Western Moral Collapse: Epstein Files, Jimmy Lai, & Japan’s Trap | Dr. Warwick Powell | Silk & Steel

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Silk and Steel Podcast.

I'm your host, Carl Zah.

Today, I have back on our show, Dr. Warwick Powell from Australia.

First of all, welcome back, Warwick, and it's always a pleasure to have you on the show.

You always have very interesting insight to offer.

What do you have for us today?

Well, last time we caught up, I said that I felt like I'd aged a year in the space of what a month, right?

This last fortnight has probably been in some ways a little bit quieter, but there've been some very interesting things, which probably speak a little bit to look, I think actually the fragile state of Western self-esteem.

So we've had in Hong Kong the sentencing of Jimmy Li, and that has provoked this tidal wave in the last day or so, since his sentencing of Western social media from all of the usual suspects, mainly Western politicians and, you know, assorted think tanks and NGOs.

Talking about how this is a freedom fighter, an advocate for democracy, being jailed for exercising freedom of speech, to a point where I think some have even said that a British subject, a British citizen is being jailed for life, and it's being sentenced to death.

And, of course, amongst the tidal wave of propaganda responses, the actual issues have probably become a little bit lost, the whole point of propaganda, but it's probably worth revisiting the issues a little bit, because I think it actually says something about the state of Western self-esteem.

So Jimmy Li was, and we know this, because there's plenty of public evidence, and, you know, 1,000 days in court, or, you know, 600 days or whatever it was, right, mountains of evidence that actually shows that he was extremely close to people who were paid by the three-letter agencies, and was an actual advocate for American military intervention.

So, and his second in command, his second in command, Mark Simon, literally, I mean, this is always established.

Yeah.

So, so I don't think that there's actually any secret that Jimmy Li was part of an American destabilization slash regime change frontline operation, and he was charged ultimately with sedition.

And for collusion with foreign powers.

Now, I don't know whether it was collusion or not, because collusion kind of implies that it was done in secret, but when you're actually on a global stage, calling for America to launch nuclear weapons on China, I'm not sure that that's collusion, right, it's certainly not the secret type of type of collusion.

But he was charged on the national security laws.

Now, those national security laws were, of course, the subject of much controversy.

And, you know, the Western press will talk about them as being panicious and this and that.

But, of course, they're, by and large, mirrored on national security laws that you find in just about every other country in the world.

And the other point to remember is that the national security laws, passed by Hong Kong,

was actually part and parcel of the original agreement, right, with a British, that there would be national security laws.

And so the implication these days is that somehow what mainland China is doing runs contrary to the, the agreements in the original handover is actually nonsense.

There was always a requirement for national security laws to be passed.

There was an attempt to do so in the early 2000s and it failed in the face of orchestrated public protest.

Eventually, they've succeeded.

So Jimmy Lai gets charged.

He's found guilty, pretty hard to not find him guilty, frankly, given all of the publicly available evidence on top of the evidence that was presented in the court.

And he was sentenced to 20 years.

The West has gone absolutely apoplectic about this, right?

But it's got nothing to do with free speech and and but I think it's very interesting because it's happened at a time where there's two other things that really brings into question.

They status of the West broadly speaking in terms of all of these sorts of, you know, moral questions.

The first one is is the the the actions of the of ice in the United States and what's been going on there.

There's probably three things actually.

The second one is the responses, particularly in the last few days in Australia as a result of the visit to Australia of the Israeli president.

And how there has been a significant police action to clamp down on protesters and to seek the silence.

Those who oppose the visit by the Israeli president to Australia.

And the third one, the big one is the release of the Epstein files, right?

So all of these things are going on in the backdrop.

And we have this concerted social media propaganda effort to try to distract everybody and make people think that the big issue of the day is Jimmy Lai.

Jimmy Lai is not the big issue.

I don't think I don't, yeah, I don't think that's successful, by the way.

I mean, most of the people in the West outside of the bubble of politicians and media funded, nobody know who Jimmy Lai is and nobody cares.

And this is not a issue that simply average Americans or average British people care about.

And like, who the heck is Jimmy Lai?

And exactly the Jimmy Lai, the way they describe Jimmy Lai in Wall Street Journal, Wall Street Journal called Jimmy Lai the Rupert Murdoch of Asia, right?

Why would average Joe back, six-factor Michigan care about the Rupert Murdoch of Asia?

And Jimmy Lai, the interesting thing, another interesting thing about Jimmy Lai is, you know, he's a media tycoon, he owns an Apple Daily media empire.

But for the last several years leading up to the Hong Kong protest, the Apple, his group, the Apple Media Group has been bleeding money.

Yet somehow Jimmy Lai was able to funnel a lot of money.

I mean, everybody knows he was the financial backer of the Hong Kong protest or AKA Hong Kong riot.

He is the main money backer.

So the question would be, where did he get that money?

You know, because we know his media empire has been bleeding money because the advertiser has been avoiding it after he, you know,

when they're really publicly anti-China ran and, and, and, and, you know, there's a lot of question to be asked.

Also, his relationship with Mark Simon, who, again, is very publicly his, his number two right hand man, who come from a very pedigrid CIA family background.

And, and, and, and, and the whole 2019, I think looking back now from 2026, it's very obvious.

Whatever the 2019 Hong Kong for so called Hong Kong protest was a orchestrated color revolution that failed that failed.

I mean, it, but I think the reason why all these Western intelligence agencies decide to blow their wad so to speak, because Hong Kong was the forefront of the Cold War.

You know, you was like the, the, the, the, the cloak and dagger place during the Cold War.

There's a lot of, you know, Western intelligence agency have their hands in it, you know, whether it's MI6 or CIA.

And, and the reason they decide to blow their wad in 2019, I think also was to impact then the Taiwan election.

You know, that actually got tired when reelected.

Uh, you know, by, by, so Taiwan was able to, uh, play the, the, the, the scary monger tactic during her election.

See, see what happened in Hong Kong?

This is what happens if you go along with China's one country to system that, that, that, that, that, that ploy work that got tying it when the second term.

Well, and, and you've seen, and you've seen, of course, in the last couple of days or last day or so, that light finger tying when successor has jumped onto the bandwagon as well, Ron.

Um, I mean, he's in a desperate position, his, his, his public standing is, you know, nothing short of week.

Um, he actually became the leader of the Taiwan province.

Um, on the back of a minority vote, right, so he gained 40% or so of the vote opposition split, he came through the middle.

Um, but he's never established a particularly strong mandate of any sort at all.

And I don't think it's helped him when he, um, spent, you know, some months, essentially curing favor with both Israel directly.

Um, but also trying to through cultivating and curing favor with the Israeli lobby, APAC visiting Taipei amongst other things.

I'm trying to use that as a way of curing favor in Washington as well.

Um, and all that tells you, I think is there's a political desperation and a narrowing of the base.

Even the latest issues on the island, you know, with the American approvals to sell those additional arms.

Uh, they're not getting it through the budget in Taipei itself, right?

So, um, so they're facing all sorts of problems with even being able to mobilize the island population through its political arm to go down this pathway.

And, um, and it's looking like an increasingly desperate, um, and humiliating outcome, frankly.

And, um, you know, unsurprisingly, he's also jumped on to the, um, the Takaiichi bandwagon after her resounding win in the Japan elections.

But I just wanted to touch on the Epstein staff, right? Because the Epstein backdrop actually exposes the absolute moral bankruptcy of the collective west.

So, whenever the collective west, at the moment points its finger at anyone about, you know, free speech, democracy, all things, you know, good and nice.

Um, that supposedly someone else is violating, you know, some human right here or there.

But it's another day that the United States and its transatlantic allies and subordinate partners is ignoring the elephant in the room.

And the elephant in the room isn't just the protection of, um, a whole cast of pedorists, right?

It's the, the proof positive that not only do we have a cast of people who, uh, behave like absolute heinous, debauchrous animals.

Um, but they come from the political class itself, you know, the highest echelons of the political and commercial elite are wrapped up in this absolute scandal.

And every day that the elite and their media handlers and others try to spin a story about something else in the world is another day that they are avoiding responsibility for what frankly is the greatest moral test that America and the collective west are likely to face this side of the 21st century.

And until they confront that and come clean on it and recognize the environment that actually made it possible for this sort of stuff to happen day in day out under their very nose.

In fact, on their very watch with a bunch of their own deeply involved and implicated in it until they come to terms with that and come clean on it and recognize what it is.

They've got no standing to point their fingers at anyone anywhere in the world about anything.

So now that I've got that off my chest, we might move on.

Well, I like to point out nobody has been charged, you know, other than Epstein, other than next Epstein and Max Maxwell, nobody else has been charged.

Even though we have the Epstein fire, we have all the data down, we know, you know, a lot of people who is in it, who's in on it.

And nobody is getting charged, you know, and this is almost like the political elite of the West expect us to accept it.

Like that's kind of the political, it's like an imposed political helplessness.

You know what we're about and we also know there's nothing you can do to change it.

Look, but even give it go ahead.

I was just going to say, you know how desperate it gets when they resort to the, it's Russia's fault.

Right, so Epstein is actually a Russian spy now, right, a Russian spy who incidentally couldn't get himself a visa to Russia to a point where Mandelson actually offered the help.

But this is how desperate it gets.

And this is what I mean by the sort of moral bankruptcy and the self-esteem crisis that the West has actually exposed itself to now.

Right, many people from outside the West and even people critics from inside the West understood this, but that you could never get it out there in the way that it has become out there.

I remember, and I mean, interestingly in your view on this because you spent a lot more time in the US tonight, but you know, Maga, the Maga base.

One of the issues that they actually mobilized around in 2024 was the release of these files.

And then for reasons that I still find difficult to fathom, Trump then spent the best part of 2025 either refusing to release them, not an issue or pretending that they were fake, Democrat party fake.

All that there was nothing to hide and don't you worry about it. But for whatever reasons, there was an attempt to sweep it all under the carpet.

And at some point all of these issues must start to peel away at the Maga base, not in whole because there's obviously rusted on true believers.

They'll go with the flow and believe anything and everything.

But there must be a solid cohort of people who must feel incredibly let down by this entire episode.

It confirms for them, of course, all of their worst imagined possibilities.

But the fact that it's out there now with all the reductions and with still millions of pages unreleased, so people know that it's even worse.

It's deeper and wider than we even know it is today.

And it must be, it must become a real problem for that political base coming into midterm elections.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes indeed. I think there is a splintering of the Maga base right now over, you know, many, many things that that Trump has down, but particularly the Epstein file as well, because, you know, like, you know,

for a while, there was supposedly this QAnon conspiracy about pizza gate, right?

And it turns out the pizza gate is real because it's really about Epstein.

The real pizza gate is actually Jeffrey Epstein and everyone is implicated.

The all of the elite, no matter whether they're Democrats, Republican, Trump, Clinton, everybody's in on it.

And I think there's a lot of disillusionment right now in US politics.

I mean, I think it was already baked in, I mean, but now there's even more disillusionment, you know, like recently, you know, there's a trend on social media, like people say,

I'm a very Chinese face of my life, you know, all the young and zoomers posting with Chinese aesthetics.

And then you, that got New York Post to pull on why are all these young and, you know, chasing after like the aesthetics of a communist country, right?

But what, you know, you would you, it's almost like the young people have totally giving up on, you know, their society being controlled by pedophile.

They're disgusted. I think people are just deeply disgusted.

They already had political reasons to be alienated from the elite, but they are now just deeply genuinely disgusted as human beings.

And, you know, this turned to China, Maxing, I think they call it, isn't it?

This turned to China, in a sense, is a turn to a more wholesome lifestyle aesthetic drinking hot water, you know, and these sorts of things.

They're sort of symbolic, but at the same time, I think they speak to a contrast to what is a, you know, a Sodom and Gomorrah kind of situation clearly amongst a, not just a sliver of people.

An incredibly large cohort of political and commercial elite clearly tightly intertwined with each other.

And the problem is, is that it does reinforce or even affirm, you know, many conspiracy theories.

I must say I've never been prone to conspiracy theory because I think that if it's a choice between conspiracies or essentially coincidental incompetence,

I've usually gone for coincidental incompetence, but when you've got something like this, and you know that people congregate in a specific location, the island, you start to wonder whether in fact they do spend a lot more time orchestrating things than, then you might otherwise believe.

And look, I think people are just, it's affirmed their worst sense of what the illegal like, they're totally disgusted and, and they really just want a big broom to go through the whole thing.

And you have that European lady in interview says, oh, because Jeffrey Epstein is at the center of all these powerful networks, you will be a loser if you don't find yourself on in the Epstein file.

I mean, yeah, well, that's to even say that.

Now, that's a win. That's a win. And, you know, what's your claim to fame? Well, I was on the island and I got named. That's my, you know, I mean, seriously, I mean, it's just, it's an episode in American history, which really just peels away.

The, the sort of moral veneer. And, and I think, you know, for me, apart from being totally disgusted by it, I think it just peels away that moral veneer.

And it reminds the world that the collective west and the United States out its pinnacle have no grounds of any sort to point fingers at anyone else.

And if there were doubts before now, there should be no doubts now.

And, and, and countries around the world can find both solace and confidence in their own morality, in their own modes of good conduct and to actually pursue them, not as subordinate, uncivilized, you know, lesser modes of being versus liberalism and, and western civilization, but actually as entirely legitimate, decent ways of going about running a society and for people to relate to it.

And in particular, to relate to young people and children, right? The idea that these people were sexual predators around young people and children is, is a disgusting indictment really on, it's just not a cult, it's not only this culture, right? But it's this sense of impunity that they were above it all that they could get away with it and do.

To whoever, whatever it is that they wished, just filth and disgusting and, and frankly, if you hadn't, if you had a scintilla of belief that maybe the West stood for anything that resembled some level of being a moral beacon, forget about it.

It's all over. They've got to apologize to the children, they got to apologize to themselves, and then they got to apologize to the rest of the world.

I don't think that apology is coming forward. Right now, they're pointing fingers. Right now, this is what they're doing. They're pointing fingers every which direction, you know, besides pointing, but besides saying that Epstein is a Russian agent, which is obviously nobody, nobody believes that, you know, it's all like the elephant in the room is obviously the most out connection, but they're trying to say, oh, it's Chinese, it's Russian.

I mean, like, even Steve Bannon, you know, who have been outed as like, you know, this cohort of Epstein and the email exchange, Steve Bannon says, we're going to destroy China.

And now they're saying, oh, actually, Steve Bannon is working with a CCP linked billionaire, by which they mean miles quad, you know, this famously anti-China, anti-CPC.

Future to billionaire that, that lives in the United States. This is the FM doing. Yes, yes, it's part of the same story.

But now they're saying, Steve Bannon is actually working for the Chinese intelligence, which is crazy because Steve Bannon hates China, and he works with this like Chinese decedent billionaire guy who made a career of sponsoring all these anti-China.

Like anti-China social media networks. And just because miles quack is Chinese, so in their logic, well, he must be a Chinese Communist Party.

I mean, like that's there, there's a kind of circular reasoning now, which also should serve.

But this is the Gordon Chang thing too, right? You know, China is going to collapse, is imminently collapsing, and he's clearly an asset of the people's Republican China.

But this is the thing, right? And this is why I think increasingly it's hard to take any of this stuff coming out of the West. It's propaganda arm seriously anymore.

I know that the Congress commissioned a whole bunch of this propaganda through the budget appropriations that have passed over the last few years.

There's billions of dollars available, right? So you get why people jump on the bandwagon and do all of this, because they're on an earth.

But this isn't a credible earn, and like that European woman that you mentioned, if you think associating yourself with all of this is a winning strategy for your own personal reputation, then you've got rocks in your head.

And there will be no apology, as you say, but all of these propagandists would be well advised to sort of pack up and go on holidays for a couple of weeks and come back, because they do themselves no favors while they are digging a hole for themselves.

And this is the point, I mean, I guess look, I know that there will be no public apology, of course, but in a sense, it is a case of saying,

go and do some serious self-reflection folks and rejoin humanity after you've done that.

And if there's one thing, of course, that the American elite are not very good at, it's a good dose of self-reflection, but this is precisely at a minimum what this moment calls for now.

But this isn't a winning strategy to try to distract people, either by accusing Jeffrey Epstein of being a Russian spy, or by trying to run an aggressive propaganda piece about a guy in Hong Kong that no one knows about or cares about.

But this is a moment, and obviously the misread, isn't it? The American elite have misread how deep, how deep the sense of disgust there is from their own people, ordinary decent Americans, not to mention everyone else across the rest of the world.

Well, I don't even think they, even themselves, believe their pointing fingers and and and and and and and put a shifting blame is really going to shift the public opinion.

I think what's really happening is all these pundits, all these news media channels that's coming out of with the story, it's not that they think they can convince the public, but I think this is more demonstration of their loyalty to the establishment.

Like, hey, we play ball, right? We will we will spin out the most ridiculous story that no one even believe that, you know, like tarnish our reputation, track our reputation through the mud, but we play ball, you know, we will do whatever you guys want us to do.

I think that's really what it is, you know, they're, it's a it's a it's a public humiliation ritual that demonstrates their loyalty to the cost, which is to to the pedophilic establishment.

And yeah, and I think it's just, look, it's hard to fathom how people are willing to do that, right?

You know, people usually have some limits somewhere and and I would have thought, you know, committing your personal reputation to backing the the great pedophilia, protectorate is should really be, you know, at least the bottom line.

But for these people, it is, it isn't even a bottom line and, you know, that and and the total silence on all of this, it look, it is quite remarkable. And, but anyway, look for me, you know, these questions, it wasn't so much about American Imperium this past fortnight car, it was really about the collapse of the moral fabric or the moral facade of the collective Western caught my attention.

The other thing, by the way, which I think's probably worth having a chat about is the the election in Japan.

Again, the propaganda has been working quite hard to try to spin this as as a rebuke of of China's position last year in response to Takaichi's remarks concerning Taiwan Island.

But again, I think it speaks to a certain amount of desperation from from the from the propagandists because China would have said what it was going to say, regardless of whether or not she was going to call a snap election.

And it doesn't for its own reasons, how that plays out, of course, will take its own time, but, but, you know, the propagandists, I think are again proving that they are willing to clutch its drawers.

And, and avoid what I think are actually some pretty serious issues, but also some possibilities and opportunities coming out of this election, you know, where she gained the resounding majority in the in the diet.

I think people are desperate because there are they feel like, okay, finally, at least we have Japan on our side because I see a lot of these Western right wing people, you know, posting edits of like, you know, the Japanese will work to aesthetics with together with Takaichi's election, because they know what she's about.

They know she's like outro right wing, even in Japan. And, and they like that because they thought, okay, at least Japan is on our side will help us to contain China because they knew United States, they alone can no longer contain China by itself.

So they're hoping, oh, okay, at least we have Japan on our side.

But, you know, they as for like the media pundits, you know, talking about, oh, how this is a loose for for Xi Jinping. Again, this is like a total misreading. This is why I think a lot of the, you know, people, a lot of talking points from the West about China is 100% projection because China's response to Japan is not attempt to alter Japanese domestic politics.

It was never about, okay, we're going to put pressure on Japan. So, so Takaichi will lose the election. You know, that this is kind of the tactics that United States is famous for is to interfere in other countries, domestic politics, to do regime change, to do color revolution. China doesn't care about that. Only China think cares about is issue of Taiwan, which is an issue for Chinese sovereignty.

That, like you said, China will react regardless. You know, if someone like Takaichi impinge on the Chinese sovereignty the way that she did, you know, whether she wins election in Japan or not.

Let's not forget firstly, let's not forget firstly that the snap election was called at the end of January.

China's response to her comments in relation to Taiwan was in 2025. There was no hint that there was going to be a snap election then. In other words, the chronology doesn't even back up this particular line of argument.

As you say, China Beijing would have said what it had said regardless of whether Takaichi was prime minister or whether it was still her predecessor had he said the same things.

And the position won't change going forward. It's a bit like recently there's been a bit of chatter about how, you know, Taiwan might become part of the bargaining chip with President Trump's visit to Beijing or likely visit the Beijing in April.

And I've often said to people, I said, Beijing is not going to have Taiwan Island as a bargaining chip because you don't bargain sovereignty.

Sovereignty is just sovereignty. You don't trade that. It's not a chip at all. So I don't think that the question of Taiwan was ever a political bargaining question.

And so that's the first misread. The second misread, I think, is that by and large, her election success and, you know, in some ways in terms of the two thirds majority of the diet is a resounding success is nonetheless built on a relatively narrow and arguably potentially fragile public mandate.

Because let's not forget that Japan has voluntary voting firstly, about 55% of eligible Japanese voted in the group tickets in the election.

So there's single constituency members and then there are multi member constituency groups. Her party received about 36% of the vote.

36% of 55% is about 19%. So what we're talking about is 19% of eligible Japanese electors actually voting for her party, but which because of the nature of the system translates into a massive winners bonus.

So 19% of popular support out of a total population, 45% of which didn't bother voting leads to 67% in the diet.

That's called a gerrymander, right? But this is how the system works. And so I think it delivers to her big numbers in the diet, which you should use.

Because if you don't don't use it, it'll create a problem for you anyway. But the challenge always is the is the narrowness of the actual popular base. And if you look that both the election results in the UK and also president,

and the election in 2024, you'll actually find that what appears as a massive victory in terms of either the electoral college or seats in parliament in the case of the UK is actually based on about one third of the population supporting you.

And again, it's because a whole bunch of people don't bother turning out to participate. They've given up on the system.

And the system is designed to give a big winners bonus to those who come in first. And that's what we see. And they squandered their mandates now.

And I see that President Trump's mandate is way is actually really narrow again. People losing faith.

You know, there is a base that rusted on hard core, but that's all he seems to have left now.

You know, anybody who gave him and the administration, the new administration, some benefit of the doubt, they've lost faith already. And it's only a year in.

UK, I mean, the prime minister starman, I think from memory is now the most unpopular prime minister in what post war history.

I mean, this is astounding stuff and he's been prime minister for less than two years.

And again, it's partly because the big numbers in the parliament mask a very fragile popular mandate.

I think the same time arises for Takayichi.

I saw, you know, people doing starmas visit in China. There are a lot of Chinese citizens, you know, Russian to have group photo with summer.

I made the remark like he's more popular in China than he is in the in his own country.

Because I just cannot imagine the same thing happening in Britain, you know, or the average British people will try to rush.

Well, the same happened with Macron, right? Yes, popular popularity in France is, you know, at the bottom of the barrel too.

But when he visited China, you know, he had a rock star welcome, you know, go for a walk around the lake and things.

And it's probably why they go to China. It's a little self-esteem boost.

I think the reason is because for the Chinese people, they see whether Starma or Macron as representative of their country, right?

They see Macron as representative friends of Starma as representative of UK.

You know, not, you know, they rushing to have photo with Starma or Proquang is not a judgment unnecessarily on Starma and Macron himself personally.

It's not, it's really like, you know, like they, they have expressed their friendly, you know, cordial feelings to the country that represents.

When, when friends come from afar, you know, it is a polite and good practice to welcome friends from afar and treat them well.

They're visitors, they're guests and, you know, and that's what you get right. But then they go back home.

And I mean, and of course, Starma is now caught up in the, in the Epstein staff via Peter Mandelson.

And he's not the only one. You've also got Gordon Brown, who was in the Guardian or, or the Times opining about how he feels terribly let down by Mandelson.

He didn't think he was a man of such bad character. Really, you know, I mean, most people who followed British politics actually know that Mandelson was a very much a behind the scenes.

Sphin Garley, puppet here, puppet master kind of character. He knew where the bodies were buried. In fact, he probably buried a bunch of them.

And he was certainly well known to being borderline ethical right. So, you know, the idea that, you know, you, you, you shocked by, by Mandelson being intimately involved in the Epstein affair.

It should be called Epstein gate, you know, and, but, and then of course, you know, there's Tony Blair, you know, total silence so far won't say a word.

So British politics is a mess. The country is largely dysfunctional, socially and economically.

And, you know, and, and again, I look at all of this car and you think, how is it that you've got a political elite who have literally become so detached from the affairs of their own country.

So, you know, the Epstein stuff actually tells you in a certain sense how not only detached they've become, but how arrogantly detached they've become.

And, but you see it everywhere, you know, even for those who aren't directly implicated in the Epstein stuff, it's quite obvious that they are a political elite who have become clueless about the things that are affecting their own country.

Just as well, they get a nice welcome in Beijing. Otherwise, you know, could you imagine if they didn't to be in being massive blow to the ego that even a visit to another country doesn't get your rock star welcome.

That's a motion state of a quiz.

Back to Japan though, I think Takaiichi had planned this. I mean, she knew what she was getting into. She knew that by provoking China over her Taiwan statement.

She will get a response from China. And then that will lead to a backlash of rise of nationalism inside Japan, which would help her, you know, when the next election. I think she planned the whole thing.

I mean, it's just as she plays her own political career about the actual interest of Japan, you know, because I think she clearly, like she's leading Japan on a very self destructive path.

You know, during giving a very bad economy, declining demographics, aging population, and given all the end with the additional tariffs slap on by United States, she is now committed to devote more spending into military into into re Army, Japan.

And this might prove popular in immediate term among his right wing support circles, but it's not good for Japan. It's not it's not it does not bow well for Japan, but then just like politicians everywhere, you know, who cares about who cares about what happens a few years down the road.

Well, look, Japan does have some very big, big challenges, right? But one of the interesting done and I'll touch on those in a tick, but one of the interesting dynamics about such a monster majority is that they're often a blessing in disguise, because what you also have is a much larger number of mouths to feed and a much larger number of politicians in the diet, who

believes that they should be promoted and that they've got their own personal agendas and things that they want to pursue.

And large majorities often lead to a collapse in party discipline, small majorities parties often hold together a lot tighter.

So one of the challenges that I think she could face is actually a fairly rapid disintegration of party discipline as factions and sub factions and various personal interests begin to air their own pet projects.

That's the first thing that I think she's going to need to deal with, how does she hold the show together? And it is an irony because, but it's a problem that comes when you actually have big wins.

You've got a bunch of goodwill behind you inside the party for a while, but you've also got the seeds of jealousy, ambition and all of that mixed in.

She's also got some serious rivals and of course at the moment she's untouchable, but politics is politics and the rivals will be biting their time and any small stumble is going to be pounced upon.

Now small stumbles happen, of course, more typically in environments where parties have big majorities, people are careless, they aren't as focused on behaving well.

And it could be a very small thing, it could be someone in cabinet who overspends on a meal somewhere that suddenly becomes big news and creates a political crisis.

So I think that that's a sort of a short term problem that she needs to confront, but I think you touched on, in a sense, the big issues, all the real issues.

You can win an election big, but you know what, the issues don't go away, do they?

The issue is don't sit there and say, oh, she's now got a big majority, so I'll just pack away.

My demographic problems will disappear because the government's got a big majority.

The fact that Japan is heavily dependent on expensive imported energy, well, that's going to disappear too because she's got a big majority.

The fact that Japan has a food problem, right, and inflation, well, that'll just disappear too because, you know, the food market takes a look at the diet and says, oh, you know, two thirds majority.

That certainly trumps the real issues of the day, but of course none of that happens.

So we've got inflation as a problem.

We've got what are essentially very, very flat wages growth for the majority of the Japanese and she's promised wage increases, but not paid for by the government, but she somehow wants the private sector to pick up on wage increases.

But she's not doing that by backing trade union organization because she's from the right of the political spectrum, so she's not going to do that.

So how is she going to deliver on real wage increases? Big problem.

One possible way is to somehow catalyze a monstrous run of productivity growth.

In theory, you might say that that could happen because Japan is going to embark on an expansive program of energy system transformation that's going to drop energy costs.

It's going to robotize and automate an AI. It's its economy.

But to do those things calm, let's say that that's doable. Let's say it's doable.

It's only doable if they have tight supply chain collaborations with China.

It's not doable otherwise.

You can't actually solve Japan's structural economic problems without having good relationships with China.

The next issue that I think she's going to confront is the regional security challenge.

It's one thing to talk about boosting military spending.

The other issue is the DPRK.

Boosting military spending doesn't resolve the security risks that Japan itself feels by having a nuclear armed DPRK just over there.

But you can only deal with the DPRK by having good working relationships with China and with Russia.

There's a lot of work ahead of her that can't just be brushed away on the back of a few slogans during an election, a little bit of nationalistic feeling and a little bit of rara that got behind her.

She's clearly a formidable and incredibly capable political operator.

No, there's no two ways about that. You don't become prime minister, especially in a society where men have traditionally run the show by being a shrinking by that and not being street wise and cunning.

So she does bring capability to the table.

But the circumstances that she now finds herself in with a stonking majority sitting in behind her are incredibly challenging.

And in fact, we'll test the extent to which her rhetoric can be squared with the realities that she faces.

You don't solve your economic problems or your security problems in the region by not having good relationships with China.

She's likely to have to confront the question of Russia as well, which they've quietly done with the Sakhalin projects run.

But Russia is a part of the northern Asian Asian Arctic furniture unavoidable.

Russia and China have had naval exercises off the coast of Japan.

You don't solve North Asia without the Russians at the table.

Is that going to be possible or not? Some might say that given that Russia and the United States may be having some more sensible talks.

And I think maybe is probably about as good as you'd say. And in fact, I would suggest that it's actually going nowhere.

You know, does that create a window where she can pursue a Daytona with Russia?

Can that help her find a pathway back to having a sensible, balanced relationship with China that she needs for energy security?

Because they've got their green transition stuff going right.

And Japan's committed to this sort of overarching, clean energy stuff.

And that means actually importing a bunch of things from China.

Japan talks about wanting to become a food superpower.

She wants to be 100% self-reliant in food, pipe dream, to be honest with you.

But she wants that. And in fact, wants Japan to be an exporter, net exporter of foods.

Well, if you're going to do that, you're probably going to need to have some reasonably good relationships with a big food market.

I'm just trying to guess what that might be.

Anyway, you know, just over the sea, you know, there's a pretty big food market that has historically bought quite a lot of food from Japan.

And of course, you need technology for agricultural productivity.

You also need fertilizers. And of course, fertilizers are energy intensive and low and behold, the Russians are actually pretty good at manufacturing fertilizer.

So I think she's got actually a lot of real world problems and challenges that can actually only be confronted constructively if she uses her majority in a sense to repudiate her campaign rhetoric.

And now that's a difficult political problem because in a sense, she's got a window to recalibrate a relationship with China so that it actually comes back onto a level keel for economic reasons, first and foremost, and then progressively, you know, around those security issues, especially the DPRK.

And the potential nuclear, you know, further nuclearization of the region.

Because of course, on the other hand, she's also wanting not only to boost military expenditure, but there are pressures in Japan for Japan to nuclearize itself.

Certainly, there are pressures in Korea to do the same. And they are there for the same reason, by the way.

Both the Japanese security strategic elite, as well as those in South Korea have both come to an understanding in their own ways that the Americans are not reliable.

So, you know, she's sitting there in a position where she knows that the Americans aren't reliable.

The Americans occupy Japan with 90,000 troops. They're pushing her to spend more money mainly on American stuff. She needs good relationships with China.

And she's got Russia, which is a source of energy that Japan also desperately needs.

You know, if she can navigate through this, you know, she will prove to be a formidable politician and one for the ages.

But if she can't navigate through this, this stonking majority that she's achieved off the back of a bit of nationalism will end up proving to be nothing more than a blip.

And Japan will continue to bumble along with economic and security problems.

I have serious doubt whether he was she will be able to do a 180 on her policy towards China. I mean, I just, I started that happening.

Well, the only conditions that actually make it possible is a stonking majority, ironically, because you can get away with a bit more, whether she will or not.

It's a totally different story. And of course, there are plenty of her own backers who will be totally opposed to to the 180.

So this is very difficult. But finally enough, you know, in politics, I've often found over the years that the party or the grouping that is most able to do the thing that needs to be done, knowing that it's going to ruffle a lot of feathers.

But those on the side of the issue itself. So for instance, if trade unions need to be, you know, brought under control.

Then the best party to do that is actually the labor parties.

Because they can handle their own constituency. So the best placed people to sort of deal with this China issue are actually the hard line nationalists.

They are the only ones who've got that sliver of political room to get away with it.

If there was anyone else who tried to do it, they'd be strung up politically.

She has the chance of getting away with it.

Whether she will or not, as you say, I think that there's a massive question mark over it, because to do so, will mean that she will take political hits, social use up political capital very quickly.

But she would, but it would require an incredible amount of political courage to do this.

And, you know, it's hard to see where that courage is going to come from.

Yeah, I mean, that's that's that's basically only Nixon can visit China, right?

But Nixon visit China under a very specific circumstances, which is the United States tried to play China card against the Soviet Union.

Right now, I mean, it's pretty consistent pattern that Japanese you lead have pitched their bandwagon to the US Imperium because they benefited for the last 40, 50 years.

And I just don't see any kind of compelling reason to do like a Nixon in China moment.

No, that's right. Yeah, exactly. So I don't think that there's enough circumstantial pressure to force the force her hand on this.

And, you know, certainly not in the next six months, but of course it's actually this next six months that gives her the best window as well.

But if there's no pressing need, circumstantial need, then she'll try to get away with not doing anything.

There will be other problems as a result, you know, inflation, the challenges around the energy transition that they're trying to engineer, without which you're not going to get your sort of efficient implementation of automation, AI, et cetera, et cetera, which impacts productivity growth, which then impacts wages growth.

And so I think we're going to see the likelihood of a continuation of a pretty flashy economy, limited demand growth domestically, the military staff, yeah, you can pour some money into it.

But it's still quite narrow, right? You know, and it doesn't have a lot of spillover effects onto the rest of rest of the economy.

And in some respects, it'll be a majority squandered.

So, do you have any, I'm asking you again to look into your crystal ball.

Do you foresee a period of relative peace up to before the Trump's visit to China between, I'm talking about between United States and China.

Well, no, I don't foresee that at all because one of the things about President Trump is that he has a track record, firstly, of acting in short term, capricious ways, you know, just out of the blue, he'll do things.

That's the first thing. The second thing, though, is that he does have a pattern, a sort of a style of preparing for these sorts of things. And that is that he seeks to create points of leverage, create an issue that you can take off the table in negotiations, for example.

And I think that there is actually a pretty good chance over the next month and a half or so that we'll see a few more things that will be flash points that whilst won't destroy the prospects of a trip, nonetheless, will create issues that will enable the trip to deliver wins.

So in a sense, you got to remember what President Trump is actually quite good at is creating a creating the problem that he then solves by announcing the removal of it and then declaring victory.

So, you know, announce another tariff, announce an export restriction, announce something in response to the Jimmy Lyce staff that he can then take off the table later as part of a win.

And so I think there's actually a good likelihood of this sort of behavior unfolding for the next little while.

There are some face-to-face meetings coming up at an official level following up on the trade discussions and things.

And so, you know, let's see how that all goes. But there are some thorny issues, right?

So we've had the pressure put on Panama in relation to the ports there.

We've had finally an arrangement come to bear on TikTok America.

So in some respects, that issue is a bit off the table. There have been some successes successful things, I think, around fentanyl in one shape or another.

The certainly the number of overdose deaths in North America or in the United States from fentanyl have dropped.

You know, that's a good thing.

We've got, you know, there's an attempt to open up the China market by allowing Nvidia to sell its H200 kit.

It doesn't look like the Chinese side is really that keen on it, but nonetheless, you know, you know, so I think presidents Trump's trying to create a few elements of ostensible goodwill, you know.

We've signed off on the H200. We've done this. We've done that. But at the same time, I think he will want to create some issues that give him some points of leverage that he can use.

But look, there's one thing that's very, very clear.

And that is that the United States has very little leverage over Beijing.

But if it actually just treated Beijing with respect and treated people normally, it probably would have a better chance of getting an outcome than trying to play this, you know, leverage game.

You know, the leverage stuff just doesn't seem to work very well when it comes to the folk who occupy Zhongnan High.

In fact, it causes them to dig their eels in.

Yeah, what do you think? Do you think we're going to have a pace for six weeks?

I thought there might be a semi-date hunt. But you're right, you're right, Trump. So that's Trump's negotiation style. I mean, he will create the problem.

So he can claim that he solves them later when he takes those problems off the table. So you're quite right. There could be a 10th wall.

It'll be the 10th wall that he stopped.

Give that man a Nobel Peace Prize already, Jesus.

It's probably stopped the Japan China wall already already.

Thank you.

Thank you again, Dr. Powell for coming to talk to us.

You know, I always game something new inside every time I talk to you.

And thanks for people who want to follow you on social media or otherwise, where would they go?

So, worry call dot sub stack dot com.

Um.

For, for, for written things.

And, uh, which are on YouTube.

Okay, thanks everyone for listening until next time.

Bye bye.