6 NEW INTERNATIONALIST
Share better
Re: ‘Who is militarizing the
South China Sea’, NI 521.
What is needed is an objective
and equitable international
agreement on national sea
boundaries, providing fair
resource regions to all.
China’s ‘nine-dash-line’ is
blatantly inequitable, justi-
fied only by China’s military
ability to dominate all the
other nations in the region,
so it is hardly surprising that
the US is engaging in ‘gun
boat diplomacy’ in support
of its allies, and also to save
its own ‘face’ (‘face’ is not an
exclusively Asian concept, a
fact that the Chinese leader-
ship would be well advised to
recognize). The question is
how far will China go to assert
its claims, and how far will
the US go in response? Or, in
other words, will the current
low-level conflict in the South
China Sea escalate into a
shooting war between two
major nuclear powers? Current
indications are that the
Chinese leadership probably
believes that the US will limit
itself to ‘freedom of naviga-
tion’ exercises or may even
back down entirely if China
sticks to its guns. But will the
US really submit to Chinese
military dominance, espe-
cially with a volatile president
like the present one? Or will
the current trade war between
the US and China become
a military conflict if China
pushes too hard? In short, I
believe that China needs to be
big enough to defuse the situa-
tion by treating its neighbours
fairly instead of continuing
to insist on having its own
way and risking starting a war
that would have no winner.
The world must not be ruled
by big-bully nations like the
US, China and Russia that
have the economic or military
power to dominate others.
All nations and blocs should
interact in accordance with a
single system of international
law and conflict resolution.
Our world is far too small
now for national selfishness to
continue to dominate interna-
tional relationships.
PETER SCHAPER
BIGGENDEN, AUSTRALIAProximity rights
Looking at the map it’s utterly
ridiculous for China to claim
those islands, rocks, reefs or
whatever they are, situated
a great distance from the
Chinese coastline and much
nearer to other countries. In
my view, islands should either
be independent or governedThe New Internationalist welcomes your letters, but please note that they might
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Why I... oppose the detention of migrants
I’ve campaigned against immigration detention for the
last 25 years, ever since Campsfield opened in my home
town of Oxford, UK. I don’t want my taxes to be spent on
human rights abuses – and that’s the only way to describe
the practice of locking people up indefinitely without
charge. Worse still, the Home Office farms out their dirty
work to private companies – Mitie, G4S, Serco and others.
In December 2018, we celebrated as Campsfield finally
closed its doors. But my focus now is our remaining seven
detention centres – I will fight until this outrage is ended.
LIZ PERETZ
To share your passion, please email [email protected]LETTERS
Corrections
Our apologies to Mahima Jain for incorrectly crediting her
Currents article (‘India: Coal is in the air’, NI 521).
In NI 520, page 21, we included Afghanistan in the list of
countries where over 50 per cent of the population lives in
their largest city. Current estimates of Kabul’s population
are 4.1 million; however, Afghanistan’s total population is
estimated at 32 million.by the nearest mainland
country. And yes, that includes
the Falklands.
CLARE AMANDA JOHNSON
VIA SOCIAL MEDIAReductive
Re: ‘Whose city?’, NI 520. I
would like to offer a different
point of view on the Cataluyna
question. While it is certainly
possible to disagree with what
the independence movement is
all about, the way you equate it
with mere nationalism (‘open
cities stalled by nationalism’,
page 20) appears to me overly
reductive, dismissive of a
genuine historic demand that
precedes by decades the
current ‘populist’ nationalism
in Europe and which does not
take into consideration the role
of internal colonialism in Spain.
HJALMAR JORGE JOFFRE-
EICHHORN KABUL, AFGHANISTANNo credit
Re: ‘Progress and its
discontents’, the Long Read,
NI 521. Crediting capitalism
for partially alleviating someof the problems it has created
and exacerbated is analogous
to thanking the arsonist who
burned your house down for
selling you a cardboard box.
LEE WHENSLEY
VIA SOCIAL MEDIAHighway
she sells bangles by the
roadside
where? who cares?
in Dhaka, São Paolo, Accra,
et cetera
in forty degree heat
and dust near the refuse
dump
its stench
seven days a weekshe has a business,
supports her children by
her own labour
modern liberated
she never thinks of leisure
nor rest better not
all those grim roads driving
hard lives
DAVE URWIN
(Inspired by Letter from Dhaka
by Parsa Sanjana Sajid, NI 520.)6 NEW INTERNATIONALIST