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Yoon Suk Yeol from visit to Biden at White House as South Korea's president to jail sentence for life for ordering arrests and deploying military troops on Dec 3 2024. It shows the unstable situation for democracy and politics in South Korea, with the country polarized. It is much more polarized than the US  or Europe. South Korea may have advanced rapidly with its economy using Japan as a model, yet the political situation in South Korea and the Korean peninsula remains highly unstable. By comparison India has a long history of elected assemblies in the states and regions dating back to the 1936-37 provincial assembly elections under the British- nearing a century of democratic self government by 2036, ten years from now. Even the shorter period of elected government in South Korea was interrupted by dictatorships and the military rule. The Indian Constitution modeled on the unwritten constitution of Britain and the written one in the US, has the allegiance of a population of 1.4 billion people, unprecedented in the history of mankind. There are as many languages in India as in Europe and the media is lively in every language, so that it is an encounter that is the one of the wonders of the world to know and grow up inside India in the second half of the twentieth and the first part of the 21st century. It is also the first modernization effort in the context of Britoish and American democratic forms of government for over 1.4 billion people, almost 2 billion people counting other regions such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines, that use India as their role model. The economic dynamism of the region required integration of sorts with the European Union and the US for scientific and industrial cooperation at every level which is now happening. ...

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The incredible story of Beate Gordon of Mills College, California. As a 22 year old she joined the staff of General MacArthur in Tokyo. She was assigned the task of writing the section on women's rights in one week in 1946. She searched libraries in Tokyo for constitutions of other countries. Mills had lived in Japan for 10 years with her parents, and knew the situation for women in Japan, with the lack of basic rights. She took up the task as the only woman on the constitutional committee.

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Is a Win-Win possible for the US/Israel and Iran possible with the US/Israel strikes and operations started March 1, 2026. Not just for the American and Israeli people, but for the people of the Arab countries and for the people of Iran, and for the people of Russia. Greg Ip in the WSJ, Marc Thiessen in the NYT, and Bret Stephens of the NYT have looked at this in this way and offer an alternative view of what might happen, even though the tendency of the WSJ and the Washington Post is to be skeptical and the NYT with an opposition to all things DJT offering pessimistic version. First, all the anticolonial writings that were read by Khamanei in Moshaad are no longer the case as the US is no longer acting to secure some benefit to itself as the British and French colonial powers did for themselves or their oil companies in pre1960's Iran. Second the US truly wants to learn the lessons of 30 years of troubles in the region at every level of the DJT administration which is to extend a true olive branch to the subdued foe as it did to Germany and Japan under generals Eisenhower and McArthur. Third moderates in Iran could emerge as in Germany ( Adenauer) and in Japan Shigeru Yoshida who worked to adopt the 1947 Japanese Constitution under Gen. Douglas MacArthur. Behind the student protests and now national protests there is a realization in Iran that living perpetually under sanctions is not the way to live, that it can increase oil production, get investment in its industry, and raise standards of living, by doing something different. That nuclear weapons development, supporting movements overseas, perpetual conflicts with Arab states, these things have been tried and are not working. That this is the last chance to build a prosperous Iran before fossil fuels are replaced by renewable energy over 10-15 years and which will make it that much harder to modernize and develop Iran for the benefit of Iran's future 110 million people. The gap with India will only widen as India catches up with China, the way China caught up with Japan. It is better to accept that these anticolonial writings that emerged from decolonizing Arab North Africa applied to the British and the French, and that the world is a different place today as the Indians and the Chinese have realized modernizing ancient societies with ancient religions is possible with the help of the Americans and the Europeans, working with the Americans and the Europeans. Theodore Roosevelt says in his Autobiography that one should be careful to judge people as the best have some negative aspects and the worst have some positive aspects, an experience he described in his dealings with progressives and those who opposed changes. Adenauer and Yoshida had contacts and dealings with earlier governments defeated in the war, but wanted to search for an entirely different path for rebuilding their countries having learned from experience. A thoughtful moderate Iranian outcome is possible as happened in Germany and Japan and which is beginning to develop in Venezuela.   ...

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Japan's cabinet approves a change in interpretation for Article 9 of the constitution to permit "collective self-defense." The wording was negotiated with the more pacifist New Komeito party in the coalition government to cover attacks on Japanese allies such as the U.S., but limit it to actions that seriously threaten Japan. Because the Liberal Democratic party of prime minister Abe controls both houses of parliament the change is likely to go through. The U.S. president Obama, Defense Secretary Hagel, and Rear Admiral John Kirby of the U.S. Navy see this as improving security and stability in the region.

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Deferred counting of ballot boxes from Istanbul, Ankara and big cities in May 2023 where Kilicdaroglu of the Republican party draws major support. Both Istanbul and Ankara have mayors from the Republican party of Kemal Ataturk who founded the party in 1921 in Ankara to resist the colonial powers but adopted the European model in education and in the constitution, dress, way of life similar to Japan's conversion in the Meiji period of 1871.

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This editorial in the WSJ says the reinterpretation of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution to allow collective self-defense in no way brings Japan back to its militarist past. It reminds readers that Prime minister Abe faces the Japanese public's skepticism as a majority of Japanese in polls show they do not favor the collective self defense interpretation. The New Komeito party in the coalition government also restricted the interpretation. South Korea's reservations have also to be considered by Japan. The revised interpretation lets Japan fill some needed changes in its role in the new situation where China has taken a more assertive stance on territorial issues in Asian waters near Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan and South Korea. In this manner the restricted interpretations lets Japan fulfill a role necessary for the U.S. to continue its presence and strength in the Pacific and Asian waters needed to maintain peace in the region.

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A Nikkei poll shows only 36% of people in Japan support a reinterpretation of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution to allow "collective self defense," and 51% disapprove. Prime minister Abe cites the need for "thorough debate," and legislative moves in this area will be held back, to gain support for reforms in the agriculture and other sectors. Abe appears to have lost some goodwill for reform measures to launch the Third Arrow. In an address to the Australian parliament in English Abe made a committment to the principle underlying Article 9 by saying- "This vow that Japan made after the war is still fully alive today." He also stated that Japan woud never let the horrors of World War II be repeated. Japan and Australia have agreed to share military equipment, and Japan has a role in developing a submarine fleet for the Australian navy of 30 billion Australian dollars (US $28.1 billion). At about this time in Beijing U.S. leaders for the foreign and finance ministries, Lew and Kerry, met for the Strategic and Economic Dialogue sixth round in Beijing's Diaoyutai State guest house. China's president Jinping, probably aware of the waves created by its own assertive stance in the region and the response of neighbors and Japan, said that the Pacific was large enough to accomodate both the U.S. and China....

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This article on Emperor Akihito as he turns over the role of Emperor to his son in 2019, shows how he has defined Japan's postwar role in for over 60 years. On the 70th anniversary of the end of the war in 2015 Akihito went out of his way to reproach prime minister Abe for saying that Japan is what it is today because of the sacrifice of three million Japanese during the war. Akihito told the Japanese people on television that it was the hard work and sacrifice of the Japanese people after the war that made Japan what it is today. During the period of the Fukushima nuclear disaster Akihito broke tradition to visit homes of survivors from the disaster kneeling in Japanese manner and talking to people like ordinary citizens. From Jakarta to Beijing Akihito brought a message that showed Japan's resolve to maintain peace with its neighbors in Asia, and heal the wounds left after the war under his father Hirohito. He made a trip to China in 1992 and acted as the chief emissary of reconciliation.  He drew his greatest contentment knowing that Japan has not lost a single life to wars since 1945. As Mr. Abe and others shift Japan to move away from the pacifist constitution Emperor Akihito stands as a clear guide and symbol of what is the best way for Japan in these times 70 years after the war. His son is intent on carrying out the same tradition left by his father. ...

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Emperor Akihito's efforts to remind Japanese about Japanese war history after the Manchurian Incident in 1931. In his New Year's address Akihito tried to address the importance of learning from history as memories of the war fade with the young generation- "It is important for us to take this opportunity to study and learn from the history of this war, starting with the Manchurian Incident of 1931, as we consider the future direction of our country." The Abe administration's effort to revise Article 9 of the constitution to allow "collective self-defense" is unpopular in Japan, and the Emperor nudges the Japanese people in the right direction.

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The U.S. and Japan sign a new security agreement in 2015 which removes a geographical constraint on Japan participating in joint action with the U.S. in protecting vital global interests. The agreement is called the Joint Defense Guidelines. The agreement will enable Japan's Defense Forces with the permission of its parliament to participate in such action. Earlier agreements limited action to the defense of Japanese territories. A new alliance coordination mechanism will be established with officials from diplomatic, defense and military departments of the two countries. Consultations between the U.S. and Japan will take place through this mechanism in peacetime and in emergency situations. The new guidelines also include joint development of weapons systems and sharing of military technology, and cooperation on cybersecurity, missile defense, reconaissance activity. Japan's reinterpretation of its Constitution will now be discussed in parliament in the context of this agreement, to clarify what other activities Japan can take on....

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US president's sweeping powers to use tariffs as a tool for policy when American people's jobs, communities, health, is threatened by fentanyl and concentration of manufacturing jobs in China, unfair trade by EU and Japan, is the issue presented to the US Supreme Court. The US president presented it in this way- tariffs as a foreign policy tool, not a way to impose economic policy in the form of a tax on American importers or buyers which is the power allocated to Congress by the US Constitution. Justices who mentioned these powers called them sweeping powers but would not say the word fentanyl or look back at the recalcitrant behaviour of Asian nations Japan and China when it comes to unfari trading practices, where the US could literally negotiate forever and get no result, or to the enormous concentration of manufacturing power and supply channels in China that not only ships out American jobs but leaves Americans at the mercy of foreign powers for cost of living. Nowhere was this more evident as during covid years and now in rare earths export restrictions from China. The Justices assumed it was just alright to ignore this or leave it unsaid.  The cost to American buyers is small because most of the tariffs are borne by foreign suppliers in China, Japan and Germany, who as in the case of automobiles unfairly benefitted for decades and are now bearing most of the cost of tariffs. The large business in the US have increased their margins so much in the 2020-2024 period that they are now bearing some of the cost of the tariffs, as reported in WSJ. So that inflation in the US is at 3.0 % in the US less than anticipated, when average tariffs are at about 10% overall, not what the headlines say of 15-20% because of the product exceptions made in the tariffs for each nation. Justice Roberts may be right when he says more care should be exercized in the placing of a tariff, but even Roberts and Justices Barrett, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and others know that the US has used this as a last resort, as a policy tool to protect the American people. Sweeping powers need care and caution as Justice Roberts stated- “power to impose tariffs on any product from any country in any amount for any length of time. It does seem like that’s a major authority."   ...

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Shinzo Abe and the LDP won a landslide victory in Japan's Dec. 2012 elections. Shinzo Abe was the first prime minister of Japan born during the post war period when he became prime minister in 2006. He is less influenced by the legacy of the pre-war period and war period. Abe is the grandson of Nobusuke Kishi, Commerce and Industry minister during the war, and prime minister when Japan signed the security treaty with the U.S. in 1960. His father was foreign minister, making him one of the rare politicians with a deep family history in Japan's government. Their views also influenced his own. Kishi is committed to changing Article 9 in Japan's constitution which limits the role of the military, and renounces the right to wage war. His 2006 book "Toward a Beautiful Nation," describes some of his views.

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The Indian 2024 election involved huge giveaways and caste based selection that takes India backwards, which explains some of the gains of opposition parties in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, two large states. As the WSJ points out giveaways to buy votes for Rs 1 lakh for every woman in the state of Uttar Pradesh with population of 120 million women was part of the strategy used by a leading opposition party. Caste selection was carefully deployed by another large political party in Uttar Pradesh. Fears and misinformation about the BJP party changing the Indian Constitution to remove protection of lower castes enshrined in the Constitution by Ambedkar, was also a factor that swung votes to the opposition. The effects of the pandemic and the unemployment levels for a largely rural population in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra in north and west of India played a role as the BJP failed to get an outright majority following its majority wins in 2014 and 2019. The Opposition parties and the BJP main difference is that the Opposition parties have accepted the leakages of funds as part of the culture that has prevailed since 1960 which makes rapid development and modernization impossible as the pool of funds for investment in infrastructure is diminished. BJP party under Modi has fought this leakage every step of the way and by executing projects of infrastructure with on time delivery created the prospects of India modernizing and industrializing the way Japan and China have achieved. The other difference is the execution and the Master Plan Gati Shakti developed by BJP and Modi and a 20 year execution model developed in Gujarat state by Modi from 2001 to 2021. This has made India the fifth largest economy in the world with plans to make it the third largest by 2030 and do what Japan and China have achieved in Asia. It is not really about religion or so called Hindutva that is driving the hard work it is about making India a modern industrial nation with the standard of living of US, Europe, Japan and China.   ...

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Mokoto Rich of the NYT discusses sentiment in Japan as the North Korean nuclear program advances. A majority of Japanese surveyed do not favor preemptive strikes. Japan's Constitution only allows acting in self-defense. Experts say Japan has to consider what it would do for missiles flying over Japanese territory in the direction of the U.S. A Japanese government ruling in 1956 allows acting in self-defense in a broader way. Yet the public in Japan is not sure what is the best way to respond. Also to be considered is how this will be seen in South Korea and China- would Japan taking a greater defensive role and building its own anti-ballistic missile system defenses lead to greater tensions in the region.

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North Korea launched a missile that landed within 125 miles of Japan's northwest coast. The Japanese Defense Ministry stated the additional time to reach the Japanese shoreline was 20-30 seconds. North Korea said it did this to protest the U.S. and South Korea setting up a THAAD, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System, about 200 miles southeast of Seoul to intercept North Korean missiles. Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe reshuffled his cabinet and appointed Tomomi Inada, a conservative who supports revision of the Japanese constitution to improve Japanese capabilities for defense. She is the second woman to take up the defense ministry position after the newly elected Tokyo governor, Yuriko Koike.

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The Irish prime minister Varadkar says it is time to move on. When he assumed office he was the first from an ethnic minority background to lead Ireland, the son of an Irish mother and an Indian immigrant father. He took Ireland through the crises of coronavirus pandemic, Brexit, and improved unemployment and budget shortfalls. Recently he accepted defeat on a referendum intended to remove language in the Irish Constitution on a clause about "a woman's life within the home." Disagreements over the language of the referendum led to its not getting approved on International Women's Day by about 70% of the vote with 44% of people voting. It suggest there was no enthusiasm and its relevance at this time was not understood. It is not clear why there was a need for this referendum in the first place to remove one text of the constitution that respects the role of family and mother's contributions in the home. During the pandemic for instance women played a major role, and sometimes took on a greater share of the burden. Efforts to have women's participation as shown in Japan and India does not require constitutional wording to be changed. Japan has done remarkably well and India is about to do this. And removing the wording about women's role at home, instead of encouraging or adding wording about women actively participating in the workforce and actions to make that possible, accomplishes little. Coupling this with a wording that includes gay families in the definition of family while removing the role of women in the family language seemed to be making changes that had little to do with each other. ...

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Yoon suk-yeol the prosecutor who decided to run in 2021 for the first time in politics, won the recent presidential election in South Korea. He talks to the WSJ in this interview report and outlines the policies of his administration.  Yoon say she sees upholding the constitution which embodies values of  liberal democracy and market economy as the deciding factors for foreign and domestic policy. He wants to build closer ties to the US and Japan. He will resume defense exercizes with the US that were suspended during the Trump administration. On China he sees continued economic relations as a trading partner, but sees flip flopping in foreign policy as creating risks for the Indo-Pacific region. If invited to join the Quad Yoon says South Korea  "will positively review joining." On domestic policy he says his goal is "to correct and normalize so that the market can operate as it should." Yoon led the prosecution in efforts against prior presidents and Samsung, and his known for his forthright approach. Yoon wants to see more foreign investment and says he will ensure that there is no discrimination against foreign companies, including eliminating unnecessary regulation. ...

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NHK polls of March 7-9, show the Abe administration retaining popular support with 51% in favor. On the sensitive issue of reinterpreting the constitution to allow "collective self-defense" 43% say they are not sure, only 17% support and 33% oppose, showing foreign policy needs to be guided towards reducing regional tensions as Japan improves its economic performance.

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Jawaharlal Nehru was leader of the party under Gandhiji which fought for independence in the 1930's. Under the India Act of 1935 India was given the opportunity to setup state assemblies and free elections  for local self-rule that prepared for eventual Dominion status similar to Canada and Australia. Rab Butler as India Secretary fought hard to get it passed through the British parliament. See Rab Butler in the adjoining articles gist. This is very important as none of what happened in 1947 the task of writing a new Constitution and a Constituent Assembly to do this for India would  have been possible without India Act of 1935- the initial training for elections and assemblies. Some good work was done for example in Tamilnadu Chief Minister Kamaraj under Nehru changed that southern state with progress in education, health, and industry over 15 years 1950 to 1964. By the seventies to the 2010 period the progress ran into serious problems first with one party followed by weak coalitions that led to poor governance, corruption and economic progress stalled. After the experience of China's modernization India is attempting a similar effort with Vision 2047 for modernization of infrasructure and development in speed and scale with one difference- the legacy of Rab Butler who no one knows about in India and forgotten in Britain, the simple document Hind Swaraj written on a British steamship from South Africa to England in 1912 by Gandhiji that asked Indians to self-reflect on their part in letting the British in "who made the Company Sardar?", the post 1950's leadership of Sardar Patel who like Rab Butler was also forgotten till 2014, Jawaharlal Nehru who won a third term in 1962 but was followed by a series of weak governments unable to steer economic progress of scale similar to China or Japan, Lal Bahadur Shastri cut short like JFK, and Narendra Modi who is bringing to the task the hard work and discipline that made it possible for first Japan and then China to modernize infrastructure and emerge as dominant manufacturing nations. Like Japan and China India with its own stumbling periods is making its way in the world today. Both Shastri and Modi are in the direct tradition of their Master, Gandhiji, in the words of Shastri "hard work is equal to prayer." ...

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For the largest electorate in the world India is relying entirely on electronic voting machines. It is massive - 970 million voters over several phases in different regions taking place in May 2024. The Election Commission is monitoring the election and India's Supreme Court gives it's ruling to protect the democratic process. It is unlike anything in the world. It all started in 1945 with the negotiations begun by Labour's Attlee government - the most successful British government of the 20th century, Clement Attlee's government created the Bank of England and the NHS, and brought freedom to India and started decolonization in European empires. A new Constitution was written by 1947 with the guidance of Gandhiji (Mohandas Gandhi) who led the struggle for Hind Swaraj in 1905. The democratic process was established with elections that elected Nehru, a series of coaltiion governments and since 2014 a government focused on Vikshit Bharat, modernization similar to Japan and China that is taking place in India. Already 250 million people have been lifted out of poverty. And free food rations have ended hunger in India, Swacch Bharat has made sanitation modern and available everywhere, water and gas connections are now down to the last household to fulfill Gandhi's dream of reaching the last person in the line. Solar and renewable energy are being undertaken, along with fast modern transportation and cost effective digital connections. A target is set for 2047 for Vikshit Bharat. ...

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Elected to the Politburo in 1980, Gorbachev became president of USSR in 1985. In the six year period to 1991 he launched a movement to free the USSR from the rigid constraints of communist party rule called Perestroika to improve productivity, freedoms and quality of life. He came from a peasant family with Ukrainian origins and was born in 1931 during the period of upheaval in Russia. The rapid removal of Soviet rule was something Russia was not able to adapt to in the early years with no experience in democratic process. By 2000 after drop in life expectancy and fall in the standard of living Mr. Putin emerged as president.  Russia's economy recovered under Putin's three terms till the miscalculations in the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, that were itself a result of a sense that Russia had lost something with the fall of the Soviet Union and the advancement of NATO and the European Union. Gorbachev's sense in his memoirs was that Russia would do best under democracy. Even in 2017 he wrote that Russia and its people were "ready for a real multiparty system, fair elections and a regular rotation of government." Yet he was too much of an optimist and not enough hands on to grasp that Russia was a large economy and safeguards had to be put in place for the rule of law to prevent lawless elements that could control companies, safeguards for the vulnerable sections of society such as pensioners and older people, and limited self government through elected assemblies and parliaments were needed for a decade before democracy to take roots. Gorbachev's knowledge of American and British democracies, constitutions and parliaments and their evolution over centuries was non existent, with little contact and education of this sort under the Czar or Soviets. The democracies in Germany and Japan were established with American power and extensive education, the Marshall Plan, and unlimited imports by the US from Japan to prevent economic catastrophes of the kind experienced by the Weimar Republic in Germany in the 1920's. No plan from western aid and assistance, limited self government of the people was introduced as training ground as in India. In India the British introduced limited self-government or Swaraj in the 1930's with elected assemblies in Indian states, in the pattern of Dominion states such as Canada and Australia. Mohandas Gandhi negotiated the rights of indentured Indians in South Africa in this arrangement and studied British law and constitutions. This led to the catastrophic failure of the rule of law in Russia after 1979, lawless elements emerging under Yeltsin  that controlled companies and the state, high unemployment, failure of the economy, and drop in life expectancy between 1979 and 2005. How this led to the Putin years and now led to the war in Ukraine is covered in more detail under the Lyrarc article on Gorbachev and how he is seen in Germany. ...

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The Waldorf was built in 1931 by Hilton Hotels founder Conrad Hilton. After a century of use it was outdated and needed major repairs. In 2014 Hilton decided to sell it and hired Blackstone advisors who said it would get about $1 billion. China had just allowed Chinese to buy foreign assets in 2014, and a Chinese founder of a regional insurance company Anbang Group offered $1.9 billion when Hilton knowing that China was keen in acquiring foreign assets priced it at $2 billion. In 2017 only three years later China decided to pull back from allowing private investments of this kind, Anbang's Wu was arrested for business practices. 2017 was the time when Xi at the 19th  Communist CCP Party Congress put forward his ideas for "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" and made it part of China's Constitution, and launched anti-corruption drive against corrupt business practices. The Waldorf was taken over in this drive by Chinese government. For 10 years China held onto the property and built 375 900 square feet condos in the Waldorf for $6 billion and 375 hotel rooms by the time it reopened in 2025. Was it worth it? Even if China could get $3.2 million for each of 375  900 square foot condos this would generate $1.1 billion. It would take 8 years to generate the remaining $900 million of the $2 billion paid for the Waldorf by Anbang's founder Wu if the Waldorf's 375 rooms were rented out for $1000 a night for 300 days. China would still be at a loss for $6 billion. This type of extravagant business investments characterized Japan in the 1980's and 1990's leading to the gradual stagnation in Japan's economy as other countries caught up in quality control and other production efficiency practices using new IT technologies. China looks to be following the Japanese example with infrastructure overbuilding. The US and EU will catch up in the next wave of investment in America and Europe by 2030 and other Asian economies such as India will also catch up with China. Investment productivity will play a part, new technologies will play a part, and a return of manufacturing to the US and EU, a build of India's manufacturing and logistics will play a part. ...