Tag Archives: South China Sea

Letter from Manila: Negotiating at Gunpoint

Posted on by

November 15, 2022

By Greg Rushford

Manila, Philippines — It’s past time to sound some national security alarm bells. The Philippines, America’s oldest treaty ally in the Pacific, has been facing economic and military pressures from China. Beijing’s bullying has been intensifying gradually for more than thirty years. The hard truth is that the Chinese are winning.

The PLA Navy — clearly contrary to international law, as determined by an international tribunal in The Hague in 2016 — has been preventing Philippine fishers from casting their nets in the South China Sea. Chinese predatory fishing in Philippine waters has been devastating to corals and other marine life, while also causing Philippine fish stocks to drop more than 60 percent. And now, adding insult to injury, China has been exporting Philippine fish it has stolen — back to the Philippines.

The same PLA Navy has been preventing the Philippines from developing much-needed oil and gas resources in Philippine waters — notably including Reed Bank, which is within the Philippines’ continental shelf and is believed to have the energy resources needed to keep the country’s electricity grids running. Xi Jinping, the general secretary of the Communist Party of China, has given his coast guard permission to shoot to kill any Philippine exploration vessels that interfere with China’s ambitions to develop Reed Bank’s resources. Former Philippine Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio observes that Xi’s bullying “clearly violates international law.”

Xi is essentially demanding that Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. negotiate away his country’s energy independence — at gunpoint. As Eduardo Mañalac told me, because of the political risk associated with the Chinese military intimidation around Philippine oil-exploration fields, no major western market-oriented oil company will touch the Philippines. Xi is basically asking Marcos to agree to negotiate only with Chinese state-owned drilling concerns which do not pretend to adhere to international standards of financial transparency.

Mañalac is a respected former president of the Philippine National Oil Company, and a former senior official in the Philippines’ energy department. His concerns over the corrosive effects of Chinese corruption are well-taken in leading international energy circles. And in Manila’s legal circles, the scent of scandal is in the air, fueled by pending civil litigation alleging high-level governmental cronyism, and also criminal complaints alleging graft.

If Xi Jinping succeeds in intimidating the new Philippine president, who has only been in office since June, China will develop and control a key part of the Philippine energy sector. The Philippines will have been shamed — and residents of cities like Manila will have Xi to thank, every time they turn their lights on.

It’s worth looking back briefly at how one of America’s most important security allies has landed in such a predicament. Last month, I spent two intense weeks of mostly off-the-record talks with the usual journalistic sources, ranging from ordinary citizens who chafe at Chinese bullying to the higher echelons from the worlds of national security, diplomacy, politics, law, and business. The gist of what I picked up points to one bottom line: a lack of necessary political will at the presidential levels in both Washington and Manila, dating to the early 1990s.

What Happens when the Yankees Really Do Go Home

In 1991, the United States Air Force and Navy evacuated the large U.S. bases at Clark Field and Subic Bay. Volcanic eruptions from nearby Mt. Pinatubo that covered both bases in ash were the immediate impetus for the pullout. But the real reason involved insular-looking Philippine domestic politics. That, plus American stubbornness during endless negotiations over the usual suspect: money.

Then-President Corazon Aquino and some of her aides who wore anti-American chips on their shoulders had made it plain that Uncle Sam just wasn’t welcome anymore. And the Yankees, fed up with years of negotiations over basing rights that went nowhere, were happy to go home.

While over the years, the Philippines has succeeded commendably in turning the former U.S. bases into one of the most thriving hubs of economic growth in Southeast Asia. But watchful military eyes in Beijing soon perceived that the Philippines was left defenseless.

In 1995, the Philippines discovered that the Chinese navy had seized Mischief Reef, a tiny speck in the South China Sea that is part of the Philippines’ continental shelf. Chinese officials insisted that that they were just erecting fishing shelters. Manila and its neighbors in ASEAN fussed for awhile, but basically shrugged.

The PLA Navy on the Move

Visiting Manila in 1998, I saw Philippine reconnaissance photos that showed that the Chinese had erected military features on Mischief Reef, gun turrets, and such. When those photos hit the Manila papers, there was a public outcry (at least involving ordinary Filipinos, if not so much business elites with their eyes on doing business with a rising China).

Meanwhile, officials in then-President Bill Clinton’s State Department were not much bothered. Don’t worry: China lacks the resources necessary to project real military power, I was told.

The Clinton White House was busy extending a helping hand to a mainland China that wanted to get back on its feet and join the market-oriented global economy, after decades of economic mismanagement by the Communist Party of China. Clinton saw a potential peaceable economic partner, not a strategic rival-in-waiting.

From 2001 to 2008, the drift continued. President George W. Bush, his hands full with Iraq and Afghanistan, never seemed to focus on the future dangers associated with Chinese mischief in the South China Sea.

As had his predecessor Clinton, Bush welcomed China into the World Trade Organization in 2001. Inside WTO headquarters in Geneva, China quickly assumed the mantle of a responsible participant in multilateral negotiations, including those aimed at persuading governments to slash subsidies to their fishing fleets that were engaged in illegal fishing. But on the high seas, the Chinese fishing fleets kept doing ever more environmental damage. By 2016, marine biologists were warning that the South China Sea’s fish stocks were heading toward collapse.

An American President Blinks

By the time President Barack Obama, who sat in the Oval Office from 2009-2016, completed his eight years in office, the PLA Navy had taken near-total control of the South China Sea.  

The PLA Navy, of course, had its eyes on much more than fish. The story is now as familiar as it is disconcerting: how the Chinese created artificial islands out of white sand and coral in Philippine Exclusive Economic Zone. What were once half-submerged specks in the sea are now modern Chinese naval and air bases. Mischief Reef, Fiery Cross, and Subi Reef have hardened runways for jet fighters, sophisticated radars, jamming equipment, lasers, anti-aircraft missile launchers, and more.

The United States Navy, which specializes in conventional surface warfare — but isn’t so adept at waging political warfare — watched America’s former military dominance of the South China Sea slip away. Beijing’s weapons of choice were a mixture of the usual sleight-of-hand: propaganda and disinformation proclaiming Chinese good intentions, sand dredgers, and coast guard ships that were accompanied by swarms of maritime militia “fishing” fleets. 

While all this was underway, Xi assured China’s neighbors that his military would not weaponize the South China Sea. That was, of course, a lie.  But the disinformation worked. As Seth Jones has written, China took the South China Sea “without firing a shot.”

Obama watched all this happen. He promised senior Philippine officials I’ve spoken with that America would not just stand idly by. But that’s what he did.

Washington Starts to Pay Attention

It wasn’t until 2020 that an American secretary of state, Michael Pompeo, working with David Stillwell, a respected Asian hand who headed State’s East Asian Affairs bureau, stated publicly that the United States recognized that the Chinese maritime aggression was in violation of international law. Last month in Manila, I was reminded several times how welcome that statement was. The State Department had signaled that America was starting to get serious about protecting its friends in the Pacific.

Indeed, in April 2020, the U.S. Navy helped Malaysia fend off Chinese Coast Guard and maritime militias, which were trying to bully the Malaysians out of exploring for oil and gas in Malaysia’s Exclusive Economic Zone.  This is still being talked about in Manila’s national security circles.

As Philippine investigative reporter and author Marites Vitug has noted approvingly, “three American warships and an Australian frigate conducted a joint exercise near the site” of Malaysia’s exploration activities. Vitug also pointed out that when faced with such resolve, the Chinese intruders backed off.

I still cannot report that America has yet put into operation what could be called a truly sophisticated political-military-diplomatic maritime strategy. But some steps in the right direction have continued on President Joe Biden’s watch.

Last month, to cite just one of several recent encouraging developments, U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines MaryKay Carlson announced that “the United States has now made available $100 million in foreign military financing in part for the Philippine military to use as it wishes.”

Searching for Presidential Political Will in Manila

But how does one help an ally who lacks the political will to defend its own sovereignty? Former Philippine President Benigno Aquino, Jr. clearly had the necessary determination to stand up to Chinese bullying. In 2013, Aquino filed a challenge in The Hague, asserting that Chinese aggression in the South China Sea violated Beijing’s obligations as a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. And on July 12, 2016, Aquino’s move became a resounding success, when an UNCLOS tribunal ruled that China had acted illegally. It was “an overwhelming victory for the Philippines,” as Greg Poling noted in his recent, very well-received book, On Dangerous Ground.

“The judges agreed that China had illegally destroyed the marine environment through clam harvesting, intentionally created the risk of collision [with] foreign ships, and prevented the Philippines from accessing the resources of its EEZ and continental shelf,” Poling wrote.  Moreover, “they berated China for building artificial islands while the arbitration was underway.”

But there was one problem with the tribunal’s finding: it was issued twelve days after Rodrigo Duterte had succeeded Aquino as president. And it turned out that Duterte, a man who enjoyed projecting an image of a tough guy in the political arena, wasn’t so tough after all when it came to standing up to bullies in Beijing. The Philippine “strongman” refused to enforce his country’s legal victory — leaving Philippine fishing communities hanging, and potential oil and gas exploration, especially in Reed Bank, subject to the PLA Navy’s intimidation.

Just one 2018 press release issued by the historically weak Philippine Coast Guard showed the atmosphere of subservience that Duterte nourished.

Duterte and Xi Jinping had signed a maritime cooperation agreement, the release noted. So the Philippine Coast Guard had gotten busy making friends with China’s Coast Guard.  Translation:  that meant that the two coast guards bonded when they got together in Guangzhou.  Readers who have ever experienced Chinese hospitality will have already imagined the partying and entertainment.

Afterwards, the Philippine Coast Guard issued a press release that celebrated its fraternal ties with the same Chinese Coast Guard that had taken control of Philippine fishing grounds. “The two sides noted the positive outcomes of the bilateral relations and expressed their willingness to further deepen cooperation by conducting port visits, joint exercises, personnel exchange and training, and utilization of hotline communication,” the Philippine press release enthused. 

The Philippine Coast Guard now has new leadership said not to be subservient to China. Whether that’s true or not, a Coast Guard spokesman told me last month that he was not authorized to talk about Chinese maritime aggression.

Political Risk

Meanwhile, on Duterte’s watch, Philippine government officials close to him allegedly pressured two American oil majors, Shell and Chevron, to sell their shares in the Philippines’ Malampaya gas field to a crony of Duterte’s who has a reputation of being pro-Chinese. This was “extremely suspicious,” notes Eduardo Mañalac, the former president of the Philippine National Oil Company.

Malampaya is important for two reasons. It supplies perhaps 40 percent of Manila’s electric grid. And it is running out of gas reserves, which makes future exploration on Reed Bank, and elsewhere very important.

Mañalac is not the only reputable Philippine critic of the Malampaya sale. Reuben Torres, a well-regarded former executive secretary to former Philippine President Fidel Ramos, is pressing litigation that alleges that the transaction was of dubious legality. 

And the Philippines’ Office of the Ombudsman is reported to be looking into separate charges that the Malampaya transaction was criminal. 

Whatever the truth, the whiff of political risk is hanging in the political air that Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., the new Philippines president known better as “Bong Bong Marcos,” has inherited. The message to international oil majors is that Philippine energy sector is tilted in favor of Xi and the PLA Navy. Such a lack of a level playing field explains why only the Chinese government has expressed interest in exploring for oil in Chinese-controlled Philippine waters.

So how will this story end? The answer depends upon how Bong Bong Marcos responds to the bullies from Beijing.  As Greg Poling has observed, while the Chinese have been winning, they haven’t yet “won.”  

I believe that despite the previous years of mistakes in Washington, involving both Democratic and Republican presidents, the new Philippine leader will have America’s backing — if he genuinely wants it.

Stay tuned.

What Rodrigo Duterte Is Giving Up

Posted on by

The Philippine president is determined to forge closer ties with China — but at what cost?

BY GREG RUSHFORD

OCTOBER 17, 2016
Since he took office on June 30, Philippine President Rodrigo Roa Duterte — also known as “Duterte Harry” — has earned international notoriety for a harsh anti-drug campaign that has led to the extrajudicial killings of more than 3,600 alleged traffickers around the country. The crackdown has alarmed the European Union, the United Nations, and the United States. At one point Duterte called Barack Obama “a son of a whore,” later telling the U.S. president “to go to hell” after Washington dared to criticize the murders. Sooner or later, Duterte has vowed, he will “break up with America,” the Philippines’ longstanding treaty ally and security guarantor.

There’s one international power that doesn’t seem particularly bothered by Duterte’s excesses. “The Chinese side fully understands and firmly supports the Duterte administration’s policy that [prioritizes] the fight against drug crimes,” said Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Zhao Jianhua in a speech last month. He went on to express his satisfaction at the “friendly interactions’ between the two countries since the new president began his term, predicting that the sun “will shine beautifully on the new chapter of bilateral relations.”
If anything, the ambassador may have understated the matter. This week Duterte is set to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, where the two are planning to sign a range of high-level bilateral agreements that will dramatically boost trade and investment between the two countries. Nor is their new friendship restricted to business. The visit comes just days after Duterte declared an end to joint Philippine-American naval patrols in the strategically sensitive waters of the South China Sea, where China has been steadily expanding its presence despite rival claims by Manila and other countries. The 65-year alliance between the U.S. and the Philippines has never looked so fragile.The 65-year alliance between the U.S. and the Philippines has never looked so fragile.

So why the shift in policy? On one level, Duterte’s desire to seek friendship with the Chinese reflects a willingness to appease Beijing’s aggressive stance in the disputed waters. Chinese Coast Guard warships armed with machine guns and water cannons have harassed Philippine fishermen, preventing them from earning their livelihoods in their traditional fishing grounds in the South China Sea (90 percent of which China claims as its own). Chinese dredges have been deployed well within the Philippines’ 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone, where they have destroyed irreplaceable coral reefs to build airstrips and naval bases aimed at enhancing Chinese offensive power. China has also forcibly prevented Filipinos from developing valuable oil, gas, and mineral resources that they’ll need in the coming years to power their electricity grid. “I will not go to war” over such matters, Duterte has declared.

On July 12, just short of two weeks into Duterte’s presidential term, an international tribunal in The Hague ruled that China has been acting in violation of Beijing’s sworn obligations under international maritime law. The litigation was brought in 2013 by Duterte’s predecessor, Benigno Aquino Jr., who sought to use the rule of law to rally international opinion to pressure the Chinese to respect Philippine sovereignty. Now Duterte appears to be signaling that he’s willing to overlook the tribunal’s findings if China is willing to do a deal.

There are various explanations for Duterte’s eagerness to seek a compromise. Some of those who know the president well suggest that the pivot is rooted in the left-of-center ideology he has professed in his past, which left him with a residual suspicion of the West (and Americans in particular). Duterte openly admires one of his former college professors, Jose Maria Sison — the founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People’s Army. Others point out that Duterte, who has several times threatened to declare martial law, has praised authoritarian leaders like former Philippine strongman Ferdinand Marcos. And besides China’s President Xi, Russia’s Vladimir Putin has been wooing the Philippine president with suggestions of cheap financing for Russian attack helicopters.

Meanwhile, Duterte and his foreign secretary, Perfecto Yasay, have been courting the support of business elites who favor closer relations with Beijing. In his career as a lawyer, Yasay represented the interests of Chinese-Filipino tycoons who have good connections in Beijing. Yasay, who brought no foreign policy experience to his position, has also been careful to speak respectfully of the Chinese — while telling an audience of Washington, D.C. insiders that Filipinos no longer want to be America’s “little brown brothers.”Filipinos no longer want to be America’s “little brown brothers.”

Among Yasay’s prominent clients has been Lucio Tan, one of the country’s richest men, who Duterte has said was one of the first to urge him to seek the presidency. While little-known outside Asia, billionaire Tan — who was born in China’s Fujian province and is considered on the mainland to be a “patriotic” Chinese — is one of the most controversial figures in Philippine political circles. He was one of the original so-called “Marcos cronies,” who became rich thanks to the tax breaks and other government subsidies granted in the 1970s by Ferdinand Marcos.

After Marcos was deposed in 1986, a series of successive Philippine prosecutors sought unsuccessfully to recover Tan’s allegedly ill-gained wealth. Today, he is chairman of Philippine Airlines, the country’s flagship carrier, and has extensive holdings in banking, mining, tobacco, beer, hotels and property development. He’s also made some major investments in China, which have clearly earned him the goodwill of Beijing. When Chinese presidents come to Manila, they always stay in one of Tan’s hotels.

Though there’s no evidence that Duterte is financially beholden to Tan — the president says he turned down the tycoon’s offer of cash and the use of aircraft during the campaign — they share a strong interest in closer ties with the Chinese. During his campaign, Duterte received an especially warm welcome from the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, of which Tan is an honorary chairman. Along with the Chinese ambassador, Tan was one of the first prominent visitors Duterte received after his election victory.

In his eagerness to establish close economic ties with Beijing, Duterte has also said he is looking to revive various Chinese-Philippine joint ventures that were envisioned a decade ago during the presidency of Gloria Arroyo. The most notable project on Arroyo’s watch involved a $329 million telecommunications contract with China’s state-owned ZTE Corp. But Arroyo’s hopes to forge closer economic ties with China were derailed by various allegations of pay-offs that involved ZTE, Arroyo herself, and members of her entourage. Authorities in Manila recently dropped graft charges against Arroyo and her former colleagues, and her four-year house arrest has been lifted. Duterte has insisted that he had nothing to do with those decisions, though he had publicly offered to pardon Arroyo, in any case.

While no corruption allegations have surfaced in the new Duterte administration, the concerns about the adverse consequences of doing business with China remain. As Philippine professor Aileen Baviera has observed, the ZTE deal “was an example of how Chinese wealth … can undermine already weak institutions and government norms in a recipient country.”

While some members of the Manila elite worry that Duterte’s campaign of extrajudicial killings threatens to corrode the hard-won rule of law, Filipino-Chinese businessmen are among the most vocal defenders of the president’s drug war.Filipino-Chinese businessmen are among the most vocal defenders of the president’s drug war. And a tycoon from mainland China, Huang Rulun, who first acquired his wealth while living in the Philippines, has pleased Duterte by volunteering to pay for a new internment camp for thousands of drug users who have surrendered to police rather than fall victim to the slaughter.

While Duterte is currently riding high in public opinion polls, signs of a backlash are already starting to emerge. A notable indicator came last week when respected elder statesman and ex-President Fidel Ramos — whom Duterte has said would be a special envoy to China — publically expressed deep concerns about where the new Philippine leader is headed. Ramos lamented that “Team Philippines” is losing, “and losing badly.” Also last week, Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio even felt it necessary to remind Duterte that to surrender Philippine sovereign rights would be an “impeachable offense.”

Indeed, if Duterte continues on his current course — downplaying the legally binding decision of the Hague tribunal and watering down his own country’s territorial claims — his honeymoon with voters could end quickly. The Philippines remains one of the most pro-American countries in the world; in one recent survey, a whopping 92 percent of the population held positive attitudes towards the U.S. And some of the most pro-American Filipinos are to be found in the military, which looks to the American security relationship to counter Chinese bullying — which might help to explain why Duterte has been busily showering top officers with favors and cash.

Collaborator

Posted on by

 Last week marked some memorable history being made — and some key dates perhaps fraught with deeper historical significance than either Philippine President Rodrigo Roa Duterte or China’s Xi Jinping would care to be reminded of.

On Oct. 17, Xinhua reported that the president of the Philippines — then enroute for an official state visit to China — had admitted he would not fight for his country. “There is no sense in going to war” to recover Philippine territory that Chinese forces have seized in the South China Sea, Rodrigo Roa Duterte had declared. “There is no sense fighting over a body of water.” Also on Oct. 17, Duterte told Hong Kong’s Phoenix Television that he wanted to hold war games with China — and no longer with the Philippines’ longstanding treaty ally, the United States. “I have given enough time for the Americans to play with the Filipino soldiers,” he said.

On Oct. 20, speaking in the Great Hall of the People, Duterte delivered on what he had promised would be the “defining moment of my presidency,” sticking the knife into the Americans. “In this venue, your honors, in this venue, I announce my separation from the United States.” Duterte went on to say this: “I’ve realigned myself in your ideological flow and maybe I will also go to Russia to talk to [President Vladimir] Putin and tell him that there are three of us against the world — China, Philippines and Russia.” America, he added, “has lost.”

Also on Oct. 20, a triumphant-looking President Xi delivered his part of the bilateral bargain. In return for the Philippine president’s willingness to look the other way regarding Chinese naval- and air bases in the South China Sea, Beijing would start delivering more than $13.5 billion of soft loans and an array Chinese-controlled joint development projects to fill Duterte’s begging bowl.

Professor Erwin Tiongson of Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and a man with a keen historical eye, helps put last week’s chronology in a fitting context. October 20, as Duterte was venting his scorn for Americans in Beijing, marks the 72nd anniversary of Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s landing in Leyte. Five months later, a future President Rodrigo Roa Duterte would be born into freedom — on the island of Leyte.

The historical record is silent — and Duterte himself has not responded to a written invitation to clarify it — on how his parents, Vicente Duterte and Soledad Roa Duterte, might have celebrated when the Americans freed them from foreign aggression. We don’t know (yet) whether Vicente and Soledad were among the brave Filipino patriots who harassed Japanese forces on Leyte and passed valuable intelligence on to the U.S. Sixth Army — or whether they, like others, were collaborators. But we know what to call the son, who has admitted he is eager to look the other way in the face of foreign aggression, in return for money.

Also on Oct. 20, while Duterte was venting his spleen against Americans in the Great Hall of the People, the U.S. Embassy in Manila dispatched Col. Kevin Wolfla to Leyte. The decorated U.S. Army attaché spoke to an audience in the town of Palo that had gathered to mark the 1945 Leyte Gulf landing. “Our relationship with the Philippines is broad and our alliance is one of our most enduring and important relationships in the Asia-Pacific region,” Col. Wolfla (rightly) noted. “It is a cornerstone of stability for over 70 years.”

The Philippines News Agency reported that Leyte Gov. Dominico Petilla “repeatedly thanked the US for its role in the Philippines’ liberation and massive assistance of the US government after super typhoon Yolanda.” The governor’s mother, Palo Mayor Remedios Petilla, “assured that US officials will always be invited in future Leyte Gulf Landing celebrations,” the news report added.

Seventy two years after the landing that set the stage for the largest naval battle in history — and the liberation of the Philippines, Filipinos still mark the date with a MacArthur Landing Memorial National Park. And it turns out that President Duterte has a most personal reason to remember American sacrifices for his country. But for reasons that have yet to be explained, Rodrigo Duterte’s historical memories are shorter.

Duterte was born on Leyte on March 28, 1945. While his mother was giving birth, Japanese forces sunk an American submarine, the USS Trigger, which had been patrolling in Japanese waters. Eighty-nine Americans under the command of CDR David Rickart Connole lost their lives that day. The Trigger had already sunk “at least fifteen enemy vessels for a total of more than 85,000 tons of shipping,” according to the United States Navy Submarine Force Library and Museum, in Groton, Connecticut. Motor Machinist’s Mate First Class Constantine Guinness, one of the Trigger’s intrepid men, had captured the Trigger’s spirit with a poem: “I’m the Galloping Ghost of the Japanese Coast.”

The names of the Trigger’s crew are also remembered in the missing-in-action memorial in the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum and Park, in Honolulu, Hawaii. Duterte’s foreign secretary, Perfecto Yasay — who has also been busy expressing his disdain for Americans these days — was living in Hawaii with his family when his old friend Duterte tapped him for the Department of Foreign Affairs. As I reported in a column published on ForeignPolicy.com on Oct. 17, Yasay has professional ties to Filipino-Chinese tycoons with high-level connections in Beijing.

Duterte has not responded to questions as to whether he has ever been to the American Cemetery in Manila. Tucked away on 152 peaceful green acres, the cemetery honors the memories of the 16,632 Americans and 570 brave Filipinos who are buried there — and whose lives will be eternally marked by their sacrifices to free the Philippines from foreign occupation. There is also a chapel and a memorial honoring 36,285 Americans, Filipinos and other members of the allied armed forces who were killed in action — including the eighty-nine Americans from the Trigger who died the day Duterte’s mother gave birth.

There are other dates worth contemplation as the Duterte presidency continues down its anti-American path. But one stands out.

On September 9, 1945, Japanese forces surrendered in China. President Xi Jinping and other senior members of the Politburo like to pretend that China’s armed forces threw out the Japanese. The chest thumpers in today’s Beijing are loath to acknowledge that Americans, Australians, British, New Zealanders, Canadians and others also had their hands in that victory, to understate the matter considerably.

The missing date in the chronology is the time that China helped another country secure its liberty, at the cost of considerable Chinese lives. That’s because such a historical event has yet to happen.