CHINA has condemned the latest comments made by the United States over the disputed Diaoyu Islands in which Hillary Clinton said that Japan is under US protection.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang rebuked Clinton saying: ‘We urge the US side to adopt a responsible attitude to the issue of the Diaoyu Islands. It should be careful with its words, and act and maintain regional peace, stability and the general situation of China-US relations with practical actions and build credit with the Chinese people.’
China is the main purchaser of US debt and with its purchases has kept the US from going bankrupt. It is demanding in vain, at least, ‘goodwill’ and ‘credit’ in return.
However, these qualities are in very short supply.
At a joint news conference with Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida in Washington on Friday, Clinton had said that the area around the islands in the East China Sea was under Japan’s control and therefore protected under a US security treaty with Tokyo.
She added that the US opposed ‘any unilateral actions’ to undermine Japanese authority over the islands.
The United States is being accused by China and other Asian states of encouraging the right wing Tokyo government. ‘The comments by the US side are ignorant of facts and indiscriminate of rights and wrongs,’ Qin said.
He added that the US could not deny its responsibility on the issue of the Diaoyu Islands, seeing that, despite opposition from China, the United States put the islands under the control of Japan after World War II.
China’s Foreign Ministry has accused Japan of deliberately creating tensions over the Diaoyu Islands, with the support of the United States.
The United States responded with pledge of even stronger security ties with Tokyo. After a closed-door meeting with Kishida, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hailed the US alliance with Japan as ‘the cornerstone of American engagement with the region.’
This endorsement of the new right wing Japanese regime is already alarming many Asian countries, not just China, that have bitter memories of Japan’s wartime attempts to destroy them.
The US-imposed constitution of 1947 reads in Article 9: ‘Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognised.’
This constitution has long been junked by both the US and Japan. Its new government has committed itself to increasing military expenditure by $2.1 bn while the defence budget for the year ending in March 2012 stood at 4.65 trillion yen.
The resurgent Japanese ruling class, egged on by the US, is using claims on islands in the China Seas to stoke up tensions with China, and to provide Japan with a reason for an even greater rearmament.
President Obama declared in mid-2012 that the US was moving two thirds of its military forces into the region around the China Seas, and that China, despite its role as the US’ chief creditor, was its number one rival.
The US is consciously preparing for war with China.
This must be opposed by the US workers and the workers of the world.
The only way forward is to build sections of the Fourth International in every country, to organise the workers of the world to remove capitalism and imperialism, through the victory of the world socialist revolution, and replace them with socialism worldwide.
