5 ms·

Japan’s Self-Defence Forces Are Beginning to Focus on China

55 points by Sami_Lehtinen 8y ago

doktrin 8y ago
Is there an easy way to bypass the paywall? Wouldn't mind subscribing to the economist tbh, just not right this instant.
- drak0n1c 8y ago
  Use Outline, here is the outlined version: https://outline.com/9xnM42 https://outline.com/9xnM42
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- emiliobumachar 8y ago
  A free account permits 5 articles per month.
- str33t_punk 8y ago
  The economist is much cheaper when you sign up for a student account - if you have your university email that will work. I do recommend subscribing -- their articles are really good. I find the give a great global business perspective. The downside is it can get a bit dry sometimes and it can be challenging to read it all each week
sremani 8y ago
The better way of looking at it is that American guarantees can only mean so much. A DPRK with a nuke is different kind of threat to US, compared to Japan compared to South Korea. There is already enough gap, the Japanese realized that leaving their security with Americans entirely is not a strategy. So they are walking back from the pacifist constitutions and militarizing. In the short-to-mid term its good for US, a formidable ally with world class navy! But a Japan with powerful navy cant help itself but wants to dominate Pacific, that what happened in December of 1941, the rest is history.
- DamnYuppie 8y ago
  I agree, relying on someone else is a recipe for disaster so they should start to militarize. Yet I don't necessarily agree that they will become expansionist. Also note they started way before 1941, I believe they began in 1904 with their war with Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago
    The problem as ever is geography. For example, Korea is strategically important to Japan, because the peninsula is the perfect starting place for an invasion of the islands of Japan (they were only saved from such an invasion by the Mongols because of a tornado). Japan also doesn't have many natural resources of its own. https://youtube.com/watch?v=pcdofW_pV6Q https://youtube.com/watch?v=pcdofW_pV6Q
    - rmah 8y ago
      Korea is even more strategically important to Koreans. And the Japanese have tried to invade or have invaded Korea multiple times.
    - kochikame 8y ago
      Not a tornado, a hurricane (or typhoon as it's called in the Eastern hemisphere)
- s_y_n_t_a_x 8y ago
  One of the main reasons they started to invade other countries was their population growth at the time. They were looking for resources and land. Nowadays their population growth is so abysmal they have no need to land grab.
- khuey 8y ago
  It's not 1945 anymore. Nobody in Washington has any qualms about Japan building up its military strength with anything short of nukes. The post-war constitution and pacifist values imposed by the Allies on Japan actually took too well, and the Japanese people remain more skeptical of the wisdom a more militarized Japan than either the current Japanese PM or Washington. Japan has little to gain from going on another rampage through Asia conquering stuff. Even if you ignore that annexing other countries tends to make you an international pariah these days (see Russia in eastern Ukraine), everyone near them either has nukes (Russia, the PRC, and the DPRK) or is in some form of alliance with the US (the ROK and ROC).
daodedickinson 8y ago
They didn't just start focusing on China now. Not sure what prompted this particular title, since there isn't much substance in the paragraphs before the paywall.
- onetimemanytime 8y ago
  Well, they feared an USSR invasion. Now that's gone and Russia alone can't really invade Japan. China can.
  - kochikame 8y ago
    China is barely capable of taking over Taiwan without enormous cost and material and human loss. Japan is far, far harder to "invade" and is barely even something they would consider. Even an "attack" (something short of an invasion), consisting of surgical strikes (and what, nukes?) would be prohibitively costly in every way possible and would also be 100% guaranteed to bring the US in to the conflict. The Chinese government likes having Japan around as a useful lightning conductor for public anger, which redirects protests away from them. They are Japan's biggest trading partner. They are not going to invade any country this useful and valuable to them. Please don't use a word like "invade" lightly; it's very, very far from ever being a reality.
socrates1998 8y ago
What's really interesting is to the common Japanese person, their are two threats, China and the Japanese military itself. Clearly, they worry about China, but they really worry about how the Japanese military answered to no one in the last decade of Imperial Japan. This is what concerns a lot of Japanese people. The military wrote a check that the Japanese people had to cash.
- mc32 8y ago
  I’m not sure I get that impression from the Japanese I know. Maybe the older generation feel that way?
  - Xixi 8y ago
    Most Japanese people seem very uneducated to me when it comes to politics/history, so I would not be surprised if they don't really have an opinion on the subject. [1] But I also know quite a few Japanese people in their early thirties, some of them very very very to the right of the political spectrum. Even to them Imperial Japan is sheer terror. Young kids being forced to commit suicide (kamikaze), endless suffering of the population, a crazy mentality, worshiping the emperor as a god, horrific experiments in the Chinese countryside, etc. My sample might be small, but I don't think there's much nostalgia of Imperial Japan anywhere in the Japanese population. [1] Extra points if you can't even recognize Abe doing giving an interview on TV. And yes, that one has never missed an election. That's the most terrifying part to me. If you want to opt out of caring about politics, it's completely fine by me, but at least do it completely...
    - kochikame 8y ago
      Of course all the wartime stuff like kamikaze was awful, but no one is expecting that to ever happen again You have this idea that the Japanese military will become a runaway juggernaut subjugating Japan under its will, and this is simply ridiculous. No signs point to it. I could almost accuse you of fear mongering Also, your accusation that most Japanese are "very uneducated when it comes to politics/history" is anecdotal and incomplete at best, comically reductive at worst. Do you even read Japanese? Do you not see the amount of considered, deep analysis and discussion on TV and in the newspapers? Do you not see the huge numbers of books on history in the bookshops? In any case, it is ridiculous to claim that "most" (or even some) Japanese people live in fear of the SDF. You'd be laughed out of the room for claiming that in front of anyone with even a passing knowledge of Japan.

55 points by Sami_Lehtinen 8y ago

Is there an easy way to bypass the paywall? Wouldn't mind subscribing to the economist tbh, just not right this instant.

drak0n1c 8y ago
Use Outline, here is the outlined version: https://outline.com/9xnM42 https://outline.com/9xnM42
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
emiliobumachar 8y ago
A free account permits 5 articles per month.
str33t_punk 8y ago
The economist is much cheaper when you sign up for a student account - if you have your university email that will work. I do recommend subscribing -- their articles are really good. I find the give a great global business perspective. The downside is it can get a bit dry sometimes and it can be challenging to read it all each week

sremani 8y ago

The better way of looking at it is that American guarantees can only mean so much. A DPRK with a nuke is different kind of threat to US, compared to Japan compared to South Korea. There is already enough gap, the Japanese realized that leaving their security with Americans entirely is not a strategy. So they are walking back from the pacifist constitutions and militarizing. In the short-to-mid term its good for US, a formidable ally with world class navy! But a Japan with powerful navy cant help itself but wants to dominate Pacific, that what happened in December of 1941, the rest is history.

DamnYuppie 8y ago
I agree, relying on someone else is a recipe for disaster so they should start to militarize. Yet I don't necessarily agree that they will become expansionist. Also note they started way before 1941, I believe they began in 1904 with their war with Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War.
- TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago
  The problem as ever is geography. For example, Korea is strategically important to Japan, because the peninsula is the perfect starting place for an invasion of the islands of Japan (they were only saved from such an invasion by the Mongols because of a tornado). Japan also doesn't have many natural resources of its own. https://youtube.com/watch?v=pcdofW_pV6Q https://youtube.com/watch?v=pcdofW_pV6Q
  - rmah 8y ago
    Korea is even more strategically important to Koreans. And the Japanese have tried to invade or have invaded Korea multiple times.
  - kochikame 8y ago
    Not a tornado, a hurricane (or typhoon as it's called in the Eastern hemisphere)
s_y_n_t_a_x 8y ago
One of the main reasons they started to invade other countries was their population growth at the time. They were looking for resources and land. Nowadays their population growth is so abysmal they have no need to land grab.
khuey 8y ago
It's not 1945 anymore. Nobody in Washington has any qualms about Japan building up its military strength with anything short of nukes. The post-war constitution and pacifist values imposed by the Allies on Japan actually took too well, and the Japanese people remain more skeptical of the wisdom a more militarized Japan than either the current Japanese PM or Washington. Japan has little to gain from going on another rampage through Asia conquering stuff. Even if you ignore that annexing other countries tends to make you an international pariah these days (see Russia in eastern Ukraine), everyone near them either has nukes (Russia, the PRC, and the DPRK) or is in some form of alliance with the US (the ROK and ROC).

daodedickinson 8y ago

They didn't just start focusing on China now. Not sure what prompted this particular title, since there isn't much substance in the paragraphs before the paywall.

onetimemanytime 8y ago
Well, they feared an USSR invasion. Now that's gone and Russia alone can't really invade Japan. China can.
- kochikame 8y ago
  China is barely capable of taking over Taiwan without enormous cost and material and human loss. Japan is far, far harder to "invade" and is barely even something they would consider. Even an "attack" (something short of an invasion), consisting of surgical strikes (and what, nukes?) would be prohibitively costly in every way possible and would also be 100% guaranteed to bring the US in to the conflict. The Chinese government likes having Japan around as a useful lightning conductor for public anger, which redirects protests away from them. They are Japan's biggest trading partner. They are not going to invade any country this useful and valuable to them. Please don't use a word like "invade" lightly; it's very, very far from ever being a reality.

socrates1998 8y ago

What's really interesting is to the common Japanese person, their are two threats, China and the Japanese military itself. Clearly, they worry about China, but they really worry about how the Japanese military answered to no one in the last decade of Imperial Japan. This is what concerns a lot of Japanese people. The military wrote a check that the Japanese people had to cash.

mc32 8y ago
I’m not sure I get that impression from the Japanese I know. Maybe the older generation feel that way?
- Xixi 8y ago
  Most Japanese people seem very uneducated to me when it comes to politics/history, so I would not be surprised if they don't really have an opinion on the subject. [1] But I also know quite a few Japanese people in their early thirties, some of them very very very to the right of the political spectrum. Even to them Imperial Japan is sheer terror. Young kids being forced to commit suicide (kamikaze), endless suffering of the population, a crazy mentality, worshiping the emperor as a god, horrific experiments in the Chinese countryside, etc. My sample might be small, but I don't think there's much nostalgia of Imperial Japan anywhere in the Japanese population. [1] Extra points if you can't even recognize Abe doing giving an interview on TV. And yes, that one has never missed an election. That's the most terrifying part to me. If you want to opt out of caring about politics, it's completely fine by me, but at least do it completely...
  - kochikame 8y ago
    Of course all the wartime stuff like kamikaze was awful, but no one is expecting that to ever happen again You have this idea that the Japanese military will become a runaway juggernaut subjugating Japan under its will, and this is simply ridiculous. No signs point to it. I could almost accuse you of fear mongering Also, your accusation that most Japanese are "very uneducated when it comes to politics/history" is anecdotal and incomplete at best, comically reductive at worst. Do you even read Japanese? Do you not see the amount of considered, deep analysis and discussion on TV and in the newspapers? Do you not see the huge numbers of books on history in the bookshops? In any case, it is ridiculous to claim that "most" (or even some) Japanese people live in fear of the SDF. You'd be laughed out of the room for claiming that in front of anyone with even a passing knowledge of Japan.