Listening to
Jean-Baptiste Illinois Jacquet, playing with the guitarist Kenny Burrell from a
1964 set, “Desert Winds.” We’ve got a
bit of Gobi-wind here in Beijing today.
Born of a Sioux mother and a Creole father in Louisiana, Illinois
Jacquet had nothing to do with Chicago, as the name might suggest, but rather
grew up in Texas. Remembered for a solo
that launched a hundred solos, and introduced the honk to jazz and rock, during
“Flying Home” with Lionel Hampton’s band. The year was 1942 and he was nineteen. He was lucky, or perhaps there is another
reason, why he was not called up to fight, in the war that still hasn’t really settled
out in this part of the world.
Positions are hardening.
China has now said that none of its leaders will even meet with Prime
Minister Abe, until he apologizes for having visited the Yasukuni Shrine a few
days back. Certainly Abe of all people
knew this sort of reaction would follow.
The Chinese refused to meet with his predecessor Prime Minister Koizumi
from 2001 till 2005 when he left office, after he too repeatedly visited the
shrine. The first regular state visit was
only resumed with Abe himself, after he came to power for the first time in
2006.
One has the sense that many of the thrust counter thrust
gestures are all calculated out long in advance. China knows that such a visit must be pending
for Abe’s second time as prime minister.
Abe was pilloried by the right during his first shot at Prime
Minister. But this time around Abe had
to show economic progress before driving the rest of his agenda. Abenomics,
the quantitative easing of monetary flows to arrest Japan’s deflationary cycle,
has had an effect. Japan’s economy
appears to be growing for now. Before
Abe can methodically turn to his patriotic agenda, China interrupts with a purposefully
disruptive gesture.
Was the new air defense zone announcement rushed to the fore
for just this purpose? Did Japan see
such a gesture coming? Certainly that
effort was clumsy on the one hand and served to push South Korea back, away
from China, and annoy the U.S. who called China’s bluff, by flying B52s,
straight through their newly minted zone of interest. The gesture did, however put light between
the U.S. and Japanese positions, right before Joe Biden’s visit. It accented
some of the alliances tension points.
And now this shrine visit occurs. The Japanese head of state is once again a persona non grata. To-date, it does not appear that South Korea
has gone that far in saying no engagement with Abe whatsoever without an
apology. The article from today’s China
Daily went further though than just saying leaders would not meet leaders. The article states that Abe has been declared:
“not welcome” by the Chinese people. What
does that mean?
It is a bold thing to say.
You can state that Abe is not welcome by the Party or the leadership, or
that the people are offended. But how
can you say that the Chinese people don’t welcome you. The Party speaks on behalf of all Chinese
people it would seem. Would a U.S.
president ever say such a thing? Hugo Chavez, is “not welcome by the American
people”? No. They would necessarily use different
language. Indeed, he frequently came to
New York, along with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and others to speak at the United Nations, (a fact which
more than anything just reinforces the U.S. august hegemonic prowess. New York, the capital of the world.) Leaders might not meet with Chavez, but no
one could claim to speak for all of America’s ability to welcome or refuse someone.
Meanwhile this effort to impose right wing textbooks on
Japanese jurisdictions that don’t want them, like Okinawa, is rather
unfortunate as well. The right is always
simmering below the surface in Japan, like some malevolent force that must be
endured with their loud trucks and hints of thuggish violence. Perhaps the Japanese know best that the
proper strategy for such people is to ignore them. But one would hope for a bit of brave
articulation, a firm critique of this historical whitewash. Backing down from statements about comfort women,
and other atrocities is shameful. Japan
can be a proud, modern, “normal” as they say, nation, without whitewashing the
Imperial Army’s legacy.
There was a popular slogan after 9/11 that said something to
the effect of “don’t use our grief to justify your war.” Something in Japan is required along the
lines of “don’t use our annoyance with China’s disruptive behavior, as a cover
to justify the rewriting of history.”
Both sides, nations certainly have尝尽心酸[1].
Denying that legacy can only delay real resolution.
Clear sky today, but a haze is building up. Illinois Jacquet’s ‘desert winds’ are blowing
through the capital. All the yellow dust
is being picked up into the air, from off the roads, up off the trees, and off
the sidewalks where it had settled. It’s
December 31st and we haven’t had a single snowflake this year. I was just up on a 25th floor earlier
today looking out at a forty foot high wall of dust that covered the city like
a blanket below me. And oddly, the sky itself is quit blue and lovely. Look up.
That’s the moral of the story. Look
up and smile and marvel at what’s up there.
And don’t breathe.
Ahh yes, and a special Capricorn birthday blessing to the
loyalist reader any blogger could ever hope to have. The last baby born there in Poughkeepsie,
that night, that magic year, which shall remain nameless. Happy Birthday Mom.
