Rui Matsukawa announces her candidacy for the House of Councilors election | Japan should increase the number of orthodox right - wing female members.
2022-06-16
Category:Japan
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Supporting female right-wing members in the House of Councilors election
It was decided that July 10th would be the day for voting in the House of Councilors, and Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Rui Matsukawa announced her candidacy on Twitter. This is the last day of the Diet session, and she said she will aim to pass a law establishing the Family Agency. She specializes in foreign affairs and is also knowledgeable about national defense, having served as Parliamentary Vice-Minister of Defense. I am not of the opinion that we should increase the number of female councilors, but rather that we should increase the number of orthodox right-wing female councilors like her and Councilor Takaichi .
Recently, when it comes to national defense in particular, there tends to be criticism that men are out of control when it comes to the military, but a female lawmaker's statement that Japan's national defense should be strengthened is a sign that women's public opinion is It also serves as a strong backing.
Women's political participation tends to the left
Up until now, female members of parliament have tended to be left-wing. To be honest, I'm tired of hearing things like ``opposing the amendment of Article 9'', ``getting along with neighboring countries'', and ``helping the weak'', and these statements will never make Japan stronger. In other words, there were many members with strong socialist and communist thinking. Regarding their historical views, they also said the same thing as China and the Korean Peninsula, calling for Japan to apologize to its neighboring countries.
She cried out that women's voices should be heard and spoke in the Diet as a representative of women, but her comments were left-wing, had strong socialist tendencies, and had a self-deprecating view of history. So, What has become of Japan today as a result of her listening to that voice? .
Japanese politics with few female members
Some people say that there are few women members of the Japanese Diet, but what about the number of candidates? If there are fewer women candidates, it is natural that there will be fewer women elected. It has been pointed out that the percentage of women elected to the House of Representatives in 2021 is 9.7%. Not running for office in the first place means that you have no desire to become a member of the Diet, but calling for more women to become members of Congress is putting the cart before the horse.
Is it solved by creating a constant?
Female members of the opposition parties often argue that the number of female members should be set at one-third, etc., but right-wing female members of the Liberal Democratic Party oppose this. Have opposition members ever wondered what would happen to the National Assembly if one-third of the members were incompetent? Of course, there are some excellent female politicians. This is also due to the fact that he himself ran for office and was elected.
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South Korean say Japan is a democratic backward country without direct election of leader.Don't you know the parliamentary cabinet system?
Some Koreans say that Japan, which does not elect a leader in direct elections, is a backward democratic country.Japan has a parliamentary cabinet system.The choice of leaders is similar to that of Britain.Britain's ruling party leader is a candidate for prime minister and is elected prime minister by a majority of the House of Representatives.
UK adopts the same parliamentary cabinet system as Japan.The prime minister, not the president, is elected from Parliament.
Some Japanese misunderstand this, but it is only an internal election to select a leader when the LDP presidential election is held.If elected here, he will be elected prime minister with a majority vote in the Diet.The disclosure of the party's election is only due to the high demand.There is no obligation to disclose it.It is unclear how the leaders of the Constitutional Democratic Party or the Communist Party of Japan became leaders.
Considering how Moon Jae In was elected party leader in Korea, the same can be said.Democrats, who saw Sanders' superiority in the 2020 U.S. presidential election as a failure to beat Trump, persuaded two other candidates to withdraw their candidates and unify them with Biden.It's not about factionalism, but it's about doing the same thing .The Republican Party unifies Trump, but the cause is unclear.In any case, this is just a matter for parties to decide.
This has nothing to do with direct elections, whether they are democratic or not.Both the presidential system and the parliamentary cabinet system are forms of democracy.The essential point is the difference about votes.Lawmakers are elected from one district and the prime minister is one of them.The president is elected by the vote of the whole people.In other words, the content of the vote is different.Based on this, the president has the power to make decisions without the approval of Congress, which is different from lawmakers.On the other hand, we can think of the need for a referendum to give the president privileged power.
To concentrate one's power is to give one certain dictatorship.Whether this is necessary or not is a choice in the form of national democracy.In countries where war and civil war are expected, radical power is often entrusted to the leader.
The presidential system is given great authority for direct elections.The parliamentary cabinet system is selected by parliamentary approval, so the authority is limited.
It's not a constant, it's a matter of awareness of participation
In the first place, are there any gender differences in Japanese politics? I feel like this is based on the fact that in the past, women have not taken an interest in politics and have not participated in it.
This is because both men and women have equal rights to run for office and vote, and if we compare the population, there are more women than men. In other words, if all female voters vote for a female candidate, that female candidate will definitely win .
We need right-wing female politicians
What is needed is a right-wing female lawmaker who can think about Japan's future, including national defense. Up until now, there was an illusion that Japan, protected by the US military, did not need to think about national defense, and on this premise, myths of friendship and equality with neighboring countries had flourished. Left-wing female parliamentarians were born from this soil. What they have done is no more than simply slandering the government and the ruling party.
The environment surrounding Japan is not always beautiful. We need to increase the number of right-wing female members of Congress who face these issues head-on and seriously consider how to deal with them.
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Yasuhiro Nakasone called the Japanese archipelago an unsinkable aircraft carrier - Japan's topography gave the US military an advantage.
Former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone referred to former President Ronald Reagan as an "unsinkable aircraft carrier." This is a metaphor for the strategic significance of Japan's topography and the presence of U.S. forces within the Cold War structure. Japan once fought a fierce war with the United States, but after the war it became a democratic nation. Conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union had already begun during World War II. It is said that the United States participated in the war in part to secure its voice within the framework of the postwar world. Both the Korean War and the Vietnam War occurred amid conflicts between the United States and the Soviet Union. The United States did not want Soviet power to reach the southern tip of the Korean peninsula. It is said that an agreement on the 38th parallel was reached as a secret agreement at the Yalta Conference. In this context, Japan became a base for the US military to defend East Asia.
Japan is actually a neighboring country to the United States in the sense that there are no countries separating them geographically. It takes about 3 hours to get to Guam by air. The Japanese archipelago has a unique topography, stretching from north to south, bordering Russia to the north, Kyushu to the Korean Peninsula, China, and the islands south of Okinawa to Taiwan. For the United States, the terrain that covered the Japanese continent was attractive for the defense of Asia, and this was completely consistent with Japan's understanding of national defense. Conversely, it may be said that if the US-Soviet Cold War had not occurred, Japan-US relations would not have been able to recover to this extent. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, China rose to prominence and Asia's defense lines moved significantly south. As expected, the Japanese archipelago occupies an important position in this band as well. Currently, they are working together within the framework of Quad. Japan also plays an important role in the Taiwan Strait issue, and in this way, the Japan-US relationship has developed amid changes in the environment surrounding Asia.
There was a Korean leftist presidential candidate who said that the Korean peninsula was divided by the occupation forces (GHQ), but in essence, South Korea is a country born within the Cold War structure. There was no way to stop the Cold War structure, neither in Japan nor, of course, in South Korea. I can't believe my ears when I hear statements that deny this very upbringing. In fact, if South Korea had not come under GHQ's trusteeship, it would have simply been unified with North Korea. A democratic country forms the basis of South Korea's national ideology, and even if we lament the separation from North Korea, which has a completely different social system, nothing will be achieved by blaming others. . What can we independently do for the world? That always seems to be missing.
Know the difference between the Rising Sun Flag and Hakenkreuz - What is the Korean historical perspective that equates them?
In the history of the world, I have never heard of a country changing its flag because it won or lost a war. Britain and France have been at war many times, but did Britain, which won the Anglo-French War, demand that the French flag be changed? On the contrary, there is no idea that such a thing would become a point of contention in post-war processing. South Korea persistently demands that Japan abolish the Rising Sun flag, just as Germany abolished the Hakenkreuz flag.
A national flag symbolizes the country. The disappearance of a national flag means the disappearance of that nation. The Rising Sun Flag is the internationally registered flag of Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force. Calling for the abolition of that flag is the same as calling for the abolition of the Maritime Self-Defense Force. Is South Korea claiming that it wants to go to war with Japan? If this is not the meaning, then the perception of what a ``flag'' is is too different internationally.
South Korea always equates the Rising Sun flag with the Hakenkreuz, and claims that since the Hakenkreuz, the symbol of Nazi Germany, has been abolished, the Rising Sun flag should also be abolished. Hakenkreuz is the party flag of the Nazi Party (National Socialist German Workers' Party), and there is a history of it being used as the national flag. There is no Nazi party now, so there is no Hakenkreuz. That's simply the story.
Unless Japan disappears, the Japanese flag will not disappear, and unless the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force disappears, the Rising Sun flag will not disappear. In the first place, the Rising Sun Flag is a flag that has been passed down culturally, so it will not disappear even if it has nothing to do with the Self-Defense Forces. No country will abolish its flag at the request of another country.
There is only one country in the world calling for the abolition of the Rising Sun Flag. That country is not at war with Japan.
TSE market capitalization returns to number one in Asia - Expectations for Japan's competitiveness after withdrawal from Chinese investment?
On the 11th, the total market capitalization of stocks listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange exceeded that of China's Shanghai Stock Exchange. It seems that the TSE has returned to the top spot in Asia for the first time in about three and a half years. Various things are being talked about, including a move away from investment in China and expectations for Japan's competitiveness to recover. In the first place, the current strange international situation is the result of developed countries investing in dictatorial countries such as China and Russia.
In 1973, the G7 once accounted for 65% of world GDP. That's the GDP of only seven countries. This was seen as a monopoly on the world's wealth, and problems in developing countries were discussed. At that time, the world was also in the era of the Cold War, but the Cold War itself was at least a better era than now. Economic and political exchanges between communist and capitalist countries were closed off and blocked by a barrier called the Iron Curtain. Russia and China are calling for a return to the Cold War era, but is that really the case? One could argue that the Cold War era was the era with the least number of wars in the world.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the countries of Eastern Europe collapsed one after another. China also pursued a path of liberation and reform, aiming to become an open nation. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the world went crazy and thought the era of tension was over, but that was not the case at all. The loss of balance in the world has led to localized conflicts. Issues that were not highlighted during the Cold War era have been exposed as tensions have eased. Various things have been said about this, and while that may be true, I believe that it is essentially a matter of money.
What began with the collapse of the Cold War was global capital, or so-called globalism. Globalists are talked about as a conspiracy theory on social media, but there is no interest in knowing who is behind it. The problem is that the era when business and investment in authoritarian countries began can be thought of as the collapse of the Cold War. Did they simply think that the world would turn to democracy once communism fell? What is clear today is that the country has spent decades cultivating a state in which its domestic market is opened up to the capitalist state as much as possible, and wealth is distributed by a dictator.
The Cold War era was a great time. It was a time when the world was divided based on ideology, and it was a rational and peaceful time. The world should once again create an iron curtain of democratic and non-democratic countries. We no longer need to care how much wealth the G7 makes. Only countries that choose the democratic state form can receive democratic investment. As long as we continue to be a dictatorial nation, we should just live with the economy of dictatorial nations. You should rethink that. However, there will be some remorse for the times when we grew a nation that grew fat and threatened us with weapons.
Speech at the banquet of Emperor Showa, who addressed the post - war food crisis and conveyed his gratitude for the food aid, on his visit to the United States.
Emperor Showa who gave his life
Request food aid in exchange for imperial treasures
Food aid realized
Emperor invited to the White House
Emperor Showa who gave his life
When Emperor Showa visited MacArthur's office, he asked MacArthur to help the Japanese people in exchange for his own life. MacArthur later wrote, ``I was convinced that the man in front of me was the best gentleman in Japan.''
In the winter of 1945, Japan experienced a serious food crisis after the war, and Emperor Showa told Kenzo Matsumura, the Minister of Education, ``It is said that there are quite a few items belonging to the Imperial Household that have international value.'' Therefore, I ordered the director of the Imperial Museum to investigate and create a catalog.I would like to give this to America as compensation and use it as food to stave off starvation for the people for just one day. "Take the sea urchins with you," he ordered.
Matsumura was perplexed, but at the strong will of Emperor Showa, he delivered the inventory to MacArthur, who was surprised and said, ``I would not even honor it by taking away the treasures of the imperial family and offering them food in return.'' '' and said that after returning the inventory, they would take steps to provide food aid from the United States.
In 1975, Emperor Showa was invited to the White House by former President Ford as a state guest. American public opinion had little interest in the Japanese Emperor's visit to the United States, and it was never reported, but everyone could have imagined that the Showa Emperor would naturally hold a grudge against the United States. At his White House dinner, His Majesty the Emperor gave the following address:
``I have long desired to visit your country for many years, and if my wish were to come true, I would like to convey the following to your people. I would like to personally express my gratitude to your people for the warm kindness and assistance you extended to us in rebuilding our country immediately after that unfortunate war, which we deeply regret. I expressed my gratitude.
Furthermore, ``The number of people in both countries who are unaware of the recent war is about to exceed the majority.However, even if times change in the future, I believe that the generosity and goodwill of your people will be handed down among the Japanese people for a long time.'' '', the venue erupted with loud applause.
After that, the story quickly spread throughout the United States, and for six days in a row, the front pages of newspapers reported on the visit of the Japanese Emperor to the United States. This event took place 30 years after the end of the war.
Japan is the only country of color to successfully modernize (industrial revolution).
Japan is said to be the only country among people of color that succeeded in modernizing through the industrial revolution. So why was only Japan able to succeed?
Japan has been isolated from the rest of the world for over 200 years, and we are generally taught in school that modernization began with the opening of the country. What exactly is the industrial revolution? The industrial revolution can be thought of as a power revolution.
Watt in England improves the steam period and creates a machine that converts the power of steam into rotary motion. This was a revolutionary invention at the time. He will be able to transmit rotational motion to various gears and realize complex movements in various locations. So, what was the machine like up until then? It was similar to how humans and cows rotate their shafts, or when they step on a loom with their feet to obtain rotational motion.
This is the power of steam, and if you keep the fire burning, you can get an output many times greater than human power. What this achieves is mass production of products.
Until then, it was called a cottage craft industry, and as the name suggests, people made things by hand, but from now on, we will enter an era in which machines will be making large quantities of the same items.
This is the industrial revolution. Products manufactured in large quantities are cheaper and become popular among various classes. Steam locomotives also provided the infrastructure for transporting these large amounts of goods. From this era, the demand for coal to generate overwhelming thermal power increased explosively.
So, why did Japan succeed in the industrial revolution? Japan already had the technology to make these machines by watching and copying. During the Edo period, techniques were honed and improved as a traditional craft during the apprenticeship system, and the sword culture continued for a long time, making iron processing technology one of the best in the world. has in the metal processing field. Unlike human power, steam engines produce overwhelming power, so wooden machines would easily break. In other words, even the smallest parts of various machines must be made of metal and assembled. When Japanese people saw Western industrial machinery, they may have simply thought, ``Oh, I think I could make something like this.''
One reason is that Japanese people are good with their hands, but clocks were the most precise gear-based machines of the time. It is said that Japanese clocks were already created in Japan during the era of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Currently, Japanese clocks have a reputation for being the most accurate and unbreakable in the world, but these technologies were not invented yesterday.
■English subtitles
There is another thing that Japan achieved that was necessary for the industrial revolution. It is a departure from the feudal system. In the West, a civil revolution had already taken place, and the industrial revolution began more than 100 years later. Free citizens were already active during the Industrial Revolution, and their lives were not tied to feudal lords or land as in the feudal system.
In other words, when wealthy people at the time started a company that mass-produced products using industrial machinery, they could recruit and hire employees.
This is the proletariat, and a mobile labor force is essential to the industrial revolution. The Meiji Restoration was truly a revolution that destroyed the feudal Edo shogunate system and created a civil society.
The Japanese at the time were able to accomplish something that had never been seen before in the world: they simultaneously carried out an industrial revolution. Then, if you think about why other countries of colored people were unable to modernize, it can be said that it is because these two points were not met. One is metal processing technology. The other is the formation of a civil society, which means breaking away from feudal society.
In the first place, Southeast Asian countries and other countries of color were all colonized by the West from the latter half of the 15th century, so it is difficult to imagine that the countries under colonial rule would be able to achieve the industrial revolution that first occurred in the West in the late 18th century. It's impossible to say so. For example, what if we look at the neighboring countries of China and the Korean Peninsula?
China also has a sword culture, and has a long history of using iron tools. However, they were unable to break away from feudalism. As for the Korean peninsula, Korea did not have the technology to make needles and wheels, so they imported them from China. What this means is that the needle meant that people didn't have fine metalworking skills, and the wheel meant that people didn't know how to bend wood into rings, so they didn't know how to move things. It was carried on the back of a person, carried by a person, or placed on their head. In other words, it is impossible to improve the efficiency of infrastructure, and in the first place it is impossible to make the gears in industrial machinery or perform detailed metal processing.
What was fatal on the Korean peninsula was that the class system was exactly as it was before the Middle Ages, and it was a distorted society with 40% slaves, so talk of a mobile labor force was a thing of the future. . In order to firmly protect this old Korean society, the aristocratic class, the yangban, completely eliminated various reforms for modernization. It can be said that both were fatally lacking.
Only 27 years after the Meiji Restoration, Japan defeated the Qing Dynasty, which was considered a major power, and 10 years later defeated Russia. After World War I, Japan sat at the table at the center of the world as a permanent member of the League of Nations in 1919. This was only 51 years after the Meiji Restoration. In this way, Japan was the only people of color to achieve modernization, and the idea was to spread this wave to Asia.
Sun Yat-sen's Xinhai Revolution was made possible with Japan's support, and Sun Yat-sen, who founded the Republic of China, believed that Japan's Meiji Restoration was the cause of the Chinese Revolution, and that the Chinese Revolution was actually the result of the Restoration. I'm making a statement. During his exile in Japan, Sun Yat-sen took the name Sun Yat-sen and was a person who learned about Japan's modernization. There was a man named Kim Ok-gyun on the Korean peninsula, but the revolution in Korea ended in failure, and Kim defected to Japan. However, when he went to Shanghai, he was assassinated by an assassin sent from Korea. It is ironic that just four months after Kim Ok-gyun's death, the Sino-Japanese War began, resulting in the independence of the Korean peninsula and the beginning of reforms toward modernization.
As a result, China started the Xinhai Revolution in 1912, 44 years after the Meiji Restoration, and the annexation of Japan and Korea began 42 years after the 1910 Meiji Restoration. In fact, as Asian countries eventually achieved independence after the war, the process of modernization was necessary in any case, but it is worth noting that Japan was the only country of color to achieve this. However, it is clear that the modernization of Asia was derived from Japan's Meiji Restoration, and in this regard, China, the Korean Peninsula, and Japan, without exception, have recognized this important process within the theme of mod