Glorious return of territory? Not for China.

I am finally back. With the job problem solved, I should enjoy the last months of freedom. Therefore, I should have no excuse to not coming here.

Today, I will talk about the reported approval in the Tajik parliament to return 1,000 square kilometer of land to China.

Glorious victory for Chinese government? It does not seem that they are proud of that. Moments after that news was put on the official news websites, they were all taken off. After many years of negotiation, silence was what the government was aiming for?

It does not seem that is happening. This news quickly spread to the netizen community. Many people were not very happy. China claimed that Russia illegally forced China to cede huge chunk of territory to them in the 19th century. The land in dispute with Tajikistan was not even part of those cessation. Although China never talked about how much land was in dispute, but we could see, thanks to the official map of the Republic of China (Taiwan), which indicates that constitutionally Taiwan still claims 25,500 square kilometers in nowadays Tajikistan.

One Chinese netizen made an analogy: Someone robbed you 25,500 dollars. After fierce argument, he finally gave you back 1,000 bucks. Then you are happy and bragging about it all the time.

China is not bragging at all. But there are also other problems in this analogy. It seems that the one who returns the money was also the victim of the robber in the past. He was forced to return 1,000 dollars even though it only has 140,000 dollars, compared with the millionaire recipient, who owns 9.6 million dollars.

On the number of 9,600,000. Every Chinese knows this number. But for people who are good at mathematics, this number seems abnormally simple, with only two significant digits, compared with precise number for other countries with similar sizes. Why is that? Because the government is not sure how large China is. If they truly believe that South China Sea is Chinese territorial waters, how could China just have 9.6 million. Had that been the case, China could have been larger than Canada (and the United States, by the way, and China is claiming it is already).

The government is claiming this land, that island, but it knows that China cannot take everything. But officially giving them up will certainly lead to public anger giving the growing nationalism.

"Every square inch of land needs to be fought for." The Chinese idiom says for all. But what land is yours? In the long history of humanity, every inch of land has been changed hands many times. From when were they set and the status quo of then serves as evidence for future? Nobody knows. Be realistic and pragmatic, keep what you want, do everything to keep the interest of the people in those part of the world is the best and only solution.

With so many territorial disputes still not close to be solved, this model is certainly not encouraged, but it maybe the only solution for China. More humiliation seems to be unavoidable. Why not end the irredentist education earlier?