Keeping U.S. Imperialists away.
(Herman Tiu Laurel/ DieHard III/ Tribune column for 5-27-2015 Wednesday)
Harvard scholar Garikai Chengu wrote in Global Research, “Africa’s ‘Second Liberation’ against Today’s Neo-Colonialism…’On Monday March 25, many African Government offices, businesses and banks grind to a halt in order to commemorate Africa Day. In schools up and down the continent, little children are taught that heroic Africans liberated the continent from racist white colonial regimes… the worst crimes against humanity…”
Gaddafi and Libya is a symbol of Africa’s struggle, “Under Gaddafi, Libya was a shining example of how Africans can liberate themselves…in August 2011, President Obama confiscated $30 billion from Libya’s Central Bank,… earmarked for the establishment of the African IMF and African Central Bank…. embarking on a continental mineral refinement program that… shifted the economic balance between Africa and the West… financially support any African governments that desired to undergo the redistribution stage of liberation.”
Here in Asia an awakened China is establishing a new perimeter defences against the resurgence of Western colonialism in the region. The recent attempt by a U.S. spy plane to provoke China flying over the Yongshu Island (Fiery Cross Reef and Kagitingan respectively to the U.S. and Philippines) was met with radio alerts from the Chinese who have a reclamation projects in that part of the disputed sea, marking an implicit air identification zone particularly for U.S. incursions.
To keep perspective we must recall the April 1, 2001 Hainan incident when a U.S. Navy EP-3EAries II Intel aircraft entered the airspace of the Hainan province of China, was met by two PLAN (People’s Liberation Army Navy) J-811 interceptor fighters of which one collided with the U.S. plane and disappeared into the sea with its pilot. The U.S. Navy plane made a forced landing on Hainan Island and taken by the Chinese. Today, 2015, 1100 kilometers before any Chinese mainland shoreline U.S. spy planes will be spotted and identified.
In the course of the recent controversies China’s navy chief Wu Shengli explained during consultations, to US chief of naval operations Jonathan Greenert that “[We] welcome international organisations, the United States and relevant countries to use these facilities in the future when conditions are right, to have co-operation on humanitarian search and rescue and disaster relief,…” The important point is – the U.S. can no longer sneak in like a thief in the night into just any place or area in this region.
The BS Aquino government and its anti-China groups are raring to emulate the U.S. and challenge China’s de facto ADIZ. They’ll get radio warnings, but a de facto ADIZ is not a “no fly zone” that only the U.S. and Nato have been in the habit of imposing on other countries. The tragedy of Philippine foreign policy and much its Intelligentsia and media is that they cannot or do not want to see that China’s actions as part of the global anti-Imperialism and anti-neo-colonialism imperative.
China and Asia have been victims of imperialism and neo-colonialism for five centuries, to lose sight of this is an invitation to a second imperialist and colonialist takeover. Anti-China rabble-rousers will insist now that China’s acts are imperialist aggression but we must ask: Does a country that invites everyone to share in the use of its air and sea port facilities acting like an imperialist and aggressor or a country? Or is it a country that knows Western Imperialism’s “pivot” is real and the gravest threat to the Asian Century.
Does a country that invited since the 1980s, claimants to the disputed islands and atolls of the China Sea to talk and shelve the disputations and engage in joint development and mutual benefit from the isles and sea assets describe an imperialist and hegemonic country? No. It is the country that boasts of ten aircraft carrier armadas, sending them East, West and the Middle East to threaten other countries with “No Fly Zones” and bomb the hell out of millions of civilians. The U.S. and its European allieas can’t do that now to Asia.
South African president Jacob Zuma spoke of in an speech December 2014 said, “The emergence of China as a power… offers an opportunity to African countries to be able to free themselves from the shackles that are really colonially designed,… Europe in particular, you are regarded as either a former subject or a second and third class kind of a person… the relationship between China and African countries,….We relate as brothers and sisters to do business… not because one is a poor cousin….”
Asia can help Africa and the World be free of imperialism and colonialism, by its self being free of U.S. and Western Imperialism and colonialism. China is key to keeping this so. (Tune to: Sulô ng Pilipino, 1098 AM, dwAD, Tues. to Fri., 5-6 p.m.; GNN Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 21, Sat., 8 p.m. and replay Sun., 8 a.m.; search Talk News TV and Saturday date on YouTube; text reactions to 0917-8658664)
