Abe has some of Japan's neighbours nervous over his support for expanding Japan's already formidable military and eliminating some of the 'self defence' restrictions in place since WWII. Recent tensions between Japan and China over the disputed Senkaku islands are another concern, one Abe did nothing to ease by his remarks at Davos.
International affairs boffin Ian Bremmer and a suspiciously large contingent of think-tank poobahs were primed to love the speech (the text of which was, by Davos practice, not made available to the common herd), and they did.
First, Bremmer:
And Prime Minister Abe just came, he gave a great speech. Folks are optimistic about the economy. The one part of the speech that people were really concerned about was Japan-China. And understandably. He's criticizing the Chinese as being aggressive and militaristic. He compared Japan-China relations explicitly to relations between Germany and the UK in 1914, where the economic relations were good but the security tensions, let's say, were not so good. And we saw what happened there.
I wouldn't say that Abe was directly raising the specter of war, but he was saying that China is acting in a manner that's unacceptable and Japan won't tolerate it. [1]
7 comments:
Rah-rah-rah!
good luck stopping china, they seem to realize how much power they have and they aint afraid to use it. Whats the rest of the world gonna do?
"Whats the rest of the world gonna do?" — watch China go bankrupt?
China is the menace of the globe, one of the least trusted countries. Other countries boot China off their territories, Harper invites China, to set up shop right onto our Canadian soil.
Harper is bringing over thousands of Chinese for his, Northern BC mining plan.
Harper's evil FIPA deal with China means, China will be in Canada for 31 years.
Harper's Omnibus Bill permits China to sue Canada if, anyone tries to block China's huge inroads into our country. China sued in BC, to take 200 mine jobs away from the BC miners.
Anti-China hysteria like Anonymous' is silly and annoys me. China's just like any other country with a fair bit of power. If anything, rather less militarily oriented than others to whom you could compare them--US, Britain, Russia for instance. This does not make them wonderful or benevolent--far from it. But their objectives when it comes to scamming us on trade are no more reprehensible than the US or the EU's.
As to bankruptcy--I suspect it will be us first. In the end, in a contest between the folks that make stuff and the folks that buy it, well, if the makers can't sell their stuff they at least have stuff; if the buyers can't buy stuff, they got nothin'. The only way to get back on a good side of that equation is to bring back some trade barriers and make our own stuff.
A full blockade on Germany including foodstuffs was good??
One could say what goes around come aroound. Japan had its time of being the production powerhouse, now its China. Of course China is a rather large country and Japan isn't. China has not love for Japan and Japan is wise to up their military game. it will enable them to deal with their own problems and not drag other countries in, if not necessary.
Of course Harper could have a look at what Japan is doing and take note. China will be in Canada and that of course makes Japan nervous. China could cut Japan off from the export of natural resources.
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