Japan General Discussion: You Gotta Be Kishid-ing Me

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New PM, new thread. I know the old one wasn't all that long, but it had Abe's name in its title and its OP is a currently inactive poster so it can't easily be changed.

Anyway, Suga was installed as PM today. His priorities include keeping up the fight against COVID (yay), implementing deregulation to juice the economy (boo), continuing Abenomics (two cheers), consolidating regional banks (meh), and reducing mobile phone costs (yay). He's also of course a big-time nationalist and Nippon Kaigi guy so we'll unfortunately be seeing more of the Japanese culture war too.

Kyodo News has described the Suga Cabinet as a "continuity Cabinet"; astonishingly (to me), he's keeping Aso as Deputy PM and Finance Minster after eight years, plus putting Kamikawa back at Justice for a third go-round and putting Okonogi back at the National Public Safety Commission. Motegi stays on as Foreign Minister, Kajiyama stays on as Economy Minister, Hagiuda stays on at MEXT (Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, a domestic development superministry somewhat akin to the UK's old Business, Innovation, and Skills Department). Kono moves from Defense to Regulatory Reform, Kato Katsunobu replaces Suga as Chief Cabinet Secretary. There are two women in the Cabinet, Kamikawa at Justice and Hashimoto Seiko as Olympics Minister.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

In a move best described as "keep your friends close and your enemies closer" 河野太郎(Kōno Tarō) was made Minister for Administrative Reform & Regulatory Reform which is actually a pretty tough job.

I had been wondering about this. It struck me at first as a pretty clear demotion from Defense, but perhaps it isn't really in a country with Article 9.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-54216632

Japan's former prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has visited a controversial war memorial just days after stepping down.

Mr Abe posted a picture of himself at the Yasukuni Shrine, telling his followers he had gone there to inform the spirits of his resignation.

He largely stayed away from the shrine, which honours Japan's war dead, but also convicted war criminals, during his time as prime minister.

Mr Abe's 2013 visit angered China and South Korea.

Japan's occupation of its two neighbours ended with its defeat in 1945 and the conclusion of the Second World War.

I guess when you aren't Prime Minister you don't care about insulting other countries, do you?

I mostly break with my Chinese compatriots on this.  I see nothing wrong with Japanese politicians visiting the  Yasukuni Shrine.  It is a  Shrine that honors those that fought for Japan and died in its defense.  We Chinese have plenty of shrines/temples like this and I have visited many of such Chinese shrines/temples with a great sense of gratitude and respect.  Sure, some of those honored Yasukuni Shrine might have been considered war criminals by some but that is like saying for the USA to have a positive relationship with Vietnam the US President cannot visit the Vietnam Memorial.

The core issue here is not Japan but an issue of a problem of low self-esteem when it comes to WWII for many Chinese.  We know we we really did not defeat Japan and the Japanese know it too.  The need for us to demand the Japanese apologize over and over again stems from our desire for us Chinese to hear from the Japanese "we lost to you fair and square".  And the fact is we will never hear that because it is not true.  It was the USA that defeat Japan.  We Chinese just went along for the ride.  All we Chinese accomplished in WWII was to avoid defeat but victory was not ours.

We Chinese have to move on from this absurd issue and deal with Japanese as a neighbor that shares a common cultural heritage with us and should in normal circumstances should be a friendly power.

I agree that there's a lot of posturing and fixation on symbolic harms on both sides here, but I think you're dramatically underestimating the amount of bad faith and refusal to accept the realities of the past that exist on the Japanese side. In particular I find questionable your statement that some of the dead enshrined at Yasukuni "might have been considered war criminals by some", as if there's really any room for doubt about some of these people for any historian who isn't Japanese. I say that as someone who in [current year] geopolitics sides with Japan over China.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Good, but that's an absolutely pathetic amount of damages compared to what was asked for.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Japan to help cover IVF costs in attempt to avert demographic crisis

Band-aid at best. Japan needs to make dating, sex, and family formation desirable to young people again by addressing its beyond-toxic work culture and renewing its postwar promises of lifelong economic security for those willing to take it. But of course it's not going to.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Apparently Suga’s ‘Go to Travel’ policy has taken a lot of flack and now there’s talk of him being replaced by September 2021. The cycle begins again?

What is this exactly?

Subsidizing intra-Japan travel and vacations as COVID recovery stimulus, basically. Cassius or jaichind might know more of the details.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Japan to help cover IVF costs in attempt to avert demographic crisis

Band-aid at best. Japan needs to make dating, sex, and family formation desirable to young people again by addressing its beyond-toxic work culture and renewing its postwar promises of lifelong economic security for those willing to take it. But of course it's not going to.

But that is DANGEROUS MARXISM, you know.

It could also accept more than zero young immigrants, but that's probably cultural Marxism so what do I know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It already does that, but Western liberals are always going to assume anyone Asian is some raging xenophobe racist.

Japan does have way more immigrants actually living there than most people in the West assume it does (some of the best Indian restaurants I've ever been to are in Japan!), but they're more or less permanently locked out of citizenship, which affects their ability to contribute in the full sense to Japanese society. I'm aware that you probably think this is a succdem multi-culti globecuck take but whatever, it's my position on this issue.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Japan to help cover IVF costs in attempt to avert demographic crisis

Band-aid at best. Japan needs to make dating, sex, and family formation desirable to young people again by addressing its beyond-toxic work culture and renewing its postwar promises of lifelong economic security for those willing to take it. But of course it's not going to.

But that is DANGEROUS MARXISM, you know.

It could also accept more than zero young immigrants, but that's probably cultural Marxism so what do I know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It already does that, but Western liberals are always going to assume anyone Asian is some raging xenophobe racist.

Japan does have way more immigrants actually living there than most people in the West assume it does (some of the best Indian restaurants I've ever been to are in Japan!), but they're more or less permanently locked out of citizenship, which affects their ability to contribute in the full sense to Japanese society. I'm aware that you probably think this is a succdem multi-culti globecuck take but whatever, it's my position on this issue.

I assume you're talking about people on the relatively recent guest-worker thing (because there's nothing that inherently locks out other immigrants from naturalization) - and that's so new, it's hard to judge at all what the long-term status of people will be.

Huh, for some reason I thought it had been around for longer.

Regardless, the last time I checked, most old-guard immigrants to Japan still in practice do not have citizenship, even if it's in principle possible for them to attain it.

But yes, social democrats are "cucky", because they do tend to just surrender to neoliberals whenever they can find them - as has happened in almost every Western country.

Yes, which is why I don't actually consider myself a social democrat.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Changed the thread title after Frodo's necro.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Changed the thread title after Frodo's necro.

I am not kidding.  This is a 'Japan General Discussion' thread, an all-encompassing umbrella title with no expiration date that I am aware of.  And the article I posted is a perfectly valid reason to necro it.  Are you suggesting otherwise?

No, I didn't mean that as a veiled criticism, don't worry. I'm actually glad you bumped this thread, but it has been a long time; the previous title was a pun on the previous Prime Minister's name so I changed it to a pun on the current one's. It wasn't supposed to be directed at you; sorry.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I mean, of course a ban on same-sex marriage isn't unconstitutional in Japan. In fact the Japanese Constitution expressly presupposes that marriage is between a man and a woman because of how the ban on forced marriage is worded. But that doesn't mean that the lack of any kind of recognition for same-sex couples (other than some local- and prefectural-level stuff that's helpful in terms of visitation rights etc. but not really enforceable--on that front there has actually been a ton of movement lately) isn't discriminatory.