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[East Asia] - Shinzo Abe shot, killed
Cantido
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EDIT - OP needs update, more to follow
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I got a little excited when I saw your ship.
I fear this just killed the possibility of an Okinawa Withdrawal negotiation. Oh well, something was going to.
I'd add that the notion that Japan's low birthrate being attributed to sexism is pretty off the wall, when it would have as much (and in fact more) to do with strong rise in personal freedom of the current young adult generation, the wide availability of contraceptives, and insufficient maternity support for working women, and a very sharp decline in birth rates in the whole region. Which is not to say sexism isn't a problem, it is anywhere there's income disparity, chauvinism in civil society and government, and more.
Hell, Taiwan's birthrate is lower than Japan, and we actually have an American style poor immigrant underclass that gets married and occasional has kids. We probably also have worse access to contraceptives, being poorer. I guess we're ultra-sexist then?
EDIT: Then again, sexism would conveniently explain the low South Korean birthrate. If you think Japan is sexist, you should see the country the retired class is nostalgic for having "wholesome values."
In other news the aggression and push of China continues toward the Diayou/Senkaku. The Chinese in Xinhua released their "official air defense zone." This is very much a big finger to Japan and the US. With a bit towards Taiwan though the avoided Korea it seems. This is part of their continual aggression in claiming territory especially territory with energy resources. This a dangerous thing to do especially with the nationalist education in China that has lead to a much more aggressive young population that is coming into power in the next few decades.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013-11/24/c_132912897.htm
To elaborate a minor detail: the Taiwanese claim on Diaoyu/Senakaku is useless. There's no real political will to press the issue because it exists almost identical to the Chinese claim: Toucheng Township in northern Taiwan. China claims it through the same means, as far as I know. Knowing this wasn't a fight Taiwan could hope to win without inadvertently forcing the Chinese sovereignty issue, Taipei offered to arbitrate in the past between China and Japan. There wasn't much success, especially since the Japanese central government purchased the land from the private Japanese owner, an effective nationalizing of the disputed area.
You bring up a good point. Last week (or two weeks ago) The Economist did a South Korea issue and Korea's birth rate is plummeting for the same reasons.
Not aware of that. I kind of stopped following Taiwanese fishing industry news after that fishing boat was shot-up by the Filipino Coast Guard.
Japan isn't any different from any other country. If <times are tough>, then <insert country is not being insert country enough>.
It's something we share!
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2013/11/24/64/0301000000AEN20131124002800315F.html
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Just came here to post that.
The interesting part is what it overlaps is around Jeju another island with a history of Japanese Korean arguments.
But to me the bigger part is that China is playing the bully. Which again the Korean reaction is interesting because at the moment they are more heavily in the f Japan over anything else camp. Though again I think that might calm down if Park is able to prevent economic troubles and try to work on their own internal stuff like the birthrate.
Really though I feel less worried about Korea than the current dick waving contest of Japan and China.
http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20131125000660
Mazzy, I think you may be confusing Jeju with Dokdo/Takeshima. There are basically no disputes of sovereignty as regards to Jeju. Dokdo/Takeshima on the other hand is an extremely hot topic, especially among Koreans. It even led to a Korean national soccer player getting suspended by FIFA for holding up a sign after the bronze medal match of last year's Olympics. Bringing up the topic of Dokdo is pretty much a surefire way to rile up any Korean to start ranting about Japan.
The rapidly ageing society in Korea is definitely a big issue, but they are actually making some inroads. The birthrate in South Korea has actually increased annually for the past 3 years, and it's now higher than Japan and Taiwan. They still have a LONG way to go and I personally know of many people here putting off marriage and having kids because of the financial burdens.
Cantido, if you do get the chance, Jeju-do is a great place to visit. It's also one of the few places in Korea where you can actually get a decently brewed beer, at Boris Brewery.
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I realized that just after I posted but I was too lazy to go change it.
The demographic pyramid is part of the cliff, the other half is basically the stagnation of growth that happens to many of the rapid rise economies. People forget Japan in the 1960's through almost all the 1980's looked more like China than it does say well what it looks like now. I need to dig up the old article for Korea being Japan 2.0 from the Economist back in June.
I blame economists and their flare for the dramatic. The bubble bursting had a lot more to do with the Japanese economy, and with it the public, adjusting to the transforming world market with the rise of the the B-R-I-C, particularly China and India, economic powerhouse.
The reason it is bullying is this area is both marked as Japanese territory(includes Senkaku/Diaoyu) and tends to go out past the standard most countries patrol reaching into the pockets of their neighbors territory. It is another play to gain the islands and enforce their power in the region. China being aggressive is what is causing the issue at the moment. And they are trying to force all the issues by either bilateral negotiations(SE Asia) where they have a major upper hand or through just screaming about it and playing chicken with the Japanese Navy. The air ID zone is just another part of that.
The SE Asia stuff is even worse because China has signed UNCLOS and so have the countries they are in dispute with and the Chinese don't want to take it to the international court they agreed to who is suppose to work through these issues.
I mean this is beyond a lot of the nasty rhetoric coming out of China about the Japanese which is being used a legitimacy builder for the new leaders.
source: a bro
Kind of.
China in the 1990's didn't have the ability to challenge the US but did an excellent job in building relationships with a lot of SE Asia and Central Asia mostly at the detriment of Japan. They played nice with the US because the US was the one who at the time had the credibility and power to say stop it.
We are now at the point where China is the #2 economy(even if the numbers are super rigged) and have the military and regional might to go around the US even if the US tries to apply power. Or they would if they weren't really really bad at it. As the awesome quote from a bro points out they have made a lot of misteps which have pushed a lot of the countries they were courting back in the US's court. Especially the Philippines, Indonesia and even Vietnam. And right now they are actually pushing the ASEAN countries towards Japan after years of courting them away with their aggressive claims for islands and refusal to try and negotiate these disputes multilateral through systems like UNCLOS court which they signed.
Also the US really pulled back under Bush even if Clinton set us up there pretty well.
It seems like it's finally understood that the "Taiwan issue" was a the combination of a hilarious hoax, opportunism, and unfortunately pervasive DPP corruption. Now that the United States understands it was not going to be an actual conflict, they've turned their attention to China's meaningful intentions to challenge US hegemony in East Asia. One side of Central Asian stability is based on cooperation between the CSTO working with Chinese interests, and keeping Pakistan the hell out of anything of any importance. That least Southeast Asia as a logical point.
EDIT: Put differently, since China has already won the "Taiwan issue"--so long as they don't mind waiting a generation or two, which they have exceptional clear through investment and concessions that they will--the leadership feels it can turn its attention to a broader challenge of US power.
While on paper, Japan has great support for women, Japan has serious issues with sexism in the workplace. It's expected that you leave the workplace when you get married, and should you continue to work, marriage is basically an additional job where your partner doesn't put in anything. To quote the Economist on the issue,
And that's before you factor in that there is a strong societal influence to force mothers to leave the workplace until their kids are grown. It's not really any surprise that women don't want to get married and have kids when it basically means the end of any sort of economic opportunity that they have available to them. And there are not many economic opportunities for them to begin with. In terms of developed countries, Japan is basically one of the worst places to have any sort of economic opportunity if you are a woman.
So you have an army of college educated women, for whom they can get married, and then leave the workplace permanently, or have careers. And less marriages means less children. If Japan wants to improve their birthrate and their economy, they need to do more than just provide contraceptives. They need to address the fundamental issues of sexism in their society and make it feasible to have families and continue careers.
And that's before we even go into the issues of how you even pay for a kid when the expenses of the modern world basically requires two incomes.
Also, Japan actually does a phenomenal job with contraceptive and birth control access--probably the best in East Asia, as a consequence of having the smoothest-operating healthcare system. That's almost certainly lowering the overall birthrate at the behest of young women and men. You may have misunderstood me, @Cinders.
EDIT: Included for relevance: by the criteria you've listed, South Korea is actually substantially worse for working women (which is, frankly, a very low bar to leap over and doesn't help any of Japan's problems). When weighing the male-female income disparity, the number of married working women, and maternity support, the Economist scored South Korea somewhat under half that of Japan, second lowest on their list. They're followed by Switzerland (which I think most people here would find surprising) and the Czech Republic (which some would argue doesn't fit fully into the 'full industrialized nation' criteria).
It's a handy reference, though I don't think it's a great indicator of birth rates. Not sure if PNGs show up on this forum properly, so bear with me.
EDIT EDIT: Also, to hell with The Economist for putting Slovakia on the list, but not Taiwan. I would like to hope we're not unincluded because we came after South Korea...
I'm talking about Hillary Clinton. Hence last 5 years.
South Korea needs to use its older workers better
Going to abuse the Economist here because they have done some good writing on this and they are who I stole the Japan 2.0 title from though I can't find the article. I think being an old person I read it in the print edition like a year or 2 ago.
Korea much like Japan, much of Europe, the US to a lesser extent and China here soon has a population pyramid that looks less like a pyramid and more like an umbrella. Now this has a few reasons, one mostly from a baby boom after the Korean War and the other a concerted effort by the government to reduce fertility due to said baby boom. Those are kind of the historical reasons. Some of the modern reasons Cinders talked about above for Japan. The pressure of family verse job and the cost of children in a developed country reduce birthrates a lot as well.
But let us look at this wasted work potential in their baby boomers. A large segment as noted are being forced out at the early 50's. Which of course sounds great! Young more agile minded people come in the older folks have pensions and are taken care of and the companies save some bucks. Sadly this isn't how it works. Sure these people are replaced but it doesn't produce any sort of pressure on the economy to grow. In the US we have seen a lot of the opposite. People working later in life, an increase of women in the work force and the pressure on the economy this produces. This is part of the reason outside of the recession the US has been growing even though we have been a developed economy for a long time. Another thing cited here is the lack of immigration which is true for Japan, China and Korea. The US tends to bring in more workers than most countries that keeps our workforce expanding most of the time which is a huge pressure. So how was Korea growing so well and why are they at a cliff? Well the next article discusses that pretty well.
Korea at a glance
So Korea has grown but they are now reaching that peak as a developed country. That point where you have finished catching up and now you must grow in something new and different than rebuilding roads or developing shipyards. How Korea reached this point is similar to Japan and similar in some ways to China, Singapore and Taiwan. Government favoritism, large corporations and lots of catching up and rising education. But Korea has now reached one of the most educated populous, a shrinking population, large corporation that have stifled entrepreneurship and even innovation in some areas and rising poverty among their fastest growing demographic the elderly. This are all major problems that they need to address if they wish to continue their growth at a steady pace or if they do not then there is a chance they will reach that peak that Japan did in the 1990's and start stagnating. This is a difficult puzzle and they have some chances including increasing the workforce with women, possibly reducing power of the chaebol and possibly even bring immigrants to change how they do business.
Korea is very much sitting on that point where they could either repeat the mistakes of Japan or maybe avoid the stagnation Japan has had over almost two decades now. But it is hard to remove entrenched powers and cultural norms that are slowing them down.
Okay this got long. Probably can go over more though. Korea ain't my normal area unless it is dealing with Japan or China but I find that it is mirroring a pattern that seems to be common in East Asia.
I took it as you were talking the shift was just in the last 5 years. I thought you were talking about a shift in the 1990's which is when we figured there probably wouldn't be a war over Taiwan and we did have a major shift to try to include more of Asia. I misinterpreted your first sentence.
Additionally, the 2008 Recession has been pretty kind to Taiwan. I particularly thought the Great Capitalist Facefault was going to drag Taiwan down with it as it did the United Kingdom and the EU, but by and large Taiwan has fared the last few years surprising well. Wages haven't declined and the greater availability of credit has meant that people don't need to work as long as their parents did at the same age among other things.
The overwhelming message is that this generation has had a far easier time finding jobs as young people finishing education than their parents, who faced steep competition for relatively few jobs.
Can you give examples of Abe's denial of Japan's atrocities during WWII? Comparing him to a holocaust denier is a pretty strong statement.
Again, can you please give examples of Abe's sexism and/or revisionism?
China's problem in NZ is as it always has been. People are worried by a non Anglo economic super or great power and China is closer than the USSR / Germany ever were.
A lot of politicians (and their nationalistic supporters) see it as their duty to support "my country, right or wrong", whereas their international neighbors get a bit upset that the politicians' worship ostensibly extends to commemorating commanders who oversaw some of the worst campaigns of rape, pillage, and slaughter. Basically the majority of the Prime Ministers (I think one of the exceptions was the one between Koizumi and Abe whose name I can't remember) feel that it is politically desirable to visit the shrine, and try not to comment while hoping none of the junior members say anything stupid.
Within Japanese, the country is roughly split 50/50 whether the shrine visits should continue - although it appears that the 50% who support shrine visits tend to vote more often than the 50% who oppose shrine visits, so until that changes the politicians will probably continue the practice.
It's not so much as "Holocaust Denial" - as far as I'm aware everyone admits that the dudes committed war crimes - but "It's just like Arlington" is a little underselling it (although it should be noted that convicted war criminals in other countries don't exactly get an unmarked grave either).
This has understandably pissed off the surviving comfort women and their families. It isn’t quite as straightforward as a cultural misunderstanding, one side is saying things happened the other side is saying they didn’t. And if anything I’ve read about how the Japanese teach history in school is even half true I can believe people are happy with their politicians denying the truth.
Although he's never outright stated revisionist statements, he threatened on numerous occasions to retract or revise previous apologies but then always backtracked after facing political pressure. He's done it numerous times in the past two year and also in 2006-2007 during his first term as Prime Minister. Abe has also commented several times that he would consider retracting the Kono statements, which were statements made in 1993 by Kono Yohei, an upper Cabinet Secretary apologizing to the victims of sex slavery from WW2 (although the apology was never officially adopted by the parliament).
http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=2958594
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/04/26/national/buoyant-abes-true-colors-emerging/#.UpXaecTgv3J
As for the issue of Yasukuni Shrine, earlier this year in an interview with Foreign Affairs earlier this year, he compared Yasukuni Shrine with Arlington National Cemetery.
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/discussions/interviews/japan-is-back
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Japanese soldiers would not rape when invading and occupying other countries now? What changed?
The US won the war so any rapes and murders committed by their troops don't count.