「平時不燒香，臨時抱[美利堅]佛腳」、咎由自取的菲律賓人現在正在亡羊補牢，但還是死要面子(下)
[提醒或建議: 本文篇幅不短，不習慣閱讀英文的鄉親或網友請跳過英文﹞
五
在稍早前幾天，菲國總統接受「紐約時報」的專訪，他呼籲世界各國採取更多的行動，支持菲律賓，來對抗中國在南海的主張，他把1938年西方國家沒能支持捷克來對抗希特勒的領土主張、因而鼓勵了希特勒的進一步對外擴張的歷史往事拿來做比較。
“Philippine Leader Sounds Alarm on China”
By KEITH BRADSHER
The New York Times
FEB. 4, 2014
Interview With President Aquino
President Benigno S. Aquino III of the Philippines called for nations around the world to support his country in resisting China.
“At what point do you say.’Enough is enough’? Well, the world has to say it --- remember that the Sudetenland was given in an attempt to appease Hitler to prevent World War II.”
在稍早前幾天，菲國總統接受「紐約時報」的專訪，他呼籲世界各國採取更多的行動，支持菲律賓，來對抗中國在南海的主張，他把1938年西方國家沒能支持捷克來對抗希特勒的領土主張、因而鼓勵了希特勒的進一步對外擴張的歷史往事拿來做比較。
“Philippine Leader Sounds Alarm on China”
By KEITH BRADSHER
The New York Times
FEB. 4, 2014
Interview With President Aquino
President Benigno S. Aquino III of the Philippines called for nations around the world to support his country in resisting China.
“At what point do you say.’Enough is enough’? Well, the world has to say it --- remember that the Sudetenland was given in an attempt to appease Hitler to prevent World War II.”
MANILA — President Benigno S. Aquino III called on Tuesday for nations around the world to do more to support the Philippines in resisting China’s assertive claims to the seas near his country, drawing a comparison to the West’s failure to support
Czechoslovakia against Hitler’s demands for Czech land in 1938.
Like Czechoslovakia, the Philippines faces demands to surrender territory piecemeal to a much stronger foreign power and needs more robust foreign support for the rule of international law if it is to resist, President Aquino said in a 90-minute interview in the wood-paneled music room of the presidential palace.
“If we say yes to something we believe is wrong now, what guarantee is there that the wrong will not be further exacerbated down the line?” he said. He later added, “At what point do you say, ‘Enough is enough’? Well, the world has to say it — remember that the Sudetenland was given in an attempt to appease Hitler to prevent World War II.”
Mr. Aquino’s remarks are among the strongest indications yet of alarm among Asian heads of state about China’s military buildup and territorial ambitions, and the second time in recent weeks that an Asian leader has volunteered a comparison to the prelude to world wars.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan caused a stir in Davos, Switzerland, when he noted last month that Britain and Germany went to war in 1914 even though they had close economic ties — much as China and Japan have now.
Japan has been locked in an increasingly tense standoff with China over uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, and even South Korea, which has been quieter about Chinese claims, expressed alarm last year when Beijing announced that it had the right to police the skies above a vast area of ocean, including areas claimed by Japan and South Korea.
While China’s efforts to claim rocks, shoals and fishing grounds off the coast of the Philippines in the South China Sea have been less high-profile, the Chinese have moved faster there.
The Philippines already appears to have lost effective control of one of the best-known places of contention, a reef called Scarborough Shoal, after Philippine forces withdrew during a standoff with China in 2012. The Philippine forces left as part of an American-mediated deal in which both sides were to pull back while the dispute was negotiated. Chinese forces remained, however, and gained control.
In his nearly four years as president, Mr. Aquino, 53, has exceeded expectations in his country and the region for what he would be able to accomplish in a nation once known as the “sick man of Asia.” He was a fairly low-key senator when he was propelled into the presidency in 2010 by a wave of national sympathy after his mother, former President Corazon C. Aquino, died the year before.
Political analysts say that his administration has fought and reduced the corruption that played a role in holding the Philippines back. In one practical measure of that change, the country has been able to pave more roads per 100 million pesos in spending (about $2.2 million) than before — when funds were lost to corrupt officials and incompetence — finally addressing an impediment to commerce.
All of the major credit rating agencies now give the Philippines an investment grade rating, though the recent downturn in share prices and currencies here and in other emerging markets, on fears of further slowing of the Chinese economy, poses an immediate challenge.
In another accomplishment, Mr. Aquino’s negotiators concluded a major peace agreement last month with the main resistance group on Mindanao, the heavily Muslim southern island. Still, the deal remains something of a gamble; it is based in good part on the Muslim group’s ability to hold in check smaller resistance groups, which criticized the pact almost immediately.
Despite those successes, Mr. Aquino was criticized for the country’s slow initial response to last year’s devastating typhoon. He said the storm was so powerful that it overwhelmed the Philippines’ many preparations.
He has also been less aggressive on land reform — the Aquinos are among the country’s biggest landowning families — and he has preferred to shift more of the government’s social spending to poor villages instead. Walden Bello, although a congressman in the president’s governing coalition, said he was one of many who believe that “the lack of real progress on land reform is a real reason why poverty rates have remained” at high levels.
Analysts say the almost feudal power of some entrenched families, including some with militias, is a further obstacle to growth. But Mr. Aquino said he was trying to convince the families that becoming less insular would foster greater prosperity.
Mr. Aquino is prevented by law from seeking re-election when his six-year term expires in 2016, raising uncertainty about whether his changes will continue.
In the wide-ranging interview on Tuesday, Mr. Aquino said he thought the Philippines and the United States were close to a long-delayed deal that would allow more American troops to rotate through the Philippines, enhancing his country’s security. But the subject remains controversial among the political elite in the Philippines, with memories of the country’s past as an American possession making them wary of closer military ties.
The United States is pushing for the deal to aid in its rebalance to Asia, where it hopes to retain a strong influence despite China’s rise.
Speaking of the Philippines’ own tensions with the Chinese, Mr. Aquino said his country would not renounce any of its possessions in the sea between it and China.
China contends that centuries-old maps show that it had an early claim to the South China Sea almost to Borneo. It is trying to use its large and growing fleet to exercise effective control over reefs and islands in the sea, a strategy that could strengthen its legal position.
At the same time, China has strongly resisted applying the procedures and numerical formulas of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to the many reefs and islands that lie much closer to countries like the Philippines than to China.
Officials in Beijing also oppose multilateral discussions, preferring bilateral talks with individual countries in Southeast Asia, an approach that allows Chinese leaders to apply greater pressure.
While China has been improving its military, Mr. Aquino noted that the last flight by a Philippine fighter jet was in 2005 and that the plane dated from before the Vietnam War. Most of the country’s tiny naval and coast guard fleet dates from World War II.
The difficulties with China extend beyond the arguments over the South China Sea. The Hong Kong government, with enthusiastic backing from the Chinese Foreign Ministry in Beijing, plans to stop allowing 14-day visa-free visits by Filipino diplomats and officials starting Wednesday. The sanctions are part of a long-running demand by Hong Kong that the national government of the Philippines apologize over a violent episode in 2010 in which a hostage rescue attempt in Manila failed, leaving eight Hong Kong citizens dead.
In his first public response to the sanctions, Mr. Aquino said he had no plans to apologize, saying that doing so could create a legal liability and noting that China had not paid compensation to the families of Filipinos who have died in episodes there.
Mr. Aquino, who is not married, lives in a small cottage behind the presidential palace instead of in the luxurious palace itself. He said he tries to relax before going to sleep each night either by listening to music — often jazz — or pursuing his passion as an amateur historian, reading military journals, some about World War II.
While recently reading about the predicament of Czechoslovakia’s leaders in the late 1930s, he said, he saw a parallel “in a sense” to his own problems now in facing challenges from China.
Appeasement did not work in 1938, he noted; within six months of the surrender of the Sudetenland, Germany occupied most of the rest of Czechoslovakia.
The Philippines, he said, is determined not to make similar concessions. “You may have the might,” he said of China, “but that does not necessarily make you right.”
六
建州運動先前曾指出，美國現在面臨東西兩條戰線的巨大壓力，
目前白宮與五角大廈的表現似乎是指向建州派所主張的「西守東攻」的戰略。所謂攻，也非真正的攻勢，而是在戰略上對東亞的盟國與安全夥伴發出明確的安全承諾或協防承諾，同時以實際行動給盟國與安全夥伴信心，並讓敵人與潛在的敵人確知，美國是認真的，美國是做好作戰準備的，讓中國不會輕易嘗試「懦夫賽局」的「戰爭邊緣」遊戲。
七
台灣建州運動對南海若干島嶼的主權有其主張，我們不久將會就此議題或問題發表一篇正式的聲明。
在發表正式的聲明之前，我們現在就可以先就其中的一項做一些說明。
建州運動主張在台灣加入美國 之前 ，美國應該對東沙群島(the Pratas Islands) 以及1952年的「台北和約」第二條中所指的the Spratley Islands [南沙群島]and the Paracel Islands[西沙群島]主張主權，但施政權均暫置於「台灣關係法」所指的「在台灣的治理當局」之下，美國海岸防衛隊可暫時以日本的與那國島為基地，等台灣加入美國、台灣成為美國的領地之後，the Pratas Islands, the Spratley Islands and the Paracel Islands就正式劃歸台灣領地，美國海岸防衛隊也以台灣與澎湖為基地。
「台北和約」第二條的英文原文如下:
Treaty of Peace between the Republic of China and Japan
Signed at Taipei, 28 April 1952
Entered into force, 5 August 1952, by the exchange of the instruments of ratification at Taipei
Article 2
It is recognised that under Article 2 of the Treaty of Peace which Japan signed at the city of San Francisco on 8 September 1951 (hereinafter referred to as the San Francisco Treaty), Japan has renounced all right, title, and claim to Taiwan (Formosa) and Penghu (the Pescadores) as well as the Spratley Islands and the Paracel Islands.
台灣建州運動發起人周威霖
David C. Chou
Founder, Formosa Statehood Movement
(an organization devoted in current stage to making Taiwan a territorial commonwealth of the United States)
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