George Friedman: Japan as Great Power

George Friedman: "Who is the great power in Asia? The answer is rather self-evident: Japan."

This Carnegie Council event took place on January 28, 2009. For the complete video, audio, and transcript, go to http://www.cceia.org

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• China
• poverty
• superpower
• 21st Century
• Chinese economy
• Japan
• Asia
• military
• George Friedman

[potatochip27]

a nation that has risen from the ashes of ww2 and yet they lead the world in all realms of technology says alot about them when you consider a small island nation that rivals a superpower such as the u.s.

[Srd1126]

This guy is a genius. Japan is a great power despite having next to zero in natural resources. China will have a few setbacks in the next 30 years, all countries do. Japan's bug challenge is their poopulation is now falling. That will be hard to overcome.

[TokyoSushiBoy]

No. Japan will never go to war. Because today's war has no winner. Both countries will have big damage by war. Everybody knows it well.

[redwhitedude]

He has a point. Japan is still a force to be reckoned with even though the press seems to ignore it or beat it down. It's going to take a long time for china to move alot of people to middle class income level.

[Phead128]

China will collapse because of non-performing loans, housing bubble collapse, and resulting economic slowdown due to dependency on US consumerism.

Really?

Sounds a lot like the non-performing subprime loans that Stratfor said wasn't a problem, which bursted as the housing bubble in the US collapsed, and now China is still roaring at 10-11% per annum, while US just got away from the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression.

George Friedman should still to politics.

[jengel32594]

i haven't read friedman's book, but I have a problem seeing how japan will become antagonistic to the us given the 75000+ us troops in japan, our 70 year security alliance, all the rhetoric put out by both sides about how important the alliance is, japan's tendency to default to the us on foreign policy decisions, and the economic dependency involved (esp. with Japan's export based economy, they would be in big trouble if america decided to stop buying sony's and hondas)

[sebastiansz]

@Srd1126 yes, Japans population is falling. Dr Micho Kaku says: "In Japan, they are concentrating on robotics, or mechanical movement. "The population there is ageing even faster than in Europe so there are not enough young people to look after the old people in hospital. "Scientists want to make mechanical hospital workers who can perform simple functions."

[AfroBotSays]

@ManabuKempfer lol come on dude

REALLY?!

[Rubinsen]

Already world power but imo Japanese people really don't care about the world affairs. Remember they closed their country between 1600 and 1850 or so lol. Let them alone.

[Tsnore]

He wrote a book called The Coming War with Japan (vs the US) back around 1990 if that gives you any idea as to the value of his ideas. The population decline without reforming Japanese immigration policy spells doom down the road. Japan naturalized only 15,000 last year. All the infrastructure in Japan won't be worth much if there are fewer people to utilize it coupled with an enormous need to support its elderly through increasing taxation and debt rectification allocation.

[tegarac]

you are brother from bush mister friedman.

[vv88vv88]

Are you joking ? Today, Japanese are not curious to the power game and money game. Visit to Japan and look with your eyes. Everyone is talking about ecology life now.