No sooner had Japan’s opposition parties proffered their unity in the midst of the national emergency following last week’s powerful earthquake than the same players were resuming the finger pointing and sniping of old, nipping cheers over bipartisan cooperation in the bud and showing why Japan and other regional democracies have been at a standstill.
Initially there was reason for optimism that the political landscape could have been fundamentally altered after the magnitude of the catastrophe became more obvious to all. Amid what Tokyo has called the worst calamity to hit the nation since World War II, the Democratic Party of Japan and its main rival, the Liberal Democratic Party, decided to put differences aside and agreed to discuss an emergency tax increase to fund disaster relief.
As related bills must be passed by April 1 to ensure the swift implementation of the massive relief package that will be required for reconstruction, such unity was essential, and on Sunday Japan’s second-largest opposition party, the New Komeito, said it was also willing to cooperate.
This contrasted sharply with the situation on Friday, where hours before the magnitude 8.9 earthquake hit off the east coast of Japan, sparking a major tsunami, both opposition parties were calling for the resignation of Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, seen as deeply unpopular and accused of illegally receiving campaign funds.
That came after weeks of political skirmishing that had prevented Kan — the fifth prime minister in Japan since 2006 — from crafting policies to fund the rising costs of a fast-ageing society, curb public debt twice the size of the economy and spur growth as the population shrinks.
Sunday’s unity, therefore, was reason for hope that parties would put their differences aside long enough to deal with the aftermath of the tsunami and the risks of a meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station.
Sadly, even the likely 10,000-plus casualties were insufficient to make unity last, and hours later sniping resumed, this time over the Japanese government’s handling of the catastrophe and allegations that it had briefly covered up the threat emanating from the nuclear power station.
No wonder Japan has fallen behind and lost its dynamism of old, rife as it is with seeming unbridgeable divisions and endless infighting for short-term political gain. If a major catastrophe such as the one that hit on the weekend can only provide a brief hiatus in habitual sniping, then there is little reason not to believe that a few weeks hence Japan will return to its state of stupor, unable to make the contributions to the region that such a power should be making.
The quake will recede into memory, but the challenges to the region, from future natural catastrophes to the uncertainties created by China’s rise, will not disappear. Only when politicians put an end to their juvenile pitched battles, roll up their sleeves and strive toward a clearly defined goal can those challenges be met and surmounted.
Taiwan, which faces challenges of its own, has fared little better, and possibly even worse, than has Japan in terms of summoning unity in the face of natural crises. More often than not, its political forces have been divided and are canceling each other out for sheer political gain — usually the next local or national elections.
We should all bear in mind that future crises, from Chinese expansionism to the forces of nature, do not face such internal divisions and take advantage of factionalism in others.
On Friday, Mother Nature provided us yet another reminder of the risks of disunity. Will we ever learn?
In September 2013, the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) quietly released an internal document entitled, “Coursebook on the Military Geography of the Taiwan Strait.” This sensitive, “military-use-only” coursebook explains why it is strategically vital that China “reunify” (annex) Taiwan. It then methodically analyzes various locations of interest to People’s Liberation Army (PLA) war planners. The coursebook highlights one future battlefield in particular: Fulong Beach, in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District, which it describes as “3,000 meters long, flat, and straight,” and located at “the head of Taiwan.” A black and white picture of Fulong’s sandy coastline occupies the
US President Joe Biden’s first news conference last month offered reassuring and concerning insights regarding his administration’s approach to China. Biden did not mention the contentious meeting in Alaska where US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan confronted China’s top two foreign policy officials. The Americans implicitly affirmed the administration of former US president Donald Trump’s direct pushback against communist China’s repressive domestic governance and aggressive international behavior. Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) and Chinese Central Foreign Affairs Commission Director Yang Jiechi (楊潔篪) had explicitly demanded a return to the policies of
Early last month, China’s rubber-stamp legislature, the National People’s Congress (NPC), officially approved the country’s 14th Five-Year Plan. The strategy was supposed to demonstrate that China has a long-term economic vision that would enable it to thrive, despite its geopolitical contest with the US. However, before the ink on the NPC’s stamp could dry, China had already begun sabotaging the plan’s chances of success. The new plan’s centerpiece is the “dual-circulation” strategy, according to which China would aim to foster growth based on domestic demand and technological self-sufficiency. This would not only reduce China’s reliance on external demand; it would also
Interrupting the assimilation of Xinjiang’s Uighur population would result in an unmanageable national security threat to China. Numerous governments and civil society organizations around the world have accused China of massive human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and labeled Beijing’s inhumane and aggressive social re-engineering efforts in the region as “cultural genocide.” Extensive evidence shows that China’s forceful ethnic assimilation policies in Xinjiang are aimed at replacing Uighur ethnic and religious identity with a so-called scientific communist dogma and Han Chinese culture. The total assimilation of Uighurs into the larger “Chinese family” is also Beijing’s official, central purpose of its ethnic policies
RSS