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Tuesday 24 January 2017

Japan, North Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia  China and Nuclear Weapons
 
I would just like to qualify a statement I made in my previous blog 'A Present From North Korea...' where I inferred that Japan in possession of nuclear weapons would be a security issue in the region.
This was not meant to imply that Japan posssessing nuclear weapons is a major threat to international peace and security.
Japan has a vibrant and thriving democracy (much more so in some aspects that we see in many other countries in the world today.)
Japanese politics are little understood in the West but, suffice to say, Japan too has a 'lunatic fringe' which would like to re-assert Japanese militarism in South East Asia.
As with the Alternative Right in the United States, it has a very significant following - and, as in the United States, is just a heartbeat away from taking control of the Diet - should its populist propaganda sentiment appeal to a (dumbed-down) majority of Japanese voters in a future general election.
Trump's strategy is aimed at weakening China's global - economic and political influence.
One way to do this is to force China - and the countries in the region - to spend ever-increasing budgets on military procurement - as opposed to economic growth and development.
So encouraging South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam  and Japan to initiate nuclear programs or initiate the autonomous possession of nuclear weapons as a counterbalance to China's 'influence' should be viewed by any country in South East Asia, as a 'Trojan Horse' rather than as a 'supportive measure' by President Trump.
With the TPP in disarray (thanks to Trumpism's ill-conceived foreign policy) the door could be open for China not just to dominate the Pacific but, as I have said for decades, for the institutions of global influence (such as, for example, the United Nations member countries) to start preparing and to look seriously toward the day as to whether (and when - what decade) China may be 'open' for the world to congregate within - in much the the same way America has been the center of global power and influence for almost a century.
I must add that China (nor Chinese) is/are not yet mentally prepared to assume this role but a unique opportunity has now been presented to all countries - starting with those in the Asia-Pacific region - to think of what a re-alignment with China on a 'win-win' basis could mean for all countries.
China is working very hard to create the conditions favorable to 'receive' and 'welcome' the world - but the process itself may take some time yet.
[I am excluding Australia and New Zealand because both will always be interminably interlocked into U.S. global security - especially in South East Asia.]
But all other countries do not have this historical connection, do not have any 'roots' in Europe nor in the United States.   In much the same way as President Trump is proud of his German and Scottish ancestry (as he should be!) so too countries in South East Asia have a rich 'rooted' trading history with China - which has in some areas extended into the large-scale historical presence of ethnic Chinese populations scattered across the Pacific and Asia.
So China, if it cares, could be more poised than ever before, to begin a process of regional transformation - thanks, ironically and quite unintentionally, - to President Donald Trump.
All of this will be shattered if mistrust is built up between, say, China and India (a very easy task since both have had ongoing border disputes - and wars - since the 1914 where artificial  lines were drawn between the two countries by the then Imperial power - Britain - with similar arbitrary lines elsewhere throughout the British Empire) historical disputes  between Japan and China (historical and deep-rooted differences) between Vietnam and China (again not too difficult to stoke into conflict or mistrust) between the many smaller nations who genuinely fear Chinese dominance and military expansion across the Pacific and will ally themselves with either Russia or the United States simply to act as a counterbalance to this expanding influence and physical presence.
All of the above President Trump is gambling that ultra-nationalism and fear (of China and Japan), racism, protectionism will outweigh common sense - in much the same way that it did in the United States - and that by simply appealing to the base fears of the people, through their politicians or directly (remember how Saudi Arabia stoked chaos worldwide by exporting radical Islam - Wahhabism and Salafism - via the internet and the deployment worldwide of fanatical Imams) will get the better of reason and common sense.
 
So there is no issue with Japan having nuclear weapons per ipse.  Japanese people, must, however consider why America would want Japan, South Korea and Taiwan to possess autonomous nuclear weapons:- to 'protect' Japan, to 'protect' South Korea, to 'protect 'Taiwan' or for other reasons?
An area no longer mentioned in mainstream media is North Korea - and for a very good reason: North Korea  is the greatest nuclear  threat to world peace and with a President like Trump in the White House, the hands of the clock have moved significantly closer to midnight than they all want to contemplate - and they certainly do not want to inform the general public about 'the facts'.
So, for the most part, North Korea will be deliberately ignored by Western media - until it becomes impossible to sideline developments.
Giving South Korea autonomous control of nuclear weapons could well provide a trigger for nuclear catastrophe in the region.   Even the threat of giving autonomous control of nuclear weapons to a number of countries - including Vietnam - will push the entire region into new arms races.
To think that North Korea will not react to a perceived threat from the United States (South Korea) is very naive. 
It is not inevitable that both countries are on a collision course but China's phenomenal economic growth in the region, it's political influence and military development and expansion into, initially the South China Seas, its GDP military spending, proportionate to it's population size, is looking all but unstoppable by any other than very extreme measures by the United States and its Allies in the region.
 


I am sure President Trump has read the open available reports (some of which which I too have read ) all of which show that China will economically and militarily dominate the Asia-Pacific region by 2050.
There were glaring flaws in the TPP (especially for countries such as Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia. Mexico and Chile) but it was not beyond repair.
 
India, was, not a member of this agreement which the United States has now withdrawn from.  Very wisely India opted for BRICS - now seen as a much more 'stable' enterprise - with most partners (except Brazil) who are predictable in their foreign policy outlook, but with less of a share of the current 'global' market than the TPP offered for the United States.
 
So to recap, Japan is seen at present as a stable (and vibrant) 'democracy' in the region but the possession of autonomous nuclear weapons capability would undoubtedly stoke old fears about a revival of Japanese imperialism - and all of its negative aspects for countries in the region, especially for China.
As in the United States, Japan too has its own 'alt right' movement - which in an instant, would relish the prospect of a military revival of Japan - a 'Japan first' across the entire region, to the detriment of China, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, and Indonesia.
 
[I have avoided the complexity of  internal politics within these countries so that you can 'see the wood from the trees' and just grasp in an instant what the perceptions and objectives are and why Donald Trump's policies could herald an era of considerable regional instability - if not worse - for the region and across the Pacific as a whole.] 
 
[so as not to re-invent the wheel, please refer to my 'early bird' blogs about the TPP, when it was publicly revealed for the first time.]
 
 
©Patrick Emek, January 2017

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-next-south-china-sea-crisis-china-vs-indonesia-15629

http://www.cfr.org/china/china-vietnam-military-clash/p37029

http://www.cfr.org/asia-and-pacific/armed-clash-south-china-sea/p27883

http://www.cfr.org/china/china-taiwan-relations/p9223

https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-08-20/brief-history-border-conflict-between-north-and-south-korea

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/08/21/battle-north-south-korea_n_8021200.html
http://geography.about.com/od/northkorea/a/korean-conflict.htm
 
 
 
 

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