Yet next month’s parade is not just about remembrance; it is about the future, too. This is the first time that China is commemorating the war with a military show, rather than with solemn ceremony. The symbolism will not be lost on its neighbours. And it will unsettle them, for in East Asia today the rising, disruptive, undemocratic power is no longer a string of islands presided over by a god-emperor. It is the world’s most populous nation, led by a man whose vision for the future (a richer country with a stronger military arm) sounds a bit like one of Japan’s early imperial slogans.
.. Under Mr Xi, the logic of history goes something like this. China played such an important role in vanquishing Japanese imperialism that not only does it deserve belated recognition for past valour and suffering, but also a greater say in how Asia is run today. Also, Japan is still dangerous. Chinese schools, museums and TV programmes constantly warn that the spirit of aggression still lurks across the water. A Chinese diplomat has implied that Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is a new Voldemort, the epitome of evil in the “Harry Potter” series. At any moment Japan could menace Asia once more, party newspapers intone. China, again, is standing up to the threat.
.. China’s demonisation of Japan is not only unfair; it is also risky. Governments that stoke up nationalist animosity cannot always control it.
.. How much better it would be if China sought regional leadership not on the basis of the past, but on how constructive its behaviour is today. If Mr Xi were to commit China to multilateral efforts to foster regional stability, he would show that he has truly learned the lessons of history.
U.S. Drops Charges That Professor Shared Technology With China
When the Justice Department arrested the chairman of Temple University’s physics department this spring and accused him of sharing sensitive American-made technology with China, prosecutors had what seemed like a damning piece of evidence: schematics of sophisticated laboratory equipment sent by the professor, Xi Xiaoxing, to scientists in China.
The schematics, prosecutors said, revealed the design of a device known as a pocket heater. The equipment is used in semiconductor research, and Dr. Xi had signed an agreement promising to keep its design a secret.
But months later, long after federal agents had led Dr. Xi away in handcuffs, independent experts discovered something wrong with the evidence at the heart of the Justice Department’s case: The blueprints were not for a pocket heater.
.. “If he was Canadian-American or French-American, or he was from the U.K., would this have ever even got on the government’s radar? I don’t think so,” Mr. Zeidenberg said.
.. About a dozen F.B.I. agents, some with guns drawn, stormed Dr. Xi’s home in the Philadelphia suburbs in May, searching his house just after dawn, he said. His two daughters and his wife watched the agents take him away in handcuffs on fraud charges.
.. Temple University put him on administrative leave and took away his title as chairman of the physics department. He was given strict rules about who at the school he could talk to. He said that made it impossible for him to continue working on a long-running research project that was nearing completion.
Consumer Anxiety in China Undermines Government’s Economic Plans
Through censorship orders, Communist Party officials have been trying to blunt the dire news at home. Not only have the main party newspapers refrained from publishing relevant articles on their front pages, but security officials have shown a willingness to go after Chinese reporters whose stories deviate from the official narrative.
.. He noted that WeChat was particularly popular because it was less “polluted” by posts from government-supported Internet users and because people could easily share news articles on the economy from Western news publications, especially stories already translated into Chinese.
.. “Highly paid professional jobs have been scarce for several years now,” he said, “and many young graduates have depended on their parents’ connections to obtain entry positions in the government or state-owned enterprises. The current downturn will hit graduates without strong connections or specialized skills.”
Rubio and China
Stability there doesn’t need to be “restored.” At most, it needs to be preserved, and there isn’t much reason to think Rubio is actually interested in doing that. This is another instance of how Rubio abuses the meaning of the word stability to mean something very different.
.. The statement is odd in another way, since Rubio’s agenda of confronting China would require the U.S. to have a closer relationship with dictatorships in the region such as Vietnam. That would almost certainly preclude speaking “with clarity and strength” about rights and values as far as Vietnam is concerned. Rubio wants to pay lip service to “rights and values,” but he also favors an aggressive and combative foreign policy that inevitably requires the U.S. to make dubious bargains with local dictators.
.. As he usually does, Rubio prefers a combative approach without weighing the costs or thinking through the consequences of the hard-line position that he favors. He assumes that more confrontation will force China to change its behavior in the way that Washington and other governments prefer, but this is placing a huge wager based on nothing more than an ideological attachment to “strength.”