I would rather Japan's style of government dominate asia over the communist in china. Japan is a great ally and friend of the US and we must support her.
Don't count it. Any of the leading rat pols, should one become President would likely tell the Taiwanese "good luck, you're on your own".
Someday China will technologically overcome it's fireworks mentality and they will have to be reckoned with.
I just got back from Taiwan and a lot of the people there do not believe that China will invade them. They told me that the people of China will revolt and overthrow the commies before they would invade Taiwan. There is no middle class in China and the poor will rise up against the elite. Where as the Taiwanese have adopted free enterprise and are doing great in industry and agriculture.
Japan's economic revival the past year is mainly because of Chinese imports. That is fact, you can google it to confirm. Japanese investment in China is miniscule compared to HK, Taiwan, European or American investments in China. China pulls a deficit in trade with Japan right now.
This article is about as informative as the CIA Factbook. In fact all it did was quote data from the CIA Factbook and then speculate wildly without justification. It also assumes that there will be military conflict between China and Japan, which is ridiculous. Worse it assumes that China is the one more unreasonable in the current standoff, when in fact there are growing factions in the Japanese government who support a more concillatory approach to China (i.e., some Japanese politicians are distancing themselves from Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine, which holds class A war criminals).
There are more and more Japanese businessmen who are favoring a more pro-China stance as the economic relationship develops.
Media tycoon calls for clearer war apology
Friday, March 24, 2006 at 07:14 EST, Kyodo News
TOKYO — The head of the major Japanese daily Yomiuri Shimbun, Tsuneo Watanabe, on Thursday urged prime ministers of Japan to apologize for the nation's military aggression before and during World War II to neighboring countries in a clearer manner.
"It would be best for parliament to set up a standing committee on war responsibility and express its position," Watanabe said at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan, adding, "But if it cannot do that, a prime minister should say to foreign countries that Japan made such mistakes and apologize for them."
http://www.crisscross.com/jp/news/367869
Do you know why he is saying this? Because Koizumi's repeated patronage to war criminals in Yasukuni Shrine is bad business for the Japanese. China, S Korea and Taiwan simply refuse to tolerate it, and it cools down business relationships significantly.
In other words, this standoff hurts and isolates Japan more, than it does China. The original article is so far off the mark it's almost satire.
ping