By Philip Yeung
For weeks, Japan's prime minister has hogged the headlines, for all the wrong reasons. She does so by trashing Sun Tzu's first cardinal rule: "Know your enemy and know yourself."
She is becoming a one-issue leader, a one-trick donkey, destined to be dogged by her first major strategic blunder until the day she leaves office.
She fires off a dangerously provocative statement that Japan will defend Taiwan if attacked by the mainland. This folly overlooks two asymmetries: one moral, one military.
The moral asymmetry: Japan was a brutal invader of China. China is the victim still. Now the invader is warning the victim, we are coming to get you again.
What Nerve. Imagine postwar Germany telling France that.
The Japanese all-out invasion of China killed 350 million Chinese. This remains an open festering wound. If there is one thing that unites all Chinese, it is the seething anger that Japan has never paid for its invasion or lesson.
The blood debt is outstanding. Karma is overdue.
The Germans have a guilt culture, quick to show remorse and make amends to its victims. Not the Japanese. Theirs is a shame culture. Face comes first. Not guilt. Hence no apologies, no compensations, just whitewashing their brutal massacres in Nanjing and the biological horrors of its notorious 731 Unit, or ravaging comfort women. They live in total denial.
Japan was mollycoddled by the American occupation authorities under General MacArthur who was seduced into an ultra-generous treatment of the defeated nation by his 26-year-old intimate Japanese female assistant and mistress, a top actress Setsuko Hara who charmed his pants off. This is the case of one woman who held up more than half the sky. In fact, she held up the entire sky over Japan. Because of her, Japan was spared much of the punishment for the death and devastation visited upon China and other Asian nations. That is why she was revered as the Holy Mother in Japan, who made the ultimate sacrifice for her country, remaining unmarried till she died in 2015.
Japan got off easy, way too easy.
And now, Takaichi's inflammatory rhetoric stokes fears that Japanese militarism is rearing its ugly head again, a bombshell that shatters peace in the Pacific.
The old invader is thirsting for a new taste of the blood of war.
But Takaichi is living in the wrong century, for there is a second asymmetry: power. There is a total role reversal this time.
China now carries the big stick, wielding major nuclear and economic power. Not Japan. She is taking a knife to a gun fight.
Caught in a self-inflicted headache, Takaichi is getting all self-entangled, octopus-like. Her only way to wriggle free is a complete U-turn.
But to retract and apologize would be political suicide with her extreme right-wing base. Not doing so will send Japan down a slippery slope.
She is in a double bind.
One thing is crystal-clear. China is not waiting for Japan to re-arm itself.
Given its history of sneak attacks, a la Pearl Harbor, China is unlikely to let Japan fire its first volley. National pride and history won't allow it.
Back to moral asymmetry. Takaichi forgets that she leads a defeated nation that is obligated to abide by the terms of the Cairo and Potsdam Declarations to become a peaceful and democratic country, returning Taiwan to China with the future status of the Ryukyu Islands undecided, but administered by America. It was returned to Japanese rule in 1972 by the Americans without consent of other allies.
Now Takaichi is trying to change the Asian order.
For years, she had been playing footsie under the table with Taiwan's ruling DPP(Democratic Progressive Party), recruiting them as a Japanese client. Once in power, she seized the moment to resurrect Japan's imperial ambitions.
Taiwan, a former colony Japan seized at gun point, is in her crosshairs as a putative Japanese outpost.
She now doubles down by telling the world that Japan will install anti-Chinese missiles on a Japanese island just 110 miles from Taiwan.
This is extreme provocation. You can bet your house that China won't sit idly by.
The fiery words are reaching a flashpoint hot enough to ignite World War III.
Taiwan separatists are pouring an extra $40 billion into acquiring American arms. But even as an iron fortress, Taiwan is done for, economically and otherwise. Japan itself becomes a legitimate and simultaneous target.
What's it about elderly women in politics? First, Nancy Pelosi, that witch of US politics whose highly provocative visit to Taiwan almost tipped the island into war. And now, Takaichi, her evil Japanese twin, is out to outdo her by tilting the planet towards a third World War. A mamasan with an acid tongue and a dagger in hand, she has just created an apocalyptic abyss in the Pacific.
As Japan's first female prime minister, she might well be its last.
Wake up, Mamasan. Taiwan is non-negotiable. Period. Any Japanese military intervention means all-out war, even if China has to sell its last pair of pants to finish the job.
China will do what America did, but on a history-ending scale. It will let its nukes do the talking. No messy Japanese homeland occupation. This time, instead of two atomic bombs, there will be a blizzard of hypersonic mega-missiles to wipe Japan off the map.
No more half measures. No more pulling punches. Japan has long been the curse for China and much of Asia. Its day of reckoning is finally coming, courtesy of Takaichi.
Takaichi has cracked open the Pandora's box. The demons are out, but she remains trapped inside.
Playing games with words, she refuses to retract, only promising that her statement won't be repeated, a half-assed response instantly rejected by China.
The economic fallout is immediate. Chinese tourists in Japan are stampeding into a mass exodus, with most flights cancelled between the two countries. Dialogue is dead, and trade tensions are skyrocketing. China is gearing up for a scorched-earth fight to the finish.
We are ready to do without sushi while Takaichi wriggles on the hook.
Even that old fox Trump who knows a thing or two about strategy has been outfoxed by the Chinese. She is not in the same league, not by a long shot. China knows her type. Let her drown in her own drivel. She is too late and postmenopausal for maternity leave, but not too early for retirement.
This time, whether she goes now or later, Japan must be taught a painful lesson that is long overdue.
This time, no more General MacArthur and Setsuko Hara to the rescue.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
Read more articles by Philip Yeung:
Opinion | Is Japan's Takaichi another Liz Truss-like lettuce?
Opinion | Europe, time to unload your China-phobia
Opinion | Cry my beloved city—how the West has wronged China over HK!
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