Japan: does democracy work in Asia? Part 1 of 6

January 19, 2016

The partnership between capitalism and alleged multi-party democracies in Asia is an ironic joy to behold.

After spending hours researching Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, India and Taiwan, I understand why the West and America, in particular, keeps pressuring mainland China to allow democracy to flourish.

The best way to discover what happens to China if it were to become a multi-party democracy is to look at the Asian democracies surrounding it.

Let’s start with Japan.

In 2009, the Guardian said of Japan, “After more than 50 years of almost uninterrupted power, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has been buried in a general election. Once before, in 1993, change came when a coalition of opposition parties briefly took power, but the LDP still held on to a majority in the Diet’s powerful lower house. This time … the center-left Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) took more than 300 of 480 seats in the lower house.”

Then in the 2012 election, the LDP took back the majority of seats Japan’s National Diet. The National Diet is Japan’s bicameral legislature. It is composed of a lower house called the House of Representatives, and an upper house, called the House of Councillors.

After the 2012 election, the LDP held 294 seats in the 480 seat House of Representatives and in 2013 took 115 of the 242 seats in the House of Councillors.

The Guardian reported that the DPJ, which ended the five-decade rule of the LDP from 2009 – 2012, was “funded to some degree by the U.S., (and) was put in place to marginalize all left-wing opposition. This involved some strong-arm tactics, especially against the unions …”

Japan has a long trail of corruption.

Werner Pacha’s study of Corruption in Japan from an Economist’s Perspective says, “Corruption can quite simply be understood as the use of public office for private gains.”

Then Pacha reveals a series of scandals starting with the 1954 Shipbuilding Scandal, which contributed to the collapse of the Yoshida cabinet sending one person to prison of the 71 arrested.

Next was the Lockheed Scandal of 1976, resulting in the arrest of Prime Minister Tanaka for having received payments from Lockheed (an American defense contractor) of about 500 million Yen.

In 1988-89, there was the Recruit Scandal, which concluded with the resignation of Prime Minister Takeshita on April 1989.

In 1991, the Kyôwa Affair, another scandal, included former Prime Minister Suzuki and Kyôwa, a steel-girder construction firm.

Briefly, there followed the Sagawa Kyûbin Scandal of 1991-1993, the Tax Evasion Scandal of 1993,  the Genecon Corruption Scandal of 1993, the Sôkaiya Scandals of 1997, and the 1996 – 1998 Scandals within the Elite Bureaucracy.

The CIA (in 2007) reported that 15.7 percent of the people in Japan lived below the poverty line. In comparison, according to the CIA, only 2.8 percent of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) live below the poverty line.

Continued with South Korea on January 20, 2016 in Part 2

______________________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the unique love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

#1 - Joanna Daneman review posted June 19 2014

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What happens to the alleged culprits of Food Fraud in China? Part 2 of 2

December 23, 2015

If you read Part One of this two part series, you are probably thinking it isn’t safe to eat in China so you will stick to American food.

However, Wall Street Journal.com reported, “Struggles with food safety are not a specifically Chinese problem. Many countries, including the U.S. and Japan, have gone through similar growing pains in the food industry, says Wu Ming, a professor at Beijing University’s school of public health.”

Professor Ming is correct. Down to Earth.org reports, “Every day in the US about 200,000 people become sick, 900 are hospitalized and 14 die (that’s more than 5,000 annually) due to food borne illnesses (and few if any people are punished for these deaths). According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), about one quarter of the American population suffers from food poisoning each year.”

It’s just business as usual and those food deaths are collateral damage on the way to making profits.

New U.S. Laws for food safety cover all food except meat, poultry and some egg products and there are other exceptions too. In fact, the CDC.gov reports, “Every year, about 48 million of us, roughly one in six people in the United States, get sick from eating contaminated food—it could be you, your spouse, your kids, your parents, or other loved ones.”

And if you believe China is not doing anything about food safety, think again. I Googled “arrests in China for food safety”.

The first hit for 2014 from Food Safety News reported, “Chinese Police Arrest More Than 100 People for Selling Contaminated Pork.”

In 2013, The Guardian reported, “China arrests 900 in fake meat scandal.”

In addition, the U.S. is no saint. Sustainable Business Forum.com says, “Unlike the U.S., China arrests Food Safety Violators.”

Helena Bottemiller of Food Safety News.com recently reported, “Current statutes (in the U.S.) do not provide sufficient criminal sanctions for those who knowingly violate our food safety laws,” said Leahy, who has become an outspoken advocate of food safety reform. “Knowingly distributing adulterated food is merely a misdemeanor right now, and the Sentencing Commission has found that it generally does not result in jail time.”

In conclusion, if you are in the food industry in China and want to take short cuts regarding food safety to boost profits while possibly killing people along the way, the United States is a safer place to commit murder while making a profit, because in China, you might go to prison and even be executed.

Return to or Start with Part 1

______________________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the lusty love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

IMAGE with Blurbs and Awards to use on Twitter

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

What happens to the alleged culprits of Food Fraud in China? Part 1 of 2

December 22, 2015

In 2011, Wall Street Journal.com reported, “Ink, dye, bleach and toxic chemicals … have been found recently in food products in China, reigniting fears over food safety despite repeated government pledges to crack down on tainted eats.”

Sounds bad, but don’t judge China before reading this entire two-part series to discover that China is not alone in the struggle to make food safer to eat.

It isn’t as if China’s government is not trying to improve food safety. In 2011, Al-Jazeera’s Melissa Chang reported from Beijing about China’s government vowing to improve food safety laws. In fact, according to Melissa Chang, more than 2,000 people across the country were arrested for failing to meet food safety standards.

The Wall Street Journal said, “One of the biggest issues is the drive to make a buck at any cost, says Lester Ross, a Beijing-based attorney with U.S. law firm Wilmer Hale. Some companies see that by using additives, they can cut overhead costs or boost profit margins, and they merely aren’t thinking about the affects the additives will have on consumers, Mr. Ross says.”

Melissa Chang demonstrated how a chemical sauce to turn meats such as pork into beef can change any meat that isn’t beef into beef so the enterprising capitalist can charge more and increase profits.

Is that capitalism at work?

Since living in China means awareness of such trickery, “Many Chinese,” Chang says, “pay a premium to know exactly where the food they eat comes from.”

Chang then talked about an organic food cooperative in the suburbs of Beijing, which was established by families to buy directly from organic farmers and the project was successful.

However, Chang said, “Even the best intentions (may) go awry.” Organic in China doesn’t mean the food would qualify as organic outside of China since so much of the air and water is polluted there.  It is a challenge to grow quality produce.  Achieving better standards will take years.”

What about food safety in the U.S.? Continued on December 23, 2015, in Part 2

______________________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the lusty love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

#1 - Joanna Daneman review posted June 19 2014

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

What is the Real Cause of Most Riots?

December 9, 2015

When the Western media reports that a riot happened in China don’t mistake this unrest as a demand for a Western style democracy as the media did when the Tiananmen Square protests took place in 1989. Just because a few young people were captured on camera in China saying they want a democracy doesn’t mean the majority of Chinese do.

For example, CNN reported a June 10, 2011 riot in Xintang located in southern China.  Witnesses and media reports said local officials beat up a pregnant migrant worker and her husband, pushing the woman to the ground. Mass protests ensued, quickly spiraling to violent clashes with government forces that spread to other parts of Xintang, a city of 400,000 residents, almost half of them migrant workers.

The result was the arrest of 19 men, which included nine teenagers.

If you read the CNN report, you’ll discover that a slowdown in economic growth (caused by the 2008 global financial crises, which started in the U.S. due to greed and lax laws) in China caused social tensions between rural versus urban, ethnic minority against majority, and haves versus have-nots, which caused several riots in different areas of China.

The same thing happened in 1947 when General (and dictator) Chiang Kai-shek ordered his army to quell a riot in Taiwan. The result was the 2/28 Massacre in Taiwan where 30,000 civilians were killed by the military.

The reasons for riots around the world seldom have to do with a demand for a Western style democracy. Even in the Middle East where there have been riots and calls for democracy, according to the Western media, most of the people involved don’t know what a democracy is or how to set one up. They just want some form of social justice.

In 1992, in Los Angeles, there was the Rodney King riot caused by ethnic strife, which ended with about $1 billion in property damages in addition to 53 people killed and thousands injured. The U.S. Marines and Army had to be called in to regain control and there were shootings between the military and civilians.

In Oakland, California there were several riots caused by the 2009 killing of an unarmed black man that took place at a BART station.  Hundreds took to the streets to protest while looters broke into stores and set cars on fire.

In 2001, England had riots in three cities due to tensions in the South Asian Islamic community. It was estimated that the riot in Bradford, England involved about a thousand youths and eventually it took a thousand police to end it.

A 2011, a riot in Vancouver erupted after the Canucks lost the Stanley Cup.  After the game, many teenagers went on a rampage attempting to shatter windows and loot stores.  When one man tried to stop them, he was jumped by no fewer than 15 people, who beat and kicked him until he was left a bloodied heap on the ground.

Wikipedia lists many of the reasons for riots, which may stem from the unlawful use of force by a group of police against civilians, prison riots, race riots, religious riots, student riots, urban riots, sports riots, and food/bread riots that have taken place all over the world no matter what form of government a country has.

However, when the Western media reports about riots in China, it’s almost always mentioned that China’s central government is challenged to prevent widespread grievances from taking place as if riots in China are different than riots in other countries.

According to the history of riots, this challenge of an unruly civilian population is a problem all governments eventually face and the job of governments the world over is to end the killing and damage as soon as possible by whatever means to restore order.

______________________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the lusty love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

#1 - Joanna Daneman review posted June 19 2014

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What does it mean to Eat Bitterness and be Asian in the United States?

December 8, 2015

On April 25, 2011, Nadra Kareem Nittle wrote, Are U.S. Universities Discriminating Against Asian Students? The answer to Nittle’s question was and still is YES.

In the US, since the Civil Rights era preferential treatment favored African-Americans and Latinos since Asian-Americans tend to swallow their bitterness instead of protesting violently as the other minorities have done.

For example, the NAACP says it fights for social justice for all Americans. However, facts demonstrate that the NAACP tends to favor legislation that focuses on benefits for African Americans. If this were not true, there would be no need for political organizations to serve Latinos and Asian-Americans.

In fact, Africana Online said, “The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has been instrumental in improving the legal, educational, and economic lives of African Americans.” There was no mention of the other minorities that suffer from racism in the U.S.

However, Latino Political Clout is growing in the U.S. to challenge the NAACP’s clout. The recent US Census indicated Latinos continue to become a larger ratio of the American population. With growing numbers will come political and social changes to the country.

But we know that the number of votes a minority such as African-Americans, Latinos and Asian-Americans deliver during an election results in political influence, and it’s obvious that blacks are winning when it comes to clout because a higher ratio of blacks vote than whites, Latinos and Asians.

For instance, in 2012, a larger percentage of blacks—66% of eligible black voters—voted than whites (64.1%). In contrast, Latino voters tend to turn out in slightly lower ratios than blacks or whites. Asians, on the other hand, are not voting like they could. According to Pew Research.org, only three in ten Asian American eligible voters cast ballots in midterm elections.

As demonstrated, Asian American political organizations have a long way to go to catch up to African-American and Hispanic or Latino political influence.

Is this because Asian and Chinese Americans are crippled by the influence of their cultures when it comes to increasing political influence in the U.S. since Chinese parents teach their children to eat bitterness?

In China, the tradition to “eat bitter” has been passed down from generation to generation. “Eat bitter” is a literal translation of Chinese ＂吃苦＂, which refers to endure hardship including discrimination without complaint or protest.

The 2014 Census 2014 census revealed that minority influence is not equal since there are about 42.1 million African-Americans, 55.5 million Hispanic or Latino Americans and only 17.1 million Asian Americans, who turn out to vote in lower ratios. Numbers count and it helps that Latinos and African-Americans do not eat bitterness like most Asians do.

I think that the Asian cultural aspect of “eating bitterness” has been influenced by Taoism, Buddhism and Confucius while in the West the warlike and often-violent religions of Christianity and Islam did not follow the same path.

______________________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the lusty love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

IMAGE with Blurbs and Awards to use on Twitter

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2 Comments | America, American culture, Buddhism, China, Chinese Culture, Confucianism, cultural differences, Taoism, United States | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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