"Pick a side". No, I don't want to pick a side. Looking again at the China-Japan dispute

What was it Japanese PM Sanae Takaichi said, on 7 November 2025 that so upset Beijing? That led to a present "crisis"? Here it is:

“If warships are used and armed force is involved [in a Taiwan emergency], it could undoubtedly become a survival-threatening situation” [for Japan].

That’s the exact quote. Nothing about Japan launching a counter-attack, nothing about “joining America to hit the mainland.” Just a statement that if Beijing uses armed force to take Taiwan, the Japanese Senkaku Islands are threatened. Which is a threat to Japan. It is, inarguably, a "survival-threatening situation".

Recall: China officially lists Japan's Senkaku Islands as part of Taiwan Province’s “Diaoyu County”. They are 110 km from the island of Taiwan and suddenly sit inside a combat zone. Japan would be defending territory it has administered for decades. That’s the legal and geographical basis for PM Takaichi's self-defence argument.

I fully understand the anger. Imperial Japan killed nearly 20 million Chinese between 1931 and 1945. I have Chinese friends who lost family members. The Nanjing Massacre, Unit 731, the whole horrific list – it’s burned into collective Chinese memory. I know that.

The Century of Humiliation 百年国耻 (Bai-nian Guo-chi) is not ancient history to millions of people; it’s personal. I get that too.

But demanding that everyone now scream “Japan is evil!” because a sitting prime minister made a factual security assessment crosses a line for me. China’s reaction – summoning the ambassador, UN complaints, seafood bans, pulling Japanese films, diplomats posting (then deleting) “cut off the dirty head” – is disproportionate. The online mob, the Weibo storm troopers – "Little Pinks", and the inevitable Wu Mao amplification (the "Fifty cent army") – turned a single Diet answer into a weeks-long nationalist frenzy that only forced Beijing to dig in deeper.

I’m not waving a Rising Sun flag, and I’m certainly not cheering the CCP. I’ve lived in Hong Kong long enough to see both sides up close. History deserves respect, geography deserves honesty, and neither Tokyo nor Beijing gets a blank cheque from me. Refusing to pick a tribe and shout slogans isn’t apathy – it’s just refusing to let old wounds or new mobs do my thinking for me.

My friends had relatives killed by the "Japanese bandits". My own father fought against the Japanese on the infamous Kokoda Trail in Papua New Guinea. Japanese war planes and submarines attacked Australia.

But it's EIGHTY years ago, folks! That war was 80 years ago. Japan -- whatever you think of it -- is a very different place today.

When do we give up our bitterness? When do we willingly forget? When do we give up our victimhood? When is the "Century of Humiliation" over?

Never??!

Surely not.

My earlier post; "Why did Japan's new PM spark alarm?"

=======================

ADDED: China and Japan had a crisis in 2012 over the Senkaku Islands that was much more dangerous than that today. I remember it. It was all over Japan annexing the Senkakus. Wikipedia:

China's 2012 response to Japan—sanctioning widespread violent protests in 100+ cities (vandalism, car smashings, factory torchings), boycotts causing $250M+ in Japanese auto losses and broader economic self-harm up to $US 2 billion (e.g., AEON mall $8.8M damage), plus naval/air brinkmanship—escalated a administrative dispute into chaos, reflecting state-orchestrated fury to deflect domestic issues. The scale of Beijing's reaction risked war and undermined regional stability....

That’ll work, for sure! …”lighthearted patriotic quiz shows” free-to-air!

Today’s South China Morning Post and the 
bemusing news that we’ll be given free-to-air
“lighthearted patriotic propaganda programming”

My comment at the site: I for one, am looking forward to the weekly "lighthearted patriotic programming with Hong Kong characteristics". I'm sure it'll be very amusing!

Virtually all other commenters are mocking this whole project. And rightly so. Apparatchiks and their dopey dreams. “You will be happy!”

Meanwhile, some are getting their knickers in a twist over Chinese stand-up in Australia being self-deprecating. Online (50-cent army?) they call it being “race traitors”, for goodness sake! We’ve got “assistant professors of cultural studies” at the Chinese Univeristy of HK (my alma mater) telling us what’s funny, now? Bizarre.

I commented that in the US, stand-up originated with Jewish males, mostly, and blacks, all of whom make merciless fun of their Jewishness, maleness, blackness. 

China-based critics who yell “race traitor” at the Australian-Chinese stand-up comics need to grow up. The couple of snippets quoted are pretty funny. All women, by the way.

PS: I am looking forward to the weekly half-hour of “lighthearted patriotic programming” — with HK characteristics 🤔. I’m sure it’ll be pretty funny itself, if only unintentionally!

“Another policy critic silenced online before party congress”

Today South China Morning Post 

This going on in China. Lau Dongyan, Sima Nan, Xu Zhangrun, He Weifang. All brave critics. Subject now to Chinese version of cancel culture, as it readies for the Party Congress. Butter spots my own work.

Professor Lau is right to express her concerns about the abuse of Covid-developed technology being used for ongoing forever control of the population. Which, she notes, harms the rule of law.

Elsewhere today. Josephine Ma talks about the forever restrictions and control, result of Zero Covid policies (ZCP). As happened with the Beijing Olympics control measures begun in 2008 — like metal detectors at subways. Begun as “temporary measures” for the Games. Still with us 14 years later. That’s what I fear for us here in Hong Kong. For things like masks. You can always deploy the “one-death is-too-many” argument to keep us forever masked.  And muzzled, like Lau et.al. Safetyism rampant.

ADDED: A bit strange. The comments at Josephine Ma’s piece are running pro ZCP. Recently they’ve tended to be very anti ZCP, so what’s going on? Maybe it’s China’s “50 cent army” deployed to post when someone is critical of China. The 50cA say “history will prove the ZCP right”. I’m not so sure. History is written by the Victor. And who will the Victor be? Not China surely, what with its duplicity and cover-ups, but also not the US, not the UK or EU. So maybe no one. It’s hard to see how Zero Covid is going to come out smelling sweet, except to zealots. Meantime an observation: in the ten days mourning for the Queen there was not a hint of anti Covid measure. No one even talked about it. Done and dusted, even if there are still some cases and some deaths daily. The UK are getting on with it. People have just had it with Covid. And that I like. Even if the 50-cent trolls don’t, and at the behest of Beijing  call it “lying flat” … a silly, nonsensical barb. 

By the way, I do accept that the fact of a bus crash, even one that kills 27(!), should not be put down to Covid, even if they’re carrying Covid-quarantine people. But her main point that ZCP is overall harmful and ultimately pointless, holds true. IMO.

Talk of “concrete actions” shows weakness not strength | Australia-China relations

China Foreign Minister Wang Yi, lays down the law

China says Australia must adopt ‘concrete actions’ to improve ties. But new Aussie PM, Anthony Albanese responds:

“It is China that has changed, not Australia, and Australia should always stand up for our values and we will in a government that I lead,” Albanese said ahead of a summit in Tokyo last week with US President Joe Biden and the leaders of Japan and India – fellow members of the Quad security alliance that Beijing has slammed as a deliberate tool to contain China and stoke confrontation.

It’s true that it’s China that’s changed not Australia. And not in a good way. It’s clearly since the 2012 installation of dear leader Xi Jinping that it’s happened. 

It’s not wrong for Australia to call out imprisoning a million Muslims in Xinjiang; it’s not wrong to criticise Chinese threats to bomb and kill Taiwanese civilians — all living in a democracy not a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship; it’s not wrong to challenge China’s oil-grubbing grabs in the South China Seas, which are guaranteed safe passage by international treaty; it’s not wrong to call out a draconian National Security Law for us here in Hong Kong; it’s not wrong to call for an international independent investigation into the origins of the worst pandemic in a century. Any country, like China, that can’t handle such criticisms is a country with weak self-confidence, with an overdeveloped sense of victimhood. The Opium Wars finished 180 years ago, fellas.

Yet it’s Australia who must adopt “concrete measures” according to lickspittle Foreign Minister, the profoundly unlovely Wang Yi. And we know what those “concrete measures” are, don't we? They amount to stopping all that horrid slander or China, to apologise for it, amd even better to perform a literal kowtow for good measure.

In the 80s I made my money by doing business in China. But even then, when we, our company, were asked to speak in “doing business in China” we warned about two things: (1) Reciprocity in all agreements and (2) Don’t get too reliant in China business, as end of the day it’s a Leninist dictatorship. Australia followed neither piece of advice. Privately we did. We had business and property in China, but divested before the turn of the century. 

Australia’s exports to China fell 26% last year. But we made them up selling elsewhere. Good. Let’s keep that up. The disengagement from China. For it cannot be viewed as a trustworthy partner. The attempted humbling of Australia, “killing the chicken to frighten the monkey”, has backfired. Countries of the EU have noticed, and are now looking to reduce their reliance on China. 

Wang’s “concrete actions” statement is a statement of weakness. Weakness of self confidence. A self confident country doesn’t talk like that. China is willing to deal with Russia, a rotten war-mongering  kleptocracy, but not Australia, a vibrant democracy that just peacefully changed its government. That says it all.

Enough!

ADDED: I wrote the above before looking at the comments, which I’d assumed would be solidly anti Australian. But they aren’t. Most are pro-Australia. Which is a change from months ago, when the “50-cent Army” got in on the act as soon as the subject was Australia-China.  ADDED (2): Looking at the most upvoted, they’re solidly anti-Australia mostly of the “Australia is a puppet of imperial/murderous/hypocritical US” variety. True, we are a US ally. And we’d be silly to take no account of our major ally’s policies. But we are no puppet. Here’s the top rated comment: 

Australia should learn to cooperate with all her neighbors in Asia instead of being a willing US puppet, instigating conflicts in the region. The US empire is declining. Australia's future, like its geographic position, isn't in the west. It hasn't been.

Which only shows the ignorance of the commenter, for (and I know his from personal experience in Australia’s foreign service) Australia is deeply engaged in the region, has been since the end of the Second World War, in per capita terms more than any other country, including China. Australians, let’s recall, fought and died for the independence of Singapore, Malaysia, Burma, Papua New Guinea (where my own father fought) and our very own Hong Kong. Later we fought for the independence of South Korea some of the China lickspittles may wish we’d failed and it was all North Korea now. But again, enough!

ADDED: Now China’s  fighter jets are shooting chaff at us

Not the Good news: ex-bishop of Hong Kong jailed

 

The 50-cent army is out in force in the comments at the story online. Beijing unleashes them whenever they think what they’re doing is — like this arresting a 90- year old Cardinal — a bit dodgy and likely not viewed well outside the communist party. So unleash the paid trolls! (And also any time it’s China-Oz relations, they get let out to smear Australia).

 Curse them! Some of the things they say are outright racist.

China | Australia | Solomon Islands | Red Lines

On the march to the Pacific?

For sure Australia has every right to be worried about a more assertive Beijing  right in our backyard. Whether it’s the right strategy to say, publicly, it’s “very likely” China will place troops in the Solomons is another thing. It may just prompt a bolshy Beijing to do just that. Better, maybe, to handle these sensitive issues out of the public glare. Diplomacy, baby…

There’s heaps of comments that I haven’t looked at yet. My guess the “50-cent army” will be out in force, as they are dispatched every time the topic is Australia-China relations. Beijing is determined to hurt Australia. Which makes a mockery of their “principled stand” against sanctions, like against Russia. 

ADDED:It’s a bit rich for China Defence spokesman, Tan Kefei, to talk of “fake news”. When the whole edifice of China media, top to bottom, is fake news. Aka fighting “historical nihilism”.

Five things You can’t criticise, discuss or make fun of:

• trending topics on the history of the party, country or military; 
• Marxism, Mao Zedong Thought and the theory of Deng Xiaoping; 
• The CCP evolutionary history and China’s economic and open-door policies; 
• party and state leaders; communist history;
• or the whitewashing of “villains” in the official version of history.

Horrid, no?

Wow! Chinese quantum supercomputer ONE MILLION times faster than west’s fastest

A million times faster than Google’s Sycamore. Can do in a millisecond what world’s fastest would take 30 trillion years. True? Who knows. It’s like that factoid “there are more stars in the universe than all the grains of sand on earth”. Except that it’s possible to fact check that one and it’s true!

Things usually improve incrementally. This is a million-fold improvement! That’s why people talk of “quantum leaps”. 

China calls this quantum computer the “Zu Chongzhi” (祖沖之), after a 5th century mathematician and astronomer. [Ref]. Zu is best known for having calculated pi π to 7 decimals, a feat not bettered for 800 years. I like it, good name. Much better than the name for the new Hubble-beating telescope, the James Webb, a NASA bureacrat. 

ADDED: While China goes hard on STEM, the US obsesses over Social Justice, Cultural Marxism, Critical Race Theory, Textbooks, Pronouns, Transphobia, Woke Maths. [TL;DR: China STEM; US floppy flower?]

Can I still have faith that the US will prevail? That it will do well? That it will be that “shining light on the hill”? I hope so, but begin, for the first time, to doubt.

Comments at the article on the Chinese quantum computer are cutting about the US. Example: 

''China’s quantum computers outstrip Google’s and are fastest in the world.'' Yes, and so are China's hypersonics, space station, 5G, and a long list of biomedical equipment. China used to look ahead and see the US; now, it sees the US in the rearview mirror.

These may be China’s “50-cent army” commenting. Or maybe not. And in any case, true. No? 

‘Canberra picks sides’ | SCMP

Online here

“Canberra picks sides” says the print headline. And the right side, in my view. If indeed it’s quite true that a side has been finally and irrevocably chosen. After all, no matter how much Beijing tries to browbeat Australia because we’ve had the gall to call for an international investigation into the source of Covid 19, we still have a robust trade relationship. We still have a major embassy in Beijing overseeing relations across a broad area, including science, culture, education and even defence. We maintain our military attaché office there. 

David Morris, a PhD candidate, makes the the mistake of assuming that because he hasn’t read about it, it hasn’t happened. That because Indonesia claims it was shocked by the submarine deal — shocked, I tell you! — means it hadn’t heard of it before via diplomatic channels. Ditto France. They had. They’re crying crocodile… not tears, what?… umbrage? So that Beijing takes notice. Behind the scenes where most diplomacy should and does take place, there’s plenty going on and plenty being briefed. Morris as an ex diplomat ought to know that; maybe he does but it suits his argument to pretend he doesn’t.

I don’t like binaries. Who does? But again I’m reminded of Mao Tse-tung’s “One divides into two” (一分为二, Yi fen wei er). And if it is a choice, then I’m for the freedom way, flawed and all as it may be. Those flaws are on full show because of that very openness. China’s flaws — do we imagine they have none? — are never in show because they don’t allow them to be. We know the extent to which we can be influenced by media coverage, whether we admit it or not. So how can we not be influenced by relentlessly negative media around the US, and give a pass — or more, openly praise — the government of China. Because it “eradicated poverty” or some such. Sure, and also… repressing Xinjiang Uygurs, for just one. Where we don’t hear the full story. And now memorials of the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen massacres are banned here as well, so that’s cropped into the memory hole. We just don’t know the full extent of Beijing’s wrongdoings, whereas every one by Washington is in full, deep, extensive, thorough display. 

Comments on the art Joe online not running quite so anti-Australia as I’d imagined. Perhaps the 50-cent army have been withdrawn and sicked into different targets, Taiwan perhaps. 

A comment from a “Jing L” (click to enlarge):

After which comment from a “Peter F”:

Why is Australia warning about war with China? A clue: elections loom

The Chinese Embassy in Canberra, where I enjoyed 
many a dim sum, back in the day...

I'm just bookmarking this for now [Internet Archive]. I'll have more to add after I'm back from the pool.... (maybe...).

Very anti-Australia article, from the reliable Australophobe Su-Lin Tan, in our local paper, the SCMP, attended by comments almost all anti-Australian, some racist, some would-be genocidal -- calling for China to "wipe Australia off the map". Some of the commenters are the usual "50-cent army", some, I know, are not. Just hyper pro-Beijing and anti-Australia having its own values and policies. It's ok for China to have strict border policies and focus on National Security (to the extent of extending the NSL to Hong Kong); but heaven forfend if Australia should do so -- racists! xenophobes! (Hypocrites...)

I know a number of those quoted in the article, some from my days or yore, in the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs, a diplomat, who as they say is "sent abroad to lie for their country". 

Some of the quotees are doves, some hawks. I'm more on the hawks' side. [Internet Archive]. Meantime....

China-Australia relations: Beijing ‘indefinitely suspends’ high-level economic dialogue with Canberra | SCMP

Scomo and Winnie, G20 Tokyo, October 2020

China deploys the "you-made-me-do-it" argument. You know, the one the husband chants as he beats his wife. The kidnapper's reason for killing the hostage. Australia calls for an independent investigation into the source of SARS Cov-2. How dare you?! Obey and Tremble, ye barbarians! Ye fan kuei, ye foreign devils, ye second-class vassals, desperate for our huge market. Screw you. You made me do it.

The bully excuse:

China's top economic planner said on Thursday that it had "indefinitely suspended" its high-level economic dialogue with Australia, amid escalating tensions between the two nations.

A short statement by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said all activities under the framework of the China-Australia Strategic Economic Dialogue had been "indefinitely suspended".

"Recently, some Australian Commonwealth government officials launched a series of measures to disrupt the normal exchanges and cooperation between China and Australia out of cold war mindset and ideological discrimination," the statement said. [Link]

PS: all time record number of comments for the SCMP, on this article. Including hundreds of the "Fifty Cent Army", mainland Chinese paid to do Beijing's dirty work, in this case trashing Australia. 

Trashing it, amongst other things, for being a purely white country. Put aside the racism, it's also not true. 30% of its population is outside-born, large numbers from Asia. Australia is vastly more ethnically diverse than China, the Han-dominant behemoth. Hypocrisy, folks, thy name is "Beijing".

‘China-Australia relations: on first anniversary of trade conflict, hay-import licences bedevil Australian exporters’ | SCMP

Very many viciously anti Australia comments at the site. Some in support. Overall the tone of comments is dripping with contempt for dear old Oz. Painted always as the poodle of America.

The highest-rated comment is very anti-Australian and anti-American to boot, the usual litany of CIA-inspired wars, from a Canadian… A call to return to Eisenhower-Ian policies. Screenshot from the site:

Many read like the WuMao brigade ("50-cent army"). There's a sniff to them.

My comment at the site:

(1) Vice Foreign Affairs Minister Le Yucheng in today's Post [19/4]: "…called for greater cooperation …on a basis that was "equal-footed" rather than "one side drawing up a laundry list of demands for the other side"."

Oh, you mean like China handing a "laundry list" of 14 demands to Australia in November 2020?

(2) China demands Japan be open and transparent, allow international inspection of the waste water from Fukushima which it plans to release into the ocean. (Just as Australia urged an international investigation into the source of Covid).

Shall we expect Japan to punish China by cutting its imports? For having the temerity to ask this?

Just now

ADDED: for all the hate on Australia in the comments, including I assume many from the 50-cent army, Australia is currently undergoing a "miraculous recovery". So, China be damned.

A Different Kind of Army: The Militarization of China’s Internet Trolls - Jamestown

CAC = Cyberspace Affairs Commission

I've mentioned before the so-called "Fifty Cent Army" (无毛军) on the Internet in China. These are paid provocateurs in China, many very young, paid to push pro-Beijing propaganda, to counter foreign attacks on China, to peddle various CCP conspiracy theories (eg, Covid originated in American fish). Apparently, at least early on, they were paid fifty Chinese cents (five mao) per post — about a dime — hence the name.

The link here has a detained study of what China's now up to, by Ryan Fedasiuk, who does detailed amd good work at “China Brief”. [Important Note: China Bried uses links to original Chinese sources, including Chinese government. IOW, they don’t simply rely on secondary sources].

There's a lot new(ish) here, but the general situation is rather well-known. That if you displeae Beijing, an army of trolls is going descend on you. They gonna beat up on yo. The apparatchiks in Beijing are ever more easily offended. Just as the woke-erati are in the west, in an ironic mirroring of mutual victimhood. 

But because we know if them and because they often so obvious and crass, so we discount them. Just as we discount trolls in the west.

That said, I don't doubt they have some effect — H&M and the NBL, for example, have both kowtowed to Beijing and shame on them for that.

Bret Weinstein talks to Tristan Harris: all about Social Media and unintended consequences

 

Click on screenshot for vid. Settle in: nearly two hours

Tristan Harris was in "The Social Dilemma". Which is all about what they call here the "Cultural Derangement Syndrome". Aka "Fracturing Reality". This is serious stuff and dangerous to our existence. So they say. That Facebook and Twitter, in particular, have led to erosion of our shared realitiy.

This is most surely worth a listen and ponder. What to do about it? Their suggestions about Global Solutions is going to cause angst amongst many. But clearly something needs be done about the unintended consequences of the growth of social media. 

Listen on....

China -- EU deal is great for China. Not so great for the EU

 

Stars galore… and one voracious Black Hole: Beijing 

China has sullied every international organisation it has joined. Whether it's the United Nations, the WTO, the WHO, WFP, in each and every one it has corrupted their norms and their accepted practices. Beijing joins clubs and then demands they change their rules to accommodate them. And if they don’t, they flout them anyway.

Expecting China to respect the rules laid out in this latest deal with the EU is a “triumph” of vain hope over bitter experience.  A snip from the online article, where the “50-cent army” is out in force. Banging on about “win-win”. Right. A win for Beijing and a win for China. China continues full access to the EU, which gains highly restrictive “access” to China’s market. And Europe expects China to abide by international labour laws…

... the EU deal requires Beijing to ratify four International Labour Organization conventions, which would entail abolishing forced labour. By March 2021, China is expected to accede to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This will be a tall order. More

What would halt this mercantilist use of international organisations by China, would be to change to a “Reciprocity” principle. We’ll let you do X if you let us do X. If we can’t do X in your market, you can’t do X in our market. End of....

No ‘Negative’ News: How China Censored the Coronavirus

I’m sure there are some people who think this sort of news suppression by China at the start of the pandemic was a good thing, because it stopped panic. Maybe. But it had a price. And the price was huge. Not so much in China itself, which seems have avoided the worst of Covid, but in the west, where the suppression led to millions of cases and thousands of deaths that could have been avoided.

In the New York Times the way China deployed its “50-cent army” to shut down information on the virus. Early on.

In the early hours of Feb. 7, China’s powerful internet censors experienced an unfamiliar and deeply unsettling sensation. They felt they were losing control.

The news was spreading quickly that Li Wenliang, a doctor who had warned about a strange new viral outbreak only to be threatened by the police and accused of peddling rumors, had died of Covid-19. Grief and fury coursed through social media. To people at home and abroad, Dr. Li’s death showed the terrible cost of the Chinese government’s instinct to suppress inconvenient information.
Yet China’s censors decided to double down. Warning of the “unprecedented challenge” Dr. Li’s passing had posed and the “butterfly effect” it may have set off, officials got to work suppressing the inconvenient news and reclaiming the narrative, according to confidential directives sent to local propaganda workers and news outlets. [Read on...]

H/t “Lockdown Sceptics”.