Ronald Dore on Japan and China

Af if to supplement my blog yesterday, the Asahi newspaper of today, 31 October, published a full--page interview of Prof.R.P.Dore, a veteran of the socio-economic change of modern Japan, mainly on the current Japan-China relations.  I remember the days when Dore made long visits to Japan and her villages, at least seven of them, and his studies of those villages were consolidated into his monumental Land Reform in Japan.  I had an opportunity of accompanying him to two of them, in different Prefectures, as a humble research assistant.  At one of them, in response to the locals' request he gave a talk on Britain in fluent Japanese.  It was in the mid-1950s, and the villages were still full of young men and women.  I recall that a learned, if not educated, middle-aged man asked him on the Fabian Society.
Back to the interview, it seems Prof.Dore this time came from China.  He had been invited by the Japanese Ambassador there, but it was on 18 September, the day when the Japanese army went into action in the Northeast of China in 1931, ultimately to build a puppet government there, and it was impossible to approach the Embassy because of the crowds of demonstrators.
Dore says that his Chinese friends, who are all knowledgeable on Japan, still feel betrayed by Japan on the Senkaku islands.  The Japanese government has refused to talk with China saying that there is no territorial issue between the two.
I agree the Japanese must admit that there is an issue, and talk about it with China, seriously and sincerely.  But I think Dore's friends are wrong if they feel betrayed.  China has not put a claim to those islands till recently, till they suddenly came to know that the area is resource-rich.  Such a huge country 11 times bigger in population and 27 times bigger in land-space than Japan!  Therefore I called her expansionist yesterday.
China, or for that matter South Korea on Takeshima also, says that the islands in question are mentioned in old literature/documents.  I do not think that is a valid claim.  If we have to go back centuries to determine who are today's legitimate owners, then who belongs to, for instance, the US?  They belong to the native "Indians".  All the borders of Europe should be redrawn in accordance with, say, the Treaty of Westphalia.  What about Russia, Africa, Middle East?
China also says the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5 was the beginning of Japan's invasion of China.  It is perfectly true.  The War, which came after the 300 years of peace for Japan(practically no external war and no internal war in the period) was the start of the continuous wars till 1945.  But it is wrong to apply this to the Senkaku saying that they were also taken away by this war.
What is exciting is that Dore mentioned the Opium War and said that for the Chinese that was the beginning of the pressure by the white people, China's ultimate opponent in their view is not Japan but the US, and they are suspicious of the Japan-US military alliance from that angle.  I would like to add that if so China should withdraw from military conversations with the US and Japan, and for that matter with South Korea and Russia.  She should show that she is not threatening her neighbours, which is an act becoming to a UN permanent member.
In order to utilize the resources in the area in question, Prof.Dore says that something like East India Company should be established with monopolistic rights concerning the matter.  The Opium War, the East India Company, it is as if the Pax Britannica could still be useful in facing today's problems.  Or, is it their common understanding?
Prof.Dore's forthcoming book seems to focus on Japan's attaining independence of the US.  It is a very valid question.  I hope he would present the valid answer as well.    

What's Happening in Japan-China Economic Relations

This writer was making a three-week tour of India till a few days ago.  Hence this month-long interval.
Now, there was a time, not very long ago, when thousands of Chinese(including Taiwanese) tourists  were flooding the department stores and shops here in Japan.  I remember once watching a group of them shopping high-grade cosmetics with a calculator in hand at a department store in Tokyo.  I would not say that those days are gone by.  But the decline in the number of them, and for that matter Koreans also, visiting this country is noticeable.
Take a look at the trade sector.  The deficit in Japan's trade during the six month period of April to September, the first half of the present 2012 fiscal year, amounted to the highest so far, after the two previous six-month periods when Japan experienced an increasingly larger deficit.  And half of this deficit is with to China.
This is not to deny that the deficit is also due to several complex reasons.  After Fukushima, Japan had to import a large amount of additional LNG.  Moreover, the economic situation in Europe has also affected our economy, making the trade with the EU deficit for the first time as a six-month period during April to September.  This is because the division of labour, so to speak, among Japan, China and Europe in the way that China makes final products out of the intermediate goods imported from Japan etc. and exports them to Europe or the US, has not been working smoothly, with the result that both the import of China from Japan and the export of China to Europe has declined.  Japan's export to China in this September has declined by 14% compared to September 2011.
Let us look at the market for Japanese cars in China, which has probably been more affected by the recent twist in Japan-China political relations, and which has also felt the declining purchasing power of the Chinese public in recent times.
In this September, the domestic production of cars in Japan by all the 8 manufacturers combined was 740,000.  Against this they have produced 1250,000 abroad, including 220,000 in China, clearly indicating that the centre of their production has shifted abroad, if not only China.
Six of them are producing in China, and their production there has dropped by 28% in September compared to the same month last year.  Export of cars from Japan to China has declined by a staggering 45% in the same period.  Altogether the share of Japanese cars in the Chinese market in the current fiscal year(April to March) is estimated to come down to 22% from the original 25%.
We will further look at the case of Nissan, one of the six, which, though in the second place after Toyota in the domestic as well as the global markets, has the largest share in China among the Japanese manufactures and has sold one and a quarter million there in the fiscal 2011, and the share of the China market in its global sale is 25%, the highest among the eight.  Out of this 20,000 were exported from Japan, mostly high-class costly cars with high profit ratio.  Their production in China in September is down by 20%, if not so much as Toyota's 42%.  They have decided to stop export to China till the next January.
In Japan where unemployment and semi-unemployment has increased, competition for jobs has unbearably intensified, more people are being deprived of the means of livelihood, homelessness has increased, a large number of small-scale manufacturers who have been the steel-frame of Japan's economy so far are at a cross road of whether remaining here or moving out to some Asian country,  one may be justified to say that globalization has gone too far.  No, it has gone that far by the policies of the government.  The Euro crisis, and more recently, China's expansionist policy, have made the inherent danger more apparent.
Could we not aim at a recovery of the domestic market, so that the ordinary people may be assured of stable employment with a human sense of security.