Japan and the United States

                  Although Japan is considered to be an isolationist country, away from other countries, it has proved itself to be one of leading countries in the world. Japan is considered to be the world’s second largest economy, which makes it one of the most important countries in the world. Japan as many different economic ties with other countries, but is strictly only militarily allied with the United States. Japan is a highly advanced technology society, which makes it one the most important nation-states in the international system.

 Japan was originally headed by an imperial household that kept Japan isolated from the rest of the world for centuries. Japan’s constitution states that the emperor was the symbol of the state and the unity of the people, but holds no real power. The political power is held by the Prime Minister and elected members of the Diet and sovereignty lies within the people. After the Meiji Restoration of 1866, the Japanese finally entered into international politics, where they finally became allies with Great Britain. They exercise their alliance by receiving British naval expertise and technology in exchange for the Japanese protecting British interests in the Pacific, which helped allow the Royal Navy to concentrate against Germany’s navy in Western waters. In the 1930s, due to Japan’s aggression in China, the allied Japan-British relationship collapsed and led to the Axis Pact in 1940, which allied Japan to Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. The alliance held until the defeat of the Axis in 1945.  Following World War II, Japan was rebuilt under American’s support. Japan was disarmed until the pressures of the Cold war caused them to re-arm and sign a Mutual Security Assistance Pact with the United States. This lead to Japanese’ diplomatic and has been based on a close partnership with the United States and the emphasis on the international cooperation.  

            Japan plays a crucial role in East Asia’s politics. Japan is part of the United Nations, Security Council, and one of the “G4 Nations.” Japan has territorial disputes with Russia, Korea, China, and Taiwan over the control of marine and natural resources. Japan has an ongoing dispute with North Korea over North Korea’s abduction of Japanese citizens and nuclear weapons program. Like other countries, Japan has many self defense forces in the air, land, and sea, but Japanese constitution forbids military forces to wage war on other countries. Japan’s deployment of non-combat troops to Iraq was the first military use since World War II.  After the Cold War ended, United States appeared to have had entered a unipolar age with the US being the sole superpower. After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, the United States was faced with challenges such as potential terrorist attacks, nuclear proliferation, staggering petroleum and gas prices, the failure of mutual trade negotiations and global warming, the United States has been powerless to exert leadership as a sole superpower, and the major powers were unable to create a multilateral framework. The financial crisis caused the United States to enter into a "nonpolar" era brought on by both globalization and the accompanying weakening of nations' control functions. During this period, the United State’s dollar depreciated, this caused for many foreign investors, such as Japan, to invest in the United States market. This helped Japan’s financial institutions to strengthen their foundations and progress back to the international stage by investing in the US banks. By doing so, Japan’s supplementary actions contributed to a credit recovery in the global financial system. The Japanese government lacks the ability to improve liquidity fairly and precisely into the country's financial and capital markets. This causes Japan to lack the funds of yen for new domestic ventures and causes a barrier to invest further domestically. Many financial and other companies are avoiding the domestic market and looking abroad, such as the United States’ market. While Japan is investing in foreign ventures, rather than domestic ventures, these actions caused a lack of public funds to be injected into government which lead to the Japanese financial crisis of the 1990s because of the lack of public trust in the government. After this valuable lesson, Japan now realizes the importance of the role and the value of government in maintaining trust in the financial market and the growth of social welfare and fiscal systems. There had been signs of a geopolitical power shift from the West to Asia. The financial crisis and economic stagnation in the West will accelerate that trend. History shows that military conflicts are more likely during tectonic shifts in international politics accompanied by economic crises. While cooperating with China, Japan should firmly connect the United States to the Asia-Pacific region and work with it to construct a recovery strategy.

Political blogs: Workers are Leading a Fight Against Income Equality

Workers are Leading a Fight Against Income Equality by Joe Hansen

In Joe Hansen’s editorial blog, Workers are leading the Fight against Income Inequality, in the Huffington Post; Hansen highlights the deeply embedded inequality in today’s work force. The article caught my attention because there have been several heated debates about raising the minimum wage to cover workers’ basic necessities in life. Worker have been coming together to challenge big corporations on the way they do business. Due to the pressure from the fast food industry workers, Obama has been trying to pass the federal minimum wage but has been constantly blocked by Congress. Hansen focuses his attention on Walmart. Due to their tight supply chain management, they are able to squeeze every penny out of each product they sell. With a 17 billion dollar profit from last year, they could afford to give their workers a better pay but refuse to do so.

Joe Hansen is the International President of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW). The UFCW consist of more than 1.3 million people. The majority of those workers belong to the market industry, such as Walmart, Target, and other supermarket stores. The UFCW’s goal is to protect the rights of workers. They challenge big corporations to provide decent living wages, retirement security, safe working conditions, and the right of men and women to live the American Dream. Hansen primarily focuses his attention on Walmart in a majority of his blogs because Walmart consists of 1.4 million workers.

Hansen argues that Walmart should be able to raise the minimum wage for their workers. Last year alone, they profit 17 billion dollars in sales. Their family’s net worth is approximately 144.7 billion dollars. Because Walmart refuses to raise the minimum wage, the big corporation is widening the gap between the rich and the poor. Although the workers have a job, they still rely on federal aid from the taxpayers for food stamps, Medicaid, and housing.

I agree with Hansen, I believe that the minimum wage should be raised in order to help several families from relying on the government for financial help. The reason why many Walmart workers are struggling even though they are working is because Walmart is only allowing the majority of their workers to work part time of 20 or less hours. When workers work part time, they do not receive the full benefits of working full time. Therefore, many workers must get assistance from the government. I work in a tax credit community and see this situation all the time. Several of our residents work at Walmart and majority of them need assistance from the government with food stamps, section 8, or Medicaid. If Walmart would stop being so greedy and redistribute the wealth, the government would not have to use their tax dollars to help those that does not really need help if they could work full time and maybe we will not have a recession with a large federal deficit.