Why This Topic Landed in Japan

The abstract fear of "AI taking my job" appeared in China in a far more concrete form—being replaced by a copy of yourself—so Japanese threads consumed it as a look at their own near future. The backdrop of 12.7 million graduates competing for scarce jobs makes the follow-up question obvious: where do the surplus people go? Two reports landed the same day and answered it in the darkest possible way for readers already inclined to worry. Thai police detained 37 Chinese nationals who allegedly hired a Thai man as a "fake father" to obtain citizenship for more than 1,400 foreign children and then used those citizenships to collect benefits and acquire real estate, with ward office and hospital staff also suspected of involvement; in Belgium, a Chinese-Canadian woman was arrested at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe on suspicion of espionage and of involvement with a criminal organization. Japan's lack of an anti-espionage law has been a long-running argument here, and "in Japan you won't get caught" became the axis the reaction turned on.

Key Reaction Themes

  • A shared sense of dystopia — Surprise that a cyberpunk future is simply happening, paired with references to the Cultural Revolution and the Taiping Rebellion as shorthand for social collapse.
  • Reading AI unemployment as their own problem — A cold "so the work was reproducible all along" sat next to resignation that the clock never turns back and the only move is to join the side doing the replacing.
  • Criticism of China, and pushback against it — A long post citing China's historical influence on Japanese culture to rebuke the critics ran straight into replies dismissing it as influence work, and the temperature rose from there.
  • Distrust aimed at Japan's own institutions — Rather than the cases themselves, the anger went to the argument that Japan has no means of stopping any of this, and that politicians would be exempt anyway.

What Japanese Netizens Are Saying

"Human distillation" and AI replacing jobs in China

Employees' know-how being copied into AI clones, reported against the backdrop of 12.7 million graduates struggling to find work.

Sources: Yahoo! news, 2ch

Comments:

  • "Is the revolution about to start?"
  • "Still living out a cyberpunk dystopia for real, huh..."
  • "I've got a bad feeling something bigger than the Cultural Revolution is coming."
  • "Doesn't it just mean their work was only ever the kind AI can easily reproduce?"
  • "They're cornered in every direction. Feels like another Taiping Rebellion is coming."
  • "'Human flesh search,' 'human distillation'—the Chinese really do come up with good phrases."
  • "They should distill Xi and see whether it works out."
  • "The clock never turns back; the only option left is to push AI and get on the side that takes the jobs."
  • "Last year and the year before, new graduates couldn't get hired either. That's 40 million with no job."
  • "AI needs no time off and no meals and has no feelings—it's rationalism incarnate. The harder the people using it chase profit, the more it heads toward cutting humans out."

Citizenship fraud in Thailand and a spying arrest at NATO headquarters

More than 1,400 children given citizenship fraudulently in Thailand, and an espionage arrest in Belgium, reported on the same day.

時事ドットコム（時事通信ニュース）
時事ドットコム（時事通信ニュース）
@jijicom
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「偽の父親」で国籍不正取得か 子ども1400人、中国人ら拘束―タイ jiji.com/jc/article?k=2… タイ人の男を「偽の父親」として雇い、外国人の子ども1400人以上に不正に国籍を取得させたとして、タイ警察は今月、中国人の男女ら37人を拘束しました。区役所や病院の職員も関与したとみられています。

Reply
Read 73 replies

Sources: JIJI.COM, Sankei

Comments:

  • "Politicians are exempt from any anti-espionage law."
  • "There are plenty of Japanese and net-right types who hate China these days, but kanji, soy sauce, tofu and miso all came to Japan from China, and literature, architecture, calligraphy, ceramics, Tanabata, bushido and even filial piety were originally Chinese thought and culture that Japan took in under enormous influence—that is undeniable historical fact. So the pseudo-conservative Japanese who can't respect China are, I think, discriminatory people with badly skewed thinking who understand neither Japanese history nor Japanese culture."
  • "The Chinese fifty-cent posters are getting all worked up, lol."
  • "Working other countries while running influence operations is the basic playbook. Same for the Chinese swarming this thread. This article must be really inconvenient for them 🤣"
  • "The CDP and Komeito will forcefully defend illegal immigrants. Please rest easy."
  • "I'm not pro-China, but China handles this well. A country giddy about diversity and freedom of belief has no system for excluding individuals or groups with a different ideology, so of course it gets exploited."
  • "Even if the origins are on your side, that doesn't mean anything goes. If you want to be respected, act accordingly!"
  • "How exactly are we supposed to stop Chinese spies with this?"
  • "Japan is a spy paradise. In Japan you don't get caught."