Some People Will Believe Anything
The question you really have to ask yourself on reading tripe like this is whether a mature, self-assured democracy would plot to disturb international peace and commerce for a windswept and essentially uninhabited pile of guano. I’ll go out on a long limb here and say Japan and the United States wouldn’t, because unlike South Korea, they are mature and self-assured democracies.
You can’t keep a stable alliance with a nation where urban legend passes for public discourse, leading us to a second question: how vigorously will the South Korean government speak up to tamp down this blatant nonsense (which the Chosun Ilbo printed without so much as a skeptical reaction)? Their failure to do so would be strong evidence that a certain infamous Japanese analysis is dead-on. It will also tell American policymakers much about how South Korea strikes the balance between political exploitation and preserving a part of its alliance with the United States.
“…a nation where urban legend passes for public discourse….”
Hmmm, sounds like the US a couple weeks ago during the ‘Ports’ non-scandal that erupted into a huge controversy.
I disagree with that, and wish I could say more about why I think so.
I think that a lot of this should be considered in the context of Ban Ki-moon UNSG race.
Ban needs to cozy up to Russia and China, and Japan doesn’t matter much. And the US cannot veto Ban. It would meltdown the alliance.
For details and ongoing commentary see: http://chapter15.wordpress.com
Nice blog, Chapter 15 — I’ve bookmarked.
Was there supposed to be a link in this piece to the lecture by the wacko honorary profeesor
Scratch that; it’s early, and I don’t have any color perception yet.
I wasn’t particularly interested in the Ports scandal, so most of what I know I learned from my morning drives to PT listening to All Things Considered on NPR. The particular segment that popped into my mind when I wrote that comment was from the 25th of February (if you don’t want to listen to the whole segment just skip ahead to around 4:15) in which their correspondent discussed the situation with Dubai Ports World and their purchase of the operations side of the six ports. What they say, especially the part about Sen. Schumer’s office, and the little else I learned from my daily surfing definitely gave me the impression it was a xenophobic reaction on the part of the common man and politicians rushing to feed their fears for political gain. Now, is there something missing from these reports that I should know about? Obviously, from your previous post I understand you can’t discuss it in detail but please confirm my ignorance after giving this: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5233829 a listen. Thanks.
And the US cannot veto Ban. It would meltdown the alliance.
You say that like it would be a bad thing. If only once the yanks had the balls to stand up and tell Korea ‘NO’ instead of paying attention to every Korean hissy fit and acquiescing to every Korean ploy for attention, the world would be a much better place.
America is weak. Either that or it’s very hard up for friends.