Chinese Foreign Ministry Calls US-ROK Alliance a “Historical Relic”

“[T]he Korean-U.S. alliance is a historical relic. The times have changed and Northeast Asian countries are going through many changes and transformations. We should not approach current security issues with military alliances left over from the past Cold War era.”   [Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman, quoted in the Korea Times]

… and there was much backpedalling.

Not that I necessarily disagree with Comrade Spokesman; indeed,  permit me to  expand on his line of thought:  if matters left over from the Cold War are historical relics, surely  we can say as much for  matters left  over from the Qing Dynasty.   Aren’t China’s official justifications for its  occupations of Tibet and East Turkestan, its claims on Taiwan, and its incubating territorial claims on North Korea  all historical relics  from … well, several  centuries before the  Cold War anyway? 

China could  really demonstrate  a modern and progressive world view by relinquishing all of  those territorial claims first.

(Hat tip to a reader.)