Over The Borderline Of Stupid

Ceci est un Japon

Yesterday the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) announced the results of the screening (kentei) of social science textbooks . The screening, which is for textbooks to be used in the nation's middle and high schools beginning April 2016, found 102 of 104 textbooks passed the new criteria established this past January -- a rather stunning display of quickstep obedience. (Link)

What is making this story newsworthy is the lockstep acceptance by book publishers of a word, that word being koyu (固有), usually translated as "inherent" -- as in the following:

All social studies textbooks for middle school students will include descriptions of the Takeshima islets and the Senkaku Islands as "territories inherently belonging to Japan," among other similar phrases, according to the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry.

By saying that not just the Senkaku Islands, where Japan has administrative control, but Dokdo and the Southern Kuriles, where it does not, are all "inherent" territories, the government of Japan is saying that no deals can be struck as regards the final sovereignty of any of these territories and territorial waters.

Which, if you are in the business of solving problems and working toward better tomorrows, which is sort of what democratic governments are supposed to be doing, most of the time (thank you, Immanuel Kant) would be an INCREDIBLY STUPID THING TO INSIST IS YOUR POSITION.

Let us say a Chinese, Russian or South Korean diplomat meets her counterpart in Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The conversation between the two will have to go something like this:

Japanese Diplomat - "I am sorry, but we have nothing to discuss on the matter of sovereignty. The territories are Japanese. End of discussion."

which will most likely be immediately followed by a:

"Hey, wait, where are you going? Stop, stop! I am supposed to sit down with you and discuss things!"

One of the great characteristics of Japanese diplomacy, at least until recently, was the careful consideration done of the potential repercussions of a statement. Whereas Russian or Chinese diplomats (I cannot speak about the ROK diplomatic corps) can be trusted to utter provocative, extremist nonsense, Japanese diplomats have prided themselves on locutions that almost-but-not-quite stake out a position -- a stance that reflects both national aspirations AND reality.

These new criteria claiming that Takeshima, all of the Northern Territories and the Senkakus are all inherent territories -- which is to say that letting go of even a square millimeter of them would diminish Japan as an entity -- mark a surrender to the surreal.

Any deal on control of the Senkakus, on Dokdo, on the Southern Kuriles would be just that: a deal. A deal presupposes compromise and compromises means sacrifice. If one states at the outset that no sacrifice is possible -- "It's either my way or the highway, amigo" -- then one is just being an ass and a damned dangerous one too.

A declaration of a standard of "negotiations without sacrifice" is an example of the threat highlighted by Professor Alexis Dudden in her widely misunderstood op-ed for The New York Times, "The Shape of Japan to Come" (Link). Many reading the op-ed thought Dr. Dudden was issuing a warning that the Abe government was positioning Japan for a military conquest/occupation of disputed territories and territorial waters. Calling Mr. Abe's views "revanchist" did little to discourage such an interpretation.

What Dr. Dudden was trying to convey was likely a more limited warning -- that the Abe administration is leaving reality behind, promising not only to do things it has no intention of doing (the usual business of politics) but also things it cannot possibly do. A government that promises its citizens they are all going to Heaven (a paraphrase of the reaction of one my colleagues to Abe's speech to the Diet of 10 September 2007, delivered two days before he announced his resignation) is not likely to be a helpful international actor, nor a particularly reliable one.

That MEXT officials (and their counterparts in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) want to claim for themselves that the impossible is true is bad. That they should want, through the kentei process (and in MOFA's case, through the intimidation of non-Japanese journalists) to insist that everyone shares their grand delusions, is idiocy.


Later - Thanks to reader AO for quickly catching my superfluous insertion of a decade.

Putin's Jujitsu - A Fantasy

In the aftermath of Mori Yoshiro's little visit to Russia last week (Link) I was asked what, if anything, Abe Shinzo hopes to achieve by continuing his now indirect engagement with Vladimir Putin.

My stock answer has been that Japan's Russia diplomacy runs down two tight corridors:

1) efforts to gain a return of the Northern Territories and

2) the development of Russian energy sources for importation into Japan.

These are still open questions so Japanese diplomats and politicians just keep on shuttling, riding on the carryover from earlier rapprochement efforts and from out of a desperate search for energy, particularly LNG, post-3/11 and Fukushimi Daiichi.

Having said the above, I wondered whether there was not a back door to a substantial and radical recalibration of Russia's position. Let say that after the annexation of Crimea and the disruption of the Donetsk and Luhansk in Ukraine Vladimir Putin has absolutely unassailable Russian imperial expansionist credentials. The cost, and it has been huge, of acquiring these credentials has been the Western Alliance's opprobrium, which has closed all kinds of doors to Putin, his siloviki cronies and his country (there is also the very real possibility of shooting breaking out soon in between Russian and NATO forces). What if Putin were to take all the momentum of the moment and pivot, cutting a deal with Abe Shinzo for the return of part or even all of the Northern Territories, in return for, let us say, the Japanese government's abandonment of U.S.-led efforts to isolate Russia? A grateful Japan then goes overboard in its support of the development of Russian Far East hydrocarbon resources, enriching Putin and his henchmen and markedly increasing Japan's dependence on Russia for its energy. Meanwhile, at the other end of Eurasia, Putin's sudden strategic abandonment of Russia's hold on the Northern Territories raises insane and stupid hopes regarding the potential return to Germany of Kaliningrad, a dream most modern Germans did not know they even had (Karelia, of course, was won fair and square in the good fight against the dreaded Finns and so is not a part of the grand strategy). The Kaliningrad gambit, transparently manipulative as it would be, disrupts EuroAmerican unity just when the Western Alliance was getting over the reality of Europe's dependency on Russian energy.

[An aside, but as I told MK last week, Russian strategists are probably not serious in playing China against Japan or China against Europe as regards access to Russian energy resources. If possible, Russians want everyone to be dependent upon them.]

The above is a crazed confection of paranoia and geostrategy (sometimes these two items are difficult to disambiguate) -- but Putin must be telling Abe something in order to keep the Japanese side hoping beyond hope for an sudden, improbable ippon gachi.

Original photo image credit: BBC

Trying A Little Machiavelli, Mr. Suga?

The Abe Administration has been hitting a rough patch of late. Abe Shinzo allies have been torching the government's credibility. Attempts at damage control have been eating up the PM's and the Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide's time and attention. I am perhaps not alone in being puzzled at how poorly the Abe Administration has been handling a string of embarrassments, after being almost impervious to scandal during its first year in office.

Most surprising has been the seeming passivity of Suga. As each new nonsensical, indefensible situation has rolled up, he has dismissed it with an airy "oh, so-and-so was just stating a private opinion" or "there is nothing legally wrong with what X-san has done" -- as if he were unaware how his excuses were undermining his reputation as a super-competent manager and spokesman.

When faced with a situation of seeming senselessness, I try to remember Bruce Pandolfini's 13th Commandment of chess:

"If you can't see the point of your opponent's move, assume there isn't any."

However, what has been perplexing in the case of Suga has not been his choice of moves. It has been his lack of movement. In a more orderly and business-like world -- the world of the first year of the Abe Cabinet, let us say -- Momii Katsuto, Hasegawa Michiko and Hyakuta Naoki would all have resigned from their NHK positions by now. Nothing would be allowed to fester and serve as a distraction from the overall, multi-year march toward a more powerful Prime Minister's Residence and a more powerful Japan.

Suga, after a year when he seemed in total command, seems lethargic and reactive, letting the news cycle and scandal swallow up the agenda.

Perhaps the above dictum needs to be turned on its head. Inverted, it reads:

"If you can't see the reason for your opponent's inaction, assume there is one."

So let us assume that Suga Yoshihide is appearing wan and listless on purpose. Why would he want to do this?

1) Punish Abe for Yasukuni

According to the narrative published in the Yomiuri Shimbun late last year, Abe humiliated Suga in December, rejecting Suga's pleas to not go to Yasukuni. In the account of what took place before and on December 26, Suga simply swallowed his pride and set about composing an apologetic statement for Abe to read after the Yasukuni sanpai.

But what if Suga did not simply swallow his pride? What if, in suitable pique, he decided to let just Abe run things for a while, making insincere excuses for Abe's buddies violations of The Prime Directive -- "only Abe Shinzo gets to burn Abe Shinzo's political capital"?

What if Suga were simply just letting the Abe Revolution falter, just to remind a too-big-for-his-britches Abe who the de facto prime minister is?

Or

2) Let the Crazies Run the Asylum For a While Because We Will Make Them Sad Later

Abe today is off for Sochi, Russia, set to have a tête-à-tête with President Vladimir Putin in concert with being one of the few Western Alliance leaders to attend tonight's Winter Olympics opening ceremony. Today is, by unfortunate coincidence, Northern Territories Day -- the day when the government reminds all of us of its failure to heretofore win back the four islands and collection of islets of the Southern Kuriles, lost to the Russians in 1945.

It is well-known that one of Abe's main goals is a peace treaty with Russia, finally ending World War II. It is second in importance only to the revision of the Constitution, on a par with the economic revival of the nation. It is also well-known that not even a judo-loving and nearly untouchable Putin is thinking of conceding the reversion of all of the Southern Kuriles/Northern Territories.

Signing a peace treaty will require Abe to sacrifice, accepting the return of at best Shikotan and the Habomai group -- basically the same deal Japan was offered and which it rejected in 1956.

Letting the revisionist crazies run amok for a while prepares the foundation for a searing betrayal of these same crazies and their principles "for the good of the nation." From a theatrical point of view, it is after the fanatabulists make a hash of things that Abe/Suga can stab them in the back with a "half-a-loaf is better than nothing" solution for the vexing problem of the peace treaty, ignoring rightist demands for every square centimeter of the Southern Kuriles and nothing less.

In other words, Suga, either with or without Abe's consent, is letting Abe's most dangerous and frivolous friends make fools of themselves so that he can bin them when it is time for the adults to sit down and cut a few deals.

So perhaps the deterioration of the Abe Cabinet governance this winter is not a bug. Maybe it is a feature.

Original image courtesy: Reuters

A Chinese Nightmare, Post-Sochi

VLADIVOSTOK - When Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan sat down last Thursday with President Geun-hye Park at the finals of women's figure skating in Sochi, Russia, the physical and emotional distance between the two leaders seemed an illustration of the freeze in relations between the two countries. Mr. Abe and President Park sat apart, acknowledging each other's presence only once at the start of the evening. Japan First Lady Akie Abe, a fan of Korean culture and a speaker of the Korean language, sat in between the two leaders, eagerly and energetically chatting with the South Korean leader in a manner that made the frostiness between President Park and Prime Minister Abe all the more glaring.

The lack of interaction between President Park and Mr. Abe last week made yesterday's announcement of a broad-based, multilateral agreement on East Asian territorial issues all the more unexpected. Foreign ministers of Japan, South Korea, Russia and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, meeting in this frigid Pacific port, held a news conference outlining an intricate plan for countries in the region to settle longstanding territorial disputes in a wave of mutual recognitions of each other’s territorial claims.

"President Park and Mr. Abe put on an incredible show on Thursday night, better perhaps than the two young ladies," quipped one of President Park's advisers, who asked to remain anonymous. "The two governments had already cut the deal on Dokdo recognition, ending the feud. The two leaders showed no warmth at all toward each in order to keep the whole deal under wraps."

Though the details are not fully hammered out regarding Japanese rights on the northernmost of the two islands the Russians call the Southern Kuriles and the Japanese call their Northern Territories, the basic outlines of yesterday's agreements are:

- Russia will return to Japan of the islands of Shikotan and Habomai, seized by Soviet forces in 1945. Russia will gain sovereignty over the two remaining islands currently under dispute, with former Japanese residents of the islands and their descendants winning special extraterritorial rights of residency and self-rule on the islands.

- Japan and Russia will sign a peace treaty, officially ending World War II.

- Japan will recognize of South Korean sovereignty over islets known as Dokdo, which the Japanese call Takeshima. In return, the South Korea government promises to suspend all official efforts to change the name of the sea in which Dokdo is located from "Sea of Japan" to "East Sea."

- Russia, South Korea and the United States will recognize Japanese sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands, which China and the government of Taiwan both claim.

The responses of the Chinese government to the declaration on the Senkakus, which Chinese call the Diaoyu Islands, have been confusion, disbelief and anger. Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin, China's senior representative at the Vladivostok talks after the departure of Foreign Minister Wang Yi two days ago, had no prepared statement, leaving the conference hall in a rush with reporters trailing in his wake. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei, in a hastily arranged news conference in Beijing, declared, "Japan does not have sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands and no agreement among outsider nations can change this reality. The perfidy of today's illegitimate acts will reverberate through history but will never break China's bond to its sovereign territories."

"China overplayed its hand and absented itself from efforts to find a solution," explained a senior U.S. official, speaking on background. "The declaration of the East China Sea air defense zone in November got everyone's attention, making it clear that just leaving sovereignty issues in limbo was just going to continue to generate threats to everyone's security. Once the ball started rolling on the need for mutual recognitions and mutual sacrifices, the negotiations gained unstoppable momentum, bringing us to the agreement we have today."

The broad-based agreement, which the ministers and Secretary Kerry will be taking back to their capitals for approval...

Togo Kazuhiko At ICAS

I do not always agree with the ideas of Togo Kazuhiko, the former rising star at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and current the Director of the Institute of World Affairs at Kyoto Sangyo University. I thought and still do think disastrous his proposal that the government of Japan accede to Chinese demands for a recognition of the existence of a dispute over the sovereignty of the Senkakus in return for reopened high-level dialogue. Togo's proposal insufficiently appreciates the window of opportunity such a concession provides for Chinese to claim the Senkakus are one of the "stolen" territories whose return is promised to China under the Cairo Declaration. Perhaps Chinese escalation of the crisis since he first made the proposal has changed Togo's thinking.

Despite my differences with some of Togo's ideas, he is a towering figure in the analysis of the diplomatic issues facing Japan. Well worth watching is the video of his recent talk at Temple University Japan on the background to the current state of Japan-Russia relations and the chances for the Abe Cabinet to resolve the Northern Territories issue and sign a peace treaty.

I very much agree with Togo's assessment in the video that if one wishes to understand the strategic thinking of Abe Shinzo, one needs to read Toward a Beautiful Country, the book Abe published this year. Unfortunately, when one reads the book one finds that the strategic ideas are 1) few in number and 2) arise from a rather bonkers view of the world (Most folks have to be cautioned that correlation does not imply causation. Prime Minister Abe has to be further cautioned that juxtaposition does not imply correlation).

Temple University Japan's Institute for Contemporary Asian Studies is open minded in its invitations. In addition to heavyweights like Togo, they offer a microphone to lesser talents like this odd individual, who will be offering his take on the Abe Cabinet on January 9.

Worth My Time - Readings For August 21

-- Over at the semi-revived NPR Japan Forum, Dr. Alessio Patalano on the opportunistic braying about the purportedly inappropriate choice of "Izumo" as the name for the Japan Maritime Self Defense Forces latest and largest destroyer:

For the record, in the JMSDF (like in the IJN) names are chosen based on the Kantei meimei kijun (Fleet's naming principles). According to this regulations, destroyer, cruisers, and - a century ago - battleships, were named after natural phenomena, mountains, or ancient regions. The 'wind' class of ships, the 'rain' class of ships, as much as Hyuga, Ise, and other recent ships - all follow this regulations.

The IJN, had originally named the cruiser 'Izumo' after the ancient name of part of today's Shimane province (Izumo no Kuni).

So why the JMSDF decided to name the new destroyer after the original cruiser Izumo?

The reason is not related to the ship's serving as the flagship of the 3rd fleet that served in China - by then, the ship was mostly a training vessel and was recalled into service as a command ship because whilst antiquated for the day, its main armament and accommodations were good enough for the role it had to play in command and naval gunfire support operations.

Let me make this clear, no military organisation would ever name its next flagship after a ship that was famous for 'naval gunfire support operation' - whether that operation was conducted against Brest, Copenhagen, Shanghai, Kagoshima, Genoa, or wherever else. Professional military organisations think in terms of what the ship is likely to mean to the crew and to the organisation, and making the argument that the JMSDF would allow to have the new flagship named Izumo because of the Second Sino-Japanese war is either devious, or based on a complete lack of knowledge of how professional militaries work. Or a combination of both.

In fact, the reason for the JMSDF to choose this name is related to the more important facts that the cruiser Izumo was the flagship of the 2nd fleet during the Russo-Japanese war under Admiral Kimamura's command - serving admirably in all the war's major operations; and also the flagship of the 'Mediterranean Squadron' that provided convoy escorts in the Med during WWI. In between these two conflicts, the Izumo served also on a number of international diplomatic missions. The cruiser Izumo was scrapped in 1947, which made it also one of the longest serving ships in the IJN.

Ship names are selected after long discussions within the JMSDF and the Maritime Staff Office. Very senior retired officers contribute to this debate too. I had the opportunity to follow the naming process of two major vessels recently, including Hyuga, and there is little in the Japanese process that is different from any other navy with an important past...

(Link)

Furthermore, while the MSDF does reuse names, it rewrites them so as to clarify that the new names are not to be strictly identified as revivals of the pre-1945 names. The ship christened this summer is the いずも, with the name written in katakana hiragana. The older Izumo was the 出雲, with the name in Chinese characters.

Details, details...but piddling they are not.

- Earlier this year, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe publicly promised the aging former residents of Japan's Northern Territories and their descendants that he will exert every effort to win back all four of the Kurile Islands and island groupings currently under Russian administration. All or nothing.

The possibility that he may be willing to stiff the former residents and greenlight a plan to divide of the islands, in return for a Russo-Japanese peace accord, is intriguing:

The one difference this time around is Tokyo's determination to get a deal done and normalize relations with Russia. Abe's summit in Russia last winter should not be viewed as mere window-dressing. In fact, the visit marked the first time a Japanese leader had made an official state visit to Russia since former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Putin met for three days in 2003. Abe has motivation to get a deal done with Russia and his government has been sending feelers out on a compromise deal. Shotaro Yachi, one of Abe's personal confidants and a special advisor to the Cabinet, recently teased out the idea broached by Putin last year of hikiwake – or a "comprise" [sic] on the territorial row. Yachi noted in an interview before the recent Upper House elections that, "Japan needs to go into the negotiations with a strong determination to settle this issue once and for all while Putin remains president. If Putin broaches the idea of a hikiwake, we shouldn't reject the idea outright. We should explore the possibilities of a hikiwake in a form that would be acceptable to Japan."

This is a considerable shift in thinking for Japan and Yachi indicated that there needs to be recognition that a deal may result in political blowback: "No solution is going to win unanimous popular support in either Japan or Russia. An acceptable compromise would be one that a majority in both countries can support. But that will entail a larger agreement embracing cooperation in areas like energy and the environment. Hopefully, people will see it as a win for both sides once all of those elements are taken into account. The key is putting together an agreement that doesn’t give one side a clear victory over the other."

(Link)

Of course, if a Democratic Party of Japan government or its top diplomatic advisors had ever mooted the possibility of a strategic, sacrificial, half-a-loaf solution to the continuing dispute over the North Territories/Southern Kuriles, The Yomiuri Shimbun, the Sankei Shimbun, their respective media groups' radio and television networks and the guys in the sound trucks would all be screaming, "Treason!"

How nice it is to be Abe Shinzo.

-- And in the eternal "MTC, you are simply wrong" category, I very much look forward to reading Alaistair Iain Johnston's "How New and Assertive is China's New Assertiveness?" (Link) -- to find out how much of my concern about Chinese adventurism is the result of my ignorance abetted by media outlets hyping unrelated and possibly innocent events.

Tip of the hat for the link to Amy King and Shiro Armstrong at the East Asia Forum.

No Man's Lands - A Thought

I attended a noon luncheon at the Foreign Correspondent's Club of Japan featuring presentations by Katsuhiko Togo, a renowned and controversial former Director-General of the Treaties Bureau (where only the absolutely brightest career diplomats serve) and Park Il, professor at Osaka City University.  Their presentations focused on the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute and possible ways the South Korean and Japanese governments can climb down from their current enervated excited states.

Among the proposals floated by Mr. Togo was a new general code of  conduct for all of the players in Japan's territorial disputes.  Insistence that no territorial dispute exists over such-and-such a disputed territory, thus preventing the two governments even having discussions over the territories, should be abandoned.  "There is no territorial dispute so we have nothing to talk about" is the attitude adopted by South Korea over Dokdo/Takeshima and Russia over the Southern Kuriles/Northern Territories.  It is the brick wall Japan's diplomats or politicians run into when they try to engage their counterparts in discussions over these islands.

This stance is also the one taken by Japan over the Senkakus.  Under Togo's proposal, Japan would abandon its insistence that the Senkakus are indisputably Japanese territory, allowing discussion with the Chinese, Taiwanese and Hong Kong governments over the status of the islands.

Such an approach would be both intellectually consistent and absolutely wrong.  Opening up the sovereignty over the Senkakus to discussion thows away one of Japan's ace cards.

The Senkakus are indisputably Japanese territory. We know this by inference.

How? Let us take a tour around the Pacific.

Name: Clipperton Island
Controlling State: France
Population: 0
Garrison soldiers: 0
Nearest inhabited land: Mexico

Name: Baker Island
Controlling State: U.S.A.
Population: 0
Garrison soldiers: 0
Nearest inhabited land: U.S.A., Australia

Name: Minamitorishima
Controlling State: Japan
Population: 0
Garrison soldiers: 0
Nearest inhabited land: Northern Marianas Islands, Wake Island (U.S.A.)

The sovereignty of none of these islands is contested. They are also not protected by standing forces, though a standby barracks was constructed on Minamitorishima in 2011.

Call me off my rocker -- but a sure way to indicate a lack of confidence over one's hold upon a Pacific island is to put soldiers on it or colonize it. By contrast, by leaving an island or a set of islands alone, allowing no inhabitants, unapproved visitors or soldiers on it or them, the more confidence you can exude that your claim is valid.

Why then put the Senkakus on a par with the heavily militarized Dokto/Takeshima, Southern Kuriles/Northern Territories, and the garrisoned islands of the Spratlys and the Paracels?


Later - Togo-sensei has published a written treatment of ideas regarding Japan's three major territorial disputes on the NBR website:

"Japan’s Territorial Problem: The Northern Territories, Takeshima, and the Senkaku Islands" (Link)

Later still - Someone has do a history of the Togo family, though it is difficult to imagine that Togo-sensei himself does not have already have a thick manuscript and the support documents in a fire-proof safe at home. If there were ever a "well, you do not see that every day" story, the saga of the Togo family is it.

Your Serve, Region

Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko gave a live press conference last night, outlining what his government is doing regarding the territorial disputes with the Republic of Korea over Dokdo and China/Taiwan/Hong Kong over the Senkakus. (J)

The approach the Noda government will take is quite simple: it will assert its claims, which it has heretofore done quietly, mostly in the form of including the disputed territories in official maps, wherever appropriate in its interactions with the international community, leaving international opinion to judge the validity of Russian, South Korean and Chinese/Taiwanese behavior.

This approach is in line with the standard procedures of normal democratic states. Authoritarian regimes can enforce, as Deng Xiaoping suggested, the sweeping of competing claims under the rug for later, wiser generations to resolve, with the obvious postscript: "In the meantime, let's stay in power by letting our people make money." Democratic states cannot -- voters like problems resolved in clean, simple and tidy ways.

Adjusting to the new stance will lead to some fumbling. Even foreign policy experts will not "get it" -- see this CNN op-ed by Jimbo Ken, where he argues at the beginning that status quo policies are no longer operative, only to argue at the end that the conduct of relations between Japan and China needs the kinds of personal relations that lubricated and protected the status quo approach.

However, the chances of the new assertiveness' succeeding in freezing further escalation of territorial disputes are at least 50-50. All the governments in the region ex Japan remain at least semi-authorian -- the exception being Taiwan, which has opted out of the current round of the fighting over the Senkakus despite being led by a man whose law degree is based upon studies of Chinese claims in the East China Sea (E and E). The semi-authoritarian regimes can still rely upon considerable powers of persuasion to repress populist behavior - if the regime in question wants to do so. China has deployed both its 50-cent Party of Web commentators and its police forces (E) in a short-circuiting of anti-Japanese mob action in relation to the visit of Hong Kong activists to the Senkakus. That the South Korean president has gone in the other direction, choosing to heighten regional tensions rather than use his presidential powers to tamp them down, over a territory where South Korea has dug-in military forces, is...to be honest, not something I do want to delve into right now because it will be, inshallah, discussed in a future op-ed for Al-Jazeera.

The takeaway from last night's speech is that the balls are now in the courts of the nations surrounding Japan. The government of this blessed land is not going to keep quiet, as was demonstrated in the most recent Defense White Paper where the government put it writing That Which Must Not Be Said: that the civilian government of China and the People's Liberation Army may not be reading from the same piece of sheet music.

It will be up to the governments in the region, coping with their own internal instabilities and tensions, to come up with new narratives to cope with Mr. Noda's New Reality.

As Regards The Senkakus Dispute

This is more a ransom set of notes than a post.

The driver behind the current bizarre conflict between Ishihara Shintaro and the central government over who will purchase three Senkaku Islands from their Saitama-based private owner is the March expiration of the latest lease.  A private purchase such as the one Ishihara is trying to arrange cannot be done without land surveys.  The central government, the current leasee, will not allow Ishihara's survey teams land on the islands, even though the owner wants to sell the islands to the Tokyo Metropolitan District. (E)

The central government's prososal to nationalize the three islands, and indeed the Ishihara-proposed TMD purchase, violate the fundamental principle of Northeast Asian peace: do not try to solve anything.  No matter how twisted, frustrating and dangerous a situation, the cardinal rule is "Don't touch it"--  as any attempt to rationalize a situation instigates nationalist explosions.

Michael Auslin has recently published an opinion article on the Senkakus, "Japan Feels a North Asia Squeeze" and Stephen Harner has blogged on the subject "The Japan-China Territorial Dispute is Serious, and Escalating."

Both authors make claims that do not stand up to scrutiny.

Auslin claims that declining U.S. power projection in Northeast Asia has left Japan vulnerable to pressure from China and Russia, and that if Japan should walk back from a hardline stand now, that its neighbors will make even more demands of Japan.

First, the recent visits by the president, now prime minister Dmitry Medvedev to the Northern Territories do not represent an escalation of demands on Japan.  Russia has effective control of the Northern Territories and has had it since 1945.  What Medvedev's visits have tried to do is whip up a fear of a military reconquest of the Northern Territories by Japan's Self Defense Forces.  Making such an absurd claim is a measure of the Putin government's desperation to simultaneously justify Russia's current borders and to bolster an expansive Russian identity.

As for China's putting a squeeze on Japan, it is due to China's expanding military reach, which no one, not even the Obama Administration and its pivot to East Asia, can do anything about.  While China's PLA Navy is not directly involved in the current provocative actions in and around the Senkakus, the PLAN is the big stick looming behind the increasingly bold tests of the Japan Coast Guard's resolve to halt unapproved fishing in the area and the swings through the contested zone by Chinese fisheries vessels ostensibly keeping tab on the actions of China-based fishermen.

Mr. Harper's post contains the claim that:

Japan seems compelled to force the issue with China, while China would very likely be satisfied to live with the status quo, as long as Japan would acknowledge that it too has a claim on the islands and surrounding area.

While the first part of that statement is true -- that the government of Japan feels compelled to force the issue with China, due to the imminent danger of a radical nationalist coming into at least nominal control of the islands (and achieveing the ability, should the procedures of the past be followed, to extort extraordinary rent from the central government at the time of the renewal of the annual lease) -- the remainder of the sentence is poppycock.

First, China is an outlier of the 21st century.  It is the only country in the world seeking to reestablish the imperial reach it possessed at the zenith of its power at the beginning of the 19th century.  Every one of the rest of the world's imperial powers has receded, even the United States, which despite its messianic missions of the last few years, has no capacity or desire to hold on to the countries its troops have invaded and occupied (one can argue that the expansion of NATO is a soft form of imperialism but since participation in that organization is voluntary the argument does not hold water).  That the government of China should be seeking to nail down ownership of the lion's (tiger's?) share of the South China, East China and Yellow Seas, as well as obliterate the ancient semi-independent Uighur khanates and the Tibetan kingdom, demonstrate an anachronistic national purpose, based on a spurious "humiliation" of China from the Opium Wars onward (You want to talk about national humiliation? As the British and the French about the Suez Crisis).

Second, how can Japan admits that China has a claim on the islands and surrounding areas?  It would lose all ability to claim legitimate control of the Senkakus.  China does not accept Japanese claims on the islands and surrounding areas, for precisely the same reason.

Mi casa es su casa?  Not if you want it to remain mi casa for very long.

The Comfort Woman Statue

So now I know what was really ticking off the crowd of folks I ran into on Wednesday.

Statue Deepens Dispute Over Wartime Sex Slavery
The New York Times

The unsmiling teenage girl in traditional Korean dress sits in a chair, her feet bare, her hands on her lap, her eyes fixed on the Japanese Embassy across a narrow street in central Seoul. Within a day, the life-size bronze statue had become the focal point of a simmering diplomatic dispute as President Lee Myung-bak prepared to visit Tokyo this weekend.

The statue, named the Peace Monument, was financed with citizens' donations and installed Wednesday, when five women in their 80s and 90s who were forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese military during World War II held their thousandth weekly protest in front of the embassy, joined by their supporters.

For them and many other Koreans, the statue — placed so that Japanese diplomats see it as they leave their embassy — carries a clear message: Japan should acknowledge what it did to as many as 200,000 Asian women, mostly Koreans, who historians say were forced or lured into working as prostitutes at frontline brothels for Japanese soldiers.

The Japanese government's main spokesman, the chief cabinet secretary Osamu Fujimura, called the installation of the statue "extremely regrettable" and said that his government would ask that it be removed. South Korean officials said Japan cited international treaties that required host governments to help protect the dignity of diplomatic missions. On Thursday, South Korea made it clear that it had no intention of forcing the protesters to remove the statue...

(Link)

Well, OK, the statue is there to stay. Lest it become a permanent sore in Japan-South Korea relations and a focal point of anti-Korean sentiment in Japan (as it was on Wednesday) the Japanese Embassy should follow some good advice:

"Dont't get mad; get even."

- Robert F. Kennedy

"You say potato and I say potahto.
You say tomato and I say tomahto.
Potato. Potahto. Tomato. Tomahto.
Let's call the whole thing off."

- George and Ira Gershwin

If anyone had half a gram of sense in the Japanese Embassy in Seoul or at the Foreign Ministry in Kasumigaseki, there should have been a press release:

In Seoul today, opposite the Japanese Embassy, a peace statue was unveiled, commemorating the positve contributions of the Japanese occupation and annexation of Korea. The statue is of a young Korean woman, sitting in a chair. She is happy because she is attending her first day in class, an opportunity extended to her by the education policies of the Japanese authorities. Especially meaningful is that she can receive an education despite her poverty, symbolized by her bare feet. At the same time, the young woman is sad, as the chair beside her is empty. The empty chair represents the wasted lives of millions of young women held back by the repressive paternalism of Korean society."

And let it go at that.

Art is plastic, open to interpretation. What you get out of it depends on what you put into it.

The statue helps out in that it is ambiguous. The expression on the young woman's face is not unsmiling, as The New York Times states with conviction. It is at best blank, with a bias toward cheerful.


Lest anyone think I am being puckish and denigrating the comfort women's rights to an offical apology and compensation, I am not. They have deserved and have been denied the right to hold their heads up high in their communities, able to say, "I was never a prostitute. I was a prisoner of the Japanese Imperial military."

However, when there are situations and provocations too fraught with domestic political baggage to be resolved by diplomats, the only possible solution is an embrace of ambiguity non erit finis*.

Ambiguity and a resignation to the status quo are the salves and supports of East Asian peace. They keep Taiwan free of Beijing's control; keep the Senkakus Japanese territory; and keep the Russians and the Japanese from ever coming together to surround and thus render paranoid China (ambiguity also keeps the Republic of Korea and Japan from becoming close, despite their democratic governments. No thing is ever always a positive).

Making demands that the statue be removed are going to lead nowhere. The government of Japan should just insist, as it does in the Senkakus, the East China Sea and in the Northern Territories that it believes what it does about the situation, no matter what the other side says -- and let those on the other side cut off their own fingers in frustration at the GOJ's intransigence.

And then do its damndest to give the surviving comfort women what they deserve.

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* Not the World of Warcraft guild of the same name.

Image Courtesy: Yomiuri Online

Yet Another Paradigmatic Shift...

...I wish I had appreciated on my own.

"Russians are richer today than ever before in their history."

- "The Return of the Bear", Newsweek, March 10, 2008

A state of affairs likely to make negotiations over the Northern Territories rather...uneventful.

But an article in the Sankei Shimbun tells me that Dmitri Medvedev's election will mean change! His foreign policy will have colors! Uniquely driven colors!

Only such colors as may be found in Vladimir Putin's rainbow, I'm afraid.

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Trees at the foot of Kan no Kurayama
Ogawa Township, Saitama Prefecture
February 16, 2008
Photo credit: MTC