{"id":185472,"date":"2014-11-09T20:39:00","date_gmt":"2014-11-10T01:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/11\/09\/this-is-japanese-for-f-no\/"},"modified":"2014-11-09T20:39:00","modified_gmt":"2014-11-10T01:39:00","slug":"this-is-japanese-for-f-no","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/11\/09\/this-is-japanese-for-f-no\/","title":{"rendered":"This is Japanese for, &#8220;F%$# No.&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the realm of diplomacy, the statement that something is difficult is a polite way of saying, &#8220;No.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But the significance of such a statement will vary across cultures.<\/p>\n<p>From an American, it might mean, &#8220;I want a better deal.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That being said, the Japanese are famously oblique about saying no, so when it&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/2014\/11\/08\/us-trade-pacific-japan-idUSKBN0IS08O20141108?feedType=RSS&amp;feedName=GCA-Economy2010\">the Japanese economy minister saying it<\/a>, this is a remarkably strong statement:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">Japan&#8217;s Economy Minister Akira Amari said on Saturday he saw progress in Asia-Pacific regional trade negotiations, although it would be difficult to reach an agreement by the end of the year, according to Jiji press.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Trade ministers from the 12 nations participating in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) pact held talks on the sidelines of an annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC) meeting in Beijing<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is a good thing.<\/p>\n<p>The TPP is a very bad thing, even by the standards of trade agreement.<\/p>\n<p>It is a neoliberal corporatist wet dream.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the realm of diplomacy, the statement that something is difficult is a polite way of saying, &#8220;No.&#8221; But the significance of such a statement will vary across cultures. From an American, it might mean, &#8220;I want a better deal.&#8221; That being said, the Japanese are famously oblique about saying no, so when it&#8217;s the &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1092,964,1016,1188],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-185472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-foreign-relations","category-international-commerce","category-japan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185472"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185472\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}