Dealing with a tough Beijing

EDITORIAL

Published: 25 Feb 2013 at 00.00
Newspaper section: News

A disturbing report from China last week highlighted the increasing tension that surrounds Beijing's expanding interests in our region. According to Liu Yuejin, commander of the formidable anti-drug police in southern China, Beijing had prepared plans and planes last year to attack the drug lord Naw Kham inside Myanmar with a drone aircraft. It would have been the first such use of drones in the Asean region. China would have become just the fourth country to use drones to attack another nation. And it could have been an act of war.

Mr Liu's superiors cancelled plans to use the drones to attack Myanmar. They wanted Naw Kham captured alive, for a show trial. The Shan drug lord was accused of masterminding attacks that killed 13 Chinese sailors inside Thailand on the Mekong River. The Chinese succeeded in capturing Naw Kham, and he is on death row in China, and likely to be executed soon.

The casual reference by Mr Liu to the planned drone attack, however, is the latest threat from China concerning the Asean region. Beijing's claims on the China Sea are better known, and are currently taken more seriously because they have brought armed clashes in several cases. But both the air and naval warnings are part of a new Chinese tone in its foreign relations. It bears directly on our region.

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geoffo
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Discussion 6 : 25 Feb 2013 at 11.466
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Chinas imperialist ambitions are well known. All Asian countries know of Chinese efforts throughout history to subvert their rule to favour China.

China actively supported both the Malayan and Thai Communists even hosting their respective leaders publicly . As other noted , Chinese railway offers always come with the right of resettlement of the guest workers to create Chinese enclaves.

China now has some 30 to 40 million marriage aged males with no female partners. They cannot all be kept happy playing computer games.

Move over the Ugly American , make way for the Ugly Chinese
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ATNN
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Discussion 5 : 25 Feb 2013 at 11.445
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#4 - so what explains the factors in the West that "enables those rulers to commit great evil," like lying, invading, occupying, and killing over a million in Iraq? Or their international rendition and assassination programs? It's a good idea to remind China just how deep the West has dug its hole, not apply double standards.
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felixqui
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Discussion 4 : 25 Feb 2013 at 10.464
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The Chinese people are easily led because, much like law abiding Thai citizens, they are kept in ignorance by strict censorship, and so hold opinions that must be largely worthless on many topics of public interest that their rulers do not want them to know about. This enables those rulers to commit great evil whilst disguising it as patriotism or the like.

On the positive side, such officially enforced ignorance does not lead to enduring greatness, and the Chinese people will not continue to stand for it, just as the Thai people are sick of the legally enforced stasis that has retarded them for too long.
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Ian
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Discussion 3 : 25 Feb 2013 at 09.243
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Chinese money is very addictive, but we know where adduction leads, it is called dependency.
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Ramet in Dallas
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Discussion 2 : 25 Feb 2013 at 09.232
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The Chinese people were starting to focus too much on corruption wihtin the ruling party and the unsustainable economic system so the leaders stir up Nationalist feelings and direct the people's focus to an 'enemy' outside of China. Weather this statement is true or that the Chinese truely have expansionist ideas will only be known in the course of time. In the meantime, I agree with descussion#1. The Chinese are not to be underestimated or trifled with.
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commonman
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Discussion 1 : 25 Feb 2013 at 06.191
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The Chinese policy is passive-aggressive. They won't attack you, they will wear you down. If you like the Han Chinese and wish to have many of them come to live in Thailand, just let them build a railroad. They don't like walking so much. Alternately, if you want to live with a lot of Han, move to Tibet. Ask the Vietnamese if they want a Chinese railroad. They have successfully kept the Chinese out for a few hundred years. There is a lot of pro-Chinese feeling in Thailand because most of the big money people are Thai-Chinese. Thais talk about sovernity. They better look north.
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