Feihu comments

So the presence of the American military is a "stabilizing" influence on the Far East? You mean like it is in the Middle East? Pleeeaze...

What Guam needs more than a medical marijuana program is a better VA medical facility. What is there now falls far short of the needs of veterans from the last two wars alone.

I'll bet not only China but all of the nations in the Far East are just jumping with joy at this news. After all, it's not everyday that you get such professional advice from the nation that has so successfully destabilized more regions on this planet than any other nation in history. Come on folks let's hear it for the United States of Destabilization!!

The idea that Okinawa would secede from Japan is not at all realistic. It may be the poorest province in Japan but not to that extent. Would Louisiana secede from the Union just because it is the poorest state in the Union? Don't be silly, they would be worse off than they are now and that is the situation in Okinawa. . It's not going to happen.

The Chinese are NOT going to invade Okinawa. The situation between Okinawa and China is totally different than the situation between China and Tibet. The comparison is ludicrous. First off China is not a nation that invades other nations with the frequency of the Western Powers. When China has invaded other countries it was often carried out by foreign powers who had conquered China, the Mongols carried out some horrific invasions that had nothing to do with the Chinese people. The same is true of the Manchus. They were not ethnic Chinese.

China has a much more effective way of taking over a country. It's called immigration or migration and if you look around Asia you'll see that it works far better than the bellicose methods used by the Western Powers. Singapore is the best example of the "Chinese method of conquest" but in all of Asia they Chinese have given more to the nations they have gone to than anyone else. The border wars along China's southern border are local incidents and hardly of the caliber of nation vs nation. Only in the eyes of the least informed do these incidents take on the international character which these less informed try to give them. In the North this mechanism of migration is working at this very moment. There are areas in Russia that are not very appealing to most Russians and they do not want to go there but there is a labor shortage in these areas. They can be exploited in many ways but they need more laborers. There is a void and the Chinese are filling that void and these areas often have more Chinese than Russians. On the other had, to a smaller number of Russian technocrats China is very appealing because it lacks the technical expertise that the Russians have . They (the Russians) are filling that void. One cannot seriously think that the Chinese are going to invade anyone. Where is the proof for such theories? China is doing too well to contemplate military action the way the Americans are. The islands in the South China Sea? That is a TBA at a later date but it is again, in the Chinese mind set, protecting China from foreign incursion. Not Asian intervention as much as America and the West attempting to repeat what was done to China in the 19Th and early 20Th century. As someone above remarked "This is no longer the 20th century but the 21st century" and things are, by necessity, going to be different. Or as Napoleon once remarked "When China moves the whol;e world will move." This, much to the dislike of some, is exactly what is happening. And we have not even mentioned the Chinese presence in Africa.

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.

I am the father of two Eurasian girls. I believe that in English the terms "Eurasian" and "Amerasian" are completely acceptable. In Japanese there is no term that is acceptable. "Ainoko" is derogatory, Konketsu is listed as a 'sensitive word' in the dictionary and Haafu is simply a ridiculous term. Half Japanese and half American is incorrect because while Japanese can be both an ethnic description and a nationality American is only a nationality. It will be centuries before American will be considered an ethnic group unless you are speaking only of First Nation or Native American. I have seen many North Americans from the US claim white or black as an ethnicity. Well they are just colors. It is pretty difficult to find a term in English to aptly describe a person of two or more ethnicities and we could chase or tails around forever. I think the two I mentioned at the beginning here are the most logical. That said I do not find the Hawaiian term "Hapa" as offensive as Haafu.. As people of mixed origin in the Islands use the word to refer to themselves and seem to use it with pride. I am told that though it sounds like a corruption of the word "half" it , in reality, refers to a person of many ethnic backgrounds which is quite common in Hawaii.

For a very valiant battle of a person like Ms. Miyamoto check out the Korean singer Insooni. You'll find it a little sad but at the same time very inspiring.pr that of James Senese..

@smithinjapan - the point is that ROK athletes exhibit this type of behavior far more than anyone else the boxing, the fencing, and now this maybe the other things were somewhat justified but bad luck has happened to many countries in these nd other games and they don't go off like these people do and they do it because everyone treats them differently when they do. They know they can get away with it. What other nation has exhibited such a lack of sportsmanship so many times over? There is no excuse ... what because they are Koreans? That does not fly. They are 50 million people just like the rest of us we all eat, sleep, bleed and defecate the same way. Why are people continually making excuses for these people? The the Argentine team hold up signs about the Falklands, did the Spanish about Gibraltar, did the Moroccans about the disputed islands in the Mediterranean? No. But the world is going to give a pass to the Koreans. That is what is utter nonsense. Instead of giving them medals lets give them something practical....very large crying towels. Maybe it's no big deal but it gets really tiring to hear the whining and complaining.

They don't idolize her. They Idolize her stature, her money, her big cars and nice houses, her freedom (through money) to do things they can't. This is Earth not Nirvana.

This has to do with the Olympic Committee and FIFA not a pile of rocks in who cares where" not Takeshima, not the Senkaku not La Isla de Perejil but with two world wide non-political organizations that have been embarrassed by Korea's poor behavior toward The Committee, FIFA and lastly Japan. If all of Korea supports this thug the Korea should be banned from the next Olympics & any participation in FIFA for the next five years. Then maybe they will learn how to behave in the international arena.

The man is either a damn fool or a political pawn. Either way his football career is over. Get FIFA riled and you are done for.

Between the two Koreas they must hate just about every other country on the planet. Oh and the Olympic Committee.

The wording by one poster that the Chinese INVADED the Korean Peninsula and attacked the UN is wilfully misleading and a clever attempt at promoting American revisionist history. The Korean conflict began June 25, 1950 with the invasion of the ROK by North Korean forces. On June 27 President Truman order US troops to support the ROK military. In July 1950 the UN forces entered the war. Still no sign of China. But on October 15 at the behest of the North Korean government Chinese forces crossed the Yalu and on the 25 of October Chinese forces engaged UN forces for the very first time. That was more than 4 months after the start of hostilities on the Korean peninsula. To paint China as the aggressor in the Korean conflict is as wrong as calling the UN forces aggressors. Both forces were called in by the North and South Korean Governments. The attempt to paint another picture than that is simply a gross untruth.

Also to say that China invaded India and Viet Nam in modern times is also misinformation. Those were border skirmishes quite different from something like Iraq where aggressive invasion of a sovereign nation thousands of miles from the aggressor's national territory is clearly evident. Viet Nam was similar. The Chinese military knew that such an invasion would slow down progress. These border skirmishes were simply posturing by both sides. Wrong, perhaps but nothing like a prolonged conflict. China will do the same with the Senkaku Islands but they will not attack and invade those islands because it would simply slow down progress in China.

Would China like to hold an international position of control? Of course so would the US like to regain the influence and power they have lost over the past three decades and the UK would like to be in the same position. Even Andorra would like to control the world. All governments lust after power both domestic and international. I think the Chinese government is well aware of the fact that that power cannot be obtained by beating someone over the head. I am not too sure that the American and Russian governments understand that. Both are by nature far more bellicose nations than China but China with the size of its military can afford to posture more in the region.

The greater fear is that of the US and the EU that this attempt at economic unity by Asia's "Big Three (China, Japan and Korea) will herald a successful version of the pre-war concept of what was termed "The The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (大東亜共栄圏)." This time around however it is doubtful that the same mistakes by any Asian members will not be repeated. All of East Asia is aware that military interventions would work against the accomplishment of the idea which is what happened in the 20th century. There will definitely be enormous efforts of co-operation between the Asian nations.

Any attempt by the West to derail this would first come from the most concerned parties which would be The US, Australia and New Zealand, later on Russia and the EU would enter the picture. But with three economic power-houses like China, Japan and Korea and considering the work ethic of Asia in general a derailment of the plan seems very unlikely.

What is happening in effect is the beginning of the creation of an Asian "common Market" and an Asian version of the Monroe Doctrine. All of this presents a problem for what has been the West's domination of Asian and world markets for the past 150 years. It is more likely that the West will use military intervention to protect is waining power than the East's attempt to assert their claims on world power. The only people who can derail the process would be the Asians themselves and that is very unlikely to happen. All in all it is beginning to look like Spengler was right. In any event it appears that the playing field is being leveled as never before in history and at a rate that is super-sonic.

****If history is any measure I do not believe that china will strike the first blow or even go to war over this island dispute. The Han Chinese are not an invading people and when they have tried it it has always been a miserable failure. In their 5000 year history actual Chinese invasions of foreign nations have been few. Two attempts in Viet Nam that resulted both in defeat but one was carried out by the Mongol conquerors of Han China. The other was in modern times and that was Tibet however the reasoning here was that the Tibetans DNA is closer to the Han Chinese than any comparisons between any two similar people on the planet.

Korea was a case like the US in Viet Nam. China was invited in by North Korea. The two attempts to invade Japan were also carried out by the Mongols not the Chinese. All of the border wars in classic times with Korea were also not carried out by the Han Chinese but rather by the nomadic tribes in that area know as the Wu Hu or the Five Barbaric tribes. These people were, Manchus, Jurchens etc are much closer to the Turkic people like the Mongols than they are to the Han Chinese.

China's greatest tactic for controlling other nations is through migration. It's easy to see that this tactic is far better than out-right war. The Chinese control the economics of South East Asia by using this tactic. Today the Han Chinese are moving into Russian border provinces because no Russians want to go there and one of these provinces (I forgot the name) now has a larger Han Chinese population than Russian or Central Asian.

There is much truth in the Chinese saying that "No one ever conquers China, China conquers her invaders. Meaning like the Mongols and the Manchus they become more and more like the Han Chinese. Of course there are no guarantees in history but there are tendencies. Today the Chinese are attempting to conquer Spain through migration and they are doing quite well, first taking over small corner candy stores and in the past few years most of the bakeries in the major cities making bread and typical Spanish pastries are Chinese owned.

Rather than look for Chinese soldiers in the street it's probably better to keep an eye on who owns your super-markets.

One more thing that history shows us is that in times of crisis people tend to make poor choices. Just look at the lst decade for poor choices.

A 19th century nationalism seems to be raising its head all over the world. The Japanese political world like all the others is staking its claim. However Japan is less of a threat to China than is the US who has already stated that they will be staking their claim in the Far East. The spirit of "Manifest Destiny" is still alive. One should not forget and learn from history that the US and the European Powers, who all wanted a piece of China, are responsible for turning China into "The Sick Man of Asia". And in doing so the West unwittingly opened the door for Japanese expansion in China and later in the rest of Asia.

What is it with the lack of diplomacy exhibited by American politicians in the last 12 years. First we had Bush doing off the wall things and talking trash, then it got worse with Rice insulting first the Spanish Ambassador then the Spanish president because they didn't want to send troops to a war that if anything would have hurt them more than it would help them or us. Rice showed the worst manners ever in an international diplomacy situation. She was not at all equipped to be Secretary of State. Better would have let her be Secretary of the Interior..way interior like Podunk Idaho or some other place so far off the beaten track that no one would even think of going there. Oh and the Boycott of French Fries, French's mustard and everything else made the US look like a bunch of elementary students on an excursion to nowhere.

This followed by Obama's arrogant attitude which he thought was standing up to foreign powers, even before initiating any kinds of talk. Then Biden just babbling utter cowcrapolla and finally Mrs. Clinton continually sticking her nostrils into the private affairs of other soveringe nations.

At home we had the guy from Minnesota who sought out young men in public lavatories, another government representative who took off his clothes on the Internet and the Governor of New York who was blatantly keeping a whole stable of hookers. Another flaming idiot who was keeping illegally obtained tax-payer dollars in his industrial sized freezer and the story is never ending.

I guess because Clinton got away with those Lewinsky shenanigan's the rest of these idiots think they are invisible and bullet proof into the bargain. It's getting to the time that US voters are going to seriously have to start looking in other places for their politicians and maybe reform the diplomatic disasters that both parties have become. It's too bad politics isn't a little more like professional sports where you buy, sell and trade players or find great material via free agency.

But if politics could be compared to Baseball the US federal government would make the Chicago Cubs look like perennial winners.

You always need somebody to hate and for the US NK fills the bill perfectly. NK on the other hand, is using another age old tactic. Keep your people looking outside of their own borders so they don't see the mess they are living in. It's all politics that do not benefit the people in any way. Machiavelli said it long ago "Politics is a necessary evil." and that is obviously still true today.

Frank Vaughn sez: "True love is where you find it, for a great many it is there in Japan, for me it was here."

After 45 years together I have to agree with Frank. Maybe I am just lucky but I'll take it. A lot of people said it was a match made in heaven but we both knew that it was a match made by working at it and enjoying that work.

I don't know about the stereotypes mention here with regard to Japanese women. I only married one so I honestly couldn't say. As far as a Japanese woman being married to a western man as a status symbol. I guess Japan has changed because 40 years ago it was more like a cross to bear for the Japanese woman living in Japan married to a foreigner.

Being materialistic beyond the pall? Not in my experience but handling money well, Yes. If you are not doing well with Japanese women after. as some here, so many tries well maybe that's just not for you. Or maybe you need kids.

After a guy is married for 10 years he thinks he's the boss. After 20 he knows his wife is the real boss. After 30 years you both realize that your kids have been watching and now they really run the show.

East Asia can solve its problems without help (or meddling) from Ms Clinton and the US State Department. The US Government, with regard to international diplomacy, is living in the past a little too much of the time. If one considers overt military action in the region then we should look first toward the US because they have employed this tactic more times than any other country over the past 20 years.

y3chome sez

"She may be right but..... why come over to stir things up?"

She does that crap where ever she goes. Between Ms. Clinton and Ms Rice the idea of diplomacy in the Dtate Dept went right in the tolet and stayed there.

Just out of fairness how about a list of "10 things Japanese women can't stand about foreign men." If you don't have any ideas check a couple of Korean dating web-sites. Those girls don't pull any punches.

Somehow this does not seem like a very good idea. Besides shouldn't he be apologizing for his gangs blowing up all that ancient Buddhist statuary on the border? Oh wait it's only the Japanese who should apologize for anything and everything. The rest of the world can just go around and blow stuff up and shoot women who want to go to school. I hope those girls are just being sarcastic or selling tablecloths. Anyway it just adds meaning to the phrase, "Moros en la costa!"

Some things do not really convince one about this situation. It's on record that the Japanese government made two attempts to pay reparations. One in 1965 and another in the 1990's. ROK got money from the Japanese but spent it on other things and gave none of it to these people who deserve it. The Japanese politicians were not smart to give the money two the Korean government in 65 because the level of corruption was plain to see. They (the Japanese government) should have demanded to give it directly to the victims. The Sixth Republic after 29 years is still trying to cleanse itself of a level of corruption that could only take place among Korean politicians used to almost a half century of corrupt governments. If the Japanese keep giving the Koreans are going to continue to ask.

The other thing is that today 18 Koreans were arrested in Australia for allegedly luring Korean women into prostitution in Australia after the latter entered the country on working holiday visas. That according to the Korean press. Something smells kinda funny about this whole comfort women thing. The Korean government better give these women some of that money they got from Japan ...time is running out. The Japanese may be denying their involvement in this but so are the Koreans. This same thing is a problem between Japan and Korea with the gangsters on both side dealing in the human skin trade. And many of the Japanese gangsters are zainich Koreans. I hate to sound anti-Korean but isn't about time for the Korean government to man up and admit to their own crimes instead of continually playing the victim.

That the lyrics must be in English for a group to succeed in the US isn't true at all except maybe in some rural backwater, Look how "The Fania All-stars" or "La Buena Vista Social Club" or musica nortena have sold out some of the biggest venues in the country. "The Gypsy Kings" could survive on only their North American fans if they had to.

K-Pop is a music for younger people and when you put that many pretty girls or handsome boys who on top of that have all the right moves you're going to get big audiences. Not only that, like the article says, most of these kids can and do handle lyrics in several different languages. I have heard these kids sing in Japanese, Spanish and English. YNT has a weekly jazz program and those people are amazing when the singers swing and sing the lyrics of American standards in flawless English and at the same time using the inflections of singers like Ella Fitzgerald or Anita O'Day. Funny how having an all consuming passion for something is often the biggest aid to learning another language like that kid from Philadelphia who sings Enka on Japanese TV.

I don't think the statement above is racists but it is certainly uninformed.

K-Pop is getting popular all over the world along with Korean TV. Many people who are not Korean speaking are subscribing to Korean cable in the US because of this phenomena. They recently had a K=Pop audition and talent show in Los Angeles and it drew more non-Koreans than Korean kids themselves. Lots of people from China and Japan now want to get into the Korean entertainment market both in film and music. There are some American Hip-Hoppers also coming out on SBS, KBC and MBC. I don't think the locals have to worry too much about foreign talent they have plenty of their own. When you can export talent like Hiromi or Aki Takase in areas like jazz, pop is no problem. The Koreans are also getting into jazz along with K-Pop and it has a special feeling to it. The East Asians are finding a very personal and popular voice in modern music. That's great!

I am sure that many Japanese students are getting scholarships but those would be stories "without legs" and wouldn't even make it to the back pages of a publication like this one let alone the major media.

What Asian nations would attack China? Certainly not the Japanese. They tried it once and it was a disaster. The only other nation who could possibly attack China is India but they have good relations and an attack by India on China would leave the door open for Pakistan to take Kashmir which is a highly contested area.

They Americans are not in Asia to protect China. They are there to benefit themselves. Just as the foreign powers were in China 100 years ago . They decimated an already failing nation because the Qing Dynasty was corrupt and allowed foreigners to run wild in China. At that time China was called "the sick man of Asia." That is not the case today. China is strong enough to defend itself if need be. She does not need the US to help her because they won't. The whole idea is ludacris.

If China placed a fleet close to the US the Americans would soon cry foul. The US is in a power decline and cannot afford to become second fiddle in Asia. If there is any military action in that part of the world it will be because the Americans want it. In the first 12 years of this century the US has already invaded TWO sovereign nations and seems to be thinking of invading a third (IRAN). America is becoming a loose cannon in the third world.

China, on the other hand, is not a nation that invades its neighbors at will. China has only invaded other nations three times. Twice in Vietnam during the Mongol dynasty and in modern times Tibet. Everyone is aware that for many centuries the Chinese conquer by immigration and not by war. Today the economies of several Asian countries are controlled by overseas Chinese. The Chinese are not good at invasive wars but they are excellent businessmen.

A little but in this case I lived in Spain for 14 years. I also worked at a bar named Rio Tinto. I always found the name interesting. Tinto means red but only for wine. Its root is tinta which is "ink". Kind of interesting.

All the empires in human history have risen and fallen. There is no reason to believe that the "American Empire" will be any different. In every case the collapse of an Empire isn't attributed to any one single cause but to many causes. Americans believe their empire will not fall but then so did the Romans, The Spanish, the English, The Manchus and on and on. They all fell so will the present one. The laws of nature....what goes up must sooner or later come down.

Many Americans (as shown in the above comments) think that the Constitution will save the empire. Not to argue the merits of that document or any other historically important document but the people must be aware of the document for it to have power. A few years ago a bunch of high school students in Washington D.C. wrote up the Preamble of the Constitution in the form of a petition. They then went house to house asking the average citizen to sign the petition...almost no one would sign it. Many slammed the door in the kids' faces telling them that they would never sign such a subversive document, it must be some "commie" propaganda. No I doubt that any document will save the empire. When it's time to go it will go and, in all probability another will rise to take its place.