Book Review: How Chiang Kai-shek Blew It

OK – the real title is The Legacy of Sun Yatsen, and the author was Gustav Amann, a sometime confident of Sun Yatsen¹⁾. Amann, a German engineer, born in 1882, died in 1950 (or in the late 1940s, probably in China), worked for the Siemens AG, in Hankou from 1911 to 1919, and in Beijing and Shanghai afterwards²⁾. Chinese sources refer to him as 古斯塔夫.阿曼. He was apparently part of non-governmental cooperation between Germany and China, and helped Sun hiring German military officers as advisers.

The Legacy of Sun Yatsen was initially published in German – Sun Yatsens Vermächtnis, Berlin, 1928 -, and in English soon after, in 1929, New York and Montreal.

"The Legacy of Sun Yatsen", Montreal, New York, 1929

The translator, Frederick Philip Grove, added a note of his own, ahead of the author’s preface, an introduction by Karl Haushofer, and a criticism by Engelbert Krebs.

I’m not sure how the book came to me – it has been here for many years. I started reading in September, some ten or fifteen pages at a time. At first, I expected some sort of an insider’s story – but Amann was up to something different, as the subtitle suggested anyway: a History of the Chinese Revolution.

Apparently, much of the story was news to the translator:

Without identifying himself with any views propounded in the present volume – partly because he disagrees, partly because he simply does not know – the translater advised publication of this work of a German because he found in it a picture of a great subversion in modern history which, to say the least, is striking and novel. It seemed to him that the book, quite apart from its historical value, presents a struggle for freedom which is symbolic of the Promethean nature of man. No desire for propaganda was among the motives which prompted his labour.

Amann’s account of the revolution starts with with a short review of China’s initial years of interaction with Europe, from 505 and 1270 – the Nestorians and Marco Polo, to the cession of Hong Kong and the years leading to the Xinhai Revolution. This then leads into a  long eulogy – sort of a post-funeral eulogy – on Sun Yatsen, which goes on for many pages. When reading, I seemed to understand the translator’s carefully stated distance to Amann’s case.

Sun Yatsen is a saint. Chiang Kai-shek is a bugger, but at least Amann doesn’t label him a reactionary as he does with many other players in the KMT’s big game during the 1920s.

That the Confucian spirit will live on in the customs and usage of the people is a certainty. That Confucian morals and ethics will prevail in conduct, we must heartily hope and wish. But that the spiritual revolt already embraces the Chinese people as a whole [and no difference need be made between Cantonese and the Chinese of the north], that is the very thing which gives it its irresistible power from which events shoot up in spite of all politics. That the nationalist movement started from Canton is mere chance. It is a national wave which might have started anywhere – wherever Sun Yatsen was at work.

But that doesn’t make the Legacy a boring book. Amann was quite a narrator, and on some 300 pages only, he slowly rose the dramatic arc from 1925 to 1927, from Sun Yatsen’s death to a botched end to the first Northern Expedition.

In some ways, Amann takes the role of many-a present-day sinologist, even if in an intuitive, rather than in a “scientific” way. Several times, he criticizes the European and American press – both their press overseas and within China at the time. Right after the initial remarks by Haushofer and Krebs, in his first chapter, Amann writes, by way of introduction:

The daily press is almost the only source from which the public gathers information about events in China. The spasmodic turmoil and the difficulty of arriving at a survey of the happening are responsible for the temptation to concentrate attention on mere externals. Curiosity, eager for sensation, prefers to devote itself to symptoms rather than to trhe causes of the mighty convulsions of the East. In the work of reporting, that seriousness which is due to the tragedy inherent in any revolution is, I am sorry to say, often wanting. At best the turn of events is represented as political or economic. Who, today, has an inkling that here is a great, ancient culture, hit in the innermost substance of its life by the hard drills of a western-European civilisation, which, in spite of subverting innovations fights on in a desperate struggle to preserve that mode of life which was allotted to it by nature and hallowed by tradition?
The Germans like to call themselves a matter-of-fact nation. At a time when this word had not yet become so fashionable though it held perhaps more truth than it does today, the great economist Wilhelm Roscher wrote in his “National Economy”, published 1854:
“The life of a people, like any life, is an indivisible whole, the manifold manifestations of which are connected by an inner bond. Whoever, therefore, wants to understand one side of it must know all sides; and, above all, there are seven sides which must be considered in this connection: language, religion, science, art, law, politics, and economics.”
Wilhelm Roscher goes on to say:
“That even for the material interests the spirit of the people is the main thing, is proved by the example of the Chinese who have known printing, gunpowder, and compass for such a long time without, for all that, having acquired a clearly defined public opinion, a good army, and a respectable carrying trade.”
[...] It is true that even today China has no considerable carrying trade, no good army; but it has at last a public opinion.
What we understand of it is only the elemental way in which it finds utterance, not its contents. Perhaps this modest attempt to honour the theorem of Wilhelm Roscher will find enough readers who are interested in the reality of the public opinion of China. (p. 23 – 25)

With that, Amann enters his 505/1270 to 1927 Chinese history review.  At the point where he describes his perception of events in 1911 and 1912, one might understand why Amann’s book on Sun Yatsen was relevant at the time.

Amann had probably been in China since 1911, in Hankou, next to the site of the Xinhai revolution in Wuchang. Both Wuchang and Hankou are now part of the city of Wuhan, Hubei Province. And unlike many others there, Amann was most probably a curious foreign businessman.

The ways of popular politics are obscure; their course was lighted up for the foreigners by no star of insight. Even after February 12, 1912, the date of the public abdication of the Manchu Regent, the foreigners in China believed that the proclamation of a republic was the result of chance. To prove that, the English historian J. O. P. Bland filled many pages of his book on the revolution. The foreigners saw nothing but what they could attribute to their own influence on the Manchu government.

The more, Amann argues, they were caught by surprise when the development went beyond a foot-dragging preparation period for a constitutional monarchy, which would only have strengthened the very circles in which the foreigners pursued their trade. (pp 65, 66)

If you consider buying the Legacy yourself, it might be a good idea to stop reading this post here until you have read the book, because otherwise, this post may forestall too much of the enjoyment only the book itself can offer. It still seems to be widely available on the internet, in second-hand bookshops.

The foreign powers had no interest in doing anything that could help Sun Yatsen’s KMT to gain power or influence, writes Amann. All the same, the nationalists did consolidate their grip on the south – not least for the help in technical and organizational matters that came from Russia, i. e. the newly-established Soviet Union. Throughout the book, Amann highlights Mikhail Borodin‘s contributions to the KMT’s success and repeatedly points out that a revolution modelled after the Russian one hadn’t been Borodin’s goal – an issue on which Karl Haushofer and Engelbert Krebs, in their prefaces and criticisms to the book, disagree with Amann.

Another major player is T. V. Soong (宋子文), finance minister in the nationalist government, and Sun Yatsen’s brother in law. Amann quotes from a letter Soong wrote to a friend:

“I have taken over the office of finance minister. I don’t know yet what will have to be done; but there is nobody else among us who knows.” (p. 177)

Securing the KMT government’s revenues, from taxes to import duties, is described as a long struggle, with some success, but no completion, against the foreign powers. What is described as Soong’s complete achievement at the time is the introduction of an economy based on paper money, with an  adoption of creative methods to circumvent some of the Chinese habit of mere barter trade: all taxes were to be paid in Soong’s bank notes.

Reading the book, it leaves the impression on me that Amann himself, when describing the formation of a Chinese public opinion, refers to foreign violation as its ferments too frequently, occasionally lacking one or another star of insight himself. Class relations only count occasionally, even though – or because? – Amann himself would  probably share most of the views of Sun Yatsen’s family people in the KMT of  1927.

Consolidated at home in the south, the KMT began its first Northern Expedition. It was a fast and successful one, very much attributed to the Russian advisers by Amann, reaching and extending beyond the Yangzi River. But the rapid expansion wasn’t accompanied by political consolidation in the areas gained. First warlordist trends emerged in the regions “controlled” by the KMT.

This entire period from the occupation of the province of Hu-Nan by the nationalists stood in the sign of war and military leaders. The martial successes made the originally intended character of the campaign fade away. The defeat of potentates in the place of whose autocratic régime a popular government was to be established became more and more a campaign of conquest on the part of the armed power.

The KMT’s political arm opened its headquarters in Hankou. Chiang Kai-shek kept his HQ in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, by a beeline of some 200 kilometers southeast of Hankou.

Besides for militarist tendencies, Amann criticizes Chiang Kai-shek for being too close to the foreigners – and the share of the Chinese population whose business was closely connected with the foreigners. Besides, both Chiang himself and his generals had developed a dislike for the Russian advisers.

Amann must have felt much of the disappointment he describes as Borodin’s disappointment.

How the Chinese stand with regard to each other in this deep thing, what they themselves feel, is hard to say. Probably, what is treason to us, is to them only human nature. They escape it by never allowing themselves to be caught in unconditional devotion. Within the family, even with strangers, the Chinese are as a rule full of the frankest respect for friendship proved, or services of friendship received; they are touchingly loyal. Ingratitude arises from the system. The social structure of family ties withholds their innermost from flowing readily into the wider social connections. But is not in our own social, economic, and political system a service also priced most before it is rendered? Even in our world of politics, finance, and industry, there is a far way to the pure heights of gratitude for its own sake. (pp 268-269)

The new militarism was to blame for the opposition and resistance by the communists within the KMT, according to Amann, who makes a not merely ceremonial effort to characterize Chiang in the most favorable terms he can still possibly find:

In the sense, then, of the old, classical bureaucratic tradition, Chiang Kaishek’s attitude was irreproachable. But in his subjective choice of position he committed grave errors against Sun Yatsen’s cause. The collectivist system of government demanded of the nationalists first of all and under all circumstances, the preservation of an unbroken front towards the outer world. Chiang Kaishek, however, never redeemed his first step towards a separation, that step which held him in Nan-chang. Holding on to his old stubbornness, he refused to attend the convention of the central executive council at Hankau which was called, as an emergency measure to save, if possible, the régime at Hankau out of dissension, for the date of March 7, 1927. Twenty-six members of the council had appeared. Chiang Kaishek with his nearest followers stayed away. (p. 289)

As for the run-up what is now referred to as the Shanghai Massacre (not referred to as such by Amann), to both the foreigners and the rich Chinese merchants of Shanghai, the usurpation of a commanding position in the state by the proletariat remained hateful, and Chiang Kaishek was visibly and powerfully influenced by it in his resolutions (p. 285).

This point was the innermost causal motive of the quarrels which had driven Chiang Kaishek into the opposition. He was a soldier. Discipline and order were second nature to him; he hated the phenomena of high-handed action which, against the rigid ideas regarding property held by the upper strate of the population, were necessarily connected with the emancipation of peasants and workmen. [...] To him, these disturbances were intentional anarchy; he held the communistic elements in the government responsible for them.

From such purely subjective suppositions Chiang Kaishek believed, no doubt in all honesty of conviction, that the right to strike and similar means of compulsion in the hand of proletarians must become fatal to empire and people. He believed that he was called upon, by means of power of his army, to return the carrying-out of reforms to the hands of government. He wished to help the common people. He wished to concede to it the consideration which it demanded, but not the power. Self-help of the people he condemned as a matter of principle; and at last he went so far as to suppress it by force of arms. He had, then, reached the point where the reactionary propertied classes wanted to see the nationalist government. (p. 287)

It’s strange to think that Amann was probably still in China when the KMT prepared its flight to Taiwan. As early as in 1927, he seemed to expect little from the KMT army, nor from its propagandistic clout, once the Russian advisers had left the ruined field of their efforts and returned to the Soviet Union.

Borodin, Amann wrote in his description of Soviet intentions in China as he saw them,

was, of course, a member of the communistic order of Russia. He belonged to the Trotzki group which is today known as the opposition of the Stalin government and represented, in Russia, the radical dictatorship of the proletariat. But to hurl communistic propaganda into the Chinese people was not Borodin’s task. Trotzki himself has, on several occasions, issued public declarations of the aims of Russia in China. Russia, he said, gave its help for the purpose of freeing the country from the capitalistic compulsion of the foreign powers; it did not aim at a dictatorship of the proletariat. The proletariat of China has no aims of its own. In the system of old China, its class had admission to the official careers; with this tradition the proletariat was satisfied; it had no desire to rule by dictatorship. The awakening of workmen and peasants to political life, by Sun Yatsen, had accordingly called forth, in labour unions and peasant associations, none but economic hopes. [...] They had not risen to fight for power over the middle class and over the class of officialdom. In the Kuo-Mintang, too, and in the nationalist government, an overwhelming majority of members and leaders were totally averse to communism. They looked to the methods of Russia to help them lead the common people to salvation themselves. A dictatorship of the masses over their leadership they would not have tolerated; nor a communistic expropriation of private property. (p. 217-218)

Without Russian input from 1927, Chiang’s army was almost – allegedly – reduced back to the state of which Amann had given pretty unflattering descriptions earlier in his account.

Chiang Kaishek’s fighting forces reached at times beyond Hsu-Cheu, on the railway from Pu-Keu to Peking. But they could not force a decision against Sun Chuan-fang’s regiments which, reorganised in northern Kiang-Su, had reappeared, and against the Shan-Tung troops of Chang Chung Chang. Chiang Kaishek lacked that knowledge of a superior military and propagandist attack on strategic points of the front, by means of which the Russians had made him a present of lightning successes in battle. At last the Nanking army had even to fall back to the right bank of the Yang-Tze-Kiang, content with defending this side of the river. (p. 294)

Not quite so – and the looming Central Plains War wasn’t the end of the story either. But what a wonderful world this could be if Amann had been right with his defiant statement at the end of his account:

Militarism within the Kuo-Mintang will still be vanquished, whichever way it be; for the ideas of a liberation from autocracy, of a share in the determination of the conditions of its own life, of a deliverance from the power of the propertied classes over the living life of the common people, are working deeply in the masses.
All times have fought for freedom; every age for a freedom of its own; and the Chinese people will fight on for its special freedom.

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Notes

¹⁾ Stefan Berleb, doctoral dissertation, Brisbane 2005, quoting Causey, Beverley: Germany’s Policy towards China, 1918 – 1941, Cambridge, Harvard University

²⁾ Andreas Steen, Deutsch-chinesische Beziehungen, vom Kolonialismus zur “Gleichberechtigung”, Berlin 2006, page 587

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Related
Memorabilia found fake, China Post, December 4, 2010
Hsinhai – a Revolutionary Opera, November 12, 2010
Book Review: Gang then, Dynasty now, May 12, 2010

Obituary: Tommaso Padoa Schioppa, 1940 – 2010

Tommaso Padoa Schioppa, an Italian banker, economist, a former artillery officer and a politician, died on Saturday. He was one of the Eurofathers. He was Italian, and “a real Greek”, in the words of Greek prime minister George Papandreou. For the past few months, Padoa-Schioppa had been an adviser to the Greek government.

From 1999 to 2005, during the Euro introduction, he was a member of the European Central Bank’s executive board.

Definition: Civil Internet Use (文明上网)

Luo Dongchuan (罗东川), the Supreme People’s Court Policy Research Department’s deputy director, elaborated in an interview with People’s Net (人民网, via Enorth) the other day on the concept of civil use of the internet (文明上网).

Q: From a judicial perspective, what does the broad meaning of civil internet use imply for the netizens?
从法律角度来讲，文明上网对广大网民来说，意味着什么？

A: From a judicial perspective, the essence of civil internet use is to access the internet in accordance with the law. It has to be done, above all, in accordance with the law, being active or expressing one’s views on the internet. The internet is no paradise, and no space without any constraints. The requirements of the rule of law need to be the proper course of doing things.
从法律角度来讲，文明上网的实质就是依法上网。文明上网首先要做到依照法律规定，在网上开展活动或者是发表意见。 网络不是一片净土，也不是一个没有任何约束的空间，必须要纳入到法治规范的轨道。

[...]

Q: Where would uncivlized behavior on the internet hit the legal bottomline?
哪些常见的不文明上网行为触及到了法律底线？

A: Although the internet is a virtual world, it is still constitutes a component of social life, and needs restrictions. To violate the reputation, privacy, to publish other peoples’ information or material on the internet, or to insult or slander others, such behavior frequently occurs on the internet.
Besides, as online banking and online transactions have become more and more common, problems with violations of peoples’ legitimate economic rights will occur.
[Details of internet crimes]
虽然互联网是一个虚拟的世界，但实际上仍然是社会生活的一个组成部分，必须受到法律约束。侵犯别人的名誉权、隐私权，把别人的信息、资料在网上进行公布，或者是对他人进行侮辱、诽谤，这样的行为在网上是经常发生的。
此外，网上银行、网上交易活动越来越多之后，会出现一些侵犯他人正当经济权益的问题。

Q: Which duties at all levels of society do you see in guiding internet users’ civilized use of the internet?
您认为在引导网友文明上网方面，社会各层面有什么样的义务？

A: The law is essential for the harmony and development of society, but it is only a bottomline standard for social behavior. The healthy development of the internet is a task for all of society. Only if it can depend on all of us defending it, the internet will develop in a healthy way, and only then can we really make good use of the internet.
法律是社会和谐、社会发展不可缺少的，但是它只是规范社会行为的一个底线。网络的健康发展，是全社会共同要做的事情。只有靠我们大家共同维护，才能使网络得到健康的发展，我们才能真正使用好网络。

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Note
A campaign for civil internet use and joint building of harmony (文明上网，共建和谐) had been launched in August, by these and other organizations. (including the supreme people’s court). It came to a close on November 25, with prizes being awarded to organizations and netizens in a ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

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Related
Ding Gang discusses the Real World, December 13, 2010
“文明上网, 共建和谐” … 颁奖活动, People’s Net, Nov 25, 2010
Propaganda will Set You Free, August 9, 2009
Porn Watchers: Search and Enjoy Destroy, June 20, 2009
A Civilized Internet, Danwei, April 20, 2006

Chinese Trawler collides with Korean Coast Guard Boat

Two Chinese fishermen were missing and another in critical condition after their trawler capsized after colliding with a South Korean Coast Guard boat Saturday,

Yonhap newsagency quotes officials. The collision occured some 120 km off South Korea’s Eocheong Island, writes Yonhap. Four coast guards had been injured.

According to an Associated Press (AP) report, the capsize of the Chinese fishing boat occured in a scuffle.

According to the BBC‘s Chinese service – quoting South Korean sources -, some 50 Chinese trawlers or fishing boats were fishing illegally. A coastguard spokesman said that when the South Korean coastguard approached them, one of the trawlers of fishing boats deliberately collided with the coastguard vessel and gave the other boats the opportunity to hurry back to Chinese waters, and capsized in the process. [Update: Link - 20101219]

There seem to be conflicting reports about the numbers of people killed, missing, or injured in the incident.

Who is Kishore Mahbubani, and Who Cares?

Kishore Mahbubani, Dean of the NUS Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, a veteran Singaporean diplomat, and named one of the top 100 global thinkers by Foreign Policy, was recently interviewed by China’s Huanqiu Shibao. Huanqiu didn’t reprint the interview in full and didn’t mark where exactly Mahbubani is quoted literally, but gave an account of the interview under the headline “China must improve ways of dealing with neighbors and build a harmonious Asia”.

The following is my translation.

Mahbubani [Chinese transcription: 马凯硕, Mǎ Kǎishuò] is considered to be the first source of expertise for Singapore’s minister mentor Lee Kuan Yew (李光耀, Lǐ Guāngyào). He formerly served the foreign ministry for more than thirty years. In an interview with Huanqiu Shibao he said that the West is now uneasy about China’s rise, which hadn’t been a secret for a long time. Therefore, the West was looking for allies from everywhere, to contain China’s rise. In Asia, you can see the West maintain its alliances with Japan and South Korea. Now, India also frequently flirts with Europe and America, making overtures to them. The Western thinking is: if there is a strong India, it can serve to balance China.

Mahbubani said that China, during the past twenty years of its development, hadn’t attacked any country and hadn’t given neighboring countries reason to feel uneasy. That had been a great political miracle, and China needed to stay on that road. The recent crisis with Japan, and the crisis on the Korean peninsula, required China’s attention, as it needed to ensure harmonious ways of interacting with all Asian countries.

At home, China’s government had brought forward the concept of a harmonious society, we now need a “harmonious Asia”. China plays a leading role in “harmonious Asia”, because it is Asia’s strongest country. As the strongest country, it needs to establish a procedure of dealing with its neighbors. It needs a more creative and more active foreign policy to establish a “harmonious Asia”.

He believes that in the wake of globalization, the world has become more and more “small”, yet China had grown more and more “big”. That leaves other players somewhat worried. China therefore needs to be aware that other residents of the global village were secretly paying attention to China’s rise, and China needed to produce adequate reactions to such worries. Next, when you live in a global village, you need a “global village council” to decide the world’s affairs. But so far, every house in the village has an independent council. There’s the American government, the Indian government, the German government, and they all only care about their own business, and are indifferent to those of the global village. When America was strong, it became the global ruler by its own rules, but now, that things are different, we need a global village council.

His readers’ reactions don’t look encouraging. After all, Mahbubani is Singaporean, and background matters. Along the commenters’ thread, Singapore is accused of being a small country with sickening arrogance which believes it can criticize this and condemn that (指手划脚) or guide China (指导). Another says that it harmony or disharmony don’t matter. Interests do. Singaporeans have theirs, we have ours. Another commenter apparently misses Mahbubani’s point: Without America, Asia wouldn’t be harmonious? You mean, the whole world must be harmonized by America before it can be considered harmonious?

Also, Singapore is no good bird either. We have discovered that some small-territory countries are following America’s ass and issue instructions.

Before quoting Mahbubani, the Global Times had followed the usual pattern of pointing out the degree to which the scholar is a heavy-weight expert. Things might have worked somewhat better if they hadn’t mentioned the Foreign-policy “award”.

[Update: the Foreign Policy isn't actually mentioned in the Huanqiu Shibao article - JR, 20101218]

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Related
Kishore Mahbubani: The Case against the West (premium content), Foreign Affairs, May/June 2008

Winter

Everything seems to hibernate

Most grown-up people who I know don’t really like winter. “I hate it”, I was told in town last night. The person who said it couldn’t explain  exactly why. I asked if it was because this season of the year was unpractical.  “Yes, probably”, she said. But looking at her, I realized that this was hardly the main reason for her feelings, even if people easily say these days that they hate something while,  in fact, they only dislike it. This is especially true for townsfolk. People from outside town complain less, even if the season’s impact on life is biggest here.

Winter is unpractical indeed when rain freezes, or when it snows. We aren’t  at home all of the time, and when it snows, nobody takes care of the path to our door. Given that this is a rather rural place and that even our closest neighbors aren’t exactly next-door, we won’t take care of their drives, nor will they take care of ours. That can be a problem if the postman slips and hurts himself, or if one of the people who do their paper routes with those undesirable local rags (they come for free, with mostly irrelevant stories and lots of advertising) hurts himself.

Then again, whenever it currently snows, it snows amply. It would take a real  lot of people to lumber down this path before it turned into hardened mash and became slippery. And I don’t mind shovelling the snow away once I’m back home.

It’s a near-meditative activity, under the silent trees surrounding this place. It’s like gardening, but doesn’t require the same attention to what you are actually doing. The most likely interruption is a good-natured  but playful sheepdog from the neighborhood who will run you over, waiting to be snowballed in return.

Most children love winter. Most grown-ups don’t. Is it because it curtails many of our usual activities, or because the vast white landscapes come across as a reminder of death? Winter is a time of silence.

The nuisance of going by car or by railway can hardly be the main reason for the seemingly wide-spread aversion to winter. But the better the chances for a white christmas become, the longer faces seem to become. A white christmas had seemed to be on the top of everyones’ wish list in the past.

Japan Defense Policy Change: a Forward Strategy?

Japan is going to reduce its number of tanks by one third, and to expand its submarine fleet and to upgrade its fighter jets, according to a policy document by the government in Tokyo which is to shape the next ten years of the country’s defense policy.

Whenever there are military exercises in Asia, there seems to be an inevitable tag attached to it: “not directed against anyone”. But Japan’s new guidelines are outspoken, writes the BBC:

“China is rapidly modernising its military force and expanding activities in its neighbouring waters,” the new guidelines said.
“Together with the lack of transparency on China’s military and security issues, the trend is a concern for the region and the international community.”

The BBC report also refers to the Senkaku incident earlier this year, which involved a Chinese fishing trawler and two Japanese coast guard vessels.

Japan may only be the first country that explicitly points out its main reason for its participation in what one may call an East Asian arms race.

Anyone interested in more recent history might think of NATO’s forward strategy in this context. The North Atlantic Council, NATO’s most senior governing body, faced fundamental decisions sixty years ago. On the North Atlantic Council’s fifth session in New York in September 1950, then US secretary of state Dean Acheson said that NATO needed to push it’s combat lines as far east as it possibly could.

“That means defense in Germany. If that is true, it seems to me to follow inevitably that the morale and the will to resist of the German people has become a major element in the whole defensive system of the West.

Surely, no one would be mad enough to advise that forces of our countries should undertake to fight in Germany in the midst of a population whose morale has been allowed to go to pieces, where defeatism and collaboration with the enemy were rampant.”

Germany wasn’t part of the council or the conferences at the time – and obviously, there were misgivings among the council’s members.Only two or three out of its then twelve members hadn’t been struggling against Germany’s war only a few years earlier.

There are misgivings in Asia, too, the BBC quotes its correspondent in Tokyo, Roland Buerk, who is quoted as saying that

the new strategic stance will be closely watched in Asia, where Japan’s World War II aggression has been neither forgotten nor forgiven.

The inclusion of – yet-to-be-established – German armed forces into NATO in the 1950s was a huge step, technically and psychologically. Compared to that, Japan’s defense review is a comparatively small issue, and if the term forward-strategy is indeed appropriate here, it would – in its immediate effect – refer to a shift from Japan’s bigger islands to its smaller outlying ones (and not only to a shift from Japan’s north to its south).

One of the main triggers of NATO’s big steps in the 1950s was the Korean war.

Zhang Zhaozhong (张召忠), a National Defense University professor, told China National Radio (CNR)  in October that

while there was resentment among the South Korean common people against Japan’s participation in joint naval exercises, a feeling that there could be a common threat against both South Korea and Japan – be it from North Korea, be it from China -, could lead both countries to cooperate under American leadership nevertheless.

If that, in turn, could lead to some kind of Asian-Pacific NATO as Zhang suspects would still be a different story.

But while North Korea may still be an opportune ally for China, it’s a costly one, too.

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Update / Related
Jiang Yu: Japan falsely claims to represent international opinion, Washington Post, Dec 17, 2010
New Winter: Sino-North Korean Relations Today, Adam Cathcart, Dec 16

Wen Jiabao in India: Proposals for Business Cooperation

Chinese chief state councillor Wen Jiabao made a four-point proposal for expanding Indian-Sino relations, during a Business Cooperaton Summit (中印商务合作峰会) in New Delhi on Wednesday, China News Net (中国新闻网) reports – republished here.

1. Making full use of (potential) trade opportunities. As feasibility studies on regional trade between the two countries had been completed, negotiations should start as soon as possible. China attaches importance to balanced trade and is willing to gradually provide easier conditions for Indian information technology, pharmaceutical and agricultural products to enter Chinese markets. Disputes should be settled by consultations, and protectionism be opposed.

要充分挖掘两国贸易潜力。温家宝说，中印两国已完成区域贸易安排联合可行性研究，我们期待尽早启动谈判进程。中方重视两国贸易不平衡问题，愿意进一步为印度的信息技术产品、药品和农产品等进入中国市场提供便利条件。两国应通过磋商谈判妥善处理贸易摩擦，共同反对贸易保护主义。

2. Efforts should be made for improved investment environments. The businesses of both countries had rather high expectations on mutual investment, and the governments of China and India should provide judicious guidance, conscientiously imlement investment promotion and protection agreements already signed, ease approval procedures, capital flows, border-crossing procedures and other constraints, and create still easier conditions.

要努力营造良好的投资环境。温家宝说，目前，两国工商界对扩大相互投资有较高期待，两国政府要因势利导，认真落实双方已经签署的投资促进和保护协定，放宽审批、资本流动、人员出入境等方面限制，为双向投资创造更加便利的条件。

3. Bilateral cooperation should be expanded. Trade and economic cooperation shouldn’t be limited to trade, linvestment, building of infrastructure, but be expanded towards the fields of finance, tourism, energy, environmental protection etc. Both sides’ inancial industries should be encouraged to strengthen their business links, and the banks of both sides to establish branch offices in the respective other country.

要拓展两国合作领域。温家宝表示，中印经贸合作不应局限于贸易、投资、基础设施建设，还应向金融、旅游、能源、环保等领域拓展。我们鼓励双方金融业加强业务往来，鼓励两国银行在对方互设分行。

4. The business communities were encouraged to strengthen exchanges. Industry and commerce should establish forums for CEOs to develop entrepreneurs’ knowledge and influence, and to offer advice for the promotion of trade relations between the two countries. Trade associations should develop intermediary and bridging effects, assist companies in tapping the markets of the other country respectively, actively propagandize the fruits of the to countries’ trade and economic cooperation, remove misunderstandings, increase trust and dispel suspicion.

要鼓励企业界加强交流。温家宝说，我们鼓励两国工商界建立首席执行官论坛机制，发挥企业家的智慧和影响，为推动中印经贸合作献言献策。两国行业商会和协会要充分发挥桥梁中介作用，帮助企业了解和开拓对方市场，积极宣传两国经贸合作成果，消除误解，增信释疑。

The two countries had a wide range of common interests in the international trade system, they were in similar stages of development, identical or similar positions concerning climate change, the Doha negotiations, and the reform of the international financial system, and other trade and economic issues. They should strengthen their c0mmunication and cooperation, to make the world listen more closely to the voices of developing countries, which would help to maintain their common interests, China News Net quotes Wen Jiabao.

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Related
“Provide Guidance to the Public”, Deccan Herald, December 13, 2010
“Hawkish Groups in New Delhi Getting above Themselves”, Nov 24, 2010