Editor's note: Dr. John Gong is a professor at the University of International Business and Economics and a research fellow at the Academy of China Open Economy Studies at UIBE. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily those of CGTN.

On the day after China and Argentina issued a joint statement from the summit meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Argentine counterpart Alberto Fernandez during the Beijing Winter Olympics, in which China reaffirms its support for Argentina's sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands, also known to the Britons as the Falklands, among other things, UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss freaked out in a tweet that her government "completely reject(s) any questions over sovereignty of the Falklands." And she added that "China must respect the Falklands' sovereignty."

The Malvinas and the surrounding waters, situated at the southern tip of Argentina are disputed territories between the two countries, for which Argentina lost a bloody war to the Brits in 1982. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that what Liz Truss actually rejected is not just Argentina's or China's official stance, but the United Nations' official stance as well. As early as 1965, the UN Resolution 2065(XX) invites the two countries to "proceed without delay with the negotiations recommended by the Special Committee on the Situation with regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples with a view to finding a peaceful solution to the problem…"

The British position is that the Malvinas issue is one of self-determination. A local referendum in 2013 showed an overwhelming support for it remaining as one of the UK's Overseas Territories, a position that has been rejected by Argentina as well as the United Nations on the ground that these residents are offspring of colonial aggressors in 1833 that illegally occupied the Malvinas by kicking out the local Argentina residents that had settled there. As such it remains fundamentally a decolonization legacy issue as per the UN Resolution 2065(XX). 

More recently on August 5, 2020, the UN Special Committee on Decolonization, which is a subsidiary organization of the UN General Assembly, adopted yet another resolution that reiterated the call for a peaceful and negotiated settlement of the dispute.

Beijing's position on the Malvinas has been consistent in that this is a decolonization issue and the two parties need to heed to the UN Resolution's call for negotiation. For example, in June of 2013, the year the British authority introduced the local referendum on the islands, China's UN deputy representative Wang Ming made a speech at the UN in New York that mentioned these same points.

But it is probably also true that Beijing has been pretty much paying lip service to this issue over the years, as China's foreign policy traditionally shuns away from this type of territorial dispute between foreign countries tens of thousands of miles away. Nevertheless, in more recent years, China has had enough of London's antagonistic foreign policy toward China in terms of its actions on Hong Kong, on Xinjiang, in the South China Sea, and a few months ago the AUKUS deal that made the UK a partner in supplying nuclear submarines to Australia. In short, London asked for it, and now it probably will get more than it bargained for.

In addition to China's diplomatic support for Argentina, the two countries' cooperation has become more substantive, both economically and perhaps more worrying to London, potentially militarily. The Argentines certainly learned a painful lesson during the Falklands War in 1982 as to the reliability of their Western allies when it comes to defense supplies. 

Now Argentina is reportedly interested in becoming an arms client of China, which means a lot in the realm of diplomatic relations. Recently, the Argentinian government presented to its Parliament a $664 million order in the 2022 budget for funding the purchase of 12 fighter jets, and there have been some reports recently that the China-designed, Pakistan-manufactured JF-17A block III fighter jet is a strong contender.

If London continues its path of interference in the territorial sovereignty of other countries, Argentina's Malvinas case may be just the beginning. The UK has a laundry list of overseas territorial dispute nightmares. Diego Garcia with Mauritius could certainly be next. Even Gibraltar with Spain could be on the table for discussion when push comes to shove. By then Liz Truss could be really freaking out.  

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