Into the Arms of the Rising Sun: South East Asia's embrace of Japan and India

[William Hung]

S-E Asia's embrace of Japan and India, SE Asia News & Top Stories - The Straits Times

Article from the Straits Times, written by a Singaporean-Chinese.

Even as other neighbours expressed disappointment at Japanese Premier Shinzo Abe's tepid statement to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, the Philippines lauded Japan's acts of compassion since the war that had helped dissolve enmity.

"This 70-year history demonstrates to the world that, through relentless efforts, the peoples of two countries can attain a remarkable achievement in overcoming issues of the past and establishing a strong friendship," said Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario last Saturday, a day after Mr Abe's statement was slammed for not including a fresh apology for Japan's war atrocities.

The Philippines is not alone in embracing Japan. Vietnam and Myanmar too have opened up to Japan's new push into the region.

Japan is back in South-east Asia, after having lost ground in the past decade as it grappled with a stagnating economy and its position as the dominant Asian power in the region was usurped by a resurgent China. Since returning to power in 2012, Mr Abe has lost no time in courting Asean, visiting all 10 member-states during his first year in office.

Japan is not the only regional power to woo Asean of late. India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who took power last year, wants to expand its Look East policy of the 1990s with the new Act East policy announced in November.

This is very much part of Mr Modi's Make In India drive to reinvigorate the South Asian country's sluggish manufacturing sector by integrating its economy with burgeoning South-east Asian economies as well as those of North-east Asia. India is therefore looking to expand its free trade agreements in the region.

There is, of course, a strategic dimension to India's push east - and it's got to do with the less than easy relationship with north-eastern neighbour China. Even though China is now India's top trading partner, the two sides have a simmering border dispute that flares up occasionally.

India is also uneasy over what it considers China's strategic encirclement, given the latter's increased economic activity in Pakistan, with which India has a tense relationship. China is also boosting its presence among island nations in the Indian Ocean - India's backyard.

New Delhi wants to forge a reciprocal presence in its east - as a "signal that, as the Indian Ocean becomes a regular theatre of operations for China, so too will East Asia be for India", wrote Mr Scott Cheney-Peters of American think-tank Centre for International Maritime Security in June.

South-east Asia is India's bridge to East Asia and the Pacific. India has strong economic and strategic ties with Japan and South Korea, and growing ties with Australia.

And so, India has begun urging freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, beginning with then Premier Manmohan Singh's call at a 2013 Asean summit for "the right of passage and unimpeded commerce in accordance with international law, and peaceful settlement of maritime disputes". This was clearly in response to China's growing assertiveness in making claims to nearly all of the South China Sea. Mr Modi echoed this call in November in his Act East push.

India is also seeking to expand longstanding security ties with South-east Asian states. It sold four patrol boats to Vietnam last year, and is said to be in talks to sell a cruise missile. With Indonesia, plans are afoot to enhance cooperation in maritime security and defence procurement.

As with India, the "return" to South-east Asia is both strategic and economic for Japan. In trade, Tokyo has fallen behind China, with its share of Asean's total trade falling from 15.3 per cent in 2000 to 10.6 per cent, or US$216 billion (S$299 billion), in 2012. China's share rose from 4.3 per cent to 12.9 per cent or US$319 billion in the same period. However, in foreign direct investment, Japan is still ahead, with US$23.1 billion in 2012 against China's US$4.3 billion.

As with India, the new emphasis by Japan on the strategic dimension of its ties is driven in part by China's new assertiveness, both in the East China Sea - where the two nations have a territorial dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands - and in the South China Sea, through which much of Japan's trade and oil imports flow.

Thus, Japan has offered to sell patrol boats to the Philippine and Vietnamese coast guards, and is helping Asean states to build up their maritime capacity.

For their part, Asean states in the main welcome the overtures of India and Japan, both economic and strategic. Again, China looms large in Asean's embrace of India and Japan.

While Asean members welcome the economic opportunities to be had with China's economic rise, there is unhappiness over their trade deficits and unbalanced border trade, and the competition posed by cheap Chinese goods for for their own businessmen. In mainland South-east Asia, China

"is using economic assistance in return for regional support or political favours", Dr Huong Le Thu, a visiting fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, wrote in a paper.

For Asean, therefore, the United States' pivot to the region is important to offset growing Chinese clout. But there is concern over Washington's constancy of purpose in the region. For Asean member-states, it is a definite plus to have regional powers that are stakeholders in the region play a role in balancing China's influence.

So, for Myanmar, tapping Japan and India for aid and infrastructure investment helps it reduce its economic dependence on China.

For Vietnam and the Philippines, edging closer in defence ties to India and Japan is a response to maritime territorial skirmishes with the Chinese.

Banzaiiii!!!
Jai Hind!!!!!

 

[CAPRICORN-88]

Abe's refusal to offer apology diminishes Japan
May 7, 2015 By Goh Sui Noi

China and South Korea's ire over Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's speech to the US Congress is to be expected, given that he chose to gloss over Japan's war of aggression in East Asia during World War II.
In the run-up to his address last Wednesday to a joint session of Congress - the first Japanese premier to do so - pressure had mounted for him to repeat previous official apologies for Japan's wartime past, not just from South Korea but also from the United States.

Just before Mr Abe arrived in Washington, 24 US lawmakers wrote to the Japanese ambassador to the US, asking the Japanese leader to "lay the foundation for healing and humble reconciliation by addressing the historical issues".

Early last week, Mr Evan Medeiros, senior director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council, said at a press briefing in Washington: "We always stress that it is important to address history questions in an honest, constructive and forthright manner that promotes healing, but also in a way that reaches a final resolution."
Mr Abe's reference in his speech to Japan's wartime past did none of that. Instead, there was much fudging.

He said: "Post war, we started out on our path bearing in mind feelings of deep remorse over the war. Our actions brought suffering to the peoples in Asian countries. We must not avert our eyes from that. I will uphold the views expressed by the previous prime ministers in this regard."

Not only was there no apology for his country's wartime atrocities, but also no acknowledgement that Japan had waged a war of aggression in the region. He made reference to "the views" of previous premiers - possibly to the formal apologies made by prime ministers Tomiichi Murayama and Junichiro Koizumi - in such general terms that it was almost meaningless.

Mr Abe's words showed the revisionist tendencies he has displayed, including in remarks made in recent years questioning the definition of the word "aggression" used in Mr Murayama's 1995 apology, and saying there was no international consensus on the term. That was in spite of a United Nations General Assembly resolution in 1974 that defined "aggression" as "the use of armed force by a state against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another state".

The South Koreans, particularly, had called for an apology to "comfort women" - women coerced into providing sex to Japanese soldiers during WWII, many of whom were Korean.

INSTEAD, Mr Abe offered only this: "Armed conflicts have always made women suffer the most. In our age, we must realise the kind of world where finally women are free from human rights abuses." This was as Ms Lee Yong Soo, 86, a former comfort woman from South Korea, sat in the audience.

The applause and standing ovation of his audience notwithstanding, the US should be vexed by Mr Abe's WHITEWASHING of HISTORY as it does nothing for its triangular security alliance with Japan and South Korea to counter the North Korean nuclear threat and China's rise. South Korean President Park Geun Hye has REFUSED to hold a bilateral summit with Mr Abe until he apologises for the INJUSTICES to COMFORT WOMEN.

Indeed, Japan could have played a much more important leadership role in Asia if it had, as former deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia Susan Shirk put it in a Bloomberg interview, "confronted its history in a more forthright and honest manner, going way back to the post-war period".

Instead, as the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew said in his memoirs, Japan's RELUCTANCE to admit the past and apologise for it has "FED SUSPICIONS of Japan's FUTURE INTENTIONS" .

Mr Lee made clear why an apology is needed: "To APOLOGISE is to ADMIT having done a WRONG. To EXPRESS REGRETS or REMORSE merely expresses their present subjective feelings."

For Asia and Japan to move on - and they must - the Japanese need to put the apology issue to rest, he wrote.

In another of his books, One Man's View Of The World, Mr Lee said that while the Japanese may have apologised many times, they have also continued to visit the Yasukuni Shrine, where the country's war criminals, including those from WWII, are interred. Among the Japanese leaders to have visited the shrine while in office is Mr Abe, who went in December 2013, angering China and South Korea.

Now these East Asian neighbours of Japan will be watching closely Mr Abe's speech in August to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the war, to see if he continues in the vein of his address to Congress.

And so should countries in the region that also suffered JAPANESE ATROCITIES, given that Mr Abe is attempting to change the country's pacifist Constitution - already, a reinterpretation of the Constitution has allowed it to widen its security alliance with the US - to give its military a greater role than defending its shores.

For if the Japanese DO NOT SEE their country's WARTIMES PAST AS A WRONG AGAINST THEIR ASIAN NEIGHBOURS, WHAT IS TO STOP THEM FROM COMMITTING IT AGAIN?

 

[Aepsilons]

S-E Asia's embrace of Japan and India, SE Asia News & Top Stories - The Straits Times

Article from the Straits Times, written by a Singaporean-Chinese.

Banzaiiii!!!
Jai Hind!!!!!

 

[70U63]

The article (and the pic above which ASEAN hug the Gundam) sounds like bunch of losers (ASEAN) who begs other countries to give them some free gifts...

 

[Aepsilons]

The article (and the pic above which ASEAN hug the Gundam) sounds like bunch of losers (ASEAN) who begs other countries to give them some free gifts...

What's wrong with that? Lots of Malaysian politicians like gifts. Are you pro-Malaysia or Pro-China?

I don't think your views represents the Malay Majority.

 

[kadamba-warrior]

S-E Asia's embrace of Japan and India, SE Asia News & Top Stories - The Straits Times

Article from the Straits Times, written by a Singaporean-Chinese.

Banzaiiii!!!
Jai Hind!!!!!

This should have been done a long time ago. South East Asian region is too important to be left to China alone!

My ultimate dream (unrealistic?) is to see linking of Vietnam-Cambodia-Thailand-Myanmar railway line with India's East-West Freight corridor (through Bangladesh)! Now that will mean a direct link from Vietnam to Arabian sea (Gujarat coast on the Western Coast of India)!

Vietnam-Cambodia-Thailand-Burma link

East-West Dedicated Freight Corridor of India

@Nihonjin1051

 

[William Hung]

This should have been done a long time ago. South East Asian region is too important to be left to China alone!

My ultimate dream (unrealistic?) is to see linking of Vietnam-Cambodia-Thailand-Myanmar railway line with India's East-West Freight corridor (through Bangladesh)! Now that will mean a direct link from Vietnam to Arabian sea (Gujarat coast on the Western Coast of India)!

Vietnam-Cambodia-Thailand-Burma link

East-West Dedicated Freight Corridor of India

@Nihonjin1051

Agreed. Viet Nam will welcome India anytime.

 

[JaiMin]

Agreed. Viet Nam will welcome India anytime.

cvdvn.net/2015/07/27/the-case-for-connecting-south-asia-and-southeast-asia, i don't think it is possible for next few years, mb decade

 

[70U63]

Good that you take a break from the forum, as lately you don't act like a gentleman as before (we knew what game you try to play). I never say my view represent the Malaysian, that was only my view.

The issue is not whether i Pro-Malaysia or Pro-China or both, the issue is the article try to highlight that ASEAN is bunch of loser countries who always need help from others (although they still are, except SG and may be Brunei). The article also highlighted the important of India and Japan in the region, but it tried to sound like we need beg them to save us from some trouble like, may be Chinese invasion???

Another thing, is people like you play double standard. Yes, we all can blame the poor nations to take the bait as they are bunch of corrupted people. Just like British officers admitted before, in some countries when you try to do business, you need to give some free gift to the local officers. Now thank you especially for FDI (foreign direct investment) in the region, especially those highly polluted industries which most of those developed countries don't want in their own soul.

No, i don't blame you. I just laugh at those poor people in the region, who never wake up...

What's wrong with that? Lots of Malaysian politicians like gifts. Are you pro-Malaysia or Pro-China?

I don't think your views represents the Malay Majority.

 

[CAPRICORN-88]

LOL Rightist Japanese must be hallucinating or SMOKING GRASS - "ASEAN embracing Japan".
Many in ASEAN have a score to settle with the unrepented son of the WW2 wartime cabinet minister's son. Whitewashing your history does not means your Japan warcrimes is forgotten or forgiven.
Many in ASEAN are still relating the atrocities and bloodbath committed by the barbaric Japanese Imperial Army.
Abe, a repentant son of a Japanese WW2 Wartime Minister shown neither remorse or regret for the naked invasion of these nations.


BRIEFER: Massacres in the Battle of Manila

The massacres committed by Imperial Japanese troops on the civilian population of Manila in February 1945 are among the more horrifying tragedies of World War II in the Pacific theater. Approximately 100,000 civilians in the City of Manila were killed indiscriminately and deliberately. According to the XIV Corps Inspector General’s report on the Manila atrocities, the following war crimes had been committed:

• Bayoneting, shooting, and bombing of unarmed civilians—men, women, and children—with rifles, pistols, machine guns, and grenades.

• Herding large numbers of civilians—men, women, and children—into buildings, barring the doors and windows, and setting fire to the structures.

• Throwing grenades into dugouts, where unarmed civilians were taking cover; burying alive those who were not killed by the grenades.

• Assembling men into large groups, tying their hands, and then bayoneting, beheading, or shooting them.

• Theft from civilians of money, valuables, food, and the looting and burning of their homes.

• Blindfolding and restraining Chinese and Filipino men, and then beheading them with a sabre on a chopping block.

• Torturing both military prisoners of war and civilians by beating, kicking their faces, burning, and making them assume contorted positions for long periods of time until they lost consciousness, to make them reveal information.

• General disregard of the rights of prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention.

• The taking of as many as a hundred girls at a time by force to serve as “comfort women” to Japanese troops.

• The killing of refugees, doctors, and nurses at the Philippine Red Cross Headquarters, disregarding the rights of the Red Cross under the Geneva Convention.

With little or no reason at all, Japanese soldiers would shoot, bayonet or throw hand grenades at groups of helpless civilians. The streets were further fortified with minefields and pillboxes, leaving many civilians no choice but to stay in their homes. For those who attempted to leave or even cross the streets, the Japanese would mow them down with machine guns. Many of these atrocities were mentioned in the War Crime Trials against the commanders of the Imperial Japanese Forces.

“The enemy’s fury knew no bounds against those who defended the cause of our freedom. Being a child, a woman or an old person was no deterrent to the bloody and murderous designs of the barbarians of the Orient. Fortunately, all this has passed and I firmly believe that above these ruins shall finally emerge the Filipino people, free and dynamic, who will work for their prosperity and happiness, in complete peace and fraternity with all nations.”

— President Sergio Osmeña, interview with Antonio Perez de Olaguer, published in El Noticiero Universal, Barcelona, Spain on June 22, 1946.

Sta. Cruz Bridge still intact before the battle (c. 1945) | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

 

[vtnsx]

how did Nihonjin1051 get banned? lol

 

[opruh]

 

[William Hung]

LOL Rightist Japanese must be hallucinating or SMOKING GRASS - "ASEAN embracing Japan".
Many in ASEAN have a score to settle with the unrepented son of the WW2 wartime cabinet minister's son. Whitewashing your history does not means your Japan warcrimes is forgotten or forgiven.
Many in ASEAN are still relating the atrocities and bloodbath committed by the barbaric Japanese Imperial Army.
Abe, a repentant son of a Japanese WW2 Wartime Minister shown neither remorse or regret for the naked invasion of these nations.


BRIEFER: Massacres in the Battle of Manila

The massacres committed by Imperial Japanese troops on the civilian population of Manila in February 1945 are among the more horrifying tragedies of World War II in the Pacific theater. Approximately 100,000 civilians in the City of Manila were killed indiscriminately and deliberately. According to the XIV Corps Inspector General’s report on the Manila atrocities, the following war crimes had been committed:

• Bayoneting, shooting, and bombing of unarmed civilians—men, women, and children—with rifles, pistols, machine guns, and grenades.

• Herding large numbers of civilians—men, women, and children—into buildings, barring the doors and windows, and setting fire to the structures.

• Throwing grenades into dugouts, where unarmed civilians were taking cover; burying alive those who were not killed by the grenades.

• Assembling men into large groups, tying their hands, and then bayoneting, beheading, or shooting them.

• Theft from civilians of money, valuables, food, and the looting and burning of their homes.

• Blindfolding and restraining Chinese and Filipino men, and then beheading them with a sabre on a chopping block.

• Torturing both military prisoners of war and civilians by beating, kicking their faces, burning, and making them assume contorted positions for long periods of time until they lost consciousness, to make them reveal information.

• General disregard of the rights of prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention.

• The taking of as many as a hundred girls at a time by force to serve as “comfort women” to Japanese troops.

• The killing of refugees, doctors, and nurses at the Philippine Red Cross Headquarters, disregarding the rights of the Red Cross under the Geneva Convention.

With little or no reason at all, Japanese soldiers would shoot, bayonet or throw hand grenades at groups of helpless civilians. The streets were further fortified with minefields and pillboxes, leaving many civilians no choice but to stay in their homes. For those who attempted to leave or even cross the streets, the Japanese would mow them down with machine guns. Many of these atrocities were mentioned in the War Crime Trials against the commanders of the Imperial Japanese Forces.

“The enemy’s fury knew no bounds against those who defended the cause of our freedom. Being a child, a woman or an old person was no deterrent to the bloody and murderous designs of the barbarians of the Orient. Fortunately, all this has passed and I firmly believe that above these ruins shall finally emerge the Filipino people, free and dynamic, who will work for their prosperity and happiness, in complete peace and fraternity with all nations.”

— President Sergio Osmeña, interview with Antonio Perez de Olaguer, published in El Noticiero Universal, Barcelona, Spain on June 22, 1946.

Sta. Cruz Bridge still intact before the battle (c. 1945) | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

The article was not written or published by any right wing Japanese. It was written and published by Singaporeans.

I don’t know why you would post that history about the IJA in the Philippines when the article cited Filipino govt officials praising Japan’s post war contribution and rapproachement.

Also, can you give links where the ruling govt of any south east asian countries are asking Japan to apologize or make war reparations? I haven’t heard any so am interested to find out who.