Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
May 30, 2008 By Howard W. French
SHANGHAI — China acknowledged Thursday that it was willing to receive disaster relief assistance from Japan’s Self-Defense Forces in what would be the first Japanese military air mission to China since the end of World War II.
Word of discussions on military aid between the countries was first reported in Tokyo on Wednesday, when Japanese officials said that they had received a request from China for airlifted assistance and that they were preparing to respond. The Japanese officials said the Chinese request had not been detailed, but China’s greatest need was presumed to be for tents and other emergency shelter materials.
In speaking publicly Thursday for the first time about the countries’ talks on aid, Chinese officials would not say whether Beijing had requested a Japanese airlift or Japan had offered it. “If the Japanese Self-Defense Forces are ready to provide assistance, then the specifics will be discussed by the two countries’ defense departments,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Qin Gang, said in a briefing.
The diplomatically vague language reflects the depth of Chinese sensitivity over relations with Japan, given the brutality of Japan’s wartime occupation of China.
Relations between the countries were particularly strained this decade when Japan was led by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. Mr. Koizumi made a frequent practice of visiting the Yasukuni shrine to Japan’s war dead, which holds the remains of many wartime leaders who were executed as war criminals.
Relations have rebounded under the current prime minister, Yasuo Fukuda. This month, China’s president, Hu Jintao, made a five-day trip to Japan, in the first state visit in a decade.
May 30, 2008 By Howard W. French
SHANGHAI — China acknowledged Thursday that it was willing to receive disaster relief assistance from Japan’s Self-Defense Forces in what would be the first Japanese military air mission to China since the end of World War II.
Word of discussions on military aid between the countries was first reported in Tokyo on Wednesday, when Japanese officials said that they had received a request from China for airlifted assistance and that they were preparing to respond. The Japanese officials said the Chinese request had not been detailed, but China’s greatest need was presumed to be for tents and other emergency shelter materials.
In speaking publicly Thursday for the first time about the countries’ talks on aid, Chinese officials would not say whether Beijing had requested a Japanese airlift or Japan had offered it. “If the Japanese Self-Defense Forces are ready to provide assistance, then the specifics will be discussed by the two countries’ defense departments,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Qin Gang, said in a briefing.
The diplomatically vague language reflects the depth of Chinese sensitivity over relations with Japan, given the brutality of Japan’s wartime occupation of China.
Relations between the countries were particularly strained this decade when Japan was led by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. Mr. Koizumi made a frequent practice of visiting the Yasukuni shrine to Japan’s war dead, which holds the remains of many wartime leaders who were executed as war criminals.
Relations have rebounded under the current prime minister, Yasuo Fukuda. This month, China’s president, Hu Jintao, made a five-day trip to Japan, in the first state visit in a decade.