Tag: Japan

Somebody is either lying or something was lost in translation:

A U.S. senator’s claim that the Japanese reneged on a promise to transfer a Navy officer imprisoned in Japan was false and inappropriate, Japan’s Ministry of Foreign affairs said Friday. 

Sen. Mike Lee on the Senate floor Wednesday criticized Japan’s handling of the conviction and imprisonment of Lt. Ridge Alkonis, who’s serving three years for a May 2021 car crash that killed two Japanese citizens. During his speech, Lee accused Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi of backtracking on a deal for the sailor’s release to U.S. custody. 

Lee said he met in August with Hayashi in Tokyo, where the foreign minister made an “unequivocal commitment” to transfer Alkonis. However, a “junior member of the Japanese embassy” contacted Lee’s staff and denied Hayashi ever made the commitment, the senator said.

Lee’s remarks were “contrary to the facts and cannot be accepted,” and the ministry lodged an official complaint through the U.S. government over the matter, a ministry spokesperson told Stars and Stripes by email Friday.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but I continue to think that all the public pressure being put on Japan will make it less likely they will release him early.

I figured some fund like this would be set up to resolve the forced labor issue. I like the scholarship fund idea though instead of just paying the victim’s families cash because it shows that the Japanese are investing in Korea’s future:

South Korea and Japan have tentatively agreed to create a “future youth fund” to sponsor scholarships for students, as part of a deal on settling the issue of compensation for Korean victims of Japan’s wartime forced labor, sources said Sunday.

The fund will be jointly formed by the Federation of Korean Industries, South Korea’s big business lobby, and the Japan Business Federation (Keidanren), according to the government sources.

The South Korean foreign ministry is expected to announce the details Monday along with the details of a broader agreement reached between the two countries to settle the issue of compensation for Korean victims of forced labor during World War II, the sources said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but expect the Korean left to go bonkers in their criticism due to President Yoon trying to settle this issue and improve relations with Japan.

This should be no surprise that protesters would come out against trying to improve relations with Japan:

Soon after President Yoon Suk Yeol gave a key address, calling Japan a partner for South Korea’s regional security and economy, some hundreds held a rally on Independence Movement Day on Wednesday, urging him to keep his promise of resolving historic disputes with the neighboring country including the one over sexual slavery during its 1910-45 rule of Korean Peninsula.

In the late morning chill, around 200 civic activists gathered near the Japanese Embassy in central Seoul, holding paper cutouts of yellow butterflies — a symbol of victims representing a wish to escape from violence and fly — chanting “apologize,” and demanding compensation from Japan.

The protest was a part of the 1,585th weekly rally protesting Japan’s wartime sexual enslavement of Korean women during World War II that has been held for the last 30 years.

Lee Yong-soo, a 93-year-old victim of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery, took over the microphone, said she still has a faith in President Yoon, and demanded his administration to send the matter to the United Nations Committee Against Torture.

“The then-presidential-candidate Yoon Suk Yeol was the third person to visit me, and he said he would resolve the comfort women issue even if he wasn’t elected. His words touched me,” she said. “I don’t think that he lied (at that time), and I will believe in him.”

Watching Lee’s tearful speech, 63-year-old Kim Deok-yeon said he has participated in the demonstration since last year to raise awareness, especially among the younger generation.

“These people were forced to become sex slaves of Japan’s wartime brothels, but Japan seems reluctant (to take responsibility). As a Korean citizen, I couldn’t stand my anger toward Japan for committing such atrocities,” he said, referring to the victims as “survivors of a dark part of history.”

Kim stressed the importance of educating Korean students about undistorted facts in and out of the country, lamenting Japan’s recognition of Dokdo as part of its territory.

“History doesn’t lie — it has everything recorded down. Now is a time to properly educate the younger generation about our country’s past so that the same history will not repeat itself in the future,” he said, hoping young people would create a change.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but if this 63 year old man really cared about sex slaves then what is he doing about modern day sexual slavery of Korean women in China right now?

According to one report the sexual trafficking of Korean women is a $105 million industry in China. Imperial Japan was obviously wrong about trafficking Korean women 80 years ago which they claim was resolved with the payments made in the 1965 Normalization Treaty. The Japanese government had apologized even started a victim compensation fund before the prior President Moon shut it down for political reasons. Restarting this victim compensation fund appears to be the route that President Yoon is trying to go again, but we will see what happens.

It is good to see ferry service between Japan and South Korea is back to normal:

Ferry services between South Korea’s Busan and Japan’s Tsushima Island resumed Saturday after a three-year suspension due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Busan Port Authority said two ferry vessels departed from a port in the southeastern city at 8:30 a.m. and 10:10 a.m., and arrived at Hitakatsu Port on the southwestern Japanese island 1 1/2 hours later.

Tsushima is the closest Japanese island to the Korean Peninsula.

With the resumption, Busan has now reopened all four sea routes with Japan that were halted in April 2020 due to the coronavirus.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The three nations have done this trilateral missile defense exercises in the past, but they were scrapped during the prior Moon administration:

South Korea, the United States and Japan held a trilateral missile defense exercise in the international waters of the East Sea on Wednesday, Seoul’s military said, amid heightened tensions caused by North Korea’s recent missile launches.

The exercise took place in waters east of South Korea’s Ulleung Island, mobilizing three Aegis-equipped destroyers — the South’s Sejong the Great, the U.S.’ USS Barry and the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s JS Atago — according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).

The exercise, which lasted for some five hours from 9 a.m., focused on practicing procedures to detect, track and intercept computer-simulated targets, and share related information, it said.

Of the three destroyers, only the U.S. vessel was involved in the interception segment, while the rest joined other parts of the drills, such as the detection of virtual targets, a Seoul official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The North Koreans are continuing to make sure the world doesn’t lose attention on them:

North Korea fired a suspected intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Saturday, Japan’s Defense Ministry said, with the weapon splashing down some 200 kilometers off Hokkaido’s Oshima Island, inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

The missile, the first “ICBM-class” weapon to be fired by the North since November, traveled roughly 900 km, hitting a peak altitude of 5,700 km, the ministry said. With a flight time of 66 minutes, the missile was likely flown on a “lofted” trajectory, the ministry added, meaning it had been nearly shot straight up so as to avoid overflying neighboring countries.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Japan had protested the launch, calling it “an outrage” and escalation against “the international community as a whole.”

The Defense Ministry said the ICBM-class weapon was believed to have a range of over 14,000 km, depending on the weight of the warhead and other factors.

“In this case, that would put the entire United States within its range,” Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said.

Japan Times

A camera from the city of Hakodate on Hokkaido appears to have even caught the ICBM reentering the atmosphere:

This next graphic shows the trajectory of the ICBM that landed within Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone:

According to the article the launch is believed to be in response to a table top exercise next week between the U.S. and the ROK militaries where they will plan on how to defend against North Korean nuclear attacks.

Apparently the family waited too long to file a claim after the Korean Supreme Court issued their initial ruling of compensation for forced labor victims back in 2012:

A Seoul court on Tuesday ruled against the family of a man enslaved to work for Japan during World War II in a damages suit they filed against a Japanese company.

The man, surnamed Kim, was mobilized to work at a construction site operated by Japanese company Nishimatsu Construction in North Hamgyong Province in what is now North Korea in 1942 while the entire Korean peninsula was under Japan’s colonial rule, his family said. 

Kim died two years later while working at the construction site, and a South Korean government committee in 2006 recognized him as a victim of Japan’s wartime forced labor. 

Five family members of Kim filed the civil suit against Nishimatsu in 2019 on behalf of him, seeking about 70 million won (US$55,183) in compensation. 

The Seoul Central District Court ruled the statute of limitations on the case already expired as it concluded the damages case against the plaintiffs.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but this is definitely an issue that needs to be resolved before bilateral relations between the ROK and Japan can move forward more collaboratively. Expect all the DPRK and PRC agitators to do all they can to stoke this issue with the Korean public in order to prevent Japan and the ROK from moving forward with bilateral relations.

It looks like the Chinese are now violating the territorial waters of Japan for spy purposes as well:

Tokyo lodged a diplomatic complaint with Beijing on Sunday after a Chinese navy vessel entered Japan’s territorial waters off the southern tip of its main islands, according to Japanese government statements.

A Shupang-class survey ship crossed the 12-mile territorial limit around Yakushima, an island 40 miles south of Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s four main islands, at approximately 2:30 a.m. Sunday, Japan’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that day.

The vessel remained for slightly less than two hours before exiting to the southwest of neighboring Kuchinoerabu island, the statement said.

The survey vessel’s intrusion was the first of the year by the Chinese navy, according to the Ministry of Defense website. Shupang-class survey vessels made five intrusions in 2022, according to the ministry.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.