2006-01-05

In memory of Shiro Azuma

Shiro Azuma passed away.

China expressed condolences.

The Japanese right wings has been demonizing China, and the Chinese people for not letting go of the history. They maintain that there is nothing they could do to "apppease" China.

They are wrong, most Chinese are forgiving people, the influence of confusciusm and buddhism is still very strong despite the cultural revolution. It is not that difficult for the Japanese to win friendship from the Chinese. Azuma was a soldier in Nanjing in 1937, beheaded 4 Chinese farmers in Nanjing in one day, and committed his share of atrocity during his 4 year service in the imperial army. Yet he is highly respected among all Chinese.

Azuma reminds the Chinese that there are many peace loving Japanese people, who are friends of the Chinese. The best way for Chinese people to remember Mr Azuma is to remind themselves that there are many kind souls in Japan like Mr Azuma; and that any violence targeting Japanese people or business may hurt people like Mr Azuma by mistake. Mr Azuma had spent his last 20 years to forge peace between the 2 great Asian nations, let's not let the right wing in Japan or China ruin his efforts.

Related question: will Mr Azuma be honoured in Yasukuni?

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16 comments:

Anonymous said...

The shrine visit, the occupation of diaoyu isle, the whitewashing of history, etc are “in your face” provocation calculated to incite Chinese angry reaction, then the Japanese would point to the Chinese protest as evidence of anti japanesim, this is classic blame the victim tactic.
Remember the “accidental” bombing of the Chinese embassy in yugoslovia?
Nobody except the yanks would believe such craps, they really do.
Then uncle scam add insult to injury, issuing an “official report” which claimed that the “accident” was due to the use of an out of date map, sic.
http://www.aeronautics.ru/theories.htm
the Chinese were outraged at this calculated insult, they poured onto the streets, besieged the us ambassy and pelted it with stones.
the us free press had a field day, “look at those xenophobic Chinese, didn’t I tell you guys, they hate our guts…, they hate our way of life”. Picture of the us embassador peering out from his beleaguered embassy was splashed over over the media, the perpetrator had become the victim. Koizumi san is a good pupil, uncle would be proud of him.
And Why not? Koizumi is prepared to do all the dirty work while uncle feign innocence..
When the us signed a defence pact with japan which obligate both countries to joint patrol in japan’s “peripheral territories”, uncle was coy about what constitutes japan’s “peripheral”, it was left to the japs, oops, sorry for being such a racist asshole, I mean the Japanese , to spell it out for china’s benefit, “our peripheral includes Taiwan”
http://japanfocus.org/article.asp?id=419

so the Japanese right wing nuts are saying china is harping on history when they are doing their best to REMIND the Chinese about that history, they say nothing they do can appease china when everything they do is “in your face” to the Chinese.
Another stroke of genius borrowed from their yankee pals, no doubt.
Like that rummy , having the gall to tell the Chinese “nobody is threatening china”, --- at a time when uncle is planting military bases all around china, sending spy planes to probe Chinese defence and us battle groups are prowling at china’s doorstep.

What do we call someone who believes his lies will be believed by others even though there is verifiable proof to the contrary?
A psycopath.
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=46766

Anonymous said...

denk, brilliant dissertation as usual! tell it to those psychopaths!!
and peace to Mr Azuma.

Anonymous said...

Hello anon,

Wo ben lai xiang tui chu jiang hu quong qi fon bi,

But some people are just downright insufferable, just listen to this aso
parroting after master rumsfeld,

" "It's a neighboring country with nuclear bombs, and its military expenditure has been on the rise for 12 years. It's beginning to pose a considerable threat," Aso said in a briefing to reporters Thursday, as quoted by Kyodo news agency.
"China is fanning threat and anxiety," Aso went on. "The content of China's military expenditures is difficult for outsiders to know, and that fuels suspicion."

If these are supposed to be evidence of Chinese threat, someone should tell this aso to organize a coalition against the usa. Hell the us has the world’s largest nuke arsenal and is the only nuclear power to have actually used it against another country – japan.
Besides, many Japanese and not a few westerners writers believe that nuking japan was utterly unnecessary to win the war, the us wasted Hiroshima and whats the other to intimidate the ussr. Its “defence” expenditure trumps the rest of the world combined. Its “black budget” make any Chinese infraction looks like child’s play,

to top it all, why should anybody listen to an aso like the jap fm, when the whole world has already pass its verdict

Sun Bin said...

"its military expenditure has been on the rise for 12 years"

every country with salary increase (or productivity growth, GDP growth, inflation) will have all its expenditure increase by the year, that includes defense. we do not need to quote US to refute this idiotic statement.
Aso was trying to insert a needle into the haystack.
it is %GDP, or %budget that are important.

japan, OTOH has maxed its constitution cap of 1% GDP every single year.

Anonymous said...

Sun bin,

You are right,
But otoh, all these bickering about china’s hidden defence expenditure, not only on this site but all over the msm and the internet set me thinking,

The yanks are being taxed to the eyeballs,…

to finance building aircraft at $329m per jet that doesn’t work

A $650 billion “defence budget” for items such as a $436 hammer, $6700 coffee maker, $91 screw, $640 toilet seat for the pentagon,

$15139178 per day to subsidize the Israeli military, (mind u, this is 1997 figure!!)

and $2.3 trillion unaccounted for,…..

etc etc.

apparently, these don’t seem to bother the yanks,......but they are bothered about china’s “black budget”?

I would have thought that this is a Chinese problem since they, not the yanks, are being taxed to pay for these aircraft and guns.

Whats wrong with these yanks ?

Anonymous said...

heck, the link arent working...

Sun Bin said...

use html to post links

(a ref="") between html brackets
end with (/a)

see blogger help...

Anonymous said...

Sun bin,

it worked the first time , don’t know why it didn’t work the second time.
Thanks I will try again.

I said, “to top it all, why would anybody listen to an “aso” like the jap fm when the world has already passed its verdict”

Well apparently I was wrong, I heard the Indians are very well disposed toward the aso’s idea, in fact a bigger plan seems to be already under way

could this be the harbinger of larger thing yet to come, the so called asian nato



Anonymous said...

Denk,

I am one of those Yanks, and I read your posts with interest. I have two observations:

-When you point out America's inconsistencies, you are mostly correct in my opinion. An example would be your observation that America is concerned about China's military spending when America spends much more. This is blatantly unfair, but most Americans don't think so. The reason is that Americans think that they are the most capable of "controlling" the world.

-When you make assumptions about America's motives you are mostly wrong. In my opinion, if you think that the US dropped the atomic bomb to scare the USSR, then you do not understand Harry Truman. If you believe that the Chinese embassy was bombed intentionally, then you do not understand Bill Clinton.

The current state of the world will continue as long as east Asian countries keep lending the US money.

Anonymous said...

Quotable quotes,

Otto reich, : there is no coup against chavez

Rumsfeld: nobody is threatening the Chinese, why are they spending sooooooooo much on defence?

That aso from japan: nothing we do will ever please the Chinese, when are they going to let bygone be bygone?

The same aso from japan who went to India to discuss how do we encircle china, was seen with the Indian fm in a metro car, beaming to the camera, “our friendship is not at china’s expense…”

Professor nalapat, on the socalled naato, “This alliance would actually be BENEFICIAL to the PRC, Nalapat said, as it would enable the moderates to keep hotheads at bay, once it became clear that an attack on Taiwan would result in a war not just with Taipei but with Washington, New Delhi and Tokyo as well”
the good professor must be chuckling to himself when he said this...

hello anon,

i just see your post, i will talk to you later, thanks,

denk

Anonymous said...

Anon,

Actually I said many Japanese and western writers believe that the us nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki to “field test” the A bomb and to show color to the ussr at the same time,
I am not well versed with that part of history to pass my own judgement,.

But I do believe the Chinese embassy was planned for destruction. You might be interested to read this Letter(deng xi chang)I wrote to the antiwar.com back in 2003. Clinton might not have anything to do with it, one theory has it that a rogue element of the cia executed it without clinton’s consent. “the world’s most powerful man” might not be as powerful as he look., when jfk crossed THE power that be, he was taken out.

Anonymous said...

I agree with denk about the Chinese embassy bombing as intensional but not by President Clinton but someone lower rank in the CIA. Imagine it would be a huge mistake , if the US accidentally bombed, for example, the British embassy instead.
Echo

Anonymous said...

This ``containment' of China is nothing new. The WASP powers have been pursuing the encirclement policy since the 19th century, with Japan as imperialist tool, and with tragic results for all Asia.
What's new is that India is being drawn into the new Great Game.
It must be very flattering for many Indians to be wooed, and made a promise to be turned into a great power.
It's practically Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle. But when you sup with the devil, you use a long spoon. What price Indian acqueiscence?
India will be happy to go along because it wants the FDI. (Not forgetting that corruption in certain other Asian countries has been ranked worse than China).
Like China, India also needs a peaceful environment to develop, and will probably prefer to maintain dialogue with its neighbours.
India as the New Ally? Hardly, IMO.
It's just hedging its bets.
As for Aso's charm offensive, The Statesman sounded far less enthusiastic than Denk.

Anonymous said...

So far the fan base of the Chinese threat show are mainly from the us, japan and india, all of which has done wrong to china.
How come the small countries around china don’t seem to be trembling at the “threat” form their giant neighbour, in fact all of them like Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, burma, etc all come away more than satisfied with the concession they get from border negotiation with china. But the three big gorillas, usa, (2000 miles away) India and japan are feeling the heat of the rising dragon?.
hmmm, Do I detect a sense of guilty consciousness?

For the record, china never “invaded India and grabbed a large piece of Indian land in 1962”, deng xiao ping never fall over himself in 1970 to attack India, when goaded by kissinger and Nixon to do so, china never once nuclear blackmail India, in fact it’s the first nuclear power to announce a “non first use dictum”. If china didn’t threaten India in the past 5 decades, why should it pick a fight with a much stronger India today, at a time when uncle scam is breathing down its neck?

what has India got to gain from an anti china alliance with the us and japan
At a time when it’s the only country enjoying a huge trade surplus with china?
If bharat is looking forward to the promise of super power status, good for him. Otherwise india’s best bet is to help china forge a mulipolar world where no one is strong enough to dictate the rules, that’s what china has been striving for all along. china has neither the heart nor muscle to usurp uncle scam’s hyperpower role, as is often suggested in the us free press’

but listening to the likes of mukherjee and my old acquaintance brahma chellaney (who has been evading me since 1998), you would never know that china and India are “strategic partners” now. [sic]
as for “naato is good for you” professor nalapat, I guess the man can afford to be smug somewhat, since India is sitting pretty while china is bending backwards to woo it away from uncle scam’s embrace. But the good professor ought to take a leaf from one of his peer,who is as anti Chinese as they come but with one saving grace -- He had no illusion about uncle’s intention either.

India might be embraced as one of the “anglo clan” while its needed , but Uncle scam’s road to world domination is strewn with the bodies of ex buddies like saddam Hussein.

Right now, I bet ninety nine per cent of yanks, (save for a couple of commando types who went to india’s great north east to help fight the "chinki faced terrorists") don’t have the slightest clue where is assam, nagaland, manipur etc, but a five year old will tell u there is an “ON GOING genocide in Tibet” sic, the yanks give the world information technology, but guess who are the most ill informed citizens of the world?

but if India join the us to put down china, guess whos is the next rising super power to be taken care of?
Hell, The us free press might suddenly discover abuses in Kashmir, assam, nagaland, manipur etc. and call for a regime change,
………..

When they come for the muslims, I cheer,

When they come for the Chinese, I give them a hand,

When they come for me, there’s no one else to speak up for me…..

Sun Bin said...

thanks darin,

so you have to die to be honored in yasukuni. if you are just a veteran and died after the war you are not automatically qualitfied.

Sun Bin said...

i guess it should be very simple.
if other veteran died of natural cause (after the war) is honored there, then azuma should also be. otherwise, he should not.

but this aso gets complicated. i suppose togo heihachiro died peaceful after the war as well, and he was honored there? how to determine whether a soldier serverd under togo vs togo himslef?