It figures that the Moon Jae-in administration would find a way to stick to the Japanese during President Trump’s visit:
U.S. President Donald Trump hugs sex slavery victim Lee Yong-soo at a state dinner at Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul on Tuesday. /Yonhap
The rightwing government in Tokyo was duly incensed when Korea served U.S. President Donald Trump shrimp caught near Korea’s easternmost islets of Dokdo, to which Japan maintains a flimsy colonial claim.
Worse in the eyes of the nationalists in Japan was the invitation to a state dinner for Trump on Tuesday of a victim of imperial Japan’s sexual enslavement of women during World War II.
Tokyo protested through diplomatic channels that Cheong Wa Dae’s invitation of sex slavery victim Lee Yong-soo to the state dinner is “against the purport” of a 2015 agreement to compensate the women, which was once described as “a final and irreversible resolution,” according to the Yomiuri Shimbun on Wednesday.
The controversial deal, which trades indirect compensation for a promise to remove memorials for the victims from the vicinity of Japanese diplomatic missions, makes no mention of what events the victims of the atrocity can or cannot be invited to.
The new government of President Moon Jae-in wants to reverse it. [Chosun Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but why were the victims of Chinese and North Korean atrocities not invited to the state dinner?
The media has hit its latest low now blasting headlines about how President Trump disrespected his Japanese hosts and threaten to kill precious Japanese koi by dumping his box of fish food into the pond at Akasaka Palace:
It was a story that seemed to reinforce stereotypes of President Donald Trump: On a visit to Japan, he was handed a box of food for a ritual feeding of carp, and after doling out a few spoons’ worth, he got impatient and dumped the rest of the box all at once.
Initial reports of the food dump — like this early video from CNN — suggested that Trump acted on his own. This pushed the late-night Twitterverse and blogosphere into a tizzy. The website Jezebel posted a story headlined, “Big Stupid Baby Dumps Load Of Fish Food On Japanese Koi Pond.”
One problem: Trump didn’t just decide to dump his food on his own. Video shows he was following the lead of his host at the koi pond event, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. [Politifact]
You can read more at the link, but it is reports like this that just validate everything the Trump administration says about the media. So we can now add Koi-gate to the endless list of examples of fake news.
This is something that many people who don’t understand missile defense think until they realize the physics behind it:
U.S. President Donald Trump has said Japan should have shot down the North Korean missiles that flew over the country before landing in the Pacific Ocean earlier this year, diplomatic sources have said, despite the difficulties and potential ramifications of doing so.
The revelation came ahead of Trump’s arrival in Japan on Sunday at the start of his five-nation trip to Asia. Threats from North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile development programs were set to be high on the agenda in his talks with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday.
Trump questioned Japan’s decision not to shoot down the missiles when he met or spoke by phone with leaders from Southeast Asian countries over recent months to discuss how to respond to the threats from North Korea, the sources said.
The U.S. president said he could not understand why a country of samurai warriors did not shoot down the missiles, the sources said. [Japan Times]
You can read more at the link, but the reason is quite simple why the missiles were not shot down. The missile were flying 770 kilometers above the country in outer space; this is higher than the international space station. The Japanese Aegis ships and Patriot interceptors cannot engage missiles flying that high. To shoot down the missiles the Aegis ship would have to be located out in the ocean where the missile was coming down at. There is no way the Japanese would could have known when and where North Korea was going to fire the missile at to have a ship sitting there waiting to shoot it down.
The real story here is why are diplomatic sources leaking this information to the news media? This is a natural question that many people wondered initially after North Korea fired the missile over Japan. I would hope by now someone has briefed President Trump on missile defense capabilities.
I wonder if this guy has been killing people for many years or if this killing spree over the past two months is the first time he has killed anyone? Fortunately this guy is now off the streets:
Police arrested a 27-year-old man in Zama, Kanagawa Prefecture, on Tuesday after finding parts of nine bodies in his apartment, investigative sources said Tuesday.
The Metropolitan Police Department made the discovery while investigating Takahiro Shiraishi in connection with the disappearance of a 23-year-old woman from Hachioji, Tokyo. The woman is believed to have met the man after writing on a suicide website that she wanted to kill herself.
“It’s true that I tried to hide the bodies of the people I killed to destroy evidence,” Shiraishi was quoted as saying by the police.
According to investigative sources, Shiraishi has also told police that he killed all nine victims since he moved into the apartment in late August. He also told police that he took money from his victims and that the theft was one of his motives.
A saw, believed to have been used to dismember the bodies, was also found in the apartment. According to the police, Shiraishi said he cut up the bodies in the bath, disposing of some body parts in the garbage.
The apartment is located near the U.S. Army’s Camp Zama. [Japan Times]
It seems the US President has received a very warm welcome in Japan:
U.S. President Donald Trump (L) meets Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at Kasumigaseki Country Club to play golf in Saitama Prefecture on Nov. 5, 2017. Trump came to Japan for the first time as a President, and will stay in Japan until Nov. 7th.
Landing in Japan on the first stop of his marathon five-nation tour of Asia, U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday called the nation a “treasured partner” and “crucial ally” of the United States while asserting that “no dictator” and “no regime” should ever underestimate America — a not-so-veiled rebuke of nuclear-armed North Korea.
After paying a solemn visit to Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii on Friday, Trump on Sunday marked the start of his trip to Asia by disembarking from Air Force One at the U.S. Air Force’s Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo. Cheers erupted as he appeared on stage with his wife, first lady Melania Trump, prompting thousands of U.S. military personnel there to welcome the pair with enthusiastic chants of “USA! USA! USA!”
“Japan is a treasured partner and crucial ally of the Unites States,” Trump told a packed aircraft hangar after changing into a bomber jacket. “Today we thank them for decades of wonderful friendship between our two nations.”
It was the first visit by Trump to Japan since his astonishing rise to the presidency last year. The trip will give him and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — touted as one of his best friends among world leaders — a chance to reaffirm their shared strategy of piling “maximum pressure” on the North while also demonstrating anew the strength of the two nations’ alliance.
After delivering his speech, Trump flew to Kasumigaseki Country Club in Saitama Prefecture for two hours of golf diplomacy with Abe — an informal setting that also involved 25-year-old professional golfer Hideki Matsuyama.
Before hitting the links, Abe presented Trump and Matsuyama with white baseball caps, each embroidered with the message “Donald & Shinzo Make Alliance Even Greater.” [Japan Times]
You can read more at the link, but President Trump gave a nice speech to US troops at Yokota Airbase as well.
It appears that the Japanese public supports Prime Minister Abe’s attempts to strengthen the defense force, modify the pacifist constitution, and take a hard-line with North Korea based on the recent election results:
Japan’s ruling coalition appeared headed to an impressive win in national elections on Sunday, in what would represent at least a partial comeback for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
A victory would boost Abe’s chances of winning another three-year term next September as leader of the Liberal Democratic Party. That could extend his premiership to 2021, giving him more time to try to win a reluctant public over to his longtime goal of revising Japan’s pacifist constitution.
In the immediate term, a victory likely means a continuation of the policies Abe has pursued in the nearly five years since he took office in December 2012 — a hard line on North Korea, close ties with Washington, including defense, as well as a super-loose monetary policy and push for nuclear energy. [Stars and Stripes]
You can read more at the link, but it looks like the “bromance” that President Trump and Prime Minister Abe have will continue.
