Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Not forgetting that the world continues to exist outside the Middle East, this is a very interesting little report out of Japan: Boost China ties: DPJ's Yamaoka
SHANGHAI (Kyodo) Japan should strengthen relations with China because ties with the United States have been strained over the relocation of the U.S. Futenma base in Okinawa, Kenji Yamaoka, Diet affairs chief of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, said Monday.
"Japan-U.S. ties are strained. It is a realistic approach to first strengthen Japan-China ties and then resolve the problems with the United States," Yamaoka said at a symposium in Shanghai.
He also said Ichiro Ozawa, secretary general of the DPJ, and Chinese President Hu Jintao agreed during a meeting Thursday in Beijing that trilateral relations should be equally balanced like an equilateral triangle.
Japanese-U.S. ties have soured recently after the Hatoyama administration started to re-examine the relocation of the Futenma airfield, which had already been agreed to in an agreement signed in 2006.
"The American government should come up with a new global strategy," Yamaoka said, adding that if the current framework established after the Cold War continues, there will be a "difficult period" in the long run.
Japan recently elected its own Obama -- a reactionary vote for a left-leaning government that's promised to radically shift the direction of the government. Those who see Japan as an eastern cornerstone of "Western" free-civilization and bulwark against the Chinese should be very concerned about the report above (and the election campaign run by the winning party was an anti-American one). Even with PM Hatoyama's campaign slant, he, like many other politicians before, may have found that, once in office, reality would intrude. He may have found that there were good, practical reasons to be a close ally of America.
Unfortunately, we have a confluence of events, with an American President busy doing everything possible to lessen the importance of America on the world stage, and putting us trillions into debt, lowering both our military and our economic importance simultaneously. While Obama's bowing and apologizing may be imagined to be purchasing something as the world now flocks to the newer, more humble, America, the truth is he is simply creating a vacuum, into which others are only more than happy to step.
The Japanese are scared. China is ascendant, the world can do nothing about North Korea...they can't count on the United States anymore. So which direction should they turn?
Maybe the Japanese should become a multicultural society and import tens of millions of Muslims and Africans, Chinese, and Koreans into their country.
Talk about disempowerment.
Perhaps Israel should follow that model of empowerment as well.
How the Roman Empire fell, mass uncontrolled non assimilative immigration. Brilliant Leftwing policy.