Okinawa Demands US Military Leave

All you have to do is look at a map to know the base at Okinawa isn't going anywhere. It's in the perfect spot to counter China short of Taiwan and a large Taiwan base would be too provocative.

The peoples response to crimes is understandable and will produce some results in military policy as it should, but a 50.000 people and billions of dollars in infrastructure on the front lines of geo-politics aint going anywhere. And the local economy is inseparably intertwined anyway.

Maybe Okinawans should build a wall.

 

Polling has shown that most Okinawans don't like the US bases.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okinawa_Prefecture#2007.E2.80.93present
[rquoter]According to a 2007 Okinawa Times poll, 85% of Okinawans opposed the presence of the U.S. military,[23] because of noise pollution from military drills, the risk of aircraft accidents,[24] environmental degradation,[25] and crowding from the number of personnel there,[26][/rquoter]

Also
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2016/06/06/469171/Japan-Okinawa-US-base-local-candidates
[rquoter]Anti-US base candidates win local polls in Okinawa[/rquoter]

I agree though that the Okinawa economy benefits greatly from the presence of the bases and that the feeling isn't universal.

 

They might regret it and the Philippines have still been engaging in more cooperation with the US in regard to dealing with the PRC. From my own experience in the Philippines is that there still are very mixed feelings about the US.

The PRC isn't just picking on the Philippines. They are also in disputes with Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia. So this isn't just a matter that the Philippines are weak, they are, but that they are in the way of the PRC aspirations. If the US had stayed at Subic Bay I'm not sure how much of a difference it would've made. The PRC wouldn't try to encroach on Luzon itself and the US 7th fleet can still easily move into the South China Sea even if not based at Subic.

I agree that the PRC is likely to lose the case, and rightfully so, but again I think you're too caught up in Cold War language ("China is stealing patrimony out of pure greed") The issues are complex and if it was just greed the PRC would use soft power to get concessions out of the Philippines like it has with many other countries. The economic issues are very important but security is also very important. The PRC perception is that the US and Allies are encircling and containing it with the ultimate goal of bottling up the PRC. They see moves by the US and Japan in the Eastern Pacific as cutting off the PRC ability to access the Pacific and moves in the South China Sea as cutting off access to the Indian Ocean.

In the PRC minds they see the US moves as being bullying towards them and the US maintaining its hegemony at the expense of the PRC.

 

Too caught up in "Cold War language?" That's a laugh. What did you not like about what I said? "the imperial aspirations of China, who is actively flaunting international law..." Does that bother you? "The Philippines is a poor country who is eager to exploit the natural resources that lay under the sea within her EEZ, and a country wanting to do what all countries with a coastline all over the world want to do, retain control of the fishing rights in areas that belong to her. China is stealing her patrimony out of pure greed, because she thinks she can get away with it." Is that "Cold War language?" What exactly do you disagree with in that statement? What did I post in that statement that isn't true? Do you think that the EEZ of the Philippines and the EEZ's of the other countries surrounding the South China Sea do not matter, despite international law, and that those countries should acquiesce to Chinese imperialism? Role over on their backs like puppy dogs waiting for a tummy rub and tell China that they are sorry that they had the nerve to think that territory belonging to them under international law should actually (gasp!) belong to them? Do you support what China is doing? What, exactly, are you defending?

What, exactly, do you think China is doing and what, exactly, do you think the United States and her allies should do about it? Nothing?

 

Why is it relevant what Okinawa wants? Why do they think they are in a position to "demand" anything from anyone?

I'm just curious.

 

Well, it is their island. That said, Okinawans have never been that happy about belonging to Japan. However, the Japanese like us as military allies and trade partners, so nothing will change in the near future. Not even Obama or Hillary would be that stupid (I would hope).

 

Well that's fine, but so long as Japan wants the US there, what the people of Okinawa think is sort of irrelevant. They don't have a seat at the big kid's table.

 

All the bases should be abandoned because the long term downside is higher than the long term upside for 99% of Americans. It's that simple, and there is historical data to prove it.

But it's enough for that 1% of Americans to inject you with the national anthem so that some of you beat your chest and ignore it. There's no war, China is your biggest partner. Your economies rely on each other at the moment, and for the foreseeable future. By participating in these shenanigans you are empowering an authoritarian government in China to continue to deny its people their rights. People who are denied their rights are like a spouse who has been holding in their complaints for years. It's going to blow up in an ugly way. ALWAYS, EVERYWHERE. It's not healthy. The same principle applies to populations as it does to individuals in this case.

You and Japan and Korea are the threat that makes Chinese citizens less likely to seek a change in their government. An evolution of government precedes a period of economic and sovereign vulnerability, and that sea of vulnerability can only be navigated if the people don't feel like there is a monster waiting outside their doorstep to hijack their government and turn it into a neo liberal utopia or an economic dystopia. Even worse, if neoliberalism is refused, then an ideological mobster will be installed. We all know the playbook, the pattern.

A free China would dramatically reduce your costs, allowing you to spend more on healthcare and education and covering your debts. YOU in particular, now and forever being part of the 99%, are gaining little to nothing from this stupidity other than covering your insecurity towards the size of your dick. The people who are benefitting from this are barely sharing the wealth with you, except whatever is unavoidable. Remember, their goal is to create the biggest difference between your wealth and theirs. There is no reason a capitalist would participate in a market except to expand the wealth gap. If chances of that are not good, they will and do simply withhold their money. "Rich" is a relative term.

You foresee China as this eternal enemy that is growing, that's another myth planted in your head by - surprise - the people who are benefitting from the imperialism. This Chinese government is not eternal. No government is. Once upon a time that was Japan. And you became allies, even after your 1% convinced you that the Japanese will always be looking to kill you. Even after you put Japanese Americans in internment camps. But then your representatives had to **** it up by showing their weakness: the inability to give up control. No matter how well things go, they can't do it. Which shows, it's not about fixing anything, it's about keeping stuff for THEMselves. Not for YOU. I know you've been conditioned to think you're a part of it, but you're not. You're an obstacle, a nuisance, a cost center. THEY, like a cheating paranoid obsessive weak spouse who can't let go of trying to control their partner, won't let go till they have milked the last drops of wealth out of the situation and they KNOW... they know the time will come when the pendulum swings, and someone has to pay up and when that time comes... That's when you come in and pay the expenses for the profit they already made.

Just go home guys. You are lacking too many things. Your biggest cities are starting to look like crap, seriously. Decaying, ****ty infrastructure, homeless people who need help, declining quality of education, mental illness running rampant, drug addiction now claiming the lives of even the rich middle class. There are so many positives of course, but these negatives are growing at a pace previously unimaginable. This is not the time to worry about political olympics. This is time to worry about where the hell this is all going for YOU. Believe me, you're not rich and you won't be rich enough to receive the benefits from all this. By the time you get to that number you're thinking about, the real wealthy Americans will have dwarfed it.

It's all very brilliantly rigged and it's time to wake up, go home, and work on your home. What you are receiving in exchange for what you are producing is peanuts. You should be getting more. You're overworked and underpaid, underinsured and overtaxed for what you're getting. You're in a relationship with an abusive spouse and trying to convince yourself that it's all normal but it's not. It really isn't. Americans deserve better.

 

First off I never said that the Philippines or other countries shouldn't do anything about it. If you noticed in my reply I also said that the PRC should rightfully lose the case. Again you seem to be caught up in this binary of Cold War thinking that unless you completely condemn the PRC you're somehow defending or condoning it.

As far as Cold War language reread your post, you're pretty much calling them evil empire.

You're very clear in stating that you think the PRC is acting out greed and imperialist ambitions when if you study the PRC you would see that military power is one of the last things they do when interested in resources. They primarily use soft power and have done so successfully with countries as far flung as Sudan to Brazil. What you don't seem to understand is the PRC's concerns regarding US containment and the PRC's historical perspective for why they worry about foreign powers seemingly containing China. You're basically making the same mistake as during the Cold War of just looking at the Soviet Union as an evil imperialistic entity without considering their historical reasons for why they wanted Eastern Europe as a buffer to the West.

That doesn't mean that the PRC is right, personally I think they are paranoid, but it is an acknowledgement of the complex history rather than throwing out such simplistic rhetoric as "pure greed" and "imperial aspirations".

 

they should just leave and let japan and china go one one one and settle their score once and for all.

 

I very deliberately said "Chinese imperialism," because that's exactly what they are engaged in. You can describe that as "Cold War thinking," if you wish. I could care less. What concerns me is the very real possibility of a "hot" war. Under Xi, the oligarchy that rules China is playing a dangerous game.

What on earth does the subjugation of Eastern Europe by the Soviet Union have to do with it? That's where I'm at right now and it's nice to see freedom and prosperity there, instead of a sullen people under Russia's thumb. You keep acting like I'm not familiar with history, Judo. Trust me - I don't need any lessons from you.

 

This is deeply stupid.

 

I agree that the PRC is playing a dangerous game what I disagree with is the simplistic thinking that they are doing so out of greed or imperialism.

If you study the PRC and Chinese history you will understand that rather than rapacious motives they are acting out of fear. Foreign domination and humiliation from the 19th C through WWII is still a big part of the Chinese psyche. The PRC reads many moves by the US and US allies as attempts to constrain and interfere in Chinese progress. This is a common refrain they use with issues like Tibet and Taiwan.

Because that was key to understanding Soviet motivations, and continuing Russian motivations, rather than just considering them the evil empire.

What you don't seem to understand that in both Soviet thinking and current PRC thinking is that they don't see these actions as being expansionist but as self-defense in the face of foreign attempts to bottle them up. That doesn't make it safe or right but is key to understanding their mindset.

In the case of the South China Sea the PRC doesn't even see it as foreign territory and don't see their actions as encroaching on other countries but as defending their own territory. Again I agree these claims are dubious at best but also shows why this isn't an imperialist land grab. It's not like the PRC is going to invade Australia to create an empire. In their minds they are protecting their own.

OTOH you continue with rhetoric along the lines of the Cold War about greed and imperialistic ambitions. That is exactly the type of rhetoric that makes war more likely.

One more thing too is that considering the relations between the PRC and the SE Asia is that the relationship is far more complex and even those countries don't see the PRC as an evil empire looking to conquer them. If anything they play off the US and the PRC depending on the situation. In this case they look to the US to provide a military counter to the PRC but that doesn't mean they fully consider us good guys either.

This is an excellent article from Newsweek about how dangerous and complex the situation is.

http://www.newsweek.com/south-china...es-china-united-states-barack-obama-xi-473428

Yes this is a very tense and dangerous situation and I personally put a lot of blame on the PRC. That said simplistic understanding and rhetoric doesn't help.

 

Again, you keep making posts that imply that I don't know the history of the topic. I do. History is a passion of mine, and has been for over 50 years. I know the history. What I am looking at is the China of today and the actions of their leadership. You seem located in a Disney fantasy world the Chinese governing oligarchy want you to believe and have been actively promoting for a very long time now, both abroad and at home. It is not reality. Reality consists of their actions, the actions of the current small group running the country with an iron fist wrapped within a velvet glove. You are the simplistic fellow here, my friend, not I.

Again, you clearly have no clue about the depth of what I know of history, based on your continuing efforts to "educate" me. I'm currently in Budapest and many years before I came here, I was very aware of what the Russians, AKA the Soviet Union, did during their grip on Eastern Europe, the "self-defense" you incredibly use as an excuse for their actions, just as you use "history" as an excuse for the actions of the current Chinese regime.

Today, I went on an all day tour of the historical areas of the city. We spent this afternoon viewing the sites of the brutal crushing of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 by an army of 5 Soviet divisions. Following two days of demonstrations by hundreds of thousands, on October 25, the people of the city were told over the radio that the new liberal Prime Minister was going to give a speech at Kossoth Square. There were Soviet tanks there, and an armored car in front of the huge Parliament building. The gathering was peaceful. There are photos of people chatting with Soviet soldiers on the square, standing on tanks speaking to them, tens of thousands of the people of Budapest, and the soldiers seemed friendly.

Suddenly, shots rang out. The people were unarmed. To this day, no one is certain who fired those first shots, but the tanks and the armored car opened up with heavy machine guns, and right into the crowd. At an upper level of the governmental Agricultural Building, across the square from Parliament, soldiers on an upper floor also began firing with machine guns. The tanks began to fire high explosive shells into the crowded mass of citizens, and aiming at the ground where they were standing. There are images of the dead, clumps of people here and there, body parts scattered around the square. Of the dead being dumped into trucks for removal. As many as 800 were murdered, perhaps more, many of them women and children, but they have certain names for only 71 dead. Why? The reason they aren't sure of the "body count," as well as the number of wounded, a far greater number, is that the doctors at the hospitals were afraid to honestly report those coming in that were wounded or dead. Afraid of reprisals. There was fighting for about 2 weeks, and help from the West didn't come, Ike being afraid of a general European war. Thousands were arrested, many tortured, with the leaders and many others captured or hunted down being executed, including the Prime Minister. Something like 2,000 were killed.

Where does your "key to understanding of Soviet motivations and continuing Russian motivations" fit into this picture, Judo? Do you wonder why the words "Evil Empire" are used to describe them? Clearly you don't wonder about it very much, appearing eager to dismiss the fact that there is a reason they were and are used. Just as you continue to make excuses for the Chinese government's actions based on "history," a warped version of history without a modern basis in reality.

Are the Hungarians guilty of causing their own horrific history with the Russians/Soviets? I am honestly at a loss to explain your posts. That you attempt to make excuses for the Russian led and dominated Soviet Empire says far more about you than it does them. History speaks for them, and the story is an abomination. I am on a 3 week vacation, but I found time at 1am here in Budapest to respond, in part, to your bizarre posts. Don't count on another response anytime soon. I'll be very busy.

One last thing. I know you won't care, but I have held you in high regard as one of the more intelligent members that post here, someone who had a large dose of humanity. You have deeply disappointed me, especially after what I have seen today. The images I've seen and the stories told to me today, recorded for history by those who lived it, will haunt me for a long time.

 

I'm not the one going saying they are just acting out of "pure greed" or "imperialism."

You seem to not be reading my post, or very selectively reading them. Or else you are just caught up in a you're either with us or against us.. In none of my post have I defended, condoned or excused any of the actions of the PRC or the USSR, I've specifically said I blame them for much.

You are pretty much admitting above that you are caught up in Cold War thinking above and using outrage to justify your point rather than considering the complexities of history, as you claim to know.

If we're talking about outrage my family was kicked out of China by the Communists with a death sentence on my grandfather's head so I'm pretty much aware of the history regarding the battle against global Communism and Marxism. If anything I would have more cause to talk about Evil Empires.

That said this is about understanding PRC not as an "evil empire" caricature but as a very large and complex entity with a very large and complex history.

 

I agree with some of your analysis but as I've told others you are looking at this simplistically and with your own blame the US bias that you frequently bring.

You are correct that the PRC is fearful of the US and it's allies. As I pointed out to another poster much of the PRC's actions are driven by historical fear where China was subjugated by foreign powers. The PRC sees US attempts at containment as a continuation of that and the US maintaining it's hegemony.

What I think you're missing though is how much of this though is driven by domestic issues within the PRC particularly how it's long run of continued economic growth is in trouble. Since Deng the CCP has promised material improvement in exchange for continued support in it's authoritarian rule. In cases like Tiananmen it's not afraid to back that up with force when they truly feel threatened. Since then though the PRC has increasingly turned to nationalism and the generation that has grown up since Tiananmen is far more nationalistic towards a Chinese identity than the previous generation was. You don't really have to be a deep student of Chinese culture to see this but just can see this from the Yao Only Fans who frequented Clutchfans and their attitudes.

In this way the territorial disputes and others issues with the US play right into the CCP's narrative of an emergent China being kept down by foreign powers just as what happened to China in the 19th C. The leadership of the PRC both believe this and use this to distract from domestic issues.

And you don't think the PRC is insecure about the size of their dick? (in your words but as someone who is ethnically Chinese I can make a dick size joke. ). Once again you're too busy trying to bash the US while ignoring the insecurity of the PRC leadership and how much they are too blame for these actions and as I stated above how much they are stoking confrontation to distract from their own internal problems.

I agree the PRC isn't going to always be an enemy. As I've said several times this caricature of the PRC as acting out "pure greed" or "imperial aspirations" is overly simplistic and frankly dangerous. My own view from studying the PRC is that they don't actually want war and know that any war with the US will be very disastrous for not just the two countries but the World.

The problem though with your view is that you're in such a rush to blame / lecture us is that the issues of disparities of wealth and power are likely even greater in the PRC than they are in the US. Even though I'm criticizing simplistic cold war thinking on the US side that doesn't mean that the PRC is the good guy.

The rest of this is just a typical rant not worth responding too but getting back to the prior subject I will state this.

Change in the PRC is ultimately up to the people there. Even if the US were to completely leave Asia doesn't mean that all of a sudden the PRC will become a democratic country. What's happening in the PRC isn't the fault of US and there is little the US can do to change it.

 

i think china's ultimate goal is to be an american equal in terms of power and influence. probably also their values accepted by the world as an equal to western democratic values, not something inferior as now. same to russia. but i think americans will never accept that but it'll be a battle they'll never win.

 

The PRC clearly wants to be a global power but I don't think they want to export their values in the way you say. If you look at how they've project power it's very much been hands off regarding cultural and political values. This is why they frequently get criticized for doing business with dictators in Africa even as they do similar business with westernized democracies like Australia.

The PRC position has generally been we want to establish a relationship but we don't really care how you conduct things in your country.

Why I keep on bringing up history though is that with the South China Sea is that the PRC doesn't consider it other countries territory and cites historical evidence from the Ming Dynasty for claims on it. This is the mistake of looking at the PRC behavior there and projecting it to how they behave anywhere else.