IT has until now been a matter of some pride among Japanese that their armed forces have not fired a single shot in anger since their country was defeated by the World War II Allies, fully 54 years ago. But this may be about to change. Tokyo is sending two helicopter-equipped destroyers to join the international anti-piracy task force off the coast of Somalia.
Their sole initial purpose will be to protect Japanese merchantmen, but if legislation tabled in Parliament yesterday goes through, the two destroyers will be able to go into action to protect any vessel menaced by the speedboat pirates.
Japan, like its fellow-vanquished Axis partner Germany, has spent half a century pursuing a pacifist agenda. Both former belligerents long eschewed any military involvement, to the increasing frustration of countries who took on international operations at the behest of the UN. Although German troops are now in Afghanistan they are away from the main combat areas. Japanese forces provided purely logistical support in Iraq and outstandingly, successfully oversaw Cambodia’s first free elections. The Japanese naval deployment off Somalia comes only weeks after that of the Chinese. It is right to wonder if there is not some connection. The Japanese are seeing their Asian economic hegemony falling to China. Beijing’s increasingly assertive international presence, starting with the economic and political cultivation of Africa, is underpinned by growing military strength backed by the high technology of a nuclear power.
It is not that the Japanese would seek to challenge China militarily, but rather that if they continue to sit out legitimate international policing operations, such as that against the Somali pirates, their influence on the world stage will be reduced. Both Germany and Japan would dearly love permanent seats on the UN Security Council, but their lack of involvement in the past weighs against them. The German Navy is now also contributing to the international patrols off Somalia.
Certainly if a newspaper poll is to be believed, 61 percent of Japanese favor their country’s presence there. However, perhaps significantly, 27 percent are dead against. The reason may well be a fear — however unlikely it may seem at present — of Japanese military revanchism. On the other hand, this more than a quarter of those polled may have been answering out of self-interest. Both Japan and Germany did very well economically after 1945, in marked contrast to some of the victors like Britain and France.
They avoided the expense of large military establishments and entanglements in foreign wars, justified or unjustified. They focused exclusively on their growing prosperity. Maybe, therefore, there is a fear that by leaving peaceful waters to share the military burden being shouldered by other nations, they are surrendering their privileged international position. Such an attitude is, however, deplorable given the need for a collective global response to challenges such as piracy.
A fraudster goes to jail
BERNARD Madoff’s fraud has become a symbol of greed, deception and financial depravity, said The Times of London in an editorial yesterday:
Madoff’s journey through Wall Street’s biggest financial swindle ended yesterday with the fraudster pleading guilty in New York to all charges brought by prosecutors and being led to jail, perhaps for the rest of his life.
Madoff, once revered as a financial alchemist by clients who entrusted him with their life savings, was catapulted from America’s wealthy social circuit into the world’s headlines last December when the scale of his deception was exposed. At its core was a Ponzi pyramid scheme that relied on fresh money coming in from new investors to funnel rewards to Madoff’s old ones.
The scheme resembles a full sink of water that is constantly replenished by leaving the tap running and the plughole open. When the international banking crisis killed off the supply of fresh money from investors, and spurred established ones to cash in their holdings with Madoff, the sink ran dry. The scale of the fraud was so audacious — estimates suggest that Madoff may have bilked $65 billion from his investors — that even a world that thought it was beyond being shocked further was left blinking with disbelief.
At a time when workers are losing their jobs, investors are losing their savings and banks are losing respect as they sink under the weight of foolhardy lending, Madoff’s fraud has become a symbol of greed, deception and financial depravity. When the history of this recession is written, Madoff will command a chapter of his own.
It would be heartening to think that a British Madoff would meet a similar fate. But given the way that Britain’s financial regulators sometimes patrol the too hazy border between recklessness and criminality, it might be misguided to do so.
