Daily Lessons from Life 11 September 2010 - PRC and Japan Relationship

I could not get the news headline to be listed here for discussion so I just write about this latest episode of 'skirmishes' in the overlapping territorial water between PRC, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan!

Strangely my Taiwanese friend whom I got to know in HCM City, Vietnam, and I were discussing about Taiwanese fishing folks when he said that very little fishing could be done these days as the Japanese extended their territorial claim of the sea almost right up to the door step of the ports off Northern Taiwan where his wife's fishing family lived!

Then this PRC fishing trawler's Captain was detained by the Japanese Navy for deliberately ramming the Japanese patrol vessel!! Of course, the PRC Chinese were livid about this and are demanding that the Japanese authority released him immediately. Unfortunately, the Japanese court ruled that he could be held for another 10 days! PRC Foreign Ministry summoned the Japanese Ambassador and protested about this treatment and demanded immediate release. It is getting uglier by the day.

Now, the Taiwanese and Hong Kong activists are going to mount a protest voyage to the territorial water in dispute - DiaoYouTai. I recalled they have done it before and some boats were sunk or damaged with some folks been thrown overboard with no loss of life a few years back.

It seems that the geopolitical arena simply cannot accept that it is possible to have an emerging PRC that is benign and non-expansionary. That it can live and co-exist peacefully and prosperously with Japan, the major ally of the USA. I guessed that's why PRC is still supporting a regime that I am sure deep down even they find offensive, North Korea, to keep the Korean Peninsula in balance. And playing good allies with the Russian to ensure that Japan and the USA are kept at bay too. This is especially so with the Russian having some territorial dispute with the Japanese on the Northern part of Japan.

May all these political gesturing remain a control exercise. Any mis-step will throw the region into turmoil and we may not have peace to have prosperity! Sigh...