2010-08-26

Who killed Mr. Masa Tse (update!)

The unbelievable incompetency of the Filipino police and government has, naturally, led to many conspiracy theories. I have been in the view that the negotiation (or non-negotiation) of the authority is more to blame than the police/SWAT team -- because according to the survivors (e.g. Mr Chan -- who was smart enough to stock his backpack with bottled water and shield his head with the backpack and his both hands), Mendoza fired at them shortly after Mr. Masa Tse was shot. i.e. that would make the timing well before the hammering fiasco. (yes, they were incompetent, the lost an hour which could have saved a few of the wounded. but it was the failed negotiation that triggered the shooting)

However, evidence has surfaced (shown in TVB tonight as well) that there was a suspicious bullet hole in the front of the bus, quite likely from the outside, exactly at the time when Mr Tse fell. (which was before the bus moved and got shot at the tires)


from this cnn video (titled "manila hostage crisis mishandled?), one of the victim was shot from his left ear.



I do not know who this victim (shot at his left ear) is. But it won't be difficult to find out.
  1. Mr. Tse was facing the door at the time
  2. If Mendoza shot him, he would be shot from behind
  3. If the SWAT team shot him, there would be a bullet hole on his left face, quite likely his left ear but can be other area on the left side of his face or neck. And the bullet track would be going in from lower left to upper right.
Now his body is in HK. An autopsy will tell us whether 2 or 3 is the case. An it would be easy to find out who shot him. Follow the red line on the figure, the shooter is not too far from the bus in the front.

If Mr. Tse was shot by the SWAT team. There may indeed be a conspiracy -- and an explanation to why they went in length to smash the harmless window panes. And if a SWAT member was the first to shoot a hostage -- what triggered Mendoza's outrage may not be his brother being handcuffed, but maybe he felt that he would be blamed for killing Mr Tse anyway -- and will be shot at the spot.

Survivor Chen was unable to see Tse at from his seat. So Chen may not know what happened in the front. But the driver was in a position where he could witness it. Has he seen it? Does he have a side (or made to choose side) in this conspiracy?

Update: (ATV & TVB News) The Philippines authorities released the autopsy report, showing Tse shot by a bullet on the neck, with ATV's graphic illustration initially showed the bullet from right in, left out -- seems to refute the conspiracy theory (and perhaps consistent with the speculation that the same bullet went through and hit the front window pane. However, it was not clear if the the 'direction' of the bullet was unambiguously concluded. This is reinforced TVB news illustration which only mentioned that the bullet went through Tse's neck. i.e. omitting the direction of the bullet, while stating/drawing with no ambiguity the directions of the bullets for other victims.

Update 2: According to Ming Pao (Aug 28, quoting GMA TV in Philippines), Tse was shot form left side, supporting the conspiracy theory.
  • 8名死者中,機智致電回港通報的領隊謝廷駿是頭部中槍死亡,子彈由左至右射入其頸部對上位置
update 3: Singtao (AUG 29) spelled out the issue as well
  • 菲律賓驗屍報告顯示,謝廷駿是左臉頰中槍,惟港方卻發現他是頸項中槍。據調查透露,謝是被槍手射殺,當時謝站在車頭面向車門(左臉頰向車頭玻璃方向,所站處地方狹窄),其身體右邊則暴露在槍手,推測槍手從謝的右邊開出致命一槍,但卻是左臉中槍,存在疑點。

    2010-08-24

    President Benigno Aquino III, "Even in Russia..." ???

    "....But, as you know, even in Russia—they have resources and sophistication—when they had that theater hostage taking situation, the casualties were even more severe.” President Benigno Aquino III said in an interview, seemingly smiling with certain degree of satisfaction for his team's achievement. Or maybe I am wrong, his face always looks like that -- I should apologize if I am mistaken, but that is what my mother said, she had been silent until she saw the smiley from him.

    So i looked up what happened in Russia, in Beslan, and in Dubrovka Theater Moscow.

    Beslan, from wiki
    • hostage = 1200 hostages
    • terrorists = 32
    • total death of hostages =334 (if include special force and "others" 354) , total injured hostages = 783 (including special force)
    • death <30% of total hostages
     Dubrovka Theater Moscow, from wiki
    • hostage = 850-900 hostages
    • terrorists = 33(+)
    • total death of hostages =129-204, total injured hostages = 783 (including special force)
    • death <25% total hostages
    Manila
    • death = 8/15 = 54%
    • hostage taker 1
    "the casualties were more severe?" Are you serious Mr. the Third? you mean 25%-30% is more severe than 50+%?

    The specific demand of the hostage taker is not entirely clear yet. it is reported he wanted his job back and his name cleared. Among the requests whick were bluntly denied include just an meeting with the media (MEDIA NOW in his note on window) and perhaps have an open hearing to his case, which could be granted to anyone in principle. The answer from the Philippines government could simply be "yes, we would open the case and let the media to judge, but you would also need to face the consequence of what you did today" which is reasonable enough.

    This is fundamentally different from what the terrorists wanted in Russia's cases. So the cases are really not comparable, but I would give you the comparison just for your smiley face sake.

    Anyway, I, for one, will never visit this country again, for business or leisure, until this government can demonstrate that it is willing to respect lives of visitors, or any person in general. If I have to, I would rather go to Russia instead, or Israel / Palestine. Yes, I know these are terrible places with high risks. But I also know if anything happens there, my survival rate will be higher, significantly higher, at least higher than the miserable 46% you provide. As a matter of fact, I would rather play Russian rollette than being taken hostage in your country. Playing Russian roulette my survival rate will be exactly 50%. BTW, I would like to play that game with you, my friend.

    And more importantly, they care more about that than you do. And I won't be "smiled" at even if I am expended in the rescue action. So, thank you for reminding me of that comparison, President Aquino III, for I wouldn't have known the difference in survival rate if not for you. I might have to face a tough choice of picking between Russia and Philippines in future, who knows? But at least I have done my homework and I would have no regret -- because this is a totally rational choice, backed up by numbers.


    ===

    Aquino explains his stand on Monday's hostage crisis

    By GENALYN KABILING
    August 24, 2010, 10:51am
    Where was President Benigno Aquino III during the 12-hour hostage crisis in Manila last Monday?

    The President explained that he was monitoring the hostage drama from the Palace but left the matter to concerned police authorities for them to effectively handle.

    Appearing in a press conference aired early Tuesday in Malacañang after the hostage drama ended with the death of the hostage-taker and eight hostages, the President also claimed that it would not do good if he interfered with the work of the ground commander to secure the captives.

    Aquino was nowhere in sight as the hostage drama involving a former policeman and a busload of Hong Kong tourists unfolded Monday.

    He only appeared in public three hours after the crisis was over, apologizing to the Hong Kong government for the casualties and expressing condolences to the families of the victims. Afterwards, he went to the Quirino Grandstand, the scene of the incident, early Tuesday morning and inspected the bus hijacked by former police officer Rolando Mendoza.

    “Nalaman ko po itong insidenteng ito kaninang umaga pa po actually, at mula nung umaga, tayo ay kumakausap na sa ilan sa mga kinauukulang awtoridad. Hindi ko naman po siguro kakailanganin pang i-publicize ‘yong mga ginagawa po natin. (I learned about the incident early Monday morning. Since then, we were already talking to some concerned authorities. I don’t have to publicize my every move),” he said.

    “Consciously, from the morning since we were informed of this incident, we were asking to be kept apprised of the developments, but consciously, it had to lay the delegated authority to the rightful persons who are tasked to carry out the functions and secure the situation,” he added, in his apparent first security crisis since assuming the presidency last June.

    Aquino, in explaining his low-profile role in the hostage drama, also said the ground commander should be given confidence since “he is the person who is there on the sight who will have to make these tough decisions if necessary."

    “It does not help him to have somebody looking over his shoulder and micro-managing everything that he has to do,” he said.

    The President added that he was busy prohibiting some people from derailing the resolution of the hostage crisis.

    “Isa sa mga pinaka-mahirap na parte ‘nung araw natin ay ‘yong mga pag-aawat nitong mga nag-mi-miron (One of the difficult parts of my day was the stopping of those nosy observers),” he said.

    Citing an example, the President said he asked Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo to restrain an official from the National Police Commission from further meddling in the hostage incident. Without identifying the person, he said this police official immediately rejected the demands of the hostage-taker despite ongoing efforts to secure the safe release of the hostages.

    “Kumbaga sinira agad ang (As if he ruined) avenues for negotiation so I [had] to task Jesse Robredo to call up this particular NAPOLCOM official to tell him to keep quiet because he was, for whatever reason, greatly complicating the tense situation already,” he said.

    The President, meantime, ordered concerned government agencies to investigate the hostage crisis at the Quirino Grandstand, saying the problem should have been handled more efficiently.

    He said his administration would also find ways to improve the capability of security forces in dealing with hostage situations.

    “This resulted in a tragedy. Obviously, we can improve and we should be improving. We are also cognizant of the circumstances, training, budgets for instances for incidents such as this,” he said.

    He said the provision of new and better equipment and more training of security forces would ensure the safety of the public during crisis situations. He said the method employed by the armed members of Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team for a possible assault on the bus was unsuccessful. “Obviously we will need better equipment and more training to be able to successfully breach such scenario,” he said.

    Asked if he thought there were lapses in the way the crisis was handled, he said: “How can I be satisfied if there are people who died? But, as you know, even in Russia—they have resources and sophistication—when they had that theater hostage taking situation, the casualties were even more severe.”

    On questions why the government waited for so long to employ force to end the hostage drama, he said they cannot use the “final option as the first option” due to concerns it might put the hostages at unnecessary risks.

    He said they initially hoped there would be amicable and peaceful solution to the hostage crisis given the hostage-taker’s release of some hostages early Monday. Unfortunately, he said the situation deteriorated rapidly when the hostage-taker started shooting at negotiators, prompting authorities to storm the bus and rescue the hostages.

    2010-08-22

    Shame on the Economist

    The Economist is usually good, often very good. In fact, it is one of the best, if not the best, magazine that I read. It is for this reason that I would hold a higher, and a much higher standard for the Economist. So it is devastating to see the standard of the Economist fall to that of political propaganda in line with the Pentagon/CIA white papers, or that of a loaded Apple Daily editorial. In fact, reading the recent report below, I fear it is aiming towards that of the People's Daily.

    I am not going to rip the Economist report apart. I will just quote this paragraph (and the words in bold)
    • In a weeklong assault the Chinese seized much of Arunachal, as well as a slab of Kashmir in the western Himalayas, and killed 3,000 Indian officers and men. Outside Tawang’s district headquarters a roadside memorial, built in the local Buddhist style, commemorates these dead. At a famous battle site, below the 14,000-foot pass that leads into Tawang, army convoys go slow, and salute their ghosts.
    • In wayside villages of solid white houses fluttering with coloured prayer-flags, China’s two-week occupation of Tawang is also remembered. Local peasants, aged 60 and more but with youthful Tibetan features, light-brown and creased by the wind, recall playing Sho (Tibetan Mahjong) with the invaders. Many say they remember them fondly: the Chinese, they note, helped get in the wheat harvest that year. “They were little men, but they were always ready to help. We had no problem with them,” says Mem Nansey, an aged potato farmer. The Chinese withdrew to Tibet, their superiority established but their supply lines overstretched, barely a fortnight after they had come. “We weren’t sorry to see the back of them, either,” says Mr Nansey, concerned, it seems, that no one should doubt his loyalty to Delhi, 1,500km (930 miles) to the west.
      His ambivalence is widely shared. China and India, repositories of 40% of the world’s people, are often unsure what to make of each other. Since re-establishing diplomatic ties in 1976, after a post-war pause, they and their relationship have in many ways been transformed. The 1962 war was an act of Chinese aggression most obviously springing from China’s desire for western Aksai Chin, a lofty plain linking Xinjiang to Tibet. But its deeper causes included a famine in China and economic malaise in both countries. China and India are now the world’s fastest-growing big economies, however, and in a year or two, when India overtakes Japan on a purchasing-power-parity basis, they will be the world’s second- and third-biggest. And as they grow, Asia’s giants have come closer.
    Perhaps the Economist can no longer afford to hire Oxbridge graduate as their writers, but wouldn't anyone, any journalist, at least do some research before writing something on a single (and very likely to be biased) source?

    "killing 3000 officers and men"? soldiers or just men? can you at least make it clarify that?

    "an act of Chinese aggression"? have you at least check wiki or its source? or the recently declassified CIA report?
    • The facts related to the cause of 1962 Sino-Indian war has been well documented by British journalist/scholar Neville Maxwell, American Navy researcher James Calvin and many others, and even in the wiki edit war the facts has been more or less clarified. In short, Nehru wanted to push and test the Chinese limit to defend its border claim with his "Forward Policy", i.e., push forward beyond China's existing border posts by "cutting their supply line and force China to retreat".
    • Who started the act of aggression? From the CIA report: 
    • "Attempting to impede further criticism of his "soft" policy, Nehru spoke in tones of striking belligerency, The military situation on the border, he began, had changed progressively in India's favor because of recently strengthened defenses. He then promised :
       We w i l l continue t o build these things up so that ultimately we may be in a position
      t o take effective action to recover such t e r r i t o r y as is in their possession.
      This was the most explicit public statement that - Nehru had made regarding an intention t o take military action to regain land held by Chinese forces.
      The Chinese for good reason l a t e r cited it to demonstrate Indian responsibility for border clashes.
      Nehru went on t o give an account of India's hard moves, Although the Chinese had established three posts in Ladakh, he said, India had set up six, including one a t Daulat Beg O l d i near the garakoram Pass, He also cited a steady buildup of Indian forces and noted that 500 t o 1,000 men were required to 'provide l o g i s t i c support for one 50-man post
      Compelled in t h i s way t o demonstrate Indian m i l i tary aggressiveness, Nehru a t times spoke about outposts in d e t a i l , exposing his and his aides' confusion about certain crucial facts; Regarding the time three "new" posts were established, Nehru stated in Parliament
      on 20 November that it had been '*in. recent weeks" and, on 28 November, that it had been "during the 2ast two years" or, on second consideration, "during last summer" Regarding location, he stated on the 28th that rttwo..,are practically on the international frontier between Tibet and Ladakh" but, on second consideration, "we are not quite certain whether they are a  m i l e or    t w o on t h i s s i d e or on that side,?-
      When a member of Parliament claimed that "then, they - m u s t be on t h i s (lndia's) s i d e ; if there is any doubt, they are obviously on this side," Nehru agreed:
      -
      Let us presume that. We have presumed that. But I am merely saying that they are near the international frontier. Nehru's ambiguity and uncertainty suggests t h a t the Indian charge that the three Chinese posts were "new" may not have been accurate,+*
    "springing from Chinese desire to for Western Aksai Chin"? or India's desire for Aksai Chin?
    • China not only controlled Aksai Chin well before the war started. It has already built a road passing through it. Given that India didn't even knew about the road before it was completed (the area was more or less deserted no man's land), it is perhaps more appropriate to say it is caused by "India's desire"
    • From the CIA report (declassified in 2007), "The Chinese apparently were motivated to attack by one primary consideration--their determination to r e t a i n he ground on which PLA forces stood in 1962 and to punish the Indians for trying t o t a k e that ground. In general
      terms, they tried to show the Indians once and for a l l that China would not acquiesce in a military "reoccupation" policy. The secondary reasons for the attack, which had made it desirable but not necessary, included a desire (1) to damage Nehru's prestige by exposing Indian weakness and
      (2) to expose as traitorous Khrushchev's policy of supporting Nehru against a Communigt country. They attained almost unqualified success with the 9 irst objective, but attained the second only w i t h respect to parties already in t h e i r camp."
    "deeper causes included a famine in China"? If anything, the 1959-1961 famine (which is theactual almost over by 1962), together with gun war over Kinmen in Taiwan Strait, would only decrease the likelihood or willingness of China going to war. All these attention diversiin on are fabricated later by India for propaganda purpose, at the time the Communist government in China were firmly in charge and had no need for attention diversion. The story they told their people is that the Soviet Union for China to repay the debt for the Korean War and Aid in building factories in early 1950s -- which are lies but taken without question by its people.

    I will stop here. If you are interested in what happened in 1962, read the links under wiki, or just the CIA report linked above. For why the negotiation in the 1990s stalled, read this interview conducted by the Indian reporter, and its other report. Putting the Indian report and the Economist side by side, ICBE! I Can't Believe its the Economist!

    ====
    Below is the Economist report. The graphics are quite nice (unlike the extremely sloppy maps in the 2010 pentagon report, which for example, purposefully leaves out the larger chunk of the area in dispute), and the interviews with the Tawan residents are interesting and insightful.

    ---

    India and China - A Himalayan rivalry

    Asia’s two giants are still unsure what to make of each other. But as they grow, they are coming closer—for good and bad

    Aug 19th 2010 Beijing, Delhi and Tawang


    MEMORIES of a war between India and China are still vivid in the Tawang valley, a lovely, cloud-blown place high on the south-eastern flank of the Himalayas. They are nurtured first by the Indian army, humiliated in 1962 when the People’s Liberation Army swept into Tawang from next-door Tibet. India now has three army corps—about 100,000 troops—in its far north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, which includes Tawang.
    With another corps in reserve, and a few Sukhoi fighter planes deployed last year to neighbouring Assam, they are a meaty border force, unlike their hapless predecessors. In 1962 many Indian troops were sent shivering to the front in light cotton uniforms issued for Punjab’s fiery plains. In a weeklong assault the Chinese seized much of Arunachal, as well as a slab of Kashmir in the western Himalayas, and killed 3,000 Indian officers and men. Outside Tawang’s district headquarters a roadside memorial, built in the local Buddhist style, commemorates these dead. At a famous battle site, below the 14,000-foot pass that leads into Tawang, army convoys go slow, and salute their ghosts.

    In wayside villages of solid white houses fluttering with coloured prayer-flags, China’s two-week occupation of Tawang is also remembered. Local peasants, aged 60 and more but with youthful Tibetan features, light-brown and creased by the wind, recall playing Sho (Tibetan Mahjong) with the invaders. Many say they remember them fondly: the Chinese, they note, helped get in the wheat harvest that year. “They were little men, but they were always ready to help. We had no problem with them,” says Mem Nansey, an aged potato farmer. The Chinese withdrew to Tibet, their superiority established but their supply lines overstretched, barely a fortnight after they had come. “We weren’t sorry to see the back of them, either,” says Mr Nansey, concerned, it seems, that no one should doubt his loyalty to Delhi, 1,500km (930 miles) to the west.
    His ambivalence is widely shared. China and India, repositories of 40% of the world’s people, are often unsure what to make of each other. Since re-establishing diplomatic ties in 1976, after a post-war pause, they and their relationship have in many ways been transformed. The 1962 war was an act of Chinese aggression most obviously springing from China’s desire for western Aksai Chin, a lofty plain linking Xinjiang to Tibet. But its deeper causes included a famine in China and economic malaise in both countries. China and India are now the world’s fastest-growing big economies, however, and in a year or two, when India overtakes Japan on a purchasing-power-parity basis, they will be the world’s second- and third-biggest. And as they grow, Asia’s giants have come closer.
    Their two-way trade is roaring: only $270m in 1990, it is expected to exceed $60 billion this year. They are also tentatively co-operating, for their mutual enrichment, in other ways: for example, by co-ordinating their bids for the African oil supplies that both rely on. Given their contrasting economic strengths—China’s in manufacturing, India’s in services—some see an opportunity for much deeper co-operation. There is even a word for this vision, “Chindia”. On important international issues, notably climate-change policy and world trade, their alignment is already imposing.
    Their leaders naturally talk up these pluses: at the summit of the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China) in Brasília in April, for example, and during celebrations in Beijing earlier this year to commemorate the 60th anniversary of India’s recognition of the People’s Republic. “India and China are not in competition,” India’s sage-like prime minister, Manmohan Singh, often says. “There is enough economic space for us both.”
    China’s president, Hu Jintao, says the same. And no doubt both want to believe it. The booms in their countries have already moved millions out of poverty, especially in China, which is far ahead on almost every such measure of progress (and also dismissive of the notion that India could ever rival it). A return to confrontation, besides hugely damaging the improved image of both countries, would plainly jeopardise this movement forward. That is why the secular trend in China-India relations is positive.
    Yet China and India are in many ways rivals, not Asian brothers, and their relationship is by any standard vexed—as recent quarrelling has made abundantly plain. If you then consider that they are, despite their mutual good wishes, old enemies, bad neighbours and nuclear powers, and have two of the world’s biggest armies—with almost 4m troops between them—this may seem troubling.

    Forget Chindia
    There are many caveats to the recent improvement in their relationship. As the world’s oil wells run dry, many—including sober analysts in both countries—foresee China-India rivalry redrawn as a cut-throat contest for an increasingly scarce resource. The two oil-gluggers’ recent co-operation on energy was, after all, as unusual as it was tentative. More often, Chinese state-backed energy firms compete with all-comers, for Sudanese oil and Burmese gas, and win.
    Rivalry over gas supplies is a bigger concern for Indian policymakers. They fear China would be more able to “capture” gas by building massive pipelines overnight. Water is already an object of contention, given that several of the big rivers of north India, including the Brahmaputra, on which millions depend, rise in Tibet. China recently announced that it is building a dam on the Brahmaputra, which it calls the Yarlung Tsangpo, exacerbating an old Indian fear that the Beijing regime means to divert the river’s waters to Chinese farmers.
    As for Chindia, it can seem almost too naive to bother about. Over 70% of India’s exports to China by value are raw materials, chiefly iron ore, bespeaking a colonial-style trade relationship that is hugely favourable to China. A proliferating range of Chinese non-tariff barriers to Indian companies, which India grumbles about, is a small part of this. The fault lies chiefly with India’s uncompetitive manufacturing. It is currently cheaper, an Indian businessman says ruefully, to export plastic granules to China and then import them again in bucket-form, than it is to make buckets in India.
    This is a source of tension. India’s great priority is to create millions of jobs for its young, bulging and little-skilled population, which will be possible only if it makes huge strides in manufacturing. Similarly, if China trails India in IT services at present, its recent investments in the industry suggest it does not plan to lag for long.
    Yet there is another, more obvious bone of contention, which exacerbates all these others and lies at the root of them: the 4,000km border that runs between the two countries. Nearly half a century after China’s invasion, it remains largely undefined and bitterly contested.
    The basic problem is twofold. In the undefined northern part of the frontier India claims an area the size of Switzerland, occupied by China, for its region of Ladakh. In the eastern part, China claims an Indian-occupied area three times bigger, including most of Arunachal. This 890km stretch of frontier was settled in 1914 by the governments of Britain and Tibet, which was then in effect independent, and named the McMahon Line after its creator, Sir Henry McMahon, foreign secretary of British-ruled India. For China—which was afforded mere observer status at the negotiations preceding the agreement—the McMahon Line represents a dire humiliation.
    China also particularly resents being deprived of Tawang, which—though south of the McMahon Line—was occupied by Indian troops only in 1951, shortly after China’s new Communist rulers dispatched troops to Tibet. This district of almost 40,000 people, scattered over 2,000 square kilometres of valley and high mountains, was the birthplace in the 17th century of the sixth Dalai Lama (the incumbent incarnation is the 14th). Tawang is a centre of Tibet’s Buddhist culture, with one of the biggest Tibetan monasteries outside Lhasa. Traditionally, its ethnic Monpa inhabitants offered fealty to Tibet’s rulers—which those aged peasants around Tawang also remember. “The Tibetans came for money and did nothing for us,” said Mr Nansey, referring to the fur-cloaked Tibetan officials who until the late 1940s went from village to village extracting a share of the harvest.
    Making matters worse, the McMahon Line was drawn with a fat nib, establishing a ten-kilometre margin for error, and it has never been demarcated. With more confusion in the central sector, bordering India’s northern state of Uttarakhand, there are in all a dozen stretches of frontier where neither side knows where even the disputed border should be. In these “pockets”, as they are called, Indian and Chinese border guards circle each other endlessly while littering the Himalayan hillsides—as dogs mark lampposts—to make their presence known. When China-India relations are strained, this gives rise to tit-for-tat and mostly bogus accusations of illegal border incursions—for which each side can offer the other’s empty cigarette and noodle packets as evidence. In official Indian parlance such proof is grimly referred to as “telltale signs”. It is plainly garbage. Yet this is a carefully rehearsed and mutually comprehensible ritual for which both sides deserve credit, of a sort. Despite several threatened dust-ups—including one in 1986 that saw 200,000 Indian troops rushed to northern Tawang district—there has been no confirmed exchange of fire between Indian and Chinese troops since 1967.

    Hands extended—and withdrawn
    It would be even better if the two countries would actually settle their dispute, and, until recently, that seemed imaginable. The obvious solution, whereby both sides more or less accept the status quo, exchanging just a few bits of turf to save face, was long ago advocated by China, including in the 1980s by the then prime minister, Deng Xiaoping. India’s leaders long considered this politically impossible. But in 2003 a coalition government led by the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party—which in 1998 had cited the Chinese threat to justify its decision to test a nuclear bomb—launched an impressive bid for peace. For the first time India declared itself ready to compromise on territory, and China appeared ready to meet it halfway. Both countries appointed special envoys, who have since met 13 times, to lead the negotiations that followed. This led to an outline deal in 2005, containing the “guiding principles and political parameters” for a final settlement. Those included an agreement that it would involve no exchange of “settled populations”—which implied that China had dropped its historical demand for Tawang.
    Left, India, right, China, salute
    Yet the hopes this inspired have faded. In ad hoc comments from Chinese diplomats and through its state-controlled media—which often refer to Arunachal as Chinese South Tibet—China appears to have reasserted its demand for most of India’s far north-eastern state. Annoying the Indians further, it started issuing special visas to Indians from Arunachal and Kashmir—after having denied a visa to an Indian official from Arunachal on the basis that he was, in fact, Chinese. It also objected to a $60m loan to India from the Asian Development Bank, on the basis that some of the money was earmarked for irrigation schemes in Arunachal. Its spokesman described a visit to Tawang by Mr Singh, ahead of a general election last year, as “provocative and dangerous”. Chinese analysts warn against understanding from these hints that China has formally revised its position on the border. But that is India’s suspicion. And no one, in either country, is predicting a border settlement soon.
    In fact, the relationship has generally soured. Having belatedly woken up to the huge improvements China has made in its border infrastructure, enabling a far swifter mobilisation of Chinese troops there, India announced last year that it would deploy another 60,000 troops to Arunachal. It also began upgrading its airfields in Assam and deploying the Sukhois to them. India’s media meanwhile reported a spate of “incursions” by Chinese troops. China’s state-controlled media was more restrained, with striking exceptions. Last year an editorial in the Global Times, an English-language tabloid in Beijing, warned that “India needs to consider whether or not it can afford the consequences of a potential confrontation with China.” Early this year India’s outgoing national security adviser and special envoy to China, M.K. Narayanan, accused Chinese hackers of attacking his website, as well as those of other Indian government departments.
    Recent diplomacy has brought more calm. Officials on both sides were especially pleased by their show of unity at the United Nations climate meeting in Copenhagen last December, where China and India, the world’s biggest and fourth-biggest emitters of carbon gas, faced down American-led demands for them to undertake tougher anti-warming measures. A slight cooling in the America-India relationship, which President George Bush had pushed with gusto, has also helped. So, India hopes, has its appointment of a shrewd Mandarin-speaker, Shivshankar Menon, as its latest national security adviser and special envoy to China. He made his first visit to Beijing in this role last month; a 14th round of border talks is expected. And yet the China-India relationship has been bruised.

    Negative views
    In China, whose Communist leaders are neither voluble nor particularly focused on India, this bruising is mostly clear from last year’s quarrel itself. The Chinese, many of whom consider India a dirty, third-rate sort of place, were perhaps most obviously to blame for it. This is despite China’s conspicuous recent success in settling its other land disputes, including with Russia and Vietnam—a fact Chinese commentators often cite to indicate Indian intransigence. Chinese public opinion also seems to be turning against India, a country the Chinese have been wont to remark on fondly, if at all, as the birthplace of Buddhism. According to a recent survey of global opinion released by the BBC, the Chinese show a “distinct cooling” towards India, which 47% viewed negatively.
    In garrulous, democratic India, the fallout is easier to gauge. According to the BBC poll, 38% of Indians have a negative view of China. In fact, this has been more or less the case since the defeat of 1962. Lamenting the failure of Indian public opinion to move on, Patricia Uberoi, a sociologist at Delhi’s Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, notes that while there have been many Indian films on the subcontinent’s violent partition, including star-crossed Indo-Pakistani romances, there has been only one notable Indian movie on the 1962 war: a propaganda film called “Haqeeqat”, or “Truth”, supported by the Indian defence ministry.
    Hawkish Indian commentators are meanwhile up in arms. “China, in my view, does not want a rival in Asia,” says Brajesh Mishra, a former national security adviser and special envoy to China, who drafted the 2005 agreement and is revered by the hawks. “Its main agenda is to keep India preoccupied with events in South Asia so it is constrained from playing a more important role in Asian and global affairs.” Senior officials present a more nuanced analysis, noting, for example, that India has hardly been alone in getting heat from China: many countries, Asian and Western, have similarly been singed. Yet they admit to heightened concern over China’s intentions in South Asia, and foresee no hope for a settlement of the border. Nicholas Burns, a former American diplomat who led the negotiations for an America-India nuclear co-operation deal that was concluded in 2008, and who now teaches at Harvard University, suspects that over the past year China has supplanted Pakistan as the main worry of Indian policymakers. He considers the China-India relationship “exceedingly troubled and perturbed” and thinks that it will remain “uneasy for many years to come”.

    Fear of encirclement
    For foreign-policy realists, who see China and India locked in a battle for Asian supremacy, this is inevitable. Even fixing the border could hardly mitigate the tension. More optimistic analysts, and there are many, even if currently hushed, consider this old-school nonsense. Though both India and China have their rabid fringe, they say, they are rational enough to know that a strategic struggle would be sapping and, given each other’s vast size, unwinnable. Both are therefore committed, as they claim, to fixing the border and fostering better relations. Yet there are a few impediments to this—of which two are most often cited by analysts in Beijing and Delhi.
    One is represented by the America-India nuclear deal, agreed in principle between Mr Singh and Mr Bush in 2005. Not unreasonably, China took this as a sign that America wanted to use India as a counterweight to China’s rise. It also considered the pact hypocritical: America, while venting against China’s ally, North Korea, going nuclear (which it did a year later), was offering India a free pass to nuclear-power status, despite its refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Indian analysts believe that China, in a cautious way, tried to scupper the deal by encouraging some of its opponents, including Ireland and Sweden, to vote against it in the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a 46-member club from which it required unanimous approval.
    This glitch reflects a bigger Chinese fear of encirclement by America and its allies, a fear heightened by a recent burst of American activity in Asia. The United States has sought to strengthen security ties with South-East Asian countries, including Vietnam and Indonesia. It has also called on China, in an unusually public fashion, to be more accommodating over contested areas of the South China Sea—where America and India share concerns about a Chinese naval build-up, including the construction of a nuclear-submarine base on the Chinese island of Hainan. In north-east Asia, America has launched military exercises with South Korea in response to North Korea’s alleged sinking of a South Korean warship in March. Some Chinese analysts, with ties to the government, consider these a direct challenge to China.
    China is deeply suspicious of America’s military campaign in nearby Afghanistan (and covertly in Pakistan), which is supported from bases in Central Asian countries. It is also unimpressed by a growing closeness between India and Japan, its main Asian rival. Japanese firms are, for example, expected to invest $10 billion, and perhaps much more, in a 1,500km “industrial corridor” between Delhi and Mumbai. In 2007 Japanese warships took part in a naval exercise in the Bay of Bengal, also involving Indian, Australian and Singaporean ships and the American nuclear-powered vessels USS Nimitz and USS Chicago, which was hosted by India and was the biggest ever held in the region.
    This seemed to back a proposal, put about by American think-tankers, for an “axis of democracies” to balance China. Officially, India would want no part of this. “We don’t want to balance China,” says a senior Indian official. But, he adds, “all the democracies do feel it is safer to be together. Is China going to be peaceful or not? We don’t know. In the event that China leaves the path of peaceful rise, we would work very closely together.”
    India also fears encirclement, and with reason. America’s Pentagon, in an annual report on China’s military power released on August 16th, said China’s armed forces were developing “new capabilities” that might extend their reach into the Indian Ocean. China has also made big investments in all India’s neighbours. It is building deepwater ports in Pakistan and Bangladesh, roads in Nepal and oil and gas pipelines in Myanmar. Worse, it agreed in 2008 to build two nuclear-power plants for its main regional ally, Pakistan—a deal that also worried America, who saw it as a tit-for-tat response to its nuclear deal with India. (China has become Pakistan’s biggest supplier of military hardware, including fighter jets and guided-missile frigates, and in the past has given it weapons-grade fissile material and a tested bomb design as part of its nuclear support.)

    Muffling Tibet
    Hawkish Indians consider these Chinese investments as a “string of pearls” to throttle India. Wiser ones point out that India is too big to throttle—and that China’s rising influence in South Asia is an indictment of India’s past inability to get on with almost any of its neighbours. Under Mr Singh, India has sought to redress this. It is boosting trade with Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, and sticking, with commendable doggedness in the face of little encouragement, to the task of making peace with Pakistan. That would be glorious for both countries; it would also remove a significant China-India bugbear.
    The other great impediment to better relations is Tibet. Its fugitive Dalai Lama and his “government-in-exile” have found refuge in India since 1959—and China blames him, and by extension his hosts, for the continued rebelliousness in his homeland. A Tibetan uprising in March 2008, the biggest in decades, was therefore a major factor in last year’s China-India spat. It led to China putting huge pressure on India to stifle the anti-China Tibetan protests that erupted in India—especially one intended to disrupt the passage of the Olympic torch through Delhi en route to Beijing. It also objected to a visit to Tawang by the Dalai Lama last November, which it predictably called a “separatist action”. This visit, from which leftover banners of welcome still festoon the town’s main bazaar, perhaps reminded China why it is so fixated on Tawang—as a centre of the Tibetan Buddhist culture that it is struggling, all too visibly, to control.
    Mindful of the huge support the Dalai Lama enjoys in India, its government says it can do little to restrict him. Yet it policed the protest tightly, and also barred foreign journalists from accompanying him to Tawang. India would perhaps rather be spared discreet balancing acts of this sort. “But we’re stuck with him, he’s our guest,” says V.R. Raghavan, a retired Indian general and veteran of the 1962 war. Indeed, many Indian pundits consider that China will never settle the border, and so relinquish a potential source of leverage over India, while the 75-year-old lama is alive.
    A dangerous child
    After his death, China will attempt to control his holy office as it has those of other senior lamas. It will “discover” the reincarnated Dalai Lama in Tibet, or at least endorse the choice of its agents, and attempt to groom him into a more biddable monk. In theory that would end a major cause of China-India discord, but only if the Chinese can convince Tibetans that their choice is the right one, which seems unlikely. The Dalai Lama has already indicated that he may choose to be “reborn” outside China. There is talk of the important role Tawang has often played in identifying incarnations of the Dalai Lama, or even that the 14th may choose to reincarnate in Tawang itself.
    For the abbot of Tawang’s main monastery, Guru Tulku Rinpoche, that would be a great blessing. “If his holiness chooses to be born in Tawang, we would be so happy,” he says in his red-carpeted monastic office, as half a dozen skinny lads file in to be inducted into monkhood. Silently, they prostrate themselves before the abbot, while he scribbles down their new monastic names. Outside his window, the early morning sun sparkles through the white clouds that hang low over Tawang. It is hard to think that this remote and tranquil spot could have caused such a continent-sized ruckus. Yet, if the abbot has his wish, it will cause a lot more trouble yet.

    2010-08-21

    Geography Quiz: Foreign Policy and ATK's infamous 65

    Look at the pictures and guess what the names of the cities are. This will be extremely hard. Full of surprises and counter-representative pictures, e.g. why Dublin is ranked above Osaka and Mumbai, the choice of the picture for Los Angeles. Oops, spoilers, but that won't help you a lot. The real hint is ATK has taken an arbitrary 65 cities based on certain people's personal choices and an arbitrary matrix of pseudo-quantitative ranking with random weighting to rank the 65.

    Metropolis Now  Foreign Policy (via ESWN)

    Don't forget to read the comments below for some of the obvious errors in the captions (e.g. Vienna).

    Methodology (extremely vague) and the rank table (with absolutely no scoring breaking but GDP and Population to show you how small their weights are in the "scoring"

    2010-08-18

    History of World GDP Shares

    History of World GDP, from the Economist, see also discussion in the Big Picture

    2010-08-08

    香港的集體失焦:背道而馳 與 刻舟求劍 (之一)

    一)背道而馳

    惡珍事件

    主流意見如闾丘露薇的"恶阿珍怎麽来"無非是說

    • 零团费以及负团费是引发问题的根源
    • 还是依靠行业管理,提升经营模式,而不是停留在这种低层次的销售阶段
    更有接受惡珍那似是而非的辯解("一个巴掌拍不响,阿珍之所以变凶妇,用她的话来说,那些游客不但购物不多,还对她语言尖锐,最终使她失控"),或是惡珍老闆(竊以為其責任肯定比惡珍大)的“你應該知道沒有免費午餐”論,好像貪小便宜的遊客們才是問題的根源。

    結論自然就是好像大家不自律這問題就解決不了似的。

    可是,為什麼會有零團費?這根本原因在哪裡?一直都沒有人點出真正的原因。因此一切的討論都在緣木求魚。得出的結論也自然都是背道而馳了。

    零團費的根源,是不合比例的回扣率。這些惡珍們的回扣率為什麼到目前都沒有媒體去調查報導呢?有以前當過導遊的人告訴我,不少店給的回扣往往高於銷售額的50%!為什麼工程入標拿回扣就是貪污,遊客購物拿回扣就不是呢?同樣是因為拿了回扣所以才使手段讓遊客(工程招標者)買了貴價貨啊。世上大部分公司的採購員拿了回扣都要坐牢的,在香港也如此,廉政公署之責任也。

    解決惡珍問題,沒錯是要取締零團費或超低團費,也就是回扣補貼團費的問題。而要解決零團費問題,唯一的方法就是處理“不合理”回扣的問題。

    建議方法
    1)立法禁止導遊收取回扣,或限制回扣上限(比如5%),甚至可以考慮由遊客按購買額來付購物導遊小費。
    2)若不完全取締回扣,必須(在報團時)向遊客公開購物回扣率
    3)旅遊發展局可以像發“優質服務章”一樣,發“不付回扣章”給正當經營的商戶。

    只有這樣,才能確保導遊的利益不是站在顧客的對立面。以後旅行社的宣傳標榜的將會是“不收商戶回扣”或“回扣率 < 5%”。只有這樣,才能保得香港旅遊業的聲譽。只有這樣,導遊才能回歸為一項正當職業。

    Nagasaki and Japan's condition for peace

    While the issue of A-bomb ending the war, and also saving much more lives for both Japan and the world is more or less a consensus (except for a small minority and for the Japanese), there has always been debate that the second bomb in Nagasaki may not be necessary. The most heard argument is that Japan is already seeking "for peace".

    For this wiki has a fairly detailed account of what happened on the days of August 8th and 9th in the Japanese cabinet.


    These "twin shocks"—the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and the Soviet entry—had immediate profound effects on Prime Minister Suzuki and Foreign Minister Tōgō Shigenori, who concurred that the government must end the war at once.[81] However, the senior leadership of the Japanese Army took the news in stride, grossly underestimating the scale of the attack. They did start preparations to impose martial law on the nation, with the support of Minister of War Anami, to stop anyone attempting to make peace.[82] Hirohito told Kido to "quickly control the situation" because "the Soviet Union has declared war and today began hostilities against us."[83]
    The Supreme Council met at 10:30. Suzuki, who had just come from a meeting with the Emperor, said it was impossible to continue the war. Tōgō Shigenori said that they could accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, but they needed a guarantee of the Emperor's position. Navy Minister Yonai said that they had to make some diplomatic proposal—they could no longer afford to wait for better circumstances.


    • The full cabinet met on 14:30 on August 9, and spent most of the day debating surrender. As the Big Six had done, the cabinet split, with neither Tōgō's position nor Anami's attracting a majority.[85] Anami told the other cabinet ministers that, under torture, a captured American B-29 pilot had told his interrogators that the Americans possessed 100 atom bombs and that Tokyo and Kyoto would be bombed "in the next few days". The pilot, Marcus McDilda, was lying. He knew nothing of the Manhattan Project, and simply told his interrogators what he thought they wanted to hear to end the torture. The lie, which caused him to be classified as a high-priority prisoner, probably saved him from beheading.[86] In reality, the United States would have had the third bomb ready for use around August 19, and a fourth in September 1945.[87] The third bomb would probably have been used against Tokyo.[88]
    • The cabinet meeting adjourned at 17:30 with no consensus. A second meeting lasting from 18:00 to 22:00 also ended with no consensus. Following this second meeting, Suzuki and Tōgō met with the Emperor, and Suzuki proposed an impromptu Imperial conference, which started just before midnight on the night of August 9–10.[89] Suzuki presented Anami's four-condition proposal as the consensus position of the Supreme Council. The other members of the Supreme Council spoke, as did Baron Hiranuma Kiichirō, the president of the Privy Council, who outlined Japan's inability to defend itself and also described the country's domestic problems, such as the shortage of food. The cabinet debated, but again no consensus emerged. Finally, around 02:00 (August 10), Suzuki then addressed Emperor Hirohito, asking him to decide between the two positions. ......
    Also, the "condition" for Japan's "pursuit for peace"
    • In the middle of the meeting, shortly after 11:00, news arrived that Nagasaki, on the west coast of Kyūshū, had been hit by a second atomic bomb (called "Fat Man" by the Americans). By the time the meeting ended, the Big Six had split 3–3. Suzuki, Tōgō, and Admiral Yonai favored Tōgō's one additional condition to Potsdam, while Generals Anami, Umezu, and Admiral Toyoda insisted on three further terms that modified Potsdam: that Japan handle her own disarmament, that Japan deal with any Japanese war criminals, and that there be no occupation of Japa
    In view of the votes inside the Japanese cabinet it should be less debate about who is responsible for the victims in Nagasaki.

    In fact, even Nagasaki was not able to end the war. Further bombing on Aug 14th did. And all these A-bombs and fire-bombs did little for the hardlines such as Anami, only the Emperor changed minds on 14th, which was decisive.

    • The Big Six and the cabinet spent August 13 debating their reply to the Allied response, but remained deadlocked. Meanwhile, the Allies grew doubtful, waiting for the Japanese to respond. The Japanese had been instructed to reply with an unqualified acceptance in the clear, but replied in code, which was taken as a qualified response.
      The Allies also detected increased diplomatic and military traffic, which was taken as evidence that the Japanese were preparing an "all-out banzai attack." President Truman ordered a resumption of attacks against Japan at maximum intensity "so as to impress Japanese officials that we mean business and are serious in getting them to accept our peace proposals without delay."[99][100] The United States Third Fleet began shelling the Japanese coast. In the largest bombing raid of the Pacific War, more than 400 B-29s attacked Japan during daylight on August 14, and more than 300 that night.[101] A total of 1,014 aircraft were used with no losses.[102]
      ....

    • As August 14 dawned, Suzuki, Kido, and the Emperor realized the day would end with either an acceptance of the American terms or a military coup.[106]
    • The Emperor met with the most senior Army and Navy officers. While several spoke in favor of fighting on, Field Marshall Shunroku Hata did not. As commander of the Second General Army, the headquarters of which had been in Hiroshima, Hata commanded all the troops defending southern Japan—the troops preparing to fight the "decisive battle". Hata said he had no confidence in defeating the invasion and did not dispute the Emperor's decision. The Emperor requested that his military leaders cooperate with him in ending the war.[106]
    • At a conference with the cabinet and other councilors, Anami, Toyoda, and Umezu again made their case for continuing to fight, after which the Emperor said,
    It should also be noted that even till today, the word "surrender" is categorically avoided as sort of a taboo in Japan. They call it "the termination of war" (shyusen, 終戦の日(しゅうせんのひ)), as in the Termination of the War (大東亜戦争終結ノ詔書 Daitōa-sensō-shūketsu-no-shōsho). There was no surrender, nor is there anyone to blame for starting the war. The emperor ended the war to seek peace for his citizens, period.

    ===

    Here is the wiki entry as of Aug 8th, 2010


    August 8–9: Soviet invasion and Nagasaki

    Detailed reports of the unprecedented scale of the destruction at Hiroshima were received in Tokyo, but two days passed before the government met to consider the changed situation.
    At 04:00 on August 9 word reached Tokyo that the Soviet Union had broken the Neutrality Pact,[31] declared war on Japan[79] and launched an invasion of Manchuria.[80]

    A-bombing of Nagasaki
    These "twin shocks"—the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and the Soviet entry—had immediate profound effects on Prime Minister Suzuki and Foreign Minister Tōgō Shigenori, who concurred that the government must end the war at once.[81] However, the senior leadership of the Japanese Army took the news in stride, grossly underestimating the scale of the attack. They did start preparations to impose martial law on the nation, with the support of Minister of War Anami, to stop anyone attempting to make peace.[82] Hirohito told Kido to "quickly control the situation" because "the Soviet Union has declared war and today began hostilities against us."[83]
    The Supreme Council met at 10:30. Suzuki, who had just come from a meeting with the Emperor, said it was impossible to continue the war. Tōgō Shigenori said that they could accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, but they needed a guarantee of the Emperor's position. Navy Minister Yonai said that they had to make some diplomatic proposal—they could no longer afford to wait for better circumstances.
    In the middle of the meeting, shortly after 11:00, news arrived that Nagasaki, on the west coast of Kyūshū, had been hit by a second atomic bomb (called "Fat Man" by the Americans). By the time the meeting ended, the Big Six had split 3–3. Suzuki, Tōgō, and Admiral Yonai favored Tōgō's one additional condition to Potsdam, while Generals Anami, Umezu, and Admiral Toyoda insisted on three further terms that modified Potsdam: that Japan handle her own disarmament, that Japan deal with any Japanese war criminals, and that there be no occupation of Japan.[84]

    [edit] Imperial intervention, Allied response, and Japanese reply


    War Minister Korechika Anami
    The full cabinet met on 14:30 on August 9, and spent most of the day debating surrender. As the Big Six had done, the cabinet split, with neither Tōgō's position nor Anami's attracting a majority.[85] Anami told the other cabinet ministers that, under torture, a captured American B-29 pilot had told his interrogators that the Americans possessed 100 atom bombs and that Tokyo and Kyoto would be bombed "in the next few days". The pilot, Marcus McDilda, was lying. He knew nothing of the Manhattan Project, and simply told his interrogators what he thought they wanted to hear to end the torture. The lie, which caused him to be classified as a high-priority prisoner, probably saved him from beheading.[86] In reality, the United States would have had the third bomb ready for use around August 19, and a fourth in September 1945.[87] The third bomb would probably have been used against Tokyo.[88]
    The cabinet meeting adjourned at 17:30 with no consensus. A second meeting lasting from 18:00 to 22:00 also ended with no consensus. Following this second meeting, Suzuki and Tōgō met with the Emperor, and Suzuki proposed an impromptu Imperial conference, which started just before midnight on the night of August 9–10.[89] Suzuki presented Anami's four-condition proposal as the consensus position of the Supreme Council. The other members of the Supreme Council spoke, as did Baron Hiranuma Kiichirō, the president of the Privy Council, who outlined Japan's inability to defend itself and also described the country's domestic problems, such as the shortage of food. The cabinet debated, but again no consensus emerged. Finally, around 02:00 (August 10), Suzuki then addressed Emperor Hirohito, asking him to decide between the two positions. Although not recorded, from recollections of the participants, the Emperor's statement was:
    I have given serious thought to the situation prevailing at home and abroad and have concluded that continuing the war can only mean destruction for the nation and prolongation of bloodshed and cruelty in the world. I cannot bear to see my innocent people suffer any longer. ...

    I was told by those advocating a continuation of hostilities that by June new divisions would be in place in fortified positions [east of Tokyo] ready for the invader when he sought to land. It is now August and the fortifications still have not been completed. ...

    There are those who say the key to national survival lies in a decisive battle in the homeland. The experiences of the past, however, show that there has always been a discrepancy between plans and performance. I do not believe that the discrepancy in the case of Kujukuri can be rectified. Since this is also the shape of things, how can we repel the invaders? [He then made some specific reference to the increased destructiveness of the atomic bomb]

    It goes without saying that it is unbearable for me to see the brave and loyal fighting men of Japan disarmed. It is equally unbearable that others who have rendered me devoted service should now be punished as instigators of the war. Nevertheless, the time has come to bear the unbearable. ...

    I swallow my tears and give my sanction to the proposal to accept the Allied proclamation on the basis outlined by the Foreign Minister.[90]
    According to General Sumihisa Ikeda and Admiral Zenshirō Hoshina, Privy Council President Hiranuma Kiichirō then turned to the Emperor and asked him: "Your majesty, you also bear responsibility (sekinin) for this defeat. What apology are you going to make to the heroic spirits of the imperial founder of your house and your other imperial ancestors?"[91]

    Once the Emperor had left, Suzuki pushed the cabinet to accept the Emperor's will, which it did. Early that morning (August 10), the Foreign Ministry sent telegrams to the Allies (by way of the Swiss Federal Political Department and Max Grässli in particular) announcing that Japan would accept the Potsdam Declaration but would not accept any peace conditions that would "prejudice the prerogatives" of the Emperor. That effectively meant no change in Japan's form of government[92]—that the Emperor of Japan would remain a position of real power within the government.

    .....


    August 13–14

    The Big Six and the cabinet spent August 13 debating their reply to the Allied response, but remained deadlocked. Meanwhile, the Allies grew doubtful, waiting for the Japanese to respond. The Japanese had been instructed to reply with an unqualified acceptance in the clear, but replied in code, which was taken as a qualified response.
    The Allies also detected increased diplomatic and military traffic, which was taken as evidence that the Japanese were preparing an "all-out banzai attack." President Truman ordered a resumption of attacks against Japan at maximum intensity "so as to impress Japanese officials that we mean business and are serious in getting them to accept our peace proposals without delay."[99][100] The United States Third Fleet began shelling the Japanese coast. In the largest bombing raid of the Pacific War, more than 400 B-29s attacked Japan during daylight on August 14, and more than 300 that night.[101] A total of 1,014 aircraft were used with no losses.[102]
    In the longest bombing mission of the war,[103] B-29s from the 315 Bombardment Wing flew 3,800 miles to destroy the Nippon Oil Company refinery at Tsuchizaki on the northern tip of Honshu. This was the last operational refinery in the Japan home islands and produced 67% of their oil.[104] After the war, the bombing raids were justified on the basis that they were already in progress when word of the Japanese surrender was received, but this is only partially true.[105]

    A leaflet dropped on Japan after the bombing of Hiroshima. The leaflet says, in part: The Japanese people are facing an extremely important autumn. Your military leaders were presented with thirteen articles for surrender by our three-country alliance to put an end to this unprofitable war. This proposal was ignored by your army leaders... [T]he United States has developed an atom bomb, which had not been done by any nation before. It has been determined to employ this frightening bomb. One atom bomb has the destructive power of 2000 B-29s.
    At the suggestion of American psychological operations experts, B-29s spent August 13 dropping leaflets over Japan, describing the Japanese offer of surrender and the Allied response.[99] The leaflets had a profound effect on the Japanese decision-making process. As August 14 dawned, Suzuki, Kido, and the Emperor realized the day would end with either an acceptance of the American terms or a military coup.[106]
    The Emperor met with the most senior Army and Navy officers. While several spoke in favor of fighting on, Field Marshall Shunroku Hata did not. As commander of the Second General Army, the headquarters of which had been in Hiroshima, Hata commanded all the troops defending southern Japan—the troops preparing to fight the "decisive battle". Hata said he had no confidence in defeating the invasion and did not dispute the Emperor's decision. The Emperor requested that his military leaders cooperate with him in ending the war.[106]
    At a conference with the cabinet and other councilors, Anami, Toyoda, and Umezu again made their case for continuing to fight, after which the Emperor said,
    I have listened carefully to each of the arguments presented in opposition to the view that Japan should accept the Allied reply as it stands and without further clarification or modification, but my own thoughts have not undergone any change. ... In order that the people may know my decision, I request you to prepare at once an imperial rescript so that I may broadcast to the nation. Finally, I call upon each and every one of you to exert himself to the utmost so that we may meet the trying days which lie ahead.[107]
    The cabinet immediately convened and unanimously ratified the Emperor's wishes. They also decided to destroy vast amounts of material pertaining to matters related to war crimes and the war responsibility of the nation's highest leaders.[108][109] Immediately after the conference, the Foreign ministry transmitted orders to their embassies in Switzerland and Sweden to accept the Allied terms of surrender. These orders were picked up and received in Washington at 02:49, August 14.[107]

    A-bomb again - the "strange calculus of war"

    It was a closed topic. But every year it was brought up again.

    I made some estimate on the The net effect of Little Boy and Fat Man 3 years ago. This year Kozak wrote for WSJ, quoted,

    • "Japan remains the only country ever to have been targeted by atomic bombs. More than 120,000 Japanese died instantly from the bombings and perhaps as many succumbed to radiation poisoning afterwards (the exact number will never be known). It should be noted that when President Harry Truman was considering whether to invade Japan instead of dropping the bombs, his advisers estimated that an invasion would result in one million American casualties and at least two million Japanese deaths. In the strange calculus of war, the bombs actually saved Japanese lives."
    Not far from my estimates. I estimated around 5M Japanese death had Japan defended to the last preferture. Truman's advisor's number is about half of that, quite realistic if assuming Hirohito would give up when he lost about half of his towns.

    ===
    The full article via google cache is below (WSJ seems to require subscription for this article)

    A Hiroshima Apology?

    Japan's continued focus on remembering the bomb has been an understandable sore point for its Asian neighbors, who suffered greatly at its hands.

    For the first time since the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Japan 65 years ago, today the U.S. ambassador to Japan will attend the official commemoration ceremony at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. The U.S. ambassador has always declined the annual invitation, but this year is different. President Barack Obama decided to acknowledge the event with the presence of a high-level dignitary. As State Department spokesman Philip Crowley explained, Ambassador John Roos will be there "to express respect for all the victims of World War II."

    Gene Tibbets—the son of Brig. Gen. Paul W. Tibbets Jr., the pilot who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima—called the Obama administration's decision "an unsaid apology." Whether or not that's the case, by saying "all the victims" Mr. Crowley raises the specter of moral equivalence, a problem that's grown worse over the years when it comes to judging right and wrong during World War II and throughout history.
    The U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. When the Japanese still didn't give up, the U.S. dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki three days later. On Aug. 15, the Japanese surrendered unconditionally, ending the most brutal war in the history of the world.
    Japan remains the only country ever to have been targeted by atomic bombs. More than 120,000 Japanese died instantly from the bombings and perhaps as many succumbed to radiation poisoning afterwards (the exact number will never be known). It should be noted that when President Harry Truman was considering whether to invade Japan instead of dropping the bombs, his advisers estimated that an invasion would result in one million American casualties and at least two million Japanese deaths. In the strange calculus of war, the bombs actually saved Japanese lives.
    If the Obama administration wants to ease the friction over this event or even to apologize, then perhaps it is also a good time for the Japanese government to begin to discuss World War II truthfully with its own people.
    Getty Images
    Saved by the bomb? Japanese civilians watch U.S. occupation forces arriving in Kyushu, September 1945. President Truman was told two million Japanese might have died fighting a U.S. invasion.
    Since 1945, Japan's narrative has centered almost exclusively on the atomic blasts and its role as victim—with short shrift given to the Japanese invasions of China, Manchuria, Korea, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Indochina, Burma, New Guinea and, of course, the attack on Pearl Harbor. Japanese children have learned little about the Rape of Nanking or the fact that as many as 17 million Asians died at the hands of the Japanese in World War II—many in the most brutal ways imaginable.

    There is also the inconvenient truth that Japan started the war in the first place. There would have been no war in the Pacific between 1937 and 1945 had Japan stayed home.

    Focusing on the atomic bombs paints the Japanese as victims, like other participants in World War II. They were not. The Japanese, like their German allies, were bent on global conquest and the destruction of other people who did not fit their bizarre racial theories. Japan's continued focus on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been an understandable sore point for its Asian neighbors, who suffered greatly at its hands.

    There are times when ordinary citizens understand history better than their leaders. In approaching Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Mr. Obama should consider a related event that took place 25 years ago. On May 5, 1985, President Ronald Reagan made a rare public relations gaffe when he visited the Kolmeshohe Cemetery near Bitburg to lay a wreath at the graves of German soldiers.


    His reasoning came from a decent place—he wanted to help bolster his ally, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and he thought that enough time had passed to allow both countries to move on together. But a firestorm erupted when it was learned that the graves were not just those of ordinary Wehrmacht soldiers but of SS troops as well. President Reagan dug in his heels despite strong protests and laid a wreath at the brick tower that loomed over those graves.

    The protests came not because people refused to move on or because the postwar bonds between Germany and the U.S. were not strong and real. They were then and they remain so today. Rather, the anger came because the president's act created a tacit understanding that U.S. soldiers were no different than SS Storm Troopers, whose bloody tracks still leave a horror throughout Europe that can barely be equaled in that continent's long, lamentable history. The G.I.s were liberators. The SS were demented murderers. Period.

    Young people today may have a hard time understanding that point because of the moral equivalence and political correctness that have taken over our society, our media and especially our universities. It teaches our children that all countries have good and bad elements within them—something so obvious that it's trite. But this lesson has become so powerful that it is not out of the norm for young people today to believe that, while World War II was certainly horrible, all sides share some blame.

    Concerning today's event in Hiroshima, the State Department said "at this particular time, we thought it was the right thing to do." It may indeed be the right time for our two countries to share this event. But by tacitly placing all of World War II's participants in the same category, we undermine the ability of future generations to identify real evil, putting them at great risk.


    Mr. Kozak is the author of "LeMay: The Life and Wars of General Curtis LeMay" (Regnery, 2009).