China, Japan and the first world war

Echoing of the guns of August

SHINZO ABE, Japan’s prime minister, seems to have found the perfect riposte to China’s constant comparisons of his administration to the one that led Japan into the second world war: to liken China to the German regime ahead of the first world war. Of course, in a year that marks the hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of that war, Mr Abe is neither the first nor will he be the last to draw parallels. But as the leader of a country that would be on the front line of a renewed conflict, his words weigh more heavily than those of academics or journalists.

Mr Abe made his remarks at that annual gathering of the great, the good, the winter-sporty and those whose presence is presumably not essential to the smooth running of their countries or businesses: the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Talking—on the record—to a group of journalists, Mr Abe said that China and Japan are in “a similar situation” to that of Germany and Britain a century ago.

In fact, the point he seemed to be making was not so much about growing military rivalry and naval competition—though of course, with the tense dispute over the Senkaku or Diaoyu islands, that is also a factor. Rather he was making a commonly made salutary argument: that those who think war is impossible between China and Japan because they are so intertwined economically overlook the way a previous wave of fast-growing trade and globalisation ended—in a cataclysmic war.

Since America has a mutual-security treaty with Japan, which it has repeatedly affirmed covers the Senkakus, the risk is indeed of a global conflict. Elsewhere at Davos, a Chinese “professional” speaking in a forum where his identity was kept confidential, shared a rather terrifying analysisof the stand-off over the islands. Seeming to regard limited conflict as inevitable, he suggested China might be contemplating a symbolic “invasion”, planting a flag on the islands.

It is hard to imagine that China’s leaders are seriously contemplating such a foolhardy adventure. But the risk of an accidental collision or clash between Chinese and Japanese boats or aeroplanes around the islands does make armed conflict a real possibility—even a probability, in the eyes of some experts.

It does not help that Chinese and Japanese officials are now using every possible opportunity to make their case against the other country. Mr Abe’s set-piece speech at Davos did not name China but it did not need to. It was an unmistakable call for the world to back Japan in standing up to China's rise, before it is too late. China, for its part, keeps calling Mr Abe names (“troublemaker” is the favourite) and uses his visit to the controversial Yasukuni shrine in December 2013 to make its own historical analogies. Comparing Mr Abe's government with the wartime regime of the Japanese war criminals who are among those enshrined at Yasukuni, of course.

Joseph Nye, a political scientist at Harvard, has warned of the dangers of the current vogue for historical analogy. Sensibly he points out that “war is never inevitable, though the belief that it is can become one of its causes.” However, if Mr Abe’s remarks were intended not just to score debating points, but to draw attention to the very serious risks this argument carries, then he should be applauded.

Shinzo Abe comparing current Japan and China relations to that of Britain and Germany circa 1914 shows what a person endowed with false Shinto beliefs and fascists views knows about history. First of all, Japan is no Britain circa 1914 when Britannia rules the waves. Japan is nothing more than a military defeated country with a diminishing impact on the world and a lacklustre economy and image in the world brought about by decades of stagnation and now a revival of fascism albeit the discredited Shinto version. China on the other hand just wants her stolen territory the Diaoyu Islands back and doesn't have any pretentions of conquer territories and colonies like 1914 Germany. This is a dispute about stolen territory only. China couldn't give a damn about what Japan does to commit hara-kiri with the economy and relationships with the rest of Asia or the world. Shinzo Abe's diabolical analogy about 1914 Britain and Germany is just another example of the morally bankrupt Japanese fascist ideology made even more extreme with the discredited State Shintoism with was proven a false religion when the Japanese emperor was relegated into something a lot less. Japanese revisionist WWII history added to zero understanding of European history shows the Japanese fascists are desperate to win world public opinion but only proving themselves to be the monsters they really are. Shinzo Abe and the Japanese fascists are not only the enemy of peace but a treat to Japan's very existence. With these kind of renegades in charge of Japan, Japan have no future.

This article is an absolute garbage. Comparing the conflict with China started by Japan to that between England and Germany?

The Brits did not rape Nanking, killed over 300,000 civilians that include women, children and the old/disabled, and, most importantly continue to deny it ever happened. Abe, as a prime minister of Japan repeatedly visited the Yashukuni Shrine honoring the war criminals tells volume. He wanted a repeat of the savage invasion of China during WWII.

The Germans did commit a crime in WWII but they have the courage to admit it, apologize and compensate the victims and/or their families. It shows humanity and civility, and they have class.

The Imperialist/Nationalist Japan led by Abe would not get what they wanted. Yes, they are exploiting the United States with the hope of getting them into an open war with China, but are the Yankees that stupid? Besides, the civilized world and the Chinese would not allow it. Don't listen to what Abe and his cohorts are saying or lying. Watch their deeds. If they dare to invade any territories that belong to China, they will get what they deserved. Picking up rocks and dropping them on their own feet would not be a good feeling.

A much simpler analogy would be to assume you are new to the neighborhood and your neighbor (Japan) stole your bicycle when you (China) were down & out with fever. When you finally recover after some weeks you go over to ask your neighbor to discuss about the issue of your missing bicycle.

However, he (Japan) would not even want to talk to you on the subject because he claims that there is no question at all on its ownership - the bicycle now belongs to him because he found it at a time when no other person 'discovered' or 'claimed' it.

More importantly, your neighbor has this good friend who is a huge white guy (USA) and can be quite a bully - even bashed someone's face up (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan et al) once over something less. He is influential and very established with many powerful friends in the neighborhood. Now, your neighbor wants him or his circle of friends (International Law regimes) to be the mediator on this issue.

What would you do? Surely you can't wait for your neighbor to admit to anything while you are not doing anything. Hence, maybe a gesture of a 'symbolic' sticker with your name on it pasted forcefully (surgical strike) on the bicycle would get your neighbor's attention. Hopefully, he'd come to his senses and recognize it's time for negotiations.

Abe is changing their pacifist constitution to allow start war after their sleaze invade in Asia in Second World War.If you ever know the disarster that chinese people suffered, you will not talk so much nonsense.The war criminals in Yasukuni were the evil of Japan's militarism.You should be shamed of the applaud!!!!!

I beg to differ. The US has defense treaties with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines, and has troops stationed in Australia, Singapore and Okinawa. The US secretary of defense has stated for the record that the Senkakus are covered by the treaty.

The FPDA, a treaty which requires Britain, Australia and New Zealand to come to the defense of Singapore and Malaysia if they are attacked might not seem like a candidate for involvement in the South China Sea disputes until you realise that Singapore - from where the US controls the Malacca Sraits, route of 85% of China's energy imports from the Middle East - is in the PLA Navy's "First Island Chain" objective, along with the Philippines and Borneo. The area inside the First Island Chain is the area from which the PLA Navy seek to expel US forces, making the FPDA a cndidate for involvement.

Abe has suggested including Japan and India in the FPDA and creating (in his words) "a security triangle" with India, Australia and Japan at the apexes. So the FPDA is being leveraged in the absence of an ASEAN military capability.

Now tell me "there is no network of alliances that would cause the war to spread".

Editors: I find the underlined hyperlinks in the article text distracting. Can you not just mention related articles at the bottom?

To get on with my comment, China has compared every postwar Japanese government to the 1931-45 imperial regime, so this is hardly a significant new development.

There is actually no parallel with 1914 here. The Great War broke out over competing claims for large tracts of Europe, not to mention colonial greed. Japan and China won't go to war over a few acres of dry land or the offshore waters. Any accidental exchange of fire would not be followed up. Neither country has a "Schlieffen Plan" to invade and occupy the other across hundreds of miles of sea, nor do they have the ability, and there is no network of alliances that would cause the war to spread. Japan could cite its defense agreement with the US but I think the US would be inclined to interpret it in the narrowest sense possible.

Abe has laid store for his arrows aimed at China, three as a set ever since his took office in cabinet. The first one is to provoke China by nationalizing the Diaoyus and visiting the shrine where class A criminals were worshipped. The second one is to take advantage of ‘China Threat’ in hope of rebuilding his imperial army by increasing defense budget, which secures its top position that average military expenditure comes up to USD 2million per military personnel totaled 250 thousand. The third one is to make amendment to its pacifist constitution, which he though was imposed on Japan by the American occupations to make his country ‘normal’ or change it from economic-oriented; to military oriented. The dirty trick Abe plays is nothing but to draw China into a war when the latter is endeavoring to engage in a peaceful rise.

Is there any similarity between the relation in regard to German and England prior to WWI and that between China and Japan in the 21 century? Everyone has his own pertinent understanding unless if only his knowledge is not slanted. What China declares in relation to Sino-Japanese relation involves three key issues, namely, the Diaoyu islands, Yasukuni shrine visiting by Japanese cabinet members and modification of its constitution, which is the bottom line to boot.

Apart from the fact that it is one hundred years since the world war first took place, the year 2014 is`120 anniversary since Sino-Japanese war in Pacific ocean occurred, during which all Chinese fleets were destroyed and Taiwan as well as the Diaoyus were annexed consequently. Can Chinese people remain indifferent towards Japanese Incitement as they are descendants of the war victims?

The comparison should be for about 80 years ago, when Germany, recently defeated in WWI, pushed for 'normal country' status, challenged international order established by versailles treaty, and built a war shrine of unknown soldiers where Adolf prayed for peace... yeah similarities abound.

Mr. Abe apparently needs some high school level history lessons. Japan is no Britain circa 1914, who was the only super power over the globe at the time. The analogy is not even close. Not by a country mile. Japan today is nothing more than Uncle Sam's waterboy and protégé. LMAO.

Abe's provocation is also meant to divert attention from nuclear arguments in Tokyo gubernatorial election in additin to his long standing pro-war stance with his longing to remove shame from his grandpa Nobusuke Kishi, a war criminal later turning CIA agent and PM. By allowing cheap-yen policies US helps Abe gain arrogance and induce Japan-China conflicts so that US can retain power in Asia.

other than the fact that the english language was derived from german, just like the japns language was derived from chinese, in comparison, there’s no redeeming value of any kind in mr abe’s misspoke at davos.

I am disturbed at TE’s vociferous one sidedness vouchsafing japan with article after article of on the recent japns nonsense.

about 20% of japns foreign trades are done with china, how much is it for the uk? does uk really hates china that much? What for?

I tell you what ' is Japan supposed to do ', it should try to convince Japan's master the us that japan is now or will soon be a born again Christian or Buddhist so that japan can be spared from being continuously imprisoned as a vassal state with the us troops and bases all over the darn place for some 70 years now.
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that's what japan should being doing instead of keep provoking and bullying its neighbors.
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otherwise the us has a moral obligation to the world to keep occupying japan and guarding it from biting the hands that fed and nursed japan since ww2.

"China - an undemocratic state that has brutally suppressed internal dissent"

What has this got to do with China's assertiveness of sovereignty over the islands? First of all, it is not even true - there is complete freedom as long as one does not instigate or plot to topple the government. Have you even been to China? If China had been democratic, it would be broken up into 100 pieces already; much to your western delight I guess, or the rural population would have overwhelmingly voted for the nationalization of these islands by now. It is the CPC government that has been holding its people back all the while.

Surely, you have to give credit to the CPC government for steering China to an economic and political force it is today - no longer a pushover or a towel boy for the western fat man.

Quote: “Since America has a mutual-security treaty with Japan, which it has repeatedly affirmed covers the Senkakus, the risk is indeed of a global conflict.”
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Robert Gates, the former US defense secretary, has revealed in his recent memoir that the US had actually prevented South Korea from launching a retaliatory air strike on North Korea in 2010, after North Korea had launched a surprise bombardment of South Korea’s Yeonpyeony Island earlier which resulted in over a dozen casualties.
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Instead of backing and protecting South Korea with solid military reactions, as written on the US-South Korea mutual-security treaty, the US had chosen to chicken out and cool things down, for fear of getting involved in an escalated military conflict, at the expense and to the displeasure and disappointment of its longtime South Korean ally.
.http://news.yahoo.com/us-prevented-south-korea-air-strike-north-says-030...
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The US had undoubtedly shown in this incident how much a “mutual-security treaty” was worth (i.e., very little if anything at all).
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If the Japanese were so naïve for believing that the Americans would always watch their back, then they would very likely end up being pissed.

Shinzo Abe is just a walking time bomb shooting a lot of filth from his mouth showing what a lunatic and fanatic he is. Japan's LDP have a sordid reputation of corruption and immorality with worshiping war-criminals their forte. What a bunch of uncivilised, immoral bunch of fanatics and lunatics. The ordinary Japanese should get rid of these fanatics for the good of Japan and North Asia.

I think TE has milked enough of this Sino-Japanese conflict. Same old merry go around comments and delusions from the sour grape.
Let's see an article on how Abenomics is going to affect Japan in a couple years. Afterall, the forum in Davos is about economics.