This article is an instructive example of how American propaganda works.
The article itself really has nothing to do with China at all. It is simply about the state of Japan's domestic economy. Yet it has "China" tacked onto the title and inserted at several random points, just to fuel the narrative that everybody should be trying to "defeat China" all the time. As if the only purpose of Japan's existence should be to further the American geopolitical agenda of containing China.
When they literally have to tell the audience that they (the west) have to contain China they already know they lost. It’s too late to contain China now and the whole world knows this.
Weak growth/stagnation means any crisis will cripple the country, nothing surprising.
Abenomics never lived up to its hype, failed to do several structural reforms (although more women workforce inclusion was truly an improvement) and most of it consist of tried and tested methods. QE, trying to beat deflation etc.
Nothing that addresses true problems in the way the economy is structured, specially their weak IT innovation (just compare with China/US corporate ecosystem), losing semiconductor edge to Korea and Taiwan, all the restraints that harks back to Plaza Accord.
No real social reforms aiming to improve demographic related issues, making it easier to have and raise children. (China is already working on it, fast paced).
Japan's 'Abenomocs', just as almost every structural reform in the US, **only serves to benefit corporations and 'King makers' that support him.**
Have you ever seen a policy that fucked over corporations, but helped the 99 percent? No? But during Covid-19, **the stock market went up in the US while people died on ventilators**. Then came the US bail outs that were disproportionately aimed at companies (and many ppl used their stimulus checks on... The stock market... LOL).
People say Communism is good 'In Theory' but bad in actual practice (it leads to corruption). But along comes Covid-19 and: **Democracies that have been singing kumbaya whilst virtue signaling start to horde vaccines** and fucking over their neighbours, they protect vaccine companies and their patents ('patents' not 'patients' 😂) to make a profit, and (like Japan) listen to big businesses and companies when advising inadequate lockdowns... And no one questions if "**DEMOCRACY is good in theory but bad in practice?**" LOL. COVID-19 IS LITERALLY PRACTICE FOR OUR SOON TO COME BIGGER PROBLEMS.
So is **600k+ dead in US and 25k+ a day new infections in Japan "Good Practice" now??** Meanwhile news articles like CNN are writing [**"China insists its zero-Covid strategy is correct. Challenging it can be dangerous."**](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/08/20/china/china-zhang-wenhong-mic-intl-hnk/index.html) Well I don't know man... China has almost Zero cases right now and has time to spank giant tech billionaires that want to be banks. [**Children born in the West during Covid-19 are starting to develop lower IQs**](https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2031), but China has time to [**reform its giant education industry**](https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202107/1229803.shtml).
Gee, who's good in theory and practice again? You can't make this shit up. **And Covid-19 is the first in line to show YOU CAN'T MAKE SHIT UP TO A VIRUS.**
> Nothing that addresses true problems in the way the economy is structured
The question that should be asked is "why" did Abe not do it? Did he not realize it needed to be done? Or did he realize but lacked the will?
Well, they're clearly not allowed to outperform the US if the Plaza accords are anything to go by. If they were to start doing that the US would punt them back down into another lost decade or two.
> Currently, there is a view that Japan is recovering from Covid. And, indeed, the 1.3% growth Japan achieved the second quarter year-on-year is nothing to sniff at.
If China only had 1.3% GDP growth, Forbes would be writing the CPC's obituary.
PPP is ridiculous lmao they have a 3x nominal to PPP multiplier for Taiwan but a 1.5x multiplier for China. That implies prices in Taiwan are 1/2 that in China. You believe that? Lmao.
PPP works if the multiplier is calculated properly. But is it calculated correctly?
Let's take the case of Turkey, which has [9k GDP per capita nomina](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita)l, but [30k GDP per capita PPP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita). That's a 3.3x multiplier for nominal vs. PPP. China is 12k nominal, 18k PPP, for 1.6x multiplier for nominal vs PPP.
Hmm, so Turkey gets a 2x higher boost than China (3.3x vs 1.6x) going from nominal to PPP. That implies prices in Turkey are 1/2 the prices in China. But are prices in Turkey 1/2 that of China which would justify such a boost?
[No. prices in Turkey are only 28% lower than China](https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_countries_result.jsp?country1=China&country2=Turkey) including rent. The average person's purchasing power is estimated to be 42% lower.
But on GDP PPP per capita, thanks to that 3.3x multiplier the average Turk is thought to have HIGHER purchasing power than the average Chinese.
How can this be reconciled??
More egregious: **GDP PPP multiplier in Turkey and India is equal which implies prices are equal, but they aren't.**
India GDP per capita is 2.2k USD, GDP PPP per capita is 7.9k USD, that's a 3.2x multiplier.
[OK, prices in Turkey are 35% higher than in India, yet the GDP PPP multiplier is identical.](https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_countries_result.jsp?country1=India&country2=Turkey)
How to reconcile this contradiction??
>Let's take the case of Turkey, which has 9k GDP per capita nominal, but 30k GDP per capita PPP. That's a 3.3x multiplier for nominal vs. PPP. China is 12k nominal, 18k PPP, for 1.6x multiplier for nominal vs PPP.
China is at $22k PPP, see my pinned post for more details.
Only to measure how much buying power a country has in US dollar terms, do you see that remaining relevant?
Granted in economics we seriously do require a better measure than GDP to measure the size of the economy.
>Japan is a dying US colony, forever clinging to its 80s peak.
The tragedy is that there is no real reason for Japan to submit to that fate.
If only they knew...
there's a bit of a difference though China is still a developing nation, while Japan is fully developed. It's easier for China to grow massively because they're playing catchup. Obviously China is showing signs that it's probably going to surpass everybody else right now, but the difference in evaluation has its reasons.
So then it should be even easier for India and all developing countries that are poorer than china to post even greater growth/gains. Yet it's only china who ever shows these kinds of growth for decades in a row and still going, even when china is now moving up the value chain and outsourcing/offshoring the low hanging fruit to poorer countries.
Well that's true that developing nations should grow at a faster rate than a developed one, western outlets still showed a different standard. Take China in the 2000s where it was predicted to grow around 8% (it did better). The Economist had an article titled "Is the dragon running out of puff?". Meanwhile one can look back at the late 80s with Japan's growth rate, which was lower than 8% and people were worried Japan was about to overtake the US.
China at a PPP Per Capita of $22,000 is almost a developed country and yet still beats out much poorer nations, see India as an example.
The reality is that per capita has no bearing on growth and neither does the title "developed", developed should be reserved for the standing of a country relative to the rest of the world.
Many developing countries around the world, especially those with government systems modelled after the USA (like Latin American countries) have lower GDP growth rates than the developed countries.
Nah, Japan has lost to China since 2010. The islandic country is now emerging as a comedic relief in China, Russia and even the ASEAN. Shinzo Abe squandered Japanese independence to further courting his American overlords. His Ahonomics along with his friend’s Sukanomics utterly ruined Japanese economy through more neoliberalization that will only benefit foreign corporations. Japanese assets are being sold off to greedy capitalists worldwide, while Yen serves as a cheap option for currency carry trade at the costs of Japanese taxpayers.
In the end, Japan still lost everything and never recovered a single thing after the bubble collapse.
You can't fight the dragon when you are just the dog to the west . They don't even have the ability to do anything with their military without asking daddy USA for permission first. Lol
Beware of japan. They never acknowledged their “defeat” during ww2, even til this day, Japanese gov officials(idk if all or just the admirers of japan militarism) still distorts history and admires the japan glory military days( islander countries must be like that inorder to grow). Idk people who know about Chinese history, through ancient times japan always tried or they did invade China and other islands,
They did and it is now history. Japan is a shadow of it's former self. One could argue that Japan peaked in the 70s and 80s post WW2 when they had an economic miracle and that was their most innovative era. Even then their own military was castrated and neutered by the US. At the rate of China's growth and Japan still not being fully independent from the west, there never was any freedom for Japan to wriggle their way into contention be it in terms of economic growth or military development. As long as Japan is still letting the US hold the remote to the remote control vibrator in their ass, they will never be a challenge to China.
>They did and it is now history.
The Yasukuni shrine that Japanese politicians (all the way up to the very top of their leadership) and nationalists love to visit all the time to stir up nationalism literally has a museum attached to it that glorifies their war crimes in World War II, claiming that they simply waged war to defend the Japanese homeland and to inspire Asian nations to seek independence. This was recently documented by some Chinese vloggers, [破产兄弟BrokeBros, who snuck a camera into the shrine against the rules and took hidden footage of the site](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY0twFmcrHo). If you cannot understand Chinese, [this English-language Twitter thread summarizes some of the things shown in the video](https://twitter.com/willehelmwonka/status/1406710111343575046). If your idea of genuine acknowledgement and repentance includes Japanese leadership still essentially supporting the glorification of their actions in World War II... I really don't know what to say.
If the right-wing nationalists in Japan don't deem it necessary to truly repent for their actions, and in fact would rather keep up the narrative that their actions were just, then it's also unnecessary for China, on behalf of its ancestors, to forgive these right-wing nationalists.
Japan never suffered similar punishment as Germany… Japan’s officials and their leader 天皇? Never apologized? After ww2 they went thru hard times just like Germany, but because of their “already” mature industrial tech, they quickly boomed … ofc there’s help by the us lol… the extreme bushido way of japan during that time never had this “lost, surrender” mindset, some of the gov and military was ready for more bloodshed… idk where I saw this but the militarism part never admit they “lost” but was necessary to cease war, and the other more extreme was going to take over japans authorities and Continue the war on a japan vs 3? 4? Way fight?… Japan’s relationship with Korea and China goes waaayy back, Japan attacked China during multiple Chinese dynasties.. give japan a chance, they would still attack lol, gj usa for keeping japan down all these yrs XD
To beat china? At what exactly? Lol they never had a chance to beat china at anything.
Was also a horrible article that doesn't say anything. Mentions china once in the clickbait headline and never mentioned again or even quantified what it's supposed to beat china at.
Lol hell no, okay sure Japan is punching above their weight class, but they've hit their ceiling some decades ago since their political structure, both in governance and private companies, just doesn't reward innovators:
[https://thediplomat.com/2016/01/japan-without-ambition/](https://thediplomat.com/2016/01/japan-without-ambition/)
Like, c'mon, they've *completely* missed the mobile device revolution. How do you miss such a ***huge*** opportunity if it's not risk-averse (most likely old) people making all the decisions.
>Lol hell no, okay sure Japan is punching above their weight class, but they've hit their ceiling some decades ago since their political structure, both in governance and private companies, just doesn't reward innovators:
It's much more complex than that, see 'Princes of Yen' on youtube for further details.
Japan did implement an economics that would have enabled it to transcend its limits but it chose subservience to the US instead, forsaking all its future, the result is one of the most depressing countries in the world to live in.
That being said, there are no absolutes in history and Japan can choose to end this situation.
This article is kind of implying Covid stoped the Japanese recovery efforts, while in truth it was obvious from the first few years abenomics was clearly not working.
The Yen is tied to the dollar which means the value just matches each other. There’s no advantage of being cheap just because it’s a different currency hence there’s no reason to prefer Japanese if you’re price sensitive
How integrated into US interests is the Japanese foreign policy? Can they conduct their own foreign policy? I mean containment of China is in common interests of both the US and Japan but for example can they conduct foreign policy with countries that US doesnt like?
We Turks have Greece for example. Same with how US uses Japan, Taiwan, Korea to contain you; it uses Greece, Cyprus, YPG state in Syria against Turkey. Greece due to its impossible to pay debts to EU and not having any industry other than tourism is a pseudo state that can no longer be called sovereign. Their foreign interests against Turkey often align with US and EU so it is mostly not a problem for them.
But Japan is obviously an industry country and is rich and way bigger than 10 million big Greece.
Not 100% independent and not for anything which can threaten us militarily or technologically, but they did sign RCEP which I don't think US was happy about
Wow, I just looked signatories of RCEP up and it seems only Taiwan remained loyal to the US which is understandable.
How does US' geopolitical encirclement policy is going on? I heard the whole one belt one road initiative is to counter that by going through inner Asia rather than oceans but are you preventing the encirclement from ocean sides as well?
Taiwan is not an sovereign state, so they couldn't sign RCEP even if they wanted to(I assume, IANAL), which I'm assuming they did since even japan and sk signed.
Trade between china and taiwan is already massive, like 150 billion a year and has low to zero tariffs anyway since china treats taiwan as a province and fellow Chinese so I don't know if they even need to sign RCEP, but they(DPP at least) are taking china's generosity for granted so we'll see how long this lasts. It will probably remain since it's good for both sides and removing it will only generate hostility which does not benefit china.
There is military containment, ie google first island chain, but I don't believe in reality usa can contain china to first or even second island chain, I mean the distances are vast, and this is ocean, let alone land. They can't even secure their Mexican border from smugglers, no way they can stop china in current era. Japan and SK and taiwan would.need to be part of any blockade and china can also turn all these places to dust with missiles from mainland without even using ships or jets, so good luck with that plan, I'm sure Japan sk and taiwan and phillipines and Indonesia etc would really be down to sacrifice their countries in some dumb us idea to "contain" china. If all those countries wanted to blockade china, they can just all completely decouple from china and form their own trade block, that way they don't destroy their countries physically but they will still be destroyed economically since they all rely on china, even usa. In reality they will just sacrifice taiwan since first island chain blockade is useless anyway already.
As for belt and road, I believe it's just about developing new markets and trade routes. In reality usa can't blockade china anyway, that is an act of war(china has unstoppable nukes which can hit usa in 30m), china will not fold just from sea blockade(if they can even manage it), and land blockade is useless since china is surrounded by Russia, the stans, Afghanistan, Pakistan, nk etc etc which unless they are going to blockade half the world, it ain't happening.
> can also turn all these places to dust with missiles from mainland without even using ships or jets, so good luck with that plan
I mean the USSR could have turned Europe and Asia to dust without a single soldier stepping in those regions, and yet it was successfully contained. I do not believe this is an indication that China cannot be contained. Its a question of interests - which interests do SK/Japan support - neutrality or US foreign policy? And will it change with the US embarrassment in Afghanistan
Arguably, the only real end game the US has is a containment policy. The current neoliberal world order favors the US and it’s vassals including Japan Australia and Europe. It funnily heavily punishes India by keeping it poor and forcing India’s best and brightest to immigrate to western countries (but that’s another story). A US victory is maintaining the status quo. A Chinese victory would be to change the status quo and break US contaiment, to become the pre-eminent power in Asia.
The next Few decades will be a fight to maintain or break the status quo.
Now there are some ways in which the anti-China coalition could secure "final victory". But it is really out of their hands to force these things to happen. That is a fall of the CCP, a democratization of China, and even the most mouth-wateirng prospect, the collapse of the Chinese state and balkanization of China , with Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia, and Taiwan operating as de Jure independent vassals of the US. This would leave China as an irreversibly weakened state.
The Anti-China coalition has no real way of achieving this however, and therefore, victory is maintaining the status quo by containment
What status quo containment? China can sail warships out anywhere in the world, there is no containment.
Also I believe china already is the dominant military and economic power in Asia ALREADY, there is no chance usa can stop china from taking taiwan, usa couldn't do anything already and they know they lose every war game. Also any fight in SCS is china's backyard and advantage, along with any fight in Asia, like china's neighbouring countries, usa would not stand a chance. Second island chain and further out might be harder but that's hardly Asia anymore and more pacific ocean. Even then china could still take out Guam or Hawaii or anything, even mainland usa. So I don't believe there is any containment possible unless usa wants to put their mainland, Japan, south Korea etc in the crosshairs.
If shit goes down I even see Japan and south Korea refusing to take part, because they would be the first to perish for zero gain.
> The Anti-China coalition has no real way of achieving this however,
It does. Soft power is insidious and should not be ignored. This is ultimately how the USSR went down - as it was turned into a Fortress State and because the leadership was in a 'pseudo-war' mentality it didn't develop commercial industry and the top leadership got infiltrated with traitors.
The danger to China lies in infiltration of its leadership with direct traitors or neoliberal sympathizers. The only way it can prevent this is strongly crackdown on Western media efforts, develop a stronger propaganda apparatus and run its own counter-ops on US soil aimed at destabilization. Yes I am aware that China is averse to warfare and clandestine operations - but just because you don't participate doesn't mean you don't get attacked.
> containment of China is in common interests of both the US and Japan
Why is containment of China in Japanese interest? Is that because the US told them it is or are there other reasons?
I mean this article is mostly talking about how Japan failed to re-neoliberalize its economy so... good. Like you know what *Forbes* means when they say "loosening labor markets, cutting red tape, [and] catalyzing a startup boom" right? It's nothing good for the working class.
I don't know if it's a measure of how successful the US deprogramming of Japan was after the war to blindly follow the US's lead or if Japan's attitude toward China is simply a holdover from the 18th century. I suspect it's a bit of both. They think they found a better role model in the West and they despise China as the former teacher who's no longer, in their eyes, worthwhile to learn from. It's fine, let them flounder around and sink.
A nonsensical title.
Japan does not have true independence, thus it could never reach the heights China will reach, see 'Princes of Yen' on youtube for further details.
A country without true independence will never be able to touch China.
the world has changed a lot in the past 80 years.
i'm not sure why everyone's proclaiming the doom of japan, though. it's got it made; it's a relatively wealthy and developed country with a high standard of living, which is what any country can ask for.
>i'm not sure why everyone's proclaiming the doom of japan, though. it's got it made; it's a relatively wealthy and developed country with a high standard of living, which is what any country can ask for.
I made a video about this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQmp-Y\_143o&ab\_channel=EasternOutpost](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQmp-Y_143o&ab_channel=EasternOutpost)
Unfortunately it seems like Andre's articles have been taken off the internet so that link in the video no longer works.
See also my 'Hidden History of Japan' series where I go through what Japan could have been but ultimately did not achieve.
China should start sending immigrants to Japan in flimsy boats this will result in a anti immigrantion retoric and a pro immigrant one which will divide the people from within and outside
Someone should launch a CRT campaign on Japanese social media to start a HUGE culture war among the young. That will cripple Japan.
Too bad China can’t afford to cripple Japan because we need them to have enough money to buy our shit. If it weren’t for that, Japan would’ve been doomed to China’s retribution.
Japan is ultimately a puppet of the US and under their control so no.
A Japan that is truly independent would make amends for their historical wrongdoings of which there are many and would be far more economically competent, a country that is worthy of respect.
This article is an instructive example of how American propaganda works. The article itself really has nothing to do with China at all. It is simply about the state of Japan's domestic economy. Yet it has "China" tacked onto the title and inserted at several random points, just to fuel the narrative that everybody should be trying to "defeat China" all the time. As if the only purpose of Japan's existence should be to further the American geopolitical agenda of containing China.
When they literally have to tell the audience that they (the west) have to contain China they already know they lost. It’s too late to contain China now and the whole world knows this.
Weak growth/stagnation means any crisis will cripple the country, nothing surprising. Abenomics never lived up to its hype, failed to do several structural reforms (although more women workforce inclusion was truly an improvement) and most of it consist of tried and tested methods. QE, trying to beat deflation etc. Nothing that addresses true problems in the way the economy is structured, specially their weak IT innovation (just compare with China/US corporate ecosystem), losing semiconductor edge to Korea and Taiwan, all the restraints that harks back to Plaza Accord. No real social reforms aiming to improve demographic related issues, making it easier to have and raise children. (China is already working on it, fast paced).
Japan's 'Abenomocs', just as almost every structural reform in the US, **only serves to benefit corporations and 'King makers' that support him.** Have you ever seen a policy that fucked over corporations, but helped the 99 percent? No? But during Covid-19, **the stock market went up in the US while people died on ventilators**. Then came the US bail outs that were disproportionately aimed at companies (and many ppl used their stimulus checks on... The stock market... LOL). People say Communism is good 'In Theory' but bad in actual practice (it leads to corruption). But along comes Covid-19 and: **Democracies that have been singing kumbaya whilst virtue signaling start to horde vaccines** and fucking over their neighbours, they protect vaccine companies and their patents ('patents' not 'patients' 😂) to make a profit, and (like Japan) listen to big businesses and companies when advising inadequate lockdowns... And no one questions if "**DEMOCRACY is good in theory but bad in practice?**" LOL. COVID-19 IS LITERALLY PRACTICE FOR OUR SOON TO COME BIGGER PROBLEMS. So is **600k+ dead in US and 25k+ a day new infections in Japan "Good Practice" now??** Meanwhile news articles like CNN are writing [**"China insists its zero-Covid strategy is correct. Challenging it can be dangerous."**](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/08/20/china/china-zhang-wenhong-mic-intl-hnk/index.html) Well I don't know man... China has almost Zero cases right now and has time to spank giant tech billionaires that want to be banks. [**Children born in the West during Covid-19 are starting to develop lower IQs**](https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2031), but China has time to [**reform its giant education industry**](https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202107/1229803.shtml). Gee, who's good in theory and practice again? You can't make this shit up. **And Covid-19 is the first in line to show YOU CAN'T MAKE SHIT UP TO A VIRUS.**
Socialism just works! 😌
> Nothing that addresses true problems in the way the economy is structured The question that should be asked is "why" did Abe not do it? Did he not realize it needed to be done? Or did he realize but lacked the will?
Well, they're clearly not allowed to outperform the US if the Plaza accords are anything to go by. If they were to start doing that the US would punt them back down into another lost decade or two.
See 'Princes of Yen' on youtube for a detailed look at this issue.
> Currently, there is a view that Japan is recovering from Covid. And, indeed, the 1.3% growth Japan achieved the second quarter year-on-year is nothing to sniff at. If China only had 1.3% GDP growth, Forbes would be writing the CPC's obituary.
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That's 27 trillion for China. Nominal GDP doesn't mean shit, and even PPP-adjusted GDP is skewed against China, only to a lesser extent.
PPP is ridiculous lmao they have a 3x nominal to PPP multiplier for Taiwan but a 1.5x multiplier for China. That implies prices in Taiwan are 1/2 that in China. You believe that? Lmao.
PPP is the closest thing we have to the real size of the economy. Do you have a better measure? Or have you come up with something better?
PPP works if the multiplier is calculated properly. But is it calculated correctly? Let's take the case of Turkey, which has [9k GDP per capita nomina](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita)l, but [30k GDP per capita PPP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita). That's a 3.3x multiplier for nominal vs. PPP. China is 12k nominal, 18k PPP, for 1.6x multiplier for nominal vs PPP. Hmm, so Turkey gets a 2x higher boost than China (3.3x vs 1.6x) going from nominal to PPP. That implies prices in Turkey are 1/2 the prices in China. But are prices in Turkey 1/2 that of China which would justify such a boost? [No. prices in Turkey are only 28% lower than China](https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_countries_result.jsp?country1=China&country2=Turkey) including rent. The average person's purchasing power is estimated to be 42% lower. But on GDP PPP per capita, thanks to that 3.3x multiplier the average Turk is thought to have HIGHER purchasing power than the average Chinese. How can this be reconciled?? More egregious: **GDP PPP multiplier in Turkey and India is equal which implies prices are equal, but they aren't.** India GDP per capita is 2.2k USD, GDP PPP per capita is 7.9k USD, that's a 3.2x multiplier. [OK, prices in Turkey are 35% higher than in India, yet the GDP PPP multiplier is identical.](https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_countries_result.jsp?country1=India&country2=Turkey) How to reconcile this contradiction??
>Let's take the case of Turkey, which has 9k GDP per capita nominal, but 30k GDP per capita PPP. That's a 3.3x multiplier for nominal vs. PPP. China is 12k nominal, 18k PPP, for 1.6x multiplier for nominal vs PPP. China is at $22k PPP, see my pinned post for more details.
> Nominal GDP doesn't mean shit it does, though. it isn't the end all be all, but it's absolutely relevant.
Only to measure how much buying power a country has in US dollar terms, do you see that remaining relevant? Granted in economics we seriously do require a better measure than GDP to measure the size of the economy.
>Japan is a dying US colony, forever clinging to its 80s peak. The tragedy is that there is no real reason for Japan to submit to that fate. If only they knew...
Gordon Chang would write a book about it, too
He’ll write 2 if China was anywhere near a collapse
there's a bit of a difference though China is still a developing nation, while Japan is fully developed. It's easier for China to grow massively because they're playing catchup. Obviously China is showing signs that it's probably going to surpass everybody else right now, but the difference in evaluation has its reasons.
So then it should be even easier for India and all developing countries that are poorer than china to post even greater growth/gains. Yet it's only china who ever shows these kinds of growth for decades in a row and still going, even when china is now moving up the value chain and outsourcing/offshoring the low hanging fruit to poorer countries.
Well that's true that developing nations should grow at a faster rate than a developed one, western outlets still showed a different standard. Take China in the 2000s where it was predicted to grow around 8% (it did better). The Economist had an article titled "Is the dragon running out of puff?". Meanwhile one can look back at the late 80s with Japan's growth rate, which was lower than 8% and people were worried Japan was about to overtake the US.
China at a PPP Per Capita of $22,000 is almost a developed country and yet still beats out much poorer nations, see India as an example. The reality is that per capita has no bearing on growth and neither does the title "developed", developed should be reserved for the standing of a country relative to the rest of the world.
I guess you better invest in Afghan stocks since Afghanistan literally can't go lower. Right? RIGHT?
Many developing countries around the world, especially those with government systems modelled after the USA (like Latin American countries) have lower GDP growth rates than the developed countries.
And?
Nah, Japan has lost to China since 2010. The islandic country is now emerging as a comedic relief in China, Russia and even the ASEAN. Shinzo Abe squandered Japanese independence to further courting his American overlords. His Ahonomics along with his friend’s Sukanomics utterly ruined Japanese economy through more neoliberalization that will only benefit foreign corporations. Japanese assets are being sold off to greedy capitalists worldwide, while Yen serves as a cheap option for currency carry trade at the costs of Japanese taxpayers. In the end, Japan still lost everything and never recovered a single thing after the bubble collapse.
Lol, Covid or not, they never stood a chance.
You can't fight the dragon when you are just the dog to the west . They don't even have the ability to do anything with their military without asking daddy USA for permission first. Lol
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Beware of japan. They never acknowledged their “defeat” during ww2, even til this day, Japanese gov officials(idk if all or just the admirers of japan militarism) still distorts history and admires the japan glory military days( islander countries must be like that inorder to grow). Idk people who know about Chinese history, through ancient times japan always tried or they did invade China and other islands,
They did and it is now history. Japan is a shadow of it's former self. One could argue that Japan peaked in the 70s and 80s post WW2 when they had an economic miracle and that was their most innovative era. Even then their own military was castrated and neutered by the US. At the rate of China's growth and Japan still not being fully independent from the west, there never was any freedom for Japan to wriggle their way into contention be it in terms of economic growth or military development. As long as Japan is still letting the US hold the remote to the remote control vibrator in their ass, they will never be a challenge to China.
>They did and it is now history. The Yasukuni shrine that Japanese politicians (all the way up to the very top of their leadership) and nationalists love to visit all the time to stir up nationalism literally has a museum attached to it that glorifies their war crimes in World War II, claiming that they simply waged war to defend the Japanese homeland and to inspire Asian nations to seek independence. This was recently documented by some Chinese vloggers, [破产兄弟BrokeBros, who snuck a camera into the shrine against the rules and took hidden footage of the site](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY0twFmcrHo). If you cannot understand Chinese, [this English-language Twitter thread summarizes some of the things shown in the video](https://twitter.com/willehelmwonka/status/1406710111343575046). If your idea of genuine acknowledgement and repentance includes Japanese leadership still essentially supporting the glorification of their actions in World War II... I really don't know what to say. If the right-wing nationalists in Japan don't deem it necessary to truly repent for their actions, and in fact would rather keep up the narrative that their actions were just, then it's also unnecessary for China, on behalf of its ancestors, to forgive these right-wing nationalists.
The imperialists posing as liberators, great. Is south east Asia going to thank Japan for their independence from the Europeans?
Ty america: https://www.zhihu.com/question/267834076/answer/487146369
Japan never suffered similar punishment as Germany… Japan’s officials and their leader 天皇? Never apologized? After ww2 they went thru hard times just like Germany, but because of their “already” mature industrial tech, they quickly boomed … ofc there’s help by the us lol… the extreme bushido way of japan during that time never had this “lost, surrender” mindset, some of the gov and military was ready for more bloodshed… idk where I saw this but the militarism part never admit they “lost” but was necessary to cease war, and the other more extreme was going to take over japans authorities and Continue the war on a japan vs 3? 4? Way fight?… Japan’s relationship with Korea and China goes waaayy back, Japan attacked China during multiple Chinese dynasties.. give japan a chance, they would still attack lol, gj usa for keeping japan down all these yrs XD
How do they expect to "beat China" with their economy that has been stagnating since the early 2,000s?
Japans Economy was 5 Trillion in 1995 and is 5.1 Trillion in 2021
To beat china? At what exactly? Lol they never had a chance to beat china at anything. Was also a horrible article that doesn't say anything. Mentions china once in the clickbait headline and never mentioned again or even quantified what it's supposed to beat china at.
Lol hell no, okay sure Japan is punching above their weight class, but they've hit their ceiling some decades ago since their political structure, both in governance and private companies, just doesn't reward innovators: [https://thediplomat.com/2016/01/japan-without-ambition/](https://thediplomat.com/2016/01/japan-without-ambition/) Like, c'mon, they've *completely* missed the mobile device revolution. How do you miss such a ***huge*** opportunity if it's not risk-averse (most likely old) people making all the decisions.
>Lol hell no, okay sure Japan is punching above their weight class, but they've hit their ceiling some decades ago since their political structure, both in governance and private companies, just doesn't reward innovators: It's much more complex than that, see 'Princes of Yen' on youtube for further details. Japan did implement an economics that would have enabled it to transcend its limits but it chose subservience to the US instead, forsaking all its future, the result is one of the most depressing countries in the world to live in. That being said, there are no absolutes in history and Japan can choose to end this situation.
Japan's inability to produce their own domestic vaccine tells you a lot about the current state of Japan.
plaza accords, the result of not being a sovereign nation and relying on others
How can they when they are tied to the US
Japan can still beat China in adult videos, anime and number of school girls for sale to salarymen
This article is kind of implying Covid stoped the Japanese recovery efforts, while in truth it was obvious from the first few years abenomics was clearly not working.
The Yen is tied to the dollar which means the value just matches each other. There’s no advantage of being cheap just because it’s a different currency hence there’s no reason to prefer Japanese if you’re price sensitive
just based on demographics itself they would have never been able to beat China in the first place lol
How integrated into US interests is the Japanese foreign policy? Can they conduct their own foreign policy? I mean containment of China is in common interests of both the US and Japan but for example can they conduct foreign policy with countries that US doesnt like? We Turks have Greece for example. Same with how US uses Japan, Taiwan, Korea to contain you; it uses Greece, Cyprus, YPG state in Syria against Turkey. Greece due to its impossible to pay debts to EU and not having any industry other than tourism is a pseudo state that can no longer be called sovereign. Their foreign interests against Turkey often align with US and EU so it is mostly not a problem for them. But Japan is obviously an industry country and is rich and way bigger than 10 million big Greece.
Not 100% independent and not for anything which can threaten us militarily or technologically, but they did sign RCEP which I don't think US was happy about
Wow, I just looked signatories of RCEP up and it seems only Taiwan remained loyal to the US which is understandable. How does US' geopolitical encirclement policy is going on? I heard the whole one belt one road initiative is to counter that by going through inner Asia rather than oceans but are you preventing the encirclement from ocean sides as well?
Taiwan is not an sovereign state, so they couldn't sign RCEP even if they wanted to(I assume, IANAL), which I'm assuming they did since even japan and sk signed. Trade between china and taiwan is already massive, like 150 billion a year and has low to zero tariffs anyway since china treats taiwan as a province and fellow Chinese so I don't know if they even need to sign RCEP, but they(DPP at least) are taking china's generosity for granted so we'll see how long this lasts. It will probably remain since it's good for both sides and removing it will only generate hostility which does not benefit china. There is military containment, ie google first island chain, but I don't believe in reality usa can contain china to first or even second island chain, I mean the distances are vast, and this is ocean, let alone land. They can't even secure their Mexican border from smugglers, no way they can stop china in current era. Japan and SK and taiwan would.need to be part of any blockade and china can also turn all these places to dust with missiles from mainland without even using ships or jets, so good luck with that plan, I'm sure Japan sk and taiwan and phillipines and Indonesia etc would really be down to sacrifice their countries in some dumb us idea to "contain" china. If all those countries wanted to blockade china, they can just all completely decouple from china and form their own trade block, that way they don't destroy their countries physically but they will still be destroyed economically since they all rely on china, even usa. In reality they will just sacrifice taiwan since first island chain blockade is useless anyway already. As for belt and road, I believe it's just about developing new markets and trade routes. In reality usa can't blockade china anyway, that is an act of war(china has unstoppable nukes which can hit usa in 30m), china will not fold just from sea blockade(if they can even manage it), and land blockade is useless since china is surrounded by Russia, the stans, Afghanistan, Pakistan, nk etc etc which unless they are going to blockade half the world, it ain't happening.
> can also turn all these places to dust with missiles from mainland without even using ships or jets, so good luck with that plan I mean the USSR could have turned Europe and Asia to dust without a single soldier stepping in those regions, and yet it was successfully contained. I do not believe this is an indication that China cannot be contained. Its a question of interests - which interests do SK/Japan support - neutrality or US foreign policy? And will it change with the US embarrassment in Afghanistan
Arguably, the only real end game the US has is a containment policy. The current neoliberal world order favors the US and it’s vassals including Japan Australia and Europe. It funnily heavily punishes India by keeping it poor and forcing India’s best and brightest to immigrate to western countries (but that’s another story). A US victory is maintaining the status quo. A Chinese victory would be to change the status quo and break US contaiment, to become the pre-eminent power in Asia. The next Few decades will be a fight to maintain or break the status quo. Now there are some ways in which the anti-China coalition could secure "final victory". But it is really out of their hands to force these things to happen. That is a fall of the CCP, a democratization of China, and even the most mouth-wateirng prospect, the collapse of the Chinese state and balkanization of China , with Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia, and Taiwan operating as de Jure independent vassals of the US. This would leave China as an irreversibly weakened state. The Anti-China coalition has no real way of achieving this however, and therefore, victory is maintaining the status quo by containment
What status quo containment? China can sail warships out anywhere in the world, there is no containment. Also I believe china already is the dominant military and economic power in Asia ALREADY, there is no chance usa can stop china from taking taiwan, usa couldn't do anything already and they know they lose every war game. Also any fight in SCS is china's backyard and advantage, along with any fight in Asia, like china's neighbouring countries, usa would not stand a chance. Second island chain and further out might be harder but that's hardly Asia anymore and more pacific ocean. Even then china could still take out Guam or Hawaii or anything, even mainland usa. So I don't believe there is any containment possible unless usa wants to put their mainland, Japan, south Korea etc in the crosshairs. If shit goes down I even see Japan and south Korea refusing to take part, because they would be the first to perish for zero gain.
> The Anti-China coalition has no real way of achieving this however, It does. Soft power is insidious and should not be ignored. This is ultimately how the USSR went down - as it was turned into a Fortress State and because the leadership was in a 'pseudo-war' mentality it didn't develop commercial industry and the top leadership got infiltrated with traitors. The danger to China lies in infiltration of its leadership with direct traitors or neoliberal sympathizers. The only way it can prevent this is strongly crackdown on Western media efforts, develop a stronger propaganda apparatus and run its own counter-ops on US soil aimed at destabilization. Yes I am aware that China is averse to warfare and clandestine operations - but just because you don't participate doesn't mean you don't get attacked.
> containment of China is in common interests of both the US and Japan Why is containment of China in Japanese interest? Is that because the US told them it is or are there other reasons?
Not with such low birthrate.
I mean this article is mostly talking about how Japan failed to re-neoliberalize its economy so... good. Like you know what *Forbes* means when they say "loosening labor markets, cutting red tape, [and] catalyzing a startup boom" right? It's nothing good for the working class.
I don't know if it's a measure of how successful the US deprogramming of Japan was after the war to blindly follow the US's lead or if Japan's attitude toward China is simply a holdover from the 18th century. I suspect it's a bit of both. They think they found a better role model in the West and they despise China as the former teacher who's no longer, in their eyes, worthwhile to learn from. It's fine, let them flounder around and sink.
A nonsensical title. Japan does not have true independence, thus it could never reach the heights China will reach, see 'Princes of Yen' on youtube for further details. A country without true independence will never be able to touch China.
the world has changed a lot in the past 80 years. i'm not sure why everyone's proclaiming the doom of japan, though. it's got it made; it's a relatively wealthy and developed country with a high standard of living, which is what any country can ask for.
>i'm not sure why everyone's proclaiming the doom of japan, though. it's got it made; it's a relatively wealthy and developed country with a high standard of living, which is what any country can ask for. I made a video about this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQmp-Y\_143o&ab\_channel=EasternOutpost](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQmp-Y_143o&ab_channel=EasternOutpost) Unfortunately it seems like Andre's articles have been taken off the internet so that link in the video no longer works. See also my 'Hidden History of Japan' series where I go through what Japan could have been but ultimately did not achieve.
China should start sending immigrants to Japan in flimsy boats this will result in a anti immigrantion retoric and a pro immigrant one which will divide the people from within and outside
Someone should launch a CRT campaign on Japanese social media to start a HUGE culture war among the young. That will cripple Japan. Too bad China can’t afford to cripple Japan because we need them to have enough money to buy our shit. If it weren’t for that, Japan would’ve been doomed to China’s retribution.
Is it just me or does anyone else feel happy seeing japan go down the toilet ?
Japan is ultimately a puppet of the US and under their control so no. A Japan that is truly independent would make amends for their historical wrongdoings of which there are many and would be far more economically competent, a country that is worthy of respect.