Recently, worry about the war is rising around Japan.
North Korea declared truce of Korean War nullified and provoked South Korea and United States repeatedly, even referred to usage of nuclear weapons.
The New York Times: North Korea Declares 1953 War Truce Nullified
Aljazeera: North Korea warns of 'simmering nuclear war'
On the other hand, Mr. Xi Jinping, the new President of the People’s Republic of China, has an aggressive attitude to Japan. Some reporters say China is considering to send troops to Senkaku islands.
Now Mr. Xi Jinping controls all of the Communist party, the Chinese government, and army of China. So he is ready to carry out his plan, if he hopes so. However, it is doubtful that China would gain enough benefits by attacking Japan.
Mr. Soichiro Tahara, a leading Journalist in Japan says that Japan has well contributed to the development of China in his mail magazine. China admitted this fact, so China is hardly willing to be hostile to Japan, according to him.
I agree with him. Moreover, conquering Japan is not so beneficial for China. Japan is a narrow country. Natural resources are poor. Financial status is not good. (But Japan has vast net foreign assets.) If conquered Japan, China would be suffering from severe headache as a governor.
How about North Korea? I think North Korea does not have the power to fight against the United States, as North Korea knows. So as far as both sides are rational, war would not occur.
However, North Korea is a despotic nation.
In general democratic nation is unlikely to cause war rather than despotic nation. One of the reasons is that thoughts of people are various. Democratic administration hardly can unite the will of citizens.
But Mr. Kim Jong-un, the supreme leader of North Korea, is a dictator. Pushed to the wall, for example nearly losing status in his empire, he might lose rationality to push the forbidden button. It is the worst scenario.
Actually, no one wants the battle with North Korea. Benefit from North Korea is zero, or even minus. South Korea would be annoyed by a flood of refugees.
According to Mr. Kazuhisa Ogawa, a military analyst, feeding North Korea for a while, to negate the troublesome nation gradually, is the most reasonable strategy.
Of course the conclusion is unpleasant. Is it a good thing to be kind for a foe? Or it makes the status worse? It's a difficult problem. Behavioral science is struggling to solve this dilemma.
I think the dispute for China and the one for North Korea are different problems. China is a big country, and has economical relationship to almost all the countries, including U.S. I assume that Chinese goverment wants to divert public attention to abroad from the internal problems-- such as unemployment problem, medical problem, and housing problem (Do you know? My Chinese friend says that it is horrible problem). I think that Chinese goverment will not want to full-scale conflict-- although there is a possibility of minor incidents.
ReplyDeleteHowever, North Korea is in a different situation-- It is one of the most "closing" countries in the world. The main purpose of current attitude is try to get better position in the negosiation between US, according to the experts. However, there is quite few possibility that US change its attitude, furthermore, China is gradually change its attitude--- a lot of Chinese people critisize North Korea, and the Chinese government cannot ignore them now. There is a possibilty that North Korea goes into the same situation which Japan went into in 1941--- which no one can control. This will be horrible.
Peet