Endless Quarrel

“We don’t give in threats.” Saying so, Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, revealed his intention to treat unmanned areal vehicles around Japan with possible interceptive countermeasures. The Chinese, apparently the owner of those aircrafts, responded the statement with intimidation that they would recognize those actions as an act of war. Without appropriate diplomatic channel between Japan and China, the two keep on growling with fear against each other.

It was September 9^th when Ministry of Defense detected an unmanned areal vehicle around Senkaku Islands in East China Sea for the first time. Although the nationality of the aircraft was not identified, the government of Japan realized that it was likely to have come from China. The government embarked on considering how to deal with that new factor. The consideration included shooting the vehicles down, if they would ignore warning message and be likely to endanger people’s life and property in Japan.

A spokesman with the Ministry of National Defense of China stressed that Chinese military would regard those measures as the acts of war and respond with darling countermeasures. He further intimidated Japan, saying “Japan should not miscalculate Chinese determination to protect sovereignty of the nation.” China has shown no reflection on their unilateral challenges on status quo of administration in Senkaku Islands.

The relation between them has been deteriorating not only in terms of official relationship, but also of public. In a symposium in Beijing hosted by non-governmental organizations of both countries, a former state councilor, Tang Jiaxuan, harshly criticized the alliance between Japan and United States. “A country of East Asia or an agency of a great power outside,” told Tang, “Japan is going on narrower road, if it does not care for relationship with China.”

A former Minister for Defense Agency of Japan, Gen Nakatani, fired back against Tang, explaining that Abe’s slogan of “positive pacifism” was a concept of Japan’s diplomacy which rooted on such values as liberty, democracy and rule of law. Nakatani also scolded Tang of leaving the discussion, saying “He is a coward in unilaterally making argument. His leadership in this big country reaches far short from world standard.” The discussion was nothing more than a quarrel of kids.

The world, however, cannot leave this discord as something managed by time factor. Those two countries have been struggling for centuries, far before the establishment of democracy in Europe of America. Developed countries needs to find some appropriate option to cease their quarrel, otherwise they will be doing that for coming centuries.