Facing hegemony: the fate of Nago city and the failure of Japanese leadership

Finally, Hatoyama gave in. The 2006 agreement is going to be honored and nothing has been changed since the election of a new Japanese party into power. In weighing democracy, popular demand versus strategic alliance, or more appropriately hegemonic dominance, Japan ultimately reaffirmed its fate as a quasi-sovereign state under the indirect control of its master: the U.S. military occupation.

Ever since the end of World War II, Okinawa people are destined to fight their fate against the overwhelming power of the U.S. Though defeated and repressed by the government in Tokyo, the effort continues. Democracy is working well on the island, but is sacrificed in the name of national security and alliance. The imaginary enemy, North Korea or China, was propagated as some permanent threat that has to be dealt with American presence. Such security arrangement or hegemonic structure has been maintained well over half a century and is the real source of tension in East Asia. Contrary to the right-wing claim that the alliance among Japan, South Korea and the US is the stabilizing foundation of the region, such alliance prevented real dialog and open diplomacy among East Asians, provoked more mutual distrust, and caused more military competitions there.

While all things bad are squarely blamed on North Korea, no one seems to care about the security concerns of the North, or for that matter, the concerns of the Nago city residents. Somehow, foreign occupation, intervention and oppression, are justified and democracy and legitimate safety demands are vilified. The failure of the Hatoyama government to make a different in this new era of the Japanese politics, clearly indicates that no matter what domestic change in Japan, US hegemonic control over Japan, security illusion included, cannot and will not be easily removed or negotiated away.

Japan's declining world influence and rising domestic problems not only will not help its government to fight for greater independence, but also increases its dependency on its metropole, the US. Though Hatoyama had a good faith in forming a regional cooperative future, without breaking free from Japan's shackles, he could never truly walk toward the direction of East Asia reinvention.

The era of rating agencies

What's more powerful than the nation-state? Super-national organizations like U.N., IMF? Or Sub-national NGOs, multinational corporations? No. It turns out, rating agencies nowadays are calling the shots on the survivability of a state. They can downgrade a state in the U.S. or a nation in the E.U. They basically monopolized the determination of value in the world capital market, be it company debt or national debt.

What's significant about this is that they not only represent capital, but also direct the flow of capital in a totally professionalized global capital system. They observe their own rating rules, which on the one hand appear to be scientific, impartial and serving the interest of the so called "investors", while on the other very much self-serving to the interest of the agencies and ultimately the big shots that feed the agencies. So in this new era of reconfiguration of powers, we have a weired situation in which the nation-state and multilateral organizations are trying to reign in the rampant capital destruction, but at the sometime, financial capital, rescued by states, has already restored its mastership and advances towards a even higher position to control the fate of the state. Ironically, all of the problems are somehow squarely blamed on the sins of the governments and their "corruptions and wastes".

More interestingly, sovereign funds are among the very investors served by these rating agencies. Hence, no matter what position of your countries' public finance, huge deficit or huge surplus, your debts or funds are all serviced in the same interconnected market and the same dominant capital controlled rating agencies. There is no escape from this intricate, sophisticated, computerized, rationalized irrational financial market where wealth has never been concentrated to this extent. Practically, who owns the capital does not matter that much anymore, who operates such capital does. And these operators are in the same globally-linked class of elites trained by the same establishment, deployed to the same multinational institutions, and observe the same pro-capital ideology.

Such a development in the world capitalist system pits popular resistance or true democratic against the continuous marching of monopolized trinity, namely the banks, the insurances and the rating agencies. So far, democracy is loosing.

V-E DAY and the future of Europe

Two things happened in the last couple of days in Europe. One the crisis in Greece deepened to an extent that EU was force to act, otherwise the monetary union would be in severe danger. So far, the structural reform is not clear yet, but the trillion euro plan stabilized world market today. This number, ten times bigger than the original rescue plan to cover Greece, finally put a stop on the dominion effect of the debt problem in Europe, but in the long term, inflation fear will come back for sure. The world financial is like a leaking dam for sometime now, in which investors are looking for any sign of a crack, and since all markets are linked today, one crack is threatening the whole. G20 seemed to be incompetent to fix the world financial system and it is rightly so. It is a big basket of countries in different stage of development and capacity, no consistent rule could apply to them all. However, at least it seems that in Europe enough political will now accumulated out of this crisis to do something to preserve the union instead of crashing it.

Another sign of hope came from the V-E Day parade in Moscow. For the very first time, Polish, French, British and American troops are all reviewed in the Red Square, unimaginable during the Soviet times, or even a couple of years ago. So the airplane accident which buried the Polish leaders may actually open a new era in Europe. Of course, German chancellor showed up in RS first time in history as well. Consider that She can speak with Putin in both German and Russian, it's extraordinary how European Europe has become. This show of solidarity of Europe further reduces possibilities of conflict in Europe, which in turn provides a good support for the euro. The sinking of euro will also boost EU economies in the short run.

All in all, EU and US may have a lot to worry about, but the fundamental global structure is still working for them. It is East Asia that perhaps more vulnerable than we thought. Indeed, EA piled up a lot of reserves, but without open world trade system and export advantages, fragile geopolitical situations in Asia may prove to be more troublesome than many believed. In time of crisis, Asia may suffer the most at last...