Take note that the above was not written by an American and being written in 1967, this problem is really, really old.

On March 23, 2005 the front  page article of the Asahi newspaper (Japanese language version) featured an exclusive interview with Mr. Chirac, President of France, in advance of his March 26, 2005 visit to Japan. The primary emphasis of the article was what was on the mind of most Japanese – how the very existence of their nation was being endangered by threats of the Europeans (led by France and Germany, the new hegemons) to sell advanced military technology to China, Japan’s great rival in Asia. Laughingly, the president of the “great” nation (that is what they call their nation) assured the Japanese that there was absolutely nothing to fear as this was only a friendly gesture to China, and nothing serious could be sold. Of  course the world has heard French assurances before that  was nothing to worry about, whether it was in 1938 when the French sold out Czechoslovakia, handing over the entire nation to Hitler, promising that they had achieved “Peace in our time” or in 1939 when Poland, appealing to France to uphold its “word of honor” in a mutual defense pact, signed and sealed by the leaders of France. After Poland was also invaded by Hitler,  the response of the French was to do absolutely nothing.

In more recent years, and on a more personal level, the credibility of the word of Mr. Chirac should also be judged from the fact that he is wanted by French prosecutors for violating French political financing laws, his office of the presidency being the sole barrier to his arrest -- as so long as he is president, he is immune. He is accused of violating French law to achieve political power. No law, French or international, is a barrier to his quest for power. Indeed a French publication, Le Canard Enchaine, which just recently brought down the French Finance Minister in another French scandal, in March, 2005 reported that the President Chirac was bugging the phones of his main political rival, Nicolas Sarkozy, who now is the leader of Chirac’s own political party. According to the magazine, Mr. Sarkozy himself believes that his phones are being tapped not only at the urging of the president, but also the protégé of the president, Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin. Of course we all remember Mr. Villepin, he was the French Foreign Minister during the Iraq war when Colin Powell accused him of stabbing him in the back -- proof that treachery is most deliciously carried out when well-dressed. Mr. Villepin also wrote a book declaring Napoleon the most brilliant general to ever live, although he was defeated by both the British and the Russians (remember Le Grand Army?)

So, yes, indeed, the Japanese can trust the French and leave the fate of their  nation in  trust to the French. Just ask the Czechs and the Poles. Of course, they have choice words for the Germans as well.

But I digress, I meant to start with a discussion of the Europeans in Asia, although quite clearly,  the most powerful nation in Asia, TODAY, not 20 years from now, JAPAN, is more up in arms about the technology transfer than the Americans, who were the clear target of the technology move. But never mind, French history is full of miscalculations.

So back to the history of Europe in Asia. As noted at the outset, European empires that in some cases had raped and plundered Asia for up to 500 years, in December, 1941, in less than a month, fell to the Japanese onslaught. Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaya, the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), Burma (Myanmar), French Indochina (Viet Nam, Cambodia and Laos). At least the Americans held out until February, when MacArthur escaped and promised to return (another promise the Americans kept, how unFrench!).

Ordinarily, an American would mind his manners, and not laugh at the humiliating defeats of the Grand European empires, but seeing how Europeans, no matter how scandalous their own histories, can only behave badly about America today, I have lost all  restraint. How a Japanese army, riding on bicycles no less,  was able to defeat the mighty British in Malaya and Singapore in only a matter of days shows that European claims to superiority, then as today, was only a chimera of words. Not that the Japanese did not have more powerful military means (after all the mighty British Navy (was it the “PRINCE OF WALES” (how very appropriate) that was sunk on the first day of the attack  on Singapore?) was destroyed by the Japanese air force) but anyone visiting Saipan, seeing how small Japanese tanks were, rivaling in size American SUVs, shows that in reality Japanese land forces were not very advanced, but enough so to smash “mighty” centuries old empires. Today, despite European words, it is Japan, not Europe that has made the most dramatic gains in the post war world. Japanese armies today would not arrive on bicycles, but on high speed hydrofoils, the only army in the world with such large scale capacity. The Japanese navy rivals all but the American. And the air force? It is not only that it shares the most advanced aircraft with its AMERICAN, not European, ally, America’s much vaunted stealth technology was assisted in critical areas by Japanese companies.

But European imperial ignominy, did not begin in December, 1941. Evidence of Imperial decay had begun well before. In World War I, as part of its role as an ally of the US and Britain in World War I, Japan seized the Asian bits of the German empire. In addition to the German part of China, (as China had been chopped up, involuntarily, by the European imperialists) the German islands in Micronesia were all seized by the Japanese. Nary a shot was fired. The Germans just handed it over. The mighty, vaunted Germans, just handed it over without a fight.

But where did the Germans get those Micronesian islands? Why they bought them from the Spaniards, who had seen their 400 year old empire in the Philippines collapse. The Spaniards sold those bits of their Asian empire, the islands in Micronesia other than Guam, to the Germans. This followed the defeat of the Spanish in 1898 in the Spanish -American war. While the Japanese were able to defeat the mighty European empires in less than a month, Spain lost the Battle of Manila Bay in less than 5 hours.

In 1998, the Philippines celebrated their Centennial of “independence” from Spain. As part of this process, the Daily Inquirer, the Philippines largest daily newspaper ran a daily series of articles covering the history of that fight in 1898. The most fascinating article of all, for me, was the discussion of the war by the European media, the European press at the time. According to this Filipino newspaper, the European press, particularly the British press, was of the opinion that Americans were certain to face defeat. Now instead of just fighting Indians, the Americans were going to meet a “proper” European nation who would teach the upstart Americans a good lesson. Wrong Again . It took just five hours for a centuries old European empire to just crack open and die.

In fact, it was not the Americans, knocking loudly on the door that transformed Japan from its stupor of centuries of isolation under the Tokugawa Shogunate. No, it was the centuries of European imperialism, colonizing, pillaging and looting Asia that woke Japan. Watching mighty China being rendered asunder by these lusty imperialists woke Japan to what became the greatest transformation in the past 150 years. Japan alone in Asia was able to fight off these European plunderers. Today Japan ranks second in the world, greater economically and technologically than France and Germany, the very nations threatening Japan today, combined.

Despite these annals of ignominy in Asia, even today the Europeans can not stop over-rating themselves.

 The following is from March 19, 2005 issued of THE ECONOMIST (a British, not American publication) discussing the first military operation by the New Empire, the European Union, in Bosnia, in the heart of Europe itself:

“Last December, a 7,000 strong force under EU command, known as EUFOR, quietly took control of peacekeeping operations in Bosnia from NATO…But the memory that really haunts the EU is its ignominious failure to deal with the Balkan wars in the 1990s…the man in temporary charge of EU foreign policy in mid-1991 was Jacques (how French!) Poos, foreign minister of Luxembourg, whose assertion that the Yugoslav crisis was “the hour of Europe”, not of America, was swiftly exposed as empty and hubristic. European efforts to control the conflict reached their nadir in 1995, when Dutch UN peacekeepers failed to prevent the massacre of some 7,500 Bosnian Muslims by Bosnia Serb forces at Srebrenica. In the end it took an American-led military intervention by NATO to end the conflict. Symbolically enough, the accords that ended the Bosnian War were negotiated in not in Brussels, but in Dayton, Ohio.”

I will be more brutally frank, less polite, about this human rights travesty, precisely because it does involve Europeans. In the above case, over 7000 Muslim civilians were fraudulently slaughtered due to European and United Nation pretensions. Thousands died for egos. The brutal reality was that those professional European soldiers, operating under United Nations aegis, declared Srebrenica to be a safe zone for Muslims seeking refuge from the murderous Serbs. The United Nations and professional European soldiers promised to protect these Muslim refugees. The brutal reality was that when the Bosnian Serb soldiers, not professional soldiers, but a rag tag guerrilla army, reached Srebrenica, they looked the European professional soldiers (in their very stylish uniforms) straight in the eyes and concluded “these ladies won’t fight” and they were absolutely right. The European professional soldiers fled, they ran like cowardly dogs and can be directly held responsible for the slaughter that followed of the innocent Muslim civilians that had sought refuge there due to promises by the Europeans and their much-loved United Nations.

This happened ten years ago in the heart of Europe. But if there is anything Europe is full of, it is pretenses. But lets dig the knife in deeper. As France is the leader of this European ego trip, let us examine more their military record. Is there any war France has won, alone, on its own, in the past 100 years that did not involve its fighting spear-chuckers in Africa. No. No. Do not let your liberal bias over-react that I am making a racist insult. Here I am making a clear factual reference to soldiers who have nothing more to fight with than spears. I would be the first to proudly point out the record of France in Haiti. In the early 1800s Haiti became the first Caribbean nation to throw out its colonial (European) masters. And it was black. I will also point out that soon thereafter Napoleon sent two armies, led by two French generals to defeat the Haitians. Both were miserably defeated The Haitians defeated both French armies. You can be sure that these losses by Napoleon to the Haitians were not mentioned in the book by the ever-so stylish Mr. Villepin, the former French Foreign Minister. Not to mention, that the much celebrated Cinco de Mayo Mexican Independence Day, celebrates the victory of the Mexican people not over the Spanish, but the French.

Today, France and Germany are “Back in the Game” their past histories so bitterly reveals. Germany is in a class by itself.  It is up to the rest of Europe to decide if they wish to join in this dangerous game.  You are judged by your friends.

I am  of the opinion that if the Europeans feel that they can flex their feeble muscles and threaten the US by promising advanced European military technology (oxymoron?) to China then they deserve to get hit back just as hard. The only good in this threat is that it is pushing Japan even more into the arms of the USA. I personally regard this a very big net plus. Getting an even stronger relationship with Japan is more than worth relations with Europe. Among major nations, Japan is by far the most integrated unit --- monocultural,  mono-language, and mono-religion (in that most Japanese think the same on religion)  --- enhancing its world’s second ranking economy, second ranking financial power and the world's second most advanced trove of technology. Europe only looks powerful when you add up the sums on a group of very disparate nations. Or is it desperate nations! Compare Japan's centuries as an integrated unit to the centuries Europeans killed each other. These European threats to help China, potentially putting American lives at risk, also clearly endangers the very existence of Japan. If the Europeans go ahead with this, then  the US and Japan should seriously consider aiding and arming the IRA, the Basques nationalists and the nationalists in Sardinia. The Europeans have been too spoiled with 60 years of American guaranteed peace and being rescued from two world wars and every other threat to Europe. If they threaten us, we must threaten them right back. The fact is that Britain, with its $25 billion defense budget  blackmailed the US to get its hands on the US defense technology trove produced from $500 billion defense budgets, and now also threatens to aid China when this blackmail fails.

It is not the first time the European imperialists have hit America when they felt its hands tied. In the American civil war both France and Britain aided the rebel Southern states. France invaded Mexico and made the nephew of the French Emperor the first King of Mexico. When the civil war ended the US moved to hit back. We aided the Mexican nationalists to defeat and throw out the French. Threats of war and American armies massing near Canada prompted the British imperialists to suddenly generously grant sovereignty to Canada as a nation.

The greatest threat of China's military is to Taiwan.

And what is the situation there? Taiwan, a democracy, with freedom of speech, free elections and the rule of law,  is under threat by a totalitarian dictatorship. They are threatened with a new law. A law never opened to the public, prepared in secrecy, and passed by a Congress never elected by the people in free elections,  threatening war on Taiwan. A tyrannical dictatorship in action. Most on point, it is a huge empire threatening war with a small democracy seeking independence.



And China is the nation the Europeans seek to assist. How typical of European imperialists. The last time many European armies used major military force in our lifetimes was against nations seeking freedom from their empires. Then they were willing to fight. In other cases – send in the Ghurkas. How colonialist. How imperialist.

Then there is China's 50 year OCCUPATION  of Tibet (that is a real occupation, a colonization, no introduction of democracy --- compare that to Iraq), its role of protector of Sudan and its genocidal killers (truly in the name of oil! Truly Blood for Oil!), the main armory of the brutal Myanmar regime, and China’s kissy, kissy relations with bloodthirsty North Korea.

So, do not stand silently when the Europeans preach sanctimonious as moral superiors to Americans, their actions betray their geopolitical ambitions. If they want to play this game, let them pay the price. Hit them back hard. Hit them back fatally.

It should be made painfully clear that if because of these European moves Chinese missiles rain on Democratic Taiwan, missiles will as well rain down on Europe. Europe should not be allowed its false image of superiority and safety cosseted behind American arms and blood. If they want to play the game of death, these effete brats should pay the price.

History, bloody history, is something with which the Europeans are richly endowed.

History buffs may have enjoyed the series on British history run on Sundays in early 2004 by the BBC. Excellent. Excellent. as BBC history specials always are.

I particularly liked the part of the BBC series which basically said that although the British had been playing around in India for a very long time already, the decision to take over India as part of the Empire was due to maneuvers by the French. Apparently, not for the first time, as we all know, the French made a move whereby they hoped to take over India and drive the British out. The Thais would well understand such problems as they faced similar maneuvers between the French and British, only they managed to keep their independence from these plundering imperialists. The point is that the French miscalculated. Not for the first time.

Interesting was the "Devil made me do it" defense by the BBC of British imperialism. Of course any criminal lawyer would recognize the defense: "Judge, I had to rape the voluptuous gorgeous woman because the other man was about to do it." My, my and that other criminal was the French. 

European history is so full of such rapacious criminality in Asia,  I  question whether the Europeans' geopolitical strategy in helping China will serve European interests. Many probably remember the Bruce Lee movie with the park sign "no dogs or Chinese" in a park in China. That was a historical fact. That was policy.  It was the Europeans, who carved up China from more than 150 years ago. Not the Americans. There was a British section of China (not to mention Hong Kong taken in opium wars where our British "idealists" fought for the right to sell opium to the Chinese, making Britain probably the only government in history which officially wanted to be a drug dealer) a French section, a German section and on and on.

But no American section.

Americans fought together with the Chinese to defeat the Japanese in WWII, with nary a European in sight, not after the Japanese in a few weeks smashed centuries old European Empires. Europeans have much to live down.

Remnants of modern day European imperialism in Asia are still around. The first "European" troops to the tsunami disaster in December, 2004, were the British Ghurka troops. Indeed, after the Americans won the war in Kosovo through the air, the first "European" troops on the ground in this war in the center of Europe was those same British Ghurkas. Of course the Ghurka troops are from Nepal, a former part of the British Empire. This is the reality of British, European, thought processes, even today. That is precisely the point.

Those who watch the BBC are well of the left leaning, bordering on the looney left, tendency of the broadcaster. But the latent anti-Americanism of the BBC, indeed, the British intelligentsia as a whole, may be less clear, so let us look at two recent examples, in these cases from CNN involving major British news agencies, are more appropriately, "spin" agencies. Both of the incidents was on CNN's "International Correspondent"

The first, on March, 13, 2005, involved a discussion with the International News Editor of the Guardian -- you know, the British paper that launched a Brit letter writing campaign to people in Ohio to vote against Bush. The interview was about a recent flurry of news reports about whether Bush (and the Americans) had got it right after all. What with the brave success of elections in Iraq and the protests in Lebanon following the assassination of a popular former prime minister. The International News Editor of the Guardian, bravely put the matter on its front page, but concluded that this  absolutely was not the case. Bush (and the Americans) had not got it right. His proof? First, that despite the protests, he said the Syrians were never going to leave Lebanon and two, that the argument that democracy was sweeping the Middle East due to the Americans was false, pointing out that the opposition leader in Egypt for the presidency was in jail. Oh the problems of technology! Of course International Correspondent is pre-taped. CNN news, on its 5 minute weekend news report, just prior to that show with this British analysis reported that:

1.    The President of Syria had indeed given a precise schedule for troops to be withdrawn from Lebanon to a special UN emissary from Kofi Annan, and
2.    Egypt had just released from prison the opposition leader due to pressure from the US.

Backing this up, in an article about Condaleeza Rice, the March 28, 2005 issue of TIME magazine stated:

“She led the push in the Administration for reform in the Middle East, canceling a trip to Egypt after Cairo jailed a leading political activist (the next day, Hosni Mubarak stunned the Egyptian public with a call for multiparty presidential elections.)”

So the Americans had nothing to do with it? Indeed, it must have been some European leader that caused that. Yes, indeed.

That Guardian Editor is a professional? No, I would not demean him that far. No, my analysis is that he is just part of the British intelligentsia which is drenched with anti-Americanism.

Another example, a week later, March 20, 2005 was also on CNN's International Correspondent. On more or less the same subject, the BBC's senior international correspondent John Simpson (“Simpson's World”) gave his two cents worth. His opinion was that there was no American success in Iraq. In talking about the events in Lebanon, he used terminology such as "Thank God, " "miraculous," and "marvelous."

Give me a break.

Anyone who knows anything about modern day Britain and the British intelligentsia knows that they are not religious and to say something happened due to God or a miracle is not in their intellectual tool pack. So for them, in this case, to say something happened because it was a miracle, or thanks to God, is because that is easier for them to admit than saying the Americans had succeeded.

A debased intelligentsia.

Of course we all saw John Simpson “take” Kabul, in Afghanistan as the Taliban ran from the Americans -- after he had earlier filed many reports expressing skepticism on American victory there. 

So there you have it. The Europeans, spoiled, cosseted defensively by American blood for a century, now choose to aid militarily a brutal dictatorship which is itself the protector of the world’s most brutal regimes. If by their actions, their freedom is threatened,  they should be made to pay. Why, if they want to play such dangerous games, should they be able to think they can remain safely ensconced in their homeland. It is patently unfair, to let them live luxuriant while their games threaten others.

So what do you when you when you have an effete elite so overweening in their self-assessed superiority.

In fact, Asia does indeed show the example. In China in particular, ironically enough.

Chinese history is so long, so rich, that relevant patterns can be seen. The Chinese elite depended not only on that famous Great Wall to keep out those dangerous barbarians. No, indeed. The end of the great Chinese dynasties time and again was mostly characterized by the Chinese Imperials using other barbarians to fight off threatening barbarians. The “superior” Chinese played off one barbarian nation against barbarian nation. Sounds French to me. Ever confident in their superior ability to outfox these country bumpkins, the Chinese Imperials inevitably fell in decline, until a more vital, dynamic Chinese empire appeared again, usually enhanced with a good strong boost from those victorious barbarians -- those country bumpkins.

The most famous of course was Genghis Khan.  The decadent Chinese imperials of the day, no longer able to raise their own armies to defend China (how European!), no longer able to encourage their young men to die for their nation (ditto), recruited Genghis Khan and his Mongols to fight to defend China (how European!). When they felt he grew too strong, the Chinese imperials  turned to other barbarians to fight the Mongols. (How French! Foreign Legion anyone?). They failed, and the Chinese Empire fell to the Mongols. The Mongols,  so strengthened that they conquered all before them to the ends of the world, reached even the gates of Europe  (but failing at Japan!). Always underestimated Japan.

By the way, Genghis Khan, I would like you to meet George Bush.

Copyright 2005. All rights reserved Attorney Roderick H. Seeman

DISCLAIMER JapanLaw.info is intended purely for introductory, educational purposes. If you plan a transaction in Japan, consult with a licensed Japanese attorney. THIS PUBLICATION IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT. THIS PUBLICATION COULD INCLUDE INACCURACIES OR ERRORS IN TYPOGRAPHY OR TRANSLATION .