The alliance between Japan and Australia is part of a much wider plan between the conservative governments of the Washington-Tokyo-Canberra axis, to surround the People’s Republic of China and to eventually provoke a war against that country unless it falls into line with their political and economic demands.
These plans were discussed by US Vice-President Dick Cheney and John Howard when Cheney visited Australia recently. Another part of this plan is to cajole India to join in this imperialist exercise. It also involves Indonesia which the Australian Government is attempting to split away from its Asian neighbours and partners in the Association of SE Asian Nations (ASEAN) and to push Indonesia into taking an anti-China position.
False claim
The claim by both the Australian and Japanese Prime Ministers that the recent alliance agreement signed in Tokyo last week is not directed against China is false. Equally false is the claim that the objective of the alliance is “peace and security”. For “peace” one must read war and “security” means the security of the economic and political system of these countries in a world that is rapidly changing and rejecting their policies.
The Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe represents that section of the Japanese corporate ruling class that launched Japan’s war of aggression against the whole of SE Asia in 1941.
John Howard represents that section of the Australian corporate ruling class which, at that time, was prepared to appease the Japanese aggression and were preparing to give to the Japanese the northern part of Australia.
At that time the Australian Prime Minister was Robert Menzies and his government was responsible for what became known as the Brisbane Line which stretched from Brisbane to Adelaide. It gave the territory north and west of this line to the Japanese. It was only the removal of Menzies as Prime Minister and his replacement with the Curtin Labor Government that saved Australia from Japanese occupation.
The present Japanese Prime Minister refuses to recognise – as have all previous governments prior – many of the atrocities committed by Japan during WW2. Japan continues to deny the Japanese crimes against “comfort women” – mostly Korean but thousands of other women in occupied territories who were kept in sexual slavery for the benefit of Japanese soldiers – and to pay compensation to them.
Abe also refuses to acknowledge that the Japanese invasion and occupation of most of Eastern Asia was an imperialist war of aggression, or that grand-scale senseless slaughters of civilians – such as the 300,000 Chinese massacred in just six weeks during the “Rape of Nanking” – ever happened.
New plans
The new plans are a continuation by the same political forces which have the aim of recolonising the Asian mainland, particularly China, to seize the natural resources of Asia and exploit the huge labour force that populates the Asian mainland.
Another element is the never ending “cold” and “hot” wars against any and every socialist country as the capitalist and imperialist states face the steadily growing world-wide movement against exploitation, poverty, humiliation and the destruction of the independence of those countries that have liberated themselves from colonialism.
Murdoch’s The Australian (15/3/07) confirms this estimation of the real purpose behind the Japan-Australian alliance. Columnist Dennis Shanahan writes: “Australia has been approached to dramatically upgrade its three-way security arrangements with Japan and the US to include India in a four-way security agreement that would encircle China …
“Mr Cheney gave the Japanese proposal new life on his recent visit to Japan and Australia after sections of the Bush administration rebuffed the plan. He raised the idea in talks with John Howard in Sydney … after discussing the plan with the Government of Shinzo Abe in Tokyo.”
Dennis Shanahan goes on: “Mr Cheney said in Sydney: ‘The growing closeness among our three countries sends an unmistakable message – that we are united in the cause of peace and freedom across the region.’”
An editorial in The Australian on the same day is headed: “India option adds to containment fever”. The text of the editorial says:
“There is no doubt that should our trilateral security arrangements be expanded to include India, it will be interpreted by Beijing as a threat.
“Meanwhile ties between the Prime Minister [of Australia] and the Indonesian President culminating in last year’s Lombok Pact have the effect of appearing to project power northwards to contain Beijing.”
But the target of these plotters is not limited to China. The editorial goes on: “ it makes sense to bolster India, not just because of concerns about China but also due to the increasingly authoritarian position of Russia and the nations of the Central Asian steppes.”
One can see in these statements the aims of those whose objective is world domination.
The editorial of The Australian continues: “China might not like the idea of being contained by increasing numbers of security arrangements between its neighbours, it is ultimately in the best interest of all concerned for China to become as responsible a global citizen as it is an economic player”.
In other words for China to be “contained” and “encircled” and forced to submit to the demands of the governments of Japan, Australia and the US, and to become part of the American empire is really in its own interests.
These policies and plans are not the way to peace and security in this part of the world but to conflict and eventually to war. They violate the Charter of the United Nations. and the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation that the Australian government signed last year together with other Asian countries including China and Russia. The Treaty of Amity called for “mutual respect for the independence, sovereignty, equality, territorial integrity and national identity of all nations”. It renounced “external interference” in the affairs of other states and called for “the settlement of differences or disputes by peaceful means and the renunciation of the threat or use of force”.
Surrounding
Policies of “surrounding” and “containing” another country is a violation of the purposes of this Treaty and the commitment implied when the Australian Government signed it.
Once again the Australian Prime Minister is telling lies to obscure the real intentions of the alliance with Japan and is tearing up its treaty obligations.
From The Guardian
