Admiral Timothy Keating, newly minted chief of US Pacific Command, is currently visiting China to meet with PLA brass. As documented by Dana Priest and Robert Kaplan, among others, the heads of the US Military's unified combatant commands wield tremendous military power, of course, but also diplomatic power (America's "proconsuls," to use the imperial metaphor …
Year: 2007
Making sense of China’s Sudan policy
If there's any sense to be made, that is.In the same week that Amnesty International condemned China for selling arms to Sudan that are purportedly being used in Darfur by Janjaweed militias accused of genocide, China has announced that it is both sending a military detachment to support African Union peacekeepers in Darfur and appointing …
Abe’s id speaks
Well, it was only a matter of time. First, Defense Minister Kyuma signalled in Washington that Japan was approaching a reconsideration of its restrictions on arms exports, prompting Chief Cabinet Secretary Shiozaki to deny that any change was impending and reaffirm the principles. Then, Abe voiced a slightly more ambiguous position, resting somewhere between Kyuma …
Pooling reserves in Asia
The Yomiuri Shimbun's lead editorial today focuses on an agreement reached at the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank (ABD) to pool currency reserves among the ASEAN + 3 countries so to be able to provide liquidity in the event of a crisis.Building on the Chiang Mai Initiative, an earlier agreement in ASEAN + …
A few good henjin
Shisaku replies to my Monday post on the DPJ, arguing, "...the alternative to Diet theatrics--conducting face-to-face retail politics--may fail to ignite excitement at the ballot box."His point is well taken — and his analysis of voting behavior is quite sound; I did not mean to imply that the DPJ should shun the Diet entirely. However, …
Shiozaki doth protest too much?
Yesterday I noted that Chief Cabinet Secretary Shiozaki reaffirmed the government's commitment to the three arms export principles, saying that the three principles are "an extremely important policy."It seems, however, that Abe is leaning more towards Kyuma's position than Shiozaki's, as he said at a press conference at the Kantei yesterday, "It has been decided …
Does the PLA run China?
Back in January, in the aftermath of revelations about China's ASAT test, I wrote that the test, which contrasted sharply with cooperative overtures by China at approximately the same time, might have been the product of the PLA's over-sized role in policy debates in Beijing.Now, over at China Confidential, Confidential Reporter asks whether "China may …
Kyuma’s false alarm
While in Washington, Defense Minister Kyuma addressed the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. (The speech, which, can be viewed here, is nothing special; be sure to fast forward to the seven minute mark, unless you want to watch Heritage President Edwin Feulner fulminate against China and refer to the defense minister as "Mr. Kayuma.") …
Muddled thinking on the DPJ
The Asahi Shimbun has published yet another editorial urging the Democratic Party of Japan to be more forthright in confronting the Abe Cabinet in the Diet.The occasion for this editorial was Ozawa Ichiro's completion of a second tour of the country's regions as part of his electoral strategy of building up the DPJ's support structure …
The constitution revision blitz
Amaki Naoto has a fascinating post considering the national referendum age limit issue.To summarize, the LDP draft passed by the Lower House stipulated that the age limit for voting in a national referendum on constitution revision will be twenty, same as for other elections. The rejected DPJ draft, meanwhile, called for lowering the voting age …
Tobias S. Harris 