A trip to China at this point in time can only be embroiled in questions about the crisis that is the West Philippine Sea dispute.

But also it is about everything that we know of China from third world Philippines, where global news means Western media, talking about China and Asia using a gaze that is far from objective, and always necessarily – and maybe inevitably – about protecting the interests of the world-power-that-be, i.e., America.

There is nothing like seeing Asia as separate from America, to realize that we might really only be understanding very little about the world. (more…)