The 1969 British science fiction movie Journey to the Far Side of the Sun describes how an astronaut travels to a previously unknown planet, hidden on other side of the sun. Crash-landing on the planet, he initially believes he had somehow returned home, only to realize that the new planet is a mirror image of the Earth.
Chinese Ministry of National Defense spokesman Colonel Wu Qian (吳謙) on Thursday last week repeated the official Chinese Communist Party (CCP) line that a certain area “has been China’s territory since ancient times. This is an undeniable fact.”
Taiwanese are very familiar with this phrasing, and are used to pushing back against Beijing’s lies. They are becoming weary of doing so, and yet they must, just so that their voice does not get drowned out.
Wu was not talking about Taiwan in this case; he was referring to the region of Arunachal Pradesh in northeastern India that the CCP has started calling Zangnan, or “southern Tibet.”
China’s state-backed Global Times on Sunday reported that the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs had released its latest list of Mandarin Chinese names for places and geographical features in Arunachal Pradesh, a total of 30 names — 11 residential areas, 12 mountains, four rivers, one lake, one mountain pass and a stretch of land.
It is the fourth such list, the first having been released in 2017.
India responded by calling the claims and the attempt to rename the features “absurd,” saying that unilaterally renaming territory over which a nation has no legitimate claim changes nothing.
Online news show Vantage host Palki Sharma on the Indian news Web site Firstpost reported that the move was in response to construction work that New Delhi has ordered in Arunachal Pradesh and Ladakh regions, including the newly completed Sela tunnel that connects Arunachal Pradesh with Assam.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin (汪文斌) last month said that “India has no right to unilaterally develop Zangnan, which belongs to China” because “the China-India boundary question has yet to be solved.”
It is difficult to square how exactly Wang’s principle fits in with China’s developments in contested waters in the South China Sea, unless one understands that, to the CCP, these issues have already been settled.
It seems likely that the most recent list of Chinese names for features in Arunachal Pradesh are only partially an angry response to the border construction work, and are very much related to India’s recent support of Manila in its claims over the West Philippine Sea, which falls within the part of the South China Sea that Beijing says belongs to China.
China’s ongoing border dispute with India, its contested claims in the South China Sea and Taiwan’s disagreement with the CCP about the sovereignty of the Republic of China are not just aggressive presumptions in the face of the facts as recognized by the international community, they are a salami-slicing methodology that Beijing employs, even down to the exact phrasing of objections by Chinese spokespersons such as Wu and Wang.
India’s experience in its dealings with the CCP as a bad-faith partner in negotiating disputes mirrors that of Taiwan and the Philippines. The difference is that both India and the Philippines are recognized in the international community as being normal nations, while Taiwan does not have this luxury. With more international actors having the same experience as Taiwan, perhaps its voice would start being heard more clearly.
India’s solution is to “stay the course, try to avoid conflict while aggressively preparing for it,” Sharma said.
How familiar this is to Taiwanese. It seems the solution is also mirrored on the far side of China.
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