Prestowitz's blinded political, economic eyes in Asia

Clyde Prestowitz is probably widely well known an author writing about both economic and political situation in East Asia in U.S. He wrote very interesting articles, such as KISS (Kick It Simple Stupid) principle against Japan in "Make Japan buy the whole plane," and "Korea as Number One," on foreignpolicy.com. He recently added his new journal in this week, titled "No more Yasukuni Visits on my watch" without careful research of the political background like Peter Duus did many times. Although he seemed to talk about the Asia as if he had a neutral view of the foreign affair among East Asia region. He implies that he is clearly anti-Japanese as I introduced his articles about Japan and other East Asia country, particularly China and South Korea.

This man simply mentioned that Japan should be more useful for U.S and other East Asia as the economic slave for them. He recommended Barrack Obama to sell U.S old air crafts for only a economic reason based on his KISS principle than the stable security bond between U.S and Japan. He intentionally announced South Korea would overwhelm Japan in technology and economy after 2012. In addition, he unskeptically suggested to Japan that Japan should stop visiting to Yasukuni shrine as only two opposing neighboring countries, particularly China and South Korea, claim about it. In his newest article, he added some other countries around the Pacific Ocean without his background research.

Multinational dispute over yasukuni should be eliminated because it is rather domestic, spiritual issue in Japan than political issues in other unrelated countries. The dispute over the enshrined former war soldiers during WWII should only be allowed for the Japanese to decide their visitation or not. In addition, according to the Japanese article written by Doak in Sankei Newspaper, It is like a stupid story to consider the country as Militarism because a Prime Minister visits a particular shrine [which enshrines a former war soldiers who fought for their nations in the past.] The countries which want to call Yasukuni shrine as an evil temple should research a suitable reason to prove their opinions. It only a excuse for China [and Koreas] to hypocritically conclude Yasukuni shrine as a war symbol of Militarism, [or Nazism] (Doak, Sankei-news) .

Moreover, here is a fact that Pretowitz is blind at his view of the recent economic situation among East Asia. Henry Sender, the chief international financial correspondent of Financial Times, announced that the Korea's economic situation has been worsened since 2012. According to Sender:

 "In most places in the world, companies and households have been reducing their debt burden. But in South Korea, leverage still remains too high. ...In the second half of last year, four of the top 12 [Korean corporate faction] groups were unable to cover their interest payments from operating profit. ...Now worries are growing about the health of the banking system. Many savings banks have already gone bust and in recent months, regulators have forced more than two dozen to suspend operations. But today the major banks are also seeing signs of pressure. Net interest margins have dropped while non-performing loans have been inching up, hitting earnings which are expected to decline at double-digit rates in coming quarters. Officially defaults on loans to companies last year rose to 2 per cent for the first time since 2003."

"But seven major banks established a sort of bad bank several years ago, which they capitalised with their own equity, allowing it to buy up some of their bad loans." (Sender H.)

In short, the Korean bank system is not financially healthy at all.

I highly wonder why Prestowiz pushed the Americans to take a close look at the Korean Market as their frontier of the next market place. The financial system in South Korea is malfunctioned as well as its politically dysfunctional interrelationship with its alliances, U.S and Japan. Furthermore, Prestowiz should not intervene with the dispute over the Japanese's visit of Yasukuni Shrine in the political manner if he is intelligent enough to understand the respect for other cultures and spiritual prospects.


Citation:
Doak K. "靖国参拝の考察"
Prestowiz C. "Korea as Number One"
Prestowiz C. "Make Japan buy the whole plane"
Prestowiz C. "No More Yasukuni Visit on My Watch"
Sender H. "Distress Spreads In South Korea"