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Updated Thursday, July 29, 2010 11:58 am TWN, The China Post news staff

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Why try to rock the boat?

The only serious dispute between Tokyo and Beijng is over the natural gas and oil reserves in the East China Sea. Japan does not like any Chinese show of force that may affect the long, almost interminable, negotiations to solve the dispute over the overlapping exclusive economic zones, but the assertion of the determination to defend the Sakijima chain and deploy personnel on Yonaguni to keep an eye on Chinese naval activities makes no sense whatsoever. The PLA does not even dream of conquering either Ishigaki or Miyako, whose fishermen massacred in Taiwan after a shipwreck gave Meiji Japan a handy excuse to attack and occupy Hengchun in 1874. Beijing does not want a revenge for the Botansha or Mutanshe Incident, for which US$500,000 was paid to Japan as “indemnity” and no condemnation of aggression was declared as a concession which implied recognition of Japan's claim to sovereignty over the former Kingdom of the Ryukyus, a vassal state of China for hundreds of years. Moreover, islands are hard to defend. And if ever an invasion were considered, Okinawa rather than any of the Ryukyus would be attacked. Well, the United States did just that in May of 1945, and at the last leg of General Douglas A. MacArthur's island-hopping campaign, thousands of innocent Okinawans, regarded as second-rate citizens, were slaughtered by the retreating Japanese troops. Japan annexed the Ryukyus in 1872 as a prefecture, where the people still remain a disadvantaged ethnic minority group.

Or does Japan begin to doubt the sincerity of the United States to help defend it in times of hostilities? Or has Uncle Sam, who is getting poorer, asked Tokyo to shoulder part of the defense duty by announcing its determination to fight for Miyako or Ishigaki? Washington may be fickle, but for any foreseeable future, it will continue to offer whatever assistance is needed to defend Japan against aggression from any quarters. The United States still stations a division at Okinawa, and has insisted on keeping a Marine Corps air station there to compel Yukio Hatoyama to step down as prime minister of Japan a couple of months ago.

Hard as it may be to understand why, we do not object to the Japanese deployment of troops on either of the two islands, particularly at Miyako where there is a coastal guard command. Probably it is aimed at boosting the local economy. But we do not feel comfortable with the surveillance unit on Yonaguni. Though we do not believe it will keep an eye on our air traffic, Taiwan needs no foreign military air surveillance at the door. Japan has to remember Taiwan is no longer its docile colony.

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