Okinawa: Poll Finds 80% of Okinawans Oppose New US Base

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Okinawa: Poll Finds 80% of Okinawans Oppose New US Base

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Willie Tomg: Feb 2, 2006

EasternBronze posted:

Don't worry, I have on good authority that Japan has alot of pre-teen magical girls who can assist the JDF.

its a robot bird, you clown

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP6mMCyXFsk

# ? Jan 22, 2016 07:27

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# ? Jun 7, 2024 21:45

Crowsbeak: Oct 9, 2012; by Azathoth; Lipstick Apathy

SedanChair posted:

Or we could just pack up and leave, and see how well the SDF + a bunch of right-wing politicians with bullhorns manage to defend their own country.

I love how much you want us to abandon our ally. Yeah that's a really great way to run foreign policy,just leave ally's hanging. That wouldn't hurt us anywhere else would it?

# ? Jan 22, 2016 07:28

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Hey, Chomskyan, here's a thought experiment: Imagine if the US was kicked out of Okinawa, and then they started making artificial islands right off the Japanese coast, to hold their poo poo, against the wishes of Japan. Exactly how much of the OP of your eventual D&D thread would be filled with the same dumb poo poo rhetoric you're using here, and could you maybe see why other non-moronic people aren't exactly enthusiastic about your 'flower power' Pan-Asian diplomatic alternative?

# ? Jan 22, 2016 08:27

woke wedding drone: Jun 1, 2003; by exmarx; Fun Shoe

Crowsbeak posted:

I love how much you want us to abandon our ally. Yeah that's a really great way to run foreign policy,just leave ally's hanging. That wouldn't hurt us anywhere else would it?

It would, wouldn't it?

# ? Jan 22, 2016 08:45

AllanGordon: Jan 26, 2010; by Shine

It's actually racist to not cede Asia to China

# ? Jan 22, 2016 08:54

Dead Reckoning: Sep 13, 2011

We can leave Okinawa, but if we do, we need to cede it to North Korea in the name of fairness, non-interference, and international peace.

# ? Jan 22, 2016 10:43

Red and Black: Sep 5, 2011

Fojar38 posted:

A) Almost everything you posted here is already the case. There have been tons of official war apology statements from the Japanese over the past half century and yet for some reason the Chinese always seem to find one more grievance they can use as a cudgel to stoke domestic nationalism. Furthermore, the Chinese and Japanese economies are already ridiculously closely intertwined, with lots of Japanese money flowing into China and lots of Chinese products flowing into Japan. This has done little to ease tensions.

If you read your the wikipedia article you linked there's something written on the flaws of those apologies. Most of them are vague, or are contradicted by the actions of politicians and government agencies inside of Japan. How can Japan claim to be sorry for the Rape of Nanking when until January of 2015 the head of the state news agency NHK was on record saying that event never happened? Or when the government tries to prevent historical documentation of the Rape of Nanking from being accepted by UNESCO? How can Japan claim to be acting in good faith, apologizing for the sexual enslavement of countless Korean and Chinese women, when the sitting Prime Minister has said he believes they were actually prostitutes? What about when, this year, it was announced that of the dozens of textbooks approved by the Japanese government for use in high schools, only 1 contained any mention of the "comfort women" issue? (yes, China also ignores things in its text books like the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, but these were crimes committed internally by the Chinese government against their own people and they don't pertain strongly to Japan-China relations)

Of the many "apologies" Japan has made over the years, none of them have offered Asia a "Willy Brandt" moment, which is what would be required to bridge the gap between Japan and China. It would probably involve an incumbent Japanese Prime Minister visiting the Nanking memorial, an official statement from the government fully recognizing the historical truth of the crimes committed against China (plus a promise not to contest these truths further in the public sphere), and the payment of formal reparations. The only thing Japan would materially be required to give is a bit of money, and it's not like it would bankrupt one of the wealthiest nations in the world.

Yes, Japan and China have a lot of trade relations but it could be deepened further. For example, Japan currently has an issue with declining birth rates and a shrinking work force. China has masses of impoverished people who would love the opportunity to work in relatively high-quality Japanese working conditions. Japan could issue a new visa for Chinese immigrants, solving its labor shortage and helping to alleviate China's issues with poverty. This would also have the effect of creating a sort of cross-cultural exchange where you would have large numbers of Chinese nationals living in Japan for extended periods of time, learning first hand about the Japanese people and their culture, marrying Japanese people and having kids, etc. In the short run a program like this would probably provoke a racist backlash from Japan's right wing, but if handled correctly the long term effects would be positive.

quote:

B) Why precisely should Chinese belligerence be rewarded with admission into exclusive trade blocs and more open access to the Japanese economy? Giving another country economic perks/preference in exchange for not being militarily attacked is called "tribute" and it's absurd to suggest that Japan and ASEAN effectively become Chinese vassals under the threat of bloodshed if they don't. That you think that the Japanese sometimes pussyfooting around when it comes to confronting its history is justification for the Chinese to threaten physical invasion is nothing short of astonishing.

It's not a "reward" to China, it's offering China a stake in the international system so that China will have a vested interest in preserving that system. China's leaders are selfish and ruthless, but they're also rational and if you see them challenging the international frameworks that the US is in invested in, it's probably because they've calculated that they have more to gain from from ignoring those frameworks than cooperating with them.

Case in point: the Senkaku/Daioyu island dispute. These islands are essentially uninhabited rocks that both Japan and China lay claim to (also Taiwan which claims to be the real China). Historically and legally, neither side has a bulletproof claim to the islands, but the Chinese have a fair amount of historical evidence to support their claim. In 2012 the Japanese government announced that it would buy the islands from their private Japanese owner, effectively stating that the islands belong to them and they wouldn't accept any of China's claims. The US has followed this move by stating that the islands are covered by the security treaty it has with Japan.

In this case the US has decided to ignore the historical and legal dispute entirely (the US claims to be neutral on the matter) and blindly support its ally. So China feels it has no obligation to abide by the unilateral decision made by Japan and the US, and to assert its claim over the islands China now periodically sails its military ships around their waters, raising the specter of military conflict between China and the US. Not a pretty thing to imagine. What would make much more sense is, as others have suggested, having Japan and China enter a bilateral agreement where the islands are jointly administrated and the resources they hold are shared. This isn't a "tribute" to China by the way, because from an objective perspective they have at least as much of a claim to the islands as the Japanese. This option also removes the possibility of the US going to war with China over a bunch of insignificant rocks in the middle of the ocean, and is thus infinitely better than the status quo. Now if, after China and Japan have settled on an agreement, China decides to violate the terms of that agreement, Japan and its allies should feel free to push back. Conversely, if the US or Japan violate the agreement they've made with China, they should expect a Chinese response. This is pretty standard diplomacy.

That's just an example. Other actions to integrate China into the region include allowing China into regional agreements and organizations that it has previously been excluded from. This doesn't mean making the other states of East Asia into China's "vassals" (which by the way, is a pretty hysterical analysis), it just means giving China a seat at the table so that it can benefit from regional agreements and have a stake in abiding by them.

Finally, I'm not aware of China actually explicitly threatening to invade Japan, so I'm not sure what you're on about there. If you're referring to China violating Japan's claimed airspace and waters that definitely not the same thing.

quote:

C) Lol if you think the US is containing China. If China was being contained everyone on the planet would loving know it.

I use the word "containing" because that's the word generally used by the press and academics discussing the issue. It refers US attempts to curtail Chinese military and economic development. Here's an article from the WSJ outlining the issue.

quote:

I agree, they should be held to a higher standard, which is why things like torture in Guantanamo was so loving abhorrant. It's the behavior one would expect from China or Russia, not the USA. The chief difference is that you're not only allowed to talk about it in the USA but the USA has also owned up to it. The US government has literally said "We tortured people, and it was wrong and hosed up to do that."

I have some reservations about the way you're presenting this, but it seems like we've more or less reached agreement on this point. The point being that any country that commits belligerent or immoral actions ought to be criticized, regardless of its form of government.

Red and Black fucked around with this message at 01:49 on Jan 23, 2016

# ? Jan 23, 2016 00:40

Red and Black: Sep 5, 2011

rudatron posted:

Also the idea that a more tightly integrated Asian economies will reduce conflict ignores that there's still a power imbalance - trade may flow both ways, but the countries that trade with China will need that trade with China more than China needs them. It's the same reason US embargos in the Latin American area are actually pretty effective. This is also pertinent because you, I suspect Chomskyan, would probably gladly reel off a million reasons why the US is practicing Economic Imperialism or whatever - yet you're blind and in fact arguing for giving China the exact same abilities on the grounds that it's a good thing. Turns out you are an imperialist apologist, who knew?

Have US embargoes there been effective? They certainly didn't work on Cuba, which is the most prominent example of such an embargo. The US was totally isolated from the rest of the world on the issue by the time the embargo was overturned. Meanwhile Cuba was able to maintain a relatively high standard of living compared to other Latin American countries and US allies (Haiti comes to mind). Also that embargo started following a communist revolution that wrested control of basically all of the US business assets in Cuba, meaning there was very little the US had to give up to start the embargo. In essence the relationship between the US and Cuba was the opposite of economically integrated and overall yours is a bad example. If you were a bit more clever you might have made a comparison to the Eurozone or the Bretton Woods institutions, which are examples where economic integration has been used in ways that could be described as "imperialistic", but those aren't the kinds of fair, equal integration I'm proposing anyways.

rudatron posted:

Ha, you never claim they are, yet you demand that Japan and the US act as if they were. You do realize that countries are not in a vacuum from each other, and cannot afford to simply treat everyone with kid-gloves, in the desperate hope that they'll somehow do the same thing back to them? Removing the US bases and demilitarizing Japan is acquiescing the entire area to Beijing - that's not a morally neutral thing to do, that has consequences. You have to accept and take responsibility for those consequences. If you were in charge, and you did what you said, then (surprise surprise) China kept doing what it's been doing so far, would you take responsibility, or would you weasel out of it?

Hmm, lets see. I never proposed demilitarizing Japan, or even immediately removing all US military forces from Japan. There should be a gradual drawdown of US forces (SDF can remain in place, but only patrol Japanese waters), and the drawdown should be contingent on concessions from China. If an agreement is struck with China for such a draw down and China reneges on its end of the deal, the drawdown should stop, and if deviation from the agreement continues further punishments should be considered. This is something known as tit-for-tat diplomacy.

Obviously if something went horribly wrong with an agreement between the US and China, you would have to look at that specific agreement and try to determine what caused the breakdown. It's pretty ridiculous to ask me to comment on your far fetched hypothetical though. I might as well ask you: What if your hawkish diplomacy over the Senkaku/Daioyu islands (or some other, equally trivial matter) leads to war, and an eventual nuclear exchange with China?

Would you take responsibility or would you weasel out of it? :smug:

quote:

Then, once you've thought that through, take the time to think why Japan might still want to put the bases somewhere, and Okinawa is probably the best place for them to be, regardless of how Okinawans may feel about it. In much the same way as a town being flooded by a hydroelectric dam means the town gets moved, in spite of how the people in the town might feel.

Hey man, I get that you think you sound super cool and edgy talking about flooding people out of their homes like its nothing, but it actually just makes you look like a sociopath who doesn't care about people. I get that sometimes individuals have to make sacrifices for the greater good, but I think it's generally agreed upon wisdom that we should talk to those people, hear them out, and consider all options before literally forcing them to make that sacrifice. For example: given that Okinawans are overwhelmingly against the new base in Henoko, and the Japanese people as a whole disagree with the way the Tokyo government is forcing the issue on them, maybe we should consider moving the base somewhere else in Japan. Or, failing that, maybe we could just let this base go and settle for having "only" 2 air bases in Okinawa in addition to other extensive military facilities.

rudatron posted:

Hey, Chomskyan, here's a thought experiment: Imagine if the US was kicked out of Okinawa, and then they started making artificial islands right off the Japanese coast, to hold their poo poo, against the wishes of Japan. Exactly how much of the OP of your eventual D&D thread would be filled with the same dumb poo poo rhetoric you're using here, and could you maybe see why other non-moronic people aren't exactly enthusiastic about your 'flower power' Pan-Asian diplomatic alternative?

Lets examine your question here which is really quite remarkable. In your scenario the US is building artificial islands for military bases in Japanese territorial waters (this is what "right off the coast" implies), without the consent of the Japanese government. This is a violation of international law and really it's an open and shut case. In fact it's way more open and shut than China drilling in the waters off of Vietnam's coast. In that case Vietnam is claiming the waters are within its EEZ, not its territorial waters. EEZs are less concrete and more open to dispute. So the scenario you're proposing is pretty much a 100% guaranteed violation of international law, worse than the violations China commits that you're supposedly so upset about, and judging by the smug tone of your post you think it would be a super cool and good thing. What point were you even trying to make here? I honestly can't imagine.

Red and Black fucked around with this message at 01:59 on Jan 23, 2016

# ? Jan 23, 2016 00:54

JeffersonClay: Jun 17, 2003; by R. Guyovich