WILL NAJIB & ZAHID DRAG MALAYSIA INTO WAR WITH CHINA FOR THEIR OWN POLITICAL AGENDA?

When Najib Razak needs to shore up his credentials as the penultimate Malay/Umno chief, he hits the Chinese in Malaysia hard, calling them names; the word ‘pigs’ is in vogue. When he hits China, with who does he want to establish his credentials?

To get at China, he wouldn’t be doing it for the benefit of the Philippines nor Vietnam because both are Malaysia’s rival claimants on parts of the Spratly islands. He owes them nothing anyway. But, America comes to mind.

If that were the case, what’s in it for Najib? Can he be doing it in the national interest, that is, purely for Malaysia’s sake? Which is also to say, Malaysia has to get something from the Americans while, simultaneously, in picking a fight with China, Malaysia will lose nothing as a result. Then there are the other questions: How will Malaysia gain? Who from? Why?

Yet, any which way one looks at this three-sided triangular relationship, a fight won’t yield Malaysia much from China: The latter funds and builds the second Penang bridge, the high-speed rail link with Singapore and many other infrastructure projects, including power generation in Sabah and Sarawak. Malaysian sell more goods to China than imports from it.

In its relationship with the US, what’s Malaysia to gain? Cheap medicines under the Tran Pacific Partnership? This can’t be. The TPP is an American statement of intent towards China so that it is the US that wants Malaysia on TPP more badly than Malaysia can get Panadol cheap. How about the gift of an aircraft carrier for Najib, on board which he can have another wedding reception? That’s a joke of course. Malaysia can’t even prevent its jets and engines from falling off the sky.

So that, if there is no national benefit in going against China, what was on Najib’s mind when his deputy Zahid Hamidi begins to malign China as a bully, working in the Spratly to seize Malaysian real estate? What’s in it for Najib and Zahid to instigate war with China? There are just two plausible answers.

A Barking Dog’s Sovereignty

Obama Welcomes Najib: Let’s Kick the Pigs Najib Prepares Ground in the US

Najib Goes Back on Father’s Word, ‘We’ll be Neutral‘

One. Najib sincerely wants to safeguard national, independent sovereignty so that no amount of Chinese money bribes will buy him to close an eye on China’s intent towards Malaysia. This brings us to Zahid, because according to him, China had ‘encroached into Malaysia’s territory by constructing airstrips, jetties and other facilities on three atolls just 155km (84 nautical miles) from Sabah‘. (More of that below.)

Those are specific charges. But, after saying so, Zahid does nothing. There is no war declaration; he doesn’t send in warships and those invincible submarines to recover the property; he doesn’t send in the Malay regiment; makes no attempt — none at all — to even take on the Chinese invaders; not even a shot fired. In doing nothing Zahid looks a windbag. So that he will be seen as a man with just a lot of fart and spittle. A barking dog! Yet this is characteristic of Zahid as seen in local politics: a Malay buffoon good at howling and screaming at the Chinese who can’t fight back but spineless when, with Anwar Ibrahim, the push comes to shove.

Two. If national sovereignty is not it, there is left only this other purpose: wanting something from the US by hitting China. There is a Chinese proverb for such a conduct: 掩耳盗铃 yǎněr daòlíng which literally translates as, steal the bell but cover your ears.

Who wants something? Najib? Because of FBI investigations into 1MDB funds? Or, Zahid Hamidi because he owed American authorities a favor for acquitting him over links with a criminal underworld and underworld money? Or both? On the giver’s side is America. Its support for tyrants is legendary, and this runs from Central and South America in the 1960s and 1970s to Indochina in the 1970s, Africa in the 1990s to the Middle East at present. Closer to home, the US propped up Ferdinand Marcos, now, yet another Pinoy, so long as US warships and fighter jets could be stationed in the Philippines.

The willingness of persons like Najib and Zahid to use the levers of the country, that is, its national sovereign power to serve their individual, personal interest is unprecedented. But why should it be a surprise? After all, national institutions like 1MDB have been used to serve individuals; the AG Chambers to save Najib’s skin; the Police to harass his critics, all very characteristic of Najib and Zahid.

What’s the shock in the surprise is, Najib’s audacity to exploit the entire country for personal objectives. In taking the side of America, golfing with Obama, he dumps Malaysia’s international, long held reputation as a sane, moderate, a friend to all, a very smart country playing its cards right — a reputation begun by his father Tun Razak. To go back on his father’s word, which has for 40 years or more placed Malaysian foreign policy on the path of non-alignment, neutrality, then the stakes must be high for Najib. Some real big time favors to Americans? Jail in Alcatraz?

With big rewards come big risks. Najib, with Zahid to the fore, now drags the entire country into a potential conflagration between the US and China.

That is the one lesson in Najib’s Umno-style racial politics made international: Zahid has now only to call Xi Jiping a pig and all Chinese, in China and Malaysia, whores and pimps, their men out to grab Malay property and land. And what better place to start than the Spratlys. After which look out for the tone and language in Ahirudin Attan at Rocky Bru to fan the flames.

In the Spratly Islands. Islands are colored by occupying country: China, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam or Taiwan. Lines in the same colors show the extent of territorial claims. Source: The New York Times.

China, the Philippines and Vietnam are the biggest claimants on Spratly, virtually every visible speck on the map, so that, predictably, they fight the hardest among themselves.

The Philippine claim is as audacious as China’s. The latter calls it the South Sea Islands, or 南沙岛 nansha dao. Among Filipinos, South China Sea was renamed Western Philippine Sea (hahaha) and they call the Spratly archipelago the Kalayaan (map below).

Malaysia’s claim is restricted to those on Spratly south. Taiwan? It has just the island of Itu Aba. In international politics, the Taiwanese are just country bumpkins although in 2013 its legislature approved US$112 million to enlarge the Itu Aba piers to take in warships. The Americans, famously, had nothing to complain about the construction as being a threat to freedom of navigation.

Come Again, Zahid: China Invaded Malaysia?

Because the Spratly is a cluster of so many specks of islands, atolls, reefs, shoals and cays, 750 by one count, it seems at first sight terribly confusing. If these were grouped together and turned into a sovereign country — call it say, the Republic of Spratly — then it would make more sense and all the fighting for bits of dirt and real estate would vanish tomorrow.

Here, though, is the problem: this group sits in an ocean, middle of nowhere, not even a ghost in sight, and if the 750 pieces were bundled together, their total land size will amount to no more than 2km x 2km, not much bigger than the Singapore Zoo.

All of which says, that the Spratly, from the beginning of time, belonged to nobody. But if Najib’s grandfather had enough gumption, and a navy to back it up, he could seized all 4sq km of sea shell real estate in an ocean of 425,000 sq km after which Najib and Hamidi could claim it as bumi land and before which to call it Tanah Bugis Melayu, out of bounds to all Chinese, China especially.

But what would those bumis do with that Tanah B-Melayu? Golfing with Obama? Or perhaps fishing 24×7? Or, open up a Bugis brothel then, next door, a bag store selling Hermes? Here’s another idea: turn it into an ISIS camp to dump all Najib’s Bugis warriors. When in those places, you can’t even get Wifi much less P1 broadband, they could pray from dawn till dust. Or fight stingrays.

Here is the point then: Anybody, even Americans who took Hawaii and Guam (and these were populated areas), can claim any part of Spratly. But to own it — that is, as sovereign, national territory — you have to build it. Malaysia was one of the earliest invaders into Spratly, seizing (yes, seizing) Swallow Reef and after which taking from the sea bed and adding soil to the original 15 acres. The resulting reclamation produced a total of 86 acres, that is, 71 acres more, 1.5 km by 200 metres wide.

We call it Pulau Layang Layang.

Why on Layang Layang? After all it is good for some scuba diving by visitors and fishing by a military garrison, and little else. Answer: Because it is the largest atoll, nearest to Sabah — 300 km (186 miles) — and because from there Malaysia can watch out for those Sulu pirates who stole into Lahad Datu.

Zahidian Anti-Chinese Politics Goes International

Zahid: ‘China Invades Malaysia’

Zahid Prepares Malaysia for War with China

So when Zahid said that China had encroached on Malaysian territory, ‘just 155km (84 nautical miles) from Sabah’, you have to wonder: It has to be closer to the mainland than Layang Layang. But where? Which island or reef or atoll did the Chinese occupy, thereby encroached on Malaysian soil?

Here is the other curiosity: By international law, any speck of land is considered national, sovereign territory only if — and only if — that land is within 14km (12nm) territorial waters from the coast baseline. But 155km (96miles)? At that distance, it can only be property claimed — as Layang Layang is, so that if China, which also claims Spratly, should go to war over it, there is nothing Malaysia’s Australian or New Zealand military allies can do to help because that’s not UN-recognised and UN-registered Malaysian property.

Now, go to the map below. (And this is not some doctored piece of 1MDB document, but is actually embellished in color on a Google map.) Begin from the bottom. The single white line is the measurement for 80km or 50miles. The speck colored in a green ring with an airplane is Layang Layang. All those specks colored green are claimed by Malaysia. The straight green line is the extend of Malaysia’s claims, which places Layang Layang within the 230-mile-wide (200nm or 370km) Exclusive Economic Zone corridor, EEZ, along with five more green circles. (EEZ waters is still international waters.)

Within this 370km EEZ and nearby Layang Layang and its cluster of reefs are three other spots at present claimed and occupied. Two are taken by Vietnam (colored purple, i.e. Amboyna Cay to the left of Layang Layang) and one by the Philippines (colored yellow, the Commodore Reef to the right). No Chinese around.

China is building on seven spots, all outside Malaysian EEZ, and six of these are the farthest from any land mass, Palawan of the Philippines in particular. The one closest to Sabah is known as Cuarteron Reef which, being tiny, is of no military significance to China whereas Fiery Cross, the biggest with a runway, is even farther out to sea. Even at Cuarteron it is 86 km outside the Malaysian claim-line, 240 km from Layang Layang, and more than 450 km from Sabah. Again, no encroachment — not even on Malaysian claims.

Hamid’s way of deception by telling lies is now new. His attacks on China mirrors the classic Umno Malay politics employed on land: Lying to instigate fear among Malays of an imminent Chinese seizure on the former’s interests.

Stated another way, Najib’s government has begun to employ American methods in its foreign policy conduct by relying not on objective principles of fact, truth and friendship but on the emotional draw of race hostility and antagonistic nationalism. This is yet another sign of departure from Tun Razak’s, Malaysia’s and Asean’s level-headed, friend-to-all, foreign conduct.

If Hamid is yelling wolf out in the sea, why? Making those China-is-invading remarks, he has asked that the Sabah PBS assembly pass a resolution condemning the ‘encroachment on Malaysian territory’. What could be more stirring to the emotion than Sabah’s independence at stake? PBS is a racial party, strictly Sabah, strictly Kadazandusun, no peninsular, no Melayu and no Chinese.

If in Zahid’s political calculation, killing local Chinese to rally Umno-Malays work, the same could be worth trying in Sabah. Which, to put it another way, Zahid has no qualms dragging the entire country into a war with China to satisfy his domestic political goals. (Such rhetoric works: Assholes like this ‘truth-seeker‘ and S. Param actually buy the crap.)

This is reason why Zahid is not only an anti-national element. Should Umno be defeated, he alongside Najib must be investigated, put on trial then jailed.

Above: Islands and reefs that have undergone recent construction are shown with a white ring. Colored rings show whether the feature is occupied by China, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam or Taiwan. Source: The New York Times.

Because the map above is unmarked, it should be read with the one below. Begin from the bottom, Swallow Reef, and move up. Another map at the top is also helpful.

Why is China on a Spratly building binge? There are two theories. One, all the construction followed years of sea and land provocations. On the Filipino side, arresting, parading then jailing hundreds of Chinese fishermen for poaching and (in Zahid’s words) encroaching its territorial waters; the 2010 hijacking of Hong Kong tourists in Manila, killing eight; troop landings and military exercises from Palawan.

The second theory, from American analysts, is somewhat queer: China feels left out. Everybody is building things in Spratly, why aren’t we, the Chinese, doing it? Especially since they say it is theirs. After you have the runways and the piers with nobody around to use it, what then is the point? But, recall that in the Spratly, the only claim you can make on open space — that is, on nothingness — is to first put something there, the bigger the better.

There is a also third theory though: the more the Americans want to contain China, the more forceful it pushes back. This is breaking out of containment.

Zahid’s May 13 Declaration in the Spratly

Now that Zahid has gotten Malaysia into a fight with China, the Americans must be rubbing their hands in glee. Here is a Flipino news headline response: China invades 3 Malaysian atolls, starts construction of Chinese facilities. The article was later pulled out. Gutless Pinoy, more bark than bite.

Here is China’s response the day after Zahid’s remarks on Nov 14:

China could have used force to expel nations illegally occupying its islands in the South China Sea, but instead is showing restraint, a top Chinese diplomat has said about the vexed territorial dispute.

Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin was speaking about the Spratly Islands, an archipelago where overlapping claims by China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei are increasingly creating tensions.

“The Chinese government has the right and the ability to recover the islands and reefs illegally occupied by neighboring countries,” Liu said Tuesday in Beijing, without naming any particular country.

“But we haven’t done this. We have maintained great restraint with the aim to preserve peace and stability in the South China Sea,” he added.

Restraint? Peace and stability? Bah…! - https://shuzheng.wordpress.com