Elections, Elections, Elections

[urbanoid]

Fow now BRICS is mainly about... talking about being important, with some trade thrown in. It's not like 3 of the 5 new members aren't quite close with the US, though the ties with the Saudis are rather strained due to obvious reasons. The US is the primary supplier of military equipment for those 3, has military bases in 2 of the 3 and the remaining one is getting military gibs. Muh BRICS, indeed.

Historically Vietnam was very, very concerned about China. They might prefer to 'temporarily sniff American shit rather than eat the Chinese one forever'. Something I can relate to, even though I'm not particularly fond of sniffing the American one, I'd rather do that than eat the Russian one.

Quote

“You fools! Don’t you realize what it means if the Chinese remain? Don’t you remember your history? The last time the Chinese came, they stayed a thousand years. The French are foreigners. They are weak. Colonialism is dying. The white man is finished in Asia. But if the Chinese stay now, they will never go. As for me, I prefer to sniff French shit for five years than to eat Chinese shit for the rest of my life.”

 

Quote

In blow to China, US secures closer partnership with Vietnam

On his way back from the G20 meeting in India, US President Joe Biden will stop off in Vietnam on Sept. 10 to seal an agreement to deepen US ties with the Southeast Asian country. The two former enemies will upgrade their bilateral relationship from a “comprehensive partnership” to a “comprehensive strategic partnership,” the highest level in Vietnam’s diplomatic hierarchy. This new top-tier diplomatic status places the US on par with China, Russia, India, and South Korea.

The change may pave the way for weapons sales and closer maritime cooperation. But possibly even more important at a time of intense US-China competition is the symbolism of Vietnam, a Chinese neighbor and fellow communist country, moving closer to the US. We asked Eurasia Group expert Peter Mumford to explain the motivations behind the deal for both sides.

For Vietnam, what is the importance of its relationship with the US?

Vietnam has long had very complicated relations with China, its giant northern neighbor. The two have close (and deepening) economic ties. Yet the Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979 and ongoing territorial disputes in the South China Sea have fueled widespread anti-China sentiment among Vietnam’s population. Strengthening relations with the US, Japan, and other players are crucial to Hanoi’s geopolitical hedging strategy as well its (unsuccessful, so far) attempts to reduce its economic dependence on China.

In addition, Vietnam has long seen its ally Russia as a counterbalance to China, but Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine has made it a less reliable partner and, more importantly, pushed it closer to Beijing. This increases the need for Vietnam to find other ways to hedge its China risk. Yet Hanoi will not move as far toward the US as some in Washington might hope – it will always seek to balance relations with the US and China.

How does Vietnam fit into the US’s strategy toward China and Asia more broadly?

Vietnam’s complex relationship with China as well as its popularity as a destination for firms from the US and other countries moving production out of China have made it increasingly important to Washington. The Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific Strategy identifies Vietnam as one of the “leading regional partners” with which it wishes to deepen relations. Kurt Campbell, the US National Security Council’s coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, has referred to India and Vietnam as the two key “swing states” that will define the future of Asia.

While the focus on strengthening relations with Vietnam is not new in Washington, these efforts were undermined during Donald Trump’s administration by its greater focus on reducing the growing bilateral trade deficit, which included accusing Hanoi of currency manipulation. The US still has some trade-related concerns – including the likely rerouting of Chinese exports to the US via Vietnam – but Biden’s team is more focused on improving bilateral relations.

How does China view the deepening US-Vietnam ties?

Beijing will be concerned to see its southern neighbor granting Washington an upgrade in ties; in a sign of ruffled feathers, China dispatched Liu Jianchao, a senior official, to Hanoi this week where he met with Vietnam’s leader General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong. It’s important to note, however, that China’s own actions – that is, its increasing assertiveness in the South China Sea – contributed to this decision by Vietnam. This marks another self-inflicted wound for Beijing, alongside pushing the Philippines back into Washington’s orbit after a period of strained relations. Nevertheless, Hanoi will be wary of antagonizing Beijing and likely will agree to upgrade relations with several other countries as well (Australia, Singapore, and Indonesia) to dilute the impact of doing so with the US.

Biden’s trip to Vietnam follows his decision to skip the ASEAN summit earlier in the week – what does that say about the US’s strategy toward Southeast Asia?

Biden’s absence from the summit in Jakarta, Indonesia, exacerbated grumblings that the region appears to be a low priority for Washington. Yet it’s probably an indication that Washington sees investing in bilateral relations with key Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam as likely to deliver greater geopolitical returns than working with ASEAN as a bloc. (In this regard, Indonesia President Joko Widodo may take Biden’s absence as something of a personal slight, although he hosted the US president for the G20 Summit in Bali last year). In the Indo-Pacific more broadly, the US is focused on wooing India while reinforcing alliances with Japan, South Korea, and Australia, and promoting the Quad grouping of the US, Japan, India, and Australia.

That said, the US was still represented at the US-ASEAN Summit and East Asia Summit at a very senior level with the attendance of Vice President Kamala Harris. Arguably this is on a par with China’s representation: President Xi Jinping rarely attends the China-ASEAN Summit or East Asia Summit, usually delegating these to the premier instead, as occurred again this year.

https://www.gzeromedia.com/in-blow-to-china-us-secures-closer-partnership-with-vietnam

^This is also a rather recent development.

Aaaaand the poll, because why not:

China really, really sucks at making friends, especially in its own neighbourhood.

[sunday]

18 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

^This is also a rather recent development.

September 2023

On the value of polls done on dictatorial countries influencing foreign policy of those countries, I would be a bit skeptical.

Interesting guy, Ian Bremmer. Especially according to his enemies. Another one.

[urbanoid]

 

13 minutes ago, sunday said:

September 2023

On the value of polls done on dictatorial countries influencing foreign policy of those countries, I would be a bit skeptical.

Interesting guy, Ian Bremmer. Especially according to his enemies. Another one.

Same, the poll was just a cherry on top, with the historical Vietnamese attitude towards Chynah being the main factor.

[futon]

Vietnam wants to grow its GDP by a lot. But Vietnam is still adament about their own claims in the SCS. 

[futon]

2 hours ago, sunday said:

Thailand and Singapore too. Vietnam could be too much into BRICS territory already.

I think Thailand will just hang in the middle. If Japan or the Philippines are attacked, I don't think Thais will care that much. Singapore may want to play middle for awhile as well but maybe as part of a second phase expansion. Vietnam.. I think their behaviors aren't close enough in alignment either side. But also, I don't think the Asia NATO will want Vietnam as a trigger ground. The 1st island chain is more critical as well.

[futon]

1 hour ago, sunday said:

September 2023

On the value of polls done on dictatorial countries influencing foreign policy of those countries, I would be a bit skeptical.

Interesting guy, Ian Bremmer. Especially according to his enemies. Another one.

I haven't been too impressed with Ian.

[futon]

These ASEAN polls as well about siding with PRC vs USA.

https://www.tanknet.org/index.php?/topic/34256-hypothetical-war-contest-for-the-spratleys/&do=findComment&comment=1745999

[futon]

In the first round of votes, it was Koizumi, Takaichi, and Ishiba. 

Takaichi and Ishiba moved on to the final round of votes.

Ishiba won.

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba is set to become Japan's next prime minister after winning the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's presidential election on Friday in a runoff vote, defeating economic security minister Sanae Takaichi.

Ishiba won 215 runoff votes against Takaichi's 194. Ishiba is expected to select new LDP executives on Monday and form his Cabinet after being elected prime minister at an extraordinary Diet session that begins on Tuesday.

...

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20240927/p2g/00m/0na/062000c

[urbanoid]

Damn, not good.

Japan was this close to greatness:

>socially liberal
>steering away from hardline conservatism

cringe

 

[urbanoid]

Appropriate response

 

[Mr King]

1 hour ago, urbanoid said:

Damn, not good.

Japan was this close to greatness:

>socially liberal
>steering away from hardline conservatism

cringe

 

Globohomo marches on and another civilization lost.

[urbanoid]

3 hours ago, Mr King said:

Globohomo marches on and another civilization lost.

Foreign policy-wise there would be little to no practical difference if any other candidate won. There may not be any practical difference when it comes to acceptance of foreign immigrants, which is also good. 

When it comes to 'progress', this shit should be stopped at every opportunity, in the US it was what, 10 years since gay marriage until 'trans children'?

[futon]

23 hours ago, Mr King said:

Globohomo marches on and another civilization lost.

Ok. 

So there are those matters.. drag queens going around to schools, rainbow flags being hung around, the bending of principles in traditional religions, the introduction of new pronouns, and raised to high attention by political activism. 

All those friction points related to homosexuals...

 

 

... in the US.

 

 

There are no drag queens going to schools in Japan.

Rainbow flags are not being hung around.

There's nothing about homosexualality in Shinto. I haven't heard of it in Bhuddhism either. So what's traditional isn't hinged on a universal material. So the times change. But one thing that doesn't change is the culture to not use obnoxious, outspoken, aggressive rhetoric.

Pronouns aren't really built in the Japanese language to the extent of English. Name titles are not gender based upon adulthood. Everyone is -san, or if a customer, -sama.

So long as it remains in the adult arena, school uniforms are not affected. 

And political activism is mellow in Japan, with toxic politicalization not really happening. 

 

So maybe what has existed 1000s of years, gay people, finally catches up to societal standard in the modern world of material conveniences and products and the change of work to by large that of service, design, communication, and so. But so few always exists. So it's always going to be a tiny. In a school of 1,000 kids, one or two of the kids has parents of same sex, and that's that. Most people at the school probably won't even notice.

I don't really see it as a big problem.  So I'm much more concerned with other matters.

Edited September 28 by futon

[Mr King]

3 hours ago, futon said:

Ok. 

So there are those matters.. drag queens going around to schools, rainbow flags being hung around, the bending of principles in traditional religions, the introduction of new pronouns, and raised to high attention by political activism. 

All those friction points related to homosexuals...

 

 

... in the US.

 

 

There are no drag queens going to schools in Japan.

Rainbow flags are not being hung around.

There's nothing about homosexualality in Shinto. I haven't heard of it in Bhuddhism either. So what's traditional isn't hinged on a universal material. So the times change. But one thing that doesn't change is the culture to not use obnoxious, outspoken, aggressive rhetoric.

Pronouns aren't really built in the Japanese language to the extent of English. Name titles are not gender based upon adulthood. Everyone is -san, or if a customer, -sama.

So long as it remains in the adult arena, school uniforms are not affected. 

And political activism is mellow in Japan, with toxic politicalization not really happening. 

 

So maybe what has existed 1000s of years, gay people, finally catches up to societal standard in the modern world of material conveniences and products and the change of work to by large that of service, design, communication, and so. But so few always exists. So it's always going to be a tiny. In a school of 1,000 kids, one or two of the kids has parents of same sex, and that's that. Most people at the school probably won't even notice.

I don't really see it as a big problem.  So I'm much more concerned with other matters.

There were no drag queens or rainbow flags in schools here until after they legalized gay marriage. That kind of degeneracy was absolutely unheard of.  I supported gay marriage, I thought it was a reasonable thing. But now schools are grooming kids behind their parents backs, and the state is taking kids away from their parents if the parents resist the grooming. Now they are even letting homosexuals buy kids from surrogate mothers to have as glamor pets and they are grooming little boys into drag queens. The slippery slope is very very real, and if you believe the leftist in Japan are not going to bring this mind virus to your country, I think you're very mistaken.

 

[futon]

17 minutes ago, Mr King said:

There were no drag queens or rainbow flags in schools here until after they legalized gay marriage. That kind of degeneracy was absolutely unheard of.  I supported gay marriage, I thought it was a reasonable thing. But now schools are grooming kids behind their parents backs, and the state is taking kids away from their parents if the parents resist the grooming. Now they are even letting homosexuals buy kids from surrogate mothers to have as glamor pets and they are grooming little boys into drag queens. The slippery slope is very very real, and if you believe the leftist in Japan are not going to bring this mind virus to your country, I think you're very mistaken.

 

I'm sure leftists will try. Everything that happens in the US doesn't happen in Japan. The US is much about being expressive and standing up for oneself, regardless of the environment. Japan is culturally different. It doesn't make sense to have a drag queen thing at a school. It's just too culturally odd. Schools in general here are quite majime in comparison. 

I think part of the success of LDP for so long in Japan is that they just absorb potential political platforms that other parties could use, leaving little but extreme positions to the opposition parties. As time goes on with the new generations, it's become less feasible to oppose gay-marriage because the voter base has become more accepting of it. Opposing it adds potential for alternative parties. But anyway, Ishiba is supposedly very good on defense. And Japan needs that right now. A critical part of defense is defense relations with as many countries as possible. But what has not changed is Japan's economic success depends on global trade. So a criticism in the form of "globalhomo" really undermines what is key for Japan. 

On mention of grooming of the young, Japan probably has had more of grooming girls for soft porno magazines. The US has had less of that. Different place, different problems.

Back to Takaichi, she came in at a very close 2nd. Part of the reason for Ishiba's win was LDP scandals. LDP went with a more outsider type within the LDP. But despite that, Takaichi did better than I expected, which I think is a sign that the conservative side is still quite strong. They need to avoid scandals to reach their potential.

 

[urbanoid]

And internally, Takaichi is showing Ishiba the middle finger:

 

[urbanoid]

Damn, those 4 should have been publicly executed!

See you Space Cowboy!

Edited September 29 by urbanoid

[futon]

The coming PM, foreign minister, and defense minister all have been a defense minister before.

Liberal Democratic Party President Shigeru Ishiba has decided to appoint former defense minister Takeshi Iwaya as foreign minister for his new cabinet. Gen Nakatani is expected to return to his former post of defense minister.

https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/politics/politics-government/20240929-214097/

[urbanoid]

Aaaand Ishiba is responding with a middle finger to the Abe faction too:

 

[urbanoid]

Ishiba is kil. Well, not literally of course...

 

[futon]

On 9/27/2024 at 6:05 PM, urbanoid said:

Damn, not good.

Japan was this close to greatness:

>socially liberal
>steering away from hardline conservatism

cringe

 

Takaichi was a frequent visitor to Yasukuni Shrine. She may have visited as Prime Minister as well instead of the sending of offerings. What's your view on that? 

[urbanoid]

17 minutes ago, futon said:

Takaichi was a frequent visitor to Yasukuni Shrine. She may have visited as Prime Minister as well instead of the sending of offerings. What's your view on that? 

I have no problem with that, in a weird way I appreciate that Tojo's there - when we declared war on Japan he told us to fuck off and rejected it, AFAIK it was the only declaration of war we have issued in the 20th century.

On a more serious note, the attitude to sending offerings/visiting Yasukuni in person may imply how much is a leader dedicated to getting rid of the Article 9 (de iure, as de facto it's a piece of paper already) and officially remilitarizing the country. That is something I'd like to see. The time for balancing and all this 'middleoftheroadism' seems to be over. I don't mind nuclear armed Japan either, at least as an option on the table.

Edited Wednesday at 04:18 PM by urbanoid

[futon]

6 hours ago, urbanoid said:

I have no problem with that, in a weird way I appreciate that Tojo's there - when we declared war on Japan he told us to fuck off and rejected it, AFAIK it was the only declaration of war we have issued in the 20th century.

On a more serious note, the attitude to sending offerings/visiting Yasukuni in person may imply how much is a leader dedicated to getting rid of the Article 9 (de iure, as de facto it's a piece of paper already) and officially remilitarizing the country. That is something I'd like to see. The time for balancing and all this 'middleoftheroadism' seems to be over. I don't mind nuclear armed Japan either, at least as an option on the table.

For a nuclear armed Japan, an "Asian NATO" is probably necessary. For the non-nuclear countries, being in such a alluance structure with Japan's means entrusting Japan with nukes. For such a balance though, RoK would need their own nukes. It's no feasible for Japan to have nukes while RoK does not, because of DPRK. For the sake of nuclear non-proliferation to not get thrown out the window, Taiwan will need to rely on Japan, RoK, and US nuke umbrella, as well as the Philippines and Australia.

On the basis that kind of connection towards getting nuclear weapons, we can't get there because Yasukuni enshrining "14 class A war criminals" is prohibitive from international support. The PM doesn't visit because Japanese business worry about the backlash to international consumption of Japanese products. 

But..

The war (Pacific and in China) entails so much. It takes many adult years to see it fully, going through various levels of understand and emotions. The PM visiting might make it too prone for Japanese people as a whole to become simplistically nationalistic about the war. Being simplistic about the war is going to make it harder to be in a disposition to get international support. So, even if the "class A war criminal" was fully debunked in the international audience and people could be less hesitant to visit it, I'd still think the PM not visiting sort of puts a check on it. It's such a complex matter that can't be reflected in a X's worth of space. 

[futon]

Conservative positions reflected.

https://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/15457545

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20241008/p2g/00m/0na/037000c

 

To try to keep defense things moving forward with RoK. 

https://sp.m.jiji.com/english/show/35979

 

Meanwhile, more links could be posted but.. US, India, and ASEAN have not been positive towards an Asian-NATO. So that is their words that they may have for dinner to eat 10 years from now.

[futon]

On 10/10/2024 at 1:17 AM, urbanoid said:

I have no problem with that, in a weird way I appreciate that Tojo's there - when we declared war on Japan he told us to fuck off and rejected it, AFAIK it was the only declaration of war we have issued in the 20th century.

On a more serious note, the attitude to sending offerings/visiting Yasukuni in person may imply how much is a leader dedicated to getting rid of the Article 9 (de iure, as de facto it's a piece of paper already) and officially remilitarizing the country. That is something I'd like to see. The time for balancing and all this 'middleoftheroadism' seems to be over. I don't mind nuclear armed Japan either, at least as an option on the table.

Do you agree that the "Class A War Criminals" was a tool for imposing all blame for the Pacific War on Japan, as part of fabricating justification of total disarmament? And that true blame for the Pacific War was really equally the US and Japan?