Putin & Duterte: Why Are They Coming to Japan?

Once unofficially leaked, and now made (quasi) public: Putin and Duterte, the two presidents who continue to shake the global community, will soon pay short visits to Japan by the end of this year. The latter, the President of the Philippines, will come here even in the latter half of this month.

They will come as if that were “normal “ events in bilateral diplomacy between Japan and Russia/the Philippines. However, when you thoroughly take a look at what happened in this regard so far, you’ll immediately become aware the procedures were extremely unusual.

As for Putin, it’s Japanese PM Shinzo ABE that has been enthusiastically inviting him to Japan for his own political legacy. The Government of Japan led by PM Abe made even a proposal to the Russian side which will generously give economic assistance to the giant neighbor, particularly a project to connect the two countries with each other by railway. Nevertheless, the GOJ seems to continuously depend on Russia’s willingness whether President Putin will accept the invitation till the last stage of the diplomatic negotiation. Who knows the President will “cancel” it, as he recently did vis-à-vis another poor President of France, Hollande.

But I’m personally quite confident that Putin will come. No, actually, he’ll have to come here. Why??

And on Duterte: While I was in charge of coordinating official/unofficial visits in diplomacy, the way how the Philippines’ side approached to Japan to enable their bluff, newly elected president’s visit is just remarkable from my viewpoint. Duterte will allegedly pay his first visit as the Philippines’ president to Japan because of attendance in an event of the country’s economic promotion. The point is the visit has been prepared obviously “in short notice”, that means, it’s not planned for the long time, I suppose. As it’s often the case in diplomacy, one of the two countries inevitably needs to make it happen. Otherwise, it hasn’t taken such unusual steps.

Well, let’s imagine Japan, particularly her Emperor will soon be entitled to sign certain papers, which will empower these presidents to have much more political influences. Of course, Japan remains Japan and can be replaced by neither Russia nor the Philippines. However, wherever they are, all the political leaders need numerous amount of money to govern. What will then happen, if Japan will be nominated to provide them with sufficient financial assets/cash? How come, even though Japan per se is suffering from accumulated sovereign debt?

Guys, welcome to knock the last door to the netherworld’s money I wrote beforehand. Be aware this is only the very beginning of the whole story called “PAX JAPONICA”. Stay tuned.