Japan, the deputy sheriff in Asia?

Since the United States declared to move its strategic focus towards the east, it keeps strengthening its alliance with Japan and emphasizing that this ally should play a "footstone" role in guaranteeing the security of the Asia-Pacific Region. Japan is cooperating greatly and its role in the regional security area is changing into the "deputy sheriff" of Asia for the United States. It is mainly reflected in five areas.

First, Japan is wantonly meddling in South China Sea affairs. Japan has declared many times its stand of emphasizing the “navigation freedom” of the South China Sea. Japan and the Philippines have signed a defensive cooperation agreement and will carry out joint maritime trainings and share maritime security intelligence. Japan and Vietnam have signed the “Maritime Strategic Security Agreement.” In addition, Japan has also decided to hold a special summit on the maritime security with the ASEAN.

Second, Japan is actively helping the United States weave the military partnership network in the Asia-Pacific Region. The military partnership network, which takes “the United States + Japan + one” (such as the United States + Japan + South Korea, the United States + Japan + Australia and the United States + Japan + India) as the framework, is extending from Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia to South Asia. They hold security consultation meetings and coordinate their stands periodically, or bring in advanced weapons in large scales to expand their armaments, or hold various military drills in turn. 

Third, Japan and the United States are promoting their diplomatic strategic cooperation actively and complementing and aiding each other tightly. After the United States removed its diplomatic obstacle with Myanmar, Japan immediately increased its investment, manpower and resources in Myanmar. Currently, the United States is trying to build the Mekong River area into a main foothold for its “return to the Asia-Pacific Region” and Japan already promised in a summit of Japan and five countries of the Mekong River valley held in April 2012 that it will offer 7.4 billion U.S. dollars of governmental development aids in next three years.

Fourth, Japan keeps breaking limits of the Peace Constitution to lay the foundation for serving as the “deputy sheriff” and realizing its dream of being a “normal great power.” After modifying the “Three Principles on Arms Export” and “Three Non-nuclear Principles,” Japan also wrote the words of “using the nuclear energy to make contributions for the national security” in its relevant laws. Currently, Japan is suggesting in public to lift the ban on the right of collective self-defense, showing a sign of recovering the militarism.

Fifth, Japan has given the performance of “buying the Diaoyu Islands” many times, significantly intensifying the Diaoyu Islands dispute. To certain extent, this action of Japan is also out of the consideration of serving as the vanguard for the United States to “return to the Asia-Pacific Region.”

The two anti-terrorism wars have consumed the United States a lot of energy, and therefore it has to assign a part of its “return” mission to Japan. And Japan also wants to seize this chance to improve its influence and status, build itself into a so-called “normal great power” and obtain the full political and military decision-making rights.

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China's 'most dangerous man' shot dead near mum's home

After an eight-year manhunt across four provinces involving tens of thousands of police officers, China's most-wanted criminal was shot dead yesterday, 14 kilometres from his mother's home.

Zhou Kehua, 42, was cornered in an alley behind a shoe shop in the central city of Chongqing and opened fire. He was shot in the head at close range. At least one policeman was "lightly injured" in the gun battle.

After so many murders, he knew he would get the death penalty, so there was no moral struggle in his mind. 

Zhou had been on the run since 2004, evading capture despite being the target of one of the largest manhunts mounted in China.

Eight years on the run ... Zhou Kehua appears on a wanted poster. Photo: AFP

By the end, the combined value of all the rewards placed on his head had risen to 5.4 million yuan ($AU800,000) and wanted posters had been pinned up as far afield as Shanghai, more than 1600 kilometres from his home.

Gun crime is extremely rare in China, where firearms are strictly controlled, but Zhou had killed a total of nine people, including one policeman, in a series of armed robberies.

He went for bank customers withdrawing large sums of cash, following his victims and shooting them in the head before making a swift getaway.

"He remained very calm after the murders and would decide the quickest way to escape," said Pi Yijun, a criminologist at China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing. "He would do his homework by staying at a bank and observing its customers, working out the best place to strike. After so many murders, he knew he would get the death penalty, so there was no moral struggle in his mind."

Zhou would lie low for long periods, disappearing at one stage for more than four years, between 2005 and 2009.

He resurfaced last Friday for the first time since January, killing a woman outside a branch of the Bank of China in Shapingba, a district of Chongqing.

The local authorities quickly mounted an enormous manhunt, calling back all police on leave and mobilising the local army. However, after combing Gele Mountain, only a ragged green T-shirt and two cigarette cartons were found. China Central Television (CCTV) said it was thought that the manhunt, which was widely publicised in the media, had been a ruse to give Zhou a false sense of security.

In fact, he had been spotted in a department store in Chongqing on August 11, leading police to believe he had remained close to the scene of his last crime, rather than retreating to his mountain hideout.

Quietly, four-man teams of plain-clothes police moved through the city to track him down. Eventually a resident in Tongjiaqiao, near his mother's home, reported him to the police yesterday morning, collecting a 600,000 yuan reward. Zhou's father died last August, but his mother lives in a three-storey house and has been under constant surveillance since January.

His ex-wife lives in a neighbouring town with their 13-year-old son. Zhou is thought to have visited them at the beginning of the year after committing a murder and stealing 200,000 yuan in Nanjing.

Two Chinese newspapers disputed the account of Zhou's final moments.

The Chongqing Times said he had committed suicide and the police had merely found his body.

The Changsha Evening News, however, said that he had turned the gun on himself after being shot twice by police.

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Honey, I spoiled the kids!

We raise our children with the best of intentions but somehow end up mollycoddling them, to their detriment.

THE shortage of domestic servants in Malaysia gets worse every year, driving people urgently needing their services crazy with exasperation.”

That was the opening sentence in a report in The Star published on March 4, 1976. As the song goes, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Uh huh.

Thirty-six years on, we are still facing a shortage, although “domestic servants” have morphed into “domestic workers” a.k.a. “maids” of foreign origin.

Let’s see, in 1976, I was in secondary school and sharing household and cooking chores with my sisters. We had long dispensed with the services of a servant/maid. When the last local woman who did our laundry became unreliable, my parents bought our first washing machine and that was it.

Going further back, we had a mother-and-daughter team who did the laundry and cleaned house as well. Actually the daughter, Bedah, was more our playmate. We had fun playing hide-and-seek and masak-masak in the wooden doll-house my dad built.

And when I was a very little girl living in Penang, my mum had a young live-in servant. Poor Ah Hong had a hard time managing my unruly brother, who slashed her arm with a butter knife after a nasty spat. After we moved to Kuala Lumpur, we lost touch with her.

For most of my growing years, my family was fortunate enough to have domestic help who did the heavy-duty stuff. But we kids still had our chores: washing our school shoes, taking out the garbage, weeding the garden and mowing the lawn. One chore which I really hated was peeling and cleaning prawns as I would always end up with bleeding fingers.

When we were in-between servants (we never called them maids in those days), we did the sweeping, mopping, windows, fans, bathrooms and, the most back-breaking of all, the laundry by hand.

I also learned how to hammer nails, saw wood, change light bulbs, use an electric drill, paint walls and fences, build chicken coops, dig wells and even mix cement from my extremely clever handyman dad.

So where did I go so wrong with my own kids?

Do I blame it on the fact that both my husband and I work and we had no time nor the energy to mend and clean on the weekends, leaving it all to the maid, thereby setting a poor example to my kids?

Do I excuse myself that middle class families mollycoddle their children in these prosperous times?

Whatever the reason, I stand guilty of raising children who are inadequately skilled in a lot of things my generation took for granted or were expected to know.

Mind you, they are great kids. They never did drugs nor partied excessively; never got me summoned to school over their grades or discipline problems. As adults, they are articulate and interesting individuals. They are respectful and caring towards their grandparents who live with us.

Yet, they have never toiled at anything in the house and won’t even wash their own cups simply because they grew up with maids who did everything for them.

But to be fair to them, the rot started earlier. By “rot”, I mean the diminishing ability to be self-reliant in keeping one’s house in order without external help.

Because Dad could build, mend and repair just about anything and Mum was an excellent cook and extremely house-proud, between them, my siblings and I were taught a lot of skills.

My husband, on the other hand, isn’t as handy. His answer to fixing anything is super glue. Despite my childhood training, I haven’t applied my skills much either. I quite happily gave up gardening when my lawn-mower broke down,

Fortunately, we can enlist the services of a gardener, plumber or electrician to fix whatever stuff that goes on the blink because they are affordable.

And for now, a maid.

With all these support services, our lives are really easy and comfortable. The downside is today’s convenient ways have made us soft, lazy and wasteful.

Yet, things are changing. If 36 years ago, we moaned the extinction of local servants, now we moan about the availability of foreign maids.

The news isn’t good. No matter how hard our Government is trying to re-establish the supply line from Indonesia, the fact remains that Malaysia is not the first choice for such workers.

What’s more, the countries that have long supplied us with cheap labour are enjoying economic growth and with it better job opportunities for their people.

For now, we can take pride that almost any middle class family can hire a maid. In the not-too-distant future, it may not be the case any more. Already, the agency fees and the salaries are getting painfully high.

Ironically, the richer and more developed a country, the more expensive hired help is. So in countries like Australia, the United States and Britain, DIY stores are huge business because there they don’t call in the plumber or electrician at the slightest trouble. Live-in maids are only for the wealthy.

In all likelihood, the time my daughters marry, they will have to figure out how to keep house and raise kids without a live-in maid.

My son? He sheepishly admitted he didn’t know how to sew a loose button or a tear in his pants. For the sake of my future daughter-in-law and grandchildren, I have decided he’s going to start becoming a bit more like grandpa.

It starts this Saturday when my Indonesian maid goes on home leave for Hari Raya. As they say, “Necessity is the mother of invention” so this mother who has been terribly remiss with her children’s basic life skills, is going to invent some necessity on the home front.

More importantly, better late than never, especially when we still have clever grandpa to teach the kids a handy tip or two. No super glue for them.

So Aunty, So What? By JUNE H.L. WONG

 > The writer, if she could turn back time, would certainly have done some things differently in the way she raised her kids. On a more cheerful note, Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Fitri!