Weighing Japan and China's Response to Ukrainian Crisis

So, according to Reuters the West has imposed sanctions on Russia…Visa bans, etc...so far many Western delegates have stayed away from the Sochi Olympics 2.0 Opening.

After the sanctions were announced, something caught my attention: the reaction of China and Japan!

Here is a how Reuters put it:

“Japan endorsed the Western position that the actions of Russia constitute "a threat to international peace and security", after Obama spoke to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

China, often a Russian ally in blocking Western moves in the U.N. Security Council, was more cautious, saying economic sanctions were not the best way to solve the crisis and avoiding comment on the Crimean referendum.”

That’s a sharp difference in how the two nations deal with foreign policy and it would be interesting to have some expert analysis…here is my naïve analysis however.

Japan

Effectively Japan has sided with the US, and that has made it a de facto enemy of Russia and in case of a war, a nuclear bomb would be sent to Tokyo alongside the US and other Western nations.

Why did Japan take this risk?

Oh many reasons, America will increase its trust in Japan, Japan has always declared itself as a Western Nation, Japan in bandwagoning with US for protection from Russia who it has territorial disputes with, Japan is a democracy and wants it prevailing in Ukraine.

China

Pros

China can be a Russian enemy or a US enemy on the issue but we will never know because they are playing the doctrine of the golden mean. China can easily avoid being gassed in case of war because they never declared the side they are on.

China can easily play the guy that brokers peace between the two warring factions because it supports nobody (on paper).

Cons

However, China’s style of lying in the middle can be seen as cowardice by the West or Russia and both parties cannot fully trust it because they are not sure who China s rooting for or not.

But it is a great move, most people confronted with such a dichotomy would go Russia or West…forgetting that there is a third side of the either-or fallacy, the neutral side which is safer, though it makes you look like a coward, a bit.

Picking a foreign policy position is not an easy task, as we can see.