Think about it
Enigmatic China
By Jun Velasco
“It is easy to be brave from safe distance.” — Aesop
OUR personal experience with the Chinese people whether here or in the Mainland or Taiwan shows that they keep their cards close to their chests.
They are inscrutable, enigmatic, puzzling. One day, they are too good to be true, genial, warm, hearty and affectionate; but they are aloof, businesslike, cold, even suspicious the next day.
We told our fellow traveler, former Graphic Editor in Chief Manuel Almario in a Beijing market while we were shopping that Chinese merchants are much shrewder than their counterparts in the Philippines. A vendor would dangle an attractive item for 1,000 Yuan only for us to learn that our friend got it for only 150 Yuan.
You wouldn’t know, much less smell, their “poker” buy-and-sell tricks, but you’d resolve to be extra careful with these market thugs.
In Taipei, we swapped signs to pay for our bowl of steaming noodles soup allowing the vendor to pluck our dollar bill. We learned later that the wise guy could speak English albeit broken English.
We’ve been an admirer of the Great Helmsman to a point where even Chinese editors and publishers embraced us for quoting Mao such as on never to doubt the sincerity of the masses. We used to mouth Mao’s mass line like nobody’s business, but the Chinese’s sleek moves on money matters only firmly shows they’re bias for their own interest.
We recall these in light of New China’s recent bullying against puny nations like the Philippines and Vietnam with claims of the gold-rich Spratlys, which geographically are much closer to the Philippine islands than to China by 300 miles.
But there’s no stopping Big Brother from showing off the power of might which should caution our government officials led by President Aquino from dealing with China like an “equal.” The ugly fact is we are not. The United States’ suspicious rush to come to the aid of little Pinoy is doing more harm, a situation that has worried veteran senator Juan Ponce Enrile who knows the equation in the power game.
Someone texted us a scathing dispatch by fellow journalist Rodil Rodis,US-based Fil-Am journalist, twitting Filipinos hereabouts for not denouncing enough China’s bullying against the Philippines and other weak nations with claims over the Spratlys.
Rodis, a good friend of our former student Dan Nino, president of the Los Angeles Press Club, strongly laments why local Pinoys are not showing their fury against China’s bullying, is calling on all Filipinos worldwide and like-minded nationals to protest China’s bullying on earth on July 8 in any China consulate.
We wanted to kid Rodil by quoting Aesop’s “it’s easy to be brave from a safe distance,” but we perfectly agree with him that in this day and age, might should no longer be equated with physical force but with the correctness of one’s stand.
Fact is we’ve wondered if holding mass demonstrations haven’t lost their magic yet with the pervasiveness of the computer. But as a rallying symbol, we concur with Rodil, as we add our voice to rally Internet users against China’s crude use of “might as right.”
But as the more experienced and battle-scarred Johnny Enrile winks as if to say that “prudence is the better part of valor,” we’d rather seek smart negotiators with dazzling wit, profound reason and soulful summons to the spirit warriors to advance these beautiful isles’ unbending superiority, which is the correctness of its claim.
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