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© 2015 AFPBoehner invites Abe to address U.S. Congress on April 29
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some14some
Abenomics? God Bless America !
toshiko
@some1: We often criticize Abeno,ics. Nut do you know what really is Abenomics or you are just parrot talking? Boehner saying for American economic growth. Nothing to do with Abenomics in Japan.
bass4funk
No, we have 3 branches of government, all equal to each other and the House speaker has the right to invite any leader to speak out on the floor of congress, they don't have to mention or ask the president for approval. Nancy Pelosi went to talk to Assad when Bush was president and the congress was controlled by the Dems and against the WH wishes.
jerseyboy
No -- TPP.
Schopenhauer
It is a good move. LDP and Rebublicans have a good chemistry. We are tired of Obama and the Democratic Party.
OssanAmerica
Koreans never fought Japan. Korea wasn't even annexed in 1910 with a battle. They were part of the Imperial Japanese forces. So while two former enemies who fought tooth and nail killing hundreds of thousands in the process are able to put the past behind them, the Koreans somehow think that they are the victims. Amazing to see a whole country in denial of reality.
nath
I see this as nothing more than Boehner inviting a much more acceptable prime minister than Netanyahu in an attempt to cover himself. Now that the story broke that Netanyahu was funneling information from the White House to Congress, Boehner looks pretty stupid and needs to backpedal. Inviting Abe, although a good move with historic significance, is just a little too convenient to be seen as genuine by many people.
Sensato
@Schopenhauer
I fully agree about the "good chemistry" between the LDP and the GOP — and the fact that the LDP gravitates toward the Tea Party Republicans speaks volumes about the parallels between both camps in terms of their oppressive agendas.
Boehner is a scoundrel, and obviously prospects for finalizing the TPP is thing that enthuses him about Abe's visit. I'm still on the fence regarding the TPP, but there are certainly lots of red flags being raised regarding those of us who are not part of the 1%.
onagagamo
This should be a laugh! "I went to watching the cherry blossom in Washington and after that I went to shopping with my friends...."
toshiko
Last week, Seoul urged Abe to use the opportunity to express his “sincere repentance” for wartime atrocities, while China’s foreign ministry merely noted the reports of the invitation.
Korea can urge but Japan is not Korean territory. Useless urging.
Boehner is well liked in Western USA. He is apolitical. Dem and Gop do not hate each other in West. I don;t know about other area but ait seems Boehner is well respected in Congress.
fxgai
Abe knows how to talk about that stuff, but he might needs some tips from the Americans about how to actually get stuff done.
Sensato,
I don't see the comparison.
The LDP are essentially tax-and-spend, big government keynesians. The closest thing I see to Tea Party republicans in Japanese politics is the Ishin party, from the perspective of their desire for smaller government.
Maybe you aren't drawing comparisons from an economic policy perspective, I guess?
Princess Sheila
Yayyyy economic boost
GW
Well lets see if he sets off any fireworks while on holiday in the US!
MGigante
@cracaphat, There is a fundamental difference between Abe's and Netanyahu's invitation. For one thing, the White House is well aware of the trip -- indeed, Obama will be meeting with Abe on his trip.
There is no trouble caused by his trip.
Yogi Zuna
The current approval rating of Congress is only approximately 16%, just to give you some idea of how much they are respected in my country. In other words, the American people are totally disgusted with Congress, whether it is under control of the republicans or the democrats. So this address will not do much for Prime Minister Abe's reputation with most Americans.
Christopher Glen
I have on question: Why Abe of all people? Any Prime Minister in the last 50 years, except for Kishi and Aso, would've been a better choice
jerseyboy
bass -- as usual you are looking for a way to stir up controversy where there is none. Abe was coming to Washington at the invitation of President Obama -- or did you miss the part in the article about the summit and the state dinner? So the invitation to speak to Congress was likely planned months in advance between the White House, State Department and Congress. It is not similar to the Netanyahu fiasco in any way.
Yogi -- spot on. At best this will be a two-minute story on the network news, unless Abe says something stupid, or Abe and Obama announce something big on TPP. Otherwise this is non-news.
bass4funk
Not at all, but I'm not going to listen to one-sided liberal bloviating.
What I am saying was (if you missed it) it doesn't matter who congress invites or who the president invites, the branches can do whatever they want and if one side doesn't like it, they just have to deal with it.
smithinjapan
Ossan: "...the Koreans somehow think that they are the victims. Amazing to see a whole country in denial of reality."
Substitute 'The Koreans' for "the Japanese" and you would be 100% correct. There's only one difference between the two arguments, the Koreans being victim is FACT. Japan being the victim is a fiction you like to tell to help yourself get to sleep at night.
tinawatanabe
How come the Koreans are victim? You show some evidence. smithinjapan. Comfort women were recruited by Korean and well paid by JIA. All documented in US National Archives also.
nath
Maybe it has to do with that little incident where you took over their country for 35 years.
Christopher Glen
Nope. All the sex slaves from the Philippines, Indonesia etc were NOT recruited by Korea. Documented? Please. Back on topic, I disagree with this move by congress to invite Abe to give an address. He simply isn't worthy
tinawatanabe
It was done by annex agreement. During the 35 years Japan concentrated in building infrastructure in Korea more than they did in Japan during the time and improved the quality of Korean people lives. Before that, Koreans were just all peasants controled by China.
If you didn't like it, you should have complained 100 years ago. What's the point of complaining now at present Japanese? Japan's mistake was Japan paid handsomely and apologized to Korean when they demanded.
TDD34
Perhaps Boehner feels Abe is someone who can be a "tool" in some way or another. I personally like Mr. Abe and I think his leadership makes a positive impact on Japan and the rest of the world. I am not too pleased with Boehner ... Not with his difference in opinion but how he chooses to voice it! Most of his aims seem to be targeted at the current administration.... And if America were tired of Obama, he wouldn't have won re-election.
Bgood41
It is a good thing that Boehner is neither Korean nor Korean American.
Yubaru
With all this urging going on I wonder what the outcome is going to be.
Christopher Glen
Well I doubt the following has much to do with them. Japan did improve Korea`s infrastructure - for the sole purpose of benefitting Japan.
Ultimately what South Korea wants most of all is an unequivocal acknowledgement by Japan in its history books of what it did. The sex slaves, the forced labourers - the works. If Mr Abe acknowledges Japan's wrongdoing in his congress speech, even better
JoeBigs
Boehner invites Abe to address U.S. Congress on April 29
And the Freedom hating Left screams!LOL
cracaphatMar. 27, 2015 - 07:36AM JST What's with the Republican leadership inviting Prime Ministers over to cause trouble? Must be to galvanize the right wingers/tea partiers to go further to the extreme.
The Majority Leader of the House doesn't have to ask the President for permission to do anything. The President is just that, the President he isn't a dictator.
Maybe because he is the Prime Minister of one of America's closes allies.
Maybe you don't know this, but John Boehner has only been the speaker since 2011. That means he has been speaker for a little over 4 years.
In my continuing effort to help the Leftists see reason I will help you out once more Christopher!
http://history.house.gov/Institution/Foreign-Leaders/Joint-Sessions/
CH3CHO
April 29.
Did he choose the day on purpose, or just coincidence? April 29 is a national holidy in Japan.
Christopher Glen
Yes, true. That is not without question, but rather the character of Mr Abe. Someone who has almost single-handedly aggravated relations with east Asia. One would think Naoto Kan - likely responsible for stopping TEPCO from abandoning ship up at Fukushima in 2011 - would've been a better choice.
Again, we go back to "character". I don't care how long someone has been in their respective position - but I am dismayed by the latitude Abe has been given to address the parliament of Australia last year and now the congress of the US. So, my previous question still remains unanswered. Why Mr Abe? Moreover, why now?
CH3CHO
Christopher GlenMar. 27, 2015 - 02:33PM JST
I know, I know. You are from Korea and when you look at Korean newspapers, they are all arguing that letting Abe speak at Joint Session would bring Japan at the same rank with Korea, whose President Pak gave a speech at the Joint Session on May 8, 2013, and therefore Koreans should prevent that happens.
The world does not rotate around Korea.
jerseyboy
bass -- LOL. Never ceases to amaze me that folks like you continue to refer to anyone who disagrees with you as a "liberal", and use the term like a curse-word. And, even funnier, is that you think the folks you aim your ignorence at are offended by it.
bass4funk
To be honest with you, I'm not trying to offend any liberal and how they feel is totally irrelevant, I'm just point pint out the hypocrisy, libs do it all day, all the time, but when the opposite is done to them, then you called every slimy name in the book and whatever you say should be discredit and shunned. You guys like to dish it out, but when it hits you back, you guys cry foul. That is just something I will never understand about the liberal mindset.
JoeBigs
To the Leftist throughout the world all the problems the world faces today are because people to the right of their insanity will not bow before their insanity.........
The leftist's believe that their insane leftists beliefs are sane and the victims of their insanity aren't victims, those people are evil and those who don't agree with them are the problem!.....
Socialist don't live in the real world, they live in a fantasy made up of fairies and goblins!
To say it as simple as I can, the insane live in an insane world while the rest of us don't......They live in the same insane world as the ISIS Religious fanatics do!
Sad!!!
shallots
If this is true, I have a hard time understanding it. Isn't Abe, like his predecessors, a huge tax and spender? ...As well as currency manipulator? Isn't that everything libertarians stand against? Of course, some "conservatives" out there might like Abe's ethnic nationalism and the LDP's classic conservatism, i.e. belief that elite men should run things. I think Hashimoto is more of a Tea Partier. But it won't wash on a wide scale in Japan as there is comparably little distrust for government here.
nigelboy
Yep. Why do these Korean residents in U.S. bring their excess baggage to their new home?
jerseyboy
Wow, your anger really does run deep. But, honestly, you'd probably be more effective if you could express your points in intelligible English -- "then you called every slimy name", and "whatever you say should be discredit" -- as just two examples. Otherwise it is obvious you are just repeating sound bites from the talking heads you worship.
theFu
Guess I'm the only person who sees this as a way for Japan and the USA to celebrate our common successes and our few differences?
I honestly don't care about the internal politics everyone else is sighting.
No relationship is perfect. The best way to improve relations between any peoples is to travel and exchange ideas. I don't need/want any more apologies for something done by our fathers and grandfathers. It was a war caused by the leaders from many different countries. The people can learn to get along so our stupid leaders can be reigned back before doing anything so foolish again with any other countries.
Japan isn't perfect and neither is the USA. We can both learn from each other.
bass4funk
No, I'm just more or less astonished at liberal hypocrisy.
Really? Was that a comeback?
Well, you are right about one thing, I am obsessed with worshiping the truth.
Christopher Glen
Someone needs to cut back on the Red Bull
The world does not rotate around Mr Abe.
Why is this relevant to the topic?
Abe should be forced to repair ties with China and South Korea before being allowed to address congress
nigelboy
Because they are protesting.
Now that's irrelevant.
tinawatanabe
You're overestimating Mr Abe or Japan.
You're overestimating the congress address. Korean newspapers are all over it. Japanese are not.
OssanAmerica
The United States supports PM Abe for many reasons, one of them being the desire to have Japan's military participate in supporting our allies in South east Asia in the face of China's expansionism. South Korea could never be counted on to ever play such a role, not just in capability but because they are subservient to China. And yet they expect the US to protect them from North Korea which is supported by China. Psychosis on a national level,
Christopher Glen
Nope. Mr Abe has made a point of offending east Asia - and almost single-handedly risks upsetting the peace of the region. He is a destabilising influence, a white-washer, and a revisionist. I am most curious why such a person is being invited to address congress
Feihu
Abe, (and his generation) have nothing to apologize for. They were all born 10 years after the war. The winners get to write the history and the losers have to go stand in the corner. And the largest destabilizing influence in East Asia is the presence of American forces especially on the China sea. If the Americans want to play policeman maybe they should go to Ferguson MO. where they need some honest law enforcement. They American politicians and their media are running hate campaigns against China, Russia, Iran and a dozen other countries. Americans now hate just about everybody else on the planet with the exception of Mother England
Asking Abe to apologize for the sins of another generation who are almost all dead is like telling every white person to go out in the street and apologize to the first black man he meets fro 350 years of slavery, mayhem and genocide and on and on. No one expects you to apologize and you wouldn't anyway. East Asia does not need anymore Western intervention. There was already enough in the past two centuries to satisfy the worst imperialist leaders in history.. You haven't asked the Koreans who wore Japanese uniforms and were in charge of the POW camps for the Japanese, to apologize for their torture and murder of American and allied airmen and soldiers. The Japanese military put the Koreans in Charge of the camps because they, the Japanese military didn't believe the Koreans would be of any use in the front lines. Vietnam taught us that the Koreans can be as brutal as anyone and in come cases more so..
East Asia can handle it's own problems, they have survived for 5000 years without the help of America and the Western powers. If the American politicians and the media think they can goad China into an armed conflict they've got another guess coming. The US has invaded more countries in the past 100 years than the Chinese have in the last 1000 years. Time to get off your high horse and join the rest of the planet.. You smell as bad as any of the rest of us.
nigelboy
It's irrelevant. If 'upsetting' Korea and China results in the instability of the region, it saids more about their immature attitude.
Christopher Glen
If the following links are anything to go by, they're perfectly justified. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/shinzo-abes-inability-to-face-history/2013/04/26/90f5549c-ae87-11e2-a986-eec837b1888b_story.html http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/Article.aspx?aid=3000892 http://www.japanfocus.org/-Alexis-Dudden/2368 http://www.japan-press.co.jp/modules/news/index.php?id=4912
nigelboy
They're not. The world doesn't revolve around these two whiners and when push comes to shove, Korea, specifically, is simply insignificant. You can be 'curious' as long as you like but that's simply the reality
Christopher Glen
While Japan's government continues to display an unrepentant attitude to its actions in WW2 - no it isn't.
nigelboy
How Korea continually plays this forever victimhood is irrelevant. Do continue to be 'curious'.
Christopher Glen
While Japan continues to whitewash it's history (via Mr Abe) then they are perfectly justified. I disagree with Abe getting to address congress
kotoba no tachi
The Japanese military leadership of the 30's and 40's were an aberration in the timeline of Japanese history. It was they who should have apologised to the Japanese people for dragging the whole country into an unwinnable war. However, after WW2, about 1,000 of the military were tried for war crimes, found guilty, and either executed or ended up in jail, where they died. With them went the responsibility. The trolls amongst you should stop harping on about the second world war. Get over it. As for China, the period of communist rule has been responsible for more deaths than they ascribe to the Japanese military. The Chinese government now simply cannot be trusted. They, as hard-line communists, are as duplicitous as Stalin ever was. The Koreans should clean up the mess in their own back yard - Kim Jong-un - before complaining about the Japanese of 70 or more years ago.
nigelboy
Nope. It's simply a matter of not blindly accepting the distorted version of the opposition's view especially in regards to the comfort women issue. Korea is so messed up that they ordered the 'revision' of works published by Prof. Pak Yunha because it doesn't fit their distorted narrative. How sad. So yeah. Keep on being 'curious'.