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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   2870 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 8, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Are there any blogs or forums or other sources for reading about the Japanese right wing perspective on current events in English? The fall of the yen is striking. The last time I was in Japan in 2022 the country was really starting to show its age- visibly falling behind South Korea in technology and superficial "newness." I haven't been to China but I suspect that even Chinese society is beginning to surpass the vibrancy of Japanese society at least in the sense that the Chinese have seen an explosion of wealth and modernization in the past 50 years while Japan has stagnated since the late 80s. Is the right wing in Japan irritated by American influence in their country and the kneecapping of Japanese financial success by the plaza accord? Is allowing remilitarization of Japan really all that wise on the part of the US when Japan could conceivably become anti-American at some point in the near future (I am no expert on geopolitics in any way so feel free to tell me this is ridiculous and an anti-US Japan would be completely suicidal- though from what I understand Japan has shown suicidal tendencies in the past.) 150 yen to the USD is extremely alarming and I don't see how they aren't going to suffer from terrible inflation if they have to buy oil in USD.

I can't think of a great primarily English source for what you request, the best would probably be the interactions of a few larger right wing Japanese twitter accounts (Hashimoto Kotoe in particular gets a lot of exposure to English speaking Twitter) or maybe some small relatively inactive substack. From my limited exposure to those groups (on twitter and on some of the Japanese language imageboards), they don't usually see economic issues within the framing you theorized. They spend most of their time discussing a few minor squabbles with other asian nations (the ownership of Takeshima/Liancourt rocks wrt SK, the return JP citizens kidnapped by NK in the 80s who easily might be dead by now, the issues with vandlism by Chinese tourists that another commenter mentioned). There is definitely anti-American sentiment among the Japanese Right, but it's mostly focused on widely circulated stories of DUIs and sexual assaults committed by American military stationed in the country. I've also seen an increasing amount of explicit Qanon content that has been translated and crossed the Pacific, but that's at least limited to the more ネトウヨ imageboard types.

Noah Smith had a good article about Japan's currency crisis: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/is-japan-having-a-currency-crisis. The TLDR is yes, it's a very serious issue that with no clear solution. But for what it's worth, the yen has gone up recently in value since they hiked interest rates.

Thank you for the link, I read the intro but the rest is paywalled and archive.ph isn't helping out. The point he makes about a weak currency possibly being an asset in manufacturing is something I hadn't thought of but in the next paragraph he says that a weak currency would impoverish the nation and create problems for the west as well. I guess I am less interested in the economics of the situation and more interested in the social/cultural implications on the issue: are the Japanese blaming Americans/western powers for their financial situation, what are the Japanese going to do in response, etc.

are the Japanese blaming Americans/western powers for their financial situation

I really don't think so. I mean, maybe there's a few reactionaries on the internet who think that way, but it's not normal. Americans didn't wreck their economy, that was just the natural effect of the 80s/90s bubble bursting. Maybe some people are annoyed that certain areas are getting flooded with tourists, most notably Kyoto, but that's about it.

what are the Japanese going to do in response, etc.

Probably nothing. their political system is heavily controlled by one party full of very old men who don't want anything to change. But they did raise interest rates slightly.

when Japan could conceivably become anti-American at some point in the near future (I am no expert on geopolitics in any way so feel free to tell me this is ridiculous and an anti-US Japan would be completely suicidal- though from what I understand Japan has shown suicidal tendencies in the past.)

Strange things have happened in world history but I'd bet against this. Japan is fixated upon China, not America. China threatens their lines of communication to the rest of Eurasia, China hates them for a bunch of reasons and the feeling is mutual. It makes sense to work with the US to counter China, that's what they've been doing. I think they would much rather have some dumb GI's rape the occasional Okinawan rather than give China the opportunity to dish out their revenge fantasies for Nanjing.

Japan is old, they have insufficient agriculture, resources and energy to fight wars with great powers, let alone the US. Despite large rice subsidies and import tariffs they're at about 40-50% on domestic calories. There's a very strong pacifistic element in their society that's slowly being eroded by the China threat. They're reliant on a lot of US military technology. Maybe China trounces the US so severely they decide to change camps and cut a deal for better treatment but that's very, very unlikely. At that point, we have much bigger problems to worry about.

But isn't the economic stagnation humiliating to the Japanese? Watching China and South Korea grow in leaps and bounds in the past few decades while their own country ages and declines has to be embarrassing and I can see them easily taking out their aggression on western allies as much as their dreaded local neighbors. I wasn't really imagining a situation where Japan would ally with China but rather one where China's influence in the region increases so much that Japan begins to get irked and go hari kari on both China and their western allies.

Maybe that would be the isolationist/ethnonationalist wing of Japan's desire but probably is unlikely to occur outside of some neo imperial revival and the realistic situation is more likely to be further stagnation/decline in the arms of western allies in an attempt to stave off the Chinese threat like you said.

The phenomenon you describe is pretty illegible to the salaryman on the street, at least if you're suggesting--as you seem to be--that the Japanese look at China and Korea and think "Wow they're advancing but we're old" and are therefore "embarrassed."

While I can't speak for Japan or Japanese, let me do so anyway. Chinese are largely seen as uncouth, unprincipled vulgarians who scrawl graffiti on venerated shrines and stab honest citizenry for baubles and wristwatches. Koreans get more slack for being somewhat more represented by pop culture (music, dramas, etc.) but there are certainly anti-Korean elements here as well.

Never underestimate the ability of superficial prejudice to cloud the big picture.

Yes, the Japanese perspective on the Chinese and Koreans is poor which is why it would be all the more irritating to see their rise while your own society stagnates. Imagine if the Swiss economy had been stagnating for the past 40 years, the value of the Swiss Franc falling to 1/3 of its former power against the USD and conditions stagnating so much that Switzerland became a viable manufacturing base of low cost workers (all of which describe Japan today) while, let's say, Greece grew to be the second largest economy in the world exporting high tech electronics and a good portion of the world's pop culture during the same time period. (Messy metaphor trying to tie together China and South Korea but you see where I'm going.) Surely the Swiss would be embarrassed on some level to be falling behind the historically dysfunctional country of Greece and begin to regret their situation or rethink foreign alliances at some point, no?

China doesn’t really have the ability to offer much prosperity, and the Japanese see them as dirty subhumans anyways. Japans realpolitik interests and public mood aligns with the USA.

China doesn’t really have the ability to offer much prosperity

What do you mean? Much of America's prosperity of the past few decades has been thanks to the low cost of labor in China. There are 1.4 billion consumers in China today, surely they have plenty of prosperity to offer in theory. Whether they'd be willing to give it to Japan or whether Japan is interested is another question.

Japans [...] public mood aligns with the USA.

Does it? Japan is an insular, isolationist, pacifist country deeply anxious of foreigners with an extreme respect for tradition (manifesting in everything from shrines that haven't changed in centuries to cafes that haven't changed since the early 60s.) This is so far from the US today that the alignment almost seems incoherent. The influence of Confucianism on Japanese society is so great that they are culturally closer to China than the USA on the global scale of things. Though I suppose it is common throughout history for national neighbors to be similar while hating each other and fawning to foreign allies for sympathy.

The influence of Confucianism on Japanese society is so great that they are culturally closer to China than the USA on the global scale of things. Though I suppose it is common throughout history for national neighbors to be similar while hating each other

From the sacred texts:

So what makes an outgroup? Proximity plus small differences. If you want to know who someone in former Yugoslavia hates, don’t look at the Indonesians or the Zulus or the Tibetans or anyone else distant and exotic. Find the Yugoslavian ethnicity that lives closely intermingled with them and is most conspicuously similar to them, and chances are you’ll find the one who they have eight hundred years of seething hatred toward.

What makes an unexpected in-group? The answer with Germans and Japanese is obvious – a strategic alliance. In fact, the World Wars forged a lot of unexpected temporary pseudo-friendships. A recent article from War Nerd points out that the British, after spending centuries subjugating and despising the Irish and Sikhs, suddenly needed Irish and Sikh soldiers for World Wars I and II respectively. “Crush them beneath our boots” quickly changed to fawning songs about how “there never was a coward where the shamrock grows” and endless paeans to Sikh military prowess.

Sure, scratch the paeans even a little bit and you find condescension as strong as ever. But eight hundred years of the British committing genocide against the Irish and considering them literally subhuman turned into smiles and songs about shamrocks once the Irish started looking like useful cannon fodder for a larger fight. And the Sikhs, dark-skinned people with turbans and beards who pretty much exemplify the European stereotype of “scary foreigner”, were lauded by everyone from the news media all the way up to Winston Churchill.

In other words, outgroups may be the people who look exactly like you, and scary foreigner types can become the in-group on a moment’s notice when it seems convenient.

Evaluate for example the love of white progressive they/thems for Palestinians, and their absolute seething hatred for Trump voters.

Ok, I do think the logic checks out, I don't doubt the Japanese hatred for China etc. etc.. But what I'm curious to know is if the Japanese people and especially right wing/nationalist types in the country harbor any resentment toward the US or regret their close alignment or resent American interference/influence in the postwar period until today. I am looking for firsthand sources on the topic rather than western theorizing or projecting their values on Japanese sentiments though I imagine it'll be difficult to find outside of the Japanese language.

I agree that'd be interesting to find out. And I also think you might be right, and if you're looking for firsthand accounts from xenophobic Japanese... you're going to have to read Japanese.

A good starting point might be to look into the controversies surrounding the Yasukuni Shrine, which Hirohito and his successors have boycotted because it enshrined some Japanese leaders convicted of war crimes. Politicians who visit the shrine signal affiliation with more nationalistic and far-right elements in Japanese society -- for example, Abe, and Kishida (who asked Germany to take down its statue commemorating Korean comfort women). I'm no expert, but really what you want to look into is Nippon Kaigi, which has as its mission to "change the postwar national consciousness based on the Tokyo Tribunal's view of history as a fundamental problem"... i.e. to not apologize for historical atrocities. If they don't hold a great deal of anti-Americanism... safe to say nobody in Japanese leadership does.

I haven't been to China but I suspect that even Chinese society is beginning to surpass the vibrancy of Japanese society at least in the sense that the Chinese have seen an explosion of wealth and modernization in the past 50 years

I have been to China for work and to visit my in laws. I have been on a few work trips to Korea totalling a few weeks. Korea is very far past China on a subjective newness and technological advancement scale. I have spent months working in Chinese factories and rate them well below Korean factories in technological integration.

Also everything is so dirty and half-assed in China. It really dings them on an aesthetic level. You walk up to your apartment and you see when they painted around some fixture they just slopped it on rather than laying down some tape and making it look neat. I've painted a lot in my life and would never do that shitty a job.

There's some ditch on the side of the road and it has lots of trash in it. One of my college educated coworkers eats a packaged snack and just dumps the packaging on the ground at the bus stop. Everything is dirty. You blow your nose in the winter and your snot comes out grey from the pollution.

At the factory cafeteria (which serves great food, 10x better than American public school food, literal communists are effortlessly dunking on what our government feeds our children) a very sick coworker dips her chopsticks into a shared jar of food. It was quite culture shock.

The food is great. They like foreigners. There's a lot of value there. But fresh, clean, technological, modern. Those terms belong somewhere else. I nominate Korea based on my limited experience.

I don't doubt that China today still lags behind most of the first world in terms of cleanliness and modernization. But more importantly, how does China today compare with China 30 years ago? If the average 30 year old in China is living a much better life than the one they were born into, that is more important in terms of outlook than most of the first world where conditions have stagnated or declined in the past few decades. I see this as similar to the boom of postwar USA and Japan compared to the stagnating powers of England and much of western Europe during the same time period.

I concur, although I will say that the comparison is skewed thanks to China's size. Shanghai is clean and modern, Shenzhen is dirty and modern, Dongguan is dirty, full of industrial factories and meh construction. Beijing is somewhere in between but with some of the worst pollution in China.

Food in Korea I found generally better in winter, although that might be personal taste and my love for Korean soups and banchan.

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