Beijing's bellicosity wins friends and allies – for America. Danke schoen, Kaiser Hu Jintao.
Incidentally — and I speak only hypothetically — if China is justified in waging economic war against Japan over the Senkaku Islands, wouldn't America be justified in waging economic war against China for its currency manipulation? Robert J. Samuelson at the Washington Post seems to think so.
[Let's be clear though on this last point: As an economic subsidiary of Communist China, Taiwan would suffer terribly from a Sino-American trade war.]
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?
"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…
[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?
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!)
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.
