The China then and Now and Japan

Recent news regarding the arrest of a Chinese captain of a trawler off the coast of Japan (which is being contested by China too) has given way to rising tension between the two Asian Giants. After a tense standoff, the Captain was released by the Japanese without being prosecuted. It has touched off protests from Japanese public that it was a humiliated defeat of the Japanese in the face of the Chinese pressure.

It is really hard to imagine if you are Japanese what really happened here. It was just during the World War II that the Japanese forces occupied China and China was in disarray. The Japanese were the uncontested Superpower of Asia and then it was the second largest economy of the world till recently and now the same China which was so
Down and out has now reclaimed the status of the second biggest economy of the world and the Japanese have become so dependent on Chinese Labor and economy that they are willing to back down in the face of its pressure. I don’t really understand what the Japanese were thinking in the first place to arrest the captain and then backing down. It just shows how far ahead China has come and how the Japanese have realized the limits of their power and their political and military decline.