The So-Called So-Called Comfort Women Issue Resolution Proposal

There is nuts. Then there is full blown, hair-askew, pants-on-backwards insane.

From news reports, the proposal on resolution of the comfort women issue Foreign Minister Kishida Fumio will be offering to his South Korean counterpart in a few hours's time is the latter.

According to news reports, Kishida is going to ask the ROK side to accept:

1) a fund of 100 million yen (currently about USD $825,000) for the medical, welfare and income needs of the surviving Korean comfort women

2) a request that the ROK government also contribute to the fund

3) letters from Prime Minister Abe Shinzo to all the survivors expressing his remorse at their pain, deprivation and humiliation

4) the ROK government's declaring that the government of Japan bears no legal responsibility for acts done to the comfort women, i.e. that the repudiation of ROK legal claims in the 1965 normalization treaty apply also to the comfort women's claims

5) that the ROK government will agree to remove or move the statue of the seated young girl installed by private interests in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul

6) that the two governments sign a binding agreement declaring the comfort women issue resolved.

I am not making any of the above up. (Link - J video)

I know very little about contemporary South Korean politics (it is hard enough to keep track of the politics of Japan, thank you very much) but my cursory knowledge still tells me there is virtually nothing in the above that the Park Geun-hye government can accept, given its level of popularity with the voters.

With unacceptability as the assumption, two alternative explanations have been bandied about:

A) That the above is actually not the proposal, and that the news media of Japan have been quoting sources who are voicing their virulent opposition to whatever the Abe administration is actually proposing, or

B) The above is really what the Abe Administration is offering, fully cognizant that the ROK will reject it, allowing Abe and Company to shrug their shoulders and say, "Look, we made an offer and they turned us down flat. Next."

Of course, there is always:

C) the ROK through gritted teeth accepts the above.

The reason for (C) even being remotely plausible is pressure from the United States, ally of both of these headstrong governments. According to the Asahi Shimbun " numerous persons in the loop of Japan-ROK relations" have confirmed that if an accord is reached the U.S. government will immediately issue a statement of congratulating its allies for resolving this difficult bilateral issue. (Link - J)

A statement of congratulations...oh whoop-de-doo.

As persons following my tweets on Twitter know I am firmly in the (B) camp. My reading is that key members of the Abe government are certain the current ROK government and a large chunk of the South Korean public have no intention of ever letting Japan and the Japanese off the hook for the colonial era -- and why should they, as resolution of historical/territorial issues would open the door for closer Japan-US-ROK military cooperation, upsetting China?

As a consequence, any realistic Japanese attempt at a rapprochement would be pointless, leaving Japan looking like a rejected beggar.

Japan's main interest in these talks seems to be the pleasing of U.S.A. policy makers, putting on a show of seeking resolution so that the Japan Hands can check off the "a more concerted effort toward resolving the comfort women issue" box on the U.S. list of "Things the Abe Government Needs to Do."

In a few hours' time we will know better.

Coming Up At Temple University Japan - ICAS In December: Sracic and Okumura

I cannot attend but I hope you can what is likely to be a no-holds barred intellectual tussle between two sophisticated veterans. Paul Sracic and Okumura Jun will tangle this month at Temple University Japan - ICAS over a deceptively simple-looking and very much hush-hush question: if push comes to shove in the East China Sea, would the United States really go to war with China over the Senkakus?

http://www.tuj.ac.jp/icas/event/will-the-us-defend-the-senkakus-paul-sracic-and-jun-okumura/

The pair have already gone through a couple rounds of sparring over at The Diplomat:

- Will the U.S. Really Defend Japan?

- Yes, the U.S. Will Defend Japan

- Will the U.S. Defend Japan? More of a Definite Maybe

I would love to see the pair in live action...but I will be otherwise occupied that eve.

If you wish to attend, make sure to find out whether the event is being held at the Azabu Campus or the Mita Campus. A long trudge awaits you if you show up at the wrong venue.

To RSVP for the event, email ICAS at: icas@tuj.temple.edu

Denny Roy Being Helpful on Chinese Intentions

A question one hears with increasing frequency in foreign affairs discussions is an exasperated "What do the Chinese think they are doing?" I confess to having asked the question, and not facetiously either, more than a few times.

Denny Roy of the East-West Center has just produced a startlingly brief (just over 1000 words) essay offering the answers (plural) to the above question. A mere double handful of national goals seem to circumscribe and propel Chinese diplomatic and security behaviors.

I take issue with the assertion at the beginning of the concluding paragraph ("Most Chinese do not now aspire to superpower status"? Ah non, non, no, au contraire, mon ami, they really do aspire to it) but I most certainly will keep the essay nearby (figuratively speaking) to consult whenever the Beijing regime's actions and reactions befuddle me.

Recommended reading. (Link)

Japan As Asia's Plutonium Superpower

It was not until I read Jeffrey Lewis's wonderful (as always) trip down a side road of China's nuclear weapons programs (Link) that I understood there could be more to China's hopping up and down about Japan's possession of plutonium, both in weapons and reactor grades (Link)
than just spiteful, hypocritical mendacity.

Not a small part, if not indeed the majority, of China's griping could be out of simple envy.

In terms of separated plutonium, Japan is the superpower in Asia. Big, bad China, by contrast, is the minnow. (Link)

That Japan has done nothing with its plutonium except burn it in its civilian nuclear power reactors in MOX form seemingly (likely) does not affect Chinese sentiments on the issue.


Later - Up-to-date comparisons of fissile materials held by various countries. (Link)


Original image of Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant courtesy NBC News.

No Mr. Abe, You And China Together Are Still Not Enough

Interesting figures in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun this morning:

Q: Shall the Constitution be reinterpreted in order to make it possible to exercise the right of collective self-defense?

Agree 28%
Disagree 51%

Q: Should their be preparations be brought forward on the legal basis for [ having the Self Defense Forces involvement] so-called gray-zone incidents?

Should be 68%
Should not be 13%

Q: Should SDF units participating in peacekeeping activities be allowed to rush to the armed defense (kaketsuke keigo) of other peacekeeper and/or civilians?

Allowed 47%
Not allowed 34%

Q: Is it necessary to invoke the right collective self-defense?

Necessary 37%
Not necessary 47%

A remarkably level-headed set of numbers, no? The voters in this poll clearly want the government to have a capacity to deploy the SDF in situations where opponents are in plain clothes but way too much for constabulary forces like the Japan Coast Guard to handle, such as trawler-fulls of Chinese special forces disguised as fishermen landing on the Senkakus. They are also generally in favor of a partial normalization of the behavior of Japanese forces in peacekeeping operations, making the SDF contingent valuable as a military, rather than just a logistics force.

At the same time, the voters are at best ambivalent about invoking the right of collective self defense per se. They are also deeply skeptical about reinterpretation, the Constitutional bugbear that Prime Minister Abe's advisors and councils failed to think through until this year.

The error as regards reinterpretation was one of language and group think -- too few people involved in a discussion of a subject using the same limited vocabulary. For the reformers in Japan's defense establishment, all the Cabinet had to do was interpret (kaishaku) the Constitution in a new way. It did not dawn upon them that to undo a previous determination of unconstitutionality required reinterpretation (kaishaku o henko) -- which only the Supreme Court or a constitutional amendment can do.

Meanwhile, on the subject of meeting and beating the threats to the nation, the Chinese air force and Chinese official news organs this weekend sought to regale us with their well-known talents for physical comedy Link) and satire. (Link).

Such kidders.

Despite these shenanigans on the part of the powers that be in China which could lead to a sudden to dump the 1946 Constitution, the Japanese public keeps its eyes on the edifice of their democratic form of government and the foundations of the rule of law and popular sovereignty.

Pretty impressive, no?

Noble And Obvious And China Will Still Go Bananas About It

According to news reports, the Abe government has decided to dispatch a force of up to 1,000 Self Defense Forces personnel to the Philippines to help in the rescue and recovery effort in the aftermath of 2013 Typhoon #30 --- a.k.a, Typhoon Haiyan, a.k.a. Typhoon Yolanda. For those who have been looking at the photographs and video footage of the disaster zones and thinking, "Isn't this humanitarian catastrophe exactly what the Japanese government and the SDF have been arguing the Osumi and the other helicopter carriers were built to handle?" you are vindicated -- the dispatch includes the Osumi, the Ise and the oiler Towada. (Link - J)

As for the Chinese response to the projected presence of 1,000 Japanese soldiers and sailors either on the ground in Leyte or on ships carrying out operations inside the territorial waters of the Philippines -- well, one can imagine that the military-security folks in Beijing must be rather busy this morning -- for all the wrong reasons, one might add.


Later - An earlier version of this post contained the extraordinary number of 10,000 SDF in the Philippines. Whether that was a bleary-eyed misread or an actual reading of a later corrected report, I cannot say.

Apologies for the confusion.

Later still - Arrghhh! Corrected the wrong place in the above. The current government plan involved 1,000 SDF. 1,000.

As you were.

And even later - Many thanks to reader "Brodie" who alerted me to the mistaken correction. Caught it I did before I read his email...but all corrections are always welcome ("And needed" - Editor).

And yet later still - As for the obvious question, "Why is it that the MSDF helicopter carriers have not already departed for the Philippines?" one can only guess that without their blessed Security Council to gather up their attention and focus it, neither the Prime Minister, the Chief Cabinet Minister nor the Defense Minister could possibly have the mental discipline to make the connection in between the likelihood of desperate need and the dispatch of relief ships.

Thankful should we be that the Liberal Democratic Party, the experienced, proactive, outward-looking party committed to wrenching Japan out of its passivity in order to transform it into a greater force for global good, is back in power.

Or so we have been told, so many times...

Are We Of His World Or Merely On It?

This is my world
and I am
World Leader Pretend.

- REM, "World Leader Pretend" (1988)

What does Kasai Yoshiyuki want?

- A leveraged buyout of the management of his homeland, installing a chief executive with significant self-worth issues? Check.

- A fantasy vanity maglev project through the heart of his country, with hostage shareholders and ultimately the taxpayers footing the bill? Check.

- The militarization of Japan's space policy? Check.

- U.S. high speed rail policy muddled by sales of advanced railway technology? Check.

- Japan-U.K. strategic relations muddled by sales of advanced railway technology? A work in progress.

- The United States, Japan and India forged into a politico-economic strategic iron triangle? A work in progress.

- A more strongly pro-government and pro-nuclear NHK? Check.

- The use of influence over the prime minister and the cash generated by the Shinkansen in a zero sum game of influence intent on countering China in every corner of the globe, no matter how remote? Check.

The above is just what's available after only a few minutes diddling around in English.

It is probably best to familiarize yourself with Kasai Yoshiyuki's world*. Because if your life is in some way linked to Japan, you already live in it.

--------------------

* Go ahead, Google him. In various combinations: "Yoshiyuki Kasai Shinzo Abe" "Yoshiyuki Kasai China" "Yoshiyuki Kasai India" "Yoshiyuki Kasai space" "Yoshiyuki Kasai Huntington Huffington Post" "Yoshiyuki Kasai Tomohiko Taniguchi" -- it's great fun.

Abe Shinzo's Friends Indeed

"It is called the Unbegun Symphony. It used to be called the Pathetic Symphony. Now these names as you may know, like the Jupiter Symphony and the Eroica Symphony...now these names as you may know, they are usually not given by the composer. They are given by friends or the musicians and stuff. This name, the Pathetic Symphony, was given to the piece by some of my old friends.

(Pause)

Well, I have a new set of friends now...and we're calling it the Unbegun Symphony."

- Peter Schickele, "The Unbegun Symphony" (1966) *

Well, he has a new set of friends now...

When I hear Abe Shinzo arguing for a stimulus package (taking cash out of the national treasury and distributing it to politically important constituencies) in order to offset the likely downturn in individual and corporate spending after the consumption tax rise (raised in order to pay for the higher health and pension costs associated with a larger population of retirees) so as to not derail the economic growth associated with Abenomics monetary policy (which, by targeting inflation, will eat away at the spending power of those on fixed incomes and/or living off their savings, i.e., retirees) and fiscal policy (which by accelerating the rate of increase of the national debt, threatens jumps in interest rates demanded by borrowers, which will increase the percentage of the national budget consecrated to debt service, decreasing the amount of money available for everything else, most importantly pensions and healthcare for the elderly) all against the advice of economists Honda Etsuro and Hamada Ko'ichi, the two identified "fathers of Abenomics," whilst simultaneously trying to drum up support globally for an as yet unknown set of structural reforms to be decided on...soon...because the set of reforms his brain trust of supposedly market savvy and creative CEOs produced for the big June announcement were either trivial (Link) or so nakedly self-serving (Rakuten CEO Mikitani Hiroshi going so far as to threaten to quit Abe's industrial competitiveness council if the sales of drugs and medical equipment over the Internet were not in included in the June announcement) as to embarrass the PM -- I blackly remember Professor Schickele's sardonic, "Well, I have a new set of friends now..."

In his return to power a year ago, Abe Shinzo seems to have secretly made a deal with himself and his eminence grise Suga Yoshihide. Abe would nod in the direction of old coterie of supporters and allies, the so-called "Friends of Abe" like Taka'ichi Sanae, Furuya Keiji and Inada Tomomi -- and yes, even the duplicitous and too glib Aso Taro -- relying upon them as the backbone for his challenge to the status quo within the Liberal Democratic Party. The muscle and momentum for the takeover of the party and the government, however, would come from the zaikai, with new style but still establishment business moguls like Mikitani, Takeda Phamaceuticals CEO and Keizai Doyukai head Hasegawa Yasuchika, JR Central Chairman Kasai Yasuyuki, Fuji Film CEO Komori Shigetaka as a set of "New Friends of Shinzo" -- persons whom when you talked to them seemed full of ideas on how to transform Japan into an economic powerhouse, a state capable of paying for the kind of raw politico-military power Abe had seemingly previously thought could only come through the imposition from above of a hair-trigger patriotic, paranoid obedience to authority -- you know, like the mindset the Chinese seem to be fostering.

The New Friends seemed full of the promise of a revived fukukoku kyohei, but a fukoku kyohei for the Facebook Age -- with the New Friends of Shinzo providing the ideas and capital for the fukoku and the Old Friends providing the applause for the Abe/Suga duarchy's tentative tiptoeing toward the kyohei.

As I watch Abe's epic, manic, economic speedballing -- meeting everyone, asking everyone's advice, with resulting announcements of new economic policies off-setting the effects of previous economic policies offsetting the effects of yet earlier policies engaged to counter the consequences of even older policies, with frenetic searches for new statistics demonstrating earlier that the latest policies are indeed working (Link) or that the current policies need yet newer policies to offset them -- I find myself worrying, "Won't the pressures of finding a path through the bewilderingly numerous, numbingly complex and often mutually contradictory plans of the New Friends of Abe cause the man to break down -- just like the unseemly power-grabbing and intransigence of the Old Friends did?"

A disconcerting thought for a sunny day.


Later - It is not a sign of the Apocalypse, but when the Yomiuri Shimbun, which is as a rule sycophantic in its coverage of the policies of the LDP prime ministers, is like me in shaking its head at the PM's mutually negating proposals (Link) then the sum of the parts of the current administration's ideas is clearly less than a whole.

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* The album An Hysteric Return: P.D.Q. Bach at Carnegie Hall is available here.

Pan-Asianism All Over Again

For the academic with tenure: the long essay comparing the tone of 1920s and 1930s Japanese Pan-Asianist writings with very kind, well-meaning predictions like this:

Asia will develop a greater sense of regional awareness and cohesion. The region is still compartmentalised into Northeast, Southeast, South, Central and West Asia. But the region’s current collaborative efforts — such as the ASEAN-Plus formula, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation — will gradually lead it towards a greater level of pan-Asian cooperation.

(Link)

Eeek! I certainly hope not. I have seen this movie before and the ending is a downer.

Dr. Yang must be negotiating complex  intellectual mine fields. It must be exhausting to try to at once offer a positive message and stay within the boundaries of what is acceptable to the Beijing regime and its self-proclaimed defenders. The essay must be understood in those terms, as a chip tossed into an ocean of loaded code words and approvable poses, rather that just a justification for Chinese disruption of international institutions and norms behind a false front of making the global commons more fair and reflective of cultural difference.

Perhaps forgiveness can be extended in two directions: to Chinese intellectuals in this era of expansion who labor under the thumb of capricious, self-serving authoritarianism and to Japanese intellectuals of the pre-defeat era who faced a parallel situation.

Me Talking About India-Japan Nuclear Power Cooperation

Via Voice of America. (Link)

My family name, however, is pronounced "Chew-check." You can find us primarily in Slovenia and Croatia.

Surprise, Surprise

In October of last year I published a post arguing that the government of Japan must never admit a dispute exists over the sovereignty of the Senkakus. Open that door and one will next have to deal with China's claims on Okinawa.

In private conversation and comments, I received much grief for my assertions as regards Chinese aims and arguments.

As of this weekend the domino theory of Chinese tactics and perhaps Chinese strategy seems...not so extreme?

China Refuses to Confirm Okinawa Island Belongs to Japanese
Bloomberg News

China refused to confirm that Okinawa belongs to Japan after two Chinese scholars suggested re-examining the ownership of the archipelago that includes the island, adding to tensions over a separate territorial dispute.

Agreements between allied forces during World War II mean the ownership of the Ryukyu Islands may be in question, the researchers said in a commentary in the People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s main newspaper. Asked if China considers Okinawa part of Japan, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said scholars have long studied the history of the Ryukyus and Okinawa.

“It may be time to revisit the unresolved historical issue of the Ryukyu Islands,” Zhang Haipeng and Li Guoqiang of the China Academy of Social Sciences wrote in the commentary.

A move to reconsider ownership of the Ryukyus would add to strains as China and Japan assert their claims over a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea. The Japanese government’s decision last year to purchase those islands, called Diaoyu in Chinese and Senkaku in Japanese, sparked protests across China and harmed a $340 billion annual trade relationship that has yet to recover...

(Link)

For the record, I also take umbrage at being labeled anti-China...as if a person with any degree of sense could be against an entire country...

More On China's Air

Over at the Council on Foreign Relations website, Huang Yangzhong adds some numbers and context to the developing issue of PM 2.5 air pollution, a topic of a recent post.

And what numbers!

Last Thursday morning, readings near Tiananmen Square measured the concentration of PM2.5—fine particles in the air that are smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter and are considered dangerous because they tend to penetrate the gas exchange regions of the lungs—at 469 micrograms per cubic meter, which corresponds to a U.S. EPA Air Quality Index reading of 479 (the scale stops at 500). Anything above 301 is considered “hazardous” in that it can cause “serious aggravation of heart or lung disease and premature mortality in persons with cardiopulmonary disease and the elderly,” and there is a “serious risk of respiratory effects in general population.” The PM2.5 levels in other famously polluted cities pale in comparison to those in Beijing; for instance, the highest PM2.5 level in a 24-period recorded in Los Angeles was 43 micrograms per cubic meter.

The poor air quality, according to a leading Chinese public health expert, is worse than SARS because nobody can escape it. Research suggests that air pollution can raise the risk of cardio-respiratory death by 2 to 3 percent for every increase of 10 micrograms per cubic meter of pollutants. Only 1 percent of China’s 560 million urban residents breathe air considered safe by European Union, according to a 2007 World Bank study. A report released by China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection in November 2010 showed that about one-third of 113 cities failed to meet national air standards.The 2012 Cancer Registry Annual Report revealed that lung cancer is top among all types of cancer in terms of the number of cases and deaths in China. Indeed, the number of lung cancer-caused mortality in China has increased by 465 percent in the past three decades. In Beijing, the number of lung cancer patients has increased by 60 percent in the last ten years. The rising incidence rate of lung cancer coincides with drastic reduction in the incidence rates of stomach cancer and cervical cancer, which is thought to be a result of improvements in public health standards.

(Link)

I am not sure I fully agree with Huang's conclusion:

Since the regime’s legitimacy hinges upon delivering robust economic growth, governments at all levels continue to pursue growth at the expense of environment. We are going to see more NPC delegates pushing for better environmental protection measures, but don’t expect any fundamental change until the government has shifted to a new legitimacy base and restructured the state-society relationship to allow for more effective participation of civil society groups in the public policy process.

If members of the Chinese Communist Party view the delivery of rapid economic growth as the make or break point, fine. However, the Chinese state has a few more cards -- unified rule of the traditional empire, brute force -- to play in maintaining order. As for institutional blocks to handling the air pollution problem, a Japanese government shift toward addressing Japan's serious pollution problems did not require a shift away from either the delivery of rapid economic growth or the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan.

Furthermore, rapid economic growth never ever falls off the legitimacy table. The failure of Japan's growth engine delegitimized the Liberal Democratic Party and national bureaucracy in the 1990s. A promise of a return to rapid economic growth is the basis for the Abe Cabinet's current popularity.

The failure to address the control of air pollution is a failure of the Chinese Communist Party' imagination. Perhaps, as Martin J. Frid suggests in a comment to my earlier post, the CCP is just being lazy.

Meanwhile, In Osaka

Just now, at the Four Continents Figure Skating Championships in Osaka, China National Champion Song Nan skated a vibrant short program. The crowd clapped along in time to the Middle Eastern music, the only time the crowd has engaged itselt in a performance tonight. When Song finished, rising up from the ice with his fists raised, the crowd responded, giving him a standing ovation -- the first of the evening.

The common run of inhabitants of this blessed land know how to behave.

A Maritime Balkans

Former Prime Minister of Australia Kevin Rudd either writes astonishingly well or has astonishingly capable writers working for him. (Link)

A good read, once one get past the unfortunate "tinderbox on water" metaphor ("A tinderbox? On water? What's the problem then?").

Three Cheers For the North Koreans!

Sure that title will get me into trouble. But one has to cut through the harrumphing verbiage and look on the bright side:

- By firing off its rocket when the Chinese specifically told it not to the Kim regime has humilated the new Chinese leadership lineup. Suffice it to say that the Chinese government may not be too solicitous of the mewling of its cat's paw on the Korean peninsula.

- By successfully testing a multi-stage, long-range rocket, a prototype for a nuclear-tipped ICBM (if the North Koreans can develop a small enough nuclear warhead), the DPRK has put the United States in the same boat as its South Korean and Japanese allies.

North Korean artillery threatens South Korea with massive loss of life and destruction of its capital. North Korea's well-tested Nodong missiles threaten Japanese cities with similar damage. Now U.S. cities are targetable.

Until yesterday, there was ambiguity over whether or not basing large numbers of U.S. forces in the theater made tactical sense. Now it does not matter where U.S. East Asian rapid reaction forces are based: the DPRK can now hit them.

- By thumbing its nose at its ostensible master, the DPRK has exposed the fallacy of China's growing ability to cow countries in the region. If any regime should jump when Beijing says, "Jump!" it is neophyte Kim Jong-eun's.

This has been a lousy year for the CCP-enabling and ally-betraying Sino-centric world order crowd. The DPRK is disobedient; Myanmar has gone off its own sweet way; and Cambodia's clumsy service as China's lapdog has reminded ASEAN of its origins in fighting the influence of China in Southeast Asia.

Take that, Hugh White (Link) and the "over most of human history China has been a benign hegemon" flunkies!

So raise a glass (of orange juice) or a mug (of coffee) to the North Koreans today. The launch of their big birthday celebration rocket is a shot for liberty.

Sourabh Gupta on Japan's Security Policy Choices

Sourabh Gupta is a Senior Research Associate at Samuels International Associates and an East Asia Forum Distinguished Fellow. He frequently delivers an intellectual EMP blast, knocking folks' lights out on the other side of the planet.

In his most recent piece published by the EAF, Gupta makes a series of predictions regarding Japan's security policies:

The separate approaches in terms of strategic concepts, command, control and battle management systems, operational planning and crisis action procedures will not be abolished. Rather, a fresh division of bilateral roles and mission responsibilities will progressively chip away at the separation – a process that from Tokyo's point of view will be geared as much to advancing the 'normal nation' defence capabilities as to enhancing interoperability within the alliance. Japan used activities conducted under alliance auspices in Iraq and Afghanistan — such as participation in multinational peacekeeping and humanitarian operations, deploying forces overseas during times of active hostilities, and liberalising rules on supplying weapons and transporting armaments — to push the boundaries of Japanese rearmament.

Similarly, a carefully calculated set of constitutional reinterpretations can be expected to pass into legislation in coming years. The effect of these reinterpretations will be progressively to blur definitional lines between conflict and post-conflict operations, combat and non-combat zones, and military and policing activities, which still limit Japan's involvement in alliance missions within carefully prescribed thresholds. The right to exercise collective self-defence in narrowly circumscribed situations in areas surrounding Japan will also be admitted. Fundamentally though, the geopolitical separation that is built into the heart of the alliance, and the corresponding flexibility to hedge against entrapment or abandonment, will be preserved.

(Link)*

If Abe Shinzo's Liberal Democratic Party and Hashimoto Toru's Japan Restoration Party do well enough in the next election, and if the two parties can find a way to cooperate despite Hashimoto's titanic ego and narcissism, maybe.

I am even less sure about the claims made in this passage:

First, unlike the British interest in manipulating the continental balance of power, the notion of aligning against the stronger power to contain its influence is at odds with the Japanese tradition. Rather, the inclination of statecraft has been to pursue policies of strategic detachment or isolation. The next best option, when this has not been possible, is to forge amicable ties with whichever foreign state appeared to demonstrate the most impressive combination of military, economic and cultural power. Equally, efforts by Great Britain and US in the modern era and China throughout much of Japanese history to involve Japan in the region's strategic balance have mostly been unsuccessful because Tokyo has avoided a too-intimate strategic association with its foreign ally or mentor. Japan is not the UK of East Asia and will not assume the role of regional offshore balancer.

Second, the meteoric rise of China at a time of receding US primacy is placing Japan's choices at odds with its enduring principles.

Adaptive resilience to the reality of Chinese power is not the issue here. The stability of central authority in Beijing has been among the surest guarantors of Japan's domestic stability and external security. Rather, it is the need to hedge against the destabilization that is rippling through the East Asian periphery, as a by-product of the rise of Chinese power. A stable, ideally prosperous, periphery has been the indispensable condition of Japan's national security. Historically, the Korean Peninsula and the Taiwan Strait have served as the outer ramparts of Japan's defence perimeter. Time and again power vacuums or instability on the peninsula and within the straits have tempted entanglements in Korea and Taiwan, and stability has allowed Japan's strategic view to turn homewards.

First, two technical issues. One, meteors tend not to rise. They tend to either burn up in the upper atmosphere (luckily this is most of the time) or hit the ground, becoming meteorites. Only the occasional one is on the right course and has sufficient mass and momentum to take take the brief tour through Earth's upper atmosphere only to rise up into space. Two, for most of Japan's history, Tokyo has not been the de jure capital or even the de facto capital. Using Tokyo as a shorthand for Japan's government is unsound (the use of Beijing as a shorthand for China's government may be, depending on how far back in time Gupta wishes us to look, similarly unsound).

As to more substantive issues, while it is hard to argue with the recurring patterns in the historical record, this blessed land happens to be no longer under military management, as it was for most of the last 900 years. Talk of enduring principles without reference to the type of government a state has at a particular time seems a leap of faith.

Subtracting democratic governance also leads to errors in gauging the intensity of a government's responses. Democracy tends at once a force multiplier in defense and a dampening factor upon the expansionist inclinations of states. For those who note the two century-old tendency of the United States to go marching out on military expeditions of varying length all around the globe ("From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli," as the U.S. Marine Corps' hymn puts it) despite its democratic form of government, the resultant empire is, Robert Dujarric puts it, largely an informal one.

As for stability and prosperity on China's periphery, that is a great concept. A swing around the states on China's periphery, however, finds damn few that are either stable or prosperous. Nevertheless, China has signed agreements with most of them delineating its borders, setting hard limit on the China/Not China divide.

Indeed, the more legitimate and stable a government is and the more prosperous the state, the less likely it is that China will have resolved its differences with it (Those in the back with their hands up, South Korea is both effectively an island state, separated as it is from China by the black, uncrossable moat that is North Korea, and also in a fight with China over ownership of Socotra Rock).

The contention that instability or power vacuums in Beijing or on the Korean peninsula are goads to Japan's intervening in continental affairs belongs in the "Been There/Done That" tray. The Korean peninsula is divided, with two states on a hair-trigger and one of those states undergoing a halting and stilted leadership transition. And Japan is...where? Furthermore, "stability has allowed Japan's strategic view to turn homewards" is an Ann Elk Theory.

On a final note, Gupta needs to talk to the editors of the EAF regarding his previous featured post, "Japan and China's latest spat over the Senkakus" (23 September 2012). Not one -- and this is not necessarily his fault -- of the links in the essay seems to connects to a text supporting the assertion Gupta is making.

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* For reader/blog author Janne Morén, a warning. Clicking on the link will bring you into contact with such a liberal use of unmoored quotations marks as to put you off your lunch.

And When I Say "Stolen" I Say That With All Due Respect

On September 28, Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi of the People's Republic of China delivered a speech to the United Nations General Assembly. In his speech Yang used a weirdly hyperbolic turn of phrase, saying that Japan had stolen the Senkakus from China.

In much of the print, online and broadcast reporting in this blessed land, Yang's use of the word "stolen" was depicted as the Chinese government losing its senses. The evening sports rag Sports Nippon, no stranger to hyperbole itself, was dumbfounded:

This was not North Korea or Iran -- this was China, a Permanent Member of the UN Security Council, using this fiery (gekiretsu) expression. It is beyond precedent.

(Link)

Osaka mayor Hashimoto Toru, hearing of the use of the expression "stolen", tweeted on 28th:

Be that as it may, this shows China's lack of class. If it had been me that they said this to, that would have been the end of it. This shows that they are still a long way from acting in an honorable manner in global terms. That at the UN General Assembly, to use an expression like 'stolen' toward a sovereign state like Japan...Japan must retort vehemently."

(Link)

Some in Japan knew that Yang's use of the word "stolen" in his UN speech was not a verbal misstep or a sudden leap in tone. China's State Oceanic Administration on September 20 had released a handbook making exactly the same claim about the islands.

The standard joke one would use in this instance to deflate the tension would be:

"The islands were 'stolen' – that's a technical term, of course. Ha, ha."

What is unfunny is that "stolen" is indeed a technical term. Saying the Senkakus were "stolen" brings them under the purview of the Cairo Communique, which states:

"...Japan shall be stripped of all the islands in the Pacific which she has seized or occupied since the beginning of the first World War in 1914, and that all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa, and The Pescadores, shall be restored to the Republic of China."

(Link)

That a close reading of the Cairo Communique would find the niggling problem that the Republic of China is still around, ruling Taiwan, can be and is being glossed over the government of People’s Republic. (E)

As to returning to the status quo ante, the ante has been raised for the government of Japan.

The PRC government is aware that Japan annexed the Senkakus in January of 1895, before the signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki which ceded Taiwan and the Pescadores to Japan. By declaring the Senkakus as "stolen" China has pushed the application of the Cairo Communique backwards in time, prior to the commonly accepted boundary line of April 17, 1895, the date of the signing of the treaty ending of the First Sino-Japanese War.

If the Senkakus are classed as "stolen" the next logical step is to class Okinawa in the same way.

This is not paranoid right wing fantasy. The China Daily, in talking about the status of the Senkakus, is unabashed about declaring Chinese claims on Okinawa as superceding Japanese ones:

Japan took the Liu Chiu Islands, which Japan calls Okinawa, by force from China in 1874, when the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) was at war with several countries. The Diaoyu Islands, though, remained under the administration of Taiwan. Following China's defeat in the Sino-Japanese War in 1894-95, the Qing government ceded Taiwan, including its subsidiary islands, to Japan.

(Link)

Before plunging too deeply into extreme scenarios involving Okinawa, the unanchored use of the word “stolen” in the Cairo Communique is the source of the GOJ’s inability to admit even the existence of a sovereignty dispute over the Senkakus. The moment the GOJ ever admits that a dispute exists, the Cairo Communique comes into effect.

Togo Kazuhiko has been going around advocating that the government of Japan indeed admit the existence of a dispute (E) -- this in order that there be symmetry in between the GOJ's approaches to the dispute with South Korea over Dokdo/Takeshima and the fight brewing over the Senkakus. That the former head of the Treaties Bureau (service: 1998-99) would fail to appreciate the triggering of the Cairo Communique is flabbergasting.

In addition Foreign Minister Yang’s speech in New York and the State Oceanic Administration handbook, the Chinese government's September 10 demarcation of territorial waters baselines including the Senkakus makes clear that the government of China has no intention of returning to the status quo ante. The baseline declaration requires that Chinese constabulary forces conduct uninterrupted surveillance and security patrols in and about the islands, meaning that JCG and various Chinese government vessels are condemned to a series of confrontations in what Japan considers its territorial waters, non erit finis (E).

Hence the absurdity of the breathless daily reports of Chinese ships entering Japan's territorial waters about the Senkakus.

"Let's all calm down, take a deep breath and remember what is at stake here" punditry notwithstanding, China is pushing hard to undermine Japan’s jurisdiction over the Senkakus, using such tools as exist in its own domestic law, international law and World War II declarations.

The Rubicon is crossed. So what are Japan and its treaty ally the United States going to do about it?

Questions About Chinese Intentions

With democracy in Myanmar seemingly moving forward as if mounted on a freight train and the Chinese vote in the UN Security Council yesterday in favor a resolution condemning the DPRK for its rocket launch last Friday, are we seeing the results of a reassessment by the Chinese government, even during a leadership transition year when policy changes are presumably destabilizing and thus verboten, of the policy of having Asian pariah states as its clients forming "a buffer zone around China" or giving access to the Indian Ocean and natural gas? Are dictatorial regimes that isolate states from the rest of the world and leave their citizens in dire poverty now seen as being more trouble than can be justified?

Just asking.

Bo Xilai Is Replaced

From the land where politics is played with a hardball comes the stunning news that Chongqing mayor, princeling incomparable and purveyor of scrubbed Maoist nostalgia Bo Xilai (薄熙来) has been replaced by a central government official.

The Yomiuri Shimbun speculates, in an article entitled "The firing of Chongqing's top official: aiming at an early resolution of internal political strife?" (J) that Bo's departure comes as a result of Bo's conflicts with President Hu Jintao, without specifying what Hu's problems with Bo might be. It also hints that the preemptive removal is an echo of Hu's previous struggles with allies of former President Jiang Zemin, the so-called Shanghai Clique.

The Mainichi Shimbun's article, "The firing of Chongqing's top official: in the leadership group, the severe political struggle" (J) goes into the fine detail of the background of Bo's firing, most particularly the peculiar Wang Liqun asylum episode. The article presents Bo's removal as Hu's protecting his own princeling and dauphin Xi Jinping, the guardian of the legacy of Hu's Chinese Communist Party's Youth League clique in the leadership. Bo's revival of the singing of "Red songs," including tunes from the Cultural Revolution when the CCP turned upon itself, was simply the most easily mockable aspect of a deeper and more cutting criticism of the inequalities in society that have been built up under the leadership of Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao.

The paper states that the toppling of Bo is a blow against both what it calls the "conservative faction" and the princelings, seemingly hinting that even the princelings of the "Youth League faction" have to watch their backs.

The Asahi Shimbun's account (J) is straight reporting of the removal of Bo and also of Wang, without commentary.

More later, as the various news organizations offer their analyses.

A Japanese Prediction of an Emerging Sino-American Trade and Economics Interdependence and Co-prosperity Relationship

"Whenever the [reference deleted] discusses the geography of America, it always compares it with China. Indeed, the two countries occupy very fertile lands in the eastern and western hemispheres. They are located in similar positions, their latitudes are the same, and their shape and sizes are also similar. However, in China, mountain-chains run east to west and there are many clear rivers, while in America the mountain ranges furn north to south and the rivers tend to be muddy. The races are distinct, as are their customs. Their geographical features may be similar, but their occupations are very different, and the people of each country produce their own distinctive products; one has what the other lacks. Thus, both countries find advantage in commerce and transport. Moreover, they are both naturally endowed with fertile soil, so with the increasing flow of people and civilization across the Pacific, both countries are expected to prosper through trade and exchange."

- From "Chapter 2: A General Survey of the United States of America" in A True Account of the Ambassador Extraordinary & Plenipotentiary's Journey of Observation Through the United States of America and Europe (Tokumei zenken taishi Beio kairan jikki) compiled by Kume Kunitake and published by Hakubunsha in 1878.

Translation by Martin Collcutt.