cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/59118855
- “Given the increasingly severe international situation, I believe we may truly be at a turning point in history,” Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya said at the start of the meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul. “That makes it even more important to overcome division and confrontation through dialogue and cooperation,” he added.
The obliteration of Ukraine in NATO’s proxy war and Europe’s self-inflicted economic collapse are making US vassals in Asia nervous. Japan and South Korea are waking up to the fact that their prosperity and security are just as negotiable. As Europe’s industries flee to America and Ukraine lies in ruins, Tokyo and Seoul are quietly recalculating their futures, realizing loyalty to a declining hegemon buys only a front-row seat to their own demise.
You know I have been waiting for the eventual Japanese realignment with China and that I am always eager to see the latest developments. I cannot say the same for SK. What is the path for SK to shed the yoke of US occupation? Does it have to lose a civil war with the north before it can shed the yoke or does it have to shed the yoke before reunification is possible?
The way things are going in SK, it might just implode politically at some point.
That just means more US management though
If the regime collapses, the north might move in.
I feel like that would put the north in a hot conflict with the US pretty fast and China would not signal to the north that they would support.
I think that will all depend on the state of the US in the next few years. If US crashes economically, they might not be in a position to do anything about it.
Well yeah, in that case I would imagine Japan realigning with China, which then encircles Korea. I doubt the DPRK wants to fight a civil war given how much suffering has already befallen the Korean people, it would be very difficult to justify even more suffering. More than likely SK will get pressured to push the last vestiges of the US military out in order to participate fully in regional cooperation, and that’s the condition DPRK is looking for to begin pursuing peaceful reunification.
that would be the ideal scenario
The agenda items being reported, seem to talk down china, and so effectively a continuance of Biden foreign policy demands.
Not likely to provide any rapprochement. But talking is step 1.
Indeed, it’s gonna be a long road before anything substantial happens.
I can’t trust anything coming out of countries occupied by the US. And it’s likely the same for China, these diplomatic statements are a whole nothingburger.
I agree these statements alone aren’t really worth much, it’s going to be interesting to see if there’s going to be a general political shift to improve relations with China going forward though. The US economy isn’t exactly in a great shape right now, and they’re fighting a tariff war with everyone. This will further erode relations with the vassals going forward.
I’m convinced that they’ll happily rejoin the American Empire’s fold nonetheless after Trump’s administration has ended.
That was definitely the mood during the first Trump term, but it does seem that the realization is slowly sinking in that the nature of the relationship between the US and the vassals is changing.
Yet they’re all maintaining their anti-Chinese tarrifs and policies; some are expanding upon them like Mexico.
The US has a huge amount of economic leverage over them by design, so they can’t just openly go against the US demands. It’s going to be a process from realizing they need to wean themselves off the US market to actually making it happen.
The problem is that decoupling from the US is a very complicated process, especially when it comes to technology. Well, it’s complicated in the sense of how to decouple without hurting corporate profits/control, or giving rise to a populist momentum.
Indeed, the oligarchs don’t want to rock the boat and they will fight any attempts to redirect trade because that would negatively affect them.