Made in China

The BBC website recently reported China's launch of a missile that had shot down a satellite. Of course, perfunctory reactions from the world's supposed great nations, such as imperial United States and lackey Japan, were in no short supply in deriding China's act of surging militarism.

We have long considered China as a sleeping giant. One of the world's oldest surviving civilizations, the Chinese are credited with a myriad of inventions and innovations. There is no doubt about what scientific, technological, philosophical, and social debts we owe the Chinese.

However, what lurks dangerously in the horizon is the slow but sure rise of China's military might. What scares me is the thought that we know nothing about China's weapon systems and technologies, and how modern these are.

We all know about how economically powerful China is. Almost all items on my table are labeled "Made in China." We all know how threatening Chinese cheap labor is, how it can depress all our salaries and render us workless and worthless. We even acknowledge that almost all of us Filipinos derive some percentage of our blood from ancient Chinese seafarers.

Unknowingly, we are powering China's military, equipping them with the latest military science and technology. Unknowingly, we are slowly becoming slaves to their economy, all of us rendered blind by their cheap prices, and drowned by the flood of their products.

I honestly believe the Chinese has no idea of benevolence. Henry Sy has shopping malls all over the country, employing thousands of Filipinos into an endless and vicious cycle of contractualization. There are hundreds of Filipino-Chinese entrepreneurs, but I have never personally heard a friend or an acquaintance praise his/her Filipino-Chinese employer for benevolence. Even the novelist F. Sionil Jose has criticized the Filipino-Chinese community for doing nothing about the poverty of this country.

Does China know the meaning of benevolence? I honestly think not. I honestly believe the Chinese still consider themselves as the civilized race, while the rest of the world are all barbarians. Look at what had happened to the peace-loving Buddhists in Tibet. Look at what had happened to the nomads of Mongolia. Look at what had happened to student-activists at Tiananmen Square.

Then look at what had happened to Indonesia when they started chasing the Chinese off their lands.

Though many had welcomed the opening-up of the Chinese economy to free trade and capitalism, I strongly believe that it was to basically trap the world economy into thinking it has subjugated the Chinese. In truth, it is the other way around – the Chinese has successfully subjugated the world economy, and their entry into the World Trade Organization will only galvanize their stranglehold.

We are powering one of the world's most racist, most pervasive, most complex, most hierarchical, and most persevering societies. We are unknowingly boosting their economy and strengthening their military. Someday, we may wake up trampled on by pairs upon pairs of shiny black boots of Red Army soldiers.