(Fourteenth in an occasional series as time and events allow)
It all began with the Chinese construction of an artificial island, complete with airstrips, and the moving of weaponry to defend against the inevitable invasion by the United States. The assertion of their rights (it was, after all, called the South China Sea) rattled its neighbors and set it on a possible collision course with Washington, which claimed it was only committed to freedom of navigation in the area, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, and the sanctity of international airspace (as well as the Internet).
The U.S. had already assembled a ring of countries throughout the Pacific to contain China, from Japan and Korea in the north through the central Pacific nations of Vietnam (a communist ally and longtime enemy of China) and the Philippines, before ending down under in Australia. It had also secured the western Indian Ocean (and China's western land flank) via the countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar (ravaged by flooding), and Thailand (which was nominally neutral).
U.S war planners had penciled in August 9, 2015, for the beginning of the invasion of the Chinese mainland. The invasion force would traverse the Taiwan Strait before landing and capturing any Chinese troops it encountered; however, the weather got in the way. The strait was hit by a typhoon. One American craft was lost. (A second force had intended to enter China through Tibet; however, at the last minute the attack was scrubbed due to weather)
A day later, the weather cleared. The American fleet, with Admiral Scott Swift in command, immediately sunk a Chinese battle cruiser. The Chinese fleet raced to the scene. Waves and debris made the search difficult. Soon, the effort to locate survivors came to an end. Over 400 Chinese sailors had lost their lives.
The next day dawned quietly, and the decline of the Chinese military was obvious. Blaming a foreign enemy, the Chinese regime cracked down on the home front. They detained anyone they labeled terrorist or pervert, evoking the memories of oppression after Tianamen Square. Many were tortured; some died despite hospitalization.
China also had another problem: a failing economy that couldn't support the war effort. It's central bank had cut interest rates to spur growth; however, consumer spending still lagged despite the ever-increa$ing population. It was as if there was a drag on profits due to fraud, undermining the Matherland.
The respite didn't last for long. A Chinese reconnaissance drone was shot down days later, detected as it was by American radar.
The Americans responded by destroying the Chinese port city of Tianjing -- with nuclear weapons.
The smoke rose for miles. Women, children, and the elderly were instantly incinerated. Hospitals were in need of help. Not even a bathroom was left standing.
Then a strange thing happened:
"Negotiators from 57 governments completed work Friday on a charter for a Chinese-led Asian regional bank and it is due to be signed in late June, the Chinese finance ministry said. Beijing’s proposal for the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank attracted unexpected widespread support from Western governments including Britain, New Zealand, and France despite US opposition. Washington and its ally Japan have refrained from seeking membership. Agreement on the charter followed a three-day meeting in Singapore of envoys from proposed member governments, the finance ministry statement said. The bank is intended to finance investments in railways, cargo ports, and other trade links. Beijing has pledged to put up most of its initial $50 billion in capital and says that total will rise to $100 billion. The US government had objected that the bank would undercut existing institutions such as the World Bank and might allow looser lending standards."
Even better for the Chinese was the fact that they would no longer be fighting the war in the Pacific alone. A powerful ally and friend would soon be joining them in the fight: Russia.... something that would transform the battlefield in days to come.
MORNING UPDATE:
What could have destroyed these cars? Looks like something I've seen before.
There was also a change in government in Myanmar while Thailand cracked down further.
NEXT DAY UPDATES:
It's why this post got bumped up to the top of the day.
I changed the posted time to one minute before midnight, although it may be a moment after:
"Homes built too close to China chemical plant" by Andrew Jacobs New York Times August 15, 2015
I suppose that is what they have to say. Neither side can say it was a mini-nuke delivered to the port after the yuan devaluation (Chinese also quickly changed policy, notice that?).
BEIJING — New details emerged Friday that suggested possible criminal negligence, mixed with rife speculation of an official coverup, in the aftermath of the fire Wednesday night in Tianjin — China’s third-largest city and a major northeast seaport, about 90 miles east of Beijing.
In other words, a significant strategic target.
The death toll climbed to 85 on Saturday, including 21 firefighters, with more than 700 people injured and some still unaccounted for, the Associated Press reported.
The fire, which is shaping up as one of China’s worst industrial calamities, appeared to expose the kinds of regulatory lapses that have plagued the country’s transformation into a global economic powerhouse.
Government officials, acutely aware of concerns over the fire, have sought to suppress unauthorized information.
I love pot-hollering-kettle media.
With uncharacteristic defiance, some Chinese news outlets did their own reporting anyway.
I wish we could get that in AmeriKa.
Local residents have said they had no idea that any risk had been posed by the warehouses where the fire began, a modest blaze that suddenly exploded in mammoth fireballs. They engulfed office buildings and port facilities, as well as onlookers who had gathered to watch the firefighters at work.
The developers of Vanke Port City, a residential complex that is practically at the incinerated area’s doorstep and has now been evacuated indefinitely....
That really has the telltale signs of nuclear!
Suspicions among the populace were further raised by the censorship of information.
The vacuum was filled by online speculation about whether the owners of Rui Hai International Logistics, the company that owned the warehouse where the blasts originated, might be connected to senior government leaders.
In China?
--more--"
The destruction looks like more than chemical explosions, sorry.
Maybe it was a mine:
"North Korea denies planting mines" New York Times August 14, 2015
SEOUL — On Monday, the South and the US-led UN Command said that a joint investigation had concluded that the mines had been planted by North Korean troops. As evidence, they presented the debris of wooden-box land mines used by the North Korean military.
Pffft!
This thing is screaming false flag provocation, and you see that trash basket over there? That is where all war-mongering US intelligence goes after the WMD bit in Iraq. Sorry.
On Friday, the North called those findings “nonsense” and accused South Korea of using stray North Korean mines it had collected from the buffer zone to fabricate the incident to drive up military tension. It challenged the South to provide more persuasive evidence that the mines had been planted by North Korea.
“If the same mines had exploded in the heart of Seoul, are they still going to insist that our troops went and planted them there?” a North Korean spokesman was quoted as saying by the official Korean Central News Agency.
The sad thing is, the "enemy" is often the truth-teller in my paper, as in this case.
The North Koreans may be a lot of things, but stupid isn't one of them.
The mine explosions worsened already chilly relations between the two Koreas....
Which is odd because if you scroll back a couple of months in my Korea file, you will find they were on the verge of peace!
--more--"
Time to refight the last war:
"Japan leader limits remorse for WWII" by Jonathan Soble New York Times August 15, 2015
TOKYO — Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reiterated that there was a limit to the number of times Japan can apologize.
I would accept just one from the EUSraeli Empire.
“We must not let our children, grandchildren, and even further generations to come, who have nothing to do with that war, be predestined to apologize,” Abe said. It is enough, he added, “to inherit the past, in all humbleness, and pass it on to the future.”
You know, that is REALLY A GREAT POINT! So many world citizens had NOTHING TO DO WITH those LONG AGO WARS that the Jewi$h War Media are constantly bringing up in the midst of WWIII right in front of our eyes.
Abe has long sought to break with what conservatives call Japan’s “masochistic” approach to addressing history.
I'm not opposed to that kind of self-examination regarding the received historical truths from the AmeriKan in$titutions of ejewkhazion and ma$$ media. I've come to learn that the history I've been taught and told my entire life is either a complete fiction and lie at worst, self-serving distortion at best. Neither one is any good.
Apologies dating to the 1990s have not prevented recurring feuds with China and South Korea, which have their own reasons, political analysts note, for keeping alive public animosity toward Japan.
Yet Abe has also sown doubts about his own commitment to the forthright reckoning with the past that he endorsed on Friday. He has appointed unapologetic revisionists to high-profile public posts, including at the national public broadcaster, NHK, and paid visits to the controversial Yasukuni shrine, where wartime Japanese leaders who were hung for war crimes are enshrined along with millions of fallen soldiers and sailors.
Yeah, what about those lives? Brave men serving their country?
Or where the Japanese simply subhumans who deserved slaughter, firebombing, and two nuclear blasts simply because they wanted to keep their Emperor (which they got to do anyway despite the calls for unconditional surrender justifying those monstrous acts)?
Jennifer Lind, an expert on Asia’s history disputes at Dartmouth College, said Japan had acknowledged past wrongdoings more frequently and candidly than any other country. Abe, for all his flaws as a messenger, is “trying to bring what he sees as balance back to the historical discussion,” she said.
But they must bow and do it again.
Btw, this in no way excuses the brutality of Japanese aggression and occupation (welcomed as liberators from European colonialism if you study history). They were just doing what western powers had done to build their empires, and after the allies rejected the idea of a Co-Asian Prosperity Sphere that was proposed as a peace feeler from Japan (Hitler was also generous to the Zionist slave Churchill, proposing that England could keep its empire as long as they stayed out of continental Europe. It is also useful to note that Britain's finest hour -- we will fight them on the beaches, in the hills, you know -- could have been its worst had they lost the war. Flip it around and it is the allies whose cities would have been turned to rubble. We will never surrender, right? Same thing the guy with the patch mustache... well, you know), Japan had no choice. The die had been cast.
In an initial commentary published online, China’s official Xinhua news agency said Abe’s speech “trod a fine line with linguistic tricks” and was insincere.
Just in case of Chinese aggression, the Philippines has moved forces into the South China Sea.
--more--"
You know, speaking of history:
"In Asia, the war over World War II" by The Editorial Board August 14, 2015
World War II ended seven decades years ago, but in Asia, the war over the war rages on. In the run-up to the 70th anniversary of the war’s end,
politicians in China, Japan, and South Korea have sparred over
everything from the Japanese military’s responsibility for sexual
slavery to the death toll in the 1937 Nanking massacre.
It's the forgotten Holocaust™.
These
disputes over history have bled into popular culture: China plans to
mark the anniversary by releasing 20 documentaries, 12 television
dramas, and more than 180 plays depicting Japan’s brutality during World
War II. China will also host a World War II film festival
jointly with Russia to celebrate the “Soviet and Chinese joint victory
over German and Japanese aggressors.” Even Hollywood is getting into the
act: In honor of the anniversary, a Chinese production house is
releasing a $65 million 3-D movie called “The Bombing,” which stars
Bruce Willis and counts Mel Gibson as a “creative adviser.”
Meanwhile, nearly 10 million people have flocked to the South Korean film “Assassination”
since it opened last month, about Korean independence fighters who team
up to kill the commander of Japanese troops. Right-wing politicians in
Japan have complained that the flurry of films that demonize Japan
raises tensions and complicates diplomatic efforts to create friendlier
relations. But Japan has similarly offended its neighbors with the 2013
film “Eternal Zero,” which glorifies kamikaze pilots. Critics in China have called it “propaganda for terrorism.” The movie has become one of the top-grossing Japanese films of all time.
These
spats over history — and how it is depicted on the silver screen —
reflect the anxieties of today. At a time of domestic unrest in China
and disunity in South Korea, politicians find it convenient to whip up
nationalist fervor by demonizing an external enemy.
Yeah, good thing that doesn't happen here!!
Meanwhile, many in Japan resent the fact that China — which accepted Japan’s development aid when it was poor — is now eclipsing
its former colonial master. The desire in Japan to restore
self-confidence and even, critics argue, some form of military prowess,
led to the election of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who is
affiliated with an ultranationalist group that expresses nostalgia for imperial Japan.
On Friday, Abe issued a much-anticipated statement
that expressed “eternal, sincere condolences” and pledged that Japan
would never again follow the path of war and colonial aggression. Yet
Abe stopped short of adding his own apology to the words uttered by
previous prime ministers.
“No matter what kind of efforts we may
make, the sorrows of those who lost their family members and the painful
memories of those who underwent immense sufferings by the destruction
of war will never be healed,” he said.
That’s a diplomatic way of saying that nothing Japan does will
satisfy China and South Korea. Abe may be correct on that point.
Nonetheless, he missed an opportunity to show the world that he fully
accepts responsibility for Japan’s wartime past.
Just wondering if we will have to wait 70 years to get an apology from EUSraeli leaders.
I won't be around for it, thus it won''t really mean anything (like now).
He noted that the
“honor and dignity” of women were “severely injured” during the war, but
did not express remorse or responsibility regarding the enslavement of
Korean “comfort women.”
They still have them.
Indeed, he made it clear that the time for
saying sorry is over: “We must not let our children, grandchildren, and
even further generations to come, who have nothing to do with that war,
be predestined to apologize.”
I have no problem with that.
That stands in stark contrast to
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s statement marking the 70th anniversary
of the liberation of Dachau, in which Merkel spoke of “Germany’s everlasting responsibility
for the horrors of the past.”
I knew that would be brought in somehow.
Until Japan, China, and South Korea see
eye-to-eye about the past, it will be difficult to chart a common
future.
Especially with the U.S. in there instigating trouble to justify its presence.
--more--"
Globe sure is a great diplomat, huh?
More food for thought:
Greece’s euro partners approve billions in new loans
There is a stock report (oil has stabilized?) but no talking points you might have missed from the world of business this morning. Hmmm. I haven't read them yet, so....
