The China Post (Taiwan's pro-Communist newspaper of record) frets that the greatest menace to peace in Asia is . . . Japan. Beware a second Pearl Harbor, the editors darkly warn.
LOL. The chances of PACIFIST Japan pulling Pearl Harbor II anytime during our lifetimes ranks somewhere between an attack by trident-wielding Mer-people and a Zombie Apocalypse.
In other words, not bloody likely.
Quiet, you.
UPDATE: China now matches the number of attack submarines (63) that Japan had when it struck at Pearl Harbor. Funny coincidence, that. (Modern Japan has only 16.)
Some other facts the Chinese ultranationalist editors of the Post may be aware of:
China has nuclear weapons. Japan has none.
China has over a thousand missiles targetted onto Taiwan. Japan has none.
China has offensive weaponry. Japan is constitutionally prevented from possessing same.
China maintains the largest number of territorial disputes (somewhere between 19 and 26) in all of Asia.
China has recently laid expansionist claim to the entire South China Sea. Japan has not.
China's military has enjoyed double digit budgetary increases for several years now. While on the other hand, high Japanese vehicle costs mean that Japan's military expenditure in real terms is roughly on par with South Korea or Taiwan.
And finally, China routinely ranks among the 10 worst countries in the entire world when it comes to press freedom. Maintaining strict media censorship, the government indoctrinates the population with ultranationalist propaganda, just as Imperial Japan once did.
(Far more difficult to imagine the Japanese being similarly brainwashed since Japan has the world's 11th freest press.)
So 2,500 Japanese marched in downtown Tokyo in defiance of Chinese bullying over the Senkaku Islands. Big deal. With a population of 128 million, that's a 0.002% turnout.
Reckon more people showed up for the latest "Tentacle Pride" rally . . .
UPDATE (Oct 26/2010): A profile of those Japanese "wildmen" Taiwan's China Post is so afear'd of.
Did you think that Beijing would be selective in its rare earth trade embargo, wielding its market position against Japan (alone, among all the countries of the world) as a weapon of last-resort?
American trade officials announced last Friday that they would investigate whether China was violating international trade rules by subsidizing its clean energy industries. The inquiry includes whether China’s steady reductions in rare earth export quotas since 2005, along with steep export taxes on rare earths, are illegal efforts to force multinational companies to produce more of their high-technology goods in China.
[…]
Hours later, according to industry officials, Chinese customs officials began singling out and delaying rare earth shipments to the West. [emphasis added]
Earlier this year, Taiwan's Chinese Nationalist Party signed a free trade agreement with China, all the while insisting that the Benevolent Butchers of Beijing would never abuse their economic power over Taiwan.
That proposition of theirs appears more divorced from reality with each passing day.
"[This is] going to encourage some obvious policy responses by the rest of the world. Non-Chinese production of rare earths will explode over the next five years as countries throw subsidy after subsidy at spurring production. Given China's behavior, not even the most ardent free-market advocate will be in a position to argue otherwise." [emphasis added]
Advice to the Japanese government: When you're in a hole, stop digging. The CCP has demonstrated its eagerness to take hostages, so stop providing them with the hostages it so desperately craves.
They want 65 year-old chemical shells removed from their soil? Let 'em clean 'em up themselves.
No need for them to be on the Japanese dole, now that they're a big, rich, powerful country.
Google went Galt in China earlier this year, and perhaps it's high time that Japan followed its example. Because both the Daily Yomiuri and Asahi Shimbun are reporting that Beijing is erecting politically-motivated customs trade barriers to cripple Japanese industry. From the Daily Yomiuri:
Shanghai customs authorities informed major Japanese transport firms last Tuesday of a decision to immediately boost the ratio of imports and exports subject to sample inspections at the city's customs house from the previous 30 percent to 100 percent.
Shanghai's quarantine authorities have also raised the ratio of quarantine inspections of commodities from the previous 10 percent to 50 percent, they said.
Because of the subsequent delay in the clearance and quarantine procedures, many air cargoes bound for Japan, including electronics parts, remain in Shanghai, according to the sources.
Similar measures have been taken at many other customs houses, including those in Fujian, Guandong and Liaoning Provinces…
"China has no choice but to take the necessary 'coercive measures.' "
And a mere three days later, Japanese prosecutors cut loose Captain Ramboat. A sad spectacle it must have been to watch them claim that their decision was based solely on the law…and then hear them quickly contradict this by declaring that the political importance of smooth Sino-Japanese relations was something they also had to consider.
Japan's Asahi Shimbun newspaper outlines the precise 'coercive measure' which may have been most instrumental in bringing Japan to heel:
A Chinese government source said Thursday that Beijing resorted to the harsh measure of stopping all exports of rare earth metals to Japan because "Japan had crossed over the red line."
The paper further reports that "a sense of shock, fear and helplessness" began to grow in the Japanese industrial sector, as managers discovered to their horror the folly of economic dependence on Asia's Communist behemoth. The Japan Times elaborates on this latter point:
Japan imported 31,383 tons of rare earths in 2008, of which 29,275 tons, or 92 percent [emphasis added], came from China…
92%. [And in another news, a hospital somewhere in Michigan recently granted Dr. Jack Kevorkian control over 92% of their life-support equipment. Because really, what could go wrong?]
The Asashi Shimbun reports that China's unofficial embargo was apparently not as clumsy or as random as a blaster:
The stoppage was designed to hurt Japan's high-tech industries, and it was apparently planned well in advance.
According to several sources, top leaders of the Chinese Communist Party issued instructions in mid-September to the Foreign Ministry, Commerce Ministry, State Development and Reform Commission as well as researchers covering Japan at government-affiliated think tanks to devise specific measures that could be imposed on Japan.
"Instructions were given to consider sanctions that would hit the Japanese economy where it is especially vulnerable," a Chinese government source said [emphasis added].
It's almost superfluous to point out that earlier this year, the Chinese Nationalist Party of Taiwan assured voters that the Communist Party of China would never, ever, EVER mix politics and economics. Signing a free-trade agreement with Zhongnanhai would be an economic shot in the arm for Taiwan — so the argument went — and there was absolutely no chance that becoming Beijing's industrial and commercial satellite would imperil Taiwan's democracy or its sovereignty.
Ask the Japanese whether that holds true today. Because the Taiwanese should be aware that the KMT's flimsy hypothesis now utterly without foundation.
The only question which remains is: When will Communist China choose to launch a similar assault on the economy of democratic Taiwan?
No way in hell that'll happen. They didn't have the stones to prosecute a mere Chinese fishing boat captain…but instead they'll take on China in a WTO courtroom, mano-a-mano?
All this is contingent on whether Beijing is lying or telling the truth about the purpose of some heavy equipment they've moved into the area — which it claims is simply for maintainence work.
"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.
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.)
(Hu Jintao & his "very special" KMT friend. Image from Life Magazine.)
(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…
There's Taiwan's revanchist president, Ma Ying-jeou, still trying to stir the pot. Not for him, the blessings of peace. Or a once-a-year attempt to join the U.N.
Instead, a once-a-year provocation of Japan (almost like clockwork) over a few specks in the ocean is more his style.
Funny though, how we never hear of Taiwanese fishing boats trying to lay claim to islands owned by the P.R.C. No, just Japan. That, despite the Chinese Nationalist Party's insistence that ALL of China belongs to the R.O.C…
