Yesterday was the People’s Liberation Army’s Day, which falls on August 1. It is the 84th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army. Governments at various levels and people from all walks of life held activities to show respect and regards to the army. They deserve to be called “the most lovable people.” Whenever our nation faces danger or difficulty, you will never fail to see them fighting against enemy or natural disasters and rescuing people’s lives and properties.

Since the founding of the PRC, the PLA has undergone several wars with other countries: the Korean War between 1950 and 1953, the 1962 Sino-Indian border war, the Sino-Russian Zhenbao Island conflict in 1969, and the 1979 Sino-Viet border War. Those wars greatly safeguarded peace and boosted the image and status of the country, especially the Korean War. If you want to win respect and have a secure peripheral environment, strengths speak louder than words in the international arena. Gone are the days when we were looked down upon and bullied.

If you look at the map of China, however, you are sure to find the security issue around the country is far from satisfactory. Let’s start with the northern and western border. Just in recently years we signed a series of treaties with Russia and some former republics of the USSR. So the boundary lines have officially been delimited. But we paid a high price for it: A total of 41 unequal treaties signed by the late Qing dynasty with Russia are officially recognized in the recent treaties. On top of that, some of the areas, which were occupied by the former Soviet Union in 1929, were not fully returned to China! For example, only half of Heixiazi Island was given back. Despite that, it was acclaimed by some as a success because it was the first time that we have regained our territory without even fighting. For me, mixed feelings crowd into my mind. Yes, the territorial disputes have finally been settled and we took some land back. However, we have for ever lost more than 5 880 000 square kilometers of land.

As for the southern borders, you can see that there’re no official border signs with India. The war in 1962 only stopped India from further encroaching upon our land. The actual control line runs along the Himalayas in the western sector, and the so-called McMahon line (麦克马洪线) in the eastern sector. In other words, though we never recognize the McMahon line, we actually accept it to some extent. The traditional customary line is far down to the south of the actual control line, even DaWang, where the 6th Dalai Lama Tsangyang Gyatso (六世达赖喇嘛仓央嘉措) was born, was on the other side of the McMahon line! India has a simple theory that China should exist on the north side of the mountains. But actually Tibetans have lived on the south mountain side for centuries.

We have also settled the land boundary issue with Viet Nam. We don’t know the details of the pact, but it was excitedly welcomed by Vietnamese when the news came to the country. I just wonder why we settled the border issue once and for all, for we also have territorial disputes with Viet Nam on the South China Sea. After all, that country occupied as many as 29 islands or reefs from 1973 to 1998, while Chinese Mainland only has 7 reefs and Taiwan 2 islands. And these islands and reefs were first found by Chinese in the Han dynasty and have been managed by Guangdong local government. Only after 1967, when it was found that there was lots of petroleum undersea by a UN exploration organization did Viet Nam and some other countries claim the area was part of their territory.   

Now let’s turn to the east. Although the tense situation across the Taiwan Straits has eased since Ma Yingjiu got into power. However, we still have a long way to go before we finally get reunified. The US is still selling weapons to Taiwan and we as usual protest against it, and that’s the only thing we can do about it.

We are still quarrelling with Japan about where the dividing line should be. We believe it should be the edge of the continental shelf while Japan the middle line between the land territories. The ownership of Diaoyu Islands or Fishing Islands is yet in dispute, but Japan has unilaterally made it its own land. And we of course protested but no more. Owning an island means owning a wide stretch of sea, under which is probably a great deal of petroleum.