Category: Japan

An increase in coronavirus cases on Okinawa has led to a ban on off base dining again:

The Marine Corps and Air Force ordered an indefinite end Monday to indoor dining at off-base restaurants on Okinawa, citing an increase in coronavirus cases on the island and at their respective installations.

Since March 5, the Marines have seen “a steady rise in COVID-19 cases both on and off-base,” Marine Corps Installations Pacific announced in a Facebook post. “Due to this result, the [health protection condition] measures were re-evaluated and changed for the health and safety of everyone on island.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

The sharp decline in coronavirus cases in Japan has led USFJ to ease its travel restrictions:

The commander of Yokota Air Base on Tuesday lifted the coronavirus ban on off-duty travel to the most popular districts in Japan’s capital city and reduced the restricted movement period for vaccinated travelers.

Shibuya, Shinjuku and Roppongi, known for their crowded city streets, shopping, restaurants and nightlife, are open once again to people associated with Yokota, the headquarters in western Tokyo of U.S. Forces Japan, 5th Air Force and the 374th Airlift Wing.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Here is an issue that women in Japan are looking to see addressed:

Mari Inoue is a 34-year-old English professor in Tokyo. She got engaged to her boyfriend Kotaro Usui three years ago. A wedding, they say, is out of the question.

It’s not the pandemic that is preventing them, but an archaic Japanese law that requires married couples to adopt the same surname. (…..)

Japan is among only a few advanced economies to stop couples holding separate surnames after marriage – through a law that explicitly discriminates against women, according to a UN committee.

BBC

You can read more at the link, but lawsuits have failed to change the law because the judges think this is something that should be addressed through legislation. Will women care enough to make this a major election issue? I guess we will find out in the coming months and years.

The Japanese have responded to the Chinese escalation over the Senkakus:

Japan on Friday matched a move by rival China and will permit its coast guard to fire on foreign vessels attempting to land on the Senkakus, two square miles of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea.

The two countries’ coast guards regularly face off around the chain as Chinese vessels arrive to shadow or intimidate Japanese fishing vessels and Japan’s coast guard arrives to drive them away. Japan controls the islands, although Taiwan and China, which calls them Diaoyu Dao, also make claims.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

The case of the missing Yokota Airbase substitute teacher just took a dark twist:

The body of a U.S. civilian reported missing more than two weeks ago was discovered Tuesday in the housing tower where he and his wife lived at Yokota, according to the Air Force.

Trevor Balint, 34, of Hubbard, Ohio, the spouse of a Defense Department computer programmer and analyst, disappeared suddenly Feb. 1, prompting a search of the base from the ground and the air. His face appears on fliers, fading now, posted everywhere at Yokota, the headquarters in western Tokyo of U.S. Forces Japan.

His body was found in the east side housing area around 11 a.m. Tuesday, according to a statement on the base website Wednesday. Balint, a former substitute teacher at Defense Department schools, was pronounced dead at the scene by medical personnel, according to the base.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but the authorities claim they searched the building and for some reason did not spot his body. The family is obviously pretty upset about this. Condolences to his family and friends.

This is a pretty strange disappearance case over at Yokota Airbase:

Britni, 31, said she’s posted dozens of fliers with her missing husband’s photograph around Yokota and in nearby areas and appealed, in her Facebook post, for help hanging more. A Facebook group about the search for Trevor has also been created.

Air Force investigators have removed Trevor’s possessions, including his laptops, from the couple’s home, which they share with two cats and a corgi, Britni told Stars and Stripes Sunday while walking through Yokota’s east side housing area. (……..)

That evening, Trevor told his wife he was going out at around 8 p.m. to search for a neighbor’s lost cat, which he’d earlier spotted near the base movie theater.

Gate guards report Trevor coming onto the base through its east gate at 9:09 p.m. while carrying a bag from a convenience store and talking on his cellphone, Britni said.

“We have been unable to track who he was talking to – it is nobody in our joint network, which really is the only network that I knew he had,” she said.

Britni said she last saw Trevor when he returned home at 1:30 a.m. Feb. 1 without his jacket.

The couple slept in separate bedrooms and Britni, who went to work the next morning, didn’t realize her husband was missing until she finished work and saw a message from somebody who had found his wallet near a vacant townhome on base, Britni said.

Stars & Stripes

You can read the rest at the link, but his jacket, shoes, mask, cellphone, keys and empty cans of alcohol were later found as well on base not far from the wallet. It appears he has a secret cellphone that he was talking to someone on and went out late at night to supposedly look for a cat, but doesn’t come back until 1:30 AM. It seems reasonable to conclude he was out meeting someone that night. Finding out who he met could determine where he went. Hopefully he turns up safe.

Besides the changing of restaurant closing times it is also important to point out that nearly everyone in Japan follows the masks rules. That is why such a policy would not work as well in the U.S. where so many people still do not wear masks:

Call it the Zen art of lockdowns. In the fight to suppress Covid-19, Japan has found success by stripping down its policy to one simple measure: closing restaurants and bars at 8 p.m.

When the government declared a state of emergency in Tokyo and other urban areas on Jan. 7, it changed little, except to urge places that serve food and drinks to close by 8 p.m. Most complied in exchange for support that includes payments of about $600 a day. 

Infections since then have fallen by more than two-thirds nationwide, even though other daily activities such as shopping and commuting have continued. The government hopes to lift the state of emergency by March 7.

Wall Street Journal

You can read more at the link.

With tensions increasing between the U.S. and China over Taiwan, the Japanese Times has a long article about what Japan should do in response. Here is an excerpt:

Ben Self, vice president of the Mike and Maureen Mansfield Foundation, counters that “overt steps by Tokyo to defend Taipei will produce a reflexive and even neuralgic response” in Beijing. While he concedes that this may look like appeasement, it is in fact “an acceptance of the reality that this issue is one of critical national importance to the CCP and its regime stability.”

That doesn’t mean abandoning the island. Instead, Self argues, Japan should “significantly increase interoperability with the United States, while maintaining current levels of sub rosa contact with Taiwan’s defense establishment.”

Even that will be difficult. Any effort to strengthen ties with Taiwan must overcome the powerful opposition of political and business forces in Tokyo that prioritize smooth relations with Beijing.

Yoji Koda, former Maritime Self-Defense Force fleet commander, laments that “overdependence on China’s market and too-deep interdependence really impede efforts to promote and improve Japan-Taiwan relations.”

He believes the government is similarly inclined to overweight Beijing’s concerns. Weak leadership “that does not want to create complicated issues with China prevents Japan from taking active actions and maneuvers to help Taiwan.” Nothing will change, he warns, until something serious happens between Japan and China or Taiwan and China. That possibility grows more likely daily.

Japan Times

You can read more at the link, but basically Japan wants to keep the status quo like just about every other country in the region. However, as China grows in military might it appears they are less interested in maintaining the status quo and at some point nations in the region are going to have to make tough decisions.

Some good news on the coronavirus front in Japan:

The daily count of new coronavirus patients in Tokyo fell on Friday, and U.S. military bases in Japan reported 12 new cases as of 6 p.m.

Yokosuka Naval Base, 35 miles south of central Tokyo, reported 10 of those new U.S. cases. The others were at Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government recorded another 577 people infected with the coronavirus, according to public broadcaster NHK. That’s eight consecutive days below 1,000 new cases in the city, according to metro government data. (…….)

Back in Japan, the Army and Marine Corps on Okinawa lifted a two-week-old ban on off-base liberty, effective immediately for the Army and at 4 p.m. Saturday for the Marines, according to Facebook posts.

The bans extended to service members, Defense Department civilian employees, contractors and family members.

Some activities are still prohibited, including indoor dining at off-base restaurants, and patronizing bars, clubs, bowling alleys, gyms and other indoor activities that involve large groups “that impede social distancing.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

It will be interesting to see what Japan decides to do with the Olympic Games, but I wonder if an NBA like “bubble” for the athletes would be doable in Japan:

 Japan’s government has privately concluded the Tokyo Olympics will have to be cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic, The Times reported, citing an unnamed senior member of the ruling coalition.

The government’s focus is now on securing the Games for Tokyo in the next available year, 2032, the newspaper said. Japan has been hit less severely by the pandemic than many other advanced economies, but a recent surge in cases has spurred it to close its borders to non-resident foreigners and declare a state of emergency in Tokyo and major cities.

About 80 percent of people in Japan do not want the Games to be held this summer, recent opinion polls show, over fears the influx of athletes will spread the virus further.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.