taipei times: japan stands up to china

April 18th

thanks to the anonymous reader who posted this report.

the japanese, bless them, have suddenly discovered that they have a backbone. after 50 years of being browbeaten about 'the rape of nanking', the japanese are suddenly saying 'enough already!'. every few months the chinese rake up this guilt trip about japanese imperialism, and the japanese bow deeply and reach into their pockets. but like all blackmailers, the chinese have gone too far, and the victim is now saying, in effect, 'no more'. japan has given china immense amounts of money in reparations.

now i'd like to know, where is the chinese money for the victims of their war crimes in tibet? the japanese only killed maybe 50,000 chinese (or at least the chinese claim this) in nanking. the chinese have killed a million tibetans and destroyed their entire civilization. talk of pot calling the kettle black!

the fuss about the yakusuni shrine and more recently the chinese encroaching on japan's territorial waters in the east china sea i think have finally emboldened the japanese. no wonder they said something rather drastic recently about the china-taiwan issue: if i remember correctly, the american and japanese pretty much said they'd attack china if the latter attacked taiwan. the chinese screamed bloody murder of course, but nobody is buying their diplomatic theater this time.

if i am reading this correctly, the us is engaging in 'containing' china vigorously.

good for you, bush and rice, even if your religious agendas suck. and good for you, koizumi, please keep going to the yakusuni shrine and thumbing your nose at the chinese.

here's something else forwarded by the indefatigible ram narayanan.

http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?ID=11107

ISN, APRIL 15, 2005

Encircling’ China

Because of China’s dependence on the US market - as well as Beijing’s desire to acquire US technology - the Hu-Wen leadership will continue to bend over backwards to avoid a direct confrontation with America.

By Willy Lam for The Jamestown Foundation (14/04/05)

One of Beijing’s worst nightmares seems to be coming true. Having apparently steadied the course in the Middle East, the George Bush administration is turning to Asia to tame its long-standing “strategic competitor”. While this particular term has been shelved since 9/11 - and Sino-US relations have improved thanks to China’s cooperation with Washington’s global anti-terrorist campaign - there are signs at least from Beijing’s perspective that Washington is spearheading multi-pronged tactics to contain the fast-rising Asian giant. In the eyes of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership, the new doctrine of encirclement and containment was spelled out during a visit by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Tokyo, part of a recent tour through Asia. Echoing President Bush’s State of the Union address, which pushed a foreign policy predicated upon “spreading democracy”, Rice noted in a speech at Sophia University that “even China must eventually embrace some form of open, genuinely representative government”. And she dropped hints that the US would somehow bring about a democratic China through joint actions with its Asian allies. “I really do believe the US-Japan relationship, the US-South Korea relationship, the US-India relationship - all are important in creating an environment where China is more likely to play a positive role than a negative role,” she added.

Great architect of US foreign policy

It did not help that Rice saluted in her Sophia speech the father of the anti-Soviet containment policy George Kennan - who had just passed away - as one of the “great architects of American foreign policy”. Kennan had written in a celebrated 1947 Foreign Affairs piece that “the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies”. The Chinese must be very nervous about the possibility that Rice - and Bush - will simply substitute PRC for USSR. After all, it was Rice who coined the phrase “strategic competitor” in a 2000 Foreign Affairs article about the need to adequately take on a fast-emerging China. “It is important to promote China’s internal transition through economic interaction while containing Chinese power and security ambitions,” she wrote.

The US-Japan statement

A Beijing source close to the Chinese foreign-policy establishment said the leadership under President Hu Jintao was not surprised by Rice’s less-than-subtle remarks about revving up the anti-PRC containment juggernaut. This was despite the fact that in an apparent goodwill gesture, the State Department had announced shortly before her arrival in Beijing that Washington would this year not sponsor a motion condemning China at the UN Subcommittee on Human Rights in Geneva. The source said the CCP leadership saw the joint US-Japan defense statement in February as a turning point in China-US relations. The US-Japan statement referred to the looming threat of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and, most irksome for Beijing, it cited for the first time the maintenance of peace in the Taiwan Strait as a “common strategic objective” of the allies. “[The] meeting may mark the end of the extended Beijing-Washington honeymoon which came about because of 9/11,” the source said. “Even now, of course, Washington requires Chinese help or acquiescence in its dealings with countries including Iran and North Korea. But Bush seems to have picked up his pre-9/11 agenda of containing China, or at least slowing down its progress toward quasi-superpower status.” And the Chinese are well aware that Rice, who had advised former president George H.W. Bush on ways to sink the Soviet Empire, was instrumental in shaping then-presidential candidate Bush’s relatively hostile posture towards China.

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