Book warns of new threat from China

[dArKeR]

Experts on national security yesterday predicted China's economy would probably decline this year, and to avoid Chinese people's economic resentment, Beijing would again trigger nationalistic outbreaks against Taiwan, thereby affecting national security.

A Taiwan-based think tank, the Prospect Foundation, yesterday released a book entitled Taiwan Security 2004-2005, authored by a team of experts led by former National Security Bureau (NSB) director Ting Yu-chou (???).

Contributors to the book included Chang Jung-feng (???), former NSB deputy secretary general, Lin Wen-cheng (???), former senior advisor to the NSB, Lin Cheng-yi (???), director of the Institute of International Relations at National Chengchi University and former senior advisor to the NSB, and Arthur Ding (???), professor of international relations at National Chengchi University.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2005/04/18/2003250927

[dArKeR]

1. Chinese rabble loots Taiwanese factory in protest

A report that a Taiwanese-financed factory based in China was looted by a local mob revealed the importance of China signing an agreement with Taiwan to protect China-based Taiwanese businesses, a Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) official said yesterday.

"Our chairman, Joseph Wu (???), has urged Beijing to discuss with Taiwan how to protect businesses, but China did not respond to the request," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A report yesterday suggested that a mob had looted a China-based factory invested in by Taiwanese manufacturer B. B. Battery Co (????) on April 15 in Guangdong's Chaozhou City.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2005/04/18/2003250928

[cliss]

2. Don't forget hostility towards Japan.

We've been seeing a lot of that lately.

This must be very frightening for the Japanese, considering that they are being overshadowed by China as the dreaded power, looming on the horizon. The Japanese economy is on life support also, so I don't see good things in my crystal ball today.

[Art_from_Ark]

3. The Japanese economy on "life support"?

Would you care to elaborate on that statement?

[On the Road]

4. A Decade-Long Stagnation

that nothing seems to break. Part of it, I believe, is that the manufacturing drain is hitting Japan worse than the US. Part of it is the Japanese sytem of patronage. Here's an article by Paul Krugman:

http://www.pkarchive.org/column/62800.html

[Art_from_Ark]

11. As Mark Twain might say,

"the news of the demise of the Japanese economy is greatly exaggerated".

The problem with Westerners trying to understand the Japanese economy is that they view it in terms of all the economic claptrap they learn in the West. I have never once read a work by a Western economist that shows any real understanding about what makes the world's #3 economy tick. Japan has cobbled together an economy that serves its purpose but would never be able to work in the US. So what if it doesn't keep growing at breakneck speed? Most people have what they need, and the national and local governments do make an effort to make sure that no one is left behind (although there will always be people slipping through the cracks). Much better to have Japan's economy than the Republicans' I've-got-mine-and-to-hell-with-you economy.

Art from Ark
Contributor to the Japanese economy since 1981

[On the Road]

12. I Understand What You're Saying

in that you don't see the same painful effects in Japan that you would with the same growth rates in the US. But the Japanese themselves seem to take it very seriously.

I agree with that low growth, high equity is better than high growth, low equity. What makes you think it wouldn't work in the US?

[Art_from_Ark]

13. Wow, where do I begin?

At the risk of hijacking this thread, I'll just mention that the Japanese economy places far more emphasis on public transportation, including use by huge numbers of high school students (no student drives a car to high school, and many, if not most students go to high schools outside of their home towns). There is also a nationwide system of private tutorial schools, which include everything from "juku" (nighttime schools to help students prepare for college and even high school and junior high school entrance exams), to English and other foreign language schools, to word processor schools, to music schools, to traditional schools for tea ceremony, flower arrangement, and kimono wearing. There are lots of other aspects that I would love to talk about.

[On the Road]

14. I Don't Think We Disagree

I don't see any reason other than politics why the US couldn't move in the same direction of greater economic equality and participation.

One thing that's interesting about Japan: usually a stagnant economy results in a high unemployment rate. My impression is that's not happening in Japan. And that one reason is that married women tend to be the first ones laid off, still leaving the family with a full-time paycheck. That's one reason it hasn't reached crisis proportions like it would in the US.

Is that true from your experience?

[Art_from_Ark]

15. Well, the "stagnant" economy is kept going by a number of things

among which, as I alluded to earlier, is the school system-- not only the private tutorial schools and daily transportation expenses associated with school commuting, but also school supplies, uniforms, etc., which are often distributed through Mom and Pop operations, as well as big class trips that help to keep local hotels, souvenir shops, etc., in business. These are some of the unmentioned reasons why there is so much concern about the dwindling birth rate.

As for married women being the first to get the restructuring ax, things are in a state of flux right now. It used to be that an office lady would be pressured to leave (usually in March or April) after she announced her intent to get married. One of the female workers at my company, for example, is getting married soon, and she has left, although it was apparently voluntary.

A long-time female employee I knew at another company left because her new home was too far away from her job. One of her female co-workers quit because she was going to have a baby and, like nearly all Japanese mothers, decided to devote her time to raising her child. Once the child reaches junior high age, though, the mother may try to get back into the work force, probably on a part-time basis. If she does find full-time work, it will probably pay much more than minimum wage, which currently is about $6.30/hour. For example, there is a chocolate factory around here that pays about $100 per 8-hour shift.

By the way, the replacement for the woman who left to have a baby was a woman who herself left to get married, and her replacement was already married when she was hired by the company, and she has now been there for 4 years.

[Doctor_J]

5. A war to disctract people from economic problems?

I wonder where they got that idea!

[Ernesto]

6. One has to wonder just what is driving the recent Japan bashing

Why would the Chinese leadership allow (encourage) such a dog & pony show? How does this activity benefit those in power?

[kodi]

7. plainly, a diversion from internal problems due to rapid growth

massive relocations of people flocking to industrial centers change the dynamics of a society used to strict control of populations, environmental pollution causing riots, a labor shortage(!) driving wages up, fierce competition for export markets, inflation due to increasing prices for raw materials and energy, widely recognized and increasing disparities in wealth, and probably most important, dreams deferred, delayed, or dashed for tens of millions.

all these stir the iron rice bowl.

time to attack a foreign devil.

sounds about like our own busheviks.

[Maple]

8. Actually Japan is drilling in Chinese waters

and put out new textbooks that skip over what Japan did to the Chinese during the war. Again

[Durant]

10. Or China is drilling in Japanese waters

depending on who you believe. And I'm sure Chinese textbooks have all the nice details about the Cultural Revolution or Mao's facination with killing anything that opposed him. All nations gloss over the worst parts of their history.

[Art_from_Ark]

16. Don't forget Tiennamen Square

Deng Ciao Ping's little "contribution" to human rights in China. No doubt Chinese textbooks provide all the gory details about how the "heroic" People's Liberation Army "liberated" so many people from their lives.

[megatherium]

9. supposedly, nationalism is replacing communism as the binding ideology

that will allow the communist party to maintain control.