KiloFiX wrote:
Japan is scrapping their pacifist clause?

Does that mean Giant Robots soon?

 Talizvar wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Its incredibly stupid. These idiots are putting us on the direct train rail line to WWIII.

One of Frazzled more direct and less comical observations: on the nose.
China has steadily been building up and improving technology of their military.
Some "Red Dawn" or "HomeFront" scenario does not seem all that fictional.
At some point when China's standards of living go up enough to not be inexpensive (like automotive did in Mexico) they would "need" North America less.
At some point China will do what they want and pretty much tell the USA to get lost.
The biggest hit China could do is with no warning, set an embargo on the USA.
So much manufacturing has been lost to them that damage would be catastrophic.

It may be too late for Japan, they had done so much garbage to China historically that I really think their days are numbered.
I could see China just roll-in, look around and ask "I would like to see you stop me now".
<edit> Or say there are some loose Ronin rebelling in China that happen to be well equipped with Chinese weaponry and China says they are helping out the Chinese immigrants in Japan.

Until Isis entered the picture, the ministry’s top priority was China. For two years, ties between Tokyo and Beijing have been frosty. The region’s two biggest economies are close trading partners and fierce political rivals. China’s big increases in defence spending and the cat-and-mouse game since 2008 between the two sides’ ships and jets near the Senkaku Islands – a chain of uninhabited rocks that Japan controls in the East China Sea – have been a wake-up call for Tokyo. For the first time since the Second World War, Japanese officials have been faced with the very real possibility of an invasion by a foreign power.

Nobody at the ministry will say this openly though. The official line is that Tokyo considers China’s expansionist moves as a concern but not a threat. To keep a rising China at bay, Japan is throwing around its weight in the region, offering generous aid packages for Southeast Asian nations and selling used Japan Coast Guard ships to the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia. “The entire foreign ministry is doing some China-related work,” says Shunichi Inoue, the 37-year-old deputy director for China and Mongolia policy.

Inoue isn’t a career China expert as you might expect. His contacts from spending years in London are mainly with western allies but those are just as important in formulating a response to Beijing. Since joining the department last summer, his project has been to bring Abe and Chinese president Xi Jinping together. It took four months of behind-the-scenes talks to arrange the one-on-one between Abe and Xi last November on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) meeting in Beijing; the first since the leaders have been in office. “I had to spend my weekends secretly going to China, avoiding the press and my Chinese counterparts came here as well” says Inoue, touching his jacket and tie. “We didn’t want to be noticed. It was a rule that we shouldn’t dress like this during negotiations.”

 Haight wrote:


I enjoy how the bow of this flying boat looks like a terrified seal if you look closely. It's fitting.