HNLBill comments

Elbuda, please study your history before you comment on Xinjiang being the ancestral homeland of the Uighur people. Neither the Chinese nor the Uighur are natives of Xinjiang except the Chinese were there before the Uighur did. The original people of Xinjiang were all eliminated long ago when Xinjiang was raided and conquered by various nomadic tribes in the regions. The Chinese took control of Xinjiang as early as 2000 years ago during the Han Dynasty but had gained and lost control of Xinjiang over the course of histories.

The Uigur did not come to Xinjiang from Central Asia until during the Tang Dynasty and did not become a strong empire until early 700s AD. You may take a look at this link for some basic history of Xinjiang. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Xinjiang. It is a very interesting read.

In terms of treating the minority people of China, the Chinese actually did better than what the American did to their native people. Currently there are more Chinese in Xinjiang than Uigurs just like there are more Americans than native Indians in the US. It would be highly unlikely the Uighurs can gain independence in Xinjiang much the same way for the native Indians to form their own nation within the US.

@flowers

Your comments and rebuttal to Lachance were excellent. I just wanted to add that Japan seized the Diao Yu Islands along with Taiwan during The Japan Invasion of 1895 which was an act of imperial aggression. It should have been reverted back to China in accordance with the Cairo Declaration at the end of WWII. That was as it was written in the declaration "all the territories Japan has taken from China such as Manchuria (Dongbei), Formosa (Taiwan), and the Pescadores (Penghu), shall be restored to the Republic of China." For fear of communist expansion during the cold war, United States however turned the administrative right of these islands to Japan eventually.

In my humble opinion, if China is not able to get the islands back by force now, it will do it eventually. China will continue to grow in power while Japan will continue to reduce in size economically. Japan will continue to be marginalized in regional and world politics. Abe's recent visit to Australia, Thailand and even Vietnam did not get him the supports he wanted to get. The only somewhat warmer reception he got was from the amnesiac Filipino who seemed to forget completely the atrocities committed by Japanese troops during the massacre of Manila in World War II.

In another 20 years, Japan will have less than 100 million people and 40% of its population will be over 65. Just today, there was a newspaper report stating that sales of diapers in Japan for old people have finally exceeded those for babies....LOL. Anyway, it is absolutely crazy for Abe to do what he is doing for a few small islands that do not belong to Japan in the first place. Perhaps he is using nationalism to help his voters to forget the present economic turmoils in Japan. Now he is going to manipulate the Yen's value by printing more money...but that is another topic...both the USA and Japan are so hypocritical....

China can take all the time it wants to get back these islands. The longer it takes the less pain it will cost China. Japan will just die of old age.

To lachance

"How does an established power, such as the United States, deal with a rising power, such as China. Why, the same way we dealt with the Soviet Union. We break it apart into its constituent elements. There are six countries in China held together by the force of guns and a rising economy. What the US is doing is destabilizing China so that the various ethnic elements seek autonomy. And guess what happens after that? Why, the same thing that happened to the Soviet Union. It's simple. A united China is a threat. A disemboweled China is a worker unit. Don't worry folks. We have this one in the bag, scheduled for 2017. The Dalai Lama should be glad, because one of these six countries that we are now in the process of breaking China into is Tibet, a free and autonomous Tibet." This is just wishful thinking but it is a sad fact that was what Americans have been doing in the past one hundred fifty years to countries around the world. However this time it might be American's turn to be broken up as many states will secede from the union after Obama's re-election. This possibility will be getting even greater as the American government is failing to pull itself from falling off the fiscal cliff. Texas in particular is gaining momentum in its effort to leave the union. http://www.wxow.com/story/20106666/united-w

When American economy tanks even more and many more Americans are out of jobs, the government cannot pay pension benefits to its senior citizens, salaries to its civil servants, and disability benefits to the poor soldiers who fought the many dirty wars the government wanted them to fight.....It will be civil war in the making in the United States. Following the same line of rhetorics as what lachance was saying, perhaps I might add that it would be 2017 when we will see a civil war in the United States before we will see that happening in China....starting with the Chinese funding the Hawaiians, the American Indians and the Mexicans to get their lands back....

*tian4670Nov. 19, 2012 - 04:32PM JST

@Peter Payne

What you are talking about is exactly opposite of facts.

I really doubt if you can find Japan and China on google map.

No Tian467,

I think you are the one who got the facts wrong! Japan is in dispute with everyone of its neighbours including Russia, North Korea, South Korean, China and Taiwan.....Get your facts straight first.

"If china just had a Coast guard like Japan Coast Guard everything would be different."

The ship sank in just 1 minute after it was hit by a hi-speed catamaran ferry. I don't think any coast guards, including the Japan Coast Guard could have done anything. If you know Hong Kong, you should know it is a developed city with the largest fleet of marine police fleet in the world patrolling its harbor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Police_Force). Such a tragic event rarely happened in Hong Kong. In addition, it was reported that the ship was designed for 200 and carried the regulation required life jackets and life boats. At the time of the collision, the ship was carrying less passengers than its permitted capacity. It was just a tragedy in the middle of a festivity which could have happened in any Japanese cities.<><>

To YuriOtaniSep. 09, 2011 - 02:47AM JST

just-a-guy, the SDF is waiting on the Chinese military or do you feel lucky? Soon after the SDF makes defensive contact the Americans will engage the invading Chinese. Wen is nothing but a bad liar. We will defend our homes, lives and freedoms from those that will take them from us

Why don't you say the same thing to the Russians too? Japan is just a lap dog hiding behind its American master.

The problem to the Japanese is even the Americans admitted in their 2011 Report on China's Military that by 2020 the Chinese military will be a force to be reckoned with. I am really disappointed to see Japanese people like you do not see the writing on the wall yet. Why can't you people give peace a chance and work with your neighbors for a change?

The lack of political leadership (6 PM in 5 years), the decline of the Japanese population and the rapid growth of its national debt plus the recurring natural disasters on the Japanese people should have made the Japanese people more humbled by now. And yet, I still see people like you having such a cold war mentality. It is estimated by 2015 that domestic investors in Japan will no longer have the means to finance the national debts, after decades of blindly investing in the national debt. From whom are you going to borrow the money then? Your American master? Not a chance...

To TheQuestion:

Brazil is also a rapidly expanding economy but you don't see them offing themselves by the thousand.

While the economy of Brazil was expanding fast for the past 30 years, it was nowhere close to the drastic growth experienced in China. China on average was growing at 10% per year continuously for the past 30 years which caused major social and economic upheavals in the country that no other country in the world experienced. Brazil on the other hand experienced growth only at the rate of half of China's and it was happening only in the past 10 years or so. http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=br&v=66. Also, I think the happy go lucky attitude of the Brazilian will always keep their suicide rate low even despite economic hardship. The interesting point is if the Brazilian was not killing themselves enough in the past, they were successful in killing others in their midst by violent means as reported in this article http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1414700/.

The sad situation in China was that Chinese female has the higher suicide rate than the male and the rural suicide rate is significantly higher than the urban rate. That was the reason why I believed the rapid economic growth has definitely caused a greater impact to the cultural and social fabrics in Chinese lives.

While I do not agree with your second point on the uncertainty of Chinese economic growth but I respect your opinion. No matter how our opinions differ though, the Japanese economy will definitely continue to go downhill as its population shrinks and its government fails to tackle its debt issue.

*To Lieberman2012Sep. 09, 2011 - 04:57PM JST

And the suicide rate is only going to get higher. Ask someone like 'justaguy'. He will tell you. Life in China suck*

I guess life in Japan sucks even more because the suicide rate in Japan is 24.4 per 100,000 vs China's 22.23 per 100,000. Life in rapid growth China is tough and high suicide rate is reasonable. It has a lot less to do with personal freedom but rather more to do with difficulties experienced by the masses at a time when there are fundamental changes in the economy, very much like Japan is experiencing right now. However for Japan, it will be getting even worse until it cannot be worse any more. Japan has a shrinking economy and will continue to do so as its population is dying out with fewer people supporting the 4xGDP debt loads of the national and local governments. It will not be long for Japan to kowtow to China for economic survival as their American master can no longer afford to support their pet dog any more.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/04/japan-suicide-rate-still-_n_831430.html