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China’s Careful Days

 

oilprice.com, 02/01/14

 

The Chinese believe that they can achieve their objective of acquiring islands throughout the South and East China Seas without a fight. It worked against the Philippines. If they try the same strategy against Japan over the Senkaku Islands, they just may get a bloody surprise.

 

The Reference to the "String of Pearls" first appeared in a 2005 intelligence report about the emergence of China as a regional power. The String of Pearls is a number of Chinese built port facilities in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Pakistan and were constructed by Chinese state owned corporations. That is to say that they were built under Chinese government direction.

 

The Chinese insist that they are strictly commercial operations, while the United States, India, and Japan are convinced that they will eventually be transformed into military advanced positions for what is seen as a rival emerging naval power, but that is unlikely. There is a very remote chance that China will position military forces far from the homeland where they cannot be supported in a time of crisis and in countries that could undergo regime and attitude changes abruptly.

 

Beyond that problem, not many of the host countries will permit China to maintain military forces in their territory. An alliance with China would make the host a potential target should China become involved in a military conflict.

 

The real threat from China comes from the Paracel Islands near Vietnam or Scarborough Shoal 190 kilometers west of Subic Bay in the Philippines. A map that was published by China in 1951 and presented to the United Nations in 2009 declares these to be Chinese territory. Chinese claims encompass two million square kilometers of the South China Sea. If China were to achieve its objective, the South China Sea would become a Chinese lake and China would become the gatekeeper between the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

 

The Paracels were seized by the Chinese in 1974 after a brief skirmish with the South Vietnamese Navy. It was only in June of 2012 that China established Sansha City on Woody Island as the administrative capital of the Paracel and Spratly Islands.

 

On January 21, 2014, a 5,000 ton patrol boat began regular patrols from a newly established base on Woody Island. Included in its patrol area is Scarborough Shoal that was abandoned by the Philippine Navy on June 15 2012 to a superior Chinese naval force after a brief encounter.

 

Unlike the Paracels, the Chinese seizure of the shoal was accomplished through simple intimidation without a shot fired. The success of the strategy has prompted Beijing to look at the event as a model for future actions that have been labeled as "extended coercion."

 

The chart that was presented to the United Nations as China's counter argument against Vietnam and the Philippines was drawn long before Beijing was interested in oil and gas deposits and long before China had a navy that could enforce Chinese claims over the far-flung islands. What is revealed in the vague charts is an awareness of China's vulnerable underbelly that was the means by which foreigners invaded the country.

 

The Paracel Islands and the Scarborough Shoal are bricks in what is the construction of a new Great Wall of China. Like the first wall that was designed to block a land invasion, the new marine wall is intended to protect China from attacks on its weak underbelly.

 

Geography has given China natural barriers to shield it from land invasions. Through the control of the four non-Han Chinese regions of Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet, China can secure the heartland from attacks from Russia, the western steppes, India or Southeast Asia; and Beijing is strengthening its hold over the vital buffer states by moving Han Chinese into the regions.

 

For many centuries, the natural barriers made China into an isolated island where it had the opportunity to nurture a unique civilization, but isolation will no longer shield the society in an age of modern technology. China will have to do what Japan did more than a hundred and fifty years ago when it opted to adopt the strength of the foreigners to equal them.

 

Deng Xiaoping Started China along that course when he began the industrialization of the country. The new strategy requires China to become international in its outlook. Like Japan and all other industrial states, China relies upon the outside world to provide the markets for its goods and the natural resources to feed the industries and the people.

 

Eighty percent of Chinese commerce is carried by ships that transit through the South and the East China Seas. To reach Chinese ports, the ships pass between a chain of islands that extend between Okinawa and the Philippines and between Indonesia and Singapore. Who controls those islands determines whether they are a trap for China or a barrier against an invasion.

 

The United States Navy since 1945 has assured the freedom of the open seas to the benefit of all nations engaged in international commerce. 5.3 trillion dollars in trade passes through the South China Sea; and China, more than most, has benefited from American control of the seas.

 

In spite of the benefits, Beijing sees that their economic survival depends upon the good will of a potential enemy. This fear has been made more real by the introduction of the new American pivot to Asia that includes the strategy of Air-Sea Battle, which requires the establishment of air and naval bases from Hawaii to India, the introduction of new weapon systems and strengthens alliances with Japan, Australia, India, and Vietnam as well as the Philippines and Singapore.

 

China views the strategy as a method of containment that must be overcome. The commissioning of China's first aircraft carrier Liaoning in 2012 was a conspicuous move by China to create the image of the country as a major military power to impress the smaller neighbors, to inflate the national pride and to provide a training platform for the expansion of a carrier force. The military has been growing by ten percent per annum with emphasis upon naval and air forces as a part of their strategy of access denial to potential enemies. If China could base its coastal defenses on the chain of islands, hostile naval forces could be kept far from the mainland.

 

The U.S. carrier forces allows American power to remain outside of the non-Chinese controlled islands and beyond the reach of Chinese anti-ship defenses from where it can block the passage of ships through the South and East China Seas. American control of the sea lanes gives it the means to cut the vital link between Chinese factories and stomachs with the world outside. In spite of years of rapid development, the Chinese navy lacks the strength to challenge the U.S. Navy on the open seas.

 

However much bravado the Chinese display, they seek to attain their objectives without engaging in a shooting war with a major power; and believe that they can. That is the lesson that Beijing learned from the incident in 1974 when the American naval forces refused to assist their Vietnamese ally or in June 2012 when the U.S. declined to take a position on the side of the Philippines. The lesson is that American interest is restricted to insuring that freedom of the seas is maintained in the Commons and not to become embroiled in every territorial squabble; and that is to China's advantage. Even in the case of the Senkaku, Washington has expressed its determination to defend Japan, if Japan is attacked, but Washington has not acknowledged the Japanese ownership of the islands.

 

What Scarborough Shoal taught Beijing is how to apply pressure without employing a level of force that would provoke the United States to intervene. American ships will not fire upon a cluster of Chinese fishing boats in waters where they do not belong or upon an oil rig drilling in a neighbor's waters. These are matters better left to the parties involved to resolve peacefully.

 

Among the various territories in dispute, it is the Senkaku Islands that are in the headlines and it is these islands where there is little room for compromise. When China and Japan in 1972 were settling the problems left from World War II, the question of the Senkaku was left for a future generation to resolve. Tokyo knew that the islands were Japanese and Beijing was unable to enforce Chinese claims of ownership.

 

A drunken Chinese Fishing boat captain in 2010 changed the minor issue of the islands into a crisis. The captain rammed two Japanese patrol vessels and was arrested, which sparked outrage in China. Anti-Japanese riots and the cut off of rare earth shipments to Japan forced Tokyo to release the captain who returned home a national hero.

 

In Japan, nationalists treated Japan's release of the captain as a humiliation. Governor Shintaro Ishihara of Tokyo, who has built his political career upon an outspoken promotion of nationalism, started a program to purchase the islands in order to establish a physical Japanese presence on them.

 

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda in September 2012 saw the move of the nationalists as a provocation of the Chinese that he could thwart by having the government purchase the islands from the private Japanese owner. What was intended to defuse an explosive situation was treated in Beijing as the Japanese nationalization of a Chinese island.

 

Since the days of the drunken captain, the Chinese have been sending fleets of fishing boats with patrol boats into Senkaku waters. Each time, Japanese Coast Guard boats are forced to drive them away. Over a one year period, the Chinese Coast Guard intruded fifty-nine times into Senkaku waters and has been stretching the resources of the Japanese Coast Guard to its limits.

 

Chinese military aircraft are being sent to the edge of the Japanese air defense identification zone. The Japanese scramble fighters to intercept and the Chinese aircraft always change course just on the edge of the zone.

 

On two occasions, Chinese armed vessels activated their weapon systems against a Japanese helicopter and against a Japanese ship. The Japanese simply filed protests with Beijing about the provocation.

 

The surprise came on November 24 2013 when China declared the creation of an Air Defense Identification Zone. Twenty zones exist around the world under the control of the United States, Canada, the UK, Norway, Japan, and South Korea. They have no real standing under international law, but are widely accepted as a means of regulating air traffic.

 

The Chinese zone is different. It overlaps the zones of Japan and South Korea and extends over territory that is claimed by Japan and by South Korea. The declaration of the zone came when Vice President Joseph Biden was to visit Beijing.

 

It was Scarborough Shoal again. Without risking any losses, Xi Jinping could posture without taking any risk; and he was rewarded for his audacity. Washington refused to recognize the zone for military flights while advising commercial aircraft to comply with Chinese demands. Without expending any resources beyond talk, China gained partial recognition of its claim from the United States. The Japanese refuse to acknowledge the zone.

 

On January 24, 2014, the Chinese raised the temperature again. They are demanding that military aircraft report when they enter the zone. They claim that verbal warnings have been given to aircraft violating the zone, but did not specify to which aircraft the warnings were given or when. Neither did Beijing explain what would be done if their demands are ignored in the future.

 

They Chinese are not eager to start a war, but they do want to secure a vital brick in their new wall and are seeing the opportunity slipping away. Driven in good part by the Chinese growing assertiveness, the nationalists in Japan are calling for an expansion of the military to counter the threat.

 

The submarine force is to be increased from sixteen to twenty-two. The helicopter carrier ships are to expand from two to four, and Japan will be adding the F35 jet fighter and is adding a new unit of marines to their army and are supplying Vietnam with patrol boats to counter Chinese encroachment into their waters. Already, Japan has a formidable military that has the most advanced weapons available. In a few more years, Japan will be even more capable of defending its interests at home and abroad where they are beginning to collide with the Chinese in Africa.

 

The nationalists in Japan have made the Senkaku Islands a point of national pride. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has been an advocate for the development of the Japanese military, has introduced into the public schools the order to have Japanese students taught that the islands are Japanese. He is making it impossible for the government to abandon the claim.

 

If Beijing intends to acquire the Senkaku Islands to add to their wall, they will have to move quickly before Japan expands the military bases on nearby Okinawa and acquires the more advanced weapons that are planned. The question is if the lesson of Scarborough Shoal that worked against the far weaker Philippine Navy can be applied to the Japanese. Extended coercion may prove to be the trigger to an unexpected and unwanted fight that the Japanese just might win and lead to the third humiliation of China by Japan. Xi Jinping has to think about that very carefully.

 

This article was written by Oilprice.com -- the leading provider of energy news in the world. Also check out these recent articles:

 

·        Chinese Regulator Warns about Credit Risks of Coal Companies

·        Reports of Coal's Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

·        China's Bold $10 Billion Investment in Nigerian Hydrocarbons

 

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/02/01/chinas-careful-days.aspx



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我對上一篇貼文《中國的強硬外交為了滿足內需》(Why Is China Really Provoking Its Neighbors? - R. Kaplan)的內容大致沒有意見。「外交在延續或輔助內政。」這句老話早就證明了它的「經驗值」；根據它來判斷或預測政治行為，大概不會出什麼差錯。

 

雖然「凡論述必有前提；凡判斷必有立場。」，但是，作為一位名嘴、評論家、尤其是學者，總需要維持某種程度的「可信度」、「可尊敬度」、或至少要盡量避免給人以「睜眼說瞎話」的印象。

 

Kaplan的文章中有下面這一段話：

 

Preponderant Chinese naval and air ability is not yet there. Unsurprisingly -- again, in most cases -- the United States is largely ignoring these Chinese actions. In other words, there is no demonstrable American naval buildup in the region.

 

這是標準的「擦脂抹粉」論述。

 

首先，美國在太平洋或全世界各地的海、空軍實力，相對於當地各國固然居於「優勢」，但這個「優勢」只是「『相對』優勢」。或「『紙上』優勢」。以中國地區與連帶海域的遼闊，一旦發生軍事衝突，這個「『相對』優勢」大概只能維持3 – 6個月。

 

其次，中、美雙方利益早就盤根錯節的糾纏在一起。包括美國領導人一旦決定出手干預其他國家事務，或解決其他更直接和具體的威脅，美國需要中國替她「掠陣」。從而，雙方領導人都會盡量避免兩國間因為擦槍走火的意外發生軍事衝突。這是美國ignoring中國政府「挑釁」行為的根本原因；它也是no demonstrable American naval buildup in the region的根本原因。

 

談到「外交在延續或輔助內政。」，歐巴馬政府的pivot或re-balancing難道不也是針對domestic audience？否則，何以她甘於坐視所謂的亞太「盟國」被中國政府pushing around？



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Why Is China Really Provoking Its Neighbors?

 

Robert Kaplan, 02/13/14

 

What are the Chinese up to? Why raise tensions as much as they have in the Pacific Basin? Beijing's recent declaration of new fishing rules in disputed territorial waters has raised the ire of maritime neighbors and the consternation of the United States. It follows on the heels of the recently declared air defense identification zone, or ADIZ, above disputed islands in the East China Sea, which led American B-52s from Guam to overfly the region -- as a challenge to China's declaration and as a statement in defense of Japan, which also claims these islands. In the face of American and Japanese military resolve, can China even defend its claim to the Diaoyu (Senkaku in Japanese) island chain? Or can China truly dominate the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea?

 

China's bark certainly seems bigger than its bite, as the saying goes. China is acting in both the East China Sea and the South China Sea from, in some respects, a weak position. Indeed, China's various ground-based and airborne early warning systems -- needed to defend the new ADIZ -- are either too far away or still in production, while Japan is further ahead with this type of platform, which has been part of its military for decades. China's naval logistics and long supply lines make formal occupation of islets in the Spratlys difficult to obtain and harder to maintain.

 

To be sure, with the exception of Japan, China's navy and coast guard can overpower any single local competitor. But China cannot overpower any combination of states that includes the United States. And any overt act that changes the status quo -- occupation of islands, military confrontation or, for that matter, the establishment of an air defense identification zone -- threatens to do just that: draw in the United States. Meanwhile, the Philippines has been vocal in calling for expanded U.S. naval and air assets in and around its archipelago. And Washington will soon shift one of its most modern aircraft carriers to a forward deployment in Japan.

 

But what if the Chinese regime merely wants to raise tensions with the United States for the sake of a domestic audience, while avoiding actual conflict with it? That is a risky proposition, but it does explain China's behavior. In fact, it explains China's actions across the whole Asia-Pacific region -- actions that garner explosive headlines but are in other ways somewhat benign. The Chinese have coast guard ships circling islands, and those ships occasionally push a Philippine or Vietnamese fishing boat around. It is mainly bluster and puff. In almost all cases the Chinese are not fundamentally altering strategic realities, for they cannot. Preponderant Chinese naval and air ability is not yet there. Unsurprisingly -- again, in most cases -- the United States is largely ignoring these Chinese actions. In other words, there is no demonstrable American naval buildup in the region.

 

What we are seeing, therefore, is mainly a managed set of confrontations that serve domestically in China to keep the nationalistic spirit at a high volume in order to reinforce the sense of rising Chinese power -- something particularly necessary for the leadership during a time of slowing economic growth. Huffing and puffing at sea also helps China shape bilateral discussions with neighboring maritime claimants from a position of greater strength, or at least lay the groundwork for later assertions of ownership by highlighting the inability of local powers to fully deny China's claims -- something China's neighbors obviously worry about. Furthermore, by having its navy and coast guard antagonize a country such as the Philippines -- not to mention Japan -- China shows its domestic audience that the regime is standing up to the United States, a treaty ally of both of these countries.

 

But observe how China has actually behaved in both the East China Sea and in the South China Sea over the past few years: When its unilateral actions generate too much attention from the United States on account of its alliance structure -- so that the costs of Chinese actions outweigh the benefits -- the Chinese simply shift attention elsewhere. For example, the Chinese stoked tensions for weeks on end in the disputed Spratly Islands near the Philippines in the South China Sea. But just as the United States began to take notice, threatening an uptick in U.S. naval involvement, China shifted military -- and hence public -- attention to the East China Sea and Japan. The Chinese did not stop patrols near the Philippines; they just reduced them somewhat and took demonstrable action elsewhere, around the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands. It is likely, therefore, that this East China Sea dispute will fade a bit in the news and that the Chinese will raise the level of maritime provocation near Vietnam or Taiwan. Because China cannot fully secure the waters in the Pacific's marginal seas with the U.S. Navy and Air Force watching its every move, Chinese air and naval actions seem to have much to do with image management at home.

 

Because Chinese military capabilities are growing at a faster rate than most other Asian countries, it would seem to make sense for Beijing to be a good neighbor, provoke no crises, and simply bide its time as over the years the correlation of military power in the Pacific shifts slowly in its favor. Such a strategy would draw many countries in the region closer to Beijing's orbit, thereby lessening their psychological dependence on the United States. In fact, were China's leaders under no public pressure at home, it would make sense for them to play this long game with the utmost discipline: no military provocations abroad, even as China builds inexorably its military might. And for years, under former leader Deng Xiaoping's advice, China did just that -- keeping its military capabilities relatively quiet, its territorial challenges relatively mute.

 

But China's leaders evidently feel that they are under pressure at home. China's economic miracle is not what it was several years ago. Fundamental reform and rebalancing can no longer be avoided. And even if such reform works and China's new leaders turn out to be heroes on the scale of the late Deng Xiaoping, more social and political turmoil probably still cannot be avoided. China's new president and party leader, Xi Jinping, needs levers he can pull to ease public pressure on his new leadership team. Nationalism can easily be dialed up in such a circumstance.

 

In sum, China, by provoking crisis after crisis in the East and South China seas, is apparently acting against its middle-term strategic interests abroad in exchange for short-term benefits at home. After all, provocations such as bullying the Philippines and raising tensions with Japan will only intensify these countries' reliance on U.S. power, which China wants to see dissipate in the region. There is an irony here: Dictatorships do not, at least by definition, govern by the consent of the governed. But in this case, as in many others, it turns out that even dictators desperately require public approval and often act counterproductively to obtain it.

 

Of course, Chinese leaders and their people believe fervently in their territorial claims in the Pacific and would say that they are merely asserting their rights in the face of false claims by other states in the region, backed up by the hegemonic United States. But again, the likelihood for satisfying these claims would increase were China to act in a low-key fashion, even as it continues its military buildup and, later on, has the element of surprise.

 

For decades Americans have believed that Chinese power would be more benign if only China liberalized, with public opinion playing a larger role in shaping policy. But the opposite appears to be true. The more Chinese leadership feels it has to listen to public opinion, the more truculent and nationalistic the regime's behavior is likely to become. So while this particular crisis in the East China Sea will likely wane, many similar ones will likely crop up over the horizon. In the long run, as China's military capabilities catch up to its rhetoric, the willingness of neighboring states to dismiss China's claims will decrease.

 

Robert D. Kaplan is Chief Geopolitical Analyst at Stratfor, a geopolitical intelligence firm, and author of Asia's Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific. Rodger Baker is Stratfor's Vice President of East Asia Analysis. Reprinted with the permission of Stratfor.

 

http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2014/02/13/why_is_china_really_provoking_its_neighbors.html



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Why will Japan and China avoid conflict? They need each other.

 

Despite dark allusions to Germany and Britain in 1914, the two powers' economies are deeply intertwined, and Japanese doing business in China are guardedly optimistic.

 

Justin McCurry, 0205/14

 

One of the most striking warnings that Sino-Japanese tensions could descend into conflict came from none other than Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe.

 

Speaking at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Abe suggested that Japan’s relationship with China was in a “similar situation” to that between Britain and Germany before the outbreak of World War I in 1914. The most common interpretation: that close economic ties between nations are not always enough to prevent them from going to war with each other.

 

Japanese officials insisted that Mr. Abe’s comments, as reported by some foreign media, had been taken out of context. But his analogy raises an important question about the ongoing territorial dispute between Japan and China: whether strong bilateral trade will be enough to pull them back from the brink or, at the very least, help them weather the current diplomatic storm. The answer – at least for now – is yes, according to the consensus emerging among the myriad Japanese companies with business interests in China.

 

That guarded optimism contrasts with the autumn of 2012, when Japan’s decision effectively to nationalize the Senkaku islands – East China Sea territories also claimed by China, where they are known as the Diaoyu – sparked riots in several Chinese cities and forced Japanese businesses in the country to temporarily close amid calls for boycotts of Japanese products.

 

“We suffered a downturn, just like every Japanese company that has business interests in China,” says a spokesman for the automaker Nissan. “But 2013 ended up being our best-ever year for sales,” he adds.  Between January and December last year, Nissan's new vehicle sales in China, which accounts for a quarter of the firm's global sales, totaled 1.27 million units, up 17 percent from a year earlier. “We fully expect that sales there will continue to grow in 2014,” the spokesman adds.

 

The broader picture tells a similar story. Exactly a year after the riots in China, sales were returning to near pre-crisis levels, with Japan’s exports to China rising more than 11 percent in September 2013 from a year earlier; Japan's imports from China, its biggest trading partner, increased by more than 30 percent over the same period.

 

INTERDEPENDENT ECONOMIES

 

Economically, Japan and China need each other. Trade between the two countries has tripled over the past decade to more than $340 billion in 2012. China offers Japanese firms an affordable manufacturing base and a vast export market. Between 1995 and 2011, for example, shipments to China accounted for 45 percent of the overall growth in Japanese exports.

 

China, in turn, depends on Japanese investment and the jobs that come with it, while its own export industry would struggle without Japanese technology. About 60-70 percent of the goods China imports from Japan comprises the machinery and parts it needs to make its own products. And for every 1 percent of growth China sees in global exports, imports from Japan rise by 1.2 percent, according to 2012 calculations by the International Monetary Fund.

 

Given that backdrop, any military confrontation in the East China Sea would have profound implications for the global economy. It could also suck in the US, which is treaty-bound to come to Japan’s aid if it is attacked.

 

Japanese firms can take some comfort from the absence of violent protests in China or boycotts of Japanese goods since Abe visited a controversial war shrine in Tokyo at the end of last year.

 

Richard Bush, director of the Center for East Asia Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington, says China has come to realize that a repeat of the officially sanctioned mass protests of 2012 would only strengthen the hand of Japanese right-wingers.

 

Mr. Bush suggests that the benefits China accrues from strong economic ties with Japan will trump any desire to raise the stakes over territorial and historical disputes.

 

“But Beijing’s motivation is probably more strategic than economic,” he adds. “It doesn’t want to have the US get drawn into whatever might happen in the security realm with Japan. What I think they are doing is low-risk, and may work, whereas a more aggressive approach carries greater risks.”

 

PROVOCATIONS

 

Not all analysts share the view that China has responded with restraint. They point to its declaration last November of an air-defense identification zone, which requires even civilian aircraft to notify Chinese authorities of their flight paths, and frequent sightings of Chinese surveillance ships and aircraft in the disputed area.

 

“China still rejects any peaceful means to overcome the different claims to the islands, and is sticking to coercion," says Tetsuo Kotani, a research fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs in Tokyo. “But China is losing the diplomatic cards with which to pressure Japan, since Prime Minister Abe has made it clear that he is determined not to compromise in the face of Chinese pressure.”

 

Mr. Kotani is not convinced that economic considerations and fear of the terrible consequences of war will always guide Beijing’s thinking. “Economic ties are not a primary reason for avoiding war, since no one has proved that economic interdependence prevents war,” he says.

 

Tension, not conflict, is uppermost in the minds of Japanese firms in the wake of Abe’s Yasukuni pilgrimage. The shrine honors 14 class-A war criminals among 2.5 million Japanese war dead, and is viewed by China and South Korea as a symbol of Japan’s past militarism.

 

While Japanese companies saw exports to China recover to pre-2102 crisis levels at the end of last year, the Yasukuni visit could dent their prospects for the coming year. ”We believe everything will work out for the best, but we are closely monitoring the situation in China,” says a source at a Japanese exporter who asked not to be named.

 

"CHINA-PLUS-ONE" STRATEGY

 

While few believe that war is a realistic concern, Japanese companies appear to be making contingency plans in case the diplomatic climate deteriorates.

 

Their direct investments in China fell by almost 37 percent the first nine months of 2013. By contrast, Japanese direct investment in the 10 ASEAN nations rose more than 55 percent in the first half of that year from the same period in 2012 to a record high of USD10.2 billion, according to the Japan External Trade Organization.

 

"Economically, China and Japan are a perfect match," says Martin Schulz, chief economist at the Fujitsu Research Institute in Tokyo. "A big, young market in China for Japan's ageing industry and capital, and an overflow well of technology and depressed capital in Japan for China's development.

 

"Politically, however, things will remain difficult. So companies in Japan are looking for "China-plus-one" strategies that connect the wider Asian market with China's strong economy, while Chinese companies are heading towards investment opportunities in Southeast Asia, too."

 

But he adds: “While the political situation has clearly not improved, the business environment for corporations on both sides has almost normalized.”

 

There was evidence of that as recently as November, when more than 100 executives took part in the biggest Japanese business mission to Beijing for more than a year.

 

Their hosts, including Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang, did not mention the Senkaku islands, while the local media reported encouraging words from China’s former ambassador to Japan, Xu Dunxin, who told the delegation: "We hope the communication between high-profile business entrepreneurs will help result in a turnaround of the strained China-Japan relationship."

 

A month earlier, executives from ten leading Chinese companies in Guangdong Province visited Japan in search of more investment. They met Yoshihide Suga, the chief cabinet secretary and close Abe ally.

 

"We were able to feel a positive attitude toward cooperation between Japan and China," Hiromasa Yonekura, the outgoing chairman of the Japan Business Federation, told reporters after the trip to Beijing. "I believe we have taken one step forward."

 

RECOMMENDED: Think you know Japan? Take our quiz to find out.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/why-japan-china-avoid-conflict-other-140713708.html



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需要和應該「深思熟慮」的人是安培
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麥芽糖
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Totally agree!



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「凡判斷必有立場。」2.0
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麥芽糖
胡卜凱

這是另一個支持「凡判斷必有立場。」這個命題的案例。

 

作者的偏見躍然紙上，例如他/她對釣魚台列島的歷史地位或者一無所知，或者故意略過不提。再加上一廂情願(wishful thinking)的思考模式，例如他/她還在津津樂道Asia Pivot和Air-Sea Battle。

 

日本的國力和軍力固然不能與越南和菲律賓等量齊觀，但「形勢不饒人」這句老話和經驗之談仍然適用。我不希望看到中、日之間發生軍事衝突，更期望雙方領導人能以區域和平以及本國長期利益為判斷和決策的基礎。但是，萬一由於擦槍走火而導致局部或短期戰爭，我看得到bloody nose的人是安培，窘態畢露的國家是日本。換句話說，需要和應該「深思熟慮」的人是安培。這個結論請參考本城市《亞太情勢分析》一欄開欄文(Erase that war with China 'in 2014' -- P. Lee)。



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