On Saturday, a Chinese military official accused the U.S. Secretary of Defense and the Prime Minister of Japan of basically stirring up unnecessary trouble in Asia. These allegations are in stark contrast to what the U.S. and I assume Japan has been reporting on the topic. The Lt. Gen. Wang Guanzhong cited a couple of speeches made earlier in the week by Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and said that they were “full of threats and intimidating language”. According to reports General Wang's speech seemed geared more towards Mr. Hagel and the U.S. than anything else, although he also called out Japan. This makes sense for a number of reasons. China has not admitted to any wrong doing and insists they are staying within their borders. China seems taking the role of the underdog getting picked on by the big bad U.S. and its allies. These are some pretty bold allegations coming from a place that is accused of the same thing: stirring up trouble for no good reason. This dissonance between sides of this conversation could play a key role in the direction this takes. It will be interesting to see what kind of response the U.S. and Japan will give. As tensions rise over who has control of what in the East China Sea and the South China Sea, it will be interesting to see if it escalates from a really lame international version of he said she said. I'm not saying it wouldn't cause some nasty problems, but it seems like the problems have already started. Another interesting aspect of this is how American businesses will respond to all of the controversy in the area and whether American business interests will have an influence in changes in policy.
The link to the article is here.
Katie Krupica
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