Dusting Off Tojo | Peter Zeihan on the Geopolitics of Japan

A short excerpt from Peter Zeihan's 2015 book 'The Accidental Superpower" The Next Generation of American Preeminence and the Coming Global Disaster read by the author. Chapter 10 is titled 'Players'.

He outlines the countries that are going to navigate significant changes. They include Russia, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Africa, Saudi Arabia, Japan and Iran.

The Japan Section is pages 375 - 380.

Europe gets it's own chapter (11) and Chapter 9 is called 'Partners' where he outlines the U.S. allies... South America, Asia and Selected Countries in Europe.

Peter's Books Available Here: https://www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/0062913689/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=geopop-22&creative=1211&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0062913689&linkId=2901738d5754a29d7fbd4e543f0ac57e

#Japan: Dusting Off Tojo

Japan is one of the great aggressive maritime empires of the not-so-distant past. Bereft of resources or markets at home, Japan ventured out from its home islands in search of both and in doing so built an imperial commercial empire stretching along all of the East Asian archipelagoes and continental coastline all the way to Myanmar. That was then. The Japan of today is not the aggressive empire of World War II or even the economically dynamic Japan of the 1980s. Japan today seems a listless, spent force.

Demographically it is the world’s oldest and fastest-aging society, and the ranks of its younger population are now so thin that a return to the heady era now past is simply unthinkable. Japan’s role in global export markets has shrunk to one-third of its peak. Between high taxes and an aged demography, industry has steadily relocated out of Japan. Toyota, Honda, and the like now do their best work at facilities close to market, particularly in the United States, and simply ship the profits home to help service an ever more decrepit population. It may not be a cheery model, but in a world of free trade it is one that allows an ever-failing Japan to live out most of the rest of its national life in relative comfort. Which means that when the free trade era ends, this approach to life is completely and utterly screwed. More than most peoples, the Japanese will have some very rapid-fire decisions to make, but there is reason for optimism. Yes, their best industry is located out of country, and that earns key income. But income isn’t the same as food or energy. It can be replaced or, in a pinch, lived without. In the post–Bretton Woods world, the ongoing functionality of these facilities will be up to bilateral relations, with a very heavy eye toward supply-chain feasibility. In most cases, the Japanese will bow toward inevitability and allow formal ownership to be sold at discounts to entities in the host countries. The key point is that these “export ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA-4w_d9BHY