For context: Sukeo Ida was a Japanese Communist who was sent to fight in China. He stole 100,000 rounds of ammunition, left it where the Chinese could find it, and killed himself.
🇯🇵 Sanae Takaichi, Japan’s anti-China PM, Exposed by Her Family: Her Grandson Started Full-Time at a Top Chinese University. She Was the Last to Know 🇨🇳
Japan’s most outspoken anti-China politician just faced a family situation that politics can’t sweep under the rug. Her only grandson has started full-time study at a top Chinese university this year. She found out after it was already decided.
Sanae Takaichi built a career on hardline confrontation with China. Yasukuni visits, constant red-line pushing, the usual right-wing performance that keeps her base energised. Yet the boy she expected to carry on the family name politically, her son’s only child, is now pursuing a full multi-year degree in China.
Not a short exchange. It’s a real undergraduate commitment at one of China’s premier universities, not a holiday program. The student bypassed the usual prestigious US and UK universities for a Chinese path.
The timing intensifies the pain. Only when the bags were packed and flights were booked did Takaichi learn the news. Her son, who is expected to take over her political endeavours, made the decision after personally examining Chinese higher education, specifically engineering and technology. He evaluated daily safety conditions, finding both options to be superior to the others.
Japanese media and online reaction has been merciless. “Anti-China is the job, running to China is real life” captures the mood in six words. Old clips of Takaichi attacking other politicians for being too soft on China are circulating with new captions asking how red her face is right now.
This isn’t an isolated case. Global political families are quietly making the same calculation. Trump’s granddaughter, Putin’s granddaughter, Vucic’s son and Biden’s niece have all spent time learning Chinese or studying in China. Once you look beyond the rhetoric, the pattern becomes clear.
The numbers back it up too. Japanese students heading to the US have fallen for five straight years while the flow toward China keeps growing. When families evaluating education quality, cost, safety and long-term opportunity look at the data, the results keep pointing in one direction.
Takaichi’s brand was built on painting China as a permanent adversary. Her own household just reached a different conclusion. That gap between public performance and private choice is the part that travels.
When the grandkids of the harshest critics are opting for Chinese universities, it makes you wonder where the real long-term investments are going.
1/ Here's why Canada doesn't want to give permanent residency to Hong Kongers. Imagine living here. They're shouting slogans with bullhorns + blocking the street. TOTAL NUISANCE. Also contributes almost nothing to Canada economy. No wonder Canadians are SICK of them...
This goes with my last post. Canada's pathway for Hong Kongers was to spite China after HK's new security law. Today, nobody cares about that law 🥱🥱 so Canada has no reason to keep HKers. Besides, most are PRO-RIOT, loves to protest and disrupt public spaces. BAD FOR CANADA.
The U.S.-Japan-Philippines Triad: Provocation Disguised as Deterrence
Thread 1/5
The accelerating security ties between the United States, Japan, and the Philippines are not about “defence” or “stability.”
They represent a calculated escalation to contain China’s peaceful rise and keep external dominance over the Indo-Pacific.
What Western think tanks dress up as defensive cooperation is, in reality, the building of forward bases and proxy forces to encircle China’s maritime lifelines and prepare for Taiwan contingencies.
June 2 — Philippine Defense Secretary Teodoro: China’s aid to the Philippines, including agricultural supplies and fuel, is merely a publicity stunt and hollow.
Brilliant piece from Pearls and Irritations. Finally, someone in Australia is saying out loud what the rest of us have been watching for the past five years
Let's be clear about what AUKUS actually is: the greatest military protection racket in modern history. Washington looked at its own crippled submarine industrial base—17 boats short, yards choking, Congress screaming—and found the perfect mark. A wealthy, eager, insecure middle power with a bipartisan fetish for great-power relevance and a defense minister who treats strategic questions like a classified state secret
The deal? Australia pays half a trillion dollars. In return, it gets used Virginia-class hand-me-downs—Block IV boats with a decade of wear already on the hulls, probably smelling faintly of its previous crew
Even more intriguing, the article confirms for what this overpriced second-hand Australian "sovereign" nuclear submarine fleet is actually for:
Hunting Chinese Jin-class and Type 096 SSBNs. Not to protect Sydney Harbour. Not to secure Australia's trade routes. To find, track, and if ordered, destroy the Chinese nuclear submarines that threaten continental America!
That's the job. That's the whole job. Australia just committed A$368 billion to be the US Navy's underwater security guard!
The comedy of "sovereign capability" is almost too rich. Sovereign? The reactors are American. The combat system is American. The weapons are American. The fuel is American. The intelligence feed is American. The maintenance schedule is American. Permanently tethering Australia to U.S. software, maintenance, and logistics, effectively ending any "sovereign" capability. The only thing Australian is the taxpayer—and the Prime Minister standing in front of a camera calling this independence
Australia is not buying a submarine; it is buying a node in a U.S. sensor network. The acquisition deeply integrates Australia into the U.S. military command structure, making Australia a tool for U.S. strategic objectives in the Indo-Pacific — while a massive amount of Australian wealth is transferred into the U.S. military-industrial complex
And the timing is exquisite. Washington just added another half-trillion to its own defense budget while Australia is told to hit 3.5% of GDP. America gets the money, the boats, the basing rights at HMAS Stirling, and a Pacific ASW auxiliary. Australia gets the bill, the dependency, and the warm fuzzy feeling of being taken seriously by the adults.
The U.S. 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) emphasizes "burden-sharing among allies" and "realist diplomacy." This submarine deal is the perfect execution of that strategy: the U.S. maintains its military overmatch against China by essentially "outsourcing" the financial cost of undersea surveillance to Australia 🤡
Paul Keating called this three years ago. He was mocked, of course. The press club gasped. The security establishment rolled its eyes. But he was right then, and this article proves he's right now. It is worse than he thought. It's not that AUKUS is of little military benefit to Australia. It's that AUKUS is of negative military benefit to Australia—actively diverting resources from actual defense needs toward a capability designed for someone else's homeland
https://t.co/f7lYAMf3JY