On the Senkaku Islands in SMPC

I hold forth in the South China Morning Post on the Senkau Islands dispute. I could quibble about the details, such as the line, “The LDP has a far better relationship with China than the last government.” Yes, I did say that, but I also said something to the effect that sidelining Yukio Hatoyama and later Ichiro Ozawa (who eventually had to leave the DPJ) didn’t help. I’m also much more pessimistic about the outcome than the title and the headline suggest, though it’s not the correspondent’s fault that I didn’t go there. In fact, someone like John Campbell, who told me that he posed a question about this matter on a publicly accessible forum (that I avoid these days because of two frequent posters that I find deeply annoying, though there are people such as John, Mike Smitka and Rick Katz there whose opinions I respect), would immediately find a major flaw in my commentary. But yes, all in all, it’s a fair rendition of the gist of the fifteen-minute telephone conversation.

And that’s it. Have a nice weekend.