futon

An online meeting between Xi and Putin a few days ago:

China's response to Rubio's first time as SecState addressing something SCS related. In response to a US State Department statement claiming new US Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussing Beijing's "dangerous and destabilizing actions in the South China Sea" with his Philippines counterpart Enrique Manalo over phone and underscoring the "ironclad" US defense commitment to Manila, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Thursday that the US is not a party to the South China Sea issue and has no right to interfere in the maritime issues between China and the Philippines. Mao said "the military cooperation between the US and the Philippines should not undermine China's sovereignty and maritime rights and interests in the South China Sea, still less should such cooperation support or advance the Philippines' illegal claims." China will continue to take necessary steps to firmly safeguard its territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests and uphold peace and stability in the South China Sea, said Mao. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke Wednesday local time with Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Enrique Manalo about issues of mutual concern, including so-called China's "dangerous and destabilizing actions in the South China Sea." ... https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202501/1327469.shtml

Sounds like a fun scratch-build project. Addressing smaller details like that makes a scratch build feel genuine.

One other example in much more recent times was Duterte in the Philippines. Perhaps overly excessive.

Japan itself was strongly against opium. They didn't want it to spread from Taiwan into Japan. But they wanted to not antagonize the newly colonial subjects to strongly. They took control of the market and but were lenient with the already addicted but made starting to smoke it difficult. That process whittled the number of smokers down to nil.

Yeah, they did that.

But again.. that was when all the wars finally ended. So the point being that credit to the chinese communists would be unfair to imply that the other factions wouldn't. Until the whole country was unified, opium makers in one part would sell into the other at the others expense. Qing Taiwan also had an opium problem. It took awhile for the Japanese to get a handle of it.

The opium problem in China was going to addessed by Nationalists Chinese (both CKS side and Wang side) as well. Once the wars all finally ended for China, whichever one from the three factions that would emerge from the end of it all, addressing the opium problem was naturally next.

The frog is probably for representing the long old symbol of good fortune. Frog in Japanese is kaeru. The word for "return" is also kaeru. So the fortune is like money returns, return home, etc. I haven't thought of it but actually it can work well in this picture because afterall.. Trump returns. The stick is probably to match the theme of kendo. https://rakuichi.tokyo/apps/note/blog/frog-lucky-charm/?srsltid=AfmBOoo3RsSkwueuQPWJOmne0bBkjIiQA_yG7ORJ5buRuHiHYI3XLW_9

That's quite a striking piece. Caught my eyes. This degree of Japanese charactetistics is rare in today's Japan open spaces. But the occassion is rare indeed. Wokism did get beat up and a straightened American pride has made a comeback. That is something to celebrate. I'm not sure if translations were provided for it. It has some fancy choice of words. The following are the text itself, followed by how to say it, and then meaning. So first, the big red word next to the crossed Japanese flags: 奉祝 - houshuku - celebration Next to Trump's sword: 薩摩 - Satsuma - Satsuma (as in the historical province) 示現流 - jigenryu - (name of a Kendo style) 蜻蛉構え - tonbo kamae - (name of a stance that holds the sword upward with two hands. Trump is doing it). Down near Trumps lower hand, first the small characters, then the big: 㐧四十七代 - dai yon juu nana dai - forty-seventh (representative/elected/etc.) 米国大統領 - beikoku daitouryo - America President Then on the lower right side in the soft yellow box: 進取果敢 - shinshu kakan - daringly, boldly move forward, advance, etc. The smaller text unforunately gets kind of blurry, but it's clearly a message adding more meaning. I probably could figure it out but would be time consuming. However the beginning of it (starting from right side going downwards) has... アメリカ人の魂... - amerikajin no tamashii - the soul of the American people...

As the DDG(X) is still a decade or more away, the Burkes will be central for awhile. A year old article about the 2.0 upgrade for Flight IIA Burkes. Four ships to get the upgrade first, then perhaps up to 16 more later. https://www.twz.com/middle-aged-navy-destroyers-getting-2-0-upgrade-package

M4 turret ring was pretty big in its first model. Part of its ease to upgrade. Type 1 Chi-He and Type 3 Chi-Nu used the same hull. But turret ring larger for Chi-Nu's larger turret.

Jeep was best for sure. It's versitility was very high that the others couldn't match. Germany tried a 4WD vehicles program in a light, medium, heavy class: Einheits-PKW. The Kurogane was a good vehicle for what it was. As a 4WD vehicle it was a 1935 design. Performance/reliability was good. With Japan's car industry/culture still young, the Kurogane was an achievement. It was made for light reconnaissance.

The Japanese 37mm, short 57mm, and 47mm were free elevation guns with also some level of free traverse in the mantlet. The 6th tank regiment equipped with short barrel 57mm Chi-Has were deployed near the Manchurian-Soviet border after the Summer 1939 border war. Uncommon to IJA tank units was that the 6th regiment received unlimited munitions for training. They practiced shooting while on the move a lot. The regiment ended up having its training applied to not an expected rematch with the Soviets but in the Malaysia campaign instead. Later Japanese tank guns were not free elevation.

IIRC, the 76mm had better accuracy than the 17 pounder so that may be the basis for good accuracy reputation. That's if I'm not wrong again though.