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November 28, 2011

[SSJ: 6998] Re: 6990] Re: 6980] Re: 6975] Re: 6937] Re: From Ronald Dore

From: Ellis Krauss
Date: 2011/11/28

Reply to Ronald Dore:

Despite Ronald Dore's erudite historical analogies which I enjoyed reading and in which I think there are some possible real scenarios, I do have disagree with some of his statements. First, yes, the Cold War and the Anglo-Japanese alliance of 1902 may be historical analogies but you pose them as alternatives. Perhaps they are sequential instead. Perhaps the 1902 context is similar to China-US relations up until recently and the Cold War subsequently. OR, perhaps you forget what happened after the 1902 alliance ended in the 1920s? If China is similar then things do not look rosy for a peaceful relation with China.

This brings me to my second point: your scenario about Japan today and going the way of Germany in 1989 is pure fantasy sounding like it was taken straight from the 1950s leftist playbook. Sorry, that just doesn't sound like any Japan I know today. I think you totally underestimate the cultural, political, military and personal ties that have developed between Japanese and Americans. Indeed, the US-Japan alliance can very well break down, especially over a military confrontation between China and the US (perhaps over Taiwan) in which Japanese balk at military casualties in support of the U.S. That is a more realistic scenario. This will be the crunch time in which Japan will have to choose whether it wants to be an ally of the U.S. As for the US imposing a PM on Japan (Maehara or otherwise), again that seems much more like "back to the future" 1950s thinking.

Finally, does it really matter if China is "expansionist" or just eating gall while waiting for revenge? Result is the same: war with the U.S. Japan's expansionism if one wants to use historical analogies, really took off recall after it "ate gall" (yes, that phrase was used by the Japanese as you know too) to wait for revenge against the Russians after the Triple Intervention following the SIno-Japanese War of 1895. The result was that disastrous Russo-Japanese War which in turn led to Japan's annexing Korea and then in the 1930s Manchuria and finally war with China and War with the U.S. So the Chinese biding their time to seek revenge I'm afraid is not in the slightest more comforting for a peaceful resolution of China-US relations than an "expansionist" China. Could you kindly give me one historical case where a rising nation did not justify its expansion as "defensive" in any event? Countries on an expansionist and especially revengeful bent usually justify their actions with defensive legitimation. And this brings us right back to where this discussion started--is China, a rising military and economic power with historical grievances that is a non-democracy similar to Japan and Germany in the 1930s. Nothing you have said indicates it is not.

And finally, let me conclude by saying that if you think American hegemony was bad and arrogant, just wait until you experience the Chinese variety.
Best regards,
Ellis
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Ellis S. Krauss, Professor

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