China Lashes Out at U.S. and Japan

[Purveyor]

Source: New York Times

By HELENE COOPERMAY 31, 2014

SINGAPORE — China struck back harshly at the United States and Japan on Saturday, as a senior Chinese military official accused Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan of acting in concert to sow controversy and division in the Asia-Pacific region.

Speaking to reporters at a conference here of senior military officials from around the region, Lt. Gen. Wang Guanzhong, the deputy chief of staff of the People’s Liberation Army, characterized a speech on Saturday morning by Mr. Hagel, which followed one by Mr. Abe on Friday night, as “full of threats and intimidating language,” according to Chinese news media outlets.

General Wang seemed especially annoyed that Mr. Hagel, who accused China of coercive tactics in its many maritime disputes with its neighbors, had made his accusations at a conference about regional cooperation.

“Secretary Hagel, in this kind of public space with many people, openly criticized China without reason,” General Wang said. “Secretary Hagel’s speech is full of encouragement, incitement for the Asia region’s instability giving rise to a disturbance.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/world/asia/china-accuses-us-and-japan-of-sowing-discord-in-asia-pacific.html?_r=0

[geomon666]

1. Criticized China without reason?

You're sinking fishing boats and playing tag with the JSDF. There's plenty of reason there to call them out.

[Johnyawl]

2. China is detemined to have their way on this issue...

...regardless of what the rest of Asia wants. China's recent actions against both Vietnam and Japan lead me more and more to believe that this is going to end badly. As this heats up you'll see much more of the harsh rhetoric and PR as they seek to keep the US out of this dispute. Without the US involvement, the rest of Asia is pretty much at the mercy of Chinese belligerence, and the Chinese know they can no more win a naval war against the US then we can win a land war in China.

[Uncle Joe]

3. China is giving plenty of reasons with aggressive encroachment into other Southeast Asian

nations' waters, this isn't even close to being an ambiguous issue.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/02/25/world/asia/claims-south-china-sea.html


Thanks for the thread, Purveyor.

[EX500rider]

4. "All your base are belong to us" says China...

....have you seen what they claim? Practically beach front in the Philippines!

[Uncle Joe]

6. That's a nice illustration depicting China's overreach. n/t

[davidpdx]

17. Excellent map

Thanks for posting it. Then add all the disputes between other countries and the headache grows. Korean and Japan have the ongoing saga over Whateveryouwanttocallit Island (half joking, half serious there).

I remember seeing a documentary about Filipinos in a large ship out in the reef defending the territory claimed by the Philippines.

The oil rig off the cost of Vietnam is going to continue to be a big problem. China thought they could just come in and the Vietnamese would do nothing.

[shaayecanaan]

19. These guys...

http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2013/10/27/south-china-sea/

A bit of technical support to the Phillipine navy would go a long way. Probably time the US seriously patched things up with Vietnam as well.

[EX500rider]

20. Wow, great link with really cool pics and vid! Thanks!

[shaayecanaan]

22. Not a worry...

I originally saw it on longform.org, where you tend to find good articles like this. Good work from the NYT.

[EX500rider]

25. yeah really is....I knew about the Philippino marines on the grounded LST..

....but boy I did not picture it like that....they look and live more like ship wreck victims...lol

[shaayecanaan]

26. You get a lot for your money over there...

Imagine what it would cost to station US troops at a place like that. The Pinoy troops cost nothing in comparison, and they even survive by catching their own fish.

Like I say, a bit of technical assistance would be money well spent. There is far too much black-and-white thinking on issues like this. People think you have to be an absolute pacifist or an outright militarist. There is a difference between ventures like Libya where the people themselves do the heavy lifting and capers like Afghanistan where the US military unilaterally decides to build a little version of itself in the middle of the South Asian desert.

[Uncle Joe]

23. shaayecanaan, your link does have a great mix of pic, text and video blended together.

[davidpdx]

28. I would think that's what we are doing

I've heard the US has pledged support for Vietnam.

[max shimba]

5. Get ready for war.

This implies that the US should be getting ready for war too. Does anybody see this happening?

[davidpdx]

18. No

The only likely conflict is would be between Vietnam and China. I hope Vietnam doesn't put up with the shit though.

[McCamy Taylor]

7. RFLMAO. China does not need any helping in sowing "controversy and division in the Asia-Pacific."

Which country plans to damn up the rivers that feed the coastal countries and steal their water? Oh yes, China. China is aping all of the worst Bad Neighbor habits of the United States without any of the religious freedom and free speech that we get. China is on a slow boat to Hell, they just don't know it yet. Marx and Engels are probably rubbing their hands in glee. These people have all been indoctrinated in the principles of communism and socialism. They can all read and write. They are all gaining disposable income. They are all obtaining free time. And they are all going to become increasingly angry at their own 1%.

Can China see the writing on the Great Wall? Certainly. They are very intelligent. Will China be able to do anything about it? Hard to say. Fascism, the mainstay of the Western Capitalist, does not work as well in Asia where non-dualism is a deeply held value.

I think the new and not improved pseudo capitalist but really corporate fascist China is heading for a meltdown of epic proportions and they are manufacturing it themselves and socialists and communists all across the globe are going to watch and cheer.

[geek tragedy]

8. they must have hired Rt.com's copywriter. China is bullying its way around the

South China Sea like a drunk Neocon, and accuses the US of sowing division.

[Purveyor]

9. Or Vickie Nuland.

[nyabingi]

10. I'm sick and tired of Chuck Hagel and this American

macho bullshit, always looking for a reason to unleash our military juggernaut on another country.

The US didn't mind loading China up with American companies eager to take advantage of cheap labor, now that China is gaining economic power and influence in the world, the US is now wanting to contain the beast it helped unleash through it's quest for markets and cheap labor.

Why is the US even worried about territorial water disputes on the other side of the world? What would we think if China was jumping in a disagreement between us and Canada over some islands in the Atlantic? It is none of our damn business what island China and Japan are trying to claim, or whether Vietnam and China disagree over the placement of an oil rig. It's simply not our business.

Chuck Hagel needs to sit his Republican ass down and shut up and all you people jumping on the anti-Chinese bandwagon just because your leader (Obama) thinks its time to f-ck with China now need to do the same.

Now jury this post and hide it if you like, but you Democratic hawks and apologists for US militarism make me sick...

[TwilightGardener]

11. LOL. That's some good stuff right there. I guess Ukraine, also not our business--

just defense treaties (Japan, Korea, Phillippines) and security agreements (Ukraine), and trade/economy (dependent on a peaceful Pacific)--yeah, none of our business.

[nyabingi]

12. You're right, Ukraine wasn't our business

but we meddled over there too because we know better than the Ukrainians what leader they need.

Defense treaties? Reasons to butt our heads in just because someone signed a peace of paper.

You "Democrats" should be condemning this crap yet all I see is cheerleading simply because you love Obama.

[strategery blunder]

13. Japanese security is very much our business.

There's the whole bit about signing our security treaty with them in the aftermath of World War II, so Japan would not have to re-militarize. Because, you know, a militarized Japan had worked out so well for Asia before World War II. That is very basic history--the US and Japan each had some damn good reasons to sign "a peace of paper" as you so eloquently put it.

Now China is waving its dick around playing tag with the JSDF (among other dubious activities). We can either honor our piece of paper with Japan or watch Japan get increasingly nervous--and the latter is already happening and giving Shinzo Abe political capital to spend on re-militarization. And a militarized China and re-militarized Japan with scores to settle is not something I would wish upon Asia--a part of the world with which we have a LOT of trade, btw.

Now there is certainly ample room to argue that the US has been too interventionist in the last few decades but siding with Japan against China's recent overly-aggressive and largely invalid claims against its neighbors (including Japan) is perfectly reasonable and almost certainly obligatory considering our treaty (which again, we have damn good reasons for having) with them.

[nilesobek]

14. There is a deeply wounded national pride

in China over the way Imperial Japan walked all over them from 1933-1945.

This is pretty evident in the tone of some recently made Chinese patriotic martial arts films. These are no longer comic relief movies. They are well made with really good production values, sound and special effects. Some of the films having communist political undertones for the hero. (He organizes resistance to the Japanese and works with activists at the newspaper.)

Its not shocking to me that China would get aggressive with its former enemies while they are rising. They have similar feelings towards Great Britain, and to a much lesser extent, the U.S.

[EX500rider]

15. Are the Philippines their former enemy?

'Cause if you look at the map I posted they are trying to seize a lot of Filipino territory.

[Art_from_Ark]

21. A lot of Malaysian territory, too

[shaayecanaan]

24. and Vietnamese territory (nt)

[strategery blunder]

27. It's been 70 years since then, and Japan has hardly been aggressive since...

Now granted, Japan has proven more reluctant than it should have been to admit that its actions and policies up to and including WWII were war crimes with no reasonable justification, especially compared to Germany which in contrast proactively took responsibility for its war crimes and took the appropriate actions (esp. regarding education and cultural policies) to ensure it did not/will not happen again. While Germany took decisive action immediately after the war to prevent another Hitler-like dictatorship from ever rising to power within that nation again, Japan more or less passively accepted the terms of the surrender and tried to bury its atrocities for several decades rather than decisively and actively seeking reconciliation. That IS a legitimate grievance that the Chinese have with Japan--that Japan has not done enough to reconcile with its past and instead for decades sought to forget it--but that grievance is CULTURAL in nature, NOT a territorial dispute over which China should be chasing JSDF around the Pacific.

Since the end of WWII, Japan has NOT been militaristic at all, has not sought to expand its reach at China's (or any other nation's) expense, and the "territorial" disputes that China now raises as a pretext relate to territory that Japan has administered SINCE WWII, i.e. their jurisdiction over such territory has been internationally recognized since the surrender. Additionally, it's been about 70 years since the Japanese atrocities that you mention, and as for China's "wounded national pride," the generation that experienced such atrocities would now be dying off from natural causes and/or pollution of China's own making. While I recognize that the concept of "statute of limitations" might not formally apply to this situation in international law, I do believe the world community of nations at this point would recognize that the atrocities you reference are far enough in the past that China should let it go and leave Japan in peace rather than scratch its national pride itch. That is the type of issue that should be worked out through diplomatic channels and government statements, not military intimidation, and if China genuinely desires to resolve the issue, I would tell the Chinese government to simply encourage Japan to follow the German approach to its WWII past more closely.

However, as other posters above me have noted, the dispute with Japan is hardly the only aggressive territorial claim China is pushing--China is also trying to intimidate other area nations (INCLUDING its fellow victims of Japanese WWII expansionism) into giving up their territories as well. Where there's smoke, there's fire, as they say...

(I do apologize for the late reply; I'm in the process of switching ISPs and have had some technical issues making the switch.)

[nilesobek]

30. I am quite fine with your reply.

They really demonize the Japanese in those kung fu videos. I just think its all a part of the Chinese psyche.

[davidpdx]

16. I agree, as is Korea's security as well

There are certain right wing elements in both countries that want to militarize and develop nuclear weapons. I'd say more in Japan than in Korea. If Japan or South Korea ever developed nuclear weapons, it would set off an arms race in Asia that would make what is going on between the US and China look like small potatoes.

BTW my house is about 26 km from the DMZ

[nyabingi]

29. The US will eventually drop any pretense

that it doesn't want Japan militarized as it once was, and this is already beginning to happen. The US has had to play delicate over there because the victims of fascist Japan aren't very thrilled about them asserting military power again.

Now, just because an agreement was inked decades ago, it doesn't mean that it can't ever be changed or broken. The US wanted to keep a military presence in Asia after WWII and it's agreement with Japan served that purpose.

If you are in favor of US militarism, meddling and threats, then you'll tend to view current happenings in the world as the fault of Putin (Ukraine) or China while downplaying or ignoring the United States' role in fomenting instability. How you can so readily point out China's aggressive posturing yet pretend America's role is arguable is beyond me.