FREEDOM AND PEACE IN CHINA
[This Monday’s Archive was originally posted on December 22, 2005. Nineteen years ago. It is more apropos than ever, given the current headline (12/29/24): Pentagon Report: China Directs Largest Military Build-Up Since 1930s Nazi Germany. The only possible reason for this is to be a fascist threat to China’s neighbors and to us. This speech I gave in Taiwan proposes a solution to that threat that T47 might consider.]
TTP, December 22, 2005
[This is the text of a speech I delivered at Chung Hsing University in Taichung, Taiwan, December 22, 2005.]
I flew here today from Singapore. As we were flying over the South China Sea, I looked down and saw these beautiful islands – jewels of green and turquoise and white in an ocean of blue. They looked like paradise – but these, I recognized, were the Spratly Islands, claimed by China, even though they are much closer to the Philippines.
In fact, if you had an official PRC government map of China, you would see that China claims, besides Taiwan of course, the entire South China Sea as its territory, from the coasts of the Philippines and Vietnam all the way to Indonesia. 80% by value of the world’s shipping goes through the South China Sea.
The countries of Asia cannot afford to let China seize this vital waterway and build military bases in the Paracel and Spratly Islands. China has no legitimate claim on the entire South China Sea whatever – yet China is risking war with its neighbors because of this totally absurd claim.
Then the plane this morning reached the southern coast of Taiwan, and we flew along the entire length of the island to reach Taipei. As I looked down at the farmlands, the factories, the homes, villages, towns, and cities of Taiwan passing beneath me, I could not help thinking: the Communist rulers of China want to destroy all this, ruin these people’s lives, enslave them to their rule – and for what?
Because all these people want is to be left alone.
There is no possible way the 22 million people of Taiwan are a threat to the 1.3 billion people of China, any more there is no possible way China legally owns the entire South China Sea – yet China is willing to risk war merely because the people of Taiwan do not want their lives controlled and enslaved by the rulers of Beijing.
This threat of war, the gigantic threat of China to Taiwan and all of China’s neighbors, has got to come to an end. And tonight we are going to talk about how to do it.
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