[commanderkai]

Japan does have one major weakness, which is its reliance on oil and raw resource imports. Even if, somehow, Japan and China went to war against one another, how can Japan sustain it's war economy without having to attack, conquer, and control oil and resource rich regions in East Asia?

[EyeBrock]

Anybody who thinks Japan is going to embark on a conquest of the Pacific region is being silly.

[bootlegga]

commanderkai commanderkai:

Japan does have one major weakness, which is its reliance on oil and raw resource imports. Even if, somehow, Japan and China went to war against one another, how can Japan sustain it's war economy without having to attack, conquer, and control oil and resource rich regions in East Asia?

Japan doesn't need to militarily take over resource regions, it now realizes that i's economic power now is just as capable of providing those resources without the use of bloodshed. The world is far different from the 1940s when the USA was able to embargo Japan so effectively (back then it was the world's largest oil exporter). Nowadays, Japan would just call up Iran or Nigeria (formerly parts of the British Empire) and ask for some oil, which would be gladly given in exchange for yen.

Where the Japanese would fight is in the protection of the transport of those resources. Given the feeble state of the PLAN, it would be over before Beijing realized it even started.

[GreenTiger]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

CommanderSock CommanderSock:

I just don't see how China will gain anything by attempting to annex a small, overpopulated island with a people whose culture is vastly different than that of theirs.

China doesn't seek to annex Japan, they just want Japan to bow down before them is all. Look up 'Middle Kingdom complex' for more on that.

CommanderSock CommanderSock:

And vice versa, Japan has nothing to gain by attacking a vastly bigger country that supplies it with resources.

They can thump their chests and posture all they want, the bottom line is that economic co-operation between these two is the future, not a military engagement.

You're speaking in Western terms.

Japan and China have been enemies for longer than the West has had an alphabet. To imagine that their deep seated ancestral animosities will be resolved because of trade issues is to ignore the fact that outside of the West most cultures view history as a living, ever-present thing and the events of 1,000 years ago are as relevant to them as what happened yesterday.

The Chinese are pressing the Japanese as payback for the Japanese occupation of China in the last century and the Chinese Navy guys are probably also trying to make up for their ancestral failures against Japan as far back as 1281 AD.

The Japanese, on the other hand, find themselves to be the cultural and intellectual superiors of all of Asia and it really tweaks them when ignorant peasants like the Chinese have the utter gall to stand up to their superiors.

The net result is that the two cultures have a collective hostility to each other that is very difficult to bridge. That they are mutual trading partners is not relevant to the discussion becuase both sides see these things as an exercise of interests and not as an exercise of trade-based diplomacy. They are civil to each other for now and that's the best we can hope for as a status quo.

But if China wants to control 20% of the Arctic they will have to be able to get their ships to the Arctic via the fastest route possible and that is via Japanese territorial waters. That means China has to intimidate Japan. For the Japanese that means losing face to inferiors and that is not going to happen.

In short, it's interesting to watch.

Yes, Indeed. Japan and China still have that old conflict and it is not going away over trade. I don't see the Japanese bowing down to (in their terms) the dog eaters.