Tag: Japan

USFJ has changed their curfew policy to be age based instead of rank based:

Liberty policies for U.S. service members in Japan ages 20 and older are about to become a little more generous, according to changes announced Thursday by U.S. Forces Japan.

New policies that take effect Monday will permit individual commands to shift their curfews from rank-based to age-based, USFJ spokesman Maj. Thomas Barger told Stars and Stripes by email Thursday. The standard 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. curfew in place since March 2020 that applies to enlisted service members of E-5 and below will apply instead to members ages 19 and younger, he said.

Eligible service members may have another drink in that extra hour. The changes move the deadline for consuming alcohol off-base from midnight to 1 a.m., according to Barger.

Service members in Japan are currently prohibited from consuming alcohol anywhere but their residence, hotel or other quarters between midnight and 5 a.m. The same conditions will apply under the 1 a.m. deadline.

Stars & Stripes

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Chongryon has long been a pro-Kim regime organization in Japan affiliated with organized crime and North Korea propaganda:

North Korea warned Wednesday that Japan will “pay a high price” if it continues to unduly persecute and oppress a group of pro-Pyongyang ethnic Koreans in Japan, mentioning its firing in October of a ballistic missile over the neighboring country.

North Korea regarded “persecution and oppression” against the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, also known as Chongryon, and North Koreans living in Japan as a challenge to its dignity and sovereignty, according to a commentary carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

“We’ve solemnly stated that the Oct. 4 firing of a new type of a ground-to-ground intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) is a warning to our enemies over instability on the Korean Peninsula,” the KCNA said, referring to the North’s launch of the Hwasong-12 ballistic missile over Japan.

“Whether this warning will lead to actual results will depend on attitudes of hostile forces, including Japan,” it said, warning Japan will “pay a high price” against anti-North Korea acts.

The commentary appears to refer to an increase in hate crimes reported against students at schools for ethnic Koreans in Japan.

Chongryon is the largest organization of pro-Pyongyang ethnic Koreans in Japan that was established in 1955.

Yonhap

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What ever agreement the Yoon administration reaches with Japan on the forced labor issue you just know the political opposition is going to demagogue. We saw this play out when the last conservative Korean president signed a deal to compensate former comfort women:

 President Yoon Suk-yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida agreed to seek a quick settlement of the issue of compensation for Korean victims of wartime forced labor during their summit in Cambodia earlier this week, a presidential official said Wednesday.

The official was referring to a Yoon-Kishida summit held on the sidelines of regional gatherings in Phnom Penh on Sunday, during which he said the leaders affirmed their clear commitment to resolving a “pending issue” between the two countries.

Pending issue is a reference to ongoing negotiations between the two countries over how to settle differences over a 2018 South Korean court ruling that Japanese firms should pay compensation to Korean victims of forced labor during World War II.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

North Korea gets all the media attention with their ballistic missile tests, but China quietly over the past decade has developed far more advanced ballistic missiles than anything the Kim regime has. This movement of aircraft at Kadena Airbase is evidence of that reality:

The Air Force move to replace F-15 Eagle fighters with rotating units of more advanced fighters signals awareness that Okinawan bases won’t survive a conflict with China, according to a former Marine fighter pilot and diplomat.

A two-year phased withdrawal of two squadrons flying the supersonic aircraft from Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, began Nov. 1, soon after the release of the new U.S. National Defense Strategy highlighting China as the American military’s “pacing” challenge.

“You can look at it (removal of the F-15s) as the USAF coming to grips with the reality that nothing on the first island chain, especially not Kadena, will be survivable in a conflict with China,” Steve Ganyard, a former deputy assistant secretary of state, told Stars and Stripes in an email Friday.

China’s massive military build-up includes an expanding arsenal of missiles with many of the weapons presumed to be aimed at U.S. bases in Japan. A 2017 report by Navy Cmdr. Thomas Shugart, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, for example, includes satellite imagery of Chinese missile test sites that appear to mimic Yokota, Kadena and Misawa air bases.

Around a dozen F-22 Raptor jets arrived on Okinawa Nov. 4 from the 3rd Wing at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, to start a six-month rotation while the F-15s head home. The Air Force described the Raptors as “backfill” for the retiring F-15s while the Defense Department decides on a long-term plan to fulfill its obligations to Japan.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

One thing North Korea is accomplishing is strengthening cooperation between South Korea and Japan. Will it lead to anything substantive? I guess we will see, but this is a good start:

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida agreed to strengthen trilateral cooperation to thwart North Korea’s escalating missile and nuclear threats during a trilateral summit in Cambodia, Sunday.

The three leaders held a flurry of summits among them amid North Korea’s escalating provocations in recent weeks.

“North Korea has been staging more hostile and assertive provocations than ever before,” Yoon said during the three-way summit held on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in Phnom Penh. 

“North Korea’s provocations, which were staged at a time when South Koreans are deeply saddened (by the Itaewon crowd crush), clearly show that the Kim Jong-un regime is anti-humanitarian and anti-humanity,” Yoon said. “The cooperation among South Korea, the U.S. and Japan is a strong bastion for defending universal values and achieving peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia.”

Biden and Kishida also noted North Korea’s recent provocations threaten the region’s peace and underscored the importance of trilateral cooperation among them.

“North Korea continues its provocative behavior, this partnership is even more important than it has ever been,” Biden said in his opening remarks at the trilateral summit.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

This may explain why the political opposition has been recently out pushing anti-Japanese sentiment to get ahead of this announcement:

President Yoon Suk-yeol said, Thursday, he will sit down with his U.S. and Japanese counterparts, Joe Biden and Fumio Kishida, on the sidelines of multilateral meetings in Southeast Asia later this week amid a series of provocations by North Korea.

“During the multilateral meetings, there will be several important bilateral summits,” Yoon told reporters a day before he leaves for Cambodia and Indonesia to attend meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Group of 20. 

In Phnom Penh, Yoon is scheduled to attend a South Korea-ASEAN summit, an ASEAN Plus Three summit and the East Asia Summit before departing for Bali for the G20 summit on Tuesday.

“A South Korea-U.S.-Japan summit has been fixed and several other bilateral meetings have also been set or are under discussion,” Yoon added. However, he did not elaborate on exactly when the meetings will take place.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

The Korean left is definitely coordinating to promote anti-Japanese sentiment against the Yoon administration as its tries to improve ties with Japan:

A salute South Korean sailors rendered to the “rising sun” flag of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force at a fleet review touched off an exchange Monday in Seoul between the nation’s defense minister and an opposition lawmaker.

South Korea’s navy attended the Japan International Fleet Review on Sunday in Sagami Bay near Tokyo for the first time since 2015. Eleven other countries, including the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada and India, also sent warships to the ceremony.

Saluting the rising sun flag is equivalent to paying respects to a war criminal, said Jeon Yonngi, a Democratic Party member, during a National Assembly hearing.

The flag for some recalls Japan’s colonization of Korea from 1910 to 1945 and its military aggression during World War II, when the Japanese Imperial Navy flew the flag. The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force has flown the same banner for more than 50 years, according to Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

South Korea in 2019 asked the International Olympic Committee to ban the flag at the Tokyo Olympics, suggesting that it recalls for Asians the “scars and pain” of World War II as the swastika does for Europeans, according to a July 23, 2021, report in the Mainchi newspaper.

Jeon at the hearing broadcast by the assembly asked National Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup whether South Korean sailors should have saluted the flag as it passed on a Japanese vessel during the fleet review.

The sailors were saluting the host country warship, “in accordance with international practices,” Lee replied. “Thus, I would like to say it is not that the [South Korean navy] made a salute toward the rising sun flag.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Just another sign of warming relations between South Korea and Japan:

A South Korean naval vessel took part in Japan’s international fleet review on Sunday for the first time in seven years amid escalating nuclear and missile threats from North Korea.

South Korea was one of 12 countries, including the United States, Canada and Australia, to take part in the review that took place in Sagami Bay off Kanagawa Prefecture, about 40 kilometers southeast of Tokyo.

Sailors aboard South Korea’s 10,000-ton logistics support ship Soyang saluted toward Japan’s helicopter carrier Izumo carrying Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, as sailors from other participating countries do while passing the carrier.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This would definitely add to Japan’s ability to launch offensive strikes if developed. However, this is something that is going to take many years to develop and build:

Moves are being made to build a submarine to examine the technical issues faced in deploying ones capable of firing long-range missiles, Japanese government sources have said.

The development plan will be included in the National Defense Program Guidelines to be revised by the year-end.

If the development progresses for actual deployment, Tomahawk cruise missiles that the government has approached the U.S. government about purchasing will be an option for the vessel.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.