Winter sometimes makes a reluctant retreat from Nova Scotia’s Atlantic coast. This year we’ve reached the start of June after long days of overcast skies, cold winds, and nighttime temperatures in single digits (Celsius). At such times it’s pleasant to sit with a hot mug of tea and reflect on time spent in tropical climes, like a brief stay at the southernmost point of China two decades ago.
In December 2005 I’d joined more than 60 delegates from 10 countries in Haikou, capital of the island of Hainan, to discuss cooperative maritime security in the South China Sea. It was a busy program at the end of a hectic year which had included travel to India, Pakistan, Russia, twice to the US and several destinations across Canada, not to mention finishing off a Masters degree. I needed a break.
Whenever possible after an overseas commitment I try to remain at my own expense for a few days to learn something about the place and people. This time I wanted to come home having seen, or at least dipped a toe in, the South China Sea. To ancient imperial China, Hainan was a remote fringe of empire to which emperors would banish scholars and officials who displeased them. The rapidly-growing resort city of Sanya on Hainan’s southernmost tip seemed like a good place to self-banish for a couple of days.
A Break in Sanya
Graciously, China’s Foreign Affairs Department arranged for me to join a visiting professor from Shanghai and his wife in driving the 300 kilometres south to Sanya. Because the government was in the process of promoting Sanya as a major tourist and holiday destination I also enjoyed a special room rate in the newly-built Tianfuyuan Resort, right on the beach. All I had to arrange was a return bus.
Sanya is famous for cultured pearls so my companions and I stopped at the informative Pearl Museum before sharing lunch then going our separate ways. As guests of the Foreign Ministry, and thanks to some additional haggling by the professor’s wife, that also solved the souvenir problem. The next day I spent the entire time under a thatched beach umbrella, doing absolutely nothing except listen to the waves and clear my weary mind. I didn’t even feel like reading. That night I slept for about 10 hours.
Moving Meditation Beside the South China Sea
The following morning was too overcast for sitting on the beach so I decided on “moving meditation”, walking the 10 kilometres along the beach into the city and back. Along the way, fishing boats were drawn up on the beach where customers were selecting their choice.
Nets were drying on the beach, while some set out on simple rafts – not for the faint-hearted in any kind of sea.
Nearing the city I wondered what a ship was doing on the beach, but then remembered reports of one being driven ashore by Typhoon Damrey just over two months earlier. That had been the most powerful storm to affect Hainan in over 30 years, killing about 16 people and at one point knocking out power for the entire island. Getting closer I could see that authorities were pumping something from around the hull and at first worried that it might be something polluting, but then remembered that the environment of Sanya bay is protected because of its famous cultured pearl industry. They were simply trying to re-float it by pumping sand away from around the hull.
The town itself had little appeal, not least because I’d been looking forward to being in a secular, Communist state free of the relentless pre-Christmas marketing that had been dominating every public space back home in Canada for the previous two months. No such luck! In fact, there were two disappointing Western infections in the business district: MacDonald’s and KFC outlets and, to my surprise, a barrage of commercial Christmas rubbish, complete with fake Santa Clauses and shopkeepers wearing elf hats! Mao must have been gritting his embalmed teeth in his Beijing mausoleum.
The 10 km stroll back along the beach was a welcome corrective. The next day I would catch a scenic bus ride back to Haikou and home.
Shadowed Memories
I am fond of China and its people. The only shadow over these pleasant memories is the worldwide decline of the kind of cooperative diplomacy in which we were engaged two decades ago. Since then the government of China has made a mockery of such dialogue by simply occupying reefs and shoals which it claims to own and then dredging and converting them into artificial islands, some complete with airports, ports and military facilities. After a pause of some years it has started again. Not long ago it arbitrarily held two Canadians hostage for more than 1,000 days to express its displeasure with a Canadian legal proceeding.
Since I visited Russia in that same year, it has degenerated into a full-scale kleptocracy that has stared an outright war with a democratic neighbour and hybrid warfare against the rest of us. Meanwhile, citizens of the United States have freely and democratically chosen to be governed by a personality cult that has more in common with North Korea or the post-Soviet “…stans” of Central Asia than the mainstream of Western civilization. Its “Department of War” accounts for almost 40% of the world’s military spending and its civilian head has announced that it will no longer be bound by “obsolete” Geneva Conventions and “stupid” rules of engagement.
Clearly we have much work to do if we are to counter the “march of folly” by these nuclear-armed autocracies with their 19th Century aspirations of enfolding the rest of us into their “spheres of influence”.