China and Japan Confront Each Other

Those of us that expect a world ruled by China in 2050 often worry about a coming confrontation
between the U.S. and China. Actually, it is more likely that the confrontation will be
between Japan and China. In Ping Chong’s puppet show Cathay: 3 Tales of China the Americans
are merely comic. But the Japanese are the murdering monsters that invaded China and killed innocent
Chinese children and raped pure Chinese mothers. If you listen to the Chinese guides when you visit
China, you certainly understand that they are not happy about the sacking of the Imperial Summer Palace
in the nineteenth century by the US and the Brits. But that outrage was small potatoes compared to the
crimes of the second-rate Japanese.

And there is another reason for the Chinese and the Japanese to dislike each other. Energy.
Arthur Herman tells the story about
“the rich natural gas reserves in the remote uninhabited Senkaku Islands, located in
the East China Sea roughly halfway between Taiwan and Okinawa.” Both China and Japan claim sovereignty
over the islands, and China has been executing naval shows of force around the islands lately.

For Herman, it all sounds familiar.

All this is eerily reminiscent of the international "incidents" in the
years leading up to World War One, when Europe’s Great Powers tested each other’s willingness
to go to the brink: Fashoda in 1898, Tangiers in 1905, Agadir in 1911.

A century ago, a strong, self-confident Germany was seeking a place in the sun.

Like Europe’s Great Powers a century ago, the industrial powers of
Asia and the Pacific Rim are strong, self-confident,
self-assertive; they feel their time for greatness has arrived.

Can we learn from history, or are we condemned to repeat it?