Big surprise is right. The new opposition party leader warned that the tough Australian position on whaling may harm relations with Japan.Australia's newly-elected government risks damaging political and trade ties with Tokyo if it uses the military to monitor Japanese whaling in Antarctic, the opposition said Friday.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, whose centre-left Labor Party won power in November, suggested using the navy to monitor Japan's controversial whale cull and will announce next week whether he will act on the plan.
But opposition leader Brendan Nelson said that, while he was against whaling, Rudd must think carefully before deploying warships to shadow vessels belonging to one of Australia's major allies.
"To what extent would sending military assets unnecessarily escalate diplomatic tensions with Japan, Australia’s ally for 60 years and one of our major trading partners?" Nelson asked. "Would this be an appropriate and necessary use of Australian Defence Force assets?"
Why should the Australians be so worried about Japan? Japan sure doesn't seem to care about relations with its trading partners.
And this just kills me....
Japan makes no secret that the meat goes on dinner plates and accuses Western nations, usually among its closest allies, of cultural imperialism.
I'm sorry, but the sanctimonious tone of the Japanese government is too hard to bear. Any student of history who knows about Japan's aggressiveness against its neighbors knows that it has no moral credibility to point figures at "imperialists."
Photo by troyscan☆n
No comments:
Post a Comment