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I've watched with fascination as the Japanese Senkaku islands slowly and gradually came to be labeled 'disputed' in the western media, after China's recent clai

by veidr 12y ago

I've watched with fascination as the Japanese Senkaku islands slowly and gradually came to be labeled 'disputed' in the western media, after China's recent claims. It seems like China has figured out a way to hack the media (the free media outside of China, I mean -- the government there obviously has root on Chinese TV and newspapers). Japanese ownership of this territory is basically as settled under international law as anything of this nature can be; the islands have been held by Japan since the 1800s, then controlled by the USA for a time after it defeated Japan in WWII, and eventually returned to Japan along with the return of Okinawa.[1] But after China's slow and steady media campaign, it has somehow become widely reported as 'disputed territory'. (Which it is in a meaningless and pedantic sense only.) This island-building is another hack, and maybe a clever one. Killing 70 Vietnamese soldiers in the military action in the 1980s to seize a submerged reef didn't make China look good at all. But perhaps by building new 'islands' to buttress its aggressive and expansionist claims to the territorial waters of other nations, we may end up seeing the western media in ten years uncritically reporting that "China, which has 9 islands in the disputed waters, insists that it is merely defending its territory..." Which is very important, because none of the countries whose territories China is going after -- not even Japan -- would do well in a straight up military conflict. The Philippines only hope is American protection. So the way China's aggression is covered in the western media is actually very important. Interesting times. [1]: http://csis.org/publication/japan-chair-platform-senkaku-islands-and-international-law http://csis.org/publication/japan-chair-platform-senkaku-isl...

sdrothrock 12y ago
> because none of the countries whose territories China is going after -- not even Japan -- would do well in a straight up military conflict. I'm curious about why you don't think Japan would do well in a straight-up military conflict.
- veidr 12y ago
  Japan's self-defense force is better-equipped, I will grant, but there are a few reasons. One is that there is always a higher level China could escalate to. I mean, in the end game they have nukes and Japan doesn't. But even if it didn't get to that level, China is a totalitarian regime with a history of brutally suppressing dissent, and I also assume that China would be willing to lose a lot more lives to make gains. Japan is a high-functioning democracy, and has been one of the most peaceful advanced economies of the world since losing the war. Before that, yeah, they were a definite bad actor on the world stage. But they haven't committed any military aggression toward any country in more than 65 years. It is my personal opinion that there is almost no way that the people of Japan (where I live, though I am American) would support a war against China. Even if China just up and landed an occupying force on Japan's Senkaku islands. In a democracy, that public support really matters. In a totalitarian regime, not so much. I don't personally know that much about the military stuff -- how much would Japan's superior equipment matter in an actual conflict -- so I'd be interested to hear more knowledgeable people chime in. But in Japan, a war with China would be politically untenable unless China like, invaded Tokyo, or something. Which is highly unlikely. As with the Philippines, I think the USA is the main deterrent to Chinese aggression. And these days it's a pretty shaky deterrent.
  - sdrothrock 12y ago
    > But they haven't committed any military aggression toward any country in more than 65 years. Well, yeah. It's in their constitution. > It is my personal opinion that there is almost no way that the people of Japan (where I live, though I am American) would support a war against China. Even if China just up and landed an occupying force on Japan's Senkaku islands. Perhaps not over the Senkaku Islands, but I think that if China were aggressive toward one of the four main islands (or Okinawa), the Japanese people would definitely support war -- even if not in actual name. I was really surprised at the general sentiment toward the proposed amendment in that it was a lot more supportive than I personally would have expected from a heiwa-boke Japan. Especially against China though, there's already a lot of dark, anti-China sentiment (especially with the recent chicken fiasco) that I feel like could be stirred up into support for a non-War armed conflict/proportional response... though I don't know how the people would act after seeing the results. Edit: In addition, I feel like war-weary Americans would be similarly ambivalent about entering war against China if China tried to annex, say, Wake Island. > As with the Philippines, I think the USA is the main deterrent to Chinese aggression. This is for me personally the number one reason I don't think that China would be willing to escalate against Japan, actually. American bases in Japan can not only provide support, but attacks on them would draw America into the conflict necessarily.
    - mikeash 12y ago
      Americans are weary of pointless, stupid wars involving people we never heard of in countries we can't find on a map. But touch our territory, and you're going to wish you hadn't. It doesn't matter if nobody knows where Wake Island is or if nobody lives there. It doesn't matter if it's fairly unimportant. It's ours, and Americans are intensely territorial. If China landed troops on Wake Island, I'm pretty sure that the less war-hungry side of Congress, whichever that may be at the time, would be calling for bombing campaigns, carrier task forces, and an immediate counter-invasion. The hawks would need to be bodily restrained from launching ICBMs.
    - greedo 12y ago
      Funny, the Argentines felt that the British wouldn't respond to invading the Falklands. Most wars are a result of one government failing to understand how another government will respond.
Danieru 12y ago
The Economist has talked about their coverage of the Senkakus in a few videos. They have mentioned a few times how if they write anything without mentioning the "dispute" they take heat. Thus they resort to always using both names.
illumen 12y ago
In a straight up military conflict the world ends. People are idiots though, so I guess that will happen at some point.
- veidr 12y ago
  Not necessarily true. Not even probably true. The nuclear-armed USA has invaded a number of smaller and weaker countries over the past decades. China has also attacked several neighbors, though in a less balls-out manner. Armageddon did not ensue. The scariest scenario in Asia right now is: China attacks Japan (e.g. invades the Senkakus, or even accidentally kills some Japanese soldier in one of China's frequent reckless acts of attempted intimidation, like flying dangerously close), the Japan retaliates, the China escalates, then USA intervenes, and somehow USA and China end up in direct armed conflict. But even there, China and USA have directly fought each other in a war (Korean war) and nobody pulled out their nukes (though China didn't have them yet iirc). The USSR and USA were always invading somebody or other. The nuclear Armageddon scenario is probably a lot less likely than feared--whereas I think the possibility of a nevertheless-vey-bad war in Asia is broadly underestimated.
  - latch 12y ago
    I'm going to say the scariest scenario in Asia involves either North Korea or Pakistan.
    - jacquesm 12y ago
      Not sure why you're downvoted, that's spot on.
  - rmc 12y ago
    It's World War One all over again. Someone attacks a Great Power, they demand lots from a small country. Another Great Power swears to protect the small country. Another Great Power will defend first Great Power. Then before you know it, the power keg explodes.
    - 12y ago
chj 12y ago
Senkaku islands is never undisputed. It is brought into spotlight mainly because the relationship between two countries went very bad in recent years due to Japanese PMs' frequent visits to Shinto shrine despite the constant protests from China and South Korea.
lisptime 12y ago
... Japan’s diplomats say their country “discovered” the islands in 1884. ... They are recorded in “Voyage with a Tail Wind”, published in 1403, a portolano recounting a journey from Fujian province to Ryukyu, the old name for the Okinawa chain of islands. By the following century, in “A Record of an Imperial Envoy’s Visit to the Ryukyu Kingdom”, Chinese names were given to all the islets in the Diaoyu group. Japanese diplomats do not bring it up, but the great Japanese military scholar, Shihei Hayashi, followed convention in giving the islands their Chinese names in his map of 1785, “A General Outline of Three Countries” (see map). He also coloured them in the same pink as China. http://www.economist.com/news/christmas/21568696-behind-row-over-bunch-pacific-rocks-lies-sad-magical-history-okinawa-narrative http://www.economist.com/news/christmas/21568696-behind-row-...
- PedroBatista 12y ago
  Following the same logic, the Portuguese would now own half of the World and the Spanish another half. Like any large country that tastes power and prosperity for a couple decades, China got rich with money from exports and drunk with power, and like any other country including the U.S. it will not end well. Too bad i makes life miserable for their neighbors too.
Jack000 12y ago
the claims on the South China sea are patently ridiculous, but I don't think it can be compared with the senkaku islands. From what I've read China actually did have better claim over those islands prior to 1884 and immediately after WWII, but didn't assert those claims because well.. the islands were worthless. Now that they've found oil they want to roll back the clock. I think there is a fundamental cultural difference in the way the west and China views the dispute. To the west if you found a piece of land and lived there for 100 years, it's yours - that's how the US was founded after all. But to China it's just the latest in a series of conflicts with Japan going back hundreds of years.
- akfanta 12y ago
  > To the west if you found a piece of land and lived there for 100 years, it's yours - that's how the US was founded after all Some say the genocide of the natives also helped a lot. These kind of logic just can't be applied to the problems in Asia, where the territory disputes trace back to hundreds of years ago. It's not a west vs east thing.
  - GigabyteCoin 12y ago
    I believe the parent comment was talking about squatters rights[0], not how the US was conquered. [0] http://www.thestar.com/business/personal_finance/2013/12/13/you_can_still_lose_land_through_squatters_rights.html http://www.thestar.com/business/personal_finance/2013/12/13/...
- GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
  "To the west if you found a piece of land and lived there for 100 years, it's yours - that's how the US was founded after all" You, uh, do realize that every piece of land in the US was found first by people who were already living there?
  - scarmig 12y ago
    Technically speaking, those same people didn't live there too long once colonizers and the US government arrived.
netcan 12y ago
Here's the things about "disputed" territorial claims, national rights, sovereignty and such: They are not real. There is no objective basis for resolving them. Borders, maritime boundaries the existence of such a thing as "Chinese," "Scottish" or "Kurdish" is only given substance by people believing it and acting as if it were real. Every piece of land in the world has been competed for and disputed many times. Sometimes identities such as "Chinese," "Scottish" or "Kurdish" are created or hardened specifically to serve that dispute. Other times they are dissolved by the outcome of the dispute. I'm not trying to make some grand claim that "It's all an illusion." China is disputing Japan's ownership of these islands. The ownership of these islands is in dispute. We can either have some sort of lawful (or otherwise peaceful) way of resolving these disputes or we can go back to the traditional method of war and intimidation. Our international legal systems were put in place in politically difficult circumstances to prevent world wars. They have definitions of territorial claims and some shambles of a system for resolving them and (theoretically) enforcing them. But this system (being a shambles) get very little respect. They are ignored by major power, minor powers and sometimes by upstarts (ISIS declared the border between Iraq & Syria dissolved and implemented that declaration).
Fuzzwah 12y ago
"then controlled by the USA for a time after it defeated Japan in WWII" Perhaps something like: "then controlled by the USA for a time after Japan surrendered to the Allies in WWII" ... would make your comment sound a little less ignorant.

by veidr 12y ago

sdrothrock 12y ago

> because none of the countries whose territories China is going after -- not even Japan -- would do well in a straight up military conflict. I'm curious about why you don't think Japan would do well in a straight-up military conflict.

veidr 12y ago
Japan's self-defense force is better-equipped, I will grant, but there are a few reasons. One is that there is always a higher level China could escalate to. I mean, in the end game they have nukes and Japan doesn't. But even if it didn't get to that level, China is a totalitarian regime with a history of brutally suppressing dissent, and I also assume that China would be willing to lose a lot more lives to make gains. Japan is a high-functioning democracy, and has been one of the most peaceful advanced economies of the world since losing the war. Before that, yeah, they were a definite bad actor on the world stage. But they haven't committed any military aggression toward any country in more than 65 years. It is my personal opinion that there is almost no way that the people of Japan (where I live, though I am American) would support a war against China. Even if China just up and landed an occupying force on Japan's Senkaku islands. In a democracy, that public support really matters. In a totalitarian regime, not so much. I don't personally know that much about the military stuff -- how much would Japan's superior equipment matter in an actual conflict -- so I'd be interested to hear more knowledgeable people chime in. But in Japan, a war with China would be politically untenable unless China like, invaded Tokyo, or something. Which is highly unlikely. As with the Philippines, I think the USA is the main deterrent to Chinese aggression. And these days it's a pretty shaky deterrent.
- sdrothrock 12y ago
  > But they haven't committed any military aggression toward any country in more than 65 years. Well, yeah. It's in their constitution. > It is my personal opinion that there is almost no way that the people of Japan (where I live, though I am American) would support a war against China. Even if China just up and landed an occupying force on Japan's Senkaku islands. Perhaps not over the Senkaku Islands, but I think that if China were aggressive toward one of the four main islands (or Okinawa), the Japanese people would definitely support war -- even if not in actual name. I was really surprised at the general sentiment toward the proposed amendment in that it was a lot more supportive than I personally would have expected from a heiwa-boke Japan. Especially against China though, there's already a lot of dark, anti-China sentiment (especially with the recent chicken fiasco) that I feel like could be stirred up into support for a non-War armed conflict/proportional response... though I don't know how the people would act after seeing the results. Edit: In addition, I feel like war-weary Americans would be similarly ambivalent about entering war against China if China tried to annex, say, Wake Island. > As with the Philippines, I think the USA is the main deterrent to Chinese aggression. This is for me personally the number one reason I don't think that China would be willing to escalate against Japan, actually. American bases in Japan can not only provide support, but attacks on them would draw America into the conflict necessarily.
  - mikeash 12y ago
    Americans are weary of pointless, stupid wars involving people we never heard of in countries we can't find on a map. But touch our territory, and you're going to wish you hadn't. It doesn't matter if nobody knows where Wake Island is or if nobody lives there. It doesn't matter if it's fairly unimportant. It's ours, and Americans are intensely territorial. If China landed troops on Wake Island, I'm pretty sure that the less war-hungry side of Congress, whichever that may be at the time, would be calling for bombing campaigns, carrier task forces, and an immediate counter-invasion. The hawks would need to be bodily restrained from launching ICBMs.
  - greedo 12y ago
    Funny, the Argentines felt that the British wouldn't respond to invading the Falklands. Most wars are a result of one government failing to understand how another government will respond.

Danieru 12y ago

The Economist has talked about their coverage of the Senkakus in a few videos. They have mentioned a few times how if they write anything without mentioning the "dispute" they take heat. Thus they resort to always using both names.

illumen 12y ago

In a straight up military conflict the world ends. People are idiots though, so I guess that will happen at some point.

veidr 12y ago
Not necessarily true. Not even probably true. The nuclear-armed USA has invaded a number of smaller and weaker countries over the past decades. China has also attacked several neighbors, though in a less balls-out manner. Armageddon did not ensue. The scariest scenario in Asia right now is: China attacks Japan (e.g. invades the Senkakus, or even accidentally kills some Japanese soldier in one of China's frequent reckless acts of attempted intimidation, like flying dangerously close), the Japan retaliates, the China escalates, then USA intervenes, and somehow USA and China end up in direct armed conflict. But even there, China and USA have directly fought each other in a war (Korean war) and nobody pulled out their nukes (though China didn't have them yet iirc). The USSR and USA were always invading somebody or other. The nuclear Armageddon scenario is probably a lot less likely than feared--whereas I think the possibility of a nevertheless-vey-bad war in Asia is broadly underestimated.
- latch 12y ago
  I'm going to say the scariest scenario in Asia involves either North Korea or Pakistan.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    Not sure why you're downvoted, that's spot on.
- rmc 12y ago
  It's World War One all over again. Someone attacks a Great Power, they demand lots from a small country. Another Great Power swears to protect the small country. Another Great Power will defend first Great Power. Then before you know it, the power keg explodes.
  - 12y ago

chj 12y ago

Senkaku islands is never undisputed. It is brought into spotlight mainly because the relationship between two countries went very bad in recent years due to Japanese PMs' frequent visits to Shinto shrine despite the constant protests from China and South Korea.

lisptime 12y ago

... Japan’s diplomats say their country “discovered” the islands in 1884. ... They are recorded in “Voyage with a Tail Wind”, published in 1403, a portolano recounting a journey from Fujian province to Ryukyu, the old name for the Okinawa chain of islands. By the following century, in “A Record of an Imperial Envoy’s Visit to the Ryukyu Kingdom”, Chinese names were given to all the islets in the Diaoyu group. Japanese diplomats do not bring it up, but the great Japanese military scholar, Shihei Hayashi, followed convention in giving the islands their Chinese names in his map of 1785, “A General Outline of Three Countries” (see map). He also coloured them in the same pink as China. http://www.economist.com/news/christmas/21568696-behind-row-over-bunch-pacific-rocks-lies-sad-magical-history-okinawa-narrative http://www.economist.com/news/christmas/21568696-behind-row-...

PedroBatista 12y ago
Following the same logic, the Portuguese would now own half of the World and the Spanish another half. Like any large country that tastes power and prosperity for a couple decades, China got rich with money from exports and drunk with power, and like any other country including the U.S. it will not end well. Too bad i makes life miserable for their neighbors too.

Jack000 12y ago

the claims on the South China sea are patently ridiculous, but I don't think it can be compared with the senkaku islands. From what I've read China actually did have better claim over those islands prior to 1884 and immediately after WWII, but didn't assert those claims because well.. the islands were worthless. Now that they've found oil they want to roll back the clock. I think there is a fundamental cultural difference in the way the west and China views the dispute. To the west if you found a piece of land and lived there for 100 years, it's yours - that's how the US was founded after all. But to China it's just the latest in a series of conflicts with Japan going back hundreds of years.

akfanta 12y ago
> To the west if you found a piece of land and lived there for 100 years, it's yours - that's how the US was founded after all Some say the genocide of the natives also helped a lot. These kind of logic just can't be applied to the problems in Asia, where the territory disputes trace back to hundreds of years ago. It's not a west vs east thing.
- GigabyteCoin 12y ago
  I believe the parent comment was talking about squatters rights[0], not how the US was conquered. [0] http://www.thestar.com/business/personal_finance/2013/12/13/you_can_still_lose_land_through_squatters_rights.html http://www.thestar.com/business/personal_finance/2013/12/13/...
GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
"To the west if you found a piece of land and lived there for 100 years, it's yours - that's how the US was founded after all" You, uh, do realize that every piece of land in the US was found first by people who were already living there?
- scarmig 12y ago
  Technically speaking, those same people didn't live there too long once colonizers and the US government arrived.

netcan 12y ago

Here's the things about "disputed" territorial claims, national rights, sovereignty and such: They are not real. There is no objective basis for resolving them. Borders, maritime boundaries the existence of such a thing as "Chinese," "Scottish" or "Kurdish" is only given substance by people believing it and acting as if it were real. Every piece of land in the world has been competed for and disputed many times. Sometimes identities such as "Chinese," "Scottish" or "Kurdish" are created or hardened specifically to serve that dispute. Other times they are dissolved by the outcome of the dispute. I'm not trying to make some grand claim that "It's all an illusion." China is disputing Japan's ownership of these islands. The ownership of these islands is in dispute. We can either have some sort of lawful (or otherwise peaceful) way of resolving these disputes or we can go back to the traditional method of war and intimidation. Our international legal systems were put in place in politically difficult circumstances to prevent world wars. They have definitions of territorial claims and some shambles of a system for resolving them and (theoretically) enforcing them. But this system (being a shambles) get very little respect. They are ignored by major power, minor powers and sometimes by upstarts (ISIS declared the border between Iraq & Syria dissolved and implemented that declaration).

Fuzzwah 12y ago

"then controlled by the USA for a time after it defeated Japan in WWII" Perhaps something like: "then controlled by the USA for a time after Japan surrendered to the Allies in WWII" ... would make your comment sound a little less ignorant.