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Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Koichiro Gemba wrote an open letter to the International Herald Tribune on Nov. 21 stating the position of the Japanese government toward the Senkaku Islands — also claimed by China and Taiwan, where they are known as the Diaoyutais (釣魚台). The Diaoyutais had been entrusted to the UN, with the US as the sole administering power, under the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1951 before it was returned to Japan along with the restoration of Okinawa in 1972, Gemba wrote. According to international law, the Diaoyutais are undoubtedly under Japanese sovereignty as well as jurisdiction.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs criticized Gemba's stance and said that because China had not been invited to conclude the treaty, it should be exempt from adhering to it. Therefore, the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Declaration came to replace the treaty as the ultimate legal documents referring to the post-World War II arrangement.
However, this superficially clever dodge made Beijing look like a political hooligan.
First, the treaty is the ultimate legal document that formally ended the war. All "declarations" or statements made henceforth became nothing but wartime political assertions, which enjoy less power than the treaty. The declarations became "policy passe" that related powers could choose to honor, given that they did not breach the terms of the treaty.
The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, General Headquarters (the offices of the US military and civil servants during their occupation of Japan) studied the effectiveness of the declarations made during the war and confirmed the aforementioned principle.
Second, under the mandate of Article 26 of the San Francisco treaty, Japan signed the Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty (also known as the Treaty of Taipei) with the Republic of China (ROC) — the-then legitimate government of China — in Taipei in 1952. The signature proved that China did participate and conclude the San Francisco treaty and the People's Republic of China (PRC) has no right to assert that China was not invited to conclude it, since the ROC did. In any case, Beijing could not deny the effectiveness of the San Francisco treaty as the overarching post-war arrangement. If Beijing insists on "no signature, no power," then how does it interpret the fact that no power has ever signed the Cairo declaration?
Third, what happened at the UN General Assembly in 1971 — UN Resolution No. 2758 — was not the "succession of state." Rather, it was the "succession of government," in which a new government, the PRC, was recognized as the legitimate government of China and the former one, the ROC, was expelled. The government changes, but the state of China stands still.
Fourth, the PRC, having extinguished the ROC through the practice of the succession of government, possessed the legal right to claim the "one China" principle, which means "one state, one government." This is also the legal origin of the so-called "1992 consensus," in which China claims that the PRC, not the ROC, is the sole legitimate government of China.
The facts outlined above reveal the inconsistencies of Beijing's assertions: While Beijing claims "one China" under the principle of succession of government, it denies the very principle in asserting the sovereign rights ove the Diaoyutais. Beijing seems unaware of the incompatibility, or is ignoring it.


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March 4, 2013 2:42 pm
Fashion is partly a clairvoyant's game: looking six months to a year into the future and positing how women will want to dress at that point in time. During this season's round of fortunetelling, however, designers seem to have failed to foresee a recent development – namely, the virulent reaction across Europe to non-austere executive salary levels, and the related restrictions being proposed from the EU to Switzerland on various kinds of corporate income and bonuses.
After all, this suggests that the 1 per cent that is fashion's shrinking local consumer base may be even smaller going forward. Does it matter? As long as someone is buying, not to the bottom line, but maybe to designers' presumptions. They all have a woman in mind when they create, but who, exactly, is she these days? It's not entirely clear.
At Givenchy, for example, designer Riccardo Tisci enlisted the help of his friend, musician Antony Hegarty, who not only sang three songs for the show, accompanied by a 25-piece orchestra, but also contributed a manifesto. Entitled "Future Feminism", it said (in part): "We have abused the bodies of women and the body of the earth . . . men must find the humility to retreat . . . If there is to be a future on earth that includes us, it will be feminine," and so on. The implication being, presumably, it will also wear Mr Tisci's clothes.
Which will be a challenge. In a gypsy-meets-gender-bending mash-up of good ideas, weird ideas, familiar ideas, and over-the-top ideas, Mr Tisci offered up great flared trousers that made legs look miles long; chic velvet and leather biker jackets; zip-on puffa corset belts that may have been meant to symbolise comfort, but mostly looked thick; signature luxe sweatshirts, this time with a silk screen of Bambi-meets-the-Venus-de-Milo (or something) on the front; and chiffon frilled and ruffled high-waisted full-skirted party dresses, layered over tailored trousers. Oh, and there were lumberjacks in there too, and gilt carvings, and Madonnas. Deconstruct the whole and there were gems within, but boy – it will take some work.
Yet Mr Tisci was not the only designer interested in layering up the allure of activism. At Maiyet, a brand created in part to encourage sustainable artisanal businesses in challenged regions, the handwork – embroidery on the bodice of a jumpsuit; Varanasi silks in skinny trousers and cropped jackets – was hard to distinguish in the overall mixture of dark, masculine tailoring and flippy skirts, as if the original point of difference had been lost in the desire to be on-trend. As for Stella McCartney, her invitation came with an effort to "protect the world's last polar bears", Bono was in the audience and on the runway, monster-truck-soled mega-platform shoes proved to be made from biodegradable rubber, heels from "sustainably sourced woods", and bags boasted an "eco laminate veneer".
The clothes themselves, however, were loosey-goosey versions of working classics: pinstriped suiting pulled slightly to the left, with inflated proportions or rendered in bright purple; strapless dresses with elasticised tops, the waists dropped way down to knee-level; evening "tuxedos" with big, baggy trousers and matching sleeveless shells. It was insouciant in the extreme.
By contrast, just after Switzerland voted to limit corporate salaries, came Akris, set against yet another orchestral background. Known for its high style clothes for the high powered, the Swiss brand sent out a collection of strict almost all-black body-skimming looks that involved the interplay of geometry and skin: animal skins, from mink, which came in a short trenchcoat and caped suit, to ponyskin, which formed a brief miniskirt, leather, and cheviot, a form of sheepskin that resembles astrakhan. There was also real skin, which was startlingly visible through the veil of tulle turtlenecks and dresses striped with thin herringbone strips of suede, or criss-crossed by a grid of rectangles. There were sleek trouser suits too, and thick pile cashmere, but it was the exposed epidermis that made the statement. Which is not necessarily a statement for everyone.
Even Chloé, where Clare Waight Keller has made a signature out of a cool uniform frumpiness – seen this season in tailored double-face wool cape coats, pinafore dresses in school team colours, and neat skirts, the waists raised just a little too high – got more questionably luxed-up, with "chain link" T-shirts: literally, metal wires connecting big, winking crystals in a cage-like T-shirt formation, which were thrown over the top of dresses. Not to mention leather sweatpants, and fur-polka-dotted pullovers.
Retailers carp about rising prices as they sit watching, runway-side, and already Italian fashion critics complain of receiving fewer show tickets, and being relegated to standing because their readers aren't buying. The seats are needed for reporters from other, healthier, markets.
And yet, at a certain point, design still trumps economics. Sacai's dual-nature clothes, which marry trenchcoats to velvet; window pane plaids to puffa pleats and lace; and Nordic knits to trapeze silks in trompe l'oeil suits and evening dresses that sway not just with the body, but between genres, were charming and smart, and just abstract enough to be open to various interpretations.
Create desire and you create consumers. In a few months, when these clothes hit stores, we'll see who they are.
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