To honestly tell u, all this 9 nations plus China is into the
spratly issues bcos there is oil or gas 'potential' on them,
whoever can sustain a strong control over spratly is also going to
gain a strategic advantage, lets say for example, PLAN managed to
build a network of SIGINT or ELINT devices together with a a few
good, deep well equipped ports, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and
perhaps Australia and New Zealand. It might throw the region into a
arms race.
The part of the Ming era thing, I'm just making an analogy on
examples of possible wide and ridiculous claims.
Like I say, I do not mind a strong China and India. The magic word
is trust, commitment, fairness. Is China going to respect and
interact positively with the Asean nations and treat us as equals,
or are they just going to go about muscle flexing to accomplish
economical gains? Are they going to look at us as a nation or some
vassal state like in Ming era? Like spiderman once said " Great
power comes with great responsiblities" America as a power has
shown the world how high-handed and aggressive they are. Is China
going to morph into a new "America". Wat worry me is thatin
America, ppls are allow to protest, voice their views and pressure
the government, to not go to war in Iraq. Like for example it is
the power of the media that exposed the Abu Gharib Prison incident.
My question is, does China has a critical, open media to question
watever the government do? Just look at how they cover up SARS,
send dissidents to harsh labour camps, and how successful those
government setup forums in PRC is,.......... China might end up
walking the path of WW2 Japan, as Japan then as a weak parliament,
and its cabinets are filled with mostly, military high ranking ppl.
