630 War Talk in East Asia; South Korea changing sides

War Talk in East Asia; South Korea changing sides

Newsletter published on 27 December 2013

(1) War Talk in East Asia
(2) Abe's visit to Yasukuni Shrine disrupts Korea-Japan-US alliance
against China
(3) Frosty relations between South Korea and Japan at Bali APEC meeting
(4) Japan Cabinet Minister revives ancient slurs against Koreans as
uncivilized (July 2013)
(5) Currency swaps move South Korea closer to China, away from Japan
(6) Yen's fall threatens South Korean exports
(7) Abe's distinction between good and bad Nationalism - Tessa
Morris-Suzuki (ANU, Canberra)
(8) East Asia faces prospect of war - The Nation, Bangkok (July 2013)
(9) China & US militaries prepare for war - The Globe and Mail, Toronto
(July 2013)
(10) "China's swaggering style has given the impression that it is
intent on empire"
(11) Reports from China tell of rabid Nationalism and quest for Empire
(12) Japan's Demography: fewer young people than old; forum participants
call each other "Chinese traitor, Japanese running dog"

(1) War Talk in East Asia; South Korea changing sides - Peter Myers,
December 27, 2013

On my website, I provide the full text of the Tanaka Memorial. I believe
this was a world first; I had found the text in a rare book I bought at
a second-hand bookshop in Canberra.

Over the years, I have had occasional letters (emails) from China about
it, and discerned a worrying level of animosity towards Japan and
Japanese. As I pointed out to my correspondents, all sides have blood on
their hands.

Item 8 below, "East Asia faces prospect of war", from The Nation in
Bangkok, reports on plans for war being developed by military hawks in
the US and China.

The assumption is that the US-Japan-South Korean axis would hold.

But South Korea is moving away from Japan and towards China. If
hostlities break out with Japan, it will be on China's side. Abe's visit
to Yasukuni Shrine has reinforced this switch.

Abe wants Japan to become a nuclear power. If it does, the US will
vacate its bases in Japan. Gavan McCormack agrees (personal
communication) that the two are not compatible.

A US Default on its foreign debt (which is inevitable, sooner or later)
could be a trigger for such changes. Just as Britain handed
responsibility for North-East Asia to Japan, in the early Twentieth
Century, so the US could be forced to do the same. Therefore we could be
looking at a standoff, not between the US and China, but between Japan
and China.

Japan has been courting India; both the Prime Minister and the Emperor
have made visits there.

ASEAN would be split; it looks as if most ASEAN countries would side
with Japan.

In items 11 and 12 below, read the Comments parts. These are from
informed, intelligent people in China and Japan attesting to the
building animosity between them.

(2) Abe's visit to Yasukuni Shrine disrupts Korea-Japan-US alliance
against China

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2013/12/27/11/0301000000AEN20131227004700315F.html

Seoul to revise policy line toward Japan following Abe's war shrine visit

Yonhap News Agency, South Korea

2013/12/27 14:38

SEOUL, Dec. 27 (Yonhap) -- South Korea has worked hard to improve
relations with Japan so far, but changes to the policy line are
unavoidable after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe paid a much
denounced visit to a controversial war shrine, a ranking government
official said Friday.

The remark means Seoul takes Abe's visit to Yasukuni Shrine very gravely
and suggests the country could become more assertive in demanding Tokyo
atone for the sexual enslavement of Korean women for its troops and
other atrocities committed during its 1910-45 colonial rule of Korea.

"Under the current circumstances, it will be difficult to follow through
with the policy line that (Seoul) has been leading," the official said.
"So far, the government has tried to stabilize the South Korea-Japan
relations, but Japan's previous anachronistic remarks have put an
obstacle (to such efforts) and Prime Minister Abe's Yasukuni visit
further raised the obstacle."

Seoul has repeatedly stressed the strategic importance of mending ties
with Tokyo, despite the neighbors' recurring diplomatic tensions over
Japan's repeated territorial claims to the South Korean easternmost
islets of Dokdo as well as other historical issues.

Both Seoul and Tokyo are key allies of the United States. But Abe's
visit to the shrine is also expected to set back Washington's hope to
forge a three-way security partnership with the two Asian allies in part
to keep a rising China in check.

The shrine honors Japanese war dead, including 14 Class-A war criminals
from World War II.

South Korea and China, which suffered from Japan's aggression in the
early 20th century, have long resented Japanese leaders visiting the
shrine as an attempt to glorify the country's militaristic past.
Thursday's visit was considered flagrant disrespect for the neighbors.

Abe was the first Japanese prime minister to visit the shrine in more
than seven years.

The visit sparked angry reactions from Seoul as well as Beijing where
the memory of Japan's brutal military aggressions still run deep.

Immediately after Abe's visit to the war shrine, Seoul strongly
denounced the move, expressing "lamentation and rage" toward the
Japanese leader's visit to the shrine, which symbolizes the neighboring
country's past empire-building aggressions and glorification of its
militaristic past.

In the wake of Abe's shrine visit, South Korea is expected to boycott,
at least for a while, a bilateral vice foreign ministerial-level meeting
planned for next month, a summit between the two neighbors' leaders and
other inter-governmental talks.

Since taking office in February, President Park Geun-hye has not held a
summit meeting with her Japanese counterpart amid high-running tensions
caused by a series of nationalistic remarks from Tokyo and renewed
territorial claims to the islets.

"High-level inter-governmental exchanges (between Seoul and Tokyo)
usually receive direct impact from the conditions of the South
Korea-Japan relations," another government source also said, indicating
that Seoul may freeze its government-level talks with Tokyo down the road.

The government will keep pressing Japan for an attitude change over the
history issue while also stressing, through various multilateral
channels, the negative impact that Japan's recent nationalistic moves
have on the security environment of the Northeast Asian region,
according to the government sources.

pbr@yna.co.kr

(3) Frosty relations between South Korea and Japan at Bali APEC meeting

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/JAP-01-241013.html

Japan-South Korean ties

Oct 24, '13

By Stephanie Nayoung Kang

At the APEC Economic Leaders Meeting in Bali earlier this month, there
was no missing the cold atmosphere between South Korean President Park
Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo. Their frosty
interactions were like a scene from a Korean drama, especially when
contrasted with the warmth shared between Park and Chinese leader Xi
Jinping. The body language of the two leaders tells a lot about the
current state of South Korean-Japan relations.

In a recent meeting with US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel in Seoul,
President Park criticized Tokyo noting, "trust has not been established
due to the (Japanese) leadership which has repeatedly made regressive
remarks" on unresolved historical and territorial issues. Although the
South Korean government recognizes the important role that Japan plays
in maintaining regional security, outstanding political issues prevent
meaningful dialogue and resolution.

South Korean leaders are reluctant to take steps to improve South
Korea-Japan bilateral relations as sensitivities toward the comfort
women issue, disputes over Dokdo/Takeshima, and controversial textbooks
in Japan fuel negative perceptions of Tokyo in South Korean media and
the public. A hard line toward Japan is a safe policy for any South
Korean administration looking for domestic support.

The 2+2 rings alarms in Seoul

The US-Japan Security Consultative Committee (SCC) meeting - also known
as the US-Japan 2+2 - in Tokyo on October 3 compounded South Korean
concerns. The first alarm was Tokyo's call for an increased defense
budget, which South Koreans view as the prelude to a Japanese military
buildup. The Ministry of Defense requested a 4.819 trillion yen (US$49
billion) budget, a rise in Japanese military spending not seen since the
end of the Persian Gulf War.

Another concern for South Korea is Abe's desire to lift the ban on the
exercise of Japan's right to collective self-defense. The Japanese
government strictly interprets Article 9 of its constitution as a ban on
the use force in excess of self-defense, but the Abe administration has
made repeated calls to reinterpret Japan's right to engage in military
action to protect allies.

Finally, Washington's endorsement of an expanded Japanese role in
regional security and calls for increased burden sharing by its
Northeast Asian allies raise doubts about US commitment to the region.
Seoul sees US commitment as a zero-sum game, where attention to one
alliance detracts from the other. South Korea and Japan watch anxiously
as the Obama administration juggles domestic crises with its rebalance
policy to Asia.  ...

Stephanie Nayoung Kang (Stephanie@pacforum.org) is a resident Kelly
fellow at Pacific Forum CSIS.

(4) Japan Cabinet Minister revives ancient slurs against Koreans as
uncivilized (July 2013)

http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2013/07/31/2013073101632.html

New Chauvinist Wave in Japan as Minister Slams Koreans

englishnews@chosun.com / Jul. 31, 2013 12:42 KST

Members of Japan's Cabinet have upped the ante in a war of words between
the neighbors by reviving ancient slurs against Koreans as uncivilized.
Meanwhile the government in Tokyo continues to lurch to the far right,
with one senior politician recommending Nazi tactics to change the
country's pacifist postwar constitution.

One trigger was a banner unfurled by Korean fans during the recent match
against Japan in the East Asian Cup in Seoul. "A nation that forgets its
history has no future," the banner read, referring to attempts by
Japanese politicians to whitewash their country's World War II atrocities.

Japan's Education, Culture and Sports Minister Hakubun Shimomura waded
into the fray by questioning the "cultural level" of Koreans and adding
that if any Japanese fans had attempted to do the same thing, other
upstanding Japanese fans would have prevented them.

Shimomura voiced "regret" at the behavior of the Korean soccer fans,
according to the Mainichi Shimbun, but omitted to mention that Japanese
fans unfurled the rising sun flag symbolizing imperial Japan.

Shimomura has a robust background in denial. As deputy chief cabinet
secretary during the first administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
in 2007, he created a furor by suggesting that some Asian women during
World War II "sold their daughters" into sexual slavery for Japanese
imperial troops, and insisting there was no evidence that the army was
directly involved in the atrocity.

The Foreign Ministry here on Tuesday expressed "extreme regret" at the
minister's "rude" comments.

Meanwhile, Japanese Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso said at a seminar in
Tokyo on Monday that Japan should learn from the way Germany's
constitution under the Weimar Republic was transformed by the Nazis in
the early 1930s before anybody knew what was happening.

His comments were seen in the context of attempts by the Abe
administration to change Japan's constitution, which puts tight limits
on what its military can do.

When Adolf Hitler was elected in 1933, he subverted Germany's first
democratic constitution by railroading a series of laws through
parliament that effectively surrendered all its powers to him.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Tae-young said such comments "cause pain"
to many people and urged Japan to take a "humble" attitude given its
history of invading its neighbors.

Experts say the fresh wave of chauvinist confidence among Japan's ruling
politicians was prompted by the defeat of opposition parties in recent
elections, which has eliminated a large chunk of resistance to their
populist drum-beating.

(5) Currency swaps move South Korea closer to China, away from Japan

http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2013/07/18/currency-swaps-move-south-korea-closer-to-china-away-from-japan/

July 18th, 2013

Author: Intaek Han, Jeju Peace Institute

New strategic choices manifest themselves in many different ways.

In July, the currency swap arrangement between South Korea and Japan
reached its lowest level since 2006. Following the recent lapse of a
US$3 billion currency swap contract and the lapse of a US$57 billion
currency swap in October 2012, their bilateral currency swap is now
equivalent to a mere US$10 billion, down from US$70 billion in October
2011. There is more behind this change than historical disputes or mere
apathy. South Korea is starting to realise that its strategic and
economic future lies more with China than Japan.

But wasn’t currency cooperation one of the success stories of regional
cooperation in Asia, with Japan its most vocal proponent? After all, it
was Japan who first proposed an Asian Monetary Fund, and the memory of
the Asian Financial Crisis still haunts South Koreans, making them
unusually supportive of currency cooperation.

Officially, both countries say that there was no particular need to
renew currency contracts. The global financial crisis is over, and
credit ratings for South Korea have improved greatly, returning to the
pre-crisis levels. In 2010, South Korea let its currency swap
arrangement with the United States expire without much negative impact.

Many analysts think historical disputes between South Korea and Japan
explain the reduction in the value of currency swaps. This made sense in
2012, when the total value of agreements was reduced from US$70 billion
to $13 billion. This downgrade came after then President Lee Myung-bak
became the first sitting South Korean leader to visit the Dokdo Islands,
a group of islets that Japan calls Takeshima. He then demanded the
Japanese emperor apologise to those Koreans who perished while fighting
for independence. In response, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary and
Finance Minister threatened a review of the size of its bilateral
currency swap with South Korea, and finally on 19 October 2012 both
countries announced that their currency swap agreement would be reduced.
So last year, currency co-operation was clearly a casualty of disputes
between the two countries over history.

But this year’s lapse is a different story. True, tensions still run
high between South Korea and Japan over the issues of enforced sexual
slavery and the Dokdo Islands. But South Korea’s new president, Park
Geun-hye, has not visited Dokdo, nor has she demanded an apology from
the Japanese emperor. It is unlikely that Japan is taking aim at the new
president for the acts of her predecessor. And the size of the
downgrade, US$3 billion, is relatively insignificant, especially if
Japan meant to hurt South Korea. But if not discord over history, what
would have led the two countries to reduce the value of their currency
swap arrangements?

In early May, in accordance with the tradition set by her predecessors,
President Park made the United States her first overseas destination. A
month later, however, she broke away from the path trodden by her
predecessors, choosing China over Japan as the destination for her
second overseas trip. At the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping,
President Park made a state visit to China in late June, where she was
welcomed with unusual hospitality. In her two days in Beijing, President
Park spent as much as seven-and-a-half hours with President Xi,
conversing occasionally in Chinese and creating a bond with China’s new
leader. President Park’s state visit to China, according to Yonhap News,
‘offers one of the best promises yet to upgrade relations with a nation
that has the greatest leverage over North Korea and trades heavily with
the South’. This is no overstatement. Relations between South Korea and
China have improved greatly following President Park’s visit to China.

In the joint communiqué issued after the summit meeting, South Korea and
China pledged to bolster cooperation on a wide range of issues. In
particular, the two countries agreed to renew their currency swap
contract ahead of schedule and extend it to 2017. This decision follows
the 2011 agreement by both countries to double the size of their
currency swap arrangement to US$56 billion. The countries are expected
to further increase the bilateral currency swap and lengthen its duration.

President Park’s decision to visit China before Japan, South Korea’s
decision to renew its currency swap deal with China ahead of schedule,
and its decision not to seek an extension of its currency swap agreement
with Japan are hardly unrelated choices; nor are they merely reactions
to historical discords between South Korea and Japan. Rather, they
represent new strategic thinking. Together, they suggest that South
Korea is realigning its relations with major powers. Having leaned
heavily toward the United States and, to a lesser extent, Japan in the
past, South Korea is now balancing itself closer to China, its largest
trading partner and also the country with the greatest influence over
North Korea. By allowing its currency swap deals with South Korea to
wither, Japan has only hastened South Korea’s diplomatic realignment
and, probably, the internationalisation of the Chinese currency.

Intaek Han is Associate Research Fellow at the Jeju Peace Institute, an
independent think tank located in Jeju, South Korea.

(6) Yen's fall threatens South Korean exports

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/business/2013/04/22/49/0503000000AEN20130422007351320F.HTML

2013/04/23 16:07 KST

Yen's sharp drop sounds alarm over Seoul's exports

By Kim Soo-yeon

SEOUL, April 23 (Yonhap) -- The weakening trend of the Japanese currency
is raising concerns that South Korea's exports may lose its competitive
edge, dampening the country's efforts to boost its lackluster economy,
analysts say.

The Japanese yen gained ground somewhat per the U.S. dollar on Tuesday,
but it weakened toward the psychologically important 100 level per the
greenback on Monday, which could be the weakest in four years.

The yen has been under heavy downward pressure to the dollar on the back
of Japan's "Abenomics" -- a mixture of aggressive monetary and fiscal
policies preached by its Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

"The yen's weakness has been driven by Japan's massive monetary easing.
The yen could touch the 100 per-dollar level as the Group of leading 20
nations was seen as condoning Japan's move," said Jeon Seung-ji, a
currency analyst at Samsung Futures Co.

The yen has fallen more than 20 percent against the U.S. dollar since
September and in turn, the Korean currency has appreciated more than 28
percent per the yen.

Analysts said that the yen's depreciation has unnerved Seoul
policymakers as prices of Korean products become relatively more
expensive in overseas markets, compared with their Japanese rivals. Many
of Korea's key shipments including steels and machinery overlap with
those of Japan. ...

(7) Abe's distinction between good and bad Nationalism - Tessa
Morris-Suzuki (ANU, Canberra)

http://japanfocus.org/-Tessa-Morris_Suzuki/3966

The Re-Branding of Abe Nationalism: Global Perspectives on Japan

Tessa Morris-Suzuki

The Asia-Pacific Journal, Volume 11, Issue 28, No. 1, July 15, 2013.

[...] In May 2013, a US Congressional Research Service paper describing
Abe as a "strong nationalist" evoked a surprisingly querulous response
from pro-government media in Japan, and even from Prime Minister Abe
himself. Abe hit back with a statement in parliament, expressing his
unhappiness that "the ideas of our country" were being misunderstood by
foreigners. He went on to call for measures to "actively collect and
spread information so that we will be correctlyunderstood".6

The prime minister’s sensitivity to the "nationalist" label seems
curious, since he is on record as arguing with considerable passion that
there is nothing wrong with nationalism: "nationalism as I think of it
is a sense of belonging to the nature, ancestors, family and the local
community where one was born and brought up and with which one has
become familiar. This sense of belonging is not something that we are
told to have, but is completely natural and spontaneous..."7; in which
case, the label "strong nationalist" should presumably be taken as a
compliment.

Georgetown University professor Kevin Doak also claims that Abe has been
internationally misunderstood. Rather than denying the Japanese prime
minister’s nationalism, though, Doak argues that Abe-style nationalism
belongs to a brand distinct from the bad nationalisms of wartime Japan,
or (apparently) of other Asian nations. Doak’s argument rests on the
distinction between two quite different types of nationalism, "ethnic
nationalism" and "civic nationalism". He associates the first with the
Japanese term minzoku - the equivalent of the German "Volk" - and the
second with the term kokumin - which simply means "people of the
nation", and can be given a wide range of nuances depending on context
(though Doak questionably chooses to translate it as "civic nation").8

"Ethnic nationalism," writes Doak, "has also been positioned as ‘Asian
nationalism’ at least since the 1955 Bandung Conference; in contrast,
civic nationalism has from its very beginning in modern Japan and
throughout East Asia been seen as the favorite of pro-Western
governments, Christian minorities and intellectuals thought to be
tainted by Western ways of thinking". The mistake of outside observers,
he tells us, is that they have taken Abe to be an ethnic nationalist,
whereas in fact he is "one of the leaders in the current renaissance of
civic nationalism in Japan".

Abe’s identity as a civic nationalist can be demonstrated (says Doak) by
a reading of his best-selling book, Towards a Beautiful Country
Utsukushii Kuni e: "throughout the book, Abe consistently renders the
Japanese nation as kokumin (civic nation) not as minzoku (ethnic
nation), a distinction made not only conceptually but also through his
description of how democratic nationalism functions in practice."9Doak’s
depiction of the civic and democratic Abe is in dramatic contrast to his
depiction (in a recent Sankei newspaper interview) of "emotional South
Korea", which (apparently in toto) "links Japan bashing to ethnic pride
minzoku puraido". 10

This re-labeling of Abe’s nationalism raises several problems. First, it
assumes that the phenomenon of nationalism can be neatly separated into
an "ethnic" and a "civic" variant, with the second being morally
superior to the first. But "the manichean view that there are two kinds
of nationalism, a good, civic kind and a bad, ethnic kind"11has been
very effectively criticized by many scholars, who point out that the
notions of race, culture, tradition and citizenship bound up in
nationalism are far too complex to be isolated and captured in this easy
formula. 12The identification of ethnic nationalism as "Asian" (or at
least "non-Western") and civic nationalism as "Western" or "pro-Western"
has come in for particular criticism. As sociologist David McCrone puts
it, the distinction "does lend itself to caricature - why can’t they be
more like us?"13 History shows that, even in nations seen as exemplars
of civic nationalism (such as the US and France), the ethnic
undercurrents of nationalism can all too easily surge to the surface, as
they did in the US following 9/11.

A second problem is that, in the context of Abe’s political rhetoric,
Doak’s distinction between minzoku-based and kokumin-based nationalism
simply does not stand up to scrutiny. It is not correct to state (as
Doak does) that Abe "directly rejects ethnic nationalism", or to imply
that Abe does not use the term minzoku. Though the word kokumin often
appears in Abe’s speeches and writings, he also uses the term minzoku,
and indeed uses the two terms interchangeably - as in: "when people come
from foreign countries, surely they get a sense that Japanese are a
minzoku, a kokumin, of high quality; they get the impression that even
if we are poor, we are a country of culture..."14 Abe’s vision of a
national identity rooted in nature and tradition is evident in
statements like: "the Japanese are originally an agricultural minzoku, a
minzoku who produced rice by sharing water, so I think that from the
beginning we have had a sense of mutual cooperation built into our
DNA";15 or, more recently, "in the case of Japan, in particular, we are
an agricultural minzoku. This is the ‘land of rice’. We firmly retained
the traditions and culture of this Japan. For Japanese to be Japanese,
it is necessary that agriculture be the basis of our country".16

This vision is also reflected in Abe’s central role in a range of
political groups which proclaim a unique national character grounded in
timeless cultural tradition. For example, as of 2012 Abe headed the
liaison group of parliamentarians cooperating with the Shinto
Association of Spiritual Leadership, a body that aims to restore
traditional Japanese spiritual values weakened by postwar prosperity,
promote the central place of the imperial house in Japanese life and
create a new constitution built on Japanese national character.17

A third problem with the "civic nationalist" label is that "civic
nationalism" is frequently associated with liberalism, particularly
respect for the rights of the individual, and commitment to equality and
human rights.18 If there is one thing that Abe Shinzo definitely is not,
that is a liberal in the sense of commitment to human rights. The two
books in which he most clearly sets out his political credo both begin
with warnings of the dangers of liberalism (indeed, the first is
subtitled "The Choice for Anti-Liberalism").19 In the US, Abe cautions,
the term "liberal" has come to refer to people whose ideas are
"socialist, or close to it... Revolutionaries and left-wingers are
included in this category".20 By contrast, Abe firmly identifies himself
as a conservative. Though he intermittently expresses his admiration for
the British conservative party, his conservatism is really in a
distinctly Japanese mold. His political hero is his grandfather Kishi
Nobusuke, a key architect of Japanese economic policy in prewar
Manchuria who went on to be a profoundly controversial postwar Japanese
prime minister, famous in particular for his very divisive role in
ramming ratification of the 1960 Security Treaty with the US through the
Japanese parliament.21

Abe’s core goal, inherited from Kishi, clearly set out in Towards a
Beautiful Country, and echoed in the manifestos of groups like the
Shinto Association of Spiritual Leadership, is to "escape from the
postwar regime": that is, to reverse the political reforms introduced to
Japan during the allied occupation. In his view, these reforms undermine
Japan’s traditions, which are centred on the figure of the Emperor. What
Abe’s nationalist vision means in practice is best understood by
examining his party’s far-reaching proposals to rewrite the postwar
Japanese constitution. The proposed changes include removing the
reference to "respect for the individual" and making it constitutionally
impossible for foreign permanent residents to be given national or local
voting rights. Freedom of expression and freedom of association would
not be protected where these "have the purpose of harming the public
interest or public order". The same formula would be used to limit the
right of citizens to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". The
revised constitution prepared by the Liberal Democratic Party contains
no guidelines as to how, and by whom, "public interest" and "public
order" would be defined, leaving an alarmingly large loophole for the
repression of civic freedoms by the state. A new article would also be
added to the constitution to give the state sweeping powers to declare
prolonged states of emergency, during which constitutional rights could
be suspended.22 With the prospect of an LDP super-majority in parliament
for the next two to three years, there is a strong likelihood that the
ruling party will push forward with an attempt to carry out these
changes: changes so profound that they should probably be described, not
as plans for constitutional revision, but rather as plans for a new
constitution.

Photo: This artwork appeared in an exhibition entitled "the Constitution
and Peace" which opened in a public art space in Fukui Prefecture in
May. The work consists of several sections of the current constitution
written out in attractive calligraphy and coloured ink on Japanese
paper. Soon after the exhibition opened, it was removed on the orders of
the company which manages the art space for the local government on the
grounds that "its political content might offend the feelings of some
viewers".

The current popularity of the Abe administration in no way reflects
public enthusiasm for these grand political designs. It is, instead, a
response to the government’s economic stimulus package, and to Abe’s
skill in making optimistic statements, which convey a sense of
leadership to a population weary of political uncertainty and economic
malaise. In the end, the Abe government’s performance should and will be
judged, not on any political labels, but on the impact that it has on
Japanese society and on Japan’s relations with its region and the world.
It is possible that Abe may yet choose to focus on the vital tasks of
creating a basis for a strong Japanese economic future and improving
relations with Japan’s neighbours, rather than pursuing the ideological
agendas of anti-liberalism and "escape from the postwar regime".

In the meanwhile, though, those who care about the future of Japanese
society should not allow the dazzle of verbal juggling to induce a
political version of the Gruen Transfer. The prime minister’s ideology
may be re-branded for the global market, but the old adage remains:
buyer beware.

Tessa Morris-Suzuki is Professor of Japanese History in the Division of
Pacific and Asian History, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian
National University, and a Japan Focus associate. Her most recent books
are Exodus to North Korea: Shadows from Japan's Cold War, Borderline
Japan: Foreigners and Frontier Controls in the Postwar Era and To the
Diamond Mountains: A Hundred-Year Journey Through China and Korea.

Recommended Citation: Tessa Morris-Suzuki, "The Re-Branding of Abe
Nationalism: Global Perspectives on Japan," The Asia-Pacific Journal,
Volume 11, Issue 28, No. 1, July 15, 2013.

REFERENCES
1 See the Gruen Transfer website.
2 For example, J. Berkshire Miller and Takashi Yokota, "Japan Keeps its
Cool: Why Tokyo’s New Government is more Pragmatic than Hawkish",
Foreign Affairs, 21 January 2013; J. Berkshire Miller and Takashi
Yokota, "The Twisted Truth about Tokyo", Japan Foreign Policy Forum,
March-April 2013.
3 Taniguchi Tomohiko, "Japan’s Diplomacy Under the New Abe Cabinet",
address to the Brookings Institution Center for Northeast Asian Policy
Studies, 27 October 2006.
4 Komori Yoshihisa, "Who’s Afraid of Shinzo Abe", New York Times, 30
September 2006; see also Komori Yoshihisa, "Nashonarizumu no Kyojitsu",
Sankei Shinbun, 11 February 2007.
5 Sat? Kumi, "Kaigai Media Senryaku: Shush? wa Chijarazuyoku Gutairon
Katare", Yomiuri Shinbun (Tokyo morning edition), 23 February 2007.
6 The report in question is Emma Chanlett-Avery, Mark E. Manyin, William
H. Cooper and Ian E. Rinehart, "Japan-US Relations: Issues for
Congress", Congressional Research Service, 1 May 2013; Prime Minister
Abe’s response was given in a debate in the Budget Committee of the
Lower House of the Diet, 13 May 2013.
7 Prime Minister Abe addressing the Lower House of the Diet, 2 October 2006.
8 Kevin Doak, "Japan Chair Platform: Shinzo Abe’s Civic Nationalism",
Center for Strategic and International Studies, 15 May 2013; see also
Komori Yoshihisa, "Yasukuni Sanpai wa Kokoro no Mondai", Sankei Shinbun,
8 June 2013.
9 Kevin Doak, "Japan Chair Platform: Shinzo Abe’s Civic Nationalism",
Center for Strategic and International Studies, 15 May 2013,
10 The quotation on South Korea comes from Doak’s recent interview with
the Sankei’s Komori Yoshihisa about the issue of Japanese politicians’
visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, where he depicts Japan as being at the
mercy of unreasonable criticisms from "atheist China" which seeks to
"justify its communist dictatorship" and from "emotional South Korea
which links Japan-bashing to ethnic pride" (Nihon tataki o minzoku
puraido ni tsunageru j?joteki na Kankoku) - Komori, "Yasukuni Sanpai"
11 Rogers Brubaker, "Myths and Misconceptions in the Study of
Nationalism", in John Hall ed., The State of the Nation: Ernest Gellner
and the Theory of Nationalism, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
1998, pp. 272-306, quotation from p. 298.
12 For example, Brubaker, "Myths and Misconceptions"; Stephen Shulman,
"Challenging the Civic/Ethnic and East/West Dichotomies in the Study of
Nationalism", Comparative Political Studies, vol. 35, no. 5, June 2002,
pp. 554-585; Bernard Yack, "The Myth of the Civic Nation", in Ronald
Beiner ed., Theorizing Nationalism, New York, State University of New
York Press, 1998, pp. 103-118.
13 David McCrone, The Sociology of Nationalism, London, Routledge, 1998,
p. 9.
14 Prime Minister Abe, addressing the Upper House Special Commission on
the Basic Law on Education, 22 November 2006.
15 Abe Shinzo addressing the Lower House Cabinet Committee, 14 April 2006.
16 Prime Minister Abe responding to a question in the Lower House Budget
Committee, 18 March 2013.
17 See the homepage of the Shinto Association of Spiritual Leadership;
on Abe’s position as head of the Association’s parliamentary liaison
group, see here.
18 See, for example, David Brown, Contemporary Nationalism, p. 49.
19 Kurimoto Shinichir?, Abe Shinz? and Eto Seichi, "Hoshi Kakumei"
Sengen: Anchi Riberaru e no Sentaku, Tokyo, Gendai Sh?rin, 1996; see
particularly the first chapter, written by Abe: "Watashi no ‘Hoshu
Seijika Sengen’".
20 Abe Shinz?, Utsukishii Kuni e, Tokyo, Bungei Shinj?sha, 2006, p. 17.
21 Abe, Utsukishii Kuni e, particularly pp. 18-23.
22 See the full text of the Liberal Democratic Party’s current proposal
for constitutional reform on the Party’s website.

(8) East Asia faces prospect of war - The Nation, Bangkok (July 2013)

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/opinion/Superpowers-on-a-war-footing-30210726.html

Superpowers on a war footing

by Thanong Khanthong <thanong@nationgroup.com>

The Nation, Bangkok July 19, 2013 1:00 am

Doug Saunders of The Globe and Mail, Canada's leading newspaper,
reported in its July 15 edition that the United States and China have
been preparing for an all-out war.

Both the Pentagon and the People's Liberation Army are building up their
military strategies. It appears that a global war is in the making.

Saunders wrote that the Pentagon is proceeding with war preparations
without oversight from the White House or Congress. This gives the
impression that the Pentagon is operating as an independent state within
the state. The Pentagon is relying on the AirSea Battle strategy, in
which the US Army and Air Force will stand ready to support 320,000
military personnel in a simultaneous land and air attack against China
in the event of a spillover war in the South China Sea or surrounding areas.

President Obama has spoken of a pivot to Asia, followed by the US
Defence Department's plan to move most of the US naval capability to the
Asia Pacific to counter the rise of China. We can feel that the US
military, in spite of the turmoil in Syria, Egypt and the Middle East,
is re-asserting its influence in the Asia-Pacific. The US and China are
now engaging in a full-scale currency war. A physical war could be the
inevitable course. A rise of China threatens the US dollar as the
world's reserve currency and the US supremacy.

On China's side, we can assume that the Chinese leadership has ordered a
full preparation for a war with the United States. China has secretly
built up its military capability, with modern weapons and sophisticated
technology. China said it is ready to develop an anti-AirSea Battle
strategy. China's President Xi Jingping has urged the military to
prepare for the war and to fight to win.

Japan is quick to sense this move. In a white paper issued recently,
Japan sharply criticised China's military buildup. In its July 14
edition, DefenseNews reported that in the white paper, Japan accused
China of "rapidly expanding and intensifying its maritime activities …
engaging in dangerous acts that could give rise to an emergency
situation" and attempting "to change the status quo by force, based on
its own assertion", calling China's actions "incompatible with
international law".

Reuters reported on January 17 that Chinese Air Force colonel Dai Xu,
who is renowned for his regular calls to arms, came out to warn that the
US should not risk a war with China over the South China Sea or China's
territorial spats with Japan and other Asian nations.

"Since we have decided that the US is bluffing in the East China Sea, we
should take this opportunity to respond to these empty provocations with
something real," he was reported as writing in an article last year.
"This includes Vietnam, the Philippines and Japan, who are the three
running dogs of the United States in Asia," added Dai, a researcher at
Beijing University's China Centre for Strategic Studies. "We only need
to kill one, and it will immediately bring the others to heel."

If China were to go to war against the US, it would have to fight some
neighbours too, as Dai has mentioned. For they have collaborated with
the US in its strategy to encircle China. It is almost certain that
China would have to strike Japan first, because doing so would also
rally support from both North and South Korea. For this reason, Shinzo
Abe's government is moving to amend the Japanese constitution to re-arm
Japan. Japan realises that a day of reckoning is coming.

Southeast Asian nations would find it difficult to walk a delicate
balance. Indonesia and Thailand have privately agreed to form a military
alliance with the United States. The US would like to revive its use of
the military base at U-tapao. This issue is likely to flare up again in
Thailand as the situation develops. However, it is unwise for ASEAN
leaders to take sides in the US-China confrontation. But Southeast Asia
will inevitably be drawn into the conflict if the war happens. Prudence
is necessary during this time of clear and present danger.

(9) China & US militaries prepare for war - The Globe and Mail, Toronto
(July 2013)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/us-and-china-smile-for-cameras-prepare-for-war/article13196146/

Why are the U.S. and China preparing for war with one another?

DOUG SAUNDERS

The Globe and Mail, Toronto (Canada)

Published Friday, Jul. 12 2013, 6:00 AM EDT

Last updated Monday, Jul. 15 2013, 1:32 PM EDT

Rarely have relations between China and the United States been so
cordial. On Wednesday, the superpowers agreed to an impressive slate of
measures to fight climate change by cutting emissions. Last month’s
summit between Barack Obama and Xi Jinping saw the leaders finally agree
on an approach to North Korea. China is allowing its currency to rise in
value, reducing the danger of global imbalances. And while spying and
dirty tricks are rife, recent revelations about U.S. Internet
surveillance have placed the countries on a level playing field. It’s a
period of peaceful cohabitation.

So why are the two countries’ militaries preparing to do battle with
each other?

Both the Pentagon and the People’s Liberation Army are arming for an
all-out war and pursuing enormously expensive master strategies that
assume that such a war will occur.

In the case of the United States, this appears to be taking place
without any authorization or approval from the White House or Congress.
The Pentagon is now basing its global strategy on a detailed plan known
as the AirSea Battle concept, in which the U.S. Army and Air Force
defend the presence of 320,000 U.S. troops in the area by readying
themselves for a full-scale land and air assault on China in the event
of a threat in the South China Sea or its surroundings.

In a detailed analysis paper in this summer’s issue of the Yale Journal
of International Affairs, the famed sociologist and military-policy
expert Amitai Etzioni asks, "Who authorized preparations for war with
China?" His answer is stark: Mr. Obama has spoken of a "pivot to Asia,"
but there has been no political intent or desire to have such an active
military confrontation with China – in fact, the politics and diplomacy
have been moving in the opposite direction.

"The United States is preparing for a war with China, a momentous
decision that so far has failed to receive a thorough review from
elected officials, namely the White House and Congress," Prof. Etzioni
writes. "In the public sphere there was no debate – led by either think
tanks or public intellectuals – like that which is ongoing over whether
or not to use the military option against Iran’s nuclear program, or the
debate surrounding the 2009 surge of troops in Afghanistan."

But the AirSea Battle plan has far more expensive and dangerous
implications. "The imagined result of ASB is the ability to end a
conflict with China in much the same way the United States ended WWII:
The U.S. military defeats China and dictates the surrender terms." This
is a drastic change from Cold War approaches, where nuclear-scale
conflict was carefully avoided.

The plan scares the heck out of many military figures. "AirSea Battle is
demonizing China," James Cartwright, the former vice-chairman of the
U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned last year. "That’s not in anybody’s
interest." A Marine Corps assessment warned that the concept is
"preposterously expensive to build in peace time" and, if used as
intended, would "cause incalculable human and economic destruction," in
good part because it makes escalation to nuclear war far more likely.

And the Chinese have responded in kind: "If the U.S. military develops
AirSea Battle to deal with the [People’s Liberation Army]," Col. Gauyue
Fan warned, "the PLA will be forced to develop anti-AirSea Battle."

And that is now taking place. Soon after assuming power last year, Mr.
Xi abandoned his predecessor’s commitment to "peaceful rise," took
direct command of the Central Military Commission and commanded the
military to focus on "real combat" and "fighting and winning wars."

As Jeremy Page of The Wall Street Journal noted recently, Mr. Xi has
rehabilitated a group of ultra-hawkish generals and military advisers
who have advocated a military strategy based on preparing for direct
confrontation with the United States. He has particularly embraced Col.
Liu Mingfu, whose calls for direct China-U.S. military competition had
led his books to be banned, but are now back on the bookstore shelves in
droves. Also widely published now is air force Col. Dai Xu, who wrote
last year, according to Reuters, that China’s neighbours are "running
dogs of the United States in Asia" and "we only need to kill one, and it
will immediately bring the others to heel."

So we are in the absurd position of having the two superpowers at peace
with one another while their armies prepare for total war. It is a
dangerous state of affairs – something we ought to remember as we
approach the centenary of 1914, when just such a mismatch led the world
to war.

(10) "China's swaggering style has given the impression that it is
intent on empire"

From: Kersasp Shekhdar <kersasp_public@yahoo.com.au>
Subject: "China's swaggering style has given the impression that it is
intent on empire"
Date: Sat, 3 Aug 2013 23:53:15 +0500

Peter,

You seem to be more confused about this thing called 'China' than about
most any other matter.  Your public retort to what I had written months
back was more evasive than anything else.

"When Japan Inc was on a roll in the late 1980s, its plans for re-arming
inspired fear. But its low profile during the last 20 years has led to
regional acceptance; in contrast, China's swaggering style has given the
impression that it is intent on empire."

That's funny!  First, there is no 'intent', as in desire-for-the-future,
here – what we call China is *already* 'empire', and a burgeoning one at
that.  Maybe they've done it so softly, softly, that it has escaped the
common man's notice.  I don't think it's gone unnoticed in the corridors
of power.

Second, there is no such thing as an 'intent' on 'China's part; any
'intent' can only be attributed to Beijing, colloquially, or the Chinese
Communist Party, properly.

I know that what you wrote is the way one usually writes but it is
sloppy and confuses people.  China is even less monolithic and more
disparate than the United States, and is afflicted with a far far
greater concentration of power in the hands of a tiny elite – and this
comparison with the U.S. is really saying something.  There is a very
real illusion of 'democracy' among Americans (I know – lived there for
fifteen years); that said, there is at least some little amount of types
and kinds of power that are still devolved down to and with the 'little
people'; in contrast, not only is there no such thing in China, there
are no such illusions, no such expectations, no such traditions, and a
millennia-old history of, and acculturation to, concentration of power
in the hands of the emperor and his coterie (Deng being the most recent
'big time' emperor).

As I had written before (you probably censored it because it didn't suit
you), China is a mini-empire of the Han who have annexed nearly half of
Mongolia, Taiwan/Formosa, Xinjiang (the original/real name eludes me),
Sikkim, and, of course, Tibet, besides other smaller territories that I
cannot recall offhand.  A soft colonization conjoined with a purely
'commercial-interest' (no Anglo-American moralizing or justifications)
empire is also underway in some African regions and countries.  Lastly,
having annexed who knows how many teeny islands, it is claiming many
others that have long been considered to be the territory of sundry
other nations. I'd say there is some chance – granted, a small chance –
that in the years to come 'China' will claim some islands in the South
Pacific (not being funny; after all, the United States [and France,
etc.] did and has).  Then there's the passport/visa map row, alongwith
various other map ruckuses.

Also, there is an ongoing low-grade infiltration of a south-eastern
patch of Russia through the shared Russian border (if I recollect
properly, many years back you yourself had sent a piece that had made
mention of this).  It may be a long long way to Tiperrary but it's a
short short way to Baikal from that border.  I think it's the elephant
(more like the red dragon) in the room for Putin (a superb leader for
his country, one of the few who is sincere and authentic, like his
now-and-then squabble-mate, 'Little/White Russia's Lyukashenko).  I
think this is the primary reason that Putin anxiously implores his
country's women to be more 'productive' – even as Chinese couples need
to be told to keep things under (birth) control.

Unlike the well-known similar situation in Israel-Palestine, the
Russians hold no overwhelming and decisive technological and military
advantage over their adversaries so in the end it will come down to
demographics – young, able-bodied men and women.

It would be a very sad day if (or 'when', for he who is a
pessimistically-inclined realist) some chunk of Russia is annexed by the
Han Chinese Empire.  (Though this could be Vladivostok and it environs
which – believe it or not – the Han Chinese suggest they have historical
and ethnic rights to; however, that's not where Lake Baikal is.)

As far as the sands of history go, the above is – of course – a short
term view/prognosis.


(11) Reports from China tell of rabid Nationalism and quest for Empire

{The Comments, after Pettis' article, are more important than the
article itself. Intelligent people living in China tell of the rabid
Nationalism & Xenophobia they regularly encounter}

http://blog.mpettis.com/2013/12/the-politics-of-adjustment/

The politics of adjustment

Posted by Michael Pettis on December 8, 2013

[...] China is not the first country to have experienced a long period
of miraculous growth. But, as University of Chicago’s Robert Aliber
implied in his Warholian quip about growth miracles (“in the future
every country will grow rapidly for fifteen years”), the most difficult
part of growth miracles has not been the growth miracle itself but
rather the subsequent adjustment. Consider the most notable examples of
growth miracles: the United States in the 1920s, Germany in the 1930s,
the Soviet Union from the late 1940s to the early 1960s, Brazil from the
late 1950s to the late 1970s, Japan in the 1980s, and many others. [...]

45 Comments…

RichL December 8, 2013 at 8:25 pm

I concur that there is a need for the Chinese leadership to consolidate
power to effect reform. Is the expansion of the air defense zones a part
of that strategy; i.e., having a foreign bogeyman to rally support for
the central leadership?
  ==

illumined December 9, 2013 at 4:08 am

While that might be a factor, in reality China is hell bent on
establishing itself as the next great empire and would have done
something like this whether or not they have looming economic problems.
In fact in that regard they have quite a lot in common with Germany
under the unfortunate reign of Wilhelm II. East Asia today very much
resembles Europe in that period and unfortunately has 1914 written all
over it. The next economic crisis might well end up being the spark that
sets this powder keg off.
  ==

Paul December 9, 2013 at 11:23 am

I agree. Living in China I am constantly astonished by how rabidly
nationalistic a large segment of the population is. I have endless
anecdotes including random strangers coming up to my wife trying to
convince her to divorce me because “foreigners are bad”…but I think none
better illustrate this than my experiences during the 2012 London
Olympics. At first, everybody (students, co-workers, random strangers)
would constantly bring up the medal count. On the elevator, subway, bus,
during lunch. Everywhere. “Did you see the medal count? China is #1. We
have ___ gold medals and the US only has ___”. But when the US surpassed
the Chinese medal count in the final days of the Olympics, the mood
turned instantly. Suddenly everyone was complaining. The judges cheated.
It’s a foreign conspiracy. It was ubiquitous, even among seemingly
moderate Chinese.

I suspect we’ll have a lot more of this kind of delusional nationalism
to look forward to, very possibly resulting in an Asian version of WWI
  ==

Vincent December 9, 2013 at 5:31 pm

Your experience is real but probably does not indicate a change in the
status of nationalism. Most of young people in China cared about the
gold medal count 30 years ago. If you read China’s history, you may find
people were more nationalistic than the young generation.

You sound like living in very rural area in China where people do not
like their children to marry foreigners because they cannot communicate
with them. Many people choose to marry someone of same ethnic group or
similar culture. It has nothing to do with nationalism.
  ==

illumined December 10, 2013 at 5:32 pm

Here’s another anecdote for you: In 2008 I was at a university in China.
One evening I heard really loud, periodic cheering. It was about half a
kilometer away in the cafeteria, so I walked over to investigate. In the
cafeteria, students were packed, standing room only, with their eyes
glued to the television. On TV was the military parade, and the cheering
came every time some new weapons system came rolling across the screen.
In terms of genuine enthusiasm I’ve never seen anything like that except
in newsreels of Nazi Germany military parades. Seeing as to how the
educated elite are firm militants I really don’t hold much hope for the
rest of the country.

The reality of China is that not everything is quite what it appears.
Most of them will not express their feelings openly most of the time,
but every once in a while, like in the example above, they will show
their true selves. There is a very strong under current of militant
nationalism at all levels of Chinese society today, they genuinely want
a war to prove that their are the ultimate power again. The China Threat
is very real.

They also view any and all attempts at “reconciliation” or accommodation
on our part as a sign of weakness. It’s no accident that this latest
provocation came about soon after the Iran nuclear “suckers” deal.
“Let’s all get along” foreign policy is just going to make that coming
war inevitable.

“You sound like living in very rural area in China where people do not
like their children to marry foreigners because they cannot communicate
with them.”

No, they don’t want their children to marry foreigners because they are
racists, period. I’m always amazed at how everyone seems to think that
only white people can possibly have any racist sentiment, so as a result
people like the Chinese get a free pass for blatant racism.

Michael Pettis December 11, 2013 at 7:49 am

While I agree that there are many people in China who exhibit a kind of
nationalism that makes many people, especially their neighbors, feel
uncomfortable, I think we have to be careful about our conclusions.
First of all, there are many other countries about which you can say the
same, and certainly while most Japanese, for example, are good global
citizens, it isn’t hard to find expressions of Japanese nationalism that
are as nasty and worrying as anything coming out of China. Idiotic
nationalism, unfortunately, is a disease that one finds not just in
China but in every large country and most small countries, and I myself
was very unhappy with the idiotic things some Americans said during the
Iraq invasion.

Even the very extensive racism that one finds in China is, I think, less
than meets the eye. I know that I have many times been dismayed by what
even my educated Chinese friends might say — for example I am still
shocked by the very condescending attitude to Indians — but remember
that China was a very closed country until quite recently, and most of
China is still desperately poor. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that
many Chinese are suspicious and even uncomfortable with outsiders. I
hate to say it but I think xenophobia is the natural state for human
societies, and it takes real effort and a great deal of socialization to
eliminate or reduce it. As a large, multi-ethnic country whose people
are increasingly engaged with the rest of the world, I expect that over
time the Chinese will become more accepting of other groups and races,
and we should not impose on them higher standards than we would on other
similar countries.

I should also add that one of the things that seems to drive some of the
nastiest expressions of Chinese nationalism is the very low
self-confidence that many Chinese have about their country — including,
ironically and even if they don’t realize it, most ultra-nationalists. I
wanted to cite here an article I read yesterday (but I couldn’t find it)
in which a very prominent Chinese complains that when he goes abroad he
finds far more confidence in China than he does at home. He is not the
only person to have noticed this. Two weeks ago, for example, I had
dinner in HK with seven of my former students from PKU and Tsinghua, and
we had a long and vibrant discussion about China’s future. By the end of
the dinner the half-joking conclusion was that I was the only real
Chinese patriot at the table. It turns out that I was the only one who
expressed strong confidence in China’s future, and I had to argue hard
to encourage my students not to turn their backs on their country. They
are all elite students with great career prospects, but they were
extremely pessimistic about the outlook for their own country.

I think under those conditions, it may be natural that some Chinese feel
very frustrated with their own country and express very strong and at
times angrily nationalistic feelings about the rest of the world. In
fact I would guess that at least part of the ugly behavior of the
nationalists is a frustrated reaction to their own very low opinions
about China, and their anger is likely to be as much anger at themselves
as it is anger at foreigners. The kind of bitterness they express (like
that, by the way, of nationalists in many other countries) almost never
comes from self-confidence.

I myself have been the object of some rather silly attacks by Chinese
nationalists, who believe that anyone who warns about the economic risks
China faces must be an enemy of China (although they never explain why
an enemy of China would spend so much effort to understand and warn
about these risks), but the majority of Chinese with whom I am in
contact directly or indirectly have no such hostile feelings. In fact I
have been told many times, even by people in the government, that they
are grateful for my work.

The problem of course is that the nationalist idiots talk very loudly
and the rest don’t, but this is true in most countries and we shouldn’t
read too much into it.
  ==

cedric December 11, 2013 at 3:57 pm

Hi, this is my first time so I have to thank you to sharing your
knowledge with us.
On racism, i’m black and because of a long story i ended sleeping on the
street (lost in Nanjing) my second night in China…. Without the help of
the average citizens, i still would be in this mess. This story is so
full of good samaritans that i won’t go on but I’m also french and i
travelled around Europe. I’m not sure that i could be so lucky there.
Second story, friend’s of mine worked for a french agence who help
chineese to escap…LEAVE the country. She was teaching french. She ask
her studients what do you dislike in life. They answered japaneese
people. I won’t tell racism doesn’t exist but the most imporant part is
not where i thought.

I agree with you on centralisation i think it’s necessary. But will Xi
do the job..? I think internet can help a lot of countries to raise a
class of non corrupt entreprenors. Because when you sell on Alibaba,
it’s more private that if you have to pay for a real store and face
adminitration. We should also take a look at telco juggernaut like China
Telecom. They are threat by weibo and others. It will be very
interesting to see if goverment start to act.

You said free trade is about to collapse or reducing. But when you look
at all the bitcoin and stuff. There is plenty of internet-wall-mart guy
who desperatly need cheep labor, cheep money and hudge consumer class. I
think when household consuption was a small part of global
industrial/manufacturing output like in the beginning of the XX you have
the point but now it’s different. These people still want to consume
even if this not made in china.
I think chineese will have two choices, to feed people the US way with
household debt or stop delocalisation. And the last one mean less
reforms, as poeple will put all the blame on foreigners and lose their
energy “protecting” failling businesses (has you can see in many country
in Europe but also in US). But has we know chineese household debt is
very low. So they just have to manage to have a “good” banking sector.
If so Africa will benefit from delocalisation. I think chineese could do
better business in Vietnam or Indonesia. But with tensions we see these
days, chineese official will push to put chineese assets far from
potential ennemy zone.

I think a collapse in consumption in US and EU can really make us live
bad days. But I don’t believe in hard landing in US or in EU untill the
end of of the QE. And when you look at Japan, you know your son might
not see the end of this.
Japan to me is the real threat. Because their 3D printer is being old
and Abenomics look like a sucide. Who can seriously bet on wedge growth
in Japan? I don’t t know what could be the size of a Japan faillure. You
should take care of that in your model because these two economies are
too weak to survive at the other one death.
  ==

Lemmiwinks December 13, 2013 at 9:44 pm

Cedric, yes they liked you as long as you dont want to marry their
daughter….   That would be much easier and socially acceprable in Europe.
I think racism is clearly present in East Asia, but its different. Its
more like Xenophobia and kind of not recognizing we are the same
species. I had a very good friend in Japan, he was trully friendly, I
got to know Japanese people very well, so I can say he was really a
friend. However when I talked to him about how similar we are at the
genetics, he was clearly surprised. I think he considered me as a
firendly alien, like ET or Chewbacka.
I had a Chinese girlfriend and she openly said she would never marry me.
Her parents would never accept. Dog with dog, cat with cat she said.
Another thing that I was surprised at a dinner with phD students (from
Malaysia, Japan, China, Phillipines, etc) they thought it was obvious
white people wanted to exterminate them- that was really shocking to
hear. Especially that I am from Central Europe and have nothing to do
with colonization, etc.
The nationalism thing is very real. All Chinese are ever met were crazy
nationalists. I think they are brainwashed by the media. They have 2
arch enemies #1 Japan, #2 USA.
Somewhat similar are the British who still to this date loathe Germans
although they have no personal experience from the war. British media is
full of content about WWII and how bad asses the Germans were. I guess
China is the same.

And yes this is all understandable, but it is up to no good. There is a
real chance of war if things turn bad in economics and in politics.
  ==

cedric December 16, 2013 at 10:45 am

@Lemmiwinks
You are right saying that marrying a chineese girl is not so easy
specialy when you are black. But you would agree with me, that’s not a
easy thing to do in US for example.
Nationnalism is very hot in asia. Japan fear in China is motsly due to
horrific act during ww specialy in Nanjing. I don’t think thing will go
better with the time because there is no real wish to act this way in
both sides.

I have to told my story here is because prof said Pettis said that
racism is an uneducated people problems. I don’t agree with that totally.

I also think it could be a war and i take this very seriously.

Chewbaca is awsome, you should be proud to be a part of it!

Vincent December 11, 2013 at 8:37 pm

Your comment is holistic. Your former students are pessimistic about
their own country because, I think, their perspectives are inevitably
influenced by their personal experience.
  ==

Mike December 11, 2013 at 9:19 pm

Another indicator of lack of confidence in China, by the Chinese. I
teach Chinese students in the UK ( having taught for many years in
China)..there is a large influx of students here (at uni level- Russell
Group) fleeing it almost seems, the education system, but probably with
an eye (their parents eye) on getting out of China for good. These are
not the ‘brightest and best’ beloved of govt ministers. Most are
mediocre, many are unsuited to further education in English (but almost
anybody is let in these days, there are many back doors) many are
fleeing educational failure, some are just ‘dumped’ abroad by parents
who don’t know how, or can’t be bothered to deal with their wayward
offspring (many are clearly very spoiled) The recent statement to the
effect that the UK is only good for unis (and football) seems to
indicate that the Chinese govt is happy for these students to leave and
isn’t about to invest heavily in improving the education system to keep
them at home, as part of any rebalancing policy. It keeps me and many
others in work, but the standards are just getting lower and lower now
regarding the level of English required to get into uni. At times I
almost feel ashamed to be working in a sector which takes ‘rejects’ from
2nd rate Chinese unis, gives them 6 months of English and then says
‘welcome to the Russell Group….we accept the following forms of
payment’. It’s not just Chinese finances that need rebalancing…

Sigh….
  ==

Vincent December 12, 2013 at 1:46 pm

I do not think Chinese government is happy for them to stimulate other
country’s economy. These kids come from elites’ families. The parents
make way more money than a typical citizen and you can guess why. The
ongoing anti-corruption campaign is going to stop some families from
sending their children to foreign colleges.
  ==

Joe December 12, 2013 at 8:12 pm

“No, they don’t want their children to marry foreigners because they are
racists, period. I’m always amazed at how everyone seems to think that
only white people can possibly have any racist sentiment, so as a result
people like the Chinese get a free pass for blatant racism.”

Michael, your reply re: Chinese nationalism is useful on those terms,
but your reply does nothing to establish that:

“Even the very extensive racism that one finds in China is, I think,
less than meets the eye.”

Reading your response, the reasonable conclusion is:

“Yes, the Chinese are every bit as racist as Illumined claims. That
doesn’t mean everyone will be cruel and aggressively racist, because
people are also taught competing values that foster decency. It also
doesn’t mean that the country can’t become a good world citizen. Still,
racism is quite real in China, and often personally unpleasant.”

As for nationalism being motivated by feelings of insecurity and
inferiority, and statements that “…the nationalist idiots talk very
loudly and the rest don’t, but… we shouldn’t read too much into it” – I
think this ignores history.

You can pick Rwanda, Serbia, or Germany as examples, and they all fit
this template to a “T”. Malaysia also fits, but it’s less virulent and
has killed far fewer people (still isn’t fun to be Chinese there).

It remains reasonable to make distinctions, therefore, but hand-waving
it off is a very, very bad idea.
  ==

illumined December 14, 2013 at 10:36 pm

You have a very well thought out response Michael, as usual. There are
some points that need some responding to:

Idiotic nationalism in other countries – Yes, you are quite right. I
remember not too fondly the outpouring of such sentiment about Iraq, but
I would argue that was much more of an aberration. It was less than 2
years from the most devastating attack to happen to the US since Pearl
Harbor. There were feelings of vulnerability that were taken advantage
of by an unscrupulous presidency and if it wasn’t for that the Iraq
invasion wouldn’t have happened, at least not under those circumstances.
Something else to consider about the US is that we have a deeply divided
electorate with a very vocal leftist element that genuinely hates that
we are more successful than more other nations. We are also taught in
our schools to hate ourselves, that where ever there is something wrong
in the world America/The West MUST be responsible somehow. That’s a very
different environment from China where they are taught that foreign
nations are out to get them, that every war they have ever fought was
defensive, that China was once a great empire and should be again. Time
and again the Chinese have shown how remarkably easy it is to be whipped
up into nationalist group think. When that final, fatal crisis gets
under way you will find yourself quite alone in a sea of angry people. I
wouldn’t want to be in such a position.

Add to all that mentioned above, there’s also another key difference
that should be mentioned in that the US government has separation of
powers and clearly defined limits on what it can and can’t do. Again, in
this regard the Iraq war was an aberration. George W. Bush had the
lowest number of vetoes of any two term president since the early 19th
century, in fact he had no vetoes at all in his first 6 years. The
reason is because every bit of legislation passed by Congress was his
legislation. This was without precedent in American history, and I
really doubt it could happen again. In China there is no such system,
the government has almost unlimited power and is really only checked by
the military. This is a recipe for disaster, as Germany demonstrated.

Another point that tends to get lost is that the Japanese government
also has a check on its power – the US. There is a limit to what we will
allow them to do, and that was to ensure we would never have to fight
them again like we did in World War 2.

Chinese xenophobia – I would like to agree, but Japan and South Korea
don’t give me much reason for hope. Those are countries with first world
incomes, but behind that are third world societies that wouldn’t have
been too out of place in the 1950?s. Prosperity alone doesn’t always
cause social change unfortunately.

Lack of self confidence – Sometimes I ran across this as well, but
realistically that’s not really a deterrent. It could just as easily
push them towards pursuing yet more militaristic policies so they can
hope to prove something to themselves. Interestingly enough, when I talk
to people in America I find a lot less self confidence than I do in
China. Many that I have spoken to genuinely don’t think we could win a
conventional war against China. This will simply embolden the Chinese
regime.

Bitterness – Wilhelmine Germany very much resented it’s late start and
felt cheated. Germany wanted a place in the sun and sought to build an
empire at the expense of its neighbors. To that end they provoked a
number of crises, such as the Agadir Crisis, that would theoretically
enhance it’s standing in the world. While these crises did not in and of
themselves cause World War 1, they did set the stage by dividing Europe
into 2 opposing armed camps which would eventually explode in a spark.
This is happening today with China provoking a few crises of its own,
largely with the same objectives. The stage is being set once again.
  ==

Suvy December 15, 2013 at 11:55 am

I’d like to add one point. There is no excuse for what happened in Iraq.
That was just flat out stupid. It was a total waste of money, lives, and
resources. I don’t think we’re taught to hate ourselves; I just think
that we had an idiot/crook in charge who saw opportunities open for
political gain and he went for them. As far as I’m concerned, politics
is just a game of petty BS and there is absolutely no excuse for
starting random wars against random countries who never came close to
attacking us. Also, there’s a difference between finding the bad guys
and wiping them out vs nation-building. Nation-building is a completely
different ball game than wiping out the bad guys. War is just a complete
waste in every sense of the word. We shouldn’t try to defend it because
we can’t defend it. Lives and dollars were wasted for the most useless
purpose possible.

By the way, I don’t think the leftist movement advocates hatred for us
being successful and I think they do have a point about the level of
corporatism that’s developed since Reagan. Collapses can happen quickly,
very quickly and corporatism can get you to the point of no return. The
neo-cons were really the most dangerous group and these conservatives
were the ones running up budget deficits to finance wars. They’re not
real conservatives; they’re liars and frauds. They’re just trying to
help their cronies in the oil companies and their crony friends in the
military industrial complex. The left was actually advocating using the
budget surpluses to pay down debt, which is definitely a better decision
than running larger deficits to finance wars. It was Dick Cheney that
said deficits don’t matter. Is this some kind of a joke? These guys are
“conservatives” that think deficits don’t matter. As far as I’m
concerned, they’re liars, frauds, and crooks. Anyone with some semblance
of rational thought could realize this.
  ==

illumined December 19, 2013 at 3:11 pm

“We shouldn’t try to defend it because we can’t defend it. Lives and
dollars were wasted for the most useless purpose possible.”

I wasn’t defending Iraq, I was stating that the environment was
exploited by an unscrupulous President.

“By the way, I don’t think the leftist movement advocates hatred for us
being successful and I think they do have a point about the level of
corporatism that’s developed since Reagan. ”

And the corporatism of that came before Reagan was somehow better?

Vincent December 17, 2013 at 6:19 pm

@illumined:

I must say your knowledge about China is superfacial and your comments
are oversimplistic. It is laughable you compare China to Wilhelmine
Germany. In your eyes everything different from America(ns) is bad.

It has always been a debate over the range of the power by each branch.
It is NOT clearly defined. There are some high profile supreme court law
suits you can read.

It is true the US two-party system was designed for check and balance.
But you cannot say this is the only system that can do that. There are
different ways to get same result. Thirty years ago people said only
America-like system could make the economic miracle.

It is wrong that “they are taught that foreign nations are out to get
them”. It is your imagination. It is paranoid and chinaphobic.
  ==

illumined December 19, 2013 at 3:27 pm

“I must say your knowledge about China is superfacial and your comments
are oversimplistic. It is laughable you compare China to Wilhelmine
Germany. In your eyes everything different from America(ns) is bad.”

Strawman. Classic relativism though, everyone’s values must be equal
even when they aren’t.

“It has always been a debate over the range of the power by each branch.
It is NOT clearly defined. There are some high profile supreme court law
suits you can read.”

Ok, what’s your explanation for Bush’s record low veto count?

“It is true the US two-party system was designed for check and balance.
But you cannot say this is the only system that can do that. There are
different ways to get same result. ”

No, there are not different ways. The Chinese economy is little more
than a massive patronage machine designed to keep the Party in power,
leading to stunning amounts of corruption.

“Thirty years ago people said only America-like system could make the
economic miracle.”

I don’t think too many people did say that. Latin America had a lot of
economic miracles, almost all of which occurred under authoritarian
regimes. But they all collapsed in on themselves both economically and
politically.

“It is wrong that “they are taught that foreign nations are out to get
them”. It is your imagination. It is paranoid and chinaphobic.”

Evidently you’re not familiar with China’s “Patriotic Education”, which
actually does foster xenophobia and the belief that foreign nations are
out to get them. I’ve seen what they’re taught for myself, it’s real and
it’s not pretty.

Zhegezhege December 13, 2013 at 9:38 am

It may be nothing more than a co-incidence, but the biggest beneficiary
of the ADIZ weirdness has been Sinopec.

The ADIZ and subsequent inevitable defiance by the Americans and their
allies gave the state media a bigger story than the fatal incompetence
and criminal negligence of that state-owned oil firm. Therefore, instead
of having to lead the news with mealy-mouthed whitewashing of details
such as the pipe had passed an inspection two weeks previously, the
engineers knowing of the leak hours before the explosion and precisely
how many people were maimed or killed, they can just crank up the
xenophobia propaganda machine again.
  ==

Andao December 9, 2013 at 7:10 am

The last paragraph is the most important one, and exactly the reason why
I don’t understand everyone trying to pigeon-hole Xi as a reformer or a
hardliner. No one knows. He could be taking a step back to consolidate
power before taking two steps forward. Or he could be a natural
hardliner. Or he could be constrained by the other 6 members of the
politburo, who collectively disagree with him on some key issues.

Frankly it’s far too soon to make any sort of inferences. But no one
likes to say that because “we don’t know anything about Xi” is a lousy
book title.
  ==

Michael Pettis December 11, 2013 at 7:53 am

I agree, Andao. I think much of what the leadership is doing may be
necessary, whether or not their ultimate goal is more or less democracy,
and it is too early to draw conclusions about where this will end up.
Whatever they do must be affected by their political constraints, and we
need to understand these constraints.
  ==

Shawn December 9, 2013 at 2:24 pm

Hi michael,

As usual, thanks for your insightful article. I am an avid follower of
your blog and was inspired to purchased your book -the great rebalancing.
Great read i must say. Since you mentioned Singapore in this article,
would you think that singapore has a export model like china and its
people are also subjected to financial repression etc. Looking forward
to your insight
  ==

Michael Pettis December 11, 2013 at 7:57 am

I don’t think China follows an export model so much as an investment
model, and because the differences between China and Singapore are huge
I don’t think there is much about Singapore than helps us understand the
Chinese growth model. Obviously China can never be a trading entrepot
like Singapore, and Singapora’s government is much less likely to suffer
from the agency problem than China’s.
  ==

Phil December 15, 2013 at 4:40 pm

25 years ago, couldn’t we have said that China was following an export
model? Of course, now the enormous wealth that has generated appears to
have morphed into an intensive investment model. I presume many export
models share the same characteristics of an investment model. Export
models where investment does not follow would be nations where they
suppressed consumption to fund exports sometimes in a draconian fashion.
[...]

Phil December 13, 2013 at 9:38 pm

Some Random Thoughts in response to some of the comments above:

- When I was in Hong Kong two years ago, there was much more optimism
and elation about China’s future, its role in the world economy and its
pending claim to soon be the world’s largest economy. However, business
professionals would talk about the inherent problems of doing business
in China (i.e. corruption, lax accounting, reactionary politics), but
everyone was looking to invest more.

On a recent trip to HK, the mood was more subdued and cautious. The
inherent problems seem to be more looming given the deceleration. There
was some hope with reservation over the government’s growth and
investment plans for the Western provinces and secondary cities.

I think it’s natural for the Chinese to be pessimistic (as opposed to
Mr. Pettis’ optimism) when so much has come so quickly (and maybe easy)
for a generation of educated Chinese. Young Chinese MBAs that worked for
me in the U.S. seemed to have been showered with opportunities here by
Western companies involved in China and back home in China. Contrary to
popular belief and for some their own self-perception, they were not all
superstars. Here in the West, we call this malaise. I remember my Father
and many of his friends raised in the Depression did very well in the
50s and 60s experiencing this feeling by the late 70s when U.S. growth
slowed. By the way, the U.S. is experiencing a malaise right now.

- Nothing anyone has said, convinces me China is aching for a military
conflict to flex its muscle and validate its status. Nor has anything
said including Mr. Pettis, convinced me that China is not aggressive.
The Chinese political elite, diplomacy and time will give us the answer.

Many wars and conflicts are mostly supported by the uneducated and
unsophisticated of the society led by political elites who manipulate
them for their own needs. I bet if you went to Iran and had private and
confidential discussions with the university educated Iranians you would
find no support for the nuclear program and State-sponsored terrorism.
However in societies such as Iran (and China), dissent can be dangerous
and unpopular particularly if a military conflict erupts.

The Senkaku (Daioyu) Islands seem like a small footnote and loose end
from the post-WWII aftermath and the end of Japanese aggression.
However, it appears that China has a point. Japan’s claim seems to have
most of its basis from the aggression of 1895.

In Kissinger’s book “On China”, he emphasizes that China has never
strived to impose national goals and influence across the globe. Even at
the height of Imperial China, the Emperors had no interest in exporting
Chinese influence far beyond its neighbors (in contrast to the Europeans
later). He reasoned that China’s invasion of Tibet and its skirmishes
with Vietnam and India were all in its efforts to reclaim and protect
the former empire’s claims. Now with Senkaku, it’s possible that this
falls into the same category not to mention that gas & oil reserves make
these rocks more valuable. My only concern is that this seemed to be
Germany’s argument when it started annexing Austria, Czechoslovakia and
Poland at the beginning of WWII.

Kissinger went on to say that China’s interest in far away conflicts was
a way to keep the U.S. preoccupied and draining resources exercising
power abroad. In contrast to the former Soviet Union, they have never
been interested in exporting their own brand of communism or their culture.

- What scares me is that I have been reading that the Chinese government
and Chinese companies are targeting foreign companies in various
disputes. In an economy with ever expanding opportunities, foreign
investment was welcome or at least tolerated. Now with the economy
coming back to earth, it seems only natural that a closed economy with a
different standard of law would display more of its nationalistic
tendencies in economic affairs. It was always my opinion that Western
companies had underestimated the political risks inherent with Chinese
investment. Only time will tell if all this investment will prove to be
fruitful in the long-run. [...]

morse December 18, 2013 at 3:09 am

CCP saw how Gorbachev’s reform caused the collapse of the soviet union,
Xi Jinping does not want to be another Gorbachev, so do not expect any
radical reform. [...]

Viven December 19, 2013 at 3:12 pm

You compare apple with pear. Greece bankrupted because of the government
debt. Its GDP growth was not backed by manufacture or export. As clearly
stated by Micheal, the problem China faces is how to re-balance its economy.

(12) Japan's Demography: fewer young people than old; forum participants
call each other "Chinese traitor, Japanese running dog"

http://thediplomat.com/2013/02/26/how-demography-is-changing-japan/

How Demography Is Changing Japan

February 26, 2013

By John W. Traphagan

[...] Because Japan is at the forefront of this international trend, it
is useful to explore how population decline is already affecting the
country, and a particularly good place to look is rural areas, which
already are experiencing depopulation often at a striking rate. The
reason rural areas are of particular importance is that in addition to
low birth rates, they also tend to experience significant outflows of
young people who move to urban areas or abroad. As John Knight, an
anthropologist at Queen’s University in Belfast has noted, rural
depopulation in Japan is partly driven by young people being drawn to
the life, education, and employment opportunities of urban areas even as
they are eager to escape rural areas, which they perceive as offering
little in terms of social activities and employment (this is not
necessarily the case, as there are many rural areas in which there are
large factories that provide jobs, but it is a common perception among
the youth).

In his research, Knight has explored the environmental consequences of
rural depopulation. One of these is that as rural areas experience
population decline, wildlife (both animal and plant) begins to move back
into areas from where it had previously been displaced by human
occupation. In many rural areas, particularly in mountain villages,
animals such as bears have moved into populated areas where they may
pose a risk to residents. Bears also present problems in farming areas
and it is not uncommon to find farmers erecting electrified fences to
keep them out of their fields, thus generating expenses related to
protecting crops that until recently were not necessary. Knight argues
that encroachment by wild animals may further deter people from
remaining in the rural parts of Japan.

A drive around farm villages in Japan often brings one face-to-face with
one of the more significant consequences of depopulation—abandoned
property. An increasing number of houses, and their associated land, are
left unoccupied when the elder resident dies. Younger family members
have moved to the cities and are unable or unwilling to return. As a
result, buildings are left empty and become very difficult to maintain,
with weeds and other brush rapidly growing up around the property.

Indeed, the growth of the elder population represents one of the more
serious challenges associated with a low TFR and depopulation in Japan
(or anywhere). The increasingly inverted structure of Japan’s population
pyramid, with fewer young people than old people, means that it will be
very difficult to generate the tax revenues necessary to pay for the
healthcare needs of the elderly. Japan’s elder population—those over
65—is currently around 25% of the total. In rural areas, it is not
uncommon to find towns in which 35% or more of the population is over
65. As the elderly population grows to its anticipated size of more than
1/3 of the total national population, the financial burden of healthcare
in Japan will become erroneous, and there could very well be a shortage
of labor in the healthcare industry.

Some of the more esoteric effects of population decline in rural areas
are the problems it creates for local Buddhist temples. In Japan,
temples are supported by a parish of local residents who pay for the
upkeep of the temple and provide for the priest and his family (although
many priests also have to supplement their income with other types of
work). Depopulation has meant many temples have seen significant
decreases in the size of their parish and, consequently, their level of
income.

In some cases, income becomes insufficient to maintain a temple, forcing
temples to merge. These mergers take place even as the workload of
priests has increased because the primary work of Buddhist priests in
Japan is to conduct rituals for the dead. A larger elderly population
means more funerals and a lack of young people means fewer family
members to take care of family grave sites, leaving them to the local
priest to upkeep.

Satsuki Kawano, an anthropologist at the University of Guelph, has
written an important book called Nature’s Embrace: Japan’s Aging
Urbanites and New Death Rites that looks at how some urban (note that
these issues are not limited to rural areas) Japanese are developing new
approaches to caring for the dead that require little or no human
involvement to perform rituals for deceased ancestors. As Kawano notes,
some of those who have chosen to follow these new paths to dealing with
death have done so in order to avoid asking their descendants to provide
perpetual care of their ancestral spirit, which is the normal pattern
among Japanese.

Kawano’s work illustrates that Japanese are innovative and will find new
ways to manage life with fewer people and will create new cultural
patterns to address the changes that will emerge as the population
continues to decline.

Many have argued that a smaller population in Japan is a good thing,
because the country is currently very crowded—indeed, many Japanese feel
this way. Whether or not this is true, it is certain that Japan will
face major challenges in responding to the pragmatic issues of managing
and maintaining an infrastructure built by and for a much larger
population, as well as issues such as shifting economic patterns and
workforce composition as a result of a changing age structure of the
society. The Japanese people will also be forced to create new cultural
patterns that respond to the demographic and economic changes that are
occurring.

Additionally, declining populations in the countries of East Asia will
be of immense importance in shaping the political and economic dynamics
of the region. It is worth noting that up through the end of World War
II, women in Japan were awarded by the government for having many
children. The reason for this was to provide sufficient numbers of
soldiers to fight for the Japanese Empire.

Today, the Japanese have no desire for empire and expansion, but the
fact remains that population is a variable that remains central to how
Japan, and its neighbors, will interact and respond to tensions, such as
the current problems surrounding disputed territory in East Asia. And
how people and governments will respond to significant loss of
population—emotionally, culturally, and in terms of policy—remains very
unpredictable.

John W. Traphagan, Department of Religious Studies and Population
Research Center, University of Texas at Austin.

Comments

February 26, 2013 at 8:02 am
David Markle

Just a couple of points I have. One is that it seems desirable for
people who have them to keep abandonded houses abandonded otherwise they
could easily rent them out to an abundance of city dwellers who desire a
country lifestyle. They don't rent them, thereby continuing the sence of
decline and despare in the rural areas. There is a sense of being
abandoned among residents who have to look at these places in their
daily lives.

Second is the fact that the remaining elderly in rural areas demand and
recieve a disproportionate amount of public supported services but
continue as they get older to contribute less and less to the
communities they live in. This contributes to a feeling of futility
among younger people who would like to see their environment improved
instead of contracting into a decrepid habitation occupied by ghosts.
Not closing schools and facilities used primarily by younger residents
would help stem the sense of decline.

Third is the fact that these rural areas are just plain depressing
places to live in. The lack of social services is a factor but older
people who control the atmosphere are not inclined to support services
they are not interested in hence you have an abundance of gate ball
courts and municipal hot baths but little that would appeal to a younger
set of occupants like popular free movies and game days at public
facilities. REPLY

  February 27, 2013 at 3:22 am
Andy

the real collapse is in white births. Japan's births declined from 3% of
world total to 1% of world total over last 100 years.

But white births declined from 33% of world total to 5% of world total
over the same period.

So Japan is still doing well relatively.

  February 27, 2013 at 7:49 am
Chris

Rural areas are depressing?
Farmers actually get paid upwards of $1,000,000 dollars a year.
A million bucks can make quite a few people happy, don't you think?

Also, please try to keep your opinion out of the matter if you're going
to treat them as fact. Calling rural areas depressing is an example of
this. If someone could disagree with it (and mean it), then it's most
likely an opinion. REPLY

  February 26, 2013 at 1:40 pm
John Chan

"Today, the Japanese have no desire for empire and expansion" is utterly
untrue; Japan under the leadership of ex-war criminal’s grandson is more
aggressive and imperialistic than ever, it encroaches on China’s
territory and is occupying an ancient independent kingdom Ryukyu. Abe’s
bellicose statements in Washington make the author’s attempt to glossing
over Japan’s desire for empire and expansion a mockery. REPLY

  February 28, 2013 at 3:16 am
Shotokutaishi

I see Chinese people are very aggressive seeing the comments posted…love
to escalate the historical issues with the Land of Rising Sun. In
country with no possibility to search on history, prejudice is easily grown.

  February 26, 2013 at 5:39 pm Chris

Anyone notice anything in this article? The absence of "need for
immigration"!
Why is mass-immigration from the third world always the solution for the
west but never for anyone ells?

I applaud the japanese for not resorting to this; which is evident in
the fact that Tokyo is the safest city in the world.
No gangs or rape as you see in Europe/America.

  February 27, 2013 at 7:53 am
Lanot

How do you know there's no rape in Japan? Are you aware of the rape of
nanking? It was a terrible historical event. You should google it.

In other news, I love Japan and WHAT IS THIS REPLY

  February 27, 2013 at 9:01 pm WhiteGuyInJapan

"How do you know there's no rape in Japan? Are you aware of the rape of
nanking? It was a terrible historical event."

(Scratches head)-Uh, contemporary Japan? Nanking was 70 years ago. REPLY

  February 28, 2013 at 7:04 pm Shotokutaishi

Rape of Nanking? Did you know that it was made up in Tokyo Trial? with
no proof?

  February 26, 2013 at 6:31 pm Bankotsu

U.S birth rate is also declining, how is that going to affect U.S power
and the U.S unipolar system?

As U.S. birth rate drops, concern for the future mounts

http://www.freep.com/article/20130213/FEATURES01/130213031/As-U-S-birth-rate-drops-concern-future-mounts
REPLY

  February 26, 2013 at 10:40 pm Free Thinker

America uses immigration to continue to grow. They will be the last to
be affected by declining population. REPLY

  February 28, 2013 at 8:33 pm A Berman

Immigration has drop precipitously over the last ten years. Mexico's
economy has grown significantly, reducing incentives to immigrate to
America. Furthermore, they are going through their own birth rate drop.
Supposedly, net immigration from South America over the last ten years
is zero. So immigration won't save America. REPLY

  February 26, 2013 at 9:08 pm Guillaume Lamothe

The above poster would be well advised to learn the meaning of "more
than ever," although such a mistake might be understandable, given that
his name might leave one to suppose that English is a second language
for him.

1) How does the dispute with the Senkakus/Diaoyu even begin to compare
with, say, annexing Korea, creating a puppet state in Manchuria, and
invading half of China? Oh, that’s right, it doesn’t.

2) The above poster has clearly never been to Okinawa. If he had, he
would realize that the percentage of the Okinawan population desiring
separation from Japan is infinitesimally small, in any case much smaller
than the percentage of Tibetans or Uighurs that continue to agitate for
independence from The PRC.

3) Where exactly is Abe proposing Japan "expand?" All of Japan’s
territorial disputes are leftovers from the Second World War, and
haven’t changed since 1945. This is not a new policy by Abe, whose
parentage should remain out of the discussion in any case, since, of
course, we all agree that the sins of the father, much less of the
grandfather, do not carry on to the son.

  February 27, 2013 at 3:09 pm ???

I'm convinced that John Chan is one of the '50 Cent Party'. ***

More than 540 million people currently use the Internet in China, but
there are also millions of Internet-based "opinion-guiding" agents
employed by the Chinese government to control and censor every single
Internet forum and portal.

Secretly in the employment of the Chinese government, these censors
officially are called "Internet commentators" but popularly known as the
"50-Cents Party." The nickname can be traced to October 2004 when the
Hunan provincial Community Party Propaganda Department pioneered the
system of paying 50 cents in Chinese yuan per posting to Internet agents
hired specifically to write postings that seek to counter every piece
the government dislikes.
Based on the Hunan model in 2007, then-Communist Party General Secretary
Hu Jintao issued a directive in creating a massive "Internet commentator
army" made up of "comrades who are ideologically resolute, skilled in
Internet technology and familiar with the approach and language of the
common Internet users." The job of the agents is to "guide public
opinions expressed on the Internet."
Since then, these diligent 50-Cents Party members have proliferated by
the millions at every Internet portal in China’s vast cyberspace,
scanning and searching, incognito, for any "negative opinions" to
counter. The postings are designs to appear as spontaneous, individual
responses.
In reality, these 50-Cents Party members are under the control of
Communist Party propaganda apparatus at all levels of government.
In Beijing alone, 1 in 10 residents in the capital city of 20 million
are "propaganda workers," according to the city’s vice mayor and
municipal party propaganda chief Lu Wei, who spoke at a Propaganda
Workers’ Conference on Jan. 17.
He disclosed that 60,000 professional "propaganda workers" are directly
in the employ by the city government and more than 2 million informal
collaborators work as the city’s propaganda team, most of them on
university campuses and youth-oriented organizations that are most
likely Internet-based.
At the conference, the Beijing propaganda chief ordered his propaganda
army troops to master the Internet posting skills "in order to create
positive energy" by posting Twitter-like messages exalting the Communist
Party’s image and achievement, providing "opinion-guidance" on "hot
topics" such as corruption, housing, and inequality. REPLY

  February 27, 2013 at 11:47 pm John Chan

@???,

This is internet, we are practicing freedom of speech here, expressing
divergent opinions is the essence of freedom of speech which is one of
the pillars of democracy; because people expressing opinion not to your
liking, you use demonization to supress dissident’s opinion, it is
behaviour of dictatorship, authoritarian and totalitarian.

You should not label others arbitrarily, it is rude and a sign of
uneducated who cannot debate with reasons. If I behaved like you I could
label you Chinese traitor, Japanese running dog…