Tag: Japan

Considering Japan’s pacifist Constitution, I am not sure legally how they would be allowed to respond if just Taiwan was attacked. Additionally the Chinese would more likely blockade Taiwan prior to any attack which makes Japanese involvement even more Constitutionally difficult:

Tokyo would step up militarily to defend Taiwan if Beijing moved to reunify the island with mainland China by force, former deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger said in a panel discussion on Tuesday with other top Trump administration officials.

Pottinger, considered one of the key architects of the Trump administration’s hardline China policies, said Japan first suggested a quadrilateral alliance with the US, India and Australia – now known as the “Quad” – as a defense strategy against China. He also pushed back on assertions that the former administration strained ties with Japan and other allies in the region. (…….)

“There’s a saying in the Japanese military: ‘Taiwan’s defense is Japan’s defense.’ And, and I think that Japan will act accordingly,” Pottinger added.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

According to this article Japanese citizens that worked even decades ago in the U.S. are receiving U.S. government sponsored coronavirus stimulus checks:

A 79-year-old man in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, received an official-looking piece of mail printed in English in late April. 

The addresser was the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Inside the envelope, he found a check for $1,400 (153,000 yen).

His wife also received a check for the same amount.

They are among the Japanese recipients of U.S. stimulus checks to boost the economy during the pandemic, who are at a loss of what to do with the surprise payments. 

According to a person who is related to a major bank, the bank’s call center has been inundated with inquiries about U.S. stimulus checks since May 11.

“As far as the bank is concerned, if a person wants to cash a check and the person’s identity is verified, we have to ask the U.S. side to pay,” the person said. “We don’t have a way to examine if the person is eligible to receive the check.” (…….) The man entertained the idea of pocketing the $2,800 and said to himself, “The United States has so much money to spare that it gives out (the checks) to foreigners like me who lived there about 40 years ago.”

Asahi Shimbun

You can read more at the link.

The North Koreans probably see no irony in them complaining about Japan’s proposed changes to their pacifist constitution when they have in fact started a major war and launched multiple attacks against their neighbors since World War II while Japan has caused no aggressive actions. The only reason Japan wants to modify its constitution is to better respond to aggressive acts from neighboring nations like North Korea:

 North Korea condemned Japan on Wednesday for pushing to revise its pacifist constitution, calling the move a “declaration of war against humankind.” 

The North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) made the criticism as Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga mentioned the need to discuss the possible revision of its war-renouncing constitution earlier this month to officially recognize its self-defense forces by the law. 

“Japan has made desperate efforts to turn itself, which renounced war, into a war-capable country, remaining unchanged in its wild ambition for launching reinvasion to avenge the past defeat,” KCNA said in a commentary.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

President Biden is sending one of his buddies to Japan:

President Joe Biden is expected to nominate former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to serve as the U.S. ambassador to Japan, according to a person familiar with the president’s decision.

The person, who was not authorized to comment publicly about the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity Tuesday, said the White House plans to announce Emanuel’s nomination later this month.

Emanuel is a former three-term congressman who served as Barack Obama’s first White House chief of staff and was a senior adviser in Bill Clinton’s administration. Biden had considered naming Emanuel to serve as his transportation secretary but ultimately passed him over in the face of fierce opposition from some in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party and liberal activists.

Asahi Shimbun

You can read more at the link, but a good thing about being an ambassador to Japan is that if he needs to send a dead fish to anyone they will be easy find.

I wonder if anyone on the Korean left is going to claim this is training to assault Dokdo:

French forces are training on Japanese soil for the first time during drills this week that will include beach raids alongside U.S. Marines and Japanese amphibious troops supported by an Australian frigate.

The Jeanne D’Arc 21 exercise began Tuesday at Camp Ainoura, home of Japan’s Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade at Sasebo in Nagasaki prefecture, III Marine Expeditionary Force said in a statement Wednesday.

The brigade, modeled on U.S. Marines, has about 100 people in the exercise, including infantry, engineers and command and control troops, according to Marine Capt. Thomas Delaney, a firepower control team leader on Kyushu.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

If there wasn’t enough issues of contention between South Korea and Japan and here is yet another one:

South Korea is considering lodging a complaint with an international tribunal against Japan’s decision to dump a huge amount of contaminated wastewater from a crippled nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean, Cheong Wa Dae said Wednesday.

President Moon Jae-in issued the instruction before meeting with Japan’s new ambassador here, Koichi Aiboshi, to receive his credentials.

In an internal meeting, Moon ordered his government to “proactively consider” bringing the matter to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, according to Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Kang Min-seok.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the Chinese are loving this decision as well because they can bash Japan while they continue to freely pollute the oceans themselves. Additionally the waste water will not be released until 2 years from now as they treat it. The treatment is supposed to clean it enough to be safe to release. This seems like something that international nuclear inspectors should monitor just build confidence in the process. It probably won’t matter though to those bashing Japan.

Like other places in the world there has been a spring time surge in the coronavirus in Japan that has effected the US military troops as well:

U.S. bases in Japan reported another 26 people had contracted the coronavirus between April 7 and 6 p.m. Tuesday.

The Marine Corps announced 16 new cases on Okinawa and one at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni near Hiroshima. Kadena Air Base reported another eight patients between April 7 and Monday. Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo said one person tested positive sometime between Saturday and Tuesday.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

By not having their athletes at the Olympics this will more easily allow the North Koreans to make trouble this summer. What better time to start a provocation cycle that will get the world’s attention on you than the Olympics:

North Korea said Tuesday it will not participate in the upcoming Tokyo Summer Olympics to protect its athletes against the coronavirus pandemic, dashing South Korea’s hopes to use the games to kickstart the stalled peace process with Pyongyang.

The decision was made during a general assembly meeting of the North’s Olympic Committee held in Pyongyang on March 25, according to Sports in the DPRK Korea, a website on sports affairs in North Korea.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but will the U.S., ROK, and Japan cut a deal to end a provocation cycle before the Olympics just to get the Kim regime to behave? I guess we will see what happens.

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.