Tag: Japan

USFJ is trying to mitigate the repetitional damage done to the command with the Japanese public with these new changes:

U.S. Forces Japan re-imposed a testing requirement for personnel heading to Japan on Thursday after the country’s foreign minister admonished the U.S. military for breaching its border protection measures. 

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi expressed “deep regret” to USFJ commander Lt. Gen. Ricky Rupp that a unit of Marines was not tested for COVID-19 before it arrived on Okinawa aboard a U.S. government flight. The newly arrived Marines were quarantined at Camp Hansen but permitted base access for five days before being tested, Hayashi said at a Wednesday news conference in Tokyo. 

Marine Corps Installations Pacific on Dec. 17 said “multiple” Marines in the group had tested positive for COVID-19, the coronavirus respiratory disease. By Thursday, that cluster had grown to 227, up from 180 on Monday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said at a news conference that morning.

Matsuno said he would continue to push the U.S. military to “take more thorough measures” to prevent the virus from spreading and hopefully ease locals’ concerns.

USFJ said the Hansen cases have prompted changes, according to a statement emailed to Stars and Stripes by spokeswoman Yukiko Date.

“In light of the current omicron variant, the COVID-19 positive cases at Camp Hansen in Okinawa, and to ensure the health and safety of all SOFA members and the citizens of Japan, USFJ has updated our COVID Health Protection Guidance to require pre-arrival testing for all SOFA members within 72 hours of flights departing for Japan on all forms of transportation,” the statement said. 

USFJ acknowledged Hayashi’s complaint but said it followed guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Defense Department and Indo-Pacific Command when it discontinued pre-departure testing in September.

The Okinawa Department of Public Health and Medical Care believed the U.S. military was testing its personnel before they boarded flights for Japan until it learned otherwise on Wednesday, a spokesman for the department said during an online press conference on Thursday.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Looking back it is amazing that 93,000 people fell for the “Workers’ Paradise” scam, but it was a very different time back in the 1960’s compared to today:

Eiko Kawasaki stood at the port of Niigata, the place from which she left for North Korea more than 60 years ago, and tossed chrysanthemum flowers into the sea to pray for her peers who could not come back. Then she burst into tears.

As a 17-year-old girl seeking a better life, Kawasaki joined a resettlement program led by North Korea that promised a “Paradise on Earth” — where everything was supposed to be free and those with Korean roots like her could live without facing discrimination.

Kawasaki was among some 93,000 ethnic Korean residents in Japan and their relatives who joined the program only to find the opposite of what was promised. Most were put to brutal manual labor at mines, in forests and on farms and faced discrimination because of Japan’s past colonization of the Korean Peninsula.

One of the rare survivors who made it back to Japan, her birthplace, Kawasaki, now 79, is on a mission to keep alive the tragic stories and memories of the deceived “resettlement” victims. 

She aspires to open a museum and revitalize a street in Niigata to commemorate the resettlement program under the auspices of Japanese and Korean friendship groups.

Associated Press

You can read more at the link, but it is likely that most of the 93,000 ethnic Koreans from Japan are dead considering their very low social status in North Korea that would have led them into forced labor and little food.

Right now U.S. servicemembers still have to quarantine for 10 days upon arrival in Japan, but the government is reviewing a possible drop in this requirement:

The U.S. military population in Japan does not immediately benefit from the shorter coronavirus quarantine period for incoming travelers imposed this week by the Japanese government, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said Tuesday.

Japan is opening its borders to business travelers, international students and technical interns from countries considered low risk for the coronavirus and lowering its quarantine period for some foreign travelers to three days, with conditions. 

Eligible travelers are those from countries that Japan considers low risk. Tourists are still banned.

Travelers from the U.S., except those under the status forces agreement, may still be denied entry to Japan, according to the Foreign Ministry website. SOFA sets the rights, limits and responsibilities for service members, Defense Department employees and others affiliated with the U.S. military in Japan.

The spokesman said the government is still considering a three-day quarantine period for the “specific circumstance” of fully vaccinated U.S. military personnel arriving in Japan. 

“The government is still reviewing the matter,” the spokesman said during an hourlong virtual media briefing, “and has not resolved the question yet.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

A joint Japanese and Russian naval fleet sailed around the main island of Honshu, Japan in response to the international community sailing ships through the Strait of Taiwan. The big difference between this exercise and the international community’s freedom of navigation patrols is that no one from Japan is shrieking about the exercise like the Chinese government routinely does after freedom of navigation patrols. This shows how secure the Japanese government is unlike the CCP which has to shriek after every international military exercise or freedom of navigation patrol to drum up internal nationalism to legitimize their rule:

 A combined Russian Navy and People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) fleet concluded a sail in international waters east of Japan’s main island of Honshu and split off to their home ports on Saturday, all while being monitored by Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ships and aircraft during the voyage.

The Chinese ships were Type 055 destroyer Nanchang (101), Type 052D destroyer Kuming (172), Type 054 frigates Binzou (515) and Liuzhou (573) and the replenishment ship Dongpinghu (902). Russian ships were destroyers Admiral Tributs (564) and Admiral Panteleyev (548), corvettes Gromkiy (335) and Hero of the Russian Federation Aldar Tsydenzhapov (339) and the missile range instrumentation ship Marshal Krylov (331).

The combined fleet had entered the Tsugaru Strait on Oct. 18 and since then had been sailing off Honshu. The Joint Staff of the Japan Self-Defense Force issued a release and map on Saturday stating that the joint fleet had sailed through the Osumi Strait that day. Located between the Osumi Peninsula and Tanegashima Island, the strait connects the Sea of Japan with the Pacific Ocean. Following their sail through the Osumi Strait, the ships of the two countries separated at a location 130 kilometers, or about 81 miles, southeast of the Danjo Islands. 

USNI News

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest on the forced labor issue between South Korea and Japan:

Here is the latest from the Imperial Japanese forced labor issue with South Korea:

Japan has protested a South Korean court order on Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to sell assets in order to pay compensation to two women subjected to forced labor for the company during Japan’s occupation of the Korean peninsula during 1910-1945. Foreign minister Toshimitsu Motegi said on Tuesday that the ruling a day earlier by the Daejeon District Court in South Korea was a “clear violation of international law.” “We must avoid serious impacts on Japan-South Korea relations,” Motegi said, describing the court’s decision as “truly regrettable” during a regular news conference in Tokyo.

Relations between the two countries, both important U.S. allies in North Asia, have been dogged by the bitter legacy of Japan’s wartime occupation, and ties soured in 2019 due to a dispute over export controls which has yet to be resolved.

The Daejeon District Court in South Korea ruled on Monday that Mitsubishi Heavy should sell two patents and two trademarks, according to a support group for the women, who are both in their nineties.

Asahi Shimbun

You can read more at the link, but Tokyo believes this issue was resolved with the 1965 pact where $500 million from Japan was given to South Korea.  The ROK government at the time could have compensated everyone back then with that money, however it was instead used for the overall development of the country such as improving infrastructure.  The money ultimately helped with the country’s economic development at the expense of direct compensation to those effected by Japan’s colonial rule.  This is why Japan is so strongly against the court rulings they feel they have already paid compensation.

With that all said when is the ROK government going to launch lawsuits on behalf of victims of North Korea’s kidnappings and provocations in far more recent times than Japan’s colonial rule that began over a century ago?

This is a creative defense when this sailor probably just dozed off at the wheel after climbing up Mt. Fuji:

A U.S. naval officer, facing 4 ½ years in a Japanese prison, described in court Tuesday how he lost consciousness driving home from Mount Fuji and caused an accident that ultimately claimed the lives of two people.

Lt. Ridge Hanneman Alkonis, 33, crashed his car into pedestrians and parked vehicles at a soba restaurant parking lot in Fujinomiya on May 29, according to an indictment. The city is about two hours from Yokosuka Naval Base, where Alkonis is assigned to the destroyer USS Benfold as a weapons officer.

Alkonis, who is charged with negligent driving resulting in death, said he lost consciousness due to acute mountain sickness, a common set of symptoms that occur with a trip to high altitude.

Killed in the crash was a woman, 85, who died that day, and a man, 54, who died in a hospital on June 11. A second woman, 53, suffered bruises to her knees and elbows.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

You don’t say something like this to any reporter much less JTBC even if you think it is off the record:

Japan’s deputy chief of mission in Korea reportedly described President Moon Jae-in’s efforts to hold a Korea-Japan summit during the Tokyo Olympics as masturbatory in a conversation with a JTBC reporter on Friday.  

According to JTBC, the reporter asked Hirohisa Soma his thoughts on the chance for a Korea-Japan summit taking place during the Tokyo Olympics, to which Soma reportedly responded in a combination of Korean and English, “President Moon is masturbating himself.”  

Soma added that Japan “does not have the time to care so muchabout the relationship between the two countries as Korea thinks.”  

“The conversation took place [in a casual meeting,] not a public press event, but we decided to run a report because we felt the remarks were not appropriate,” JTBC reported.  

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

I don’t see why the Moon administration even thought the Japanese government was ready to do them any favors considering all the animosity between them the past four years:

South Korean President Moon Jae-in has decided not to visit Japan this week, as no satisfactory accomplishment is expected in proposed summit talks, Cheong Wa Dae announced Monday.

Moon plans to send Hwang Hee, minister of culture, sports and tourism, there to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, slated for Friday, as head of his government’s delegation.

The president had considered a trip to Tokyo for the event. South Korea and Japan had consultations on the possibility of holding the first face-to-face summit between Moon and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga on the occasion.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.