Senior USA officials report to Clinton: China is ready for war!!!
BusinessMirror - Report warns Clinton: There is military danger in China-Japan islands dispute
THE festering dispute between China and Japan over five uninhabited islands could spin out of control unless the countries improve their communication with each other, according to a confidential report submitted to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week by a delegation of former US officials.
The bipartisan four-person delegation met last week with Japan’s prime minister and China’s vice premier, who is expected to take over as prime minister, and both countries’ foreign ministers.
The US group warns Clinton in its written report that, while neither side wants a confrontation, a mistake or miscalculation could escalate into a military face-off.
Members of the delegation describedtheir findings on the condition of anonymity because their meetings and report are confidential.
Clinton dispatched the mission in an effort to assess ways to reduce mounting tensions in light of Japan’s nationwide elections next year, an imminent leadership change in China and rising nationalist rhetoric in both Asian countries over the islands in the East China Sea. The five islands are called Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese. Taiwan, which calls them Diaoyutai, also claims the chain, which is surrounded by undersea oil and natural gas fields.
The members of the delegation, all former national security officials, were Democrats Joseph Nye and James Steinberg and Republicans Richard Armitage and Stephen Hadley.
Clinton sent a bipartisan delegation to signal to China and Japan that both political parties support the US position on the islands so its report would carry weight with whomever wins the US presidential and congressional elections, according to members of the group.
“While the State Department supported and facilitated their travel, they acted in a consultative role for the United States government,” said John Echard, a State Department spokesman. “The individuals were not traveling to mediate regional security issues, but rather listened to perspectives of each side.”
The former US officials met last week with Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and other officials, and are scheduled to meet with Clinton on November 8.
They plan to report to Clinton that surprisingly poor communications and serious misunderstandings between China and Japan increase the risk that the territorial dispute could escalate if their ships collide or there’s some other mishap, delegation members said. Their report says China and Japan need to improve communication at a variety of levels, from heads of state down to the local coast guard commanders whose vessels are patrolling in the vicinity of the islands.
Japan issued a protest last week when four Chinese patrol boats entered the waters near the disputed islands after officials of the two countries met last week in Shanghai in an attempt to improve relations.
In their meetings in both nations, the US delegation members said, they encountered differing reactions from officials and from analysts affiliated with the government toward the American effort to help defuse the dispute.
There also were differing reactions, the members said, to the delegation’s message that the US recognizes Japan’s administrative control of the islands, so it’s bound by Article V of the Japan-US security treaty to consult with Japan “whenever the security of Japan or international peace and security in the Far East is threatened.” Both Clinton and US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta also have made that point.
While some Chinese officials grumbled, Chinese analysts had harsher reactions, with some accusing Japan and the US of trying to overturn the outcome of World War II, according to two of the US members. That, said one delegate, was echoed by what he called rude remarks by Chinese Lieutenant General Ren Hiaquan in Australia this week.
Addressing a high-level military conference in Melbourne,
Ren, vice president of the People’s Liberation Army Academy of Military Science, called Japan a former fascist nation that had bombed the northern Australian city of Darwin and said territorial disputes could trigger open war, according to The Australian newspaper and two attendees at the meeting.
Further, the Chinese delegation went sightseeing the next day instead of returning to the conference, said one of the attendees.
Oh wait, they didn't....
Chinese ships in disputed waters: Japan - Channel NewsAsia
