Category: Japan

The Korean government is trying to resolved the forced labor issue the same way the comfort women issue was resolved before it wasn’t:

The South Korean government is considering a method to compensate victims of Japan’s wartime forced labor through a public foundation fund rather than direct payment from responsible Japanese firms, officials here confirmed during a public hearing Thursday.

Victims and supporting civic groups, however, strongly protested the move, saying that the issue is not about money but that of addressing past human rights violations of Japan.

The government’s controversial plan was announced during the event held at the National Assembly in Seoul on ways to resolve the thorny issue of compensating victims in line with the Supreme Court’s back-to-back landmark rulings in 2018 against Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and Nippon Steel Corp., respectively. 

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but expect the Korean left to do everything they can to sink this proposal like they did with the comfort women fund. Like the comfort women issue, the forced labor issue is too politically useful for the Korean left to let it get resolved.

The Korean right wants to resolve this issue in order to expand cooperation with Japan in other areas. Japan wants the issue resolved, but only through a private entity as proposed because their official position is that all financial claims were resolved with the 1965 normalization treaty where they paid a $800 million reparation fee to the Korean government who invested that money into the Korean economy and infrastructure instead of individual victim payments.

USFJ has changed their curfew policy to be age based instead of rank based:

Liberty policies for U.S. service members in Japan ages 20 and older are about to become a little more generous, according to changes announced Thursday by U.S. Forces Japan.

New policies that take effect Monday will permit individual commands to shift their curfews from rank-based to age-based, USFJ spokesman Maj. Thomas Barger told Stars and Stripes by email Thursday. The standard 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. curfew in place since March 2020 that applies to enlisted service members of E-5 and below will apply instead to members ages 19 and younger, he said.

Eligible service members may have another drink in that extra hour. The changes move the deadline for consuming alcohol off-base from midnight to 1 a.m., according to Barger.

Service members in Japan are currently prohibited from consuming alcohol anywhere but their residence, hotel or other quarters between midnight and 5 a.m. The same conditions will apply under the 1 a.m. deadline.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

What ever agreement the Yoon administration reaches with Japan on the forced labor issue you just know the political opposition is going to demagogue. We saw this play out when the last conservative Korean president signed a deal to compensate former comfort women:

 President Yoon Suk-yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida agreed to seek a quick settlement of the issue of compensation for Korean victims of wartime forced labor during their summit in Cambodia earlier this week, a presidential official said Wednesday.

The official was referring to a Yoon-Kishida summit held on the sidelines of regional gatherings in Phnom Penh on Sunday, during which he said the leaders affirmed their clear commitment to resolving a “pending issue” between the two countries.

Pending issue is a reference to ongoing negotiations between the two countries over how to settle differences over a 2018 South Korean court ruling that Japanese firms should pay compensation to Korean victims of forced labor during World War II.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

North Korea gets all the media attention with their ballistic missile tests, but China quietly over the past decade has developed far more advanced ballistic missiles than anything the Kim regime has. This movement of aircraft at Kadena Airbase is evidence of that reality:

The Air Force move to replace F-15 Eagle fighters with rotating units of more advanced fighters signals awareness that Okinawan bases won’t survive a conflict with China, according to a former Marine fighter pilot and diplomat.

A two-year phased withdrawal of two squadrons flying the supersonic aircraft from Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, began Nov. 1, soon after the release of the new U.S. National Defense Strategy highlighting China as the American military’s “pacing” challenge.

“You can look at it (removal of the F-15s) as the USAF coming to grips with the reality that nothing on the first island chain, especially not Kadena, will be survivable in a conflict with China,” Steve Ganyard, a former deputy assistant secretary of state, told Stars and Stripes in an email Friday.

China’s massive military build-up includes an expanding arsenal of missiles with many of the weapons presumed to be aimed at U.S. bases in Japan. A 2017 report by Navy Cmdr. Thomas Shugart, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, for example, includes satellite imagery of Chinese missile test sites that appear to mimic Yokota, Kadena and Misawa air bases.

Around a dozen F-22 Raptor jets arrived on Okinawa Nov. 4 from the 3rd Wing at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, to start a six-month rotation while the F-15s head home. The Air Force described the Raptors as “backfill” for the retiring F-15s while the Defense Department decides on a long-term plan to fulfill its obligations to Japan.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

The Korean left is definitely coordinating to promote anti-Japanese sentiment against the Yoon administration as its tries to improve ties with Japan:

A salute South Korean sailors rendered to the “rising sun” flag of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force at a fleet review touched off an exchange Monday in Seoul between the nation’s defense minister and an opposition lawmaker.

South Korea’s navy attended the Japan International Fleet Review on Sunday in Sagami Bay near Tokyo for the first time since 2015. Eleven other countries, including the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada and India, also sent warships to the ceremony.

Saluting the rising sun flag is equivalent to paying respects to a war criminal, said Jeon Yonngi, a Democratic Party member, during a National Assembly hearing.

The flag for some recalls Japan’s colonization of Korea from 1910 to 1945 and its military aggression during World War II, when the Japanese Imperial Navy flew the flag. The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force has flown the same banner for more than 50 years, according to Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

South Korea in 2019 asked the International Olympic Committee to ban the flag at the Tokyo Olympics, suggesting that it recalls for Asians the “scars and pain” of World War II as the swastika does for Europeans, according to a July 23, 2021, report in the Mainchi newspaper.

Jeon at the hearing broadcast by the assembly asked National Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup whether South Korean sailors should have saluted the flag as it passed on a Japanese vessel during the fleet review.

The sailors were saluting the host country warship, “in accordance with international practices,” Lee replied. “Thus, I would like to say it is not that the [South Korean navy] made a salute toward the rising sun flag.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

This would definitely add to Japan’s ability to launch offensive strikes if developed. However, this is something that is going to take many years to develop and build:

Moves are being made to build a submarine to examine the technical issues faced in deploying ones capable of firing long-range missiles, Japanese government sources have said.

The development plan will be included in the National Defense Program Guidelines to be revised by the year-end.

If the development progresses for actual deployment, Tomahawk cruise missiles that the government has approached the U.S. government about purchasing will be an option for the vessel.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Many personnel in USFJ lost their cost of living allowance (COLA) and the falling yen is helping to soften the financial blow for these service members:

 Japan’s plunging currency is softening the impact of inflation on American military personnel stationed in the country, even as the government cuts their allowances.

A dollar bought just over 149 yen on Monday for the first time in 32 years and was hovering around that level Tuesday evening. The yen has dropped 23% against the dollar this year as Japan continues to keep interest rates near zero.

In contrast, the U.S. Federal Reserve has raised its benchmark interest rate at each of its past three meetings, most recently in September, bringing the rate to between 3% and 3.25%, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

A higher interest rate is expected to slow inflation, but by promising higher yields it also attracts investment to the United States, which strengthens the dollar compared to other nations’ currencies.

The strong dollar is welcomed by U.S. service members in Japan, most of whomhave hundreds of dollars less to spend each pay period due to cuts in their cost-of-living allowance this month.

Most are no longer receiving COLA — tax-free money to help offset the costs of living in expensive areas overseas — following changes announced by the State Department on Oct. 1.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.