msmahumane@gmail.com comments

It is very difficult to understand speech hierarchy for someone who hails from societies where there is no polite form of speech or body languaage, like in English where everybody can be addressed as "YOU". Many a times a person from societies where there is a respect's form of expression is misunderstood, considered insincere, deceitful, lacking in self confidence or outright dumb.

Don't worry folks, Japan will eventually come to terms with history when the playing field has been leveled off.

It sounds like someone urging China to win a world beauty contest. But China is worrying about food, shelter, health, education, environment, security and general well-being of its citizens. And why should waste its time and energy worrying about being loved (soft power) by anybody. There is no precedent of a single country tackling the enormous task of uplifting the living standard of 1.3 billions people. It took centuries for some small countries to achieve what they have achieved in just three decades. Mistakes they will make as they go, but give them a chance, they will find their space in direction in the world.

Only Mr Zhou himself knows what the truth is. Many people have innocently been framed as spies, but also many people have been spying. It is as an old game. We have our Snowdens anywhere.

It becomes very difficult to agree on those attributes because some people move around in the world with their own yardstick to measure everybody else. Anything different from their home measures is bad.

Discrimination is not based on race as such, is based on being able/unable to climb the social ladder and accumulate wealth. A white person will hardly see the skin color of a wealthy black person and will have no qualms in associating with him/her. Discrimination has always been between the Haves and Have-nots, (humans), and Strong and Weak, (nations).

Talking to Russians is not the same as talking to Chinese. Russians will not be intimidated by big daddy

Germany pays for retirement home expenses for the victims of Holocaust, besides many other channels of reparations

Over a decade in Germany I observed the same thing. The Germans are very disciplined - Ordunung muss sein - one has to follow the rules. It is amazing that the Germans and Japanese live in different continents and have different backgrounds yet mostly behave the same way.

The Chinese should just remain cool headed and manage their own affairs or even mismanage it if need be. Are themselves who will pay the price if they mismanage their affairs, after all. Why suddenly everybody wants to be an economic advisor to the Chinese.

TigersTokyoDome: This is tantamount to saying that the Jewish people should forget about the holocaust because it happened 68 years ago. The Jewish people don't and should not forget, and so are the Germans. Only the Japanese have forgotten, and urge the victims to forget

The Germans solved the problem by making sure that every German child is taught at school about the evil past of their country, and they made it a crime to deny it. This approach resulted in Europe being at peace with Germany.

Come on, Elementz

You can not compare oranges and lemons. Arlington and Yasukuni are very different. If the Germans had a shrine where the Nazis criminals were also buried, and the German politicians went there to pray, what would you say?

But there's a limit to what the US can do, they have on one hand the international community and the poor Palestinians and on the other hand the Israeli lobby.

Ideologies aside, China and Japan can not change their geographical locations. They will be neighbours for ever, whether they like it or not. The best thing for them is, at least, to tolerate each other, unless they choose to live like the Palestinians and Israelis. For sure, someone, somewhere must be laughing at the two Asians economic giants at each other's throats trying to destroy each other. Who will benefit out of that? Someone, somewhere will, for sure.

If China was still under Japan influence or control, China would not dare talk about the past Japanese atrocities because Japan would not allow it. Because of the asymmetric relationship between the US and Japan, Japan can not criticize the US

A democratic government MUST be elected by majority of the people, and most importantly, MUST be acceptable to the big brothers

There is nothing out of ordinary with Chinese products at this stage of its development. When I was in Europe in the 70s, no sound minded person wanted to touch a Japanese car, but today Toyota is competing very well against the VW, Opel etc. Give China another 30 years, the story will definitely be different.

When economic and military powers will be at equilibrium, both China and Japan will take each other seriously and negotiate in good faith. For the time being one feels stronger than the other, and therefore has no need to negotiate

EastAsiaForeigner: The best bet is not to buy anything made in China at all, starting from all household items, computers, gadgets, clothing, shoes, etc.

Yesterday it was China grabbing land from poor and defenseless African peasants in the name of development, now is Japan. Who is holier than other? The answer is: no one, both are there to help themselves at the expenses of illiterate African peasants

It will be interesting to see how Japan will successfully compete with China in Africa because Japan has its own hands and policies bound by conditionalism imposed on Africans by OECD countries. Before it can invest Japan must first lecture the African leaders on democracy, good governance, and good manners. And you know all those fancy projects in the villages, where OECD countries excel, where villagers are taught how to feed their babies, how to garden and how to prepare healthy meals etc.

Anyway, thanks to the Chinese, now many countries are rediscovering Africa as a place for investment, not a basket case, and not a bunch of children to be lectured.

It is amazing to read that some of the people criticizing Singapore do that because they miss chaos and filth where they come from. Imagine someone missing his democratic rights to throw chewing gum in the street.

The utterances of the Japanese right wing politicians are simply a reflection of the opinion of the majority of the Japanese people. The rest of the world may not agree with them, but the majority of Japanese people love them, and that is why they elect and re-elect them. Politicians will always say what the majority wants to hear. The deniers of the WW2 atrocities is not the Hashimotos & Co, but the majority of Japanese electorate, politicians are just the messengers.

Mr. Matthew Kean seems to be reading the wrong information. In Germany no single Chancellor has ever been in office and failed to remind his/her people of the past evil deeds committed by NAZIS. They go all the way to Israel, Auschwitz etc. And there's annual remembrance day for the victims of NAZIS, they are monuments all over Germany reminding the people of the past. History is taught as it happened, the reason why the French, the British, et all, don't criticize Germany.

Some comments sound more ideological rather than scientific. What the pollution has to do with the political system other than poor planning and environmental management. Some comments are well intended but they become polluted with ideological slant

He is a very learned man, a journalist and historian by qualifications, so he's aware of what he is saying. He is expressing the sentiment of many Japanese who have hard time getting rid of their superiority complex

History teaches us that nations respect only strong nations. When all Asians nations will be strong, they will respect each other. Who respected Korea and China hundred years ago.

Both China and Japan find it hard to back down because they don't want to look weak in their respective constituencies. But somehow they must find a face saving strategy to come out of the stalemate, if they don't want to destroy their economies.