Category: 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.

That is what some Koreans are saying after this incident at a festival in Yongin:

A Japanese man has ignited controversy for wrapping himself in a Rising Sun flag at the “ULTRA Korea” festival in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, on June 7-9. 

The Japanese imperial military used the flag during World War II (1939-45) and the flag is regarded as a symbol of Japan’s wartime aggression. Many Koreans believe the flag should be banned. 

Some Korean participants in the ULTRA Korea, Asia’s largest electronic dance music (EDM) festival, reportedly had “clashes” with the Japanese and reported him to the organization committee. But the committee did not take any tangible action, according to Professor Seo Kyung-duk, a top Korea promoter. 

“The festival officials should have restrained the man. If he had not cooperated, they should have dragged him out,” Seo wrote on his Instagram Tuesday.

“The man will return to Japan and say he had no problem displaying a Rising Sun flag in Korea. The committee should make an official apology and promise to avoid a recurrence,” Seo wrote. 

Korea Times

First of all this Japanese man was clearly trolling for a reaction and he got it.

Anyway the way I look at it is that if the Rising Sun flag is banned in South Korea then the North Korean and Chinese flags should be banned as well. Those two countries killed far more Koreans than Imperial Japan ever did and destroyed nearly the entire country during the Korean War.

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.

Okinawans have been complaining about helicopter noise and safety issues with Marine Corps Air Station Futenma for many years, but they don’t like the relocation plan either:

Just over half of Okinawa’s 1.15 million registered voters turned out Sunday to deliver a resounding “no” vote in a referendum on the plan to relocate Marine Corps Air Station Futenma.
Out of the 601,733 voters who turned out, 434,149 — or approximately 72 percent — voted against the reclamation of land in Oura Bay at Camp Schwab for a new military runway. The plan is to close Futenma and relocate Marine air operations to Henoko on Okinawa’s less populated northern coast.
The vote is sure to further complicate matters for Japan’s central government, which has pushed forward with the project for decades despite a persistent local protest movement.
Construction of the runway is already underway and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said the relocation project will continue regardless of the referendum’s result.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but considering what this retired Japanese General said last week, it makes me wonder if any money going to the anti-base groups is funded by the Chinese?

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.

The Japan Times recently had an editorial advising against getting tattoos and working in the english teaching industry Japan:

Reader PP is arriving in Japan soon to begin a stint as an assistant language teacher (ALT). He writes: “I am very interested in getting an irezumi (traditional tattoo) in Japan. Are there any artists that will tattoo a foreigner? If so, who and where? My interviewer for the teaching position tried to warn me that tattoos are a ‘no-no’. ”
He goes on to describe a story he heard about another ALT: The man had taken off his shirt to water some plants on his balcony, when a student’s parent happened to walk by and saw his tattoo-riddled back. The parent apparently called the school, claiming that they had hired a member of the yakuza — the Japanese mafia, who traditionally have tattoos. The ALT had to change jobs and cities as a result.

Japan Times

You can read the rest at the link, but this article got thinking what experiences English teachers in Korea have had with having tattoos?