Tuesday, August 14, 2012

The Latest on the Super-region Gathering and the Prospective New Party Crystallizing around Hashimoto

To follow up on the meeting between Mayor Hashimoto and five members of a nonpartisan super-region study group, Yasutoshi Nishimura, as I’d expected, and another LDP member of that group emphatically denied any intention of leaving the LDP. The Yomiuri predictably uses the occasion to remind us that Yorihisa Matsuno is wondering if he should use the study group to join hands with the Ishin-no-kai.

Keepin’ the story alive, it seems. Well, at a minimum, it’s highly plausible.

1 comment:

Mark said...

Hmmm…still no response. Coco’s getting angry. Do you want me to tell you that your voice sounds like Piglet? Is that what you want? Because I can say that if you want me to…

As for your daily installment of WikiLeaks cables on China…

http://cablegatesearch.net/cable.php?id=07SHANGHAI641

In this 2007 cable, Kenneth Jarrett, the U.S. consul general in Shanghai, said that, “Wen has made many enemies over his handling of the economy.” But Jarrett does not say what Wen did with the economy that pissed everyone off. So what did he do anyways?

The cable has one other interesting tidbit. In the eighties, Deng Xiaoping hand-picked Yu Zhengsheng to become the Premier in the future. At that time, Yu worked with Deng Pufang at Kanghua Corporation (Deng Pufang is the oldest son of Deng Xiaoping). But in the late eighties, Yu’s older brother defected to America. Before his defection, his brother was working in one of the security ministries. One observer proclaimed that his defection effectively killed Yu’s career. But wait. Less than a month after this cable was written, the party made Yu the Shanghai Party Secretary. Apparently defecting to America isn’t such a big deal after all. Did I mention that I think the Communist Party of China is controlled by western intelligence agencies? I think the case of Yu and his brother provides further evidence for my hypothesis.

By the way, does anyone know why his brother defected?