Odd Arne Westad on Frosty China-Japan Relations

LSE IDEAS is such a hive of activity nowadays I don't even manage to keep up with what the boss is up to. (Of course he isn't "odd"; it's a Norwegian name!) A few weeks ago I featured his well-received book about China's history of reaching out to the rest of the world since 1750. Fluent in Mandarin, he now has a take on Sino-Japanese relations in the New York Times that is quite critical of Chinese officialdom. (It even reached the "most-read" list a few days ago.) I mainly think this quarrel is a commercial disaster; he goes deeper into the historical tensions that remain unresolved. Given that we've been hosting Chinese Foreign Ministry officials via Chevening scholarship programmes for a few years now, I am still surprised how forthright he is while I would have been...more circumspect about doing so. I suppose academic integrity still counts for something in the highly commercialized world of higher education, and perhaps you don't build a reputation mincing words. There's a lesson in there somewhere.

And yes, Asians should all just get along.

PS: IPE@UNC will probably gloat that he completed his PhD in history at the storied UNC-Chapel Hill.

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Nuke to Thrill: Rekindling Japan's Fission Passion

The taste of love is sweet 
When hearts like ours meet 
I fell for you like a child 
Oh, but the fire went wild...

[The chart above is from Nuclear Tourist.] The return to the status quo ante of Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leadership in Japan unsurprisingly means the comeback of any number of policies the nation has become accustomed to: healthy agricultural subsidies to key rural constituencies; budgetary and monetary largesse; and, for today's topic, a return to nuclear power. While the incidences at Fukushima power plant illustrated the hazards of operating nuclear plants in the earthquake-prone Pacific Ring of Fire to the rest of the world, bear in mind that there were no direct casualties as a result despite various projections of future fatalities due to radiation exposure. Still, the previous Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) leadership bowed to public pressure in closing down any number of reactors in the wake of Fukushima. Alike several industrialized economies, Japan had taken to nuclear power in the aftermath of the 1973 and 1979 oil crises, and it took something drastic to shake its belief.

Speaking of a return to old habits that die hard, however, Japanese movers and shakers have experienced discomfort over the implications of doing away with fission. After a string of monthly trade deficits in the wake of the devastating Tohoku earthquake, mercantilist sentiment naturally awoke. What's more, the economic implications of a deficit-running Japan already overburdened with massive debt were difficult to contemplate. It was only natural that the traditionalists would return to what "worked" before once the LDP gained electoral victory. Here is commentary immediately after they won:

Japan's plans to phase out nuclear power and boost reliance on renewable energy are likely to be reversed with the victory of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in parliamentary elections. In voting on Sunday, LDP captured control of the legislature's lower, more powerful house from the Democratic Party of Japan. The Democratic Party, in office since 2009, had set a goal of phasing out nuclear power during the 2030s as part of a new energy policy developed in response to the March 2011 Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster. All but two of Japan's 50 nuclear reactors are now idled because of public worries about seismic resistance.

More recently, we too note that the LDP is set to pull off the ol' bait and switch of promising to curb its enthusiasm for nukes. You will not be surprised to note that the LDP is also quite close to the nuclear industry...

In its statement outlining its election pledges, the LDP conceded that its pro-nuclear energy policy had been flawed and apologised for causing the Fukushima nuclear accident. The LDP, which had talked in the past about raising Japan’s dependence on nuclear energy from nearly 30 per cent to as much as 50 per cent, pledged during the elections “to establish a social and economic structure that does not need to depend on nuclear power...”

But “since the Abe administration was formed, their rhetoric on nuclear power has changed quite rapidly”, says Koichi Nakano, professor of political science at Sophia University in Tokyo. “It now looks like the LDP feels it is their duty to promote nuclear energy,” Mr Nakano says...

Given the LDP’s close ties to the nuclear industry and its history of promoting nuclear power, the Abe administration cannot afford to have the public realise that Japan can get along just fine without nuclear power, Mr Nakano says. “I think that is what they are most afraid of,” he adds.

Opinion polls indicate that a majority of the public have a negative opinion of nuclear power. Smart money says the LDP will not champion nuclear power so overtly, but that it will nonetheless roll back the DPJ's ambitions to wean the nation off fission. On the menu, then, are the construction of newer and purportedly safer designs. Not only do they assuage public discomfort to an extent, but they also generate new infrastructure spending that obviously will benefit traditional nuclear industry allies:

Shinzo Abe, who took over as prime minister last month, has given a clear indication that the government is looking to build new nuclear power plants...“The new nuclear power plants we will build will be completely different from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant which caused the accident, and those that were built 40 years ago,” Mr Abe said in a television appearance this week.

“We are likely to build new nuclear power plants on winning the public’s understanding,” he said. Mr Abe’s comments came after Toshimitsu Motegi, his economy, trade and industry minister, said he would re-evaluate the previous administration’s ban on building new nuclear reactors.

Don't be surprised either if they begin reactivating nuclear plants if they can get away with causing a public uproar. Time, after all, is on the LDP's side: public opposition tends to wane after the triggering event--Fukushima--recedes further and further into the past.

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TorrentWorld: How LED TV Makers Co-Opt Piracy

Pssst...is that a 720p or a 1080p? Here's one last story whose implications run in the billions and billions that involves home entertainment as we come to the end of the holiday season. (Oh, the sacrifices I have to endure alike watching a digitally enhanced Mariah Carey moping around in a Santa outfit with Justin Bieber.) Call it fortuitous timing, but our old Sony CRT TV finally conked out prior to start of the holiday season. Gone. Kaput. Off to the see the Great Mother Cathode Ray Tube in the Sky. As its replacement, we bought a brand spanking new LG 42LS5700 for a low, low price. Its feature set blows anything twice the price from three years ago out of the water--resolution enhancement, 120 Hz, Internet TV with Flash player...you name it, Lucky-Goldstar has it.

Much to the chagrin of the software industry, piracy has become more difficult to control with the advent of torrents as invented by Bram Cohen. Back in the day when pirated physical media still played a large role, it was much easier to single out shady fly-by-night types who had machines that spewed copies by the thousands in unmarked warehouses in city centres. With the advent of torrents, it has become much more difficult to prosecute everyday people, AKA normal consumers like you and me. Industry associations are made to look especially bad by injudiciously suing teens in ill health and many others besides.

Fortunately for the almighty consumer, the hardware industry does not have similar objections to pirated TV series and films as I've found out after buying the LG. Why are prices going down rapidly to our benefit? It's because global shipments are already in decline. To no one's surprise, the world's most dominant players in this space are LG nee Lucky-Goldstar and Samsung. The competition is cutthroat, and they're supposedly the only two who make money selling LED TVs. For all their consumer appeal, let's just say LG and Samsung are not exactly the most scrupulous of operators, having bilked consumers via price fixing for years and years and being cited for doing so by various authorities.

With many watchdogs now monitoring their price fixing propensities, we are fortunate in that prices are tumbling and features are increasing as they seek to maintain a competitive advantage. One of the things I've found out--from intellectual curiosity about the workings of smart TVs, of course ;-)--is that the latest generation of units pretty much play whichever format you throw at them--WMA, MPEG, WMV-HD, MKV. Name your (perhaps less-than-legit) source and the TV will play it. While it isn't as foolproof playing these kinds of sources as the incomparable (and free) VLC, let's be realistic here. With three USB ports to mess around with, you can go knock yourself out with a lifetime's worth of high-quality video entertainment sources without paying a single cent for software. H.264 compression is your friend with video quality that outshines DVD (720p outdoes it) or nearly equals Blu Ray (1080p) standard as long as you can sacrifice some audio quality.

As you may have guessed, co-option of video piracy is no accident; LG has been demoing their TVs' abilities to play pirated movies for a number of years now. As I said, they're in the hardware business, not the software business. So, if their customers want to mess around with XviD and DivX, who's to tell them not to? While Korea's entertainment industry is burgeoning, let's just say that the K-Wave has yet to take over the world. Moreover, their software industry and its association have not exactly reached a scale substantial enough to take their piracy concerns to the likes of industrial giants LG and Samsung. (BTW, there is a K-Wave paid channel on my Smart TV which I obviously haven't tried yet.)

Real trouble over conflict of interest is for TV makers with substantial entertainment production holdings. I am of course referring to poor old Sony which long ago lost its TV street cred to the Korean duo. The loss of its brand equity to the likes of Apple in audio and LG/Samsung in video is well-documented, but I think that an underinvestigated consideration is that Sony has software interests in both audio (Sony Music Entertainment was formerly Columbia Records plus Bertelsmann) and video (Sony Pictures Entertainment was formerly Columbia/Tri-Star Pictures) software. Sony's longstanding love of proprietary formats aside, it has been slow to cotton up to playing newer formats favoured by software pirates to their (financial and market share) loss. While Sony has begrudgingly introduced TVs that play file formats Korean makes have no trouble with, let's just say playback issues are still plentiful.

As longtime buyers of LGs and Samsungs, I guess it's just desserts that we now have more features to play with given how long they've been manipulating flat screen prices. Bastards.

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Falklands Referendum is Farce (But I Support UK)

Oh, when will we ever be done with the firebrand red-haired woman from Argentina, Missus Kirchner?  Never will I more clearly support a blatantly specious argument for "democracy"*--make that *****--than here. At midyear 2012, the UK government announced plans to hold a Falklands referendum to determine its allegiances once and for all--whether to the UK or Argentina. Coming thirty years after the Falklands War stemming from Argentina's invasion of the islands, let's just say it raises sensitive issues in Latin America concerning colonialism, imperialism and the rest of it. I was particularly struck by how David Cameron framed the issue as giving a voice to the inhabitants of the Falklands:

In a strongly worded statement, David Cameron said that Buenos Aires wants to put the islanders' choice of sovereignty in doubt "by shouting down the islanders' ability to speak for themselves and punishing them for exercising their own free choice. That's why it's absolutely right that the islanders have today set out how they intend to make their voices heard once more. And Britain will be resolute in supporting that choice."

What a stirring call for democracy; wave the Union Jack high! Alas, there's more to it than that. Over the many decades the UK has exercised dominion over the Falklands, it has naturally had discretion in choosing who gets to stay there. To make a Chinese analogy, it's like repopulating Xinjiang province with Han Chinese to lessen the proportion of Uighurs and claiming the "residents" approve of the resettlement and authority of Beijing.The FCO confirms as much:

The majority of the population of the Falkland Islands are British by birth or descent. Indeed, many can trace their family origins in the Islands back to the early nineteenth century.  The last census (in 2006) recorded 2,478 Falkland Islanders.  In addition to these, the census also recorded a significant minority of resident Chileans and St Helenians. Most of the remaining population comprises people from the UK mainland and third countries working under contract at either the Mount Pleasant Airfield, or in certain government positions that require specialist skills. 

In other words, they've gotten rid of the (potentially) traitorous Argentinians over time. In a recent open letter addressed to fellow G-20 head of state David Cameron, Argentinian President Cristina Fernandez cites a "population implantation process" while citing the United Nations' wishes for a negotiated solution. Once more that's all well and good, but her memory of history is selective. General Galtieri tried to forcibly take over the islands in 1982 to no avail--the sort of manoeuvre that seemingly contradicts the spirit of negotiation she mentions the UN with. Way back when even the US President Ronald Reagan remonstrated against Thatcher's show of neo-colonialism, but to no avail.

Bottom line: Cameron's referendum is a farce since they kicked out Argentinian sympathizers from these islands long ago. There is no chance the Falkland island residents will vote for being part of Argentina. Does this mean Argentina has a better claim to these islands? Again, no--the Latin Americans tried to take them by force and lost, negating Fernandez's stated wishes to bring about a peaceful resolution. Had they not invaded, the Argentinians would have a more legitimate claim to being the aggrieved party today, but that's not how things panned out thirty years ago. Certainly, it still influences how people view this territorial conflict. Fernandez may think it's a neat distraction from Argentina's dubious economic situation, but quite frankly it's an issue where Argentina lost the moral high ground a long time ago--30 years back, to be precise.

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PC Gone Mad: Women Drivers' Car Insurance in EU

Contrary to hoary stereotypes about "women drivers," the truth is that they are safer drivers--at least in the EU. So much so that women have been charged commensurately lower premiums in EU nations for years. However, in a dubious case of political correctness, the EU has issued a directive against discriminating against charging premiums differentially based on gender. End result? From December 21, 2012 onwards, profit-minded insurance companies have by and large chosen not to bring down male insurance premiums to those for females, but to bring up female premiums up to those for males. The UK Mirror writes:

Next month Brussels delivers an unwanted early Christmas present to women drivers – a nasty hike in car insurance premiums. Under a new European law known as the EU Gender ­Directive, insurers will no ­longer be able to calculate how much a driver pays for their insurance based on their sex. It means that from December 21 women, who are statistically much safer drivers and therefore enjoy lower premiums than men, will see insurance rates rise.

And the amount could be by as much as £300, according to comparison website Gocompare.com. For younger women drivers who have just passed their test, the hike could be in the ­thousands. As a result, many women may end up being forced off the road. According to research by uSwitch.com, 13 per cent of 1,219 women questioned said they would no ­longer be able to afford insurance if their ­premiums rose, while one in 10 said they would be forced to sell their cars.

You call this progress? While I am certainly no Eurosceptic, sometimes the EU is simply misguided in attempting to be politically correct. If women are less prone to fender benders, there is no reason to charge them premiums equivalent to their more reckless male peers.

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Racism and Turkey's EU Bid, Episode VLXVII

In the days of my youth, I was told what it means to be a man
Now I've reached that age, I've tried to do all those things the best I can
No matter how I try, I find my way into the same old jam 

Good times, bad times, Turkey's had its share alike Led Zeppelin. When it comes to its prospects for joining the single market, though, its been mostly bad times. Unbeknownst to many, there are still several nations wishing to join the EU despite its economic crises on the periphery. After all, one doesn't have to be in the European Monetary Union (EMU) to be in the EU. What's more, it will probably be much harder to fake macroeconomic data from now on to get into the EMU. Famously among the current aspirants to EU-hood are two steps forward (surrendering war criminals), one step back (rolling back central bank independence) Serbia and the ever-nettlesome Turkey [1, 2].

A considerable amount of the opposition in the recent years has stemmed from French and German leaders' disdain for Turkish EU membership. Turkish negotiatior Egemen Bagis was rightly appalled by the half-baked offer of a "privileged partnership" as opposed to full-fledged membership. Still, even half of the Merkozy Franco-German Islamophobic heart of the EU--adieu, Sarko--is still enough to frustrate an honest appraisal of Turkey's efforts to comply with the pitifully few accession chapters open to it.

Alike Led Zeppelin, no matter how Turkey tries to meet stipulations in the accession chapters open to it, the EU pooh-poohs its efforts. Hence Mr. Bagis' latest complaint--to paraphrase a certain leader no longer on the world stage--about the hard bigotry of no expectations:

Turkey began accession talks in 2005 but the process has ground to a halt due to an intractable dispute over Cyprus, the divided island state which Turkey does not recognize, and opposition from core EU members France and Germany..."

We observed that this year's Turkey Progress Report was overshadowed by more subjective, biased, unwarranted and bigoted attitudes," Turkey's EU Affairs Minister Egemen Bagis said in a statement accompanying Turkey's own 270-page report. Bagis said it was unacceptable that the European Commission report released in October had ignored Turkey's "courageous" reforms over the last year and that this undermined the EU's trustworthiness in the eyes of the Turkish public.

The minister previously voiced his disappointment with the report in October, saying it failed to be objective, ignored the expansion of rights for religious minorities and had criticized the judiciary too sweepingly [...] Ankara has completed only one of the 35 policy "chapters" every candidate must conclude to join the EU. All but 13 of those chapters are blocked by France, Cyprus and the European Commission. Talks have also been blocked by the Commission which says Turkey does not yet meet required standards on human rights, freedom of speech and religion.

The EU is every bit as fond of human rights jibba-jabba as the United States, but thankfully does not condone drone strikes or Guantanamo Ghraibing among other things. That said, it is a favourite cudgel which it wields against Turkey despite it becoming more progressive--especially in the economic realm with its bond yields falling below those of Greece, Portugal, or even Romania.

Despite its fondness for asking Turkey to allow more religious tolerance, however, the core irony is that EU leaders do not welcome it because it is obviously predominantly Islamic. That is, Turkey would do wonders for making the EU indeed more religiously diverse. Yet, the "othering" in academic-speak of Turkey continues: it should not be part of the EU because they are not predominantly Christian is the classic Islamophobe's line of reasoning. My objection here is that religion--Christianity in particular--is becoming an irrelevancy in the lives of Europeans.

Still, hope springs anew in 2013. With French President Francois Hollande set to visit Ankara soon, there is a distinct possibility that he will unblock a number of chapters to accession designated by his predecessor...

The progress report prepared by Turkey, released on the website of its EU Affairs Ministry, cited the passage of reforms in the areas of the judiciary, education and workers rights as examples of progress over the year. Bagis told Reuters in Dublin earlier this month Turkey was hopeful France will unblock talks over EU membership on at least two policy chapters in the coming months ahead of a visit by President Francois Hollande. While Hollande has stopped short of endorsing Turkey's EU candidacy, he has said it should be judged on political and economic criteria - a contrast to his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy's position that Turkey did not form part of Europe.

I am fairly certain that most impartial observers would attribute stalled Turkish accession more to EU member intransigence than to Turkey's lack of progress in meeting the very few accession chapters available to it. Like the man said, the EU tends to harp on individual (outlier) cases while overlooking the broad-based advances Turkey has made. Even the matter of Cyprus is not insoluble if the EU really willed itself to resolve that matter among others.

To me, there never was a question of whether Turkey is in "Europe"--an artificial geographic construct like any other. It's a pity that several of those who think otherwise are the EU's movers and shakers.

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Gangnam Fail: A White Guy on K-Wave's Success

I am verily annoyed by an FT op-ed by neoconservative stalwart Christopher Caldwell that so happens to be the most-read article in the opinion section at the moment, so please indulge me in starting off the year with a critique. (This remains a blog, after all.) I do not need to reiterate how Americans are among if not the most insular of people, profoundly unconcerned with the rest of the world. Caldwell's best-known work is a me-too "Eurabia" book peddling apocalyptic scenarios about the forthcoming takeover of Europe by Muslim migrants. It is curious how most of the authors of such books tend to be American; the implicit fear is that Europe is but a step on Islam's global takeover with the US next in line.

After unconvincingly "enlightening" us on Islamic culture's presence in Europe, Caldwell now turns his  attention to the phenomenon of Psy as a spearhead of the Korean Wave of creative industries. Displaying characteristic American insularity of the white-as-snow variety, he is rather late to the game alike his compatriots. In the rest of the world, K-Pop has been a phenomenon over a decade old which stretches from music to TV series to movies. (Lest you think I exaggerate about his cultural blinders, he even mistook Justin Beiber as an American in the op-ed prior to numerous readers pointing this out; see the correction at the bottom of the article.) Interestingly, the FT which he writes for gets this point right via Lex:

President Barack Obama has talked about it. Madonna and Ai Weiwei, among many others, have danced to it. That would be the K-wave, or the overseas export of Korean culture. This was the year that rapper Psy made the world aware, Gangnam style, of a long-running Asian phenomenon [my emphasis]. According to a survey, those who like K-Pop were more disposed to try other Korean products. It is no surprise then that Seoul convened a panel this year to see how to keep surfing the wave.

Last I checked, the Asia-conquering "Winter Sonata" telenovela began production in 2002. Moreover, I recall pirated DVDs being hawked in Los Angeles' Chinatown shortly thereafter of this and other Korean series that had become popular throughout Asia before torrents dealt away with having to mess around with disks.

However, the most profound and insightful misunderstanding from Caldwell that instead demonstrates the white man's blindness is his attribution of the success of American cultural products to its economic might. By the same token, we should see the emergence of more global cultural artifacts like Psy (or at least in America that are evident to white people) as the US becomes mired in economic stagnation:

What the US has is not a national genius but wealth, prestige and glamour. The world is always curious about how wealthy, prestigious and glamorous people dance, fight and fall in love. If this is correct, then the American misjudgment of what other people are really buying from them is going to turn out to be a costly mistake. Obviously, the producers and venture capitalists who drive the entertainment industry will happily turn their focus towards any country that can produce blockbusters...

Should the US reputation for mismanagement, profligacy and trillion-dollar government deficits continue to grow, non-US corporate executives will at some point ask why they are paying an architect to design a conference room like those in Manhattan. Why not get one like they have in Pudong? By the same token, why not ask how people are dressing in Gangnam rather than in South Beach? Culture follows wealth, prestige and glamour. As the US share of these declines, the world’s viewers may come to prefer Sleepless in Seoul to Sleepless in Seattle.

If wealth determines pop culture success, how would Caldwell explain the following:

• As he himself understands, "Gangnam Style" does not laud the lifestyles of the rich and famous in South Korea but is rather a critique of self-important residents in one of its tonier locales;
• Rap music (without which "Gangnam Style" would not have emerged) as a critique of inequality and racism in a supposedly egalitarian, equal opportunity society;
• Reggae music emerging from the country of, er, Jamaica--not exactly high on wealth, prestige or glamour but rather poverty, crime and homicide;
• Rhythm and blues, jazz, soul, and other African-American genres receiving massive international success instead of, say, square dances and barbershop quartets;
• For an Anglo idiom, how about punk which sneers at Caldwell-esque notions of whitebread well-being.

In other words, ascribing the success of cultural products to keeping up with the lifestyles of the rich and famous is dubious. If we followed the simplistic Caldwell recipe for the success of cultural exports, why is the world's richest nation in per capita terms, Qatar, not a powerhouse in music and movies? If he were enrolled in a cultural studies course and presented this inept argument, Caldwell would get an "F" straight away.

To me, there are many more things that help determine pop culture success--including deft marketing. In reality, much K-Wave is alike its American equivalent in being superficially attractive but ultimately vapid. Interestingly, this line of criticism often emanates from Koreans themselves. Of course good-looking people singing and dancing tend to catch the eye more. What the Koreans have done which many of their Asian peers have not really achieved is to imbue entertainment products with high production values--choreography, cinematography, costumes, lighting and so forth that approach the best global standards. That they happen to be (mostly) in Korean language doesn't necessarily mean that Korean culture is ascendant, but again that they are able to combine high production values to messages Asians can relate to which Westerners occasionally get, Oppa Gangnam Style. Ever bothered to read its lyrics translated into English? We're not exactly dealing with KRS-One here. It's mostly commerce; that's all.

I tired long ago of people living in their whitebread world trying to explain everything else in Amerocentric terms whether in IPE or elsewhere. That's part of why this blog exists--to present an informed (non-white) counterargument. Caldwell is clearly among the worst offenders.

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