17 Comments
User's avatar
Mike Newman's avatar

The Chinese PLA Navy just launched two fighters from an aircraft carrier near Okinawa and radar locked two Japanese F-15s who scrambled to intercept. It is out of control.

Expand full comment
Conic Tonic's avatar

Great piece once again Mike. Japan is indeed a great nation of wonderful people… and smart enough to realise that tolerating the intolerant will lead to no tolerance in no time.

Expand full comment
Matt Smith's avatar

Our leaders are a piss weak lot, particularly our current PM. Appeasement without strength to back it up will lead to Australia being overrun.

Expand full comment
Jillian Stirling's avatar

We are being overrun. China is already here with the religion of peace.

Expand full comment
blindboy's avatar

Do you want to explain that further or was it just a throw away?

Expand full comment
Nick's avatar
Dec 7Edited

Great read @Mike Newman and spot on.

Our leaders from the Uniparties are weak as water, in particular Albo, Wong and Ley!!

Expand full comment
Ron Learmonth's avatar

Thank you Chris for the illuminating piece. No good wishing we had a government like Japans.

Expand full comment
Rossini's avatar

In contrast.............

Australia seems to accept every lost soul from anywhere (except white South Africans).

Now that Trump has poured crap all over the 3rd world countries can we expect a flood of labour voters over the next year or two.

Expand full comment
blindboy's avatar

Comparing Japan with Australia is fraught. Japan has a unified culture going back thousands of years. Australia’s European culture is a couple of hundred years old and it has existed as a nation for just over a hundred. Japan has a large population in a small area. Australia the exact opposite. Japan has a powerful work culture with most getting very few holidays. Australian work culture is much less intense. Workers in Japan usually have an intense commitment to quality in whatever they may be doing. Australia, less so.

Japan is integrating, for the first time, a relatively small population of immigrant workers. Australia already has large immigrant populations, some going back many decades. So the first question that arises from this piece is, what policies would you introduce to make Australian culture more similar to Japanese culture? The second is do you believe that a majority of Australians would want these policies.

Finally, Idle pontification is a dangerous sport.

Expand full comment
FFP's avatar

Back to basics - 1066 and all that - our culture goes back a lot further than 1788 - back to the Anglo-Saxon kings. Schools need to do their job.

Expand full comment
blindboy's avatar

So 250 years, a totally different environment, a very far from

representative sample both at the beginning and on going….and you think there is no difference? And then the random comment about schools. It’s the kind of comment you get from those whose last contact with a school was as a student 50 or 60 years sgo.

Expand full comment
FFP's avatar

Yes they have gone downhill!

Expand full comment
blindboy's avatar

Yeh that’s why so many Australians are migrating to the UK. Reality check, Australia is better by every social and economic metric, that includes happiness and prosperity.

Expand full comment
FFP's avatar

Agreed ... Britain is even more dumbed down.

Expand full comment
RussellCW's avatar

Excellent article. Australia could do no better than emulate Japan’s culture. I’m no fan of most Asian cultures, but Japan is different: it is now one of few exemplary nations worldwide.

Expand full comment
Erl Happ's avatar

There are many good things to be observed in both China and Japan. And memories of the discomfort attached to being invaded and subjugated in both countries. Of the two, I suspect that China is more cosmopolitan and generous in its approach to foreigners and less likely to embark on invasions. Let's not let the minutiae figure too large in our imaginations. Deterrence is the name of the game. Neither are the elephant in the room.

Expand full comment
Goronwy Price's avatar

Japan already sells more nappies to old people than for babies. Its economy has stood still since the 1990s. The population in 2060 is expected to be approx 85 million compared to 120 million today. Australia by contrast will be over 50 million compared to 27 million now. We are a growing, dynamic, younger, more open society. That the horse I would back. Our hardest working are our immigrants.

Expand full comment