1. China is a pretty damn big mess, despite their "economic miracle" of the 60s-80s and matching US GDP just last year, their growth is starting to grind into a halt. Sure you have a few glittering ultra modern metropolis like Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and several other coastal cities but the interior is rife with unemployment and the masses keep pushing towards the coast looking for jobs, overloading carrying capacity, and drinkable water reserves. Some areas are in outright rebellion, especially Xinjiang region, spearheaded by "Cult of Mao" anarchists just tapping into the sheer rage at income inequality thus swarms of jobless youths who have nothing better to do but riot, loot, and get brutally suppressed.
Many scholars believe that the crux of China's issues come from not annihilating all communist sentiment post war where as the peace accord stipulations had given them a significant portion of the table as part of the government. Post war most of the peasants turned into peaceable socialists, but despite their huge numbers the RoC has made voter suppression and gerrymandering into an artform. Even more ironic is how the initial Socialist leadership successors are essentially indistinguishable from the old KMT's. Power and money obviously being much more important factors than silly past ideologies.
The US funneled an epic crapload of money into China as part of the "Grand Marshall Plan" to rebuild the world's economy, practically to the extent of ignoring Japan (why build up a hated enemy) and SEA (here they figure its the Euro's colonies so its their problem). It's been said that the Soviets didnt dare start WWIII due to being stretched so thin covering their entire border with the Iron Curtain stretching from the Baltics all the way to the Pacific.
2. Hahaha its always funny seeing a brain washed Japanese Neo Nationalist spouting their version of history. Yea that plebiscite was TOTALLY "fair" with stood down Japanese garrison helping "guard" polling stations, that botched election really helped make America decide not to rebuild Japan post war seeing how duplicitous they'd remain despite surrendering.
Indeed many Japanese emigrated from their utterly gutted nation to Taiwan as it received a sliver of reconstruction money from the US and the ensuing racial tensions that would arise would give your "rosy" view of how well liked the Japanese to the indigs an utter farce.
The 60s were a dark time for Japan and it "boomed" in the extent how the Japanese emigrated in swarms to whatever opportunity they can grasp. It's why we see such large thriving Japanese expat communities all along the western coast of North and South America. In a sense this diaspora really helped rebuild Japanese credibility and reputation to the rest of the world. These immigrants were some of the hardest working and innovative the world has ever seen, turning into a large extra ordinarily productive model minority of every country they entered en mass. Vice President Suzuki being part of the Republican ticket flipped CA, WA, OR and thus the 2016 US election. Despite being of Chinese American descent myself, its still exciting to see an American Born Asian ascending into high office and why i and my family decided to go Red despite being Blue for the past several elections.
The remittances from overseas kept Japan afloat until the 80s which began the true Japanese revival as their workers started to become cheaper than their Chinese counterparts and the manufacturing base boomed. Not to mention as Soviet power waned and China began to flex their muscles and start to ignore American "advice", it was perfectly natural for America to find a new "champion" in Asia. Korea tilting to China also pretty much sealed the deal.
Japanese nationalists should be proud that theyre finally emerging from their dark past, but im always annoyed at how they try to "revise" history.