It looks like Japan does not want to be left out of the upcoming negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:
With North Korea now engaged with South Korea and getting ready for talks with the U.S., it looks like Japan doesn’t want to be left out. Tokyo says that if the North agrees to allow inspections of its nuclear facilities it’s willing to foot the initial costs up to 300 million yen, or about 2.8 million dollars. That’s according to Kyodo News Agency, citing multiple Japanese government officials. Analysts say Japan is trying to make sure it has a voice in the process of North Korea’s denuclearization and related discussions.
The Kyodo report went on to say that Japan will continue to pressure North Korea into taking concrete action on the nuclear issue. Pyongyang hasn’t allowed in nuclear inspectors from the IAEA since 2009. Inspections of its main nuclear facility at Yongbyon would cost up to around 3.7 million dollars, so Japan’s proposed contribution would foot most of the bill. [Arirang News]
Pretty horrible whoever did this, but in this day in age of fake racism you never know if it was in fact a racist who did this:
The Marine Corps is investigating after a racial slur was posted on a movie theater marquee over the weekend at Camp Hansen, Okinawa.
The Marine Corps is investigating after a racial slur was posted to a base theater marquee on Okinawa.
The incident happened Sunday at Camp Hansen — home to 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, 9th Engineer Support Battalion and 12th Marine Regiment — Marine officials said. [Stars & Stripes]
You can read more at the link, but you would think there would be security cameras around the theater that possibly recorded something to help catch whoever did this.
A video uncovered from the US National archives shows that Japanese forces massacred a number of Korean women believed to have been sex slaves following a battle in China:
Seoul Metropolitan Government and the Seoul National University Human Rights Center unveiled video footage, Tuesday, showing scores of bodies of Korean sex slaves being dumped after being killed by Japanese soldiers during World War II.
The Japanese government has denied any responsibility for forcing tens of thousands of Korean women into sexual slavery. But the latest footage contradicts that claim, according to researchers studying the issue.
The 19-second footage depicts a Chinese soldier looking at scores of naked bodies he carried to a hill. In another scene, he takes a sock off one of the bodies before walking away. Another scene shows smoke billowing from what appears to be a mound of human bodies at a different location.
The research team said the footage was recorded Sept. 15, 1944, in Tengchong, a western Chinese village bordering Myanmar, by an Allied Command soldier, surnamed Baldwin. The team recovered the footage from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
In June that year, the Allied Command began attacking Tengchong and a nearby city which were under control of almost 3,000 Japanese soldiers. As defeat became more certain, the Japanese soldiers took their own lives and killed people stationed with them, including the sex slaves. At least 70 sex slaves were believed to have been there with the troops, among whom only 23 survived.
Together with the footage, the team also revealed a document filed by the Allied Command reporting the killing of Korean sex slaves. “Night of the 13th (Sept. 13, 1944), the Japs shot 30 Korean girls in the city,” the document said. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link and below is the actual video.
Japanese government official emailed this to make sure I hadn’t missed it. Same guy, self-described liberal, had recently told me that most comfort women were prostitutes. pic.twitter.com/hv2QxQNC19
We just couldn’t go an entire Olympics without some Dokdo nonsense:
Japan lodged a protest with South Korea after flags hoisted during an Olympic preparation match were found bearing disputed islets in the Sea of Japan, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Monday.
“We cannot accept the flag in light of Japan’s stance over the sovereignty of Takeshima and it is extremely regrettable,” Suga said at a news conference, referring to the South Korean-controlled, Japanese-claimed islands called Dokdo in Korean.
The sports flag appeared during a game between Sweden and the unified Korean women’s ice hockey team in Incheon ahead of the Pyeongchang Winter Games. [Japan Times]
Here is the latest on the comfort women issue between Korea and Japan:
Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha announces in a press conference Tuesday that South Korea will not seek a renegotiation of a controversial 2015 deal it reached with Japan to settle the issue of women forced into sexual servitude for Japanese troops before and during World War II. [YONHAP]Seoul does not plan to scrap or renegotiate the 2015 bilateral deal on the so-called comfort women, announced Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha Tuesday, though she underscored that the agreement is not a true resolution to the issue of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery.
The Korean government also plans to raise a fund equivalent to the 1 billion yen ($8.87 million) transferred by Tokyo to a foundation formed under the 2015 agreement for the victims of the Japanese Imperial Army’s forced recruitment of young women into sexual slavery before and during World War II, who are euphemistically referred to as comfort women.
“It is an undeniable fact that that the 2015 deal was an official agreement reached between the two countries, and we will not demand a renegotiation from the Japanese government,” Kang told reporters at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Seoul.
The decision was reached after a Foreign Ministry task force spent months reviewing the negotiating process and contents of the 2015 deal, gathering survivors’ viewpoints and taking into consideration Korea-Japan relations, Kang added.
The two countries’ foreign ministries struck a deal on Dec. 28, 2015 to resolve the comfort women issue, which included an apology by the Japanese government and a 1 billion yen fund for the victims. The agreement provoked an immediate backlash from some survivors and civic organizations, who claimed Japan should take clearer legal responsibility by paying reparations.
The Korean Foreign Ministry launched a nine-member task force at the end of July comprised of foreign affairs officials and experts in Korea-Japan relations, international law and human rights. The task force was charged with assessing how the deal was reached and to pay more attention to the viewpoints of the victims, who had expressed disappointment at being left out of the negotiation process by the Park Geun-hye administration.
President Moon Jae-in has emphasized that the agreement is not accepted by the general public in Korea and called it “flawed.”
While Seoul does not plan to renegotiate or scrap the deal, Kang encouraged Japan to “accept the truth as it is, according to universally-accepted standards,” to help restore the honor and dignity of the victims and heal the wounds in their hearts.
“What the victims all wish for is a genuine apology [of Japan’s] own accord,” Kang added. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but I think the Japanese public has probably hit apology fatigue with all the demands for more apologies after their government has already made a number of apologies. Prime Minister Abe could apologize again and commit seppuku on top of Namsan and there would still be people complaining for more apologies.
That is why I have long believed that if Japanese Prime Minister Abe was really clever he should apologize for war time sexual slavery again, but this time in a large public speech to draw maximum media attention. During this speech then announce that Japan to atone for its past sins would become a champion of women’s rights beginning with the plight of modern day sexual slavery of North Korean women in China that both the South Korean and Chinese governments choose to ignore.
North Korean women trafficked in the sex industry in China are the modern day comfort women that the Chinese and South Koreans do nothing to stop. Japan becoming an advocate for these women would expose the current hypocrisy of their critics on this issue.
If anyone is wondering why Korea is considering the purchase of F-35B’s to field on their helicopter carriers here is your answer, keeping up with the Abe’s:
Japan’s Maritime Self Defense Forces helicopter carrier Izumo sails out its Yokosuka Base in Kanagawa prefecture on May 1, 2017. Picture: AFPSource:AFP
In what could be a major change in Japan’s policy on aircraft carriers, the Defense Ministry is mulling a plan to buy F-35B stealth fighter jets for use on its helicopter carriers, government sources said.
The introduction of F-35Bs, which have short takeoff/vertical landing (STOVL) capability, will be useful in countering China’s growing maritime assertiveness. They are expected to bolster Japan’s ability to defend far-flung islands in the southwest, where only short runways exist, the sources said Sunday.
The move, however, is likely to trigger a backlash from China and Japan’s other neighbors because it could be viewed as contradicting Japan’s so-called “exclusively defense-oriented policy” under the pacifist Constitution.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government has altered the nation’s postwar security policy over the past few years, most notably through new security laws that largely expand the range of activities permissible by the Self-Defense Forces.
Under its strictly defense-oriented policy, Japan has maintained that it cannot possess “attack aircraft carriers,” saying the vessels can be deemed offensive weapons that exceed the minimum capacity Japan needs for self-defense in light of the Constitution.
The Maritime Self-Defense Force has a fleet of flat-topped destroyers known as helicopter carriers. Its largest Izumo-class carriers are 248 meters long and can carry up to 14 helicopters.
F-35Bs can operate from existing helicopter carriers once modifications are made to the bow, deck and other areas, the sources said. These modifications will allow destroyers, new or old, to function as small aircraft carriers. [Japan Times]
Members of a Japanese organization that dislikes Korea stage a protest near the Korean Culture center in Tokyo on Dec. 19, 2017, when South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha was visiting it to inspect a Korea-Japan photo exhibition there. (Yonhap)
Considering that Japan already has the SM-3 missile fielded on their Aegis ships the acquisition of Aegis Ashore batteries makes since over competing ballistic missile defense systems such as THAAD:
An Aegis Ashore missile-defense system is tested at the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Hawaii in May 2014. COURTESY OF THE MISSILE DEFENSE AGENCY
The Japanese government is pushing ahead with plans to boost its missile defenses in response to the growing threat from North Korea.
The nation’s Cabinet on Tuesday approved the acquisition of two Aegis Ashore systems capable of defending the entire country against incoming missiles.
“North Korea’s nuclear and missile development has become a more serious and imminent threat to our security, entering in a new phase,” a Cabinet statement said. “It is necessary to drastically expand our ballistic missile defense capability in order to continuously and persistently protect our country even during normal circumstances.” [Stars & Stripes]
You can read more at the link, but the 2023 timeframe is reportedly when the batteries will be in place. So this is definitely not a near term mitigation to North Korea’s ballistic missile threat.
