Since a few people have been curious and not simply insulting about the name I use, I’ll once again write a detailed explanation of the name. People simply assume that the name is only the name of a Japanese aircraft carrier that was scuttled by the Japanese on June 5, 1942 during the Battle of Midway. It is in fact the name of an aircraft carrier that was scuttled on orders of Isoroku Yamamoto due to the damage done by dive bombers from the USS Enterprise—a single bomb hitting fuel and planes on deck and the resulting explosions and fire were unable to control and the Japanese destroyers Arashio, Hagikaze, Maikaze, and Nowaki launched a number of torpedoes into the ship causing it to sink. Of the carriers of the Kido Butai lost at Midway, Akagi had the fewest number of causalities. As for the destroyers, except for the Arashio (which means rough tide in Japanese) and was a Asashio-class destroyer (the Asashio meaning morning tide in Japanese) all the remaining were Kagero-class (Kagero meaning the shimer of hot air—like you see coming off the road in the summer) destroyers.

 But the name Akagi is not just the name of an aircraft carrier lost at Midway. It is also the name of a Maya-class gunboat that fought at the Battle of Yalu Jiang during the First Sino-Japanese War. It retired from the navy in 1912 and served as a steamer until 1953. Both the Maya-class gunboat and the Akagi-class carrier (former Amagi-Class battlecruiser) Akagi were named after Mount Akagi (a volcano in the Kanto region, Gunma Prefecture, Japan). See url:

http://www.ne.jp/asahi/ohirune/yk/annai/sanzan/akagi.htm

It hasn’t erupted since the 1200s though. The name does mean red castle. Aka meaning red and gi meaning castle. Gi is usually pronounced as “jou” “ki” or “shiro” but when added to “aka” it changes to gi—one of many things that make Japanese especially annoying. In Chinese the Hanzi for the Japanese “gi” would be translated as “city” and pronounced as “cheng” such as in “zijincheng” for the Forbidden City in Beijing. Castle in Chinese usually has the character “bao” connected to it—e.g. chengbao or gubao. But often Japanese Kanji and Chinese Hanzi don’t agree on meaning.

 Akagi can also mean red tree or red future as well (but the Kanji apart from the “aka” meaning red is different, and yes “aka” can also mean communist as in “akakari”).

Back to the carrier name though. All Amagi-class ships were named for mountians and the Akagi was no exception. Even when converted to a carrier in 1927, the name remained unlike the names of most of the newer Japanese carriers that were named after flying creatures such as the Soryu-class which were named after dragons, the Shokaku-class named after cranes (the bird)., the Hiyo-class named after birds of prey, Taiho-class named after the phoenix, Taiyo-class named after birds of prey as well (hawks), and the Unryu-class named after dragons as well. The exception to this was the Shinano-class that was named for an old province of Japan as was the Kaga-class. Amagi itself is the name of another mountain to the south of Mount Akagi in Shizuoka Prefecture—the name meaning heavenly city. Even though the original hull of the Amagi was destroyed in the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, a carrier Amagi was built in 1943 and destroyed at the very end of the war. Based on the Hiryu class, it was part of the Unryu class mentioned above and like its destroyed namesake named for Amagiyama.

See url: http://www16.plala.or.jp/shibore/amagiyama.html

Akagi is also the name of a food company in Japan located in Saitama Prefecture, Fukaya City—which is a suburb of Tokyo.

See url: www.akagi.com

 The name appears in various Manga and Anime series. A Japanese family name, a starship in Star Trek: TNG (NCC 62158), and the password for the security computer of Nakatomi Plaza in Die Hard (1988).

So my name is basically a volcano. I do like the fact though it drives the jingoistic types nuts though, but sometimes I wonder if it would have been better to use the Chinese pronunciation. Having to deal with the intellectually dull (your arguments are like your name sunk at the bottom of the sea) and those with the mentality of a 10 year old gets a little old sometime.

Last week Curtal Friar (CF) made the claim that East Asia outside of Africa was the most brutal area on the planet. I strongly disagree. I pointed out correctly that unlike the US much of East Asia is quite safe today. I myself have walked the streets of Kaohsiung, Tainan, and Taipei at all hours of the day and night and not once did I ever feel unsafe. The same can be said for other cities as well—Tokyo, Osaka, etc. This doesn’t hold true for many US cities, many places in these are as unsafe as you’d find in I don’t know—Baghdad with areas that are so bad it is not even safe to venture out in broad daylight. Few countries on earth can match the US in gun violence and outside of Iran, China and Saudi Arabia in executions. One could also add it is not Taiwan, Japan or China dropping bombs on Iraq or did so in Kosovo. Yes, China is again doing bad things in Tibet, but the US did much of the same things to its native population and was not any less brutal in its war to keep “its territory” intact. Like a recount of what was done at New Manchester, Georgia for example?

CF pointed out the actions of Mao in China or Japan during World War II, I suppose he could add the sacking of Kaifeng by the Nuzhen in 1127 or the Mongols later in the 13^th century or go back to Qin Shi Huang or I don’t know Peking Man. Yes Many Chinese died under Mao’s rule—estimates of 500,000 during the Wen Hua Da Ge Ming (Cultural Revolution), but most that died during Mao’s tenure was during the Great leap Forward (Da Yue Jin) and much of these were not due to the regime trying to kill masses of people on purpose but simply idiotic government economic policies and other polices such as the Four Pests. These polices coupled with a series of natural disasters (which is why the great famine from 1958 until 1961 in the PRC it is called the San Nian Zi Ran Zai Hai” which means the “Three Years of Natural Disasters,” not the term used elsewhere “San Nian Da Jih Huang,” meaning the “Great Three Year Famine”) lead to millions simply starving to death. This was not an intentional famine like Stalin’s actions in the Ukraine in the 1930s, but simply stupidity. Japan’s actions in China and elsewhere during the Second Sino-Japanese War and later in the Pacific War can be seen is nothing less than brutal, but the Europeans and Americans were hardly better in terms of their history.

CF makes an interesting claim in his replies to me elsewhere pointing to Christian values and its value for human life but that wasn’t always the case as “Christians” had no trouble slaughtering people in the Middle East during the Crusades or the native populations in what is today Latin America or the Spanish Inquisition. The European and American wholesale genocide of the native populations in Latin America, what is now the United States and Canada make Hitler look like an amateur. Then of course the European activities in Africa from slavery to colonialism—especially the actions by Belgium in the Congo. Then we have the wholesale slaughter of the native populations in Australia as well as a system of what can be seen as cultural genocide, which was a process that happened in the United States as well. There was of course the actions of the US in the Philippines from 1898 to 1904 or so what some have termed the Philippine-American War where perhaps as many as 1.5 million were killed. A war that often took on elements of a war of extermination and a body count that reached perhaps as high as those killed by the slaughter at Nanjing by the Japanese in 1937. Then of course there is Hitler and Stalin who killed millions between them. Also one could also add the fire bombings of Dresden and Tokyo as well as Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the list.

If you have seen my posts from time to time you will have noticed I have been very critical of US treatment towards Taiwan. At times the US seems to treat Taiwan like an abused spouse for those that care enough to shed your jingoism for a few and not simply claim I am a liar, I’ll explain why this is so. Basically the treatment of Taiwan is based on three major factors. One is a US foreign policy grounded in the school of realism, the trend toward bureaucratic status quo and finally who really makes US China policy.

The first issue is that the United States believes that the Taiwan “problem” will solve itself peacefully given enough time as long as neither side does anything to upset the status quo. Hong Kong was separated from China from 1842 until 1997, 155 years (Kowloon (jiu long) for 137 years and the New Territories (xin jie) for 99 years) and Hong Kong was separated from the PRC for 48 years. Taiwan in comparison has been separated from China for much less time. I’ll avoid discussion of the fact that for most of Chinese history, Taiwan has not been part of China and the Qing Empire’s control of Taiwan from 1683 until 1895 was limited at best and the ROC claims on Taiwan were illegal under international law as are those of the PRC, the fact remains that Taiwan—which has not been part of the PRC for a single day—has been “separated” from China now for a little more than 58 years which is almost 100 years less than Hong Kong’s separation. And while the PRC had the power to easily take Hong Kong after 1949, it never did, but made it clear as the end of the lease for the New Territories approached, that it intended to have Hong Kong back. The UK could by all rights have kept Hong Kong Island itself and Kowloon, but felt that due to the small size of these two areas (49 square miles which is about ¾ the size of Washington, DC.) that keeping these while giving back the larger New Territories (368 square miles) was simply unrealistic thus the 1984 Joint UK-Sino Agreement returning all of Hong Kong and not just the N.T.

This illustrates to the US that China is quite willing to wait, as long as necessary to bring Taiwan “back” into China and as long as Taiwan doesn’t do anything to foreclose on that possibility at some point in the future. Thus, the US sees Taiwan as the problematic partner of the three—the US, China and Taiwan. The US sees Taiwan as the one most likely to spark a conflict by pushing too far toward creating a separate identity and thus the reason the US has been bitterly opposed to the referendums in 2004 and 2008, opposed Chen Shui Bian’s calls for constitutional reforms and the de-sinification of Taiwan such as dropping the “Chinese” terms from various government owned enterprises, the images of Sun Yat-Sen and Chiang Kai-shek being dropped from the NT, trying to re-enter the UN under the name Taiwan, etc. as the US felt these actions would unnecessarily provoke China. The US view is that China will eventually transform to a economically prosperous, pluralistic, democratic state and at that point China will either be confident enough and not wedded to the battles of the past to simply allow Taiwan to leave, peacefully or that Taiwan at this point with China having an equivalent level of economic, political and social development as Taiwan will simply want to now unify with the mainland as there would be no reason—in the US eyes—to oppose unification.

At this point, either Taiwan will be independent or Taiwan will be part of China and the process would have been done with the consent of both sides, no military force was used, no one died, nothing destroyed and from the US point of view the best news of all it didn’t have to get involved. The trick is keeping Taiwan leashed long enough to allow time to solve the issue—so today the situation is both China and the US keeping Taiwan restrained so that at some point the problem can be solved—peacefully. The US sees this as ultimately in the best interest of Taiwan, the US and the region and world at large and if Taiwan has to be abused and humiliated in the process, well that is a small price to pay for peace—at least in the US view.

While the US claims to only be interested in the process and not the outcome meaning that it simply opposes any unilateral action by either side but the ultimate outcome either unification or independence or something in-between is for those on the two sides of the Strait to decide, I have my doubts. Both Bill Clinton when he visited China in 1998 and Colin Powell in 2003 used the “r-word” meaning reunification stating incorrectly that it was the policy of the US to see peaceful unification. I fear this may actually be US policy—that the US seeks to see Taiwan unified with China at some point, but done peacefully and perhaps views such unification as inevitable, but due to the political fire storm it would cause, keeps this little policy desire from the rest of us. In the 1980s, some in the Reagan Administration came to the conclusion that China would agree to any demands Taiwan had as long as it could claim Taiwan as part of the PRC and fly its colors over Taiwan, the US quietly offered to meditate and Taiwan told the US to mind its own business and the US dropped it. I suspect the hands of James A. Baker III and George H.W. Bush, the chief panda huggers in the Reagan Administration behind this. So it is not beyond my imagination to believe the US could be supporting such a policy. The US has stabbed Taiwan in the back many a time, so I would not be surprised if Powell and Clinton’s comments were not simply examples of misspeak. 

The next factor in all of this is simply bureaucratic inertia. The policy toward Taiwan and the tilt toward China have been going on since at least 1971 and formally since 1979. The policy continues like this because this has always been the policy—30 years to a bureaucracy is the same as always. Thus, the bureaucracy at State are unwilling to adjust which leads to things like forcing Lee Teng Hui to sleep on a tarmac in Hawai’i because granting a sitting president of the ROC a transit visa so he could go into to Honolulu to get a hotel room would violate the one-china policy and the same reason it fought so hard to keep from granting him a visa to visit Cornell, the school where he earned his Ph.D. State even assured China that there would be no way he would be getting a visa and the US Congress then told State that it would either grant him a visa to enter the US or they would and that then kicked off the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis—the crisis can blamed squarely on the US Department of State and their gross mismanagement of Lee visa issue.

The final issue is who makes China policy at state, well the so-called China experts. And where do they come from, well they all have advanced degrees from elite colleges in the US and were trained in Chinese history and East Asian politics. Their professors? Many were devotees of John K. Fairbank, the god of the panda huggers or one of Fairbank’s students or a student of a student of JKF. And Fairbank was completely brainwashed if you like by the Maoists, he and his students took a dim view toward the ROC and toward Taiwan. McCarthy may have purged the Maoists from State in the 1950s, but that didn’t stop JKF clones from replacing them—the bodies may have been switched out, but the ideology behind US China policy is still the same. Even for those who see China in a more objective light are reluctant to stray far from the pro-China line. Research which depends on going to China (and thus getting visas) and cooperation from Chinese academics makes one very careful about moving into areas China may find sensitive and even if you, yourself have no fear, research is peer reviewed and the pro-China cabal and those that do China’s bidding due to fear or greed would be hostile toward what they would see as anti-Chinese research and thus this colors what the future “China experts” are exposed to—and this colors their own ideas and policy desires once they set up residence at Foggy Bottom.

So in short, Taiwan’s mistreatment by the US is based on US realism, the bureaucratic aversion to change and pro-China, anti-Taiwanese ideology of those within the Executive Branch of the United States. Taiwan needs to come to the understanding that if the US is a friend at all, it is a fickle one and is as likely to side with China as it is with Taiwan.

I am sure those at State and AIT were popping champaign when Ma Ying Jeou won last month.

Despite the title this is not an anti-American post per se but rather a warning how your country is being taken from you by well-connected elites whose wealth are more tied to other countries than your own. When I was thinking up this post I considered writing it under a pseudonym--John Conner, the LA Police Capt who was a die hard Nippon-phile in the movie Rising Sun and based on the book of the same name. But since I am putting out the charge of cowardice along with greed and treason, would be some what duplicitous of me to charge one while I am doing basically the same. Akagi is not a pseudonym for me, but my nom de guerre and thus this name is not unknown to a number of people, but if there is to be retaliation, so be it.

There are many parallels between this movie (which is different from the book and much less one-sided) and what I plan to describe--a foreign government that wants to influence the workings of the US and US officials who are far too willing to do just that for something in return. In my view there are three types of traitors. The highest sort and one which in my view with the most honor is the ideological traitor--he shares an ideological bond to the country he aides against the country he is supposed to be loyal to--I can understand this feeling. The next is one that does so out of spite--not that he shares a common vision with the other country, but simply hates his host country or its government or its polices and wishes to see it harmed for this reason, I can understand this as well--hate is a powerful emotion. What I can't understand is the next form--doing it for simply greed--selling out your country for a few pieces of silver. How crass, how vulgar?

The story I am weaving involves those of the lesser sort--who sell out their country and its interests for greed, for money. I had planned to write on US relations with Taiwan, but events have overtaken me and I'll let this remain for another time.

The United States like many other countries contain three sections in the economy--the public sector, the private sector and then the non-profit sector. These non-profits engage in a number of activities: law, education, medicine, religious, and foreign affairs. Some well known ones would include the Council of Foreign Relations (one of the shadowy agents of the New World Order) many on TH talk about when they talk about the NAFTA highway and the NAU and the black helicopters they heard the night before and the World Affairs Councils of America (WACA). These bodies often invite former and even current officials to discuss various topics and here is where our strange story will begin.

There is this one non-profit that puts on various programs dealing with various topics of concerning international relations this includes conferences featuring former high level government officials. The name of the non-profit is not important. Its influence is minor and few people even know of its existence--but government officials and selling of their influence is important.

Putting on events aren't cheap and this one was no exception and as such they send out letters to people and organizations that give or have given in the past. In Taiwan, the foreign relations officially are conducted through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) or Wai Jiao Bu and since so few countries recognize us, most representation in other countries are done by "private" bodies so that the other country can claim it has no relations with us. The US example, since 1979, has been represented in Taiwan by the American Institute in Taiwan (mei guo zai tai xie hui). In the US, representation came through the Coordinating Council for North American Affairs. The name so obscure there was no way anyone could guess it had anything to do with Taiwan, during the Clinton Administration, Taiwan was allowed to change the name to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (Zhu Tai Bei Mei Guo Jing Ji Wen Hua Dai Biao Chu) known as TECRO in DC which serves as the de facto embassy and various Taipei Economic and Cultural Offices in various cities in the US such as the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Miami (Zhu Mai A Mi Tai Bei Jing Jin Wen Hua Ban Shi Chu) known as TECO which serve as de facto consulates. The de facto Ambassador being Wu Jaushieh who was once the Chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council, Executive Yuan (MAC) and known as representative and who I have also met while in Taiwan in 2005. The various de facto consul generals are known as director generals. Just like AIT which is funded by the State Department and staffed by the State Department, TECRO and the TECOs are funded by the MOFA--even if AIT and TECRO/TECO pretend to be unofficial bodies, they are in reality not.

The protectionist/anti-immigration crowd continues to harp on the "unfair" trade deals like NAFTA and CAFTA, etc. Obama using NAFTA to attack Hillary in Ohio and it will no doubt gain him some ground there. It is easy to blame your ills on some foreign menace or some treaty put forward by shadowy elements such as the CFR or the Trilateral Commission (and the black helicopters no doubt).

The truth is that NAFTA has benefited the US more than it has Mexico. There are always winners and losers, but the US has gained more. One reason for the number of illegals coming into the US from Mexico is the fact that NAFTA has basically destroyed the peasant-based corn economy of rural Mexico--unable to compete with Midwestern corn farmers.

Central America has an economy about the size of Wisconsin. Chile? About the size of Mississippi. If you have to worry about the economic power of Central America and Chile it is time to close shop and ask China to annex you.

As for China, the most recent "yellow peril" (recall the Nippon-phobia of the late 1980s and early 1990s?), it's economy is 1/6th the size of the US using the official rate. Most of China is still very poor. Those in places like Yunan, Qinghai and Gansu among others live on less than $2 a day. While Shanghai is wealthy (on par with Taiwan) and places like Shenzhen, Xiamen and Fuzhou are well off, most of China is on par with that other great economic power--Haiti.

Militarily it has modernized, but still mostly has equipment based on Soviet designs of the 1970s. The mainline fighter the J-8 rated to be comparable to the American F-4 (some non-Chinese sources rate it as well as early F18A versions, thus as good a American technology of the late-1970s). It has bought some SU-27s and developed its own Su-27 based design the J-11, but the J-8 still make up the majority of PLAAF aircraft.

The PRC spends about the same percentage on its military as the US, but even if they spend more, they would have to spend 24% of their GDP to simply keep even with the US. Taiwan still holds the balance of power in the strait, although that is starting to shift toward the PRC.

Economically, the SOEs suck billions of Yuan from the economy, the banks are bankrupt using western standards and there is peasant unrest on an almost weekly basis. China is not much of a threat to the US and won't be for decades. A war with China would be short and one-sided and China knows this. China has no interest in moving against Taiwan and as long as Taiwan continues to hold to the myth that it is part of some-China by not declaring formal independence, China will not make any aggressive moves. Since the KMT/PFP (aka Pan-Blue) destroyed the DPP/TSU (aka Pan-Green) in the January Li Fa Yuan elections and the carpet-bagger Ma Ying-Jeou will most likely do the same to Hsieh Ch'ang T'ing in next month's presidential election, the risk of any moves of Taiwan moving toward formal independence is zero.

You will see a much more cooperative administration with China under a Ma administration than you have under Chen's. Even if Hsieh wins, he will have to deal with a Li Fa Yuan that is dominated by the KMT/PFP and any moves he wanted to pursue toward formal independence would be killed by the anti-independence forces in that body. Hsieh also is less a hard-liner in regards to creating a separate Taiwan identity, so even a Hsieh regime would be more cooperative vis-à-vis China than Chen's has been.

If Ma wins (as he is expected to), expect new talks on technical issues between the non-official bodies of Taiwan and China.