The second significant challenge facing Japan is the rise of China. In recent years, statements made by Chinese leaders in international forums such as the G20 Summit have drawn increasing attention. Japan is no longer the “spokesman for Asia,” a role that it long played at the G7 and G8 Summits, and a position it used to make its presence felt.
Of course, “the rise of China” is not merely an economic phenomenon. Over the past 20 years, China’s military spending has risen sharply, to the point where it is now 20 times as much as what it was in 1990. China has steadily built up its naval strength, and is making progress in new fields with military applications, such as space and cyberspace. What rankles more than anything, though, is the expansion of the Chinese navy. It appears that China hopes to gain control not only over Taiwan, but also over the South China Sea, the East China Sea and, indeed, the entire Western Pacific. Andrew Krepinevich, who is no stranger to you, wrote an article that ran in the September 11th edition of the Wall Street Journal. It was entitled “China’s ‘Finlandization’ Strategy in the Pacific.” He put into words what I have been thinking for a long time.
Since the 1980s, China’s military strategy has rested on the concept of a “strategic frontier.” In a nutshell, this very dangerous idea posits that borders and exclusive economic zones are determined by national power, and that as long as China’s economy continues to grow, its sphere of influence will continue to expand. Some might associate this with the German concept of “lebensraum.”
There has been speculation that the impetus for China’s naval buildup was the 1996 crisis in the Strait of Taiwan. Whenever I think back on this incident, I recall the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 and the path that the Soviet Union took in its wake. The Soviet Union in 1962 and China in 1996 both suffered the indignity of capitulation in the face of the overwhelming naval power of the United States, and both countries threw themselves into building up their navies. We all know how well that worked out for the Soviet Union.
I have no way of knowing how the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party would view this analogy. Perhaps the party’s leaders, despite their fear of meeting the same fate as the Soviet Union, are unable to resist the call of the People’s Liberation Army for a military buildup. In any case, we can state with conviction that China has nothing to gain from an excessive expansion of its military. It has no need to build aircraft carriers, for example. Furthermore, any Chinese attempt to clamp down on Taiwan or the ASEAN countries would not only be an enormous fiscal burden, it would also backfire, because China would lose the trust of other Asian nations, which would do significant damage to its influence.
Just such an outcome has already occurred. The ASEAN nations have reacted with strong anger to China’s high-handed conduct in the South China Sea. Further, ASEAN countries have begun to strengthen their relationships with the United States to act as a counterweight to the threat posed by China. ASEAN has thus sent a strong message to China that it will not allow China to do as it pleases in the South China Sea.
Meanwhile, I am concerned that Japan has sent the wrong message to China. Last month, a Chinese fishing vessel intruded into Japan’s territorial waters near the Senkaku Islands, and intentionally rammed into a Japanese Coast Guard patrol ship two times. Such a barbaric act cannot be overlooked. The captain of the vessel was detained by Japanese authorities, but Japan relented in the face of strong pressure from China and released the captain, which was a very foolish move. In light of Mr. Krepinevich’s point, that China’s ultimate goal is to “Finlandize” Japan and South Korea, I must say that the interpretation of the situation by the Prime Minister’s office was frighteningly naive.
Of course, Japan must work to strengthen its cooperative relationship with China, while also competing where competition is called for. But that must be accomplished in a way that is conducive to peace and stability in Asia, and, by extension, the world. That is the guiding principle that China should follow, and if it strays from that path, it should be admonished. This principle forms the foundation of the “strategic and mutually-beneficial relationship” to which I and my Chinese counterpart agreed.
Single-party rule by the Chinese Communist Party has been sustained by the assurance of “equal results,” but the party’s legitimacy today depends on “patriotism and economic growth.” The party has stoked the patriotism of its citizens, and it will do whatever it takes to drive economic growth. What frightens China’s party leaders more than anything else is an end to that economic growth. They fear that economic dissatisfaction on the part of the people could combine with their narrow-minded patriotism and end up channeling their anger toward the leadership of the party.
Japan and the United States have much to gain from continued economic growth in China. At the same time, the path that China should pursue to maintain that growth does not lie in foreign-policy adventurism, but rather in respect for values such as freedom, democracy, fundamental human rights and the rule of law—values long embodied by the US and Japan. Together, we must help China to understand how important these values are.
The Cult of Multiculturalism This modern obsession has created problems so obvious that only the intelligentsia could fail to see them.
Somebody eventually had to say it — and German chancellor Angela Merkel deserves credit for being the one who had the courage to say it out loud. Multiculturalism has “utterly failed.”
Multiculturalism is not just a recognition that different groups have different cultures. We all knew that, long before multiculturalism became a cult that has spawned mindless rhapsodies about “diversity,” without a speck of evidence to substantiate its supposed benefits.
In Germany, as in other countries in Europe, welcoming millions of foreign workers who insist on remaining foreign has created problems so obvious that only the intelligentsia could fail to see them. It takes a high IQ to evade the obvious.
“We kidded ourselves for a while,” Chancellor Merkel said, but now it was clear that the attempt to build a society where people of very different languages and cultures could “live side by side” and “enjoy each other” has “failed, utterly failed.”
This is not a lesson for Germany alone. In countries around the world, and over the centuries, peoples with jarring differences in language, culture, and values have been a major problem and, too often, sources of major disasters for the societies in which they coexist.
Even the tragedies and atrocities associated with racial differences in racist countries have been exceeded by the tragedies and atrocities among people with clashing cultures who are physically indistinguishable from one another, as in the Balkans or Rwanda.
Among the ways that people with different cultures have managed to minimize frictions have been (1) mutual cultural accommodations, even while not amalgamating completely, and (2) living separately in their own enclaves. Both of these approaches are anathema to the multicultural cultists.
Expecting any group to adapt their lifestyles to the cultural values of the larger society around them is “cultural imperialism” according to the multicultural cult. And living in separate neighborhoods is considered to be so terrible that there are government-financed programs to take people from high-crime slums and put them in subsidized housing in middle-class neighborhoods.
Multiculturalists condemn people’s objections to transplanting hoodlums, criminals, and dysfunctional families into the midst of people who may have sacrificed for years to be able to escape from living among hoodlums, criminals, and dysfunctional families.
The actual direct experience of the people who complain about the consequences of these social experiments is often dismissed as mere biased “perceptions” or “stereotypes,” if not outright “racism.” But some of the strongest complaints have come from middle-class blacks who have fled ghetto life, only to have the government transplant ghetto life back into their midst.
The absorption of millions of immigrants from Europe into American society may be cited as an example of the success of multiculturalism. But, in fact, they were absorbed in ways that were the direct opposite of what the multicultural cult is recommending today.
Before these immigrants were culturally assimilated to the norms of American society, they were by no means scattered at random among the population at large. On New York’s Lower East Side, Hungarian Jews lived clustered together in different neighborhoods from Romanian Jews or Polish Jews — and German Jews lived away from the Lower East Side.
When someone suggested relieving the overcrowding in Lower East Side schools by transferring some of the children to a school in an Irish neighborhood that had space, both the Irish and the Jews objected.
None of this was peculiar to America. When immigrants from southern Italy to Australia moved into neighborhoods where people from northern Italy lived, the northern Italians moved out. Such scenarios could be found in countries around the world.
It was in later generations, after the children and grandchildren of the immigrants to America were speaking English and living lives more like the lives of other Americans, that they spread out to live and work where other Americans lived and worked. This wasn’t multiculturalism. It was common sense.
Chinese, Japanese Stage Protests Over East China Sea Islands
VOA News 16 October 2010
Photo: AP
Japanese protesters spreading a banner with a message reading, "Senkaku Islands are Japanese Territories," march down streets in central Tokyo as an estimated 2,500 protesters take to the streets during a protest against China, 16 Oct 2010
Demonstrators staged competing protests in China and Japan on Saturday over disputed ownership of islands in the East China Sea.
The larger protests occurred in three Chinese cities - Xian, Chengdu and Zhengzhou - where several thousand demonstrators asserted Chinese sovereignty over the islands and called for boycotts of Japanese products. News agencies said the protests were mostly peaceful, although Japan's Kyodo news agency quoted two Japanese retailers in Chengdu as saying Chinese demonstrators broke windows and showcases in their stores.
In Tokyo, about 3,000 demonstrators protested what they called China's "invasion" of the islands. China's state-run Xinhua news agency said the Chinese government expressed its "deep concern" about the Tokyo protest by what it called "Japanese right-wing persons."
The disputed islands lie between Japan's Okinawa island and Taiwan. China refers to the archipelago as the Diaoyu Islands, while Japan calls them the Senkaku Islands. The waters around the islands are a rich fishing territory and are believed to hold undersea natural gas and oil reserves.
The two Asian economic powers have lately had a contentious relationship. In early September, a dispute grew after a Chinese fishing trawler collided with two Japanese patrol boats. Japan detained the Chinese trawler captain for 17 days before releasing him.
Leaders of the two countries subsequently patched up differences over the incident. But for some Chinese and Japanese nationals, underlying resentment runs strong.
Some Chinese still resent Japan for its World War II invasion and occupation of parts of their country. Some in Japan are dismayed at China's emergence as a world economic power that has surpassed Japanese financial clout.
Some information for this report was provided by AP and AFP.
Demonstrators rallied in front of the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo on Saturday afternoon apparently to protest Beijing's handling of a dispute with Japan over the Senkaku Islands.
With many police officers positioned around the diplomatic mission, tension ran high at one point but no major disturbances were observed.
Before arriving at the embassy, the demonstrators gathered at a nearby park and then marched through the Roppongi district chanting, "The Senkakus are Japanese territory," and "The Democratic Party of Japan government, release the video footage of the incident to the public," referring to maritime collisions between a Chinese trawler and Japan Coast Guard patrol boats near the islands.
The Senkaku Islands are administered by Japan as part of the city of Ishigaki, Okinawa Prefecture, but are also claimed by China, which calls them the Diaoyu. The Japan Coast Guard taped the Sept. 7 incident that led to the arrest of the skipper of the Chinese boat.
In Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture, a rally was also held to protest intrusions and illegal fishing by foreign nationals in Japanese waters.
Local governments and fishermen pleaded that they want to fish in a safe environment.
![Japanese protesters spreading a banner with a message reading, "Senkaku Islands are Japanese Territories," march down streets in central Tokyo as an estimated 2,500 protesters take to the streets during a protest against China, 16 Oct 2010](http://media.voanews.com/images/300*260/ap_japan_china_protest_300_15Oct10.jpg "Japanese protesters spreading a banner with a message reading, "Senkaku Islands are Japanese Territories," march down streets in central Tokyo as an estimated 2,500 protesters take to the streets during a protest against China, 16 Oct 2010")
