'They Need a Scapegoat': US Favored Japanese Leader to Step Down
© AP Photo / Eugene Hoshiko
Subscribe
At the end of 2023, Kishida had announced that he was stepping down as the leader of the Kochikai faction of the ruling LDP following a years-long ticket sales scandal. Five LDP factions were accused of allegedly underreporting income in political funds reports.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has announced his plans to step down as leader of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The move comes after Kishida's sinking approval ratings which follow a corruption scandal surrounding the party, as well as rising living costs and a weakening yen, Sputnik reported.
In November, Kishida had reportedly taken drastic action to replace top members of his cabinet following voter anger in response to a fundraising proceeds scandal. Lawmakers in Japan’s ruling party had been accused of underreporting funds with over 100 million yen ($680,000) of fundraising proceeds failing to be officially reported on.
On Wednesday, peace activist, writer, and teacher, K.J. Noh joined Sputnik's The Critical Hour to explain how US interference has hampered Japan's economy and spurred China to continue its pacifist approach to foreign policy.
“...certainly the LDP is corrupt from beginning to end, and it's essentially a party that is run and built from slush funds. It was built by the CIA. The CIA created this slush fund, and then it put them into power along with the backing of the gangster class. It put the unrepentant militarists back into power in 1955, and they've been essentially a one-party state,” Noh explained.
“Japan has been a one-party state since that period. And so, to casually dismiss that is nonsense. But, what it does show is that they do need a scapegoat. Japan's economy is crashing. It's going the way of Germany or the UK. And so, they need a scapegoat,” the analyst added.
In summarizing the economic history of Japan, Noh suggested that Japan became rich and modernized early on thanks to German imports which included "German fascism".
Following its failure in World War II, Noh explained that Japan became a “tenant farmer” of the US and participated in war profiteering during the Vietnam War and quickly grew to become a wealthy country that was becoming “a little bit too big for its britches” and “got slapped down in the Plaza Accords” during which the US “essentially put it back into its box”.
“They put Kishida in after Abe was shot and he was shot, essentially, because of Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) slush funds with the Moonies. So let's banish any notion that the LDP is clean and sober. But since the US has pushed Japan into its junior partner in its escalation to war against China, it has forced it to increase its military spending, by multiples, so that Japan will have very shortly the third-largest military budget on the planet,” Noh explained.
In Japan, it is common for lawmakers to hold fundraising events. The money that is fundraised typically comes from ticket sales and whatever leftover profits there are following the costs of the event goes to the organizers. These large-scale parties are a major source of revenue for factions. In 2022, the Kishida faction received ¥229.35 million in revenue with 80% coming from fundraising parties, according to a Japanese news source.
“And, it also forced it to sanction both China and Russia. So, the key areas where Japan was competitive- that is, advanced chemicals, chip technology, electronics- all of that was banned. All that trade was banned or forced to be decoupled from China, and that has gutted Japan’s economy,” he added.
“And then on top of that, when the US forced Japan, as a member of the G7, to stop importing oil and natural gas from Russia, that put an even greater impact on an already ailing economy. And so, they need a scapegoat for this economic collapse. And so, Kishida is on his way out,” Noh continued. “He's going to fall on his sword and they're going to put in somebody who's essentially a clone.”
“And then they will continue the escalation to war. And, simply, Japan is yet another sacrifice zone in the US global economic war against China. It's essentially a bumper, a crash test dummy,” the educator added.
“It's like a calf being fattened for slaughter. And Japan and Korea were getting big for their britches. And then essentially they were taken down, dismantled. And now they get to reconstitute themselves a little bit as long as they stay in their place,” he added.
Washington, DC has grown angry in response to China’s growing power which is now keeping the US on its toes, a recent article published in the New Eastern Outlook writes. However, the US' constant attempts to provoke China to violence has had the opposite effect, with Beijing only reinforcing its pacifist approach to foreign diplomacy.
“...the United States strives to portray East-West tensions as a conflict of hierarchy between two models of governance: liberal democracies, synonymous with the West, and autocracies, synonymous with emerging powers,” the article writes.
“The US wants to see if it can either continually infringe on China and do what it did to Japan and Korea, which is not likely to happen, but essentially put it back into its spot. How dare China challenge US hegemony, US supremacy? How dare it not follow the rules-based international order, i.e. US arbitrary dictates,” Noh explained from the viewpoint of US powers.
“And so, what it is doing right now is continually putting pressure on China and it's trying to see if they can salami slice and continue to box China in. They're just coming closer and closer, boxing it in, closer and closer," he said. "...if China reacts and it reacts violently, tries to push its way out, then the US will have a pretext for war. And then when it starts to have that war, that will divert China from its key goal in development, which is economic development, peaceful development. And, therefore, there will be a kinetic war that will also derail China.”
“Either way, the US is seeking to undercut and derail and undermine China, put it back into its box like Korea and Japan,” Noh explained. “What China is doing is it's going to use a peaceful method to overcome war. And it does that by building up good relations with all the countries of the Global South without forcing them to choose.”
11 December 2023, 02:33 GMT
