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The Death of the Inclusion Policy in the East Asian Shelf Waters

Internationalist Observer | 16.01.2014 14:40 | Analysis | Anti-Nuclear | Ocean Defence | World

The Chinese extension of airspace claims into the Pacific that shocked so many Atlantic observers is interesting to analyse for a number of reasons. First, it is just as symbolic as the recent border conflict with India in the Himalaya. Second, in its entire arrangement it nevertheless equals a tangential intervention into material conflicts of neighbours, first of all Japan and Korea. And third, the issues at stake such as the meddling of reactionary regimes from across the Pacific are hot enough to mandate attention from only collaterally related places which are affected by the destructivity of these forces as well. Nine months after the "High Noon" atomic test, China now appears to have seized the opportunity to assist Korea as a fellow "nuclear club" member and by doing so at the same time reassert its own position on the Taiwan issue. But to the outside observer it is something much worse that is contained in these developments – the Japanese expansionism whose first wave was only stopped by external reactionaries. Nobody can seriously want the atomic bombings against Japan to occur again, all the more so after the Fukushima incident. But anything suitable to stop the historical revisionism of the Tokyo regime from proliferating across the Pacific and Indian oceans and leaving similar consequences as it did the first time is a welcome – and under sudden circumstances even a necessary – change.

The Japanese atomic exports policy in the aftermath of the triple meltdown is the unseen fourth catastrophe, with the Tokyo regime entirely deprecating any possible moral merit from its phase-out of the reactor park on the islands by exporting new reactors. There is not only the contaminated water leaking from the site into the sea, there also is a proliferation of reactors which in case they fail will produce compensation claims against Japan, or permanent political damage of the relations with these countries. This is currently set to become a specific threat in Vietnam, Turkey and India and – depending on the release speed of the contamination – sooner or later is going to result in the relocation of the Yasukuni storage building into the meltdown area, to allow the place it is currently occupying to become a meadow, like the Fukushima site will not be for generations to come. That effort must be brought upon Japan through international institutions in order to avoid a military conflict resulting from it. The three cases are already enough evidence to prove true the classical saying: Imagine there is a nuclear catastrophe and nobody goes there – then the nuclear catastrophe will come to you. And of course the first to go there should be the mascots of the historical revisionism, to attract their followers to the way they want to go.

Since such solution cannot be imposed by external reactionary regimes, due to incompatibility of interest, other ways must be found. The Chinese move intervenes into the activity of the Tokyo regime towards Korea as far as the unilateral appeasement by the puppet regime in Seoul is concerned. For a military dynasty rule it is only natural that any concession it makes to the former fascist occupier, presumably in order to rival the better half of the country, is null and void, and that this remains so is the intention which produced the Chinese claim for the airspace over a deadly reef and an isolated island flora. It should be noted that such a claim is nothing special but many are made by many regimes any day and have been over the time, all connected by the fact that none of them is fundamentally compatible with the natural sovereignty of the Earth, but being obstacles to each other they can come to express antagonisms reaching beyond the interests bringing them about, and that has happened in the Chinese case.

Japanese historical revisionism is significantly contained by this, but the move also is a demonstration towards other regions – e.g., at least in some aspect, it seems to be what the Egyptian junta was expected to do by this writer, stage a campaign over the geopolitical assets of the place, in Cairo the Suez Canal, instead of harassing the people. Whether an increased Chinese focus on the real enemy comes together with a decrease of repression in Tibet remains still to be seen, and would be the precondition to determine the moral merits of the campaign. But it can be stated that the move has already proven how incoherent the imagination of the Seoul-based puppet regime is, as it remains unable to make meaningful proposals for the entire country. That has also put a question mark behind the Japanese military expansion into India, whose consequences are at least as detrimental to African interests as the Chinese economic meddling, let off that of external reactionaries. Once it imagines the door to Africa half open, that regime is standing ready to betray its big Asian ally just like it is betraying Africa.

Like in the ancient fable, any project reaching that far can either know where it wants to get or what it will get. Even out of a narrow interest to stop only Chinese looting of Africa it must be asked: What is the proclamation of a “no-fly-zone” ahead of a vulnerable coastline compared to the transformation of entire countries into external aircraft carriers, as e.g. by the puppet regime in Manila? And the current “no-unidentified-flights-zone” still leaves a lot to be desired in comparison to an area where absolutely no aviation takes place. Since the concept had been grossly distorted in the war against Libya it can only be used with great caution. Nevertheless the move is a little sign of hope that China might find out of its self-imposed confusion over the role of consumerism and its development in the near future.

This ideology, unless it is going to resemble a prolonged disease, will become entirely irrelevant in the coming generations, and it is better to think of that in advance than afterwards. Chinas attempts to externalise its conflicts allow the expectation that there could be a different approach towards reactionary regimes than from other atomic powers. The negative example is France which is not only raping Africa in obvious collaboration with its European neighbours, but also doing so with bribes from the Arab throne which are exchanged against weapons to Lebanon and should be expected to backfire on their deciders. On the other hand there is no likewise corruption in Korea, at least not in the "nuclear club" part, and although far from having obtained the conscience level of a quitter, just like China, it might rightly find itself politically closer to the latter than to the former.

Probably the metaphor of the paper tiger is as overstretched as imperialism itself, mostly because the image is understood a bit too zoological, but in this century it is a digital creature, just like the steam-driven transmission belt mentioned so often in the Kapital has been replaced by the electrical grid. Both are vulnerable to the atomic bombing of the outer atmosphere already, explosions do not need to touch the ground to blast its circuits. Since industrialised China is likewise fragile, and such permanent blackouts would be a predictable consequence of another wave of Japanese expansion, however tangential it might be designed to be, the current response must also be seen in to context of prevention of the apocalyptic bombing scenario.

Coming from this side, the latter could even involve afar reactionary regimes in a way that takes out their fallback scenarios first, which might be the only possibility to stop them without ending up with something worse. Hence the conflict in that region is interesting even from a distance, due to a far-reaching interest to exclude reactionary regimes and their policies to include themselves into the interests of others. The flight restriction constructs of one type or another all are right against each other because they serve the goal of reducing the flight load, or more precisely if they do so, since most of them are incomplete in significant aspects.

It remains to be seen whether the Chinese claim does actually reduce noise and other emissions in the area, which although it is not its declared goal is going to be its decisive benchmark. It remains an object of speculation though how many flights have been prevented, yet a few provocations suggest a bigger number. In any case, the exclusion of air traffic is a right deserving supreme attention since it is vital to human survival. This is painstakingly obvious in the "drone flight" zones in Africa, Arabia and Asia where the lack of airspace sovereignty means total exposition to any threat posed by reactionary regimes. For the Korean War to be brought to an end without horror, the Japanese horror must be treated without empire. The destruction of the old system that had been missed in 1945 is to be completed with a a lasting break of the political continuity of the hegemonial culture. As the old song of fire and freedom on main road has promised, the struggle against capitalism is now equal to the struggle against the kings, the unrest is beginning to close in on their thrones, and the future, if any, is going to be without them.

Internationalist Observer
- Homepage: https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2013/12/514459.html

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