The Washington Monument: Shutdown, Slavery, Subjugation, and Okinawa

[This post is in response to a commenter’s observation of the quasi-pharonic majesty of the ostensibly democratic monuments in our nation’s capital.  On 10/8/13 I tweeked the sequencing of the paragraphs and, on further reflection, drew a parallel between the antics of the Know-Nothings and the current shutdown/default rumpus.  PL]

Tourists cannot visit the Washington Monument—or even its National Park Service websites--at present, thanks to the suspension of non-essential services on the occasion of the government shutdown.  As an alternative, China Matters offers a virtual tour of the Washington Monument highlighting lesser known aspects of its construction, such as the possible role of slave labor, and the remarkable participation of the Ryukyu Kingdom a.k.a. Okinawa in providing commemorative stonework for the edifice.

At the time of President Obama’s first inauguration in 2009, the use of slave labor to build the Capitol and the White House was extensively reported in an ironic “look how far we’ve come” vein.  Here’s a link to a piece on PBS interviewing historian Jesse Holland about his book Black Men Built the Capitol.*

It is likely that slaves worked on many Washington D.C. construction projects before 1862, either directly in the capital district or at the Maryland quarries which provided the sandstone, limestone, and granite that went into government buildings and monuments.  However, because of incomplete records, slave participation in the creation of antebellum edifices like the Washington Monument can often only be inferred, not proven.

In Maryland and Washington D.C., the pure, labor-intensive plantation economy—and the year-round need for slave labor--was less pervasive than in the Deep South.  Therefore, to maximize income, owners sometimes rented out slaves as contract laborers by their owners for the harder and dirtier jobs such as quarry work or temporary projects like capital construction during the slow season.

Use of slave labor in the quarrying of the red sandstone for the Smithsonian Institute has been documented. 

It appears likely that slave labor was also involved in the quarrying of the marble used in the first stage of the construction of the Washington Monument.  Construction began in 1848 during the antebellum era and utilized marble from Cockeysville, Maryland.  The owner of the quarry held slaves, but apparently leased out actual exploitation of the quarry to outside contractors, so there is no “smoking gun”.  However, given the labor patterns prevailing in northern Maryland at the time, slave participation in the quarry workforce appears likely.

Embarrassingly, construction of the Washington Monument proceeded in fits and starts since the Washington National Monument Association--the private foundation in charge of building the edifice--proved incapable of raising the requisite funds from the public, despite the offer of a 15% bounty offered to agents soliciting funds.

Embarrassment turned to humiliation in 1854, as the monument became the focus and ambitions of the Native American Party, the virulently anti-foreign and anti-Catholic movement known to an unforgiving posterity as the “Know Nothing Party” for the stock reply “I know nothing” that members were supposed to give in response to queries concerning the semi-secret group’s activities.

The Know Nothing’s most spectacular clandestine coup involved its shenanigans relating to the Washington Monument.  

Over its history, the W.N.M.A. had solicited or accepted a number of memorial stones to be mounted on the stairwells of the monument.  The monument—commemorating America’s foremost Mason and also a pile of cut stone (rather than monolith structure characteristic of obelisks of antiquity)—was obviously a Freemason’s wet dream.  A Mason presided at the laying of the cornerstone, and dozens of memorial stones from various masonic organizations line the monument’s interior walls.  Many more stones came from state governments and various municipal organizations.  But a handful of stones were contributed by foreign governments or jurisdictions like Bremen, Siam, Brazil, etc.

Fatefully, in 1854, Pope Pius IX donated a stone from the Roman Temple of Concord for inclusion in the Washington Monument.  Agitation against the “Stone from Rome” and the dark shadow of papal domination it allegedly represented became a high profile media crusade for the Know Nothings.  After an escalating barrage of petitions and letters to the editor, the stone was stolen from the construction site in an elaborately choreographed operation seemingly meant to obscure the fact that the seizure was accomplished with inside assistance; the offending stone was carted off, then probably smashed and pitched into the Potomac. 

The grievous offense of the papist stone provided justification for a further Know Nothing coup to “protect the monument.”  With the connivance of a sympathetic clerk of the monument association, an illegal election of directors was called, and a packed meeting of recently registered members of the association elected a slate of Know Nothing directors.  The new group seized physical control of the construction site, announced it was saving the monument from construction and management at the hands of Catholics and foreigners, and embarked on a fund-raising appeal limited to members of the American Party.

There was more at work than lumpen goonery.  The Know Nothings benefited from the sub rosa assistance of people of position in the Washington elite, some of whom had hitched their political wagon to the American Party and its political platform of combating the alien/Catholic menace.  Ex-President Millard Fillmore ran on a Know Nothing ticket two years later, in 1856, in an unsuccessful effort to win a second, non-consecutive term.

The Know-Nothings Washington Monument operation looks a lot like one of those hot-button right-wing fundraising scams: hyping the threat to some high profile cherished traditional value—guns, right to life, freedom from Kenyan socialist healthcare, The Washington Monument!—in order to wring money out of the frantic faithful and mobilize the base for the upcoming election.

In 1858, after four years of Know Nothing management, the faction surrendered control of the monument association.  No construction of significance had taken place and the directors passed on only a few hundred dollars its successors.  Maybe the funds raised had been diverted to the uses of the American Party, which performed adequately as a third party in the presidential election with Millard Fillmore as its standard-bearer, but evaporated in the furnace of the Civil War.

With the monument about one-third completed, construction was halted for several decades and the monument took the form of a short, squat stump that Mark Twain likened to the chimney of a sugar mill.

Only in 1885, with a significant assist from a $200,000 Congressional appropriation (and the injection of several hundred cubic feet of Portland cement by the Army Corps of Engineers to overcome some alarming foundational flaws), was the monument completed and dedicated.  The bottom of the monument—the part that quite possibly was quarried and constructed using slave labor—is of a distinctly different color than the remainder, providing an inadvertent mulatto flavor to the proceedings.

There is also an interesting Asian backstory to the Washington Monument and its commemorative stones.  As noted above, in addition to native, probably slave-hewn marble, the interior of the Washington Monument also includes 190-odd memorial stones along its staircases, primarily from domestic donors, but also a smattering of foreign gifts.  

LDP Pro-China Wing Fires Back at Abe

LDP’s Pro-China Wing Fires Back at Abe; More Yeast for the Nikkei; and More Confusion About the Ryukyus

It always seemed likely that, back in the Deng Xiaoping days, the PRC and Japan were eager to cut a deal for normalization of relations and, therefore, both sides would agree to put the Senkaku issue on the backburner.

The “set aside the Senkakus” sentiment was certainly the governing spirit at a press conference during Deng’s 1978 visit to Japan, as Ezra Vogel’s biography of Deng records (pg. 304 of the ebook):

When a reporter asked about the ownership of the Senkaku Islands, the audience became tense, but Deng replied that the Chinese and Japanese held different views, had different names for the islands, and should put the issue aside so that later generations, who would be wiser than those present, could solve the problem.  The audience was visibly impressed…

In the amicable context of 1978, “putting the issue aside” would appear to mean “let’s discuss it later” which puts the issue well down the slippery slope of “an issue that can be discussed/an issue for discussion/an issue that is open to negotiation”.

Apparently, there wasn’t any public confirmation that this spirit informed the actual Sino-Japanese discussions behind closed doors.

Until now.

In an interesting development, a China-friendly LDP elder decided to go public with his recollections of the Japanese attitude toward the Senkakus during the period of normalization under Tanaka and Deng, in an apparent effort to restore the islands’ status as a topic of engagement rather than an excuse for self-righteous belligerence.

This creates some awkwardness for the Abe government, which has hung its hat on the position that the Senkakus have always and indubitably (at least since 1895 and disregarding the 1945-1952 hiatus of US occupation) belonged to Japan,  the sovereignty of the sacred rocks has never been debased by inclusion in the greasy diplomatic dealings between Japan and China, we can do anything we want with them, if you want to talk about the Senkakus, talk to the hand, buster.

Reawakening memories of the time when discussions relating to the Senkakus were a matter of mutual amity probably also reflects the fact that the Chinese government is getting anxious about the downward spiral of PRC-Japan relations—and Prime Minister Abe’s success in building anti-China relationships with India, Vietnam, et. al.—and is interested in appearing less confrontational.

The Chinese charm offensive also includes a full-court press of high level cordiality at the Shangri-La defense confab and a rather frantic cozying up to the United States (including a request for the early Xi-Obama Sunnyland  summit and, to sweeten the pot, more than the usual expressions of impatience with North Korea).

This gives President Obama at degree of leverage over the PRC that he has not enjoyed in the past.

The USA will take advantage of this favorable situation by forcibly torqueing Xi’s testicles on the matter of “cyberwarfare” and cyberespionage.

It will be interesting to see if President Obama also exploits China’s accommodating posture to “rebalance” the Pacific situation by tilting a little more toward China and away from Japan, or contents himself with a zero-sum win on cyber stuff.

Contradicting government, Tanaka confidant says two sides cut deal at time of normalization of ties

Senkaku row shelved in ’70s: Nonaka

Kyodo

Jun 5, 2013 BEIJING – In a new ripple to Japan’s assertion of ownership of the disputed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, former chief Cabinet Secretary Hiromu Nonaka said leaders from Japan and China had agreed to shelve the territory row when the two countries normalized relations in the early 1970s.

The remark by the former Liberal Democratic heavyweight, a disciple of the late Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, who cut the normalization deal with Beijing in 1972, contradicts the government’s official stance that there was no such agreement at the time.

Nonaka, who is leading a delegation of current and former Diet members on a visit to China, told reporters Monday, “Just after the normalization of relations, I was told clearly by then-Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka that a decision was made on the normalization by shelving the Senkaku issue.

“As a living witness, I would like to make clear (what I heard),” Nonaka said after meeting in Beijing with Liu Yunshan, the fifth-ranked leader of the Chinese Communist Party.

Liu is said to have told the delegation that Japan is responsible for the current confrontation with China. Apparently aiming to have Japan acknowledge at least the existence of a bilateral territorial dispute, Liu also reportedly said he hopes to see a solution reached through dialogue between the two governments.

In Tokyo, top officials reiterated the government’s view that the Senkakus are not an issue Japan should put on the shelf since no territorial dispute exists.

“There is no truth (to the remark) that (Japan) agreed with China to shelve or maintain the status quo of the Senkaku Islands,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said, reiterating Tokyo’s position that no territorial dispute exists.

Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida also repeated the same line: “It is not the case that to this day, we have agreed to shelve (the dispute), nor has there been a territorial dispute that should be shelved in the first place.”

Bubble Bubble Toil & Trouble

Looks like Prime Minister Abe is preparing additional bubbliciousness for the Nikkei and, perhaps, lucky stock exchanges in emerging markets:

Japan's government is set to urge the nation's public pension funds - a pool of over $2 trillion - to increase their investment in equities and overseas assets as part of a growth strategy being readied by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, according to people with knowledge of the policy shift. 

It seems that the Japanese government is going to make sure the Japanese stock market stays propped up by artificial means, at least until the Japanese economy restructures into that senior-citizen-fueled growth engine we've been told about, or the smart money cashes out, whichever comes first.

Hmmm.  Should I be buying the Nikkei? shorting it?...or both?

Somebody Else Is Badly Confused About the China/Okinawa Issue

But it’s not AFP.

Can anybody tease out the contradiction of this headline from on line news site Japan Today:

China distances itself from claim it owns Okinawa

And the lede from the accompanying article, sourced from AFP?

A top Chinese general on Sunday sought to distance the country from claims by some of its scholars that the Ryukyu Islands, which include Okinawa, do not belong to Japan.

I hate to admit it, but this qualifies as supporting evidence for the “blogsites have lower standards than traditional news outlets” slam.

Japan Today is also guilty of not policing its Wikipedia entry which is a total rip job by somebody who obviously totally completely hates Japan Today.

Sample:

Claims of Universal Expertise

Japan Today staff has been known to employ underhanded tactics to prevent criticisms of media incompetence.  Often times they will intentionally ignore new or existing information and state that the only truth is their stance. They claim they are experts in all fields, including law, engineering, psychology, and politics.

…which, comes to think of it, also supports the “Wikipedia content can’t be trusted” slam.

Recently, the founder of Japan Today (no longer involved in operations) showed up on the Talk page to criticize the entry but, as of this writing, it’s still up there in all its glory.

On the other hand, for a good piece of bloginess on the Ryukyu/Okinawa issue, here’s a link to something I wrote on the LDP's Okinawa problem--and China's pleasure in stirring the pot.

The Tiger and the Fox

“Irritating Japan” Well On Its Way to Replacing “Rising China” Meme

There is a delicious—well, delicious to me, anyway—flavor of Western bewilderment about the neverending parade of Japanese nationalist shenanigans.

The most recent entry was Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto’s endorsement of the World War II Japanese military brothel system a.k.a. “comfort women”:

"In the circumstances in which bullets are flying like rain and wind, the soldiers are running around at the risk of losing their lives," 

"If you want them to have a rest in such a situation, a comfort women system is necessary. Anyone can understand that." 

Hashimoto—who seems to have way too much of his mental space occupied by visions of sexually rampaging soldiers-- made his remarks in the context of promoting the Okinawan sex worker industry as a legal source of relief for the hard-working American military men based on the island.

Toru Hashimoto…told reporters Monday that he visited with Marine Corps Air Station Futenma’s commander last month and told him that servicemembers should make more use of Japan’s legalized sex industry.

“There are places where people can legally release their sexual energy in Japan,” Hashimoto said during a video press conference Monday in Osaka. “Unless they make use of these facilities, it will be difficult to control the sexual energies of the wild Marines.”

Hashimoto said that the commander responded with a bitter smile and told him that brothels are off-limits to U.S. servicemembers.

Bitter smile, indeed.

Perhaps the US government took little comfort from Hashimoto conflating the sexual needs of the US military today with those of the Imperial Japanese Army.

For those who have been following the Okinawan issue—and China's rather malicious and successful highlighting of particularist sentiments among the Okinawan population as part of its campaign to undermine Japan’s claim to eternal and uncontested sovereignty over the Senkakus—it was noteworthy that there were also Okinawan protests against Hashimoto’s comfort-women remarks.

Since most comfort women on Okinawa during World War II were Korean, Okinawan objections are apparently more along the lines of resentment against the sexual impositions involved in contemporary Tokyo-imposed US basing, rather than the historical revisionism on the comfort women issue that inflamed opinion in China and South Korea.

As China continues to push the Okinawan hot button with its questioning of Japanese sovereignty over the Ryukyu Island chain, expect more media focus on the most loaded question in Okinawa/Japanese history: the Battle of Okinawa in 1945.  

Japanese nationalists have worked assiduously to shape the official narrative—down to the wording of memorial plaques—to depict Okinawa as the frontline of Japanese resistance.  However, many Okinawans consider the battle—which resulted in the death of over 100,000 Okinawan civilians in the Japanese military’s Gotterdammerung defense—as an atrocity in which Okinawa and Okinawans were sacrificed to buy time for the Japanese home islands.  (In the event, fear that the bloody action on Okinawa would be replicated across the four “home islands” reportedly convinced President Truman to cancel the invasion and short-circuit the war by dropping atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.)

A vocal sector of Okinawan public opinion regards Japanese nationalist revisionism as an effort to deny Okinawan suffering and submerge it beneath an untrue narrative of Japanese heroism.

Asia-Japan Focus reported in 2012 on the fracas over a plaque commemorating the Japanese army headquarters on Okinawa (which, interestingly and tragically, was sited at Shuri Castle, the “pre-eminent symbol of the Ryukyu Kingdom” according to the translators):

A controversy has arisen over Okinawa governor Nakaima’s deletion of the word “suteishi" (sacrificial stone) [this doesn’t mean “sacrificial stone” in the exalted sense of a “consecrated altar”; it refers to a disposable position and losable game piece in the board game of go--PL]  from the draft that was prepared for the translation of the description for the explanation panel about the 32nd Army HQ Shelter. Hitherto, the word “suteishi” has been used as a key term that directly captures the essence of the Battle of Okinawa. This word also symbolises “postwar” Japan-Okinawa relations, in which Japan regained its sovereignty with the San Francisco Peace Treaty, while abandoning Okiwawa to US military domination, and forcing it to bear the burden of the US bases, even after Japan regained administrative rights over Okinawa.

There is nothing new about Japanese nationalism with a World War II denialist tinge. 

Despite efforts to keep it buttoned up (members of the ruling LDP distanced themselves from Hashimoto’s remarks), nationalism keeps bubbling up and its emergence into the Japanese political mainstream is an unpleasant surprise for American pundits.

After all, “peaceful, progressive, and democratic Japan” is more than a useful cliche in the compare-and-contrast framing opposite “assertive, oppressive, and communist China”.

A cooperative, helpful Japan is the linchpin of US efforts to orchestrate a soft containment of China based on US-friendly liberal norms and justified by the idea that the unruly Chinese dragon needs to be kept in its cage by an alliance of the US and Asian democracies.

Japan “going off the res” and behaving like a war-loving dingbat creates obvious problems for the optics of the “pivot to Asia”.  

Japanese nationalism also complicates the US narrative with its healthy dose of anti-Americanism (including a sub voce tendency to blame the US-imposed constitution, US-demanded yen appreciation, the US-inflicted global financial crisis, and US blind infatuation with the strategic and economic importance of China for Japan’s long term woes), and a remarkable and embarrassing hostility toward critical US ally South Korea as Japan’s zero-sum rival for economic and diplomatic leadership among the Asian democracies.

The fact that a bona-fide Asian democracy can act so “assertively” also calls into question the lazy liberal assumption that democratization is a panacea which automatically translates into tolerance, transnational amity, de-escalation of tensions, and regional stability.

A less obvious but, I expect, to US diplomatic strategists, more pressing problem is that nationalist ideals are serving as a justification for an independent-minded Japanese foreign policy that plays lip service to US objectives but actually exploits US backing in order to advance Japanese interests at the expense of US goals.

In the US, we call it “The tail wagging the dog”.

In China (and Japan), the relevant proverb is “The fox pretending to the tiger’s might”.  (In the Chinese proverb, the fox claims that people respect him more than the tiger.  “Just walk behind me, and you’ll see how people fear me.”  The gullible tiger follows the fox and is chagrined to see all the other animals fleeing, apparently, before the fox.)

My personal shorthand for the situation is “Japan as the Israel of East Asia”.  

I think this is a metaphor that troubles the US government as well.  

After all, one of the attractions of pivoting to Asia and away from the Middle East was that the United States would be leaving a region in which its freedom of movement was constrained at enormous financial, military, and diplomatic cost by Israel’s ability to substitute its own security narrative (existential threat of Iran’s nuclear weapons) for the US priority, at least for the Obama administration (normalizing relations with Iran and resolution of the Palestinian issue).

Instead, I have a feeling that Japan under nationalist rule will be more interested in encouraging polarization between pro-China and pro-US blocs in Asia—thereby providing Japan with a favored and decisive role—than it will be in behaving like the good, obedient ally assisting the United States as it manages its relationship with China-- soon going to be the world’s largest economy--at the expense of the interests and anxieties of an increasingly marginalized Japan.

By this reading, the Senkaku crisis—which forces the United States to line up with Japan against China over some Taiwanese rocks the Obama administration cares nothing about—is like money in the bank for the Abe government.

Therefore I’m not expecting that crisis to go anywhere soon.

The Ozawa Factor and the DPJ’s Pro-US Tilt

I’ve written quite a bit about Japan’s Foreign Minister, Seiji Maehara, in the context of his “China-hawk” policies.

He’s a firm believer in the U.S. security relationship and, I think, sees himself as the Asian Tony Blair:
Youthful, intelligent, agile, sophisticated in the modern diplomatic discourse, but also possessing the clarity and cojones to push/follow the United States into bold, new, and effective paradigms for the projection of military and soft power into East Asia.

Or, from a more cynical perspective (which, I confess is the habitual posture of this blog), one might view Maehara as an ambitious politician who has hitched his wagon to hyping the China threat, upgrading the security relationship with the United States, and revising the peace constitution to permit overseas military operations in order to position himself as a pre-eminent neo-liberal hawk.

Be that as it may.

I have an article up at Asia Times, Re-enter the Dragon, concerning the DPJ government’s awkward attempts to deal with Maehara’s efforts to amp up the contradictions between China and Japan.

The article contains a perspective on DPJ politics and China policy that I don’t think you’ll find anywhere else, at least in the English-language press, so I’m going to excerpt it here:

China's unwillingness to cut Maehara any slack extends beyond questions of global strategy and national relationships to matters of internal politics in the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ).

China's designated friend in the DPJ is the "shadow shogun", Ichiro Ozawa. In contrast to Maehara, Ozawa has advocated closer relations with China and a distancing from the US. The DPJ has chosen to cast aside Ozawa, the most effective interlocutor with China, for reasons of policy and politics.

After the fall of prime minister Yukio Hatoyama in September, Ozawa lost the contest for DPJ party head (and prime minister) to Kan; however, his disciplined faction in parliament controls almost half of the DPJ votes. Kan and Maehara - who has conducted a strategic vendetta against Ozawa for years - have been united in their desire to reduce Ozawa's influence.

Ozawa has been successfully tarred as a throwback representative of Tanaka-style money politics. Maehara and his ally, Katsuya Okada, have been badgering Ozawa to appear before the Diet (parliament) to answer embarrassing questions concerning some piece of fundraising skulduggery. On November 9, Yomiuri reported that 55% of respondents to its poll want Ozawa to resign his Diet seat since a panel has recommended his indictment.

Unsurprisingly, the DPJ has consistently expressed frustration that it lacks good channels to Beijing. Cabinet secretary Yoshito Sengoku has tried to establish himself as the go-to guy for China, with little apparent success.

China has little motive to enable the political careers of Kan and Maehara as they proceed with the political destruction of China's most important ally within the DPJ. So China may take some satisfaction from the finding that approval ratings for the Kan government have sunk to 35%, driven in large part by widespread dissatisfaction with the government's handling of the Diaoyutai/Senkaku fracas.

Kan and Maehara's campaign against Ozawa may have had important strategic consequences as well.

It is not unreasonable to assume that Kan's political strategy involved turning to the US to help Japan manage China in a more adversarial way, since it was actively foreclosing the conciliatory route represented by Ozawa.

Indeed, it is tempting to interpret Maehara's elevation to foreign minister, and his enthusiastic exploitation of points of antagonism with China, as the Kan government's way of tightening relations with the United States in order to compensate for its institutional difficulties in managing the China relationship alone.

It’s important to remember that Maehara served as head of the DPJ while it was in the opposition.

He crashed and burned spectacularly when he continued hyping an e-mail alleging dirty money activities by an LDP bigwig even after he knew it was bogus, and had to resign.

But he wants to make a comeback, and he probably wouldn’t mind pushing aside Naoto Kan, who represents the more old-fashioned leftwing/labor roots of the DPJ.

From Kan’s point of view, putting Maehara into the foreign minister slot to pursue a pro-US policy makes a lot of sense as an anti-Ozawa move.

But by letting Maehara carry the flag for the pro-US policy, Kan has also put Maehara in the hot seat because the paramount issue in US-Japan relations—the relocation of the US Naval Air Station at Futenma in Okinawa—looks like it will be a total fiasco.

Keeping the base on the island—either at Futenma or a new site at Henoko—is opposed by around 70% of Okinawans. 

Both candidates for governor have gone on record opposing the continued presence of the base on Okinawa, and they can block new construction at Henoko in a number of ways.

If the base issue remains a continued source of friction in U.S.-Japan relations and a bold re-boot onto 21st century terms for the US-Japan security relationship doesn’t happen, Maehara’s political platform and clout would presumably be compromised.

As for China, Kan probably does not have the intense commitment to a close relationship with US that Maehara exhibits and, as a more peaceable fellow, prefers to keep relations with China on a more even keel.

He already cut Maehara off at the knees by releasing the captain of the misbehaving Chinese fishing vessel back to China when Maehara wanted to try him in Japanese court.

And Kan has apparently made it known that he’s not very pleased that he can’t get meetings with Chinese leaders because they are blowing him off to show how much they disapprove of Maehara.

However, Maehara is a clever fellow and I wonder if Kan—whose approval ratings are currently in the basement—can outmaneuver him.

Maehara also has a potential trump card: the Diaoyutai/Senkaku Islands are administered by Okinawa.  If security friction between China and Japan in the East China Sea continues, maybe Okinawan opposition to US military basing could be transformed into support for Japanese and US military facilities on the island as a keystone of Western monitoring and containment of China.

And, in good news for Maehara, continued friction is virtually guaranteed by the heightened attention both sides are eager to give matters in the South China Sea in the aftermath of the fishing boat kerfuffle.

On November 10, an interesting article appeared in the Japanese press concerning plans to expand the military monitoring network in the East China Sea.  Here’s an excerpt from the Yomiuri report, and the map:

China threat prompts plan for new GSDF unit

The Defense Ministry plans to establish a new military unit to bolster this nation's ability to monitor the Chinese Navy, which has been increasingly active in waters off Japanese territories, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.

A ministry official said the unit will consist of about 200 Ground Self-Defense Force personnel and most likely be based on Yonagunijima, Okinawa Prefecture, this country's westernmost island.

In its budgetary requests for fiscal 2011, the ministry asked for 30 million yen to research the plan, the official said.

The unit's main job will be to monitor via radar the movements of Chinese warships in the East China Sea, including the waters around the Senkaku Islands--which are Japanese territory but are claimed by China--and around the Nansei Islands, which stretch across Kagoshima and Okinawa prefectures.

The unit will exchange information with the U.S. military, thereby strengthening bilateral security cooperation in the waters.

Ah, the Senkakus.

From one perspective, a worthless pile of rocks off Taiwan.

From another perspective, an invaluable flash point illuminating the security conflicts between Japan and China.

I expect the United States will muddle through its economic and geopolitical difficulties somehow.

The US isn’t leaving Asia, China will continue to test the limits of Japanese forbearance in the East China Sea, the political and security conditions for a contain-China policy will remain, and I suspect Seiji Maehara isn’t going anywhere either.