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]]>History of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands Dispute: During the past half year a territorial dispute between Japan and China over a small group of uninhabited islands (called Diaoyu Islands by the Chinese and Senkaku Islands by the Japanese) in the South China Sea has increased significantly in intensity so that both sides have sent military ships and planes to that area. The confrontations so far have resulted in only warnings, water canon fights, and some damaged Chinese fisherman boats (rammed by Japanese military ships), but it could very well escalate to a serious, major armed conflict between the two countries. From the China side, both the Republic of China (ROC) and People’s Republic of China (PRC) have been involved. Although the U.S. government has stated that it doesn’t take a position regarding the territorial sovereignty of these islands, it has repeatedly stated that these islands are covered under the Japan-U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty. This article discusses that this issue could have great significance for the American people and urges the American people to pay more attention to this issue.
The Japanese government claims that there is no dispute on the sovereignty of these islands, and that they belong to Japan when they first discovered these islands in 1884. However, there are many records that show that these islands have been part of China for more than 600 years since the Ming Dynasty, that Chinese fishermen on and off have been using these islands as temporary shelters, and many international maps (including Japanese maps) over the last few centuries have listed these islands as part of China. Based on analysis of official Japanese government documents (by both Chinese and Japanese scholars), Japan actually tried to secretly steal these islands from China in the late 1880s and early 1890s. When Japan defeated China after the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, these islands came under the control of Japan. When WWII ended, according to the 1943 Cairo Declaration, the 1945 Potsdam Declaration, and the 1945 Japanese Instrument of Surrender, the Diaoyu Islands should have been returned to China, just like Taiwan and other territories that Japan had stolen from China. It is important to note that the principal author of all these three documents was the U.S.
Why then is there a dispute and what role has the U.S. played? To understand this, we have to go back to 1949 when the Chinese Communist Party won the civil war with the Chinese Kuomintang Party and established the People’s Republic of China. Ever since, the U.S. has adopted a policy to contain and weaken China. That is why when the U.S. organized the 1951 Treaty of Peace with Japan (also called the San Francisco Peace Treaty), China as the country that suffered the most under Japan’s military during WWII, was not even invited to the conference, although over 50 other countries were invited. Where was fairness and social justice when this treaty was supposed to officially end WWII, to formally end Japan’s position as an imperial power, and to allocate compensation to Allied civilians and former POWs who had suffered Japanese war crimes? Who were representing or speaking for the Chinese? This is also why when the U.S. as the sole administrator under the U.N. of the Ryukyu Islands made the unilateral decision on December 25, 1953 to extend the territory of the Ryukyu Islands to include the Diaoyu Islands, which in 1972 the administrative rights of the Ryukyu Islands were handed over to Japan. This complicity by the U.S. helped to create a dispute which should not have existed in the first place.
For a more detailed description of this part of history, please read the article “Inconsistent Foreign Policy May Drag U.S. Into Another War”: http://www.dontow.com/2012/09/inconsistent-foreign-policy-may-drag-u-s-into-another-war/.
Japan’s Revision of History: One of the most serious travesties in modern history is the Japanese government’s unwillingness to acknowledge and apologize for the massive and inhumane atrocities that the Japanese Imperial Army inflicted on many countries in Asia during WWII. These atrocities included over 200,000 sex slaves, 300,000 Chinese (including civilians, women, and children) massacred during the approximate six-week period of the Nanking Massacre, and numerous applications of biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction in more than a dozen provinces in China killing hundreds of thousands of Chinese and permanently maiming many more. On the contrary, their government leaders, including their prime ministers, have made remarks such as: “there was no coercion of women into sexual slavery during WWII, and there is no testimony from anyone in Japan,” “the Nanking Massacre is a story made up by the Chinese,” and “there was no Nanking Massacre, only the results of conventional acts of combat.”
All of these are lies, as these atrocities were well documented by many eye witnesses, including western journalists, businessmen, diplomats, missionaries, educators, and other international observers. Furthermore, the Japanese teacher and journalist Tamaki Matsuoka has video interviews of over 250 former Japanese soldiers confirming the Nanking Massacre. In addition, starting in the early 1980s, the Japanese government has rewritten their textbooks so that already there are generations of Japanese who do not know about this part of WWII history.
Adding insult to injury, top Japanese leaders regularly paid tribute at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo where 14 convicted and executed Class A war criminals are enshrined. Can you imagine what would be the world’s reaction if German chancellors pay tribute at a memorial for Hitler? Recall the U.S.’s critical reaction when the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his visit to the U.S. in 2007 denied the existence of the Holocaust. Why were there no massive outcries from the U.S. government or mass media on Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s recent visit to the U.S. to meet with President Obama when Abe is one of the chief Japanese revisionists of WWII history?
U.S. Complicity and Significance for the American People: Being supposedly the benevolent overseer of Japan post WWII, if the U.S. had insisted on Japan acknowledging and apologizing for its WWII war crimes, I am sure that it would have been done. As a matter of fact, why the U.S. did not prosecute Emperor Hirohito when he was fully aware and approved of the policies implemented by Japan during WWII? [1] Perhaps the reason was to make it easier to administer Japan along the policies of the U.S. if Japan’s Emperor was seemingly on the U.S.’s side. If the Allies did not prosecute Emperor Hirohito as a war criminal, then the Japanese can infer that he was innocent of any war crime, and since Japan as a nation was centered on the emperor, Japan also must be free of war crime. Why none of the top leaders of Japan’s infamous Unit 731, the largest biological and chemical weapon laboratory/factory in the history of mankind, was prosecuted? According to the American doctor and medical historian Dr. Martin Furmanski, who researched this issue, wrote “In a disgraceful agreement with the Japanese biological weapons war criminals, the U.S. offered immunity from war crimes prosecution in exchange for the scientific data the Japanese had collected from murdering Chinese citizens, as well as citizens of other countries, both in their laboratories and in field applications. The official U.S. and Japanese policy became one of denying the existence of the Japanese biological weapons program.” [2]
Thus one can conclude that since 1949, one of the principal policies of American foreign policy was to contain and weaken China, and to achieve this objective the U.S. on several occasions has been involved in complicity with Japan as its leading junior partner. That is why today, U.S. has military bases and military alliances with many countries all around China. That is why the U.S. is adopting the ambiguous and inconsistent policy of claiming to be neutral on the territorial sovereignty of the Diaoyu Islands, but also including these islands under the Japan-U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty. If the territorial sovereignty of the islands is not settled, then why should they be included in the Japan-U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty? As stated earlier, this dispute is heating up rapidly and could result in a major war between China and Japan. Do the American people want our country to be dragged by Japan into a war in the East China Sea that has no moral or legal reasons to be involved? Do we, the American people, stand by while our sons and daughters fight in an unjustified war far away from home? Do we want to blindly support a country that launched a devastating surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and inflicted massive, inhumane atrocities all over Asia, and still has not acknowledged and apologized for those deeds?
The American people must see through the complicity that our government is getting our country tangled in. The American people must ask where is our social justice and where is our high moral ground? The American people must demand that the policy that our government implements must be in the best interests of our country and our people. The American people must ask is our current policy of supporting Japanese military the best use of our hard-earned tax dollars? The American people must realize that a revival of Japanese militarism may create a monster that could strike the U.S. again, as it once did with Pearl Harbor and the Bataan Death March.
It is true that China has become the U.S.’s major competitor. Let the two countries compete on level grounds. Instead of accusing China of monetary manipulation, look at ourselves of constantly printing money and thus devaluing the debt that we owe. Instead of accusing China of adopting an aggressive foreign policy, look at ourselves of setting up military bases and military alliances all around China, and our defense budget for 2011 was more than the next 13 highest defense budgets combined. [3] Instead of always accusing China of not presenting the truths, look at the half-truths and distortions that our government and mass media spill out on a regular basis regarding China. We are not saying that some of China’s external or internal policies should not be criticized, but the criticisms should be based on facts and fair analysis, but not based on half truths, lies, and distorted analysis.
Cyber Espionage: What about the recent accusation that the Chinese government is responsible for launching cyber espionage activities against the U.S.? First besides the obvious comment that there has been no proof that the attacks came from the Chinese government. The accusers are also fully aware that the responsible party could arrange it so that the attack may appear to come from another party. What is even more important is to ask whether or not the U.S. government and military have been engaged in espionage, including cyber espionage? Isn’t it common knowledge that every large company is engaged in intelligence gathering and competitive analysis of their competitors? Isn’t it common knowledge that every country has always engaged in espionage activities, and not necessarily always legally? For example, according to a 2001 European Parliamentary Session document [4], the U.S.’ National Security Agency (NSA) routinely conducts cyber-warfare collecting sensitive and private information of various countries’ companies and providing them to their American counterparts, such as hacking into the Japanese Trade Ministry to obtain detailed information on the quotas being discussed for U.S. cars. Furthermore, NSA is almost finished building a new $2 billion mammoth data center (sometimes known as Spy Center) in Utah that will store massive amount of data (government, company, and personal data), as well as developing new and sophisticated code-cracking algorithms. Part of the purpose of this super secret center is to do cyber espionage. [5]
Conclusion: Although we may prefer otherwise, let’s acknowledge that we now live in a world in which the U.S. could have major competitors. But instead of always trying to contain and weaken China, let’s adopt a win-win-win policy that is good for the U.S., China, and world peace, as well as being fair to the rest of the world. A policy of ignoring Japan’s revision of WWII history and the resurgence of Japanese militarism and adopting an antagonistic and confrontational attitude toward China is not in the best interests of the U.S., the American people, and world peace. The American people must tell our government not to continually feed us a pretext for initiating aggression towards China.
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[1] Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan by Herbert P. Bix, Harper Perennial, 2001. This book provides evidence that Emperor Hirohito was fully involved in making various major decisions during WWII.
[2] Dr. Martin Furmanski’s article “An Investigation of the Afflicted Area of Anthrax and Glanders Attacks by Japanese Aggressors” in the book Blood-Weeping Accusations: Records of Anthrax Victims, by Li Xiaofang, 2005.
[3] http://www.pgpf.org/Chart-Archive/0053_defense-comparison.aspx.
[4] Report on the existence of a global system for the interception of private and commercial communications (ECHELON interception system) (2001/2098(INI)): http://cryptome.org/echelon-ep-fin.htm#10.
[5] “The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say): http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/.
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In several previous articles I have reported on the health benefits of Taiji. Recently a new review paper “Psychological Effects of Tai Chi Chuan” has been published [1]. The paper reports on a review of published literature on the psychological benefits of Taiji. A summary of that paper is reported here.
The paper reviewed literature in seven electronic data bases: Medline-Pubmed, Scirus, Pascal, ScienceDirect, SportDiscuss, Science Citation Index, and BIOSIS. It searched using key words that are different combinations of the terms: Tai Chi, Tai Chi Chuan, Taiji, Tai Ji Quan, psychology, cognition, stress, anxiety, depression, mood, sleep disorder, well-being, self efficacy, mental health, self-esteem, quality of life, and fear of falling, as well as their Spanish translations. It looked at publications that were published up to June 2011 in either English or Spanish. The search excluded those which did not have the purpose of measuring the effects of Tai Chi Chuan (TCC) on psychological and mental health. Forty-three articles were found, with eight of them being review articles.
There were several Taiji styles used in these studies, and the most commonly used was the Yang Style. The form sets used were mostly the shorter form sets, such as 24, 16, or 10 movements, instead of the longer form set of 108 movements. The mean duration was 14 weeks, frequency of 2-3 times per week, for an average duration of one hour per session.
There were several sets of studies. Here is a summary of the findings:
There were also several other interesting findings:
In summary, this paper has reviewed the literature on studies on the psychological health benefits of Taiji. Many studies did find that practicing Taiji can result in significant improvements in several aspects of psychological health. However, the results are not always uniformly consistent and the sample sizes are still small. It is possible that other types of low-to-moderate intensity exercises could also lead to positive results, although there are advantages for Taiji over other types of exercises due to Taiji not requiring any equipment, flexibility in location and time of practice, and its almost zero-adverse impacts on the body. More studies are needed with two or more control groups to differentiate the results from performing Taiji exercises and other types of low-to-moderate intensity exercises.
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[1[ P. J. Jimenez, A. Melendez, and U. Albers, “Pshchological Effects of Tai Chi Chuan,” Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics 55 (2012) 460-467.
]]>The journey of my father to the U.S. started in the summer of 1921 when he was not yet 15 in his home village of Gock Chung Village, Taishan County, Guangdong Province in Southern China. It started with sadness by saying farewells to his mother, grandmother, older brother and new sister-in-law, and younger sister. He didn’t know that it would be another nine years before he would see them again. But in the day it took to travel downriver from Guangzhou, the big city near Taishan, to Hong Kong, the sadness of goodbyes was replaced with the excitement and opportunities of looking forward to a new life in America. He was also meeting a distant older cousin from Taishan who was returning to Providence, Rhode Island on the same ship, a cousin with whom his life would later intertwine.
My father King Tow (or Jew King Tow which is the phonetic translation of his Chinese name 曹朝敬) boarded the ocean liner Empress of Russia in Hong Kong. The Empress of Russia was built by the Scottish Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company near Glasgow, Scotland for the London-based Canadian Pacific, owner of the Canadian Pacific Railway and also one of the world’s largest Atlantic and Pacific ocean-crossing steamship companies. The ship made stops in Shanghai, Kobe, Yokohama, before landing in Vancouver, Canada on July 11, 1921. This journey would be quite an eye opener for a young teenager going away from home for the first time in his life. He then took a train from Vancouver, arriving in Boston on July 22, 1921 to meet his father who was then living in Providence, Rhode Island. The long approximately 10-day train journey from the West Coast to the East Coast must have been exhilarating and at the same time intimidating for a young boy who didn’t quite speak English.
My grandfather is Deep Sam Tow, also known as Cho Chit Sam depending on which Chinese dialect is used to pronounce his Chinese name and the corresponding choice of phonetic translation; Cho and Tow are just different phonetic translations of his Chinese family name which is listed first in a Chinese name. My grandfather had been living in the U.S. since 1908 as a merchant, involved mostly in the restaurant business, primarily in Providence, Rhode Island. He recognized the importance of higher education and with the modest income he was then making in the U.S., he thought that he could support one of his sons to achieve that objective, and he wanted his son to be educated in the U.S. Since his first son was already a married adult, he applied for a merchant’s son visa for his second son, my father, to come to Providence, Rhode Island.
Because of the Chinese Exclusion Act that was passed by the U.S. Congress in 1882, which was the only law in American history to deny citizenship or entry based on a specific nationality, there were a lot of restrictions that applied to the immigration and livelihood of Chinese only, and there was no analogous law that applied to people from any other country. The only Chinese who were allowed to visit the U.S. were teachers, merchants, students, diplomats, and tourists. These restrictions included:
However, a son or daughter of a U.S. citizen was allowed entry.
Originally the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was supposed to last for 10 years, but it was extended several times and actually more restrictions were added with the extensions. The Chinese Exclusion Act reflected and encouraged a discriminatory mindset of white America toward the Chinese. This mindset resulted not only in discriminatory treatment of Chinese in terms of immigration policy, but also more importantly and more dangerously resulted in physical attacks, tortures, and murders of many Chinese and Chinese communities in the U.S. Here is an incident described in the book The Chinese in America by Iris Chang, Penguin Group, 2003: “… in the Snake River Massacre of 1887, which the historian David Stratton calls ‘one of the worst, yet least known, instances of violence against Chinese,’ thirty-one Chinese miners in Hell’s Canyon, Oregon, were robbed, killed, and mutilated by a group of white ranchers and schoolboys intent on stealing their gold and cleansing the region of their presence. A federal official who investigated the crime called it ‘the most cold-blooded, cowardly treachery I have ever heard tell of on this coast, and I am a California 49er. Every one of them was shot, cut up, stripped, and thrown into the river.’ Apparently some body parts were kept as souvenirs; according to Stratton, ‘a Chinese skull fashioned into a sugar bowl graced the kitchen table of one ranch home for many years.’ After the state identified the murderers, only three were brought to trial – and all three were acquitted.”
The Chinese Exclusion Act was not repealed until 1943, more than 60 years later, when the U.S. and China were then allies in WWII. Actually the discrimination against the Chinese in terms of immigration laws was not completely repealed until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, another 22 years later.
My father, being a son of a merchant and coming to the U.S. to study, was given a visa. Upon his arrival in Boston on July 22, 1921, he was united with his father whom he hadn’t seen since he was a two-year old toddler almost 13 years earlier. It must have been a most joyful and heart-warming reunion for a father and son who really didn’t know each other, and had been separated by about 7,000 miles with perhaps only a letter or two of communication per year. But that was not the end of his immigration saga to the U.S. That joy of reunion was tempered knowing that the reunion may be short-lived if they do not pass an upcoming interrogation test. I remember that my father had mentioned to us many times about this interrogation. He said that it was very easy to fail the interrogation even for an honest applicant, and it was really unfair because the questions were so detailed and tricky. On August 15, 1921, my father and grandfather had to appear at the Boston immigration office for interrogations that would determine whether my father would be allowed to stay in the U.S. or be sent back to China. While sitting on a bench in that immigration office waiting for his interrogation, stories flashed through his mind of boys who had been refused entry after arriving in the U.S., such as when a boy did not remember who lived in the fifth house to the left of his house on the same street. That boy was sent back to China. He was also repeatedly recalling what he needed to remember in order to pass the interrogation test, fully realizing that one false move or a lapse in memory could evaporate all the dreams, opportunities, and aspirations circling in his mind during the last many weeks.
Why the interrogation? As the name of the act implies, the purpose of the Chinese Exclusion Act was to exclude Chinese from immigrating to the U.S. So the immigration laws and procedures were designed to make it especially difficult for Chinese to be allowed to come to this country. So all kinds of obstacles were created to block such entry. It didn’t matter that the laws and procedures discriminated against a specific type of people based on race. It is interesting to note that the great 1906 earthquake in San Francisco created a loop hole for some Chinese to get around the restrictions. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the subsequent fire nearly destroyed the entire city, including the buildings holding official government documents and files, such as birth records and immigration records. As a result, a number of Chinese would claim that they were the sons of other Chinese who were U.S. citizens, resulting in the so-called “paper son” phenomenon.
The interrogation was in front of three inspectors, an interpreter, and a recording clerk. Based on the transcript from the Immigration Service (then under the U.S. Department of Labor) in Boston, Massachusetts, my father was asked 38 questions.. A Brown University Asian Studies researcher retrieved the interrogation transcript for us from the National Archives Office in Waltham, Massachusetts. The inspectors asked many detailed questions, making it very difficult for a fake applicant to pass and very easy even for an honest applicant to fail. They asked questions such as: Describe your father’s parents and mother’s parents, when is the date of your brother’s marriage, describe your village, how many houses in your row, is there any building opposite to your small door, who lives opposite your large door, how many houses in the 4th row, who lives in the 5th house in the 4th row, who lives in the 7th house in the 4th row, where did you get your drinking water? [1]
In a separate session later on that day, my grandfather was also interrogated. He was asked 45 questions, with many identical questions. Any discrepancy between my father’s answers and my grandfather’s answers was grounds for rejection.
Fortunately, my father passed the interrogation test, and he was allowed to stay in the U.S.
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[1] One might wonder how did the Immigration Office get such detailed information about the neighborhood of our family. They had several sources: (1) from the information in my grandfather’s various applications with the Immigration Office, (2) from previous oral interrogations of my grandfather, (3) from information gathered from others’ applications and interrogations, keeping in mind that most of the immigrants from China at that time were from that county Taishan. That was why even until the late 1950s and early 1960s if you went to Chinatown in New York City or San Francisco, most of the Chinese there spoke the Taishanese dialect, and (4) from Chinese or Chinese Americans working as translators at the Immigration Office.
]]>Tamaki Matsuoka was born in 1947 in Osaka, Japan. She studied history and became an elementary school teacher in 1982. In 1988 after reading several books written by journalists and professors investigating the history of the Nanking Massacre and also a large number of books and popular magazines trivializing or denying the massacre, she realized that there were drastically contradictory assertions about what actually happened in Nanking in 1937-1938. It was then that she decided that she will start her own investigation of that part of history. Little did she know that that decision has led her to a journey of 24 years that has completely changed her life and is beginning to change the Japanese people’s and the rest of the world’s knowledge of that part of history.
She started her own investigation by making her first visit to Nanking in 1988 to listen in person to the recounts of the war victims. The descriptions she obtained from the surviving victims during the visit were overwhelmingly gruesome. By contrast in Japan, nothing whatsoever was heard from the nearly two hundred thousand ex-soldiers who were supposedly involved in this event. So was the government trying to evade the unspeakable guilt, and the potential backlash from the then political atmosphere would be too harsh on any ex-soldier to tell the truth about his own experience? So she visited Nanking again and again several times a year to collect additional testimonies from the war victims.
Tamaki knew that to have a convincing argument in Japan, she also needed the Japanese ex-soldiers’ testimonies. Therefore, in October 1997 she set up the “Nanking Information Hotline” for three days in six Japanese cities (Tokyo, Kanazawa, Nagoya, Osaka, Hiroshima, and Kumanoto). Thanks to the coverage in newspapers and TV about her grass-root initiative, she received a total of 130 calls, 13 of which were from ex-soldiers. Based on the information collected, she started to track down more and more ex-soldiers. When she first visited each of them, in the beginning they all stayed silent regarding the Nanking Massacre. So she put Nanking aside and chatted about the hardships during the war. Gradually, almost half of them started to talk about Nanking. Over the years, she and her small team of volunteers interviewed more than 250 ex-soldiers. Some of the ex-soldiers told them that they had machine-gunned several thousand Chinese who were rounded up at the bank of the Yangtze River. Others told them that they had set fire to the warehouses filled with captured residents of Nanking. Still others told them that they seized women and raped them.
With time and repeated interactions, she gained the trust of the ex-soldiers and their families. They entrusted her with their diaries as well as albums of the war history published by associations of the war comrades from that time. They also gave her war records by newspaper correspondents, copies of battle reports, medals and certificates. These numerous verifiable sources serve as crucial circumstantial evidence of the Nanking Massacre.
During this period, she and her team also interviewed more than 300 Nanking Massacre survivors, and she traveled to Nanking more than 70 times (now more than 80 times at the time of writing this article). Each of the survivors appealed to her “Please tell the facts of the Nanking Massacre to the young people of Japan.”
When Tamaki and her team compared notes of the testimonies of the ex-soldiers and the survivors, they found incredible coincidences in the times, places, and what transpired during these atrocious acts, thus confirming the validity of the testimonies. For example, in the testimonies of mass slaughter in the Xiaguan district of Nanking at the bank of the Yangtze River, the location, time and situation from both the victims’ and the assailants’ accounts coincide almost perfectly.
In order to have permanent records of these testimonies and make them widely available, she wrote books. For example, in 2002, she published the book The Battle of Nanking – Searching for Forbidden Memories. The book created a great sensation in Japan, and in 2003, she was awarded the “Japan Congress of Journalists Prize” that is given to distinguished journalists. Tributes included comments such as “She has accomplished something no one ever could.” She and her team also made 58 visual panels showing information that they had collected, and held exhibitions at more than 40 locations across Japan.
To capture the precious experiences of these aging seniors, in a race against time she and her team video-recorded all the interviews, as several ex-soldiers and victims would die with each passing year, sometimes even before her team could reach them. Since seeing a video-recording of an interview is much more persuasive than reading a written transcript of an interview, Tamaki and her team decided to produce documentary films, in spite of the fact that they had no experience in making films and no major financial supporters. For example, in 2009, they produced the documentary film “Torn Memories of Nanjing,” which on March 28, 2010 was shown for the first time outside of Japan at the Hong Kong International Film Festival.
Recently, we in New Jersey, as well as several other cities in the U.S. and Canada, had the opportunity to see this most painful and meaningful documentary at the “75th Anniversary Commemoration of the Nanking Massacre” held at Brookdale Community College in Lincroft, New Jersey. Seeing and hearing the words spoken from so many ex-soldiers about the atrocious crimes that they and the Japanese Imperial Army committed during that period in 1937-1938 leaves no doubt about the reality of the Nanking Massacre.
Unfortunately, the historic event of Nanking Massacre had degenerated into an ideological taboo in Japan. People in Japan who were trying to revise history started to slander Tamaki with condemning labels such as “traiitor,” “spy for Chinese Communist Party,” “psychopath,” or “a liar who receives bribes.” Moreover, right-wingers have barged into the elementary school where she worked and into meetings involving Tamaki. They constantly attack Tamaki on the Internet. It took great courage and sacrifice to continue her work under such circumstances. Tamaki thought that seeking and publicizing the truth was of paramount importance and was worth more than any personal sacrifices she has to endure. To prevent her attackers from finding any fault with her research, Tamaki’s investigation team has been very meticulous about the verification of historic details.
Similarly, whenever an ex-soldier or victim’s recollection appears in the media, deniers would use their media and political clout to start a fierce attack. They conduct numerous campaigns to slander those who speak out as “fake soldiers,” or that “they are telling lies to receive attention.” These right-wingers are supported by powerful members of the Japanese Congress and House of Representatives. To the credit of the victims and especially the ex-soldiers, such personal attacks have not silenced them from speaking the truth.
It is Tamaki’s hope that when the Japanese people become aware of her research and related research by others, more people will give more thoughts to the facts of Nanking, and the Japanese people and government would handle the Nanking Massacre in the same way as the Germans and German government handle the Holocaust – a confession, a sincere apology, and a condemnation of those war criminals.
It is a tribute to Tamaki Matsuoka to have dedicated the past 24 years of her life to finding the truth about the Nanking Massacre, and then publicizing this truth to the Japanese people, as well as the people in the rest of the world. For many years until her retirement as a school teacher, she had a full-time teaching job and did this in the evenings and weekends. She has used her own savings to finance her project. She has been able to recruit and mobilize a small group of dedicated volunteers on her mission. In the face of frequent and vicious personal attacks, she has displayed great courage, dedication, and commitment to continue on her mission that has consumed 24 years of her life. Tamaki Matsuoka: We salute you!
]]>In TCM, the life-force Qi circulates within the body through channels called meridians (or vessels). There are 12 symmetric meridians, each associated with a major organ (lung, large intestine, stomach, spleen, heart, small intestine, bladder, kidney, pericardium, triple warmer, gall bladder, and liver), and these symmetric meridians come in pairs, one on the left and one on the right of the body. The meridian is named after that major organ, e.g., the lung meridian, the kidney meridian, the liver meridian, etc. Besides these 12 symmetric meridians, there are two other non-symmetric meridians, the Conception Vessel and the Governing Vessel (these two are usually denoted by the word Vessel, instead of Meridian). They are in the center of the body, with the Conception Vessel in the front of the body and the Governing Vessel in the back of the body. One of the functions of the Governing Vessel is the raising of emotional energy, and could be used to treat depression. One of the functions of the Conception Vessel is related to birth and the treatment of sexual disorders.
On each of these meridians are special locations, called acupuncture points, that govern the flow of Qi through that meridian. Often, but not always, the acupuncture points are locations in the body that are tender areas when the body is in ill health, sometimes they will be painful when pressed, and sometimes they are painful even if not pressed. There are many acupuncture points, several hundreds of them. So classifying them according to the meridian in which they reside helps to remember their location and their function. The acupuncture points serve a dual purpose of identifying the health problem and also identifying a location for treating the problem.
The acupuncture points are usually, but not always, located just beneath the skin. Therefore, the acupuncture needles do not need to penetrate deeply under the skin. Usually the needles only need to be inserted 1/4 to 1 inch in depth.
Besides the above named organs, we also have the brain and the sense organs, the endocrine glands, the reproductive organs, and others. Since one or more of the 14 above mentioned meridians/vessels pass through these parts of the body, they all can be treated via the acupuncture points on these 14 meridians/vessels. It is also important to note that the areas near a meridian can also be affected by treating that meridian. Furthermore there are certain relationships that expand the applicability of acupuncture points on a particular meridian.
One is the embryological relationship. So when acupuncture points on the kidney meridian are stimulated, they affect not only the kidney, but also embryological related organs such as the ovary, testicle, uterus, fallopian tube, and to some extent the adrenal. This is because all these organs were formed in the same region of the embryo – the region of the kidney. Apparently, this intimate relationship in the embryo is maintained in the adult as far as acupuncture points are concerned.
Another is the anatomical and functional relationships. Since the nose and throat are part of the respiratory system, and the lung is the main organ for the respiratory system, diseases of the nose and throat can also be treated by acupuncture points of the lung meridian.
Another is the physiological relationship. Since some of the antibodies for certain allergic conditions such as asthma and hay fever are manufactured in the liver, they can be treated via the liver acupuncture points. Similarly, a tendency to bruise easily, presumably because a weak liver will not produce enough prothrombin or other clotting agents, can also be treated via the liver acupuncture points.
What this means is that the acupuncture points on the 14 meridians/vessels mentioned above can provide a fairly comprehensive treatment of the whole body.
Since a meridian transverses through a large portion of the body, a problem in a certain part of the body could be treated via acupuncture points far from that part of the body. This provides an understanding of one of the most puzzling observations in acupuncture and TCM that one can treat a problem in the head via acupuncture points on the bottom of the foot.
As mentioned earlier, the theoretical essence of acupuncture and TCM is Qi, the life-force that is supposed to flow through the meridians. What are the physical manifestations of Qi and the meridians? There are physical measurements that seem to indicate the existence of Qi. For example., near the hands of a Qigong master when he is emitting external Qi, an increase in the electromagnetic field is detected. Several studies have also found that there is an increase in the electroencephalograph (EEG)’s alpha-wave amplitude and a decrease in its frequency on Qigong masters when they are in a Qigong state, indicating moving toward tranquility during Qigong practice. These, as well as the results of other studies, can be found in Reference [1]. However, many more experiments of various varieties and involving larger sample sizes are needed before one can ascertain the scientific existence of Qi.
Do the meridians correspond to the blood vessels where blood and oxygen flow? Or do the meridians correspond to the nerves where electrical and chemical signals are transmitted? Unfortunately, these are some of the most important questions that still need to be answered. Currently, we just don’t know whether the classical theoretical explanation of acupuncture and TCM in terms of Qi and meridians can be understood within our current scientific knowledge of the physiology and biology of the human body. Perhaps what will remain in the future is just that we know that empirically acupuncture and TCM can cure a lot of medical ills, but the traditional explanation of why they work can no longer make sense, or there will be major improvements or extensions of our understanding of the physiology and biology of the human body that will allow us to tie together synergistically the traditional theoretical explanation of acupuncture/TCM and modern science and medicine.
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[1] Chinese Medical Qigong, Editor in Chief: Tianjun Liu, O.M.D., and Associate Editor in Chief: Kevin W. Chen, Ph.D., published by Singing Dragon, United Kingdom, 2010, 653 pages. This book is the first English translation of the only official textbook of medical Qigong, now in its third edition, used in colleges and universities of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) in China. This book is the result of more than 30 faculty members in a dozen colleges and universities of TCM in China.
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The first time I met my maternal grandma was around May or June 1949 when my whole family just moved from Canton[1] in Southern China to Hong Kong just before the Chinese Communists gained control of all of Southern China. We moved into the apartment rented by my maternal uncle, my mom’s second older brother, where he and his large family as well as several other relatives including my grandma lived.
Since my paternal grandma died just shortly before I was born, my maternal grandma was the only grandma I knew. My maternal grandma had bound feet and didn’t move around much and wasn’t involved in doing any housework; so usually I saw her just sitting in her chair. At that time I was only a child, I of course never thought to ask myself what kind of person was my grandma, what was her life like, what did she see with those pensive, penetrating eyes, and what was she thinking in her head with respect to what she saw. Although we lived in the same apartment in Hong Kong for three years before my family moved into our own apartment, I never really talked to my grandma and really didn’t know her. Much later after I grew up and finished my undergraduate and graduate education in the U.S., I did return to Hong Kong twice, in 1971 and 1974, and paid short visits to her before she passed away in 1978 at the age of 100. Besides shaking her small, wrinkled hands and giving her a hug or two, I never had any sort of real conversation with her, and did not gain any insight about her as a person.
Now that I am about the age she was when I first met her and being a grandfather myself, I regret that I never had a real conversation with her to try to understand her better and learn from her, especially when I went back as an adult in 1971 and 1974. I can only try to vicariously put myself in her place and imagine what her thoughts might have been.
My maternal grandfather was born in San Francisco in 1881, but went to China (reverse immigration) in 1886. He married grandma probably near the end of the 19th century. They had their first child, a son, in 1901, then later a daughter, another son, and another daughter my mom. As was the custom in those days for men who could afford to do so, he also had concubines, three of them, and had several children with his concubines. What was it like to share your husband with three other women? How much infighting between the different wives or between the various step brothers and sisters? How much favoritism did a mother give to her own children over the step children?
Although my grandma was the matriarch of the household, the head of the household and the person making the decisions was most likely my grandfather, especially since he had lived in and seen other parts of the world. That was probably one of the reasons why my grandma was always so quiet. However, her pensive, penetrating eyes indicated to me that she was not a woman who knew little and was without feelings. Inside her, depending on the situation, she was probably full of joy or sadness, but she just didn’t express it outwardly. Her life definitely had its ups and downs. The early death of her first-born son at the age of 19, after his engagement but before his marriage, must have torn her heart apart. How long did it take and how did she overcome that sorrow? She probably appreciated the loyalty and sacrifice of her son’s fiancée who committed herself to live as a widow in her fiancée’s family’s house for the rest of her life. As a woman, did she feel that this Chinese tradition was really unfair to the young woman that basically robbed her future in terms of experiencing joy as a bride or mother?
Having bound feet but living in the 20th century when that tradition was fading must have generated mixed feelings in her. On the one hand, she was happy that she came from a family that could afford to have their daughters bind their feet, meaning that they didn’t have to work to help support the family. On the other hand, she must have felt sad because her life was so much restricted due to the bound feet. For example, she couldn’t easily go out of the house to enjoy a walk on a beautiful spring day. She couldn’t easily enjoy a stroll in the park while holding the tiny hand of one of her children or grandchildren or holding one of her children or grandchildren in her arms while rocking him/her to sleep, which are typical joys of motherhood or grandmother hood. Furthermore, what excruciating pain she had to endure during the several years of the foot binding process that basically involved breaking the bones of the toes and the arch of the foot.
My maternal grandpa died in 1941 before I was born, and my grandma lived for another 37 years, including the difficult last few years of WWII when Hong Kong was occupied by Japan, and then the happy years when Hong Kong was liberated at the end of WWII. What life was like for her when she lived in Japanese occupied-Hong Kong from 1941 to 1945? Her bound feet also limited her escape options, which was the route my whole family took by leaving Hong Kong and moving/running away to a part of Free China.[2] What joys of relief she must have felt when Japan was defeated to end WWII. However, I imagine that in either situation, she never outwardly expressed her fear or joy. Everything was kept inside her.
There was so much I could have learned from my grandma about how the Chinese, especially women, felt about some of the traditional Chinese customs. But I missed a golden opportunity, and once you let an opportunity slipped by, it is gone forever. Knowing that I have short temper and my feelings can easily show up in my face, I wish I have some of my grandma’s inner calm.
]]>China’s Claim
Starting as early as 1372, many Chinese historical documents and maps have recorded that the Diaoyu Islands are part of Chinese territory. For example, the names of Diaoyu Dao (Dao in Chinese means island, and Diaoyu Dao is the largest island among the Diaoyu Islands) and several adjacent islands were named in the book Voyage with a Tail Wind published in 1403 in the Ming Dynasty. Several historical documents from officials of the Ryukyu Kingdom also marked the separating line between the Ryukyu Kingdom and Chinese territory, and the Diaoyu Islands were part of Chinese territory. Besides Chinese maps, many foreign maps also show that the Diaoyu Islands belong to China. For example, in the map included in the 1785 book Illustrated Outline of the Three Countries by the Japanese author Hayashi Shihei, the Diaoyu Dao was colored the same as the mainland of China. In The Map of East China Sea Littoral States by the French cartographer Pierre Lapie and others in 1809, the Diaoyu Islands were colored the same as that of Taiwan. The map Colton’s China published in the U.S. in 1859 marked the Diaoyu Islands as part of China.
The waters surrounding the Diaoyu Islands are traditionally Chinese fishing ground. For centuries, Chinese fishermen have engaged in fishery activities in these waters, and the Chinese people living in Taiwan and China’s southeast coast have used Diaoyu Dao as a navigation marker. As early as the Ming Dynasty, China had placed the Diaoyu Islands under its coastal defense to guard against the invasion of Japanese pirates. The Qing Dynasty, just like the Ming Dynasty, had also included the Diaoyu Islands as part of China’s coastal defense, but had also clearly placed the Diaoyu Islands under the jurisdiction of the local government of Taiwan.
It is also important to note that the Diaoyu Islands are about 100 nautical miles from Taiwan and is on Taiwan’s continental shelf, but about 200 nautical miles from Okinawa and separated by a deep trough. We also want to mention two other historical events that occurred during the period when Taiwan and the Okinawa Prefecture were under the control of Japan. One was a 1940 court case initiated by Okinawans on who has jurisdiction over the Diaoyu Islands, and after more than a year of investigation, a Tokyo court ruled that the Taiwan Province should have jurisdiction. Another was that before 1945, in order for fishermen to go near the Diaoyu Islands to fish, they had to obtain a permit from a jurisdiction in Taiwan.
Therefore, historically, geographically, and legally, for many centuries these islands have been part of Taiwan, and therefore China.
Japan’s Claim
Japan claims that they discovered the Diaoyu Islands in 1884, and started exploring these unoccupied and unclaimed islands, and then annexed them on January 11, 1895 as part of the Okinawa Prefecture. [1] What Japan does not state is that their exploration took place several centuries after it had been known to the world, including Japan, that the Diaoyu Islands have been part of China, and furthermore that their own government documents clearly showed that Japan had been involved in a secret plan to steal the Diaoyu Islands from China. As a matter of fact, a secret report was sent on September 22, 1885 from the governor of Okinawa Prefecture to Japan’s Minister of Internal Affairs regarding setting up sovereignty markers to incorporate the Diaoyu Islands into the Okinawa Prefecture. The report stated that these uninhabited islands were, in fact, the same as the Diaoyu Islands that were recorded in various Qing court documents. They were concerned about China’s objection to their planned annexation. That was why Japan hesitated to annex the Diaoyu Islands to become part of the Okinawa Prefecture until January 11, 1895 when it was clear that Japan was going to win the First Sino-Japanese War (that ended on April 17, 1895). Even this annexation decision was done in secrecy; Japan did not publicly announce this action. This secret scheme of trickery is well documented in Japan’s own government documents, as pointed out by independent analyses by Han-Yi Shaw, a Chinese scholar in Taiwan, and Professor Kiyoshi Inoue, a Japanese historian at Kyoto University. [2][3] Both concluded that there is no doubt that the Diaoyu Islands belong to China.
How Should the Dispute Be Settled?
To any objective person, there is no doubt that the Diaoyu Islands clearly belong to China. The Cairo Declaration, the Potsdam Declaration, and the 1945 Japanese Instrument of Surrender all stated clearly that Japan should return to China: Taiwan and other territories that Japan had stolen from China. This therefore means that when Japan returned Taiwan to China after the end of WWII, the Diaoyu Islands were also returned to China, and the case should have been closed. Why is there still a dispute?
U.S. Collusion
However, after the Chinese Communist Party won the civil war in China in 1949, the U.S. adopted a policy to weaken and contain China. Starting in the early 1950s, the U.S. began to use Japan as its partner and pawn, and adopted an antagonistic attitude toward China. This antagonistic attitude toward China had many manifestations. One obvious one was not inviting China, either the government of the Republic of China (ROC) or the People’s Republic of China (PRC), to the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty, when China was one of the victorious countries and the country that suffered the most casualties and atrocities under the hands of the Japanese Imperial Army during WWII. From the very beginning, the People’s Republic of China stated that “If the People’s Republic of China is excluded from the preparation, formulation and signing of the peace treaty with Japan, it will, no matter what its content and outcome are, be regarded as illegal and therefore invalid by the central people’s government.” The San Francisco Peace Treaty was signed on September 8, 1951, and placed the Ryukyu Islands under UN’s trusteeship, with the U.S. as the sole administering authority.
However, even the San Francisco Peace Treaty did not include the Diaoyu Islands as part of the territory of the Ryukyu Islands. It was more than a year later on December 25, 1953, when the U.S. unilaterally expanded the territory of Ryukyu Islands to include the Diaoyu Islands! Then in 1972 the U.S. handed over to Japan the administrative control of the Ryukyu Islands, including the Diaoyu Islands.
This unilateral decision of the U.S. ignored completely the historical evidence and the decisions of the Cairo Declaration, the Potsdam Declaration, and the 1945 Japanese Instrument of Surrender in which the U.S. played the primary role. This decision not only planted a seed for dispute, but at the same time also helps to re-militarize an expansion-minded Japan, a country that still has not acknowledged and apologized for the massive atrocities it committed in China and Asia during WWII [4], and a country that unleashed the Pearl Harbor surprise attack on the U.S.
Recent Developments
In spite of repeated strong statements from both the PRC and ROC that the Diaoyu Islands clearly belong to China, the Japanese government “purchased” the Diaoyu Islands on September 10, 2012 from the so-called Japanese private “owners” of the islands and then nationalized it. How can there be Japanese private owners and how can the Japanese government purchase and nationalize lands that belong to another country? This latest action has resulted in even stronger statements from the PRC and the ROC, warning Japan that if it does not stop its actions to steal lands that clearly belong to China, Japan will have to bear all consequences.
U.S.’s Inconsistent Foreign Policy
The stakes and tension have been raised in the East China Sea between Japan and China. It could very well lead to military actions and war. Yet, the U.S. government has continued to stick with its ambiguous and internally inconsistent policy of stating that the sovereignty of these islands is unsettled, but these islands are covered under the U.S.-Japan Mutual Defense Treaty. Will the U.S. be courageous enough to adopt a policy that is fair and agrees with the facts? Is the U.S. willing to be dragged by Japan into a war in the East China Sea that it has no moral or legal reasons to be involved? Will the American people stand by while her sons and daughters fight in an unjustified war far away from home?
In the current new world order, China will be the major economic competitor to the U.S. However, should the U.S. continue to adopt an antagonistic attitude to weaken and contain China, or should the U.S. adopt a more collaborative approach with China that could lead to a win-win-win situation for the U.S., China, and world peace?
Note: A shorter version of this article was submitted to the Op Ed page of the (1) New York Times on 9/13/12 and was rejected, (2) Wall Street Journal on 9/17/12 and was rejected, and (3) Washington Post on 9/24/12 and was also rejected. I leave it to you to draw your own conclusion about the objectivity and independence of our press.
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[1] Japan annexed the Ryukyu Kingdom in 1879 and changed its name to Okinawa Prefecture.
[2] Click here to see Han-Yi Shaw’s article.
[3] Click here to see Professor Kiyoshi Inoue’s article.
[4] For more discussion of this issue, read the article in this same release “Significance of the 75th Anniversary of the Nanking Massacre.”
]]>Our explanation is not down to the chemical level, because our understanding is far from that level of sophistication. Our explanation is based on several general principles that Taiji is based on:
The most fundamental and important principle of Taiji is to keep the body and mind relaxed. Relaxing the body and mind should reduce stress. We know from modern medicine that stress can create all kinds of health problems, thus following Taiji’s most important principle should reduce stress and therefore perhaps many kinds of health problems. Taiji as a martial art does not oppose an opponent’s force head-on, instead one supplements the opponent’s force with a small force either along the same direction or at a slight angle to the opponent’s direction. This supplementary force can deflect the opponent’s attack and at the same time makes use of the opponent’s momentum to get him off balance. Thus in practicing Taiji, one doesn’t have to be involved in strong, hard movements, instead one is involved in slow, soft rhythmic movements [2] that have no negative impact on the practitioner’s body, but at the same time the movements are aerobic. This increases flexibility, strength, and endurance, and especially helpful to joints.
Now we discuss those principles that govern the practitioner’s body position. In Taiji, the upper body is kept straight, as though there is a string with one end attached to the top of the practitioner’s head and the other end attached directly upward to the ceiling. This maintains good posture, and can avoid back problems. From a martial arts perspective, rotating the waist adds more power to a punch or kick. Rotating the waist also exercises the muscles on the back on both sides of the spinal column, thus strengthening those muscles and reducing back problems.
In practicing Taiji, how the feet are placed is extremely important. One almost never puts both feet on the same line, instead places the left foot about one shoulder-width to the left of the right foot. This increases stability because unless the center of gravity of the Taiji practitioner is outside of the two lines of support from the two feet, he will not fall. This increases balance and reduces the probability of falling which is common among senior citizens. When one steps with a foot, one uses the “cat step” approach, i.e, instead of stepping the toes and heel down simultaneously, one first steps down on the heel, and then steps down on the toes. This results in a sturdier step and again increases balance and stability.
Integration with breathing is very important in Taiji, although in an introductory course, proper breathing may not be discussed at all, or at least not in the first half of the course. One takes slow deep breaths, because that can bring in more oxygen and the oxygen remains in your body longer. Once one gets beyond an introductory course, one also practices lower abdominal breathing, instead of upper chest breathing. With lower abdominal breathing, the diaphragm moves up and down and the tummy expands and contracts. The movement of the lower abdomen results in massaging the internal organs that reside in our lower abdomen. Just like exercising muscles can strengthen those muscles, massaging the internal organs can strengthen those internal organs.
Finally, even though the mind is relaxed, it is not empty. The mind should be rid of extraneous thoughts, but it is not completely empty. Instead, the mind should lead the form, i.e., the mind should be visualizing the form that you are performing. Thus continuing to engage the mind keeps the mind sharp and avoids or at least delays the onslaught of Alzheimer disease.
By analyzing the fundamental principles of Taiji, one can gain some insights on why Taiji has health benefits
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[1] See, e.g., the article “Health Benefits of Taiji” or the article “A Comprehensive Review of the Health Benefits of Qigong and Tai Chi.”
[2] In applying Taiji as a martial art, the movements are not necessarily slow, or soft. As a matter of fact, upon impact with the opponent’s body, the movement will be fast and with force.
]]>The Japanese government has never officially acknowledged and apologized for the massive atrocities the Japanese Imperial Army committed in China and other parts of Asia during WWII. The Japanese parliament has never passed any resolution offering such acknowledgement and apology. On those occasions when a top Japanese leader would make such a statement (usually just before a key meeting between the top leaders of Japan and China), invariably a short time afterward, a spokesman for the Japanese government would make another statement negating in content the previous statement. Furthermore, top Japanese leaders have repeatedly made statements such as:
A recent example of such statements was the February 20, 2012 remarks made by Takashi Kawamura, the Mayor of Nagoya, when he told a visiting delegation from Nagoya’s sister city Nanjing [2] “While there was general combat, I do not believe there was anything like the Nanking Incident,” and he has repeatedly refused to retract his statement. Shintaro Ishihara, Governor of Tokyo and one of Japan’s current leading right-wing politicians, said in an interview in 1990 that the Nanking Massacre “is a story made up by the Chinese.” Japan’s current Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said to the Japanese Parliament on August 27, 2012 that “there was no coercion of women into sexual slavery during the Second World War, and there is no testimony from anyone in Japan.” This is in spite of numerous testimonies to the contrary by former Japanese soldiers. Furthermore, Japan’s top leaders, including its prime ministers, have regularly visited and paid their respects at Japan’s Yasukuni Shrine where 14 Class-A and 1,068 Class-B and Class-C war criminals [3] are enshrined.
The reactions by the Japanese political leaders should be contrasted with what Chancellor Willy Brandt of West Germany did in 1970 when he fell to his knees at the site of the Warsaw ghetto and expressed the guilt, sorrow, and responsibility of Germany for the Holocaust. Can you imagine the world’s reaction if the current leaders of Germany would visit and pay tribute at Hitler’s burial site?
This flagrant distortion of the truth and absolute lack of sorrows by the Japanese government are even more troublesome in view of the fact that many governments in the world have passed resolutions condemning Japan’s actions (or lack of actions) on the “comfort women” issue. These include western governments like the U.S., Canada, Netherlands, and the European Parliament. For more details about these resolutions, read the article “Reflections on Atrocities in Asia During WWII.”
Not only that the Japanese government is denying its own knowledge, since around 1980 it has also purposely rewritten this part of history in their history books so that new generations would have no knowledge of the truth, thus making the warning of the great Spanish/American philosopher George Santayana “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it” even more ominous.
This is the significance of the 75th anniversary of the Nanking Massacre. The above positions and actions of the Japanese government are part of Japan’s strategic move to revive Japanese militarism and imperialism. They want to portray themselves as the victims, and not as the aggressors during WWII. They want to ignore their agreement from the Japanese Instrument of Surrender which they signed in 1945, and implement again their 100-year old ambition to expand and dominate at least Asia. This is also the root of the recent territorial dispute between China and Japan over the Diaoyu Islands/Senkaku Islands (former name used by Chinese, and latter name used by Japanese). There are ample historical, geographical, and legal evidences that these islands clearly have been part of the Taiwan Province of China since the 14th century. Therefore, at the end of WWII, Japan was required by the Cairo Declaration, the Potsdam Declaration, and the 1945 Japanese Instrument of Surrender to return Taiwan, and therefore also the Diaoyu Islands, to China. Yet, Japan has been using its trickery since the 19th century to try to steal these islands from China. This conflict has recently escalated and could easily lead to military actions and war.
What is alarming is that the U.S. government is also involved, and it has adopted an ambiguous and internally inconsistent policy of stating that the sovereignty of these islands is unsettled, but these islands are covered under the U.S.-Japan Mutual Defense Treaty. This means that the U.S. could very easily be dragged by Japan into a war in the East China Sea that it has no moral or legal reasons to be involved. For a more detailed discussion of the Diaoyu Islands issue, see the article in this same release “Inconsistent Foreign Policy May Drag the U.S. Into Another War.” Unfortunately, the statements from American political leaders and the western mass media’s coverage of this dispute contain a lot of half truths, lies, and biased analyses that it is difficult for the average American to see through the smoke. However, I have faith that once the American people learn about the truth, they will not stand by and allow their political leaders to send their sons and daughters to fight in an unjustified war far away from home.
In light of the Japanese government’s total lack of acknowledgement and apology for the massive atrocities they committed in Asia during WWII, as well as the deadly surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, and their dangerous revival of Japanese militarism and expansionism, we are advocating two actions:
We call upon all peace-loving people of the world to endorse and take up these two actions. We also call upon the Japanese people to apply pressure on your political leaders through your votes to seek justice and not to add insult to past transgressions. Seek a path for peaceful coexistence with your neighbors and defeat the right-wing faction who tries to steer Japan into a path of isolation and destruction that is also not in the best interests of the Japanese people.
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[1] The term “Comfort women” is euphemism for “sex slaves.”
[2] Current spelling of the city of Nanking is Nanjing.
[3] As determined by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, also known as the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal.
[4] That decision will be made in September 2013.
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