The Japanese military stays out of China after all

I guess sentiments in China weren’t favorable to the presence of Japanese troops after all:

The Japanese government has announced it will not use military planes to deliver aid to earthquake victims in China.

Japanese officials said Friday they are planning to charter private planes to deliver tents and other relief goods.

Tokyo had considered using military aircraft for the mission, but rethought the effort after messages appeared on Chinese web sites recalling Japan’s occupation of China during World War II.

I was surprised by, and even a little suspicious of, China’s initial acceptance of help from the Japanese military. Now order has been restored to the universe, though the reasoning given seems awfully weak. Messages on web sites? Who cares?

I wonder what’s really going on.

McCain’s League of Democracies? It’ll never work.

…at least not as long as we keep using membership in these little clubs as a bargaining chip: a practice that I don’t see slowing any over the next few decades.

Consider the G6, consisting of the US, France, Germany, the UK, Italy and Japan: all modern, industrialized democracies. Canada was added quickly, which made sense, but several years later . . . Russia? And now we have the G8+5, with China leading the new quintet. The G7 would have been the core of the League of Democracies, but the temptation to expand membership, to tame the wild beasts with their new economies, was too great. McCain has suggested ousting Russia, since it is drifting away from democracy, but that doesn’t seem likely.

Then we have the World Trade Organization. Bush dangled membership in the WTO in front of Putin to try to get various political and economic concessions. Once the US signed off on Russia’s membership, though, Russia stopped playing nicey-nice. How tempting is it to use membership in an organization as a bargaining tool? Irresistible, it seems.

McCain’s idea isn’t bad in concept, but in 30 years it will look just like the UN. Everybody will want in, and short-sighted diplomats will allow the values and mission of the organization to be eroded in exchange for near-term gains.