LIFE STORY


Gregory Clark in China, Sept, 2010

For the Record . . .
Getting it right at the time, and not later

POSTINGS

  • Postings 06 04,2022 Postings2-China-US recognition

    China-US recognition The key clause in the Jan 1, 1979, joint communique for the establishment of US-China relations said: The Government of the United States of America acknowledges the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China. The US at the time claimed that

  • Postings 06 04,2022 Postings01-No one seems to have noticed the fatal Quad flaw

    No one seems to have noticed the fatal Quad flaw: India weeks ago refused passage of Japanese aircraft carrying aid to Ukraine. India-Russia attachment is very strong. BTW. Russia is finally doing what it should have done from the start – attack into the  Russian speaking areas of the Donbas –

RECENT ARTICLES

  • PEARLS AND IRRITATIONS 10 22,2024 Who really owns the South China Sea?

    We are told the AUKUS ‘security partnership’ with the US and UK requires Australia to acquire a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines (SSNs) to accompany AUKUS. They will operate mainly in the South China Sea, allegedly to deter China’s ‘expansionist’ goals. Alarmed, I set out to discover those expansionist goals. I

  • PEARLS AND IRRITATIONS 08 18,2024 Japan – Hiroshima and Project Hula

    What a difference a day (or a week) makes. What a difference the mere translation of a word makes. As the war against Japan in the Pacific began to close, the Potsdam Conference, which decided to call for Japan’s unconditional surrender, began on July 17, 1945. On the day before,

  • PEARLS AND IRRITATIONS 07 25,2024 Putin’s mistake in Ukraine: Moscow forced to move to Novosibirsk?

    In 2004, Russia’s President Putin said the collapse of the Soviet Union “was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” This was picked up by our hawks as a Moscow wish for more Cold War. They should have waited for the rest of the sentence: ’Tens of millions of our

  • PEARLS AND IRRITATIONS 06 27,2024 NYT confirms war-ending Russian-Ukraine peace agreement sabotaged by West

    With much less drama than its famous 1971 Pentagon Papers, the New York Times has disclosed three documents confirming that Russia and Ukraine were close to war-ending agreements in the first half of 2022, shortly after Moscow began its so-called ‘special operation’ attack on Ukraine, February 24, 2022. The newspaper

IMPORTANT ARTICLES

  • PEARLS AND IRRITATIONS 09 27,2022 PM attending controversial Abe State funeral a diplomatic mis-step

    Mr Albanese is coming to Tokyo for the September 27 state funeral of former Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe. Does our PM know or care about Abe’s background? Two thirds of Japanese people oppose the state funeral. Not everyone will welcome the attention. Mr Abe’s death was at the hands

  • PEARLS AND IRRITATIONS 08 29,2022 Another unprofessional performance by Four Corners, this time on Xinjiang

    Several weeks ago Four Corners gave us a special program about Xinjiang Uyghurs sent to prison-style camps and forced to learn Chinese. I watched it recently as a rebroadcast. I was once sent to an Australian military camp to learn Chinese, at Pt. Cook near Melbourne. Conditions were fairly severe.

  • ASIA TIMES 08 26,2022 With Abe gone, Japan-Russia in a new deep freeze

    Territorial dispute blocks contacts that could have vitalized economies of Hokkaido and the Russian Far East For almost 60 years, Moscow’s large embassy near central Tokyo has been under siege. Tokyo demands the return of some islands it lost to Moscow at the end of the war. In support of

  • PEARLS AND IRRITATIONS 08 22,2022 Uyghurs – a response to Four Corners (prepared for P&I)

    Begins:  We hear much today about Xinjiang Uyghurs sent to prison-style camps and forced to learn Chinese.  Four Corners devoted a special program to it. I was once sent to an Australian camp to learn Chinese, at Pt. Cook near Melbourne. Conditions were fairly severe. Eight hours a day, five

  • PEARLS AND IRRITATIONS 07 21,2022 The propaganda war in Ukraine

    Freedom of press critics have complained how the Russian government news program, RT, has been blocked by many Western outlets during the Ukrainian fighting. But in fact the channel has always been freely available through Google as RT online. It remains as interesting, and surprisingly impartial, as ever – mainly

  • ASIA TIMES 07 19,2022 Australia – China Relations; Lost in Translation

    Australia’s relations with China were always prickly.  Now they are slipping into farce.  In 2014 both claimed a “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.” Now, mistranslations and distortions of Chinese statements, deliberate or otherwise, are allowed constantly to poison relations between two countries. An example of the mistranslation game in action was when Australian

  • ASIA TIMES 07 14,2022 Abe’s death spotlights religious-political ties

    Observers have long seen connections between Japanese political parties and religious groups as dubious if not dangerous TOKYO – Tetsuya Yamagami, the 41-year-old former member of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces who killed Japan’s former prime minister Shinzo Abe last week, said during police interrogation that his motive was Abe’s close relations

  • ASIA TIMES 06 16,2022 How Japan’s right used a tragedy to kill ties with N Korea

    For 20 years, the abductee issue has been politically abused, with disastrous results for regional diplomacy and security Tensions are on a high simmer in Northeast Asia as North Korea presses ahead with missile tests. During his recent visit to Tokyo, US President Joe Biden joined the chorus of those

  • ASIA TIMES 01 22,2020 Tokyo-Moscow Relations

    It’s not often that a world leader, or anyone else for that matter, gets to celebrate his own funeral.

  • Other Articles 11 19,2019 Australia’s China threat obsessions are not new.

    Australia’s China threat obsessions are not new. Remember the Vietnam War? Obsessions then were far worse: ‘It (the Vietnam War) must be seen as part of a thrust by Communist China between the Indian and Pacific Oceans.’ (Robert Menzies, April 29, 1965). ‘..there is not the slightest doubt that the

  • ASIA TIMES 11 05,2019 APEC on the Chopping Block?

    For old-time Asia watchers there was a delicious irony in the way Chile has decided

  • PEARLS AND IRRITATIONS 10 24,2017 Article written 2017 and regarded too controversial for the public

    Article written 2017 and regarded too controversial for the public Pearls and Irritations blog run by ex Australian Ambassador to Japan, John Menadue. Menadue now decries the pernicious influence of ASIO on Australian foreign policy: I have spent almost my entire adult as an Australian involved closely with Asia – a

  • Other Articles 09 24,2017 Timid Chilcot report is just a starting point

    Timid Chilcot report is just a starting point BY GREGORY CLARK 消極的なチルコット報告書は単なる始まりに過ぎない The reaction to the just-released Chilcot report with its seven-year intensive examination of the United Kingdom’s 2003 intervention in Iraq has been extraordinary. We have had endless debate over whether the intervention had U.N. or other legal approval.

  • JT2014 04 14,2014 Flight MH 370

    While the global media have been searching for clues to explain the March 8 disappearance

  • FINANCIAL TIMES 06 16,2012 My time in Japan’s closed nuclear village

    There has been a heated debate as to whether cultural, “only in Japan” factors were behind last year’s

  • Other Articles 04 30,1999 MORE LESSONS FROM MUNICH

    SIR: Garry Woodard’s piece about Australia’s role in the 1938 Munich affair is interesting

  • QUADRANT 03 24,1997 1975

    Asked about 1975, the last convulsive year of the Whitlam regime, the late Robert Haupt is reported to have said: “Don’t ask me, I was there.” I know what he means; I was there too. My 1975 began on a dry, hot Canberra afternoon in December 1974, straight off a

  • THE INDEPENDENT MONTHLY 10 05,1992 The Real Francis James Story

    After his death in August, it is time for the full story of how and why Francis James

  • THE INDEPENDENT MONTHLY 05 06,1992 BETRAYED AGAIN – The Failure of the New Russian Revolution

    THE FIRST thing that strikes you about the new Russia are the beggars and the street peddlers,

PEARLS AND IRRITATIONS

  • 10 22,2024 Who really owns the South China Sea?

    We are told the AUKUS ‘security partnership’ with the US and UK requires Australia to acquire a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines (SSNs) to accompany AUKUS. They will operate mainly in the South China Sea, allegedly to deter China’s ‘expansionist’ goals. Alarmed, I set out to discover those expansionist goals. I

  • 08 18,2024 Japan – Hiroshima and Project Hula

    What a difference a day (or a week) makes. What a difference the mere translation of a word makes. As the war against Japan in the Pacific began to close, the Potsdam Conference, which decided to call for Japan’s unconditional surrender, began on July 17, 1945. On the day before,

  • 07 25,2024 Putin’s mistake in Ukraine: Moscow forced to move to Novosibirsk?

    In 2004, Russia’s President Putin said the collapse of the Soviet Union “was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” This was picked up by our hawks as a Moscow wish for more Cold War. They should have waited for the rest of the sentence: ’Tens of millions of our

  • 06 27,2024 NYT confirms war-ending Russian-Ukraine peace agreement sabotaged by West

    With much less drama than its famous 1971 Pentagon Papers, the New York Times has disclosed three documents confirming that Russia and Ukraine were close to war-ending agreements in the first half of 2022, shortly after Moscow began its so-called ‘special operation’ attack on Ukraine, February 24, 2022. The newspaper

ASIA TIMES

  • 08 26,2022 With Abe gone, Japan-Russia in a new deep freeze

    Territorial dispute blocks contacts that could have vitalized economies of Hokkaido and the Russian Far East For almost 60 years, Moscow’s large embassy near central Tokyo has been under siege. Tokyo demands the return of some islands it lost to Moscow at the end of the war. In support of

  • 07 19,2022 Australia – China Relations; Lost in Translation

    Australia’s relations with China were always prickly.  Now they are slipping into farce.  In 2014 both claimed a “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.” Now, mistranslations and distortions of Chinese statements, deliberate or otherwise, are allowed constantly to poison relations between two countries. An example of the mistranslation game in action was when Australian

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