unuepb comments

Laser weapon is not all that new. Americans been doing that all the time. It's not yet practical as a weapon yet though, unless someone can develop a battery that can charge and discharge super fast. This whole thing is still Sci-Fi.

China won't embarrass Abe. That is a non-trivial promise. Nations are known to embarrass each other's leaders in subtle ways. The US does sit all the time. For example when Israeli PM visited the US, Obama would not gave state dinner to him but at the same time gave a small African country's president a state dinner. Also, when China's former president visited the US, George Bush Jr played Taiwan's national anthem, "by mistake." But everyone knew it was deliberate.

China feels the US is closing in on them (pivot to Asia and so on.) So they are trying to push out. The two countries need to talk. Otherwise mistrust will build, eventually leading to a cold war. US wants to talk only in the such setting where it plays the boss. China wants to talk as an equal country to country. But this is in itself a challenge to the US.

All the countries involved should ask themselves the question, is it better to have a cold war between them, or is it better to talk, about their intentions and disagreements, no matter how unreasonable they are to each other.

Democrats are socialists. If they get in power long enough, the country will become communist (making a society of communes and everybody live on welfare of a planned economy.) But on the other hand, if the Republicans get in power too long, the country will become fascist. That's why it's necessary they should alternate in taking power. Unless we have a 3rd party, that is. But the Democrats and Republics will together make sure that a 3rd party does not take power.

Economic history offers no precedence for a country, especially one of that size, to grow at the breakneck pace they have for as long as they have. The question is not if China should slow down. The question is when, and by how much. Will it be severe recession or will it be "soft landing"? For whatever political reason or personal emotions one may wish this to happen or not happen, it will nonetheless happen. But will those who predict it be prepared for its consequence themselves? I seriously doubt it.

Abe won't do a good job as PM, but he'll be in power in a long time.

Politically and economically China doesn't really depend that much on Japan, not as much as what a lot of Japanese people think. China's economy has structural problems, but those cannot be helped by Japan anyways. China can get just about everything it could want for Japan from South Korea. And it's sitting on trillions and trillions of cash for that purpose.

Just by working on its own economy (and military) China makes Japan nervous. What country wants a strong but unfriendly neighbor? Obama's meeting with China at APEX will hopefully come to some sort of understanding between them with regard to Japan. If not, things will get even more uncomfortable. A cold war of sort already exists between Japan and China. Japan is clearly more worried about it than China.

Politicians pick on the most trivial things to attack each other, so long they scale well on the scandal factor. But that's really not so important. It's all partisan politics. It's Abe's grand strategies they should attack: militarism, nationalism and "growth" through inflation.

It doesn't take much to buy off one small town. So long the rest of Japan is paying for the bribe.

All the countries in the world use the media to brainwash others. Is that a surprise? How otherwise did the American people overwhelmingly support the invasion of Iraq that they now denounce? The Americans own most of the worlds media, so it must be the case that the resulting world opinion is heavily biased in favor of the Americans interests.

So! Now we read about Americans lecturing others about media bias. Can we say: arrogance?

This pot is too cold already. It will take forever to warm up.

Another nuclear accident could permanently shut down Japan's nuclear plants. That's bad for its nuclear weapons program. The (undeclared) weapons grade nuclear materials that Japan already has, although considerable, will deteriorate over time. You need to be continuously producing to keep up the stock pile. Otherwise, "Japan can make thousands of nuclear warheads in 90 days" would just be an empty threat.

The TPP is pretty much dead. Sustaining this useless talk is just to help the Americans save face. Obama made the push already, and now even he has given up. His focus is on Ebola now, not that it's really an important issue, but that's what the Republicans have been bashing him about during this election season.

Japanese people love Abe, so his power will stand, until such time when economy problems trump nationalism feelings. But in Japan, that can take a very long time.

Japan is almost giving it away to the Aussies. The Americans need its client states in Asia to work together. Japan is trying to do its part. Philippines is impotent. Singapore is aloof. South Korea is touchy. Maylasia sits on the fence and Vietnam can't be trusted. Only the Japanese and Aussies can work together.

It's things like this that makes the Americans doubt Japan's reliability as a ally (aka vassal state.) It needs to be watched closely.

An exchange of pleasantries can hardly be regarded as a meeting, and one suspects even those pleasantries are not likely genuine. When you have 90% of your populations hating each other (according to Pew Institute), like the Jews and Palestinians hate each other, the politicians cannot do anything useful. Even exchange of pleasantries are rare treats.

Why are these ministers making such political stunts? Are they so weak in their own merits that they had to resort to this? The fact that the women ministers do this more than men seems to indicate exactly the inferiority position of women in politics. Beating the nationalist drum is usually a sign of political desperation.

In Europe, this is reported under a title something like "Chinese embassy spying". Those who don't read the paragraphs get a very different impression, and that's most people. In any case, this is about the China/Japan competition for Iceland rare earth resources. It's all quite pointless because it's South Korea who is getting most of it.

Japan has been cheated by the Americans in its geopolitics. 100 years later Japanese people will openly admit that. But right now it's too dangerous to say. American guns are too close.

It's not a matter of needing to be "bolder". Japan's market simply cannot survive much opening. For 30 years Americans have been demanding that. But doing so is political suicide. When will the Americans ever learn and stop hallucinating about it?

To the Chinese, Aso is a more palatable member of Abe's cabinet, with whom they can engage in a meaningful dialog. The others are more problematic, especially the "lets visit the shrine together" party.

Allowing the radar in Japan is one of those prices Japan must pay in order to receive American's "protection". That early warning radar against long range missiles is for American home based or Pacific based interceptors. It does not protect Japan in anyway. They are protecting the US and its Pacific assets. If the US and China ever goes to war, you can be certain that these radars will be the first to come under attack, along with American forward bases, those located in Japan. American "protection" simply means that you'll be the first to be scarified in case of war. We see hints of that in Georgia and Ukraine already.

NK seems to be the only neighbor Japan can talk to these days. But Kim Jong Un's interest is not so much in the abductees, but in money and aid.

Australia is in economic trouble. When a country is in economic trouble, the politicians do stupidest things.

All politically motivated. Not unlike North Korea, making trouble for China in order to compel the latter to talk to them.