Categories
defense & war international affairs

Only China Fears Japan

Japan, military, China, Taiwan, Philippines, defense, allies

On Wednesday, I argued that the USA must build stronger alliances that allow us to not be the world’s only policeman.

We need stand-up allies. 

Last year, Japan’s first female prime minister, Takaichi Sanae, put the world on notice that a Chinese attack on Taiwan would constitute an existential threat to Japan, to which Japan could respond militarily. To which a Chinese diplomat at the time suggested cutting off her head. 

Takaichi remains fully capitated.

Just yesterday, she met with Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos to announce the two countries elevated their relationship to Comprehensive Strategic Partners. As former senior DOD official Tony Hu explains, “They’re helpings friends beef up their self-defense capability, which further enhances the deterrence that China is facing.”

Last month, what many have for decades referred to as “pacifist” Japan lifted its post-World War II ban on exporting military weapons. Japan is re-arming not only itself but its allies.

“In an increasingly severe security environment,” Prime Minister Takaichi posted on X, “no single country can now protect its own peace and security alone, and partner countries that support each other in terms of defense equipment are necessary.”

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is none too happy about this, either; it like its victims prone. 

“Japan’s recent series of dangerous moves in the military and security fields have exposed its self-proclaimed status as a peaceful nation,” said China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, charging that “Japan is restarting its war machine and exploring war abroad.”

Funny, no countries are frightened by Japan. They’re all scared of China.

“Japan is back!” Takaichi said last year at the White House. 

Glad to hear it. The world needs you.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

Henry Adams

Truth, indeed, may not exist; science avers it to be only a relation; but what men took for truth stares one everywhere in the eye and begs for sympathy.

Henry Adams, Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904), Chapter XVI.

Categories
Today

The Thirteenth State

Rhode Island

Rhode Island and Providence Plantations became the last of North America’s revolutionary thirteen colonies to ratify the United States Constitution, on May 29, 1790. This was following its other claim to fame, being the first colony of British North America to declare its independence, which it did on May 4, 1776.

Categories
free trade & free markets subsidy

Feed America, Cut Government

safety net, food bank, government, inflation, economics

“More people in the United States are going hungry now than during the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic six years ago,” a National Public Radio report tells us, citing a new survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. 

The New York Fed “periodically asks Americans whether they’re having to skip meals, having to rely on food donations or receiving federal assistance to buy groceries.” Ten percent of families nationwide reported missing meals because their cupboards were bare.

This isn’t the result of a breakdown in production and distribution of food, for “food insecurity” rates are two times higher in “families earning less than $50,000 a year.”

NPR notes that inflation — especially the rapid increase in prices at the gas pump — has made everything harder for everybody.

Gas prices are even higher than during COVID. Reduce fuel taxes now. To really lower prices, end the wars in the Middle East. And ending the ethanol mandate would nudge farmers back to actually feeding people, at the very least reducing corn prices.

Finally, SNAP program subsidies are being reduced over the next decade, a result of the Big Beautiful Bill. To help these “food stamps” actually feed folks during this period, SNAP should be further reduced.

That is, in scope . . . across all states. 

This is about trade-offs: Restricting these subsidies from paying for sugary soft drinks, candy, and the like, are underway, state by state, but by the end of the year, fewer than half of these United States will have done so. Taxpayers in all states should demand subsidies that actually help folks, rather than sending them on a slow train to the hospital. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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Thought

Jack Vance

Notice this rent in my garment; I am at a loss to explain its presence! I am even more puzzled by the existence of the universe.

Jack Vance, The Eyes of the Overworld (1966), Chapter Five: “The Pilgrims.”
Categories
Today

Communards Ousted

After two months of vigorous revolutionary acts — from “social democratic” reforms to public executions — the Paris Commune fell on May 28, 1871.

Categories
defense & war international affairs

What the World Needs Now

world police, foreign policy, Taiwan, China

With roughly 200,000 soldiers serving on 700 military bases in 80 countries throughout the world as well as on the high seas, the United States sure has its hands full.

While many Americans protest our government’s world policeman job, here we are, where we’ve been for decades . . . addressing commitments to militarily defend 67 countries.

What with the new Iran War, Israel’s actions in Lebanon, and the ongoing Ukraine War — not to mention continued Yemeni attacks on Red Sea shipping and bloody conflicts raging throughout Africa — it almost seems like World War III has started unannounced. 

And all this before we even consider Asia, where, as The Economist bluntly puts it, “China has been bullying America’s allies.” China’s increasing harassment and invasion threats against Taiwan, its claim to 90 percent of the entire South China Sea, its regular attacks on Philippine and Vietnamese fishermen, deadly clashes with India, and less than peaceful behavior toward Australia and Japan has put the entire region on edge.

For my six decades, the United States has been the dominant military power in the world. Yet, with China’s massive military buildup that is now an open question in Asia. Which is why failure to help Taiwan defeat a Chinese attack would destroy U.S. credibility there . . . and likely far beyond.

So, how do we ever relinquish the badge of world’s policeman? One word: Allies. 

As much as the USA has been the indispensable nation leading the free world, that does not mean we can go it alone against authoritarians globally. We need strong allies, so we don’t have to. 

We know that a NATO-type alliance in Asia scares the daylights out of the Chinese Communist Party.

Surely that would be a better deterrent than just the singular U.S. cop. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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Aesop

Any excuse will serve a tyrant.

Aesop, Fables, “The Wolf and the Lamb.” Illustration: Aesop, with a fox, from the central medallion of a kylix, c. 470 BC; in the Gregorian Etruscan Museum, Vatican City.
Milo Winter (1919)
Categories
Today

FDR Was Not Pleased

The Supreme Court of the United States unanimously declared key portions of the National Industrial Recovery Act to be unconstitutional, in A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States (295 U.S. 495), on May 27, 1935.

And President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was not pleased in the slightest.

Categories
privacy regulation

Driving VPNs South

Canada, VPN, privacy, regulations, Ottawa, government

Public Safety Canada, an agency responsible for safety, security, emergency preparedness and this kind of thing, recently urged Canadians to protect themselves when using public Wi-Fi by also using a VPN. 

“Using a VPN protects your data,” the agency said. 

True.

Unless — unless others in the government succeed in requiring VPN companies to uniformly sabotage the privacy of their customers.

The mechanism for crippling VPN’s? That would be the pending legislation to force VPN providers to retain personal data which users expect them not to retain, in this way killing these companies’ very reason for being as well as Canadian Internet users’ reasons to employ these companies. 

We netizens want some security. A VPN required to track and store information  on customers seeking security is, ipso facto, insecure.

Bill C-22, or the Lawful Access Act, introduced by the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness in March, would require customers’ data to be retained for a year. Everybody’s data, mind you, not just the data of persons suspected of a crime.

“Oh this is just rich,” says Windscribe, a VPN provider based in Toronto. “Bill C-22 is driving VPN businesses like ours out of Canada because of the required user logging. And in the same breath you tell people to secure their data with VPNs.”

If things go on like this, Ottawa’s impulse to destroy or try to destroy online privacy will override any contrary impulse to help people preserve online privacy. Thereby obliging Canadians who do value it to figure out a way to override the override.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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