Tom Hark

“Does anybody know the way to World War 3? I wanna know I wanna book me holiday.”

For years now, I’ve been thinking that the fuse leading to World War 3 would be lit in the Middle-East; perhaps Syria. I think it was reasonable when you consider all the dirty-dealings and chicanery going on in the shadows over there.

Now it seems the tinderbox that might ignite the third world war is a couple of disputed islands in the East China Sea. China and Japan both claim sovereignty over them and neither is willing to back down in this argument which is playing out on the news all over the world.

Japan has been looking for an excuse to re-mobilise its imperial army for years. Their so-called “Self-Defence Force” has been growing way beyond any requirement for homeland defence for ages, and this dispute with China is giving them just what they need to justify the re-building of Japan’s armed forces. It’s like Hitler’s Germany defying the Treaty of Versailles all over again – and we all know where that led.

The United States must take some of the responsibility for this. They have been bed-fellows with Japan since the end of the Second World War; they have seen the ongoing rebuilding of the Japanese armed forces and turned a blind eye. Further, thanks to the Security Treaty both countries signed in 1951, anybody who picks a fight with Japan also picks a fight with the US. This will no doubt have emboldened the Japanese, and with good reason: It’s like squaring up to the school bully with your big brother, Mike Tyson, standing at your shoulder. The trouble is, it increases the chances of them, along with the whole world, being sucked into a war that will no doubt be catastrophic for the entire planet.

Defence analysts at a US House Armed Services Sub-committee hearing this week have said that America should prepare for a potential war with China. They said the Pentagon should begin a massive program of arms build up which should include more nuclear submarines.

Of course, war with China is just what America and Japan wants. They fear China, because it is a sleeping giant which is now starting to wake. It is a third bigger than the US; twenty times bigger than Japan; and it has a population of more than 1.3 billion. This makes China potentially the most powerful nation in the world – unthinkable for the hegemonic figures within the American establishment.

So, China must be stopped before it reaches that tipping point where it becomes America’s military equal or – God forbid – superior. What better way to do so than to join its Japanese partner in provoking them over the islands known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan? How better to do this than to openly defy China’s Air Defence Identification Zone which covers the islands and most of the East China Sea?

This is a dangerous tactic at best, since it increases the chances of accidental engagements that could so easily escalate to all-out war. It is an arrogant tactic on America’s part since it has no claim to the islands. It’s one thing to stand beside your ally in the event of war; but it’s another entirely to provoke such a war by interfering in matters that are none of your business.

America likes to position itself as some kind of global guardian, stepping in and flexing its military might as and when it sees fit. But the paradox here is that by doing so, it becomes itself an oppressive force, delivering the pain and terror it claims to be fighting against.

I would like to say I’m not worried about all this; after all, the whole thing is playing out on the other side of the world. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little concerned. Laying aside the fact that my two youngest daughters are in Japan (illegally, I might add), the attacks of 9/11; the London bombings, and the Second World War in itself has shown us that conflict has a nasty way of showing up right outside our back doors.

Let’s hope it doesn’t get that far. Let’s hope that sense prevails for once.

“The whole thing’s daft; I don’t know why. You have to laugh; or else you’d cry.”