Don Tow's Website

On November 20, 2013 China announced an “East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ)” that includes the air space over the disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands.  The impression given by the press and political leaders, especially those of the U.S. and Japan, is that ADIZ is a new concept that China has introduced, that China has no right to establish this ADIZ, that China has done something evil, that there are good reasons for the U.S. and Japan to complain strongly, and that China has unnecessarily introduced instability into that region.  However, when we study this issue further, the truth is far from the above impression.

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The Editorial Board of the New York Times on August 12, 2013 under the title “Chinese Foot-Dragging” wrote “If there is ever going to be an end to tensions over the South China Sea, one of the world’s most strategically important waterways, countries in the region need to find a way to work out their volatile disputes.  China, more than any other nation, has fanned those hostilities with sweeping sovereignty claims and confrontations over disputed island and even specks of rock.”  Anyone who has impartially studied this part of history will know that this is a completely fallacious accusation and is purposely fabricated to support the U.S. government’s policy to contain and weaken China.  Furthermore, this is not just an isolated article, but one of many articles or talks by various media channels, academic professors, think tank researchers, and political leaders over the last many months.  Why haven’t those who should know better and who are supposed to be independent thinkers, such as Asian history and political science professors in the hallowed halls of our prestigious universities, spoken out against such lies.  Perhaps the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us on January 17, 1961, just three days before the end of his presidency, has become the military-industrial-academic complex.
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