Tag: Japan

I am surprised that Prime Minister Abe thought a deal over the Kuril Islands would ever be possible with Russia:

Kimio Waki remembers the day in 1945 when Soviet soldiers burst into his home, “machine guns in their hands, and with their shoes on.” He was just 4 years old. “They ransacked the house,” he said. “I’m left with my memory of fear.”

Waki and his family were among of 17,000 Japanese living on the southernmost Kurile islands – known in Russia as the Kurils – when Soviet troops invaded after Japan had announced its surrender in World War II. Over the next four years, all of them either fled or were forcibly evicted.

More than seven decades later, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has embarked on a quixotic dream to persuade Moscow to return at least some of the islands, with President Vladimir Putin first dangling – then seemingly withdrawing – the prospect of a deal.

There had been hopes the two leaders might have signed a framework agreement on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit, which begins June 28 in Osaka. But that dream has died, experts say.

“A deal to settle the territorial dispute – that’s really not on the table anymore,” said James Brown, an associate professor at Temple University’s campus in Japan.

Instead, Russia is now proposing to deepen economic cooperation by introducing visa-free travel for residents of the Russian island of Sakhalin and Japan’s island of Hokkaido, which lie west of the disputed smaller islands.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but Putin pulled the old okey-doke on Japan by appearing to be open to something Abe really wanted to pursue, but then twist it to try and get something else.

Putin is never going to willingly give back the Kuril Islands because it ensures that the Sea of Okhotsk remains a giant Russian lake by denying undetected submarine access. It also allows easy entry and exit for the Russian Pacific fleet anchored at Vladivostok.

The findings from this recent poll are especially troubling when you consider that last year a different poll found that 78% of South Koreans said they trusted Kim Jong-un. It would be interesting though if someone polled these two questions together to the Korean public. However, such polling numbers may seem to make no sense that Koreans would trust the leader of country committed to their destruction over a country that has no hostile intentions towards them, but for anyone that has followed Korea and Japan issues it makes perfect sense:

Three-quarters of Japanese do not trust their South Korean neighbours – and the feeling is mutual, a study has found.

A record 74 per cent of Japanese were now distrustful of South Koreans, found the study by the Yomiuri Shimbunin Japan

 and the Hankook Ilbo in Korea. That was more than at any time since the study was first conducted in 1996 and well above last year’s figure of 60 per cent. Meanwhile, 75 per cent of South Koreans

 had no trust in the Japanese, down from 79 per cent last year.

Those personal sentiments appeared to mirror a strained diplomatic relationship between the two countries. Some 83 per cent of Japanese respondents thought bilateral relations were bad, up from 63 per cent last year, while 82 per cent of Koreans thought the same, up from 69 per cent last year.

South China Morning Post

You can read much more at the link, but the reasons for the distrust are the usual ones, the Japanese did not apologize enough for World War II and the Japanese say they are tired of apologizing over and over again. Then there is always the Dokdo craziness.

As I have long said there is no reason for the South Korean political left to give up their anti-Japanese stance. It is even hard for the South Korean right to do so, though the prior President Park Geun-hye tried and the current government scrapped the deal she made with Japan. The issue is too great of punching bag for politicians to turn to when they need to deflect attention from domestic issues. How many times have we seen a Korean politician under domestic pressure show up on Dokdo?

This is all why I have long believed that if Japanese Prime Minister Abe was really clever he should apologize for war time sexual slavery once 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.

Such a stance would make it difficult for the political demagogues in South Korean to bring up more demands for apologies when it would reflect negatively on their own current human rights failures. It would no doubt be a bold measure, but I see no other way of ending the current impasse.

Kim Won-bong is basically the Benedict Arnold of South Korea. I think it is okay to record his military contributions as part of the historical record, but his treason should be part of the historical record as well instead of just receiving praise for his anti-Japanese activities:

The Ministry of National Defense said Monday it was reviewing a request from its research arm to include details of Kim Won-bong’s fight for Korea’s independence in the historical records of the Korean military on its official website.

Kim was the leader of a secret society fighting for independence. He and his associates became undercover operatives for the Korean provisional government in China from the late 1930s to early 1940s. But Kim later went to North Korea, where he earned commendations from Pyongyang for his efforts in the Korean War.

“The ministry understands there is a need to record the late Kim Won-bong’s activities if they turn out to be based on historical facts,” ministry spokeswoman Choi Hyun-soo told reporters in a briefing at the ministry’s headquarters in Yongsan-gu, Seoul. 

A request was made last year by the Institute for Military History for the current history on the ministry website to be revised to include some facts about Kim’s activities including his creation of the anti-Japanese Korean Volunteer Corps in 1938 in Wuhan, China. Kim was later appointed deputy commander of the Korean Liberation Army in 1942 and served until 1945. 

Currently, the ministry’s records only state certain facts such as those on the late independence activist Ahn Jung-geun and his assassination of then-Japanese Resident-General Hirobumi Ito in 1909, or the foundation of the provisional government in 1919, in the history before the 1945 liberation of Korea from colonial rule.

The historical assessment on Kim, however, remains controversial as he became a North Korean military commander in 1948 and fought against South Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War. He was said to have helped strengthen Kim Il-sung’s regime in North Korea before being purged in 1958.

Controversy surrounding Kim has recently resurfaced following President Moon Jae-in’s June 6 Memorial Day speech at Seoul National Cemetery, where he gave credit to him for his activities. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Although he has lived in Japan for 25 years, Pico Iyer doesn’t choose to learn more than a smattering of Japanese because he says needs mystery and “a sense of open space in life, something to offset the sense of the familiar.” https://t.co/0JpPZ4e03m

— New York Times Books (@nytimesbooks) April 23, 2019

It did not take long for the Japanese to crash one of their F-35’s:

 Search and rescue teams found wreckage from a crashed Japanese F-35 stealth fighter in the Pacific Ocean close to northern Japan, as efforts to find the missing pilot continued, authorities said on Wednesday.

The aircraft, less than one-year-old, was the first F-35 to be assembled in Japan and was aloft for only 28 minutes on Tuesday before contact was lost, a defense official said. The plane had logged a total of 280 hours in the air since its first flight, he added. 
It is only the second F-35 to crash in the two-decades it has been flying and could reignite concern about the F-35 having only one engine.

Reuters

You can read more at the link, but hopefully they are able to recover the pilot. It will be interesting to see what the cause of the crash is because this was pretty much a brand new aircraft with only 280 flight hours.

It is amazing how long many Japanese are able to live:

A 116-year-old Japanese woman who loves playing the board game Othello was honored Saturday as the world’s oldest living person by Guinness World Records.

The global authority on records officially recognized Kane Tanaka in a ceremony at the nursing home where she lives in Fukuoka, in Japan’s southwest. Her family and the mayor were present to celebrate. 

Tanaka was born Jan. 2, 1903, the seventh among eight children. She married Hideo Tanaka in 1922, and they had four children and adopted another child. 

She is usually up by 6 a.m. and enjoys studying mathematics

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Considering the strained relations currently in the ROK-Japanese relationship this decision is not surprising:

Japan will not send its warship to waters off the Korean Peninsula for a multinational maritime exercise this spring, a government source here said Friday, amid tensions over a military spat and historical issues.
South Korea, the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and other partner countries plan to stage the maneuvers from April 29 to May 2 in waters off South Korea’s southeastern port city of Busan and then from May 9 to May 13 in waters off Singapore.
Japan will skip the drills near Busan, but take part in those around Singapore, the source said on condition of anonymity. The exercise will focus on enhancing multilateral cooperation in countering maritime crimes and protecting gas fields or other ocean-based facilities. 
The decision came at a meeting of the maritime security expert working group of the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus), held in Busan from Thursday through Friday. South Korea and Singapore co-chair the working group this year.
Seoul’s defense ministry confirmed that Japan will not deploy any vessels to the planned drills around Busan, but it plans to send two warships to the exercise in waters off Singapore.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

There is no doubt that China has a long-term strategy to absorb Taiwan at some point, but I think a military attack is too risky due to a possible US military response. I don’t see the security environment changing that much by 2025 to make such an attack less risky:

 A former Japanese military officer recently made waves after saying he believes China plans to invade and annex Taiwan by 2025 and Okinawa by 2045.
The comments by retired Lt. Gen. Kunio Orita, a 35-year veteran of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force and a former commander of the 301st Tactical Fighter Squadron and 6th Air Wing, appeared last month in the English-language Taiwan News.
Orita, who retired in 2009 and is now a guest professor at Toyo Gakuen University in Tokyo, recently told Stars and Stripes he expects Beijing will attempt to expand its sphere of influence by first taking control of Taiwan and then militarizing a key disputed islet in the South China Sea.
Once that’s accomplished, he said, China will set its sights on Japan’s southern island prefecture, which hosts about half of the approximately 54,000 U.S. troops serving in Japan.

Stars & Stripes

You can read much more at the link, but Lt. Gen Orita also claims that the anti-US protest movement on Okinawa is sponsored by Beijing. He even says Beijing is providing funding to Okinawa media outlets. That is a very serious accusation if true and I would hope the Japanese government is vigorously working to find out who these Beijing agents are.

Apparently the Japanese government is concerned that President Trump will cut a deal to eliminate North Korea’s ICBMs, but leave them with nuclear weapons. This is significant to Japan because North Korea’s shorter range missiles can easily target Japan with nuclear weapons:

When U.S. President Donald Trump sits down to talk peace with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un later this month, one of America’s closest allies — Japan — will be looking on with apprehension.
Like the first time Trump met Kim in June, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has found himself on the outside peering in before their second summit set for Feb. 27-28 in Hanoi. The meeting brings both the promise of a less-dangerous North Korea and the potential peril of a weak deal that leaves Japan exposed to Kim’s weapons of mass destruction and does nothing to help ease Tokyo’s own hostility with Pyongyang.
Mitoji Yabunaka, who served as Japan’s envoy to six-party talks with North Korea more than a decade ago, said the country feared “a half-baked, deceptive agreement which leads to the Trump administration taking a soft line on North Korea by removing economic sanctions” without serious progress on disarmament. That would be “the nightmare scenario,” Yabunaka said.
While Japan and the U.S. — which guarantees the country’s security under a 1960 treaty — both want North Korea to give up its weapons, their interests could diverge as talks progress. Kim’s short- to medium-range rockets pose the most immediate danger to Japan, not the intercontinental ballistic missiles that now threaten the American homeland.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but if such a deal is reached with the Kim regime I suspect that the Trump administration would make certain security guarantees towards Japan that North Korea would face an overwhelming counterattack if they ever targeted Japan with their missiles.

I guess we will see what deal is struck in about a week.

Here is the latest US military servicemember getting himself in drunken trouble in Japan:

A U.S. servicemember was arrested Saturday in the home of a Japanese couple who found him naked after he’d used their shower, according to local news reports.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Nathaniel Williams, 27, is accused of walking through the unlocked front door of a home in Ebina City while intoxicated ‪at about 5:10 a.m.‬, the Kanagawa Shimbun reported Saturday.
Williams is assigned to the Aircraft Intermediate Maintenance Depo at Naval Air Facility Atsugi, Navy officials said Saturday evening.
Williams was discovered after an unidentified 44-year-old man who lives in the home woke up to use the bathroom and heard water running, the Kanagawa Shimbun report said.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but at least he smelled good while sitting in the Japanese jail after his shower.