Category: Relations – Sino-Japanese

Pack Hunters

"You are an excellent tactician Captain. You let your second in command attack, while you sit and watch for weakness."

-Khan Noonien Singh, ST:TOS

Perhaps that's the only explanation I have for China's relatively mild reaction to the recent incident off the coast of Japan's Senkaku Islands.  I mean, think about it:  Japan arrests a P.R.C. fishing boat captain for violating Japanese waters, and what does Beijing do?

It blusters, dresses down the Japanese ambassador a few times, cancels a few underwater resource meetings, and sends a SINGLE fishery escort vessel.  (For good measure, it also leaves open the possibility that it "may not be able" to control anti-Japanese mob action.)

A relatively measured response, given that it's Communist China we're talking about.

Shortly thereafter though, Taiwan does a curious thing.  Remember, absolutely none of its mariners are cooling their heels in Japanese detention.  Yet despite this, President Ma Ying-jeou reacts far more militantly than the P.R.C., making the "independent" decision to dispatch not one, but twelve — 12! — coast guard ships to the Japanese islands.

Like the man said, the second-in-command plays the heavy.

While the boss sits back, watching for weakness.

Khan Noonien Singh (played by Ricardo Montalban). From Star Trek: The Original Series.

(Khan image from Zaphodsheads.spaces.live.com)

UPDATE:  The Chinese might be breaking their pledge not to drill in a disputed undersea gas field.  This, we don't know for sure, yet.

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Madman Ma Orders 12 Armed Taiwanese Ships To Violate Japanese Waters

Story at the Taipei Times.  The press in Taiwan is still mum though, on how much the irredentist president's gunboat diplomacy has cost the nation — not only in precious taxpayer NT dollars, but in squandered international credibility as well.

One need not speculate what world reaction would have been had Ma instead dispatched 12 Taiwanese coast guard vessels into CHINESE waters.  So that a "civilian" fishing boat could attempt to raise the Republic of China flag on P.R.C. soil.  Because the answer is clear:  the world would have regarded it as an outrageously dangerous provocation.

A very REAL provocation, quite unlike any of the phony "provocations" the previous Chen administration was accused of.

UPDATE:  Citing irrelevant history, Beijing's mouthpiece newspaper in Taiwan urges Japan to quietly give in to the divinely-ordained territorial encroachments of the KMT-Chinese Communist Party alliance. 

Saw THAT comin'…

UPDATE #2:  Japan's ambassador to China has reportedly informed the Chinese government that Beijing should "take the necessary measures to avoid a worsening of the situation."

Good for him.  I'm rooting for scrappy little Japan the way I used to for Taiwan.  (Before the KMT  surrendered body-and-soul to the Chinese Communist Empire, that is.)

Taiwan's former KMT chairman Lien Chan shakes hands with Chinese Communist dictator, Hu Jintao

(Hu Jintao & his "very special" KMT friend.  Image from Life Magazine.)

UPDATE #3:  Coming soon:  A Tiananmen Square near you.  Courtesy of Supreme Leader Ma Ying-jeou and the KMT Party.  Uppity Taiwanese, beware.

Taiwanese who protested against Chen Yunlin (Communist China's negotiator) beaten by KMT-controlled Taiwanese police

(Taiwanese victim of the Chinese Nationalist Party police-riot of 2008.  Image from the Taipei Times)

UPDATE #4:  Perhaps I was too hasty in dismissing the relevance of the history the China Post presented.  Because the Beijing - Taipei axis certainly seems busy manufacturing "incidents" and pretexts for war in 2010 the very same way Imperial Japan did in the 1930s…

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More Senkaku Fallout

1)  China finds the excuse it needed to avoid signing a gas field treaty with Japan.

2)  What's your's is mine:  Beijing orders a Japanese coast guard ship to stop surveying — in Japan's own Exclusive Economic Zone.

3)  War & rumors of war:  Chinese dispatch quasi-military ship to the Senkaku islands.  At the same time a Hong Kong group will charter a Taiwanese fishing vessel to also make a trip to the Japanese-owned islands.  Convenient timing.

[That last story also mentions that Captain Ramboat's grandmother passed away in China during his incarceration for violating Japanese waters.  Which is sure to calm the passions of Chinese jingoists.]

4)  Taiwanese KMT legislator fans the flames: "“Without government support on both sides of the Strait, efforts by civilian associations of [Taiwan, China and Hong Kong] alone will not be enough and will be to no avail [for Taiwan to help seize the Senkaku Islands from Japan]."

Er, just what are the odds that that "civilian association" [Hong Kong's "Action Committee for Defending the Diaoyu Islands"] is actually a Chinese Communist Party front group?  Leading everybody down the garden path to war?

Chinese Ultranationalists Continue To Destabilize Region

Not content with Captain Ramboat's recent attempt to occupy Japanese territory, revanchists from Hong Kong plan a second expedition to the Senkaku Islands.  And in collusion with at least some elements of Taiwan's Chinese Nationalist government:

Taipei County Councilor King Chieh-shou (金介壽) said planning for the protest will be discussed this morning in Jhonghe City [emphasis added] at a forum on the territorial rights of the Diaoyutai Islands. Details regarding boat rental and activities of protest will be fleshed out at the meeting.

UPDATE:  Fascinating how newspaper accounts continue to maintain the fiction that Captain Ramboat "collided" with two Japanese vessels, after informing us that bow met stern.

(Oh no officer, I didn't assault that man.  His face just collided with my fist!)

Chinese Militarist Troublemakers Provoke Japan

Apparently, Taiwan's Chinese ultranationalist "Supreme Leader" isn't the only one who believes that Japan's Senkaku islands belong to China:

A tense maritime incident Tuesday in which two Japanese patrol vessels and a Chinese fishing boat collided near a disputed island chain triggered a diplomatic spat between the Asian giants.

[…]

The Chinese boat's bow then hit the Yonakuni's stern and also collided with another Japanese patrol boat, the Mizuki, some 40 minutes later, Kyodo reported citing the coast guard.

All the more reason for America to participate in joint exercises with ally Japan to exert sovereignty over the islands.  Because contrary to the assertions made by Taiwan's China Post, Peking's Pekinese Ma Ying-jeou in Taipei simply cannot be counted on if Beijing makes a land-grab.

GhostNet At The Feast

David Gelernter, the computer scientist who was maimed by the Unabomber a few years back, discusses the discovery of a Trojan horse program originating from China:

Last weekend, a report by researchers at the Munk Center of the University of Toronto revealed "GhostNet," a computer espionage virus that had infected around 1,300 computers worldwide–including many "high value" targets where diplomatic and national security information was stored . . .  Experts disagree on whether the evidence proves China's guilt or merely suggests it overwhelmingly.  [emphasis added]

Nice turn of phrase there.  The Chinese government's reaction was certainly telling.  Chinese officials COULD have calmly announced that **ahem** freelance hackers must be at fault, and that they'd launch an investigation to find those responsible.

Instead what the world heard was the shoe on the table.  LIES, LIES, these are all LIES!  Those devious CANADIAN schemers are trying to start a new COLD WAR for their own malicious purposes!

Very . . . Kremlinesque.  China launches Cold War-style cyber attacks — then accuses the VICTIMS of its attacks of trying to start a Cold War.

Gelernter outlines why China's cyberwarfare was so difficult to uncover:

The focused nature of the attack helped it succeed. Businesses and other organizations that detect viruses are less likely to notice and get hold of a new virus that attacks a mere thousand computers instead of hundreds of thousands. Until the target organizations do get hold of the virus, they can't analyze it and use "signature detection" and related techniques to warn users when infected cyberstuff arrives on their machines.  [emphasis added]

His conclusion?

GhostNet reminds us that the new Cold War won't be fought with the threats and weapons of the old one.  Americans might have less trouble keeping in mind occupied Tibet, the war on Chinese Christianity, the imprisonment and torture of political dissidents and members of Falun Gong, the one-child-only decree and other specimens of PRC tyranny if they didn't find Asian-on-Asian violence so deucedly boring.  Instead of paying attention to those issues, we simper about mutual respect and cooperation–without acknowledging the fact that China is today the world's most powerful Evil Empire.  The Soviets favored large armies and nuclear arsenals, but China is our new Cold War enemy, and her favorite weapons will also be novel: financial weapons, trade weapons, cyberweapons.  Welcome to Cold War II.  [emphasis added]

UPDATE:  Just ran across reports of Chinese cyber-warfare against India, from the Truth about China blog.  More about that from the Times of India.

Madman Ma and Taiwan’s Department of International Gunboat Diplomacy

Having a spot of computer problems, but've been watching with interest the fallout from last week's sinking of a Taiwanese fishing boat by the Japanese coast guard near the Senkaku Islands.  Japan's Kyodo News reports on the racheting-up of tensions:

. . . Meanwhile, the [Taiwanese-owned Kidd-class] warship carrying KMT lawmakers and press is reportedly scheduled to depart for the islets Wednesday.
     ''This would be for survey maneuvers, so we can definitely send a vessel,'' Defense Minister Chen Chao-min told reporters.
     Further endangering bilateral ties, a fleet of Taiwanese ships steamed full tilt Monday toward the islets to protest the incident.
     Accompanied by nine patrol vessels, a Taiwanese fishing boat entered what Tokyo said were its territorial waters in a bid to land on one of the islets.
     Local TV news footage showed a U.S.-made Taiwanese Cobra attack helicopter escorting the fleet.
     Japan Coast Guard vessels reportedly blocked the protest boat from the island landing, eventually driving it back by spraying it with water cannons.
     Taiwanese Premier Liu Chao-shiuan told lawmakers last week that he would not rule out war with Japan over the islets, while the island's Foreign Ministry dissolved the special committee for managing ties with Japan.  [emphasis added throughout]

The Kyodo News also tells of the plight of Taiwan's ambassador to Japan:   

     Taiwan's top representative to Japan urged the island's Foreign Ministry on Monday to let him resign over a worsening diplomatic row between Taipei and Tokyo over a ship collision in disputed waters.
     ''I had pleaded to the Foreign Ministry to replace me before July,'' said Koh Se-kai, Taiwan's de facto ambassador to Japan in the absence of official ties. ''They won't let me step down.''

[…]

     Hardliners on Japan in Taipei, including ruling Nationalist Party lawmakers, have slammed Koh for ''being too soft'' in his handling of the incident.
     Koh has broken ranks with the Foreign Ministry to defend Japan's response to the incident, saying Tokyo's expression of regret should satisfy Foreign Minister Francisco Ou's demand for a formal apology.
     Ou has rejected expressions of regret by Tokyo . . .

Pity poor Koh, the diplomat who still labors under the false notion that it's his job to be, well, diplomatic.

WRONG.  It's his job to be the goat.  Oh, he can leave – but only AFTER the KMT conducts their two minute hate session of him.

Er, but I did notice this one howler in the Kyodo News story, however:

     Taiwan's response to the incident also appears to have split the leadership among those seeking to ratchet down tensions with Tokyo, mostly DPP lawmakers and other DPP-linked political players, and KMT and ministerial-level officials, who have adopted a hard line toward Japan.  [emphasis added]

Taiwan's independence-minded DPP was decimated in the parliamentary and presidential elections earlier this year, reducing them to an impotent opposition party.  To call them part of Taiwan's leadership would be a bit of a stretch.  Aside from that though, it's a good piece.

Speaking of good pieces, the Taiwan News published a bang-up editorial on the crisis yesterday, which the View from Taiwan comments on.  Not much for me to add to either of these, other than to ask what the Ma administration's reaction would have been if a Taiwanese vessel had been sunk in disputed waters by the CHINESE coast guard.  Would American warships loaded with truculent KMT legislators be dispatched to the scene?  Or flotillas of civilian protest ships accompanied by American attack helicopters?  And finally, would the Taiwanese government under President Ma Ying-jeou be placing the option of WAR upon the table?

POSTSCRIPT:  A short background to the Senkaku Island dispute from Wikipedia, while a more in-depth background can be found at GlobalSecurity.Org.   John J. Tkacik from the Heritage Foundation wrote a piece about the general subject back in 2005 which is still worth a look.  (Especially since Beijing offered some ominous moral support to Taiwan last week by denouncing Japan for its treatment of Taiwan, China.)

Recommended reading would also include this document, as well.  It concludes on this note:

International law presents many unanswered questions about the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute. Can claims of sovereignty based in fourteenth century Asia be judged by norms developed in Europe centuries later? What is the nature of discovery and occupation for uninhabited islands? What is the critical date when the dispute crystallized? Were the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands part of Taiwan or of Okinawa before 1895? How does one interpret ambiguous treaties?   [Because the disposition of the Senkakus was not explicitly mentioned in post-war treaties governing Japan — The Foreigner]  Finally, how will the disputed islands affect maritime jurisdiction. Even if ownership of the islets is settled, can that sovereign claim an EEZ or continental shelf from islands that have never been inhabited and seem to have no economic life. The 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea would appear to say no, but several countries claim extended jurisdiction from such features.  [emphasis added throughout]

Gotta love that second sentence.  Can claims of sovereignty based in fourteenth century Asia be judged by norms developed in Europe centuries later?  It's as though the author anticipated twelve years in advance Joe Hung's argument for why the Senkakus belong to Taiwan:

Taiwan's claim of sovereignty [over the Senkakus] is on a much more solid ground [than the Japanese claim]. The Ryukyus [which include the island of Okinawa — The Foreigner] was a kingdom, which became a vassal state of China's in 1372. The Emperor Hong-wu of the Ming dynasty proclaimed China's suzerainty over the tiny but prosperous kingdom by sending an imperial commissioner to perform the first investiture of the king.

Funny, but al-Qaeda says pretty much the same thing when it claims Spain in the name of the Master Faith.  Al-Andalus IS, WAS, and always WILL be part of the Islamic Caliphate . . . 

(Say now, you don't suppose Koreans or Vietnamese get a mite twitchy hearing all this talk justifying Sinofascist land grabs on the basis of a country's former vassal status to China?)

UPDATE:  Tuesday's Taipei Times has more details on the Taiwanese protest flotilla that was sent to the Senkakus on Monday, as well on the Taiwanese ambassador's attempt to resign:

Representative to Japan Koh Se-kai submitted his resignation yesterday after he was accused by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers of being a “traitor” for “siding with the Japanese.”

[…]

Meanwhile, KMT caucus whip Lin Yi-shih (林益世) lashed out at Koh for not announcing his resignation at the legislature, saying that he treated his resignation as “child’s play.”

Usually ambassadors quit by placing a letter on someone's desk and are allowed to slink quietly out the back door, but not Koh.  Koh must be the first Taiwanese representative in history that is expected to resign in front of a jeering mob.

More civility from Taiwan's party of decency:

Lin Yih-shih, Kuomintang whip, demanded Ou not to accept Koh's resignation and make sure that the envoy appear before the legislature for interpellation.

[…]

Another Kuomintang lawmaker, Lu Chia-chen, charged Koh was a "straggler." "Premier Liu Chao-schiuan should take disciplinary action at once and have Koh referred for prosecution," he urged.

Treason, straggling, failing to appear before a council of KMT grand inquisitors… capital crimes all.  Memo to the next ambassador to Japan:  Tear a page from Nikita Khruschev's playbook and learn how to bang your shoe on the table.  Your bosses will eat it up.

A Horse Is A Horse, Of Course, Of Course

President Lincoln used to ask a riddle:  if you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?  He enjoyed revealing that the answer was four…because CALLING a tail a leg didn’t MAKE it one.*

By the same token, the Japanese Foreign Minister decided that calling Taiwan a province of China didn’t actually make it one, and said so in public.  Said the FM:

"[Taiwan’s] democracy is considerably matured and liberal economics is deeply ingrained, so it is a law-abiding country.  In various ways it is a country that shares a sense of values with Japan."

Whoa!  The KMT and Taiwan’s other capitulationist parties aren’t going to like hearing THAT.  For them, the single country in the world most worthy of praise and emulation is CHINA.  In response to the Japanese minister, we might soon hear some more Japan-bashing from KMT head Hizoner Ma Ying-jeou.  Perhaps something similar to his previously stated desire for a "battle to force a settlement" with Japan over the disposition of the Senkakus Islands.

Shortly after the Japanese Foreign Minister’s statement, China engaged in a little flipfloppery.  It was not so long ago – barely a week, in fact – when they called upon the United Nations to spank Taiwan for abolishing the National Unification Council.  Interfere in our internal affairs all you like, they told the UN at the time.**

But when the Chinese Foreign Minister heard that his Japanese counterpart had called Taiwan a "country", he got all prickly, angrily responding, "We are strongly protesting against this rude intervention in China’s internal affairs."

Aw, c’mon guys.  You’re either in favor of foreign interference in your "internal affairs" or you’re against it.  What’s it gonna be?

Interestingly, The China Post had a few more statements from the Japanese FM illustrating the growing resentment the Japanese feel due to China’s bullying:

[The minister likened] Japan to a rich but physically weak child who is picked on at school.

"What do you do so you don’t get bullied? There is no other way than to run away or fight," Aso told supporters last weekend in the central city of Kanazawa, the magazine said.

"You may be able to graduate from school in three years. But when it comes to countries, neighbors will be neighbors forever," it quoted him as saying.

Perhaps then, calling Taiwan a country is a demonstration of Japan’s increasing unwillingness to play the 98 pound weakling in the schoolyard.  I can’t help but think that Japan was once a Great Power, and that if it wanted to, it could be again.  It may be most unwise to push around the Japanese.

* Of course, the children’s story, "The Emperor’s New Clothes" makes essentially the same point that the truth is the truth.

There is however, a countervailing Chinese story that states the truth is whatever the powerful happen to say it is.  In this story, a Chinese emperor sees a mule, calls it a horse in front of his court, and then asks the courtiers what kind of an animal they think it is.  Those who answer truthfully are beheaded on the spot for having the effrontery to publicly disagree with the emperor.

(Similarly, Winston Smith in 1984 is told that the Party has new answers for simple arithmetic questions, and is tortured when he gives the "wrong" answers.  After sufficient "re-education", he accepts that the Party is always right about such things.)

**  Someone at the National Review or the Weekly Standard asked a question relating to China’s request to the UN to upbraid Taiwan "province" for abolishing the NUC.  When was the last time, the writer asked, when President Bush went to the UN to call for help in dealing with a troublesome American state governor?

Mr. Lee Goes to America

Former Taiwanese President Lee Dung-hway, a practicing Christian, has previously compared the Taiwanese situation to that of the Jews during Exodus.  For those who are not familiar with the analogy, an Oct 23rd China Post write-up elaborates on the theme:

Comparing the present situation in Taiwan to the 40-year exile of the Israeli people following their exodus from Egypt, as recorded in the Bible, Lee said a number of people in Taiwan are disoriented and are thinking about going back to slavery in China, just like the Israeli people back then.

While it took 40 years for the Israeli people to reach their promised land, Taiwan cannot wait another 40 years, Lee said.

Having been ruled by foreign powers for more than 300 years, Taiwan must stand firm to its belief that "Taiwan is Taiwan, not a part of China" in order to secure its autonomy, he asserted.

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/detail.asp?ID=70675&GRP=B

(On the topic of certain Taiwanese tempted to yield to slavery, I shall write another time.)

Lee’s speech was delivered in LA during his current trip to America.  In the speech, he also labeled China a ‘slave state’, urged the free world not to invest in China, and called for a strategic alliance between America and Asian democracies India, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2005/10/23/2003276957

Ya gotta love that guy.  The Butchers of Beijing must be apoplectic.

Give ’em hell, Lee!

Sino-Japanese off-shore petroleum field dispute

The Chinese and the Japanese have been arguing for some time over sea territory between Shanghai and Okinawa.  The territory is said to have 7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and possibly 100 billion barrels of oil.

It seems that the Chinese may have begun extraction from the disputed territory from a rig which was built in their own seas.  To mark the occasion, they paraded 5 warships in the area.  The whole situation is a little akin to that preceeding the First Gulf War, when Iraq accused Kuwait of horizontal drilling into Iraqi oil fields.

Japan is, of course, understandably unhappy about this.  They’ve announced that they’ll soon begin drilling in the disputed zone.  In response, China said that doing so would be considered "an invasion" of Chinese territory.

Watch for more of this, as China "peacefully" rises.

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/asiapacific/detail.asp?ID=70686&GRP=C