Re: Japan to Lead the World?

Yep, the traveller's history guide is rather korny, but still, I miss your 
point.  For Japan should re-arm not in order to 'take care' of anybody, but to 
make sure that nobody 'takes care' of Japan and threaten the withdrawal of the 
island's only security capabilities.  And who cares if the UK and Japan are 
not part of the Euro?  What is important, is that the EURO is not being 
artificially valued by the EU's kidnapping of other people's savings in order 
to cope with their own trade deficit.  Indeed, the EC has a trade surplus, 
they don't need the Japanese to buy 'EU Treasury bonds...' I really don't see 
why Japan should not go nuclear, and I'm afraid to say that, according to your 
own standards, no country on planet earth should even have an army.  The 
historical records of present nuclear powers are not that much better from 
Japan's...and you cannot judge a country by what they have done over half a 
century ago.  Today's Japan has no responsability whatsoever for the crimes 
committed then.  Japan surroundedf by nclear powers, and it is more than 
capable of taking care of itself, and as far as I am concerned, a multi-polar 
world is welcome.  If the Japanese decided to rearm I would be more than happy

>===== Original Message From 50168529 <50168529@alumni.cityu.edu.hk> =====
>Dear Damian & WSN,
>
>Is the traveler's history guide written and published by the same people who
>tried to re-write Japanese military history?  From the text remembered, Japan
>must be a peace loving country. It seems that nuclear bombs in the hands of
>the Japanese may be a real good contraption the British could help engineer 
so
>that Japan can take care of Korea, North and South, China, Taiwan, India and
>anybody in Asia that the British may or may not care to deal with.  Perhaps
>the transformation of the British Core to the American Core will never be
>complete when two great Island States work together on nuclear armament, the
>EURO (part of which the Pound Sterling is apparently not) and the Japanese
>ownership of US bonds.
>
>This reminds me of a paragraph from Prof. Wallerstein's Commentary No. 107 -
>Feb. 15, 2003 :"I have been reading recently about the Crimean War, in which
>Great Britain and France went to war against the Russian tyrant in the name 
of
>civilization, Christianity, and the struggle for liberty. A British
>historian wrote in 1923 of these motives: "What Englishmen condemn is almost
>always worthy of condemnation, if only it has happened."
>
>May I suggest that there are history books worth reading, and perhaps there
>are traveler's history guides worth editing, so that history could resonate 
in
>discordance, but resonates in the perspective of the winners as well as
>losers.
>
>Tso.
>
>>===== Original Message From n0705590 <Damian.Popolo@newcastle.ac.uk> =====
>>I'm not a great expert on Japanese history, but I remember reading, rather
>>quickly, a traveller's history guide of Japan.  In it, I remember reading
>>something about Japan not wanting to have any contacts whatsoever with the
>>'West', and the British and US forcing them to for commercial interests.  I
>>remember reading that the Japanese had a quite stable, althought isolated,
>>society,  and had little imperialist adventures until the British and the
>>Americans forced them to open their markets.  I remember reading how the
>>Japanese were rather worried as they witnessed all of the colonisation of
>>Asia.  I remember reading something about how the Japanese decided that the
>>only way to resist Western occupation was to become a Western power itself.
>I
>>remember reading something about the Japanese efforts to have a A
>Western-like
>>army, paying Western officials to tell them how to do it.  Japan's 
incredible
>>process of modernisation and industrialisation, which inclined Japan to be
>>sensitive to the very same problems that could be identified as the causes 
of
>>Imperialism in western countries.   I'm not sure why Japan should admit its
>>wrongs more than any other modern power.  I'm not sure I ever heard the 
Yanks
>>apologiozing for dropping nukes on it, I have not heard the British 
apologise
>>about concentration camps during the Boer Wars, somehow, it is only ever
>>defeated powers that have to apologize.  What the Japanese should do, quite
>>simply, is stop finincing US debt by not buying their bonds anymore, get
>>themselves a decent army and probably go nuclear.  And as far as I am
>>concerned, I would trust them much more with nukes that I now trust ther US
>>(historical record), India, Pakistan and Israel.  That is what the New World
>>order needs: a healthy competition between the Euro and the Dollar shall
>>happen if the US does not take advantage of other people's trade surplus in
>>order to finance their deficits.  And if security is the threat, Japan 
should
>>provide for its own security.
>>
>>>===== Original Message From 50168529 <50168529@alumni.cityu.edu.hk> =====
>>>Dear MS, and WSN
>>>
>>>Would a leopard ever change its spot?  No.
>>>Would people learn from their mistakes?  Not if they do not admit they have
>>>made one.
>>>Would history be repeated? Sure, if history text books are altered.
>>>Would the Sun set on the Empire of the Sun? For the sake of humankind, I
>sure
>>>hope so.
>>>
>>>Be brave, get it out of the system.  "It" being denial, conceit and
>>>priggishness.  "System" being the cocoon - "the Emperor System that some
>like
>>>to abolish (so as) to restore the military system" system, not the
>>>world-system. (Ref: Conclusion No.2 of the article "A Vision for World and
>>>Japan in 2020").  Didn't the Great Nippon Military control the Emperor
>before
>>>and during WWII?  Is that still official Japanese history?
>>>
>>>That "others have also done it" is not a good reason Nippon could or should
>>>also do it.  Certainly not a good reason to ever do it again. Perhaps the
>>>single most notable exception between Washington and others who chopped off
>>>cherry trees is that Washington ADMITTED that he chopped off the cherry
>tree.
>>>He then went on to lead the building of Core as we know it to-day.
>>>
>>>Tso.
>>>

Damian Popolo
PhD candidate
Newcastle University
Department of Politics
Room 301