dan maertens's List: Japan

• The figure of 100,000 deaths in Tokyo may be compared with total US casualties in the four years of the Pacific War—103,000—and Japanese war casualties of more than three million.
• Every US president from Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush has endorsed in practice an approach to warfare that targets entire populations for annihilation, one that eliminates all vestiges of distinction between combatant and noncombatant.

• In the space of 50 years, Japan built an empire that stretched from northern  Manchurian down to the tip of Australia.
• had remained largely (though not completely) disconnected from the Western  world until the mid-19^th century and had only begun to modernize in  1868.
• Japan’s quest for empire cannot be described as ‘the highest form of capitalism’  because the island nation often suffered from a lack of capital during  this period.
• Instead, Japan pursued an expansionist policy to secure its position in the  world. Put simply, Japanese imperialist ambition “was a logical response  to…living in an imperialist world” (Beasley, 9).
• Initially, Japan considered their colonies as areas to produce the necessary  agriculture and foodstuffs for export back to the home islands and as a way to  absorb Japan’s rapidly expanding population.
• Japan adopted a number of policies (such as the five year plans)
• to extensively develop the manufacturing and railway industries within their  colonies. This was strikingly different from “the standard [Western]  ‘imperialist’ doctrine that the role of dependencies is to provide the homeland  with food for its workforce and raw materials for its manufacturing industries”
• Western imperialist powers had very little to gain from developing manufacturing  in their colonies due to the distance separating them. Even if Britain, for  example, had developed a munitions or rail-stock industry in India, the cost of  shipping such heavy manufactures back to the British Isles would have eliminated  any potential profit. Japan’s close proximity to Korea, Taiwan, and China made  such activities potentially very profitable.
• Perhaps Britain was motivated by economic concerns, but Germany clearly wished  to expand its empire to increase its international prestige and Russia had  always sought territory that possessed the coveted warm-water port.
• Therefore, while Japanese motivations were very different from many Western  countries, Japanese imperialism is not inherently unique. It is also important  to remember that mono-causal explanations are always insufficient because they  fail to take into account the many disparate influences that exist within a  nation.
• and allowed a small group of statesmen, military officers, and business leaders  to create a monopoly of power.
• Nor does Beasley examine the emergence of ultranationalism, how it reinforced  Japan’s imperialist policies, and why Japan abandoned diplomacy as a tool to  achieve its foreign policy goals.
• In other words, territorial expansion became less a realization of long-term  historic objectives dictated by clear government policies and more a means to  accommodate short-term needs. By the 1940s, Japan had extended its empire well  beyond its military and financial capabilities. Japan lacked the capital for  overseas development, lacked an adequate transportation system to provide an  effective infrastructure, a domestic market to absorb its resources, and a  surplus of manufactured goods to provide it with exports.
• Japanese imperial rule was always brutal, repressive, and never upheld the  ideals of pan-Asian brotherhood.
• The Japanese founded schools in their colonies and occupied territories and  forced colonial subjects to learn Japanese and adopt Shinto and Confucian  practices. Within Korea and Taiwan, use of native languages was prohibited and  indigenous education systems were dismantled. The claim that Japanese expansion  was driven by a desire to liberate and aid other Asian countries wears thin upon  examination of the harsh treatment of civilian populations by the Imperial Army.  The brutal authoritarian control of Korean, manifested in locked factories,  forced labor, and compulsory education receive no attention and the rape of  Nanking receives a cursory nod.
• explain, “[Japanese] imperial strategy was built around a pattern of  industrialization dominated by a handful of foreign firms…exploiting cheap  energy and natural resources, and making a limited contribution to both local  value added and employment”
• Finally, I question the way Beasley structured his discussion of the subject.  Beasley’s analysis of Japanese imperialism can be divided into three distinct  phases; from 1895-1905 the rudiments of empire were put together, between 1905  and 1930 Japanese imperialism became more ‘self-assertive’ and Japan  considerably expanded its sphere of influence, and after 1930 the Japanese  attempted to displace the Eurocentric imperial system with a ‘Japanocentric  system’ of their own devising (Duus, 450-451). I believe that the development of  Japanese imperialism should be divided into its pre- and post-1930 phases, with  the Great Depression as the linchpin around which the character of Japanese  imperialism evolved.
• Prior to 1930, Japan considered empire as a way to secure its independence in  the face of Western pressures in Asia. It was not seen as an outlet for excess  capital, as in the Leninist model, but as a way to achieve national security.  Thus, Japan preferred to pursue its economic interests through diplomatic and  political channels. Foreign policy was predominantly influenced by business  interests and bureaucrats within the Foreign Ministry. Though Japan sought to  extend its sphere of influence to included Korea and parts of Manchuria, it was  quite willing to conform to an international framework that included the Western  powers. Additionally, the central government sought to separate Japan from Asia  and become more integrated into the Western system, as demonstrated by its  inclusion into the treaty port system and the alliance with Britain and the US  in 1902.
• The Great Depression and decline of international trade and cooperation in the  early 1930s fundamentally altered Japan’s imperial goals. National security  could no longer be guaranteed through trade and diplomatic channels. Rather than  cooperation, economic autarky seemed the best way to ensure Japan’s continued  growth. To this aim, Japan sought to establish a regional trade bloc, first by  solidifying control in Korea, supporting the creation of a puppet-government in  Manchuria, and eventually aggressively pursuing territory in mainland China.
• Furthermore, Beasley’s outline of Japanese imperialism gives the reader the  impression that this was a well though-out policy created and pursued by the  Japanese government. In truth, the Japanese government and military were  institutions that had great difficultly defining goals, developing plans, and  implementing them within their own administrations. Cooperation between these  disparate groups was rare and often proved impossible. Any study of Japanese  imperialism must acknowledge the haphazard, unplanned nature of its evolution.
• Insubordination within the Imperial Army (and to a lesser extent the navy)  played a major role in pushing evermore aggressive imperialist policies into  action. Why did these radical elements exist and why was such insubordination  tolerated? Why were imperialism and nationalism so interconnected during this  period? What was the experience of colonial citizens under Japanese imperial  rule?

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• "The Japanese hated European and American colonialism and were committed to  avoiding what happened to China after the Opium Wars. They felt humiliated by  the unequal treaties that were forced on them by the United States after the  arrival of Perry's Black ships in 1853. But in the end Japan became a colonial  power itself.
  
• The Japanese victory over China in 1895 led to the annexation of Formosa  (present-day Taiwan) and Liaotang province in China. Both Japan and Russia  claimed Liatong. The victory over Russia in 1905 gave Japan the Liaotang  province in China and led the way to the annexation of Korea in 1910. In 1919,  in return for siding with the Allies in World War I, the European powers gave  Germany's possessions in Shandong province to Japan in the Treaty of Versailles.  
  
• In some ways, the Japanese mimicked the Western colonial powers. They built  grand government buildings and "developed high-minded schemes to help the  natives." Later they even claimed they had the right to colonize. In 1928,  Prince (and future Prime Minister) Konroe announced: "as a result of [Japan's]  one million annual increase in population, our national economic life is heavily  burdened. We cannot [afford to] wait for a rationalizing adjustment of the world  system."
  
• To rationalize their actions in China and Korea, Japanese officers invoked the  concept of "double patriotism" which meant they could "disobey moderate policies  of the Emperor in order to obey his true interests." A comparison has been made  between the religious-political-imperial ideology behind Japanese expansion and  the American idea of manifest destiny. [Source: "History of Warfare" by John  Keegan, Vintage Books]
  
• The Japanese tried to build a united Asian front against Western imperialism but  its racist views ultimately worked against it."
  

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• How, then, should we regard a country that has 5% unemployment, the lowest  income inequality, healthcare for all its people and is one of the world's  leading exporters?
• This country also scores high on life expectancy, low on infant mortality, is at  the top in numeracy and literacy, and is low on crime, incarceration, homicides,  mental illness and drug abuse. It also has a low rate of carbon emissions, doing  its part to reduce global warming. In all these categories, this particular  country beats both the US and China by a country mile.
• "The state of Japan is a scandal, an outrage, a reproach … operating far below  its productive capacity, simply because its consumers and investors do not spend  enough."
• But let's look at some of the Japanese metrics during that time. Throughout the  1990s, the Japanese unemployment rate was – ready for this? – about 3%, half the  US unemployment rate at the time. During that allegedly "lost decade", Japan  also had universal healthcare, less inequality, the highest life expectancy, low  infant mortality and low rates of crime and incarceration. Americans should be  so lucky as to experience a Japanese-style lost decade.
• Reopening the case of Japan raises some important questions. How do economists  such as Krugman decide what to value and prioritise, or what to measure? What is  an economy for? To produce the prosperity, security and services that people  need? Or to satisfy economists and their equations, theories and models?
• Krugman has written that the Germans "seem to be getting their talking points  from the collected speeches of Herbert Hoover". Krugman, a stimulus hawk, is  criticising Germany for the same thing for which he has criticised Japan – not  spending, or consuming, enough to stimulate its economy.
• in the early 1990s, when the US was plagued by large deficits and recession,  the Clinton administration didn't employ Krugman-type fiscal stimulus. Instead,  it cut the deficit. By the end of the decade, the US budget showed a sizable  surplus and the economy was booming.
• have reached an economic steady state in which they don't need roaring growth  rates to provide for their people.
• . In other words, the real game is no longer strictly about economic growth;  it's about sustainability and learning to do more with less.
• The era of US-style trickle-down economies is over for wealthy countries because  trickle-down is neither economically sound nor ecologically sustainable. The  developed nations must lead the way towards a different path of development.

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• But I remember when the world looked so different, seen from Tokyo. Global  domination was at hand. There was Sony with its Walkman and its Betamax VCRs,  Honda launching its revolutionary City car with the help of Madness. Robots were  promising to take over bed-making and washing-up, workers would disappear from  factories because even a Japanese worker could not compete with a robot. Toyota  and its rivals were producing cars that never broke down, and the rest of the  world's car makers were sprawling in the dust. Brother launched its first laptop  word processor with a memory of perhaps 300 words – and across the Pacific the  Americans were quaking in their boots at the Yellow Peril. Japan as Number One:  Lessons for America, by Ezra F Vogel, was a best-seller.
• The most fashionable Western architects streamed through Narita airport to  design restaurants and shops to adorn the most expensive land in the world.  People worked out that a one-room flat in Shinjuku was worth more than the state  of Virginia, or some such preposterous calculation. But with hindsight, those  architects were a symptom of the problem: Japan's real estate was madly  overvalued, and when the bubble burst the economy went down the tubes. Years of  stagnation followed.
• As any first-time visitor to Tokyo quickly appreciates, the most striking way  Japan differs from the West is that it is so much more crowded.
• In the mid-19th century, Japan worked out that the only way to avoid going the  way of India and China and disappearing down the imperialists' maw was to  industrialise in a hurry. Modernisation was thus motivated by fear: the only  hope of remaining independent was to beat us at our own game. Thanks to national  cohesion, a tradition of subservience to power and a generation of far-seeing  reformers, within half a century of first seeing America's steam-powered  "kurofune" ("black ships") puffing over the horizon, Japan was on the brink of  defeating Russia in war, using modern, home-produced weapons.
• Japan's megalopolises go on for ever.
• And let us hope that, just as industrialising Japan was an inspiration to the  rest of Asia 100 years ago, deindustrialising Japan might be the same today.  Because it's one of the few hopes we have.

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• But that's kind of the point: The entire exercise depends on suppressing  consumers as their cheap labor fuels exports
• One argument is that the United States forced Japan to act against its own  interests in accepting a stronger yen. Although it is true that the United  States and other trading partners browbeat Japan, they had been doing so for  years. Japan finally assented to their demands in 1985 as part of a plan to  rebalance its economy. Post-World War II Japan pioneered Asia's export-driven  growth model, sextupling GDP from 1950 to 1970 and pulling more people out of  poverty more quickly than any country except modern China. Japan achieved this  remarkable growth with a weak yen -- which supported exports and discouraged  imports -- and high savings rates, which funded massive investments in  infrastructure and manufacturing capacity.

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• Japan had invested hundreds of billions of dollars in  

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  China and had contributed hugely to the  rise of the Middle Kingdom. But it wasn’t earning much gratitude for it. The  Chinese Communist Party, whose legitimacy partly arises from fighting the  Japanese invasion before the second world war, became more nationalistic as  China became stronger.

• Japan, facing an ageing workforce and in need of a new overseas manufacturing  hub, considered Vietnam (too small), Indonesia (too seismic) and India. India’s  problem was its shoddy infrastructure and seeming inability to do anything about  it. As a Japanese diplomat said then, “We decided to shift our aid programme to  infrastructure rather than poverty alleviation.” One consequence was the Delhi  Metro.

• Post-Cold War uncertainty helped feed a new conservative Japanese politics  that manifested itself in the election of prime ministers like Junichiro  Koizumi, Shinzo Abe and Taro Aso. Each of them saw India as a potential player  in a Pacific Great Game in which hedging against China was pretty much the only  rule.

• Three things changed the game. One, Chinese bellicosity and Japanese economic  decline helped seal a political consensus in Tokyo that for reasons either  strategic or economic, India was an essential part of Japan’s foreign  partnering. Thus, when the present Democratic Party of Japan came to power,  virtually their first action was to kick off the industrial corridor. They were  soft on China, but their economic growth strategy had a huge India component.  This helped reassure New Delhi as well. Indian officials often fretted about  Japan’s short-lived governments.

• Two, closer relations between India and the US helped Japan get the  confidence to raise the stakes. Thus was born the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial  Corridor, a $90 billion whopper that, when completed, will give India a  state-of-the-art manufacturing and exporting base. When Indian officials talk  about Indo-Japan relations being transformational, they are talking about this  sort of thing.
• Three, India Inc knocked the kimonos off Japan Inc by winning Alfred Deming  Prizes. Demings are given for quality manufacturing. Over the past decade,  unknown Indian auto-component firms began beating competitors, including Japan.  In the past 10 years, India has won more Demings than any other country other  than Japan itself. Corporate Japan was convinced: India had proven it wasn’t  just another grimy face.

• After muddling around at about Rs 2,000 crore a year, Japan firms invested a  hefty Rs 9,000 crore in 2007. Recent polls show that 70 per cent of Japanese  firms say India is their preferred investment destination. Today, an average of  100 Japanese firms are moving here every year. As the comfort level rose,  mergers and acquisitions such as Daiichi-Sankyo’s $4.6 billion purchase of  Ranbaxy, India’s largest pharma company, too place. The economic relationship is  now a fixture. The soon-to-be-completed free-trade agreement will put in place  the last missing piece: the drawing of India into the global supply chains of  Japanese manufacturers.

• Last year, India and Japan signed a bilateral defence framework. A former  Japanese official noted, “Japan has only two other comparable agreements, with  the US and Australia. And the Australian one is hazier than the one we have with  you.” The final culmination of this will be an Indo-Japanese nuclear deal. Both  sides know this will be a tough baby to deliver, but both capitals have a  political consensus that this is a marriage made in the hard realities of earth.  

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• On the contrary, relations with China will remain Janus-faced for the  foreseeable future. Japan views China as an economic and military rival, but  also as a site for its manufacturing plants and, thanks to the rise of a Chinese  middle class, a crucial market for the cars and electronics it produces.

   

  While conservatives fret over the pace of China's  economic development, and the size of its defence budget, a new voice is  emerging: one that asks why a country that spent 250 years in sakoku isolation – a  period that saw little economic growth – cannot beat a retreat into a modified  version of the past.

• It isn't hard to see why such a radical rethink of  Japan's economic raison d'etre should at least be debated. The Nikkei stock  index is only at about a quarter of its all-time high of 1989; real estate is  worth about a quarter of what it was in 1974. While Japan's (reformed) banks  dodged the worst of the Lehman shock, the country is displaying the symptoms of  a malaise it once dismissed as a western disease: unemployment, the emergence of  the "working poor", a widening income gap, and the ignominious spectacle of a  corporate icon, Toyota,  called to account for shoddy workmanship in the committee rooms of the US  Congress.
• but its comparatively homogeneous society has never shown much enthusiasm for  similarly impressive influxes of foreign labour, despite warnings that it will  need to accept 10 million immigrant workers over the next half -century to keep  its economy ticking over.
• How long will it be before bets are being taken on when it becomes the first  economy to shake off its addiction to growth and give other mature economies a  glimpse into a more frugal future?

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• Japan announced a new defense policy on Friday that will respond to China’s  rising military might by building more submarines and other mobile forces  capable of defending Japan’s southernmost islands.
• In Beijing, the Foreign Ministry criticized the new policy as “irresponsible”  and suggested that it was based on a misunderstanding of China’s intentions.  “China adheres to the road of peaceful development and pursues a defensive  national defense policy,” Jiang Yu, the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said in a  statement. “We have no intention to be a threat to anyone.”
• The guidelines also called for increasing military cooperation with the United  States, Japan’s postwar protector, and other democracies in the region including  South Korea, Australia and India.
• The new guidelines seemed to indicate a willingness to slightly raise Japan’s  military profile, but only in a defensive manner, and in conjunction with the  United States
• The guidelines also called for reconsidering Japan’s self-imposed ban on the  export of weapons, a step that would make it easier for Japan to join other  nations, and particularly the United States, in the joint development of  expensive new weapons systems
• Japan has already joined the United States in developing new anti-missile  systems. Friday’s guidelines called for deploying more Patriot interceptor  missiles to shoot down ballistic missiles from North Korea, which has been  developing missiles and nuclear weapons

• After initially disagreeing with Washington over an American air base on  Okinawa, the left-leaning Democrats under Prime Minister Naoto Kan have moved  closer to the United States, pushed by concerns over China’s increasing  influence and North Korean provocations like last month’s shelling of a South  Korean island.

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• Lastly, it seems that the Chinese have a natural taste for the global capitalism  game that sometimes seemed elusive in more-conformist Japan.

• Japan decided to set up a secret intelligence unit  for the first time since World War II to spy on China and North Korea

• In recent years, however, a new interpretation of events has emerged. Tsuyoshi  Hasegawa - a highly respected historian at the University of California, Santa  Barbara - has marshaled compelling evidence that it was the Soviet entry into  the Pacific conflict, not Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that forced Japan’s surrender.  His interpretation could force a new accounting of the moral meaning of the  atomic attack. It also raises provocative questions about nuclear deterrence, a  foundation stone of military strategy in the postwar period. And it suggests  that we could be headed towards an utterly different understanding of how, and  why, the Second World War came to its conclusion.
• Then, in the 1960s, a “revisionist school” of historians suggested that Japan  was in fact close to surrendering before Hiroshima - that the bombing was not  necessary, and that Truman gave the go-ahead primarily to intimidate the Soviet  Union with our new power.
• Instead, it took the Soviet declaration of war on Japan, several days after  Hiroshima, to bring the capitulation.
• That may help explain why Hasegawa’s thesis, which he first detailed in an  award-winning 2005 book and has continued to bolster with new material, is still  little known outside of academic circles, says Ward Wilson, a nuclear weapons  scholar who has drawn on Hasegawa’s insights in his own recent work. Measured  against the decades of serious and settled thinking about World War II,  Hasegawa’s scholarship feels radical. But another reason, Wilson argues, is that  to look at history in this new light is to entertain what seem like shocking  ideas. That the destruction of cities does not sway leaders. That what happened  in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not overly remarkable. And, strangest of all: That  nuclear explosives may not be particularly effective weapons of war.
• well aware of their difficult position, and holding out for strategic reasons.  Their concern was not so much whether to end the conflict, but how to end it  while holding onto territory, avoiding war crimes trials, and preserving the  imperial system.
• The Japanese could still inflict heavy casualties on any invader, and they hoped  to convince the Soviet Union, still neutral in the Asian theater, to mediate a  settlement with the Americans. Stalin, they calculated, might negotiate more  favorable terms in exchange for territory in Asia. It was a long shot, but it  made strategic sense.
• On Aug. 7, Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo sent an urgent coded telegram to his  ambassador in Moscow, asking him to press for a response to the Japanese request  for mediation, which the Soviets had yet to provide. The bombing added a “sense  of urgency,” Hasegawa says, but the plan remained the same.
• Very late the next night, however, something happened that did change the plan.  The Soviet Union declared war and launched a broad surprise attack on Japanese  forces in Manchuria. In that instant, Japan’s strategy was ruined. Stalin would  not be extracting concessions from the Americans. And the approaching Red Army  brought new concerns: The military position was more dire, and it was hard to  imagine occupying communists allowing Japan’s traditional imperial system to  continue. Better to surrender to Washington than to Moscow.
• Yet Bernstein, Hasegawa, and many historians agree on one startling point. The  public view that the atomic bomb was the decisive event that ended World War II  is not supported by the facts.

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• In the 19th century, Japan, unlike China, responded to Western pressure to open  up to trade not by fighting back but by transforming itself so that, while still  geographically in Asia, it became in effect a European country.
• Japan decided to hop on the imperialist bandwagon and to become imperialist in  every sense of the word.
• It acquired the imperialist taste to subjugate other peoples so as to acquire  colonies. In this, it outdid its Western mentors, quickly turning Korea, which  had recognized China as its suzerain, into a colony and then turned its eyes on  the main prize — China itself — and all of Southeast Asia.
• From the late 19th century on, it forced wars on a weak and dispirited China,  wars that Japan with its modern navy and armed forces trained in Western  military techniques easily won.

• During World War II, Japan allied itself with two leading Western  countries, Germany and Italy. But it turned out that it had chosen the wrong  countries to ally itself with.

   

  After its defeat, Japan was put under American occupation and  tutelage. And then, lo and behold, the two countries, victor and vanquished,  formed a close alliance. Big brother America helped Japan develop democratic  institutions and rise from the ashes of war until Washington saw itself  challenged, peacefully this time, by Japan for the leadership of the capitalist  world.
• Especially in the early years after the war, Japan saw the United States as a  Technicolor country, while the rest of the world was drab gray.
• The U.S. could meet all of Japan's needs. Japan had no need for Asia.
• Once this happened, the U.S.-Japan alliance was in trouble because it meant that  Japanese interests were divided. Can Japan have close economic relations with  China — relations that are vital to Japan's very survival — and at the same time  remain a military ally of the U.S., whom many in China perceive as their deadly  enemy?

• That was when the Democratic Party of Japan entered the scene in  2009, promising to rebalance Japanese policy with an emphasis on Asia, which of  course means China. Certainly, its proposal for an East Asian Community caused  anxiety in Washington, fearful that it would be shut out of the world's most  dynamic region.

   

  However, in the last two years, China had shot itself in the foot  through its policies toward the Korean Peninsula and Japan. This has resulted in  Japan's new ruling party putting as much emphasis on the alliance with the U.S.  as the Liberal Democrats ever did.

• And yet, it seems, China will not take yes for an answer. No  sooner had Yoshihiko Noda been chosen as the new prime minister than China  issued a demand that he "needs to respect China's core interests."

   

  If China will only allow the situation to develop on its own, the  countries of Asia may well come to accept its status as the leading power in the  region. But arrogance and threats are unlikely to win China any friends —  certainly not in Japan.

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• the French (Treaty of  Amity and Commerce between France and Japan, 9 October 1858).
• Japan-US Treaty of Amity and  Friendship")
• The Japanese chafed under the "unequal  treaty system" which characterized Asian and western relations during this  period.^[5]
• United Kingdom (Anglo-Japanese  Friendship Treaty, October 1854)

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• The war and the treaty signaled the emergence of Japan as a world power. Because  of the role played by President Theodore Roosevelt, the United States became a  significant force in world diplomacy. Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel Peace  Prize in 1906 for his back channel efforts before and during the peace  negotiations, even though he never came to Portsmouth. This international affair  settled immediate difficulties in the Far East and created four decades of peace  between the two warring nations. Negotiations lasted through August. Prior to  the beginning of negotiations, the Japanese allegedly made the Taft-Katsura  Agreement with the U.S. in July 1905, which agreed to Japanese control of Korea, in return for American dominance in  the Philippines. The  Japanese also agreed with the United Kingdom to extend the Anglo-Japanese  treaty to cover all of Eastern  Asia, in return for the UK's also agreeing to Japan's control over Korea.

• Dignitaries in Niigata lobbied for the consulate for years—traveling to Beijing, offering gifts of local sake—in hopes of bringing tourists and business to their struggling city of 800,000 on the Sea of Japan.

   

  But in their moment of triumph, when the consulate was announced, locals erupted in protest. Some 15,000 people signed petitions against the Chinese. Protesters blocked streets with their trucks. This past March, the city assembly passed a resolution demanding tighter control of land purchases by foreigners. Construction remains stalled as Tokyo and Beijing try to figure out what to do next.
• He thinks the consulate will bring an "unwanted element" to Niigata—namely, Chinese people—along with more crime.
• The scuffle embodies the complex nature of the Japan-China relationship. The two nations share a culture, and a long, war-scarred history. They have repeatedly invaded each other since the 1200s, while also engaging in vigorous trade that brought religion and firearms to Japan, and minerals and lumber to China. In a defining modern incident, Japan in the 1930s colonized China and massacred civilians in Nanjing, a period that casts a long shadow over ties today.
• Many Japanese appreciate that China's growing economic clout could help Japan in its struggle to regain economic vigor. But at the same time, animosity is growing.
• It is difficult to calculate precisely how much money China invests in Japan, because some deals get done through third countries to avoid notice. China's net direct investments in Japan rose to a record $338 million in 2010, roughly 20 times the level of five years earlier, according to China's Ministry of Commerce. (In 2011, all foreign direct investment fell off a bit, including China's, after the Fukushima nuclear disaster.)

• In some ways, Japan's response to Chinese investments echoes the U.S. reaction to Japanese wealth in the 1980s and the early 1990s. Japanese investments in American landmarks such as New York's Rockefeller Center and California's Pebble Beach Golf Course set off an uproar.

   

  One congresswoman famously smashed a Toshiba cassette recorder at the Capitol, calling Japanese investments an "invasion." A bid by Japan's Fujitsu Ltd.  6702.TO 0.00%  for a U.S. semiconductor company (later withdrawn) spawned a 1988 law giving the president authority to block foreign mergers and acquisitions seen as threatening national security.

• In Japan today, the backlash is building just as quickly as Chinese funds arrive. Japanese lawmakers speculate that Chinese companies want technology or military intelligence.

   

  "No one was worried when the Americans were buying our land, but China's entry is making a lot of people uneasy. After all, it's a country that we consider a threat," said Sanae Takaichi, an opposition politician who is crafting legislation that would tighten land-purchase rules by foreigners. "We can't afford to keep our guard down any longer," she said. Hers is just one of an array of such laws in the past year.
• Later this year, Parliament is expected to pass legislation to protect drinking water that was born out of a 2010 territorial dispute with China. Some Japanese, including Ms. Takaichi, have voiced concerns that Chinese investors might drill up mineral water for export until springs run dry.
• Others called her derogatory names that were common during Japan's colonial rule, such as "chin-koro," an extremely derogatory way of saying "Chinese."
• In Tokyo, an attempt to brand a "Tokyo Chinatown"—a neighborhood bustling with Chinese businesses—to attract tourists and Tokyoites has been thwarted by non-Chinese business owners and officials in the area.
• hosted a seminar titled "Your Life and Foreigners' Crimes—Examining Cases of Chinese Espionage,"
• The speaker was Tadanobu Bando, a former investigator at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Agency and author of books on crimes by Chinese residents. Mr. Bando said he examined both the merits and demerits of accepting more Chinese, but "the demerits are much larger than the merits."

• Niigata assembly members who abstained from the vote were attacked in anonymous blogs. One site posted their names and photos and said: "Let's remember these faces and protest!" One politician was called a "traitor."

   

  "It's becoming more and more difficult for us to speak our minds," said Yoshiaki Kobayashi, the lone assembly member to vote against the resolution. "This reminds me of the years before World War II, when nationalism swept the whole country."
• "The issue of land purchases by foreigners…is a theme that we will have to consider broadly over the coming years," Mr. Gemba said.

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• Three points in particular can be noted about China in Japan’s new defence white paper. First, in line with the 2011 white paper, the 2012 version promotes the dynamic defence force concept and the flexible deployment of the SDF to Japan’s southwest island chain, including Okinawa and the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. Moving from the long-esteemed concept of a basic defence force, the 2010 NDPG introduced the dynamic defence concept. This was a product of compromise between the necessity of coping with new security challenges and a limited budget. The application of this new concept to Japan’s southwest island chain is clearly intended to counter China’s maritime challenge. Yet the 2012 white paper pushes the concept even further and, in a new section called ‘dynamic defence cooperation’, it hints at the link between the implementation of the concept and recent developments in US–Japan defence cooperation.
• Second, the 2012 white paper has become more forceful in its description of China’s maritime activities around the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. And in line with the 2011 paper, it also dares to include the emotional word kouatsuteki (pressing from a superior position) in the original Japanese version to refer to Chinese maritime activities in the South China Sea. In the English version, kouatsuteki is translated only as ‘assertive’, but the nuance in the Japanese language is stronger. The inclusion of this kind of emotional word had not been found in a white paper before 2011.
• Third, while the description of China’s military policy and activities is written in a constrained way, the 2012 white paper includes for the first time a reference to the sensitive relationship between the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in China’s defence policy making. This reference is limited, however. The white paper simply introduces the conventional observation shared between many Western analysts: it states in the main text that ‘some see that relations between the CCP leadership and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has [sic] been getting complex and others see that the degree of military influence on foreign policy decisions has been changing’. It adds that, ‘in order to allay other countries’ concerns over China, it is becoming more and more important for China itself to improve transparency’.
• or to the increasingly militarised nature of Japan’s response to China — and Japan’s alliance with the US.
• According to the 1972 Japan–China Joint Communiqué, reached between the two countries when relations were normalised, Japan agreed not to interfere in China’s domestic affairs. Under this agreement, Japan was to avoid direct references to Chinese domestic politics and emotional language in relation to China.
• But the 2012 white paper may have sent a signal that Japan no longer cares to maintain the post-1972 political consensus — even in an official defence document.
• Though it is still full of reserved language to avoid provoking China, the 2012 version does reflect underlying Japanese dissatisfaction or ‘irritation’ over China’s recent maritime assertiveness in the South China Sea and the East China Sea.
• In this sense, the 2012 white paper may indicate a new trend in Japan’s defence policy in relation to China.

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