China's Gamble

The Tapei Times points out the obvious:

Last year, Japan overtook the US as China's biggest trade partner. China needs the huge volumes of machinery and technology that are imported from Japan to feed industrial expansion. Japan needs the high levels of trade with China to keep its economy out of recession.

The new protests put this in jeopardy: If China reneges on its implicit agreement with its population to provide economic prosperity in exchange for delayed political freedom, China will find its population in a pissy mood.

Unless the Chinese find a scapegoat: The Japanese.

With rising social tensions, China might have already realized that the expectations of their economy might be vastly over optimistic.......and they are gambling that China's population will look offshore for the cause of their problems. Not a terribly original idea, but only a theory at this point.