Take Up the Orange Man's Burden!

Letter From America

: Ian Williams

Published: Tribune  January 27, 2017 

If anyone were to say China is playing a leadership role in the world I would say it’s not China rushing to the front but rather the front runners have stepped back leaving the place to China,”
Zhang said.

“Oh Brave New World, that has such people in it,” Miranda gushed in The Tempest, but Aldous Huxley put it in perspective, invoking her exclamation to name his dystopia. And dystopic is the name of the game. Surely I am not alone in wondering whether we are living through some dark simulated alternative reality.

Looking at the swamp monsters dominating Trump’s cabinet, it is difficult to see how there could be a bright side as he celebrated the victory of ordinary Americans while surrounded with people who have worked so hard and consistently to steal American workers’ pensions, their healthcare and their savings.

For over two decades I have written about Trump as a blustering con-man, a bully, a bilker of debts and wages – so, in the interests of objectivity, I should refer to the stopped clock moments when he has been right.

He was quite correct that the Clintons and their cabal had completely ignored ordinary Americans across the heartland both in rhetoric and reality. He was quite right to scorn the idea that their defeat was because of a Kremlin plot – and he is even right that the foreign policy establishment in Washington had humiliated and taunted Moscow all these years.

A year ago, he even suggested Israel should pay for its own weapons, but with his eminently consistent inconsistency he has now renewed the “get-out-of-the-security-council-free” card for the Zionist Fundamentalists around Netanyahu – thereby probably fanning the flames of the Islamic Fundamentalism against which he has pledged eternal warfare.

So, what are the implications of Trump’s inauguration for Britain and its role in the world? To begin with, Trump’s leaning to Likud and its even more toxic allies has already reinforced Britain’s slavishness to them as shown by the abstention in the Paris Middle East
Conference.

In the days of Mrs T, the foreign office establishment’s residual respect for international law, not least about the Palestinians, plus the commercial imperatives of trading weapons systems with the Saudis, meant that Britain would have no compunction in voting with the rest of the world against the US and Israel in the Security Council.

May’s utterances suggest that even if Britain supported the last UN resolution condemning settlements, things are changing. Israeli commentators are gloating at the idea of an Anglo-Saxon axis that would automatically back Israel – Trump, May and Turnbull in Australia. Since the original radical Islamic

Fundamentalists in Riyadh have formed a de facto alliance with Israel against Iran, that suggests that May will be able to continue pandering to Israeli expansionism and while expanding weapons sales to the Kingdom. Insofar as the Tory government has any economic plan to cope with the catastrophic consequences of Brexit, weapons sales to unsavoury regimes probably top the sales bill.

Thanks to the alleged special relationship with the US, Britain has more often than not been Washington’s Trojan Horse in Brussels, but at least had to make compromises to persuade others to form a consensus.

With no EU consensus as an excuse, May’s attitude suggests that we will return to the “Yo Blair!” days under George W Bush, and she will volunteer to carry out any unsavory task that Trump whimsically grabs her for, and that will be most palpable in terms of playing Sancho Panza to Trump’s Don Quixote at the UN.

That has other repercussions, since Russian and China, in particular, have been playing a more active role in the UN, with Beijing advancing to the second biggest bill payer and a major contributor of peace-keepers. If Britain’s vote is folded uncritically into the US’s as the latter becomes semidetached from the UN, it allows the Russian and Chinese to play a much larger role in the organization that, as Kofi Annan said, has a unique legitimizing role in the world.

President Xi in Davos is already considering taking up the Orange-head’s burden. This will doubtless cheer the hearts of those whose concern over Trump is combined with nostalgia for the glory days of the ComIntern. However, while the new American President refuses to answer questions from stroppy journalists, the rulers in Moscow and Beijing lock them up outright, and what is more, will do the same to any unruly bloggers and cheaters as well.

On the stopped clock principle, it is reassuring that Trump wants the Cold War with Russia to finish, but it is less so if he wants to start an economic war with China, or even to team up with the protector of the Baathist butchers of Aleppo. It is time for sober consideration of Britain’s place in the world, not for a reflexive leap from the European frying pan to rally to the Last Trump.

Herod to head UNICEF?

Israel Wins Chairmanship of U.N. Legal Committee, Will Seek Security Council Seat

By Ian Williams

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visits an UNRWA school in Gaza, June 28, 2016. (U.N. PHOTO/ESKINDER DEBEBE)

EVEN THOUGH, ON one level, Israeli contempt for the U.N. and international law knows no bounds, we have written before about their desperate deep psychological need for the organization’s approval and to abuse the body’s prestige.

At the end of May, the Israeli Mission chose the U.N. General Assembly Hall as the venue for a daylong “Building Bridges Not Boycotts conference,” which was essentially a rally of pro-Israel organizations on how to stop the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. It is somewhat odd that the U.N. would host a rally against efforts to enforce its decisions on the illegality of occupation and settlements, but one has to appreciate the inexorable pressure on officials from the U.S. and other allies.

For example, several years ago, when Israel secured temporary admission to the “West European and Other Group” (WEOG), many of the Europeans were very upset, and only acquiesced because of American pressure. Partly it was principle—not wanting to be associated with Israeli crimes—but it was also professional jealousy, so they insisted that Israel would not actually get nominated for important positions. Hard work and the adoption of pro-Israel positions by conservatives all over Europe bore fruit this year, when Israel secured WEOG’s nomination for chair of the U.N.’s Sixth Committee, the Legal Committee. It then went on to win the position in a secret ballot.

It was well managed. WEOG usually has contested positions, and so it put up stalking horse candidates to make it look like a contest. Clearly the fix was in, however, and so Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon became chairman of the U.N.’s Legal Committee. His opposition to the U.N.’s mandated two-state solution and his support for Israel’s continued occupation of most of the West Bank, not to mention illegal settlements, might make that anomalous anywhere else, but in this political atmosphere King Herod could become director general of UNICEF with the right backing.

To pile it on, forthcoming will be Israel’s bid for a seat in the Security Council. The election will take place in 2018, and contending already for two WEOG seats are Germany and Belgium. Needless to say, Tel Aviv’s message to Germany has been, “Thanks for all the submarines and the cash. But how dare you stand against Israel with your record!” The Germans are not, so far, going quietly into that good night. After all, they (and many other countries) think they deserve a permanent seat there, and residual guilt will not hold up against realpolitik in the country that invented it. In fact, WEOG often breaks out of the cozy rotation system for U.N. offices and has contested elections, and Israel’s behavior is not such as to inspire European sentimentality on the issue! 

But once again, the odd scofflaw complementarity works. Security Council members often have included countries like Indonesia, occupying East Timor, and Morocco, occupying Western Sahara. In one sense, it is only fair to let Israel share in the breathtaking hypocrisy. 

Perhaps that ability was rarely so well shown as with the Middle East Quartet. While the Quartet has been much improved since former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was squeezed out from the special representative sinecure that his grateful chums in Washington had secured for him, on the other hand it still has all the marks of its origins—which were an attempt to defang Russia, the EU and the U.N. on the Palestinian question by binding them into a consensus with the U.S., which is of course bound in that strange masochistic relationship with Israel.

However, considering how toothless Russia, the U.N. and the EU had become on the question, one did wonder why all the effort and showmanship was necessary. A critical part of the equation is the Israeli and American need to buffer and neutralize the clear statements of international and binding resolutions of the United Nations that are explicitly accepted and supported by all but one and a half nations in the world. And even the U.S. and Israel nominally accept them—they just do not accept their enforcement.

The U.S., as a founder of the United Nations, knows that the resolutions are binding but finds it politically inexpedient, for domestic reasons, to try to enforce them on the U.S. So the effort is to browbeat the Palestinians into voluntarily abandoning their rights in bilateral negotiations with Israel in an unbalanced settlement that would then be ratified by the U.N.

So far, there is enough of a residual sense of legality and anti-colonial solidarity in the U.N. to ensure that it would not ratify a settlement without the assent of the Palestinians. In a sense, the Palestinians are lucky they don’t have a fully recognized and functioning state, because if they did someone would have arranged a coup and a complaisant regime to put its seal on the surrender. 

Nevertheless, the basic pattern remains. The Quartet allegedly monitors progress on the famous Road Map that got lost in the glove compartment almost immediately, while the Israelis do their own thing and continually complain about the Palestinians’ inability to respond positively, indeed rhapsodically, to land grabs, demolitions, killings and imprisonment. 

History has many examples of heavily armed bullies vilifying those they persecute, but Israel and its supporters are surely unique in complaining about the ingratitude of the Palestinians for their treatment. Long overdue, a certain tone of exasperation is appearing in the statements of the various Quartet components.

EXASPERATED QUARTET MEMBERS

Ban Ki-moon’s exasperation was evident in his statement on the Quartet’s report in July, but he at least upheld the U.N.’s legitimacy and cited the Quartet’s pledge “to actively support an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the basis of United Nations Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973).” He also reiterated that “a negotiated two-state outcome that meets Israeli security needs and creates a sovereign Palestinian state, ends the occupation that began in 1967, and resolves all permanent status issues is the only way to achieve an enduring peace.”

And we can see how chastened Israel was after the Quartet had wagged three and half fingers at it. Ban immediately had to criticize Israel’s announcement of 560 housing units in the West Bank settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, as well as moves to build 240 housing units in settlements in occupied East Jerusalem. “This raises legitimate questions about Israel’s long-term intentions, which are compounded by continuing statements of some Israeli ministers calling for the annexation of the West Bank,” which of course have included demands by the current Israeli U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon.

A frustrated Ban in his statement reiterated “that settlements are illegal under international law and urges the Government of Israel to halt and reverse such decisions in the interest of peace and a just final status agreement.” He was “deeply disappointed that this announcement comes only four days after the Middle East Quartet called on Israel to cease its policy of settlement construction and expansion.”

But at least Ban is not out on a limb: even Russia was upset by Israel’s indecorous finger to the Quartet, saying, "Moscow is seriously worried over new settlement projects in occupied Palestinian territories." The Foreign Ministry added that "Such settlements are illegal under the international law and are not recognized by the international community." 

The plans "run counter to the report of the Middle East Quartet of international mediators that was made public on July 1," the Russian statement complained, "Along with inadmissibility of violence and incitement to violence, the report strongly recommends to stop construction and expansion of settlements on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem.”

So what will be done about it? As we go to press, the current U.S. president is haggling about how big the next arms aid deal for Israel will be, and the two contenders for his position will be seeing by how much they can inflate it. Rule of Law, anyone?  ◙

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Letter From America – Ian Williams

Written By: Ian Williams

Published: July 11, 2016 Last modified: July 11, 2016

In a press briefing at the UN many years ago Douglas Hurd pointed out that British foreign policy was “the same as it has been since the days of Pitt the Younger,” to ensure that “no combination of powers in Europe would be in a position to threaten us.” This was in the now forgotten context of Margaret Thatcher fighting the Germans. That was of course before successive British governments chose to adopt German-style anally retentive austerity policies.

It puts the “Special Relationship” in a different light, since American commentary has concentrated on how Brexit threatens Britain’s role as Washington’s standing fifth column in the EU. It is a role we should happily forfeit. Poodles are cosseted creatures, but as Tony Blair discovered over Iraq, it’s not always wise to jump yapping after everystick the master throws.

Ironically, Israeli commentators also lament the potential loss of a post-Brexit Britain’s role in shielding settlements from EU sanctions, which shows how things have changed. In the robust days before Blair sacked Robin Cook as Foreign Secretary, British policy did indeed have an ethical dimension that included condemning Israeli breaches of international law even when it upset the Americans.

So, if what’s left of the UK after Brexit is freed from its obligations to carry out the garbage for the US and Israel, how does it affect Britain’s role at the UN? Interestingly, when Boris Yeltsin did to the Soviet Union what Boris Johnson now seems to have done to the EU, there was no formal decision that Russia would take over USSR’s permanent seat. Sir David Hannay, Britain’s permanent representative quipped that the Russian Ambassador slipped into the Council Chamber at midnight and changed the name plate while everyone else was celebrating the New Year.

It was clear that Russia, which inherited the Soviet nukes, was the successor state and its stature ensured its permanent membership status so there were supercilious sniggers, but no challenges. But could a dis-United Kingdom take that for granted? Until now, not only has the UK benefitted from occasional US gratitude and indulgence on the Council, it has, like France, also usually been able to speak for the European Union, which gives its word considerably more clout than Britain alone, let alone Britain as ventriloquist dummy for Washington.

In fact, that is unfair, since the British Foreign Office has often been far more articulate and astute than the US delegation, whose State Department professionals are often over-ridden by politicians owing their knowledge of foreign affairs to whatever was written on the back of the lobbyists’ cheques. Many of the crucial Iraq resolutions were only made possible with British diplomatic expertise and draftsmanship until, of course, Tony Blair wanted a war whether his foreign office did or not, with or without a UN resolution.

In those earlier days, British representatives paid heed to international law and the effect of its decisions but their standards seem to be slipping. British silence as Ban Ki Moon was recently undermined by French support for Morocco flouting of UN decisions on Western Sahara or Saudi attempts to edit human rights reports, suggests that London is now prepared to see the UN fail rather than express inexpedient principle.

On balance, there is unlikely to be a direct challenge to Britain’s permanent council seat. It has been suggested that Britain and France’s permanent seats be replaced by an EU seat – but that is even more questionable now than before. In any case an EU seat would be useless. Consensus of all its members is almost impossible and instead of a veto, an EU seat on the Council would have a perpetual abstention.

So probably even a truncated UK could stay on the Council. However, it is gradually shrinking towards Taiwan’s position where its nominal veto power is not supported by the real world. Indeed, if Brexit happens, the rump UK influence will be overshadowed by a France that represents the EU and does not have the shadow of an American puppet master looming over it.

So what role could the UK have? Briefly under Robin Cook, as I remember, Britain’s UN mission remembered that Commonwealth thing, and invited their representatives to a Commonwealth reception. But in fact it was the New Zealanders, Canadians and Australians, before they went Blairite and Thatcherite, who seemed to take the relationship more seriously. In fact, if it were not for the complacency that a permanent seat engenders, it would make good sense to cultivate the Commonwealth missions, many of whom are small, understaffed and underappreciated and British advice could be well received if tendered in the proper spirits. And then Robin Cook had that thing about an ethical dimension for foreign policy. It’s time to redouble our support for international law, untrammeled by inconvenient alliances.

UK Labour and the Bomb

Letter From America: Ian Williams

Written By: Ian Williams

Published: November 22, 2015 Last modified: November 22, 2015

Marshall Islanders shine light on nuclear hypocrisy

Clement Attlee and Ernest Bevin were among the real parents of the British In­dependent Nuclear Deterrent. Churchill was the Tory PM who gave all the technology to Roosevelt, whom he naively trusted even as Washington drained the UK Treasury dry, but it was the 1945 Labour government of saintly memory, con­front­ed with US refusal to recipro­cate Britain’s wartime handover of nuclear secrets, that decided to implement an independent nuclear programme, despite the empty coffers and Labour’s ambitious social and economic agenda.
Seeing the fate of Socialist comrades across Eastern Europe, they knew they could not trust the Soviets, and recent history, including the nuclear deal and the catastrophically abrupt end of lend-lease arrangements, taught them they could not rely on the Americans. NATO was Bevin’s baby, famously intended to keep the Germans down, the Americans in and the Russians out. But the other part was a British bomb.
As an active member of CND, with loads of frequent blister miles from Aldermaston, I was always bemused by the active Communist Party members who campaigned with seemingly total sincerity against the British nuclear weapons, but regarded the “worker’s bomb” as a benign and defensive thing. But there was a genuine dilemma: Britain had been an offshore island bereft of support before in recent memory. There was in some way a case for an independent nuclear deterrent, even if it was only a tripwire to ensure back up in case of major threats.
But while we had “the bomb,” the means of effective delivery were missing. Once the Blue Streak missile programme was abandoned under Treasury pressure the Tories turned to Washington, which was happy to have the British pay for a fistful of Polaris submarines. But like the successor, Trident, there has always been considerable doubt about just how independent that deterrent is. Could we actually independently target and fire missiles without US acquiescence?
So the current debate is more complicated than a mere issue of upgrading Trident. There is the issue of whether Britain needs an independent nuclear capability, as Bevin and Attlee wanted. Trident, new or upgraded is not necessarily the answer to that question. The other issue is, of course, whether we can afford it, which also feeds back into that question. There are few Keynesian benefits to buying off-the-shelf US technology, with strings attached or not. At a time when austerity is pushed as the answer to everything, why does it not also figure in the nuclear equation?
Do we want an independent nuclear deterrent, or do we simply want to contribute to the American arsenal like the loyal sepoys we seem to have become? Can we afford an independent deterrent, especially one as expensive as Trident?
Then there is the question of our inter­national standing. The Republic of the Marshal Islands, dubious beneficiary of much of the US’s fusion bomb testing, has a case before the International Court of Justice against Britain specifically for its failure to honour its signature on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The case argues that although the NPT allowed the Soviets, the US, China, Britain and France, to keep their nuclear weapons while prohibiting other signat­ories from acquiring them, those nuclear powers on their part agreed to good faith negotiations to disarm, and committed themselves not stop the arms race.
At the UN the British government consistently votes against resolutions on effective disarmament and refuses even to countenance multilateral negotiations on disarmament, while it is clear that replac­ing Trident would breach the treaty oblig­ation to stop the arms race. Indeed the Trident system as an upgrade for Polaris was probably in breach of the treaty.
Britain’s behaviour has conse­quences. India, for example, consistently used the bad faith of the nuclear powers on disarmament as an excuse for developing its own nuclear arsenal. Labour has traditionally had an internationalist and multilateralist approach, and even Tony Blair thought it was important to try to get the UN to back the invasion of Iraq. The case unfolding at the The Hague and the deliberations at the UN should at least inform the Labour Party’s debate on Trident. Nye Bevan did not want to go into the conference chamber naked. Successive British governments have refused to go in at all!

No Easy Way Out in Syria

Tribune October 24 2015

Written By: Ian Williams

Published: October 24, 2015 Last modified: October 20, 2015

Ten years ago, every country in the United Nations adopted “the Responsibility to Protect”, a euphemism for humanitarian intervention. R2P as it is known in the UN, was steered through by Kofi Annan, who was then the Secretary General. Rather than rewrite the UN Charter with its overly punctilious respect for national sovereignty above all other considerations, the resolution reinterpreted the Charter’s Chapter Seven so that the threats to international peace and security now included mayhem being inflicted with national borders.

The international commission that came up with R2P found that there were deep worries about how the concept could be abused. Hitler had, after all, invoked humanitarian reasons for seizing Sudetenland. There was also a common caution that the UN Security Council should be very careful about how it was implemented. The Commission cited Hippocrates’ advice to doctors: “First, do no harm”.

R2P has been adopted varying degrees of enthusiasm, with the Russians and Chinese dragging their feet most often. But oddly the strongest defenders of the sovereign rights of tyrants to massacre their citizenry at will are often so-called socialists who have forgotten the proletarian internationalism thing in their rush to canonise sundry dictators as anti-imperialist saints.

The first line of defence against abuse of R2P is the role of the Security Council as gatekeeper since there could be no intervention without its permission. That is why, ironically, the Russian annexation of Crimea and creeping occupation of Ukraine is illegal even though Vladimir Putin evoked the alleged threat to ethnic Russians posed by the Ukrainian nationalists .The problem with the Security Council is the refusal of the veto holders to turn the key when the gate does need opening. It is easy to point the finger at Russia, but many UN members look at Moscow’s cover for Bashar al-Assad’s assault on his own citizenry as no better or worse than Washington’s cover for  waves of destruction on Gaza.

Similarly, there is a repeated pattern in which the West, having secured doubting Russian co-operation over Libya, or Iraq,then disregards Moscow’s views and stretches the resolutions farther than was implied. Iraq, touted as humanitarian intervention by Tony Blair, proved all of the warnings about the dangers of R2P that its supporters had identified. The invasion had no legal or moral authority and its conduct was cretinously colonial even by American standards, while inept by every standard of winning hearts and minds. It was wrong in every sense, from conception to execution and the Syrian tragedy is a continuing aftershock.

Syria is clearly a total humanitarian disaster, and if ever there were a need for intervention and international action this is it. But there is now a real dilemma. It is very difficult to conceive of any course of action that would not make things worse. We prefer the binary simplicity of absolute good and evil, even though sordid reality usually presents us with comparative worse and better. Syria’s complexities also defy attempts to rally world opinion behind any course of action. Indeed Syria has already had more than enough intervention with outside powers pursuing their sanguinary sectional interests across the heartland of civilisation. The United States has been unable or unwilling to restrain the Saudis and Gulf States from arming and bankrolling their own brand of fundamentalists. Russian and Iranian support of Assad means that he has seen no need to negotiate.

Even what would have been a straightforward response some time ago, enforcing a no-fly zone to prevent Assad’s aircraft bombing civilians now leads us to some literally awesome possibilities – do we want to risk a third world war by challenging Putin’s aggressive attacks on Assad’s non-ISIL opponents?

The pleas from UN representatives, Kofi Annan, Lakhdar Brahimi, and others for diplomacy can sound like wimpish abdication. But only concerted action by the major players, which might involve the US talking softly to Russia and China while waving a big stick at the Wahabi dynasties in the Gulf can produce a solution that might rescue Syrians from the horrors of previous partisan interventions. Putin and the ayatollahs are certainly a big part of the problem – but they also have to be part of the solution.

Ian Williams is Tribune's UN correspondent

Why China has a P5 seat, and Japan is unlikely to!

Opinion: Why China is in the Security Council and Japan is Not

By Ian Williams
From InterPRess ServiceReprint |      |  Print | Send by email |En español

Ian Williams is Senior Analyst, Foreign Policy in Focus and columnist for the Tribune, and who recently completed a new edition of The U.N. for Beginners

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 23 2015 (IPS) - Will Tokyo’s bid for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council be frustrated by its Foreign Ministry’s undiplomatic and uncalled for attack on U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon?

Japan’s attempt certainly will not be helped by the Japanese Foreign Ministry official who complained sniffily that the world body “should take a neutral position on events that focus mostly on the past” and expressed “strong displeasure” at Ban’s attendance in Beijing for the 70th Anniversary of the end of the Second World War.

The churlish rebuff, with overtones of anti-Korean sentiment came just as the issue of reforming the Security Council is having a periodic upsurge of interest in this 70th session of the United Nations. It is of course no accident that the 70th Anniversary of the U.N. coincides with the 70th Anniversary of the end of the War. It was World War Two that gave birth to and shaped the United Nations, which is why China is on the Security Council and Japan is not.

But the U.N. Charter is about controlling inter-state aggression of the kind that the defeated nations in the Second World War indisputably started. Japan invaded its neighbors, not the other way round, and in general its occupations were brutal, despite the rhetoric about co-prosperity.

The U.N. is not neutral, it was an organization founded to defeat the Axis powers, particularly Germany and Japan and that is explicit in the U.N. Charter still. Although Poland moved a pious resolution in the General Assembly after the reunification of Germany declaring that the “enemy states” clause in the U.N. Charter no longer applies, the clause is still in the Charter – and the unrepentant attitude from the Abe administration is calculated to remind the Chinese, and indeed the Russians that because of the war they have a veto on all reform proposals.

Certainly, Poland realized that the reunified Germany was not the same country as in 1939 and was expediently magnanimous in its declaration. One can hardly imagine either of the Koreas emulating that with Japan, which had to be pressured by the other members of the Council to vote in the end for the Korean Secretary General to make it unanimous.

There is no end of skeptical comments one can make about the seventieth anniversary of Axis defeats. Historically, maybe Ban should have gone to the Chiang Kai Shek memorial in Taiwan – or the Republic of China as Beijing prefers they call themselves! It was after all the ROC not the PRC that was the official combatant and final victor in the war and which was accordingly granted a seat on the Security Council.

But then it was the USSR and not Russia that won a permanent seat and did so much to defeat the Nazis that we, as much as Moscow, tend to overlook the Stalin Hitler pact just before. Each of the victors has skeletons in their cupboards, from the massacre of Polish officers at Katyn Wood to Dresden and Hiroshima.

After 70 years, it is indisputably time to reform the Security Council, but it is also indisputable that the permanent five have a veto on that process and that many other members have mutually contradictory plans for how to reform it. It is highly likely that the Japanese comments have given ammunition to those hostile to its bid for a permanent seat.

There are in fact very good reasons, for justice and efficiency, not to expand the number of permanent seats on the council. Many countries have braved the displeasure of big neighbors who are candidates to say so, and to demand that at best the contestants be eligible for re-election or to have a longer mandate. The likely result is a stalemate in the reform process and Tokyo’s intemperate response has made that outcome even more likely. Chinese hostility and potential veto make the other reform proposals.

Speaking before the Beijing parade, Ban’s office said he “believes that it is important to reflect on the past, look at the lessons we have learned and how we can move ahead to a brighter future based on these lessons.” Shinzo Abe should have drawn some lessons. He would have been better accompanying his former colleague Tomiichi Murayama to Beijing and reinforcing his historic apology for the war in 1995 in Beijing.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service.