The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which – George Orwell, Animal Farm
As the unforgettable conclusion of Orwell’s great anti-communist satire shows, no matter what they tell their hapless subjects, communist regimes are invariably built on the lie that they’re a fundamental break with the previous lot of brutal exploiters. In reality, they’re exactly the same: all that’s changed are the lies.
Like all communist regimes, the Chinese Communist Party are liars without shame. They’re still lying about Tiananmen Square. Now, they’re literally re-writing the history books on Hong Kong. The regime is preparing new textbooks that deny that Hong Kong was ever a British colony.
Contrary to China’s revisionist history, the Qing dynasty formally ceded Hong Kong to Britain in an 1842 treaty. The territory was run by a British colonial administration. Many residents of Hong Kong retain British passports; many have sought to emigrate to the UK. Speaking at the handover on 1 July 1997, President Jiang Zemin spoke of “China’s resumption of the exercise of sovereignty of Hong Kong”, a clear expression of the colony’s former status. Some observers note that the new narrative is driven by the regime’s concern that under UN provisions, Hong Kong could claim independence as a former colony.
Beijing has also long peddled lies about its supposed claims to Taiwan.
Like the Westerners it chastises, China was just another coloniser.
In a recent article, the former Dutch diplomat, Gerrit van der Wees, concluded that Beijing’s claim to Taiwan has “no historical basis, and second, historically speaking it is relatively recent”. It was not a part of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). “The inhabitants [of Formosa] viewed the [subsequent] Qing Dynasty as very much a colonial regime and in no way saw themselves as ‘part of China’. It was not until 1887 that Taiwan was formally elevated to the status of ‘Province of China’, but that only lasted eight years – an inconvenient truth for Beijing.” From 1895, the Japanese ruled the island, establishing the basis for its modern infrastructure. Under the Treaty of Shimonoseki that ended the war between Japan and the Qing over Taiwan, all Qing subjects had a two-year opportunity to decide to return to China or remain on the Island. Less than 10,000 people, of some 2.5 million, returned.
The founding father of modern China, Sun Yat-sen, equated Taiwan to colonised Korea and Vietnam. Even Mao, in 1937, repeated Sun’s arguments.
In reality, the People’s Republic of China has never controlled Taiwan, while the Republic of China, Taiwan relinquished its authority in the mainland after moving its capital to Taipei in 1949 […]
As President Tsai Ing-wen has said, Taiwan does not need to declare its independence. The West must push back against the CCP’s historic distortions that serve their cause to control Taiwan.
Communist regimes, from the Soviets on, sponsored anti-colonial movements around the world in the 1950s and 60s. China continues to posture as an anti-colonial saviour, endlessly banging on about its “Century of Humiliation” to bolster its anti-imperialist credentials.
In reality, Communist China is just an old-fashioned imperialist in a fancy new suit.
In the past two decades, especially under Xi Jinping, China has become the new imperial coloniser. Its actions in many parts of the world, ranging from Africa to the South Pacific, are evidence of this.
The history of colonisation reveals a familiar pattern. Military involvement usually follows economic exploitation, which results in political and military control.
This is the (obviously planned) trajectory of Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative. The BRI holds out wads of cash with one hand and holds the PLA behind its back with the other. As many nations are already discovering, China quickly moves to recover its debt by simply taking over, lock, stock and barrel. As Pakistan is rapidly discovering, local unrest is quickly exploited as an excuse to step up Chinese “security”.
Today, “security forces”, tomorrow the PLA.
In the past few weeks, Xi Jinping, who is the chairman of the Central Military Commission as well as Secretary-General of the Communist Party, signed off on 59 new articles. According to the regime’s mouthpiece the Global Times, these articles establish a legal basis within China for the PLA to “safeguard China’s national sovereignty, security and development interests”. Significantly, the paper stated that “Chinese troops can prevent spillover effects of regional instabilities from affecting China, secure vital transport routes for strategic materials like oil or safeguard China’s overseas investments, projects and personnel.”
Spectator Australia
As countless minor despots and local princelings discovered during the age of Western colonialism, too-tempting trade deals inexorably morph into imperial control. By the time the PLA is rolling into town, it’ll be too late to back out.
