Ambassador sower of discordant seeds

While all regional countries have shown their concerns about Japan increasing its defense spending to 2 percent of the nation's gross domestic product, which will make it the world's third-largest military spender, US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel hailed the move, saying that it is important Japan improve its "counterstrike and counteroffensive" capabilities by increasing its defense budget.

At a Yomiuri International Economic Society lecture in Tokyo on Friday, Emanuel also said that the Japan-United States alliance has transitioned from an era when it was focused on "protection" of the partnership to an era of "projection" in the "Indo-Pacific". That means Japan's increase of its expenditure will by no means be spent on defense but on offense as required by the US.

Shooting a salvo of baseless criticisms targeting China, Emanuel has shown not only his poor diplomatic etiquette and lack of professionalism, but also his limited knowledge of the mutually beneficial nature of healthy relations between Japan and China.

His brazen hawking has once again exposed that the US is hoping to sow seeds of discord between China and its neighbors.

As a senior diplomat of the US, Emanuel should be aware of the commitments the US made in the three Sino-US communiques in which it recognized that there is only one China of which the government in Beijing is the sole legal representative.

If so, he would know the military drills Beijing staged in response to the reckless visit to the Chinese island by the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, were necessary as a deterrent to the emboldened secessionists on the island.

It is also a shame that he chose to smear China's dynamic clearing policy in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, turning a blind eye to the sufferings of the US people as a consequence of his own country's ineffectual response.

And he will no doubt be aware that the economic slowdown in China and many other major economies is attributable to the US' protectionist disruptions of the global supply chains, extreme sanctions on other countries, the spillover effects of its irresponsible monetary policy and its painstaking manufacturing of inflation, unrest and conflicts.

While he earned a reputation for being outspokenly abrasive as chief of staff in the Barack Obama administration, as an ambassador, Emanuel should exercise tact and focus on nurturing good relations in East Asia as that would be to the benefit of his own country and Japan.