Beijing has warned Manila not to “stir up trouble” after the Philippine coastguard removed a floating barrier at a disputed reef that was deployed by China to block Filipinos from the traditional fishing ground within their country’s own exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
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What’s the history behind the dispute?
The incident occurred as tensions escalate between China and the Philippines over other areas of the South China Sea, foremost of which are the Spratly Islands.
China claims sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea while several other countries, including the Philippines, have overlapping claims to parts of it.
Beijing’s claim that it controls almost the entire waterway was nullified by The Hague’s Permanent Court of Arbitration in a 2016 ruling, which called it groundless.
When you have a large population with a strongman government, having little appetite for upheavals is likely impossible. Interacting with the Chinese, I’ve learned that their government is always actively monitoring online spaces to silence dissidents amongst their own people, such that their people are used to codify their languages, and switch whenever a code gets added to the list of words that would trigger the attention of authorities. Some years ago, it was something related to meditation (it was used as a code for their gatherings), and so the Buddhists had to change the word they use to avoid unnecessary trouble with the authorities. These don’t get mentioned very often in Western news sources.
Yeh, the zeitgeist is also highly diverse , nuanced, layered, multi linguistic, regionalised and constantly evolving. Which I see as hopeful and isn’t what the CCP wants. Any Western generalisation especially across headlines is hardly ever accurate, but also plays to the party’s own often defensive (feelings easily hurt) public info strategies.