2050 superpower

Chapter 33 Germany and Japan's Injuries (5)
In today's multi-polarized world, no matter how powerful you are, you must join a certain alliance organization. Unity is more powerful, and this can enhance your position in the world.However, some countries, such as Japan, regard themselves as strong and do not ask others for everything. They believe that strength is everything, and that they can defeat any opponent with strength.Under this concept, facing the dilemma of survival, Japan insists on going its own way, and will eventually carry itself to death like a "carrying" position in the futures market and be eliminated by the world.In fact, even though the United States, which dominates the world, is so powerful that no one can beat it, it still has to cling to NATO and sharpen its head to drill into various alliance organizations.Because the United States knows that if the whole world unites, no powerful country can resist.Not to mention the whole world, as long as China, Russia, and India unite to deal with the United States, the United States will only have the power to parry.

A big country is a big country, a big country is the sea, a strong country is a ship, only the sea swallows a ship, and no one has ever seen a ship swallow the sea.In Chinese history, the Mongols seized the Central Plains regime with their powerful military power, but were later assimilated by Yanhuang; the Jurchens seized the Central Plains political power with their strong military power, and were finally assimilated by the Han culture.During the "World War II", Japan invaded and occupied Northeast China, supported the puppet Manchukuo, and tried to use its overbearing culture to destroy China's broad culture, which could only become a historical joke in the end.When the Japanese army invaded China, they found that China was too big, and they were just a mayfly shaking the tree. No matter how hard their teeth were, they could only hurt the fur of the big tree. fell from the tree.

Taking history as a mirror, if Japan and Germany want to become world superpowers, ambition alone is not enough.Japan and Germany can only be regional powers. At the world level, they will always be participants and cannot be leaders.Although Germany cannot become the dominant player in the world, a prodigal son like Germany, after turning around, integrates into the European Union and is committed to the integration of the European Union. With the strength of the European Union, he can improve his voice in international affairs and contribute to the development of the world. contributed.

§§§Section [-] Germany and Japan can only be participants

Today's world is a world of scale, which is no longer limited to the national level as it used to be.We often hear terms such as EU, ASEAN, Arab League, common market, and free trade area.Union is the mainstream of international economy.Between countries, enterprises also infiltrate and cooperate with each other, such as India's "world office", China's "world factory", and the Middle East's "world oil depot". Many countries have been labeled as international.

In this international cooperation, the mainstays are those countries that influence the world market.Although the international regional alliances are in full swing, there is no one that can really be united as one. Even the European Union, although it has the euro, is only a skeleton, and there are not many substantive alliances.Even so, the direction of Germany's efforts in the EU can be said to be the development trend of the world, and it may not be Europe but Asia that can truly achieve this goal.

Asian cultures belong to oriental cultures.The fundamental difference between Eastern culture and Western culture is that Eastern culture pursues commonality, while Western culture pursues individuality.Therefore, Easterners always look at problems from the perspective of the whole, while Westerners have to take things apart before thinking about them.Therefore, although the integration alliance started in the West, its real completion must be in the East.In addition to the cultural differences mentioned above, there is another important reason for this conclusion: Asia is a weak region in the world.Due to the weakness of Asia as a whole, there is an urgent need for alliances in order to maintain a stable figure in the globalized world and not be swallowed by Western countries.Asia does not move like lightning like Europe, it appears calm and sluggish, but after the renewal of ideas, dare not talk about the Middle East, only talk about Southeast Asia, there will definitely be a big alliance that will attract the attention of the world.The conditions for the formation of this big alliance have been met, and the only thing waiting is for the small countries in Southeast Asia to give up their suspicions and accept the joining of China, the world's second largest economy, and India, the world's fourth largest country.

The book returns to the main story.We said in the previous section that Germany and Japan will always be participants in international affairs and will not be the dominant players.Next, let's take a look at the current situation of Germany and Japan in international affairs to illustrate the correctness of this conclusion.

Let's start with the Group of Eight. In 1975, French President d'Estaing invited the leaders of Germany, the United States, Japan, Britain and Italy to the chateau of Rambouillet on the outskirts of Paris for a meeting.The oil crisis was breaking out at that time, and the meeting mainly discussed the impact of the oil crisis on the world economy.At the conclusion of the meeting, the participating leaders of the six countries unanimously decided to hold such a meeting every year, and invited Canada to participate, thus forming the Group of Seven. In 1998, at the Birmingham summit, the G[-] decided to include Russia, thus forming the G[-].With the joining of Russia, four of the five permanent members of the United Nations have become members of the Group of Eight, so the Group of Eight is becoming more and more dominant in international affairs.

With the continuous changes in the world economic pattern, the rising China has become a force that cannot be ignored and cannot be ignored.If China stays outside the G21, as former German Chancellor Schmidt said, the G[-] would be "meaningless".German Chancellor Angela Merkel, like other G[-] leaders, opposes the formal addition of new members to the group, but has offered to find a solution that would give these rising new economies special status in the group.French President Sarkozy said that "the G[-] is still an irreplaceable place for consultations", but "the G[-] summit must also adapt to the changes in the situation in the [-]st century. This is a prerequisite for the G[-] to be able to play an effective role."At the same time, Sarkozy believes that the role of China, India, Brazil and other countries in the world economy is increasing. If these emerging powers are not allowed to join the G[-], it will be impossible to deal with important issues such as the environment, energy, and economy.While France and Germany put forward these proposals, they also had their concerns. If the other three countries of the "BRIC" also joined the G[-], Europe might be marginalized and the world's dominance would fall to the "BRIC" hands.

Although emerging countries are blocked from the G2005, since 2010, the leaders of China, India, Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa have been invited to participate in the expanded dialogue meeting of the G7.Japan has objections to expanding the G1, and the United States and Germany are also wary of allowing the G[-] to expand too much.The development of the world is not determined by the will of certain countries. As the status of emerging powers rises, the status of the Group of Eight will inevitably be shaken. At that time, it will not be a question of whether to expand or not.The facts are beginning to bear this out. On July [-], [-], Singapore's "Lianhe Zaobao" published an article saying that the downfall of the aristocratic G[-] happened amid the sharp decline of Western power and the wave of democratization of international relations.This statement is extremely true. The debt risks of developed countries in Europe and the United States have severely damaged their economies, while emerging economies, including China, are growing healthily and vigorously, bringing the global economy out of the shadows.Under such circumstances, we cannot assess how much the G[-] has left to speak, but the substantial increase in the contribution and proportion of emerging economies and developing countries to the world economy will inevitably lead to a readjustment of the world power structure.

Faced with the threatening situation of China's rise, Japan, which had always opposed China's entry into the G2010 in the past, had to change its tone. In June 6, the new Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan proposed at the G2 summit that China should be allowed to join. Of course, Japan proposed this proposal for other purposes, but it can be seen that even Japan, which has always rejected China, had to submit to the China bows.In this regard, the "Nihon Keizai Shimbun" published an article expressing concern, saying that China's entry into the G6 may have an impact on Japan's existence.Japan is not the only one that is pessimistic. Germany is even more sad than Japan. German TV 27 said in a commentary on June [-] that the G[-] has only nostalgic meaning, and now it only leaves a strong smile.What made Germany and Japan feel inferior was not only that, but after some members of the G[-] proposed to invite China to join the G[-] or participate in the summit meeting as an observer, the Chinese government made clear rejections on many official occasions.In fact, as early as many years ago, Singapore's "Lianhe Zaobao" published a review article entitled "China does not need to join the G[-]", and China's status as a major country does not need to be reflected in the G[-].

Contrary to the situation in China that "the peaches and plums don't talk, the world makes a way", Germany needs to deliberately pursue the status of a world power.But Germany's pursuit was blocked by the United States. On June 2005, 6, German Foreign Minister Fischer visited the United States.Regarding Germany's application to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council, Rice privately and clearly conveyed to Fischer that the United States opposed Germany's "permanent membership" request.Of course, the U.S. objection will not be so blunt that Germany cannot step down. Its reason is: the U.S. government does not object to the efforts made by Germany itself, but the so-called "Quadruple Alliance" proposed by Germany, Japan, India and Brazil to put the members of the Security Council The proposal to increase the number of countries from 8 to 15 is skeptical.If the U.S. really thought so, Germany would feel at ease. But on the contrary, at almost the same time, a former senior U.S. official in charge of UN affairs said that during President Clinton’s time, the U.S. position was to support Germany and Japan’s simultaneous admission to permanent status. But the Bush administration has changed this stance, and now it is openly "supporting Japan" and "joining the permanent seat."After Germany learned of this insider situation, it was very annoyed.why?The reason is simple. In 25, Germany and France publicly opposed the US war against Iraq, while Japan contributed money and effort.Only then did Germany know that with the existence of the United States, it will never become the dominant player in the world, and at best it will be a participant.In fact, the promise made by the United States to Japan is also a blank check. Even Germany, which has repented, is not qualified for "permanent status", and Japan, which has never repented, has no hope of "permanent status".

Japan believes that as long as it can enter the Security Council, it can prove to the world that it is a political power.With the support of the United States, Japan is excited.The Japanese media is building up momentum for the "permanent entry", talking about "Japan's contribution to the development of mankind all over the world", and repeatedly emphasizing that "Japan's share of the United Nations expenses is second only to the United States."Japan's face of "whoever has money is the boss" is really disgusting.The presence of the United States in the UN Security Council will make the world restless. If Japan is added without reforming itself, the world will be even less peaceful.

Whether it is Germany or Japan, it is too simplistic to think of "entering the permanent seat" as a way to become a world political power.At present, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council are the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and France. Among these five countries, not all of them are world political powers.The United Kingdom and France have less and less right to speak in world politics, and it is difficult to call them world political powers. Now they only rely on their status as permanent members of the Security Council to support their appearance.

At the beginning of this section, we briefly explained the concept of what a world superpower is, and independence is the most basic requirement.To become a world superpower, two basic conditions must be met at the same time: first, the quality of its own economic situation can have an impact on the world economy; second, it can control the world political structure with its own comprehensive strength.Neither Germany nor Japan has these two conditions.Whether the German and Japanese economies are good or bad has little impact on the world economy; and in terms of dominating the world, these two countries have no special strength to affect the world's political structure.The United States and Russia, the two superpowers, are different.If there is a problem in the US economy, the world economy will be frustrated; the US has a strong military capability to influence the political structure of the world.Although Russia's economic influence on the world is not as great as that of the United States, it can use energy as a weapon to influence Eurasia.If Russia is not happy, it can make the winter in Europe more bitterly cold and directly shake the stability of Europe.Not to mention China, as the world's second largest economy, its impact on the world economy is self-evident: its huge foreign exchange reserves alone can affect the stability of world finance.Compared with these big countries, no matter how strong Japan's economy is and how ambitious Germany is, it can only be a participant, not a leader.

(End of this chapter)