[War] China/Japan: "Agreements in Principle"

[Ian Martell]

"Agreements in Principle"
President Xia Hong, People's Republic of China
Prime Minister Shunichi Sato, Japan
August 27th 2006

"I think that's something I can agree to on both terms."  Xia smiled.  "An
open line of communication and dialogue is ofcourse always preferred.  Shall
we
move on to the issues presented by the Middle East?"

"Agreed," Sato said as the folders in front of both leaders were changed.

He opened his folder than looked up at the Chinese President, "Well your
nation has so far led the way in the matter of Lebanon and Israel perhaps
you should begin with your thoughts and concerns on this issue."

"Clearly the Middle East was in enough turmoil prior to the situation in
Lebanon with the invasion of Iraq.  Our offer of 20,000 troops for an
international peace-keeping effort still stands.  However such operations
are
not easy to
orchestrate, and we would require assistance in putting such a force into
place.  We're also hoping to see Foreign aid offered to the people of
Lebanon to
help rebuild their civilian infrastructure.  The Chinese force will be in
place
to disarm the Hezbollah forces as per international agreement, and guarantee
the soverignty and security of Lebanon in a manner pursuant to peace."

Sato nodded. "What sort of assistance would you require?" he asked.  His
government wouldn't be able to ram through a deployment of any kind to
Lebanon not without first putting the issues surrounding Article 9 to bed,
but as previous governments had shown there were plenty of ways to do what
was needed without crossing that line. "We would be willing to contribute
some logistics support to the peacekeeping efforts in the way of civilian
and military shipping."

That was what she was looking for actually.  "We would be most grateful for
whatever assistance you might be able to provide on that front.  A
Peacekeeping
mission of this size, given the complexities of the area, are difficult to
keep supplied and to move to an appropriate staging area.  Your assistance
would
be greatly valued."

"Very good, if your military could relay your needs to mine we can come to
an arrangment on how best to help your people get in place and help supply
them while they are. Off the top of my head, I can tell you we have a supply
ship in the Indian Ocean tasked with assisting the ongoing efforts in Iraq
and Afghanistan, which I am willing to offer as support and refueling of
your vessels headed to the Lebanese conflict."

"Ofcourse, and again thank you for your help in this matter Prime Minister.
Would you be willing to contact your allies about the possibility of
offering
Lebanon and Israel financial assistance in rebuilding from their respective
losses?"

He nodded. "Yes, I am willing to do that, are you willing to ask yours to
put pressure on the Iranians who I think we both know are really calling the
shots on the Arab side of the conflict?" Sato asked. "I will do the same for
Isreal but, I doubt they are willing to simply stop the fighting unless they
can be sure that Iran will not be pushing their other allies to antagonize
them."

"I would not be committing the lives of Chinese troops to a peace process if
I weren't ready to see it through, Mister Prime Minister."  Xia smiled in
hopes of
reassuring him.  "It would be problematic to go too far I'm sure, especially
given the United States' current Alaskan woes, on the oil market.  Speaking
of
such, as I'm sure you are aware, modern economies are driven by the ability
to
move products and produce energy.  The Middle East, I believe this
experience
has shown us all, is far too unstable to be a reliable source.  It may be in
both our nation's benefits to cooperate on alternative fuel projects."

Sato nodded. This was a thought on the minds of leaders the world over. How
do we move on from oil. However Japan  had a head-start on this area leading
the way in home solar technology and development of hybrid power plants as
well as cars. "I agree completly. We have as you know begun developing a few
solutions of our own design though with your country's cooperation I think
we can expand on these efforts immensely both for our ecconomic security as
well as the potential profit that would come from marketing these
technologies to an oil starved world. Let us set a date then for a
ministerial level summit then to discuss our energy plans and what
technologies we should jointly pursue.

"In the meantime, I would enjoy your support in my efforts to secure the
Straight of Malacca, as you know its the choke point for all sea based trade
coming through the Indian Ocean to the Pacific and is overrun with piracy
and Islamic extremisim. If a terror attack of sufficient magnitude was to
occur there we could find Asian prices for oil skyrocketing. Not to mention
the resulting lack of confidence in the Asian markets would do terrible
damage to our ecconomies. My thought is that we must use our influence with
Malaysia and Indonesia to encourage those in their governments who would be
willing to crack down hard on piracy and perhaps do some intelligence work
of our own to discover who amoung the government is in league with the
pirates and terorrists and have our friends in those governments expose
them."

"I would certainly be willing to support any initiatives to secure our
supply
lines.  You can count on the full support of the Chinese Naval forces, and
our diplomatic and economic backing in any efforts to convince Malaysia and
Indonesia to better patrol the strait."  Xia folded her hands.  "I would
also be
willing to conduct greater business with Russia, to assure our nations have
adequate oil stocks."

Sato's body language was relaxed as took in the President's words. This was
going extremely well. Odd though the move may have been the placement of
President Hong at the head of China was a momentous one for Asia he
realized.

"Thank you Madam President," he said with earnest. "I am thinking we could
benefit here from a united front as well. The Russians are very crafty
adversaries and would be hard to pin down if we approached them separately,
but if we both sat down to negotiate with them we would be more likely to
get a better deal."

Xia nodded in agreement.  "We might also benefit from their technological
expertise.  Downtrodden as the Russian economy may have been after the Cold
War,
they still harbor some of the most brilliant scientific minds in the world."

This was true, and retention of those scientists was a constant problem for
the Russians. "Bring them in on the alternative fuels?" Sato suggested. Sure
Russia had the oil, for now, but someday they would need this sort of
technology as much as Japan and China did today. "And set up some simular
projects for the three of us to work togeather on, JAXA could definately use
some of their rocketry expertise and I am sure there are countless other
areas where we could be of mutual assistance."

She was glad this was going so smoothly.  "Might I suggest establishing a
joint program, the costs of which would be split equally?  Economics is a
heavy
driving force, and in addition to enhancing international security by
assuring
the best minds don't end up in the wrong hands, we could considerably
increase
our mutual competitiveness internationally."

Sato nodded. "We would be willing to support that," he said confidently. "I
have another idea as well, a trilateral cooperative on developing better
hybrid cars we'd have to have buisness interests on all three sides sit down
and discuss this of course once the deal with Russia has been made."

He was very aware he'd strayed far from what was on his agenda and what he
was actually backed by his government to do but the potential provided by
Sino-Japanese cooperation and Sino-Russo-Japanese cooperation was
incredible, all the more so because Hong's attitude at this summit made it
seemed possible.

"Well, we've done a considerable amount of work today Madame President, a
Japanese sealift of Chinese forces and supplies to Lebanon, pressure on the
Middle East and the Straight of Malacca, bilateral technological cooperation
with the potential of including Russia, I think our people will be kept busy
by this for many days to follow. May I suggest, unless there is any more
vital matters to discuss we agree to discuss further issues at our next
meeting and through our weekly phone calls?"

She was certainly willing to agree to that, and bowed her head respectfully
before offering her hand.  "I look forward to further cooperation with you,
Prime Minister."

Sato returned the nod and then warmly shook her hand. "As do I Madame 
President."

Actions:

Japan:

1> Arrange for a Japanese sea-lift of a portion of the troops and equipment 
going from China to the Middle East. In particular arrange for five 
commercial transports to be arranged at Japanese expense for the intial lift 
supported by the two ships currently deployed to the Indian ocean, and LST 
4001 Osumi. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/japan/osumi.htm, 
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=9990, sell it to the MSDF 
as a chance to practice long range operations.

2> Approach Japanese allies not already donating money to Lebanon and 
encourage them to do so. Japan will also offer $10mil USD to Lebanon for 
medical centers to be established in the poorest neighborhoods.

3> Request that the military attaches Japan's embassies in Indonesia and 
Malaysia and Koancho work on developing sources who can provide intelligence 
on pirate and terrorist organizations in those countries.

China:

1> Put pressure on Iran to stop its encouragement of Hezbollah.

Both:

1> Approach Malaysia and Indonesia about their security needs for the 
Striaght of Malacca.

2> Develop a joint project to develop alternative energy sources for both 
countries.

3> Approach Russia on the issue of the sale of their oil to China and Japan, 
bargaining collectively to recieve a better price and invite them to join 
with China and Japan in their technological development programs.

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