In
May the East Sea was unusually busy with trips back and forth, speeches of
government leaders in and outside the region, and comments of experts and
concerns of the public about China’s illegal construction activities.
 |
The reefs where China
conducts illegal construction activities.
|
It is also the time that
the online world saw the trailer of the Chinese series “The Lost Tomb”. This
film is based on an Internet novel of the same name by Kennedy Xu. The Lost
Tomb will have eight seasons filmed over a period of eight years. The filming
of the first season took place from August to November 30 2014. The first
season is slated to be broadcast in summer 2015. The series is expected to be
influential.
The two actions and two events
happen in the same period, which seem to have no connection but in fact they
aim for the same goal: strengthening China’s vague sovereignty claims in the
East Sea, with different methods.
They are two sides of
the three-side war strategy (san zhong zhanfa), which was approved by the
Chinese Communist Party Central Committee and the Chinese Central Military
Commission in 2013. This is a war supporting military operations of China to
have the upper hand in future disputes. The "three-side war" includes
public opinion war, psychological and legal wars.
There would be nothing
worth mentioning if the context of one seas in this series is not related to
the Hoang Sa Archipelago of Vietnam that is called Xisha by China. It depicts
the excavations of an ancient tomb of an engineer in the Ming Dynasty in Xisha
(Hoang Sa of Vietnam) Island. Many islands of Vietnam are also assumed falsely
as belonging to China.
The Lost Tomb series,
with fictional content on the search of ancient tombs on the islands of Vietnam
in the East Sea, assumes that from the Ming and Song Dynasties, Chinese people
had many activities in this area, and even built large works on Xinsha (Hoang
Sa of Vietnam).
Fiction is part of the
literary and artistic life and enhances the literary arts. But fiction is not
absolute freedom when it touches legal, emotional, cultural issues and national
spirit.
The legal war has also
been applied by China. The 9-dot line has been drawn on the map but also added
to the e-passport of China.
The United Nations
Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982 (UNCLOS) and other international
conventions are used to justify the actions of China such as the annual fishing
ban, pulling HD-981 drilling rig into the exclusive economic zone of Vietnam,
illegal construction of artificial islands, dispelling fishermen of other
countries, and preparing to set up the Air Defence Identification Zone in the
East Sea. China’s domestic law is also used to expand China’s authority and exercise
of power in the East Sea, such as the law on the territorial waters, exclusive
economic zone or continental shelf, and the regulations to establish Sansha
city.
The “war of public
opinion", or information war, is used to influence awareness and
attitude. This war emphasizes all communications tools as movies, TV, books,
internet and global communication networks.
The four pillars of the
information war are: 1/going from the top to the bottom, meaning that the
efforts of this war must go from top leaders to all sectors in both content and
timetable; 2/taking quick action to lead the debate and to paralyze the will to
fight of the enemy; 3/ taking action that must be flexible and reacting quickly
to adapt to the political and military situation; 4/ taking advantage of
available resources, i.e., the combination of peacetime and wartime activities
to influence domestic and international opinion. False information is given
through movies, games, etc. to shape public confidence, and change the
perception of opponents over time.
Many Vietnamese users
may still remember WeChat software, a world-class product of China with rapid
growth of users, reaching 300 million in January 2013.
On 14/12/2012, shortly
after being elected as General Secretary, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited
Tencent, which created software WeChat. Xi delivered a 40-minute speech, which
stressed the important role of the internet and insisted that the Chinese party
and government would invest in and support IT companies like Tencent. At the
same time, Xi asked these units to exert efforts to disseminate propaganda
about China’s sovereignty and policies through products that have become global
like WeChat.
More than 1 million
users in Vietnam eagerly welcomed this software without paying attention to the
term "agree that all the information on WeChat is true". The
"truth" here is the "nine dash line" map which noted Hoang
Sa (Paracels) and Truong Sa (Spratlys) under Chinese sovereignty.
Chinese scientists
sought to add the "nine dash line" map into scientific publications
which are neutral in terms of politics and territorial disputes. The journal
Nature in 2011 had to withdraw this map following the efforts of 57 overseas
Vietnamese scientists, led by Prof. Pham Quang Tuan (Australia), to require
return of honesty to science.
The "nine dash
line" map was also incorporated in computer games of China, such as Nanhai
complex action, which was once imported by some local firms.
The responsibility to
learn about history and to protect the truth now belongs to all Vietnamese
people.
Source: VNA
