Eric's Beijing Diary

Isaac's servant tying the bracelet on Rebecca's arm. Click for article.

I recorded this podcast last summer. It takes off from a previous blog post about kidnapped brides. I created that blog post to illustrate the extreme. By that I mean that bride kidnapping represents the dark side of arranged marriage. But there are also arranged marriages that are good. I believe that families are more stable in China because the family is more involved in helping bring young people together. Of course there can be problems with this also, but I think it is an attempt to find a balance between forced marriage on the one hand, and the seemingly aimless and casual approach to marriage practiced by modern Americans. Most Americans would be horrified by bride kidnapping. I am too. But I am just has horrified by the opposite extreme that Western Culture has gone to.

So what is the proper balance? I don't know. There is a wide range of right answers within the context of a belief in the sanctity of marriage and a belief that marriage is a commitment to be true to that one person for life. The the Bible certainly does not prescribe arranged marriage, except in the sense that sometimes say, "Marriage is made in Heaven." But where marriage is arranged, the Biblical standard is set out in the famous story in Genesis:

The key question (found in Verse 58): "Will you go with this man?" This is the main point. Marriage can be arranged, but must never be forced. But here's the rub: The kind of forced marriage (bride kidnapping) detailed in the previous post I mentioned would certainly be illegal in China. But the pressure to get married often has the same effect. Single people are sometimes strongly criticized for being single. And often their parents will put great pressure on them. On the positive side, marriage and family is taken more seriously in China than in many western cultures, particularly America.

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Labels: Kyrgyzstan, Marriage

John Bolton. Click for larger image.

The ouster of John Bolton as National Security Advisor brings to mind another day and another time, when the National Security Adviser was used by the president as a shadow Secretary of State. I have often wondered how it must have felt to be William Rogers. From the very beginning, Nixon ignored Rogers. It wasn't because William Rogers wasn't a capable professional. He was a skilled lawyer who had argued cases before the Supreme Court. He had been Attorney General under Eisenhower. But Nixon did not trust the State Department. When he wanted to open communication with China, he sent Henry Kissinger, his National Security Adviser, on a secret mission to China via Pakistan. Rogers didn't know anything about it. When it came to actually negotiating with the Chinese, they were highly offended when Nixon said that he did not want the foreign minister in the room. That is, until the translators got everything straightened out. He wasn't saying that he didn't want their foreign minister in the room. He was saying that he didn't want his own foreign minister (Secretary of State) in the room. The Chinese were flabbergasted.

On his trip to China in 1972, Nixon had extensive meetings with Zhou Enlai, but he only met once with Mao. Rogers was not allowed in the room. Only Kissinger and his assistant were there with Nixon. It was felt that Kissinger was one thing, but having Winston Lord there when Rogers was not even invited was a bit much. So Winston Lord (Kissinger's assistant) was cropped out of the photos.

What explains Nixon's attitude toward Rogers? It was not really a snub. In fact, Nixon had nothing against William Rogers, but he distrusted the State Department. Nixon was a secretive person, and it is possible he feared a type of "deep state" such as we talk much about now, but which was never mentioned in those days. At any rate, he picked a Secretary of State who was not a foreign policy wonk and then ignored him. Here is what Kissinger said about it:

Few secretaries of state can have been selected because of their president's confidence in their ignorance of foreign policy.

William Rogers resigned in September of 1973. Can you blame him? Kissinger was then appointed to take his place, and for the rest of Nixon's term, and all of Ford's term, Kissinger served as the Secretary of State, which is what he had actually been doing all along.

This is not a healthy state of affairs. The National Security Advisor is only an advisor. As such, he does not require Senate Confirmation. But the Secretary of State is a Cabinet level office, and does require confirmation. Nixon used Kissiner as his Secretary of State, even though he had never been confirmed by the Senate. Would the deal with China have happened if Nixon had done it out in the open, using his legitimate foreign minister (Secretary of State)? It's a question worth asking. Under Trump, the "CEO" of foreign policy is definitely Mike Pompeo, who is the Secretary of State. That is as it should be, and he has done an excellent job. And he was confirmed by the Senate. But the Democrats tried very hard to derail his nomination. They hate Trump and anyone he picks. So I can understand Nixon's position. The detante between the US and China hung in the balance. Still, in an open democracy, duties normally done by an official who requires Senate confirmation should not be performed by someone who has never gone through that process.

That being said, Kissinger was a very effective diplomat, and formed a close relationship with Zhou Enlai. The United States established diplomatic relations with China, and war was averted, not only between China and the United States, but between China and Taiwan (PRC and ROC).

Henry Kissinger was a colossal figure, and making him the National Security Advisor inevitably blew that role way out of proportion. After Kissinger, the role of National Security Advisor was returned to it's former position--as an adviser to the President.

I don't worry about John Bolton. When people like him get fired, their lives don't get worse, they get better. Or at least easier. Bolton has strong opinions and is very articulate--problematic in his current role, but ideal for television. Still, I am disappointed to see him go. Why did it happen?

Nobody is giving a clear answer to this, but I can imagine Bolton clashed once too often with Trump. Bolton is a pessimist, and he had an aggravating habit of being right most of the time. Bolton felt that for all it's pageantry, Trump's meetings with Kim have not resulted in concrete progress toward denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. Bolton was also very hawkish toward Iran, and I can imagine him going ballistic when he heard about the Taliban being invited to Camp David. Bolton had a bit of a temper, and he may have unloaded on Trump a little too strongly. Whatever the case may be, he offered to resign, and Trump decided to take the opportunity to remove the irritation. Not that big a deal--it is just an advisory role, but as I said, I am sad to see him go. Maybe he was just a little too negative for Trump. Trump has picked a very capable man to replace Bolton. Robert O'brien is the author of While America Slept, which outlines the need to beef up security, and indicates that he is not going to be just a "yes man" to Trump, so I don't worry too much about this change. But I, for one, am going to miss Bolton. Then again, maybe not--we will probably see his face quite a bit on television news shows.

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Labels: Cold War, US-China Relations

This man lives in the same house with his doll, his wife, and his daughter.

The video below outlines a serious problem in current Japanese demographics. Put simply, more people are dying than are being born. If this trend continues, the task of providing for the elderly will place an impossible burden on working people.

For some reason, many young people not only do not want m(any) children, but many of them do not even want to get married. This documentary also discusses briefly a strange fetish some have with the idea of establishing romantic relationship with unreal personages as a substitute for genuine human relationship. This program shows an example of a man who "married" a hologram. Where is this nonsense coming from? I don't know, but it suggests that Japan is becoming far too inbred, and that an infusion of different people with different ideas would be helpful.

So there are two things: One is economic. Japan simply does not have enough young people. But there also seems to be a cultural sickness that is developing a generation of young people terrified of genuine intimacy. The cultural problem underscores the need, but the economic problem is what is going to force action. Japan is going to have to open to many different kinds of people.

So what could stand in the way of this? Well, there is considerable resistance to accepting that which comes from outside as being "Japanese." But even where there is openness, or at least a grudging acceptance of the need for bringing in outsiders, there is a language barrier. Japanese young people are like Americans. They tend to be monolingual. They speak their own language. So young people from other places who want to go to Japan have to bridge that gap.

Fortunately for Japan, Chinese young people are actually quite good at this. When I was teaching in the Software College at Beihang University, we had a hundred interns in Japan. We had a "Japanese Software" major, which allowed students to learn Japanese before they went, but there were students who weren't in that program who just went to Japan and taught themselves Japanese.

Of course it isn't just Chinese young people who are interested in Japan. When I was teaching at the University of Advancing Technology in Arizona, I had students who told me they wanted to go to Japan and write game software. They would tell me how they were studying hiragana. That's a start, but it doesn't quite get you there. I don't know a single one who actually did it.

American young people who are interested in Japan do have an advantage: They can teach English. I don't say that disparagingly. It's not that Americans do not possess the talent required to excel in the business world. It's just that in Japan, you can teach English even if you're Japanese language skills are marginal. But if you want to work in business you have to be really good. In fairness, there are probably lots of Americans in Japan who are like me: they have no interest in going to a big company in Tokyo and working their way up the corporate ladder. But for those from any country who are interested, this is an extraordinary time of opportunity. The video says there are 161 jobs for every 100 people who are interested in finding work.

INSIGHT is a documentary program produced by Channel NewsAsia in Singapore.

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Labels: Japan, Marriage