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China’s defense minister was at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue of Asian and US defense ministers and military brass in Singapore over the weekend, proclaiming that his country’s “peaceful rise” was still intact despite some very evident clashes with Vietnam and the Philippines only a few days before.
Indeed, his Vietnamese and Philippine counterparts were on hand to put the claim in a different light. Meanwhile, hundreds of protesters descended on the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi on Sunday to protest an incident in which a Chinese vessel allegedly deliberately cut a submerged cable for a Vietnamese oil survey ship conducting seismic tests. The Philippines has also accused China of putting up military posts on reefs claimed by Manila.
Regional belief in this peaceful rise has been eroded over the past year by a combination of incidents, including with India and Japan, and by China’s evident success in moving toward possessing advanced weapons systems, some of which in principle can match those of the United States and Russia. Some of those must be viewed as strategic assets of limited relevance to more localized potential conflicts. But one new asset that is both a global statement and new potential threat to immediate neighbors is about to enter the arena to again attempt to rewrite a history that does not always square with the facts.
That is China’s first aircraft carrier, a 67,000 ton monster that began life as a partly-finished Soviet vessel that was sold to China by Ukraine in 1998. Reports suggest it will enter service this year based out of a southern Chinese port with a complement of about 50 aircraft and pilots who have been practicing carrier landing and takeoffs on improvised platforms and de-commissioned carriers.
But it is not just the capability of the ship that sends shudders through neighbors already concerned about Washington’s ability and will to maintain its Pacific fleet to a level that ensures its overall supremacy in the region. Even the vessel’s name carries a threat.
All reports to date say that the aircraft carrier is to be named “Shi Lang.” This was the name of the general who conquered Taiwan in 1683 for the recently established Qing dynasty, finally defeating the Ming general, Zheng Chenggong. Zheng fled to the island to escape the Qing, pushing the Dutch out in 1662 and establishing a small state around what is now the city of Tainan.
Shi Lang therefore, for the first time in history, made Taiwan part of the Chinese empire. That Shi Lang was fighting on behalf of China’s Manchu occupiers, who had destroyed the Ming empire a few years earlier, is quietly forgotten.
The use of Shi’s name is most obviously intended to send a message to Taiwan about its eventual fate — being re-incorporated into the People’s Republic — and to impress on China’s domestic audience the importance that its leaders attach to regaining Taiwan.
However, it also sends a message to Southeast Asia about the expansion that the Chinese empire has undergone since the Manchu conquest — the incorporation of Manchu lands and much of Mongolia into the Chinese empire, the acquisition of Taiwan and, since 1949, massive Han settlement of lands historically occupied by non-Hans, like Uighurs, Mongols, Tibetans, etc.
Shi Lang’s conquest of Taiwan was also significant for the people of what is today the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia. At the time of his conquest, Han Chinese were a small minority of the Southeast Asian region’s population, then consisting of various Austronesian-language, Malayo-Polynesian ethnic groups closely related to those in Northern Luzon and, more distantly, to those in what are now Malaysia and Indonesia. That the Austronesians who spread south from Taiwan probably originated on the Asian mainland does not make them Chinese. Indeed, there are no Austronesians among China’s many minorities today, the nearest being the remnants of the Cham, who ruled central Vietnam until the 15th century.
Moreover, successive Chinese empires had shown no interest in acquiring Taiwan and had actually sought to prevent any outflow of people from Fujian to it or to Southeast Asia. Significant Han immigration to the region only started with the Dutch, who encouraged traders to grow rice and sugar cane.
That process gathered pace after Shi Lang’s conquest so that over time the native inhabitants divided into tribes who, being technologically less advanced, were on retreat. It was a gradual process, but Hans did not become a majority until some time in the 19th century. Now the aboriginal people still able to speak their Austronesian dialects are about 2 percent of Taiwan’s 23 million population.
Nothing can undo that now any more than Native Americans can turn the clock back 200 years. However, Shi Lang will now be a constant reminder to the Malay (in the broadest sense) peoples of their defeat in Taiwan at the hands of an expansionist China, adding to their fears about China’s ambition to control the whole South China Sea and its islands, right up to their own territorial seas and ignoring the continental shelves that usually help define exclusive economic zones. In the case of the latest Chinese clash with a Vietnamese exploration vessel, it occurred just 120 nautical miles off the southern coast of Vietnam.
China also accompanies its claims with accounts of a history worthy of Stalin’s encyclopedia, China’s airbrushing of disgraced politburo members or its yo-yo treatment of Confucius. Recent history makes it very plain that Taiwan has not been part of the Chinese political entity “since time immemorial” but was almost the last addition to the empire.
As for claims to the South China Sea and its islands based on visits by fishermen, they ignore the fact that commerce in that sea, and into and across the Indian Ocean, was run by Malay vessels and crews hundreds of years before Chinese merchants ventured far from their coast. Chinese Buddhist pilgrims to Sri Lanka went on Malay boats via Java or Sumatra. Nearly 2000 years ago, Roman merchants brought spice island products from southern India whence they had been brought by Malay and Indian sailors. At much the same time, Malays were crossing the southern part of the Indian Ocean, settling the huge island of Madagascar and leaving marks in Africa. Even today, Madagascar’s human gene pool is 50 percent Austronesian and its language 80 percent.
The modern states that are the successors of those seafaring, migrant and trading Malays lack — unlike the Chinese — the written records to show their history. But advances in archaeology, in genetics and other sciences that can make up for gaps in written history, are beginning to make the broad Malay world better aware of its past and of its right both to contest Chinese claims and resist further Han expansion into Southeast Asia.
The aircraft carrier Shi Lang will surely add to that awareness. Meanwhile, one tide has turned in favor of the Malays/Austronesians that may ultimately count for more than weaponry: demography. The Han Chinese population, so long the main driver of expansion of the Chinese state, is peaking. The numbers of Malay and Austronesian peoples are still growing.
China’s defense minister was at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue of Asian and US defense ministers and military brass in Singapore over the weekend, proclaiming that his country’s “peaceful rise” was still intact despite some very evident clashes with Vietnam and the Philippines only a few days before.
Indeed, his Vietnamese and Philippine counterparts were on hand to put the claim in a different light. Meanwhile, hundreds of protesters descended on the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi on Sunday to protest an incident in which a Chinese vessel allegedly deliberately cut a submerged cable for a Vietnamese oil survey ship conducting seismic tests. The Philippines has also accused China of putting up military posts on reefs claimed by Manila.
Regional belief in this peaceful rise has been eroded over the past year by a combination of incidents, including with India and Japan, and by China’s evident success in moving toward possessing advanced weapons systems, some of which in principle can match those of the United States and Russia. Some of those must be viewed as strategic assets of limited relevance to more localized potential conflicts. But one new asset that is both a global statement and new potential threat to immediate neighbors is about to enter the arena to again attempt to rewrite a history that does not always square with the facts.
That is China’s first aircraft carrier, a 67,000 ton monster that began life as a partly-finished Soviet vessel that was sold to China by Ukraine in 1998. Reports suggest it will enter service this year based out of a southern Chinese port with a complement of about 50 aircraft and pilots who have been practicing carrier landing and takeoffs on improvised platforms and de-commissioned carriers.
But it is not just the capability of the ship that sends shudders through neighbors already concerned about Washington’s ability and will to maintain its Pacific fleet to a level that ensures its overall supremacy in the region. Even the vessel’s name carries a threat.
All reports to date say that the aircraft carrier is to be named “Shi Lang.” This was the name of the general who conquered Taiwan in 1683 for the recently established Qing dynasty, finally defeating the Ming general, Zheng Chenggong. Zheng fled to the island to escape the Qing, pushing the Dutch out in 1662 and establishing a small state around what is now the city of Tainan.
Shi Lang therefore, for the first time in history, made Taiwan part of the Chinese empire. That Shi Lang was fighting on behalf of China’s Manchu occupiers, who had destroyed the Ming empire a few years earlier, is quietly forgotten.
The use of Shi’s name is most obviously intended to send a message to Taiwan about its eventual fate — being re-incorporated into the People’s Republic — and to impress on China’s domestic audience the importance that its leaders attach to regaining Taiwan.
However, it also sends a message to Southeast Asia about the expansion that the Chinese empire has undergone since the Manchu conquest — the incorporation of Manchu lands and much of Mongolia into the Chinese empire, the acquisition of Taiwan and, since 1949, massive Han settlement of lands historically occupied by non-Hans, like Uighurs, Mongols, Tibetans, etc.
Shi Lang’s conquest of Taiwan was also significant for the people of what is today the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia. At the time of his conquest, Han Chinese were a small minority of the Southeast Asian region’s population, then consisting of various Austronesian-language, Malayo-Polynesian ethnic groups closely related to those in Northern Luzon and, more distantly, to those in what are now Malaysia and Indonesia. That the Austronesians who spread south from Taiwan probably originated on the Asian mainland does not make them Chinese. Indeed, there are no Austronesians among China’s many minorities today, the nearest being the remnants of the Cham, who ruled central Vietnam until the 15th century.
Moreover, successive Chinese empires had shown no interest in acquiring Taiwan and had actually sought to prevent any outflow of people from Fujian to it or to Southeast Asia. Significant Han immigration to the region only started with the Dutch, who encouraged traders to grow rice and sugar cane.
That process gathered pace after Shi Lang’s conquest so that over time the native inhabitants divided into tribes who, being technologically less advanced, were on retreat. It was a gradual process, but Hans did not become a majority until some time in the 19th century. Now the aboriginal people still able to speak their Austronesian dialects are about 2 percent of Taiwan’s 23 million population.
Nothing can undo that now any more than Native Americans can turn the clock back 200 years. However, Shi Lang will now be a constant reminder to the Malay (in the broadest sense) peoples of their defeat in Taiwan at the hands of an expansionist China, adding to their fears about China’s ambition to control the whole South China Sea and its islands, right up to their own territorial seas and ignoring the continental shelves that usually help define exclusive economic zones. In the case of the latest Chinese clash with a Vietnamese exploration vessel, it occurred just 120 nautical miles off the southern coast of Vietnam.
China also accompanies its claims with accounts of a history worthy of Stalin’s encyclopedia, China’s airbrushing of disgraced politburo members or its yo-yo treatment of Confucius. Recent history makes it very plain that Taiwan has not been part of the Chinese political entity “since time immemorial” but was almost the last addition to the empire.
As for claims to the South China Sea and its islands based on visits by fishermen, they ignore the fact that commerce in that sea, and into and across the Indian Ocean, was run by Malay vessels and crews hundreds of years before Chinese merchants ventured far from their coast. Chinese Buddhist pilgrims to Sri Lanka went on Malay boats via Java or Sumatra. Nearly 2000 years ago, Roman merchants brought spice island products from southern India whence they had been brought by Malay and Indian sailors. At much the same time, Malays were crossing the southern part of the Indian Ocean, settling the huge island of Madagascar and leaving marks in Africa. Even today, Madagascar’s human gene pool is 50 percent Austronesian and its language 80 percent.
The modern states that are the successors of those seafaring, migrant and trading Malays lack — unlike the Chinese — the written records to show their history. But advances in archaeology, in genetics and other sciences that can make up for gaps in written history, are beginning to make the broad Malay world better aware of its past and of its right both to contest Chinese claims and resist further Han expansion into Southeast Asia.
The aircraft carrier Shi Lang will surely add to that awareness. Meanwhile, one tide has turned in favor of the Malays/Austronesians that may ultimately count for more than weaponry: demography. The Han Chinese population, so long the main driver of expansion of the Chinese state, is peaking. The numbers of Malay and Austronesian peoples are still growing.
