'WHY would China invade the Philippines? Sakit lang ng ulo 'yan (It will just be a headache),' says Herman Tiu Laurel, president of the Asian Century Philippines Strategic Studies Institute. The guy was reacting to my expressed notion of China occupying the Philippines as a condition for the country's progress.

It is a radical idea to be sure, quite unpopular and you might even consider it bordering on treason. But I stand firmly by my conviction that it has been a mandate of historical materialism that once a social system has been institutionalized in one section of the world, the old social system the world over just gets assimilated into that new social order.