Tag: Japan

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.

This would be a huge development if it comes to fruition:

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. says he’d consider a reciprocal military access agreement with Japan to guard his country’s fishermen and sea territory amid tension with China.

“If it will be of help to the Philippines in terms of protecting, for example, our fishermen, protecting our maritime territory, if it’s going to help, then … I don’t see why we should not adopt it,” Marcos said, according to an official transcript of an interview with reporters on his flight back Sunday from a five-day official trip to Tokyo.

Philippine officials are assessing whether such an agreement would help their country or worsen tensions in the South China Sea, Marcos said.

“We have to be careful also because we do not want to appear provocative,” he said. “That instead of calming the situation in the South China Sea, we would heighten it, right? That’s not what we want.”

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida “briefly” discussed the concept of a defense pact when the two leaders met on Thursday, Marcos said. That day, the pair signed an agreement that allows Japan to deploy its forces for humanitarian missions and disaster response in the Philippines, The Associated Press reported Friday.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but any military agreement the Philippines signs with Japan will be taken as provocative by China However, isn’t the Chinese forcibly claiming Philippines territory even more provocative?

Being in an increasingly bad neighborhood has convinced the majority of the Japanese public they need to build up their defenses. This is a big change considering how for decades the Japanese public has maintained a pacifist stance:

People in Japan are warming to the idea of a stronger defense policy amid challenges from China, Russia and North Korea, according to a recent poll.

The Nikkei Research survey of 1,663 Japanese adults between October and November showed 49% backed an expanded role in the U.S.-Japan alliance while 46% opposed it.

That’s up from 41% who wanted a bigger role for Japan in the alliance and 53% who were against it in 2020. A 2021 survey showed 46% in favor and 49% against, the Nikkei newspaper reported Jan. 25.

When people were asked if they were worried Japan might be attacked, 83% said they were concerned while 14% said they weren’t. Of those concerned, 54% said Japan should boost its role in the U.S.-Japan alliance, according to the poll.

North Korean and Chinese missile launches near Japan and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine kept security issues in the news last year.

In the latest poll, 89% of respondents saw China as a threat, 87% felt threatened by North Korea, and 90% saw Russia as a threat.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

I just don’t understand how idiots like this guy think they are going to get away with doing dumb things like this:

This screenshot from an All Nippon News report shows security camera footage from a car dealer in Iwakuni, Japan, Dec. 3, 2022. (ANN)

A U.S. Marine has met with and apologized to the owner of a vehicle that was stolen and then crashed last month outside this base near Hiroshima, according to a local media report. 

The Marine, who has not been identified by local authorities or the Marine Corps, spent nearly two hours with the victim on Thursday, the local Chugoku newspaper reported the next day. In addition to apologizing, he promised to pay for any damages, the report said.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

The Russians continue to make themselves look like clowns:

Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president and a senior security official in President Vladimir Putin’s administration, said Saturday that Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida should perform a ritualistic suicide by disembowelment to repent for what Medvedev called servitude to the United States.

Medvedev’s remarks were in response to a joint statement Friday by President Joe Biden and Kishida, in which the leaders said that “any use of a nuclear weapon by Russia in Ukraine would be an act of hostility against humanity and unjustifiable in any way.”

Russian military leaders have discussed the potential use of a tactical nuclear weapon should their invasion of Ukraine face more setbacks.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

The Korean government is trying to resolved the forced labor issue the same way the comfort women issue was resolved before it wasn’t:

The South Korean government is considering a method to compensate victims of Japan’s wartime forced labor through a public foundation fund rather than direct payment from responsible Japanese firms, officials here confirmed during a public hearing Thursday.

Victims and supporting civic groups, however, strongly protested the move, saying that the issue is not about money but that of addressing past human rights violations of Japan.

The government’s controversial plan was announced during the event held at the National Assembly in Seoul on ways to resolve the thorny issue of compensating victims in line with the Supreme Court’s back-to-back landmark rulings in 2018 against Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and Nippon Steel Corp., respectively. 

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but expect the Korean left to do everything they can to sink this proposal like they did with the comfort women fund. Like the comfort women issue, the forced labor issue is too politically useful for the Korean left to let it get resolved.

The Korean right wants to resolve this issue in order to expand cooperation with Japan in other areas. Japan wants the issue resolved, but only through a private entity as proposed because their official position is that all financial claims were resolved with the 1965 normalization treaty where they paid a $800 million reparation fee to the Korean government who invested that money into the Korean economy and infrastructure instead of individual victim payments.

It is refreshing to hear a Korean president speak the truth about why the Japanese are increasing their military capabilities instead of demagoguing the issue for political benefit:

President Yoon Suk Yeol said Wednesday that Japan’s moves to bolster its defense capabilities are hard to stop in the face of the threat of North Korea’s missiles.

Yoon made the remark during a joint policy briefing from the foreign and defense ministers, referring to Japan’s recent increase in its defense budget and its inclusion of the “counterstrike” concept in its revised security documents.

“We can wonder how a country adopting a pacifist constitution can do such things, but if there are missiles flying over their heads and the possibility of a nuclear strike, it’s not easy to stop,” he said during the meeting at the former presidential compound of Cheong Wa Dae.

“Japan increased its defense budget because there are IRBMs flying over their heads, and decided to include the so-called ‘counterstrike’ concept in its defense plan,” he said, referring to intermediate-range ballistic missiles that North Korea fired over Japan. “How can anyone take issue with that?”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but DPRK apologists in the Korean left will take issue with anything the Japan does to defend themselves. At least the current Korean President is not one of them.