Browny and diver dan,

I'm afraid both you entertain the usual, popular version of Japanese history, very much prevalent but perverted. I think I know a little bit about a small number of important events in Japanese history. If you ask me, I think I can give you some answers.
Edwin O. Reischauer, Japan: The story of a Nation is a short introduction which gives a sharp outline.
Let me ask you a question. Many Chinese, Koreans and Japanese live in your country. Do you have any impression if Japanese are different from two others? Chinese and Korean societies are Confucian, Japanese society is not. Korean culture is more Confucian than Chinese culture is.
Gregory Clark, a son of the famous British-Australian economist Colin Clark, lives in Japan. He was asked by a Japanese newspaper around 2000 what was the single most important event that the human kind experienced in the past two thousand years AD. He said it was the rise and development of feudalism. Only two areas of the world saw it, Western Europe and Japan. Reischauer was emphatic on its importance to Japanese smooth transition to modern society

It is believed, mistakenly, that democracy was introduced to vanquished postwar Japan by the victorious US. Japan's constitution was proclaimed in 1889. Japan was developing democracy since then. The law for adult male suffrage was passed in 1925. Women's suffrage was discussed in prewar Japan. You could find everything that you see in postwar Japan in the 1920s' Japan.

The pivot for Japanese foreign policy was to keep friendly relations with Great Britain and the United States. The first treaty with a foreign country for Japan was with the United States, signed in 1854, the Japan-the United States Treaty of Amity. The first military treaty was with Great Britain, signed in 1902. The US-Japanese Security went into effect in 1952. It has been kept today. I heard that there was not a military alliance that lasted for such a long time in history.
To be continued.

Chris Lewis,

The Chinese Communist Party has 91 million members.

The Communist Youth League has 130 million members.

That's 221 million just in those two branches.

Let's add another 3 million in the PLA, making it 224 million.

Now we need to guess a few numbers.

Let's assume 15% of the population rely on their employment with the State bureaucracy. That would give us 225 million bringing it up to 449 million.

Now let's assume 20% of people need the CCP for employment / business outside of the above. That's another 300 million bringing the total to 749 million.

Now let's assume that another 20% are people who support the CCP because they are related to the above. That's another 300 million bringing a grand total of 1 billion people.

That's 68% of China's population support the CCP either directly or indirectly.

This is what I would call the heart and soul of the Chinese nation-state.

It's not exactly a bunch of old codgers like you would have us believe.

You are way off the mark when you tell us that only a handful of the Chinese people is supportive of the CCP.

When you criticise the CCP keep in mind that you are also criticising a total of 1 billion Chinese who will obey everything the CCP tells them to think and do.

Mr O, that is incredible research? You must have a lot of skills to make up figures like that.

We should also be ....ing ourselves.

But I, for one, am not.

Chris Lewis,

Apart from the figures for the CCP, Youth League and the PLA, the rest are guesstimates based on my knowledge of Chinese society (which I acquired doing two of my Arts degrees in anthropology and sociology.)

But if you think that they need adjustment then I'm willing to hear what you think they should be.

So please let me know what you think the figures should be.

Mr O, I am not in the business of making figures up.

I will leave that to you.

Chris Lewis,

You know my guesstimates are spot on.

Contemporary China is more than just the CCP. It is the nation-state defined by the political culture of the majority of its people, as I have shown above.

Stop making excuses for the actions of the Chinese nation-state by trying to mislead people that it is only the CCP that is capable of social and political action.

You probably blame just the Nazi Party for starting WW2 while disregarding the actions and beliefs of the 80 million Germans who supported Germany's militarism, invasions, and war crimes.

You seem to have a habit of focusing on the Chinese political elite while disregarding the Chinese nation-state for the damage China is now doing to Australia.

Are you an agent for the PRC trying to delude us into thinking that China is not the problem and it's really all the fault of a bunch of old codgers in the CCP who lack popular support?