http://thediplomat.com/2014/04/overstating-the-china-threat

Overstating The China Threat?

Calls for substantial new investments in U.S. military hardware seem a little hasty.

By Amitai Etzioni

April 10, 2014

One of Washington's leading members of Congress, J. Randy Forbes, and a brilliant analyst, Elbridge Colby, sound the alarm. They believe that China has made precipitous gains against the United States' military power and that the U.S. must urgently increase its defense efforts to maintain its superiority.

Forbes and Colby assert that "the balance of military power in the Asia-Pacific writ large is under serious and growing pressure from China's military-modernization efforts," and the U.S. "edge in technology … is eroding." They caution that China's military buildup poses "critical" challenges "to achieving U.S. political-military objectives in the areas that have traditionally been part of our defense umbrella," namely "challenges to [the United States'] military superiority in the crucial air, sea, space, and cyberspace domains." Most alarming, Forbes and Colby hold that failure to act could have "tremendous strategic consequences" for the United States and its allies.

To support these claims, Forbes and Colby provide no new details (or old ones, for that matter) about China's military buildup, instead quoting prominent officials. Their "evidence" consists of Commander of U.S. Pacific Command Admiral Samuel Locklear's statement that "our historic dominance … is diminishing;" Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Frank Kendall's assertion that the United States' technological superiority in defense "is being challenged in ways … not seen for decades, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region;" and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey's claim that "our technology edge [is eroding]." Forbes and Colby seem not to mind that the job of these officials is to cry wolf whenever they see any creature moving, lest they be charged with having ignored a menace if said wolf does materialize. Forbes and Colby also ignore that the military budget and the generals' command depend on finding a new enemy now that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are winding down. And they do not take into account the military's long record of overestimating the dangers posed by America's enemies, as notably occurred in the case of the former Soviet Union.

A careful reader notes that the two leading analysts do recognize that China's A2/AD defenses are full of holes, akin—in their words—to "a block of Swiss cheese," and it is incredibly difficult to protect a "huge territory". Forbes and Colby should have to added that Chinese submarines are noisy and pose little threat; China's single aircraft carrier  offers scant opportunity to project power against the diminished but still-vast American fleet; and that China's military buildup is dramatic only if one ignores that it started the "race" from far behind. It is easy to achieve double-digit percent increases in military spending when one's baseline budget was $30 billion in 2000 and had scraped $160 billion in 2012. By contrast, the United States' defense budget in 2012 was more than 400 percent larger—about $682 billion— than China's and remained $30 billion greater than the defense budgets of China, Russia, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, Saudi Arabia, India, Germany, Italy and Brazilcombined.

Forbes and Colby's military shopping list includes:

• Additional Virginia-class submarines and unspecified new technologies designed to "sustain our undersea-warfare advantage."
• Unspecified future aircraft with a host of novel capabilities designed to meet "emerging threat environments in the Western Pacific."
• Additional long-range bombers that would improve on the B-2.
• New, unspecified "credible kinetic and nonkinetic means to deter potential adversaries from extending a conflict into space."
• "[A] new generation of offensive munitions."
• Greater spending, generally speaking, on "cutting-edge and next-generation technologies."

Mark Gunzinger, who shares the same concerns, co-authored a document with Jan Van Tol, Andrew Krepinevich, and Jim Thomas on the Air-Sea Battle concept in which the authors recommended a host of military expenditures, including several technological and material developments and increases. These include:

• Unspecified "long-range penetrating and stand-off EA-capable platforms (manned and/or unmanned)."
• "Quantity obscurants, decoys, and false target generators for both offensive and defensive [electronic warfare] missions."
• Developing alternatives to GPS navigation and reducing United States' reliance on GPS for its "precision guided weapons."
• Directed-energy weapons (DEW)
• Additional unmanned undersea vehicles for intelligence purposes.
• Developing new mobile mines "deployable by submarines and stealthy Air Force bombers."
• "Stockpiling" precision-guided weapons.
• Additional air tankers.

One wonders what good these kinds of extra hardware would do in light of the fact that China is engaging in a low-key strategy of salami tactics that relies on enforcing its disputed maritime claims with mainly non-military assets. These include using civilian patrol vessels, which are "armed" with nothing more than water cannons and grappling hooks, and cutting the cables of exploration vessels belonging to other countries. Most important, do these analysts really presume that the United States should threaten China with war if it persists in claiming that several piles of uninhabited rocks and the waters around them are within China's exclusive economic zone or air defense identification zone?

More needs to be heard about China's actual intentions and interests before it is appropriate to conclude that the U.S. government should invest large sums in technologies that have strategic value only in outright war. Why would China seek to "eat our lunch," as Pentagon officials are fond of saying, or replace the United States as a global power? It has no ideology that calls for bringing its regime's ideals to the rest of the world. And it is under enormous pressure to attend to a host of serious domestic concerns, including an aging population, persistentenvironmental challenges, and an economic slowdown. Speaking of domestic challenges—won't the United States be stronger in the longer term if it chooses to invest more of its military spending, on fixing its aging infrastructure, creating jobs, and revitalizing its educational system?

Amitai Etzioni is a university professor and professor of international relations at The George Washington University. He served as a senior adviser to the Carter White House and taught at Columbia University, Harvard University, and the University of California at Berkeley. His latest book is Hot Spots: American Foreign Policy in a Post-Human-Rights World.

MH370

I Have Been Reluctant To Mention, Where You Are And Wherever You Are I'll Gotta Find You.

Sorry For Nothing

http://www.zaobao.com/forum/bilingual/story20140316-320540/page/0/1

Sorry For Nothing

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is once again stirring Asia's cauldron of national rivalries and historical resentments. This time, he has instructed a committee of historians to reexamine the official apology delivered in 1993 to World War II-era sex slaves held in Japanese military brothels. It is clear from various recent statements that some of Abe's closest advisers believe that the apology was not in order, so the committee might well conclude that Japan was never officially involved in prostitution, and that its "sincere remorse" should therefore be withdrawn.

What perverse reason could Abe have for pursuing such an outcome?

Glossing over, or denying, dark chapters of national history is not unique to Japan, of course. There is no room for Stalin's mass murders in the kind of "patriotic" education favored by Russian President Vladimir Putin. And the Tiananmen Square Massacre, to name but one bloody event in China's recent past, has been officially forgotten.

Still, Japan is a democracy, with freedom of expression. The official apology made in 1993 was prompted by a Japanese historian's discovery of documents showing that the Imperial Japanese Army had been directly involved in setting up, though not necessarily in running, what were known as "comfort stations." One of the official reasons was that widespread rape of Chinese women by Japanese soldiers was provoking too much resistance among the local population.

Various means were used to stock the brothels with young women. But, because there was no escape, the women, once ensnared in the system, were effectively slaves.

This has been officially admitted, so why reopen the ghastly business now, at a time when rescinding the apology would make Japan's already-strained relations with China and South Korea many times worse?

If Abe and his allies were cosmopolitan in their outlook, with a deep understanding of, or concern for, other countries, the decision to revisit the 1993 apology would indeed be extraordinary. But, as is true of many political leaders, especially on the nationalistic right, they are chauvinistic provincials whose concerns are almost entirely domestic. In their efforts to revise the historical record, they are not really thinking of Koreans or Chinese, but of political adversaries at home.

The views of the Japanese on their country's wartime history are deeply divided, reflecting political battle lines drawn in the immediate aftermath of the war, when Japan was under Allied occupation. The United States, which ran the occupation, was keen to reform Japanese society in such a way that another war would be unthinkable. Worship of the emperor was abolished, though Hirohito remained on his throne. Education was purged of all militaristic and "feudal" elements, including favorable references to the samurai spirit. A new pacifist constitution, written by the Americans, banned the use of armed force. And Japan's wartime leaders were tried in Tokyo by Allied judges for "crimes against peace" and "crimes against humanity."

Most Japanese, heartily sick of war and military bullying, were happy to go along with all of this. But there was always a right-wing minority that felt humiliated and resentful of the loss of national pride and, more important, national sovereignty, for Japan's security would henceforth have to depend entirely on the protection offered by the US.

One of the main leaders of this group of disgruntled nationalists was Nobusuke Kishi, Abe's grandfather. Kishi's aim was to regain Japanese pride and sovereignty by revising the constitution and reviving old-fashioned patriotism, thus undoing some of the American educational reforms. He failed, because most Japanese were still allergic to anything that smacked of militarism.

Until not long ago, there was a strong left-wing current in education and some of the media that used Japan's horrendous wartime record as an argument against any kind of revisionism. But, as long as the Japanese left used history to make this political argument, the nationalists pushed back by claiming that stories of wartime atrocities had been greatly exaggerated.

Books about the infamous Nanking Massacre of 1937, or the enslavement of "comfort women" in military brothels, were denounced as "historical masochism" or dismissed as "the Tokyo Trial View of History." The left was accused of being complicit in spreading foreign – Chinese, Korean, or American – propaganda.

This, then, is the modern Japanese version of populism: the "liberal elites," by falsifying the history of Japan's glorious war to "liberate Asia," undermined the Japanese people's moral fiber. Because the ideological collapse of left-wing politics in Japan has been as precipitous as in much of the Western world, the so-called liberal elites have lost much of their former influence. As a result, the voice of the nationalist right has grown louder in recent years.

That is why Abe can get away with appointing cronies to the board of NHK, the national broadcasting company, who openly claim that the military brothels were an entirely private enterprise and that the Nanking Massacre was a foreign fabrication. Historical truth is not the point; political mastery is.

Japan's prime minister is playing a risky game. He is upsetting allies in Asia, embarrassing the US, and making bad relations with China even worse. Like Putin, he is driving himself and his country into further isolation for entirely domestic reasons. In a region increasingly dominated by Chinese power, he will be without Asian friends.

And that is where Abe's behavior becomes truly perverse. After all, a Japan that is isolated in Asia will be even more dependent on the US, the wartime victor, which Abe and his nationalist allies hold responsible for the postwar order that they seek to revise.

(Ian Buruma is Professor of Democracy, Human Rights, and Journalism at Bard College.)

DiaoYu Island-The Truth

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90777/8564192.html

Chris D. Nebe

         

 

Hollywood writer and director Chris D. Nebe screened a newdocumentary about the Diaoyu Islands at the REAL D Theater on Tuesday, saying hehopes to show Americans the truth about the territory.

"Diaoyu Islands, The Truth" is produced by Monarex Hollywood Corporation and is one oftwelve documentaries in Nebe's "Mysterious China" series introducing Chinese history,culture and rapid development to the world.

The debut attracted nearly 100 viewers, who learned from the 40-minute film that theDiaoyu Islands have been Chinese territory since ancient times, and that Imperial Japanannexed the Diaoyu Islands from China in 1895 after the First Sino-Japanese War.

The short feature holds the view that "the real Diaoyu Islands conflict goes from the so-called administrative rights of the United States. After the Second World War, instead ofreturning the islands to China, the United States claimed 'administrative rights.' In 1971,America gave the islands back to Japan, ignoring China's long-standing claim."

In the last part of the film, Nebe asserts that "America can quell the tension byencouraging his Japanese ally to return the Diaoyu Islands to China and apologize toChinese people for the war crimes of Imperial Japan."

"My view point is that... the truth about Diaoyu Islands issues are completely wrong toldby Western media. I hope the movie will change it. We are pushing to help Americansknow the truth of Diaoyu Islands," Nebe said.

Japan should do the right thing and give the islands back to China, while Japanese PrimeMinister Shinzo Abe should go to Nanjing to apologize to China for the war crimes ofImperial Japan. These islands should not be a case for disrupting peace and harmonybetween China and Japan, he added.

Klaus Schmitt came to see the film with his wife. "Very little of my friends know DiaoyuIslands, only if you who are politically active or interested in history, but most people don'tknow it," he said.

He believed that the film gave him a neutral overall view on the issue.

Audience member Lynn Crandall, who works at the University of Southern California, saidthe documentary encouraged peace. "The film is a strong statement for us to try to findpeace, we must find a way to share the world in brotherhood. I believe we should beneutral. I think we are too much on the side of Japan, I think we should work for peace, notfor divide."

Anthony D. Ross, a lawyer who said he did not previously know about the conflict betweenChina and Japan over the Diaoyu Islands, told Xinhua, "It tells a lot that I did not know."

"Diaoyu Islands, The Truth" will be broadcast on American public television and is alsoavailable on the Internet, according to Monarex.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/03/03/the_t_word_China_kunming_knife_attack_in_western_media

The 'T-word'

Chinese Are Angry At Western Media's Portrayal Of A Dastardly Attack There.

In Chinese, just as in English, quotation marks can indicate attribution, doubt, or dismissiveness. And just like in the United States, terrorism is a sensitive issue in China, where disaffected citizens have at times used violence for political ends. In such an environment, employing quotation marks around a highly-politicized word like terrorism can be combustible. 

On the evening of March 1, a group of knife-wielding assailants dressed in black burst into a crowded railway station in Kunming, the capital of China's southwest Yunnan province, and slashed travelers, passersby, and police, killing 29 and injuring 143, including children and the elderly. Police shot dead four assailants at the scene, and say they have captured all the surviving suspects. Eleven hours after the attack, China's state-run Xinhua News Agency announced that based on evidence found at the crime scene, separatists from the northwest Chinese region of Xinjiang are behind the terrorist attack. (So far, no groups or individuals have claimed responsibility, and Beijing released the name of one alleged perpetrator.)  

Following the Xinhua report, many major Western media outlets covering the event, including The New York Times, CNN, Reuters, BBC, and CBC of Canada, used quotation marks around the word "terrorism," some in the article's headline, some in the body, and some in both. Chinese Internet users and domestic media were quick to notice this punctuation choice, and a storm of anger against perceived Western biasquickly brewed on Sina Weibo, China's largest microblogging platform.

While some Weibo users interpreted the quotation marks as attribution to the Chinese government's official statements, which most Western media outlets usually take with a grain of salt, many detected sympathy with separatist aspirations in Xinjiang, or what one called an "obvious agenda." Another wrote that some of the articles about the Kunming attacks ended "with the Han Chinese's invasion of Xinjiang's religion and culture," which "turned the carnage of civilians into a political game." (Xinjiang became part of the People's Republic of China in 1949, after Communist troops entered the region.) Tech entrepreneur Luo Yonghaotweeted to his 5.8 million followers that "uniformed thugs indiscriminately killing innocent civilians undoubtedly constitutes terrorism." He wrote that he had always admired the West, but "cannot stand" the way Western media first reported the Kunming attack. 

Chinese state media did not sit on the sidelines. The People's Daily, a Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece, also took to Weibo to demand an explanation from Western media for their "blindness and deafness" and "intentional downplaying of the violence and sympathy toward the assailants." "China sympathized with the September 11 terrorist attack," itwrote in a popular tweet. "But some American media harbored double standards regarding the Kunming terrorist attack. Why?"

A post by the official account of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing fueled the outrage. It did not, as many Chinese had hoped, characterize the attack as terrorism, but instead called it a "senseless act of violence." Almost all of the more than 50,000 comments left on the postaccused the U.S. Embassy of a double standard when it comes to violence in China. "If the Kunming attack were a 'horrific, senseless act of violence,'" the most up-voted comment reads, "then the 9/11 attack in New York City would be a 'regrettable traffic accident.'" (The United Nations Security Council released a statement late Sunday condemning "in the strongest terms the terrorist attack.") 

Some of the fallout from the embassy's statement stems from an unfortunate translation. "Senseless violence," a common diplomatic phrase the Obama administration has also used to describe the 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, which killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya, read as "meaningless violence" in Chinese. Many Chinese web users, likely already attuned for signs of disrespect, took that to mean the U.S. sympathized with the assailants. The violence did not serve its supposed purpose, the message seemed to say, but the assailants' goals could be achieved by some other means.

Perceived bias from Western media has roiled Chinese public opinion before. In the spring of 2008, Western media drew widespread criticismin China over coverage of ethnic clashes in Tibet and Xinjiang that many Chinese believed underplayed violence perpetrated by ethnic minorities. In the run-up to the August 2008 Beijing Olympics, many Chineseseethed against Western coverage of the Olympic torch relay, which often focused on the disruptions of the relay by human rights activists. In early 2008, some young Chinese Internet users set up a website called Anti-CNN to call out what they believed was biased reporting on China and, according to China's foreign ministry, to reflect grassroots "condemnation" of some Western media's "distorted and exaggerated" views.

These developments are troubling for U.S. - China relations, but not entirely surprising. In a digital age, it's relatively easy for wired citizens of one country to peer into the media environment of another. But old-fashioned cultural, political, and linguistic barriers remain. Even -- perhaps especially -- at times of tragedy, the combination often spurs more pique than understanding.

AFP/Getty Images

KunMing Train Station Terrorist Attack

KunMing Train Station Terrorist Attack

On the night of March 1, the police cordoned off Kunming Train Station. On the night of March 1, at 9:20pm, more than 10 masked assailants with knives [machetes?] wearing the same outfits hacked innocent people at the square, the booking halls, and other locations at Yunnan Kunming Train Station. Up till 1am on March 2, this violent incident had already caused 29 deaths and 113 injuries among the masses. The police shot down 5 assailants at the scene, while the rest of the assailants have yet to be apprehended. 

KUNMING - Twenty-nine civilians were confirmed dead and more than 130 others injured Saturday in a railway station attack in Southwest Chinese city of Kunming, authorities said.

Police have shot dead at least four attackers whose identities are yet to be confirmed and are hunting for the rest.

It was an organized, premeditated violent terrorist attack, according to the authorities.

Chinese president Xi Jinping has urged the law enforcement to investigate and solve the case of Kunming terrorist attack with all-out efforts and punish the terrorists in accordance with the law.

More than 10 terrorist suspects attacked people at the square and ticket hall of Kunming Railway Station at 9:20 p.m. Saturday, killing at least 28 civilians and injuring 113 others.

Xi stressed the careful rescue and treatment of the injured civilians and proper handling of the dead.

He called for full awareness of the grave and complicated situation of anti-terrorism and effective measures to crack down violent terrorist activities in all forms.

Xi has assigned officials, including Meng Jianzhu, head of the Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, and member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, and Guo Shengkun, Chinese state councilor and minister of public security, to go to Yunnan to guide work and visit injured civilians and relatives of the victims.

Premier Li Keqiang asked relevant departments to catch and punish the terrorists, and public security departments at all levels to strengthen prevention and control measures to guarantee the safety of public places.

A Xinhua reporter on the spot said that injured people have been rushed to more than 10 local hospitals for treatment.

A doctor with the Kunming No.1 People's Hospital told Xinhua over the phone that medical workers of the hospital are busy treating the injured.

According to Xinhua reporters at the hospital, a dozen of bodies were seen at the hospital. As of 0:00 a.m. Sunday, more than 60 victims in the attack have been sent to the hospital, emergency registration records showed.

Liu Chen, a 19-year-old student from Wuhan City of central China's Hubei Province, was traveling in Yunnan. Liu and her friend were at the station for tickets to the tourism city of Lijiang when the attack suddenly happened.

"At first I thought it was just someone fighting, but then I saw blood and heard people scream, and I just ran," Liu said.

Chen Guizhen, a 50-year-old woman, told Xinhua at the hospital that her husband Xiong Wenguang, 59, was killed in the attack.

"Why are the terrorists so cruel? " moaned Chen, holding her husband's blood-stained ID card in shaking hands.

The couple, both farmers from the Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture, bought Sunday tickets to the eastern province of Zhejiang for their new urban jobs and planned to stay over in the waiting room.

"I found his ID card on his body. I can't believe he has just left me," she cried.

Yang Haifei, a local resident of Yunnan, told Xinhua that he was attacked and sustained injuries on his chest and back.

Yang said he was buying a ticket when he saw a group of people rush into the station, most of them in black, and start attacking others.

"I saw a person come straight at me with a long knife and I ran away with everyone," he said, adding that people who were slower were severely injured.

"They just fell on the ground," he said.

At the guard pavilion in front of the station, three victims were crying. One of them named Yang Ziqing told Xinhua that they were waiting in the station square for a 10:50 p.m. train to Shanghai, but had to escape when a knife-wielding man suddenly came at them.

"My two town-fellows' husbands have been rushed to hospital, but I can't find my husband, and his phone went unanswered," Yang sobbed.

Pictures on Sina Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, show local police patrolling the station. Bodies in blood can be spotted on the ground in the pictures. Doctors were seen transporting injured people to a local hospital.

A Weibo user screen-named "HuangY3xin-Dione," who was dining in a restaurant near the railway station, said that she was "scared to death," adding that she saw a group of men in black with two long knives chasing people.

According to Kunming railway bureau, train departures have not been affected.

The incident has fueled massive anger among the people across China, with netizens severely condemning the violent attacks on social websites like Sina Weibo and WeChat, a popular instant messaging service.

The attacks at the station might have created blood and violence, but it has also awakened a strong sense of justice and strength among us. We strongly condemn violence, and we call on people to stop circulating bloody pictures, read a message on WeChat.

On Sina Weibo, netizens are spreading the word of stopping the circulation of bloody photos on the Internet.

"Stop publishing bloody photos, because that's just what the thugs want," a Weibo user with the screenname "Fuzhaolouzhu" wrote on her Weibo account.

Another Weibo user screennamed "CakeryCupcakes" said she hopes mainstream media could provide immediate and transparent report.

The security management bureau under the Ministry of Public Security called the incident a "severe violent crime" at its official Sina Weibo account.

Now, the situation is gradually going stable, and the injured have been treated, while police are investigating the case, it said.

"No matter what motives the murderers hold, the killing of innocent people is against kindness and justice. The police will crack down the crimes in accordance with the law without any tolerance. May the dead rest in peace," it read.

Zhang Yumin, 59, a retired cashier from Beijing, is flying to Kunming on Sunday morning with her husband for a sight-seeing tour. She said she will not change her schedule despite the attacks.

The Kunming Railway Station, located in the downtown area of the city, is one of the largest railway stations in southwest China. It was put into operation in 1958.

The latest violent terrorist attack that caused most civilian deaths happened in June last year in Lukqun Township of Turpan Prefecture in farwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

A total of 24 people were killed and 23 others were injured in the attack.

On October 28 last year, a jeep crashed at downtown Beijing's Tian'anmen Square, causing five deaths and 40 injuries. Police found gasoline, two knives and steel sticks as well as a flag with extremist religious content in the jeep.

The police later identified the deadly crash as a violent terrorist attack.

This picture is of the 3 warning lines set up by the police on Beijing Road which leads to Kunming Train Station, prohibiting all vehicles from entering.

This picture is of one of the passengers at the scene still in shock.

A group of riot police on route to the scene.

On the night of March 1, scattered luggage outside one of the ticket booking halls of Kunming Train Station (photo taken by cellphone). Photographed by  Xinhua News Agency  reporter Ling Yiguang.

On the night of March 1, the police cordoning off the scene outside Kunming Train Station. Photographed by  Xinhua News Agency  reporter Ling Yiguang.

Pictures are of the scenes of the violence.

On the night of March 1, a wounded woman receiving medical treatment at Kunming City No.1 People's Hospital (cellphone photo). Photographed by  Xinhua News Agency reporter Li Meng.

On March 2, before dawn, the wounded receiving medical treatment at Kunming City No.1 People's Hospital. Photographed by  Xinhua News Agency  reporter Ling Yiguang.

On March 2, before dawn, a wounded man receiving medical treatment at Kunming City No.1 People's Hospital. Photographed by  Xinhua News Agency  reporter Ling Yiguang.

This picture is of a wounded person receiving emergency medical treatment at the hospital.

This picture is of KunMing Train Station. 

China And Britain Won The War Together

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/10546442/Liu-Xiaoming-China-and-Britain-won-the-war-together.html

 

China And Britain Won The War Together

Japan's refusal to face up to its aggressive past is posing a serious threat to global peace

Koreans in Seoul Railway Station watch a TV news program on Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to the controversial Yasukuni war shrine

By LiuXiaoMing                             10:36PM GMT 01 Jan 2014

In the Harry Potter story, the dark wizard Voldemort dies because the seven horcruxes, which contain parts of his soul, have been destroyed. If militarism is like the haunting Voldemort of Japan, the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo is a kind of horcrux, representing the darkest parts of that nation's soul.

Last week, in flagrant disregard of the feelings of his Asian neighbors, Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, paid homage at the Yasukuni Shrine, where 14 Class A war criminals – defined as those who committed "crimes against peace" – are enshrined. They were among the 28 Japanese political and military leaders convicted by an international military tribunal after the Second World War.

The Yasukuni Shrine was established more than 150 years ago, and Asian people know very well how it has since been used by Japanese militarists as a spiritual symbol to launch wars of aggression. In addition, it is deeply offensive to witness convicted war criminals being venerated. These were leaders found guilty of inflicting indescribable suffering on countless individuals during the war. Rightly, within hours of Mr Abe's visit, there were strong condemnations from China, South Korea and across the international community.

Visits to the shrine by Japanese leaders cannot simply be an internal affair for Japan, or a personal matter for any Japanese official. Nor does it concern only China-Japan and Korea-Japan relations. Deep down, paying this kind of homage reveals whether Japan is trustworthy. It raises serious questions about attitudes in Japan and its record of militarism, aggression and colonial rule.

At stake is the credit of that country's leaders in observing the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and upholding peace. It is a choice between aggression and non-aggression, between good and evil and between light and dark. Regrettably, what Mr Abe did has raised the spectre of militarism rising again in Japan.

Mr Abe's track record provides evidence. Since taking office in 2012, he has been talking enthusiastically about justice, democracy, peace and dialogue. But the reality is seen in his actions. He is unrepentant about Japan's militarist past and makes no apologies for it. He has openly questioned whether his country should be defined as an "aggressor", and did his utmost to beautify its history of militaristic aggression and colonial rule.

In May 2013, Mr Abe caused great offence in China and Korea when he was photographed posing in a military jet boldly marked with the number 731: this was the code of an infamous Japanese biological warfare research facility performing human experiments in China during the war.

With these precedents, the world should be very alert. Mr Abe wishes to amend the post-war pacifist constitution, imposed on Japan by the USA. Close attention should be paid to his colleagues, such as Taro Aso, the deputy prime minister, who asserted that Japan could "learn" from Nazi Germany about revising constitutions. Mr Abe has worked hard to portray China as a threat, aiming to sow discord among Asia-Pacific nations, raising regional tensions and so creating a convenient excuse for the resurrection of Japanese militarism.

Last year, I explained in a newspaper article the key principles concerning the Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea, and pointed out the severe consequences of Japan's provocations. This time, I believe Mr Abe has continued his brinksmanship by visiting the Yasukuni Shrine; it has rekindled bitter memories of Japan's past-war crimes.

We know from history that a country that starts a war and ends up in defeat has two options. One is to face up squarely to its past, make sincere apologies and renounce militarism, as Germany did. The German approach has contributed to regional stability and world peace. It has earned respect and acclaim from the whole world.

The other option is to deny past aggression, allow militarism to rise and raise the threat of war. Unfortunately, Mr Abe's actions confirm that he favours the second option: he seems determined to lead Japan on to a perilous path. The international community should be on high alert.

Next week, The Railway Man, a film based on a true story, will be released. It tells the tragic story of a British PoW tortured by the Japanese in the Second World War. The film is not only about the atrocities committed by his Japanese captors, but also how one of them is harrowed by his own past. His redemption is only effected through deep remorse and penitence.

China and Britain were wartime allies. Our troops fought shoulder to shoulder against Japanese aggressors and made enormous sacrifices. Sixty-eight years have passed since that horrible war. Yet there are always some incorrigible people in Japan who show no signs of remorse for war crimes. Instead, they seek to reinterpret history. They pose a serious threat to global peace. The Chinese will not allow such attempts. I am sure British and all other peace-loving folk will not remain indifferent.

China and Britain are both victors of the Second World War. We played a key role in establishing the post-war international order that has delivered great benefits for mankind. Our two countries have a common responsibility to work with the international community to oppose and condemn any words or actions aimed at invalidating the peaceful post-war consensus and challenging international order. We should join together both to uphold the UN Charter and to safeguard regional stability and world peace.

 

 

The Glorious Days

The Glorious Days

                            By Beyond For Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjQ0NTQ0ODk2.html

The Bell Rings For The Call Of Home　　

In The Life Of His　　

It Seems To Be Meaningless　　

The Thing Dark Skin Has Given To Him　　

Is Fighting For Black Race All His Life　　

You've Lost What You Owned In Those Years　　

But There're Still Hopes In Your Weary Eyes　　

Now We've Only Got The Empty Life　　

To See The Glorious Days　　

Holding Freedom In Stormy Seas　　

Suffering The Painful Time Life Brings　　

Will Surely Make A Change　　

Who Can Just Make It Right　　

Can We Forget About The Races　　

Hope On This Land　　

Equality Is For Everyone　　

The Pretty Color Shows Its Own Beauty　　

Cause It Does Not　　

Separate Each Of Them　　

You've Lost What You Owned In Those Years　　

But There're Still Hopes In Your Weary Eyes　　

Now We've Only Got The Empty Life　　

To See The Glorious Days　　

Holding Freedom In Stormy Seas　　

Suffering The Painful Time Life Brings　　

Will Surely Make A Change　　

Who Can Just Make It Right

How To Be A Leader

http://world.time.com/2013/10/17/whats-the-secret-to-chinas-incredible-success/

WATCH: China's Viral Video On How To Be A Leader

According to a wildly popular online cartoon in China, the answer lies in the careful way the country grooms its leaders—a process that puts the American and British political career ladder to shame

By  Chengcheng Jiang / Beijing Oct. 17, 2013

Video Site "http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjIxNjAyNzM2.html"

The "How Leaders Are Made" video, which has been viewed more than 1 million times since it was uploaded on Oct. 15, presents cartoon characters representing China's President Xi Jinping and the six other men who make up the country's ruling Standing Committee.

As a bouncy Xi bobs across the screen, a bright, cheery voice intones that every provincial or ministerial level leader in China is chosen from among 140,000 officials—a process that takes at least 20 years. The men who rule the world's second-largest economy, clearly, are very special men whose selection involves "meritocratic screening that requires years of hard work like the making of a kung fu master."

And what effort does reaching the level of U.S. President involve, according to the video? Only one year and "an unending flow of greenbacks." (Becoming Britain's PM is compared to Susan Boyle winning "Britain's Got Talent.")

Who exactly produced the cartoon isn't clear. The five-minute spot was uploaded in Beijing and the closing credits are for "A studio on Fuxing Road." Surely this is a pun: fuxing, or revival, is a signature catchphrase of China's ruling Communist Party, which has unveiled a propaganda campaign calling for the national revival of the Middle Kingdom.

Furthermore, Fuxing Road in Beijing is a street famous for being lined with government bureaus. The office of the General Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television is one of them. As speculation erupted over the video's mystery creator, the Southern Metropolis Daily, an occasionally enterprising Chinese daily, quoted an expert who said the video was very likely made by someone in government. After all, despite the massive number of hits the cartoon has received, the video has not been pulled by China's industrious censors.

Why Reading Their Own Language Gives Mongolians A Headache

http://en.rocketnews24.com/2013/09/27/why-reading-their-own-language-gives-mongolians-a-headache/

Why Reading Their Own Language Gives Mongolians A Headache

Being able to read is something many people take for granted. I mean, English with its Latin alphabet only consists of 26 letters. Now imagine that the writing system (or script) of your country was changed for political reasons. Cities and towns across the border share almost the same spoken language, but with a totally different way of writing it down. This has been the situation in Mongolia. Drastic changes in scripts throughout the twentieth century have led to recurrent headaches for native readers.

I've met many a foreigner in Japan, or third culture kid who despite their fluent spoken language skills was unable to read. Here's an example. A friend of mine who learned Bulgarian from her parents was visiting her native land. She jumped into a taxi, confident that she'd be driven to her destination, and fluently gave the address. The taxi driver gave her an extremely odd look. It turned out that where she wanted to go was right there, but she couldn't read the signs to figure that out.

Spoken Japanese is fairly easy to pick up if you live in Japan, while memorizing the bare minimum of 2,136 kanji characters for everyday use requires serious study. And that doesn't include the incredibly varied characters for personal names or place names. Foreigners who can chat comfortably in Japanese are a lot less likely to be able to read signs or menus, let alone newspapers. Let's just say I've seen even native speakers sneakily looking up how to write a particular kanji on their phones.

Not being able to read easily is tough, wherever you live. In Mongolia, reading can be a huge pain for native speakers… this is why!

- "Ma, why do I have to learn my alphabet twice?"

There are currently two forms of writing the Mongolian language. One is the traditional Mongolian script ("Old Mongol script") written vertically down the page like this:

The other is Mongolian Cyrillic, written horizontally like this:

Монгол Кирилл үсэг

Cyrillic is used in the state of Mongolia, while the traditional Mongolian script is used in neighboring Inner Mongolia (an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China). You might expect that because Mongolian is now written in Cyrillic it's similar to Russian, but in terms of grammar Mongolian is much more like Japanese .

Traditional Mongolian script is said to date from 1204, when scribe Tatar-Tonga was captured by the Mongols and introduced the Uyghur form of writing, originally written horizontally. Eventually, this became written vertically—Mongolians might say that happened because it was easier to write down the horse's neck rather than across.

However, by the end of the century this would change. The Yuan dynasty of Kublai Khan (famous grandson of Genghis) promoted the imperial Phagspa script for the vast area they controlled. This intricate writing system was invented by Tibetan lama Zhogoin Qoigyai Pagba for Kublai Khan. It ambitiously aimed to be a script able to be used for all the languages under their sway, including Chinese, Tibetan and Mongolian.

▼  Phagspa script

In 1368 the Yuan dynasty collapsed, and as the Mongols retreated to the steppes, this writing system soon fell out of use and was replaced by traditional Mongolian script once more. The reason Phagspa disappeared so quickly could have been its privileged existence as a faithful representation of the language of the imperial court—it didn't reflect how ordinary people spoke.

About 600 years later, Mongolian script reached another turning point. In 1921 revolution broke out, and by 1924 communist rule was established in the new Mongolian People's Republic.

- "Workers of the world, unite!" Different alphabets adopted under Soviet pressure

▼  Latin script propaganda

 

In 1924, the literacy rate was below 10 percent. Mongolian script was held up to ridicule, and Latin script was named the alphabet of the revolution for writing Mongolian. Away with the old ways of thinking and in with the new—the traditional teaching of Buddhist parables gave way to educational reform.

From the early 1930s, there were attempts to switch from Mongolian to Latin script, but these early attempts met with strong opposition. However, in the latter half of the decade circumstances changed as continued use of Mongolian script was denounced as "nationalist" in the wake of Stalin's Great Terror. Everyone was forced to support the Latinization of Mongolian writing, in fear for their lives.

In February 1941, the government gave an official green light to the use of Latin script, but the following month, these same public officials decided Mongolian should be written using the same Cyrillic alphabet as Russian. Clearly, there had been some kind of pressure exerted by Moscow.

In the 1950s, linguistically-divided Chinese Inner Mongolia also began to consider adopting Cyrillic. But from the end of the decade the Sino-Soviet split came to a head and cast a pall over this movement, which eventually sputtered and died.

During the perestroika period, Moscow's grip loosened. People regained their appreciation for tradition, and cultural renaissance was in the air. A new movement to abolish Cyrillic and restore Mongolian script arose. In September 1992, education began in Mongolian script from the first year of primary school. Unfortunately, when these children reached third year, Cyrillic was adopted once more. In the face of harsh economic reality, the budget couldn't stretch to train teachers and educate students in the vertical Mongolian script.

- Writing systems divided by national borders

As a result, while the state of Mongolia and Chinese Inner Mongolia speak almost the same language, it is written in totally different ways in each country. It's possible that these writing systems may never be united.

The phenomenon of border lines creating linguistic division can be seen all over the world. A country which gains independence generally wishes to gain independence from the language of the oppressors and a distinct voice, especially if there is a shared border. Crucially, the changes in written Mongolian did not come about through the will of the Mongolian people, but through the political posturing of surrounding nations. Next time you come across a written English word that you don't know how to pronounce, spare a thought for Mongolia's differing systems of writing.

Source: Yukiyasu Arai, Japan Business Press
Featured image:  Rona Moon
Insert images: Wikipedia , Akihabara Area Blog