East Asia News & Politics Thread: China, South Korea, Japan...

Shere fucking incompetence.

Dispite the memes the internet makes Abe didn't really mess up running the country in any kind of grossly offensive ways, and in fact was generally okay for the economy, and due to Akie pushing even moved topics like minority rights in the right direction, opening up a lot of opportunities for women.

Then you have Kishida step up, not only does the man lack any of Abe's charisma, and to use the expression "feels more generic then white bread", the dude cant even keep the day to day functioning of the country working right... You guys have probaly heard about the tax changes that require contractors to dox them selfs on a public website no? That was all over a lot of western news agencies I remember, well... not only did that go through, with Kishida refusing to back down or even apologize for it.... they basicly added insult to injury by putting a big disclaimer on the website that basicly reads "Yea we have no messures in place to prevent you from scraping this, but it would be illegal so please don't".... and while people meme about the crime rate being low... any one who has delt with cyclists knows first hand how effective posted warnings are at actually preventing any thing...

Not only this but he forced the replacement of health insurance cards with the "My Number" system, who's rollout was an absolute disaster of similar privacy violations, cards going to the wrong adress, over half the hopsitals reporting that the my number system just... flat out didn't work so they couldn't claim patients insurance.... and did I mention that they sent peoples cards to the wrong people? I mean I know I did but you would think that and working would be the absolute minimum you could expect.... this happened just a couple months before the above point, and just like it he once agian refused to apologize or back down.

Then there is even more tax shit that is just.... well general tax stuff, and not gross privacy violations, but things like double dipping on specific career paths, that I doubt would interest many people so I am going to skip it.... but just know that Kishida and taxes are a fucking meme on Japanese social media at this point.

Then to start off this year, there was a big slush fund scandal involving his faction of the LDP.... and uhhhh.... do I need to spell out how he reacted for the 3rd time in this post....

Point is you got a scandal ridden Prime Minister with zero fucking charisma, who cant even keep the taxes and the health insurance running... who is directly following a Prime Minsiter who while he also had the scandals could at least keep the country running right and wrangle his party.

So.... yea, it basically adds up to a huge popularity disaster.

The fun part is all this started last year, and you could basicly watch the popularity drop in real time... nothing kills the popularity of a party faster in japan then failure to run the government's day to day effectively, its what got the opposition too last time they were in power... you can eat scandals, but if you mess up utilities....

That's the part I am not so sure will actualy happen, this is there best chance in quite some time.... but can they actualy rally to take advantage of it is the question.

Edited by Imca on Mar 15th 2024 at 9:16:02 PM

Speaking of marriage law,

The Ministry of Justice's report suggesting that the restrictions on marrying close relatives should be loosened sparked controversy. The Ministry of Justice collected opinions from legal experts on how the restrictions on marrying close relatives should be changed after the Constitutional Court ordered the legislature to amend the law. so that the law does not violate the constitution by December 31, 2024, or else the law will be repealed.

This was because of a case in 2016, where two people who were second cousins got married without knowing they were related. However, once they found out they were second cousins, the parents pressured one of the partners into filing a lawsuit to annul the marriage. So, the other partner filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court, claiming that the law that made marriages between close relatives null and void infringed their constitutional rights. The Constitutional Court ruled that the law banning marriages between relatives of 8 degrees of kinship (i.e. third cousins) or closer was constitutional, however, the court ruled that the law making such marriages null and void did not fit with the constitution and so the legislature must amend the law by the end of this year, or else the law will be thrown out.

The Ministry of Justice asked legal experts how the law should be amended. A professor at the Sungkyunkwan University Law School proposed that the restrictions should be loosened to allow marriage between relatives that are further away than 4 degrees of kinship (i.e. first cousins) and that only marriages between parent/grandparent/... and child/grandchild/... or between siblings should be null and void. This suggestion sparked controversy, and the Confucianists are up in arms, claiming that it would cause the breakup of families and the collapse of ethics.

claiming that it would cause the breakup of families and the collapse of ethics. Why so hyperbolic?

It has to be a dogwhistle.

They've been yelling at clouds for centuries, at minimum.

Until the late 90s, people were banned from marrying someone from the same clan. People could marry close relatives on their maternal side, as long as they were more distant than first cousins. The Constitutional Court struck down this law as it prevented people who may as well be total strangers from marrying because they share a common male ancestor centuries, or even more than a millennia ago. This law was also sexist, as it applied different standards for the maternal side of the family. The National Assembly replaced that rule with the 8 degrees of separation rule that is used today. Even then the Confucians protested, saying that 'not marrying members of the same clan was a 5000-year tradition, and that the people arguing against it are possessed by Western ghosts', (nope, marriage between close relatives was not that unusual in royalty until the 14th century) and that 'women should look after their family and aid their husbands if they want more rights.'

Until 2005, only men could be head of household. If the 'man of the house' died, his wife did not become head of the household, but his eldest son. This was not a Korean tradition, but a carryover from Imperial Japan during colonial times, modeled after Japan's ieseido (家制度). In 2005, the Constitutional Court struck down this law, along with the law that mandated that children must have the same last name as their biological father. Again, the Confucians protested, falsely claiming (again!) that this law was a 5000-year old Korean tradition, and that families will disintegrate, people will not respect their parents, and people will become equals with dogs.

Not sure if I mentioned this, but by the first week of March... Beijing dropped all "peaceful unification" plans for Taipei.

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-drops-peaceful-reunification-reference-taiwan-raises-defence-spending-by-2024-03-05/

Guess they decided they'd rather appear tough than pretend to be reasonable.

At this point why not just drop the "China" name and declare independence? Why pretend you won the civil war?

They're not pretending they won. They're pretending it is still ongoing, with two competing groups claiming to be the legitimate government of China.

The reason why they don't just declare independence is because both sides were looking to maintain a polite fiction where they were negotiating a peaceful reunification. Big China got to save face by not having to acknowledge that Little China got away, and Little China got to worry slightly less that Big China would try and save face by other means.

Of course, Beijing is now looking to do away with said fiction, but Taipei has no reason to poke the bear even more. With USA protection, they might be able to fend off China, but that doesn't mean that having a war fought in your waters and airspace is going to be fun for them.

It's questionable that U.S. would do much beyond sending weapons. It's not like their Asia adventure has a good track record.

This is not a Ukraine situation. Taiwan is of great strategic importance to the USA. As it is now, between Japan and several other US-aligned islands and nations, it keeps China bottled up, allowing the US free rein on the Pacific Ocean. Giving up on that without a fight would be a massive blunder.

Which, come to think of it, might be why China has chosen now to cancel plans for peaceful reunification. It is, after all, an election year.

Edited by Kayeka on Mar 18th 2024 at 3:16:49 PM

Taiwan have also angled to maked themselves indispensable to the West's IT industry by being really damn good at semiconductor manufacturing via TSM.

Edited by megarockman on Mar 18th 2024 at 10:33:31 AM

Reuters: Hwang Sang-moo, the Office of the President's senior secretary for social affairs, resigned after he made made comments implicitly threatening journalists that intelligence agents will attack them if they write articles critical of the government.

During a luncheon with the Office of the President's press corps, Hwang told reporters from the broadcaster MBC, to "listen carefully", and said that in 1988, a reporter got stabbed twice in the leg. This is a reference to an incident when soldiers from the Korea Defense Intelligence Command stabbed a journalist who was critical of the government in the leg with a sashimi knife.

After the opposition parties demanded that Hwang be fired, and the approval ratings for the People's Power Party dropped with the general elections in sight, Hwang resigned from his post.

The Yoon Administration has a beef with MBC since MBC reported Yoon's hot mic incident, where he was caught on tape saying "How could Biden not lose damn face if these fuckers do not pass it in Congress?" while in New York for the UN General Assembly

Edited by minseok42 on Mar 19th 2024 at 11:11:30 AM

A far-right youtuber was arrested for installing secret cameras in the early-voting polling stations for the South Korean general elections.

After a custodian found a secret camera disguised as telecommunications equipment at a government office designated as a polling station, the National Election Commission asked local governments to inspect the polling stations. More illicit secret cameras were found, and the culprit turned out to be a far-right youtuber who claimed that the elections were rigged.

Fixed

Edited by minseok42 on Mar 28th 2024 at 11:50:41 AM

Given the title of the thread, you should probably mention what country you are talking about.

ABC: South Korea's ambassador to Australia resigns after less than a month in the job

Lee Jong-sup, the ROK's ambassador to Australia resigned as he was subject to investigation for his involvement in covering up the death of a marine. Investigators determined him to be a flight risk and banned him from leaving the country, however, the Justice Ministry lifted the ban so he could go to Australia. The Democratic Party is alleging that Yoon appointed him, a suspect with travel restrictions on account of being a flight risk, as an ambassador so that he could evade justice.

South Korea's Trump is losing no time emulating his idol.

Taiwan struck by a 7.4 earthquake south of Hualien, 30 cm tsunami struck Okinawa.

Edited by tclittle on Apr 2nd 2024 at 8:40:08 AM

Still feeling the aftershocks here. Pretty annoying.

I hope you and your loved ones are safe

Take care, and hope you're safe and well.

Me and mine were lucky. The worst we suffered was a couple television speakers falling to the floor (still working fine too I think).

I'm pretty sure a lot of other people are facing worse because of this.

Glad to hear you're alright M84.

Oh look, even the Mainland is sending stuff. An hour after the earthquake, about 30 warplanes and 9 ships from the PLA were detected in Taiwanese airspace/waters (Times News Now).

Edited by megarockman on Apr 3rd 2024 at 10:50:25 AM

Yoon announced his new plan for reducing the childcare burden and raising the birth rate: allowing international students and the foreign spouses of Korean citizens to work as housemaids and babysitters. He also said that minimum wage regulation will not apply to them i.e. they can work for less than minimum wage.

Or rather, employers don’t have to pay them minimum wage.