Some headlines should be accompanied by exclamation points!!!!

Today I read in the Financial Times, “Philippines backs rearming of Japan.”

My reaction was, “Philippines backs rearming of Japan!!!”

When China gets a Philippine official to state “We would welcome that very much,” in reference to having Japan ditch the pacifist clause in its constitution, then you know that the People’s Republic has completely botched its diplomacy. (The Philippines is a country that still remembers the Japanese occupation, albeit not near as vividly as China or Korea.)

I currently believe that the United States is still what preserves the peace in East Asia. China is being aggressive. The Chinese public (at least portions of it) seems to have some militaristic tendencies. (Click the link for the pictures.) So it is not hard to imagine a Chinese government trying for a splendid little war with the Philippines or Vietnam. Nor is the converse impossible: since Japan currently hold naval superiority, Japanese politicians might try to goad the big fellow into a similarly splendid little Sino-Japanese naval war. 

It is not just China. Don’t forget the stunningly hostile South Korean reaction to Japanese possession of the Dokdo (aka Takeshima) islands.

I know, Steven Pinker tells us that we live in a less violent age. And he is right! But still ... sometimes a weird whiff of 1914 drifts over from East Asia. And it seems like the offshore balancing of the United States is what keeps the smell of gas from igniting.

Anyway, to bring it back full circle, when the Philippines calls for Japanese rearmament, then China’s attempt to assert its claim over the potentially energy-rich (and strategically located) South China Sea has now officially backfired.

Comments

[Eric Moore]

Not really sure shifting allegiances based on realpolitik and balance of power considerations really remove the whiff of 1914. But we can hope.

[Doug M.]

Korea is a post-colonial society whose extremely brutal former colonial master is still right there, just a short hop away. So, Nipponophobia is still a core element of Korean nationalism, and likely will be for a long time to come. It's a bloody shirt that's always lying close at hand, waiting for someone or other to wave it.

That said, nationalist hysteria is usually (not always!) a question of internal politics. This can make it relatively opaque to outsiders; it looks to us like Korea is going nuts, when in fact there's usually (not always! but usually) a more complex game going on involving various impulses in Korean politics and society.

Anyway: the rise of China is generating new defensive arrangements all across the region. For example, Indian-Japanese relations have grown steadily stronger and tighter over the last decade. The two countries quietly signed a security pact in 2008. They’ve conducted joint naval exercises in the Indian Ocean. Their trade has more than tripled since 2001 (albeit from a low base), and Japan is funding several massive Indian infrastructure projects with cheap loans.

Similarly, Japanese-Vietnamese relations have been growing ever warmer and closer; Japan is Vietnam’s largest investor and largest donor, and there are regular friendly high-level meetings of prime ministers and Party chairmen and such. The two countries don’t have a formal security pact (yet), but have agreed upon a “strategic partnership for peace and prosperity in Asia”. Their first joint military exercises ever are scheduled for 2013 — because it’s going to be “Vietnam-Japan Friendship Year”, don’t you know.

Of course, neither Vietnam nor India has particularly bitter memories of Japanese colonization or occupation. Still: the Philippine response is consistent with what's been going on across the region for a little while now.

Doug M.