Offline: China’s hypocrisy

If the People’s Republic of China were a person, that person would be a hypocrite and more. He would also be a bully, a thief, and a liar.

I’ve written and spoken against the communist nation before, and will continue to do so until I’m blue in the face and hell freezes over, or when China stops insulting my country with empty talk of everlasting friendship where all disagreements can be resolved through diplomacy.

I know I don’t stand alone. In fact, I’m in relatively good company with a number of senators airing the same feelings and frustrations I have with China.

Not a week goes by when the country does not take action that is the figurative equivalent of a punch to the stomach or a kick to the groin. In the week just passed, we learned that coral reefs within the country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) have been destroyed by Chinese vessels. Then we learned that the damn China Coast Guard have put up a floating barrier in the Bajo de Masinloc area, well within the country’s EEZ.

Where the destruction of the corals is concerned, China naturally lied to its teeth when it said they had nothing to do with the environmental disaster.

In case the dictator Xi Jinping is unaware of it, corals are home to various types of sea life, especially fish. Destroy the corals and you destroy their habitat. Soon enough, the rich and fertile fishing grounds will be empty, the equivalent of a desert on land where few living things can survive.

And yes, I did call their Xi a dictator, and China very recently said it was unhappy when another country referred to their leader as such. I believe it was Germany, which was not afraid to tell the world what it thinks of the Chinese leader who allowed himself an unprecedented third term as president just because he could.

In fact, Xi is as power mad as they come. He is no different from Ferdinand Edralin Marcos as well as a host of other tinpot dictators so addicted to power that they would declare themselves emperor or king if they could.

At least there seems to be one bright spot when the elders of China’s political leadership reportedly called him out for the actions he has been taking lately that has resulted in China losing its image as a good nation to have as a friend and trading partner.

China’s economy is starting to show signs of not only slowing down, but of collapsing in several fronts. Its real estate industry has overextended itself resulting in tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of housing units without buyers.

Its manufacturing industry is also slowing to a crawl, and its unemployment rate is rising.

The once rosy future that China was facing is disappearing fast, and it’s all because of the policies of Xi that seek to enslave poor countries through various steps like entrapping them with easy loans at usurious rates.

In the case of the Philippines, China was able to brainwash the previous president whose name I refuse to mention because he was a traitor of the first degree, and who not only availed of several of those big loans, but who also surrendered the country’s patrimony.

His reason? We cannot afford to wage war with China as we are sure to lose.

Tell that to the Vietnamese who were not afraid to face the US in a war which they eventually won because they were in the right. They simply refused to welcome an invading country, no matter how powerful it was.

What did Ninoy Aquino say? The Philippines is worth dying for.

And what did his son Noynoy say? The Philippines is worth living for.

And what does this old editor/columnist say? The Philippines is worth fighting for.

It may be unfortunate, but China’s aggressive actions against the Philippines has resulted in a hidden anger that is welling within the majority. Hopefully, this will not result in hate crimes against Chinese-Filipinos.

Perhaps the Social Weather Stations or Pulse Asia can take a survey on how Filipinos feel about China now. And how those feelings affect how they perceive the countless Chinoys in our midst.

Besides a number of senators, Defense Secretary Gibo Teodoro also referred to China as “insincere and hypocritical.”

But I do wish that all the angry words aimed at China can be backed up with more concrete actions.

Enough of appeasing China whenever we are the aggrieved party. But Bongbong Marcos had better scrap his “friend to all, enemy to none” foreign policy.

In plain and simple words that even a college dropout of a president can understand, China is not our friend. It is our neighbor, yes, but it is no longer our friend.

That friendship ended when Xi began to believe himself a bigger leader than Chairman Mao. For all his many, many faults, Mao did unify China. The dictator Xi may be the country’s undoing.

My proposal is simple. With every aggressive action taken by China against the Philippines, we should move further and further away from them diplomatically. As those actions are not likely to stop, also veer away economically.

Raise taxes on all goods imported from China, bar none. Turn to the likes of India and Taiwan as our preferred trading partner.

Downgrade the Philippine embassy in Beijing if worse comes to worst.

When old age or death results in Xi’s permanent exit from this mortal plane, adopt a wait-and-see attitude towards the new leadership, hoping and praying that their next leader will not be a hypocrite, a bully, a thief, and a liar.

For now, and I hope I am dead wrong, expect progressively worse tactics by China where the West Philippine Sea is concerned. It can be expected based on the language of its foreign ministry, which has started to make fun of our leadership.

This growing mockery can be traced to the insipid “friend to all, enemy to none” policy of the administration. It is a wishy-washy policy that’s neither here nor there, sir.

Dictator Xi is no longer laughing at you behind your back, Bongbong Marcos. He is doing it to your face.

So what are you going to do about it? File another useless diplomatic protest?

Lame, sir, just lame.