Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Wall Street Journal
May 30, 2008
Pg. 7
By Sebastian Moffett
TOKYO -- Japan won't send military planes to deliver relief provisions to earthquake-damaged regions of China, after the Chinese government decided against such a mission, a Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman said Friday.
Beijing asked Tokyo Tuesday to deliver tents and blankets to quake survivors, and at the time said it would accept delivery by planes from Japan's Air Self-Defense Force, the spokesman said. However, the Chinese government later decided that the use of military planes would be inappropriate, and the Japanese government will instead charter civilian planes for the mission, he said.
The decision shows how relations between Asia's two biggest economic powers remain sensitive, especially in military-related affairs. Japan invaded China in the 1930s, and resentment among Chinese of Japan still runs high, despite the countries' booming economic ties.
Over the past two years, relations between Beijing and Tokyo have warmed. Earlier this month, Hu Jintao made the first visit to Japan by a Chinese president in 10 years. When a massive earthquake hit central China, two days after his return, Japan was the first country China asked for assistance. Japan dispatched a 60-person search-and-rescue team to hard-hit Sichuan Province, as well as a medical team.
Since the end of World War II, Tokyo has sent only a small group of military experts to China to help dispose of weapons abandoned by Japanese troops during the war. Aid delivered by the Japanese military would have represented Tokyo's first significant military dispatch to China since that war.
It wasn't clear whether any Self-Defense Force personnel would be involved in the relief efforts. The Foreign Ministry spokesman said he assumed that they wouldn't be needed because Japan would take supplies to China by civilian planes. An official at Japan's Defense Ministry played down the idea of Japanese military being involved in the efforts, but added that there was "not a zero possibility" of this happening.
-- Andrew Morse contributed to this article.
May 30, 2008
Pg. 7
By Sebastian Moffett
TOKYO -- Japan won't send military planes to deliver relief provisions to earthquake-damaged regions of China, after the Chinese government decided against such a mission, a Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman said Friday.
Beijing asked Tokyo Tuesday to deliver tents and blankets to quake survivors, and at the time said it would accept delivery by planes from Japan's Air Self-Defense Force, the spokesman said. However, the Chinese government later decided that the use of military planes would be inappropriate, and the Japanese government will instead charter civilian planes for the mission, he said.
The decision shows how relations between Asia's two biggest economic powers remain sensitive, especially in military-related affairs. Japan invaded China in the 1930s, and resentment among Chinese of Japan still runs high, despite the countries' booming economic ties.
Over the past two years, relations between Beijing and Tokyo have warmed. Earlier this month, Hu Jintao made the first visit to Japan by a Chinese president in 10 years. When a massive earthquake hit central China, two days after his return, Japan was the first country China asked for assistance. Japan dispatched a 60-person search-and-rescue team to hard-hit Sichuan Province, as well as a medical team.
Since the end of World War II, Tokyo has sent only a small group of military experts to China to help dispose of weapons abandoned by Japanese troops during the war. Aid delivered by the Japanese military would have represented Tokyo's first significant military dispatch to China since that war.
It wasn't clear whether any Self-Defense Force personnel would be involved in the relief efforts. The Foreign Ministry spokesman said he assumed that they wouldn't be needed because Japan would take supplies to China by civilian planes. An official at Japan's Defense Ministry played down the idea of Japanese military being involved in the efforts, but added that there was "not a zero possibility" of this happening.
-- Andrew Morse contributed to this article.