Cicero had another very fine piece last week called “Wish You Happy.” It brings his usual lyrical style to bear on China’s reputation as an exploitative low-cost manufacturer, the environmental dimension of the Chinese miracle, unrest among the populace, and the environmentalist gap. The phrase “Kyoto stinks” will never again register with me in quite the same way….
As we’ve seen over the past 2 weeks, the Chinese government is more than happy to channel some of that simmering angst into nationalism with a hostile edge, even as it seeks to keep control of what it is unleashing. Fortunately, this is a subject Winds has covered before. Which is why I want to return to that coverage and the debates it spawned, throw in a couple of items about the geo-political and military dimensions of China’s rise, and tie all that into a look at some potential futures.
Note the use of the plural “futures.” This post will not be about convincing you of one specific view of China’s future. That’s partly because I don’t have one. Instead, I’d rather introduce you to some new ideas about what that future could look like, and leave you better informed about some of the dynamics by laying out some good thought-pieces and good sources. Then you can get informed, think it over, come to your own conclusions, and hopefully return to discuss it.
The issue is important enough to be worth it.
Note that this piece by ‘Cicero’ follows on the heels of another China-related post, “Wish You Happy”
Today’s New York Times has an article that concerns Chinese protests against Japan:
China has tapped a deep strain of nationalism among its people, gambling, analysts say, that it can propel itself to a leadership role in Asia while cloaking its move for power in the guise of wounded pride and popular will.But the government also seems to have taken steps to control - some say manipulate - a nascent protest movement to prevent a grass-roots challenge to the governing Communist Party.
In the last few weeks, relations between Asia’s two leading powers have reached their most serious crisis since diplomatic ties were re-established in 1972. China has confronted Japan over newly revised history textbooks that gloss over wartime abuses. It stepped up its claim to disputed islands and undersea gas reserves between the countries.
China took Japan and the United States to task for declaring that they would jointly defend Taiwan in case of an attack from the mainland.
After weeks of hints, Chinese leaders said outright on Wednesday that Japan did not have the moral qualifications to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council…
…”Only a country that respects history, takes responsibility for history and wins over the trust of peoples in Asia and the world at large can take greater responsibilities in the international community,” Mr. Wen said.
“The moral issue is China’s trump card over Japan,” Mr. Shi said. “China is now playing that card.”
I can understand Chinese rage if Japan is in official denial over its abuse of China in the 30s and 40s. Too often, Nanking’s rape is eclipsed by European atrocities of the same era.
Updating a previous post , from the AFP via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :
Japan today summoned a Chinese diplomat after identifying a submarine that intruded its waters as Chinese.”We have judged the submarine to belong to the Chinese navy and it’s likely the submarine was a nuclear submarine and through diplomatic channels we are going to protest to China,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda, the government spokesman, told reporters.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hatsuhisa Takashima said Japan will summon Cheng Yonghua, a minister at the Chinese embassy, to hear Japan’s protest.
ANALYSIS : Only a hopeless incompetent would use a noisy nuke like the Chinese ‘Han’ class on a covert mission in confined waters. Unlike a Donk (a diesel), it’s relatively easy to detect passively, and its sonar signature is unique now the oldest Soviet subs are scrapped, very easy to identify. If they’d used a “Ming” they could easily have gotten away with it, as ID‘ing it from a DPRK sub would be much more difficult. But even a Han should have been able to evade tracking for a long period once it reached the open ocean, if competently handled (and assuming no US nuke boat in the area). 10/10 to the JMSDF for tracking it for so long. Minus several hundred to the People’s Liberation Army Navy, to the idiot Admiral who sent it.
Note to self : next time, don’t automatically assume minimal competence for the PLA-N. They couldn’t have been so stupid as to use their one-and-only ‘Xia” SSBN (a modified ‘Han’). Or Could they?
I don’t like being wrong - as my previous analysis was. I wasn’t out-smarted, but I sure was out-dumbed.
Japan knows about nuclear power - from Hiroshima and Nagasaki and from its own nuclear accidents. And it’s worried that China’s voracious appetite for energy, its poor record of industrial safety and its plan to build more nuclear reactors could mean major accidents affecting North Asia.Japan, which stands to gain financially from China’s desperate need for energy to fuel its high-powered economy, increasingly is worried that Beijing’s pledge to rely on nuclear power is potentially dangerous, posing serious safety issues for China and Japan. Japan has had its own safety problems with nuclear power and doesn’t want more business at the cost of human life.
More than half of China’s economy is driven by manufacturing, 54% according to a report by the Far Eastern Economic Review. Economists such as Andy Xie at JPMorganChase affirmed that more than one-third of Chinese consumption is already responsible for Japan’s pulsating yearly growth and its economic recovery.