Top Chinese diplomat tells US to 'shut up' on arms spending

Nice rhetorical points... if you somehow assume that I am arguing in favor of the current United States government? My identity is not integrated into that of the US Government and I don't view questioning my own country's leadership as an attack on me. Obviously in this case I am speaking of a view expressed by you, but I often find on this board that Chinese people view negative statements about the CCP as personal attacks on them and feel that they are attacking me back by criticizing my government. I don't understand that.

As an exercise in sanity I heartily encourage everybody who feels an association to China to point out one bad aspect of Hu Jintao or the CCP. I will reciprocate by pointing out the obvious enfeebled state of George Bush's intellect and perhaps more disastrously the fact that he can’t seem to empathize and understand any viewpoints that are not his.

But, the point is that once you begin to think of people in racial terms (i.e. all Japanese are rotten to the core, they all want war) it is easy to decide they are all subhuman, like the Japanese did to the Chinese in World War II. Every person is a unique individual with manifold capacities for good and evil, and you can encourage their goodness by engaging with them and helping them to understand, or you can just write them all off as bad apples and let them fufil your expectations of them.

 

What is your point? The question I want to ask is: since Japan is under the protection of US, and US takes it its responsibility to protect Japan from any invasion, why does Japan still need to spend that much money on military? It seems the only logical conclusion is they think one day they are gonna take military actions the US does not approve, like an offensive move. Shouldn't we be concerned with such possibilities?

 

Go back 60 years and you can find all sorts of Japanese militarism, true. But then go back another 60 years. After this total of 120 years was the next time that they invaded another country.

As far as I can tell there are no instances of Japan attacking other countries on a large scale before the first Sino-Japanese war. Why are 60 years of war more vital in determining the national character of Japan than the 60 years of peace that followed it?

 

Again, you failed to see that my opinion was based on observations, not prejudice. There were forces that drove Japan to go to wars, and those forces still exist. I expressed an academic view, but you appears to be too sensitive and you twisted my words first by suggesting I was advocating extermination of all Japanese.

I am not gonna to comment on Hu, because I am no expert on that subject. I know what Bush has done 10 times better than I know about Hu. I seriously doubt anyone who live in US know enough about modern day China. All my collegues who went to visit China in recent time have much better opinions about China than average public. Just this past Friday, I had a chat with a famous violinist who expressed a surprisingly high opinion about China after her recent visit and she told me she and her husband are going back to help train a couple of bright young violinists in Shanghai.

 

Then you don't know much about history. Japan invaded Korea pennisular numerous times in the past, and Koreans even asked Chinese to send armies there to help fight Japanese. Japan also attacked coast areas of China constantly over past hundreds of years.

 

Canoner is no diplomat - Let me put it this way. I don't agree with him as a statement, but I can see where his concerns come from.

Going back before the first Sino-Japnese war. There was attack on Taiwan. There was attack on Ryukyu Kingdom, now Okinawa prefecture of Japan, Korea and others. Ming dynasty ws so disgusted by constant harassment of "ou kou", japanese invader, it refused to trade with Japan.

 

First, I want to thank you and the others who responded to my post about China and North Korea. I'm unconvinced about China's role in NK nuclear arms development, but concerning China's fears about a flood of refugees, I think that is a real danger that they are concerned about. Good responses, even if we disagree in some details.

As for the post above, and the ones preceding it, that is a great assumption to make regarding Japan. With all due respect, it is practically paranoia. Japan is far from being the military it could be, if it chose to really build it up. The growing military power of China, certainly, is something Japan is bound to take into account, in the long run. North Korea, however, has proven itself to have an erratic and unstable leadership, willing to starve millions to keep it's military going, and to produce atomic weapons and a program for delivery systems that put Japan at risk. A Japanese response to that threat is something that shouldn't be a surprise, and to see threats from Japan against China, from what Japan has done so far, is making political theatre instead of reality, in my opinion. I hope China and Japan don't develop an arms race between the two similar to that between the West and the Soviet Union. That, in my opinion, would be disastrous.

As for American influence on the development of Japan's military... it is certainly there, from the quality of the hardware Japan does have, to a constitution written by MacArthur and his staff that has kept Japan from serious rearmament. China can help prevent a serious growth in Japan's military by exerting whatever influence it has to restrain NK, if that's possible, and to work to keep Japan from viewing China herself as a threat.The best tonic for that, I would think, would be good relations between the two countries. I hope that those relations improve. Constant attacks on Japanese intentions, as if their "blood," prevents them from being anything other than aggressive, isn't helpful. Attacks on Japan's "version" of history, their distortions and omissions, the visits to the shrine... those are certainly justified, in my opinion.




Keep D&D Civil.

 

I might have expressed myself in a bad way by saying "it is in their blood". That was not my intention. What I meant is there were forces in the past that drove them to go to war, and those forces still exist. The need for land, natural resources will push them to expasionism.

 

There's certainly risk in that. However, modern economies rely less on land and resources, that's why Japanese are so keen on developing techonologies. So there's hope right wings won't take Japan too far.

 

Look at where the need for oil has taken us.

 

In a peaceful world, you can purchase everything. It seems everyone is relying less on land and resources. But when there is conflicts everywhere, land and resources will become first priority again. In 20 years, people might fight for water instead of oil. Why did Japan start the war with US? They knew it was a huge risk, and the commanders were very afraid to wake up a giant. However, they didn't have much choice, because supply chain was cut.

In the 1800's and early 1900's, Japan started "crisis education". The teaching was given to everyone, from Emporer to school children, it was about how small Japan is, how it's lacking of resources. The only way to survive, is to occupy that big land of China. It wasn't something spontenous 60 years ago, but rather a calculated move started generations ago. The teaching set deep roots in people's mind, therefore, the celebration and volunteer comfort women and soldiers cross the whole island, when more and more Chinese were killed during the war. Yes, it was directed by a group of people, but supported by majority of their citizen. Similarily, ethnic cleaning against Jews was supported by the whole Germany.

 

And looking at how they teach their kids nowadays, I cannot help thinking they are going back to expansionism one day in the future.

 

Actually, the U.S. charges Japan at U.S. Miltary prices...you know, $300 for a hammer deal. So in reality, Japan gets the defense equivalent to Taiwan or South Korea.

 

Please do not insult our intelligence with your nonsense. There is no body in this thread else who twist facts and fabricate lies as much as you do.

 

Sigh, he can't grasp the fact that South Korea and Taiwan are getting ripped off by the same $300 hammer. They get weapons from US as well, with the same price. Japanese spent 2 times more than South Korean did, so they get 2 times more hammers. 3 != 1 is probably too difficult a concept to him. Besides, not sure whether he understands that the Russians don't sell their plans and submarines cheap to Chinese either.

 

The article I posted above explains this concept.

Again, just see the truth...where China spends money to build nukes (and by the way, China has tested more powerful nukes then the U.S. - in fact the only country to explode a more powerful device was the Soviet Union decades ago), missles aimed at Taiwan, battleships to intimidate the Phillipines and Indonesia, troops to occupy Tibet and intimidate India, and an air force built for regional supremacy....Japan spends it's money to be protected by American forces...Japan doesn't actually own any missles or weapons or tanks or anything.

Think about that! That's the truth. The only lies are the ones you are making to yourself - that you have been brainwashed with. Just because you are CHinese, don't let your pride blind you. The emporer has no clothes!!!!

 

I partially agree with your statements but you're making things way way too cut and dry.

Fine, China is spending significant amounts of money on military buildups and new technology. Their military capacity is somewhat limited by regimes like the Missile Technology Control Regime and other restrictions on dual-use technology but other than that, sure they're spending money.

Japan, on the other hand, is a little different. While, they have a constitutional prohibition on warfare (Article 9), that's as far as it goes. There is no restriction on defense buildup and in fact Japan's military is known as the Japanese Self-Defense Forces.

In fact, Japan has several indigenously built aircraft and yes they own tanks, planes, anti-aircraft weaponry, artillery, etc.. Their tanks number close to 1000. They have armored humvee type vehicles, personnel carriers, etc.. In fact, nearly all of Japan's air force is indigenously built by Japanese defense contractors.

So I suppose Japan hasn't exactly threatened to invade anyone or to use force (until the North Korean test missiles) but they don't come off as some great pacifist nation. As the World War II generation slowly passes on, the demand for a pacifist Japan is also slowly fading away and events like the deployment of troops in Iraq have started to signal a change. I think Japan will keep Article 9, but will probably adopt a much looser interpretation and allow for greater Japanese military involvement in world affairs.

 

Sorry to burst your bubble. This is not new but you seem to be locked into the Japanese p*rn world intsead of the real world - your modern Japan is spitting on the corpses of the American soldiers who protected your freedom by worshipping war criminals who killed them.

 

Brainwashing seems to be a cute word throwing around a lot here. All consistent propaganda serves some sort of brainwashing, for instance, US found WMD in Iraq.

Now, many oversea Chinese have received information from all parts of the spectrum. To be more specific, related to this thread, in terms of the past history of China or Japan. I would say that most ethnic Chinese here, have read versions from Western, Nationalists, and Communists. For those of you, speaking loudly about morality, bashing hard on Chinese hypocracy, and defending Japanese war crimes strongly, have you ever read anything from ROC or PRC? If you were only bombed by one side of the propaganda, isn't it funny that you call others to be brainwashed? For those of you, if you dismiss the version from PRC as lies before you even engaged in such information, isn't is hilarious that you claim to be here to "discuss", and claim to be "fair and balance"? For those of you, who actually are aware of the information provided by Chinese, care to explore your decision making process - what makes you dismiss the Chinese version TOTALLY in history events? Could that be a little cute word "bias" or "narrow-minded", or simply what the whole discussion was about - brainwashed? Just curious.

 

It's certainly hilarious that NewYorker, who claims to have worked in the media, and is acting as the belligerent mouthpiece of Dalai Lama, has no idea that the "peaceful" realpolitik god king was on CIA's payroll for at least 4 god damn decades.