06-21-2016, 08:30 PM
*** 22-Jun-16 World View -- China's 'ironclad proof' of South China Sea claims revealed as hoax
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
****
**** China's 'ironclad proof' of South China Sea claims revealed as hoax
****
![[Image: g160621b.jpg]](http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com/ww2010/g160621b.jpg)
Supposedly, this is a picture of Su Chengfen's 600 year old book (China Daily)
An investigation by the BBC reveals that a Chinese claim of "ironclad
proof" of China's South China Sea claims is apparently a hoax.
For several weeks, China's state media has been making a big deal
about an "ancient book," 600 years old, that proves that Chinese
fishermen were fishing in the Paracel Islands and beyond. From there,
according to a leap of logic that isn't clear to me, China says that
this is "ironclad proof" that the Paracel Islands belong to China.
Here's the description from Chinese media:
[indent]<QUOTE>"Su Chengfen has spent all his life fishing in the
reef-filled South China Sea, guided by a handwritten book more
than 600 years old that depicts routes to various remote islands
from Hainan province.
The former fishing vessel captain, who lives in the town of
Tanmen, cherishes the book, wrapping it in layers of paper even
though at 81 it is impossible for him to return to the sea.
He has always known it is precious, as it contains detailed
information handed down over the generations, but at first he had
not realized its true significance.
Specialists say the information the book contains is undeniable
proof of China's sovereignty over Huangyan Island.
"Unlike other versions, it depicts the exact route to Huangyan
Island. It clearly proves that generations of Chinese fishermen
have worked on the island," said Zhou Weimin, a retired professor
at Hainan University."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
Another Chinese official says, "It is ironclad proof. ... We can
deduce China's historic fishing and sailing rights in the South China
Sea, as well as ownership."
Huangyan Island is China's name for Scarborough Shoal, a reef that is
a little less than 200 kilometers from Subic Bay, well within the
Philippines’ exclusive economic zone or EEZ. So there's absolutely no
way that that this book provides "ironclad proof" of anything. Even
if the book is as described, it only proves that Chinese fishermen
were fishing in Philippine waters centuries ago. It wouldn't be
surprising if someone discovered that Philippines fishermen fished in
Chinese waters centuries ago, but that doesn't mean that China is
Philippines' sovereign territory.
In the sixth decade BC, Julius Caesar's army conquered France, as he
described in his Gallic Wars. But that doesn't mean that France
is the sovereign territory of Italy. So Su Chengfen's book, even if
it existed, would have no value whatsoever that I can see.
However, the BBC sent its China correspondent, John Sudworth, to visit
81 year old Su Chengfen in the town of Tanmen on Hainan island. He
wanted to speak to Su, and see this wonderful book for himself.
According to Su:
[indent]<QUOTE>"It was passed down from generation to generation.
From my grandfather's generation, to my father's generation, then
to me.
It mainly taught us how to go somewhere and come back, how to go
to the Paracels and the Spratlys, and how to come back to Hainan
Island."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
OK. So Sudworth asked to see the book, but Su tells him the book
doesn't exist.
[indent]<QUOTE>"Although the book was important, I threw it away
because it was broken.
It was flipped through too many times. The salty seawater on the
hands had corroded it... In the end it was no longer readable so I
threw it away."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
According to Su, the book was thrown away in the late 1980s.
So apparently the whole thing is a hoax. The picture from Chinese
media, shown at the top of this article, is some other book. The
layers of paper, in which the "cherished book" was wrapped, don't
exist either. The "cherished book" was simply thrown out, according
to Su.
In particular, all the stuff depicting the "exact route" to the
Scarborough Shoal is a 30 year old memory in the head of the 81 year
old Su.
Some Chinese media reports claim that there are other books, but look
again at the paragraph quoted above:
[indent]<QUOTE>"Unlike other versions, it depicts the exact route to
Huangyan Island. It clearly proves that generations of Chinese
fishermen have worked on the island," said Zhou Weimin, a retired
professor at Hainan University."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
So the other books do not depict the route to Scarborough Shoal.
So China's "ironclad proof" consists of a book that doesn't exist,
that may or may not have ever existed, and whose contents if it
existed can only be guessed at. And even if it did exist, it only
proves that Chinese fishermen were fishing in waters belonging to the
Philippines, much as they're doing today. BBC and China Daily (24-May) and Julius Caesar - Gallic Wars - 58-51 BC
****
**** The craziness of China's claims in South China Sea
****
The above story is so crazy and farcical that I would barely believe
it happened if I hadn't verified that the claims were made on several
Chinese media sites and were refuted on the BBC site, as well as on
the televised BBC World News, which showed Sudworth's actual interview
with Su. And yet it did happen.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, a generational Crisis
era is in many ways similar to a human being's midlife crisis. A man
may have a happy home with a wife and kids, but suddenly he becomes
obsessed with a woman at work and has to have an affair with her, and
does, using any ridiculous or bizarre reason to justify it, and ends
up wrecking the lives of everyone around him. China is displaying the
same kind of destructive and self-destructive behavior as a nation.
A 2014 book called The South China Sea: The Struggle for Power in
Asia by Bill Hayton is a detailed analysis of all of China's
claims to the South China Sea and finds them, to no one's surprise,
invalid. If they had any validity, then China would not hesitate to
ask the relevant United Nations court to rule on them. Instead, China
has angrily refused to let any court tell them what to do, and instead
is spending billions of dollars in a vast military buildup that can
only lead to war.
Presumably, China is doing this for economic reasons, but Hayton
quotes oil industry experts who say that they're skeptical that the
South China Sea contains immense reserves of oil and gas, and that the
fish stocks are becoming depleted.
Instead, the South China Sea has become a highly nationalistic symbol,
backed up by highly irrational, farcical and bizarre justifications,
like the alleged 600 year old book described above, and by the
widespread belief that the United States is too weak or too tired of
war to fight, or that China will win such a war within a few days.
This is the same kind of irrational belief that caused America's South
to attack Fort Sumter, even though the North was three times as big,
or that caused Japan to bomb Pearl Harbor, even though the US was five
times as big. In all cases, including China today, these beliefs have
been totally delusional and disastrous for everyone.
China always says that its claims "are indisputable," and this much at
least is a total lie since the claims are very much in dispute, and
are currently being adjudicated by the Permanent Court of Arbitration,
a United Nations international court in the Hague, which is expected
to rule on counterclaims by the Philippines in the near future. China
has huffed and puffed and blustered on this issue, saying that the
court has no right to adjudicate or that any ruling would be ignored,
sounding like nothing so much as that middle-aged man caught having an
affair.
Irrational beliefs that lead to world wars are typical of generational
Crisis eras. The 600 year old book won't be the last one and the
Chinese themselves, the ones who survive, will regret it most of all.
Asia Sentinel and Economist (13-Sep-2014) and South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)
****
**** France calls for European navies to patrol the South China Sea
****
The military buildup in the South China Sea is not exclusively on
China's side. The US Navy has been conducting Freedom of Navigation
patrols in the South China Sea, and Japan has sailed warships into Vietnam's Cam Ranh Bay seaport,
for
the first time since Japan was forced to withdraw from Vietnam at the
end of World War II.
France's defense minister Jean-Yves Le Drian is calling for the
European Union to get involved in the South China Sea dispute.
According to Le Drian:
[indent]<QUOTE>"If we want to contain the risk of conflict, we must
defend this right, and defend it ourselves.
If the law of the sea is not respected today in the China seas, it
will be threatened tomorrow in the Arctic, in the Mediterranean,
or elsewhere. ...
This is a message that France will continue to be present at
international forums. It’s also a message that France will
continue to act upon, by sailing its ships and flying its planes
wherever international law will allow, and wherever operational
needs request that we do so."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
France's navy is already involved, as it has already been deployed
three times in the South China Sea so far this year. France has also
signed a $40 billion deal in April to sell advanced submarines to
Australia. Le Drian would like European navies to have a "regular and
visible" presence in the region, to uphold the law of the sea and
freedom of navigation.
China's aggressive and virtually unsupported claims to the South China
Sea are not the local or regional issue that one might expect, but are
quickly expanding to become worldwide international issues. Foreign Policy and Bloomberg and Straits Times (Singapore)
****
**** A request to readers: Protect the Generational Dynamics legacy
****
The text and images for all the 4000 articles that have appeared on
the Generational Dynamics web site since 2003 -- over six million
words and 4,000 images -- are now available to be downloaded. This
includes PDF files for the three books that I've written. They're now
available on the download site http://www.generationaldynamics.com/dl/.
With the worsening situation in the South China Sea, with several wars
going on in the Mideast, with more displaced refugees in the world
today than in decades, just one miscalculation by one person could
result in a war that spirals into something really major. The entire
internet, including my web site, could instantly become unavailable.
Add to that the fact that I, like anyone else, could be hit by a bus
tomorrow. Any one of these events could mean the immediate
disappearance of my web site and almost 15 years of work that I put
into developing Generational Dynamics would be gone.
So I've posted a download page providing downloads of all the major
documents and files, over six million words of text. I would like to
ask as many people as possible to download these files and save them
somewhere, so that if ten years from now someone is looking for the
information about Generational Dynamics, then somebody somewhere will
still have a copy, and the work will survive.
The purpose is to protect the Generational Dynamics legacy, and to
make sure that this work is preserved, and available to researchers
who write books, professors who teach courses, and governments that
make policy. Please download these files now. Generational Dynamics download page
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, China, South China Sea, Paracel Islands,
Su Chengfen, Zhou Weimin, Huangyan Island, Scarborough Shoal,
Philippines, Julius Caesar, France, Gallic Wars, Italy,
John Sudworth, Tanmen, Hainan island, Bill Hayton,
Fort Sumter, Japan, Pearl Harbor, Permanent Court of Arbitration,
France, Jean-Yves Le Drian, Australia
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
- China's 'ironclad proof' of South China Sea claims revealed as hoax
- The craziness of China's claims in South China Sea
- France calls for European navies to patrol the South China Sea
- A request to readers: Protect the Generational Dynamics legacy
****
**** China's 'ironclad proof' of South China Sea claims revealed as hoax
****
Supposedly, this is a picture of Su Chengfen's 600 year old book (China Daily)
An investigation by the BBC reveals that a Chinese claim of "ironclad
proof" of China's South China Sea claims is apparently a hoax.
For several weeks, China's state media has been making a big deal
about an "ancient book," 600 years old, that proves that Chinese
fishermen were fishing in the Paracel Islands and beyond. From there,
according to a leap of logic that isn't clear to me, China says that
this is "ironclad proof" that the Paracel Islands belong to China.
Here's the description from Chinese media:
[indent]<QUOTE>"Su Chengfen has spent all his life fishing in the
reef-filled South China Sea, guided by a handwritten book more
than 600 years old that depicts routes to various remote islands
from Hainan province.
The former fishing vessel captain, who lives in the town of
Tanmen, cherishes the book, wrapping it in layers of paper even
though at 81 it is impossible for him to return to the sea.
He has always known it is precious, as it contains detailed
information handed down over the generations, but at first he had
not realized its true significance.
Specialists say the information the book contains is undeniable
proof of China's sovereignty over Huangyan Island.
"Unlike other versions, it depicts the exact route to Huangyan
Island. It clearly proves that generations of Chinese fishermen
have worked on the island," said Zhou Weimin, a retired professor
at Hainan University."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
Another Chinese official says, "It is ironclad proof. ... We can
deduce China's historic fishing and sailing rights in the South China
Sea, as well as ownership."
Huangyan Island is China's name for Scarborough Shoal, a reef that is
a little less than 200 kilometers from Subic Bay, well within the
Philippines’ exclusive economic zone or EEZ. So there's absolutely no
way that that this book provides "ironclad proof" of anything. Even
if the book is as described, it only proves that Chinese fishermen
were fishing in Philippine waters centuries ago. It wouldn't be
surprising if someone discovered that Philippines fishermen fished in
Chinese waters centuries ago, but that doesn't mean that China is
Philippines' sovereign territory.
In the sixth decade BC, Julius Caesar's army conquered France, as he
described in his Gallic Wars. But that doesn't mean that France
is the sovereign territory of Italy. So Su Chengfen's book, even if
it existed, would have no value whatsoever that I can see.
However, the BBC sent its China correspondent, John Sudworth, to visit
81 year old Su Chengfen in the town of Tanmen on Hainan island. He
wanted to speak to Su, and see this wonderful book for himself.
According to Su:
[indent]<QUOTE>"It was passed down from generation to generation.
From my grandfather's generation, to my father's generation, then
to me.
It mainly taught us how to go somewhere and come back, how to go
to the Paracels and the Spratlys, and how to come back to Hainan
Island."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
OK. So Sudworth asked to see the book, but Su tells him the book
doesn't exist.
[indent]<QUOTE>"Although the book was important, I threw it away
because it was broken.
It was flipped through too many times. The salty seawater on the
hands had corroded it... In the end it was no longer readable so I
threw it away."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
According to Su, the book was thrown away in the late 1980s.
So apparently the whole thing is a hoax. The picture from Chinese
media, shown at the top of this article, is some other book. The
layers of paper, in which the "cherished book" was wrapped, don't
exist either. The "cherished book" was simply thrown out, according
to Su.
In particular, all the stuff depicting the "exact route" to the
Scarborough Shoal is a 30 year old memory in the head of the 81 year
old Su.
Some Chinese media reports claim that there are other books, but look
again at the paragraph quoted above:
[indent]<QUOTE>"Unlike other versions, it depicts the exact route to
Huangyan Island. It clearly proves that generations of Chinese
fishermen have worked on the island," said Zhou Weimin, a retired
professor at Hainan University."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
So the other books do not depict the route to Scarborough Shoal.
So China's "ironclad proof" consists of a book that doesn't exist,
that may or may not have ever existed, and whose contents if it
existed can only be guessed at. And even if it did exist, it only
proves that Chinese fishermen were fishing in waters belonging to the
Philippines, much as they're doing today. BBC and China Daily (24-May) and Julius Caesar - Gallic Wars - 58-51 BC
****
**** The craziness of China's claims in South China Sea
****
The above story is so crazy and farcical that I would barely believe
it happened if I hadn't verified that the claims were made on several
Chinese media sites and were refuted on the BBC site, as well as on
the televised BBC World News, which showed Sudworth's actual interview
with Su. And yet it did happen.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, a generational Crisis
era is in many ways similar to a human being's midlife crisis. A man
may have a happy home with a wife and kids, but suddenly he becomes
obsessed with a woman at work and has to have an affair with her, and
does, using any ridiculous or bizarre reason to justify it, and ends
up wrecking the lives of everyone around him. China is displaying the
same kind of destructive and self-destructive behavior as a nation.
A 2014 book called The South China Sea: The Struggle for Power in
Asia by Bill Hayton is a detailed analysis of all of China's
claims to the South China Sea and finds them, to no one's surprise,
invalid. If they had any validity, then China would not hesitate to
ask the relevant United Nations court to rule on them. Instead, China
has angrily refused to let any court tell them what to do, and instead
is spending billions of dollars in a vast military buildup that can
only lead to war.
Presumably, China is doing this for economic reasons, but Hayton
quotes oil industry experts who say that they're skeptical that the
South China Sea contains immense reserves of oil and gas, and that the
fish stocks are becoming depleted.
Instead, the South China Sea has become a highly nationalistic symbol,
backed up by highly irrational, farcical and bizarre justifications,
like the alleged 600 year old book described above, and by the
widespread belief that the United States is too weak or too tired of
war to fight, or that China will win such a war within a few days.
This is the same kind of irrational belief that caused America's South
to attack Fort Sumter, even though the North was three times as big,
or that caused Japan to bomb Pearl Harbor, even though the US was five
times as big. In all cases, including China today, these beliefs have
been totally delusional and disastrous for everyone.
China always says that its claims "are indisputable," and this much at
least is a total lie since the claims are very much in dispute, and
are currently being adjudicated by the Permanent Court of Arbitration,
a United Nations international court in the Hague, which is expected
to rule on counterclaims by the Philippines in the near future. China
has huffed and puffed and blustered on this issue, saying that the
court has no right to adjudicate or that any ruling would be ignored,
sounding like nothing so much as that middle-aged man caught having an
affair.
Irrational beliefs that lead to world wars are typical of generational
Crisis eras. The 600 year old book won't be the last one and the
Chinese themselves, the ones who survive, will regret it most of all.
Asia Sentinel and Economist (13-Sep-2014) and South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)
****
**** France calls for European navies to patrol the South China Sea
****
The military buildup in the South China Sea is not exclusively on
China's side. The US Navy has been conducting Freedom of Navigation
patrols in the South China Sea, and Japan has sailed warships into Vietnam's Cam Ranh Bay seaport,
for
the first time since Japan was forced to withdraw from Vietnam at the
end of World War II.
France's defense minister Jean-Yves Le Drian is calling for the
European Union to get involved in the South China Sea dispute.
According to Le Drian:
[indent]<QUOTE>"If we want to contain the risk of conflict, we must
defend this right, and defend it ourselves.
If the law of the sea is not respected today in the China seas, it
will be threatened tomorrow in the Arctic, in the Mediterranean,
or elsewhere. ...
This is a message that France will continue to be present at
international forums. It’s also a message that France will
continue to act upon, by sailing its ships and flying its planes
wherever international law will allow, and wherever operational
needs request that we do so."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
France's navy is already involved, as it has already been deployed
three times in the South China Sea so far this year. France has also
signed a $40 billion deal in April to sell advanced submarines to
Australia. Le Drian would like European navies to have a "regular and
visible" presence in the region, to uphold the law of the sea and
freedom of navigation.
China's aggressive and virtually unsupported claims to the South China
Sea are not the local or regional issue that one might expect, but are
quickly expanding to become worldwide international issues. Foreign Policy and Bloomberg and Straits Times (Singapore)
****
**** A request to readers: Protect the Generational Dynamics legacy
****
The text and images for all the 4000 articles that have appeared on
the Generational Dynamics web site since 2003 -- over six million
words and 4,000 images -- are now available to be downloaded. This
includes PDF files for the three books that I've written. They're now
available on the download site http://www.generationaldynamics.com/dl/.
With the worsening situation in the South China Sea, with several wars
going on in the Mideast, with more displaced refugees in the world
today than in decades, just one miscalculation by one person could
result in a war that spirals into something really major. The entire
internet, including my web site, could instantly become unavailable.
Add to that the fact that I, like anyone else, could be hit by a bus
tomorrow. Any one of these events could mean the immediate
disappearance of my web site and almost 15 years of work that I put
into developing Generational Dynamics would be gone.
So I've posted a download page providing downloads of all the major
documents and files, over six million words of text. I would like to
ask as many people as possible to download these files and save them
somewhere, so that if ten years from now someone is looking for the
information about Generational Dynamics, then somebody somewhere will
still have a copy, and the work will survive.
The purpose is to protect the Generational Dynamics legacy, and to
make sure that this work is preserved, and available to researchers
who write books, professors who teach courses, and governments that
make policy. Please download these files now. Generational Dynamics download page
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, China, South China Sea, Paracel Islands,
Su Chengfen, Zhou Weimin, Huangyan Island, Scarborough Shoal,
Philippines, Julius Caesar, France, Gallic Wars, Italy,
John Sudworth, Tanmen, Hainan island, Bill Hayton,
Fort Sumter, Japan, Pearl Harbor, Permanent Court of Arbitration,
France, Jean-Yves Le Drian, Australia
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
