Chinese premier urges Japan to release Chinese skipper immediately, unconditionally

[siegecrossbow]

Ah the troll Captain America is back.

How was your two month vacation, courtesy of the mods?

Don't know if it is too late to use this but I'd say it is worth a try regardless:

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

Don't know if it is too late to use this but I'd say it is worth a try regardless:

It's never too late.

 

[aimarraul]

Japan to free illegally detained Chinese boat captain
English.news.cn 2010-09-24 13:46:52 FeedbackPrintRSS

TOKYO, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- Japanese authorities have decided to free the captain of a Chinese fishing boat who has been illegally held by Japanese authorities since Sept. 8, Japanese media reported Friday.

 

[Guest]

finally, we can count the casualties:

China:
RMB exchange rate up by 1%

Japan:
all the hard work in energy and political agreements with china, GONE.

can anyone find what benefits they might get from this? I mean China and Japan, not US.

 

[Martian2]

finally, we can count the casualties:

China:
RMB exchange rate up by 1%

Japan:
all the hard work in energy and political agreements with china, GONE.

can anyone find what benefits they might get from this? I mean China and Japan, not US.

I believe that Japan made a strategic error. Japan thought that it could act with impunity. It was Japan's armed forces versus one Chinese civilian. They are in complete control or so the Japanese hawks thought.

As China has shown, Japan is merely four tiny islands with no natural resources. If China wishes, crucial natural resources (e.g. rare earth elements), the vast China market, and increasingly superior Chinese military power (relative to Japan) can be used as leverage against Japan.

On paper, in nominal terms, Japan appears to be a near-equal of China. In reality, this is not the case. Japan is no match for China; except for her reliance on American military power. As we have seen, Japan ultimately had to retreat to preserve Japan's business interests in China. I am certain that Japanese companies on Mainland China were about to come under the microscope (e.g. similar to U.S. Department of Transportation investigations of Toyota).

Japanese have foolishly over-estimated their power. They are merely a chess-piece in the contest between the United States and China. Japan should not have unilaterally confronted China. Japan is merely a junior partner to the United States and Japan should only move in support of U.S. strategic interests.

Japan is not strong enough to confront China alone. The imprisonment of a Chinese fisherman and the release at the demand of the Chinese government has only exposed to the world that Japan is weak. It has bolstered the case that China is an emerging superpower.

Only the United States possesses sufficient military, economic, and technological heft to engage China. The caveat is that American power is waning. This week, we have also seen China refusing to acquiesce to an American demand for a 20% revaluation of the Yuan.

Though not as egregious as the foolish Japanese move, America has also committed a misstep. During the last five years, China's Yuan has appreciated 21%. During the past month, the Yuan has appreciated by approximately 2%. The total is 23%.

American economic hawks should have realized that China would never agree to an additional enormous 20% hike. As China has signaled, she is willing to compromise and agree to a gradual increase. However, an additional 20% hike is out of the question and China is willing to engage in a trade war with the United States upon U.S. insistence and protectionism.

It has been an interesting two weeks. I believe that China's international prestige has increased enormously. China ultimately bent Japan to her will and faced down the United States. Those are pretty impressive accomplishments.


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-...ain-may-hurt-japan-s-economy-kaieda-says.html

"China Spat Over Fishing-Boat Captain May Hurt Japan's Economy, Kaieda Says
By Aki Ito - Sep 23, 2010 9:10 PM ET

Japan’s economy may be hurt by its political dispute with China, Economy Minister Banri Kaieda said today, signaling widening concern at the consequences of tensions with the nation’s biggest trading partner.

Kaieda said the spat, which erupted this month over Japan’s detention of a fishing-boat captain, risks posing an obstacle to the economy. The Chinese sailor was detained after his vessel collided with two Japanese Coast Guard vessels.

Kaieda also said that his government wants a quick resolution to an issue over trade in rare-earth elements with China. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku said separately that there’s no confirmation of a Chinese embargo on such products.

The New York Times reported yesterday that it put an embargo on rare-earth elements, which are used in items including cars and weapons. Chinese Ministry of Commerce spokesman Chen Rongkai said yesterday that “China does not have a trade embargo on rare earth exports to Japan.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Aki Ito in Tokyo at aito16@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Chris Anstey at canstey@bloomberg.net"

 

[lunnn]

Japan chicken in this round when facing China's increasing pressure.

 

[topjumper]

Great news, finally our man is freed. China should also release the 4 detained japanese citizens as a gesture of good will and start the fence mending process.

 

[Martian2]

There will also now be more support for increasing the size of Japan's defence forces and/or its budget. Although China shouldn't be worried by this, militarily it wouldn't want Japan to do that.

I have two observations. Firstly, Japan picked this fight. Japan insisted on imprisoning a Chinese fisherman trying to earn a livelihood in the waters near islands that everyone knows was discovered and historically controlled by China. Japan gained control of China's islands only by waging a war of aggression/invasion in 1895. Japan is controlling stolen islands.

Secondly, I'm looking forward to an enormous increase in the budget for Japan's military. Japan can hasten its own bankruptcy. Good riddance to an aggressive and occupying colonial power of China's territory/islands.

BBC News - Japan PM Naoto Kan warns of 'collapse' under debt pile

"Japan PM Naoto Kan warns of 'collapse' under debt pile
11 June 2010 Last updated at 09:36 ET

Japan is at "risk of collapse" under its huge debt mountain, the country's new prime minister has said.

Naoto Kan, in his first major speech since taking over, said Japan needed a financial restructuring to avert a Greece-style crisis.

"Our country's outstanding public debt is huge... our public finances have become the worst of any developed country," he said.

After years of borrowing, Japan's debt is twice its gross domestic product.

"It is difficult to continue our fiscal policies by heavily relying on the issuance of government bonds," said Mr Kan, Japan's former finance minister.

"Like the confusion in the eurozone triggered by Greece, there is a risk of collapse if we leave the increase of the public debt untouched and then lose the trust of the bond markets," he said."

 

[CAPTAIN AMERICA]

If Japans goes thru the same collapse as Greece, there could be a world wide depression. We could be looking at the lost of ten million jobs in the USA and 100 million jobs in China and a billion jobs world wide.

http://inteldaily.com/2010/05/japan-economic-collapse/

 

[Martian2]

"Author: Jason Croft
Date: 09-24-10 09:27

As I see it China has gained, in the world's opinion, through no violence.

Japan can only admit it's own claims to be false.

Martian is correct.

Obama would have been -very- if not extremely foolish to have jumped into this situation over Japan.

Obama seems to have good intentions but he is looking too strange as he tries to walk with one foot in his mouth.

Too many, in USA, are alive still that fought Japan in WW2 in USA - our fathers told us many times how Japan was to USA captured soldiers -forcing them to eat their dead that were forced to walk untill they died on the Bataan Death March Bataan Death March - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

My own father survived but had his ashes spread on the water in Pearl Harbor after he had died.
USS Arizona Memorial - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jason Croft"

[Note: I am on multiple forums. Occasionally, I cross-post the more interesting comments to stimulate more discussion.]

 

[siegecrossbow]

Great news, finally our man is freed. China should also release the 4 detained japanese citizens as a gesture of good will and start the fence mending process.

Not if they are proven, 100%, to actually be spies. Otherwise I agree with what you said.

 

[SpArK]

Chinese Trawler Captain Returns Home From Detention in Japan​

Sept. 25 (Bloomberg) -- A Chinese fishing boat captain whose 17-day detention in Japan sent relations between Asia’s two biggest economies to their worst level in five years returned home after prosecutors released him.

Zhan Qixiong arrived in Fuzhou in China’s southeastern province of Fujian early today on a chartered flight, accompanied by officials from the foreign and agricultural ministries, Xinhua News Agency reported. China is demanding an apology and compensation, Xinhua said, citing a Foreign Ministry statement.

The release may defuse tensions that rose with the arrest after the boat collided with two Japanese Coast Guard vessels on Sept. 7 near uninhabited islets claimed by both countries. China cut off ministerial talks, and Premier Wen Jiabao this week urged Japan to “immediately and unconditionally” release him or face further retaliation.

“We believe this will significantly reduce tensions,” State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley told reporters in New York yesterday. “It was a proper decision for Japan to make.”

At the same time, questions over the timing may open Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s government to criticism that it backed down under Chinese pressure. Japan’s request earlier this week for “high level” talks to resolve the dispute was rejected.

“The decision invites questions as to whether the authorities were deliberately ambiguous,” said Yasunori Sone, a political science professor at Tokyo’s Keio University. “This will prompt criticism.”

National Government Denial

Japan’s top government spokesman sought to dispel any suggestion the national government was involved in the decision to release the captain, who was being held in the southernmost prefecture of Okinawa.

“It was the decision of the Okinawa prosecutors and we accept that,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku said in Tokyo. “It’s an undeniable fact that there were signs that Japan-China ties may have deteriorated.”

China’s foreign ministry reiterated that Japan’s proceedings were illegal and invalid, Xinhua said.

The Chinese boat “was simply trying to escape the Coast Guard vessels; the collision wasn’t intentional,” Deputy Public Prosecutor Toru Suzuki said in a press conference from Naha, the prefectural capital. “Taking into account the impact on our citizens and Japan-China relations, our judgment was that it would have been excessive to prolong the investigation and his detention.”

Gas Reserves

The islands, known as Diaoyu in Chinese and Senkaku in Japanese, are in the East China Sea near natural gas fields. The two countries signed an agreement in 2008 that has yet to be implemented to jointly develop the fields.

Yesterday’s announcement of the pending release came hours after Japan’s government said four of its citizens are being held in China for allegedly videotaping military targets. The four are employees of Fujita Corp., and were in Hebei, China, on company business unrelated to military issues, company spokesman Yoshiaki Onodera said.

“We don’t think this has a link to the Senkaku issue raised by China,” Sengoku said at an earlier press conference.

He couldn’t confirm reports that China has cut off exports of rare earths -- materials used in hybrid vehicles and laptop computers -- to Japan. A Chinese government official denied the report Sept. 23.

Japan is China’s second-biggest trading partner after the U.S., with two-way commerce in the first seven months of the year rising 25 percent from the same period in 2009 to $65.2 billion, Chinese customs data show. China is Japan’s largest trading partner, buying 10.2 trillion yen ($121 billion) of the nation’s goods and services last year.

Second-Biggest Economy

China surpassed Japan as the world’s second-largest economy last quarter. The Japanese nominal gross domestic product for the second quarter totaled $1.288 trillion, less than China’s $1.337 trillion, according to Japanese government statistics.

“It will be negative for Japan, China and the global economy if ties between the countries with the No. 2 and No. 3 GDPs deteriorate,” Japanese Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda said. “It’s desirable for both nations to address this calmly.”

Sengoku two days ago proposed “high level” talks between the two countries to ease the conflict. China rejected the suggestion, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu saying that “playing tricks to deceive the world and international public opinion is not a way out.”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Japan and China to resolve the issue through dialogue, as American officials declined to step into a broader territorial dispute.

Sovereignty Issue

The U.S. encourages “both sides to work aggressively to resolve” their differences “as quickly as possible,” Crowley said Sept. 23 in New York, where Clinton met with Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly’s annual meeting. “We don’t take a position on the sovereignty of the Senkakus,” Crowley said.

U.S. President Barack Obama met separately with Kan and Wen Sept. 23. He didn’t raise the dispute in his meeting with the Chinese premier, said Jeff Bader, Obama’s director of Asian affairs.

The diplomatic row is the most serious since 2005, when thousands of Chinese protested Japanese textbooks that downplayed the nation’s wartime atrocities. The captain’s detention sparked a Sept. 18 protest outside Japan’s embassy in Beijing that was more tightly controlled by police than those five years ago, when demonstrators threw rocks at the consulate in Shanghai.

--With assistance from Eijiro Ueno in Tokyo and Flavia Krause- Jackson in New York. Editors: John Brinsley, Josh Fellman



Chinese Trawler Captain Returns Home From Detention in Japan - BusinessWeek

 

[gpit]

"Author: Jason Croft
Date: 09-24-10 09:27

As I see it China has gained, in the world's opinion, through no violence.

Japan can only admit it's own claims to be false.

Martian is correct.

Obama would have been -very- if not extremely foolish to have jumped into this situation over Japan.

Obama seems to have good intentions but he is looking too strange as he tries to walk with one foot in his mouth.

Too many, in USA, are alive still that fought Japan in WW2 in USA - our fathers told us many times how Japan was to USA captured soldiers -forcing them to eat their dead that were forced to walk untill they died on the Bataan Death March Bataan Death March - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

My own father survived but had his ashes spread on the water in Pearl Harbor after he had died.
USS Arizona Memorial - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jason Croft"

[Note: I am on multiple forums. Occasionally, I cross-post the more interesting comments to stimulate more discussion.]

I beg to differ.

I think Japan loses small, wins big.

Japan loses small, because it sets free the captain.

Japan wins big, because it gains US explicit acknowledgment that the islands are under Japanese administration.

I think this kind of articulated, non-vague declaration on the US part is unprecedented.

On the other side, the ordinary people of American generally don’t feel comfortable with Japanese militarism. But, this country is a democracy for the few in many cases. For instance, the majority of Americans doesn’t like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet the leaders still go with it. Why? Because there are only two bad apples to pick, and both turned out to be warmongers.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

"Japan PM Naoto Kan warns of 'collapse' under debt pile
11 June 2010 Last updated at 09:36 ET

Japan is at "risk of collapse" under its huge debt mountain, the country's new prime minister has said.

"Our country's outstanding public debt is huge... our public finances have become the worst of any developed country," he said.

After years of borrowing, Japan's debt is twice its gross domestic product.

"Like the confusion in the eurozone triggered by Greece, there is a risk of collapse if we leave the increase of the public debt untouched and then lose the trust of the bond markets," he said."

I am actually worried that Japan might collapse like Greece, their debt to GDP ratio is almost 200%, it's absolutely ridiculous.

The reason I am worried, is that they are one of our biggest customers, and that might hurt our exports.

The reason Japan is in such a large amount of debt, is because their government spent billions every year to try to get Japan out of the "lost decade" of economic stagnation. They tried to spend their way out of their problems, and they failed.

If the bond markets suddenly dry up (like they did in Europe), then Japan is in a huge amount of trouble, because they won't be able to finance their debt repayments. The only option then, will be to default and crash.

 

[Martian2]

Japan wins big, because it gains US explicit acknowledgment that the islands are under Japanese administration.

I think this kind of articulated, non-vague declaration on the US part is unprecedented.

Chinese Trawler Captain Returns Home From Detention in Japan​

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Japan and China to resolve the issue through dialogue, as American officials declined to step into a broader territorial dispute.

Sovereignty Issue

The U.S. encourages “both sides to work aggressively to resolve” their differences “as quickly as possible,” Crowley said Sept. 23 in New York, where Clinton met with Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly’s annual meeting. “We don’t take a position on the sovereignty of the Senkakus,” Crowley said.

--With assistance from Eijiro Ueno in Tokyo and Flavia Krause- Jackson in New York. Editors: John Brinsley, Josh Fellman

Chinese Trawler Captain Returns Home From Detention in Japan - BusinessWeek

We see things differently. The U.S. is trying to slow China's expanding power by creating as much trouble for China as possible. The U.S. is not only encouraging Japan, but also ASEAN to create friction for China.

This tactic will only work for the next ten to fifteen years. After that, China's economy will be the size of the U.S. in nominal terms and the military technology gap will have shrunk. Facing a near-equal, the U.S. will abandon both Japan and ASEAN in the same manner as leaving Georgia to fend for itself against Russia.

The message from the U.S. is very clear. We will intercede if you militarily pound Japan today. China can revisit this issue in twenty years. When the U.S. Navy has shrunk due to budget cuts, we will see what the reaction from the United States will be in two decades.