Authored by Daniel McCarthy via The Epoch Times,
The contrast between America’s great island allies on opposite ends of the world couldn’t be more drastic.
Japan has just given its commonsense conservative prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, a two-thirds supermajorityin the national legislature’s Lower House; her Liberal Democratic Party took the highest proportion of seats of any party since World War II.
It’s an enormous vote of confidence not only in Takaichi’s economic agenda but also for her willingness to get tough with China.
Beijing’s mouthpieces have called Takaichi an “evil witch,” with China’s consul general in Osaka threatening, “the dirty neck that sticks itself in must be cut off” in response to Takaichi’s indication Japan would aid Taiwan against an invasion.
Such incendiary language didn’t intimidate Takaichi—nor, it turns out, Japan’s voters.
Yet even as Japan was rallying to its courageous prime minister, China was inflicting humiliation on America’s closest European ally.
Communist authorities in Hong Kong—which was a British colony until 1999—have just sentenced the businessman and free-speech champion Jimmy Lai to 20 years in prison.
The 78-year-old Lai, who holds British citizenship, will die behind bars under that sentence, but China isn’t worried about the UK’s reaction as long as Keir Starmer is prime minister there.
Just last month, the British government approved Beijing’s plans to build a vast new “mega-embassy” in London at the site of the former Royal Mint Court.
Source: ZeroHedge News
