Tag: 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.

Here is the latest on the Dokdo front:

The Dokdo Foundation on Monday released four maps of Shimane Prefecture produced by Japan after the 1905 treaty that forcibly sealed Japan’s colonial occupation of Korea.

All four maps marked Oki Island, which is located 50 kilometers off the prefecture but not Dokdo.

Japan has claimed that it incorporated the Dokdo Islets into Shimane Prefecture with the prefectural notice of February 22, 1905.

The maps, however, prove that Dokdo was not marked on the maps of the prefecture even after the 1905 notice.

An official at the Dokdo Foundation said that maps showing Dokdo in the jurisdiction of the prefecture have yet to be found, not even in Japan.

Given that the maps were produced by the Japanese government, a leading newspaper and a publisher, the official suspects that the 1905 notice of Shimane Prefecture was never officially issued in Japan and must have been an instrument of propaganda to enhance its claims to Dokdo.   [KBS World Radio]

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

With the nuclear threat North Korea is building and the continued territorial aggressiveness of the Chinese developing nuclear weapons in both South Korea and Japan may happen eventually anyway:

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has reiterated that he is open to allowing South Korea and Japan to have nuclear weapons so as to defend themselves against threats from North Korea.

Trump made the remark during a town hall meeting televised on CNN Tuesday night, stressing that the North has nuclear weapons and the U.S. is no longer rich enough to defend other wealthy nations, like Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia.

“Can I be honest are you? Maybe it’s going to have to be time to change, because so many people, you have Pakistan has it, you have China has it. You have so many other countries are now having it,” Trump said, referring to nuclear weapons.

“At some point we have to say, you know what, we’re better off if Japan protects itself against this maniac in North Korea. We’re better off, frankly, if South Korea is going to start to protect itself,” Trump said, referring to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Asked again if he means it’s OK for Japan, South Korea and even Saudi Arabia to have nuclear weapons, Trump said, “It’s going to happen anyway. It’s going to happen anyway. It’s only a question of time. They’re going to start having them or we have to get rid of them entirely.”  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Drink/drive limit toughened on US military bases in Japan, in line with Japanese standard: https://t.co/aK8MyPkc68 pic.twitter.com/0BQioioflO

— Erik Slavin (@eslavin_stripes) March 28, 2016