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| Image: Flickr/Sean Welton |
By Jin Kai
The tensions between China and Japan can be understood as a contest of “shih,” or strategic configurations of power.
In Chinese ancient military general and strategist Sun Tzu’s classical military treatise The Art of War, “shih” means the strategic configuration of power. Winning by “shih” may help to bring about a final triumph even without engaging in actual fighting. Such idea may provide us with an alternative perspective to examine the current Sino-Japanese “Cold War.”
So far, signs of reconciliations between Beijing and Tokyo are still nowhere to be seen. Instead, both seem to be winding up national springs to get prepared for a possible conflict. Abe, shortly after being rejected and denounced by China for his confrontational remarks made at the World Economic Forum, repeated his ambitious goal of reviewing Japan’s right of collective self-defense in his January 24 policy speech to the National Diet. China, geared up to check Abe, has never stopped its strategic preparations. The establishment of China’s Council of State Security may suggest that, at the top level, China is taking full advantage of the current circumstance to “stretch its arms” to tackle various traditional and nontraditional challenges, which of course includes the enduring deep-rooted disputes with Japan.
This is only a tiny segment of the current wrangling between Beijing and Tokyo. If we look at East Asia’s political map as a Go game board, China and Japan are rival players running into a deadlock, both holding their strategically important game pieces. The following are some of the most important ones, which may help to understand and compare each country’s strategic configuration of power.
Read the full story at The Diplomat