Japan's DPM Taro Aso says Japan and the US will defend Taiwan

1. The following are excerpts from a news report by Taipei Times, dated Jul 07, 2021:

(Begin excerpts)
Japan and the US would have to defend Taiwan together in the event of a major problem, Kyodo News reported Japanese Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso as saying, marking some of the highest-level remarks from Tokyo on the sensitive subject.

In comments at a political fundraising party in Tokyo on Monday, Aso said an invasion of Taiwan by China could be seen as an existential threat, allowing Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defense, Kyodo reported....

Japanese Minister of Defense Yasuhide Nakayama said in a presentation to a Washington think tank last month that China presented a growing threat and it was necessary to protect Taiwan as a “democratic country.”

Chinese officials urged Japan to disavow Nakayama’s remarks, which they described as sinister, irresponsible and dangerous.

Kato said the comments represented a personal view.

While Japan’s pacifist constitution limits the scope of its armed forces, a 2015 reinterpretation of the document allows it to send troops to overseas conflicts in some circumstances. (End excerpts)

Source Link: https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2021/07/07/2003760422

2. Poster's Comment:

(i) Taro Aso, Yasuhide Nakayama, Sanae Takaichi and other Japanese politicians should sit facing the wall in meditation postures and ask themselves the following questions:

(a) Which country surrendered to the other at the end of World War 2? Japan or the US?

(b) Which country forced the other to sign the unequal US–Japan Security Treaty? Japan or the US?

(c) Have Japanese politicians forgotten the massive Anpo protests, which were the largest popular protests in Japan's history?

(d) How many Japanese soldiers died fighting the US in World War 2?

(e) Now those Japanese politicians treat their former enemies as friends, and allow themselves to be dragged like donkeys into World War 3. Have they forgotten the Japanese soldiers who died fighting the American troops in World War 2?

(f) How many innocent Japanese civilians were killed in the US nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

(g) Was the dropping of a second nuclear bomb on Nagasaki necessary at the end of World War 2? Uncle Sam seemed to be treating nuclear bombs as toys or using the Japanese people as live guinea pigs for nuclear testing. What would happen if Russia follows the US example and starts nuking Ukraine when it gets so tired of the grinding war?

(h) Now those Japanese politicians treat their former enemies as friends, and allow themselves to be dragged like donkeys into World War 3. Have they forgotten the numerous innocent Japanese civilians who were killed in the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

(i) Why does the US forbid Japan to possess nuclear bombs? Is the US worried that Japan will settle the "blood debt" with it one day if it has nuclear bombs? Then it will no longer be a second Pearl Harbor Attack but a direct Washington Attack.

(j) Where has the so-called Spirit of Bushido or Samurai gone when Japanese politicians allow their country to be dragged like a donkey into World War 3?

(k) Japan should reckon the danger of being an unequal partner or a "shield" for a so-called ally in a war. In a battle, which is the first to be pierced by the spear? The shield or the body of the soldier?

(ii) Japanese politicians keep mumbling about the so-called China threat. If China really wanted to invade Japan, it could have done once upon a time, either in the 3rd-century CE or even earlier. In ancient times, there were around 100 kingdoms spread across the Japanese islands. The people there were uncivilized tribes, having only a spoken language and had to borrow Chinese characters for their writing system.

It won't come as a surprise if the ancient Chinese emperors had considered Japan as "floating islands of garbage" because of constant typhoons, earthquakes and tsunamis. For the same reasons, they were not interested to take full control of disaster-prone Okinawa and the Ryukyu Islands.

As recent as 1943 at the Cairo Conference, President Roosevelt proposed to return Ryukyu to China. However, then President Chiang Kai-shek refused to accept the offer, apparently treating the Ryukyu Islands as trash instead of treasure.

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