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China Slams Abe's "Malicious Slander"; Warns Japan Is "Doomed To Failure"
Overnight rhetoric in Asia became increasingly heated when China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed "strong dissastisfaction" at the slanderous actions of Abe's Japanese government over the Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) and the "theft and embezzlement" of the Diaoyu Islands. "Japan's attempt is doomed to failure," China warned ominously and as we highlight below, a reflection on the possible rational reasons for China and Japan to go to war over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands highlights the seriousness of the ongoing brinksmanship in the East China Sea. If a war is fought over these long-contested islands, it will have an eminently rational explanation underlying all the historical mistrust and nationalism on the surface. War in the East China Sea is possible, despite the economic costs.
The 'triangle' of doom in the East China Sea...
Q: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held in Japan recently - especially during the ASEAN summit, accusing China to unilaterally change the status of the East China Sea, East China Sea, said China's air defense identification zone designation is improper for the high seas against the freedom of overflight, asked China to revoke the measure. What is your comment?
A: We have made some Japanese leaders use international slanderous remarks China expresses strong dissatisfaction.
Diaoyu Islands are China's inherent territory. Japan over the Diaoyu Islands theft and embezzlement have always been illegal and invalid. Since last year, the Japanese deliberately provoked the Diaoyu Islands dispute, unilaterally change the status quo of the Diaoyu Islands issue is none other than the Japanese themselves. In this regard, the Chinese law to take the necessary measures to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial fully justified, blameless.
East China's air defense identification zone designation is intended to protect national defense aviation security measures, consistent with international law and international practice, do not affect the countries of aircraft overflight freedoms enjoyed under international law. Deliberate on this issue in Japan to China to launch an attack, an attempt to tamper with the concept, the implementation of double standards, mislead international public opinion, Japan's attempt is doomed to failure.
"Rationalist Explanations For War" In The East China Sea
Submitted by Ankit Panda of The Diplomat,
Events in the East China Sea since 2009 have thrust to the forefront the following frightening question: will China and Japan imminently go to war? Conventional answers in the affirmative point to the deep level of historical mistrust and a certain level of “unfinished business” in East Asian international politics, stemming from the heyday of Showa Japan’s imperialism across Asia. Those on the negative often point to the astronomical economic costs that would follow from a war that pinned the world’s first and third largest economies against its second in a fight over a few measly islands, undersea hydrocarbon reserves be damned.
I can’t pretend to arbitrate between these two camps but I find that far too many observers sympathize with the second camp based on rational impulse. Of course China and Japan wouldn’t fight a war! That’d ruin their economies! I sympathize with the Clausewtizean notion of war being a continuation of politics “by other means,” and the problems caused by information asymmetries (effectively handicapping rational decision-making), but the situation over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands can result in war even if the top leaders in Tokyo and Beijing are eminently rational.
Political scientist James D. Fearon’s path-breaking article “Rationalist Explanations for War” provides a still-relevant schema that’s wonderfully applicable to the contemporary situation between China and Japan in the East China Sea. Fearon’s paper was initially relevant because it challenged the overly simplistic rationalist’s dogma: if war is so costly, then there has to be some sort of diplomatic solution that is preferable to all parties involved — barring information asymmetries and communication deficits, such an agreement should and will be signed.
Of course, this doesn’t correspond to reality where we know that many incredibly costly wars have been fought (from the first World War to the Iran-Iraq War). So, if wars are costly — as one over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands is likely to be — why do they still occur? Well, the answer isn’t Japanese imperialism or because states just sometimes irrationally dislike each other (as the affirmative camp would argue). It’s more subtle.
Fearon’s “bargaining model” assumes a few dictums about state knowledge, behavior and expectations ex ante. I’ll cast the remainder of the model in terms of Japan and China since they’re our subjects of interest (and to avoid floating off into academic abstractions).
First, China and Japan both know that there is an actual probability distribution of the likely outcomes of the war. They don’t know what the actual distribution is, but they can estimate what is likely in terms of the costs and outcomes of going to war. For example, Japan can predict that it would suffer relatively low naval losses and would strengthen its administrative control of the islands; China could predict the same outcome, or it could interpret things in its favor. In essence, they acknowledge that war is predictable in its unpredictability.
Second, China and Japan want to limit risk or are neutral to risk, but definitely do not crave risk. War is fundamentally risky so this is tantamount to an acknowledgement that war is costlier than maintaining peace or negotiating an ex ante diplomatic solution.
The third assumption is a little dressed up in academic jargon: there can be no “issue indivisibility.” In plain English, this essentially means that whatever the states are fighting over (usually territory, but it could be a pot of gold) can be divided between them in an infinite number of ways on a line going from zero to one. Imagine that zero is Japan’s ideal preference (total Japanese control of the Senkakus and acknowledgement as such by China) and one is China’s ideal preference (total Chinese control of Diaoyu and acknowledgement by Japan). Fearon’s assumption requires that there exist points like 0.23 and 0.83 (and so forth) which set up some sort sharing between the warring parties. Even solutions, such as one proposed by Zheng Wang here at The Diplomat to establish a “peace zone,” could sit on this line.
If the third assumption sounds the shakiest to you that’s probably because it is. “Issue indivisibility” is a nasty problem and a subject of quite some research. It usually is at the heart of wars that seek to decide which state should control a territory such as a Holy City (the intractability of the Arab-Israeli conflict is said to be plagued by indivisible issues).
So, is the dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu fundamentally indivisible? Probably in the sense of splitting sovereignty over the islands, but probably not in the sense of some ex ante bargain similar to what Zheng proposed. Even if the set of solutions isn’t infinitely divisible, whatever finite solutions exist might not fall within whatever range of solutions either Japan or China is willing to tolerate — leading to war.
Fearon actually doesn’t buy the indivisibility-leading-to-war theory himself. He reasons that generally almost every issue is complex enough to be divisible to a degree acceptable by each party (undermining the infinite divisibility requirement), and that states can link issues and offer payments to offset any asymmetrical outcome. In the Senkaku/Diaoyu case, this would mean a solution could hinge upon Japan making a broader apology for its aggression against China in the 20th century or China taking a harsher stance on North Korea (both unlikely).
Relevant to the Air Defense Identification Zone is Fearon’s description of war arising between rational states due to incentives to misrepresent capabilities. China and Japan’s leaders know more about their country’s actual willingness to go to war than anyone else, and it benefits to signal strong resolve on the issue to extract more concessions in any potential deal. Japan announcing its willingness to shoot down Chinese drones earlier this year and its most recent defense plans are example of this, and China’s ADIZ is probably the archetype of such a signal. Instead of extracting a good deal, what such declarations can do is force rational hands to war over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands.
Fearon’s final explanation — regarding commitment problems leading to war — is slightly ancillary to the core discussion about the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands given Japan’s constitutional restraints on the use of force (rendering preemptive, preventative, and offensive wars largely irrelevant in the Japanese case). Regardless, the point remains that even if the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands might seem like a terribly silly thing for the world’s second and third largest economies to go to war over, war can still be likely.
As I observe events in the East China Sea, I mostly recall Fearon’s warnings on certain types of signals leading to brinksmanship (the divisibility issue is far murkier). Both Japan and China don’t seem to be relenting on these sorts of deleterious signals. Additionally, given that Chinese and Japanese diplomats haven’t had high-level contact in fourteen months, even the more primitive rationalist’s explanation, that war occurs because a lack of communication leads to rational miscalculations, becomes plausible.
A reflection on the possible rational reasons for China and Japan to go to war over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands highlights the seriousness of the ongoing brinksmanship in the East China Sea. If a war is fought over these long-contested islands, it will have an eminently rational explanation underlying all the historical mistrust and nationalism on the surface. War in the East China Sea is possible, despite the economic costs.
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The Chinese do not care if it is Sunday. They expect their $80 million interest payment today. Get back to work American coolie.
Central Bankterss gave Abe diapers to wear in the land.
when they put the JapTOTUS in charge of Japan?
The reason was this. If something went amiss
Their cow eyes wouldn't get hit
with shit splashed from the fan.
This is the way China deals with their excessive male population to prevent them from becoming homosexual.
You've been hanging out with me too long!
Jaw Boneing. Believe it when ya see it. Just like a collaspe.
why don't they just put their dicks on the table and see who has the largest one.....oh wait, never mind.
Someone hand that man a knife.
LMFAO!! That's so good dude!
But then there's the "Big Titty Competition"
And from (not so feeble recollection) ... the Chinese have em beat BIG titty time!
Hammer down you mooks!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otCpCn0l4Wo
One key issue that most Americans don't and probably can't understand is the power of the formal apology in Asian cultures, and the reverse - the impact on the aggrieved party of not only not receiving an apology, but of the insult being repeated and elaborated. The Chinese historical perspective on much of the 19th and 20th centuries is that it was a period of continuous, escalating, and deliberate insults from Japan - insults that have never been retracted, nor regretted by Japan. On the other hand, the Japanese see absolutely no reason to apologize to China. It was a distasteful and onerous task for the Japanese to offer Korea even a back-handed, mumbled, apology for kidnapping tens of thousands of their women to use as forced prostitutes to "service" their troops. Does anyone seriously believe that the Japanese are ever going to apologize for doing what they absolutely believed was their right and national duty - to create a buffer zone against the West by imperializing all of Asia? If in the process they had to kill millions of Chinese who were in the way or - even worse - who resisted, then that was the fault of the Chinese, not the fault of the sons of the Rising Sun. What's to apologize for?
In the mythology of Hollywood, the code of the Old West demanded that an insult - especially to "a lady" - could and should be avenged by the death of the insulter. This was largely the fictional imagination of the screenwriters. However in Asia, for more centuries than can be counted, an insult meant that the person - or nation - who has been insulted is obligated, that is obligated, to avenge the insult. Unless - and this is the only condition under which revenge is not mandatory - unless the insult is publicly, and sincerely, apologized for and deeply regretted.
Since that will never happen - war between China and Japan is inevitable.
All of which would be largely of academic interest to Americans, if not for the fact that U.S. military bases in Japan will promptly get sucked into the conflict ... as already demonstrated by provocative U.S. overflights.
World War III ... great way to kick off the Asian century ... and take a load off poor Ben B., who can hardly bear the burden of lifting inflation alone.
I too have noticed that characteristic while in East Asia.
I'd say "Fuck em and feed em butter beans", we have bigger more pressing issues at bay.
It's only a matter of time before China invades the west coast of the continental US (while Russia occupies the east coast). China needs to see how our Marines in Okinawa respond to invasion before going into full attack mode on our motherland.
China has no ability and no desire to attempt to invade the US. As Japanese Admirial Isoroku Yamamoto reportedly said "There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass." In addition, with sattellites and maned and unmanned spy planes aint' no way anyone can stage and sail a fleet of ships or planes large enough to carry a landing force with getting obliterated before they leave their air or sea space.
Money Squid - EMP
you say that like it would be a big utter fucking surprise if someone attempted to use an emp attack... hell fucking _civilian_ systems have taken emp into account in their designs, let alone mil spec... seriously, this meme needs to die
Except in California, void where prohibited, no warranty implied.
Thing is, they will be invited by TPTB to quell those pesky Tea-Party types. Our military won't be shooting at them as they park off the coast.
And, c'mon, you act like nobody has ever known that they were about to be invaded. Sometimes you just can't do anything about it.
Maybe this is just some jingo slap-and-tickle to placate their increasingly grumpy and irradiated and smogified populations.
Maybe the dogs of war are just pesky ankle-biting schnauzers.
" Conventional answers in the affirmative point to the deep level of historical mistrust and a certain level of “unfinished business” in East Asian international politics, stemming from the heyday of Showa Japan’s imperialism across Asia."
Or is it about the bankers and the huge debts that have been run up.
This could be the black swan that they have been looking for. It's a big one if it happens.
Why would these idiots go to war over some oil islands which may not have any oil?
They will use more resources than they will get back from any revenue off the island's resources.
Its about the oil, but it is more about asserting their influence in their backyard. The US had troops in China in 1900 and they have not forgotten it.
I thought the triangle of doom was a woman's private part
"Only two things in the world I am scared of... One is women, the other is the Po Leese"
Burt Reynolds, White Lighting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf5nWhOeV8k
These little asian pricks probably have some real fight left in them.
Outside of nukes, air power, and sea power the U.S. doesn't have any fight left in it. There can never and will never be another draft, so any real boot-on-the-ground warfare is out of the question.
But our new Pink Rainbow Brigade will claw their eyes out.
Raaaawwww!!! Sad but true.
Blame it all on the elites for feminizing the US culture to neuter it (literally) from fighting for anything ever again cause it's just too... so you know... like.. muddy, cold, loud, bloody, and shit...
Wang Fu, look at this Inter!* We must give up!"
"Why, Long Dong?"
"We are facing the Fighting 28th!"
"The US Lunar "Mad" Dog Division?"
"Yes! 10,000 manly lesbians with PMS! Look at these photos!"
"I hear they have drugs to make you gay, rike BackDoor!"
"Kung Fu! I am out of here! Save yourselves, comrades!"
(*Intel in English)
Boots on the ground warfare is out of the question due to the degradation in quality of the soldiers and officers, wrought by the destructive forces of political correctness forced on the military:
1) Affirmative Action.
2) Feminism.
3) Homosexual Fascism.
Let me guess you are
1- old
2- white
3- angry
4- male
You might enjoy this song from Jimmy Castor......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlRXQEA0yj0
Despite your self congratulatory moniker, your eye is actually embarrassingly too dim and clouded with nonjudgmental propaganda, to recognize that your roster of attempted, insulting adjectives are all admirable characterstics for anyone with functioning neuronal synapses, and even a rudimentary knowledge of history.
and ya forgot "dangerous"... when threatened with societal collapse and bankruptcy.
Lewt me guess..
You are
1) Gay
2) Still living with your parents
3) Never been anywhere after high school
4) Don't know shit
5) Look funny
6) Dress funny
7) Need a bath badly
8) You Fucktard!
'pears you need to bang that vacuous, empty head of yours, just a little bit more, regressive dimwit.
If you think the US is bad, the Japanese will want to cosplay with them.
http://www.otakuhouse.com/blogs/commentary/breaking-japanese-sends-fight...
*THE DIPLOMAT* writing about China?
Read on your own perils! I stopped reading as soon as i spotted on the familiar label... LOL
Can you explain why The Diplomat holds such a low opinion? Just wondering if there are other reasons than the facts below.
This from Wiki
"The Diplomat has entered into formal partnerships with influential public policy and media organizations. One of the most prominent is the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)."
and who is CSIS???
Well the founders is David Abshire, who "as served as a Special Counselor to President Reagan and was the U.S. Ambassador to NATO from 1983-1987."
So are you saying we are looking at US pre war propaganda? Maybe the outcome of a little discussed currancy war?
@ hardcleareye
Thanks for the information. Pardon my laziness to check further what's The Diplomat in details, its affiliation and so on yet my reading radar warns me it's a kind of trumpet with particular insidious agendas :-) and now i know some names behind...
+10
The dispute is not simply about some small islands.
1) The dispute is about the US-promoted remilitarization of Japan.
2) The dispute is about globalist US plans to control resources, manipulate finances,
and aggressively "contain" China economically and militarily.
3) The dispute is about Obama's so-called Asian Pivot.
The islands dispute could be settled if the US and Japan were willing to submit the matter to the ICJ (International Court of Justice).
The other matters behind the dispute cannot be resolved so easily.
"International Court of Justice (ICJ), the world court that handles international boundary disputes at The Hague. The ICJ requires sovereign parties involved in the dispute to accept the court’s jurisdiction and abide by its ruling. Japan’s rejection of an ICJ case therefore indicates serious weaknesses in its territorial claims under existing international law."
http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-japanese-militarism-and-chinas-air-defen...
"We don't have to refer the matter to a third party for adjudication because the islands indisputably belong to Japan both legally and in actuality," the official said, adding there is no basis for China's claims to the uninhabited islands.
http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2013/09/246239.html
This is a dispute that both sides should refer to the International Court of Justice, rather than allow to boil over in the streets. That said, when I look at the underlying question of who has the best claim, I’m sympathetic to China’s position. I don’t think it is 100 percent clear, partly because China seemed to acquiesce to Japanese sovereignty between 1945 and 1970, but on balance I find the evidence for Chinese sovereignty quite compelling.
http://www.kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/the-inconvenient-truth-b...
The first sentence is right, the rest is wrong. It assumes the US is central to this dispute.
The dispute is fundamentally about the relative positions of China and Japan, whose complex history has little to do with the US.
China wants Japan as a vassal, to put the boot on Japan's neck that Japan once had on China's. Japan is resisting the attempt to impose that vassal state. Both countries take that very seriously.
That is what the dispute is about, not about "globalist US plans" or some "Obama pivot" (whatever the latter actually means). The world and its disputes do not all revolve around the US. Countries are quite capable of fighting with one another without any reason to do with the US.
Japan is still a militarily occupied country. The US is behind the push for Japan to remilitarize (US anticipating arms sales and the manipulation of Japan's military).
If one wishes to dig deep enough, kowtowing to US financial policies has been a primary cause for Japan's financial malaise.
Your straw man argument doesn't hold water. No one is saying the US is responsible for ALL the world's problems, or that nations never have conflicts independent of the US. But you need to dig a little deeper to understand how the US has caused, contributed, and exacerbates many of the problems and conflicts. The US has seldom been an idle player, certainly not in this dispute.
As for reflexively blaming China, I suggest you read the links I provided.
"China wants Japan as a vassal, to put the boot on Japan's neck that Japan once had on China's. Japan is resisting the attempt to impose that vassal state."
LOL, Are you a right wing Japanese ?
Regarding the referenced NY Times link:
"China" acquiesced between 1945 and 1970?
The NY Times must be referring to Taiwan, since the US did not officially recognize China until Nixon's visit.
Well spare a thought for present day residents of Hiroshima, they must be thinking...Damn! Not again.
Let the 2nd East Asian Civil War start now.
China can create internal chaos (economic) within America, all the while they deal with Japan.
I would start to prepare now.
dear ZHers, please go back to the main page and go down a few articles and read the "China's Shadow Currency" article. This article is okay, but that article is really, really good. It has few comments, so I guess it's not being read much, but it is about a very interesting and specific problem that is going to chomp down on China soon enough (not the wealth investment vehicle crap sold by Chinese banks to peons; this is something different).
karen - I did read it. I forget if I commented, but it essentially says that there is a rampant and liquid "Banker Acceptance" paper market being traded throughout China. Of course BA's are supposed to be short term finance vehicles for physical trade contracts waiting to be settled. The bank charges their 5% discount and delievrs cash to the holder.
The articl stated that th Chinese are really using this BA type vehicle for liquidity for real estate speculation and other non physical trade / speculative purposes. Yeh its probably a bubble... but so is everything else including freedom, in China these days.
When the Krakken of nationalism is released... well the BA market won't mean a lot. Neither will the Fed.
Yes, you've summed it up. I liked it because it is re a very big and very concrete issue that I have not seen descibed before; one more concrete thing that will drive millions of Chinese people berserk when it crumbles.
You are right that nationalism will these trump concrete economic items. But the nationalism will be easier to manipulate, because the economic things have broken. So if we watch the economic things, we might have a sense of the timing (haha, why am I fooling myself???)
Wishful thinking; China has the LT upper hand; and that other article about Singapore and HK exchanges now proposing Yuan Bonds is also a sign of the times.
You inference that China will beat USA in the financial and geo political race to bottom is NOW THE ISSUE of the times; with Abeonomics playing US surrogate in the CB print to infinity scam and sabre rattling around South China Seas.
The ME scene is being abandoned by Pax Americana as the "China rising" meme picks up speed, all the while the "USa floundering in debt" meme ratchets up its "hide under the carpet" disease.
Who has more crap under the carpet is a good question...
Meanwhile Japan goes nationalist bonkers in Fuku cover-up as in Abenomics Ra Ra :
Japan Business Mood Hits Six-Year High As Abenomics Takes Hold - Business Insider
chinas got north korea bitchez!
We must all cut back on our yachting in that Venn intersection zone.
If I may, wars have been ignited over lesser things. (Falklands). The driving point of most ignitions seems to be national pride, or wounded pride as the case may be. One never knows where the "spark" is going to come from, but once it comes, the military gleefully joins the cause in a patriotic fervor. As Patton was quoted to speak, "It's not an honor to die for your country, the goal is to make the other dumb SOB die for his country!" Or something to that effect.
Violence, begets violence. Thus the concern over a "mistake" that moves things from "cold" to "hot". Ship collision, unexplained explosion, drone downing, aircraft downing, stepping across the forbidden line, all of these can "trigger' the shooting war. Then there is the "deliberate" attack, such as the twin towers, Pearl Harbor, the Maine, Poland, which signals the start of war.
Humans are never the most rational creatures and those without or those trying to protect what they have, often have no restraints on killing others.
One should not confuse the "spark" with the cause,
nor mistake the jingoist fervor cultivated in the public by the major institutions and leaders as the motive for wars.