I hasten to explain, lest the likes of 'Harry Harperson' and her soppy lot faint away, that I use the term "W.O.G.s" in it's initial, acronymic meaning of 'Wily Oriental Gentlemen' which, in its way, was a sort of back-handed compliment aimed particularly at Orientals to indicate that they were exceedingly intelligent and crafty. Their aura of somewhat mystical cleverness remains with us today such that if the proprietor of your local Chinese restaurant offered you the winner of the 3.30 at Fontwell Park you might suspect a catch somewhere!
Of course, this feeling of slight intellectual inferiority on the part of westerners dealing with Orientals may well hinder the efforts of western diplomats, statesmen and generals in dealing with a resurgent China, and perhaps even more tricky, a re-militarised Japan. The fact is that none of them are inherently either more or less intelligent than occidentals. But at any given time the intelligence/stupidity quotient between all the parties concerned might well be different simply on the laws of chance. For an example of similarities, I am constantly struck by the almost infantile vacuity and self-delusion that infected the Wilhemine leadership of Germany in the first fourteen years of the 20th century, and the equally mad delusions of murderous grandeur and bombosity exhibited by the Japanes leadership in the 1930s and early '40s. In the 'stoopid stakes' you could not put a fag-paper between them!
And talking of 'stoopids', if we consider for any length of time the Obama White House and the Kerry State Department we realize rapidly that we are in real 'goofball' territory. The 'stoopid' problem in Washington has now been compounded by a slow but steady clearing of the ranks in their military high commands and their replacement with politically-correct stooges with whom Obama is more comfortable. We need waste no time pondering the 'stoopid' problem in London because as it stands today we have more aircraft carriers than the government has brain cells! Of course, we have absolutely no aircraft carriers and thus we have absolutely nothing to offer the Americans and we can do nothing other than sit the whole thing out on the sidelines - pheeeew, that's a relief!
Turning to the Chinese, it is not easy to predict their moves in advance not, I think, because they are 'devilish cunning' but because there appear to be too many cooks stirring the chop suey! My guess is that there are some deep divisions between the Party, which is itself split between modernisers and traditionalists whose only point of agreement is the absolute necessity of exerting total power for as long as possible, and the military which like its counterparts everywhere loves showing off and playing with its 'toys' - and better still, knocking other people about to prove how manly they are! Then, finally, there are 'The People' - dread word! - which in a country the size of China is an entity difficult to pin down. Regional differences are as deep and unyielding as those between town and country. Of course, both military and government will be keen to waive the flag vigorously in order to use 'patriotism' as a sort of super-glue. Unfortunately, it will be as difficult to predict specific Chinese actions as it was to predict the vagaries of pre-first-war Wilhemine German and pre-second-war Imperial Japan. The only absolute certainty, without even a shadow of doubt, is that over the next few decades China will seek to dominate, in one way or another, the western Pacific rim and that they will almost certainly start with Japan!
As for the Japanese, they received the message loud and clear several years ago which is when they began their re-militarisation and if any of them had any doubts they were ended by last week's stroke by the Chinese to slap air restrictions over a part of the South China Sea containing a handful of tiny islands owned by Japan. The Americans, surprised me - and the Chinese, I guess - by immediately flying a couple of B-52s right through the middle of it without any warning to anyone! Almost the equivalent of "Make my day, Punk!" This will have humiliated certain of the Chinese especially, I guess, those ridiculous-looking generals who can barely walk under the tons of metal pinned to their chests - awarded for God knows what! This might - just! - make them think twice before they chance making fools of themselves again - although when they do it will be better thought-out and thus may prove much more tricky for the Americans to respond. And it will happen again, there is absolutely no doubt about that!
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101225781
http://www.iii.co.uk/news-opinion/reuters/news/129552
