I am not sure what point Hideo Kaito is trying to make in his July 19 letter, "The real battle of civilizations," but his true motivation — by no means unfamiliar in Japan — seems to be the frantic search for something, anything, to feel superior about. Ah, yes, that triumph of the Eastern spirit over the Western spirit! His glib references to "Western" political and military leaders and their presumed over-reliance on technological factors are shallow and ignorant.
The victories at Kohima-Imphal in Burma, at Guadalcanal, and on the Kokoda Trail in New Guinea, which turned the tide against his own nation, owed just as much to factors of the human spirit as anything else.
Apart from that, Kaito shouldn't use "Western" when he means "American." There was a Communist insurgency in Malaya (now Malaysia) in 1948-60 that ended in the total defeat of the Communists by the British and their Commonwealth allies. Whose spirit triumphed there? However, I shouldn't be too harsh on Kaito's historical ignorance; a few years ago a very well-known geographical magazine in the United States had a long article on Malaysia and its history without any reference to the Emergency of 1948-60. When queried, they said some things "had to be left out for reasons of space" — i.e., non-American achievements are to be ignored.
By the way, I cannot help wondering what Tibetan refugees, Falun Gong, and the imprisoned opponents of Kim Jong Il would have to say about Kaito's "triumph of the Eastern spirit over the Western spirit."