Far away from the North American continent, China has been doing some saber rattling lately, and on social media has been on it. While most Americans have no idea what is going on between China and Japan and could care less, what with Thanksgiving gorging/shopping just over and Christmas shopping up next, the future of Western civilization may be at stake. I'm not joking. I write this just 100 miles away from China's coast were 1800 missles are primed and ready to fire at Taiwan, should this island nation make any mis-steps on this issue.
But social media, thank God, is on it. Strobe Tallot, former top advisor in the Clinton administration, tweeted: "Good on Japan for taking China's unilateral claim to the UN, testing whether Beijing will play by international rules."
Stephen Walt, another foreign policy expert, tweeted:"Did China declare ADIZ because it knew the USA was distracted by Iran negotiations [and Thanksgiving shopping]?"
There's even a hashtag now for all this: #adiz
What's this all about ? Well, November 23, 2013 -- the day after China announced its new “air defense
identification zone” -- may well go down in history as “the day America
lost Asia," as Michael Auslin put it in an oped on the Politico
website in Washington the other day.
I'd like to suggest that the day before, Nov. 23, might well be remembered as a date -- like
December 7, 1941 -- that
will live in infamy as the day China began a long, protracted ''soft war''
to control the world.
In his now-famous speech to the U.S. Congress that day after the
Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, U.S.President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke
of the previous day as "a date which will live in infamy." And it has,
even though the World War II is now long over and Japan has become an
American ally in Asia.
Maybe now is the time for another U.S. president or Congressional
leader to stand up and say, as Auslin wrote: "November 24, 2013 -- the
day after China announced its new air defense
identification zone -- may well go down in history as the day America
lost Asia."
Of course, the future is never easy to predict, and Beijing's
"surprise move" in setting up its unaccounced and completely
unexpected ADIZ while the U.S. and its 300 million shoppers were busy getting ready for a relaxing
holiday week during Thanksgiving cannot be fully understood in
geopolitical terms yet. But the opeds are flying fast and furious
already, in both Tokyo and Washington, and even talking heads in China
are getting into the act. And social media, not just in the USA but also in Japan and China and Taiwan, has been on it.
This ''shot across the bow'' bu communist China was not a minor event. This might be seen as an opening act. The West -- and
Japan -- must respond, in words and in actions. Diplomacy will be
useful, too, one hopes. The twitterverse is in an uproar, pro and con.
Auslin believes that if the U.S. does not take strong action now,
soon, China will have dramatically expanded
its control over Asian airspace without even being challenged by any
nation in the region or in the West.
"And with a whimper, not a bang, Washington may begin losing its
influence in Asia despite its still-preponderant strength," Auslin, an
academic who works at the American Heritage Institute, the conservative
think tank,
said.
Since the demarcation of an ADIZ is not legally
valid under international law, Beijing cannot unilaterally expand its
territorial
airspace to the large area over the East China Sea by setting up such
an ADIZ. But it did, and it's a done deal. The West blinked. Has China
won the war already? Social media, or a part of it, is on it.
History is replete with events like the surprise move by China on
November 24. What happens next is anyone's guess, but one thing is
becoming more and more clear: the date will live in infamy for a
long, long time -- or until the regime that controls China collapses as
the former Soviet Union did.
We are living in confusing and ruptured times, and yes, these are the
times that try men's and women's souls. The West needs to respond. But how? And
who will do it? Japan? America? The United Nations?
Only #adiz knows.