In an extremely unpromising harbinger of the Paracels' apparently grim future, it looks like Chinese tour groups are already descending upon the disputed South China Sea territory to hunt down endangered species.
The archipelago, comprising about 130 small coral islands and reefs, is claimed by Vietnam as well as both China and Taiwan. Communist gunboats captured the northern Amphitrite Group from Chiang Kai-shek's forces in 1950, and then wrested the southern Crescent Group from Vietnamese hands in the 1974 Battle of the Paracel Islands.
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Developing a tourism industry in the islands was first proposed In 1997, and received top-level support in 2007. In 2010, China lifted a moratorium on visiting the islands and then in 2012 established the city of Sansha on Woody Island. Administered under Hainan Province, the prefecture-level city incorporated the disputed territories into China proper and sparked diplomatic protests from Manila and Hanoi.
The more Chinese feet on the ground in these territories, the stronger Beijing's claims to sovereignty are. To this end, the government has been pursuing an active policy of encouraging human flagpoles to settle - or simply visit - the hotly contested islands.
Microblogging website Sina Weibo has recently been inundated with photographs from returning tour groups, apparently showing visitors gloating over long-tail threshers and proudly presenting huge chunks of rare red coral pried from the delicate marine environment.
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What's more surprising than these tourists' behavior, however, is that's they're not the acts of a few bad apples: Chinese tour companies seem to be openly advertising their Paracel packages as opportunities to kill sharks and coral reefs - the bedrock of the islands' ecosystem.
Many web users have been dismayed and angered by the images, calling supervisory officials "completely powerless" and condemning the travelers as "scum" who "destroy everywhere they go to."
"Sure we should occupy the islands," one commenter pointed out, "but don't turn it into a dead sea!" Another was not so hopeful about their future under Chinese sovereignty: "Better to just give it to the Eight-Nation Alliance [combined army of European, American and Japanese forces that invaded China in 1900 to quell the Boxer Uprising], then it might be safe!"
[Images via Oriental Daily]
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