Now that hundreds of years have passed, it shouldn’t matter what color you are, or what language your ancestors spoke. Too much water has passed under those bridges to go back.
The history of the world is the history of migrants finding new homes. People move. They migrate. They settle. Sometimes they war against prior inhabitants, which is horrible and wrong. Sometimes they commit genocide, which is a crime against humanity that should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Europeans are not exempt from such crimes, or the other violent excesses of colonialism. But those were different times. The families who lived in the Falklands in 1982, the last time Argentina launched a war against the islands, and the ones who live there now, were never violent colonialists. They deserve a break from the land-hungry “leftists” in Beijing and Buenos Aires.
The allegation of European colonialism and imperialism, since at least 1916 when Lenin and other communists started to politicize it for their own ill-fated purposes of authoritarian revolution and territorial expansion, is not always a rational charge. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has used it since around 1921 to expand its territory, first against Chinese nationalists, then the Japanese, then the British in Hong Kong, and now against American “imperialism” in all of Asia if not the world. Meanwhile the CCP seeks to replace America through aggressively buying up global ports, establishing military bases in Africa, and taking over the U.N. with its checkbook diplomacy. The CCP and its global expansion is a voluble new imperialism under a different name.
But the CCP’s mix of its own imperialism, along with “anti-colonialism” and “anti-imperialism” where convenient, is an illogical and outmoded communist stew used to try and push back other populations while expanding Chinese territory and spheres of influence. When this anti-imperialism can’t be used, for example against Vietnamese and Filipinos, other ideas are invented to justify expansion, such as the nine-dash line claiming almost the entirety of the South China Sea, or “teaching Vietnam a lesson” in China’s 1979 war of aggression against the CCP’s communist brothers to its south.
Now that China’s aims are global, populations in places as far-flung as the Falkland Islands can be softened-up with allegations of colonialism, even if done in concert with other originally colonial populations in Argentina. Spanish and Italian colonialists in Argentina will have their turn at the CCP guillotine after the British Falklanders are dispatched. China uses a racialized divide-and-conquer strategy against guileless Europeans-turned-nationalists around the world who feel guilty about their history and are now bending over backwards to do the right thing. Only, they’re confused about what the right thing to do is when confronted with Chinese communists who are spewing ideology and dogma so fast that in the meantime they’re stealing your lunch. Democracies should be closing ranks in defense of themselves, their wonderful diversity, and the liberties that they enjoy.
To put CCP claims of colonialism in context, remember that when Chinese were the colonists, for example in Singapore or Malaya in the 18th and 19th centuries, there is no such CCP outrage against the contemporary Chinese inhabitants of these countries. Few today know the sometimes violent history of Chinese colonists in countries like Singapore and Malaya. We are all too busy reading our own history of colonial violence.
The CCP works hard to defend the Chinese diaspora around the world against any perceived wrong. Chinese immigrants, according to the CCP, build model governments of authoritarian efficiency, as in Singapore, or are courageous freedom fighters against colonialism, as in Malaya in the 1950s.
But Singapore is actually a Chinese-led dictatorship with draconian corporal punishment, and the mostly-Chinese Malayan Communist Party (MCP) in the 1950s almost exclusively attacked European colonists, who were supported in the war by the Malay and Indian populations. The political discourse surrounding global colonialism has been so biased by leftist historiography that it is politically incorrect to note these facts.
The Chinese communist insurgency in Malaya, which was supported by the CCP and exclusively targeted Europeans, was an anti-European racist war by Chinese colonists, just as colonists of different European extractions fought each other over the Falklands in the 18th and 19th centuries. But unlike Britain, the CCP today is still a highly racist and sexist organization that only advances males of the Han race into China’s top-seven politburo leadership positions.
But that violent history is all in the past now. The Falkland Islanders of today did not engage in that violence, and have the right to vote their allegiance to whomever they choose. They’re a diverse democracy, and they have for the time being chosen to remain British. But Argentina, backed by China, will not let it rest.
The South American country raised the issue at the United Nations in 1964, when Argentina appealed to papal bulls of 1493 in which Spain and Portugal divided the Americas between themselves. What a farcical argument given that no person, let alone a Spaniard or Portuguese, had ever been recorded as having even seen the Falklands at the time of the bulls.
After its own imperialism over Scarborough, China is hypocritically pushing its anti-colonial narrative, callously picking at an old wound that has real-world consequences for the families living in the Falklands today. Perhaps China is using Argentina to get back at Britain for Britain’s support of Hong Kong, which would also doubtless prefer to be British rather than suffer the loss of its liberties under Beijing’s thumb. Perhaps Beijing just wants to smear Britain in the media. It seems to have a permanent animus against the country, along with an even bigger animus against the United States, Britain’s closest ally. The CCP could still be angry at Britain over the Opium Wars of the 19th century, in which Britain forced opium sales into China. But those wars are all over 150 years old. It’s time for the CCP to end its self-serving historical grudges, or it could start a war.
China’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the U.N., Geng Shuang, denounced Britain as colonialist on June 24 at the U.N. Special Committee on Decolonization. Geng is apparently in coordination or support of Argentina, which “is trying to use the session to resume negotiations with Britain over the sovereignty of the islands,” according to the South China Morning Post.
According to Geng, China “firmly supports Argentina’s sovereignty claim on the Malvinas,” which is the Argentine name for the Falklands. The Chinese representative demanded that Britain “actively respond to Argentina’s request” for a “dialogue” on the matter. China refuses to recognize the will of the people currently living on the Falklands, instead attempting to instigate a fight between Britain and Argentina. This fits China’s general divide-and-conquer strategy.
“Today in the 21st century, the days when Western colonialists had free rein are long gone,” opined Geng. Entirely hypocritically, Geng said, “However, in international relations, colonial thinking, power politics and bullying—which share their origins with colonialism—still manifest themselves in various forms, and have a serious impact on global order, severely undermine the sovereignty, security and development rights of the countries concerned, as well as their political, economic, and social stability.”
This statement is ahistorical, as the era of European colonialism to which Geng refers in no way originated power politics. Millenia of power politics preceded the 16th to 19th centuries, including in China, which Geng well knows as any Chinese diplomat will be versed in the Warring States Period of 475 to 221 B.C.E. But power politics has a much more ancient origin, as found in prehistoric archaeological finds globally that evidence war and genocide.
One Chinese international relations expert argued that China’s recent U.N. statement was hitting back at Britain for its support of human rights and freedom of the seas. “The UK has recently been making military moves—including carrying US fighters on its carriers and intervening over the South China Sea issue—and also making a fuss about Hong Kong,” Sun Qi told the Post. “China is attempting to reverse the narrative to hit back at them.”
China’s dredging up of the Falklands issue to “hit back at” Britain, almost 40 years after the last war initiated by Argentina, is irresponsible, dangerous, and true to its authoritarian form, ignores the wishes of the Falkland island residents, who should be most distressed at China and Argentina’s revival of the dispute. If China truly wants to contribute to peace and security in the world, it ought to support what the Falklands people want, rather than use the people as cannon fodder and bargaining chips in a vengeful manner, and for its own expansionary aims.
The current conflict over the Falklands is not really about anti-colonialism. If Argentina’s 1982 war against the Falklands was an anti-colonial battle, it was one group of colonialists against another. But it was not an anti-colonial battle. It was an Argentine military strongman, facing opposition to his rule and a slumping economy, and trying to hold onto power through territorial expansion. He failed, got people killed, and was deposed three days later. Now Beijing and Buenos Aires are treading the same bloody path.
Beijing is a dangerous buddy that encourages its “friends,” like Myanmar, North Korea, Iran, and Russia, to do evil things that gets them ostracized from the international community. Down that road lies violence, poverty, and despair for Argentina. Before starting another needless war, Argentinians should focus on their real challenge: lifting themselves up by their bootstraps rather than appealing to genocidal dictators in Beijing for “help.”
Meanwhile, the United States should be a better friend to Britain. Margaret Thatcher should not have had to go it alone to defend the Falklands in 1982. The United States should have been at her side from the beginning, and before the war started with joint forces on the island to show resolve and commitment. If Britain requests military assistance at the Falklands in future, the United States should be willing and ready.
