I would feel better about Japan changing its constitution if there was more public acknowledgement of the crimes committed in WWII. Unfortunately the policy instead has largely been to try to bury the past, something they were prodded into doing initially, but you’d think by now could be more open about it.
I think your post would have worked better with your opening sentence being put at the end.
I would not defend Chinese espionage but it’s beyond overstating it to say that the country has cheated its way to prosperity.
And trying to provoke a vast, nuclear-armed nation is not the best plan, particularly since various defence treaties mean the US would be obliged to get involved. And in fact even a relatively confined conflict between China and Japan could cause economic ripples to cripple the US and world economy. But just like the underpant gnomes, the US will profit…somehow.
So what is your defense for being completely oblivious to the major theme behind recent news coverage of China-Japan relation? If you did what I said you would see nearly every major news outlet has covered it.
In case you haven’t noticed it, the US government is coming on hard fiscal times and politically finding it slightly more difficult to fund its empire. Also, the fact that they spend a lot on the military doesn’t mean they have the means to engage in an Asian arms race with another economic superpower. They have an entire world to police. That costs a lot.
That doesn’t surprise me. The fact that the US government is backing a move to legitimize the offensive use of force by Japan is the development here. In effect Japan is being turned into a weapon for the US military’s goal of choking off China from oil reserves.
There is such a thing as a military forbidden from offensive action, even if it is only rhetorical. The very idea that they are considering changes to the constitution instead of usurping power American style is a sign that it means something to some audience. That audience could well be China itself and this could be a intimidation move. Or it could be law and order types in Japan.
Either way, the United States and Japan are attempting to legitimize the offensive use of force by Japan at the same time there are very real conflicts with China over oil. Some believe in coincidence…
Someone claims that a conflict over oil could spark a war and benefit US government’s strategic interests ( the interests of its contributors, one and the same) and its a conspiracy theory? Oh lordy, that’s a good one.
On that note, Russia has plenty of oil, and we have a good excuse for a (proxy) conflict thanks to Ukraine.
I say get all the nuclear superpowers engaged in conflict, just think of the profit!
Reports of Joe Biden’s son’s connections with the largest natural gas provider in Ukraine provide a small glimpse into the type of deal I’m talking about.
Do you think that the movement to weaponize Japan at the same time China is seeking to lay claim to disputed oil reserves, and at the same time Japan announces that it is sending troops to the Senkaku Islands is a mere coincidence?
I’m just fed up with that nowadays any time you bring up even the suspicion that there might be nefarious goings on somewhere, you are met with a derisive “Ha, ha, conspiracy theorist, ha, ha.”
So now you can throw back: “You think it all a coincedence, then? HAHA, coincedence theorist!!, wahaha.” points & laughs again.
They aren’t changing the constitution, just the official interpretation of what the constitution allows. This might be worrying for some, but at the same time, it’s important to remember that even the new interpretation is still far more restrictive than what virtually any other country in the world operates under. Collective self-defense is a right guaranteed in the UN Charter.
I acknowledge Japan aren’t some pismire nation militarily. I’m not suggesting anything to the contrary. In fact, it was recently said that they could become fully nuclear within a few weeks – they have the launch systems and technology off-the-shelf.
I do, however, doubt they could match it with China’s estimated 2—3,000 warheads…
Really? You think half a century of communist, automaton indoctrination breeds… creativity? :dubious:
I think you’ll find that, even though we owe the Chinese a lot in terms of innovation - rudders, bellows, gun powder etc - after they turned inward under the aegis of the Confucian eunuchs in the late 1400’s, they have stagnated. In fact, had it not been on the corpses of 70-odd million of its citizenry under the “great” Chairman Mao (imagine if Germany won the war!), they would likely still be abjectly Third World. In fact, the vast majority of Chinese people are just that – paupers. It was the pratfall of the Moors, too – strident religious mind pejoration resulting in curtailed advancement.
Sorry. But, much of China’s steep rise to power has to do with cheap shit they’ve barfed up to the short-sighted West and innovation they’ve hacked from this very same, sap patron. Don’t take my word for it; ask the likes of Lockheed Martin. …or the F.B.I.!
To clarify: The use of such weaponry is moot because of said MAD doctrine.
Human beings naturally gravitate towards their ‘comfort zone’. This applies to all facets of life; be it political discourse, physical exercise, emotion etc. As such, it’s perfectly understandable that the indoctrinated masses will side with the majority; those who have been inculcated on mainstream media treacle explicitly designed to entertain and to placate.
Accepting that which one is told and that the majority, too, accepts as true is comfortable for people – it’s easy. Any suggestion of this harmony being disrupted is spurned – the path of least resistance. It’s why few politicians stay true to their convictions once in office; why few sports people attain the pinnacle of their chosen sport; and why most shy away from confronting theirs and others’ emotions.
Given this, one should not take offence at the would-be epithet ‘conspiracy theorist’; especially in the light of the likes of WikiLeaks, Manning and Snowden. But rather, one should simply understand the nature of the those issuing the dismissal / slur.
I’m living in China right now, and working as an engineer in the medical field. People work hard here, and there’s huge investment in R&D.
Indeed China is already second in the world for R&D spending, and is rapidly catching the US.
And much of that R&D is in areas that the West has held back on, such as GM and stem cells, and the same is true within my specific field.
Disagree. He may be revered here, but most of the important economic reforms happened after Chairman Mao’s death. His Great Leap probably set the country back many decades.
No-one forces us to buy Chinese goods, they are making products that the world wants. You’re free to believe we’ve been conned but hundreds of millions of consumers vote with their wallets day after day.
And making cheap goods of comparatively low quality is pretty much all you can do when your country is poor. Now that China is wealthier, and there’s a lot of innovation happening, there are plenty of companies here trying to target the mid and high-end.
But, once again, I’m not going to defend government-sponsored corporate espionage: it’s clearly wrong. But the idea that hacking a few computers has “cheated” into existence an economy the size of China’s is preposterous.
It’s easy to spend when you have the money to do so and it’s even easier if you have the substrata of innovation done for you already.
Well, that’s something I’d have to research extensively before I could counter claim. So, you get that one (…I think) on the grounds you’re over there. Though, I do hasten to add, if his portrait is worthy of hanging in Tienanmen and many a nationalist song dedicated to the autocrat, I suggest (factually or fictitiously), much of China’s “rise” is attributed to him.
Not in the sense of having a literal gun to one’s head we’re not; sure. But, capitalism = competition = the need to find cheaper ways to do things. This is all well and good on a level playing field – i.e., where currency manipulation, fiscal secrecy, rampant corruption and the already touched on, wholesale industrial espionage, are kept at a premium. But China are clearly not playing the game by the rules. It’s why such devices as the Trans Pacific Partnership are being orchestrated and why diplomatic protocol boundaries are being re-drawn and the likes of Mr. Wang Dong (couldn’t resist! :D) are being named on the F.B.I.'s ‘Most Wanted’ list.
China have cheated to get to where they are as fast as they have. Now, this might be deemed acceptable to some, given all nations conduct themselves similarly (albeit, historically, not to such an extent; short of invading a nation and rifling through its wares). But in the age of the Internet, this is unacceptable and denial of it is just plain playing stupid.
No argument there. However, I’m not arguing the merits of Chinese plastic sporks. Only, that to steal the designs for said sporks and then to open a ‘sporking factory’ next door to the Western conglomerate who’s intellectual property you just stole - intellectual property that took money and time to manifest - to make your own sporking venture a reality - all done with legal impunity because, as we all know, China has no commerce laws other than bribery - is not on for a nation who eyes superpowerdom and to be treated as economic equals. Much less have their often absurd claims to vast swathes of resource rich ocean, based on obscure Taoist manuscripts from centuries ago, taken seriously.
If it were only a “few” and the information were as trivial as the space between your words implies, we wouldn’t be where we are today. The proof of the pudding is in the tasting and the rice in this Chinese pudding is fast wiggling its way out of the bowl!
We all stand on a substrata on innovation done for us, it’s commendable when some of us build on it.
Now of course, it’s not commendable when some of us do so illegally, as I’ve said repeatedly. But the idea that a significant proportion of the Chinese economy is, or even could be, based on espionage, is ridiculous.
Currency manipulation: If you believe the US news, China is cheating its way to a competitive advantage. One wonders why other countries would not follow the same magic formula. No matter; the truth of the matter is that many analysts now think the yuan is overvalued (cite).
And secrecy and corruption would not make the country more competitive. Which just leaves the afore-many-times-mentioned corporate espionage.
I haven’t denied it, I’ve explicitly acknowledged it many times. I’m saying it isn’t, and couldn’t, be accountable for a significant effect on a country’s economy.
