Based on Japan’s recent military budget proposal I think we can infer that they expect the current peace initiative between North Korea, South Korea, and the United States will not last:
Aegis Ashore Deckhouse
Japan’s Defense Ministry is seeking to more than double spending on missile defense, including purchases of costly American arsenals, to defend against North Korean threats.
The record-high 5.3 trillion yen ($47 billion) request for fiscal 2019, approved Friday by the ministry, is up 2.1 percent from last year. The military spending has risen seven consecutive years under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The request related to missile defense rises to 424 billion yen ($3.8 billion) from about 180 billion yen last year. The overall government budget plan is to be submitted for Cabinet and parliamentary approval later this year.
The final budget could still grow because the request leaves out spending to reduce Okinawan communities’ burden of hosting many of 50,000 American troops stationed on the southern island and a relocation cost for some troops to the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam.
A big chunk would buy a pair of land-based Aegis missile defense systems and a ship-to-air SM-3 Block IIA interceptor with an expanded range and accuracy developed jointly by the U.S. and Japan, as well as upgrading of fighter jets and destroyers to make them compatible with advanced interceptors. [Stars & Stripes]
It has taken 23 years, but the Japanese government has finally executed the Aum Shinrikyo cult leaders responsible for the 1995 sarin gas subway attack in Tokyo and other murders in Japan:
Shoko Asahara headed the Aum Shinrikyo cult
Seven members of the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult which carried out a deadly chemical attack on the Tokyo underground in 1995 have been executed, including cult leader Shoko Asahara.
The Sarin attack, Japan’s worst terror incident, killed 13 people and injured thousands more.
The executions took place at a Tokyo detention house on Friday morning.
Japan does not give prior notice of executions, but they were later confirmed by the justice ministry.
Shoko Asahara, 63, and his followers were also accused of several other murders and an earlier Sarin gas attack in 1994 which killed eight and left 600 injured. [BBC]
Here is the statement put out after the trilateral summit in Tokyo:
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, left, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, center, and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, right, pose for photographs prior to their summit in Tokyo Wednesday. [YONHAP]Leaders from South Korea, Japan and China on Wednesday adopted a special statement in support of the Panmunjom Declaration, which was signed at the inter-Korean summit last month and confirmed the shared goal of the two Koreas of complete denuclearization.
The special statement was made following a trilateral meeting in Tokyo of President Moon Jae-in, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan and Premier Li Keqiang of China, the first of its kind in more than two years. The last such three-way summit was held in November 2015 in Seoul. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
Here is what was agreed upon that really matters during the trilateral summit:
At the Moon-Abe talks, the latter made it clear that sanctions imposed on the North should not be lifted unless Pyongyang demonstrates concrete denuclearization measures, emphasizing that the closing down of a nuclear testing site and a halt in the firing of ballistic missiles were not sufficient for sanctions relief.
“It is the timing that matters when it comes to easing or withdrawing sanctions altogether on North Korea,” the prime minister was quoted as saying by the Blue House during the bilateral summit talk with Moon in the afternoon.
“We should not reward the North for just shutting down the Punggye-ri nuclear site or stopping the test-firing of intercontinental ballistic missiles. We need additional and substantive actions from the North,” said Abe.
On the matter of easing sanctions, Moon stressed Seoul could not move to ease sanctions unilaterally, noting that sanctions were international agreements in which Seoul took part.
“There could be worries that South Korea could make a unilateral move to ease sanctions independent of the international consensus. There is no need for such worries,” he said. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
Basically Prime Minister Abe is making the case that North Korea was rewarded in past agreements for doing little to nothing in return. This time they should not be rewarded until they take real measures to denuclearize.
When Japanese PM Abe came for dinner, Israeli PM Netanyahu's private chef Segev Moshe put his foot in it with the dessert: chocolates served in a metal shoe, "which is considered highly offensive in Japanese culture." https://t.co/o0aVnOGgewpic.twitter.com/Yx4f6BQp7s
Here we go with another example of South Korean politicians scoring cheap political points during the upcoming summit with Kim Jong-un at the expense of Japan:
Japan has protested South Korea’s move to put dessert with a decoration featuring Dokdo on the table for the dinner planned for the upcoming historic inter-Korean summit, a local media reported Wednesday.
According to Japan’s broadcaster NHK, Kenji Kanasugi, the Japanese foreign ministry’s director-general of Asian and Oceania affairs, protested the Seoul government’s decision in his meeting with a senior South Korean Embassy official in Tokyo.
He is also reported to have expressed regrets and called on the Seoul government to drop the food from the dinner menu.
On Tuesday, the presidential office of Cheong Wa Dae disclosed the details of the menu for the summit dinner that included the dessert capped with an edible map of a unified Korean Peninsula also showing the country’s eastern islets of Dokdo. [Yonhap]
You can read the rest at the link, but notice the South Koreans did not put Ieodo on to the map which they have a territorial dispute with China over.
Also the fact the Japanese government is protesting this is just as juvenile.
The Japanese Foreign Minister is finding out that no one wants to hear that the North Koreans are already misbehaving before a deal has even been reached:
Foreign Minister Taro Kono got a scathing reaction from the international community over his call to not be taken in by North Korea’s latest charm offensive.
Kono insists that North Korea is gearing up for a seventh nuclear test, but his warning has fallen on deaf ears.
“(North Korea) is working hard for its next nuclear test,” Kono asserted in a lecture he gave in Kochi on March 31.
On April 2, 38 North, a website operated by Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies that is devoted to analysis about North Korea, posted an article dismissing Kono’s contention based on current activity at the nuclear test site.
“Commercial satellite imagery from March 23 shows quite a different picture: namely, that activity at the Punggye-ri test site has been significantly reduced compared to previous months,” the article says. [Asahi Shimbun]
You can read more at the link, but it seems a nuclear test would be within the Kim regime’s playbook to conduct if a deal to their liking is not reached in upcoming negotiations.
Does anyone know if this is something that Korean employers try to implement as well?:
Timing of one unidentified woman reportedly clashed with pregnancy “shifts” drawn by the childcare centre director
Japanese worker has been reprimanded by her boss for “selfishly breaking the rules” after she became pregnant before it was her “turn”, according to media reports.
The woman was working at a private childcare centre in Aichi prefecture, north Japan, when she found out she was pregnant.
However, the timing reportedly clashed with “shifts” drawn by the childcare centre director, which listed when female staff were allowed to marry and have children.
The plight of the woman, who has not been identified, highlights the unsettling practice of some Japanese companies dictating when female staff are allowed to marry and have children, depending on their level of seniority. [The Telegraph]
Japan wants conditions attached to the summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un: make North Korea promise to resolve the abduction issue and abandon medium-range ballistic missiles having Japan within range https://t.co/GFQUq4fJrQ
