Japan Embassy protests over Singapore editorial
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The Japanese is sending a small signal to Singapore to tell them that they are still the same old imperial soldiers who will die for their emperor and anyone who criticise their new imperial design over the region will be put down by the new hawkish cabinet.
When you are a small and vulnerable country like Singapore they will know how to check you.
May be LHZB know enough about our leaders' thinking and had therefore given a very couteous reply to avoid offending the new hawkish Japanese cabinet.
Our leaders are well known to stand up to the people on all issues but when faced with a hawkish and confrontational force, like the new Japanese ministers might try not to cross them or stay neutral to avoid stepping on the wrong tails. Certain tails can be stepped on like the whiners or little quitters but beware of the bigger tails. -
Originally posted by LazerLordz:
Japan's embassy protests to Singapore daily over Yasukuni editorials
The letter also defended Koizumi's trips to the shrine, saying they are not aimed at whitewashing Japan's militarism in the war. It claimed Koizumi believes the peace and prosperity that Japan enjoys today has been built upon the valuable sacrifices of those who perished in that war, and so it is important to show appreciation for their sacrifice.
When has ANY Japanese PM ever visited and pay respect at Singapore's WWII memorials?
Are not those perished under the Japanese occupation worthy similar respect from Koizumi and his cronies of militants ?
The Germans had owned up to their deed with conscience and come to terms with the Holocaust. Today's German students frequently have historical field trip to memorials at former Auschwitz concentration camp as part of their education. "The Holocaust" is a compulsory teaching matter at all types of high schools in Germany and at all levels of education.
What hv the Japs done so far ?
Print new edition of revised history text books. -
In Yasukuni shine officia website. http://www.yasukuni.or.jp/english
it says
"There were also 1,068 "Martyrs of Showa" who were cruelly and unjustly tried as war criminals by a sham-like tribunal of the Allied forces (United States, England, the Netherlands, China and others). These martyrs are also the Kami of Yasukuni Jinja."
2 nukes & 6 decades late, Japanese attitude remains unchanged. -
http://www.moreorless.au.com/heroes/rabe.html
hero file
John Rabe
AKA 'The Good Nazi', AKA 'The Good Man of Nanjing', AKA 'The Living Buddha of Nanjing'.
Country: China and Germany.
Cause: The rescue of more than 250,000 Chinese from slaughter during the 'Rape of Nanjing'.
Background: The final collapse of the Chinese Imperial Government at the start of the 20th Century brings in a 30-year period of instability to China during which the nationalist Guomindang (Kuomintang or KMT - the National People's Party, or Nationalist Party), headed by Chiang Kai-shek, battle the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), headed by Mao Tse-Tung, for ultimate control.
Across the East China Sea, Japan becomes progressively more nationalistic and militaristic, seeing in China an opportunity to expand on territory occupied in Manchuria (now Dongbei Pingyuan, north of Korea) and Shandong Province (across the Yellow Sea from Korea) after the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) and during the First World War.
Mini biography: Born on 23 November 1882 in Hamburg, Germany. His father is a sea captain. Rabe pursues a career in business, serving as an apprentice with a merchant in Hamburg then working in Africa.
1908 - Rabe travels to China.
1910 - He is employed in the Beijing office of the Siemens China Corporation.
1927-29 - Japanese troops are sent to China to obstruct attempts by the Guomindang to unify the country. In June 1928 officers in the Guandong Army, the Japanese Army unit stationed in Manchuria, begin an unauthorised campaign to secure Japanese interests and precipitate a war with China. Both the Japanese high command and the Chinese refuse to mobilise.
1931 - In September, conspirators in the Guandong Army stage the 'Manchurian Incident', blowing up a section of railway track in the south of Manchuria then blaming Chinese saboteurs. With the Japanese Government powerless to intervene, the Guandong Army mobilises, taking nearby Mukden (now Shenyang) then, in January 1932, attacking Shanghai, south of their territory in Shandong Province.
A truce is reached in March 1932. The Japanese then establish the puppet state of Manchukuo, centred on Manchuria and headed by the last Chinese emperor, Puyi.
Meanwhile, in November 1931 Siemens transfers Rabe to their office in Nanjing. Now the company's senior representative in China, he sells telephones, turbines and electrical equipment to the Guomindang government.
1932 - The Japanese military effectively takes control of the Japanese Government in May when the prime minister is assassinated. Manchukuo is formally recognised by the military-controlled regime.
1933 - In Germany the Nazi Party seizes power on 30 January when their leader Adolf Hitler is appointed chancellor. The Nazis quickly take control of the entire state apparatus. Rabe will join the party, becoming head of the local party branch in Nanjing.
1936 - In November, Japan and Germany sign the 'Anti-Comintern Pact', an agreement to fight the spread of communism. Italy joins a year later.
1937 - The Second Sino-Japanese War breaks out on 7 July following a skirmish between Chinese and Japanese troops outside Beijing. Chinese forces evacuate Beijing on 28 July.
The Japanese overrun Tianjin (100 km southeast of Beijing) on 30 July then attack Shanghai on 13 August. After a three-month siege, Shanghai falls and the Guomindang forces withdraw to the northwest towards their capital Nanjing (also known as Nanking). The Japanese pursue.
The foreign community and much of the Nanjing's Chinese population, including the government, are evacuated from the city during November. Rabe is ordered by Siemens to leave. He sends his family away but refuses to go himself.
Instead, he stays behind with several dozen other foreign nationals (mostly German and American missionaries, scholars, doctors and businessmen) to establish a temporary 'Safety Zone' to provide Chinese refugees with food, clothing and shelter during the confusion that is anticipated when the Japanese enter the Nanjing. Rabe is made head of the 15-member international committee that is founded on 22 November to administer the zone.
Twenty-five hostels are established in an area measuring around seven square kilometres in the western district of the city, with centres located in all of the foreign embassies and at the University of Nanjing. Rabe also opens his own property, which will shelter about 650 refugees.
On 1 December the international committee is authorised by the mayor of Nanjing to take over the administration of the city once he and his staff are evacuated.
The Japanese ground assault on Nanjing begins on 10 December after the Chinese troops assigned to defend the city refuse to withdraw. When Nanjing finally falls on 13 December, just hours after the Chinese forces have fled, the Japanese begin a bloodthirsty massacre that will last for six weeks. -
Rabe and other members of the international committee meet the Japanese as they enter the city and attempt to explain the situation within the safety zone, asking that its boundaries be respected. However, their appeal will have limited effect.
"If I had not seen it with my own eyes, I would not have believed it," Rabe writes in his diary on that day. "They (Japanese soldiers) smash open windows and doors and take whatever they like. ... I watched with my own eyes as they looted the café of our German baker Herr Kiessling. ... Of the perhaps one thousand disarmed soldiers that we had quartered at the Ministry of Justice, between 400 and 500 were driven from it with their hands tied. We assume they were shot since we later heard several salvos of machine-gun fire. These events have left us frozen with horror."
The Rape of Nanjing (in Chinese, 'Nanjing Datusha' or 'Great Nanjing Massacre') results in the indiscriminate murder of between 200,000-350,000 Chinese civilians and surrendered soldiers. It is the worst single massacre of unarmed troops and civilians in the history of the 20th Century.
Japanese troops loot and burn the city and surrounding towns, destroying more than a third of the buildings. Chinese captives are tortured, burnt alive, buried alive, decapitated, bayoneted and shot en masse.
Between 20,000 and 80,000 Chinese women and girls of all ages are raped. Thousands are murdered after their ordeal. Thousands more are forced into sexual slavery. It is one of the worst ever recorded single cases of mass rape.
About 250,000 Chinese find refuge in the safety zone, which quickly becomes a permanent rather than temporary facility. Among the refugees are Chinese soldiers who were unable to leave the city during the general retreat. The Japanese demand that they be handed over and forcibly enter the safety zone on several occasions to apprehend suspects.
Rabe and his fellow zone administrators attempt to stop the atrocities occurring in the city while working to ensure that the refugees within the safety zone are fed and nursed. They also petition international governments to intervene and document the events for the world media.
Rabe uses his Nazi credentials to prevent the atrocities wherever possible. He writes repeatedly to Hitler asking that something be done to stop the killing. Along with other members of the international committee he records the actions of the Japanese troops and passes on reports to the Japanese embassy, which is also lobbied to intervene. Rabe also records his experiences in his diary.
"Groups of three to ten marauding soldiers would begin by travelling through the city and robbing whatever there was to steal," he writes at one point. "They would continue by raping the women and girls and killing everything and everyone that offered any resistance, attempted to run away from them, or simply happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. During their misdeeds, no difference was made between adults and children. There were girls under the age of eight and women over the age of 70 who were raped and then, in the most brutal way possible, knocked down and beat up. We found corpses of women on beer glasses and others who had been lanced by bamboo shoots. I saw the victims with my own eyes - I talked to some of them right before their deaths and had their bodies brought to the morgue at Kulo Hospital so that I could be personally convinced that all of these reports had touched on the truth.
"You would have thought it impossible, but the raping of women even occurred right in the middle of the women's camp in our zone, which held between 5,000 and 10,000 women. We few foreigners couldn't be at all places all the time in order to protect against these atrocities. One was powerless against these monsters who were armed to the teeth and who shot down anyone who tried to defend themselves. They only had respect for us foreigners - but nearly every one of us was close to being killed dozens of times. We asked ourselves mutually, 'How much longer can we maintain this 'bluff'?'"
On 19 December Rabe writes, "Six Japanese climbed over my garden wall and attempted to open the gates from the inside. When I arrive and shine my flashlight in the face of one of the bandits, he reaches for his pistol, but his hand drops quickly enough when I yell at him and hold my swastika armband under his nose. Then, on my orders, all six scramble back over the wall. My gates will never be opened to riffraff like that. Â… The 300 to 400 refugees here in my garden - I no longer know how many there really are - Have used straw mats, old doors, and sheets of tin to build huts for a little protection from the snow and cold."
On 24 December he writes, "I have had to look at so many corpses over the last few weeks that I can keep my nerves in check even when viewing these horrible cases. It really doesn't leave you in a 'Christmas' mood; but I wanted to see these atrocities with my own eyes, so that I can speak as an eyewitness later. A man cannot be silent about this kind of cruelty!"
And on 30 January, "My car is stopped on Hankow Road by a group of about 50 Chinese, who asked me to rescue a woman whom a Japanese soldier had led away to rape. Â… I find the house completely looted, the floor covered with all sorts of debris. In one of the open rooms is a coffin on a bier, and in the room adjoining, lying on a floor covered with straw and junk, I see the soldier, who is about to rape the woman. I manage to pull the soldier out of the room and into the entryway. When he sees all the Chinese and my car, he pulls away and disappears somewhere in the ruins of nearby buildings. The crowd stands at the door, murmuring, but quickly disperses when I tell them to, so as not to attract more Japanese soldiers."
The 1,200-page diary is forgotten after the Second World War, but will later resurface to furnish proof that the atrocities at Nanjing did in fact occur.
It is estimated that more than 250,000 are saved by the actions of Rabe and the other zone administrators, who are subjected to constant threats and intimidation, including violence, from the Japanese. -
We need to uplift our War Memorial in City Hall and we need to raise its profile too.Originally posted by Gun:
When has ANY Japanese PM ever visited and pay respect at Singapore's WWII memorials?
Are not those perished under the Japanese occupation worthy similar respect from Koizumi and his cronies of militants ?
The Germans had owned up to their deed with conscience and come to terms with the Holocaust. Today's German students frequently have historical field trip to memorials at former Auschwitz concentration camp as part of their education. "The Holocaust" is a compulsory teaching matter at all types of high schools in Germany and at all levels of education.
What hv the Japs done so far ?
Print new edition of revised history text books.
Many of our young do not know the significance of it. -
http://www.gendercide.org/case_nanking.html
Case Study:
The Nanjing Massacre,
1937-38
Summary
The Nanjing Massacre, also known as "The Rape of Nanking," is a rare example of simultaneous gendercides against women and men. It is generally remembered for the invading forces' barbaric treatment of Chinese women. Many thousands of them were killed after gang rape, and tens of thousands of others brutally injured and traumatized. Meanwhile, approximately a quarter of a million defenseless Chinese men were rounded up as prisoners-of-war and murdered en masse, used for bayonet practice, or burned and buried alive.
The background
The Second World War began in Asia. Japan's military dictators had long viewed China as the main outlet for their imperial and expansionist ambitions (for an overview, see Saburo Ienaga, The Pacific War 1931-1945). Japanese forces invaded and occupied Manchuria in northeast China in 1931, setting up the puppet state of Manchukuo. After the manufactured "Marco Polo Bridge Incident" of July 1937, the Japanese launched a fullscale invasion of China, capturing Shanghai on 12 November and the imperial capital, Nanjing, on 13 December. Numerous atrocities were committed en route to Nanjing, but they could not compare with the epic carnage and destruction the Japanese unleashed on the defenseless city after Chinese forces abandoned it to the enemy.
The gendercide against Chinese women
Murdered Chinese women and children are strewn
across the steps of a Nanjing building.
Women were killed in indiscriminate acts of terror and execution, but the large majority died after extended and excruciating gang-rape. "Surviving Japanese veterans claim that the army had officially outlawed the rape of enemy women," writes Iris Chang. But "the military policy forbidding rape only encouraged soldiers to kill their victims afterwards." She cites one soldier's recollection that "It would be all right if we only raped them. I shouldn't say all right. But we always stabbed and killed them. Because dead bodies don't talk ... Perhaps when we were raping her, we looked at her as a woman, but when we killed her, we just thought of her as something like a pig." (Chang, The Rape of Nanking, pp. 49-50). Kenzo Okamoto, another Japanese soldier, recalled: "From the time of the landing at Hangzhou Bay, we were hungry for women! Officers issued a rough rule: If you mess with a woman, kill her afterwards, but don't use bayonets or rifle fire. The purpose of this rule was probably to disguise who did the killing. The military code with its punishment of execution was empty words. No one was ever punished. Some officers were even worse than the soldiers." (Yin and Young, The Rape of Nanking, p. 18
One eyewitness, Li Ke-hen, reported: "There are so many bodies on the street, victims of group rape and murder. They were all stripped naked, their breasts cut off, leaving a terrible dark brown hole; some of them were bayoneted in the abdomen, with their intestines spilling out alongside them; some had a roll of paper or a piece of wood stuffed in their vaginas" (quoted in Yin and Young, The Rape of Nanking, p. 195). John Rabe, a German (and Nazi) businessman who set up a "Nanking Safety Zone" in the city's international settlement and thereby saved thousands of Chinese lives, described in his diary the weeks of terror endured by the women of Nanjing. Though young and conventionally attractive women were most at risk, no woman was safe from vicious rape and exploitation (often filmed as souvenirs) and probable murder thereafter. "Groups of 3 to 10 marauding soldiers would begin by traveling through the city and robbing whatever there was to steal. They would continue by raping the women and girls and killing anything and anyone that offered any resistance, attempted to run away from them or simply happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. There were girls under the age of 8 and women over the age of 70 who were raped and then, in the most brutal way possible, knocked down and beat up." (Chang, The Rape of Nanking, p. 119.) In addition to those killed after the violation, historian David Bergamini notes that "Many immature girls were turned loose in such a manhandled condition that they died a day or two later. ... Many young women were simply tied to beds as permanent fixtures accessible to any and all comers. When they became too weepy or too diseased to arouse desire, they were disposed of. In alleys and parks lay the corpses of women who had been dishonored even after death by mutilation and stuffing." (Yin and Young, The Rape of Nanking, p. 195.)
Not all of the victims of rape were female. "Chinese men were often sodomized or forced to perform a variety of repulsive sexual acts in front of laughing Japanese soldiers," writes Chang. "At least one Chinese man was murdered because he refused to commit necrophilia with the corpse of a woman in the snow. The Japanese also delighted in trying to coerce men who had taken lifetime vows of celibacy to engage in sexual intercourse. ... The Japanese drew sadistic pleasure in forcing Chinese men to commit incest -- fathers to rape their own daughters, brothers their sisters, sons their mothers ... those who refused were killed on the spot." (Chang, The Rape of Nanking, p. 95.)
The gendercide against Chinese men
Young Chinese men, their hands bound, are
led away for mass execution.
On 5 December, even before Nanjing's fall, Prince Yasuhiko Asaka -- uncle of Emperor Hirohito -- issued a secret order to "Kill all captives." When Nanjing was taken, "All military-age men among the refugees were taken prisoner," whether or not they had actually been soldiers (Yin and Young, The Rape of Nanking, p. 76. Note that the Chinese Nationalist government's press-ganging of young men was possibly the most brutal and gendercidal in history -- see the case-study of Military Conscription).
At wharves along the Yangtze River, tens of thousands of these prisoners -- up to 150,000 in all -- were massacred in cold blood. A typical order, issued to the 66th Regiment 1st Battalion on 13 December, read as follows:
Battalion battle report, at 2:00 [p.m.] received orders from the Regiment commander: to comply with orders from Brigade commanding headquarters, all prisoners of war are to be executed. Method of executed: divide the prisoners into groups of a dozen. Shoot to kill separately. ... It is decided that the prisoners are to be divided evenly among each company ... and to be brought out from their imprisonment in groups of 50 to be executed. ... The vicinity of the imprisonment must be heavily guarded. Our intentions are absolutely not to be detected by the prisoners. Every company is to complete preparation before 5:00 p.m. Executions are to start by 5:00 and action is to be finished by 7:30. (Quoted in Yin and Young, The Rape of Nanking, pp. 110, 115.)
According to Iris Chang, "The Japanese would take any men they found as prisoners, neglect to give them water or food for days, but promise them food and work. After days of such treatment, the Japanese would bind the wrists of their victims securely with wire or rope and herd them out to some isolated area. The men, too tired or dehydrated to rebel, went out eagerly, thinking they would be fed. By the time they saw the machine guns, or the bloodied swords and bayonets wielded by waiting soldiers, or the massive graves, heaped and reeking with the bodies of the men who had preceded them, it was already too late to escape." (Chang, The Rape of Nanking, p. 83.) The Japanese held grotesque killing contests, including "a competition to determine who could kill the fastest. As one soldier stood sentinel with a machine gun, ready to mow down anyone who tried to bolt, the eight other soldiers split up into pairs to form four separate teams. In each team, one soldier beheaded prisoners with a sword while the other picked up heads and tossed them aside in a pile. The prisoners stood frozen in silence and terror as their countrymen dropped, one by one." (Chang, The Rape of Nanking, p. 85) -
Atrocious tortures were also inflicted on the captive men. "The Japanese not only disemboweled, decapitated, and dismembered victims but performed more excruciating varieties of torture. Throughout the city they nailed prisoners to wooden boards and ran over them with tanks, crucified them to trees and electrical posts, carved long strips of flesh from them, and used them for bayonet practice. At least one hundred men reportedly had their eyes gouged out and their noses and ears hacked off before being set on fire. Another group of two hundred Chinese soldiers and civilians were stripped naked, tied to columns and doors of a school, and then stabbed by zhuizi -- special needles with handles on them -- in hundreds of points along their bodies, including their mouths, throats, and eyes. ... The Japanese subjected large crowds of victims to mass incineration. In Hsiakwan [along the Yangtze] a Japanese soldier bound Chinese captives together, ten at a time, and pushed them into a pit, where they were sprayed with gasoline and ignited." (Chang, The Rape of Nanking, pp. 87-88.)
How many died?
After the war, the International Military Tribunal of the Far cited "indicat[ions] that the total number of civilians and prisoners-of-war murdered in Nanking and its immediate vicinity during the first six weeks of the Japanese occupation was over 200,000. That these estimates are not exaggerated is borne out by the fact that burial societies and other organizations counted more than 155,000 bodies which they buried ... these figures do not take into account those persons whose bodies were destroyed by burning or by throwing them into the Yangtze River or otherwise disposed of by [the] Japanese." As well, "According to Japanese Lieutenant colonel Toshio Ohta's statement, between December 14 and December 18 the Japanese commanding headquarters of Nanjing Port disposed of 100,000 bodies while other troops disposed of 50,000." (Yin and Young, The Rape of Nanking, pp. 78, 90.) With the sole exception of the Nazi gendercide against Soviet POWs, this was the most concentrated massacre of prisoners-of-war in recorded history. The rapes and rape-murders of women were also of staggering proportions. "Certainly it was one of the greatest mass rapes in world history," writes Iris Chang. She notes that "it is impossible to determine the exact number of women raped in Nanking. Estimates range from as low as twenty thousand to as high as eighty thousand." (Chang, The Rape of Nanking, p. 89)
Who was responsible?
Senior members of the Japanese high command bearing direct responsibility for the mass atrocities in China included the Emperor Hirohito, who made all major military decisions, including the one to invade China in 1937; Hirohito's uncle, Prince Asaka, who issued the order to "Kill all captives" and was thus the main architect of the gendercide against Nanjing's men; General Yanagawa Heisuke; and Lieut. General Nakajima Kesago, commander of the 16th division, who "supervised the beheading of two prisoners-of-war to test his new sword, thus setting an example for his troops in mass-scale killing in Nanking" (Yin and Young, The Rape of Nanking, p. 284).
The aftermath
The massacres and mass rapes in Nanjing continued for a full six weeks, extending into January 1938. Eventually the genocidal rampage was replaced by a brutal occupation conducted under a puppet authority, the "Nanking Self-Government Committee." Life began to return to the city, and its population eventually re-stabilized at around 700,000, two-thirds of the prewar population. In August 1945, after atomic-bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese surrendered to the United States and other allies. The Second World War was over.
In 1946-47, war-crimes trials were held in Nanjing. "Only a handful of Japanese war criminals were tried in Nanking," notes Chang, "but they gave the local Chinese citizens a chance to air their grievances and participate in mass catharsis." (Chang, The Rape of Nanking, p. 170.) Tani Hisao, a commander of the 6th Division which had committed many atrocities in Nanjing and elsewhere, was sentenced to death in March 1947 and executed the following month. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East tried nearly 30 key Japanese commanders, including Matsui Iwane, commander of the Central China Expeditionary Force. Iwane, however -- according to Chang -- "may have served as the scapegoat for the Rape of Nanking. A sickly and frail man suffering from tuberculosis, Matsui was not even in Nanking when the city fell" (Chang, The Rape of Nanking, p. 174). He was nonetheless executed along with six other "class A" war criminals in this Japanese equivalent of the Nuremberg trials. General Yanagawa Heisuke and Lieut. General Nakajima Kesago, two of the main Japanese field commanders in charge of the occupation of Nanjing, died of natural causes in 1945, and thus could not be prosecuted. Controversially, the Japanese imperial family, including Emperor Hirohito and Prince Asaka, received immunity.
A conscious attempt has been made by "revisionists" in Japan to deny or downplay the involvement of the Japanese military in massive atrocities during World War II. In September 1986, the Japanese education minister, Fujio Masayuki, referred to the Rape of Nanking as "just a part of war." In 1988, a 30-second scene depicting the Rape of Nanking was removed from Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor by the film's Japanese distributor. In 1991, censors at the Ministry of Education "ordered textbook authorities to eliminate all reference to the numbers of Chinese killed during the Rape of Nanking because authorities believed there was insufficient evidence to verify those numbers" (Chang, The Rape of Nanking, p. 20. And General Nagano Shigeto, a Second World War veteran appointed justice minister in Spring 1994, told a Japanese newspaper that "the Nanking Massacre and the rest was a fabrication."
Until the recent resurgence of interest in the Nanjing Massacre, the atrocities and their survivors had been largely forgotten. "After the war some of the survivors had clung to the hope that their government would vindicate them by pushing for Japanese reparations and an official apology. This hope, however, was swiftly shattered when the People's Republic of China (PRC), eager to forge an alliance with the Japanese to gain international legitimacy, announced at various times that it had forgiven the Japanese." Despite the fact that "the PRC has never signed a treaty with the Japanese relinquishing its right to seek national reparations for wartime crimes," no such reparations have been sought -- or offered. Overseas Chinese have, however, mounted increasing activist efforts. "The 1990s saw a proliferation of novels, historical books, and newspaper articles about the Rape of Nanking ... The San Francisco school district plans to include the history of the Rape of Nanking in its curriculum, and prints have even been drawn up among Chinese real estate developers to build a Chinese holocaust museum." (Chang, The Rape of Nanking, pp. 223-24.) Chang concludes her book, itself an important contribution to the revival of interest in these ghastly events, with a call for justice, however delayed:
Japan carries not only the legal burden but the moral obligation to acknowledge the evil it perpetrated at Nanjing. At a minimum, the Japanese government needs to issue an official apology to the victims, pay reparations to the people whose lives were destroyed in the rampage, and, most important, educate future generations of Japanese citizens about the true facts of the massacre. These long-overdue steps are crucial for Japan if it expects to deserve respect from the international community -- and to achieve closure on a dark chapter that stained its history. (Chang, The Rape of Nanking, p. 225.) -
Iris Chang commited suicide early this year IIRC.
RIP. -
If they want to repeat WW2, bring it on.Don't think for one moment that their nationalism is such a glorious thing.We WILL be ready.Originally posted by robertteh:The Japanese is sending a small signal to Singapore to tell them that they are still the same old imperial soldiers who will die for their emperor and anyone who criticise their new imperial design over the region will be put down by the new hawkish cabinet.
When you are a small and vulnerable country like Singapore they will know how to check you.
May be LHZB know enough about our leaders' thinking and had therefore given a very couteous reply to avoid offending the new hawkish Japanese cabinet.
Our leaders are well known to stand up to the people on all issues but when faced with a hawkish and confrontational force, like the new Japanese ministers might try not to cross them or stay neutral to avoid stepping on the wrong tails. Certain tails can be stepped on like the whiners or little quitters but beware of the bigger tails.
The reason that the SAF exists today is to make sure we are free and be able to live without such extremism in society. -
RIPOriginally posted by LazerLordz:Iris Chang commited suicide early this year IIRC.
RIP. -
"keep your friends close, your enemies even closer."
I know Koizumi is not dumb. But I also know he made a pact with the devil on Yasukuni. He made a promise to visit once a year to get a block of voters, and has kept his promise.
Yasukuni isn't a simple shrine to pray for peace it is a symbolic center of "patriotism." You do it, or you are not in the "We Japanese" circle - you stand outside it and are questionable in being 'true' Japanese. Something is 'wrong' with you if you don't support.
Believe Koizumi is the foundation. He is laying the ground work for those who will go after him (Prime Ministers) ...
If you irritate long enough the irritation will no longer hurt because it gets numb. And then you can do anything you want around this issue. there was no outcry after the enshrinement of the class "A's" at the spring festival in 1979 ... so if the reaction goes down, Patriotism wins. It is known as gradualism. -
Watch it guys, the Japs have perhaps the second most mordern navy on earth, disguise only by name as a defence force.
They have already deploying troops in Iraq, and are changing their constution as a true arm forces status. Notice the vocal level on regional defence matters and recent comments by a politician the Japan is perhaps the Asian's Leader.
Gosh... I would certainly hope China military would rise up quickly. Not so much against Japan, but the hold of the US alliance in and around our region. -
I'd rather see a US security umbrella than a Chinese one though.Japanese threat or not.Originally posted by MobyDog:Watch it guys, the Japs have perhaps the second most mordern navy on earth, disguise only by name as a defence force.
They have already deploying troops in Iraq, and are changing their constution as a true arm forces status. Notice the vocal level on regional defence matters and recent comments by a politician the Japan is perhaps the Asian's Leader.
Gosh... I would certainly hope China military would rise up quickly. Not so much against Japan, but the hold of the US alliance in and around our region.
Do bear in mind that China is no better than Japan at times, and she's been awfully bellicose too.At least the Japs do not point their missiles at Taiwan and her people are a nice bunch,and the govt's the badhat..in China, it's harder to tell.
Don't read too much into Japan's rewording of their constitution..I expect her to pay more of her dues to the UN and relieve the burden of other nations. -
Can a Nazi be a hero? The whole world seems to believe that Nazi Party member Oskar Schindler was a hero because of his work to save the lives of 1,200 Jews. John Rabe played the key role in saving the lives of more than 250,000 Chinese. On this comparison alone, Rabe must rank as a major hero of the 20th Century.Originally posted by boy in blues:http://www.moreorless.au.com/heroes/rabe.html
hero file
John Rabe
AKA 'The Good Nazi', AKA 'The Good Man of Nanjing', AKA 'The Living Buddha of Nanjing'.
Country: China and Germany.
Cause: The rescue of more than 250,000 Chinese from slaughter during the 'Rape of Nanjing'.
Background: The final collapse of the Chinese Imperial Government at the start of the 20th Century brings in a 30-year period of instability to China during which the nationalist Guomindang (Kuomintang or KMT - the National People's Party, or Nationalist Party), headed by Chiang Kai-shek, battle the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), headed by Mao Tse-Tung, for ultimate control.
Across the East China Sea, Japan becomes progressively more nationalistic and militaristic, seeing in China an opportunity to expand on territory occupied in Manchuria (now Dongbei Pingyuan, north of Korea) and Shandong Province (across the Yellow Sea from Korea) after the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) and during the First World War.
Mini biography: Born on 23 November 1882 in Hamburg, Germany. His father is a sea captain. Rabe pursues a career in business, serving as an apprentice with a merchant in Hamburg then working in Africa.
1908 - Rabe travels to China.
1910 - He is employed in the Beijing office of the Siemens China Corporation.
1927-29 - Japanese troops are sent to China to obstruct attempts by the Guomindang to unify the country. In June 1928 officers in the Guandong Army, the Japanese Army unit stationed in Manchuria, begin an unauthorised campaign to secure Japanese interests and precipitate a war with China. Both the Japanese high command and the Chinese refuse to mobilise.
1931 - In September, conspirators in the Guandong Army stage the 'Manchurian Incident', blowing up a section of railway track in the south of Manchuria then blaming Chinese saboteurs. With the Japanese Government powerless to intervene, the Guandong Army mobilises, taking nearby Mukden (now Shenyang) then, in January 1932, attacking Shanghai, south of their territory in Shandong Province.
A truce is reached in March 1932. The Japanese then establish the puppet state of Manchukuo, centred on Manchuria and headed by the last Chinese emperor, Puyi.
Meanwhile, in November 1931 Siemens transfers Rabe to their office in Nanjing. Now the company's senior representative in China, he sells telephones, turbines and electrical equipment to the Guomindang government.
1932 - The Japanese military effectively takes control of the Japanese Government in May when the prime minister is assassinated. Manchukuo is formally recognised by the military-controlled regime.
1933 - In Germany the Nazi Party seizes power on 30 January when their leader Adolf Hitler is appointed chancellor. The Nazis quickly take control of the entire state apparatus. Rabe will join the party, becoming head of the local party branch in Nanjing.
1936 - In November, Japan and Germany sign the 'Anti-Comintern Pact', an agreement to fight the spread of communism. Italy joins a year later.
1937 - The Second Sino-Japanese War breaks out on 7 July following a skirmish between Chinese and Japanese troops outside Beijing. Chinese forces evacuate Beijing on 28 July.
The Japanese overrun Tianjin (100 km southeast of Beijing) on 30 July then attack Shanghai on 13 August. After a three-month siege, Shanghai falls and the Guomindang forces withdraw to the northwest towards their capital Nanjing (also known as Nanking). The Japanese pursue.
The foreign community and much of the Nanjing's Chinese population, including the government, are evacuated from the city during November. Rabe is ordered by Siemens to leave. He sends his family away but refuses to go himself.
Instead, he stays behind with several dozen other foreign nationals (mostly German and American missionaries, scholars, doctors and businessmen) to establish a temporary 'Safety Zone' to provide Chinese refugees with food, clothing and shelter during the confusion that is anticipated when the Japanese enter the Nanjing. Rabe is made head of the 15-member international committee that is founded on 22 November to administer the zone.
Twenty-five hostels are established in an area measuring around seven square kilometres in the western district of the city, with centres located in all of the foreign embassies and at the University of Nanjing. Rabe also opens his own property, which will shelter about 650 refugees.
On 1 December the international committee is authorised by the mayor of Nanjing to take over the administration of the city once he and his staff are evacuated.
The Japanese ground assault on Nanjing begins on 10 December after the Chinese troops assigned to defend the city refuse to withdraw. When Nanjing finally falls on 13 December, just hours after the Chinese forces have fled, the Japanese begin a bloodthirsty massacre that will last for six weeks. -
Why would the Japs point missles at Taiwan ? The political situation is different to China.
At least, for the moment, china would not pull those political stunts like the US does.
I mean... bait pearl harbour to be attacked, fabricated Tonkin Gulf incident for Vietnam War, possibly Iraq war as well. Not to mention, starting coups, toppling demoratic countries, cambodia, sukarno (indonesia), el salvador, tahiti, grenada, Angola, Chile and many more.
Looking at the current US behavior.. it seems they above all international law. Never stop them from invading anyone.
At present I'm more wary of US. Lets say if we disagree and reluctant to play along a certain policy and the US claim that Suntec city is a terrorist target. I might wonder if they would actually plan for one.. if it did not happen.
It is much to be concern -
"The best prophet of the future is the past”. – Lord ByronOriginally posted by MobyDog:Watch it guys, the Japs have perhaps the second most mordern navy on earth, disguise only by name as a defence force.
They have already deploying troops in Iraq, and are changing their constution as a true arm forces status. Notice the vocal level on regional defence matters and recent comments by a politician the Japan is perhaps the Asian's Leader.
Gosh... I would certainly hope China military would rise up quickly. Not so much against Japan, but the hold of the US alliance in and around our region. -
During the war, the Japanese were "enjoying" themselves, torturing innocent people, have comfort women and all.Originally posted by Salman:Everybody suffered, including the Japs.
It is only before the end of war and after the war they suffered because US dropped two atomic bombs. They suffered the effects of the atomic bombs. Physiological effects when compared to psycological effects, which is more?
And why can't Singapore have an editorial on it? Singapore is one of the countries being colonized during the war. We have the right to voice it out. However, if it is Africa, do you think the Japanese want a country that is not affected to speak up? Probably as an outsider's point of view, but not directly commenting on who's right and who's wrong. -
i agree with that 100%.Originally posted by ndmmxiaomayi:During the war, the Japanese were "enjoying" themselves, torturing innocent people, have comfort women and all.
It is only before the end of war and after the war they suffered because US dropped two atomic bombs. They suffered the effects of the atomic bombs. Physiological effects when compared to psycological effects, which is more?
And why can't Singapore have an editorial on it? Singapore is one of the countries being colonized during the war. We have the right to voice it out. However, if it is Africa, do you think the Japanese want a country that is not affected to speak up? Probably as an outsider's point of view, but not directly commenting on who's right and who's wrong.
+ 1 -
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/art/2005/12/09/225050/Qin_urges_Japan_to_explain_military_moves.htmOriginally posted by MobyDog:Watch it guys, the Japs have perhaps the second most mordern navy on earth, disguise only by name as a defence force.
They have already deploying troops in Iraq, and are changing their constution as a true arm forces status. Notice the vocal level on regional defence matters and recent comments by a politician the Japan is perhaps the Asian's Leader.
Gosh... I would certainly hope China military would rise up quickly. Not so much against Japan, but the hold of the US alliance in and around our region.
Qin urges Japan to explain military moves
Zhang Liuhao
2005-12-09 Beijing Time
JAPAN should explain its recent military moves to its Asian neighbors, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Qin Gang said yesterday.
Japan's cabinet yesterday decided to extend its troop involvement in Iraq by a year to December 14, 2006.
Qin's remarks were in response to a speech by Japan's Foreign Minister Taro Aso in Tokyo on Wednesday. Aso said China should boost the transparency of its military expenditure to the same level as Japan to reduce questions from the Asia Pacific region.
At a press conference in Beijing, Qin said China's military expenditure is open and transparent. He said he didn't understand why Japan always raised this issue.
"China has made its position clear in a national defense white paper," Qin said. "If Minister Aso hasn't read the paper, we can send one to him."
He said Japan's recent moves in military affairs have raised concerns among its neighbors and the international community. Japan should explain.
Qin added the key to improving relations between Japan and its neighbors including China and South Korea is to remove the political obstacle for friendly cooperation.
An annual tripartite summit of China, Japan and South Korea has been postponed because of Chinese and Korean anger over Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to a war shrine. -
"Smug calculations" lack sincerity, analysis
At the upcoming 11th ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur, the annual trilateral meeting of Chinese, Japanese and South Korean leaders gets aborted for the first time. Both China and South Korea believe that the three-party conference will be meaningless given the Japanese Prime Minister's continuous shrine visits. However, Tokyo responded not by reflecting on its improper behavior but by accusing China of playing "diplomatic card" and "shunning Japan out", in an attempt to cover up the fact that Japan lacks fundamental sincerity towards the promotion of East Asia cooperation.
Under the proposal of Japanese former Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi, leaders from China, Japan and the ROK specially held an informal breakfast meeting when attending the ASEAN 10+3 summit in 1999. The same thing happened the next year. In 2001, proposed by then Korean President Kim Dae-Jung, the breakfast was upgraded into an annual formal conference, and six of them have been held by now. The two-hour close-door talks have become a gathering ground for dialogue, communication and discussion for cooperation among the three parties.
However, a looking back on Japanese acts in East Asia cooperation in recent years reveals easily that this country, from the bottom of its heart, has never treated this gathering very seriously.
Against the backdrop of continuously deepening economic globalization and regional cooperation, East Asia has attained fresh vigor after experiencing "miracle", "crisis" and system innovation. Meanwhile, Japan, who has long been given a "lift" under a multilateral free trade system, has been enveloped in economic bubbles over the past decade. Japan is craving a "return to Asia", and the kernel of its regional strategy is to "Japanize" regional policies, legal system, industrial division and financial and monetary fields. It mainly targets some ASEAN countries, at the same time avoiding Free Trade Agreement (FTA) but bending on Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).
Signing FTAs with Asian countries, Japan believes, will help it neither in protecting disadvantageous sectors such as agriculture, nor in grasping dominance in investment, service, financial and monetary affairs and intellectual property rights. While EPA will not only enable it to protect weak sectors, highlight strategic advantages and grab the upper hand in negotiations, but will promote its policies and laws in East Asia and therefore dominate the process of system integration in this region.
To this end, Japan firstly signed an EPA with Singapore, and is now trying to promote it with ASEAN countries. At the same time, Japan never responded to the Chinese appeal to start FTA talks. Japan's smug calculations are clear: to skirt around China and build up a so-called "new order in East Asia" led by itself.
Japan's unwillingness to talk directly with China on FTA is out of the following considerations: first, the huge market released by China's WTO accession is enough for Japanese companies, and zero-tariff between the two parties are not needed now; second, once a FTA is signed, Japan will be forced to open its agriculture and labor markets; third, Japan believes a big part of the current non-governmental business network in East Asia is in the hand of Chinese, which is not favorable to efforts to "Japanize" this region; fourth, Japan is afraid that the Chinese influence may stand in its way towards a political power.
So far, China's regional cooperation strategy is characterized by equality, mutual benefit and common development. It has been regarded as a "strategic threat" by Japan since it runs counter to the Japanese appealing for economic, financial and monetary circles in this region.
Cooperation must be based on sincerity. If Koizumi really hopes to further discuss cooperation with China and the ROK at multilateral occasions such as the ASEAN summits, he should be better behaved and stop his shrine visits, for they will only keep the relations with the other two countries at the lowest ebb. "Smug calculations" lacking sincerity are no more than a one-sided daydream that will never come true. -
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2005/12/02/2003282616
Nationalist comics click in Japan
REINTERPRETING HISTORY: Controversial comic books attacking Chinese and Koreans and touting Japan's `war of liberation' have struck a chord among young readers
AP , TOKYO
Friday, Dec 02, 2005,Page 5
Takushoku University professor Ko Bunyu, who penned ``Introduction to China,'' speaks during an interview in Tokyo on Wednesday. The comic book says many of Japan's war crimes are lies spread by the Chinese government.
PHOTO: AP
In one book, crazed Chinese Communist guerrillas spray benevolent Japanese troops with cyanide. In another, savage Korean immigrants massacre innocent Tokyo residents in the wake of World War II.
If this sounds like a reversal of Japan's history of aggression in Asia, that is just what the authors intend. The scenes appear in two best-selling examples of a growing literary genre in Japan: nationalist comics.
The trend, typified by the runaway hits Hate Korea: A Comic and Introduction to China, has struck a chord among young readers who resent Japan being cast as the bully in 20th century history -- and say it is time for a change.
"These books finally depict history from a Japanese perspective, and there is nothing wrong with that," says Atsushi Iwata, 22, a student at Tokyo's prestigious Waseda University who attends a weekly seminar by a co-author of Introduction to China.
"It's the right of any nation to interpret history as it feels it should," he said.
The interpretation in the recent comic books is nothing short of provocative -- at a time of rising tensions between Tokyo and its neighbors, and as Japan takes a decided tilt toward an unapologetic view of previous military action.
Hate Korea tells the tale of wide-eyed Japanese college freshmen who discover that Japan's colonial rule over the Korean peninsula from 1910-45 -- seen in Korea as brutal subjugation -- was a well-intentioned attempt to bring civilization to a backward country.
"It's not an exaggeration to say modern Korea was built by Japan," one of the Japanese students, eyes shining, declares toward the end of the book. Her Korean debate opponent, fuming at the mouth, is unable to respond.
The China tome covers similar territory, vehemently denying Japanese atrocities in China during its invasion in the 1930s and 1940s, such as biological experiments carried out by the Imperial Army's top-secret Unit 731.
Even more venom is reserved for modern Chinese. The book accuses Beijing of distorting history, running crime syndicates in Japan and flooding the country with "AIDS-infested prostitutes," and calls for stricter immigration controls against Chinese workers.
The formula sells: The Korea book has gone through five reprints and sold more than 320,000 copies since its release in September. The China book has sold 180,000 copies since its appearance in August.
The comics build on a genre established by comic artist Yoshinori Kobayashi in the 1990s.
His Manifesto of New Pride series of comics -- which claim Japan waged a noble war to liberate Asia from a racist world order -- have sold over a million copies.
Proponents expect the trend to expand. But many Japanese are disturbed by the trend.
Toshio Hanafusa, an activist who has campaigned for compensation for Korean women forced to work as wartime prostitutes for Japan's Imperial army, blames the insecurity and disillusionment of younger Japanese for the popularity of the books.
"Perhaps they seek pride in the idea of a more assertive Japan," he said. "And cleansing Japan's history of any sense of guilt bolsters that pride." -
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17517118%255E12250,00.html
US seeks new path to China
Editor-at-Large Paul Kelly from Washington
December 10, 2005
CONCEALED by the Iraq crisis, the Bush administration guided by Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick is engaged in potentially the most far-reaching redefinition of US policy towards China for many years.
In a 45-minute interview with Inquirer in his State Department office in Washington, DC, Zoellick repudiates any suggestion of containment as a basis for US policy. Zoellick throws into the dustbin of history the notion of containment, Cold War parallels or 19th-century balance-of-power concepts as the foundation for Washington's management of China's rise.
The Zoellick interview offers a new framework for the US's approach to China: that of shared stakeholder in the international system calling on China to accept the responsibilities as well as the benefits of the global system.
This is fresh US thinking and language about China. It has the potential to create a new platform for US-China relations. It should be music to Australia's ears, and it raises another possibility forgotten in Australia: that America's approach towards China is far more sophisticated than Australia's.
Zoellick's message is that "the US welcomes a confident, peaceful and prosperous China". He offers China an invitation "to work with us to shape the future international system".
For China's leaders, this is an invitation and a challenge. For the US political system, it presents China as an opportunity, not a threat. Zoellick's aim is to change the mind-set of the US-China debate; he is explicit about seeking a transformation.
While Zoellick would never concede this, his China vision stands as an alternative to the portrait of military rivalry depicted by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, notably in his June 4 Singapore speech.
Rumsfeld and Zoellick, typical of the Bush administration, offer competing stories about China. But this term the State Department, under Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, is more formidable and Zoellick, officially described as Rice's "principal deputy, adviser and alter ego" has the running on China.
Zoellick's concept was first advanced in a September21 speech before the national committee on US-China relations and was expanded upon in his December6 interview with this paper. It is already the subject of intense debate within China's system and among its leaders.
Zoellick's framework dominates the US-China dialogue, inaugurated in Beijing last July and which had its second session in Washington last week involving Zoellick and China's executive vice-foreign minister, Dai Bingguo.
"What I tried to do in the [September] speech was set out why the Cold War logic of containment no longer applies," Zoellick says. "In fact, it's in direct contradiction with our efforts to integrate China. But I also take this a step further. I say that 19th-century balance of power logic also doesn't conform with the current process of integration.
"However, I point out to the Chinese that it is natural that as a rising power they will prompt questions about their intentions and if they are not successful in dealing with that, then it will lead to hedging strategies.
"So I'm not setting out a view that is all benign. I'm trying to engage the Chinese very seriously: on the one hand paying them the respect they're due for what they've accomplished but, second, urging them to recognise the larger responsibilities they now have in the international system."
Zoellick says the US must "encourage China to become a responsible stakeholder". This means working "with us to sustain the international system". It is a framework to encompass the entire US-China debate.
"Our discussions [with China] focus on how this concept can be applied across a whole range of policy issues: economic, energy, security, nuclear non-proliferation, terrorism and regional security. The challenge of the dialogue is not only to engage people at a conceptual level but start to connect it to operational implications," Zoellick says.
Highlighting this symbolism, Zoellick plans to take his Chinese counterpart Dai to former US president Franklin Roosevelt's Hyde Park home in New York.
"FDR was associated with developing a concert of powers after World War II," Zoellick says, pointing to the UN and Bretton Woods as examples. "What I am suggesting to the Chinese is that rather than keeping China contained or at arm's length or in balance, we are trying to urge China to play a role in this system of systems that has evolved."
For Zoellick, the threat to the US comes not from China but from Islamist terrorists. It comes from failing states, not a rising Asia.
"China does not want a conflict with the US," he says. "In my view the real security threat today is one of Islamic radical terrorism, part linked to weapons of mass destruction."
To highlight the real threat, Zoellick invokes the published letter intercepted by US intelligence from al-Qa'ida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri to his terrorist commander in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and says: "It is a striking document that gives you insights into how these people view the world.
"Their goal is to set up a new caliphate, throw out all the infidels - that's us - throw out all the apostates, that's most of the Muslims in Southeast Asia. Now, this view doesn't accept the international system that exists. But that's not China's view."
He rejects the claim that China today is the Soviet Union of the 1940s. "I believe they are unlike the Soviet Union," he says. "China is not trying to challenge the fundamental system. The Soviet Union never accepted international partners in capitalism. The Soviet Union had a notion of imperial expansion. China has not taken that strategy."
Zoellick points to prominent Chinese such as chairman of the China Reform Forum, Zheng Bijan, who argues (Foreign Affairs, September-October) that China's strategy depends on peace. "Contrary to China challenging the international system, China is using the international system as part of its development path," Zoellick says. -
"The 20th century was a tough century for China: wars, civil conflicts, poverty, the threat of dismemberment. But if you look at the Chinese over the past 25 years they have made a lot of progress. And there've made progress as part of an international system that our two countries [the US and Australia] have helped to create and sustain."
The Chinese have been thrown into a spin by Zoellick's "responsible stakeholder" concept. The Wall Street Journal of December 7 reported their difficulty in getting an adequate translation. What, exactly, did stakeholder mean? A mini-industry was created in China over its meaning and political implications.
Zoellick believes China cannot succeed just focused on internal development; it needs to confront the challenge implicit in its rise to power. "What I am first encouraging the Chinese to do is to join with us on the concept of using their influence in a constructive way to sustain and advance the international system," he says. "From a domestic [US] point of view I also had a purpose which is to try to counter some of the thinking that just sees China as a threat. I want to advance the thinking in the US that for seven administrations looked upon our goal as simply integrating China in the global system."
For Zoellick, that policy has succeeded; look at commodity markets, the UN Security Council and capital markets. It is now time for a new US policy. So what does it involve?
It means putting pressure on China. It means asking China to accept responsibility equivalent to its ambition. It means forcing China to think about its future and how it wants to be seen. It means recasting China's traditional view of international relations. It means broadening the scope of shared US-China interests. And it means a searching intellectual test for China's leaders. That's all.
In the interview and in his September speech Zoellick gives many practical examples of his thinking. Each has been or will be put to the Chinese. Here is part of the list.
Zoellick has raised the idea of "a true peace with regional security and development" on the Korean Peninsula. The North Korean problem transcends nuclear weapons: it is about economic and political reform, and China's diplomacy is pivotal to any lasting solution for a non-nuclear peninsula.
Next item: the threat of terrorism and a weapons on mass destruction capacity. "What will happen to the economic development of China if there is a serious terrorist incident some place with nuclear weapons?" Zoellick asks rhetorically. His message is that China and the US should do more in the global fight against terrorism. On the issue of state proliferation he says: "I will be suggesting to the Chinese they have a strong interest in stopping Iran getting nuclear weapons."
Take trade. As the former US special trade representative, Zoellick wants China to assume a greater role in global trade talks. "Australia has played an influential role historically in the world trade discussions," he says. "I've made the point to the Chinese that given their interest in the world trading system they're going to need to play a more active role."
Yes, he concedes it is asking a lot from such a new World Trade Organisation member. But, given China's size, it is essential.
Take human rights and foreign policy. Zoellick says that if China's energy policy "leads it to develop relations with governments like those in Sudan and Burma", then it risks being "the closest partner of international pariahs". China cannot ignore the costs, so Zoellick proposes a form of linkage. "I'm trying to suggest to them that they can develop energy resources in Sudan but help us deal with the genocide in Darfur," he says.
Take the most sensitive issue: China's mercantalism, manifested in an artificially low exchange rate, a compulsion to accumulate balance-of-trade surpluses, a preference for exports over imports. Chinese mercantalism, the flip side of American extravagance, is the joint source of the unsustainable imbalance in the world economy.
Zoellick issues a polite warning. He's not trying to be "hostile and faulting" but China, given its size, if it slips into these policies, then "the international economic system will be much less able to cope".
The further risk is a US domestic backlash against cheap China imports. Zoellick cautions China against "creating political stresses in this country and others that will eventually hurt their own strategy".
China will need to find an exit path and that involves, sooner or later, a new exchange rate system. Paul Keating has called on China's authorities to move to a float, Reserve Bank of Australia governor Ian Macfarlane says a higher exchange rate is necessary and Zoellick says, in effect, that he wants China and the US to negotiate this outcome.
His aim is to "get my Chinese counterparts to recognise that it is in their interests and our mutual interests to address these problems" not as a "zero-sum negotiation" but as a mutual benefit.
Next item: the freedom and democracy debate, so beloved by President George W. Bush. "I've tried publicly and privately to explain to the Chinese why our advancement of freedom, rule of law and democracy should not be seen as a threat to China but rather as part of China's own development," Zoellick says. "My main point is that the values we believe in are not only our essence as a country but, equally important, we think they lead to stronger societies. The lesson of September 11 is that dysfunctional societies and failing states are the location, if not the source, of security problems. So rather than see a pluralist political system as a weakness, we believe it's a strength."
Zoellick, who lived in Hong Kong 25 years ago, says a generational transformation in China has occurred. He rejects any notion that democracy is limited by culture or civilisation.
On regional relations Zoellick warns that "concerns will grow if China seeks to manoeuvre towards a predominance of power". He plays down but does not dismiss that closer US ties with Japan and India are motivated by the need to balance China. He wants to explain to the Chinese "why tension between China and Japan isn't in our interest". He seeks greater co-operation between the US, China and Japan.
Those people who interpret the new US-India concord as "just a power-balancing ploy against China, failed to recognise that India is not going to allow itself to be a chesspiece that's moved around the board".
Zoellick dismisses any analysis of Asia in 19th-century balance-of-power terms.
Asked to confirm his framework is a Bush administration policy, Zoellick laughs. "Well, yes, I do work in the administration," he says. "I wouldn't just put out a speech that didn't have the general support and backing of the rest of the administration. Secretary Rumsfeld was in China recently and he referred to stakeholders. I'm sure the Chinese took close note of that."
The starting point to understand US-China relations lies in the realisation that they encompass many stories and many policies. There is no single US policy towards China. But Zoellick, who oversees the US-China dialogue, offers a compelling new story founded in optimism about the most vital relationship of the coming century. -
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-12/09/content_501851.htm
FM: Japan military 'gossiping' hides issue
By Cao Desheng (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-12-09 06:05
Japan should explain its own military tendencies to the world before gossiping about other nations' national defence expenditure, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said yesterday.
Foreign Ministry Spokesman Qin Gang answers a question at the ministry's routine press briefing in Beijing December 8, 2005. [fmprc.gov.cn]
Referring to Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso's remarks about China's military budget, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said it was Japan's recent moves that should cause serious concern among the international community.
Aso said in a speech in Tokyo on Wednesday that China needs to embrace political transparency and be more open about its military budget to ensure its rising economic and diplomatic power is not seen as a threat in Asia.
"China has repeated that its military budget is open and transparent," Qin said. "A white paper on national defence published last December clearly mapped out the military expenditure last year."
He added China adopts a defensive national defence policy. "I feel Japan should interpret its military tendencies to the world."
Japan's Liberal Democratic Party has been pushing for the post-World War II pacifist constitution reform to begin by calling government troops the Japanese Military instead of the Self Defence Force.
The constitution drafted by US occupation forces and unchanged since 1947 bars the use of military force in settling international disputes and prohibits maintaining armed forces for warfare.
Meantime, Japanese troops have taken an increasingly high-profile role in recent years, prompting some critics to accuse Tokyo of moving away from its post-war pacifism.
Earlier in 2001, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi pushed through special legislation to let the navy provide logistical support to forces in Afghanistan for the US "war on terror."
Analysts say such efforts are chipping away at the pacifist society Japan has built since World War II.
China on Sunday delayed the annual summit meeting with Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK), usually held on the sidelines of a conference of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, scheduled for December 12-14 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
"We hope the Japanese Government could take actions to remove the political barriers that thwart the diplomatic relations with its Asian neighbours including China and ROK," Qin said.
Speaking of China's role in the second phase of the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, which is being discussed at the 11th annual United Nations Climate Change Conference in Montreal to be concluded today, Qin said China is ready to play a positive role in this regard within a multilateral framework.
"China chooses to develop its economy in a sustainable way, paying great attention to the harmony between man and nature and environment," Qin said.
The UN summit on climate change going on in Montreal was billed as the next step in advancing the controversial Kyoto Protocol to limit production of greenhouse gases.
Military spending transparent
Foreign Ministry Spokesman Qin Gang said here Thursday that China's military spending is open and transparent when asked to comment a speech by Japanese Foreign Minister Aso Taro urging China to increase military transparency.
Qin said at a routine news conference that China adheres to peaceful development and a defensive national defence policy, adding its military expenditure should not only cover the livelihood and training expenses of those serving in the army but also meet the country's current national defence requirements in a world with numerous complicated changes.
China has already written clearly about its military expenditure in a white book on Chinese national defence, openly giving details on its military growth, said Qin.
"The Japanese side should not make a fuss over the military spending of China over and again but explain, as soon as possible,to its neighbors as well as the international community about its own military moves," said the spokesman. "Some of its recent moves have caused concern to both the neighboring countries and around the globe."
The most important thing, as Qin acknowledged, on the Japanese side, should be making substantive efforts by taking actions to overcome the political hurdles impeding the growth of friendly and cooperative relations between Japan and its Asian neighbors, including its relationship with China and the Republic of Korea (ROK).
Qin denied the possibility of discussing defence issues at the upcoming ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) plus China, Japan and the ROK Summit and the East Asian Summit by saying that the main focus of the summits would be on the economic and social issues of the region.
He added that there was no arrangement for a meeting to bring together the foreign ministers of China, Japan and the ROK in the near future for reasons known to all.