Category: Japan

The rhetoric from Donald Trump to make US allies pay 100% of the costs for stationing US troops in their countries has brought increased attention of how much US allies do pay.  For those that didn’t know Japan pays nearly 3/4 of the costs for the stationing of US troops in their country:

A senior Japanese government official said Friday that Tokyo intends to work harder to convince Trump and his policy advisers to change their stance. “He doesn’t understand that the stationing of troops here is in the interest of the United States,” the official said.

Meanwhile, a Foreign Ministry source said, “As [Trump] has been obsessed with placing more of a burden on U.S. allies, he’s unlikely to back down.”  (………..)

According to a report compiled in 2004 by the U.S. Defense Department, Japan’s financial contribution accounted for 74.5 percent of the total, or about 4.4 billion dollars U.S.(about 470 billion yen at a recent exchange rate).  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

Very good read over at KoreaBang in regards to the divided opinions Koreans have about the comfort women issue which makes pragmatic decision making involving Japan so difficult:

Was Minister Yoon Byeon-se some sort of a judge in a court? Some comments sound like criticism towards unfair law enforcement, not a negotiation. Was the Korean minister in the position of a judge while the Japanese minister was the accused? Honestly, the meeting wouldn’t even have happened if it weren’t for American pressure. A judge controls how to apply absolute public authority but a negotiator has to give and take. How on earth do you expect Korea to draw an unconditional surrender from Japan? If it was possible at all, why did all those competent presidents and ministers fail to do so?

 

How much leverage do we have against Japan? Economy? Military? The international community’s support? Do we have enough power to deal with Japan’s diplomatic power heads-on? Human rights? Do you know how inconsistent their attention to “human rights” is in the international community who aren’t exactly total angels? Do you think countries like Germany, the U.S. and France would bother confronting Japan because they love human rights so much? Really? For your information, countless political figures such as Merkel, the British crown prince, and Michelle Obama have visited Japan while dust was piling up at the gates of our Blue House. Do you think the world is on our side? For real?

 

I see comments like “It would’ve been better if they hadn’t reached any agreement then.” or “Do your job right.” One of the main complaints about our government was that they seem to be just waiting until all the victims passed away, wasn’t it? Every year about 10 victims pass away now. So what if we keep failing to reach any agreement? Is it better if we don’t negotiate at all then? You ask what right the government has to negotiate on behalf of the victims? Then should the government take a hands-off approach to the comfort women issue? Now will “the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan” [Jeong-dae-hyeop] handle everything on their own? Some criticize Japan for just throwing a billion yen at the problem. If Japan didn’t decide to pay at all, they would call it an empty apology or worse than the Asian Women’s Fund. Some say it is merely a billion yen. But if Japan decided to pay more, then they would say Japan is trying to bury the issue with money.  [Korea Bang]

Read the whole thing at the link.

A group of members from more than 130 civic organizations in South Korea calls for the Japanese government to abolish discrimination against a high school for ethnic Koreans in Japan, called “Chosun School,” in a rally in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul on April 22, 2016. The Japanese government has moved to exclude only this school among other high schools for foreigners from its free education program for high schools, citing tense Japan-North Korea relations and the North’s nuclear and missile threats. Most of the students in the school are from pro-Pyongyang families. (Yonhap)

It looks like the US is getting closer to getting Japan and South Korea to final conclude an intelligence sharing agreement which from a military perspective makes so much sense considering the common threat posed by North Korea:

South Korea, the United States and Japan will look to expand their sharing of military intelligence in response to the growing threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, a top U.S. diplomat said Wednesday.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken made the remarks in an interview with South Korean reporters, saying the three countries are boosting security cooperation to protect their citizens from any North Korean provocation.

“Information-sharing among us is one important element of being as safe and secure as possible,” he said. “And we will look for ways to deepen that information sharing as we move forward.”

The prospect of sharing military intelligence with Japan has been a sensitive issue in South Korea where there are still deep-seated reservations about the former colonial ruler. In 2012, the two sides tried to sign a General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) to share intelligence on North Korea, but the plan was scrapped, as critics accused the government of arranging the deal behind their backs.  [Yonhap]

You can read the rest at the link.

NHK: 11 killed in latest of series of #KumamotoQuakes. #VOAalert #Japan pic.twitter.com/k1EKZibSXX

— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) April 16, 2016

I would think the term “patrols” used in the article would be referring to Japan’s Aegis ships that have ballistic missile defense capabilities.  It seems prudent for the Japanese to do this considering the possibility of the Musudan being fired over their country:

Japan says it is tightening patrols as a contingency against news that North Korea has deployed its Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missiles near Wonsan in Gangwon Province.

Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani told reporters Thursday that the possibility of an additional provocation by North Korea can’t be denied.

He said the Japanese government will continue to keep close tabs and do its best in patrolling and surveillance.

Speaking to reporters, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga also said the government was highly attentive to North Korea’s nuclear and missile issue and has been gathering and analyzing intelligence.

He said the Self-Defense Forces were also maintaining defense readiness.

When asked if Pyongyang could launch a missile on Friday, the birthday of late North Korean founder Kim Il-sung, Suga said the Tokyo government is aware and coordinating with South Korea and the U.S. on response measures. [KBS World Radio]

You can read more at the link.

Sure, you could have a helicopter destroyer without an anime-inspired logo, but what would be the point? https://t.co/aIszpsMLXe

— Erik Slavin (@eslavin_stripes) April 4, 2016

I have always thought that one of the things that may have motivated some of these World War II hold outs was the fear of being prosecuted for war crimes, not the idea of never surrendering.  There was a number of massacres that happened on Guam during the war that makes me wonder of Sergeant Yokoi had anything to do with?:

For some combat veterans, war lives on in memories of camaraderie, loss, pride and shame.

For a small group of Japanese soldiers who fought in World War II, the war literally did not end for decades.

Referred to as “stragglers” or “holdouts,” these men retreated to remote, mountainous jungles as Allied forces retook dozens of Pacific islands conquered by Japan.

Guam is tiny compared with some other Asian nations, but its small population that clustered mainly along the eastern coastline left much of the interior isolated even 25 years after war’s end in 1945.

Cpl. Shoichi Yokoi was among the last of the stragglers discovered in the Pacific, captured on the eastern side of Guam in 1972 when two local shrimpers were checking traps along the Ugum River abutting the cave he’d lived in for 28 years.

Photographs of Yokoi and other Guam stragglers — Pvt. Bunzo Minagawa and Sgt. Masashi Ito, both captured in 1960 — are on display at the Pacific War Museum in Guam.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link.

With the completion of the comfort women agreement it would seem that moving forward at some point on the military intelligence sharing agreement would be the next area of cooperation that the ROK and Japan should focus on.  This is especially important considering the increasing security threats from North Korea:

South Korea said Monday that gaining the public’s support is a prerequisite for Seoul to review whether to seek a pact on sharing military intelligence with Japan.

Japan’s Kyodo News reported Sunday that South Korea and Japan seem to hold the view that conditions are ripe for deepening military cooperation, saying that Defense Minister Han Min-koo said Seoul is mulling reviewing whether to clinch a Seoul-Tokyo pact on sharing military intelligence.

In 2012, the two nations initialed such a pact to spur the exchange of information on North Korea. But Seoul suspended its signing due to strong opposition from civic groups, which claimed the deal was inked hastily and behind the scenes.

Seoul’s defense ministry dismissed the report, adding that Han’s remarks meant that various factors should be first taken into consideration.

“Support from the National Assembly and the general public should be prerequisites for the accord to be clinched,” the Defense Ministry said. [Korea Times]

With Japan developing its own domestic stealth fighter, it makes me wonder how long it will be before the ROK feels they need to develop their own as well:

Japan on Thursday unveiled its first stealth fighter jet, officials said, with the maiden test flight planned for next month.

The defence ministry’s acquisition agency showed off the domestically developed, radar-dodging X-2 fighter at a regional airport near the central city of Komaki.

Its first flight is scheduled in mid-February before delivery to the defence ministry by the end of March next year, the acquisition agency said.

The X-2, developed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, measures 14.2 metres (47 feet) long and 9.1 metres wide and was built as a successor to the F-2 fighter jets developed jointly with the United States.

Presently, only the United States, Russia and China have been internationally recognised as having successfully developed and flown manned stealth jets, the agency said.

Japan has reportedly spent about 39.4 billion yen ($332 million) to develop the aircraft.  [AFP]

You can read the rest at the link.