The Japanese Empire first gained control of Taiwan on April 17, 1895, when the Qing dynasty of China officially ceded the island to Japan in the Treaty of Shimonoseki following the First Sino-Japanese War. They kept the Island until 1945...
I am pointing out that Japan fails to recognise this contradiction. It is likely that the government is unaware of the gravity of the situation.
Although this is hard to believe, Japan is in fact advocating for a contingency plan regarding Taiwan. This text suggests that Japan has lost the rational criteria needed to correctly assess Russia, and that it has lost the capacity to run a government befitting a developed nation.
Japan had an interesting & strife filled history, between all the inter clan and cross islands warfare, invasions by and against mainland outsiders as Chinese, Koreans, Mongols- And then, the USA getting pushy & showing up on their shore, with all the other colonial powers of Europe watching, licking their lips and hoping to wet their beaks?
I used to compare Japan to Germany in their frequent bouts if invasion, later day empiricism and other characteristics. Finally I figured out that the British isles were a fairer comparison, history & invasion wise.
And now, all the bloodiest parts of our several pasts do seem to be repeating, no matter what those of us who read our history want.
I believe that Japan is not a mono-ethnic nation, but rather that a small number of royal families from the multi-ethnic continent, under the ancient tributary system, crossed over to the islands, and that these continental ethnic minorities then ruled the regions they had settled, eventually forming the majority population.
Yes, with remnant populations left in some locales of earlier island colonizers, the Ainu & etc..
Much as the British have a base of remnant peoples as their late last ice age aboriginals who walked in and successive waves of sea born populations derived from at least 4 major waves of invasions
in the last 3,000 years from other island and mainland European ethnicities.
I'm sure someone has done DNA mapping of Japanese ancestry but I've not seen it. From what little I know of how people from nearby islands such as Okinawa might have been treated, I'm not sure all the Japanese of today might really want to go there?
One is the Altai tradition. The other is a blend of Chinese, Vietnamese and other traditions. The Emperor’s enthronement ceremony follows the Tang dynasty model.
The situation involving the 'protections' afforded civilians under international humanitarian law isn't straightforward.
Civilians - "non-combatants" in the language of the Geneva Conventions - essentially receive one protection in humanitarian law: they may never be TARGETED. In other words, combatants may never lawfully direct their lethal force at non-combatants.
The question immediately arises then, why are so many civilians killed in armed conflicts? They're killed because the same humanitarian law allows for civilians to be killed as a byproduct of attacks against combatants.
In war, you can't intentionally aim to kill even a single civilian. But you may kill thousands of civilians in your attempt to kill enemy combatants, as long as the deaths of those civilians is "proportionate" to the advantage of killing the combatants.
What is a "proportionate" ratio of civilian to combatant casualties? The Geneva Conventions do not say. The determination of that proportion is left up to what the GC's call a "reasonable commander." It's what that general believes on any given day in the circumstances.
Were China to mount an armed attack against Taiwan, Taiwanese civilians would certainly be placed at greater risk. However greater risk to civilians, by itself, does not justify intervention by third parties. In attacking Taiwan, China could lawfully cause civilian casualties, as long as those civilians weren't directly targeted. Civilian casualties in themselves do not trigger the necessity of a humanitarian intervention unless the civilians were being directly targeted. That is a situation that China would surely avoid.
All that said, in the entire history of armed conflict, there has never been an instance where a nation attacked another to save civilian lives. Nations go to war for strategic geopolitical reasons, not to prevent civilian deaths. In fact, going to war is the surest way to create enormous numbers of civilian casualties, even if you say you're doing it for humanitarian reasons.
That is a different interpretation. The answer lies at the very end of my text. If you do not read to the end, you will simply conclude based on my premises alone. This is the greatest danger of sentences in agglutinative languages.
"Therefore, it is not immediately clear whether there exists a reasonable legal basis for Japan to engage in direct military intervention in such a situation."
It is quite clear that Japan has no standing in this matter.
Japan had better be careful, this is not the China of the late 30s and early 40s. China would kick Japan's ass in an afternoon!
That is a different interpretation. The answer lies at the very end of my text. If you do not read to the end, you will simply conclude based on my premises alone. This is the greatest danger of sentences in agglutinative languages.
"The Chinese know they can not conquer, defeat or destroy Japan. Hence, no confrontation with China, offensive defence of Nippon (any attack would be promptly riposted in the most brutal fashion) and, most crucially, strategic autonomy."
That is a pipe dream. The current China is not the China of the late 30s and early 40s. They would kick Japan's ass in an afternoon.
That is a different interpretation. The answer lies at the very end of my text. If you do not read to the end, you will simply conclude based on my premises alone. This is the greatest danger of sentences in agglutinative languages.
"If the Chinese believed that they could defeat Japan they would not get so hyper- hysterical about Japans so-called remilitarisation. If Japan is weak, why the hysteria?"
I don't see the hyper-hysteria about Japan's remilitarisation; they just don't want to go through the trouble of kicking Japan's ass.
Thanks for your great work!
We've restacked and shared this link on 'The Stacks'
https://askeptic.substack.com/p/the-stacks
⚡️
The Japanese Empire first gained control of Taiwan on April 17, 1895, when the Qing dynasty of China officially ceded the island to Japan in the Treaty of Shimonoseki following the First Sino-Japanese War. They kept the Island until 1945...
I am pointing out that Japan fails to recognise this contradiction. It is likely that the government is unaware of the gravity of the situation.
Although this is hard to believe, Japan is in fact advocating for a contingency plan regarding Taiwan. This text suggests that Japan has lost the rational criteria needed to correctly assess Russia, and that it has lost the capacity to run a government befitting a developed nation.
Japan had an interesting & strife filled history, between all the inter clan and cross islands warfare, invasions by and against mainland outsiders as Chinese, Koreans, Mongols- And then, the USA getting pushy & showing up on their shore, with all the other colonial powers of Europe watching, licking their lips and hoping to wet their beaks?
I used to compare Japan to Germany in their frequent bouts if invasion, later day empiricism and other characteristics. Finally I figured out that the British isles were a fairer comparison, history & invasion wise.
And now, all the bloodiest parts of our several pasts do seem to be repeating, no matter what those of us who read our history want.
I agree. It’s very interesting.
I believe that Japan is not a mono-ethnic nation, but rather that a small number of royal families from the multi-ethnic continent, under the ancient tributary system, crossed over to the islands, and that these continental ethnic minorities then ruled the regions they had settled, eventually forming the majority population.
Yes, with remnant populations left in some locales of earlier island colonizers, the Ainu & etc..
Much as the British have a base of remnant peoples as their late last ice age aboriginals who walked in and successive waves of sea born populations derived from at least 4 major waves of invasions
in the last 3,000 years from other island and mainland European ethnicities.
I'm sure someone has done DNA mapping of Japanese ancestry but I've not seen it. From what little I know of how people from nearby islands such as Okinawa might have been treated, I'm not sure all the Japanese of today might really want to go there?
One is the Altai tradition. The other is a blend of Chinese, Vietnamese and other traditions. The Emperor’s enthronement ceremony follows the Tang dynasty model.
The Japanese kanji is a small clue...
I am proving that the Japanese government cannot use that legal system.
Possession is 9/10ths of the law.
The situation involving the 'protections' afforded civilians under international humanitarian law isn't straightforward.
Civilians - "non-combatants" in the language of the Geneva Conventions - essentially receive one protection in humanitarian law: they may never be TARGETED. In other words, combatants may never lawfully direct their lethal force at non-combatants.
The question immediately arises then, why are so many civilians killed in armed conflicts? They're killed because the same humanitarian law allows for civilians to be killed as a byproduct of attacks against combatants.
In war, you can't intentionally aim to kill even a single civilian. But you may kill thousands of civilians in your attempt to kill enemy combatants, as long as the deaths of those civilians is "proportionate" to the advantage of killing the combatants.
What is a "proportionate" ratio of civilian to combatant casualties? The Geneva Conventions do not say. The determination of that proportion is left up to what the GC's call a "reasonable commander." It's what that general believes on any given day in the circumstances.
Were China to mount an armed attack against Taiwan, Taiwanese civilians would certainly be placed at greater risk. However greater risk to civilians, by itself, does not justify intervention by third parties. In attacking Taiwan, China could lawfully cause civilian casualties, as long as those civilians weren't directly targeted. Civilian casualties in themselves do not trigger the necessity of a humanitarian intervention unless the civilians were being directly targeted. That is a situation that China would surely avoid.
All that said, in the entire history of armed conflict, there has never been an instance where a nation attacked another to save civilian lives. Nations go to war for strategic geopolitical reasons, not to prevent civilian deaths. In fact, going to war is the surest way to create enormous numbers of civilian casualties, even if you say you're doing it for humanitarian reasons.
That is a different interpretation. The answer lies at the very end of my text. If you do not read to the end, you will simply conclude based on my premises alone. This is the greatest danger of sentences in agglutinative languages.
"Therefore, it is not immediately clear whether there exists a reasonable legal basis for Japan to engage in direct military intervention in such a situation."
It is quite clear that Japan has no standing in this matter.
Japan had better be careful, this is not the China of the late 30s and early 40s. China would kick Japan's ass in an afternoon!
That is a different interpretation. The answer lies at the very end of my text. If you do not read to the end, you will simply conclude based on my premises alone. This is the greatest danger of sentences in agglutinative languages.
What I wrote was a piece pointing out that Japan would lose its grounds for criticising Russia.
If Japan were to deploy troops abroad on this basis, it would mean it could not justify the economic sanctions.
"The Chinese know they can not conquer, defeat or destroy Japan. Hence, no confrontation with China, offensive defence of Nippon (any attack would be promptly riposted in the most brutal fashion) and, most crucially, strategic autonomy."
That is a pipe dream. The current China is not the China of the late 30s and early 40s. They would kick Japan's ass in an afternoon.
That is a different interpretation. The answer lies at the very end of my text. If you do not read to the end, you will simply conclude based on my premises alone. This is the greatest danger of sentences in agglutinative languages.
"If the Chinese believed that they could defeat Japan they would not get so hyper- hysterical about Japans so-called remilitarisation. If Japan is weak, why the hysteria?"
I don't see the hyper-hysteria about Japan's remilitarisation; they just don't want to go through the trouble of kicking Japan's ass.
Since not a single Japanese person is willing to speak out, it means that someone has to write about it.
China, fearing Japan, is ludicrous.
Japan probably won’t last three days.
That isn’t the point, so please ignore it.