Recap / Suzuki Guangdong

Guangdong Recap:
Index | Suzuki's Guangdong | Yasuda Crisis | Sony's Guangdong | Matsushita's Guangdong | Fujitsu's Guangdong | Lam Haau-cyun's Flashbacks | Opium Trade War | Hitachi Coup | Hitachi's Guangdong | Flavor Events | General Oil Crisis and Guangdong Riots | Imperial Japanese Army's Guangdong

Sunlight fades, and a city bathes in neon and fluorescent lights.

"In all my years of travel, nothing exhilarates me as much as the rush of Guangdong. In my experience, I find that one learns more about their homeland the more they travel, and only here have I found such a resolute drive, a full-blooded desire to go beyond limits and tradition to achieve the impossible. You can appreciate the irony: Guangdong itself is an impossible creation, yet its people devote themselves to unending, relentless aspiration in spite of it."

— Stanley Ho

Along the Pearl River Delta lies the State of Guangdong, a colonial state carved from Japan's victorious conquest of China in the Second Sino-Japanese War. Guangdong is perhaps one of the greatest anomalies in history, having no national identity to speak of and only serving as a corporate experiment for Japanese mega-corporations to exploit with few regulations to worry about. Sony, Matsushita Electric, Fujitsu, and Yasuda are the Four Companies that dominate and rule Guangdong with a clenched fist, squeezing as much labor as they can from the Chinese for profit. Caught between the Chinese laborers and the Japanese elite are the Zhujin, a middle-class of Japanese settlers who have adopted the native Cantonese culture and Chinese businessmen who have become 'Japanized'.

Overseeing this exploitative system is Chief Executive Suzuki Teiichi, a former general who has been appointed by Ino Hiroya to check the Japanese tycoons and ensure that Guangdong remains a loyal vassal state to Tokyo. Suzuki sits on a silicon throne, backed by Matsuzawa Takuji and the powerful Yasuda corporation. Combined with his own power base, Suzuki has wrangled and politicked in the Legislative Council, Guangdong's governing bureaucracy. Among the other important figures in the Council includes Morita Akio from Sony, Matsushita Masaru, and Ibuka Masaru from Fujitsu.

Beyond the glittering skyscrapers and vicious arguing in the Legislative Council, many ordinary citizens try to survive a harsh world of corporate exploitation. Gangs like the Yakuza and the Triads rule the streets and wage a bloody opium trade war against each other, with the police too ineffective or corrupt to stop them. On the other side of the law, Lam Haau-cyun is a decorated Zhujin officer of the Guangdong Police Force, who struggles to keep his humanity while obeying the cruel orders of his superiors. On several occasions, he passively meets members of the Lee family, who have been deported from their home to be used as labor manpower. Lam also catches a glimpse of Yoshiko Yakusawa, the daughter of a Japanese elite businessman and old friend of Suzuki, the Baron.

In the outbreak of the Malayan Emergency, Suzuki receives a personal request by Ino to have the corporations produce experimental weapons to be tested in the recent conflict. Though reluctant, Suzuki obliges and can subsidize one of the three inventions presented by Sony, Matsushita, and Fujitsu. Thus, begins the Product Testing/Research Group, who will continue their arms trafficking and experiments for future proxy wars. This decision does not go without controversy, with the biggest voice of opposition being General Nagano Shigeto from the Imperial Japanese Army.

During a meeting, Suzuki eavesdrops on Matsuzawa angrily ranting about Ino and the Minezaka firm in a phone call. Curious, Suzuki investigates the issue further and uncovers evidence of Yasuda engaging in corrupt financial practices, which he confronts Matsuzawa about. If Suzuki trusts that he wasn't part of the conspiracy, Matsuzawa will calmly admit to Yasuda's bone-deep corruption, yet points out that nothing can be done about it without creating an economic calamity. Meanwhile, Suzuki enjoys some success in the Legislative Council with his latest proposal, the Revised Labor Standards Ordinance, providing a meager extra day of paid leave for workers on a bi-monthly basis. Suzuki's latest policy is purely motivated by pragmatism to appease the Chinese, yet it's also a risky move that invests a lot of financial and political capital.

With these two matters resolved for now, Suzuki accepts an invitation to the Pan-Asian Chinese Economic Conference in Hsking, an opportunity to report on Guangdong's latest success and projected economic growth to inspire more investment for his regime. However, Suzuki's high hopes are swiftly met with disappointment. His presentation is only heard by a meager, disinterested audience of Japanese delegates, with many more interested in the the Empire of Manchuria's potential. Furious, Suzuki vows that Guangdong will outdo its older sibling and become the premier financial center of the Sphere.

The only solution Suzuki can think of is cracking down harder on dissent in Guangdong and revitalizing its efficiency. Arming the police and the Kenpeitai to the teeth, Suzuki unleashes a renewed wave of repression on the masses. Then, the unthinkable happens. Yasuda's corruption throughout the Sphere is finally exposed and a cornerstone of the Japanese economy is effectively destroyed. Financial stability and confidence goes into free fall, as businesses collapse and consumers scrape what little cash they have left to save themselves from poverty. The Yasuda Crisis has begun and Suzuki now stands on thin ice.

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This route provides examples of:

• Aggressive Negotiations: If Suzuki appeals to Fujitsu for their support in the RLSO, Ibuka will concede to some token reforms to reduce the chances of dissent among workers, but threatens Suzuki not to compromise any further with the "bleeding hearts" of Sony and Cheung Kong.
• Allohistorical Allusion: In OTL, Lin Fengmian was a prominent Chinese artist from Guangdong, known for taking inspiration from Chinese and European styles. During both the Second World War and later Cultural Revolution, Lin had much of his artwork destroyed and, after a spell in prison, went about recreating many of his past artworks. In TNO, he does something similar, recreating many of his pre-war pieces and proceeding to tour China and make a name for himself.
• Appeal to Worse Problems: If Suzuki seeks to gather support from Sony for the RLSO, he will remind Morita of the threat that Ibuka poses towards the ordinance.
• Badass Boast: After assuring Suzuki that he'll support his RLSO proposal, Matsuzawa sternly warns that he uphold his side of the agreement, reminding him that Yasuda has a "long memory" and will be around far longer than either of them. The final comment leaves Suzuki a bit anxious.
• Blatant Lies: A police officer stops a random bystander under the pretense that they were "shoplifting". Everyone knows that it's just a way to racketeer a bribe from the "suspect" and even the children see this illusion through.
• But Thou Must!:
  • In the Yasuda investigation event chain, Suzuki can uncover the aforementioned company's corruption by either investigating their payments, Minezaka firm's activities, or the corporation's connection to Ino. All choices lead to the same outcome of Suzuki confronting Matsuzawa about it, where he can either trust that he's not involved in the conspiracy or accuse him of being part of it.
  • After getting his month-late RSVP to an economic conference in Manchuria, Suzuki can invite one of the four corporations to represent Guangdong. The choice doesn't matter because it always leads to Guangdong being snubbed and looked down upon.
• Bystander Syndrome: A Chinese family book a vacation to a hotel in Jūka. When the elder brother goes the reception, he sees a cleaner accidentally knock over a guest's cup of coffee and have her profuse apologies be met with scathing shouts from her merciless manager. The man feels sympathetic to the cleaner, both for the verbal abuse and having her life upended by the resort, but he ignores these feelings with the justification that he needs to enjoy his vacation and there is nothing he can do for her anyways.
• Capitalism Is Bad: The worst excesses and flaws of capitalism are put on full display in Guangdong's story, showing how thousands are exploited by wealthy mega-corporations for little pay and no social welfare of any kind.
• Commonality Connection:
  • A group of workers in a company dorm are given an unofficial day off when their machinery breaks down. With nothing better to do, the workers bond with each other, sharing stories of their loved ones and playing a game similar to football. Some even entertain the notion of seeing a movie, but they are not allowed to leave by the guards, since they're not on an official break.
  • The Zhujin and Chinese border inspection guards at Kōshu-Hankou have an unusual camaraderie with each other, sharing the same position and bantering with each other. If anything, the only difference between them is the uniforms they wear.
  • Famous Japanese artist, Hirata Shōdō, has a surprisingly friendly conversation with Chinese artist, Lin Fengmian, during an exhibition. Despite coming from opposing countries, they connect over their shared interest in art and its ability to connect with anyone, regardless of nationality or language. They converse late into the evening, with Lin even confiding about his sadness about having to speak Japanese in his homeland. They bid farewell on good terms, knowing that they will probably never see each other again.
• Cooperation Gambit:
  • Though Suzuki may distrust the corporations, he also engages in a plan to coordinate their activity in the Guangdong's consumer electronic industry, inspecting and subsidizing a product from one of the companies that appeals most to consumers. While the company being supported is likely to grow in influence, the profit generated will keep Guangdong's economy running to Suzuki's benefit.
  • Suzuki sees potential in China as a major market to invest in the future, especially with its modernization plans, so he makes a point to cooperate with them leading up to the Pan-Asian Economic Conference, despite the animosity over Guangdong's separation.
  • In spite of their mutual rivalry, Suzuki also tries to play nice with the Manchurians, hoping that their arrogance could reveal useful information and show some cooperation with their "pan-Asian sibling".
  • Suzuki recognizes that he cannot push through the RLSO on his own and will need to appeal to the various corporate leaders for support. However, the corporations are not friendly to him and Suzuki will need to them some promised benefits in return.
• Crapsack Only by Comparison: Invoked. Most of the workers try to believe their lives are an improvement than over in China because they can at least have hope for a better life in Guangdong. It's a useful coping mechanism to find some small comfort in their squalid condition.
• Crushing the Populace: After the Pan-Asian Economic Conference, Suzuki continues the pacification of dissidence within Guangdong, amongst the workers who aren't appeased by the RLSO. He relies on his informant networks set up by the Kenpeitai to achieve this, even if the cost of paying the informants is high.
• Cue the Rain: The day that it is announced that Guangdong woud be ripped apart from China, a heavy downpour drenches Hong Kong.
• Deadly Euphemism: After Tin Seung-Hang gets into a venomous argument with a collaborator, he's warned that he's got to start playing nice or else he'll get a "talk" from the Kenpeitai.
• Do Well, But Not Perfect: Suzuki wants to build up as much support for the RLSO in the Legislative Council, but he must carefully consider who he allies with and must ensure he doesn't try to make too many friends or else he'll start making conflicting allegiances. Namely, he must not make a simultaneous alliance with Sony and Fujitsu or Matsushita and Yasuda, because the former two's leaders hate each other and Yasuda sees Matsushita as a threat to their interests. In either case, Suzuki will lose support from both companies in either scenario.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: Dissatisfied with the criminal elements existing in Guangdong, Suzuki pulls up a previously discarded public review of the panopticon, a philosophical metaphor coined by Michel Foucault to describe how people will naturally abide by the rules of an institution because they have become conditioned to believe they are monitored. However, Suzuki misinterprets it as a model for how to develop an intelligence network so he can root out criminals.
• Driven to Suicide: Suicide rates are disturbingly, but not surprisingly, high in Guangdong, with many simply wanting to escape the corporate hellhole they live in.
• Empathic Environment: Awaiting a long-desired promotion, a Zhujin member of the civil service thinks about what he could spend his money on if he gets the job. Just as gloomy clouds roll in and rain pours down, he is introduced to the Japanese graduate who was unfairly given the position over him, ruining the Zhujin person's day.
• Establishing Character Moment: The first event in a Guangdong playthrough is a meeting in the Legislative Council, introducing the corruption of their members, the political bickering that the corporations wage against each other, and the role of the Chief Executive. Here, Sony and Fujitsu members engage in Passive Aggressive Combat over businesses in Kowloon, while smug Matsushita members wait to swoop in and steal those businesses for themselves, having brought up the issue to the Council in the first place.
• Easter Egg: If the player uses cheats to somehow make the Revised Labour Standards Ordinance fail, a message from the Guangdong dev team will pop up, expressing amazement at how they managed to get the RLSO shut down◊.
• Family of Choice: The nameless workers in Guangdong have a deep level of camarederie with each other, exchanging goods, like alcohol, to share together. Since they've been deported from their homes, their colleagues are the closest thing they have to a family.
• False Reassurance: If Suzuki does not meet the 1962 economic goals, he will give a speech to shareholders, trying to reassure them with economic reforms to make up for some of the losses. However, he and the shareholders know that these vows are vague promises, worsened by the unreasonable goals foreseen in 1963.
• Failure Is the Only Option:
  • Inverted with the passing of the Revised Labour Standards Ordinance, which will always pass as Suzuki will bribe his way to achieving the necessary number of votes.
  • No matter how successful his early economic policies are, Suzuki will be snubbed and ignored in the Pan-Asian Economic Conference, as he'll be deemed too unimportant to focus on. This leaves Suzuki frustrated, who vows that Guangdong will eventually outpace Manchuria in economic productivity through sheer ingenuity.
• Forced from Their Home: The once quaint village of Jūka gets entirely destroyed and redeveloped into a luxury resort by Sony, once tourists start flocking there for the hot springs. Many of the previous inhabitants, having their lives upended, now work to serve the tourists who arrive.
• Forgotten Fallen Friend: While a group of Japanese executives are gossiping with each other, one of them brings up a missing member of their usual party, claiming that it was because he made a bad investment and has become no more wealthy than the average homeless person living on the streets. Everyone gives a brief chuckle to his misfortune before forgetting him and resuming their conversations.
• Happiness in Minimum Wage: Compared to the fame he's gotten, Lam's family is relatively poor, barely making ends meet as fishermen in Shenzhen. Despite this, Lam's uncle implies that they are content with their livelihoods, finding beauty with living in their modest village.
• "Hell, Yes!" Moment: As a woman looks through the wet market for the Lunar New Year, she internally regrets moving to the city, fearing that her husband will become one of the factories' many victims or that he will be caught on in of their suicide nets. However, she gets a stroke of fortune when she finds a good deal on food to celebrate the holiday, giving them a moment of happiness together in an otherwise dreary life.
• Hope Spot: On a cloudy day in Makao, a Zhujin white-collar worker eagerly awaits a potential promotion in the civil service, thinking about how he can get the money to move himself and his girlfriend to a better home. However, the promotion gets undeservedly handed off to a new graduate immigrating from the Home Isles, crushing the worker's hopes.
• Innocently Insensitive: Suzuki is irritated when Ino rushes him out of a cabinet meeting to discuss the creation of weapons for the Malayan Emergency. More offending to Suzuki, Ino is standing in his office, as if he owns the place.
• Justified Criminal:
  • Invoked by the corrupt police officers who extract bribes and steal money from random people. They often self-justify their own crimes as the only way to support their families, since they aren't paid enough by their bosses and it's a dog-eat-dog world in Guangdong. It's usually an attempt to ease their guilty conscience, even if it may not be so successful.
  • At least one Triad member works for the gang so that he can financially support his family, in which he must keep his crimes secret from them.
• Magnum Opus: The RLSO is the crowning achievement of Suzuki's regime, pouring in a lot of resources into its implementation.
• Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: After hearing Matsuzawa rant about a connection between the Minezaka firm and Hiroya Ino, Suzuki can investigate several leads leading to a longer chain of examinations that foreshadow the upcoming Yasuda Crisis. All of them end with confronting Matsuzawa about it, either by request or by accusation:
  • Investigating Yasuda's payments will expose some suspicious evidence of Yasuda giving payments to Minezaka and the IJA, leading to another investigation of Matsuzawa's resume.
  • Looking into Minezaka's activities will reveal their connection to the IJA and the irregular deliveries of Military Yen, despite their inactivity in Guangdong and the currency's devaluation in most parts of the Sphere.
  • Delving further into Ino and Yasuda's relationship will uncover what made Matsuzawa so angry in his office that led to the whole investigation in the first place. Suzuki can't find any evidence about Yasuda having more influence in Ino's cabinet than he thought, until he remembers the coincidence of Matsuzawa arriving in Guangdong at the same time Ino became Prime Minister. He interprets this as a possible sign of Yasuda silencing anyone who refuses to support their allied Prime Minister.
• Misery Builds Character: If Fujitsu's FACOM-222 mainframe computer in subsidized in 1962, an accountant gets a bad headache when he hears that his paycheck is getting cut to fund the project. However, after a taking a moment to regain his bearings, the accountant gets a new sense of determination to overcome the adversity and become more savvy to endure the harsh corporate world of Guangdong.
• Mr. Exposition: One of the early flavor events shows a professor being asked about how the Zhujin identity can be natural and why it shouldn't be an ethnic hybrid rather than a status to voluntary apply for. From there, the professor goes on an exposition tangent describing what a Zhujin is, comparing it to Kyōwa-go from Manchuria and explaining that Zhujin was coined by the Foreign Ministry because Guangdong has not existed long enough for an ethnic hybrid to emerge naturally. He also adds exposition to the greater nature of Guangdong as a state, pointing out Nanjing's outrage at its creation and subtly agreeing with a sarcastic comment that Guangdong is as "natural" as Japanese colonialism being "liberation".
• Never My Fault: Guangdong's invitation to the Economic Conference comes months late and rushes them to prepare on time. But when Suzuki arrives, the Manchurian bureaucrats blame the Guangdong government for their late reply.
• No Sympathy: When a worker is pulled into and killed by a machine, either from tiredness or a lack of focus, his colleague is horrified and trembles around with tears in his eyes, knowing he will still have to return the next day. However, his manager nonchalantly documents the incident in a clipboard, showing no care for the lost life and grunting unsympathetically to the shocked worker.
• Odd Friendship: The border guards between China and Guangdong are friendly with each other, despite coming from different countries, sharing sarcastic quips with each other.
• Oh, Crap!: Suzuki sweats when he reads the final report on Yasuda's corruption, knowing that there is undeniable evidence of it and that fallout could ensue, given his ties to Yasuda.
• Open Secret: Guangdong police officers will usually stop people under the pretense that they are shoplifting, even though everyone knows that it's just a way to racketeer a bribe from the "suspect". Even the children see this illusion through.
• Out-of-Context Eavesdropping: During a meeting between Suzuki and Matsuzawa about the Legislative Council, they are interrupted when the secretary informs them of a call from Yasuda for Matsuzawa. After a few minutes, Suzuki heads out to get something from the vending machine, only to overhear Matsuzawa angrily shouting on the phone about payments involving the Minezaka account and Ino. Suzuki doesn't know the full context of Matsuzawa shouting, but it is enough for him to suspect that there is something Matsuzawa is hiding something.
• Outside-the-Box Tactic: Suzuki's investigation into Ino and Yasuda's relationship doesn't produce any fruitful results beyond typical business meetings between them. Therefore, Suzuki tries an unorthodox strategy of looking into Matsuzawa, in the event that Yasuda and Ino's government had actually fallen out and Matsuzawa was using Suzuki to stay afloat. Once he does he reckons that Yasuda and Ino are probably still on good terms, but that Matsuzawa was likely an independent actor being punished.
• Politically Motivated Teacher: One professor in the academia uses his platform to rant about the Zhujin being an artificial construct invented by the Japanese foreign ministry, despite the fact that one of his colleagues is a Zhujin.
• The Pollyanna: One Chinese restaurant owner had his building expropriated at the end of World War II so that Japanese manager can replace him. He now only owns a rickey shack of a food stall and works a depressing job with a rigidly strict and tiring schedule, but he remains optimistic about his situation. He's developed a good number of regulars to his business and still finds his satisfaction with his job.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • Suzuki recognizes the widespread corruption and inefficiency within the Guangdong Police Force to be a major problem, albeit mostly because it is detrimental to Japan's interests. He can't follow through with these ambitions, but Suzuki hopes to reorganize the force one day.
  • Suzuki relents Li's request to let Morita attend their meeting together because he needs their help to court the approval of the Cantonese-Japanese demographic and turning one of them away will make the other less cooperative.
  • If Suzuki approaches Matsushita for support on the RLSO, Matsushita only agrees, so long as he gets his privileges on future proposals in the Legislative Council. As he bluntly states, the ordinance will hurt his profits and and he's only going to support it if he benefits in some way.
• Protection Racket: A shopkeeper is beaten and threatened by two Yakuza thugs, demanding protection money with a cleaver. The panicked shopkeeper agrees and confesses that he gave his earnings to a group of Triads the day prior, confirming the Yakuzas suspicions that the Triads are intruding on their turf. They leave the shopkeeper, but only with an order that the shopkeeper pay them a week later or else having something happen to his shop, wife, and daughter.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Discussed. Many informants in Guangdong fear such an outcome for selling out their countrymen to the Police and Kenpeitai, expiring their usefulness as nothing more than street gangs to be terminated.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: Kan Yuet-keung was the OTL Chairman of the Bank of East Asia for 20 years and a member of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council and Executive Council. In TNO, half of his family moved their assets to America, but Kan still lives in Guangdong, where he was forced to adopt a Zhujin identity and manages the Bank's neglected Guangdong branch, now a Yasuda subsidiary. He regrets his decision to stay behind and expresses frustration that he cannot speak up about the injustices, but he's long resigned to living day-by-day.
• Rule of Symbolism:
  • While moving crates of raw opium, one of the loaders accidentally drops one of the crates and unveils the pouches of the drug, covered in congealed blood, introducing the criminal and often-violent opium wars that are waged between the Yakuza and the Triads.
  • The entire situation of Guangdong is symbolized by the Pagoda of the Loyal Spirits. On its own, it's an impressive monument that is 80 meters tall and and is rumored to have an ancient Japanese blade buried beneath it as a sign of Japanese grandeur. Yet, the pagoda is overshadowed by the many skyscrapers that neighbor it and even by the other, similar pagodas that dot the Chinese coast. It shows how, underneath all the flashy lights and glamour of Guangdong, it's an empty, colorless husk of a nation that only serves as a corporate playground for the Zaibatsus or their subsidiaries, not to build a unique national identity.
  • The Kōshu-Hankou railway checkpoint between Guangdong and the rest of China is yet another symbol of the artificial division between Guangdong and the rest of China, to a point that the Zhujin and Chinese border guards are only different by their uniforms.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The Bank of East Asia survived the Second Sino-Japanese War because of its connections to Japanese individuals, but the formation of Guangdong destabilized it enough for the Kan family to move most of their assets abroad, primarily to America. Half of the family is doing business in America now, with only a husk surviving in Guangdong and as a Yasuda subsidiary.
• Searching for the Lost Relative: Hirata Shōdō conducts an art exhibition in the Japanese consulate in Honkon, nominally in support of a Greater East Asia Ministry cultural exhibition. However, he's really hoping to find his biological son, now known as Matsushita Masaharu, whom he hasn't seen in years and has unsuccessfully tried to get in contact with.
• Sheltered Aristocrat: An upper-class Japanese professor has spent of his life in the Home Isles and only moved to Guangdong because he thought Japan's education system was a lost cause. In the Three Pearls, he's confused and outraged by the creation of a Zhujin identity, wondering why anyone would apply for an identity that was hastily constructed to facilitate Japanese colonialism. His views spark controversy from the Zhujin parents of his students and he later learns from a Zhujin colleague that they accepted the cultural assimilation because they did not have a choice. Being Chinese in Guangdong means living a life of oppression and poverty, so becoming a Zhujin is the only way to access the shred of luxuries afforded to the Japanese people.
• Spotting the Thread:
  • Suzuki can notice the frequent payments between the Yasuda Home Office in Tokyo and the Minezeka firm. Knowing that Japanese banks would normally ask their local branches to handle payments of local counterparties, Suzuki notes that these payments are too consistent to be anything other than an involvement in something in Guangdong. While not necessarily proof of criminal activity, it does suggest that there is something worth looking into.
  • Likewise, after Suzuki spends days looking through financial documents, he notices a pattern with the seemingly legit transactions. The frequency of large, rounded amounts of money rather than exact amounts, along with the use of the now antiquated Japanese military yen, is further proof of suspicious activity coming from Yasuda.
• Stealth Insult:
  • Song's interaction with Suzuki is laced with bitterness and passive-aggressiveness in his voice. When Suzuki reminds him of the purported pan-Asian cause of Guangdong, Song sarcastically agrees and mentions that it is "our duty to support our populace". Suzuki isn't certain if "our" refers to themselves or just the authorities in the Republic.
  • Manchurian all but openly voices their disdain for Guangdong when they send a late invitation to them for the Economic Conference and grant Suzuki the last allocated slot to give his speech on Guangdong's potential.
• The Stool Pigeon: When Suzuki tries to clamp down on all dissenters in Guangdong, the Kenpeitai start paying for people to rat out their acquaintances for criminal activity.
• Tempting Fate:
  • If Suzuki finds evidence of Yasuda's corruption, but doesn't accuse Matsuzawa of being involved in it, he will breathe a sigh of relief that the crisis has seemingly been averted, so long as everything is kept under wraps. This ends up blowing up in his face when the corruption is exposed anyways and economically devastates the Sphere.
  • Matsuzawa boasts about Yasuda's supremacy in the Sphere, warning Suzuki that its reign will last longer than either of them. This becomes dramatically ironic in hindsight when Yasuda's corruption is exposed and the entire corporate structure collapses like a house of cards.
  • It's possible for Suzuki to meet the economic goals set by Tokyo and get a standing ovation from the shareholders in celebration. Unfortunately for him, this happens before the Yasuda Crisis ruins the economy and undoes all of his hard work.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: Downplayed. Via the RLSO, Suzuki offers token workers' rights to the Chinese in an effort to placate dissident activity. However, the benefits given by this legislation are minimal and the general oppressive social hierarchy remains in place.
• Too Dumb to Live: When a group of police officers are sent to stop a smuggling ring, one of them recklessly fires his gun at the crowd. This starts a violent street brawl between the two groups.
• Villain Has a Point: When receiving the first experimental weapon proposals, Suzuki scoffs and makes some accurate criticisms about them. The compatibility of Sony's rifle with other ammunition is useless for the Sphere, the lightweight 'flechette' ammo of Matsushita's rifle is logistically unsound for no benefit, and the battery for Fujitsu's night vision rifle needs to be carried around in a heavy, burdensome backpack.
• Villainous Glutton: Many of the Japanese bureaucrats who profit off of worker exploitation spend their wealth on extravagant, even smuggled, food for them to enjoy.
• What Were You Thinking?: If Suzuki accuses Matsuzawa of being complicit in Yasuda's corruption, Matsuzawa will be outraged and ask Suzuki if he is out of his mind for such an accusation. Suzuki immediately backs down and apologizes extensively, but the damage to their relationship has already been dealt, even if they are forced to still work together.
• Wicked Cultured: A group of Japanese senior bureaucrats and executives meet in the Teikoku Hotel, formerly the Peninsula Hotel, where they dine to finest foods and smuggled foreign delicacies all while gossiping about the politics of Guangdong and Japan with extensive use of slurs against the Chinese.

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