You couldn't make it up. Via journalist Howard French's “A Glimpse of the World” blog, an article from the Japan Times, an English language newspaper in Japan, on the breakthrough provided by an 11 year old Japanese girl with a rare diplomatic asset: F-cup breasts. The Japan Times article, entitled “Busty child reported to ease anti-Japan tension in China”, says:

If anything about Saaya is miraculous, it's her body -- she wears an F-cup bra, though she has yet to reach her teens. So when a photo of her in a bikini was posted on a Chinese Internet forum called "100," she immediately caused a sensation.

The pic was accompanied by message -- rendered in mock Marxist rhetoric -- reading: "An 11-year-old Japanese girl with large breasts has a proclamation for all Chinese people! Dear elder brothers, a beautiful young Japanese girl is beseeching you.

"Please stop these anti-Japanese hijinks. If you don't, I won't like you anymore."

Well, there's a message calculated to quench even the most searing of nationalist rages. In fact, the whole message was a touch more salacious--it's in the article. Although the posting was a hoax Saaya is real, and so, apparently, were the results:

Shortly after the photo and message were posted, the number of anti-Japanese postings rapidly declined, largely replaced by messages praising the girl's loveliness.

"This is one Japanese import I won't be boycotting," gushed one admirer. Another said, "She doesn't look 11. She's gotta be 18."

Yes, well, one would hope. She does look young, but it wouldn't be beyond the pale for someone to be billing her as an 11-year-old to appeal to the notorious Japanese kinky streak. It's very weird otherwise. Either way, the next time things get tense between Japan and China, I suggest Japan dispense with Koizumi and send Sayaa as their envoy. Clearly the girl has the magic touch. So to speak.

A cornucopia of Saaya Irie photos here. For more weirdness, the cover of her DVD is here (in Japanese). No nudity, so it's safe to look. But it is bizarre. The girl is 11, after all. If it was my daughter, especially in Japan, I'd be barricaded in the house with a shotgun and on the phone to a plastic surgeon specializing in breast-reduction. And she would be dressed in ten yards of sack cloth and grounded for life.

Note: In an update, I changed the title of this post. The original title was, “The Secret to Better China-Japan Relations: Kiddie Porn.” Judging from the number of people linking-in, I think some of my visitors were expecting something they weren't getting.

Also, having written two recent posts on the topic (here, and here), I note that the sexualized, Japanese schoolgirl, as exemplified by Saaya Irie, is one of the most potent examples of the fetishization of Asian women. The most conspicuous recent example is Gogo Yubari, Quentin Tarantino's psychotic, teenage assassin in Kill Bill, who sweet-talks an unlucky barfly before stabbing him to death. But the sexualized schoolgirl, like the geisha, is a Japanese creation, not a western one, with a long tradition in manga and anime. (The defining rendition of the psychotic version of the hot Japanese schoolgirl may be in Kinji Fukasaku's Battle Royale, the movie in which Quentin Tarantino apparently discovered the actress who played Gogo, Chiaki Kuriyama.)