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| quote: | Originally posted by E2EK1EL
"Thanks to Russia for helping out Japan, it's good to see the two countries put a side their differences, politics and childish bullshit, when the call for help is needed." |
China sets aside disputes, offers help
| quote: | The earthquake and tsunami that devastated northern Japan may help temporarily ease Japan's strained relations with China, allowing the two Asian rivals for the moment to look past lingering territorial, economic, military and historic disputes.
When news of the disaster first spread Friday, Chinese leaders were quick to offer condolences and support. China is also earthquake-prone -- a deadly 5.8-magnitude tremor just hit southwestern Yunnan province Thursday -- and officials here immediately put a trained rescue team in place to dispatch to Japan if needed.
The Chinese defense minister, Liang Guanglie, called his Japanese counterpart, Toshimi Kitazawa, to offer military assets. The Chinese Red Cross Society pledged 1 million yuan, or about $152,087, to help Japan. Premier Wen Jiabao also had a telephone conversation Friday with Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, and offered China's condolences and help.
China's rapid show of sympathy and solidarity toward an Asian neighbor in distress stands in sharp contrast to the heated rhetoric of the last half-year, which saw noisy anti-Japanese demonstrations in some cities and the canceling of some ministry-level exchanges and tour groups.
After the earthquake, officially sanctioned editorials -- which are regularly used to whip up anti-Japanese sentiment -- were instead talking about shared pain, and what China can learn from Japan's rapid and orderly response to the disaster.
An unsigned commentary Saturday from Xinhua, the official state-run news agency, recalled how Japan assisted China after a deadly earthquake in Sichuan province in 2008, with many ordinary Japanese lining up to make donations and a Japanese rescue team helping recover victims.
"The willingness and readiness to help each other is just a natural reflection of the time-honored friendly bond between the two neighboring Oriental civilizations," the commentary said. "The virtue of returning the favor after receiving one runs in the bloods of both nations."
Relations between the two Asian powers have long been strained, but reached a new low last September when a Chinese fishing trawler collided with two Japanese coast guard vessels around a small chain of disputed, Japanese-administered islands known as the Senkaku to the Japanese and the Diaoyu to the Chinese.
Japan briefly detained the Chinese trawler's captain and threatened to put him on trial, and China responded by blocking its exports to Japan of crucial rare earth metals used in the high-tech industry. The block on rare earth metals was widely interpreted as a de facto trade embargo imposed by Beijing, prompting Japan, the United States and other countries to scramble for alternatives to China's rare earth metals.
At the height of the fishing trawler incident last year, the Global Times newspaper - owned by the Communist Party's main mouthpiece, People's Daily, and typically giving voice to the party line - wrote a series of increasing vitriolic editorials calling for Japan to be punished.
"Now is the time to seriously examine Japan," one typical September editorial said. "It should be apparent by now that China will be forced to endure long-term conflicts with Japan, and emphasizing only friendly relations is not prudent. In addition, China needs to be certain of Japan's soft spots for clearly targeted reactions." It added, "The pain has to be piercing."
Japan has also been deeply concerned about China's growing military spending, with Beijing's Communist rulers earlier this month announcing a 12.7 percent rise in the defense budget for 2011. And China's growing economic clout has led to fears that Beijing is becoming increasingly assertive in pressing its territorial claims in the region. China officially surpassed Japan this year as the world's second largest economy, behind the U.S.
China, for its part, feels that Japan has never shown sufficient contrition for atrocities committed by the Imperial Army during World War II, including a massacre at Nanjing where the two sides continue to dispute the number of victims.
Since 1980, when Deng Xiaoping began China's market reforms and opening to the world, Japan has provided financial aid to China to help alleviate poverty. Many in China saw the aid money as de facto compensation for past Japanese war crimes. But when official figures this year showed China's economy is now larger than Japan's in GDP terms, some in Japan have said the aid is no longer needed -- creating another potential sore point between the two countries.
With the earthquake, Chinese leaders are also looking to how Japan deals with damage to its nuclear reactors, as China is set to embark on its own nuclear power plant expansion in the coming years.
Zhang Lijun, China's vice-minister of environmental protection, said China is "keeping a close eye" on the leakage at two of Japan's nuclear facilities. He spoke before an explosion Saturday destroyed part of a nuclear facility at Fukushima.
"Some lessons we learn from Japan will be considered in the making of China's nuclear power plans," he said. "But China will not change its determination and plan for developing nuclear power."
China now has 13 nuclear facilities, with plans for 34 others; 26 of those are already under construction, according to several published Chinese media reports. |
(Courtesy Washington Post)
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Is it wise to build such reactors in earthquake-prone areas?
