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.
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.
80th anniversary of the end of World War Two - which pitted China against Japan
Interesting way of saying, “…in which Japan savagely attacked China and just about everywhere else in the region, and as far away as Pearl Harbor.”
But we mustn’t be mean to our allies right? Nanjing was only a little massacre and they are already pissed off at us because our military personnel keep raping their women.
Tokyo and Seoul are close allies to Washington, hosting thousands of U.S. troops on their soil.
Yes hosting lmao
I suppose South Korea is voluntarily hosting us, the US is the reason they even exist at all. And provided a large portion of their defense, but Japan is a very different story.
Youre right on saying that the US is the only reason korea is partitioned tho
Right, the South Korean government does actually appreciate existing I’d imagine
Yes i imagine the compradores/chaebols are very happy with that arrangement. The 99% of the people, eh not so much.
