Japan to go Jed Clampett

Looks like the Japanese are getting in on the ol' hydrocarbon hustle. According to Bloomberg.com (story here) they're set to spend as much as 9 billion yen ($77 mil) to search for oil and natural gas on their continental shelf next year.

The move, along with Japan's purchase of a $213 million Norwegian exploratory vessel (set to be delivered in a few months), points to obvious concern about the commencement of Chinese drilling in the disputed East China Sea (story here) . The tenth and most recent round of talks on the matter yielded no progress on the disputed maritime boundary.

With the recent war game tiddlywinks (see my previous post "Lie Down With Dummies") conducted between Japan, Australia and the US in the region it's clear that, in true Bush administration fashion, a logical diplomatic approach has been set aside.

I can't imagine what Japan hopes to accomplish going it the cowboy way and I find it hard to believe that they could be so irrational in their moves against China. Maybe it has to do with a deep concern with N Korean nuclear capability, maybe they're tired of backing down to China, or maybe in cavorting with the Bush administration (to quote another venerated US dummy) "stupid is as stupid does".