(LinkAsia: June 29, 2012)
Yul Kwon:
Welcome back to LinkAsia. Japanese leaders are looking into the future and seeing red. The country's national debt is growing, and so is the number of senior citizens who rely on government support. So Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and his allies in parliament are trying to shore up the country's finances by doubling the consumption tax and revamping the social security system. Here's the report from NHK.

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NHK World NEWSLINE
Airdate: June 26, 2012

Reporter:
One bill would increase the tax on goods and services from 5 to 10 percent by 2015. Three hundred and sixty three lawmakers voted in favor of it. Ninety-six voted against it.

Politicians hopes the revenues will help them pay down Japan's substantial debt. They also want to cover the rapid rise in spending on things such as pensions.

The opposition Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito Party voted with the governing coalition, but 57 members of the ruling Democratic Party voted against the consumption tax bill. They include former party leader, Ichiro Ozawa. 16 other DPJ members abstained or were absent.

The set of reforms were sent to the upper house, where they are expected to be passed into law. Prime Minister Noda spoke a few hours after the lower house vote and stressed the significance of the reform bills.

Yoshihiko Noda, Japanese Prime Minister:
There is no time to waste in reforming the social security system. The aim of the plan, comprehensive reforms, is to secure a stable financial source for social security services, and at the same time, improve fiscal health. That stable financial source is the consumption tax.

Yul Kwon:
Pushing through the unpopular consumption tax could cost Noda his political career. And waiting in the wings, if that happens, is Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto. He's founded a new party, called the Osaka Restoration Party. And there are rumors that he's hoping to cash in on the public's dissatisfaction with the political establishment.

(Euronews: 0726 PT, May 11, 2011) Greece is once again in the grip of a general strike as people protest against the governments raft of harsh austerity measures aimed to keep the debt-ridden the country solvent. Athens is currently planning further measures to save an extra 23 billion euros by 2015, but ordinary Greeks are outraged.

 

 

Violence Erupts During Potests in Athens

(ITN News: 0431 PT, May 11, 2011) Police in Athens have arrested ten people during a violent march against economic austerity measures.

 

 

On the latest Global Pulse episode, host Erin Coker examines media coverage of the evolving relations between China and the US. Watch the episode below and share your thoughts!

While this week’s Global Pulse, called “Chimerica,” looks at what the two nations share, there are plenty of points of friction between them. The U.S. regularly criticizes China’s human rights record, and now China has published a report equally critical of the U.S., for “destabilizing the world economy and meddling in other countries' affairs.”

The United States is in a tricky situation. On the one hand, the U.S. wants to encourage human rights and increased democracy in China; on the other hand it fears alienating China, its most prominent trading partner, which holds upwards of $800 billion of American debt. So how has the U.S. walked this delicate tightrope so far? Not very well.

Perhaps the best recent example of the awkward U.S.-China relationship is the controversial meeting between President Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama. Most in the west see the Dalai Lama as a man of peace who dares to stand up to the might of the Chinese government. Not surprisingly, China considers him to be a threat to a unified China, due to his advocacy for the independence of Tibet. They also see him as a pawn of western nations bent on embarrassing the Chinese government. Even some western media sources have criticized the motives of the Dalai Lama. In an editorial from the UK’s Guardian, Brendan O’Neill describes the Dalai Lama as a poseur who “once auctioned his Land Rover on eBay for $80,000 and has even done an advert for Apple.” He also charges that the Dalai Lama “has [been] used as a battering ram by western governments in their culture war with China.”

But celebrities like Richard Gere and Sharon Stone are prominent followers of the Dalai Lama who advocate his return to Tibet, and American Buddhists have made some of his books pop-religion best sellers in America, so there was tremendous pressure on Obama to meet with the Dalai Lama. Although the meeting was carefully planned to try to not offend either side, it ended up offending both. Initially Obama refused to meet, citing the need to meet with China’s Hu Jintao first: human rights activists and western media called it a snub. When the meeting finally did happen it took place in a closed room without cameras. The Chinese were angry that the meeting took place at all.

Whether this and other rights issues are geat walls that will ultimately divide the two nations, or just side roads on the long march to cooperation remains unknown.