Duterte wades between China and Japan

With his trip to Japan President Duterte has fulfilled his promise that from hereon, Philippine foreign policy will be friends with everyone for its self-interest. But I have my reservations on just how the Philippines-China-Japan (with the United States behind it) will play out. There are deep historical reasons why China and Japan cannot be friends yet.

Duterte’s trip to Japan is already being talked about how it may be a clever maneuver to bring the Philippines back to the American fold because Japan is the US ally in its pivot to our region.

There is a dark side to the relations between China and Japan worth remembering as we enter into the changing geopolitical era. I remember what Martin Jacques, author of the international best seller When China Rules the World told me. It is a very deep historical hurt between the two countries not easy to dismiss.

Duterte’s new diplomacy comes right smack in the middle of this abiding conflict.

True, the Japan-China rivalry is in the past but there are vestiges of anger that come up every now and then between the two especially because China is now recognized as a world power.

The enmity cannot be measured by events. I am talking about the hurt from the Nanking massacre that Chinese families to this day will not forget. It cropped up again in the conflict over Senkaku island which is part of the wider South China Sea conflict. It is not in the past yet.

The Duterte factor can open up new rivalries between the two powers in the region. Who will have the bigger aid for Marawi, how fast will delivery come and how well will it be done? In the past few days that rivalry was brewing again with China’s ship full of construction material already on its way to Marawi when Duterte was still in Japan signing contracts. The competition will be good for us but no one can tell what dangers lurk in the background of this ancient rivalry and with America not far behind as an agent provocateur.

It takes very little to ignite the rivalry. A mere visit by Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi to the Yasakuni shrine to honor Japanese war criminals so angered both the Chinese and the South Koreans. The Chinese were so incensed they threw stones at Japanese stores. Before then Japanese business in China was quietly thriving.

What more of a Chinese-Japanese rivalry on who would deliver faster and bigger aid to the Philippines? Japanese nationalism will be challenged. It will be challenged by the role China will play in the reconstruction of Marawi. It will be a sensitive issue.

A word on why the Nanking Massacre is unforgettable as far as the Chinese are concerned.

“The Nanking Massacre was an episode of mass murder and mass rape committed by Japanese troops against the residents of Nanjing (Nanking), then the capital of the Republic of China, during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The massacre is also known as the Rape of Nanking or, using Pinyin romanization (Chinese writing), the Nanjing Massacre or Rape of Nanjing.

The massacre occurred over a period of six weeks starting on Dec. 13, 1937, the day that the Japanese captured Nanjing. During this period, soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army murdered Chinese civilians and disarmed combatants who numbered an estimated 40,000 to over 300,000^, and perpetrated widespread rape and looting.

Since most Japanese military records on the killings were kept secret or destroyed shortly after the surrender of Japan in 1945, historians have not been able to accurately estimate the death toll of the massacre. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo estimated in 1946 that over 200,000 Chinese were killed in the incident. China’s official estimate is more than 300,000 dead based on the evaluation of the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal in 1947. The death toll has been actively contested among scholars since the 1980s.

The event remains a contentious political issue and a stumbling block in Sino-Japanese relations. The Chinese government has been accused of overly exaggerating aspects of the massacre such as the death toll while historical negationists and Japanese nationalists go as far as claiming the massacre was fabricated for propaganda purposes. The controversy surrounding the massacre remains a central issue in Japanese relations with other Asia-Pacific nations as well, such as South Korea and the Philippines.

Although the Japanese government has admitted to the killing of a large number of non-combatants, looting, and other violence committed by the Imperial Japanese Army after the fall of Nanking, and Japanese veterans who served there have confirmed that a massacre took place, a small but vocal minority within both the Japanese government and society have argued that the death toll was military in nature and that no such crimes ever occurred. Denial of the massacre and revisionist accounts of the killings have become a staple of Japanese nationalism. In Japan, public opinion of the massacres varies, but few deny outright that the conflict occurred. “ (Wikipedia)

MISCELLANY: I was taking my usual walks around Alabang Town Center when I saw a crowd milled around what looked like telescopes. Strange that there should be telescopes in a mall but stranger still were the orderly crowds who queued to take a peek at the skies.

The founders call themselves Manila Street Astronomers and have been going around malls to promote the sky. If you are patient you will see something you have never seen in a mall – the craters of the moon. I was able to talk to one of the founders , Gary Andreassen and asked him whatever led him to this very worthwhile occupation. 

“I wanted to show the public the immensity of God’s creation but people don’t go to observatories they go to malls.”

From Filipinos in San Francisco this column received pictures of paintings by a kababayan, Jessie Marinas who said “faith and pain go together” that is why he is painting. In an interview with Rose Albano Risso, he showed her “Eaglehearts” painted in 20x60 acrylic which he said came from the deep emotional pain he felt for a close friend who lost his son in Afghanistan.