Tag: Asia

Martial Law in South Korea

The global supply of K-Pop may be in jeopardy now that President Yoon has declared emergency martial law in South Korea:

South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol sensationally declared emergency martial law today, accusing his political opposition of subverting parliament and railing against ‘pro-North Korea, anti-state forces’ in his country. The shocking late-night address triggered chaos on the streets in Seoul where hordes of angry citizens clashed with riot cops and security forces outside the National Assembly.

South Korea’s military proclaimed that under martial law, parliament and other political gatherings that could cause ‘social confusion’ would be suspended and anyone found to violate the regulations could be arrested without a warrant.

In his address Yoon vowed ‘to protect the free Republic of Korea from the threat of North Korean communist forces, to eradicate the despicable pro-North Korean anti-state forces plundering the happiness of our people and to protect the constitutional order. With no regard for the livelihoods of the people, the opposition party has paralysed governance solely for the sake of impeachments, special investigations, and shielding their leader from justice… Through this martial law, I will rebuild and protect the free Republic of Korea, which is falling into the depths of national ruin,’ he said.

But the speech sparked an immediate outpouring of anger as disgruntled citizens marched on the capital’s parliament building.

Since taking office in 2022, Yoon had struggled to push his agendas against an opposition-controlled parliament, raising suspicions the sudden implementation of martial law was a political ploy to exercise greater power. His popularity has also declined as of late amid various scandals in his inner circle, with the opposition seeking to impeach cabinet members over failure to investigate Yoon’s wife on corruption and influence-peddling allegations.

I’m assuming that Yoon is a Clown World puppet, especially in light of how he is illegally ignoring the Parliament’s vote to override his declaration of martial law, but I don’t know enough about Korean politics to have any idea what’s going on there. That being said, it appears that North Korea is being used as a stalking horse to justify some sort of shenanigans in response to the recent election of President Trump.

The move comes as a complete shock in the Western-aligned Asian nation of more than 50 million which despite escalating tensions with its foe to the North is not fighting an active war and has not suffered attacks on its soil. 

Indeed…

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I May Have Been Wrong

About a month ago, in the leadup to the LDP leadership contest, I theorized that if Shigeru Ishida was chosen, it might signify Japan beginning to move away from Clown World.

There are some hints that Japan may be starting to break with Clown World. If Shigeru Ishida succeeds Fumio Kishida as Prime Minister, it would possibly signal a shift toward China.

And while Ishida did manage to win the party leadership, his call for an Asian equivalent of NATO would appear to suggest that he’s not any better than the obvious Clown Worlders. Of course, we must keep in mind that the Japanese often keep their thoughts to themselves, and that an Asian NATO including China would be a very different creature than an alliance formed to oppose it.

In brief comments made to lawmakers before the run-off, Ishiba called for a fairer and kinder Japan and tears welled in his eyes after the final results were read out.

“I will do my utmost to believe in the people, to speak the truth with courage and sincerity, and to make this country a safe and secure place where everyone can live with a smile on their face once again,” he said in a short speech.

Ishiba’s campaign focused heavily on security issues, and he has indicated he will push for more oversight over the United States’s use of its bases in Japan.

“He is seen as a defence expert. He has proposed the establishment of an Asian-style NATO. And he is likely to continue with a more assertive Japan on the international stage,” said Al Jazeera’s McBride.

Following the result, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Beijing wants to improve ties with Japan, because “the long-term, sound and steady development of China-Japan relations serves the fundamental interests of the two peoples.”

Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said, “It’s the only appropriate choice.”

China certainly doesn’t appear to object to Ishida. So this will remain something on which the astute observer should keep an eye.

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So Much for “Self Defense”

The Japanese Self Defense Force sent one of its warships through the Taiwan Strait off the coast of China:

A Japanese warship cruised through the Taiwan Strait for the first time to assert its freedom of navigation, local media said Thursday, just a week after a Chinese aircraft carrier sailed between two Japanese islands near Taiwan. Washington and its allies are increasingly crossing the 180-kilometer Taiwan Strait to reinforce its status as an international waterway, angering Beijing.

The Sazanami destroyer made the passage on Wednesday at the same time as navy vessels from Australia and New Zealand, several Japanese media outlets said. The three nations planned to conduct military drills in the South China Sea, the reports said. There was no immediate confirmation from the defense ministry.

Last week, China’s Liaoning aircraft carrier sailed between two Japanese islands near Taiwan for the first time, accompanied by two destroyers. Tokyo said the ships entered its contiguous zone — an area up to 24 nautical miles from the Japanese coast — and called the incident “totally unacceptable”, while China said it had complied with international law. It followed the first confirmed incursion into Japanese airspace by a Chinese surveillance aircraft in August.

On Thursday, the Yomiuri Shimbun daily cited unnamed government sources as saying Prime Minister Fumio Kishida had instructed the Taiwan Strait journey over concern that doing nothing following China’s intrusion into Japanese territory could encourage Beijing to take more assertive actions.

That’s an aggressive action by a naval warship, not a defensive action. Japan appears to be choosing very poorly, although given that it is now under both military and financial occupation, it may not have much choice in the matter.

My guess is that Clown World is trying to warn China not to make its move on unification when the US-Israeli alliance attacks Lebanon, Syria, and possibly Iran.

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Clown vs Clown

Now that the upcoming Japanese leadership struggle has begun, I previously observed that Shinjiro Koizumi was clearly a clown. Now it’s apparent that another leading candidate is as well:

A senior US State Department official has said that it is “too early” to talk about building a NATO-style bloc in Asia, after Japanese Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba called on Washington to discuss the matter in more depth.

Ishiba, who is a leading candidate to succeed Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, called last week for the creation of an “Asian version of NATO” by “uniting” its various security arrangements in the region into a formal defense pact. “At least we should deepen our discussions on this topic,” he said.

Speaking at a conference in Washington, DC on Tuesday, Assistant US Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific Daniel Kritenbrink shot down Ishiba’s suggestion.

“It’s too early to talk about collective security in that context, and [the creation of] more formal institutions,” Kritenbrink said, according to Japan’s Nikkei newspaper. “What we’re focused on is investing in the region’s existing formal architecture and continuing to build this network of formal and informal relationships. And then we’ll see where that goes.”

One would think that after 70 years of US military occupation, signing up to play the role of Ukraine to China’s Russia would be the last thing that any Japanese politician would support. And yet, here we are. Clown World already set up an Asian NATO called SEATO, which collapsed in 1977, but now that China is posing a serious challenge, they’re having the Japanese take the lead on reviving it.

The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) was an international organization for collective defense in Southeast Asia created by the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, or Manila Pact, signed in September 1954 in Manila, Philippines. The formal institution of SEATO was established on 19 February 1955 at a meeting of treaty partners in Bangkok, Thailand. The organization’s headquarters were also in Bangkok. Eight members joined the organization. Primarily created to block further communist gains in Southeast Asia, SEATO is generally considered a failure because internal conflict and dispute hindered general use of the SEATO military; however, SEATO-funded cultural and educational programs left long-standing effects in Southeast Asia. SEATO was dissolved on 30 June 1977 after many members lost interest and withdrew.

It may well be that none of the leadership candidates are free of clown control, as I’m skeptical of both the female candidates, and particularly the young Digital minister. Which suggests that if Japan is going to break free and join the sovereign nations in the next ten years, it won’t be through the LDP.

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Clown World’s Candidate

I’ve been paying closer attention – well, any attention is closer attention – to the LDP leadership contest this time around because it’s clear that there is a Japanese faction that wants to break from US control and align with the sovereign nations. However, it’s now evident that the leading candidate is not aligned with that faction.

Japan’s former Environment Minister and leading prime ministerial candidate Shinjiro Koizumi said he would respect the central bank’s independence in setting monetary policy if he is chosen to lead the country, according to a television program on Wednesday.

“I will respect the Bank of Japan’s independence,” Koizumi was quoted as saying in the BS 11 program, adding that he would focus on ensuring smooth dialogue and communication between the government and the central bank.

He ranked as the most favored candidate to become the next LDP leader in a poll taken by the Nikkei newspaper on Aug 21-22, followed by former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba.

If you don’t see the connection, read Richard Werner’s Princes of the Yen. An independent central bank is always reliable evidence of a nation’s submission to Clown World.

Sooner or later, the Japanese will decide the decline of US naval power is sufficient to go their own way, at which time it will be a very, very bad time to be a gaijin in Japan, if the last time the Japanese decided to break with foreign influences is any guide.

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Speaking of Cancellations

The Japanese are not at all happy with a gaijin who appears to be attempting to reinvent Japanese history by taking a page from the Mary Beard “everyone was Black” school of history. After all, if both England and Sweden can be “nations of immigrants”, why shouldn’t Japan be too? To top it all off, he’s not even a historian at Nihon University, he’s just an English teacher.

On Thursday, Variety revealed that JoAnn M. Hunter, the choreographer of “School of Rock” and “Bad Cinderella,” has been hired to direct the upcoming musical “Yasuke: The Black Samurai,” which is expected to open in 2026. With few historical documents on Yasuke, the story is likely to be chiefly based on the words of Thomas Lockley. An associate professor at Nihon University, he co-authored the first book in the world about Yasuke in 2019. But how much of what he wrote about the man dubbed the first non-Japanese samurai is true? Not a lot, according to netizens.

The English author has received widespread criticism, particularly in the past few days, and has reportedly deleted his Facebook page. The biggest backlash has been against his claim that several feudal lords in Japan were happy to make use of Black slaves. There have been close to 200,000 posts on the subject. “The rumor that black slaves were popular among Japanese daimyo needs to be properly refuted and stamped out, otherwise it could cause big problems later,” tweeted one user. There have also been allegations that Lockley edited Yasuke’s Wikipedia page under the name Tottoritom.

There are also reports that Lockley has been fired from Nihon University, which are unconfirmed, but a petition to fire him has already been signed by 20,000 Japanese people.

Interestingly enough, the only article about Lockley on Japan Today was marked “expired, no longer available”. He would be well-advised to leave Japan; Meiji-era radicals would literally behead him for this sort of insult to Japanese history and culture.

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Sayonara, Kurils

Japan has made the mistake of further submitting to Clown World, thereby ensuring they will never get the Northern Territories back from Russia.

Tokyo will shoulder 520 billion yen ($3.3 billion) in loans to Kiev funded by proceeds from Russian assets blocked as part of Western sanctions, the Kyodo news agency reported on Wednesday citing diplomatic sources. The figure represents some 6% of the massive loan agreed by the Group of Seven natons during their summit in Italy in June. G7 leaders reached an agreement on using interest from frozen Russian funds to finance a $50 billion loan to help Kiev buy weapons and rebuild damaged infrastructure.

Japan never signed a peace treaty with the Soviet Union after WWII. And Russia has already told Japan there will be no peace treaty so long as the Japanese continue to side with NATO. This move puts Japan firmly into enemy nation status and makes it very unlikely that Russia will agree to give up the Kuril Islands. And given the alliance between China and Russia, this also means kissing the Senkaku Islands goodbye as well.

I can only assume that once Clown World begins to collapse and Japan belatedly breaks with it, the Japanese will plead that they were still being occupied by the US military and therefore unable to resist Clown World’s demands. I also doubt that will cut much ice with either China or Russia.

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The Fourth Front

It appears the fourth front of WWIII will not be Africa, but the Korean Peninsula:

South Korea said Thursday that it would consider sending arms to Ukraine, a major policy change that was suggested after Russia and North Korea rattled the region and beyond by signing a pact to come to each other’s defense in the event of war.

The comments from a senior presidential official came hours after North Korea’s state media released the details of the agreement, which observers said could mark the strongest connection between Moscow and Pyongyang since the end of the Cold War. It comes at a time when Russia faces growing isolation over the war in Ukraine and both countries face escalating standoffs with the West.

According to the text of the deal published by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA, if either country gets invaded and is pushed into a state of war, the other must deploy “all means at its disposal without delay” to provide “military and other assistance.”

I had my suspicions about things heating up on the Korean Peninsula once it became obvious that the USA was going to try to substitute South Korean and Japanese ship-building for its own lack of ship-building capacity. The amount of Clown World interest and investment in both countries has noticeably appreciated (see the previous post on investments into the comics industry) and therefore a counter-move by the BRICSIA alliance was inevitable.

I was a little surprised that it was Russia that made the overtures to the North Koreans and not the Chinese, except that it’s now clear that Russia is playing bad cop while China whistles innocently and pretends to not be directly involved. What will truly shake things up, however, is if an invitation to join BRICSIA is offered to North Korea, as that would truly be a formidable gauntlet to cast before the G7.

It shouldn’t be too long before Clown World realizes that it is no position to sanction anyone, and to the contrary, the rest of the world is effectively sanctioning it.

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Thailand Sides with BRICS

Another nation breaks free of Clown World:

Thailand will apply to become a member of the BRICS economic bloc, the government of the Southeast Asian country announced on Tuesday. The cabinet in Bangkok has approved the text of the official letter expressing Thailand’s intent to join the group, government spokesman Chai Wacharonke said in a statement quoted by local media. According to Chai, the letter declares that Thailand understands the importance of multipolarity and the increasing role of developing countries in international affairs.

We are witnessing the biggest global transformation since WWII. It’s got to be killing Francis Fukuyama, who obviously forgot that history never proceeds in a linear manner for long.

UPDATE: In another blow for Clown World, there will be no more color revolutions in Georgia.

The Georgian parliament has pushed through the divisive ‘foreign agents’ legislation, overriding a veto of the new law by the nation’s president Salome Zourabichvili, local media reported on Tuesday. A total of 84 MPs out of 150 voted for the president’s veto to be repealed and the bill to be passed without any changes, while only four supported the president’s stance, the reports said. Under Georgian law, a presidential veto may be overridden with a simple parliamentary majority, which would require 76 votes.

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China Warns Japan

And after Japanese protests, repeated the official warning about not lending support to Taiwanese independence:

CCTV: On May 20, Chinese Ambassador to Japan Wu Jianghao sent a serious warning to the Japanese side over its recent negative moves on the Taiwan question. Wu said that “If Japan ties itself onto the chariot of splitting China, the Japanese people will be led into a pit of fire.” It’s reported that on May 22, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said that Wu’s remarks were “extremely inappropriate.” What’s China’s comment?

Wang Wenbin: The Taiwan question is at the very core of China’s core interests. It bears on the political foundation of China-Japan relations and is a red line that must not be crossed. Some in Japan have been making negative moves on Taiwan, including repeating the preposterous and dangerous notion that “any contingency for Taiwan is a contingency for Japan”, which seriously violates the spirit of the four political documents between China and Japan and the commitments Japan has made.

Ambassador Wu Jianghao categorically and rightfully stated China’s position. They are based on facts and the intention is sincere and earnest. His words are entirely proper and necessary. Let me stress once again that no one should underestimate the resolve, will and ability of the Chinese people to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity. Anyone bent on interfering in China’s internal affairs and holding back China’s reunification will pay a heavy price.

Clown World seems to be having a tough time grasping the observable fact that their past ability to shame sovereign nations into submitting to its will are over. First, Russia, and now China, are repeatedly making it clear that they have no concern whatsoever for the rhetorical machinations of Clown World’s pet media.

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