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Old 2012-08-22, 07:57   Link #23021
SeijiSensei
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Japanese Nationalists Occupy Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands

Quote:
“We are all gearing up for an international tug of war in this region,” said Narushige Michishita, an expert on security issues at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo. “Whenever the distribution of power changes in a dramatic way, people start to redraw lines.”

That is precisely what is happening in the South China Sea, which has received more international attention than Japan’s territorial battles. But experts say the increasingly shrill war of words over disputed islands between Japan and its East Asian neighbors, including China and South Korea, is potentially more explosive. Unlike in the South China Sea, where the frictions center on competition for natural resources, the East Asian island disputes are more about history, rooted in lingering — and easily ignited — anger over Japan’s brutal dominance decades ago.
I can understand the disputes in the South China Sea where there are real resources like oil at stake. This one seems rooted solely in nationalist sentiments based on events that happened half a century ago or more. Resolving these types of disputes without a loss of "face" will be very hard to do, I fear.
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Old 2012-08-22, 08:21   Link #23022
Sumeragi
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Key international shipping routes AND oil/gas reserves. What was that about this issue being rooted solely in nationalist sentiments?
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Old 2012-08-22, 08:25   Link #23023
SaintessHeart
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sumeragi View Post
Key international shipping routes AND oil/gas reserves. What was that about this issue being rooted solely in nationalist sentiments?
Draw a loop line around it, and China can use "sovereign territory" to cut of US reinforcements from Japan in the event they decide to take over Taiwan.

Japan Nation of Bullies: 57% Bullied, 27% Consider Suicide
Writeup @ Sankaku (NSFW)

Now that they have proven bullying is a cycle, I wonder if they would extend the "right of self-defence" to the victims and let them burn the school down. Napalm isn't that hard to make.

Either that or have some form of suicide/euthanasia compensation law to the parents. Though I wonder if it is the avoid-trouble mentality ingrained into the kids in Asian societies that result in this kind of unnecessary destruction to the mental health of young individuals; those scars don't just fade away, self-esteem and personal confidence bleeds from those cuts, even through the later years into adulthood, until the poor guy is dry of it.

EDIT : I thought this article would never be written, let alone published.

Behind Singapore Inc. (Part I): The growing class of 'working poor'

Quote:
In a wide-ranging interview with former GIC chief economist Yeoh Lam Keong, Yahoo! Singapore’s JEANETTE TAN finds out what he thinks are the key challenges Singapore faces in its quest for continued economic development. This is the first of a three-part series that dives into some of the country’s key policies and governance.

Could Singapore’s immigration policies over the past 15 years have created a separate, growing class of poor citizens?

Former chief economist to the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) Yeoh Lam Keong believes that may be the case.

Using a term he calls “the working poor” — a term he uses to refer to the bottom 10 per cent of working household breadwinners, who hold full-time jobs, but yet find themselves entrenched in the poverty cycle – he said, “In other words, even if you’re fully employed, you may barely earn enough money to bring up a family decently or to improve your children’s economic opportunities.”

“It’s a poverty in work, as opposed to poverty because you don’t have a job,” the 54-year-old said during a recent interview with Yahoo! Singapore.

A seasoned economist, Yeoh understands more than most the interconnected nature of so many of Singapore’s policies, with the multitude of factors involved in dealing with employment and wages alone.

A former schoolmate of Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam’s at the Anglo-Chinese School, and later the London School of Economics, Yeoh has done a considerable amount of time in government policymaking.

He spent almost all of his working life in public economic policy, and was involved in starting up the Economics and Strategy Department at GIC. Yeoh found that he enjoyed his work there so much that he stayed there for 26 years, deciding to make his exit only last June.

Zooming in on the hot-button point of the country’s immigration policy, Yeoh went on to explain that mass immigration of foreign unskilled workers has depressed the wages of working-class Singaporeans.

Industry-level salaries for these workers have stagnated against rapid inflation over the years as local firms hire more foreign workers who are willing to accept lower pay, and locals are then forced to accept little or no increases in their salaries to keep their jobs. Don't you say?

“Therefore this policy needs to be reversed. What we need to do is be much more stringent on admitting such unskilled labour,” he said. “We’ve really got no excuse to be so relaxed about this kind of immigration.”

Doing so, says Yeoh, will compel companies here to up their productivity levels through mechanisation, automation and re-organisation. This, in turn, will result in them relying more heavily on skilled labour, hence improving cost, productivity and more importantly real wage structures.

Helping the ‘working poor’ get by

Naturally, a process like this requires time — years of it, in fact — and Yeoh says some things can be done to help the working poor in the meantime.

For one, he advocates an immediate hike in Workfare payouts to allow all low-wage workers to take home at least $1,500 a month.

Currently, Workfare supplements are offered in proportions to the amount of income earned and the age range of the worker, ranging from between $360 and $600 annually for people earning $200 a month or less, to between $1,050 and $1,500 a year for those earning $1,000 per month.

The figure decreases as income increases, up to a threshold of $1,600 per month.

“What you can do is raise your Workfare payouts so that everyone takes home at least $1,500 and above (per month), and then gradually you can phase these out as productivity and real wages catch up in the longer run,” he suggests. “So you solve the poverty problem first by the government paying for it, and over time you let employers pay for it when they upgrade productivity and can afford to.”

This, he says, might be a more palatable option which achieves the same objectives set out by former National Wages Council (NWC) chairman Lim Chong Yah, who earlier this year proposed a “wage shock therapy” plan to increase the monthly salaries of low-income workers by 50 per cent over three years (a period that Yeoh feels is a bit too fast) while at the same time freezing wages of those who earn over S$15,000 a month.

Lim’s proposal drew the wage debate sharply into focus, with the government countering that his proposal contained serious hidden risks for the economy such as structural unemployment and higher cost of living due to higher business costs.

Yeoh said the additional cost from increasing the Workfare Income Supplement (WIS) should fall well within the government’s affordability range — a figure he estimates to be below 0.5 per cent of GDP per year.

“In this case, at least there is burden sharing,” he says. “The first instance, between labour and the government, and the second, between labour and company.”

Revisiting the minimum wage debate

This, though, is where Yeoh feels that minimum wage legislation may have to be introduced, to ensure that employers don’t cut back on pay in the wake of the government increasing workfare payouts.

The government has long opposed the imposition of a minimum wage, arguing that it would cause unemployment, although earlier in May, it accepted the NWC's proposal for workers earning less than S$1,000 be given a pay increase of $50. The council had also recommended firms to give a built-in pay rise to all workers this year to help them cope with inflation.

Yeoh, however, said a minimum wage does not necessarily create job loss “if it’s not an aggressive rise”.

“Most countries have a minimum wage, and it has not created unemployment significantly unless you make (the rise) too aggressive,” he said. “But what you’re doing here is not making it aggressive, you’re just making sure the increase in WIS (workfare income supplement) is not taken back by employers cutting wages. So that’s a different angle.”

He acknowledges the immediate challenges this will pose to local small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) here, however.

“The problem is when you restrict foreign labour, the firms better able to deal with this will tend to be the larger firms — which tend to be foreign ones, and the smaller, local SMEs will tend to lose — so the economy will be hollowed out of SMEs and grow at their expense,” he said.

How to tackle this? Through “intelligent intervention” on the part of the government, Yeoh says.

“It needs to give them tax breaks, capital allowances; it needs to give them technology consultancy in terms of extension services, and setting up different industry centres to disseminate the technologies to them… because large companies have these facilities in-house already.

“This is a major adjustment process, so the government needs to facilitate this,” he says, referring, for instance, to the fact that workers lack unemployment insurance protection when they are transferred out of industries and companies.

“They’re not giving enough workfare so people can get up to that standard before the companies have a chance to adjust (to changing labour immigration policies)… They’re not supporting the workers, (or) the companies (sufficiently) either,” he said.

“So all they’re saying is, ‘Okay, turn off the labour taps!’ and they think that’s it, but that’s not it. There’s a lot more.”
*suits up in powered armour* Starting a debate with TRL in 3......2.......1......
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Last edited by SaintessHeart; 2012-08-22 at 09:27.
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Old 2012-08-22, 09:23   Link #23024
aohige
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SeijiSensei View Post
Japanese Nationalists Occupy Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands



I can understand the disputes in the South China Sea where there are real resources like oil at stake. This one seems rooted solely in nationalist sentiments based on events that happened half a century ago or more. Resolving these types of disputes without a loss of "face" will be very hard to do, I fear.
Yeaaahh.... I guess you didn't read the part where Chinese nationalists illegally boarded the island a few weeks back first, right?
Not to mention the riots last week where Chinese mobs destroyed Japanese cars and restaurants in their own country.

Also, the island is contested, but it's still considered Japanese territory by International Law. It has been for over a century. It was temporary controlled by America after WWII, but ownership of the island was Japan's since 1895. Japanese going to the island may be sensitive, but at least it's not illegal.

This whole "OH LOOK SOME RANDOM CHINESE DYNASTY PUT IT ON ITS MAP BACK IN 14TH CENTURY SO IT'S CHINESE OWNED!" didn't even come up till the 1970s.
The Chinese didn't give crap about those uninhabitable islands till then.

Do you know why?
That's when studies showed massive amount of resources under the islands. Gas, oil, etc.
After the reveal, suddenly China started making statements about it belonging to some ancient Chinese dynasty, even though they didn't give a rats ass for eighty years.

So yeah, it's all about resource and money. Nationalistic agenda is pretty insignificant portion of the pie, for all three parties involved.

If resource wasn't an issue, I personally think Taiwan derserves the land, they being the closest to the territory... as well as having control of sea lines, and buffer from the oppressive China. But since there's oil reserve and gas invovled, all bets are off.
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Last edited by aohige; 2012-08-22 at 11:12.
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Old 2012-08-22, 10:57   Link #23025
ganbaru
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Special Report: UK banks face scandal over toxic insurance products
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...87L09E20120822
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Old 2012-08-22, 11:20   Link #23026
SeijiSensei
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I'm not contesting Japanese sovereignty, nor did I miss the landing a couple of weeks back by Chinese activists either.

I don't know where oil and gas reserves lie in the northern parts of the China Sea; the Times article suggested this was more of an issue in the southern areas where there are known reserves and established parcels. I've seen a map of claims in the South China Sea, but not one for the area around the Senkakus.

So have there been test drillings, etc., to determine if there are actual petroleum reserves in the area around the Senkakus?

Frankly I don't really care how all these claims are worked out as long as it doesn't lead to a shooting war which might involve the US in a confrontation with China. Our ties to Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines, not to mention recent importuning by Vietnam, already threaten to embroil America in a conflict in the China Sea. We have enough on our plate right now; you guys work this out among yourselves.
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Old 2012-08-22, 11:34   Link #23027
Ridwan
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Regardless of there is actually oil or not, it is the reason behind the Senkaku dispute. Before UN "suggested" that there might be oil deposit in the area in early 1970s, all parties involved were less enthusiastic over the region.
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Old 2012-08-22, 11:57   Link #23028
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SeijiSensei View Post
Frankly I don't really care how all these claims are worked out as long as it doesn't lead to a shooting war which might involve the US in a confrontation with China. Our ties to Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines, not to mention recent importuning by Vietnam, already threaten to embroil America in a conflict in the China Sea. We have enough on our plate right now; you guys work this out among yourselves.
actually this is the US's fault.


in the 1970s, the US turn over the island to Japan because it was convenient at the time while dismissing both the PRC and the ROC's claim. This issue island are the fault of the US.
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Last edited by Xellos-_^; 2012-08-22 at 12:40.
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Old 2012-08-22, 12:47   Link #23029
Tom Bombadil
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Potsdam_Declaration
Quote:
"Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshū, Hokkaidō, Kyūshū, Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine." As had been announced in the Cairo Declaration in 1943.
Somehow during the following history, this "we" becomes the US itself, which has no legal right what-so-ever to give the territory of another nation to Japan. But that's how history works. The powers set the rules.
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Old 2012-08-22, 12:51   Link #23030
Sumeragi
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Bombadil View Post
give the territory of another nation to Japan
And when exactly was Senkaku the territory of another nation?
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Old 2012-08-22, 13:04   Link #23031
Ithekro
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I would say it is more China's fault based on the reasons why it was held and why it was handed back to Japan in 1972.

Originally the islands were going to be handed over to Nationalist China following World War II as a spoils of war. But China's Civil War stepped up before the San Francisco Treaty was finished and China was not made part of it directly. Later, by the time of the Korean War, Taiwan was given a seperate treaty similar to the San Francisco Treaty to end the conflict with Japan (at that time still under Allied occupation). Mainland China was not part of the deal since by then it was communist and an enemy of the remaining Allies. The islands remained under US control. As far as the Allies are concerned there is only one official China....Nationalist China on Taiwan.

Then comes 1972. The last Japanese soldier surrenders. Nixon goes to China and opens relations with the Communists. Because of this, Taiwan "officially" is considered part of Mainland China. The time for the US occupation of the Senkaku ended, but handing it over to Taiwan would mean handing over to China, and they were still communists and they the Vietnam War was ending. The US might open relations, but they were not going to give the Chinese something that could be a problem later. So with the Japanese now fully surrendered and on the slow but steady economic recovery, the islands reverted back to Japan.

Without the division of China and its civil war, the islands would have been Chinese by 1950. But because of that war and the political ramifications of the Cold War, by the time it the islands needed to go to someone other than the United States as a caretaker...Japan got them back. There was no longer a need for a spoils of war and Japan was now an ally against Communism.
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Old 2012-08-22, 13:06   Link #23032
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ithekro View Post
I would say it is more China's fault based on the reasons why it was held and why it was handed back to Japan in 1972.

Originally the islands were going to be handed over to Nationalist China following World War II as a spoils of war. But China's Civil War stepped up before the San Francisco Treaty was finished and China was not made part of it directly. Later, by the time of the Korean War, Taiwan was given a seperate treaty similar to the San Francisco Treaty to end the conflict with Japan (at that time still under Allied occupation). Mainland China was not part of the deal since by then it was communist and an enemy of the remaining Allies. The islands remained under US control. As far as the Allies are concerned there is only one official China....Nationalist China on Taiwan.

Then comes 1972. The last Japanese soldier surrenders. Nixon goes to China and opens relations with the Communists. Because of this, Taiwan "officially" is considered part of Mainland China. The time for the US occupation of the Senkaku ended, but handing it over to Taiwan would mean handing over to China, and they were still communists and they the Vietnam War was ending. The US might open relations, but they were not going to give the Chinese something that could be a problem later. So with the Japanese now fully surrendered and on the slow but steady economic recovery, the islands reverted back to Japan.

Without the division of China and its civil war, the islands would have been Chinese by 1950. But because of that war and the political ramifications of the Cold War, by the time it the islands needed to go to someone other than the United States as a caretaker...Japan got them back. There was no longer a need for a spoils of war and Japan was now an ally against Communism.
no that is the US's fault

without US involvement , the Chinese Civil War would never lasted this long. It would have been over sometime in the 50s.
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Old 2012-08-22, 13:09   Link #23033
Ithekro
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With no Taiwan, the US would have handed the islands over to Japan at the end of the US occupation of the islands anyway. They would not hand them to the Communists.
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Old 2012-08-22, 13:09   Link #23034
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So much tension rising everywhere while Putin is flexing his muscles.

At this rate, WW3 will start the instant Israel attacks Iran and Israel is only more or less waiting for the okay from a republican US president.
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Old 2012-08-22, 13:10   Link #23035
Sumeragi
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It's a bit more complex than that. Chiang did not accept either Senkaku nor the Ryukyus when Roosevelt offered those islands to be administered by China in a conference (I believe it was Cairo) before the end of the war. Given that the sole China of the era rejected administration of the islands, this means that technically they were to be part of Japan or however the Allies (in this case the US) saw fit. Blaming the US or Japan for what China did is blaming the wrong party.
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Old 2012-08-22, 15:52   Link #23036
KiraYamatoFan
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sumeragi View Post
It's a bit more complex than that. Chiang did not accept either Senkaku nor the Ryukyus when Roosevelt offered those islands to be administered by China in a conference (I believe it was Cairo) before the end of the war. Given that the sole China of the era rejected administration of the islands, this means that technically they were to be part of Japan or however the Allies (in this case the US) saw fit. Blaming the US or Japan for what China did is blaming the wrong party.
This! Thank you and good night! The debate should be closed because Chiang didn't want the islands and Mainland China made no fuss until now.

Speaking of which, is there a Japanese response to those recent demonstrations in China? I must say there are times when I expect the Japanese people to have some anti-Chinese riots in front of the Chinese embassy about a number of things happening... just a matter of showing that Japanese people can play this game too.
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Old 2012-08-22, 15:54   Link #23037
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KiraYamatoFan View Post
This! Thank you and good night! The debate should be closed because Chiang didn't want the islands and Mainland China made no fuss until now.
both China and Taiwan made a claim in the 1970s.
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Old 2012-08-22, 16:14   Link #23038
kyp275
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I say they should just have a free-for-all match on BF3 to settle the whole thing
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Old 2012-08-22, 16:49   Link #23039
Zakoo
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BF3 isn't skillful enough, playing Osu for a showdown seems better, the country who beats Cookiezi got the islands.
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Old 2012-08-22, 17:11   Link #23040
Xellos-_^
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since it is East Asia,

A game of Go would be in order,
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