Understanding the China-Japan Island Conflict

Sept. 29 will mark 40 years of normalized diplomatic relations between China and Japan, two countries that spent much of the 20th century in mutual enmity if not at outright war. The anniversary comes at a low point in Sino-Japanese relations amid a dispute over an island chain in the East China Sea known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan and Diaoyu Islands in China.

These islands, which are little more than uninhabited rocks, are not particularly valuable on their own. However, nationalist factions in both countries have used them to enflame old animosities; in China, the government has even helped organize the protests over Japan's plan to purchase and nationalize the islands from their private owner. But China's increased assertiveness is not limited only to this issue. Beijing has undertaken a high-profile expansion and improvement of its navy as a way to help safeguard its maritime interests, which Japan -- an island nation necessarily dependent on access to sea-lanes -- naturally views as a threat. Driven by its economic and political needs, China's expanded military activity may awaken Japan from the pacifist slumber that has characterized it since the end of World War II.

An Old Conflict's New Prominence

The current tensions surrounding the disputed islands began in April. During a visit to the United States, Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara, a hard-line nationalist known for his 1989 book The Japan That Can Say No, which advocated for a stronger international role for Japan not tied to U.S. interests or influence, said that the Tokyo municipal government was planning to buy three of the five Senkaku/Diaoyu islands from their private Japanese owner. Ishihara's comments did little to stir up tensions at the time, but subsequent efforts to raise funds and press forward with the plan drew the attention and ultimately the involvement of the Japanese central government. The efforts also gave China a way to distract from its military and political standoff with the Philippines over control of parts of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.

For decades, Tokyo and Beijing generally abided by a tacit agreement to keep the islands dispute quiet. Japan agreed not to carry out any new construction or let anyone land on the islands; China agreed to delay assertion of any claim to the islands and not let the dispute interfere with trade and political relations. Although flare-ups occurred, usually triggered by some altercation between the Japanese coast guard and Chinese fishing vessels or by nationalist Japanese or Chinese activists trying to land on the islands, the lingering territorial dispute played only a minor role in bilateral relations.

However, Ishihara's plans for the Tokyo municipal government to take over the islands and eventually build security outposts there forced the Japanese government's hand. Facing domestic political pressure to secure Japan's claim to the islands, the government determined that the "nationalization" of the islands was the least contentious option. By keeping control over construction and landings, the central government would be able to keep up its side of the tacit agreement with China on managing the islands.

China saw Japan's proposed nationalization as an opportunity to exploit. Even as Japan was debating what action to take, China began stirring up anti-Japanese sentiment and Beijing tacitly backed the move by a group of Hong Kong activists in August to sail to and land on the disputed islands. At the same time, Beijing prevented a Chinese-based fishing vessel from attempting the same thing, using Hong Kong's semi-autonomous status as a way to distance itself from the action and retain greater flexibility in dealing with Japan.

As expected, the Japanese coast guard arrested the Hong Kong activists and impounded their ship, but Tokyo also swiftly released them to avoid escalating tensions. Less than a month later, after Japan's final decision to purchase the islands from their private Japanese owner, anti-Japanese protests swept China, in many places devolving into riots and vandalism targeting Japanese products and companies. Although many of these protests were stage-managed by the government, the Chinese began to clamp down when some demonstrations got out of control. While still exploiting the anti-Japanese rhetoric, Chinese state-run media outlets have highlighted local governments' efforts to identify and punish protesters who turned violent and warn that nationalist pride is no excuse for destructive behavior.

Presently, both China and Japan are working to keep the dispute within manageable parameters after a month of heightened tensions. China has shifted to disrupting trade with Japan on a local level, with some Japanese products reportedly taking much longer to clear customs, while Japan has dispatched a deputy foreign minister for discussions with Beijing. Chinese maritime surveillance ships continue to make incursions into the area around the disputed islands, and there are reports of hundreds or even thousands of Chinese fishing vessels in the East China Sea gathered near the waters around the islands, but both Japan and China appear to be controlling their actions. Neither side can publicly give in on its territorial stance, and both are looking for ways to gain politically without allowing the situation to degrade further.

Political Dilemmas in Beijing and Tokyo

The islands dispute is occurring as China and Japan, the world's second- and third-largest economies, are both experiencing political crises at home and facing uncertain economic paths forward. But the dispute also reflects the very different positions of the two countries in their developmental history and in East Asia's balance of power.

China, the emerging power in Asia, has seen decades of rapid economic growth but is now confronted with a systemic crisis, one already experienced by Japan in the early 1990s and by South Korea and the other Asian tigers later in the decade. China is reaching the limits of the debt-financed, export-driven economic model and must now deal with the economic and social consequences of this change. That this comes amid a once-in-a-decade leadership transition only exacerbates China's political unease as it debates options for transitioning to a more sustainable economic model. But while China's economic expansion may have plateaued, its military development is still growing.

The Chinese military is becoming a more modern fighting force, more active in influencing Chinese foreign policy and more assertive of its role regionally. The People's Liberation Army Navy on Sept. 23 accepted the delivery of China's first aircraft carrier, and the ship serves as a symbol of the country's military expansion. While Beijing views the carrier as a tool to assert Chinese interests regionally (and perhaps around the globe over the longer term) in the same manner that the United States uses its carrier fleet, for now China has only one, and the country is new to carrier fleet and aviation operations. Having a single carrier offers perhaps more limitations than opportunities for its use, all while raising the concerns and inviting reaction from neighboring states.

Japan, by contrast, has seen two decades of economic malaise characterized by a general stagnation in growth, though not necessarily a devolution of overall economic power. Still, it took those two decades for the Chinese economy, growing at double-digit rates, to even catch the Japanese economy. Despite the malaise, there is plenty of latent strength in the Japanese economy. Japan's main problem is its lack of economic dynamism, a concern that is beginning to be reflected in Japanese politics, where new forces are rising to challenge the political status quo. The long-dominant Liberal Democratic Party lost power to the opposition Democratic Party of Japan in 2009, and both mainstream parties are facing new challenges from independents, non-traditional candidates and the emerging regionalist parties, which espouse nationalism and call for a more aggressive foreign policy.

Even before the rise of the regionalist parties, Japan had begun moving slowly but inexorably from its post-World War II military constraints. With China's growing military strength, North Korea's nuclear weapons program and even South Korean military expansion, Japan has cautiously watched as the potential threats to its maritime interests have emerged, and it has begun to take action. The United States, in part because it wants to share the burden of maintaining security with its allies, has encouraged Tokyo's efforts to take a more active role in regional and international security, commensurate with Japan's overall economic influence.

Concurrent with Japan's economic stagnation, the past two decades have seen the country quietly reform its Self-Defense Forces, expanding the allowable missions as it re-interprets the country's constitutionally mandated restrictions on offensive activity. For example, Japan has raised the status of the defense agency to the defense ministry, expanded joint training operations within its armed forces and with their civilian counterparts, shifted its views on the joint development and sale of weapons systems, integrated more heavily with U.S. anti-missile systems and begun deploying its own helicopter carriers.

Contest for East Asian Supremacy

China is struggling with the new role of the military in its foreign relations, while Japan is seeing a slow re-emergence of the military as a tool of its foreign relations. China's two-decade-plus surge in economic growth is reaching its logical limit, yet given the sheer size of China's population and its lack of progress switching to a more consumption-based economy, Beijing still has a long way to go before it achieves any sort of equitable distribution of resources and benefits. This leaves China's leaders facing rising social tensions with fewer new resources at their disposal. Japan, after two decades of society effectively agreeing to preserve social stability at the cost of economic restructuring and upheaval, is now reaching the limits of its patience with a bureaucratic system that is best known for its inertia.

Both countries are seeing a rise in the acceptability of nationalism, both are envisioning an increasingly active role for their militaries, and both occupy the same strategic space. With Washington increasing its focus on the Asia-Pacific region, Beijing is worried that a resurgent Japan could assist the United States on constraining China in an echo of the Cold War containment strategy.

We are now seeing the early stage of another shift in Asian power. It is perhaps no coincidence that the 1972 re-establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Japan followed U.S. President Richard Nixon's historic visit to China. The Senkaku/Diaoyu islands were not even an issue at the time, since they were still under U.S. administration. Japan's defense was largely subsumed by the United States, and Japan had long ago traded away its military rights for easy access to U.S. markets and U.S. protection. The shift in U.S.-China relations opened the way for the rapid development of China-Japan relations.

The United States' underlying interest is maintaining a perpetual balance between Asia's two key powers so neither is able to challenging Washington's own primacy in the Pacific. During World War II, this led the United States to lend support to China in its struggle against imperial Japan. The United States' current role backing a Japanese military resurgence against China's growing power falls along the same line. As China lurches into a new economic cycle, one that will very likely force deep shifts in the country's internal political economy, it is not hard to imagine China and Japan's underlying geopolitical balance shifting again. And when that happens, so too could the role of the United States.
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Otedola, Transcorp emerge as top biddrs for Ughelli and Geregu power plants

The Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) has named the preferred bidders for some of the five power generation plants that are to be privatised.

A consortium which included Transcorp PLC was the highest bidder for the Ughelli Power Company, with an offer of $300 million, the Bureau of Public Enterprises said at a ceremony in Abuja.

The bid for Geregu Power plant has won with a bid of $132 million by a group which includes Forte Oil, a petrol firm owned by billionaire oil tycoon Femi Otedola. 

The bidding for the remaining power plants is still on going in Abuja.

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46 years old Man caught having sex with a sheep

A 46 years old man, Mr. Kelechi Nnali of Nkpogoro, Ndibe in Afikpo North Local Government Area of Ebonyi State was weekend allegedly caught having carnal knowledge with a sheep by the roadside in the community.
It was gathered that Nnali who is married with two wives and children pleaded with the boy who saw him committing the crime not to tell anybody, promising that he would give him (the boy) N10,000 and a handset but the cat was let out of the bag when Mr. Nnali renege on the agreement.
it was learnt that when the act of bestiality committed by Mr. Nwali filtered into the ears of the people of the area, he was summoned by the elders of the community to answer to the allegation as the matter was later taken to Ogo Ezinwachi Play ground where delicate and public matter are usually discussed.
At the venue, Mr. Nnali was sanctioned according to the law of the land. The elders, who were visibly angry with the depraved act, stressed that the man had committed an abomination in the land and must pay the price according to the law of the land.
It was gathered that to cleanse the land of the abominable act, that elderly women of Ndibe had last weekend performed a traditional ablution called Npkompko in Mr. Nnali’s compound.
However, at the time of this report, vanguard Newspaper could not get the owner of the sheep and the culprit to comment on the matter as Mr. Nnali was reported to have fled the community for fear of being lynched by irate youths of the area.
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Nigeria set to produce HIV vaccine soon

HIV vaccine 

A revised national plan targeting possible development of HIV vaccine Tuesday came into effect, nearly 13 years after it buckled under financial and administrative challenges.

The National HIV Vaccine Plan, developed by National Agency for Control of AIDS and its partners—US Department of Defence and SI Consulting—hopes to bring the country back into global efforts to develop an HIV vaccine, said NACA director general John Idoko.

“We need to be part of this vaccine initiative; we need to take it beyond what we did last time,” Idoko said.

He remarked that Nigeria needed to pilot its own efforts in HIV vaccine research because serotypes of HIV mostly found in the country were not part of vaccine constructs in countries where research was underway.

Secretary to the Government of the Federation Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, who officially launched the revised plan, developed this year, said it demonstrated Nigeria’s lead role “in promoting global policies on the continent and a resolve to ensure continuous decline of Nigeria’s burden of HIV.

The plan shows “Nigeria is taking concrete steps to contribute to the fight against HIV,” said Terence McCulley, ambassador of the US, which commits nearly $600 million a year to health programmes in Nigeria.

Health minister Onyebuchi Chukwu suggested that developing a vaccine seemed a “tall order” but insisted it could be achieved with hard work.

“The review of the plan will not be in vain,” he said through a representative, Dr Evelyn Ngige.

Call for action

Dr Ogbonnaya Njoku, director of science at US DoD’s Walter Reed Programme, which collaborated on the NHVP, called for a line of budget to activate the plan, saying,“what’s more important now is not just the plan, but the implementation.”

The 68-page plan details how to build and enhance capacity for HIV vaccine research, strengthen regulations and scientific processes, ensure a proper research framework for possible vaccine trial.

Idoko said Nigeria would remain open to new prevention technologies targeting HIV but needed to join the global effort on a vaccine; still the only means of completely halting HIV.

He also noted that despite a 25% decline in Nigeria’s HIV prevalence between 2001 and 2010, the country’s population means it still has the world’s second largest burden of HIV after South Africa.

An estimated 1.5 million people living with the virus need treatment but available therapy only covers 500,000 people—a mere third of people in need of antiretroviral drugs.

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Where did the Igbos come from?

     late  Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu 

By Mazi Nweke, Enugu State, Nigeria

“Majority of Igbos are satisfied to accept the Israel hypothesis supported by the triple testimonies of oral tradition, Eri migration and archaeological evidence.”

Where the Igbos migrated from has not been proved beyond reasonable doubt. The ancestry of the Igbos has bothered many people for a long time. Many historians, philosophers, sociologists, archaeologists and anthropologists have raised a lot of dust on this issue. A lot of views have been proffered but yet the origin of the Igbos remained a mirage.

Suffice it to say that the Igbos have found themselves in Nigeria and indeed they are Nigerians like every other tribe. This tend to support the claim of an elderly Mbaise man from Imo State of Nigeria, whose name remain anonymous, in a book by Dr. Elizabeth Isichei titled “History of the Igbo People”. The elderly Mbaise man maintained that the Igbos did not come from anywhere. But the fact remains that the Igbos must come from somewhere beyond the limited knowledge of the Mbaise elder. Another claim seek to establish that the ancestors of the Igbos originated from the area they inhabit, presently known as Awka-Okigwe. Hence, the communities known as Umu-Nri regard themselves as the descendants of a hero called Eri, who along with his wife, Nnamaku, was sent down from the sky by Chukwu, the Igbo supreme God. I must confess that this claim sounds just like a fairy tale. Even a ten-year-old child would never believe this story. There is no “abracadabra” in Igbo man’s origin, certainly he is from somewhere.

The Igbos are more pragmatic in the claim of their origin unlike some other tribes in Nigeria. To suit their natural and competitive tendencies, they rarely rely on myths, legends and oral traditions. What the average Igbo man cannot hold on in respect of practical evidence, he would rather resign to faith and to God with whom he is more comfortable. This explains why they give such names as Chimaroke (God knows my portion), Chijioke (The Creator God), Chikelu (God creates), Chukwuma (God knows), Chinenye (God gives), Chukwuebuka (God is great), Chukwudi (God exits), Ngozichukwu (blessing of God), Eberechukwu (mercy of God), etc.

Well, there are three basic ways of providing the historical claims of any people or tribe. These ways are by written documents, by oral tradition and by archeological evidence.Needless to say that the Igbos have these three ways to present in the justification of the claim of their origin. The historical problem of the Igbo man since the inception ofNigeria has been how to convince his fellow Nigerians that he is part and parcel of the political entity called Nigeria. While some people have tried to link the Igbos to the Jewish race, others simply see them as the Jews of Africa. It is not a mistake to mention that the Igbos have genealogical relationship as well as historical resemblance with the Jewish race.

First and foremost, they are adventurous and aggressive like the Jews. The Igbo and Jewish customs permit a man to raise children from his brother’s widow. Both the Igbos and the Jews have a common tradition of lengthy funeral ceremony (Genesis 50:1-3). Igbos and the Jews have common circumcision; date on the eight-day following the delivering of a male child. Igbos and the Jews use intermediaries in marriage negotiations, this is practicable in Igboland up till now. Abraham did it while negotiating Rebecca for Isaac (Genesis 24.). Many groups of scholars have the view that the Igbos originated from the Jewish stock. To make this view more acceptable, Olaudah Equiano, an Igbo ex-slave inLondon, who is said to have travelled widely, happens to be the first person to write about the Igbo tribe before his death in 1797. Equaino, in one of his findings, discovered that some names amongst the Igbos such as Uburu and even the “Igbo” itself are derived from Hebrew words.

The vast majority of the Igbos who fell victim of the trans-Atlantic slave trade have been forgotten. They lived lives of toil and suffering, and their children rapidly lost a sense of their Igbo identity. One of them, however, by his courage and ability, won his freedom, and went on to a remarkable career which he described in an autobiography which is one of our most valuable sources of knowledge of the Igbo past. He was the first of many Igbos who have achieved distinction in Europe, and the first of a series of notable Igbo authors in English. His name was Olaudah Equiano, which might mean Olaude Ekweano and he was born in about 1745 and died in 1797.

Rev. J.T. Basden, an Anglican missionary, who worked in Igboland for over a decade, shared the opinion that the word ‘Igbo’ might be a shortening of a longer name of an Igbo influential ancestor. Another school of thought led by Late Professor Dike, whose book was expanded by I.C.U. Enochusi in his book: “The Living Document of Ekwulobia”, found out that the Igbos had three origins and settled in their homes in two different periods. According to them, the first branch of the Igbo was the Jewish stock who wandered through the Sudan and eventually settled at their current home earlier than 9th century A.D. Those Jewish Igbos have the same tradition and custom with the Jews of the Eastern World. They are the Nris, the Aros, the Igbo Ukwus, the Otuochas and so on.

The second origin is the Benin or Oduduwa origin. These Igbos were believed to be a part of the descendants of Oduduwa, the father of the Yorubas, and originated from Benin Kingdom only to settle at River line area or the Ika Igbo country land of the Igbo man in 17th century A.D. Dr. K. O. Dike, in support of this assertion, said that there was an eastward movement of population from Benin in 17th century A.D., which resulted in increased population of the Western, or Ika Igbo country. The third Igbo origin is the Benue River Region origin. These Igbos migrated from Igala country of the Benue River country into Igbo belt late 17th century A.D. to avoid the Fulani slave trade. Majority of these Igala Igbos settled in the Northern part of the Igbo territory.

According to a team of researchers from University of Ibadan, led by Thusten Shaw, it is now believed that some ancient Igbos had settled at Igbo-Ukwu-Aguatat-Anambra Stateearlier. That in 19th century A.D. Igbo-Ukwu, Ekwulobia and the environs were believed to belong to Jewish Igbos due to the period of the settlement. Another group headed by A.E. Afigbo linked the Igbos to branch of a Negro race who originated along the latitude of Asselar and Khartoun. Some linguists in support of this came out with the view that the Igbos originated from Niger-Congo family. This was due to the alignment of the language with that of ‘kwa’ in this area who were separated from Igbos by the Niger-Benue confluence.

That the Igbos migrated from Isreal is no longer in doubt. According to Uche P. Ikeanyibe, as for geographical migrations and settlements, majority of Igbos are satisfied to accept the Israel hypothesis supported by the triple testimonies of oral tradition, Eri migration and the biblical evidence of Eri as a true historical descendant of Israel and the archaeological evidence, some of which are now lodged by Anambra state Government at Igbo-Ukwu Musem”.

Speaking on the origin of the Igbos, on behalf of Nri people, during an audience participation programme of Radio Nigeria on July 13, 1966, Ogbuefi Madubueze Enemmou was quoted as having said, “about two years ago, Israel government sent delegates to our place, Nri to confirm the historical relationship between Igbos and Hebrew people. We took Israeli officials round historical places in our town. They expressed surprise at what they observed as obvious similarities between our custom and theirs. Later, they could not help but conclude that Nri and Igbo in general are among the lost tribes of Israel”.

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