The nutty gnats and I

A Belgian colleague handed me a paper cup with floating branches of South African spider plant last year. Married to a local Anshan teacher about an hour’s drive west of Shenyang, he has since given up a weekend commute. An infant boy now occupies his one-child family quota in urban China. When he handed me the plant, he said it did not require much maintenance, and its spread is prolific. 

Well, my apartment is now referred to as the “forest.” Even my classroom ledges were robust with green leaves to process the carbon dioxide from resident homo sapiens while adding oxygen to the atmosphere. There is just one unexpected consequence: gnats. They thrive on the potted plants. It is winter at the moment with the indoor plants sitting just above the radiators, so the gnats are warm and snug.

I visited the local garden store to seek advice on how to manage the growing gnat population and I was handed an aerosol with pictures of a frog lounging on lotus flower. I was told I could debug my environment with it. Upon closer look at the chemical content of the air spray, I decided that the frogs would just have to coexist with the gnats! (The gnats are evidently winning since I had not seen a frog around lately.)

As to my coexistence with the nuts of the world, that’s another story. When the boys with the star and stripes indulge their PS4 and Xbox finger habits, they command sleek Mirages, F16s, stealth jets, and long-range B-52s. When Zhongguo delineated its air defense identification zone, the Pentagon boys and the Nippon/SoKor co-players decided to test Beijing’s response by not complying. The Air Defiance Zone was thus established, gloated over by the Western press for the absence of a visible Chinese response.

The charge is that China unilaterally changed the air defense parameters in East China Sea, foreshadowing what it will do to assert a similar zone in the contested South China Sea. Spare us some historical musing. 

First, the air defense zone the U.S. and its allies insist is being violated is the one the U.S. handed to Japan to prepare the Ryukyu Islands turnover confiscated after WWII. The Diaoyu-Senkaku-Pinnacle islands is part of Taiwan’s geography, at one time a U.S. weather station (read, listening station) included in the turnover for Japan’s administrative control. In 1970, weak China lodged a UN protest claiming historical sovereignty over the three rock outcroppings.

As is true in every continental shelf, the prospect of fossil fuel in the area is highly probable. Further south, the black gold underneath South China Sea was confirmed in 1964; that’s when oil companies in the Philippines and bordering nations started carving out areas of access close to the shores they were situated. The French had the Paracels and Uncle Sam eyed western outcroppings off Palawan where crude at “East Texas oil bonanza” was found in ’75. China’s Nansha (Spratleys) suddenly woke up to numerous belligerent neighbors.

Fast forward to 2013. China’s economy is flourishing and, though it only has a Riga refurbished tub for a Navy carrier, it now displays air muscle. The naughty nutty boys abroad do not tire in irritating the Sino naughty nutty boys by supporting disruptive movements in old Chairman Mao’s borders. Xizang (Tibet) and Xinjiang (Uighurs) are recent sites of destabilizing acts, and any hydrofoil and catamaran can frolic in the South and East China Seas. Nippon, Hanggul, and the U.S. want access to the area, pump oil, and keep their platforms and derricks, too.

US VP Biden visited China recently, putting the onus of responsibility on his host to watch “their disruptive Defense Zone behavior.” This, after Nippon surprisingly nationalized Diaoyu/Senkaku/Pinnacle, after PM Shinzo Abe rattled his samurai reminiscent of militant arrogance in Manchuria, and after the U.S. Navy ignored objections to constructing a Subic/Guantanamo-like naval base in Korea’s Jeju Do. PM Li Keqiang reminded his guest that Zhongguo is doing everything by the book.

On the other hand, the Penguin (UK registry, worldwide operations) world map 2012 edition has the South China Sea now replaced with Luzon Sea! Boy, when did that happen? I am sure the defensive nutty boys of Beijing did not miss the stealthy move! The world trades on China’s renminbi power. China is smart to set rules within its delineated borders. China’s energy policy moves toward alternative sources away from burning coal and oil that presently dominates its electricity plants. Besides, oil exploration technology is a western monopoly.

The aviation academy in SAU trains pilots to fly EVs in its arsenal of futuric aircrafts, the Ruixiang. The two-seater propeller plane is not designed to carry instruments of mass destruction. Like electric vehicles, it plugs into an outlet after every 40 minutes of flying. World War III is not going to be launched on this technological innovation.

I live with the gnats. They annoy at night when they are attracted to the table lamp but they have as much right to occupy the air space as I do. I don’t mind. It’s the nutty boys with their oil obsessions that worry me.