Comments 5

下任美国总统的两个教训

Oct 26, 2016 Chris Patten

长崎—从我的窗外远眺日本名城长崎的港口，关于下任美国总统的两个相当重要的想法涌上心头。

长崎承受过最惨烈的人道灾难。1945年8月，一颗钚弹将长崎夷为平地，造成巨大的人财损失和不可名状的人间惨剧。但是，至此以后，长崎成为人类最高成就的榜样，在一片废墟中重生，其背后是日本人民的精神和冒险，他们制造各种东西——比如三菱的船——并与世界做交易。

但长崎——更广义地说，也包括日本——并不总是向世界开放，通过海洋与中国这样的近邻和美国这样的远邻连为一体。几百年来，日本人的思想，以及日本的国界都是断然封闭的。

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John Doyle Nov 2, 2016

The Japanese did the right thing to stamp out Catholic doctrine there at the time. Pity they then got the taste for colonial expansion, only killed off by Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Being open to the world can be a fraught exercise, and Japan should know it all too well. But they are now willing to exchange their representative government for the imminent corporatising world of the "Free Trade" treaties. Not good.
Fortunately, and the USA is powerless to reverse this, the current industrial dynasty is now, after 250 years on the slide, ordained to collapse. So any corporate victory will be phyrric. Whomever is president will not make a difference to this but they may make mischief as the economies crash. Deflation today, recession tomorrow and collapse are all ordained to occur on our finite planet. Have fun!!!
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j. von Hettlingen Oct 28, 2016

Chris Patten's "two lessons" for the next US presdient are - to ditch isolationism and to learn from the 1945 bombing of Nagasaki. He says Trump's popularity among his supporters is a testament of "closed minds and closed borders" which is prevalent in the US and some parts of Europe. He hopes that "the more moderate" Hillary Clinton will defeat "the recklessly isolationist Donald Trump." But he fears that "the backlash against openness that has fueled Trump’s rise will not dissipate on its own."
Trump seems to ignore what inspired his German - not Swedish - grandfather to come to America. Frederick Trump must have been attracted by its essence of openness - especially an openness to a stranger, a sense of possibility, an embrace of future, and a readiness for adventure that no other country could offer. America's success has also its "diversity" to thank for - a "key strength" of the country. It provided "a haven for people from all over the world, where all people are subject to the same rules and law," embracing the motto: E Pluribus Unum (one out of many).
Unfortunately Trump's supporters aren't in the mood to celebrate America's success. They see it as sour grapes, as they can't reach it. Hillary Clinton will be well-advised "to address some of the real grievances that spurred the backlash against economic openness" and globalisation, which had lifted millions in the developing world out of poverty and created social and economic inequalities at home. Patten insists on an infrastructure programme, which would create "huge numbers of productive jobs and distributed wealth." This project "would be far easier to achieve if her Democratic Party also won the Senate." The US should rebuild its reputation as the “land of opportunity” - a quintessence of "US soft power in the past."
The second task for the new president would be to deal with "the overwhelming threat posed by nuclear weapons" based on the lesson learnt from Nagasaki, where Patten pens his commentary. He fears North Korea's "volatile regime, which is led by "the world’s most powerful juvenile delinquent," Kim Jong-un. While building a nuclear arsenal, it is "also working to develop long-range delivery capacity." Recent tests - last month's was the most powerful ever - show just "how close the Hermit Kingdom is to achieving its goals."
Kim has boasted that his long-range missiles could hit targets on American soil. Patten chides Obama for not halting Kim's nuclear activities and urges Hillary Clinton, potentially the next president, to take action. He advises against "unilateral action" and demands Washington "to persuade China to intervene to bring Kim’s regime to heel," which would require "some deft diplomacy," a skill that Trump lacks.
The author says the US has the obligation to protect its allies - Japan and South Korea - from Kim's nuclear threat. Instead of raising China's hackles by providing South Korea with the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), Washington should turn a blind eye to China's "illegal pursuit of territorial claims" in the East and South China Seas. while pleading with Beijing to consider a "more direct intervention in North Korea."
However, it's unclear whether the parties in these territorial disputes would agree on making concessions, just for the sake of "defusing North Korea's nuclear ambitions." Nationalism is on the rise across Asia. It would be a tough sale for political leaders to convince their citizens that a nuclear-free environment "would be worth the sacrifice" of waiving their claims.
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CALEB DEXTER Oct 27, 2016

*Addendum to the above*
This is NOT to excuse the METHOD that the Japanese authorities used to "stamp out the growth of Christianity in Japan" -- obviously, execution is NEVER an acceptable punishment for the non-crime of religious conviction. But the goal of the Japanese authorities at the time -- to allow Japan to forge a national identity as it exited the Warring States period without interference from outside influences -- was, I contend, the right one at the time, and laid the foundation for Japan's later success. It is, however, a true tragedy that the Japanese authorities at the time pursued that goal in such a grotesque, inhumane, and ultimately unnecesary way.
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CALEB DEXTER Oct 27, 2016

Chris Patten is as much an expert on Japan as Chris Pratt is on 3rd century Uighur animal husbandry. Japan is such a cohesive, functional country that can sustain a high standard of living for its people who "trade the things that they build" precisely because the country's leaders had the foresight to "stamp out the growth of Christianity in Japan" back in the sixteenth century. As a counter-example of what Japan could have become, look no further than the Philippines, which was colonized by the Spanish at about the same time that the Portuguese were trying to colonize,through their Jesuit missionaries, the Japanese. Today, the Philippines had a per-capital GDP less than a quarter as large as Japan's. Mr. Patten doesn't realize (or willfully ignores) that a country like Japan has one, and ONLY one, thing going for it: its people. It has no oil reserves; it has no fruitful agricultural land; it has no potash deposits. It has nothing except for the intellect and industriousness of its people, which Japan's rulers have been able to parlay into substantial wealth for its citizens and clout on the world stage. "[P]lurality and openness" can, indeed, be assets to a nation, but not always, and certainly not in the case of Japan. Mr. Patten would be wise to hunt elsewhere for an appropriate metaphor for his unsolicited words of advice to the next U.S. president.
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Michael Public Oct 27, 2016

Hard to follow the thread here. What I am understanding is:

1. China should invade North Korea to help America out.
2. Clinton should detonate small nuclear bombs on areas supportive of Trump to promote a new culture of openness.

Of course I could be reading this wrong.
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下任美国总统的两个教训

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