JAPAN
"Japan lends money to America so its people can maintain living standards three times higher than ours." \o7 --Comedian Tokoro Joji, quoted in Shukan Bunshun\f7 "The gaps between our living standards and those in the United States and Western Europe have been widening unfavorably for us over the years. Management should give us working people a much bigger share of Japan's economic pie."
\o7 --Seigo Yamada, secretary-general of the Japanese Trade Union Confederation \f7 "Perhaps the overpresence of the United States and other nations in the Middle East will provoke antipathy among Arabs. That will be the time for Japan to move in."
\o7 --A Mitsubishi Corp. spokesman on the likelihood of Japan gaining reconstruction contracts in the Persian Gulf. \f7 "Many people had predicted that the Japanese would become more nationalistic as the country's economic power grew. This prediction did not come true until recently. But Japanese nationalism has been growing since late 1989 in the form of anti-Americanism. Now it has the potential for shaking the U.S.-Japan security arrangement."
\o7 --From a Foreign Ministry report on the future of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty \f7 TAIWAN
"The swift and destructive Persian Gulf War underscored the grim reality that air superiority is . . . Taiwan's only hope to deter, or to stop, the Peking Communist regime's oft-threatened invasion. . . . If the United States won't help provide security (like the F-16 in exchange) for (contracts on major new) infrastructure projects, perhaps the Europeans will."
\o7 --China News editorial \f7 PHILIPPINES
"It is no secret that a 'no vote' on the U.S. bases has no chance of winning in a referendum. With the United States coming out glowing from its victory against Saddam Hussein, the admiration of ordinary Filipinos for American military prowess has verged on deification."
\o7 --Manila Chronicle columnist \f7 THAILAND
"Pattaya offers sun, sand and sex. Well, out in the Gulf I saw plenty of sun and sand, so that doesn't leave me much option."
\o7 --U.S.S. Midway seaman, quoted in the Bangkok Post, when asked about the danger of AIDS \f7 "Private multinational firms, the United States and key Western allies in the anti-Saddam Hussein coalition have, with the help of their governments, quickly cashed in on lucrative reconstruction projects, leaving little room for non-coalition member countries like Thailand and South Korea to try to squeeze in."
