Asian Shift

Past opinions expressed by Political Urgency have spoken of the desire of Communist China to place all of the Far East within its sphere of influence and in the process reduce the role of America in that part of the world. The B. H. Obama Administration has assisted, hopefully by ignorance or naivete and not intentionally, this goal of Peking. Without being redundant consider the multiple displays of American weakness involving North Korea; the Obama lack of response on the conference in India aimed at marginalizing the dollar; and the truly negative impact in not only the Far East but also the entire world of the American government's debt to Communist China in an amount that exceeds $800 billion. This shift of influence may have its first manifestation of reality in Japan in just two (2) weeks.

On August 30th there will be general elections in Japan and the political pundits of that nation are forecasting that the Democratic Party of Japan [DPJ] will win and win big. If this election victory comes to pass, the group that has controlled Japan for 52 of the past 53 years will be ousted. The reality of this potential change of power in Japan is that the DPJ is a left of center political party who has openly questioned the extent of America influence in its nation. The DPJ has pledged to reconsider the need of having 50,000 members of the American armed forces based in Japan; has pledged to better relations with Communist China; and to reevaluate Japan's economic ties to America. The economy of Japan lists the United States as its number one export destination but Communist China is a strong second. Not missed by the Japanese is the fact that by the end of this year they will no longer be the second largest economy in the world being surpassed by China.

The number 2 man in the DPJ, Katsuya Okada, is quoted as saying, "If Japan just follows what the US says then I think as a sovereign nation that is very pathetic." The hand writing is on the wall. Japan, if the DPJ wins, will step back from America and begin to lean more and more towards Communist China. The role of the American military will be lessened but not eliminated and the economic focus will shift gently away from the United States.

As has become common for the Obama White House, there has been no reaction as to this possible move in Japan away from America influence except to have Joseph Nye, Harvard professor, announce that it made no difference who was in power in Japan as far as the American-Japanese relationship was concerned. Tokyo and Washington would just continue to grow closer. Nye has either shown his lack of insight to this matter or he has correctly expressed that a left of center, pro-Communist China government in Japan would be warmly greeted by our President.