Japan’s Prime Minister Taro Aso recently met with Barack Obama, following an invitation the US president had extended to him earlier.
Aso is the first foreign leader to visit the White House during the Obama presidency and as such represents a sign of America’s continued close relations with Japan during this time of economic crisis.
Aside from dealing with possibly the worst recession Japan has seen in decades, Aso has also been suffering from an approval rating of less then ten percent, no doubt partially due to his cabinet’s innumerable blunders, such as the embarrassment caused by the former minister of finance’s incoherent behavior at a recent press conference.
In spite of these unfortunate occurrences, America is showing its readiness to work with Japan, a relief to concerned politicians in Tokyo who may fear being set aside by the US in favor of China, as was the case with the Clinton presidency.
Via Mainichi.
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Fuck China.
Good for Obama getting his allies right.
Fuck China.
Would America ever choose China over Japan..... I think not.
Oh Agreed!- China is still pretty communist! (Red) While Japan is the fore-runner of 80% of the NEW Techology & computers (which are used in everything from defense, warfare, business, leisure, Hollywood, industrial, education)- in an information age, I want to be best friends with those people!!!...not red country full of sweatshops, communist regimes, and 'make-shift' businesses.
The whole world should embrace Japan for it's culture, creations, work ethic, and impact on our everyday life! Let China get in back of the 'Capitalist' line and FREE it's peopel then maybe I'll care about them
Long Live Japan! All Hail ZERO!....wait, what?
china is pretty fuckin capitalist i last checked
have u ever been to shanghai/beijing?
go bak to 4chan
China may have embedded capitalist ideals in its market, but its still as communist as ever.
The only reason they outlasted the Soviet Union is because the Soviets were to late and didnt copy the Chinese in moving to a capitalist market.
No, Soviet Union fell apart because Gorby decided to give away freedom
LOL- I love these 'drive by' Anonymous posts.
All you heard about last Summer during the Olympics in China were how internet was 'monitored' and how the Gov controls even the simplist (like in Advertising)- They are becoming (if not already) the biggest consumers on the planet just because of their population #'s - However, they are still as Commie as you can get! Sean Penn & the Far Left of Hollywood won't even kiss their Dictators ass.
FUCK Anonymous!...Yeah, you know who you are...too chicken-shit to even make an ID.
Get off the TV, get off Japan's cock, get your weeaboo ass into a classroom and don't come out till you know Deng Xiao-ping isn't the name of a sugoi sugoi strawberry candy.
LOL...yeah, a classroom full of Indoctrination of far-left zealots who hate America, Capitalism, and Winners. get off the Kool-Aid or goto Cuba or China already.
All hail Zero! XD
as a public announcement to all you right winged extremists, patriots, and those who hate everything about communism and the socialist society; good luck in your 60s when you start taking medications and health care is only covered by your own money, out of work due to economic fluctuations, have no support from the government when you are trying hard to find a different job, work slave's wage for long hours in cramped conditions, and pay for everything that you think you might need at a growing price every year. So before you dismiss everything that is brought to you by the "commies" and the "socialist bastards", I'd like for you to look back at your own history and the changes that was made from when you guys first started.
p.s. last time I check technology is still useless unless there are people to make it in to something usable, and not affordable unless there is cheap labor to produce it.
sign - the Anonymous who represent the minority in any discussion.
*shakes head*
Obama is not the type of president to play favorites. Besides from a military standpoint you would def want to be friends with the Chinese rather than the Japanese. From an economic viewpoint though the Japanese are much better. It just comes down to being impartial and calling a side out when they fuck up.
Um...Jarmel, the US are actually importing more products from China than Japan. I mean a lot more which is why China is economically increasing while Japan is plummeting.
Not just imports, there are alot of things that affect an economy like loans to the government and such.
http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?page=article&id=2265 [http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?page=article&id=2265]
Speaking of loans, both China and Japan have huge reserves of US dollars from their constantly buying up US Treasury bills, and their still buying. Both countries greatly contribute to the USGovt's ability to spend, but this also means that if even one country were to decide to pull their money from the US and trade their US dollars for tangible goods, it would destroy both the USGovt and the US currency as a run out of the US dollar began.
Is this likely? Not really; the US dollar is the single most liquid fiat currency in the world, and is still the reserve currency. The bottom line is, though, that the US must step carefully around both China and Japan; choosing a "best friend" is out of the option. At least, until (if?) a new reserve currency is made and China dumps the US's debt like a bad date.
I cannot contribute to this conversation because I have not seen Spice and Wolf.
I agree with iapfah. I should have paid attention in Spice and Wolf.
Goto http://www.Gendou.com [www.Gendou.com] and download ALL "Spice & Wolf"'s!- for free. No excuses for a lack of Horo in your anime diet!
Horo is life. No excuses!
i really don't give a flying f*ck who we side with. Just get the damn economy fixed and i'll be happy. Gas alone f*cking kills me man.
Fuck you man!
lets just stop and enjoy a dirty movie alright guys? jeez didnt think people would get riled up on politics onn this site
You what Haruhi would say: "Penalty!" for excessive 'Blog-Dicking' and rampant 'Douche-Baggery'.
However, one could avoid such conflicts all together by NOT posting 'Politics related' stories on the site....but, it's not my decision.
He does it for the website views, nothing more...maybe for the lulz sometimes.
Why can't you all just shut your fucking asses up and admit that Korea is far superior to all other nations of the world.
Go kill yourself racist dick
You guys do realize that most of the world's import, especially the US, comes from China. I'm pretty that you can find at least one product made from China in your house.
That being said, Obama would need to prepare for an outcome where China increases prices for import goods.
As a broker I would like to agree with you. Although above information "was" true until the recession, shipment from overseas has decrease tenfold due to higher costs in oil and other areas. However, we expect that the import in China shipment gains magnitude, otherwise import/export ocean/air companies will keep on bailing out which will affect the economy, or at least a section of it.
With the current world economical state, China's econamy, I believe will soon crash. bubbles burst and China has enjoyed the bubble. But like so many other countries and insustries, the bubble has burst. Japan on the other hand is I believe stablising, so a good choice by Obama. If only Kevin Rudd would have the same wisdome and invest in a stablising econamy not a crashing one :(
It's hard to take you seriously with so many spelling errors...
He does have a point. No nation has undergone a period of sustained growth without a recession at some point - even post war Japan had numerous recessions. All that holds China together is rapid economic growth and nationalism, neither of which are reliable in the long term.
One of the biggest problems with Chinese economic growth is that, every time China becomes economically active in the world - this isn't the first time China has "risen", after all - the coastal cities become wealthy while the interior remains poor. Therefore, a relatively small number of Chinese become wealthy, while most are still living as they always have. In the end, the wealth gap can lead to revolution, corruption, and a number of other nasty things. The success of China really hinges (not exclusively, of course) on how well the government can keep the rich protected from the poor while still keeping the poor happy.
Hey I speek 2 Languages.. Australian and Bad English and they are very similar.. so sue me
China's already seen quite a few of its bubbles burst. The entire real estate industry was one huge bubble, with so much new construction of malls and housing, but nowhere near enough people with the incomes to live in those homes, or shop in those malls. Exports have slid thousands of , and where once China's leaders couldn't slow down their growth to prevent, "Overheating", the GDP growth has slid so much, they're scrambling to keep it from collapsing altogether.
So when you mention, "Stabilizing", the entire global downturn is basically the market correcting itself. This, "Stabilization" is happening almost everywhere. China's growth, which has too much emphasis on exports, is being forced to shift. America's growth, so heavily reliant on someone buying up debt, is being forced to shift. The mistakes in most other economies are clear. What are the clear problems with Japan's economy?
Woops, typo there. "Thousands of jobs have vanished." is what I meant to put. :) .
Another issue is a lot of China's growth on paper has been at the expense of huge unaccounted economic externalities, such as pollution and health problems. At some point these costs will be incurred fully.
And of course further off there is the issue of declining birth rates and a huge gender imbalance. I do not think the idea that China is going to crush the US and others economically in the future to be realistic considering these kind of issues.
They may not crush the US single-handedly; they have a history of boom and bust, surely. Yet, they will remain a strong player along with the other BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India) and, if the US does collapse due to their economic malaise (huge debt, serioues - yet unrecognized - inflationary pressures, collapsing credit/finance system, corruption, etc.) China may very well participate in the creation of a new single or set of reserve currencies for the world, giving it a huge world economic advantage. As for their gender gap, I can only think of one thing to do with all those fine Chinese men; military uniforms, anyone?
Anyone spotting a hundred million soldiers on their borders in this day and age will just nuke them. Technology is the only way wars can be fought, brawn is irrelevant.
Surely the US is much more resilient than you give it credit for - socially, politically and economically it is the most advanced nation on Earth. Older nations like China or those of Europe have a lot of disadvantages in comparison.
Still, I certainly agree that the developing nations look very promising. A prosperous but peaceful China would be very beneficial to the world economy, and the same is true of Latin America, etc.
Better to give those young men jobs an education outside of just military service. The current PLA doesn't even want to hire from its traditional sources in the rural regions. They're focusing on creating their own young and educated core of officers to modernize their military, and that means recruiting from the cities, where, education is superior.
*Sigh*, discussing something like, why, despite all the hype, is China not a super power like America, the list of flaws basically runs from the bottom up. Disadvantaged, and often ignored rural regions in the interior are holding China back in so many ways...
I agree, any country with a nuke would just wipe out any standing army with the push of a button. Yet, the US is in Afghanistan/Iraq right now with a standing army of human soldiers; so, if a country doesn't have nuclear weapons, then brawn vs. guerrilla warfare is still viable. Even if its just to distract the population from more local problems, or to kill of some excess residents.
Friedman is on your side about the US. He says North America will remain the world center for another 100 years. Mind you, if the US can't borrow/tax to pay off their USTbill obligations (mostly foreigner held), then the US will be labeled as a Third World nation, because it would have either defaulted on its debt or printed more money to pay it off, thus creating huge inflationary pressures on its currency.
Not exactly. We were and are trying to maintain the moral high ground in Afghanistan and Iraq. There were people advocating in the Korean War to use nukes against China(not to mention the anti-commies who were advocating use of the nuke before the Russians got to it). So if we were serious and felt that we were going to lose, you would see those nice little mushroom clouds. if China tried to do a full out attack on us, we probably wouldn't use nukes as we really wouldn't need to but if we were going to lose then all bets are off. There are tons of problems with considering the use of nukes such as political, economic, and environmental factors.
Meanwhile Mexico (as in the whole country!) is bordering on a state of collapse!!!...Colleges are warning students NOT to even go there for spring break.
The ACLU is actively handing out literature to them on How to sneak into America and avoid ICE. We should just Annex Mexico and use it for storage!!! Canada can be our attic- lol.
The fundamental tactics of the militants the US and co. are fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq are not those of a standing army; they're akin to guerrilla war. This means that there are precious few strategic targets to hit with any bombing, nuclear or otherwise. Furthermore, because the militants hide within the populace, a nuclear attack would kill even more innocent local civilians than have already been killed. The killing of civilians, without fail, causes even more animosity, and thus brings forth more militants.
The only option in regards to nuclear attacks in Iraq/Afghanistan would be to destroy every bit of land that could possibly hide a man with a gun. The USA has the capability, yes, but my point is that it would be exceedingly immoral, inaccurate, and a horribly difficult political pill to swallow, as it would involve the wholesale destruction of thousands upon thousands of innocent lives.
Also, China is a nuclear power. A nuke battle is something I'd expect both countries would want to avoid. The most in regards to war you'll see between the US and China would be an economic/currency war.
@ Artefact. Ask the viets about being nuked.
China is indeed more important to the U.S. than Japan both economically and militarily. It's only common sense. After all, the Japanese don't manufacture the majority of our products; it's the Chinese.
Geez...Chinese food over Perverted Anime???....Hmmm, My choice is clear!!!...ANIME and Taco Bell!- lol.
Most Chinese brands are pirated.There's one district i know there that sells goods like shoes,bags,DVDs and even canned products and yeah,policemen are all over and never caught one.
I wonder if Obama and Aso could do the fusion dance...
i like both China and Japan sooo yay for both of them?
China holds USA's economy by the throat
if they one day decided to halt all exports to the USA the country would collapse overnight
Which would turn around and destroy their economy. Who do you think could replace the US as a buyer of exports?
Russia, Turkey, Iran, and maybe India, Pakistan, and the central Asian nations. The business isn't as lucrative, but they already have deals/alliances with said countries.
You think they could pick up the slack for us? Russia's economy is pretty much collapsing and the rest are nowhere large enough to pick up the slack. If the US stopped buying goods, all those countries would be screwed too. There is a reason why it's called a global market, countries are dependent on each other and if one collapses then we're all in for a world of hurt.
So, China would halt the exports to the USA in order to destroy the USA. Let's follow that thought pattern for a bit.
China cuts off exports to USA, USA in desperate need of imports, widespread shortages begin, social outcry sweeps nation, prices skyrocket, importers scramble for new supply, US citizens adjust to lack of Chinese goods and begin local production, different country (say, India, perhaps?) revs up to fill void left by China.
And China is left without its major customer anymore, with a retooling of exports to different markets taking many months (possibly years) until it hits the level of profit found from the US. Not to mention the great fear that other nations would have in relying on China for imports, due to what it did to the US.
For some reason I can't put my finger on, I just can't see China considering that a viable option. The turmoil may actually leave the US a stronger country, as it would bring back manufacturing to American soil.
It would make America a poorer nation, as the trade between the two nations is undertaken for a reason - it makes both better off. America is better off without all that dirty and relatively low-tech manufacturing.