may now be learning from its past errors of reacting too quickly and too frequently to very low level or even unofficial media, as well as academic opinions that do not reflect official Chinese policy.  I guess he was being a bit too optimistic.

 

There is much disinformation from Western media that we must always sift through.  Alunan, already erring in his “counterstrike” retort, even adds, “Despite China’s atrocious ownership claims, no proof exists to back it up.  From WikiLeaks, Cable 08BEIJING3499, sent to Washington by the US embassy in Beijing on Sept. 9, 2008, (it was) reported that a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) official… could not identify specific historical records to justify China’s ‘Nine Dashes’ claim…”

 

But as far as the Chinese (Taiwan and People’s Republic of China) side is concerned, it is pretty clear that “China’s 1948 nine-dash line map shows the sea border… (and that) China’s nine-dash line map was undisputed for 50 years from 1948 to 1998…”

 

So as the legal tit-for-tat continues, mutually beneficial bilateral talks are being blocked by a lone Asean minority and the real lone global hegemonist.

 

Unfortunately, the seemingly deliberate distortions in Philippine media about China are even bordering on the ridiculous.  A column in Manila Standard Today entitled, “Why China needs a war,” cited a slew of Chinese domestic concerns, such as an economy on a slump; exports facing hard times; communist rule in peril due to an educated young population; Tiananmen anniversary and “hate frenzy” diverted against Japan; Xinjiang troubles; widespread pollution; bird flu, etc., and that “instead of solving these problems,” the writer claims that “China is busy building a mighty army and a blue water navy to bully its neighbors who are disputing its claim over the entire South China Sea.”

 

But China has had the worst of these problems since 1949 and never had to resort to any major war as a solution.  As for the other so-called problem--the slump in growth to 7 percent--it is definitely a “problem” that other countries would dearly love to have.

 

China knows it needs a war like a hole in the head.  It is actually the US that constantly starts many wars--this time provoking China--in order to thwart the rise of the erstwhile sleeping Dragon.

 

Some anti-China pundits are desperate to whip up more reasons to fire up Filipino xenophobia against the Chinese, apparently egged on by a Filipino-American woman who had a failed business in and a failed boycott campaign against the Asian superpower.  Like the pro-Western Reuters news agency, this anti-Chinese bigot is also taking Filipinos for saps.

 

(Tune in to 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN Destiny Cable Channel 8, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., this week on “China, RP, and US hegemonism”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 09234095739)