• Shooting fake Japanese soldiers (or dressing up as them) is part of the fun at Chinese theme park

    Jason Lee / Reuters

    Visitors use toy weapons to shoot pictures of Japanese soldiers at a theme park in Wuxiang, Shanxi province, China, on Oct. 20.

    Visitors at two Chinese theme parks can participate in performances (complete with actors and professional sound and lighting effects) where they can role play as soldiers from the Japanese army or the Chinese Eighth Route Army, one of the main military forces of the Communist Party during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The parks, located near the former headquarters of the Eighth Route Army, cost the local Wuxiang government around $80 million to construct.

    Tensions between China and Japan have escalated in recent months over disputed islands in the East China Sea and anti-Japanese sentiment is on the rise in China. 

    Jason Lee / Reuters

    A woman dressed as a Japanese soldier runs along a trench during a live-action role-playing game at a theme park in China.

    Jason Lee / Reuters

    A boy dressed as a Japanese soldier pretends to shoot.

    Jason Lee / Reuters

    Actors dressed as Japanese soldiers pretend to shoot a man dressed as a plainclothes Eighth Route Army soldier during a performance at the Eighth Route Army Culture Park in Wuxiang, Shanxi province, on Oct. 20.

    Jason Lee / Reuters

    Actors dressed as Japanese military soldiers and Chinese villagers perform during a show at the Eighth Route Army Culture Park.

    Jason Lee / Reuters

    Pictures of Japanese military soldiers are displayed as targets for shooting at a theme park in Wuxiang, Shanxi province, China, on Oct. 20.

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  • China brings its first aircraft carrier into service, joining 9-nation club

    AP

    China's first aircraft carrier is decorated with colored flags at a shipyard in Dalian in northeast China's Liaoning province Monday.

    By Ed Flanagan, NBC News

    China brought its first aircraft carrier into service Tuesday, raising the country’s military capability amid heightened tensions with its regional neighbors.

    Christened Liaoning -- after the port where the carrier was significantly overhauled after being bought from Ukraine -- this new addition to China’s navy is not large compared to America’s super carriers, but could still potentially have an impact on territorial disputes in the region.

    “The aircraft carrier will play an important role in China's settlement of islands disputes and defense of its maritime rights and interests,” said Chinese naval expert, Li Jie, in an interview with Chinese newspaper, People’s Daily.   

    The rest of China’s state media also played up the significance of the Liaoning, with the China News Service writing that the Liaoning would have “far-reaching influence on protecting China’s territory, safety and development and to make the world more peaceful.”

    Taiwanese ships clash with Japanese coast guard over disputed islands

    The commissioning of the ship is a huge display of national prestige, elevating China to the nine-nation club of carrier-equipped navies.

    Presided over by President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, the unveiling of the Liaoning also comes just before a once-a-decade leadership change in China, during which a new generation of top leaders will be introduced.

    China's Ministry of Defense welcomed the new ship, declaring that it would "raise the overall operational strength of the Chinese navy" and help Beijing to "effectively protect national sovereignty, security and development interests."

    Japanese coast guard ships shoot water cannon at Taiwanese fishing boats in the East China Sea in a territorial dispute. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.

    The ship’s full capabilities remain unknown at this point, but the size of the Liaoning and China’s relative lack of technical experience with carrier operations suggests that it will serve more as a training vessel then a deployable ship for combat operations.

    The carrier can reportedly hold a compliment of 30 fixed-wing fighters compared to the much larger American Nimitz class carriers than can carry around 90 aircraft.

    China’s normally nationalistic newspaper, Global Times, warned yesterday that the Liaoning “does not have the capacity to handle its tasks as it needs more adaptation to enhance its fighting capacity.”

    Japan infuriates China by buying disputed isles

    Still, the Global Times and other Chinese media were quick to link the launching of the Liaoning with the ongoing tensions around the region. 

    Japan has been locked in a bitter spat with China over ownership of islands claimed by both countries.

    The Japanese central government’s move this month to purchase the East China Sea islands, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, from their private owner led to heated nationwide protests in China that forced many Japanese companies like Panasonic, Toyota and Canon to suspend operations. 

    Much at stake for US as tensions rise in troubled China Seas

    While the protests have subsided, tensions have remained heightened. Just this week, China’s Vice Foreign Minister, Z|hang Zhijun told his Japanese counterpart, "China will never tolerate any bilateral actions by Japan that harm Chinese territorial sovereignty… Japan must banish illusions, undertake searching reflection and use concrete actions to amend its errors, returning to the consensus and understandings reached between our two countries' leaders."

    Chinese protesters: 'The Diaoyu islands belong to China!'

    Japanese embassy officials in London did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the Liaoning and ongoing territorial issues.

    Tokyo has known for years about China’s aircraft carrier ambitions, but now must deal with the blowback of this announcement with an increasingly concerned and nationalist home audience.

    With Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda poised to call for new elections later this year, he can ill afford to look weak on Chinese intransigence in the East China Sea.

    Emotional anniversary reignites anti-Japan protests in China

    The odds of war breaking out between the two largest Asian economies remain remote, but there have been clashes in the waters around the Diaoyu islands, with Chinese and now Taiwanese fishing ships entering the island chain’s territorial waters, a move the Japanese view as an intrusion on their territory. 

    Though the Liaoning was formally named Tuesday, the carrier has actually been decades in the making. The ship was built at a Ukrainian shipyard in 1988 and dubbed the Varyag. It was purchased a decade later by China and retrofitted.

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  • Chinese protesters: 'The Diaoyu islands belong to China!'

    September 18, the anniversary of Japan's 1931 invasion of Manchuria, is seen as a day of national humiliation in China, marked by protests even when relations with Japan are stable. This year's anniversary came amidst a Sino-Japanese dispute over an island chain called the Senkaku islands in Japanese and known to Chinese as the Diaoyu islands. NBC's Angus Walker reports.

    By Ed Flanagan, NBC News

    BEIJING – Following a weekend of anti-Japanese protests that engulfed China, demonstrations hit a crescendo Tuesday with the 81st anniversary of the start of Japan’s occupation of China.

    The Mukden Incident, also known as the Manchurian Incident, was a staged bombing by the Japanese military that served as the pretext for the Japanese invasion of China in 1931.

    The painful anniversary served to enflame a dispute that has been growing for months over ownership of East China Sea islands called the Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.

    Emotional anniversary reignites anti-Japan protests in China

    During recent protests in more than 80 cities across China, Chinese citizens have expressed themselves by taking to the streets and loudly demonstrating outside of Japanese consulates, businesses and online. However, unlike previous protests on the mainland in recent years, the collective anger has been well-documented and disseminated freely online, giving us a unique look at Chinese nationalism unleashed.

    See images of some of the more unusual expressions of anti-Japanese anger below.

     

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  • Panasonic, Canon shutter China factories amid violent anti-Japan protests

    Getty Images

    An anti-Japanese protester throws a gas canister during a demonstration over the disputed Diaoyu Islands in Shenzhen, China, on Sunday.

    By NBC News staff and wire reports

    Major electronics firms Panasonic and Canon have temporarily suspended production at factories in China after a territorial dispute over a group of uninhabited islets in the East China Sea triggered violent anti-Japanese protests.

    Sites linked to auto manufacturers Toyota and Honda have also been attacked in the unrest, which has forced frightened expatriates into hiding and sent relations between Asia's two biggest economies into crisis.

    Ratcheting up tensions further on Monday, Chinese state media warned Japan it could suffer another "lost decade" if trade ties soured. Japan counted China as its top trade partner last year, with total two-way trade of more than $340 billion.

    Tyrone Siu / Reuters

    A demonstrator kicks a glass window of the Japanese Seibu department store during a protest in Shenzhen, China, on Sunday.

    A report in the Japan Times on Monday, posted on Twitter, said 1,000 fishing boats were sailing towards the disputed islands - a move likely to further inflame tensions.

    "I'm not going out today and I've asked my Chinese boyfriend to be with me all day tomorrow," said Sayo Morimoto, a 29-year-old Japanese graduate student at a university in Shenzhen.

    Protests broke out across dozens of Chinese cities at the weekend, some violent, in response to the Japanese government's decision last week to buy some of the disputed islands from a private Japanese owner. The move incensed Beijing.

    Much at stake for US as tensions rise in troubled China Seas

    In Tokyo, electronics giant Panasonic Corp said Monday it has suspended production at two electronics components factories in China and closed another, telling workers to stay at home after the facilities were attacked by anti-Japan protesters.

    Atsushi Hinoki, a Tokyo-based Panasonic spokesman, said another plant in China has been closed after several workers "sabotaged" operations in the factory. The plant will also remain closed until Tuesday - a memorial day in China when it marks the anniversary of Japan's 1931 occupation of parts of mainland China.

    Afp / AFP - Getty Images

    Chinese demonstrators set fire to a Japanese national flag during a protest over the Diaoyu islands issue, known as the Senkaku islands in Japan, in Wuhan, China, on Sunday.

    Meanwhile, Canon Inc is set to suspend operations at three of its four plants in China on Monday and Tuesday. It will halt production lines at its laser printer factory in Guangdong, a digital camera factory in Guangdong, and a copier plant in Jiangsu, Japanese media reported.

    The protests focused mainly on Japanese diplomatic missions but also targeted shops, restaurants and car dealerships in at least five cities. Toyota and Honda reported arson attacks had badly damaged their stores in Qingdao.

    Japan protests after man seizes flag from ambassador's car in Beijing


    Many Japanese schools across China, including in Beijing and Shanghai, have cancelled classes this week.

     Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, who met visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Monday, urged Beijing to ensure Japan's people and property were protected.

    "It is in everybody's interest ... for Japan and China to maintain good relations and to find a way to avoid further escalation," he told reporters In Tokyo.

    Panetta said Sunday he is concerned the territorial disputes in the Asia-Pacific region could spark provocations and result in violence that could involve other nations, such as the United States.

    'Conflict'
    Speaking to reporters on his plane en route to a weeklong trip in the region, Panetta said he will urge countries here to find a way to peacefully resolve their problems. He arrived Sunday in Tokyo, the first stop of his trip.

    "I am concerned that when these countries engage in provocations of one kind or another over these various islands that it raises the possibility that a misjudgment on one side or the other could result in violence and could result in conflict and that conflict would then, you know, have the potential of expanding," Panetta said.

    The defense chief said his conversations with the Japanese and Chinese would echo what Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told them earlier this month — that they must find a process for settling the disputes. The U.S., he said, does not take a position with regard to the disputed lands.

    Protesters in China attack Japanese factories in a show of anger over a territorial dispute between the two countries. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.

    More China coverage from our Behind the Wall blog

    The dispute over the islands -- called the Senkaku by Japan and the Diaoyu by China -- intensified last week when China sent six surveillance ships to the area, which contains potentially large gas reserves, in response to Japan's purchase.

    The overseas edition of the People's Daily, the main newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, warned that Beijing could resort to economic retaliation if the dispute festers.

    "How could be it be that Japan wants another lost decade, and could even be prepared to go back by two decades," said a front-page editorial in the newspaper. China "has always been extremely cautious about playing the economic card," it said.

    A Chinese man holds up a piece of paper with the words "Diaoyu island belongs to China, Japanese get out" outside the Japanese embassy in Beijing, China, Sept 11.

    "But in struggles concerning territorial sovereignty, if Japan continues its provocations, then China will take up the battle," the paper said.

    China is Japan's biggest trade partner and Japan is China's third largest. Any harm to business and investment ties would be bad for both economies at a time when China faces a slowdown.

    Qingdao police announced on the Internet on Monday they had arrested a number of people suspected of "disrupting social order" during the protests, apparently referring to the attacks on Japanese-operated factories and shops there.

    China's 7.6 percent growth rate is the lowest in three years – but the country's economic problems appear more dire than the latest numbers indicate. Some believe the government will counter the downturn with a massive stimulus package, a strategy that has left China's local banks saddled with bad debt in the past. NBC's Ian Williams reports from Beijing.

    In Shanghai, home to China's biggest Japanese expatriate population of 56,000, one expat said his family as well as other Japanese customers had been chased out of a Japanese restaurant on Sunday by protesters near the Japanese consulate.

    Guangzhou police said on Monday, on an official microblog, that they had detained 11 people for smashing up a Japanese-brand car, shop windows and billboards on Sunday.

    The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • As quick as a tsunami: Chinese pre-fab homes

    Koji Sasahara / AP

    One-year-old girl Rin Yokota, right, is accompanied by her grandmother Tomoko Igari, 63, as they walk in the compound of their temporary housing in Otama village, Fukushima Prefecture, northern Japan on Thursday.

    By Ed Flanagan, NBC News Producer

     
    ICHINOSEKI, Japan – We’re on the Iwate coast of Japan this week, looking back on the devastation wrought here nearly a year ago by the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that flattened coastal communities and killed nearly 20,000 people.

    The cleanup we have witnessed on our frequent trips back here since the disaster is simply astounding and is a testament to the strength of the communities that remain. In fishing towns like Otsuchi, Kesennuma and Ichinomaki, NBC News has documented the gradual steps to recovery, from search and rescue, to the clearing of rubble, to the sorting and removal of debris from city streets.

    One thing absent in our coverage though: reconstruction.

    My colleague Ian Williams earlier in the week wrote about the issues facing the town of Otsuchi, where 10 percent of the town’s population of 16,000 is dead or missing and nearly 70 percent of the town was obliterated by the tsunami.

    Today, all that stands in much of Otsuchi are the foundations of the buildings that once stood there – skeletal remains of sleepy neighborhoods that once occupied these parts. In the surrounding hills around, small communities of short-term, pre-fabricated homes for the displaced have sprung up, granting a small degree of normalcy to residents who had spent months living in schools, recreation centers and other temporary camps.

    When the government will allow, much less begin, construction of new permanent homes in these areas is difficult to predict. In communities like Otsuchi, the debate seems to be centered on whether residents should be allowed to begin rebuilding now or must the town’s coastal defenses be strengthened before development can begin.

    With many of these coastal towns having disproportionally older populations – a result of the departure of many younger residents to other parts of Japan for work – the desire for quickly built, affordable housing is a popular sentiment among people here.

    It was with that backdrop that I watched a video yesterday released in early January of a 30-story hotel tower being built in China in a shockingly quick 360 hours. 

    Could a 30-story hotel be built in 15 days? The Chinese construction firm Broad Sustainable Building released video to show how they did it.

    It’s not the first time we’ve seen such feats from China, or from Chinese construction firm, Broad Sustainable Building (BSB). Two years ago, the three-year-old company shocked the world by constructing a 15-floor hotel in two days.

    This time around they doubled down on the aptly named T-30 Hotel.

    Not only that, but they gave viewers a unique look at a style of building construction that has been employed by the West for some time, but with unique adaptions that BSB developed and hope will help launch the style throughout Asia.

    Pre-fab solution?
    BSB’s system of pre-fabrication involves constructing segments of a building in advance at an indoor factory. There the basic building blocks of a modern building – things like ventilation, water pipes and electrical wiring – are pre-installed, allowing for the segments to be uniformly stacked at the construction site and assembled like Lego blocks.

    The savings in construction time is perhaps the most note-worthy thing. An interesting piece done on BSB and its latest feat by the Los Angeles Times quotes one expert on pre-fabricated architecture who noted that such construction techniques can shave a third or a half off building schedules in western countries.

    BSB sliced off between one-half and two-thirds of construction time on T-30.  Not to mention 20 to 30 percent off building costs through reduced construction times and greater efficiencies.

    And since much of the construction is done in the relative safety of the factory floor compared to many stories in the air, BSB’s on-site accidents noticeably dipped.

    Daniel Berehulak / Getty Images

    Elderly Japanese, whose homes were destroyed in last year's tsunami and now living in temporary housing, mingle at a community center in a temporary housing site on March 5, 2012 in Minamisanriku, Japan.

    The company also claims a number of innovations in its designs that would certainly appeal to rebuilding residents in northeastern Japan. After all, the inspiration for BSB’s formation were reconstruction efforts in China’s Sichuan province after an 8.0 earthquake rocked the region in 2008, leveling cities and leaving towns in such disrepair, they were forced to completely relocate.

    According to the video, which was released by BSB, the new hotel is designed to handle earthquakes up to 9.0 on the Richter scale and incorporates design advances like external solar shading, three-stage air purification systems and improved insulation techniques that make the building five times more energy efficient than other Chinese buildings.

    Pre-fabricated building techniques are already in use throughout the affected regions of Japan as a form of temporary housing. In fact, Japan was already moving residents into pre-fabricated houses just eight days after the quake and as of last week there were 52,620 temporary houses built in 911 locations throughout the country.

    However, much of this housing is built on school sports fields and other public spaces – often contracted out for two years before the temporary housing must be disassembled and the space returned.

    That’s a point not lost on the residents we talked to this week. Many living in short-term housing are older and have no meaningful income. So they live off pensions with no realistic means of building or renting new homes.

    To deal with this issue that will seemingly boil over in 2014, Iwate prefecture alone has announced they will construct between 4,000-5,000 permanent public housing units for the displaced.

    Where and when these housing blocks will be built in this nation where land is at a premium is one that will certainly keep urban planners here busy for years to come.

    The lessons learned from the T-30 exercise should not be lost on municipal governments up and down the Iwate coast. Pre-fabricated housing once viewed as a short-term fix can now be the answer to a very long-term problem.

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  • China – Japan strife spotlights a strategic U.S. vulnerability

    BEIJING – The recent political standoff between China and Japan thrust so-called rare earth minerals – critical to the manufacture of 21st century technology like cell phones and digital cameras to high-tech weaponry – into the limelight as a national security concern for the United States.

    Stemming from a dispute over a Chinese fishing boat captain held by Japan, China, which controls 97 percent of processing of the world’s rare earth minerals, reportedly blocked their export to Japan.

    The claim was quickly denied by Beijing, but the mere suggestion that China was willing or capable of such an embargo sent shockwaves through U.S. businesses, economic planners and Pentagon strategists.

    That’s because a similar embargo against the United States could seriously threaten America’s ability to source elements used in the manufacture of everything from hybrid car engines to the precision laser-guided smart bombs used by the military.

    An April 2010 Government Accountability Office study put the shift to Chinese dominance in the rare earth minerals market in stark terms: “The United States previously performed all stages of the rare earth material supply chain, but now most rare earth materials processing is performed in China, giving it a dominant position that could affect worldwide supply and prices.”

    The report spells out the consequences of China’s near monopoly of the supply of rare earth minerals, but also notes that rebuilding a U.S. rare earth supply chain could take as long as 15 years and would require “securing capital investments in processing infrastructure, developing new technologies, and acquiring patents, which are currently held by international companies.”

    The embarrassing revelation that critical parts for top American military weapon systems such as General Dynamics’s M1A2 Abrams tank and Lockheed Martin’s Aegis SPY-1 radar brought about a call for congressional hearings on the issue, but it could be decades before an American supply chain for rare earth materials is rebuilt.

    Change of dominance
    The United States was not always so dependent on other countries for its mineral needs.

    During the post-World War II era, as the need for uranium for atomic weapons to compete in the Cold War arms race grew, a rush of mineral prospecting took place throughout the southwest United States.

    The discovery of sizable deposits of rare earth minerals, like flourocarbonate bastnaesite in the U.S. during the 1940s, proved to be of little use for uranium enrichment for bombs. But an element derived from bastnaesite, europium, was found to be essential for the production of the cathode ray tubes required for early color televisions.

    With that, the industry exploded in the United States as major mineral companies like Molycorp Minerals took the lead in the extraction and trade of rare earth metals. Other American conglomerates – notably General Motors, General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin Corp – quickly developed new uses for the metals, among them sophisticated new lasers, night-vision goggles and improved radar.

    Despite a wealth of rare earth minerals in the U.S., the manufacture of the minerals has become dominated by China.

    In an intriguing report written earlier this year for the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, researchers looked into the 1995 sale of Magnequench. The company was formed in 1986 by GM to manufacture neodymium-iron-boron magnets – powerful magnets that are used in everything from car engines to electrical power steering.

    In 1995, two Chinese companies, likely seeing the potential military application of the product and catching GM as it was attempting to break into the Chinese market, acquired Magnequench for $70 million. The sale was approved by the U.S. government with the stipulation that the buyers keep the company in its hometown of Anderson, Indiana for five years.

    The day after that deal expired in 2002, the Chinese company shut down the entire operation, shipped all its manufacturing equipment and resumed operations in China.

    The research report noted, “In less than one decade, the permanent magnet market experienced a complete shift in leadership.”

    The Magnequench sale represented a titanic shift in the competitive advantage of the United States and set the scene for the loss of America’s manufacturing dominance in the rare earth mineral industry.

  • Historic enmity between China and Japan heats up

    By NBC News’ Bo Gu

    BEIJING – As the diplomatic dispute between China and Japan grows, Beijing is finding itself torn between pacifying angry nationalists and holding a hard line toward its Asian rival.

    The dispute was sparked over two weeks ago when a Chinese fishing boat collided with two Japanese patrol ships near uninhabited islands claimed by both nations, as well as Taiwan, in the East China Sea. Territorial disputes over the islands, which are said to be rich fishing grounds and may have oil and gas deposits, go back to the late 19th century.

    MIKE CLARKE/AFP/Getty Images

    A Hong Kong activist stands in front of a Chinese flag as a group of activists sets sail on Wednesday for the disputed island chain in the East China Sea, amid an escalating row between China and Japan over the territory.

    After the latest incident, Japan arrested the Chinese boat’s captain on suspicion of deliberately ramming the Japanese vessels and has refused to release him.

    The diplomatic scuffle extended to New York this week when China’s Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said he would not meet with Japanese leaders on the sidelines of the United Nations gathering.

    But while Beijing continues to ratchet up the diplomatic dispute, there are concerns about revving-up too much anti-Japanese sentiment at home.

    Anger spills into streets
    Given historic enmity, anger over the territorial dispute has already started taken on a life of its own in China.

    On Sept. 18, a day remembered as the anniversary the Japan’s invasion of China 79 years ago (an early event in the Sino-Japanese conflict that eventually lead to full-blown war in 1937), dozens of Chinese demonstrators rallied outside the Japanese Embassy in Beijing and marched to the Chinese foreign ministry.

    The protesters carried banners and chanted nationalistic slogans like, "Japanese, get the hell out of Diaoyu Islands!" and “Boycott Japanese goods!”

    In China, protests are technically legal, but only with police consent, which makes public demonstration a rare phenomenon. The last open mass protest happened in 2005, also against Japan on the same issue.

    However, out of fear that any public protest could turn chaotic or veer into anti-government rhetoric, the Chinese authorities kept the demonstration low-key and police confiscated the protestors’ banners. The China Federation of Defending Diaoyu Islands, an association focusing on researching and protecting the territory rights of the islands, denied it was involved in the protest, but its website was quickly blocked.

    ‘Let’s stage a war against Japan!’
    Still, the Chinese authorities have not been able to control the wave of anger against Japan that has spread across the Internet.

    On the popular Strong Nation Forum hosted by the People’s Daily (one of China’s biggest official newspapers), the diplomatic dispute is the most viewed news event. It also has generated comments by legions of outraged Chinese Netizens – some even proposing war.

    "Why is there no Chinese military stationed on the islands?" is a frequent question. It provokes answers like, "Let’s stage a war against Japan! I’ll sacrifice my life to protect our country’s dignity."

    Some have expressed the wish that Chairman Mao was still alive, arguing that he would send out troops right away. Others have called for a boycott of Japanese products and a ban on tours to Japan. (Ironically, Japan recently claimed it would ease the visa application procedure for Chinese tourists, who have become the top consumers among travelers from all over the world).

    ‘Nationalism is very dangerous’
    Still, given the history between China and Japan, there are fears that the nationalist fervor could become combustible.

    "Nationalism is very dangerous. People do have the right to demonstrate, but nationalism is different from patriotism, especially when the war legacy still overhangs from World War II," said Victor Gao, a well-known commentator based in Beijing. "We do not need to sensationalize the situation, and there’s no need to throw out nationalism. This is not doing any good to either party, China or Japan."

    Gao believes the capture and arrest of the fishing trawler captain has more to do with Japan’s domestic politics and was a gesture directed at its own people in the midst of another one of Japan’s frequent cabinet shuffles.

    "If I was to advise the Japanese government, they could just use any humanitarian excuse to release the captain very soon. I don’t think anyone will gain anything from this. Neither wants to have a war."