China ‘elephant’ to punish PHL ‘mosquito’ in Spratlys row
A Chinese columnist in a Beijing-sanctioned web site has called on China to wage “tiny-scale battles" against the Philippines and Vietnam as a warning against other claimants of the disputed Spratly Islands from making aggressive moves against China.
In an opinion column published Thursday on the Chinese Communist Party-run web site Global Times, Long Tao called on China to launch military actions in the Spratlys to ward off other countries laying claim on the islands.
Long Tao was identified as a strategic analyst at think tank China Energy Fund Committee.
“For those who infringe upon our sovereignty to steal the oil, we need to warn them politely, and then take action if they don’t respond," Tao said.
In particular, he issued stern warnings against Vietnam and the Philippines, which he said should be punished for acting “extremely aggressive" in the past months.
Tao called the Philippines a pretentiously weak and innocent “mosquito" that is supposedly not afraid of the Chinese “elephant," adding that China must only refrain from attacking “if mosquitoes behave well."
“But it seems like we have a completely different story now given the mosquitoes even invited an eagle (referring to the United States) to come to their ambitious party. I believe the constant military drill and infringement provide no better excuse for China to strike back," he added.
Tao pointed out that China is not afraid of going to war over the disputed islands since none of the more than 1,000 oil and gas wells and other facilities in the area were built by the Chinese.
“Everything will be burned to the ground should a military conflict break out. Who’ll suffer most when Western oil giants withdraw?" he stressed.
A 2010 report by VERA Files, however, pointed out that China has constructed a lighthouse on Subi Reef, one of the islands in the disputed area.
Under international law, a lighthouse is a recognized base point from where a state can measure its maritime regimes, including territorial sea (12 nautical miles from the baseline), contiguous zone (24 nm), economic exclusive zone (200 nm), continental shelf (200 nm) and extended continental shelf (350nm), the report noted.
Additionally, in 1999, the Philippines claimed that the Chinese structures discovered on “Mischief Reef" had been built for military purposes, which China had denied.
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