Morning PR! 早上好

The video appears to be AI generated. It has the general trend correctly but misses a few things.

One is that the Philippines is one of the lowest, if not the lowest, recipients of Chinese aid and investments in SE Asia. This is mostly because of its slavish far right nationalism, and militarist proclivities, subservience to the US, and Japanese anti-China schemes. The bogus 2016 UNCLOS Permanent Court of "Arbitration" decision on Philippine territorial claims in the SCS (choreographed by the Japan in favor of US interests against China) is a milestone in the trend. It has only gotten worse with the elimination of the Duterte family influence in government there. One of the remarks that doomed Duterte was that he wasn't going to war "over some rocks." That made him a target for the US. The Marcos dictatorship and US colonialism has basically been restored in the Philippines.

Chinese Russian military cooperation and cross training in the Sea of Japan has been going on for several years. I first noted it in the summer of 2019.

There is a bifurcation between Japan's geopolitical chess game, if you will, specifically in the East Asian littoral, and its economic needs. It also has a crazy domestic nationalism problem that is racist, xenophobic, and delusional quite like the Trump phenomenon in the US. This doesn't mean there isn't a falling out by Japan currently with Trump's misguided, ignorant mercantilist tariff policies, and US violations of earlier economic agreements with allies, etc.

It will be interesting to see how the alleged 550 and 350 billion dollar Japanese and South Korean "contributions" to the alleged "US sovereign wealth fund" are dealt with by the two countries. I understand these negotiations currently are going nowhere. The US tariff attacks on the two nations' big ticket exports reflects an ignorance and incompetence on the part of the US leadership on an exponential scale. Trump, Luddite, and Pissant, have a 1980s (Peter Navarro) outlook and have damaged US interests in ways difficult to walk back. Korea is waiting to see what Japan does for cues.

Two things need to be separated out from the general trends. First the military trend and the economic trend are different. South Korea and Japan ideally would like to look toward China and SE Asia for economic opportunities and markets. At the same time, they have expressed a desire to maintain the military and security connections with the US. Korea's security interest is focused almost exclusively on North Korea and US extended deterrence. As the video suggests, Trump and his band of incompetents have accelerated the contradictions implicit in his mercantilist punitive economic policies. These policies represent a militarist/ mercantilist model to compensate for US elite greed having made the US uncompetitive and debt ridden. By doing this they damage their allies and themselves economically.

The contradiction of the imperialist/economic policies exists inside Japan's domestic politics. What is best for Japan economically, Japan now has to recalculate because of Trumps ignorant punitive mercantilism. Isbiba may have a window of opportunity because the Abe (far right) faction in the LDP lost ground after the Unification Church slush funds scandal. Sanseito, a far right party, moved into the vacuum. I don't think the US can operate militarily effectively in the theater without its military bases in Japan. Perhaps Japan can wait for the accelerated economic collapse in the US, before openly going BRI. Unfortunately, I hear a lot of talk in South Korea about their own military production infrastructure, and the possibilities of a profitable war products export market. I think this is the wrong model. Japan increasing its commitment to military expenditures further is also the wrong way to go.

Unfortunately, Japan's far right imperial trend has staked out a position in alignment with the US on Taiwan and the Philippines/SCS. Can they walk this back before something bad happens militarily? I hope so, but I have serious doubts. The US/Japan anti-China propaganda campaign concerning Taiwan, the Philippines, and the SCS, has developed a momentum of its own.

The US like Germany before WWII has a "now or never" or "going for broke" syndrome, as China and BRICs become more influential and powerful. I think the economic crisis in the US will aggravate more war talk, risk taking, and unwise national security policies from the US in the far east. Japan improvidently made security like commitments to Taiwan and the Philippines and are running a propaganda/influence operation and military exercises in conjunction with that. They also have territorial and maritime disputes with China (and Russia). Would they be willing or able to walk those back?

edit for typos and omissions x2