Why could this be?
Because China is now threatening Japan’s line of communication.
How?
By claiming ownership of the Spratley Islands, which sit astride the Japanese main artery running from the Straits of Malacca to Japan proper.
In case you haven’t gotten the gist of things yet, let me be clear: THIS is an existential threat to Japan...and the Japan knows it!
By occupying and building military air and naval bases on the Spratleys (which it is now doing) China stands ready to cut off Japan from most of its world trade, not to mention the World.
China knows it too, but its new attitude (which goes along with it newly acquired military and economic strength) seems to be “there’s nothing that can be done about it; it’s an accomplished fact...and you’re going to have to live with it!”
An attitude that it is presently confronting the very United States with...so that its concern with Japanese alarm is paltry to insignificant, to say the least.
But this could be a miscalculation.
One has to understand Japanese culture, history and outlook to realize the effects of what China has just done and how alarmed Japan really is.
Japan consists of a bunch of rocky volcanic islands which contain no petroleum, few minerals, some coal and little growing soil.
In other words, Japan can neither feed, fuel nor supply itself from its own natural resources.
Indeed, Japan’s only real natural resource is the resourcefulness of its own people, which has catapulted these resource-starved islands to the peak of economic power.
But in spite of this, Japan has no delusions about its power...or its reality.
Japan is eternally PARANOID about its shipping lanes and fearful of what happened during WW-II...could happen again.
During WW-II Japan had its shipping lanes cut by the US Navy and it was diminished to mass national starvation before it finally surrendered in 1945.
Since then, Japan’s greatest fear is that it could happen again.
And its behavior has proven how seriously the nation takes this threat.
To try to appease its eternal fear of being cut off, the Japanese government has supported several desperate policies throughout the decades.
The Japanese instinctively know that if Japan is cut off...Japan dies.
To help soothe these feverish nightmares, the Japanese government has kept a strict constancy in its policies of survival.
To keep its farming industry alive, Japan has heavily subsidized the Japanese farmer (who would otherwise be unable to compete against the United States and Australia) and kept him going at heavy cost so that Japan might be able to produce its own food...in time of a war embargo.
The farmer in Japan produces a good product, but only at a very high cost, which the government attempts to hide by enforcing very high tariffs on foreign products...while paying farmers to continue farming.
In spite of all this Japanese food production is still lacking and Japan depends on imports to feed itself.
Needless to say, the Japanese government invests a fortune in Japan’s fishing fleet (which is notorious around the world) in order to make sure Japan can draw food from the sea in time of war embargo.
A controversial ongoing policy of the Japanese government has been the on going support of the unprofitable whaling fleet, which fails to bring in any profit while the Japanese themselves refuse to eat whale meat.
Regardless, the Japanese Government keeps it operating in order to keep all its whalers employed and all its whaling ships ready...in case Japan is cut off and whale meat becomes desirable.
Needless to say, the government support of Japan’s whaling fleet is controversial and has no economic basis, and its purpose has now been diminished to “research purposes” as they are permitted to catch record low numbers of whales as a form of ongoing practice to keep the crews honed and skilled...in case of an emergency.
Japanese economic policy was even extended to the fishing and killing of dolphins, which the world finds so abhorrent and remains controversial.
So you see, Japanese policy when it comes to food is really military policy...to prevent starvation in case of war.
It is sort of an open secret that the Japanese Navy itself exists in large part to protect Japan’s fishing fleet.
So Japan’s ongoing alarm at merely the possibility of being cut off is not only obvious but evident.
JAPAN IS ALWAYS EDGY
It’s enough to say that Japan’s economy did not fully recover until the mid-1960‘s and that the Japanese who lived the first 20 years of the postwar in economic insecurity, borderline starvation and general depravity.
You have to talk to the old Japanese to find stuff like this out.
Japan began growing confident and proud of itself in the 1980‘s during the peak of it’s economic prosperity, and even began buying up large tracts of American real estate.
All this over-confidence and bravado came to an end in the late 1980‘s when the Japanese real-estate market collapses along with its banking industry.
The ‘invincible’ Japanese economy went into a tailspin from which it STILL hasn’t recovered and left Japan an unpleasant place in which to make a living right up to the present.
Japan’s confidence was again misplaced and the Western economic system on which it depended was brought down around its head.
And the Japanese KNEW this.
And they KNEW who did it, too.
Would you believe the Japanese economists KNOW George Soros and his banking structure brought down Japan in the late 1980‘s?
And it wasn’t only Japan, but also the other upcoming Asian territories like Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Philippines, and South Korea - it was called the collapse of the ‘Asian Tigers.’
Japan knows GEORGE SOROS brought them down in the late 80‘s, along with all the other Western-friendly nations.
And the Japanese re-learned another valuable lesson:
‘The West is untrustworthy, mercenary, is never a true friend and can in fact be treacherous.’
This was the second time Japan had to learn this.
The first time was when America pretended to be a friendly neighbor...before suddenly hitting Japan with a total embargo right in the middle of a war with China and possibly Russia.
And it was also a tragedy that Japan was totally dependent on the oil imported from the United States of America - the biggest source of oil in the Pacific (which also made sure to warn Japan away from oil-rich Borneo and Indonesia).
The result is famously remembered as...Pearl Harbor.
As stated, Japan later thought it had found a surprise friend in the United States at the end of the war, when America presented itself as Japan’s protector.
That is until the purposeful western-designed Soros-sponsored economic collapse of Japan in the late 1980‘s.
So you see, Japan has been TWICE betrayed by the West in the last century and now sees that there is only one entity it can trust: JAPAN.
Experts in the subject are sure Japan takes the Security Treaty’s nuclear defense promise from America at less than face value.
Careful study of the accord reveals the IS NO actual set-in-stone provision for America actually launching a counter-strike against anyone nuking Japan.
In fact, the Treaty basically leaves it up to the whim of the President sitting in the White House at the moment.
And besides...COME ON!
America opened up friendly relations with Communist China and shared its technology with North Korea - both hated Communist enemies of Japan.
The Japanese are inscrutable and hold their cards close to their chest,so that they never openly REACT to political outrages...such as Japan’s betrayal against China and North Korea or Japan’s designed economic collapse... but you can bet they remember.
Even right on the doorstep of Pearl Harbor, Japan kept its manners and its protocol-like composure right up until to the attack.
Therefore Japan’s disappointment and distrust of the West is not obvious,but it is there...due to repeated experience...it is there.
So Japan likes to show itself as large, tech-savy, progressive, modern nation...but hides deep inside is an insecurity and an edgy nervousness of a nation who feels it really has no friends and is in a danger of one sort or other at any moment (of either boycott, embargo, economic collapse or war)and which proceeds cautiously and with a prayer on its lips at every step, while it smiles broadly to the world.
The reality is Japan has always existed on the edge and in fear.
China (though she has worries) does not know what is is like to live on an empty volcanic island, dependent on trade and commerce and the ingenuity of your people just to keep from starving... while fearing every moment of your existence of some economic, financial or military blow which might bring you down.
And China’s virtual acquisition of the Spratley Islands is one step closer to making Japan’s nightmare of a total cut-off a reality.
Within the secret meetings inside the top Japanese command center, the growing emotion is now FEAR and a Japanese attitude similar to just before Pearl Harbor: that “war is inevitable.”
Inevitable because Japan now either fights...or dies.
Chine seems to be aloof of all this.
The truth is they just pushed Japan’s button.
Why is war inevitable?
Simple.
If China occupies the Spratleys, the Japanese LIFELINE to the rest of the Eastern Hemisphere of this world is cut.
Japan becomes unable to neither import or export any anything...
...and the sustainability of Japan comes to an end.
The core of the problem is cutting off the Straits of Malacca, the narrow strait between Malaysia and Indonesia, through which 100,000 ships pass every year, along with 80% of all Japanese oil...and through which Japan exports and imports to South Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Latin America.
What say you?
The Straits of Malacca are well south of the Spratleys?
Well, the Japanese commercial artery passes through the Straits of Malacca and then heads up north, between Vietnam and the Philippines before arriving to Japan.
It is the route between the Philippines and Vietnam which will be cut should the Chinese occupy the Spratleys (over which they have now claimed total control).
The Chinese declaration of possession might as well be a declaration of war as far as Japan is concerned.
Make no mistake.
Japan was already in a psychological war-footing when it came to the issue of keeping Japan’s sea lanes open.
The policy is still there and the war-footing is about to switch from the realm of the psychological to the realm of reality.
Japan has already demonstrated its ability to go APE SHIT when it comes to the threat of isolating the Japanese from natural resources - WW-II proves that.
Japan did not bat an eyelid before going to war against the United States of America after it cut off Japan’s oil in 1941.
What makes you think Japan will blink before going to war against the People’s Republic of China when that lifeline is again threatened?
And one has to consider that Japan’s cities are now protected from a Chinese nuclear strike by the US-Japan Security Treaty.
Yes, China CAN expect a full-blown naval war with Japan should it ever attempt to build any air and naval bases in the Spratleys.
The problem is China doesn’t seem to be expecting it...while the building of bases has not only commenced, but is continuing...
...while China proceeds to threaten Taiwan (a Japanese ally) and claim the Japanese Senkaku Islands as well...
...while Japan not only awaits but EXPECTS the US Navy to join in the hostilities...
...and China sees a logical expansion of naval hostilities to include an attack on KOREA...
...and Russia is caught in the dilemma of having an active military alliance with China...
...um...
...is anybody up for a game of political Dominoes?
Where else can all this go...except to hell?
The Japan-China situation could actually be the one which ignites World War Three.
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