Releases Chinese captain who rammed two Japanese Coast Guard vessels in Japanese waters.
On Tuesday of this week, Premier Wen Jiabao of China issued this threat:
"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?
UPDATE: In what I assume is pure bluster meant for domestic consumption only, Japan's Trade Minister threatened to file a grievance with the World Trade Organization in response to China's rare earth embargo.
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?
Who's he kidding?
UPDATE (Sept 25/10): It's not enough that I must win — everyone must know that YOU have lost. Not satisfied with having enforced its will upon Japan, Chinese ultranationalists demand a kowtowing apology to boot.
UPDATE #3: Heh. "Eternally ours, since 1971." Good to see that not all Taiwanese have drunk President Ma Ying-jeou's Chinese ultranationalist Kool-Aid.
UPDATE #4: A 1969 P.R.C. map showing the Senkaku Islands as Japanese territory. Think I've seen this somewhere before, but I've never posted it here.
UPDATE #5: Realizing that Communist China is an unreliable supplier, Japan looks to Mongolia as another source of rare earths.
UPDATE #6: China's belligerence towards its neighbors causes them to seek closer relations with the U.S.A. The law of unintended consequences strikes again.
(Speaking of which, Okinawans are apparently livid about Tokyo's latest surrender, fearing large Chinese fishing flotillas will now ply the local waters. Will this glimpse of China's "Yakuza diplomacy" cause them to view American military bases with greater favor? We'll see.)
UPDATE #7: Japan's Foreign Minister seems appreciative of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's assurances that the Senkaku Islands "are within the scope of application of Article 5 of the Japan-U.S. security treaty."
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