ARTICLE from UCLA Asia Institute: Japan through twenty-something eyes

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Culture & Politics » soc.culture.china » ARTICLE from UCLA Asia Institute: Japan through twenty-something eyes

ARTICLE from UCLA Asia Institute: Japan through twenty-something eyes [message #223671]

Mi, 12 Juli 2006 03:11

richasiankid

Posted June 30, 2006, courtesy of the UCLA Asia Institute.
http://asiamedia.ucla.edu/columns.asp?parentid=48395

Excerpts:

"China may be rising, but Japan has hardly sunk. And since it still can
claim to be the world's number-two economy -- several times larger than
China's, in fact -- it is going to remain a force to be reckoned with,
for a very long time."

"Koizumi stands up to the Chinese, he's not afraid of them," she told
me one day. "He knows the communists are bullies, and they have no
right telling the prime minister of Japan what he must do and how he
must behave within his own country."

"Many Japanese people her age -- though not all, and maybe not most --
do not trust China and believe their country should prepare for the
worst, while still hoping for the best. This means that while they
think the Iraq war was a big error by America, Koizumi's decision to
order a token deployment of troops as a totem of close alliance with
Washington was regarded as the right play. Japan knows that if China
ever attacked it, very few if any Asian nations would come to its aid;
but that the United States very well might. Maintaining good relations
with America trumps any inclination to criticize America's bad policy
decisions."

"If China becomes a threat or if its ally North Korea attacks, we have
to protect ourselves, we would have to respond. If that means we have
to have our own nuclear weapons -- if that is what is needed in order
to defend our country -- then we will get them. It is very simple,
really."

******************************************
Full article:
http://asiamedia.ucla.edu/columns.asp?parentid=48395

Japan through twenty-something eyes

Like the younger generation, Japan needs to be listened to

By Tom Plate
Pacific Perspectives Columnist

Friday, June 30, 2006

Los Angeles --- On my office wall at UCLA, in the corner, hang a few
dozen pictures of world leaders I have over the years been fortunate to
interview. One of them is a shot of Junichiro Koizumi, the prime
minister of Japan. He's stepping down in September, but not without a
bang. This week he's been hanging out with President George Bush, in
Washington. Then, jumping on to Air Force One with his pal George Bush,
he went on to Memphis, to rock out at the Elvis Presley Graceland
Mansion. What a cool couple, eh?

Koizumi, as it is well known, is a big fan of the King, as are many
Japanese; and Bush, you see, is a big fan of Koizumi, as many Japanese
are as well. But not a lot of Japanese are crazy for Bush. No matter:
For the last four-plus years, Koizumi has been king of the hill in
Tokyo, which was why hundreds of Japanese troops had been stationed in
Iraq, in philosophical defiance of Japan's otherwise pacifist
constitution.

Another fan of Koizumi is a 25-year-old course assistant I had hired in
April to help me with my spring work. Thanks partly to her, and to some
other Japanese students at this university, I think I understand
Japan's twenty-something generation better today than I did before.
This is important to me. China may be rising, but Japan has hardly
sunk. And since it still can claim to be the world's number-two economy
-- several times larger than China's, in fact -- it is going to remain
a force to be reckoned with, for a very long time.

Let me protect her privacy by not offering her name, or revealing where
she works now in Tokyo. But do allow me to introduce her to you by
suggesting that she had strong opinions about her country, its future,
and its relationship with China.

Koizumi, with his flying locks and flamboyant manner, was attractive to
many young Japanese; at least he wasn't boring and indecisive as were
so many of Japan's prime ministers in the nineties. What's more, he was
anything but meek, and while not many young Japanese enthusiastically
supported his annual visits to the Yasukuni war shrine, they did
approve of his rebuffing the predictable criticism from Beijing.

"Koizumi stands up to the Chinese, he's not afraid of them," she told
me one day. "He knows the communists are bullies, and they have no
right telling the prime minister of Japan what he must do and how he
must behave within his own country."

Many Japanese people her age -- though not all, and maybe not most --
do not trust China and believe their country should prepare for the
worst, while still hoping for the best. This means that while they
think the Iraq war was a big error by America, Koizumi's decision to
order a token deployment of troops as a totem of close alliance with
Washington was regarded as the right play. Japan knows that if China
ever attacked it, very few if any Asian nations would come to its aid;
but that the United States very well might. Maintaining good relations
with America trumps any inclination to criticize America's bad policy
decisions.

Koizumi's support for loosening the constitutional restrictions on
Japan's freedom of military action has support among some of the young,
too. I once asked my former assistant if Japan would ever become a
nuclear power. Her response:

"We would prefer to remain non-nuclear -- everyone knows the horror of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki," she said. "But we have to be realistic. If
China becomes a threat or if its ally North Korea attacks, we have to
protect ourselves, we would have to respond. If that means we have to
have our own nuclear weapons -- if that is what is needed in order to
defend our country -- then we will get them. It is very simple,
really." My course assistant from Japan wasn't pretending to speak for
her entire generation, of course. But it's hard to believe she
comprises a minority of one.

She returned to Tokyo last week with her UCLA degree, and with deep
respect for America. Despite our whiney students, our astonishingly
terrible fast food, and our various Iraq blunders, she wound up
thinking of the United States as her second national home. She admired
our zest for the new, our vigorous intellectual debate and our
sometimes comic tendency toward conversational bluntness. Like the
visiting Koizumi, she hates beating around the bush, and while
otherwise extremely polite and deferential, is not for kowtowing to the
Chinese -- or to anyone else. She, like Japan itself, needs to be
listened to very carefully.

The views expressed above are those of the author and are not
necessarily those of AsiaMedia or the UCLA Asia Institute.

Date Posted: 6/30/2006

Re: ARTICLE from UCLA Asia Institute: Japan through twenty-something eyes [message #223723 ]

Mi, 12 Juli 2006 10:21

ltlee1

A most interesting and appropriate subtitle
"Like the younger generation, Japan needs to be listened to."

Two points:

1. Japan needs to be listened to implies that Japan is currently not
listened to. Why?
2. Japan is like a twenty-something. That is, not fully mature in many
ways.

RichAsianKid wrote:
> Posted June 30, 2006, courtesy of the UCLA Asia Institute.
> http://asiamedia.ucla.edu/columns.asp?parentid=48395
>
> Excerpts:
>
> "China may be rising, but Japan has hardly sunk. And since it still can
> claim to be the world's number-two economy -- several times larger than
> China's, in fact -- it is going to remain a force to be reckoned with,
> for a very long time."
>
> "Koizumi stands up to the Chinese, he's not afraid of them," she told
> me one day. "He knows the communists are bullies, and they have no
> right telling the prime minister of Japan what he must do and how he
> must behave within his own country."
>
> "Many Japanese people her age -- though not all, and maybe not most --
> do not trust China and believe their country should prepare for the
> worst, while still hoping for the best. This means that while they
> think the Iraq war was a big error by America, Koizumi's decision to
> order a token deployment of troops as a totem of close alliance with
> Washington was regarded as the right play. Japan knows that if China
> ever attacked it, very few if any Asian nations would come to its aid;
> but that the United States very well might. Maintaining good relations
> with America trumps any inclination to criticize America's bad policy
> decisions."
>
> "If China becomes a threat or if its ally North Korea attacks, we have
> to protect ourselves, we would have to respond. If that means we have
> to have our own nuclear weapons -- if that is what is needed in order
> to defend our country -- then we will get them. It is very simple,
> really."
>
> ******************************************
> Full article:
> http://asiamedia.ucla.edu/columns.asp?parentid=48395
>
> Japan through twenty-something eyes
>
> Like the younger generation, Japan needs to be listened to
>
> By Tom Plate
> Pacific Perspectives Columnist
>
> Friday, June 30, 2006
>
> Los Angeles --- On my office wall at UCLA, in the corner, hang a few
> dozen pictures of world leaders I have over the years been fortunate to
> interview. One of them is a shot of Junichiro Koizumi, the prime
> minister of Japan. He's stepping down in September, but not without a
> bang. This week he's been hanging out with President George Bush, in
> Washington. Then, jumping on to Air Force One with his pal George Bush,
> he went on to Memphis, to rock out at the Elvis Presley Graceland
> Mansion. What a cool couple, eh?
>
> Koizumi, as it is well known, is a big fan of the King, as are many
> Japanese; and Bush, you see, is a big fan of Koizumi, as many Japanese
> are as well. But not a lot of Japanese are crazy for Bush. No matter:
> For the last four-plus years, Koizumi has been king of the hill in
> Tokyo, which was why hundreds of Japanese troops had been stationed in
> Iraq, in philosophical defiance of Japan's otherwise pacifist
> constitution.
>
> Another fan of Koizumi is a 25-year-old course assistant I had hired in
> April to help me with my spring work. Thanks partly to her, and to some
> other Japanese students at this university, I think I understand
> Japan's twenty-something generation better today than I did before.
> This is important to me. China may be rising, but Japan has hardly
> sunk. And since it still can claim to be the world's number-two economy
> -- several times larger than China's, in fact -- it is going to remain
> a force to be reckoned with, for a very long time.
>
> Let me protect her privacy by not offering her name, or revealing where
> she works now in Tokyo. But do allow me to introduce her to you by
> suggesting that she had strong opinions about her country, its future,
> and its relationship with China.
>
> Koizumi, with his flying locks and flamboyant manner, was attractive to
> many young Japanese; at least he wasn't boring and indecisive as were
> so many of Japan's prime ministers in the nineties. What's more, he was
> anything but meek, and while not many young Japanese enthusiastically
> supported his annual visits to the Yasukuni war shrine, they did
> approve of his rebuffing the predictable criticism from Beijing.
>
> "Koizumi stands up to the Chinese, he's not afraid of them," she told
> me one day. "He knows the communists are bullies, and they have no
> right telling the prime minister of Japan what he must do and how he
> must behave within his own country."
>
> Many Japanese people her age -- though not all, and maybe not most --
> do not trust China and believe their country should prepare for the
> worst, while still hoping for the best. This means that while they
> think the Iraq war was a big error by America, Koizumi's decision to
> order a token deployment of troops as a totem of close alliance with
> Washington was regarded as the right play. Japan knows that if China
> ever attacked it, very few if any Asian nations would come to its aid;
> but that the United States very well might. Maintaining good relations
> with America trumps any inclination to criticize America's bad policy
> decisions.
>
> Koizumi's support for loosening the constitutional restrictions on
> Japan's freedom of military action has support among some of the young,
> too. I once asked my former assistant if Japan would ever become a
> nuclear power. Her response:
>
> "We would prefer to remain non-nuclear -- everyone knows the horror of
> Hiroshima and Nagasaki," she said. "But we have to be realistic. If
> China becomes a threat or if its ally North Korea attacks, we have to
> protect ourselves, we would have to respond. If that means we have to
> have our own nuclear weapons -- if that is what is needed in order to
> defend our country -- then we will get them. It is very simple,
> really." My course assistant from Japan wasn't pretending to speak for
> her entire generation, of course. But it's hard to believe she
> comprises a minority of one.
>
> She returned to Tokyo last week with her UCLA degree, and with deep
> respect for America. Despite our whiney students, our astonishingly
> terrible fast food, and our various Iraq blunders, she wound up
> thinking of the United States as her second national home. She admired
> our zest for the new, our vigorous intellectual debate and our
> sometimes comic tendency toward conversational bluntness. Like the
> visiting Koizumi, she hates beating around the bush, and while
> otherwise extremely polite and deferential, is not for kowtowing to the
> Chinese -- or to anyone else. She, like Japan itself, needs to be
> listened to very carefully.
>
> The views expressed above are those of the author and are not
> necessarily those of AsiaMedia or the UCLA Asia Institute.
>
> Date Posted: 6/30/2006

Look, China's survival is at stake facing a Chapter-7 provision against N. Korea Re: ARTICLE from UC [message #223754 ]

Mi, 12 Juli 2006 12:26

acoustic

Look, China's survival is at stake facing a Chapter-7 provision against N. Korea Re: ARTICLE from UC [message #223755 ]

Mi, 12 Juli 2006 12:32

acoustic

Expires:
References: <1152666715.284205.269510 [at] i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>
Sender:
Followup-To:
Distribution:
Organization: Public Access Networks Corp.
Keywords:
Cc:

This Tom Plate guy, his one-person filter, ughhh . . .. What BS!

It could very well be that his interviewee who was also his paid
assistant knew his view toward Far Eastern affairs. So she might've
been at least subconsciously trying to feed him what she thought he
would like to hear the most.

And to see how meaningless this purported view is:

"Koizumi stands up to the Chinese, he's not afraid of them,"
she told me one day. "He knows the communists are bullies, and
they have no right telling the prime minister of Japan what he must
do and how he must behave within his own country."

Who has ever heard any country say that it fears China? I certainly
haven't. Not Vietnam, not N. Korea, not to mention Japan? And which
country has actually feared China the way it fears George Bush's US?

George Bush has declared his pre-emptive strike doctrine and rattled
off a list of some 60 top targets while China has always assumed only
a self-defense posture and consistently advocated peaceful coexistence
with its neighbors.

In this filtered view however, ``the communists are bullies''. But
where does it leave Bush? Bush and his pre-emptive-strike supporters
aren't bullies?

If Koizumi ``knows the communists are bullies'' and visits the war
shrine all the same year after year, then Koizumi is talking loudly.

And in order to prove that he's not carrying a small stick, he has to
send troops to Iraq and then send his foreign minister to talk about
the legality of making pre-emptive strike against N. Korean's missile
bases?

But does he carry anything more than a small stick? Can he back up
his rhetoric of pre-emptive strike? It remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, China has taken a rare step to draft an alternative to the
frightening Japanese resolution which has a chapter 7 provision and
which the US and the UK like, providing for a future military option
in the name of enforcement, very much like those the US and UK have
done against Iraq years before the 2003 invasion and the current
occupation.

Now, imagine the threat to China if N. Korea were to be occupied by
the US and Japanese forces. It will be the beginning of the end of
the current government of China as we know it. And woe shall be to
the Chinese people who will suffer the same fate as the poor Iraqis
have been.

So, it is obvious why the Chinese government has taken the Japanese
draft of resolution against N. Korea so seriously. It is because its
own survival is at stake. And the shallow and short-sighted Koizumi,
intoxicated by a streak of white-worshipping, is just running errands
for the widely feared but detested Bush against world peace.

The shallow Koizumi can't stop showing off his Elvis imitations; and
the drunken and shallow Koizumi now wants to show off his brand new
imitation:

Tapping to the tune of Bush's pre-emptive strike doctrine, he feels
like he is walking the Imperial Japan shrine on world stage. Oh, it
makes me feel dizzy, he intones. Ouu . . ., how cool, how very cool!
I'm now just like Bush! And it sure beats Elvis too . . ..

Look, the shallow guy has graduated from his school of Elvis to the
Bush school. And he is stealing the original Bush protegi Condi's
leather fashion show also.

lo yeeOn
========

# China again rejects UN resolution on North Korea - Yahoo! News

A foreign ministry announcement here that the draft UN Security
Council resolution was an "overreaction" came amid another flurry
of shuttle diplomacy to address the crisis in the wake of last
Wednesday's missile launches.

French and British envoys in New York hinted that China had
threatened to veto the draft resolution.

"When a permanent member of the Security Council says a resolution
will not pass, things are clear," French Ambassador Jean-Marc de La
Sabliere, the president of the council for July, said, in a reference
to Beijing.

On Monday, China circulated, as an alternative to a resolution, a
non-binding presidential statement that calls for voluntary sanctions
targeting North Korea's missile and weapons of mass destruction
programs.

The Chinese statement dropped language in the draft, however, which
would clear the way for sanctions and, in theory, even military
action.

. . .

Japan's push for further sanctions over the missiles has also run into
opposition from South Korea -- which, like China, often criticizes
what it sees as a Japanese failure to apologize for its wartime
behaviour in the 20th century.

. . .

BRUSSELS, Belgium -
Iran ruled out responding this week to international incentives to
suspend its nuclear program, saying Tuesday that the offer contains
too many "ambiguities."

Ali Larijani, Tehran's top nuclear negotiator, said after meeting with
European Union
foreign policy chief Javier Solana that the "ambiguities must be
removed first in order to have serious talks."

His comments dashed any hope that that Iran would meet a Wednesday
deadline on a six-nation offer of incentives aimed at dissuading
Tehran from uranium enrichment.

In article <1152666715.284205.269510 [at] i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
RichAsianKid <richasiankid [at] hotmail.com> wrote:
>Posted June 30, 2006, courtesy of the UCLA Asia Institute.
>http://asiamedia.ucla.edu/columns.asp?parentid=48395
>
>Excerpts:
>
>"China may be rising, but Japan has hardly sunk. And since it still can
>claim to be the world's number-two economy -- several times larger than
>China's, in fact -- it is going to remain a force to be reckoned with,
>for a very long time."
>
>"Koizumi stands up to the Chinese, he's not afraid of them," she told
>me one day. "He knows the communists are bullies, and they have no
>right telling the prime minister of Japan what he must do and how he
>must behave within his own country."
>
>"Many Japanese people her age -- though not all, and maybe not most --
>do not trust China and believe their country should prepare for the
>worst, while still hoping for the best. This means that while they
>think the Iraq war was a big error by America, Koizumi's decision to
>order a token deployment of troops as a totem of close alliance with
>Washington was regarded as the right play. Japan knows that if China
>ever attacked it, very few if any Asian nations would come to its aid;
>but that the United States very well might. Maintaining good relations
>with America trumps any inclination to criticize America's bad policy
>decisions."
>
>"If China becomes a threat or if its ally North Korea attacks, we have
>to protect ourselves, we would have to respond. If that means we have
>to have our own nuclear weapons -- if that is what is needed in order
>to defend our country -- then we will get them. It is very simple,
>really."
>
>******************************************
>Full article:
>http://asiamedia.ucla.edu/columns.asp?parentid=48395
>
>Japan through twenty-something eyes
>
>Like the younger generation, Japan needs to be listened to
>
>By Tom Plate
>Pacific Perspectives Columnist
>
>Friday, June 30, 2006
>
>Los Angeles --- On my office wall at UCLA, in the corner, hang a few
>dozen pictures of world leaders I have over the years been fortunate to
>interview. One of them is a shot of Junichiro Koizumi, the prime
>minister of Japan. He's stepping down in September, but not without a
>bang. This week he's been hanging out with President George Bush, in
>Washington. Then, jumping on to Air Force One with his pal George Bush,
>he went on to Memphis, to rock out at the Elvis Presley Graceland
>Mansion. What a cool couple, eh?
>
>Koizumi, as it is well known, is a big fan of the King, as are many
>Japanese; and Bush, you see, is a big fan of Koizumi, as many Japanese
>are as well. But not a lot of Japanese are crazy for Bush. No matter:
>For the last four-plus years, Koizumi has been king of the hill in
>Tokyo, which was why hundreds of Japanese troops had been stationed in
>Iraq, in philosophical defiance of Japan's otherwise pacifist
>constitution.
>
>Another fan of Koizumi is a 25-year-old course assistant I had hired in
>April to help me with my spring work. Thanks partly to her, and to some
>other Japanese students at this university, I think I understand
>Japan's twenty-something generation better today than I did before.
>This is important to me. China may be rising, but Japan has hardly
>sunk. And since it still can claim to be the world's number-two economy
>-- several times larger than China's, in fact -- it is going to remain
>a force to be reckoned with, for a very long time.
>
>Let me protect her privacy by not offering her name, or revealing where
>she works now in Tokyo. But do allow me to introduce her to you by
>suggesting that she had strong opinions about her country, its future,
>and its relationship with China.
>
>Koizumi, with his flying locks and flamboyant manner, was attractive to
>many young Japanese; at least he wasn't boring and indecisive as were
>so many of Japan's prime ministers in the nineties. What's more, he was
>anything but meek, and while not many young Japanese enthusiastically
>supported his annual visits to the Yasukuni war shrine, they did
>approve of his rebuffing the predictable criticism from Beijing.
>
>"Koizumi stands up to the Chinese, he's not afraid of them," she told
>me one day. "He knows the communists are bullies, and they have no
>right telling the prime minister of Japan what he must do and how he
>must behave within his own country."
>
>Many Japanese people her age -- though not all, and maybe not most --
>do not trust China and believe their country should prepare for the
>worst, while still hoping for the best. This means that while they
>think the Iraq war was a big error by America, Koizumi's decision to
>order a token deployment of troops as a totem of close alliance with
>Washington was regarded as the right play. Japan knows that if China
>ever attacked it, very few if any Asian nations would come to its aid;
>but that the United States very well might. Maintaining good relations
>with America trumps any inclination to criticize America's bad policy
>decisions.
>
>Koizumi's support for loosening the constitutional restrictions on
>Japan's freedom of military action has support among some of the young,
>too. I once asked my former assistant if Japan would ever become a
>nuclear power. Her response:
>
>"We would prefer to remain non-nuclear -- everyone knows the horror of
>Hiroshima and Nagasaki," she said. "But we have to be realistic. If
>China becomes a threat or if its ally North Korea attacks, we have to
>protect ourselves, we would have to respond. If that means we have to
>have our own nuclear weapons -- if that is what is needed in order to
>defend our country -- then we will get them. It is very simple,
>really." My course assistant from Japan wasn't pretending to speak for
>her entire generation, of course. But it's hard to believe she
>comprises a minority of one.
>
>She returned to Tokyo last week with her UCLA degree, and with deep
>respect for America. Despite our whiney students, our astonishingly
>terrible fast food, and our various Iraq blunders, she wound up
>thinking of the United States as her second national home. She admired
>our zest for the new, our vigorous intellectual debate and our
>sometimes comic tendency toward conversational bluntness. Like the
>visiting Koizumi, she hates beating around the bush, and while
>otherwise extremely polite and deferential, is not for kowtowing to the
>Chinese -- or to anyone else. She, like Japan itself, needs to be
>listened to very carefully.
>
>The views expressed above are those of the author and are not
>necessarily those of AsiaMedia or the UCLA Asia Institute.
>
>Date Posted: 6/30/2006
>

Look, China's survival is at stake facing a Chapter-7 provision against N. Korea Re: ARTICLE from UC [message #224134 ]

Do, 13 Juli 2006 03:18

acoustic

This Tom Plate guy, his one-person filter, ughhh . . .. What BS!

It could very well be that his interviewee who was also his paid
assistant knew his view toward Far Eastern affairs. So she might've
been at least subconsciously trying to feed him what she thought he
would like to hear the most.

And to see how meaningless this purported view is:

"Koizumi stands up to the Chinese, he's not afraid of them,"
she told me one day. "He knows the communists are bullies, and
they have no right telling the prime minister of Japan what he must
do and how he must behave within his own country."

Who has ever heard any country say that it fears China? I certainly
haven't. Not Vietnam, not N. Korea, not to mention Japan? And which
country has actually feared China the way it fears George Bush's US?

George Bush has declared his pre-emptive strike doctrine and rattled
off a list of some 60 top targets while China has always assumed only
a self-defense posture and consistently advocated peaceful coexistence
with its neighbors.

In this filtered view however, ``the communists are bullies''. But
where does it leave Bush? Bush and his pre-emptive-strike supporters
aren't bullies?

If Koizumi ``knows the communists are bullies'' and visits the war
shrine all the same year after year, then Koizumi is talking loudly.

And in order to prove that he's not carrying a small stick, he has to
send troops to Iraq and then send his foreign minister to talk about
the legality of making pre-emptive strike against N. Korean's missile
bases?

But does he carry anything more than a small stick? Can he back up
his rhetoric of pre-emptive strike? It remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, China has taken a rare step to draft an alternative to the
frightening Japanese resolution which has a chapter 7 provision in it
and which the US and the UK obvious like and want, providing for a
future military option in the name of enforcement, very much like
those UNSC resolutions the US and UK brought against Iraq years before
the 2003 invasion and the current occupation.

Now, imagine the threat to China if N. Korea were to be occupied by
the US and Japanese forces. It would be the beginning of the end of
the current government of China as we know it. And woe would be with
the Chinese people who would suffer the same fate as the poor Iraqis
have been.

So, it is obvious why the Chinese government has taken the Japanese
draft of resolution against N. Korea so seriously. It is because its
own survival is at stake.

Yes, in the era of pre-emptive strikes,, shock-and-awe aggression, and
unilateralism, every move George Bush and his friends (whether they
are the Koizumis or the Berlusconis or the Blairs) makes the rest of
the world worry. Even paranoia is justified response as long as it is
a defensive measure against these warmongers.

The ``might is right'' doctrine which the US government so unabashedly
embraces scares people. Like Gorbachev has observed recently, Bush is
``determined''. And that is scary, despite the growing sentiment at
home and abroad against his policies.

So, yes, it is China's own survival that is at stake.

And the gravity of the Japanese draft resolution in the Chinese view
is obvious:

Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya said he had been instructed to veto a
much stronger Japanese resolution, which is supported by the United
States, Britain, France and four other countries.

Wang previously said Beijing objected to three key elements in the
Japanese draft: the determination that the missile tests threatened
international peace and security; authorizing action under Chapter 7
of the U.N. Charter, which can be enforced militarily; and mandatory
sanctions aimed at curbing North Korea's missile and nuclear programs.

The Chinese-Russian draft resolution drops those three elements, which
Japan and the United States consider crucial.

And the shallow and short-sighted Koizumi, intoxicated by a streak of
white-worshipping, is just running errands for the widely feared but
detested Bush and is ultimately working against world peace.

The shallow Koizumi can't stop showing off his Elvis imitations; and
the drunken and shallow Koizumi now wants to show off his brand new
imitation:

Tapping to the tune of Bush's pre-emptive strike doctrine, he feels
like he is walking the Imperial Japan shrine on world stage. Oh, it
makes me feel dizzy, he intones. Ouu . . ., how cool, how very cool!
I'm now just like Bush! And it sure beats Elvis too . . ..

See, the shallow guy has graduated from his school of Elvis to the
Bush school. And he is stealing the original Bush protegi Condi's
leather fashion show also.

lo yeeOn
========

# China, Russia float own plan on N. Korea - Yahoo! News

By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 3 minutes ago

UNITED NATIONS - China and Russia introduced a resolution Wednesday
deploring N. Korea's missile tests but dropping language from a rival
proposal that could have led to military action against Pyongyang.

The draft, obtained by The Associated Press, "strongly deplores" North
Korea's missile tests last week and urges Pyongyang to re-establish a
moratorium on such launches.

It requests -- but does not demand -- that all U.N. members "exercise
vigilance in preventing supply of items, materials, goods and
technologies that could contribute" to North Korea's missile program.

The resolution also calls on member nations "not to procure missiles
or missile-related items" or technology from the North.

Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya said he had been instructed to veto a
much- stronger Japanese resolution, which is supported by the United
States, Britain, France and four other countries.

Wang previously said Beijing objected to three key elements in the
Japanese draft: the determination that the missile tests threatened
international peace and security; authorizing action under Chapter 7
of the U.N. Charter, which can be enforced militarily; and mandatory
sanctions aimed at curbing North Korea's missile and nuclear programs.

The Chinese-Russian draft resolution drops those three elements, which
Japan and the United States consider crucial.

Japanese Ambassador Kenzo Oshima and U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said
they were still prepared to put their resolution to a vote -- even
with the prospect of a Chinese veto.

Oshima called the Chinese-Russian draft "a move in the right
direction" but said "a quick glance shows that there are very serious
gaps on very important issues."

"I think it will be very difficult for us to accept that as it is,"
Oshima said.

Bolton also cited "deficiencies," notably the Chinese-Russian draft's
elimination of the reference to the tests as a threat to international
peace and its use of the weaker word "calls" rather than "decides" in
the Japanese text.

Nonetheless, he said, "we view this as a significant step and think
it's important."

Earlier Wednesday, the U.S. envoy to East Asia said China had made no
progress in its campaign to bring North Korea back to nuclear
disarmament talks.

Beijing called on the United States and North Korea to step up efforts
to resolve a dispute over U.S. financial sanctions that the North
calls the main obstacle to a resumption of the talks.

"China's really trying. We're trying. Everyone is trying except,
unfortunately, the DPRK," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State
Christopher Hill said after meeting with China's foreign minister, Li
Zhaoxing, in Beijing. DPRK is the abbreviation of the North's official
name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"So far the DPRK seems to want to choose a road of deeper isolation,"
Hill said. "It is, frankly speaking, a little discouraging that the
DPRK has not responded in a positive way."

A Chinese delegation including Wu Dawei, Beijing's chief negotiator on
the North Korean nuclear issue, is in Pyongyang this week. On Tuesday,
Chinese President Hu Jintao made a rare public appeal to the North not
to take any action that would further enflame tensions.

Japan said the reclusive regime would have to do more than simply
agree to return to the nuclear talks to avoid possible sanctions.

China on Tuesday called the sanctions resolution "an overreaction"
that threatened to undermine regional peace and security and divide
the Security Council. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
criticized Japan for what he called its uncompromising stance.

"The Security Council's reaction must be firm, but it mustn't be
overloaded with emotions and mustn't contain threats that could drive
the situation into a deadlock," Lavrov said.

North Korea ignited the furor July 5 by test-firing seven missiles,
including a long-range Taepodong-2 potentially capable of hitting the
United States. The weapons, which landed in the ocean between the
Korean Peninsula and Japan, created a major new challenge to
international efforts to defuse the North's nuclear threat.

Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe appeared to back away from
a suggestion the government may consider whether pre-emptive strikes
on North Korean missile bases was permissible under Japan's pacifist
constitution. That suggestion, made by Abe and several senior
lawmakers in recent days, has irked Tokyo's Asian neighbors.

"We are being criticized as if we are planning a pre-emptive attack.
That's completely off the mark," Abe said.

The government considers a strike on the North as within Japan's
defensive rights only if there is no other means to prevent an
imminent attack on Japanese

# China again rejects UN resolution on North Korea - Yahoo! News

A foreign ministry announcement here that the draft UN Security
Council resolution was an "overreaction" came amid another flurry
of shuttle diplomacy to address the crisis in the wake of last
Wednesday's missile launches.

French and British envoys in New York hinted that China had
threatened to veto the draft resolution.

"When a permanent member of the Security Council says a resolution
will not pass, things are clear," French Ambassador Jean-Marc de La
Sabliere, the president of the council for July, said, in a reference
to Beijing.

On Monday, China circulated, as an alternative to a resolution, a
non-binding presidential statement that calls for voluntary sanctions
targeting North Korea's missile and weapons of mass destruction
programs.

The Chinese statement dropped language in the draft, however, which
would clear the way for sanctions and, in theory, even military
action.

. . .

Japan's push for further sanctions over the missiles has also run into
opposition from South Korea -- which, like China, often criticizes
what it sees as a Japanese failure to apologize for its wartime
behaviour in the 20th century.

. . .

BRUSSELS, Belgium -
Iran ruled out responding this week to international incentives to
suspend its nuclear program, saying Tuesday that the offer contains
too many "ambiguities."

Ali Larijani, Tehran's top nuclear negotiator, said after meeting with
European Union
foreign policy chief Javier Solana that the "ambiguities must be
removed first in order to have serious talks."

His comments dashed any hope that that Iran would meet a Wednesday
deadline on a six-nation offer of incentives aimed at dissuading
Tehran from uranium enrichment.

In article <1152666715.284205.269510 [at] i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
RichAsianKid <richasiankid [at] hotmail.com> wrote:
>Posted June 30, 2006, courtesy of the UCLA Asia Institute.
>http://asiamedia.ucla.edu/columns.asp?parentid=48395
>
>Excerpts:
>
>"China may be rising, but Japan has hardly sunk. And since it still can
>claim to be the world's number-two economy -- several times larger than
>China's, in fact -- it is going to remain a force to be reckoned with,
>for a very long time."
>
>"Koizumi stands up to the Chinese, he's not afraid of them," she told
>me one day. "He knows the communists are bullies, and they have no
>right telling the prime minister of Japan what he must do and how he
>must behave within his own country."
>
>"Many Japanese people her age -- though not all, and maybe not most --
>do not trust China and believe their country should prepare for the
>worst, while still hoping for the best. This means that while they
>think the Iraq war was a big error by America, Koizumi's decision to
>order a token deployment of troops as a totem of close alliance with
>Washington was regarded as the right play. Japan knows that if China
>ever attacked it, very few if any Asian nations would come to its aid;
>but that the United States very well might. Maintaining good relations
>with America trumps any inclination to criticize America's bad policy
>decisions."
>
>"If China becomes a threat or if its ally North Korea attacks, we have
>to protect ourselves, we would have to respond. If that means we have
>to have our own nuclear weapons -- if that is what is needed in order
>to defend our country -- then we will get them. It is very simple,
>really."
>
>******************************************
>Full article:
>http://asiamedia.ucla.edu/columns.asp?parentid=48395
>
>Japan through twenty-something eyes
>
>Like the younger generation, Japan needs to be listened to
>
>By Tom Plate
>Pacific Perspectives Columnist
>
>Friday, June 30, 2006
>
>Los Angeles --- On my office wall at UCLA, in the corner, hang a few
>dozen pictures of world leaders I have over the years been fortunate to
>interview. One of them is a shot of Junichiro Koizumi, the prime
>minister of Japan. He's stepping down in September, but not without a
>bang. This week he's been hanging out with President George Bush, in
>Washington. Then, jumping on to Air Force One with his pal George Bush,
>he went on to Memphis, to rock out at the Elvis Presley Graceland
>Mansion. What a cool couple, eh?
>
>Koizumi, as it is well known, is a big fan of the King, as are many
>Japanese; and Bush, you see, is a big fan of Koizumi, as many Japanese
>are as well. But not a lot of Japanese are crazy for Bush. No matter:
>For the last four-plus years, Koizumi has been king of the hill in
>Tokyo, which was why hundreds of Japanese troops had been stationed in
>Iraq, in philosophical defiance of Japan's otherwise pacifist
>constitution.
>
>Another fan of Koizumi is a 25-year-old course assistant I had hired in
>April to help me with my spring work. Thanks partly to her, and to some
>other Japanese students at this university, I think I understand
>Japan's twenty-something generation better today than I did before.
>This is important to me. China may be rising, but Japan has hardly
>sunk. And since it still can claim to be the world's number-two economy
>-- several times larger than China's, in fact -- it is going to remain
>a force to be reckoned with, for a very long time.
>
>Let me protect her privacy by not offering her name, or revealing where
>she works now in Tokyo. But do allow me to introduce her to you by
>suggesting that she had strong opinions about her country, its future,
>and its relationship with China.
>
>Koizumi, with his flying locks and flamboyant manner, was attractive to
>many young Japanese; at least he wasn't boring and indecisive as were
>so many of Japan's prime ministers in the nineties. What's more, he was
>anything but meek, and while not many young Japanese enthusiastically
>supported his annual visits to the Yasukuni war shrine, they did
>approve of his rebuffing the predictable criticism from Beijing.
>
>"Koizumi stands up to the Chinese, he's not afraid of them," she told
>me one day. "He knows the communists are bullies, and they have no
>right telling the prime minister of Japan what he must do and how he
>must behave within his own country."
>
>Many Japanese people her age -- though not all, and maybe not most --
>do not trust China and believe their country should prepare for the
>worst, while still hoping for the best. This means that while they
>think the Iraq war was a big error by America, Koizumi's decision to
>order a token deployment of troops as a totem of close alliance with
>Washington was regarded as the right play. Japan knows that if China
>ever attacked it, very few if any Asian nations would come to its aid;
>but that the United States very well might. Maintaining good relations
>with America trumps any inclination to criticize America's bad policy
>decisions.
>
>Koizumi's support for loosening the constitutional restrictions on
>Japan's freedom of military action has support among some of the young,
>too. I once asked my former assistant if Japan would ever become a
>nuclear power. Her response:
>
>"We would prefer to remain non-nuclear -- everyone knows the horror of
>Hiroshima and Nagasaki," she said. "But we have to be realistic. If
>China becomes a threat or if its ally North Korea attacks, we have to
>protect ourselves, we would have to respond. If that means we have to
>have our own nuclear weapons -- if that is what is needed in order to
>defend our country -- then we will get them. It is very simple,
>really." My course assistant from Japan wasn't pretending to speak for
>her entire generation, of course. But it's hard to believe she
>comprises a minority of one.
>
>She returned to Tokyo last week with her UCLA degree, and with deep
>respect for America. Despite our whiney students, our astonishingly
>terrible fast food, and our various Iraq blunders, she wound up
>thinking of the United States as her second national home. She admired
>our zest for the new, our vigorous intellectual debate and our
>sometimes comic tendency toward conversational bluntness. Like the
>visiting Koizumi, she hates beating around the bush, and while
>otherwise extremely polite and deferential, is not for kowtowing to the
>Chinese -- or to anyone else. She, like Japan itself, needs to be
>listened to very carefully.
>
>The views expressed above are those of the author and are not
>necessarily those of AsiaMedia or the UCLA Asia Institute.
>
>Date Posted: 6/30/2006
>

Re: ARTICLE from UCLA Asia Institute: Japan through twenty-something eyes [message #224156 ]

Do, 13 Juli 2006 06:45

richasiankid

ltlee1 [at] hotmail.com wrote:
> A most interesting and appropriate subtitle
> "Like the younger generation, Japan needs to be listened to."
>
> Two points:
>
> 1. Japan needs to be listened to implies that Japan is currently not
> listened to. Why?

You're not suggesting that Japan should re-ignite her 'martial' and
'imperalistic' impulses, flex her military might by acquiring nuclear
weapons, drive out those 'ugly Americans', and re-educate and re-orient
Asia into a new 21st century ASEAN co-prosperity sphere to increase her
influence, are you? ;)

> 2. Japan is like a twenty-something. That is, not fully mature in many
> ways.

Au contraire, youth is the greatest strength. Why? The future belongs
to them. Hence they should be listened to because tomorrow's theirs.

>
>
>
>
> RichAsianKid wrote:
> > Posted June 30, 2006, courtesy of the UCLA Asia Institute.
> > http://asiamedia.ucla.edu/columns.asp?parentid=48395
> >
> > Excerpts:
> >
> > "China may be rising, but Japan has hardly sunk. And since it still can
> > claim to be the world's number-two economy -- several times larger than
> > China's, in fact -- it is going to remain a force to be reckoned with,
> > for a very long time."
> >
> > "Koizumi stands up to the Chinese, he's not afraid of them," she told
> > me one day. "He knows the communists are bullies, and they have no
> > right telling the prime minister of Japan what he must do and how he
> > must behave within his own country."
> >
> > "Many Japanese people her age -- though not all, and maybe not most --
> > do not trust China and believe their country should prepare for the
> > worst, while still hoping for the best. This means that while they
> > think the Iraq war was a big error by America, Koizumi's decision to
> > order a token deployment of troops as a totem of close alliance with
> > Washington was regarded as the right play. Japan knows that if China
> > ever attacked it, very few if any Asian nations would come to its aid;
> > but that the United States very well might. Maintaining good relations
> > with America trumps any inclination to criticize America's bad policy
> > decisions."
> >
> > "If China becomes a threat or if its ally North Korea attacks, we have
> > to protect ourselves, we would have to respond. If that means we have
> > to have our own nuclear weapons -- if that is what is needed in order
> > to defend our country -- then we will get them. It is very simple,
> > really."
> >
> > ******************************************
> > Full article:
> > http://asiamedia.ucla.edu/columns.asp?parentid=48395
> >
> > Japan through twenty-something eyes
> >
> > Like the younger generation, Japan needs to be listened to
> >
> > By Tom Plate
> > Pacific Perspectives Columnist
> >
> > Friday, June 30, 2006
> >
> > Los Angeles --- On my office wall at UCLA, in the corner, hang a few
> > dozen pictures of world leaders I have over the years been fortunate to
> > interview. One of them is a shot of Junichiro Koizumi, the prime
> > minister of Japan. He's stepping down in September, but not without a
> > bang. This week he's been hanging out with President George Bush, in
> > Washington. Then, jumping on to Air Force One with his pal George Bush,
> > he went on to Memphis, to rock out at the Elvis Presley Graceland
> > Mansion. What a cool couple, eh?
> >
> > Koizumi, as it is well known, is a big fan of the King, as are many
> > Japanese; and Bush, you see, is a big fan of Koizumi, as many Japanese
> > are as well. But not a lot of Japanese are crazy for Bush. No matter:
> > For the last four-plus years, Koizumi has been king of the hill in
> > Tokyo, which was why hundreds of Japanese troops had been stationed in
> > Iraq, in philosophical defiance of Japan's otherwise pacifist
> > constitution.
> >
> > Another fan of Koizumi is a 25-year-old course assistant I had hired in
> > April to help me with my spring work. Thanks partly to her, and to some
> > other Japanese students at this university, I think I understand
> > Japan's twenty-something generation better today than I did before.
> > This is important to me. China may be rising, but Japan has hardly
> > sunk. And since it still can claim to be the world's number-two economy
> > -- several times larger than China's, in fact -- it is going to remain
> > a force to be reckoned with, for a very long time.
> >
> > Let me protect her privacy by not offering her name, or revealing where
> > she works now in Tokyo. But do allow me to introduce her to you by
> > suggesting that she had strong opinions about her country, its future,
> > and its relationship with China.
> >
> > Koizumi, with his flying locks and flamboyant manner, was attractive to
> > many young Japanese; at least he wasn't boring and indecisive as were
> > so many of Japan's prime ministers in the nineties. What's more, he was
> > anything but meek, and while not many young Japanese enthusiastically
> > supported his annual visits to the Yasukuni war shrine, they did
> > approve of his rebuffing the predictable criticism from Beijing.
> >
> > "Koizumi stands up to the Chinese, he's not afraid of them," she told
> > me one day. "He knows the communists are bullies, and they have no
> > right telling the prime minister of Japan what he must do and how he
> > must behave within his own country."
> >
> > Many Japanese people her age -- though not all, and maybe not most --
> > do not trust China and believe their country should prepare for the
> > worst, while still hoping for the best. This means that while they
> > think the Iraq war was a big error by America, Koizumi's decision to
> > order a token deployment of troops as a totem of close alliance with
> > Washington was regarded as the right play. Japan knows that if China
> > ever attacked it, very few if any Asian nations would come to its aid;
> > but that the United States very well might. Maintaining good relations
> > with America trumps any inclination to criticize America's bad policy
> > decisions.
> >
> > Koizumi's support for loosening the constitutional restrictions on
> > Japan's freedom of military action has support among some of the young,
> > too. I once asked my former assistant if Japan would ever become a
> > nuclear power. Her response:
> >
> > "We would prefer to remain non-nuclear -- everyone knows the horror of
> > Hiroshima and Nagasaki," she said. "But we have to be realistic. If
> > China becomes a threat or if its ally North Korea attacks, we have to
> > protect ourselves, we would have to respond. If that means we have to
> > have our own nuclear weapons -- if that is what is needed in order to
> > defend our country -- then we will get them. It is very simple,
> > really." My course assistant from Japan wasn't pretending to speak for
> > her entire generation, of course. But it's hard to believe she
> > comprises a minority of one.
> >
> > She returned to Tokyo last week with her UCLA degree, and with deep
> > respect for America. Despite our whiney students, our astonishingly
> > terrible fast food, and our various Iraq blunders, she wound up
> > thinking of the United States as her second national home. She admired
> > our zest for the new, our vigorous intellectual debate and our
> > sometimes comic tendency toward conversational bluntness. Like the
> > visiting Koizumi, she hates beating around the bush, and while
> > otherwise extremely polite and deferential, is not for kowtowing to the
> > Chinese -- or to anyone else. She, like Japan itself, needs to be
> > listened to very carefully.
> >
> > The views expressed above are those of the author and are not
> > necessarily those of AsiaMedia or the UCLA Asia Institute.
> >
> > Date Posted: 6/30/2006

Re: Look, China's survival is at stake facing a Chapter-7 provision against N. Korea Re: ARTICLE fro [message #224158 ]

Do, 13 Juli 2006 06:53

richasiankid

Google allows only posting to 5 groups, so have to cut a few. Selected
comments - a lot of what you said makes some sense.

lo yeeOn wrote:

>
> Who has ever heard any country say that it fears China? I certainly
> haven't. Not Vietnam, not N. Korea, not to mention Japan? And which
> country has actually feared China the way it fears George Bush's US?

Actually there is a lot of talk and fear from the US, ironically - see
CNN Lou Dobbs being the classic nightly program. And fear from the
blue-collar and middle classes because of outsourcing. They do not fear
that China will nuke them, however. At least not yet.

>
> George Bush has declared his pre-emptive strike doctrine and rattled
> off a list of some 60 top targets while China has always assumed only
> a self-defense posture and consistently advocated peaceful coexistence
> with its neighbors.
>
> In this filtered view however, ``the communists are bullies''. But
> where does it leave Bush? Bush and his pre-emptive-strike supporters
> aren't bullies?

Some see Bush fighting a war for Israel. US seems incredibly pro-Israel
compared to the UK in terms of media coverage. But that's a side topic.
I think it is better for the US to be #1 than for most other countries
- yes it's aggressive and is bullying Iraq (people there being too
stupid to sustain a democracy anyway, so all the US' efforts are
probably wasted, hence my objection for an aggressive interventionist
policy) - for its citizens anyway - objectively they have the highest
standards of living.

>
> If Koizumi ``knows the communists are bullies'' and visits the war
> shrine all the same year after year, then Koizumi is talking loudly.
>

The US backs him, right? He's counting on that. (see what you wrote
after)

Overall many think that US is far less interested in NE Asia compared
to the mid east perhaps because of the question of Israel/Palestine,
and of oil and resources etc.

Re: ARTICLE from UCLA Asia Institute: Japan through twenty-something eyes [message #224159 ]

Do, 13 Juli 2006 06:54

richasiankid

Re: ARTICLE from UCLA Asia Institute: Japan through twenty-something eyes [message #224772 ]

Do, 13 Juli 2006 10:58

ltlee1

RichAsianKid wrote:
> ltlee1 [at] hotmail.com wrote:
> > A most interesting and appropriate subtitle
> > "Like the younger generation, Japan needs to be listened to."
> >
> > Two points:
> >
> > 1. Japan needs to be listened to implies that Japan is currently not
> > listened to. Why?
>
> You're not suggesting that Japan should re-ignite her 'martial' and
> 'imperalistic' impulses, flex her military might by acquiring nuclear
> weapons, drive out those 'ugly Americans', and re-educate and re-orient
> Asia into a new 21st century ASEAN co-prosperity sphere to increase her
> influence, are you? ;)

Not at all. Japan is not liistened to because it is stuck in denial and
cannot let
go of the martial way.

>
> > 2. Japan is like a twenty-something. That is, not fully mature in many
> > ways.
>
> Au contraire, youth is the greatest strength. Why? The future belongs
> to them. Hence they should be listened to because tomorrow's theirs.

They are more likely to be listened to when they behave like
responsible adults
>
>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > RichAsianKid wrote:
> > > Posted June 30, 2006, courtesy of the UCLA Asia Institute.
> > > http://asiamedia.ucla.edu/columns.asp?parentid=48395
> > >
> > > Excerpts:
> > >
> > > "China may be rising, but Japan has hardly sunk. And since it still can
> > > claim to be the world's number-two economy -- several times larger than
> > > China's, in fact -- it is going to remain a force to be reckoned with,
> > > for a very long time."
> > >
> > > "Koizumi stands up to the Chinese, he's not afraid of them," she told
> > > me one day. "He knows the communists are bullies, and they have no
> > > right telling the prime minister of Japan what he must do and how he
> > > must behave within his own country."
> > >
> > > "Many Japanese people her age -- though not all, and maybe not most --
> > > do not trust China and believe their country should prepare for the
> > > worst, while still hoping for the best. This means that while they
> > > think the Iraq war was a big error by America, Koizumi's decision to
> > > order a token deployment of troops as a totem of close alliance with
> > > Washington was regarded as the right play. Japan knows that if China
> > > ever attacked it, very few if any Asian nations would come to its aid;
> > > but that the United States very well might. Maintaining good relations
> > > with America trumps any inclination to criticize America's bad policy
> > > decisions."
> > >
> > > "If China becomes a threat or if its ally North Korea attacks, we have
> > > to protect ourselves, we would have to respond. If that means we have
> > > to have our own nuclear weapons -- if that is what is needed in order
> > > to defend our country -- then we will get them. It is very simple,
> > > really."
> > >
> > > ******************************************
> > > Full article:
> > > http://asiamedia.ucla.edu/columns.asp?parentid=48395
> > >
> > > Japan through twenty-something eyes
> > >
> > > Like the younger generation, Japan needs to be listened to
> > >
> > > By Tom Plate
> > > Pacific Perspectives Columnist
> > >
> > > Friday, June 30, 2006
> > >
> > > Los Angeles --- On my office wall at UCLA, in the corner, hang a few
> > > dozen pictures of world leaders I have over the years been fortunate to
> > > interview. One of them is a shot of Junichiro Koizumi, the prime
> > > minister of Japan. He's stepping down in September, but not without a
> > > bang. This week he's been hanging out with President George Bush, in
> > > Washington. Then, jumping on to Air Force One with his pal George Bush,
> > > he went on to Memphis, to rock out at the Elvis Presley Graceland
> > > Mansion. What a cool couple, eh?
> > >
> > > Koizumi, as it is well known, is a big fan of the King, as are many
> > > Japanese; and Bush, you see, is a big fan of Koizumi, as many Japanese
> > > are as well. But not a lot of Japanese are crazy for Bush. No matter:
> > > For the last four-plus years, Koizumi has been king of the hill in
> > > Tokyo, which was why hundreds of Japanese troops had been stationed in
> > > Iraq, in philosophical defiance of Japan's otherwise pacifist
> > > constitution.
> > >
> > > Another fan of Koizumi is a 25-year-old course assistant I had hired in
> > > April to help me with my spring work. Thanks partly to her, and to some
> > > other Japanese students at this university, I think I understand
> > > Japan's twenty-something generation better today than I did before.
> > > This is important to me. China may be rising, but Japan has hardly
> > > sunk. And since it still can claim to be the world's number-two economy
> > > -- several times larger than China's, in fact -- it is going to remain
> > > a force to be reckoned with, for a very long time.
> > >
> > > Let me protect her privacy by not offering her name, or revealing where
> > > she works now in Tokyo. But do allow me to introduce her to you by
> > > suggesting that she had strong opinions about her country, its future,
> > > and its relationship with China.
> > >
> > > Koizumi, with his flying locks and flamboyant manner, was attractive to
> > > many young Japanese; at least he wasn't boring and indecisive as were
> > > so many of Japan's prime ministers in the nineties. What's more, he was
> > > anything but meek, and while not many young Japanese enthusiastically
> > > supported his annual visits to the Yasukuni war shrine, they did
> > > approve of his rebuffing the predictable criticism from Beijing.
> > >
> > > "Koizumi stands up to the Chinese, he's not afraid of them," she told
> > > me one day. "He knows the communists are bullies, and they have no
> > > right telling the prime minister of Japan what he must do and how he
> > > must behave within his own country."
> > >
> > > Many Japanese people her age -- though not all, and maybe not most --
> > > do not trust China and believe their country should prepare for the
> > > worst, while still hoping for the best. This means that while they
> > > think the Iraq war was a big error by America, Koizumi's decision to
> > > order a token deployment of troops as a totem of close alliance with
> > > Washington was regarded as the right play. Japan knows that if China
> > > ever attacked it, very few if any Asian nations would come to its aid;
> > > but that the United States very well might. Maintaining good relations
> > > with America trumps any inclination to criticize America's bad policy
> > > decisions.
> > >
> > > Koizumi's support for loosening the constitutional restrictions on
> > > Japan's freedom of military action has support among some of the young,
> > > too. I once asked my former assistant if Japan would ever become a
> > > nuclear power. Her response:
> > >
> > > "We would prefer to remain non-nuclear -- everyone knows the horror of
> > > Hiroshima and Nagasaki," she said. "But we have to be realistic. If
> > > China becomes a threat or if its ally North Korea attacks, we have to
> > > protect ourselves, we would have to respond. If that means we have to
> > > have our own nuclear weapons -- if that is what is needed in order to
> > > defend our country -- then we will get them. It is very simple,
> > > really." My course assistant from Japan wasn't pretending to speak for
> > > her entire generation, of course. But it's hard to believe she
> > > comprises a minority of one.
> > >
> > > She returned to Tokyo last week with her UCLA degree, and with deep
> > > respect for America. Despite our whiney students, our astonishingly
> > > terrible fast food, and our various Iraq blunders, she wound up
> > > thinking of the United States as her second national home. She admired
> > > our zest for the new, our vigorous intellectual debate and our
> > > sometimes comic tendency toward conversational bluntness. Like the
> > > visiting Koizumi, she hates beating around the bush, and while
> > > otherwise extremely polite and deferential, is not for kowtowing to the
> > > Chinese -- or to anyone else. She, like Japan itself, needs to be
> > > listened to very carefully.
> > >
> > > The views expressed above are those of the author and are not
> > > necessarily those of AsiaMedia or the UCLA Asia Institute.
> > >
> > > Date Posted: 6/30/2006

Re: Look, China's survival is at stake facing a Chapter-7 provision against N. Korea Re: ARTICLE fro [message #224986 ]

Fr, 14 Juli 2006 02:32

acoustic

In article <1152766438.631368.83540 [at] 35g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
RichAsianKid <richasiankid [at] hotmail.com> wrote:
>Google allows only posting to 5 groups, so have to cut a few. Selected
>comments - a lot of what you said makes some sense.
>
>lo yeeOn wrote:
>
>>
>> Who has ever heard any country say that it fears China? I certainly
>> haven't. Not Vietnam, not N. Korea, not to mention Japan? And which
>> country has actually feared China the way it fears George Bush's US?
>
>Actually there is a lot of talk and fear from the US, ironically - see
>CNN Lou Dobbs being the classic nightly program. And fear from the
>blue-collar and middle classes because of outsourcing. They do not fear
>that China will nuke them, however. At least not yet.

Yeah, but the fear of getting bombs rained down on your head is the
fear that I was talking about and that seems to make sense in light of
what that UCLA graduate said about Koizumi.

She was quoted by Tom Plate as saying:

"Koizumi stands up to the Chinese, he's not afraid of them,"
she told me one day. "He knows the communists are bullies, and
they have no right telling the prime minister of Japan what he must
do and how he must behave within his own country."

The fear of losing your job is not the same kind of fear the Iraqis
are fearing everyday. The Iraqis are fearing the loss of their lives.

Besides, when you have a government which wages war year after year
and neglects the needs of its citizens, then the problems do not lie
with foreign elements. In the 1980s when auto-workers lost jobs due
to Japan's success in making cars, there was Japan-bashing. Now, it
is the Chinese, the Asian Indians, and the Latinos who ``stole'' the
jobs from us. The government and the media is stoking this zenophobic
flame and gullible workers are eating it. How sad!!!

It would have been actually a lot better for the Chinese people if
there weren't this easy cheap-labor money to be made from the US, so
that they would have to zero in on hard sciences and make China self
reliant, just as Japan has done since at least the 1930s. I've said
that in these newsgroups more than once before.

In fact, Americans should feel safe when the Chinese people are
spending their time working on mundane things rather than frontier
research studies.

As far as Japan goes, you've said that Japan's economy is still a few
times bigger than China's (according to some measure, possibly in $$
terms, which you didn't specify). And Japanese are no longer willing
to do cheap labor-intensive work. So, Japan is not threatened by
China in any way. So, Koizumi's taking-a-walk-at-the-shrine was not
so much a display of standing up to the bullies rather than to insult
the Chinese people, saying something like:

``Your feelings matter little to us because we are rich and because
Uncle Sam likes us more too . . ..''

Koizumi didn't have to say those words. The Chinese could construct
their own; and he was just providing the hints. Koizumi's symbolism
is a codeword for remilitarization, with the encouragement of the US.
It parallels Taiwan's hysterical call for independence, which was no
doubt quietly encouraged by its US backers, who sell it military
hardware.

Koizumi's symbolism is fooling some Japanese citizens into thinking
that they have a leader who's not afraid to stand up to the bullies.
Americans too have been feeling exhilarating when the father-and-son
Bushes belted out US firepower before world cameras. But ultimately,
wilful destruction is a magnet for new troubles. Violence just begets
greater violence.

>
>>
>> George Bush has declared his pre-emptive strike doctrine and rattled
>> off a list of some 60 top targets while China has always assumed only
>> a self-defense posture and consistently advocated peaceful coexistence
>> with its neighbors.
>>
>> In this filtered view however, ``the communists are bullies''. But
>> where does it leave Bush? Bush and his pre-emptive-strike supporters
>> aren't bullies?
>
>Some see Bush fighting a war for Israel. US seems incredibly pro-Israel
>compared to the UK in terms of media coverage. But that's a side topic.

The ``incredibly pro-Israel'' perception is a consequence of the fact
that the US foreign policy has been hijacked by some lobbies.

It's a consequence of unqualified people having pledged their souls to
Mephistopheles to do his dirty work in return for his support for
climbing up there to swagger. That's what Bush does all day, day
after day: to swagger. Mephistopheles only reward people who would do
dirty work for him.

George Bush couldn't have been elected in the first place if his
powerful supporters hadn't found him so willing and so committed to
executing the PNAC (Project for the New American Century), a project
to dominate the world, sparing no blood and expecting to spend decades
to execute it.

It's euphemistically called the war on terrorism; but generals and war
planners have warned Americans to be prepared for a ``decades-long''
war or simply a ``long'' war.

>I think it is better for the US to be #1 than for most other countries

Being number one in something is unavoidable and being number one in
some other thing is even a good thing. (For instance, you may be the
tallest kid in your 1st-grade class. And that's inevitable. Someone
has to be the tallest and your being tallest is just a fact of life.
And being number one in being able to understand biology can help make
life better for humanity, and that is good and desirable. Competition
along that line makes the world better for all.)

But hegemony is not good and using death and devastation to achieve
hegemony is an evil. Being a number one, in the sense of allowing no
equals among nations, is not a fact of life and requires struggle.

>- yes it's aggressive and is bullying Iraq (people there being too
>stupid to sustain a democracy anyway, so all the US' efforts are

I think it is bigotry to hold the view that a people is ``too stupid
to'' do (or be) anything. I think the Iraqi people are actually smart
in seeing that a democracy imposed at gunpoint is no democracy.

To paraphrase the influential 19th English Jesuit-priest/poet, Gerard
Manley Hopkins,

``Piecemeal democracy is no democracy.''

In his poem entitled ``PEACE'':

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . but
That piecemeal peace is poor peace. What pure peace allows
Alarms of wars, the daunting wars, the death of it?

. . .

. . .. And when Peace here does house
He comes with work to do, he does not come to coo,
He comes to brood and sit.

It tells me that the Iraqi people will have their democracy when we
bring our troops home. They are suffering; but they are patient too.
They will not give the occupiers a taste of victory undeserved.

Iraq belongs to the people of Iraq. It does not belong to Bush nor
any occupation which is so shameless as to have issued in the dark
immunity to occupying soldiers, exempting them from standards that
every local has to obey in matter concerning rape, killing, and
coverup.

>probably wasted, hence my objection for an aggressive interventionist
>policy) - for its citizens anyway - objectively they have the highest
>standards of living.

By what meausre do Americans today ``have the highest standards of
living''?

Shopping at Wal-mart? Working from cradle to death for a lodging
which belongs to the bank most of your life? Having to pay 160 USD
for a visit to the drop-in clinic for a tetanus shot to guard against
death arising from accidentally incurred punctured wounds, even though
you have to wait for hours to get it and never saw even one doctor for
it?

Even by absolute dollar term (which is meaningless when the costs of
living is so outrageously high), the ``average'' US annual income is
behind some of the Europeans _now_.

Leo Tolstoy wrote stories begging us to re-examine our value-system.

How much land does a man need? And what does it add to his life when
he has to slave it away to make that money? And what baggage does it
add to his soul when he acquiesce to the atrocities against innocent
human beings to attain and stay attained his lifestyle?

Read Tolstoy's enormously moving short story, ``The Three Hermits''.
And see if you can understand why the famed 20th c. Jewish/Austrian
linguist/philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein had so much praise for it?

TTH is such a simple, and yet utterly moving, story about each of us!

Try to find out what the Australian Bruderhof community is about?

It is about the virtue of simple living.

Life can be immensely enriched when it is lived modestly. Conversely,
life can be immensely impoverished when it is lived at the expense of
others' blood. So, the high cost of the ``highest standards of
living'' can be a pretty bad way to live a life, my brother!

>
>>
>> If Koizumi ``knows the communists are bullies'' and visits the war
>> shrine all the same year after year, then Koizumi is talking loudly.
>>
>
>The US backs him, right? He's counting on that. (see what you wrote
>after)

The US is not really backing Japan in anything other than to make
Japan do what it wants to get done.

Look at Taiwan's ordeal. Chen was obviously encouraged to do his
hysterical independence dance. But the US is pulling on the leash.
``Status quo, status quo.'' The US is tied up in the Middle East. So
Chen can't get his wish, at least until Bush or his PNAC successor
is ready.

Essentially, Bush is jerking him around. Chen doesn't realize that
his master is only using Taiwan as a launchpad for the benefit of the
US only. Taiwan is just a stepping stone to militarily threaten China
when the US is ``finally'' ready, which is obviously not _now_.

So, in what way is the US backing Koizumi? Yeah, we'll vote with you
on that resolution on N. Korea. But in terms of a pre-emptive strike
against the Korean peninsula? I don't know . . .. Koizumi is nothing
but Bush's stooge.

>
>Overall many think that US is far less interested in NE Asia compared
>to the mid east perhaps because of the question of Israel/Palestine,
>and of oil and resources etc.

Read the PNAC (Project for the New American Century) and google Bush,
Cheney, and Rumsfeld on N. Korea and China. Some neocons are more
interested in enabling Israel to become a regional superpower; other
neocons want to make sure that no other country on earth will ever
``threaten the interests'' of the US again. There need not be a
single goal in a century-long campaign, especially one for the sole
superpower of the world. At least the neocons do not believe in
seeing their interests hamstrung. So when our government talks about
US interests, it encompasses many. The only thing that unifies those
interests is the use of the unchallenged American military might now
to remove any obstacle to achieving tho

First keep in mind that these interests aren't necessarily those of
the average Joe's. In fact, the loss of many jobs in the US has to do
with Bush concerning himself with the interests of the oil companies,
or those of AIPAC, rather than the genuine economic health of the
country. It's true that the Chinese are learning how to make things
that only the Japanese or the Americans knew how to make a few decades
ago. But since everyone else is making progress, Americans must also
learn new things to make to maintain their economic edge. It requires
research and development and it takes government initiatives.

When our government does not take charge, we lose our competitiveness.
And of course its pre-occupation with conquering the world has
everything to do with it.

And remember that the neocons from the former CIA chief James Woolsey
to Bush's puppeteer Dick Cheney have talked about a decades-long war.

So, one is mistaken to look at what Bush is currently pre-occupied
with in the Middle East and then conclude that that is the only thing
he is interested in or that is the thing that he is most interested
in.

That Bush is stuck with Iraq now doesn't mean at all that he is less
interested in other conquests.

(And will he tell the world in advance what is up his sleeve before he
can get to executing his plan? Of course, not. And that's why he
kept telling the world that war was not unavoidable, up to the very
night of the invasion when the B52s were already raining down shock
and awe over the Iraqi skies. He kept the world guessing, even though
we now know for sure that he had made up his mind to invade Iraq for
months, if not since the inception of his presidency.)

What is keeping Bush pre-occupied is the trouble he has in Iraq and it
concerns the now.

What is being planned, at least according to the PNAC (and it makes a
whole lot of sense if you don't ignore the stated objective of this
Project for the New American Century), is the elimination of China as
a potential challenge to American influence in the world. And that is
a goal for the future.

There is no incompatibility between the present task and the future
goal. Now and the future occupy two different windows of time. And
in fact to succeed in what is in store for the future depends very
much in getting Iraq pacified and then the whole ME under our thumb.

Bush and his aides like Rumsfeld and Rice used to anticipate a much
quicker pace for their war. Now they are forced by reality to lower
their expectations. But there is no indication that they have quit
their PNAC wet dream. And the PNAC script calls for domination over
China, even if we have to use military means to accomplish that. So
read the script and go from there.

lo yeeOn
========

Re: Look, China's survival is at stake facing a Chapter-7 provision against N. Korea Re: ARTICLE fro [message #225282 ]

Sa, 15 Juli 2006 04:01

richasiankid

A lot of what you wrote made sense. Just a few comments. You got a
website to post your comments?

lo yeeOn wrote:
> In article <1152766438.631368.83540 [at] 35g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
> RichAsianKid <richasiankid [at] hotmail.com> wrote:
> >Google allows only posting to 5 groups, so have to cut a few. Selected
> >comments - a lot of what you said makes some sense.
> >
> >lo yeeOn wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> Who has ever heard any country say that it fears China? I certainly
> >> haven't. Not Vietnam, not N. Korea, not to mention Japan? And which
> >> country has actually feared China the way it fears George Bush's US?
> >
> >Actually there is a lot of talk and fear from the US, ironically - see
> >CNN Lou Dobbs being the classic nightly program. And fear from the
> >blue-collar and middle classes because of outsourcing. They do not fear
> >that China will nuke them, however. At least not yet.
>
> Yeah, but the fear of getting bombs rained down on your head is the
> fear that I was talking about and that seems to make sense in light of
> what that UCLA graduate said about Koizumi.
>
> She was quoted by Tom Plate as saying:
>
> "Koizumi stands up to the Chinese, he's not afraid of them,"
> she told me one day. "He knows the communists are bullies, and
> they have no right telling the prime minister of Japan what he must
> do and how he must behave within his own country."
>
> The fear of losing your job is not the same kind of fear the Iraqis
> are fearing everyday. The Iraqis are fearing the loss of their lives.

But most Iraqis are not killed by bombs - they make sensational
headlines, and if 10 people die, that's a lot. Thousands of jobs if not
more are lost to outsourcing. Thus the impact is wider and more readily
felt, even if it's shallower.

>
> Besides, when you have a government which wages war year after year
> and neglects the needs of its citizens, then the problems do not lie
> with foreign elements. In the 1980s when auto-workers lost jobs due
> to Japan's success in making cars, there was Japan-bashing. Now, it
> is the Chinese, the Asian Indians, and the Latinos who ``stole'' the
> jobs from us. The government and the media is stoking this zenophobic
> flame and gullible workers are eating it. How sad!!!
>

Fair enough for the first part, and second part - not sure if it's
worst than communist governments' propaganda!

> It would have been actually a lot better for the Chinese people if
> there weren't this easy cheap-labor money to be made from the US, so
> that they would have to zero in on hard sciences and make China self
> reliant, just as Japan has done since at least the 1930s. I've said
> that in these newsgroups more than once before.
>

Necessity is the mother of inventions, yes.

> In fact, Americans should feel safe when the Chinese people are
> spending their time working on mundane things rather than frontier
> research studies.
>

True.

> As far as Japan goes, you've said that Japan's economy is still a few
> times bigger than China's (according to some measure, possibly in $$
> terms, which you didn't specify). And Japanese are no longer willing
> to do cheap labor-intensive work. So, Japan is not threatened by
> China in any way. So, Koizumi's taking-a-walk-at-the-shrine was not
> so much a display of standing up to the bullies rather than to insult
> the Chinese people, saying something like:
>

Yes, but China has nuclear weapons! That goes back to might makes
right. Like the middle East - if they have nuclear weapons, and they
are poor and nothing to lose, then they have relatively more incentive
bombing richer countries. Just like in society - poor kids commit
vandalism, not rich old businessmen!

> ``Your feelings matter little to us because we are rich and because
> Uncle Sam likes us more too . . ..''
>
> Koizumi didn't have to say those words. The Chinese could construct
> their own; and he was just providing the hints. Koizumi's symbolism
> is a codeword for remilitarization, with the encouragement of the US.
> It parallels Taiwan's hysterical call for independence, which was no
> doubt quietly encouraged by its US backers, who sell it military
> hardware.
>
> Koizumi's symbolism is fooling some Japanese citizens into thinking
> that they have a leader who's not afraid to stand up to the bullies.
> Americans too have been feeling exhilarating when the father-and-son
> Bushes belted out US firepower before world cameras. But ultimately,
> wilful destruction is a magnet for new troubles. Violence just begets
> greater violence.

To be fair to both sides, I think unilateral disarmament on either side
is an unrealistic option based on human nature.

>
> >
> >>
> >> George Bush has declared his pre-emptive strike doctrine and rattled
> >> off a list of some 60 top targets while China has always assumed only
> >> a self-defense posture and consistently advocated peaceful coexistence
> >> with its neighbors.
> >>
> >> In this filtered view however, ``the communists are bullies''. But
> >> where does it leave Bush? Bush and his pre-emptive-strike supporters
> >> aren't bullies?
> >
> >Some see Bush fighting a war for Israel. US seems incredibly pro-Israel
> >compared to the UK in terms of media coverage. But that's a side topic.
>
> The ``incredibly pro-Israel'' perception is a consequence of the fact
> that the US foreign policy has been hijacked by some lobbies.
>

Neocons...

> It's a consequence of unqualified people having pledged their souls to
> Mephistopheles to do his dirty work in return for his support for
> climbing up there to swagger. That's what Bush does all day, day
> after day: to swagger. Mephistopheles only reward people who would do
> dirty work for him.
>
> George Bush couldn't have been elected in the first place if his
> powerful supporters hadn't found him so willing and so committed to
> executing the PNAC (Project for the New American Century), a project
> to dominate the world, sparing no blood and expecting to spend decades
> to execute it.

Neoconservatives are same as liberals. Changing the world for the sake
of change, not coincidentally for their benefits? See:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=3020

And this is from a Jewish neocon website!

>
> It's euphemistically called the war on terrorism; but generals and war
> planners have warned Americans to be prepared for a ``decades-long''
> war or simply a ``long'' war.
>
> >I think it is better for the US to be #1 than for most other countries
>
> Being number one in something is unavoidable and being number one in
> some other thing is even a good thing. (For instance, you may be the
> tallest kid in your 1st-grade class. And that's inevitable. Someone
> has to be the tallest and your being tallest is just a fact of life.
> And being number one in being able to understand biology can help make
> life better for humanity, and that is good and desirable. Competition
> along that line makes the world better for all.)
>
> But hegemony is not good and using death and devastation to achieve
> hegemony is an evil. Being a number one, in the sense of allowing no
> equals among nations, is not a fact of life and requires struggle.
>

Darwin says that life is a struggle - two vectors: 1. survival
(fitness) 2. sexual access (fecundity) The first is the goal, the
second is the means.

> >- yes it's aggressive and is bullying Iraq (people there being too
> >stupid to sustain a democracy anyway, so all the US' efforts are
>
> I think it is bigotry to hold the view that a people is ``too stupid
> to'' do (or be) anything. I think the Iraqi people are actually smart
> in seeing that a democracy imposed at gunpoint is no democracy.
>

No, it's not. They have lower IQ. Iraq has an IQ of 87.
http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/sft.htm

Data of Lynn and Vanhanen
Country Avg
IQ real GDP
per cap
(1998) Regression
line
Hong Kong 107 20,763 19,817
South Korea 106 13,478 19,298
Japan 105 23,257 18,779
Taiwan 104 13,000 18,260
Singapore 103 24,210 17,740
Italy 102 20,585 17,221
Austria 102 23,166 17,221
Germany 102 22,169 17,221
Netherlands 102 22,176 17,221
Sweden 101 20,659 16,702
Switzerland 101 25,512 16,702
Belgium 100 23,223 16,183
China 100 3,105 16,183
New Zealand 100 17,288 16,183
U Kingdom 100 20,336 16,183
Hungary 99 10,232 15,664
Poland 99 7,619 15,664
France 98 21,175 15,145
Australia 98 22,452 15,145
Denmark 98 24,218 15,145
Norway 98 26,342 15,145
United States 98 29,605 15,145
Canada 97 23,582 14,626
Czech Republic 97 12,362 14,626
Finland 97 20,847 14,626
Spain 97 16,212 14,626
Uruguay 96 8,623 14,107
Argentina 96 12,013 14,107
Russia 96 6,460 14,107
Slovakia 96 9,699 14,107
Portugal 95 14,701 13,589
Slovenia 95 14,293 13,588
Israel 94 17,301 13,069
Romania 94 5,648 13,069
Bulgaria 93 4,809 12,550
Ireland 93 21,482 12,550
Greece 92 13,943 12,031
Malaysia 92 8,137 12,031
Thailand 91 5,456 11,512
Peru 90 4,282 10,993
Croatia 90 6,749 10,993
Turkey 90 6,422 10,993
Colombia 89 6,006 10,474
Indonesia 89 2,651 10,474
Suriname 89 5,161 10,474
Brazil 87 6,625 9,436
Iraq 87 3,197 9,436
Mexico 87 7,704 9,436
Western Samoa 87 3,832 9,436
Tonga 87 3,000 9,436
Lebanon 86 4,326 8,917
Philippines 86 3,555 8,917
Cuba 85 3,967 8,398
Morocco 85 3,305 8,398
Iran 84 5,121 7,879
Fiji 84 4,231 7,879
Marshall Islands 84 3,000 7,879
Puerto Rico 84 8,000 7,879
Egypt 83 3,041 7,360
India 81 2,077 6,322
Ecuador 80 3,003 5,803
Guatemala 79 3,505 5,284
Barbados 78 12,001 4,765
Nepal 78 1,157 4,765
Qatar 78 20,987 4,765
Zambia 77 719 4,246
Congo 73 995 2,170
Uganda 73 1,074 2,170
Sudan 72 1,394 1,651
Jamaica 72 3,389 1,651
Kenya 72 980 1,651
South Africa 72 8,488 1,651
Tanzania 72 480 1,651
Ghana 71 1,735 1,132
Nigeria 67 795 -944
Zimbabwe 66 2,669 -1,463
Guinea 66 1,782 -1,463
Congo 65 822 -1,982
Sierra Leone 64 458 -2,501
Ethiopia 63 574 -3,020
Equatorial Guinea 59 1,817 -5,096

> To paraphrase the influential 19th English Jesuit-priest/poet, Gerard
> Manley Hopkins,
>
> ``Piecemeal democracy is no democracy.''
>
> In his poem entitled ``PEACE'':
>
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . but
> That piecemeal peace is poor peace. What pure peace allows
> Alarms of wars, the daunting wars, the death of it?
>
> . . .
>
> . . .. And when Peace here does house
> He comes with work to do, he does not come to coo,
> He comes to brood and sit.
>
> It tells me that the Iraqi people will have their democracy when we
> bring our troops home. They are suffering; but they are patient too.
> They will not give the occupiers a taste of victory undeserved.
>
> Iraq belongs to the people of Iraq. It does not belong to Bush nor
> any occupation which is so shameless as to have issued in the dark
> immunity to occupying soldiers, exempting them from standards that
> every local has to obey in matter concerning rape, killing, and
> coverup.
>

I think the US should not have intervened at all.

> >probably wasted, hence my objection for an aggressive interventionist
> >policy) - for its citizens anyway - objectively they have the highest
> >standards of living.
>
> By what meausre do Americans today ``have the highest standards of
> living''?
>

When they buy material, and yes, sexual, access across the globe.

Or at least, GDP, PPP adjusted?

> Shopping at Wal-mart? Working from cradle to death for a lodging
> which belongs to the bank most of your life? Having to pay 160 USD
> for a visit to the drop-in clinic for a tetanus shot to guard against
> death arising from accidentally incurred punctured wounds, even though
> you have to wait for hours to get it and never saw even one doctor for
> it?

Oh, don't you know there are US $5.99 *organic* ice creams cookies for
dogs?

And btw the access once again is how it translates to when travelling.
Fair enough, that's why poor people are not necessarily unhappy, and
upper class people often think they should feel guilty. I say no!
AFrican people, while poor, can be very happy if not content indeed!

>
> Even by absolute dollar term (which is meaningless when the costs of
> living is so outrageously high), the ``average'' US annual income is
> behind some of the Europeans _now_.
>

Behind some European countries. Dragged down by inner-cities? Don't
even get started ther...

> Leo Tolstoy wrote stories begging us to re-examine our value-system.
>
> How much land does a man need? And what does it add to his life when
> he has to slave it away to make that money? And what baggage does it
> add to his soul when he acquiesce to the atrocities against innocent
> human beings to attain and stay attained his lifestyle?
>

Too much is never enough. Red Queen effect. I think knowing biology
helps to understand about human nature. Not to necessarily extol it,
but it helps to avoid new-age mumbo-jumbo.

> Read Tolstoy's enormously moving short story, ``The Three Hermits''.
> And see if you can understand why the famed 20th c. Jewish/Austrian
> linguist/philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein had so much praise for it?
>
> TTH is such a simple, and yet utterly moving, story about each of us!
>
> Try to find out what the Australian Bruderhof community is about?
>
> It is about the virtue of simple living.
>

Thanks. Looks interesting.

> Life can be immensely enriched when it is lived modestly. Conversely,
> life can be immensely impoverished when it is lived at the expense of
> others' blood. So, the high cost of the ``highest standards of
> living'' can be a pretty bad way to live a life, my brother!
>

You know that silver medal winners are, on average, not as happy as
bronze medal winners, right? Read that somewhere...

> >
> >>
> >> If Koizumi ``knows the communists are bullies'' and visits the war
> >> shrine all the same year after year, then Koizumi is talking loudly.
> >>
> >
> >The US backs him, right? He's counting on that. (see what you wrote
> >after)
>
> The US is not really backing Japan in anything other than to make
> Japan do what it wants to get done.
>
> Look at Taiwan's ordeal. Chen was obviously encouraged to do his
> hysterical independence dance. But the US is pulling on the leash.
> ``Status quo, status quo.'' The US is tied up in the Middle East. So
> Chen can't get his wish, at least until Bush or his PNAC successor
> is ready.
>
> Essentially, Bush is jerking him around. Chen doesn't realize that
> his master is only using Taiwan as a launchpad for the benefit of the
> US only. Taiwan is just a stepping stone to militarily threaten China
> when the US is ``finally'' ready, which is obviously not _now_.
>
> So, in what way is the US backing Koizumi? Yeah, we'll vote with you
> on that resolution on N. Korea. But in terms of a pre-emptive strike
> against the Korean peninsula? I don't know . . .. Koizumi is nothing
> but Bush's stooge.
>

True, but to use your metaphor it's like Faust. The average Taiwanese
or Japanese or South Korean lives a life of higher material standard --
which is very important for most -- than the average north Korean or
mainland Chinese. Why is this important? Because women seek men with
resources - rich men in terms of material goods is the analogy of a
young attractive nubile fertile lady in biological terms. You get
sexual access, and historically (not necessarily true these days) those
who more sexual access usually leave behind more offspring and their
fruits multiply.

> >
> >Overall many think that US is far less interested in NE Asia compared
> >to the mid east perhaps because of the question of Israel/Palestine,
> >and of oil and resources etc.
>
> Read the PNAC (Project for the New American Century) and google Bush,
> Cheney, and Rumsfeld on N. Korea and China. Some neocons are more
> interested in enabling Israel to become a regional superpower; other
> neocons want to make sure that no other country on earth will ever
> ``threaten the interests'' of the US again. There need not be a
> single goal in a century-long campaign, especially one for the sole
> superpower of the world. At least the neocons do not believe in
> seeing their interests hamstrung. So when our government talks about
> US interests, it encompasses many. The only thing that unifies those
> interests is the use of the unchallenged American military might now
> to remove any obstacle to achieving tho

I believe you.

>
> First keep in mind that these interests aren't necessarily those of
> the average Joe's. In fact, the loss of many jobs in the US has to do
> with Bush concerning himself with the interests of the oil companies,
> or those of AIPAC, rather than the genuine economic health of the
> country. It's true that the Chinese are learning how to make things
> that only the Japanese or the Americans knew how to make a few decades
> ago. But since everyone else is making progress, Americans must also
> learn new things to make to maintain their economic edge. It requires
> research and development and it takes government initiatives.
>

Yes, some say that immigration, with low wage labor, also indirectly
contributes to a lack of innovation.

> When our government does not take charge, we lose our competitiveness.
> And of course its pre-occupation with conquering the world has
> everything to do with it.
>

As above.

> And remember that the neocons from the former CIA chief James Woolsey
> to Bush's puppeteer Dick Cheney have talked about a decades-long war.
>
> So, one is mistaken to look at what Bush is currently pre-occupied
> with in the Middle East and then conclude that that is the only thing
> he is interested in or that is the thing that he is most interested
> in.
>

Conservative pundit Pat Buchanan quipped, "America: republic or
empire?" The way it's phrased, it's obviously the latter.

> That Bush is stuck with Iraq now doesn't mean at all that he is less
> interested in other conquests.
>

Iran and Syria are next, and yes, maybe the rest of the world.

> (And will he tell the world in advance what is up his sleeve before he
> can get to executing his plan? Of course, not. And that's why he
> kept telling the world that war was not unavoidable, up to the very
> night of the invasion when the B52s were already raining down shock
> and awe over the Iraqi skies. He kept the world guessing, even though
> we now know for sure that he had made up his mind to invade Iraq for
> months, if not since the inception of his presidency.)
>

But he'll be out of power before his next masterplan?

> What is keeping Bush pre-occupied is the trouble he has in Iraq and it
> concerns the now.
>

So you're saying we should hope that this Iraq wall keeps dragging on
so that his term will expire before he can focus on other issues, like
an ADD baby? "What, I can only focus on one thing at a time!"

> What is being planned, at least according to the PNAC (and it makes a
> whole lot of sense if you don't ignore the stated objective of this
> Project for the New American Century), is the elimination of China as
> a potential challenge to American influence in the world. And that is
> a goal for the future.

Possibly. It's still a large "communist" country. With no more USSR to
occupy itself with, this is not impossible.

>
> There is no incompatibility between the present task and the future
> goal. Now and the future occupy two different windows of time. And
> in fact to succeed in what is in store for the future depends very
> much in getting Iraq pacified and then the whole ME under our thumb.
>
> Bush and his aides like Rumsfeld and Rice used to anticipate a much
> quicker pace for their war. Now they are forced by reality to lower
> their expectations. But there is no indication that they have quit
> their PNAC wet dream. And the PNAC script calls for domination over
> China, even if we have to use military means to accomplish that. So
> read the script and go from there.
>

I've quoted this before, and will quote this again.

Brit poet Kipling once said,

Four things greater than all things are
Women, horses, power, and war.

It's not prophetic.

It's just common sense.

RichAsianKid

Vorheriges Thema:	THERE 'S ONLY ONE SOLUTION----------YOU GO TO JAILl!!! (7/14/2006)
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