Japan, despite its recent violent history with China, Russia, and Korea, has infinitely more to gain from becoming closer to those countries than being a sacrifice for the United States.
this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
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Pretty much any country would have more to gain from becoming closer to their actual neighbors over the USA. Except for neighbors of the USA
Well, Japan has a history of recognizing it is small, limited in resources, and must adopt systems that work instead of going it alone. It's possible that, having done this a couple times already, they are now very aware of what works and what doesn't and are biding their time before the inevitable fall of the West makes it safer for them to "pivot to Asia".
I like to think Japan sees the writing on the walls. Even with their not-so-friendly history with China, I think they know in the event of conflict they’d be wiped off the map pretty much immediately and would like that to not happen
The US is drowning, and trying to pull as many of their allies under with them. The smarter ones are trying to avoid that, the dumber ones are rushing headlong into the water.
I don't really understand what's going on. Just recently, Japan was pushing for its inclusion into NATO and ramping up its military; meanwhile, they seem to be increasingly interested in distancing itself from the US, such as steadily dumping its US treasury holdings. In any case, I hope that this ends for the better and that the US-Japan relationship can finally be dismantled.
It's the symptom of being imperial periphery. What you see is the conflict between national bourgeoisie and the comprador bourgeoisie.
You're probably on to something since the same inter-bourgeoisie clash is occurring in other US-occupied countries, like Germany and South Korea.
We have a lot of weird opposing political elements.
There's the LDP, who are the good American lapdogs. They have been in power uninterrupted since WW2. They're...not popular exactly, but people are so politically apathetic that the people who bother to vote just vote for them almost out of habit. Within them you have the even more right-wing nationalists who drive around with the loudspeaker trucks (if you have been here, you know what I mean) and advocate for a remilitarized Japan.
But we have other sects that are getting more vocal too. Ryukyuu/Okinawa is increasingly upset about the American occupation of their territory; US troops cause endless problems there just like in SK. Everytime US troops pull their bullshit, more and more Japanese want to distance themselves a little bit more from the US. The public is very reticient to remilitarize, and anytime the US tries to push Japan in that direction we tend to balk.
Marxist ideas are still commonly taught in univeristies, and while we have a very large communist party, they are pretty reactionary and have taken a more anti-China stance in recent years to try to broaden their appeal. There have been more local elements, the ones I am involved with at least, that are much more pro-China and trying to push the party back in that direction.
A little bit off-topic, but I would like to know what you think is the average Japanese youth's opinion of China; high school- to university-age students, specifically. I feel like your opinion would be solid since you seem to be living in Japan.
Sorry for the late reply. I can't speak for much younger than around university level. I have been here most of my adult life but I moved to Japan when I was around 18, so don't have the best insight on high school age students. So my observations may not be perfectly accurate.
The average person I have talked to generally doesn't give it much thought. Neutral to positive seems to be the prevailing opinion among a lot of Japanese youth, who are not politically very active. Especially high school students who are so focused on getting into university that the don't have much time for anything else. University age students tend to be a bit more politically involved, and the most common opinion I see is that they share a background and should be cooperating more than they curretly are.
Ryukyu/Okinawans tend to be much more sympathetic to China from my experience. They have been double occupied by both the United States and Japan and are increasingly not happy about it. Every year they get louder in their protests against the US bases around their territory. Even younger people I have talked to in that area have been much more positive towards China. Incidentally, I have noticed that al of aspects of Ryukyu culture stray much closer to Chinese than Japanese. My company has an office there that I visit a couple times per year, so I have had the good fortune to talk to many locals.
There are also the Japanese that are much more fascinated by Western culture, whether that comes from media or overseas study. These tend to be the folks that speak English better and have much more westernized style of thought. A lot of foreigners that come here will probably largely interact with this group, simply for language issues. I don't want to paint with too sweeping a brush because everyone is different, but I have noticed these tend to be the folks who will only date foreigenrs as well and aspire to live overseas. People in this category tend to be much less positive towards China because they have adopted American points of views; heck they tend to not be very positive about Japan either.
The far-right aren't very pro China, they're too nationalistic for that, but you do not see many younger folks involved with them either.
Thank you for the insight.