Japan drops China boat captain charge

Often, I think I know China well. However, just as often, it occurs to me that I don't really know what I thought I knew. The visions and experiences collected and stored in my mind while I am awake are gone after I have slept. Reasoning and understanding seem to last only for a few hours before becoming illusory: the images and meanings disappear one by one, stolen from me by apparitions and secreted away, never to be returned in their original form. The understandings that I have assiduously acquired are nothing more than banal when bound together to try and shape the oldest continuous civilization on earth. Experience, learning, and proudly possessed knowledge, gained from many sources and from interaction with its people, are taken from everyone who thinks they know China and passed on to others who share them smugly, use them with confidence, reverently broadcast them as Gospel for a few praiseworthy moments. "I know China." Then, time and circumstance mangle them until they are beyond comprehension. These ,too, will be passed on and shared as truth, only to be proved wrong again. The enigma is this: China never changes, but China always changes. Its people beset by burden, affected with melancholy, inured to bewilderment, and suckled on uninterrupted millennia of incalculable hopelessness and sorrow. "There is chaos under heaven and things could not be better", said Mao Zedong. This is the real truth: "China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese" - Charles De Gaulle. China: don't ask, it is what it is... ,,,,,,,,W.D. Box

01/22/2011

Japan drops China boat captain charge

Chinese boat captain Zhan Qixiong, right, is led by Japanese coast guard officials

Zhan Qixiong was held in Japanese custody for two weeks in September

Japanese prosecutors say they are to drop charges against a Chinese trawler captain whose arrest last September led to a major diplomatic row with Beijing.

Zhan Qixiong was accused of ramming two Japanese patrol vessels near disputed islands in the East China Sea.

China said his detention was "illegal and invalid", and cut off ministerial-level contacts with Japan.

A Japanese ex-coastguard officer who admitted leaking a video of the collisions will also not face charges.

Masaharu Isshiki, 44, said he posted the coastguard footage on YouTube. His admission led to his resignation and disciplinary proceedings against others, including the head of the agency.

Read more at BBC

Jan 22, 2011 11:21:22 AM | Current Affairs, Politics

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