The visit was another poisonous dart against her
East Asian neighbors.
Koizumi visited the Yasukuni Shrine on October 16, 2005 -- the day that
China's Shenzhou VI safely landed at a designated site in the Inner Mongolian
plains bringing a five-day orbital flight to a successful conclusion. The
stubborn man with the American Gigolo-Richard Gere hairdo apparently has
thoughts other than peace in mind on that date.
The girly man who specializes in the one-envelope-two-letters approach in
Sino-Japanese relations is the embodiment of irreconcilable Japanese sentiments
today -- petty, selfish, myopic, insolent, seclusive, weird, combative, jealous,
and maniacal.
Personally, I believe that since his divorce he has been thrashing about
every night in his single bed in pure agony.
His face shows the strain and his left hand shows the stain.
To me it seems he desperately needs a woman other than his sister in his life
for a change -- his misdirected impulses have caused him to be irrational as he
tried to pick a fight between the two nations so that a wartime clause can be
invoked for him to be re-elected for another term.
The narcissist probably thought his recent electoral win at the polls gave
him a clear mandate to act as he pleases in areas other than Postal Reform.
He probably thought the Chinese would be irked enough to send more warships
to their newly established oilfields in the undisputed area to give him an alibi
to trash the peace clause in the Japanese Constitution.
And he probably thought his American masters would appreciate his obnoxious
posturing at a time of joyous national celebrations in China.
The timing of the visit left his provocative intentions crystal clear -- the
bird perched on the lemon tree pointedly shed its droppings into the bowl when
China was enjoying her wonton soup right under the tree.
Ironically, Chinese foreign minister Li had just proposed a meeting on the
issue of the East China Sea Oilfields as a result of the decisions reached at
the fifth plenary session of the 16th C C P Congress.
Li's proposal on behalf of the Chinese government was a goodwill gesture for
the resolution of the continuous irritants marring the relationship between the
two important East Asian nations. It showed that the Chinese still harbor
certain fantasies about their reckless neighbor.
China's patience was a result of her taking a long view of the vital role of
Sino-Japanese co-operation for the rise of East Asia as a whole, not because she
is afraid of the Japanese with their Aegis destroyers and anti-submarine planes.
And since this is supposedly the last year of Koizumi's remaining term, China
had pinned her hopes on his not rocking the boat at this time of extreme tension
in bilateral relations.
But since no one can clap with one hand alone, Japanese non-cooperation is
proving to be detrimental to any unilateral conciliatory move.
It certainly looks like at this time Japanese rightists like him are too
bewildered by the spectacular Shenzhou success to think logically on their feet
and have this great urge to scratch at their collective jock itch until the
crotch bleeds.
As opposed to the 1960s, when the LDP was still counter-balanced by a
multiplicity of leftist parties, Japanese politics today is the exclusive domain
of rightist politicians, and as in the case of the American neocons, they are
all spoiling for a fight with China because they feel this is the last chance
before China becomes inordinately powerful.
Such a war would be a lose-lose proposition for both sides no matter who
'wins' the shooting war. The oilfields are only 200 miles from China's eastern
seashore, but are 600 miles from Japan. The Chinese will win a sea battle
because even the land-based long-range Chinese batteries will be able to protect
those oilfields operating in the undisputed area 200 miles offshore, let alone
the submarines and surface vessels. But winning a battle may be the beginning of
a long nightmare.
If Japan loses the sea battle it will give her the reason to go militarist
for sure -- unless China is ready to do the ultimate surgery and uproot the
entire focking rightist establishment in an all-out war, and so it is possible
an acceptable loss is exactly what Koizumi wants.
Koizumi intends to throw the dice simply because he needs a military
confrontation to be re-elected and scrap the peace constitution and go ballistic
on militarist re-armament. The APPEARANCE of imminent battle is probably what he
wants at this time to strengthen his allegation that China is a belligerent
nation.
The fact that the Chinese government has now emplaced a special force of
intermediate-level combatant vessels around the oilfields means that it has
assessed the situation and will back up the ongoing negotiations with a show of
force to protect China's sovereignty over the D iaoyutai Islands which happen to
be on the same continental shelf as the East China sea oilfields, and which has
historically belonged to China.
If a military confrontation is in the works, I have full confidence that the
Japanese can be repelled successfully since recent Sino-Russian joint military
exercises had obviously given the scenario of joint U.S.-Japanese maneuvers a
careful study, and the Americans are unlikely to go to Armageddon just for the
benefit of Japanese oil interests in the wake of visits by Wolfowitz and
Rumsfeld .
According to my study of bacterial colonies on Petri dishes, this unwelcome
step is necessary to stop the growth of a particularly virulent strain of
selfish Homo sapiens sapiens, but we must gauge the pros and the cons carefully
if we are not prepared to dig into the very bottom of the Japanese pit.
A brief win without a concomitant Chinese determination to go all the way to
the very kernel of the Japanese soul to uproot their deep-seated animosity
against other East Asians may be counter-productive.
So the correct posture for China right now should be two-pronged -- continued
patient negotiations as the better part of valor and an appropriate show of
force in the undisputed area.
The above content represents the view of the author
only.
