 Looking to the east, you know, we've been folding in on ourselves for so long, three, four years now, and we have to look to the east. We can never forget that the east moves a lot faster than we do. And the future of the planet is in the east. And so is Steve Zertcher. He's in the east. And today we're going to talk about how Asia feels about what kind of reaction in Asia to Trump's COVID. This is so interesting. Hi, Steve. Welcome to the show. Always a pleasure, Jay. Good to see you. So how does Asia feel about Trump's COVID? Well, there's two levels to this. There's a remarkably consistent response at the official government level. Japan, China, South Korea, and even our good friend in North Korea, Kim Jong-un, has sent their best wishes, best regards to Trump directly, wishing him a speedy recovery along with his wife. So I was surprised to see that North Korea responded to that. And also President Xi of China responded. I would have guessed that their response officially would have been no statement whatsoever, since Trump has targeted China and is blaming China for COVID in the worldwide pandemic. Yeah, and Trump is clearly responsible for what happened to him. Yes. Oh, shooting yourself in the foot. But no, in the official communication, no mention of that whatsoever. It's all been very formal and very cordial, quite surprising actually from countries that really don't have a strong relationship, especially on this topic with the United States. No gloating, no saying or some kind of subtle messaging saying you're getting what you deserve. All just very formal, very official, very supportive, wishing you the best and so forth. So that's at the government level, and that again has been uniform. But at the level down below, at the more informal level, at the chat level, there's been a lot of comments about expressing glee in the sense that this is karma for the president, as we mentioned in the title of this show, that this is just rewards for being so cavaliers, so badly mismanaging the COVID outbreak in the United States, China in particular, again, not officially, but unofficially, not in the formal state-owned newspapers, but in the chat lines, the equivalent of Twitter suggestions that Trump should use bleach, because that was one of the recommendations that Trump gave at one point, or wishing the American citizens to receive the same level of health care that Trump is receiving right now. So kind of turning the knife a little bit saying, yeah, Trump downplayed COVID and became sick, and now he's getting the best medical care that can possibly be given to anybody in the world, and wishing American citizens also that level, which of course we don't have in our country, given how our health care system works. So there is this kind of sense, especially within the Chinese net community, that Trump is getting what he deserves, and there's some element of glee or cheerfulness. No, nothing as strong as wishing him to get worse. I haven't seen anything along those lines, but that's China, and I think that's because China has been targeted so strongly by Trump and blamed for this disease. He calls it the Chinese disease. Even in the debates recently, he called it the Chinese disease when he was debating with Biden. But Japan, Korea, other locations, the alternative news sources here are basically I think somewhat is still in a state of shock and maybe a concern. Korea seems to be focusing on how the economy is going to respond to Trump's illness. And for example, if Trump does get worse, I guess we don't know one way or the other how he's going to go, how that would affect the economy overall, because he after all is the president of the United States. And if the president of the United States is somehow incapacitated, that would make the rest of the world worry on many, many levels, but Korea is looking at it from an economic perspective. So I think I don't know how things are going in the United States, but there was a sense of shock. This was the number one trending news item that has been for the last few days, Trump sick with COVID. And I guess we're waiting as a region to see how this will turn out, if he does recover or if he doesn't, how that will be transitioned. And this is all, of course, within the context of the election and how this affects the upcoming election between Biden and Trump in early November. Yeah. Okay. How do people feel individually about it? I'm sure you've had conversations. Yeah, my business colleagues here in Japan, it's kind of surprising in a way. You know, I'm a business professor and I was associated with the American Chamber of Commerce. I was the vice president for the Kansai region, was going to the board of directors meeting where head of Dow Chemical, head of Google, all of these folks were there with me. It's actually quite surprising that expat leaders, even though they're business people and the image of business people tends to be more conservative, more Republican, the majority of my colleagues and people that I know that I work with are actually quite liberal and not really Trump supporters. Now there's exceptions. There's a few that I know that have the red hat, I believe it or not. They actually wear it here in Japan. And sometimes at my kids' school, which is populated by expat kids, the kids will wear red hats as well. I'm surprised to see that. So there is maybe a smaller contingency of people who are Trump supporters. But the majority of my colleagues and certainly the professors I work with at Kansai Gaidai are quite liberal. So most of them are expressing the sense that Trump, this is a little bit of what he deserves. Again, it's kind of like this karma issue that Trump downplayed this, called it a hoax, didn't do what the other countries have done to protect the American citizens against COVID. And now he can't even protect himself. So that's a common message. He can't even protect himself against COVID. How can he protect the country? He's been a failure on a national level and also a failure on a personal level. So that's a little bit what I'm picking up from my more liberally oriented friends, colleagues, those are professors and also business people as well. Now, a footnote to that is that this morning it was reported that he said, you don't have to be afraid of COVID. It's nothing to be afraid of now that he's been through it for three or four days or more. I firmly believe that he knew he had it before he was tested positive. But that's a terrible message to the families, the 207,000 people who have died. You're point about why doesn't every American have access to the kind of medicine he's getting? I mean, all these experimental drugs, if you got COVID and you wanted those drugs, lots of luck. I'm not sure you could get any of them. So that's correct. On the other hand, I'm not sure they helped that much either. I don't know. I read, Jay, that the drugs he's taking are now under review in Europe for causing secondary damage. The other thing too, to follow up on your question, one thing that's coming through on the Japan side is mask use. So Japan, Japanese people are, they already, we talked about this in previous shows, it's 100% compliance. Not because the government is telling them to do this, but just because the sense of community in Japan is much stronger, the sense of responsibility to others is much stronger in this culture, as opposed to the United States. So this is a great victory for the Japanese politicians and also the Japanese people in general, because they contrast the low level of COVID infection in Japan and attribute that primarily to mask usage, which when you get on the train, I have to take the train tomorrow to get to school. Every single person on the train without exception is wearing a mask. It's just almost inconceivable to imagine anybody getting on the train without a mask. They would buy one in the convenience store, which is always in front of the train entrance, train station entrance. So Trump is so famous for not wearing a mask and mocking those that do use a mask. So Japan is going, yeah, we wear masks, you don't, you're sick now. So there's a little bit of a sense of that that's being communicated here in Japan as well. The victory of the mask wearing country over Trump and the Americans, some segment of American people who somehow think wearing a mask is not the right thing to do given the circumstances. Am I right to think that really all the Asian countries are into masks and into compliance with the mask requirement? I'm thinking Korea, they've been wearing masks for a long time for just the common cold. And China, if you don't do it, you're going to get hurt. The government will come to you and talk to you, or worse. And I suppose the same thing in Hong Kong where in all those street scenes we've seen, they all have masks and it's not just to protect themselves from being photographed either. No. So I think and Taiwan the same. So I think all the East Asian countries anyway are using masks and that tells you that they believe in masks for one reason or the other. And the question I have for you is how do the people in Japan and around Asia react to Trump's grandstanding? You know, I'll be fine. And he takes a ride with his secret service in his car wearing a mask. Would you ride in that car, Steve? I would not ride out. He's highly contagious. And he's got all these guys surrounding him. And well, they all have to go into quarantine. Yeah, I think the expectation in terms of Trump's behavior and it's kind of anti-social sensibility is well understood now in the rest of the world in Asia. You know Abe, as we've talked about before, tried to build a strong relationship, but in a sense he never really was able to get Trump to support Japan. There were problems that cropped up periodically. So I think after three and a half years, there's a pretty clear understanding that this president is not one that's reliable, consistent or really looking to the best interest of Japan. Certainly that's not the case. So when we see this type of activity going on right now, it's not unexpected. It's kind of fits with the general perception that Japanese people or Asian people more broadly have him after being president for as long as he has been. You know, there's a crisis over confidence and credibility going on. I mean, the press will ask the doctors what's going on. The doctors will not answer or will give them answers that don't sound true. And as a result, the general conclusion among the press is that Trump is not telling them his condition. And what he does tell him is not accurate. And it's beyond grandstanding, it's untruth as usual, not to be trusted. I mean, if I was an American, I would say, oh, nothing new here. Why should he change at the time of being infected? But I wonder how people in Asia feel that they generally find him to be distrustful. I mean, untrustworthy. Yes, I think, again, based on three years of following this. And I think it's always surprising for Americans to hear how closely the rest of the world follows the United States, especially Japan. Japan is very strongly linked on multiple layers economically and politically to the United States. So Japanese people are very aware of what's going on. It gets reported on the NHK, which is the national news network, and the various news sources. So I would honestly, the first time I came to Japan, this is a long time ago before the internet, I was surprised how much my Japanese friends at school knew about my country and what was going on. I assume that they didn't. But the fact is, the rest of the world watches what goes on in the United States. And they know what kind of character the president is. They know he's a consistent liar. So just answering that question personally, I don't believe anything that's being told by any of them. I don't think anyone should, because it's all being manipulated for one reason or the other badly, because you're getting, instead of getting one consistently wrong message, you're getting five different wrong messages, and then occasionally something that seems halfway true. It's just a complete mess, which is probably the worst outcome possible. Well, you know, every time you look at those charts they put up about how many people are now infected since the Rose Garden with Amy Barrett, I really wonder, she had COVID this summer. Oh, she already had it. Well, already had it is a relative term. The summer only ended a few weeks ago. So there's a question exactly about where she fits on the COVID contagion scale. But anyway, it strikes me that we haven't seen the end of it. First, the first was just a handful of people, then it was eight people. Now I think it's more like 12 people, and it's growing. And I would guess, especially a view of the lack of credibility and all the lack of honesty and candor, that we're going to find out that a lot of other people who attended the Rose Garden ceremony or whatever, the rolling out of Amy Amy, the judge. Also, we're exposed and tested positive or will. So it's definitely become a cluster. Yes. And so the question is, if we have a cluster and we have a number of people in the White House who have been exposed and who are, you know, sick or likely to be sick or worse, how does that affect the viewpoint of Asia and Japan and elsewhere? If the country, the government of the United States of America is now rife with COVID cases right up at the top, what about that? That would be taken very badly because, as we've talked about before, the most important thing in terms of continuity and business is consistency and lack of surprise and lack of crisis. This is a self-imposed one. And basically, I think if the 12 or 14 or 20 people, if the White House staff, it becomes incapacitated for the next month or so, this will be very damaging on two levels. One, how the United States is perceived, which is not very good right now anyway. It'll just get worse. And then how the world will worry about this and the fact that the United States leadership now has been effectively paralyzed by COVID. Again, self-imposed because they didn't follow proper safety protocols. If you look at the things that Trump has done, affirmative things that he has done in the past three and a half years. In my view, it's just me now, most of them have been detrimental. They've been the wrong way, wrong way car again, 180 off or worse. And if you took those three and a half, four years now, then you removed all the things that we know that he's done, would life be a better place or a worse place? A lot of people in this country feel that if he hadn't been there, it would be a better place. If he hadn't done anything, it would have been a better place. So why do you say that people would think less of the United States if he wasn't active in his management of the government? So yeah, there's two answers to that, Jay. On the one hand, I agree with you, the last few days there hasn't been the constant Trump barrage of news. It's kind of, I was just reflecting on that this morning. It's been kind of a relief that he's been in the hospital and contained. So I understand why you're asking that question. But I think generally, if the leadership at the White House at the executive level is incapacitated, I think that that would create great concern and worry, not just in Asia, but probably worldwide as well. What's the concern? What kind of concern? Even though the leadership may be horrible, the fact that there would be no leadership whatsoever. So what if something happens? How would the response structure, what if some issue broke out? I think the perception, even though I agree with you, Jay, that the management and leadership by this administration has generally been wrong, well, not generally consistently been wrong, the worry would be that if there was no leadership at all, it could be worse, which may not sound reasonable or logical to you, but I'm just talking about what the perception would be. It's a perception thing. It's a hypothetical. And it could be that nothing would happen, but it could be that somebody, whether there was some newscaster talking about this the other day, we don't know what would happen, but there are people who see this country's weakness and it is weak with him in the hospital and not in the hospital, both ways, as an opportunity to take advantage of us and query whether it's worse with him in the hospital or not in the hospital or arguably if there's nobody in charge. And indeed, since he's the sole proprietorship government, when he's around, he's the only one in charge. Nobody else makes any decisions. This is not so good. There's no backup to him, not a person. Would you think Pompeo would be able to handle it? No. Not even sure the chiefs of staff would be able to handle it. And it opens the whole question is assuming that this is a false return to the White House. Today, he says he's going to come back and he winds up having a relapse of some kind. And there are many doctors out there that feel he's asking for trouble. Again, the same kind of shoot yourself in the foot thing, asking for trouble. And he winds up back with a relapse. There are those in the world who would take advantage of that. To your point, China's expansion militarily and economically has accelerated over the last six to 12 months. So even before COVID, China has recognized the lack of leadership in the United States right now. It's very clearly and consistently reported in Japan that China's expansion in part is because the United States retreat. So I'm sure the people at the highest level in China are strategizing now. If the president is paralyzed for the next month or so, if the White House leadership is paralyzed for the next month or so, it could be that China strategically expands. For example, for disputed territories in Asia, they take a more aggressive posture. They have more ships in that area. That's actually been increasing over the last few months. I could see that happening very easily because China's leadership will recognize that America's leadership is non-existent or is paralyzed. It's bad to begin with, even when Trump was healthy. But this would make it maybe even, the idea potentially would be on the part of China's that they could take even more advantage of the vacuum of leadership. So the other thing too, Jay- I have a question that came in, Steve. I thought it was before we run out of time. Question, do you think the East would be shocked at how many people in America hope Trump dies of COVID? They may say it or not. Some of them are going to be diplomatic. It's a Bachi Kataru kind of thing where you don't want to say anything against anybody because it'll happen to you. But there are a lot of people who would like to see him go. Do you think that people in Japan and elsewhere realize that there are really two levels in the United States about this? I think maybe some of the intellectuals or people who follow this very closely would recognize that. But the general population, if they did learn that, I think it would be shocked. And it's more a reflection of Japanese culture. No matter how bad the Prime Minister is, and believe me, Japan has had horrible, horrible Prime Ministers, and their popularity ratings had gone down to single digits. It's just as inconceivable for me to think that anybody would wish for the Prime Minister to die. That just goes beyond the bounds of Japanese culture and Japanese respect for authority. So if that was reported, like someone did a poll and it turned out that 30% of Americans wanted Trump to die, I'm just picking that number out of the air. And that was reported in Japan. I think Japanese people would be shocked about that. That would be my sense. Because they would not think that way. And they would be surprised that anybody would think that way. Yeah. It's a second level of consciousness sort of thing. One more question area I'd like to cover with you before we run out of time is that up till now, up till last week, and you and I have talked about this, the Japanese have had a certain, in Asia, has had a certain perception of the election of all the machinations about suppressing votes, all the denial of the result that Trump has been engaged in, which he is still engaged in even now. And the popularity of Trump versus Biden and the whole problem of the base, they've seen it a certain way. Because as you said, they follow it. And they follow it everywhere. I mean, in Europe, I think you'd find precisely the same level of interest in how the US is doing, of course, not so well. And they watch American media. You can bet they knew that Trump was sick 10 minutes after we did, maybe even before. They watched the debate just the way we watched it, although- That's correct. Like a long time ago already. So my question to you is, does this illness that he has, does the COVID that he has now, does his whole process, disease process, and all the press over and everything, change the way the Japanese and Asian people in general feel about the election, which is now, what, three weeks plus going? Yeah. That's a good question, Jay. I haven't seen any data on this. But my sense is that the Japanese generally, and I think the government as well, expects Trump to win again, despite the polling numbers, which they know. I just- Because he won in such a shock in 2016, he has this aura around him from a Japanese perspective that somehow he's going to be able to pull it off again. So Biden wins, which is probably from a polling perspective, the most likely outcome. It just seems that way. 538 and others are reporting now. It's like 80%. But that's not communicated to the Japanese people generally. So I think if Biden does win, if the polling is correct, this go, as opposed to 2016, I think Japan's going to be surprised that Biden won and that Trump lost, even given what he's going through right now. And that's just the general perception of him, how he presents himself in this very strong image and the fact that he beat everybody. He beat all the Republicans. He beat Hillary Clinton. I mean, Japan was convinced. There was no Japanese people that I talked to back in 2016 that expected Trump to win. They all expected Hillary to win, like most Americans did as well. So Trump pulled the rabbit out of the hat. And I think the sense is that he'll do it again. And if he doesn't, it will be somewhat of a surprise. And then people will begin to think in Japan, who is this Biden guy other than he was the vice president for Obama for a number of years. One thing is that in the U.S., there are people who are terrified that he might win. Terrified. Who are taking papers out in other countries. Who are terrified about the rule of law, about these heavy-handed tactics he has taken in so many ways and so many things, about his disregard of climate change. I mean, I could go on. We don't have time for that. You know what I mean. And there's a lot of people here that are terrified that he might win and be completely unrestrained in the second term. Unrestrained. Whatever comes to mind on a given day, after a nice hamburger, which doctors probably will not recommend. So the question is, do the Japanese understand that there are those a significant number of people in the United States? I couldn't give you a number, but a significant number of people who are terrified about the possibility that Trump might win. Do they understand? How things are perceived in terms of Japan, United States falls within the context of how it impacts Japan as a government. Trump and Abe did have a strong relationship, at least ostensibly. I don't know that it necessarily benefited Japan all that much over the years. So things are interpreted through that kind of understanding. It's what would Japan's relationship be with the United States. We know Trump. Trump called Abe the best prime minister ever. So from that perspective, there's a sense that things will be kind of like they have been for the last three and a half years, which may not have been the best, but at least it wasn't terrible. But you bring in a new person, Biden, who they don't know and they don't understand, then it causes confusion. So that's kind of the sense. To answer your question directly, I don't think that Japanese people are aware of how many Americans are generally terrified, or like the questioner who came in, that question that we just took from the viewer, that there are many who wish him ill. So I don't think the Japanese people are really aware of that, frankly. I don't think that gets reported down at the general level. It's not going to come across on NHK. That's something type of news that Japan would report, that Americans hate Trump. I've never seen that. I've never been exposed to that. I know it because I'm an American. I follow American news sources, but that wouldn't generally be reported in Japan. Again, it has to do with consistency and context of the relationship, and Trump may be terrible, and he may not have done all that well by Japan over the last three and a half years, but he's someone who apparently can win elections, and he's someone who did build a strong relationship with Abe. And if Biden comes in, then there's unknown. I mean, what will Biden do? How will the Japan-United States relationship be under Biden? What will Biden's Asia policy be? So that's all unknown. In my opinion, it'll probably be better overall, but it's just an unknown after the election occurs. So that causes some tension. Well, I think one takeaway on all of this, it seems to me, and we are out of time now, is that people in Japan and elsewhere feel that no matter how Trump won in 2016, or how he might win in 2020, he is the face of America. He won. He is the president, and whatever systems we have, whatever machinations we have in the hinterland, whatever these dynamics are, he is the president, and they see the country as led by him. And that is very scary because he is, in my view, and in the view of many others, he is not the face of the country, not representative. But anyway, you and I will have a chance to talk about this. Between now and the time we speak next, I'm sure there'll be lots of events, just as you said, when he was well, to extent he was well, he did a lot of tweeting and dominated the news. He's dominating the news from his hospital bed. It's the same thing in a funny way, although there's nobody there in the White House. Anyway, we'll talk again soon. Steve, I so appreciate this discussion. Oh, absolutely. My pleasure, Jay. Thank you. Thank you, Steve. Aloha.