Muratafan comments

Addfwyn,

Clearly, clearly, you are not someone who has played ice hockey. China doesn't even have a youth sports league in hockey...yet 'look at what they've done in pair skating'. They are two totally different sports. One is a team sport that requires a full 25 man roster, the other is a sport that requires two people who can train 7 days a week and not have to worry too much about injuries (meaning that depth is not usually a concern). China typically does horribly at men's team sports (see: basketball, soccer or 'football') in an international setting. China has been doing the basketball thing for quite some time (see: Yao Ming and the Chinese Basketball Association has been around for 27 years) and they cannot even beat Greece (or Canada) in Olympic qualifiers.

Your admiration for all things Chinese is quite honorable....and consistent.

Let's see here: China originates Covid, pressures the WHO into false disclosures, allows its (potentially infected) citizens to travel outside of the country (while barring domestic travel), provides a crappy vaccine solely for the photo opportunities, and then takes a swipe at the U.S. and 'the West'.

Oh and by the way, protectionism? My goodness, China's protectionism is off the charts.

So many contradictions from the CCP. Remember when the CCP gloriously gloated over the building of that hospital in such a short time? Well, the CCP forgot to realize that a non-Chinese audience would ask a follow up question: if COVID is so well contained in China, then WHY did China need to build an entire new hospital in such a short time? Obviously, the CCP never had to answer that obvious question.

Fast forward to today: if 83% of their population is vaccinated against COVID with the amazing SINOVAC and that the CCP clearly has COVID under control, why the need for such draconian measures now?

Say what you will about America, but at least there's a saying 'where there is smoke, there is fire'. Apparently, the CCP just believes the mantra 'if we say it, YOU must believe it.' That doesn't work so well in free and democratic countries.

Is Japan Inc. ever NOT cautious?

Germany cannot live without its exports to China...its second biggest partner after America.

Merkel was a bit of a right winger, but she too had to tip-toe the U.S.-China dispute.

Not surprising that Boris Johnson (the poster child of Brexit) agreed with the Americans, whereas Germany and other EU leaders have vacillated.

I know I am going to sound like a 'Yank', but the EU ought to man up and walk the walk and talk the talk.

Whiting is practically dripping with gaijin superiority complex when he says 'When you look at Ohtani, the image of the Japanese as physically smaller or inferior people just disappear'.

Seriously? The year is 2021 and Ichiro won the MVP TWENTY YEARS AGO, Matsui won the World Series MVP 12 years ago, Hideo Nomo was an All-Star 25 years ago. I think the HS players in Japan today know full well that they can compete at the highest levels. Ohtani insisted on playing both even when he signed with MLB. If he truly thought of himself as inferior, he would have never even tried to go to MLB, let alone insist on both hitting and pitching. And Japan won the first two World Baseball Classics, the first one close to 15 years ago and the second one over twelve years ago.

I guess they just had to find an old (close to 80 years old) white guy to opine on Ohtani for the sake of the largely white, older MLB audience.

Here's the point that no one seems to comprehend: the Taiwan straits are incredibly strategic, as is the South China Sea. The Crimea? Not nearly as so.

It IS in the World's best interest (especially economic) that Taiwan remain an independent country (to all the Wumao's out there, yes, Taiwan IS a country). China is intent on using the South China Sea to buy/bully/control the rest of Asia and..the world. China may not want war, but they CERTAINLY want the South China Sea to be fully controlled by China. That way, China will be the World's manufacturer AND the world's exporter AND the world's 'middle man'. China is unlikely to want war, but diplomacy has NOT worked with China (see: Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong). The Wumao's will always counter 'but Hong Kong, Tibet, Xinjian are just PART of China anyway, like Taiwan.' Gee....what's next the 9-dash line? I think we see a pattern here.

China's lying, posturing and aggressiveness have escalated since Pooh Bear decided to appoint himself to a lifetime post. History is clearly repeating itself.

This is not nearly the issue in Korea that many people think it is. I went to the top-5 Korean newspapers (using Google translate) and there was not a single mention of this issue.

While I know that there's a great deal of enmity between Koreans and Japanese, I am not sure that this particular statement is generating that much discussion in Korea.

Gee...you think this might have something to do with Ghosn's ouster from Nissan?

Japanese Management to Ghosn 'be careful in China, many, many companies go there thinking they'll be swimming in money only to find out down the road that there is a Chinese company using IP theft to supplant you.'

Ghosn to Japanese management 'please be quiet. I turned around Nissan 20 years ago, I KNOW what I am doing. Trust me.'

When in Rome, do what the Romans do.

Tell that to the CCP when it comes to obeying the WTO laws, which they routinely flout. That's the problem with China: they want to be part of the WTO, but won't play by the rules. Surprise! China cheats. That is THE single biggest issue with the Meng case. The WTO said 'follow the rules and do NOT break the sanctions with Iran by trading with Iran.' And guess who just so happened to trade with Iran? Good ol' China and good ol' Meng was right at the center of it.

Same with the WHO. China wants to be part of the WHO, but won't play by the transparency rules.

Reading the comments on here, I can't help but think the majority of posters are not Americans. The American media has been quite favorable towards the Japanese management of the Games. You should have seen the coverage of Rio. The Rio games will be remembered in America for the squalid, standing water and the Ryan Lochte 'incident'. Rio's image took quite a beating. Tokyo, on the other hand, enhanced its reputation and all of Japan. People already knew that Japan - for the most part - is efficient, clean and orderly (and I know that there are many here who correctly note the inefficient business environment of fax machines and too many meetings, I agree...but that's a different context), but Japan pulled off a pretty Herculean (in difficulty and thanklessness) task quite admirably. Many an American has said to me 'there's no way the U.S. could've pulled it off, there probably would have been protests, scalping and probably a little violence to boot.'

Yes, the Tokyo games cost quite a bit of money, but if it wasn't for Covid, these games probably would have made money. Remember, pre-Covid, the biggest complaint was the inability to get tickets (and the demand to supply ratio was 10-to-1). And most posters here were griping about how bad the crowds were going to be.

In terms of those who say Tokyo lost a ton of money, keep in mind much of those stadium costs were sunk costs by the time Covid hit.

@smithinjapan. Pretty Euro-centric of you to say 'Most nations in the world don't even know what it is, and they had to dig up extra teams to try and make it more valid.'

Here's a list of countries that care about baseball:

Japan, America, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Venezuela, Taiwan, South Korea, Haiti, Australia, Philippines.

How many countries are interested in Kata karate? How many have even heard of it? Yet, it was an Olympic Sport, as was rock climbing and...next up break dancing (yes, you read that correctly).

I think baseball has earned its way to the Olympics.

Perhaps I am being overly optimistic, but Nissan still retains a big ownership % in the firm and everything is being made in Japan. What this tells me is that there isn't enough manpower in Japan to make the giga-factory. Japan Inc. has done pretty well in not having their IP stolen in China, whereas America has experienced a ton more IP theft. A big part of that is that American companies do a very poor job off monitoring their Chinese suppliers (no surprise there). Japan appears to do a better job of it.

Another big factor was that Ghosn was hell-bent on being huge in China and had attempted to sell the Nissan's entire battery unit to China a couple of times. To this day, I think the two things that caused friction in Nissan was (1) Ghosn's insistence of a triple merger w/Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi...with Renault executives getting to call the shots and (2) Ghosn's rather Euro-centric view that 'China is where the growth is and Nissan will be #1 in China' while neglecting the Japanese market and Japanese employees.

Nissan just appears to be a rudderless wreck right now.

Quick question: would you ever fly on a plane made in China?

I know I wouldn't.

It's not capitalism that's causing the problem, it's the fact that a key trading 'partner' is a human rights abusing, dictatorship with a goal of global domination.

As much as I despise the CCP, a little context is in order here. Cena was on Weibo or WeChat - both of which were underwritten by the CCP - to promote his movie. He was an invited guest and Cena took the invitation. He then made the 'faux pas' while on CCP-underwritten media. He issued an apology. It's kind of like being invited to someone's house and then saying something offensive to the hosts.

Now, if Cena was on Jimmy Kimmel's show and said 'Taiwan the country' and CCP demanded an apology and Cena then apologized, Cena would be a total loser/coward.

I don't think Cena could even point to Taiwan on a map.

No matter what you say, getting 7 strikeouts in one game and then hitting a 451-foot bomb is impressive....even for an ol' codger like stickman. If it was so easy, how come nobody else has done it?

The fact that the phrase 'good old days' was even used tells me everything I need to know. In the good old days, only Nolan Ryan would throw as hard as Ohtani and he had plenty of walks too. And, Nolan didn't exactly hit 450-foot dingers.

Isn't that what partnership is all about, the more shares you own the more voting rights you get?

The issue was that Renault was not making much profit but getting to make the lion's share of the decisions. And, to be frank, Renault does not exactly have a sterling record for quality, whereas Nissan's (while not the best) exceeded that of Renault. I can see how the two companies did not see eye-to-eye on issues such as quality, emissions, etc.. My feeling is that Renault executives thought of Nissan as a 'subsidiary of Renault' whereas the Nissan executives didn't feel likewise.

In 2017, Nissan sold about 40% more cars than Renault and also likely had a higher profit margin per car than Renault.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_manufacturers_by_motor_vehicle_production

Yet, Renault treated Nissan like a subsidiary.

And...Renault was looking into merging with Fiat during 2017. And, I think we all know that Fiat is not exactly the highest quality car manufacturer out there. If that merger went through, Nissan would have had virtually no say whatsoever in the corporate decisions.

Lots of blame to go around. It's basically like a divorce, except in this case it's two companies.

Ghosn turned around Nissan no doubt. However, he suffered from a very, very common CEO problem of 'Empire Building', which is a function of hubris. I think the Nissan-Renault 'merger' was doomed from the start and there's a reason why there are so few international 'mergers of equals'. This was a very tenuous alliance all along and I am quite sure that the French executives ignored the issues raised by Japanese executives. Ghosn thought he could navigate the two cultures and seamlessly integrate the two companies....or subsume Nissan as part of Renault.

Michael Porter had a great line 'Culture eats strategy for breakfast.'

The strategy of being the one of the biggest car companies in the world and benefiting from scale was more than offset by differences in French and Japanese business culture. Ghosn thought he could overcome those hurdles. He was wrong.

Is he guilty of wrongdoing? I rather doubt it and by American standards his corporate perks were pretty run of the mill. But, you could clearly see Japanese executives being upset at (a) being ignored by Ghosn and his cronies and (b) flaunting his wealth/position. (a) is clearly the reason why this all went down and Nissan is using (b) to try Ghosn in the court of public opinion.

Go ahead, name a 2 or 3 and contrast that to Asians and their high standard of living, high earners on average, hardworking, most graduating with some of the highest degrees, extremely low incarceration rates, family unite intact, so which Black city can match ANY Asian city in the any rich and prosperous Blue State?

Asian Americans don't have a higher standard of living than White Americans after you adjust for cost of living.

There are no 'Asian' cities in America. Yes, there are Asian enclaves, but not Asian cities.

Propaganda? I understand Trump got the highest black vote yet. How do you explain that?

Yes, I guess going from 6% to 12% of black men and from 4% to 6% of black women means that Trump is wildly popular with black Americans?

And...guess what the #1 reason for that increase in the black vote? Immigration.

As an American who's accustomed to contract law, at what point does Japan simply have to say 'hey, no more contracts since S. Korean politicians always seem to nullify any prior agreements'?

I've seen some people on here say 'well...Japan needs to live up to its side of the deal'? Like how? Never going to Yasukuni shrine? Yeah, that's a great idea. Restrict someone's movement in their own home country. Apologize? Hasn't Japan apologized enough already?

It's just such an easy solution for S. Korean politicians to use whenever they need support for flagging poll #'s.

A 46% decline in 10 years is astounding. Alas, this is Japan. This means that (a) no one wants to talk about an obvious problem (lest the 'wa' gets disrupted) and (b) no one wants to de-romanticize Koshien....even though pretty much every team that wins is a high school that offers 'scholarships' and then proceeds to practice throughout the year (and in the process, destroying far too many young pitcher arms).

I love NPB, but high school Japanese baseball needs a lot of work.

The comment about 'incompetent HS coaches' rings very, very true.

At least Biden will be consistent and the traditional U.S. allies will be more closely allied with the U.S. than with Trump, who was mercurial and ridiculously undisciplined and unorganized.

I think many on here love to rip on the U.S.-Japan relationship as being one-sided (especially the Europeans) in favor of America, but keep in mind, Japan has run a really big trade surplus with America pretty much forever. Japan gets to keep exporting its goods to America, while 'diplomatically' refusing to buy too much American imports and, in return, gets a bit cowed by the U.S. military presence. The trade surplus with America always hovers around $50bn-$80bn a year.

https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5880.html

And, yes, many Japanese would love to get rid of the U.S. military presence here, but at the same time, REALLY don't want any more Chinese aggression either.

I like this picture quite a bit. It's provocative and it's thumbing its nose at China. Gambare Nippon!

For those who think that Chinese and Vietnamese gangs will 'run the casino' in Japan, I think you're being overly doubtful of Japan, Inc. America continually accuses China of IP theft, yet Japan has managed to keep IP theft to China at a minimum. When Chinese investors threatened to overrun the B-and-B business, Japan did a really good job of curtailing that practice. Yes, of course there will be corruption. But at the end of the day, it's probably a big, net benefit for Japan.

Nagasaki/Sasebo would be a boon to that area. Truthfully, this is just another way of increasing government tax revenues on the backs of tourists. When the working population continually shrinks and the retirement community explodes, something has to replace that tax revenue.

Most likely, a casino will be overrun with Chinese tourists...which makes it less attractive to the native Japanese population....which means less to worry about in terms of native gambling addiction.

I know the casino is not exactly popular here, but how else is Japan going to replace the tax revenue that is lost every time 2 Japanese retire (and stop paying taxes) and only 1 Japanese enters the workforce? I know it may not be a 2 to 1 ratio, but I think we can all agree that the # of Japanese new retirees/day is greater than the # of Japanese new workforce entrants/day.

Message to any Korean-Americans:

You cannot on one hand claim to be a 'perpetual foreigner', yet continue your 'heritage's home country' baggage in America without being a total hypocrite.

Kudos to Germany. Also, for anyone in Germany trying that $hit....goodness don't you have a life to live other than to torment Japan about something that happened 75 years ago?

China wants to be thought of as a world leader to stroke their ego and the CCP's. They like the spotlight, but can't stand the heat.

As a member of the 'Anglosphere' we have a saying: if you've got nothing to hide, then show me everything.

So...a neighboring country with a major chip on its shoulder and long, bitter grudge has exhibited the following:

Violent border disputes with India;

Forceful takeover of Hong Kong;

Blocking water flows to its neighboring countries;

Built military bases in Africa (now why might that be?);

Built artificial islands in the SCS;

Has a military budget greater than all other Asian countries...COMBINED;

And...yet Japan is the one with 'so many unrepentant militarists'?

Yikes, I suppose we should all learn Mandarin right now.

China's goal is simple: to return it to what THEY think is ITS RIGHTFUL PLACE on Earth:

That is, the "Center" of everything. Chinese population, nationalism, restrictions on informational access and ethnocentrism, combined with a fascist government, is a recipe for disaster, if not war. China's action in the South China Seas is Exhibit A of this recent trend of 'We're China, deal with it' attitude, combined with a 'hey, HISTORICALLY we were the greatest empire, so all we are REALLY doing is reclaiming our past empire.'

Exhibit B? The building of artificial islands of the coast of China.

Exhibit C? Choking off the water supply to the Southern neighbors of Viet Nam, Laos, Cambodia.

Exhibit D? The VIOLENT and deadly border dispute with India.

Exhibit E? Hong Kong.

Exhibit F? Uighur situation in Xianjiang (or is that 'Western propaganda', Akie?).

Exhibit G? An unprecedented military buildup because...Japan is going to attack China again, or is it Korea, or is it India? Please be real here.

Say what you will about the U.S., the U.S. actually holds elections and allows its citizens to (a) discover, obtain and inveigh upon different viewpoints (b) CRITICIZE its own government (ha, try that in China, Akie!) and (c) vote out Presidents (and there's that whole 'term limit' deal unlike 'Emperor for Life' Xi).