Has the Asian Tiger Gone Tiger?

Townhall.com ^ | December 3, 2013 | Pat Buchanan

[Kaslin]

When Montecore, one of two white tigers in the Las Vegas act of Siegfried and Roy, turned and almost killed Roy on stage, the reaction was that the tame and complacent beast had gone berserk.

Comedian Chris Rock was nearer the mark:

"That tiger ain't go crazy; that tiger went tiger."

Seems our Asian tiger is going tiger as well.

Sharply escalating its clash with Japan over ownership of the Senkaku Islands, Beijing has established an air defense identification zone over the islands and a huge stretch of the East China Sea. Before entering its ADIZ, says Beijing, all planes must now notify China.

The United States responded by flying two B-52s through the zone. Japan and South Korea sent fighter jets through, also without permission. China then sent a squadron of fighters over the islands.

Now, in a move that has startled Tokyo, the United States has advised U.S. airliners entering China's new ADIZ to alert China. Japan considers this tacit U.S. recognition of China's territorial claim.

While America is not a party to the dispute over who owns the islands, under our security treaty, we are obligated to come to Japan's defense if islands administered by Tokyo are attacked.

And since Richard Nixon returned Okinawa in 1972, Tokyo has administered the uninhabited Senkakus, which were first claimed by the Japanese Empire in the late 19th century.

China's contends that all territories acquired by the Japanese Empire were forfeit and should have been vacated with the Japanese surrender in 1945. Before Japan's seizure of the islands, says Beijing, they had been Chinese territory.

Yet, now, with naval vessels of both nations plying the waters around the islands and fighter jets overflying these rocks, it is hard see either the China of Xi Jinping or the Japan of Shinzo Abe backing down before a clash occurs.

And should that happen, we are in it.

Clearly, China precipitated and pushed this crisis. Since the new century began, it has been asserting long-dormant and extravagant claims of national sovereignty.

China has laid claim to all the Paracel and Spratly islands and virtually the entire South China Sea, parts of which, and the resources beneath, are claimed by Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei.

In 2001, a Chinese fighter crashed a U.S. surveillance plane 80 miles off Hainan island, forcing it down, whereupon China held the crew captive and stripped the plane of its intelligence equipment, until it got an apology from the Bush administration.

China has also laid claim to virtually the entire East China Sea, which is bordered by South Korea as well as Japan. It has declared the Yellow Sea and Taiwan Strait off limits to the U.S. Navy.

China also occupies Indian territory taken in war half a century ago, though it has lately muted its claim to vast tracts in Russia's Far East along the Amur and Ussuri rivers.

China and Russia fought a border war there in 1969.

What is the China of Xi Jinping about?

With Maoism and Marxism a dead faith, the Communist Party is no longer able to invoke world revolution to justify its monopoly on power. Xi Jinping's party needs to ground its claim to absolute and permanent power on some other animating force.

China is rooting its new claims in the old standbys -- history, tribe, and nation -- the natural recourse of rising powers.

With corruption rampant, and glaring economic equality between its billionaires and its hundreds of millions subsisting on $2 a day, China needs a cause to divert the masses and keep them united -- behind the leaders and against those the leaders designate as enemies.

The Chinese people are being told they have enemies who seek to deny their country its place in the sun. Some use the Dalai Lama to effect a breakaway of Tibet. Others encourage Muslim Uighurs to split off Xinjiang and create an East Turkestan.

The dilemma for China is that in stoking nationalism with claims of sovereignty over all adjacent seas, Beijing risks uniting its neighbors against it. China could end up isolating itself, as Asian neighbors turn to the United States for protection.

Push Japan hard enough and China may effect a change in its constitution, Japan's rearmament, and another look by Tokyo at nuclear weapons.

Pushed too hard, the U.S, and Japan, China's largest trading partners, could shift their reliance on goods to Southeast Asia.

As for America, we might want to reflect on the decision to throw open our markets to Chinese goods and to incentivize U.S. companies to shift factories, technology and jobs to a rising China

How wise does that look, now that the Asian tiger feels strong enough to begin to push the United States out of the Western Pacific, its sovereign seas, and its sphere of influence?

How will this all end? This week, China is sending its first probe to the moon -- as Congress debates an increase in food stamps.

[skeeter]

Now, in a move that has startled Tokyo, the United States has advised U.S. airliners entering China's new ADIZ to alert China. Japan considers this tacit U.S. recognition of China's territorial claim.

I hadn't heard this.

But who's surprised.

[xzins]

...Tokyo has administered the uninhabited Senkakus, which were first claimed by the Japanese Empire in the late 19th century...China('s) contends that all territories acquired by the Japanese Empire were forfeit and should have been vacated with the Japanese surrender in 1945. Before Japan's seizure of the islands, says Beijing, they had been Chinese territory.

If true, then I see no reason to reward anything from the old Japanese empire.

[skeeter]

Nor is there any reason for us to reward China’s new empire anything.

[xzins]

I agree. If, though, the accurate history of the place has it being Chinese territory, then that’s what it should be. JMHO.

Japan lost a war, and this close to Dec 7, Pearl Harbor Day, we should be remembering the Empire that spawned that war, and that they were supposedly stripped of those lands.

And, in a similar story, I’ve little doubt that Japan’s occupation of and brutalization of Korea is what set some of the condition for the Korean War.

Ishi Shiiro, a Japanese general was for Japan was Dr. Mengele was for Germany.

A lot of this has been propagandized and it’s not possible to extract fact from propaganda anymore, but when I was in Korea in the 90’s, I had a South Korean friend insist I watch a movie about Ishi Shiiro (”Sticks”, I think it was translated) to get perspective on Korean feelings toward Japan.

I found the following excerpt in:

http://patriotdems.wordpress.com/2009/08/29/shiro-ishii-japans-medical-monster/

***I stumbled on this story while searching for information on biological warfare. I’m a history buff, fairly cognizant of the theater of blood that was WWII and the medical atrocities committed by the Nazis; not as well versed in the Pacific war. But this story of Shiro Ishii, Japanese wartime medical experimenter was someone I hadn’t heard of. Unlike some of the top Nazis, the Japanese might be said to have gotten away with the horrors they committed, as the records of their acts were deliberately concealed by the U.S. occupation at the end of the war.
Anyone acquainted with the levels of Japanese barbarity during WWII probably won’t be surprised by their medical experiments. While all war is barbarous, the atrocities carried out by the Japanese Imperial Forces seem to exceed those of most other countries for sheer numbers slaughtered and the gut wrenching savagery and sadism of the deeds. If you have the stomach for pure evil, read here and see if you agree. The victims of Japanese barbarity included untold numbers of Chinese, Sikhs, Filipinos, Javanese, Malays, Russians, Dutch, Australians, Brits, Americans, Koreans; in short anyone the military got their hands on. Here’s an excerpt:****

[skeeter]

Well, from what I can tell the Senkakus were never claimed by China, who had no interest in them until 69 when oil was discovered. They were sort of like Wake Island is for us - although they might have been discovered by someone else Japan was the first to trouble themselves enough to claim and use the islands, so they are officially theirs.

Also, keep in mind that Japan of 1895 wasn't the Japan of the 30s and 40s - the militarists hadn't taken over and Japan was considered an ally. A few years later we were cheering them on against the Russians. Post WWII the Senkakus were no more stripped from Japan than were the Ryukus or, for that matter, the Kuriles (which Japan still considered their's).

Bottom line for me, though, is that today Japan is again our ally, while China is clearly not and is making all kinds of ridiculous & aggressive territorial claims. We should do nothing to encourage them.

[xzins]

We should do nothing to encourage them.

I agree with that.

My only caveat is if a real assessment of history does show those originally belonging to China prior to any seizure by the expanding Japanese Empire of that time.

[Servant of the Cross]

Now, in a move that has startled Tokyo, the United States has advised U.S. airliners entering China's new ADIZ to alert China. Japan considers this tacit U.S. recognition of China's territorial claim.

And in typical 0bama fashion, who 'hadn't heard this either', the WH places blame on its own 'Administration' ... White House Blames State Dept. for China Air Defense Zone Kowtow

[skeeter]

Nothing is stopping Obama from taking responsibility and countermanding the directive.

[Tax-chick]

I don’t think the TOTUS has a setting for “taking responsibility.”

[lentulusgracchus]

My only caveat is if a real assessment of history does show those originally belonging to China prior to any seizure by the expanding Japanese Empire of that time.

Numbers of diplomats have become aware, over the last 50 years, of this controversy, and IMHO if there were merit in the Chinese claims, the US would have recognized it by now.

Japan gave up all its territories to US invasion or to the demands of the victors in 1945. That includes Formosa and Korea. Any residuary retention of e.g. the Senkakus has to be judged vanishingly small in the context of their surrenders not only of Iwo and the Bonin Islands to the US, but also of all the trust territories and even the Kuriles, only two of which they retained. Hittokapu (or Tankan) Bay, the anchorage from which the Kido Butai sailed for Pearl Harbor, has been in Russian hands since the end of the War. Vladimir Putin recently traveled there to emphasize Russian determination to keep the islands, which were never Russian territory before 1945.

It's a straightforward territorial and resources grab by the Chinese, and a carving of Admiralty Law that is quite clear about the extent of territorial waters. That is the overarching fact that should frame our response.