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If Heiko Maas would talk to Putin like that ... The Philippine Foreign Minister Theodore Locsin had a gloomy “Monday, Monday” moment.
Shortly before nine a.m. Philippine time, he posted a tweet in the direction of Xi Jinping on Monday.
“China, my friend, how can I politely tell you?
Wait a minute ... O ... Piss off!
What are you doing to our friendship?
You.
Not us.
We strive to.
You.
You act like a tramp harassing a handsome guy, a guy who wants to be a friend;
but who doesn't want to give birth to a Chinese province ... "
Diplomacy in the 21st Century!
The handsome guy is President Rodrigo Duterte, of course, and the cause of the outburst is China's insistence on areas in the South China Sea awarded to the Philippines by the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
China does not recognize the arbitration award, although it is about the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, a cornerstone of the treaty-based international order that Beijing wants to defend against the United States.
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Well, Beijing has its reasons.
For example, there is a map from shortly after the Second World War, on which China's border also includes the South China Sea.
America's ally Chiang Kai-shek was still ruling back then, and Washington didn't protest, so the border isn't simply an expression of Red Chinese imperialism, is it?
Find Beijing.
But of course Manila feels that way, just like all other neighbors, because its trade routes run through this sea.
International jurisprudence, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea are the benchmark today, and Duterte doesn't find it at all amusing that China is trying to create a fait accompli with military bases and fishing ports and more.
After taking office in 2016, the same Duterte first gave America the cold shoulder and paid tribute to Beijing, but now he is disappointed and angry and makes advances to America, although Duterte's domestic policy is truly no example of the rule of law.
Duterte is an autocrat, a man who waged the anti-drug fight like a guerrilla war, there was shooting instead of arrest and indictment, and only recently, when Duterte had the feeling that without America he might be defenseless against China after all, he refrained from doing so and even quietly indicated something like remorse.
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And Germany? That is more and more part of this whole rhetorical fight, step by step. The West wants to defend the freedom of the seas and free trade routes in the Indo-Pacific, especially in the South China Sea. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer urges German participation to show solidarity for the treaty-based international world order. That's right. But does Berlin manage to get the opponents to moderate their language? Or are we being drawn into something?
The rough tone is on the rise in East Asia.
The other day, when Australia canceled its contracts with Beijing on the “New Silk Road”, Hu Xijin, the editor-in-chief of the Beijing semi-official “Global Times” tweeted: “Australians, is your country an uncivilized rogue state that needs severe admonition and punishment?” The Chinese imperial court never liked barbarians.
On May 1, the same editor-in-chief tweeted: “The US has made itself the super villain of the world.
China and Russia are not touching the UN-based international world order, but will definitely curtail the US ability to barbarically extol hegemony and will make Washington aware of intolerable risks if it jeopardizes our core interests ”- strong stuff.
China's propagandists now feel powerful, no longer defenseless as they once did. Duterte, in turn, believes he has America behind him. His foreign minister now feels big and powerful. A nice cocktail that is brewed there. Wilhelm II returns, dressed in Asiatic garb. Have we lost something there? Should we stay out of it? Or does Germany urgently have to try to become a mediator with the EU? The next federal government has an interesting task to deal with there. The immortal sentence of the Philippine Foreign Minister “Get the fuck out” could decide the 2025 or 2029 federal elections.