Saturday, September 15, 2012

Chinese Seize Japanese Islands

This means war, right?

"Chinese activists arrested by Japan on disputed island" by William Wan  |  Washington Post, August 16, 2012

BEIJING — Regional tempers flared in Asia on Wednesday — the anniversary of the end of World War II — after Japan arrested more than a dozen Chinese activists who had landed on a disputed island in the East China Sea.  

Why is "disputed" if it is in the East CHINA Sea?

The conflict is the latest in a string of blowups over the disputed island territories, and it exacerbated tensions on the anniversary of Japan’s surrender in 1945, a date that still stirs up bad blood among its neighbors because of the brutal Japanese occupation during the war.  

You would think the EUSraeli empire would have learned something from the great demons of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan (or so we are taught), but nooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!  

Turns out PEOPLE DON'T LIKE BEING BOMBED INTO OBLIVION and having their lands OCCUPIED by ARMIES -- no matter who they are!

Shortly after the activists’ arrest, China vowed to lodge a formal complaint with Japan....

Many Chinese activists have embarked on similar forays in recent years, and several have been turned away by Japanese authorities.

According to the group behind Wednesday’s attempt, the party encountered setbacks along the way, including problems with weather and lost food supplies, before finally nearing the island Wednesday afternoon.

The group’s representative said they managed to evade several Japanese Coast Guard boats, which tried to pummel them with water cannons.

Japanese authorities said they arrested five of the activists after some of them managed to swim ashore the island.

A spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement urging Japan to refrain from doing anything that would endanger Chinese citizens or their property.

And on the same day the Chinese activists were arrested, a group of South Koreans, who likewise harbor a grudge stemming from the war, swam to a different group of islands in dispute between South Korea and Japan. The Korean event, however, centered around a 220-kilometer relay swim that was led by a South Korean pop singer.  

You would think there would be an object lesson in there for U.S. globe-kickers, war-planners, and empire-builders.

Sort of playing out in front of their eyes a little further west of the Far East.  

Hello, shitheads, anyone at home down there in the bowels of power? Could you war-mongers get your heads out of your asses please?

Their swim followed a controversial first-ever visit last week to that set of islands by a South Korean president, an event that caused Japan to lodge a formal complaint of its own with South Korea.

That Asian karma sure is an incredible thing, 'ey?

Those articles must be in the stacks of half-read papers and notes.

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Related: Japan deports 14 to end China fight

No chance of that:

"Thousands in China join anti-Japan protests" August 20, 2012

HONG KONG — Anti-Japanese protests spread across China over the weekend, and the landing of Japanese activists on a disputed island Sunday sharply intensified tensions between the two countries.

Thousands of protesters took to the streets in nearly a dozen Chinese cities Saturday and Sunday in response to Japan’s detention Wednesday and deportation Friday of activists from Hong Kong, Macau, and China who had landed on the island, part of a chain of uninhabited islands known as the Diaoyu in China and the Senkakus in Japan.

Demonstrations took place in cities up and down China’s eastern provinces, according to Xinhua, the official news agency. Photographs posted on Sina Weibo, the country’s most widely used microblogging service, suggested that large numbers of people took part in the protests. In one image said to be from the southwestern city of Chengdu, deep in China’s interior, the number of protesters appeared to be in the tens of thousands. Chinese state media portrayed the demonstrations as fairly small, involving fewer than 200 people, and not extending to inland provinces....  

If you haven't noticed, AmeriKan media does the same thing. Gays, global-warmers, immigrants, and any cause that advances the agenda are treated favorably; if you are antiwar or Occupy you are either ignored or insulted.

Some protests appear to have turned violent. Demonstrators attacked sushi restaurants or other businesses perceived to have a Japanese connection or overturned cars — most of them Japanese models....  

How do you say Kristallnacht in Chinese?

The demonstrations appeared to be sanctioned and chaperoned by police, who generally prohibit public protests unless they suit the needs of the Communist Party.  

I'm really, really getting tired of this rank, stink-pot-hollering-kettle s*** media that is nothing more than a pos propaganda mouthpiece.

In the past, Beijing has allowed nationalist sentiment to bubble up into street demonstrations, but the authorities usually keep them contained out of concern they might spiral out of control or metastasize into popular antigovernment sentiment.  

Ah, yes, the unending stream of war propaganda and the controlled protests. I recognize those features well.

Even as the protests began unfolding Sunday morning, a group of conservative Japanese activists might have planted the seeds for further anger in China. About 10 of the activists, including local assembly members from Tokyo, swam ashore to the disputed island, Uotori.   

Aaaaaah, PROVOCATEURS!!

While Japan controls the island chain, the Tokyo government restricts access in order to avoid inflaming regional tensions. The 10 who landed Sunday did so without permission, and were later questioned by the Japanese Coast Guard.

The group said they were responding to the pro-China activists’ landing, and they urged Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to do more to defend the islands. ‘‘Four days ago there was an illegal landing of Chinese people on the island,’’ Koichi Mukoyama, a lawmaker who was sailed to the island but did not swim ashore, was quoted as saying by the Associated Press. ‘‘We need to solidly reaffirm our own territory.’’

Is it REALLY WORTH a WAR with that NUCLEAR PLANT STILL SPEWING RADIATION??  

Oh, right, a DISTRACTION is JUST WHAT IS NEEDED!!

The Chinese Foreign Ministry reacted angrily, after having asked Japan to make sure no activists reached the island.

‘‘Japanese right-wing elements have illegally violated China’s territorial sovereignty,’’ Qin Gang, a spokesman, said in a statement on the ministry’s website. ‘‘Relevant officials from the Foreign Ministry have already made stern representations to the Japanese ambassador, making a strong protest and urging Japan to cease actions that are damaging China’s territorial sovereignty.’’  

Translation: The Chinese are sick of being kicked around, and need I remind you the "disputed" island is in the East CHINA Sea!

The Japanese activists were part of a group of conservative members of Parliament and local politicians who arrived at the island on a flotilla of nearly two dozen boats that carried about 150 people.  

The Israelis didn't board and kill anybody, did they?

The Japanese Coast Guard did not release the names of the activists who had made it to shore. Photos of the landing by the Kyodo News Agency showed several men and at least one woman standing in wet street clothes as they displayed a Japanese flag on the island’s rocky shore. In China, Global Times, a nationalist-inflected newspaper owned by People’s Daily, the Communist Party mouthpiece, held an impromptu seminar on the crisis Sunday, with many participants calling for more radical action.  

Related:  

Six Zionist Companies Own 96% of the World's Media

Declassified: Massive Israeli manipulation of US media exposed

Talk about mouthpieces.

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Just wondering if hypocrisy was on that Asian menu.

"Japan reportedly near deal to buy 3 disputed islands" by Martin Fackler  |  New York Times, September 07, 2012

KYOTO, Japan — The Japanese government struck a tentative agreement to buy three uninhabited islands in the East China Sea that are at the center of a heated territorial dispute with China, a source close to the talks said Thursday....

Those Japanese think they can buy anything (a sarcastic joke, readers, nothing more)!

While the dispute has been simmering for decades, emotions flared in April after Tokyo’s outspoken rightist governor, Shintaro Ishihara, proposed that his city buy the islands. That prompted nationalists from China and Japan to stage separate landings on the islands last month, actions that led to anti-Japanese street demonstrations in China.

Ishihara’s proposal was apparently an effort to criticize Japan’s governing Democratic Party, which had sought closer ties with Beijing, for failing to take stronger action to defend against China’s increasingly assertive claims to the islands....

That prompted the national government to make a counteroffer to buy the islands, something that Japanese officials have cast as an effort to reduce tensions. They said if the national government took control, it would build no structures on the islands, and instead would strengthen coast guard patrols and other efforts to prevent activists from landing on them.

Still, China responded critically Wednesday to earlier reports of a purchase deal. In Beijing, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, called the sale ‘‘illegal and invalid,’’ according to The Associated Press.

Major Japanese media outlets had reported Wednesday on a formal deal to sell the islands for about $26 million. However, a spokesman for the islands’ owners, the Kurihara family, said that while the family was in negotiations with the government, no formal agreement had been reached. The spokesman, Kazuyuki Shimooki, said the reports were based on leaks to the local media, possibly to pressure the family to make a final deal.

The national government already owns one of the islands, and the fifth remains in private hands. While the islands themselves are little more than barren rocks, scientists believe the sea floor around them holds rich petroleum deposits.

Oooooooooooooh!!!  Literally at the BOTTOM of it ALL!!!!

Japan says that China began to claim the islands only after those reserves were discovered.  

Where are those islands located again?

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Related: China accuses Japan of stealing disputed islands

Where are they?

We shall soon know, 'eh? 

"China, Japan trade warnings at sea" Associated Press, September 15, 2012

TOKYO — Chinese and Japanese government ships exchanged warnings Friday in waters near disputed islands in the East China Sea, while Tokyo called on Beijing to protect its citizens amid anti-Japan protests and reported assaults in China.

Tensions between the Asian giants have flared anew after the Japanese government bought the islands from their private Japanese owners this week. The uninhabited islands, claimed by both countries as well as Taiwan, have become a rallying point for nationalists on both sides.

In response to Japan’s purchase, China on Friday sent six surveillance ships into what Japan says are its territorial waters around the islands, called Senkaku by Japan and Diaoyu by China. Japanese coast guard ships radioed warnings to the Chinese vessels and two or three moved out of the territorial waters, said Yasuhiko Oku, a Japanese coast guard official.

Japan controls the islands, which are surrounded by rich fishing grounds and are near key shipping lanes, but China doesn’t recognize those claims....

And that Other thIng under the sea fLoor.

With a typhoon approaching the area, by Friday afternoon all six Chinese ships had left the 24-mile zone around the islands, said Yoshiyuki Terakado, another Japanese Coast Guard official.

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And a typhoon of sorts just went through there, too:

"Hillary Clinton calls for Southeast Asian unity on island disputes" by Matthew Lee  |  Associated Press, September 04, 2012

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called Monday for Southeast Asian states to present a united front to the Chinese in dealing with territorial disputes in the South China Sea to ‘‘literally calm the waters.’’ And she urged all involved to make ‘‘meaningful progress’’ on a process for ending conflicts by November.

In Indonesia’s capital, Clinton offered strong US support for a regionally endorsed plan to ease rising tensions by implementing a code of conduct for all claimants to disputed islands.

Jakarta is the headquarters of the Association of South East Asian Nations, and Clinton also pressed the group to insist that China agree to a formal mechanism to reduce short-term risks of conflict and ultimately come to final settlements over sovereignty.  

I don't think the Chinese take kindly to that.

‘‘The United States has a national interest, as every country does, in the maintenance of peace and stability, respect for international law, freedom of navigation, unimpeded lawful commerce in the South China Sea,’’ Clinton told reporters at a news conference with Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa.  

Those words are so hollow coming from a nation that excuses Israel's piracy (while killing or incarcerating Somalis?), that tortures people, and that has murdered millions over abominable lies.

‘‘The United States does not take a position on competing territorial claims . . . but we believe the nations of the region should work collaboratively to resolve disputes without coercion, without intimidation and certainly without the use of force,’’ she said. ‘‘That is why we encourage ASEAN and China to make meaningful progress toward finalizing a comprehensive code of conduct in order to establish rules of the road and clear procedures for peacefully addressing disagreements.’’  

Can you imagine China being over here and attempting to influence control over the Panama canal?  

Then again, when you are blinded by your own imperial arrogance....

Clinton is in Indonesia on the second stop of an 11-day, six-nation tour that began in the Cook Islands and will take her to China, East Timor, Brunei, and Russia’s Far East.  

See: Clinton on the Continent

She started at the bottom. 

She travels to China on Tuesday to continue talks on the South China Sea and a number of other issues, including the crisis in Syria and ways to deal with Iran and North Korea’s nuclear programs. 

Why is she out there carrying the Israeli agenda and not the American one?

Indonesia has played a leading role in putting the six-point code of conduct together after the associated was unable to reach consensus on the matter in July. Clinton said the US is ‘‘encouraged’’ by the plan but wants it acted on.  

Go tell it to Israel.

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Next Day Update: More anti-Japan protests in China over islands