Totalitarianism Ain't What It Used To Be

TV Asahi's evening broadcast had a very interesting snippet from a government press conference on the conditions in earthquake affected Sichuan Province. According to the translation, the young Chinese woman reporter asked government officials, in a live broadcast:

"We have seen so many collapsed schools but very few other severely damaged government buildings. To what would you attribute this difference?"

Whoa. I am guessing the officials on the spot wanted to think before answering that question. Only problem was, they were on TV, where you do not get any time at all to craft a ideologically and politically savvy response.

The national leadership sure does not look as self-confident as and the people sure look less cowed than I have been told they are due to the new flowering of Chinese patriotic nationalism. The local officialdom seem to be unable to suppress what is going on--at least, not to the extent I have heard they can.

The old gray mare, she ain't what she used to be.

I wonder what Sakurai Yoshiko and Komori Yoshihisa are thinking Japan should do in this, the Chinese people's time of trial? Which is it, action or inaction, the Golden Rule or the Silver, that best serves Japan's national interest?

Because the national interest is so easily defined, yes? And China is a monomaniacal behemoth, bent on crushing Japan's freedom, yes?

Oh, let't be honest: the whole fearmongering cabal has nothing to teach us. To heck with the whole lot of them.