Japanese politics is also a very important context in which all of this takes place. And there's nobody better than Professor Jerry Curtis, who is the Burgess Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Columbia University and the former director of Columbia's Weatherhead East Asia Institute and a distinguished research fellow at the Tokyo Foundation to address us today. He has spent more than 47 years, both in that role at Columbia University and visiting and living in Japan and really getting into the thick of Japanese politics to the point where he is second to none in his understanding of Japanese politics as a foreigner. And it's a delight to be able to welcome him here today. When I was ambassador in Japan, it was a great opportunity always to speak to Jerry when I had the opportunity and he had the time. And he was a great counsel of benefit to me. And I'm sure he will be to everybody here today. So I welcome him here to speak and ask you to come to the stage. Thank you very much. Well, good morning, everyone. I'm truly delighted to be able to be here today and be part of this Japan Update Day. I'm looking forward to the panel discussions after I get finished here and to learning from others about your perspectives on Japan. And I already have learned a lot just by listening to Jason right now. I want to thank Ambassador McLean for his very generous introduction. We met last night for the first time since he had been ambassador in Japan and I'm delighted to see him again. Also, I'm delighted to see the Japanese ambassador here in Australia who's with us this morning and Mrs. Kusaka because we know each other from their previous position which was as the ambassador and counsel general in New York City. So I had to come all the way down to Cambridge to catch up with Kusaka-san but I'm delighted to have the chance to do so. So these panels this afternoon are going to go over the politics, foreign policy, womenomics and other issues. So I think maybe I thought that what I might usefully contribute this morning would be to provide some background and perspective by focusing my comments on the structural changes that have been ongoing in the Japanese political system and in the international political system and how they're changing the policy process and changing policy itself. Now some of you who know me are aware that I've been involved in the study of Japanese politics for a very long time. I first lived in Tokyo in 1964, the year of the Tokyo Olympics. And I'm still studying Japanese politics as the next Tokyo Olympics approaches, 56 years after the last one. So the question some of you may have in mind is why? What is it that has been so interesting about Japan and its politics that has kept my attention for more than half a century as it has? Well, you know, at first sight it doesn't appear that very much about Japanese politics has changed over this time. The LDP was dominant, ruled alone for nearly 40 years after it was created in 1955. It suffered a hiccup in 1996 when it lost power for several months to a ragtag coalition under Prime Minister Hosokawa. That included every other party in the diet except for the communists. And then it suffered a more serious defeat in 2009 when the Democrats came to power, the DPJ, Democratic Party of Japan. They lasted in power for three years, during which time the DPJ's main accomplishment was to convince the public of its incompetence in running a government. So the LDP came back to power and it is now stronger and the opposition is weaker than ever before. The LDP has a large majority of lower house seats, two-thirds with its accommodating coalition partner, the Kometo. And as a result of the upper house election that was held this past July, now the ruling party of the LDP has a single party majority in that chamber too for the first time in 27 years. Two-thirds of the seats in the upper house are held by parties that favor constitutional revision. Prime Minister Abe will have been in office for six years when his term ends in 2018. It looks likely, very likely in my view, that the LDP will amend its party rules to allow him to run for a third term. And if he gets another term, he will have been in office longer than any Prime Minister in modern Japanese history, not just post-war. Beating out the three longest previous Prime Ministers to pre-war, Katsura-Taro, Itohirubumi, and then Satoesaku in the post-war period, all of them elected from the same prefecture, Yamaguchi Prefecture, in the major period of the area known as Choshu, as Prime Minister Abe himself. Right now, there's nobody in sight who looks as though he or she might become strong enough to defeat Abe should he decide to run. But a lot can happen in the next two years. If the economy worsens, if Renho, the new leader of the Democratic Party, surprises the skeptics and offers an appealing alternative, and if dissatisfaction with Abe grows strong within the LDP, well, then the situation may change quite dramatically. It's unlikely. But nowhere as unlikely as the idea that Donald Trump would become the Republican candidate for president and indeed might well become the next president of the United States. Something I'm actually going to come back to and talk about briefly at the end of this presentation, because you cannot give a talk about anything today without getting into this crazy situation that exists in American politics, which has a big impact, by the way, on the US-Japan relationship. As so, when we come to the opposition parties, as I just said, so the LDP, yeah, so what's changed? The LDP was the dominant power. Before it's the dominant power now. As for the opposition parties, they are what they always have been in post-war Japan, except for those two brief and unsuccessful experiences in government. They are parties whose function is to oppose, to reject LDP policy, especially in a knee-jerk fashion when it comes to national security policy. And to do so without any expectation that doing this is going to bring them to power. So since the LDP favors constitutional reinterpretation to permit collective defense, so the Democratic Party opposes it, even though many of its leaders actually support it. When he was Prime Minister, Mr. Noda Yosiko, the DPJ of Prime Minister, talked in the diet, raised in the diet the possibility of reinterpreting the Constitution to permit collective defense. And his government actually drafted the bill that eventually became the classified secrets law. But the head of the Democratic Party at the time of the upper house election this past July, Mr. Okada, he tried to turn the election into a referendum on Article 9, opposition to revision of Article 9. But Prime Minister Abe downplayed that issue. Focuses appeal and abinomics, claiming that Japan was halfway home, halfway towards the goal line. And asking the public to give the party the support he needed to make abinomics a success. And the Democrats don't have an economic strategy to offer in place of abinomics. So they could do little better than criticize Abe for not achieving his goal, which he had already conceded. So no wonder, support for the Democratic Party is in the single digits. And we'll see whether Renho is able to change that situation. Now the voters. So here too, at first glance, not much seems to have changed. The strong pacifist or isolationist sentiment in the public is not shared by the LDP leadership. And it never has been shared by the LDP leadership. But that has not stopped voters from giving the LDP diet majorities. This is a particular and a peculiar feature of Japanese politics. They did so when Kishinobosuke was prime minister in the late 1950s. And they do so now with his grandson, Abe Shinzo, holding that post. So the reasons why the LDP is able to win, even though there's considerable public criticism of some of its key policies, are much the same now as they were in the past. It wins by default. It wins because voters want stability. And they don't believe the opposition parties can govern effectively. Public opinion polls show. Majorities oppose constitutional revision. Majorities oppose collective defense of the classified secret legislation. And interestingly, the majority of Japanese voters, when you ask them, do not believe that they've benefited from avianomics. But the LDP wins because voters assume that things would not be better for the LDP to be replaced as the governing party. And probably they'd be worse, both in terms of the economy and its relations with the United States. So this is not a new story. But there's a new story. And it's an important story about how Japan's political democracy has evolved and is evolving. How the parties, the LDP, the Komeito, the Democrats, how their organization has changed and how the relationship between the ruling party and the government has changed. And those are the issues I want to spend a few minutes talking about before looking at some issues of foreign policy. So for those of you who are students of Japanese politics and read about the history of the LDP as being a coalition of factions, it's no longer a coalition of factions. Factions are not that important, not what they once were. And it doesn't any longer operate as something that I once referred to as the party's franchise system in which candidates essentially self-select, get factional backing, use that to obtain the party's endorsement and to amass a political bar chest and run a campaign built almost entirely on the candidate's personal organization and name recognition and appeal. Partly due to changes in the electoral system, but not only for that reason, the Prime Minister, President of the party was Prime Minister, and a few other key party leaders, they determine candidate endorsements. They control the funds that now go to support campaigns. So in any country, a candidate's personal appeal, his organizational muscle matter, but in Japan, they matter, but they are not anywhere as important as it used to be. It is a very big change. National diet election outcomes are much more influenced these days by the appeal of the party leader and by the public perceptions of the ruling party's competence in dealing with national and international issues than was true in the past. Now, during the sort of golden years of LDP rule, there were two main recruiting grounds for LDP diet candidates, local politicians, especially prefectural assemblymen, who moved up the ranks and ran for the diet, and retired high-ranking bureaucrats. Today, there's still a lot of bureaucrats going into politics in Japan, but they go in after just a few years in the bureaucracy, having made an early choice to have a political rather than a bureaucratic career. They may be policy wonks, but they don't have the experience or the personal connections inside the bureaucracy that made it possible for leaders like Ikeida or Ohira or Fukuda or Miyazawa who rose to the highest post in the bureaucracy to be effective political leaders. And as for local politicians, there are very few who graduate to the diet any longer. The term for the group of political professionals in the diet, Tōjinha, has almost completely disappeared from the Japanese political vocabulary, as have the politicians who used to make Japanese politics so colorful. There are many talented and terrific people in the diet, in the LDP, but there are too many diet politicians, in my view, who try too hard to prove to the public that they know more about policy than the bureaucrats do and do not put enough energy into doing what politicians need to do, work hard at constituency service and explain complex issues in terms most people can understand. This was particularly true of the DPJ, which came to power saying that from now on, politicians rather than bureaucrats are going to be making the decisions in Japanese seizu shō. Excluding bureaucrats rather than mobilizing their expertise, a major reason for the DPJ's failure to rule effectively. Japan, as I mentioned, changed the electoral system in 1993 from this multi-member district where multiple candidates were elected to essentially a single-member district with a proportional representation piece to it, but it's predominantly a single-member district system. In the Japanese social context, this has been very detrimental, in my view, to the quality of Japanese politics. It's played an important role in the disappearance of interesting and impressive politicians. Factions and the accompanying corruption were weakening under the old system. It wasn't necessary to have electoral change to bring it about. Public concern about national and not just constituency issues was increasing before the system was changed. The Japanese electorate has become more diverse and that made it much more difficult to run LDP, to run multiple candidates in many districts and win. So in my view and in the view of a lot of politicians at the time, and especially now, if that system had been kept in place, Japan probably would have evolved a moderately pluralistic party system. But the idea that all the evils of Japanese, all the problems in Japanese politics, or many of them could be resolved by adopting this new electoral system was picked up by the media and it overwhelmed the opposition and it was passed. And Japan will live with this electoral system for a long time to come because you cannot get fundamental electoral change very often. But I think what has happened is that as a result of this system change, Japan has got a system now that weakens the links between politicians and their constituents. Weakens grassroots democracy, concentrates too much power in the party executive. And rather than consolidating a two-party system, which was supposedly its goal, it may be creating a more uncontested one-party dominant system than was true before, which is a major point I guess I make in the article that is in this current issue of the East Asia Forum. This may be getting down into a little bit too much into the weeds for some of you, but I think that another important and overlooked factor in how a wide political organization on the local level has changed as much as it has in Japan has not been the electoral system, but the amalgamation of towns and villages. There was a major amalgamation in the Meiji period that reduced the number of municipalities from over 71,000 that existed in 1883 to a little more than 14,000, 71,000 to 14,000 by the turn of the century. And then after the Second World War, there was another amalgamation wave that brought the number of municipalities down to about 3,500 by 1960. But in the first decade of the 21st century, the government initiated even more ambitious amalgamation program, reduced the number of municipalities. And with that, the number of village, town, and city assemblies to 1,719, 53% fewer than had existed at the end of the 20th century. So the purpose of this amalgamation, this reduction in the number of municipalities was to reduce costs and make government more efficient. But political reform almost always has unintended consequences. And this one had an unintended consequence. It undermined the ability of the LDP's political machine, which is the sum total of the personal political machines of Islamic members to deliver the vote. So as the number, the point is this, as the number of municipalities has gotten smaller, the number of votes a local assembly needs to get elected has gotten larger, has increased. In my old book about election campaigning in Japan, Daishinotanjo in Japanese, I talk a lot about the key role local politicians played in gathering the vote for diet members. But local politicians no longer can rely as much on the face-to-face relationships they enjoyed with their supporters in very small, cohesive communities to obtain the votes they need to get elected and the votes that they can deliver to the diet candidate that they are supporting. And this was brought home to the LDP in 2009 when it lost the election to the DPJ. The machine doesn't deliver and it's caused the LDP to change in many ways the way it goes about trying to raise to get votes. And voters in Japan are much less susceptible to appeals that they vote out of a sense of obligation or an accord with community consensus that they were before. Whenever I talk about this, the memory that comes back to me goes back all those many years ago when I was doing the research for this book on election campaigning, I was in some rural mountain village with a local assemblyman and we're walking down the street in this village and a farmer approaches from the other direction. And this assemblyman I'm with says to him, you know there's an election for the diet coming soon and I'm supporting this candidate, name was Sato, I'm supporting Sato. I hope you will too. And the response was very striking. I said, of course, I am so indebted to you, of course I'll vote for Sato. This was Japan, not Japan today. You imagine the United States, I think here in Australia as well, and you walk down the street and some community in the States and a local politician meets a friend and says, I'm supporting Joe Smith and I wish you would too. He said, of course, I owe you so many favors, I'll vote for Mr. Smith. No, you don't, this was Japan. This is not Japan anymore. It's a big change. So the result is that the LDP machine still functions, but it's a very weak shadow of once it once was. Local politicians are no longer the central players in the LDP's election campaigns. In the old days, diet members provided what the Japanese referred to as a pipe, a pipe to the central government's coffers, but much less money flows through these pipelines now and voters demand for yet more bridges, more highways, more dams, has dramatically decreased. I think it was the first time that I had a conversation with Abe Shinzo, the current prime minister, was when he had been elected. I think only after his first term in office. I don't remember exactly why, but I called on him in his office and we chatted. And like a lot of politicians those days, they had read this book of mine, which never sold much in the United States, but it became quite well known in Japan. It's very important to get a good title when you publish a book. In English it was election campaigning Japanese style, excuse me while I yawn, but in Japanese, my editor had a great knack of picking a good title. Anyway, Abe said, you know, I read your book when I was younger and I was very interesting, but said even in my prefecture in Yamaguchi, you could not win election, win an election today, running the kind of campaign you described there, because my voters are not interested in yet another highway, yet another bridge, yet another pork barrel project. They want, they're interested in their social security benefits. They're interested in pollution control. They're interested in their children's future. It's a different agenda. And this was in the mid 1990s and it's become even more so today. Now, the LDP is not the only party to change. I want to talk a little bit about the Komeito because it's a very interesting story of social change in Japan, I think. The Komeito, which is the LDP's coalition partner, has gone through a quite dramatic transformation. From the late 1960s, for about a decade, I was the director of a US-Japan parliamentary exchange program. And I would regularly bring American congressman to Tokyo to meet their Japanese counterparts. The first conference we had in Tokyo was in 1969. And we arranged for the US delegation to have separate meetings with the leaders of each of the political parties, including the Komeito. But that party had only been formed five years earlier as the political arm of Sokogakai. And its support was concentrated among poor people who had migrated from the countryside to the cities. Many of them worked at unskilled jobs without job security. The party advocated policies that positioned it on the Japanese left, where it competed most especially with the communists. But to the American congressman and to me, it appeared to be much more a party of the right than of the left and disturbingly so. We met with the Komeito diet members at the Sokogakai headquarters in Shinanomachi. And it began without being taken to an auditorium to see a film about Sokogakai. And the movie looked as though it had been produced in North Korea. The same adulation for their leader, Ikeda Daisaku, as the North Koreans showered on Kim Il-sung. The same mass gatherings where people in the stands would lift colored cards in perfect synchronization to spell out the party's propaganda slogans. Several of the American participants left that movie and left the meeting shaken by the experience. This was the Komeito in 1970. But the Komeito has traveled a huge distance since then. Sokogakai eventually broke its ties with Nichiren Shoshu and gave up the practice of shakfuku. Shakfuku is kind of an intense brainwashing effort to get people to convert to Sokogakai. And over time, the Komeito moved to the center of the political spectrum. First on the center left and then after 1998 on the center right as the LDP's coalition partner. Seven decades after the end of the war, Sokogakai members are no longer impoverished and frightened migrants from rural Japan who came to Sokogakai through shakfuku. Sokogakai members today are for the most part people who grew up in Sokogakai households. Households that enjoy a degree of affluence that early generations of Sokogakai members cannot imagine. They are people born into the religion, not converted to it. So many of their parents, kind of the first generation Sokogakai members, many of their parents, like Japanese parents generally, knowing that the path to success is through the higher education system, push their children to get a good education. As a result, Sokogakai members now hold important positions in the government bureaucracy and in business and in other professions. The Komeito, in other words, has become the political arm of a religious organization with deep roots in the middle class. And it's that change in the social composition of the Gakkai membership that makes it possible to have alliance with the LDP. And it's why when American politicians now meet with Komeito leaders, those leaders never mentioned Sokogakai, almost never mentioned Sokogakai. And for certain, they don't bring them to Sokogakai headquarters in Shiranomachi anymore. It's a big and interesting change, at least in my view. Now, as for the leading opposition party, the Democrats, it's torn, torn between a pragmatic wing that favors it becoming a kind of second conservative party, more liberal than the LDP on economic and social issues, and supportive of a bipartisan foreign policy. And another wing that clings to a traditional pacifist position and is more to the left on domestic issues. There's a lot of skepticism in the Democratic Party and outside that Renho will be able to unify this party. But at least so far, so good. She reached out to the conservative wing of the party by getting former Prime Minister Noda, who I mentioned earlier, to agree to be the party's secretary general. Perhaps she'll surprise everyone. In any case, the LDP is not as popular as it might appear. Voting rates have gone down, they do well, but it's not as popular as it might appear so that even if the Democratic Party does not get strong enough to challenge its hold on power, it's quite possible that it can win enough seats to act as a break and to provoke leadership change in the LDP. But the point to be stressed is that the fundamental weakness of Japan's political democracy continues to be the failure of political forces opposed to the LDP to create a party that offers the voters a realistic alternative. The Democrats had their shot in 2009 and they blew it. They were unprepared, they lacked government experience. Instead of trying to mobilize bureaucracy and leveraging its expertise, they turned it into its enemy by excluding it from important policy-making decisions. So under current circumstances, the only way the opposition is going to succeed is if the LDP loses public confidence and splits. It's happened before, but there's no reason to believe it's gonna happen again anytime soon. So I've gone on some length here about these internal party changes to make a simple point. The LDP is in important respects a different party today from what it used to be. It employs a different strategy to obtain voter support. There's continuity to be sure, but the changes are more dramatic, not only in the LDP, but in the political system overall. So the kind of dynamic tension that used to characterize relations among LDP factions and between the LDP and the opposition, that's given way to a new kind of dominance by the LDP. And so incoherence in the policy goals and strategies of the opposition. There's also been a basic change in the relationship between the ruling party and the government. And this is a very crucial importance for the way policy is made. Political power today is concentrated in the prime minister's office to a degree that has never been true in Japanese history. The cabinet is no longer a group of equals, each minister in effect being the CEO of his ministry and the prime minister serving as a kind of chairman of the board. This is Abe Shinzo's cabinet. He demands loyalty, he gets it. He's kept people who he trusts and whom he needs to maintain control over the party in the cabinet in key positions for an unprecedentedly long time. The chief cabinet secretary, Mr. Suga, the finance minister, Mr. Aso, the foreign minister, Mr. Kishida, have been in those positions since Abe came into office this time. Mr. Shiozaki, the health and welfare minister from the first cabinet reshuffle. The party's role in policymaking has been sharply reduced as power has been come concentrated in the prime minister's office. Not only that, but the prime minister's office, the Kante in Japanese. The Kante controls high bureaucratic appointments in a more hands-on fashion than ever before. There was a reform in 2012 that created a new personnel of FAS bureau in the prime minister's office. It gives the chief cabinet secretary control ability to the power to vet around 600 top appointments. This creates really strong incentives for bureaucrats hoping for promotion not to question the prime minister's policy positions. It was prime minister Hashimoto in the late 1990s who initiated the administrative reforms that have created this Kante-centered political process. He reduced the number of ministries, created the council on economic and fiscal policy that enables prime ministers to set policy priorities and impose them on the bureaucracy. I didn't appreciate Hashimoto all that much when he was alive. He was a rather prickly, difficult personality. Hard to get to know, at least for me. But I think, I kind of owe this to him. I think historians will view him as one of the more important post-war Japanese prime ministers. And his reforms were further advanced by Koizumi who ended the practice of having the executive council of the LDP have to approve government legislation before submitting it to the diet. And he made the council on economic and fiscal policy a truly important institution. But Kante leadership has become even stronger under Abe. He has greater control over the policy process than any previous prime minister. This emergence of a Kante-centered policy-making system brings with it greater coherence to the policy process and greater accountability. The old system with its powerful factions and its complex power game between the government and the LDP, it was much more interesting. I'm glad I was around for all those years of LDP dominance and could enjoy watching this game being played. But it was interesting in much the same way that the operations of Tammany Hall and that's how I grew up in in Brooklyn, New York was interesting. All the daily machine in Chicago, all the politics in the democratic one-party southern states before the civil rights movement in the 1960s. It was interesting in the way that those politics were interesting, but it would be anachronistic if that system continued in Japan today. So these changes, I think represent the modernization, the evolution in a very positive sense of Japanese politics. But the concentration of power in the Prime Minister's office brings with it its own dangers, especially when you have such a weak political opposition. Having an opposition, having opposition parties that were a permanent opposition was perhaps not so problematic when the LDP itself operated like a coalition of party-like factions. When individual cabinet ministers didn't hesitate to make policy pronouncements without clearing them with the Prime Minister's office. And when new LDP candidates running in these multi-membered districts took policy positions critical of the government. There was more of a turnover between incumbent and new diet members under the old system than under the current system. But a lot of the turnover happened within the LDP, so there were three LDP incumbents running in a five-member district, one or two of them might be defeated by a new LDP candidate who's arguing against the party's position. That doesn't happen now. But now that the Prime Minister's power over the cabinet and over the party is so strong, the question that arises in Japan is where are the checks and balances necessary for a democratic polity going to come from? And this question has taken on a new urgency since it's not only the opposition parties that have become less vigorous, but the liberal media as well. The ASEI Shimbun in particular having lost much of its influence in shaping public opinion. So the question then that comes up is this. Given the power that I've described here that the Prime Minister exercises over the party and the two-thirds majority that his party has in the lower house and with the Komeito in the upper house as well, the question arises, why hasn't Abe done more to push through major reforms, to push through the so-called third-arrow structural reforms? No doubt, the economy is in some ways stronger now than it was when Abe came into office as Ambassador Sucker was explaining to us to a few of us last evening over dinner. But, Abe Namics has failed to achieve the goals it set for itself. Monetary policy has not achieved this two-percent inflation target. The three arrows, monetary policy, stimulative fiscal policy, a growth strategy based on fundamental structural reforms. These three arrows was supposed to be bundled together. The idea which goes back to an old Japanese fable being that while it's easy to break one arrow, tying three arrows together makes them too strong to break. But these arrows have not been linked. They're not connected. The third arrow has not taken aim at important structural issues. And the second arrow of fiscal stimulus, it seems to me, especially the most recent package that the package that Abe is submitting to the Diet this fall, the second fiscal stimulus is reverting the kind of old-style LDP public work spending and pork barrel spending. And many observers are wondering now whether this first hour of monetary policy is close to being broken, that is to losing its effectiveness. I think that Prime Minister Abe oversold Abe Namics, creating unrealistic expectations, making it seem as though he was going to undertake all more radical reforms than I believe he ever intended or that he could have hoped to accomplish. I think Prime Minister Abe has always been a critic at least before he became Prime Minister this time of American-style capitalism. And unlike Koizumi, he doesn't talk of the desirability of small government. Shisanasefu is an expression I have never ever heard Prime Minister Abe use. He doesn't believe in Shisanasefu and a small government. He's much more comfortable with a meaty-style government hand in guiding the private sector. Much more comfortable with that than the hands off, leave it to the market approach that Koizumi and his economic minister, Takenaka Heizo, are favored. Clearly, Prime Minister Abe wants to secure his place in Japanese history as the Prime Minister who freed Japan from its post-war regime, who restored a sense of pride in the nation's traditions that he thinks had been lost, and who will define a new leadership role for Japan and world affairs. He has not driven an economic policy in the same manner. And even where he would like to make bold moves, he hesitates. Abe and the LDP, they learned from the party's surprising defeat in 2009 that Ubers is dangerous. In this summer's upper house election, he stayed away from the issue he's passionate about, constitutional revision. The LDP won that election handedly, but it wasn't really a landslide as the newspapers tended to portray it. A landslide would have had the Democrats do no better than they did three years ago when they won 17 seats, but they won about over 30, less than six years ago, and these elections are held every three years for six-year term, so less than six years ago, but more than the Democrats should have won given the party's unpopularity. And they did as well as they did because of voters who don't support the Democrats, but decided to cast a vote against the LDP. So for those of you familiar with American politics, upper house elections in Japan are like U.S. midterm congressional elections. They offer the voters an opportunity to send a message to the party in power that they're not satisfied with its performance without throwing it out of office. Abe got the message. I think he got the message after this July election that 28 trillion yen, comprehensive economic package that he announced after the election, in my view is mostly smoke and mirrors, an attempt to convince the public and financial markets that the government is taking bold action when it's really not doing anything of the kind, but there's no evidence that the announcement effect didn't much good. The market reaction was negative and the public reaction in Japan was kind of neutral. People generally are not very critical of Abe and the public opinions reflect high support. They don't think his policies are making the economy much better, but they give him credit for trying and they believe he is doing about as much as it is realistic to expect and probably better than anyone else would do. And there's no question that the public likes that he's making himself a visible presence on the world stage, including appearing on the stage in Rio as Super Mario. So even if Abe were more committed to radical reform than I believe he is, he has to deal with a political reality. The political reality is that the public, the Japanese public does not want to see Japan emulate America's fire it will labor market or have corporations buy up large tracks of agricultural land with no guarantee that they would keep the land for agricultural purposes or that they would not find ways to drive independent farmers who want to continue to till the land to sell. They don't want their social security benefits to be cut and they don't want to see immigration. At least not a formal immigration policy, though many people probably increasing numbers of people grudgingly accept the need for guest workers and for people to work at the low end of the service industry. When it comes to immigration, the business sector, and I think probably Prime Minister Abe himself are more liberal than the public. Many of my economist friends believe that the problem is that Abe simply has not gone far enough with structural reforms that would boost productivity, especially labor market reform. But whether the issue be labor market reform, immigration, agriculture, compelling companies to raise wages, bringing large numbers of women into the mainstream labor force, the ability of the government to act, of any government act, whatever the preferences of its leaders depends on gaining the support of a public. A public that, as I've suggested, resists very much the kinds of changes that these reforms would bring about. So I think that the idea that government in Japan can raise productivity substantially if only it had a government committed to adopting the right policies, policies mostly drawn from an American playbook, is something of an illusion. Many Americans, especially those who support Trump and who supported Bernie Sanders, themselves are demanding that this playbook be rewritten. So for years to come, it seems to me, Japan will be a low growth economy and a wealthy country whose challenge will be how to manage the distribution of income in an environment characterized by growing inequality among a shrinking and aging population. And maybe most important or surely very important, how to reform a higher education system that doesn't do enough to encourage individual initiative and innovation and skills, including language skills, necessary to be successful in a 21st century globalized economy. Abe's clear about his priorities. Constitutional revision, a more robust security policy, a Japan that can't stand tall in the world. And he's realistic enough to know the public's priorities are elsewhere. So he has to be patient and pushing for the changes he wants. He's an interesting personality. He combines strong ideological preferences with a deep pragmatism that keeps him from pressing those preferences too hard too fast. Briefly on the constitution. I think we're gonna see the constitutional debate kind of shift into high gear and I don't think we're gonna see constitutional revision for many years to come, at least for some years to come. Revising Article 9 would eliminate the ambiguity about the legal status of the self-defense forces by saying explicitly that Japan has a military force. But if it were to be amended anytime soon, it probably would combine that with a restrictive definition of what the force can do. It'll be years before Article 9 is revised. And the debate is likely that it's gonna spawn is likely to divide the public rather than generate consensus as to the role of military force as a tool in Japanese foreign policy. I just look at my watch and I know if I keep on talking I'm gonna seize people leaving the room so I'm gonna have to be brief but I have to maybe I have a chance to let you know the questions I can. I'll talk about this in the questions period. The emperor's abdication issue. I think Prime Minister Abe is dealing with this in a very cautious and appropriate manner. He does not want to make this a constitutional issue. The emperor is a symbol of the state. The emperor doesn't have the right, is not in a position to make political decisions. Abdication is a political decision. If you change the fundamental law you're making a political decision. This has to be done not in response to the emperor's desire to abdicate but in response to other issues. But Abe wants, needs to respond to this emperor's desire to abdicate. And I think the answer will be in the diet session held after the turn of the year a new, a special law passed a one time a law that allows this emperor to abdicate. And to have, he needs some space between the emperor's, Okotoba, his speech, requesting this, this indirectly requesting that this happen and actually doing it so that it's in response not to the emperor's request but in response to overwhelming public view that this should be allowed. That's what is going on. I think it's a very appropriate manner to handle this because they have to permit this to happen without opening this Pandora's box. You're gonna have female emperors and you're gonna change the fundamental law about succession and so forth and so on. Now, on foreign relations I need to say a few words about foreign relations before I stop here. There's no question, Abe wants to see Japan stand tall in the world and play a larger political role in the region and globally. In order to maintain a balance of power in East Asia alliance with the United States over the long term is all the more essential than it has ever been. And Abe recognizes this very well. There has been a very interesting and a very important shift on the right about alliance with the United States in Japan. On the right, that is to the right of Mr. Abe, there's always been on the more right, right. An underlying anti-American attitude on the part of the hard right for whom autonomy and independence has meant independence from the U.S., a Japan that can take care of itself. But China has convinced even those pretty far out on the right that alliance with the U.S. and if it's to shore up the credibility of America's commitment to Asia is essential for Japan's security and will become only more so in the coming years and decades. Structural changes in the international system are changing Japan's national security strategy and changing the dynamics of the U.S.-Japan relationship. With the end of bipolarity and the aftermath of America's fleeting unipolar moment, East Asia is moving toward a fluid and ill-defined multipolar system and Japan is evolving a complex foreign policy strategy to deal with it. Post-war Japanese foreign policy did not try to shape the regional order to suit its preferences. It saw the challenge of foreign policy as being able to adjust skillfully and nimbly to the changing trends of the time created by others more powerful than Japan. But Abe, Abe's strategy is more than reactive. He's adjusting Japanese policy to deal with an increasingly assertive China in a region that is in a transition away from American hegemony to one in which the U.S. remains the most powerful country but no longer enjoys a position of unchallengeable military superiority. China doesn't have to match American military power to make the costs to the U.S. of using that power very high. And that cost will continue to increase as China's military grows stronger. The failure of the U.S. Congress to pass TPP. I hope I'm wrong, but I believe that the Congress will not pass TPP in the lame duck session. And that Hillary Clinton, who I pray will become president because I pray even harder that Donald Trump will not. She has locked herself into a position of opposition to TPP that she cannot easily wiggle out of. So TPP is not going to happen at least for some time to come, as I say. I hope I'm wrong, you know. Your Prime Minister is trying to make a case with Congressmen's meeting that how important TPP is. Prime Minister Abe did so in his meeting with Hillary Clinton. Obama is finally trying to squeeze Republican arms and persuade Republicans to support it, something you should have done a long time ago. So, you know, maybe my pessimism will prove to be wrong, but I think it's not gonna happen. And supporters of TPP, seeing that they're losing the debate over the potential economic benefit to the United States have taken to argue that its passage is of huge geopolitical significance and importance. But I think we shouldn't exaggerate that impact. Whether this trade agreement, and that's what it is, it's a trade agreement. Whether it passes or it fails, the U.S. commitment to Japan's defense will not change. America's military presence and commitments to Asia will not change. And unless Americans themselves convince the rest of the world that the failure to pass what most Americans and a majority of Congress believe is a bad agreement, unless we convince the rest of the world that by failing to pass this bad agreement that this signals a more general retreat from Asia, it should not have that big a negative impact. Though, of course, you know, for Abe in particular, he sort of walked the extra mile to make some reforms in agriculture to get TPP through and then the U.S. goes and pulls the rug out from under him, he cannot be happy. But I wouldn't exaggerate the importance of the failure of yet another multilateral trade agreement, the Doha Round, TPP, and so on. In this fluid, uncertain political environment, every country in East Asia is thinking and knew about its national security. Japan is no exception and it's taken steps to see that its strategy is relevant to the world as it is now, not as it has been in the past. I think if Abe would leave office tomorrow, Japan's strategy would not fundamentally change, no matter which politician succeeded him. So over the past, you know, in the post-war period, the LDP adopted a large number of self-imposed constraints on the government's security policy, ban on collective defense, on the export of weapons, weapons technology, 1% ceiling on defense spending, prohibition, the acquisition of offensive weaponry and so on and so forth. But the Abe administration has removed or is weakening these constraints and it is pursuing a complex strategy with at least three problems, three important problems. Japan is gonna do more for itself, it's doing more for itself. Do more to strengthen the alliance with the United States and do more to develop security relationships with Australia and with other countries in the Asia Pacific region. His policy is constrained by a public that's hesitant to incur the risks that a larger security role in regional affairs entails and that remains supportive of Japan's very special brand of pacifism. It's a pacifism that says that Japan should not use military force beyond a narrow definition of self-defense, but that the United States should use military force to protect Japanese interests. Given the realities of American politics, the pressure on Japan to do more to contribute to the alliance will grow stronger. The LDP has always had to tread a narrow path between American demands for greater defense efforts and public opposition to them, but I think we will see whether it be Hillary or Trump, a greater pressure on Japan to do more to contribute to the alliance. Finally, I doubt sometimes that we in America appreciate enough that the more active Japan becomes diplomatically and the more it contributes to a balance of power in East Asia, the more it's going to pursue policies it sees in its interests, whether or not the US agrees with them. I don't think we're necessarily prepared for the more assertive Japan that we're likely to see. Our base determination to strengthen relations with Russia is a specially important development. In Varysvastak, he issued what I kind of love call to Vladimir. He visited with him in Sochi a few months ago. He's invited him to Yamaguchi, his home constituency for a summit meeting this December. He's proposed an annual summit at Vladivostok. He signaled an interest in a mutually acceptable resolution of the Northern Islands issue, which means giving up Japan's long standing position that the return of all four islands is a non-negotiable demand. All of this makes sense for Japan in my view, but it's a direct challenge to the US approach, which is to employ economic sanctions to punish Russia for its Ukrainian policy and to vilify Putin. So managing this relationship is gonna, in some ways, gonna be more difficult. I'll conclude with three brief observations. First, Hillary Clinton probably will win the election, though it is far from certain. If Trump wins, no one knows what he will do. It's a very worrisome possibility. If Clinton wins, her positions on many issues will be heavily influenced by positions that have been staked out by Trump and by Sanders. She will have to design a new approach to trade, one that convinces Americans that she's focused on protecting workers rather than enriching large corporations. She will press allies, including Japan, to do more, much more, both in terms of money and mission to contribute to the alliance. And I don't think she'll look kindly on foreign policy initiatives that are not in step with US policy, Russia being the most important one at the moment in terms of US-Japan relations. Second point, I think the US and Japan need to adopt a new approach to deal with Okinawa. More than 40 years after its reversion to Japanese sovereignty, Okinawa is still largely an American military protector. With only 0.6% of Japan's land area, it's home to more than half of the roughly 50,000 US troops in Japan, and three-quarters of US military bases. These bases occupy 20% of Okinawa's land area, 40% of its arable soil. This over-presence of US troops is a source of growing discontent in Okinawa, crystallized in the opposition to the building of a new base at Hinoko. Given the changed technology of war, US strategy is moving toward creating a geographically dispersed military presence in East Asia. This excessive concentration in Okinawa makes those bases increasingly vulnerable to disabling missile attacks for both political and strategic reasons. The US and Japan need to adopt a new policy to radically reduce the US footprint in Okinawa. The third point, final point. Where Japan goes in its national security policy depends above all else on Chinese actions and on the direction of the US-China relations. Japan will do what it has to do to defend itself against China. The question, how do you do that without feeding the Chinese perception that the US and Japan are pursuing a containment policy? How do you avoid the security dilemma escalation of tensions and arms race? How do we pursue parallel, mutually supportive and constructive policies that is the US and Japan towards China? That's the major challenge to the alliance in the many years to come. Thank you.


Whoa, so good man. I love it, I love it. Oh my gosh, it's like a sandwich fried rice. Mad good man, whoo. So in this video, we're leaving Manhattan to check out some never before seen Asian food. It's mostly in Brooklyn, but a little bit in Queens. So by the end of the episode, I'll need your help on suggesting some other spots we need to check out. Hit that like button and let's go. All right, our next spot is not quite in Brooklyn, but it's in Mathbeth, Queens. So it's pretty close and I'm here with the Queens plug Perry Stacks from ImageNY. We're at Driftwood and this is a brand new Asian fusion restaurant. I mean, I want to say they're doing Asian fusion right here, but how would you describe the food here? So the food at Driftwood is Asian Americana. They do highly influenced with seafood dishes. So it's a mix of a little bit of Asian influence. All right, we're in the back of the kitchen at Driftwood with Shane. Shane, you're the chef owner. How would you describe Driftwood and what were you trying to do here? Driftwood is pretty much like my experiences working in fine dining, working in a lot of casual restaurants as well. Trying to blend the two together, food that I like, and then trying to make it like an Asian Americana comfort food kind of style. Tell you, I know the food is going to be good because look at his arms. He got the tattoos. If your chef does not have tattoos on his forearm, get it, all right? It does the chef have a full sleeve tattoo in his serving childhood dishes with French techniques. All right, everybody, we got the starters here. What I think is cool about Mala Tots is that Mala is like a seasoning that they're kind of sprinkling on everything. And it's just something that I wouldn't have expected, you know, Tater tots with Mala. Something so American, it's so Chinese now.  Mmm, these are so good. You guys got to get these. All right, we got the crab boughs here. Never seen anything like it. Don't crab. Man, I just came back from Boston and I had like a lobster roll and a crab roll. This, this is killing it, man. It's like an Asian lobster roll, right there. All right, here we got oysters with a Palmelo Minonet. Wow. Tastes like Asian pear. I never had oyster that was like sweet and fruity too. That was crazy. Oh yeah, it was really good. Got the two cheese dishes, cheese corn. Ooh, mm. So much grill flavor in this corn, it's crazy. The filling on this corn first right, Boone. Little peppery, a little cheesy, really good. And then here, man, I have actually this tea leaf salad. I love the Burmese tea leaf salad, so I think I'm really excited about this one. Whoa, that was refreshing, man. Cuts through everything, lots of different textures. You have nuts, you have fried one-ton strips in there. You have corn, you have all these different ingredients. All right, so the entrees have arrived here at Driftwood in Maths Beth Queens. Maths Beth is not ready for this. What are we looking at, Mimi?  Look, they squishy, they squishy. Oh, this is a new churn fund. This is not the old churn fund. Then I have- It's some walk hay, that tastes the walk hay. Tons of walk hay, I get that salt and pepper vibe, and that is so delicious. So this is one of the signature dishes, right? Oh my gosh.  The flavors come together really well. Oh, true smokiness. I mean, that soy cured yolk is crazy. What about this dish? Peri-peri vinegar, is it? That's your vinegar, bro? Yeah, peri-peri vinegar right here. I love peri-peri sauce. It's one of my favorite, man. Shout out to Portuguese food. Try this.  It's crazy. The skin is really good. Crazy. So this is kind of like your Korean chicken and waffles, but the waffles are like the Hong Kong egg waffles. Wow. All right. Cheers. This is like eating an Asian-American student union all in one plate.  Mm, sticky, salty, chewy, sweet, delicious. Take some maple syrup in there. Yo, I'm going in. I want to do something about this. Cheers. Cheers. That charred butter, I don't even know if I've ever had charred butter in my life. These entrees are going crazy. It's like, I'm trying to think. A lot of flavors going on. Yeah, of all the fusion inspirations that go into each dish, whatever Shane's doing is, that dude is creative. Guys, I'm here at Driftwood and Mass Beth Queens, and I'm trying small law on, they're so inventive, creative dishes here. Here I got the churn fun, but it's not just any churn fun. Mm. Saltiness helps highlight the small law. I love that. So good, man. I love it. I love it. All right, and last but not least for the hot dishes, we got their seafood boil in their very own Driftwood sauce. See what I do? So there's the sauce at the bottom here. This is like at the bottom of the bag that you would get. Gotta dip that. Little fingerlings. A little, it looks like my thumb. Look at that. Little thumby. Real yummy. Ah! The only time I pour small law on my fingers. Mm, mm. Don't worry, I've been practicing. Dessert, guys. And of course, it is still impressive. And if we have a sweet potato cake roll that's kind of based off the Hong Kong cake roll, you can find that at any bakery. And then you have a... Milk tea pudding. Milk tea pudding. Ooh, okay, okay. And then you have a persimmon turnover with ice cream. I've never had a persimmon roll at all, bro. This is actually one of my favorite things to do is like a la mode. So... I'm gonna try this roll. Cheers. Mm. Whoa. Bourbon caramel? That's, bourbon is very strong. Amazing, all right. Let me try this milk tea real quick. Ooh, that's smooth, Earl Gray. Classy, guys. Driftwood, Mask with Queens. Come over, check it out. Grand Ave. It's incredible, new Asian restaurant, right in a place that you wouldn't expect. All right, on to the next spot. See you guys later. All right, everybody. Our next new Asian concept in New York City takes us out to Bushwick, Brooklyn. We're outside of Noon. This is their Brooklyn location. I'm out here with a special guest, Jay Key from Righteous Eats. What's going on, y'all? Peace, peace, peace. Jay Key, you've had the food here. Yes, sir. How would you describe it to people? I would describe it as Korean American manifestation in food form. They have some new dishes that are different than their East Village locations, so I'm really excited. Man, shout out to Jay Lee. Man, let's go. Check it out. Check it out. It's the music of 2000 songs in late 90s. I love it. It's got the vibe. Here we have the Korean burrata pizza. They have roasted kimchi on the sauce, along with a nice burrata piece. And then I've topped it off with sushmala. Check the link down below. Crispy, crispy. Bushwick, this is the bulldog.  I love the idea of Asian pizzas. I'm so excited. Shout out to Jay for coming up with it. The pizza here is very impressive. It was spicy, and has the thump-o-peas, a little rice cakes on top, and it's just super saucy. Everything here has a lot of flavor. There's a lot of cheese at this restaurant, so for those who are cheese adverts, watch out. But check out Noon Bushwick. It's got a crazy vibe. Feels like a club. It feels like I'm in a hip-hop club, eating good food, but that's why I like it. Shout out to Jay. I'll head to our next spot. All right, everybody, next up on Asian Food in Brooklyn, we are here at Pecking House. Pecking House is started by a guy named Eric Wong, really cool chef. Eleven Madison Park did the whole French train bear-type situation, created this spot. It's totally something different. It is not your Nashville hot chicken sandwich. This is their signature chili chicken, and it's made with Tianjin chilies and Sichuan chili crisps. So it's not just one type of chili. And I tell you this, I can smell it off of it right now. It kind of reminds me of Lao Gan Ma and a number of other things, but I'm super excited. Guys, we have the salted egg yolk. Here we have their chicken sandwich right here. That's gigantic. And then their signature cornbread with their apple honey sauce, which I'm gonna get into, but anyways, guys, first comes first. This is what you gotta go with. This is a thigh, chili chicken, here at Pecking House. I'm very excited. Ha, mad good. One of the cool things about this spot is that their water station over there, you can get sparkling and still water, as much sparkling water as you want. They don't even charge you for it. That was unlike any other chicken I've had. So let's check out the salted egg yolk. I'm gonna take a bite here. Man, it is so crispy. You can just see it, you can hear it. Guys, what I love to see is Asians doing their twist on things, you know? And I think that's the great thing about America is that culture is shared. So they're totally infusing Chinese flavors, whether it's salted egg yolk, or tan gin and Sichuan chilies, all in one piece of chicken. We just eat the skin real quick. That was so hot, that was so hot. Telling you the Brooklyn crowd can take funky food. When you talk about salted egg yolk, fried chicken thighs, I feel like Brooklyn people are down for that. All right, everybody. This is their Picante chicken sandwich. It is gigantic. I'm about to cut it. I think it has two pieces of chicken filet in there. Let's see if this knife can go through. I'm pretty good at cutting things in half. The Picante sandwich is their most popular, and it actually infuses Latino flavors because I think the other co-owner is Latino. Oh, oh man. Look at this beauty. Oh my goodness, oh my goodness. Guys, I did bring Smala. I don't know if I'm going to need it here because everything here is already so, so spicy with Mala, but let's check it out. This has Oaxacan cheese. Guys, this is the Picante fried chicken sandwich here at Pecking House. Surprisingly, that whole thing stayed together pretty well. I like it a lot. I really love the cheese. It does kind of have like a deeper, darker, like I don't want to say like mole vibe, but like definitely something more from the chili peppers. It's very Mexican, but let's try some Smala on it. Ooh, wow. All right, ending off here in Pecking House, guys. An O2, you know, Southern American food. You have cornbread here with real pieces of corn inside. I love it, man. You got a Chinese and Latino guy cooking fried chicken and cornbread with their own twist. I know you got a bunch of other people in Brooklyn doing all different types of foods. I love the take and the quality on it. I definitely think you guys got to check this spot out, Pecking House. Our next ultra modern Asian concept is Milu. I'm telling you guys, their whole aesthetic here is being copied in other cities. I don't want to name any names, but look, you guys are looking at a egg tart, tantat, soft serve. The owners are from Hong Kong. They were from Eleven Madison Park as well. So you're really seeing like a lot of elevated fusion spots these days, but very few spots do it the right way. I think Milu is one of those that does it. Arch, you guys, like we said, this is a modern elevated, almost like Western Hong Kong fusion. You are looking at Gyeongchon Salmon, which is ginger scallion, you know, braised salmon, steamed salmon, I'm sorry. You've got some of the broccoli right here, but look at, even at this salad, I think this is pea sprouts with cilantro and a lot of green onion as well. So this is different as well. But anyway, we got to get into this. This is actually more of a home style dish. You do see Gyeongchon, you know, ginger scallion fish, but salmon, it's a little bit more like, people do that in their family. We did it all the time growing up. That's why we got to come back. Like we said, this food crawl of modern Asian concepts is brought to you by Smala. If you want to get some, check out the link down below. All right guys, we are at Grant Street in Bedford, one of the most famous intersections of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and welcome to the newest and smallest location of the Nanshang Shaolombao Empire. This is actually an express concept. They just opened it. Tons of to-go orders. But it should be the same original quality that you can get at Nanshang in Flushing, which is the original location. So I'm really proud of this chain because they started in Flushing, they expanded in Manhattan, now they're in Brooklyn. I mean, look, they're serving Shaolombaus to everybody. And I love this concept because you can freeze these Shaolombaus and steam them up at different locations. So right here, we have their spicy beef Shaolombau. Spicy beef is not a traditional flavor, but of course, I think it's a big hit with the Americans because Americans like beef. Do my little dip, my little vinegar bath right there. That's spicy, that kicked me. I like it so far. Kind of tastes, it has a little Sichuan flavor. Spicy beef, they got soy milk too. My other dish here that I really wanted to try is one of my favorite kind of combinations, which is a tuna bing wrapped around some juicy beef. You might know this as a neuro dream bing. Really popular dish, lots of sauce.  Maybe, who knows, let's see. What I really love about this concept is that it's exposing all different types of people to traditional Shaolombaus and some non-traditional stuff, but they have a lot of traditional stuff on the menu. I'll tell you that. I don't know if anybody's ordering them, but I think it's cool because this concept really feels like something more you would find in Asia as an express dumpling spot. So here I got small love, of course, you guys. If you guys are interested, click on the link down below. Oh, let's douse it. I mean, listen guys, Nan Sheng from Flushing to maybe the rest of the United States now, because once they get this system down and they're spreading all across New York, who knows, maybe they're in different cities. So I'm really proud of them, but we got competition coming into town because Deng Tai Fung is on its way to Times Square, so we'll see which one takes over. But I got the spicy beef one. I know it was pretty spicy earlier, but I'm gonna add some small love, make it extra spicy. Oh my God. I don't even know if I'm, if this is smart. Mm. Oh, that spicy beef one is good. Guys, Nan Sheng, then maybe the next great Shaolong Bao chain from America. Another new, old thing you start to see too is Chinatown concepts directly porting themselves over to Hipster Williamsburg. So Big Wong restaurant has been around since 1978. They basically replicated themselves here. Do I think they might have had an opportunity to hipsterize and modernize it? But do I also think some people like that 1980s style? I don't know, you tell me. Different strokes for different folks.


The peacekeeping of the past were based on, let's say, ceasefire. This is not happening, this mission. This mission, the peacekeeper that is deployed here, he must be prepared to fight. India has been an example of commitment to the United Nations Charter. The contribution you have made to inspiring Liberian women that protect the nation, for that we will always be grateful. We as peacekeepers, we have to operate into the remotest of areas. Either we are operating with the helicopters or we are operating by riverine patrols. I was really inspired by the women of this country in such a hard situation. They are still trying to collaborate, integrate and sort of bring a movement. Sometimes you move in some of our area of operation in different missions. You move somewhere and then you see that no one can live there. And then you found the Taj Mahal or Indian come. We've lost lives in almost every UN mission. This loss of life has been in protecting, not in combat. This is where I think Indians have really stood up. Indian troops, by nature, are a people's army. They know how to reach out to people. When we move along the road or street, you see a bunch of kids smiling and waving hands towards you. Then you realise that you are here for peace and you are the ambassador of peace.


Hello everyone, this is Amit Dan of amitdan.com. Today I'll have another episode of Chromebook Tips and Tricks video and I'll talk about how to turn off Chromebook. If this is your first time or if you visit, thank you for your support on this channel. I'm also trying new and different ideas. If you're into thinking outside the box, this is the channel to subscribe. If you're looking for more Chromebook videos, there will be links in the description box below. So today I'll talk about how to turn off your Chromebook the right way and I have my notes right here. So the first thing I'm going to show you is going to the notification area and you're going to see a power button and that's the easiest way to turn off your Chromebook. So the notification area is going to be right on the lower right side and you're going to see the time. So if you click on it and here you have your notification section and if you take a look right kind of in the middle, you're going to see a power button which is right here and if you click on that, then it's going to shut off your Chromebook. So for example, if I just click on that, the next way to turn off your Chromebook is to use the power button and whenever you're pressing the power button, actually there are two different options. So one is going to be the long press and one is going to be the short press and the long press, meaning if you're just holding onto it for more than three seconds or even could be five seconds, then it's going to just shut off by itself. But if you do a short press, then it's going to show a menu on the screen and then there's going to be the power button on it. So the power button on this Chromebook is right here. So for example, this is right here, but on your Chromebook it could be located at a different place. So for example, for some Chromebooks it could be right here or right here. So for this one, so if I click on here, so let's try the short press. So I'm going to just press for like two seconds, but not too long. Then you can see that there's the menu right here and there's the shutdown button right here and also it's giving another option. For example, sign out or lock. So I'll just leave it here and then if I do the long press, for example, I'm just going to be holding onto the power button and wouldn't let it go, then it should shut off by itself. So let's try that. So let's hold on to it.  And there may be another option, which is the power key. Some Chromebooks have a power key on the upper right corner of the keyboard. For example, if you take a look at this Chromebook, there's a lock key. I don't have that power key, but some Chromebooks might have a power key right here. And if you press that button, it should work shutting off your Chromebook as well. But due to the fact that I do not have that, so I cannot actually show that to you. So that's another option. You may want to see if your Chromebook has that and that could be another option.  But before we go, I would like to show you just something else. Let's say you turn off your Chromebook and let's do that. So what happens when you just first open your Chromebook and you may need to turn it off again without logging in, then there's another option, which is, let me just, you know, turn this Chromebook back on. So for example, you turned on the Chromebook, but you haven't logged in yet. So in that case, there's an option which is going to be right here. And let me just show this to you right here. And here you're going to see a shutdown button. So if you just click on it, it's going to turn off your Chromebook again. But this only would appear when you didn't turn off, turn on your Chromebook or you didn't log in yet and you just, you know, open your Chromebook.  So these are the ways you can turn off your Chromebook. Thank you for watching this video. There will be more videos coming up. So I'll see you shortly. Thank you.


Good morning, everyone. This is Melissa with the stocks. What should I'm here to review, BABA? I'm here to review BABA because I went over this yesterday in the trading room, and I'm here in the room right now this morning. I wanted to do a quick video because the stock is gapping up. They actually gapped up this morning over yesterday's high. And it did a huge, big, tally thing in the pre-market this morning, look, right there, which was a bounce, which was buying that came in. So did a long, big lecture in this in the room yesterday, but really talked about the importance of institutional money in a stock and being in the right direction with it. I ended up buying calls in this yesterday, and my price in it, I ended up buying it like near the high today. It was almost like I wanted to get in it so badly that it didn't even matter what I paid. And look, I'll be up today. So this is, I have a new word now for conviction. It's called, you don't even care what price you get in the thing, you must get in it. That is 100% conviction. When you don't even care the price of the thing that you're getting it, that you must get it, then you just take it, then you have 100% conviction it's gonna work. I'm not getting out of this until it goes to 100. It will go to 100. It's going to go there.  So this is a beautiful buy. The stock will not see the low of this number here for the rest of the calendar year. So this is now an immediate uptrend. We'll run to the room this morning, and some people had emailed me last night. Actually, my friend Tom had said that one of his friends shorted it in the training room, and I wasn't surprised, and Will said people were shorting it to fill the gap and doing options to do puts, as if it was a short that it was gonna fill this gap. This is one of the most amazing things that you could ever possibly learn from me is how to read institutional money. I mean, I talked about it in the room yesterday, but this is probably one of the reasons, although it's really getting bought, that the stock is gonna just go sky-high today. People are now trapped in this, that shorted it yesterday, which was a ridiculous thing to do, and thank goodness Will didn't do it, but the fact is that this is a long, it is a long. It is a new trend in this chart. It is now an uptrend as of yesterday. It will not be broken the next day. It is gonna fly. This thing is going to fly, and I mean, it's gonna get to 100 probably by next week. If it doesn't, I'm still in and out and up in the month and the option, but this thing is going to go through the strike price today and I just bought it yesterday out of month. So this is one of the best things I've seen all year, and I just can't talk enough about it, and I talked all day yesterday about it, and in fact, I even talked about it before it even reported because my instincts said it was gonna gap up. It is so rare to find corrective gaps, but one of the things that's so important to come and learn from me is to understand what's happening in a trend in a chart. I don't think anyone else can read who's in control of a stock better than me, and it's one of the reasons I read the market so well because the control never flipped in the overall market to the bears. The control in the overall market never flipped. I call this market higher because the control never flipped to the downside. It was only stayed in the bullish up trend and the bulls were always in control. Now, does that mean that something always stays in the trend? Baba has changed control now. The change of control happened yesterday in the gap. In the morning when the earnings report reported, the change of control happened. It was right there. So you could have something in a trend, but things can still change trends, but things don't change trends all the time, but the point is though, they change trends in a gap, and the change in control happened. When you have a gap that changes control, it is the most powerful gap that exists in the market. You do not see them every day. You don't see them every week. You don't see them every month. I wish I would have bought more of this, but I'm not going to now because I'm just not. And you gotta use the same risk for every trade. And I did, I risked about $3,500 in this yesterday. I have 25, 25 contracts. That's enough. That's enough. It's just enough. But the fact is that this is really one of the best things I've seen all year to go and immediate long. And I probably, who would even think to do this? I'm with the people that are controlling this stock right now and that's why I'm up money today. And yesterday into the close it pulled back and I was, dad, I didn't care.  It didn't even matter. That's how much conviction I have in this. When you don't care the price to get in, you get in. And maybe that's something we do differently with the shorts except for the short moves happen so quickly in the day trades. Then when they break, sometimes you miss half the move if you chase it. But in reference to these longer term moves, when you're out for days or weeks or months, I'm starting to wonder if it even matters. You see where it's gonna go. And you know it's gonna get there. And this absolutely, with a shot of a doubt is going to $100 in the time that I'm in the option it's gonna go to $100. My strike price is 95. I'm gonna make five bucks minus the cost of it. And then there'll be time value over it. This is gonna be a huge trade for me and I wish I had more. I wish I had more. But I don't wanna get crazy here. But these are the ones that you just can learn so much from me on. And we talked about it all day yesterday. And this thing is not a short. And this is a difference between me and coming to learn from me and going to whatever place out there on the internet that teaches about advanced technical analysis or gaps. I don't think any place out there would have called this long yesterday intraday or to buy the option it as aggressively as me. And when I got up this morning and saw this up over 93, I wasn't even surprised. I wasn't even surprised. I knew that it would be. And this is the difference. This is the difference. This I'm trading like a professional right now. This stock gapped up six bucks yesterday, fell in the day, closed red, fell into the option, went to bed at night, down in the option position, bought it at the high of the day and I'm gonna be up this morning. That is a professional trader and that's the kind of person that you wanna train with and learn from. And thank God no one in here shorted this because if you would have, you would have been down. You would have been down huge and trapped just like everyone else is gonna be in this. And trading rooms called this short yesterday. And I'm not saying you could have made money shorting it but it would have been hard and it wasn't the right thing to do. And you never want to short against buying. You wanna buy strength and you want a short weakness and this sounds so basic but people don't trade like this. Normal, regular people that sit at their desk like me and you every day do not trade like this but I trade like a professional. This was a great call. This was a great call and it's the reason I called the market right too. There was no change of control in the market and there is a change of control in this stock on the day that it gapped. And so you go with the control and the control was immediate long. It doesn't matter if it gapped up $6 or $2 or $25. It doesn't matter. There was an immediate change of control and if you just take the trade, you write it out. I'm gonna write this puppy out. I'll never be down in it after today. It's gonna write itself all the way up to 100. I took the trade yesterday. That's the only day I'm gonna be down in it and it's only because I bought it at the high. Otherwise I would have closed positive yesterday on it. It's gonna write all the way up to 100 and it's just gonna go. I'm gonna make a lot of money on this trade again and this is just fantastic and it's been a slow week and look what I got today. Just look at it. This is why you don't give up and you focus on the information and you don't question it and the market just gives it to you sometimes. It just goes poof and it just gives you something great, fantastic. And I gave this to everyone in the room and this is my gift to you, a freebie. I hope you took it. You either took it or you take it this morning. It's not too late. It doesn't even matter what you're paying for it. You're gonna get it through the number and every dollar through the number you're gonna be up. So if you buy it, if you buy it at 95, at 95 then it goes to 100, you're gonna make $5. It doesn't even matter. Buy it, okay? Have a great day everyone. Email me at melissathestockswish.com if you have any questions.