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Soriek  1yr ago (text post)   1935 thread views

Transnational Thursdays XXX

This is the thirtieth weekly thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or IR history. I usually start off with coverage of some current events from a mix of countries I follow personally and countries I think the forum lives in or might be interested in. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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This was all over the news last night. Japan seems to me to be quite different from the US in that although this is "big news," it's also shameful and embarrassing and I think you'd have to really press to get people to talk about it. My Twitter is mostly filled by Japanese and it reminds me of the old days of 2012ish Twitter where people would just tweet some joke about the humidity. The long, Kulak-like screeds of dubious reasoning calling for whatever revolution (or even political change) just don't seem very common at all in Japanese, even in matters such as this where the scandal is clear and no one is denying it (also unlike the US). Of course my Twitter feed may not be very representative.

You have any impression on the ground how things will shake out from all this?

Too early (for me) to tell, but after damage control does its thing, a few heads will undoubtedly roll (figuratively) if only for the sake of show. Admitting and taking responsibility even for fairly heinous crimes is seen as honorable. Most of this will occur in the elite political realm, and the general populace will probably carry on without taking too many notes. I'm a permanent resident (legal status) and pay taxes but cannot vote, so I'm largely a spectator. The biggest non-natural disaster scandal here was a bit over a year ago when the assassination occurred (and I was, as it happens, out of country for that). The National Police Agency chief resigned , then you heard some people whingeing about the cost of Abe's funeral, but then not much. The assassination itself is little remarked upon these days, and the pipe bomb tossed near PM Kishida in April still didn't stir much debate on homemade weapons. Oddly. At least not to the rabid degree such things would back home.

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