China has upset many countries in the Asia-Pacific region with its release of a new official map that lays claim to most of the South China Sea, as well as to contested parts of India and Russia, and official objections continue to mount. What is the map, and why is it upsetting people so much?

It seems significant, then, that Beijing chose to release the map on the heels of a late August meeting of the BRICS nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – and just before China is to participate in top-level meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Group of 20 rich and developing nations.

In releasing the map now, Beijing is widely seen as signaling it has no intention of backing down on any of its claims and is making sure that its positions are fresh in the minds of other countries in the region.

  • JC1
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    10 months ago

    You present western media as a single monoblock. It isn’t. Even a single media is not a single coherent unit. Every journalist has his/her own voice since, contrary to China, we don’t lock people up for voicing their opinion. Everyone can do investigative journalism. There are correspondants in most countries, when information comes up, it is verified as much as possible with people living there. When we talk about investigative journalism, the information is verified and usually corroborated by the other independent medias. If a media realize that the government propaganda doesn’t match with reality, they can publish the story without retaliation. Not only that, but they would have quite the story and they will be quite happy to publish it.

    You seem unfamiliar with all this, do you have free press where you live?

    Equating Western propaganda (and yes it exists) with Chinese authoritarian state is precisely a China apologist attitude.

    I replied because I wanted to. The fact that I replied doesn’t have anything to do with your ability to convince people.