2007

• December
• November
• October
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• January

• America, Don't Count on Our Followership
  Masahiro Matsumura 4 December 2007
  With the work to denuclearize North Korea seemingly getting off the ground at last, the United States is walking a tightrope in its attempt to accelerate the Six Party Talks process. Washington's recent negotiation tactics have increasingly tilted toward appeasement, now to the extent that it is about to remove North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism despite the unresolved issue of the abduction of Japanese and other countries' nationals. Such a move, if made without close consultation with Japan, will considerably offend the Japanese public, encroaching upon their support for Japan's alliance with the United States. This in turn will inescapably debilitate the strong bilateral alliance that is essential for a hedging strategy of engagement and balancing vis-à-vis a rising China with a possible consequence of destabilizing the peace and security of the Asia-Pacific region. [US Japan alliance]
• Japanese Electronics Makers Slim Down to Move Ahead
  Japanese Electronics Makers Back With a Vengeance Japanese Electronics Makers Suffering in Korea With Korean electronics makers taking a breather, their Japanese rivals are rolling up their sleeves to transform themselves into specialists. Having lost their lead to Korea in the semiconductor, liquid crystal display and digital TV markets one by one over the past 10 years, Japanese electronics companies are doing everything they can to regain the lead in next-generation products. Sony, Japan's leading electronics maker, sold some of its semiconductor facilities and has been focusing its investment on active matrix organic light emitting diode (AMOLED) displays. As a result of that effort, it has developed the industry's first 11-inch AMOLED TV, and plans to produce 1,000 units per month starting from this month. The company is looking to restore its domination in the next-generation display market after losing it in the LCD market. The world’s first organic light-emitting diodes TV, which is 3 mm thick, 25 cm wide and 14 cm high, introduced by Japanese home appliance maker Sony in October /Bloomberg Hitachi, which sold its disk drive business in September and stopped producing PCs in October, plans to devote itself to manufacturing industrial electronic equipment. For the past two years it has been working to dispose of non-core business divisions.
• The Manchurian Incident, the League of Nations and the Origins of the Pacific War. What the Geneva archives reveal
  Yoshizawa Tatsuhiko At 9:18 p.m. on Sept. 18 of this year, I was standing in front of the Sept. 18 History Museum in Shenyang, China. It was raining. A siren went off. It sounded like the wailing of a fire engine. On this day each year, Shenyang holds a ceremony to mark the anniversary of a military crackdown against the city's unsuspecting citizens by the Imperial Japanese Army. This year was the 76th anniversary of that event. [Japanese colonialism]
• Why Ichiro Ozawa is America’s True Hope and Why Shinzo Abe Never Was
  By Andrew Horvat November 30^th , 2007
  Andrew Horvat, Pacific Council Adjunct Fellow on Japan, writes,/ /“What Ozawa objects to is that the refueling operations support U.S. unilateralism in Iraq, whereas Japanese participation in Afghanistan would be within a UN-approved multilateral framework. While such an argument may not entirely please the Bush administration, it represents the only viable formula Japan has today to contribute to international peace because it allows for overseas military action to be interpreted as being in harmony with war-renouncing Article IX of the Japanese constitution.”

• Japan Urged to Lift Sanctions against DPRK
  Pyongyang, November 27 (KCNA) -- It is the stand of the DPRK that Japan may go ahead with sanctions against the DPRK if it likes but it should redress its past crimes without fail because it is not the issue that allows Japan to dodge its solution. It is an urgent demand of the times as its solution brooks not a moment's delay. Rodong Sinmun Tuesday says this in its commentary. It goes on: The Japanese reactionaries recently decided to extend the sanctions against the DPRK six months including an embargo on the DPRK- flagged ships under the pretext of the abduction issue and they are making desperate efforts to deter the United States from delisting the DPRK as a "sponsor of terrorism." [Terrorism list]
• Political Fragility in Japan and the Resignation of Abe Shinzo:
  Is Japanese Democracy Going Backwards? Yamaguchi Jiro
  Translation by Maxim Shabalin I was travelling in the UK in the first half of September and the news of Abe’s resignation reached me in London. The local media too were reporting on this unexpected event in some detail. Newspapers which would normally differ in their comments such as The Financial Times (“Abe posed as a samurai but was a weakling after all”) [1] or The Guardian (“Japan does not have a leader befitting her national wealth”) agreed in criticising the absence of leadership in Japanese politics. [Abe Shinzo]
• Strengthening Security Cooperation with Australia: A New Security Means for Japan
  By Yoshinobu Yamamoto November 1st, 2007
  Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Professor of international politics at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo, writes,/ /“Political enthusiasm and drive for enhancing security cooperation on the basis of democratic values may have dissipated for the moment, but Japan and Australia should continue to enhance their security cooperation in a way that serves the good of the region and the world.” [China confrontation]
• The Abductee Issue is a Test of America’s Strategic Credibility
  by Michael Green and James Przystup
  Fukuda, though he is more flexible than Abe, will need those concrete steps from North Korea on the abductee issue if he is to sustain public support for the U.S. move on the terrorism list. The worse case scenario would be that the United States keeps its promise to remove North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terror by the end of the year, which would require a 45-day prior notification to Congress, exactly when Fukuda arrives in Washington. President Bush will not 1003 Bishop Street, Pauahi Tower, Suite 1150, Honolulu, HI 96813 Tel: (808) 521-6745 Fax: (808) 599-8690 Email: pacforum@hawaii.rr.com Web Page: www.pacforum.org do that to Fukuda. But there is a push to announce the removal of North Korea from the list shortly after Fukuda is out of town. [Abductee] [Terrorism list] [Agreement070213] [US Japan alliance]
• Japan's Moves for Militarization Blasted
  Pyongyang, November 19 (KCNA) -- The Japanese military conducted together with the U.S. a missile interceptor test in the waters off Hawaii under the pretext of "missile threat" from the DPRK. This is a very dangerous military move to round off its preparations for overseas aggression. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Seduced by Nationalism: Yone Noguchi’s ‘Terrible Mistake’. Debating the China-Japan War With Tagore
  Zeljko Cipris
  In the summer and autumn of 1938 a brief and impassioned exchange of letters took place between two old friends, Japanese poet and academic Noguchi Yonejiro (a.k.a. Yone Noguchi, 1875-1947) and Bengali poet, novelist, composer and painter Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941). The two men had known each other for more than twenty years, since May 1916 when Tagore, who had won Asia’s first Nobel Prize in literature three years earlier, arrived in Japan on a three-month visit and was received with warm and tumultuous enthusiasm. [1] One of the members of the welcoming committee that greeted Tagore was Yone Noguchi, an internationally known poet and professor of English literature at the Keio University in Tokyo. [India Japan] [Japanese colonialism]
• Bush presses hard to ensure Japan remains a close ally
  The Associated Press Published: November 16, 2007
  WASHINGTON: With gestures both symbolic and substantive, President George W. Bush sought on Friday to show Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda that Japan remains a loyal American ally in volatile, crucial Asia. (sic) Bush hosted Japan's new prime minister in grand fashion at the White House on Friday for their first meeting. In a signal of the importance the United States places on the relationship that has suffered some strain in recent months, the president threw an elegant lunch for the prime minister and chose the White House's grand foyer as the spot for them to address reporters. Bush has appeared in the marble-columned and crystal-chandeliered setting with only a few other leaders, all from important allies such as Britain, Germany and India. Bush also gave Fukuda something to take home to his constituents: The president assured him that Washington "will not forget" the issue of Japanese kidnapped in North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s. It was a major issue in their meeting as Washington presses forward on dealmaking to ensure that Pyongyang does not renege on its assurances it will give up nuclear weapons. Bush said his meeting at the White House with the mother of an abductee taken as a young girl was "one of the most moving moments of my presidency." "I understand how important this issue is to the Japanese people," he said. However, the pair took no questions after talking to the media for about 15 minutes. So it was unclear whether Bush would agree to Japan's request that the United States not remove North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terror without an accounting of the kidnapped Japanese from Pyongyang. [Terrorism list] [Abductees] [US Japan alliance]
• Transcript of FT interview with Yasuo Fukuda
  Published: November 12 2007 22:01 | Last updated: November 12 2007 22:01
  A transcript of the FT’s interview with Yasuo Fukuda, Japan’s prime minister, conducted at his official residence in Tokyo on November 12
  FT: Also on the American trip you will obviously discuss North Korea. It is possible when you are there that Mr Bush will say that America is moving towards taking North Korea of the list of terror sponsoring countries. Is that something that Japan can live with in the interests of a broader agreement with North Korea on nuclear disarmament?
  YF: We certainly do not think that the US is engaging in its discussions over nuclear disarmament with North Korea in a lax manner. The North Korean nuclear weapons certainly are a major threat to Japan. And we do support the direction of US talks with North Korea. And we very much hope that those talks will be consummated in as perfect a manner as possible.
  FT: And in terms of the abductee issue, Japan would not object and say: ‘No this must stop. We don’t like this.’ You would not so much back down as allow the process to go ahead even though the abductee issue hadn’t been fully addressed?
  YF: Of course it will be desirable to see North Korean nuclear programmes removed and we attach importance to the removal of North Korean missile threats. And the abduction issue needs to be settled and we believe that Japan needs to negotiate with North Korea in order to see the settlement of these three issues more or less at the same time. [Terrorism list] [Abductees] [US Japan alliance]
• Sun Yat-sen's Xinhai Revolution of 1911 had its seeds in Tokyo
  10/29/2007 BY KAZUO SATO THE ASAHI SHIMBUN Link to Japan runs deep ?? A plaque at the foot of bronze statues of Sun Yat-sen and Toten Miyazaki refers to thier "sincere friendship."The photo by Kazuo Sato was taken in the courtyard of the Nanjing Historical Remains Museum of Chinese Modern History. Shintaro Kaneko Taro Utsunomiya Toten Miyazaki, Sun Yat-sen About a century ago, the wheel of history took a major turn with the Xinhai Revolution in China. The dynastic government stretching back more than 2,000 years was overthrown, which led to Asia's first republic. The revolution had strong Japanese connections because many of the movement's leaders were educated in Japan and received Japanese support.
• Fukuda carries political baggage to Washington
  SUMMIT WITH BUSH
  Thursday, Nov. 15, 2007 By KAHO SHIMIZU Staff writer
  With Tuesday's passage of a new special antiterrorism bill by the Lower House, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda can breathe a sigh of relief before he meets Friday with U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington in their first bilateral summit. Yasuo Fukuda But with the two countries still facing a number of thorny diplomatic issues besides the Maritime Self-Defense Force's refueling mission in the Indian Ocean, a task incorporated in the antiterrorism bill, the upcoming summit may require more than just the reconfirmation of solid ties. Among the problematic issues are Washington's possible removal of North Korea from its list of terrorism-sponsoring states and Tokyo's plan to reduce the so-called sympathy budget that helps fund U.S. bases in Japan. Delisting North Korea would be taken here as a sign that the U.S. is letting Pyongyang get away with the abductions of Japanese, while the U.S. is likely to turn a deaf ear to Tokyo's cries of fiscal constraints for cutting the sympathy budget.
  They say the solid partnership between the two powers remains intact, but Fukuda will inevitably find himself in a dilemma over some issues. One is the U.S. intention to remove North Korea from the list of states sponsoring terrorism, which Japan has been resisting by citing lack of progress on the abduction issue. The U.S. hopes to finish the disablement of North Korea's key nuclear facilities in Yongbyon under a six-party denuclearization agreement by year's end and plans to remove Pyongyang from its terrorism list in return. Tokyo has been asking Washington not to drop Pyongyang from the list, and Foreign Ministry officials say Fukuda will raise the issue once again when he meets with Bush. But Michael Heazle, a political science professor at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, said Washington is unlikely to accommodate Tokyo. "The U.S. is very keen to keep the momentum going on North Korea's nuclear disarmament because of both the real dangers posed by a nuclearized Korean Peninsula and also the fact that the success the U.S. has had so far via the six-party talks is the only real foreign policy achievement the Bush administration can point to after nearly two terms in office," Heazle said. Paul Scott, a professor of political science at Kansai Gaidai University who specializes in Japan-U.S. relations, said if Pyongyang is taken off the list, Japan will feel insulted but will have no option but to continue addressing the abduction issue given the strong voices the abductees' relatives have in Japan. "Bush is looking at North Korea from a wide-ranging perspective," while politicians in Japan cannot escape the strong pressure from the public not to be weak on Pyongyang, Scott said. Heazle agrees. "Fukuda will find it very difficult to back down on North Korea's abductions of Japanese nationals due to public opinion at home, and at the same time the U.S. will be very reluctant to jeopardize North Korean cooperation over a bilateral dispute between Tokyo and Pyongyang," Heazle said. With that in mind, Heazle said, "North Korea seems to hold the major cards needed to bring about a resolution that both the U.S. and Japan would be happy with and it is very likely Pyongyang will exploit this to the full." [Terrorism list] [Abductees] [US Japan alliance]
• NORTH KOREA'S NUCLEAR THREAT / Maritime antiproliferation efforts falling short
  The Yomiuri Shimbun This is the fifth installment of part five of our series focusing on threats from North Korea facing Japan and future tasks for the nation's security policy. More than 10 Maritime Self-Defense Force personnel armed with guns quickly searched the ship cabin. They questioned the captain and had crew members line up on the deck for body searches. Before too long, a radio call came from the stern: "Suspicious material found." This scene took place during the Proliferation Security Initiative maritime interdiction exercise conducted Oct. 13-15 in the sea around Izu Oshima, at Yokosuka Port and elsewhere. Hosted by the Japanese government, the exercise also involved the United States, Britain, Australia and four other countries. The exercise involved searches for suspicious vessels, boarding and interdiction to prevent transport of nuclear weapons-related materials.
  According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, there were 252 reported cases of smuggling and illegal possession of nuclear-related materials over the two years from 2005. The number of cases in which suspected materials were halted totaled about 20 over the year from April 2005, according to a senior U.S. government official. Wade Boese, research director of the U.S. Arms Control Association, says it is difficult to interdict North Korea's nuclear-related materials and missiles if they are shipped after being disassembled without the participation of China and South Korea in the PSI. [PSI] [Evidence] [WMD]
• Fukuda gives Bush word on refueling bill / U.S. president: I won't forget abductees
  Ayumu Tsuda and Toshihiko Yada Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondents WASHINGTON--Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said Friday he would do his best to pass a new antiterrorism bill during the current Diet session in order to resume the refueling mission by the Maritime Self-Defense Force in the Indian Ocean. Fukuda made the remark during his first meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush at the White House. Bush reassured Fukuda that he "would not forget" the issue of abductions of Japanese by North Korean agents, reiterating the importance of close cooperation with Japan should the United States take North Korea off its list of states that sponsor terrorism. The one-hour meeting was also attended by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Trade Representative Susan Schwab attended a 45-minute luncheon hosted by the president following the meeting. Regarding policies on North Korea, Fukuda said close Japan-U.S. cooperation was essential to any resolution of the nuclear, missile and abduction issues, as well as over any possible removal of North Korea from the blacklist. Bush said he understood Japan's concern that the United States might sideline the abduction issue to strike a deal with North Korea, but assured Fukuda that he would never forget the abduction issue. [Terrorism list] [Abductees] [US Japan alliance]
• Fukuda, Bush affirm commitments on abduction, refueling issues
  WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 KYODO Fukuda promises Bush utmost efforts to resume refueling mission Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda (L) and U.S. President George W. Bush at a joint news...      Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and U.S. President George W. Bush tried in their first summit talks Friday to offer assurances about their commitment to resolving the North Korean abduction issue and resuming Japan's refueling mission in the Indian Ocean in a bid to allay concerns over the two issues.      But they failed to fully address whether Bush will keep North Korea on a list of terrorism-sponsoring states until the abduction issue is resolved or whether Fukuda can break the domestic political impasse to resume the refueling mission for U.S.-led antiterrorism operations in and around Afghanistan.      In joint press remarks after their one-hour talks in Washington, Bush said he ''will not forget'' the issue of the abduction of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s, but stopped short of touching on the possibility of taking North Korea off the U.S. blacklist. [Terrorism list] [Abductees] [US Japan alliance]
• Bush Praises Japan's Role in Korea Talks
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: November 17, 2007 Filed at 5:37 a.m. ET WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush on Friday claimed ''measurable results'' from six-nation talks to persuade North Korea to dismantle its nuclear-weapons operations, but said more must be done to reach the goal of a nuclear-free Korean peninsula. He praised Japan's role in the process and said the U.S. was sensitive to the importance Tokyo places on also resolving the issue of Japanese kidnapped in North Korea.
• Japanese Premier Visits White House to Reinforce Strained Ties
  By Peter Baker Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, November 17, 2007; Page A11
  Japan's new leader made a one-day visit to Washington yesterday to shore up strained relations with the United States amid tension over dealings with North Korea and support for operations in Afghanistan. Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda made a point of making this his first foreign stop since assuming office in September, spending a couple of hours with President Bush at the White House as the two hashed through issues that have soured both capitals in recent months.
  Fukuda vowed to keep pressing his parliament to reverse itself and resume suspended refueling operations in the Indian Ocean for U.S.-led coalition ships participating in the effort to stabilize Afghanistan. For his part, Bush promised to remember the Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea as he moves forward with a multinational agreement intended to eliminate Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.
  "I'm going to tell the Japanese people once again: We will not forget this issue," Bush said alongside Fukuda in the main hall of the White House. "I understand, Mr. Prime Minister, how important the issue is to the Japanese people, and we will not forget the Japanese abductees, nor their families." But he did not commit to keeping North Korea on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, as Tokyo wants. [Terrorism list] [Abductees] [US Japan alliance]
• Fukuda, Bush to Seek Common Ground on N.Korea
  Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda left for Washington on Thursday evening to hold his first summit with U.S. President George W. Bush. The matter of the biggest concern for the two leaders will be to reconcile their views on striking North Korea from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. [Terrorism list] [Abductees]

• The US-Japan-China Mistrust Spiral and Okinotorishima
  Yukie Yoshikawa
  The southernmost island of the Japanese archipelago has been a source of contention between Japan and China since 2004, when Chinese officials started to refer to it as “rocks” not as an “island.” In international law, rocks cannot be a basis for claiming an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). After the Chinese challenge to its territorial right over Okinotorishima, Japanese officials reacted vigorously, notably Tokyo Governor Ishihara Shintaro, within whose jurisdiction Okinotorishima falls. Ishihara ordered installation of a 330 million yen radar system for surveillance and set up an address plate at the “island.” The two countries continue to dispute the issue.
• Biohazard: Unit 731 in Postwar Japanese Politics of National “Forgetfulness”
  Frederick R. Dickinson
  Abstract Fueled by perennial controversies over official Japanese regulation of textbooks, Western media and academics thrive on claims of a peculiar Japanese “forgetfulness” of wartime atrocities. But the postwar record of Japanese discussions of wartime biological warfare experiments reveals an impressive level of public exposure that, in some ways, surpasses American discussions of its own wartime past. To stress Japanese “forgetfulness” tells only half the story and obscures the tale of postwar political polarization that has greatly facilitated exposure of war crimes in Japan.
• Japan, N. Korea to hold secret talks on normalization
  Japanese abductee issue could still hamper relations between the two sides
    TOKYO - Song Il-ho, North Korea's chief negotiator to bilateral talks with Japan, and his Japanese counterpart, Sigeo Yamada, are to meet secretly in Shenyang, China, to hammer out the details of a resumption of working-level talks that could be held sometime this year to normalize relations between the two countries, according to reports from Japanese media outlets on October 14.
• NK Envoy to Japan Talks Visits China
  SHENYANG, China _ North Korea's chief envoy in bilateral talks with Japan on normalizing the countries' diplomatic ties on Saturday arrived in this northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang in what many believe to be a prelude to the resumption of the normalization talks with Japan.
• Japan Must Answer Questions About Megumi Yokota Test
  Japan has extended economic sanctions on North Korea for six months saying the North failed to address the issue of its abduction of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 80s satisfactorily. The U.S. seems to be unhappy. Washington said outwardly it understands Tokyo’s position, but under the surface there were complaints. The U.S. is discussing removing North Korea from the list of terror sponsoring nations as a reward for the North disabling its nuclear program, so Japan's attempts to link the problem of taking North Korea off the terror-sponsoring country list with the abduction issue constitute a stumbling block to U.S.-North Korea dialogue. Washington is concerned about Japan's hardline approach and has raised doubts about a DNA test that showed that remains sent back from North Korea were not in fact those of the most famous abduction victim, Megumi Yokotga, which has galvanized Japanese sentiment. Some diplomatic sources in Washington think Japanese rightwingers or "neocons" are distorting the truth by messing with the DNA tests. [Abductees] [Megumi Yokota] [Disinformation]
• Critic Oh Sun-hwa Denied Entry to Korea - Report
  An article about Oh Sun-hwa in a Japanese right-wing magazine./Yonhap Oh Sun-hwa, a Korean-born naturalized citizen of Japan and the author of several books denouncing Korea, was refused entry to her home country by Korean authorities last week, Japanese media said on Tuesday. According to the Sankei daily newspaper, Oh, a professor at Takushoku University, arrived at Jeju International Airport to attend her mother's funeral on Oct. 1 but was denied entry. The newspaper said the Korean government prohibited her entry because of her anti-Korea activities in Japan. Oh asked the Japanese Consulate General in Jeju for help and was eventually allowed into the country. She returned to Japan on Oct. 4, the newspaper said [Human rights]
• Targeting Chongryun?
  By Anthony DiFilippo
  October 11th, 2007
  Anthony DiFilippo, Professor of Sociology at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, writes, “Whether or not Ogata and his associates intended to cheat Chongryun is actually quite separate from the question of whether Chongryun and Chongryun Koreans, a minority in Japan that has long been subjected to oppressive and discriminatory treatment, have bore the political brunt of Tokyo’s recent disagreements with Pyongyang on the nuclear, missile and especially the abduction issues.”
• U.S. not sticking to full resolution of abduction issue concerning N Korea's status on terror list
  Tuesday, October 9, 2007 at 06:58 EDT WASHINGTON — The United States is not sticking to a full resolution of the issue of North Korea's past abduction of Japanese nationals as a condition for removing Pyongyang from its list of terrorism-sponsoring states, diplomatic sources said Monday.
  While Tokyo has been asking Washington not to delist North Korea until all abductees are returned, the United States is paying greater attention to how cooperative the North will be such as in giving additional explanations about the fate of eight abductees including Megumi Yokota as the criteria for judging the abduction issue resolved in removing Pyongyang from the list, said the sources who were briefed about the U.S. position. The approach highlights Japan's concerns that the United States could move to take North Korea off the blacklist as the six-party nuclear talks make progress even in the absence of tangible movement to resolve the abduction issue. [Abductees] [[US Japan relations]
• Japan Extends Sanctions on North Korea
  By MARI YAMAGUCHI The Associated Press Monday, October 8, 2007; 10:51 PM TOKYO -- Japan's Cabinet approved plans Tuesday to extend economic sanctions against North Korea, despite the communist state's agreement to disable its main nuclear complex by year's end, the Foreign Ministry said. The sanctions _ first imposed in October 2006 after North Korea's nuclear test and extended in April _ include closing Japanese ports to North Korean ships and banning the import of North Korean goods.
  . The Cabinet decided on another six-month extension despite the North's agreement last week because Pyongyang has yet to take concrete steps on its nuclear programs, according to the ministry. [Sanctions] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• "Hating ‘The Korean Wave'’’ Comic Books: A sign of New Nationalism in Japan?
  Rumi Sakamoto and Matt Allen
  The internet has become an increasingly influential medium throughout East Asia. In this article we examine the case of Kenkanryu (‘”Hating ‘The Korean Wave’”), a manga published in 2005 in hard copy, but available online as a web comic for many months prior to print publication. We argue that the content, while nationalist, xenophobic, and ‘toxic’ is only one of a number of other, media-related reasons for the sales success of this comic in Japan. Other factors are the influence of online chat groups, the web as a means of communicating and selling ideas and products, and the internet-savvy way in which supporters of the views expressed in the comic communicated with online readers. In the context of increasing fears that Japanese youth are becoming more ‘nationalistic’ we argue that it is important to examine the medium as much as the message in assessing whether we are witnessing the emergence of a significant and dangerous social movement, or something rather different. [Hallyu]
• Aso Mining Company in World War II: History and Japan’s Would-Be Premier
  By William Underwood Despite his recently failed third attempt to become prime minister, Aso Taro remains one of Japan’s best-known and most influential politicians. The former foreign minister still aspires to the top post and in two books published earlier this year he has sketched a road map for the nation. Japan the Tremendous, a bestseller written in a populist tone, highlights the peaceful nature of postwar Japan and calls the country a “fount of moral lessons” for Asia. Arc of Freedom and Prosperity: Japan’s Expanding Diplomatic Horizons expatiates on Aso’s tenure as foreign minister from October 2005 to August 2007.
  But a 1975 book called The 100-Year History of Aso sends a different message about the would-be prime minister’s view of World War II and his vision for Japan’s future.[1] [Japanese colonialism] [Aso Taro]
• Documents show evidence of N-deal / Fresh discovery of U.S. memos show link between Okinawa return, N-weapons
  Satoshi Ogawa and Yuji Yoshikata / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writers
  The fresh discovery of U.S. government documents mentioning a secret deal reached during Japan-U.S. talks over the reversion of Okinawa Prefecture to Japanese rule has served as another convincing piece of evidence for the long-held suspicion that the two governments agreed to allow nuclear weapons to be brought into the post-reversion prefecture. Was a secret agreement reached by the two countries to permit the reintroduction of nuclear arms? This question has long loomed over the talks that negotiated the return of Okinawa Prefecture to Japanese rule. The newly found documents contain more details than others that have previously come to light. One carries the phrase, "secret U.S.-Japanese agreements," which proves the existence of a clandestine deal. However, the Japanese government has continued to flatly deny the existence of a secret agreement.
• Ozawa in power would send SDF to U.N. force in Afghanistan
  10/06/2007 THE ASAHI SHIMBUN Japanese troops would join a U.N. peacekeeping force in Afghanistan if Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan) takes over the government, according to a proposal by party leader Ichiro Ozawa. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Roh asks Fukuda to support inter-Korean summit agreements
    South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun on Friday telephoned Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda to request Tokyo's active support of the latest inter-Korean summit agreements on peace and denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula, Roh's spokesman said.
• Japan's two-pronged policy on N. Korea
  Fukuda vows to drop hostility toward the North but extends sanctions
    TOKYO - Japan's new Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said that he would drop the hostile policies against North Korea previously held by his predecessor, Shinzo Abe. However, his administration also announced it would extend sanctions against the country, leading some to speculate that Japan's position on North Korea would eventually play a key role in determining multilateral relations with the North. [Strategic incoherence]
• Lifting of Sanctions against DPRK Demanded
  Pyongyang, October 1 (KCNA) -- Members of the Society of Families of Returnees to the DPRK from Japan in Kyoto visited the Kyoto Branch of the Japan Red Cross on September 21 and requested it to urge the Japanese government to immediately lift the sanctions against the DPRK and permit the DPRK ships' entry into Japanese ports. They held that the Japanese government's sanctions against the DPRK are a blatant challenge to humanitarianism and it is quite natural for the Japan Red Cross to demand the government lift the sanctions. They called on the Japan Red Cross to make efforts for the lifting of sanctions against the DPRK and the allowance of the DPRK ships' entry into Japanese ports from the humanitarian viewpoint. The society made a similar request to the Japan Red Cross in March, too.
• Japan to extend sanctions on N Korea for 6 months
  Sunday, September 30, 2007 at 16:19 EDT TOKYO — Japan will extend its economic sanctions on North Korea for another six months as there is no progress in the issue of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea, the top government spokesman said Sunday. "There is basically no progress in the abduction issue," Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura told reporters. "We are not in a situation in which we can stop or ease the sanctions."
  If there is any progress in the abduction issue, the government may review the policy but currently intends to extend the sanctions, Machimura said. The government earlier this year extended the sanctions, including a ban on North Korean-flagged ships from entering Japanese ports, through mid-October. The sanctions were originally imposed in October 2006 in response to North Korea's nuclear test. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Korea’s Railway Network the Key to Imperial Japan’s Control
  Nakano Akira
  When I got off the train, a sign on the platform informed me that Seoul lies 56 kilometers to the south and Pyongyang 205 km to the north. Dorasan, the northernmost station in South Korea on the Gyeongui Line, was constructed five years ago. This view was taken in Paju City. Photograph by Nakano Akira This is Dorasan Station, close to the demilitarized zone (DMZ) demarcating the two Koreas. It is the northernmost station in South Korea on the Gyeongui Line. It connects North Korea's Sinuiju, near the border with China, and South Korea's capital, Seoul. The station is located in an area in which the South Korean military controls civilian traffic. Only three trains come this far each day. Passengers must provide ID and allow their belongings to be searched by military police. [Railways] [Japanese colonialism]
• Japanese abductee issue to be discussed at summit
  Bilateral talks between Japan and N. Korea led to positive atmosphere in relations between all three countries
  BEIJING, TOKYO - President Roh Moo-hyun will reportedly bring up the issue of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea during the second upcoming inter-Korean summit, which will begin tomorrow and continue through October 4.[KR_summit07]
• Japan's Pernicious Pillage of Gold Resources in Korea
  Pyongyang, September 29 (KCNA) -- The Japanese imperialists had taken away valuable natural resources including gold from Korea right and left during their occupation. They plundered gold resources in a more vicious way after the promulgation of the "Ordinance on Gold Production in Korea" in September 1937. The ordinance was a gangster-like one to seize all the gold produced in Korea in their hands. In order to increase gold production, Japanese imperialism enabled the "Governor-general" to force any measures on the producers and set up a coercive system under which it could deprive miners who failed to increase gold production of their mining rights and hand them over to others. Along with this, it worked out the "Five-year Plan for Increasing Gold Production" and habilitated not only individual monopoly capital but also state capital into gold production for the purpose of massive pillage of gold from 1938. [Japanese colonialism]

• Can Fukuda's Japan help Northeast Asia to fulfill its destiny?
  [Column]   Su-Hoon Lee, Chairman, Presidential Committee on Northeast Asian Cooperation Initiative and Professor at Kyungnam University In this time when the pace of the North Korean denuclearization process is picking up speed and one sees changes in the political situation in Northeast Asia, it is all the more noticeable that the cabinet of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has stepped down and been replaced by that of a new prime minister, Yasuo Fukuda. The curtain closed on Abe's cabinet because of its foreign policy, which ignored the swift changes happening in the region, leaned entirely on the U.S.-Japan alliance and failed to pursue relations with Japan's neighbors, making that country a loner in the region.
• Introduction: War, Media, and Militarization, 1894-1925
  Owen Griffiths [1] The January 1922 issue of Shonen kurabu (Boy’s Club) carried the first episode of an exciting new “hot-blooded novel” (nekketsu shosetsu) drawn from the fertile imagination of noted children’s writer Miyazaki Ichiu.[2] For fourteen consecutive issues Miyazaki enthralled Japanese children with depictions of Japanese valour and the Yamato spirit (Yamato damashii) locked in a titanic struggle against a duplicitous and rapacious foreign enemy. The fate of the navy and of the nation itself hung in the balance. The Imperial navy fought valiantly against a technologically superior foe but was ultimately destroyed. Then, in Japan’s darkest hour, the nation was saved by a group of true patriots, led by a child warrior commanding a powerful new technology. All Japan wept. This was the Future War Between Japan and America, “the greatest naval battle in history.”[ [Japanese colonialism]
• Moderate Wins Japan Party Vote
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: September 23, 2007 Filed at 3:15 a.m. ET Skip to next paragraph Related Party Chiefs in Japan Favor Veteran (September 15, 2007) TOKYO (AP) -- The moderate veteran politician Yasuo Fukuda easily won election as president of Japan's struggling ruling party on Sunday, assuring his selection as the new prime minister in a parliamentary vote later this week. Fukuda won 330 votes to former Foreign Minister Taro Aso's 197 votes, the party announced. Fukuda, 71, the son of a prime minister from the 1970s, has vowed to keep his country in the fight against terrorism, improve relations with Asia and address inequalities in the world's second-largest economy. Fukuda vowed on Sunday to rebuild the popularity of the Liberal Democratic Party, which has suffered a year of scandals and policy missteps by outgoing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has been hospitalized since announcing on Sept. 12 that he would resign. ''It is natural that we are facing public criticism,'' Fukuda said in a joint appearance with his rival, Aso, on national broadcaster NHK. ''We must make efforts patiently to regain public trust.'' Fukuda also pushed his key policies: To further engage North Korea diplomatically, push for extension of Japan's naval mission in support of U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, and give aid to rural regions left behind by the economic recovery
• 202 Pro-Japanese Collaborators Disclosed
  By Bae Ji-sook Staff Reporter A presidential fact-finding panel Monday announced a total of 202 people who allegedly collaborated with Japan during its colonial rule of Korea (1910-1945) after its second investigation into the issue.
• [Column] Abe's resignation and Japan's turn to the right
    By Tetsuya Takahashi, Professor of Philosophy, Tokyo University Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe has announced that he will resign. The way he is going about it is a little much. During the campaign for the upper house the Diet in July, he loudly announced that it was an election fight "which will decide whether it is I or Ichiro Ozawa of the Democratic Party who is more fit to be prime minister." When he suffered the historical defeat that resulted, he refused to resign, saying that his "policies were not wrong." He shuffled his cabinet, but then his agriculture minister resigned in scandal and Abe found himself in a hard place again. He then declared that he would "put his position on the line" and try to have the special anti-terror act extended. In a position speech in front of the Diet he said he would "continue reform," meaning that he would not resign, and then right when he had the country watching to see if he was going to go on an all-out confrontation with the opposition, he threw his government to the wind. He tore all his promises in domestic policy and foreign affairs to shreds. A poll taken shortly after his announcement indicates that around 70 percent of the country thinks it was "irresponsible." I think that is a natural reaction. It was in 2002, right after then prime minister Junichiro Koizumi visited North Korea, that the young politician Shinzo Abe first began to be considered as prime ministerial material. He rose to prominence as someone who symbolized a hard-line stance towards Pyongyang, particularly in regard to the issue of abducted Japanese citizens       [Abductees]
• Party Chiefs in Japan Favor Veteran
  By NORIMITSU ONISHI Published: September 15, 2007 TOKYO, Saturday, Sept. 15 - Japan's governing Liberal Democratic Party on Saturday appeared set to choose Yasuo Fukuda, a veteran lawmaker considered a force of stability, to become its next leader and Japan's new prime minister. Candidates to succeed Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as party president were scheduled to file Saturday for the Sept. 23 party election. But by the morning, Japan's news media were effectively crowning Mr. Fukuda the country's next leader.
• The end of Abe’s agony
  by Brad Glosserman Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo announced his resignation Wednesday afternoon in Tokyo. Despite widespread agreement that he should have resigned after his party’s rout in the July Upper House election, the decision still stunned many, especially since it came only two days after he had vowed to “stake his job” on extending the Maritime Self-Defense Forces’ (MSDF) mandate to refuel vessels in the Indian Ocean. While this may end Abe’s political career, it is a brilliant tactical move: it robs the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) of political momentum and gives the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) a chance to reconnect with voters. B Abe’s resignation could open the door to movement in relations with Pyongyang, which is much needed as other components of the six-party process move forward. Nor would relations with the U.S. be hurt. Japanese security decision makers and analysts remain committed to the alliance: External developments have underscored the vital role the U.S. plays in Japan’s security. And, even though Ozawa has picked a fight over the Indian Ocean deployment, he, like most Japanese, believes the country can and should do more internationally – the debate is over the terms of that contribution. Progress in relations with North Korea would help reduce frictions between Tokyo and Washington in the six-party process. [Abe Shinzo] [[US Japan relations] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Why Japanese PM Abe quit abruptly?
  + - 10:03, September 14, 2007 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe formally announced his resignation Wednesday afternoon at an urgent press conference. After taking office on September 26 last year as Japan's youngest postwar premier, why did Abe quit so suddenly after one year? News reports ran three possibilities.
• Abe's surprise resignation sparks controversy
  With LDP popularity waning, aim is to 'turn the situation around'
    After twelve months, he has agreed to step down. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced his resignation at a press conference on September 12. His administration, which launched with high popularity last year, collapsed within a year due to what many perceive as Abe's political immaturity as well as a series of scandals involving his Cabinet members.
• Japan's view of history skewed by post-WWII attitudes: scholar
  Japanese scholar calls on his country to respect other Asian nations
    Korea, Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands (120,000). Mainland China (711,000). Southeast Asia and the Pacific (1,299,000). Okinawa and Ogasawara (811,000). The numbers in parentheses show how many Japanese soldiers and civilians were killed during the Second World War. According to the data, there were more Japanese casualties in Japan and Southeast Asian countries, where massive air strikes by the U.S. were concentrated, than in its colonized regions, including the Korean Peninsula. Hisao Ishiyama, chairman of a Japanese education association, noted that the figures accurately represent how Japanese people perceive World War II: "Japan was not defeated by the Asian populace," he said. Japan lost to massive attacks by the U.S., and this is the reason why Japanese people still maintain deep-rooted contemptuous views of Asian countries, Ishiyama continued. [Japanese colonialism]
•   [Editorial]The Failure of the Policies of Japanese JP Abe
    Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe has suddenly announced his resignation. It is a "dishonorable resignation," in that he steps down without having completed a full year in office. "The situation is such that it would be hard to win the people's support," he told a press conference. "It would be a dilemma to continue running the government." He had been resisting calls for him to resign that came after his party's crushing defeat in July's House of Councilors (the Diet's upper house) elections, but he has essentially admitted that it would be hard to hold on any longer in the face of the people's decision [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japanese prime minister resigns
  Associated Press Wednesday September 12, 2007 Guardian Unlimited       The Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, announced today that he would resign, ending a troubled year-old government that has suffered a string of damaging scandals and a humiliating electoral defeat. Mr Abe, at 52 Japan's youngest post-war prime minister, said he was quitting to pave the way for ruling and opposition parties to work together to approve the extension of Tokyo's naval mission in support of the US-led operation in Afghanistan [Abe Shinzo] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Prime Minister of Japan to Step Down
  By NORIMITSU ONISHI
  Published: September 12, 2007
  TOKYO, Sept. 12 - Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the nationalist leader whose vision of an unapologetically strong Japan sank amid scandals, incompetence and gaffes, announced today that he would step down. The timing of the resignation took Japan by surprise. Even though Mr. Abe's governing Liberal Democratic Party suffered a humiliating defeat in an upper house election over the summer, he had steadfastly refused to resign and had reshuffled his cabinet less than two weeks ago.
  Mr. Ozawa has focused his attention on a contentious law that allows Japan’s naval forces to join a mission to refuel American and other ships participating in the war in Afghanistan. The law will expire on Nov. 1 unless it is extended. Mr. Abe said the governing party’s ability to fight for an extension would improve under a new leader. But Mr. Ozawa said his party would continue to oppose the law. “There is no way that our thinking will change because of a change in the Liberal Democratic Party,” he said. The debate over the law is expected to be bruising. Opinion polls showed that most Japanese opposed extending the law. And Mr. Ozawa tapped into a general unease that under Mr. Abe and his predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, Japan had grown too close to the United States militarily, even to the point of possibly violating its pacifist Constitution. Mr. Abe, who became prime minister last September, gained popularity by championing the cause of a dozen Japanese abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and, critics said, fanning nationalist anger. As a lawmaker, he had long led efforts to revise school textbooks and present what critics said was a whitewashed version of Japan’s wartime history. [Japanese remilitarisation] [Abductees] [Abe Shinzo]
• Abe's popularity falls again as Afghan row rumbles on
  by Hiroshi Hiyama Tue Sep 11, 4:40 AM ET TOKYO (AFP) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has suffered another plunge in his popularity, a poll showed Tuesday, as the opposition refused to back down in a row over support for US-led troops in Afghanistan. Abe enjoyed a brief boost in his public approval ratings after reshuffling his scandal-plagued cabinet in late August. But the rebound was short-lived with his cabinet's approval rating now back at just 29 percent, close to the level seen soon after his party's July election mauling, according to a weekend survey by the Yomiuri newspaper. A telephone poll by the leading daily soon after the August 27 cabinet shake-up had estimated Abe's popularity at 44.2 percent. Abe is in a fight for his political life as the resurgent opposition tries to block his reforms as well as legislation to extend a controversial military mission providing refuelling support to US-led operations in Afghanistan. Japan is one of the closest US allies, supporting wars both in Afghanistan and Iraq. Japan has been officially pacifist since World War II, making all military missions controversial. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan counts down to lunar probe launch
  Tue Sep 11, 2007 1:46am ET By Teruaki Ueno TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan is preparing to launch this week its first lunar explorer, in a bid to get the country's space program back on track after a string of failures in the last decade. Japanese scientists are also hoping the project will keep them one small step ahead of China and India, both of which are also planning lunar missions. They say the 55 billion yen ($484 million) project to launch the three-tone Kaguya, also known as the Selenological and Engineering Explorer (SELENE), is the world's most technically complex mission to the moon since the U.S. Apollo program decades ago [Japanese remilitarisation]  
• The Tongue That Divided Life and Death. The 1923 Tokyo Earthquake and the Massacre of Koreans
  Sonia Ryang
  I am speaking of the September 1923 massacre of six thousand Koreans in the Kanto area following the gigantic earthquake and the devastation it left in its wake. In thinking about this, I propose to examine the question of the tongue in the context of Japan’s emerging modern sovereignty and its national substance. The constitutive unit of the Japanese nation is conditioned upon the person being born Japanese. The birth right, which is at once premodern and unchangeable, at once nativity and nationality, and at once biological and social, became the prerequisite to obtaining membership in the modern Japanese nation-state. Moreover, this membership was formed under the restored ancient sovereign, the Emperor. In other words, nationhood in modern Japan emerged in the form not of modern citizenship, but of premodern Imperial subjecthood.
• Abe and Okinawa: Collision Course?
  Gavan McCormack
  It is a commonplace of recent writing on Japan that the Abe Shinzo government is in trouble. Yet comment on Abe’s disastrous Upper House election of July and on his subsequent cabinet reorganization of August, with few exceptions, ignores Okinawa, the prefecture where the burden of the reorganized US-Japan alliance is heaviest, the veneer of Abe “reformism” thinnest, popular discontent deepest, and the consequences of failure potentially most serious.
• Abe’s new roadmap for Japan-India ties
  Purnendra Jain
  Japan today is showing extraordinary interest in India and nothing reflects this more strongly than Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to New Delhi in August. Moreover, Abe is the third successive Japanese prime minister to make such a visit and, starting this year, India is the only country with which Japan will conduct annual talks at the prime ministerial level. Abe hewed to his foreign visits schedule and made a week-long trip to Indonesia, India and Malaysia – beginning 19 August despite political uncertainties in Japan and his weakened position as prime minister following the Liberal Democratic Party’s dismal performance at the July House of Councillors elections. Recognising strategic competition for energy security, Abe signed a bilateral free trade agreement with Indonesia, the largest supplier of liquefied natural gas to Japan. In return Japan guaranteed Indonesia liberal access to its markets for a range of Indonesian products including farm produce – rice exempted. Abe also visited Malaysia on his way back to Japan from India. There he met with Malaysian counterpart Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi and the two leaders issued a joint statement aiming for further improvement in their already strong bilateral economic, trade and investment ties. In the statement Malaysia offered support for Abe’s “Cool Earth 50 plan”, a proposal that aims to halve global emissions by 2050.
  Yet the most important visit was Abe’s stop in India. [India Japan] [China confrontation]
• N. Korea warns normalization talks could collapse over financial sanctions
  SEOUL, Sept. 10 (Yonhap) -- A senior North Korean diplomat warned Monday talks on normalizing diplomatic relations with Japan would collapse if it extends financial sanctions on the communist country beyond the October deadline. "If Japanese media reports prove true, the relationship between the two sides would face irrevocable consequences," Song Il-ho, the chief North Korean envoy to normalization talks, said in an interview in Beijing with the Choson Sinbo, a pro-North Korean newspaper published in Japan. [Financial sanctions]
• N. Korea-Japan talks produce some progress on abduction issue
  As incentive to be dropped from terror list, Pyongyang may allow Japanese gov't to meet hijackers in N. Korea TOKYO - Though North Korea and Japan remained far apart over the abduction issue in the two-days of working-level talks on normalizing ties between the two countries, which finished on Sept. 6, there was some certain progress. In a press conference after the meeting, Kim Chol-ho, the North's envoy to the talks, said it might be possible for North Korea to accept Japan's demands on the kidnappings. Referring to Japan's demand to repatriate the hijackers of Japan Airlines Flight 351, commonly known as Yodo-go, Kim said, "It's a matter between the Japanese government and Yodo-go officials. We are willing to provide a site for the discussion." Kim's remark hinted that North Korea will allow the Japanese government to meet the Yodo-go hijackers in the North Korean territory. {media]
• Japan's Floundering Abe Fights for Floating Gas Station
  Refueling Operation Is Vulnerable to Domestic Power Plays By Blaine Harden Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, September 8, 2007; Page A09 TOKYO, Sept. 7 -- For the election-battered, scandal-plagued and competence-challenged government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, it has come down to this: If he cannot keep a floating gas station open in the Indian Ocean, Abe may be finished as the leader of Japan. The high-seas refueling operation has been Japan's principal contribution to the war in Afghanistan {Japanese remilitarisation]
• N. Korea-Japanese relations thaw
  Though an atmosphere of optimism prevails, resolution of issues not likely to be easy
      TOKYO - On Sept. 5, North Korea and Japan will meet in Mongolia to discuss ways of normalizing their diplomatic relations. Ahead of the two-day meeting, both sides are witnessing a somewhat different atmosphere from the negotiations in March, which ended after just three hours due to a sea of difference on the issue of abducted Japanese in the North  
• Japan's Moves for Military Power under Fire
  Pyongyang, September 4 (KCNA) -- The Japanese reactionaries have become frantic in their moves to modernize the equipment of "Self-Defence Forces (SDF)" and arms build-up. Minju Joson Tuesday says this in a signed commentary. It cites facts to prove that these moves are not pushed forward by separate fields sporadically but in an organized manner as part of Japan's policy. From the security point of view, there are neither countries which pose a direct military threat to Japan in the areas around it nor the regions where emergency situation prevails. There is, therefore, no justification for Japan to frantically step up the moves to modernize the equipment of the SDF and beef up its armed forces. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan dismisses reports on N. Korea's removal from U.S. terror list+
  Sep 3 11:10 AM US/Eastern TOKYO, Sept. 4 (AP) - (Kyodo)—The Japanese government and the kin of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea brushed off reports Monday that the United States had agreed to remove North Korea from its list of terrorism- sponsoring states, saying they will continue to watch developments closely. The United States "will not move unilaterally without Japan's consent to remove it (North Korea) from the list," a Japanese government source said, referring to Tokyo's repeated requests to Washington not to delist North Korea until the issue of Japanese abductees is resolved. But the Japanese government intends to watch developments as top U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill has made remarks that could be taken as suggesting a positive attitude toward taking North Korea off the list. North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency reported a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying Monday that the United States had agreed to the delisting of North Korea during bilateral talks over the weekend in Geneva as part of the multilateral process for North Korea's denuclearization. Before the KCNA made the announcement, Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura emphasized that the United States will not ignore the Japan-U.S. relationship in delisting North Korea. "The United States has notified us that it will not carry forward the U.S.-North Korea relationship by sacrificing the Japan-U.S. relationship," Machimura told reporters. But sources close to Japan-U.S. relations said there is "sufficient possibility for the United States to remove North Korea from the list if there are no obstacles aside from the issue of Japanese abductees." Relatives of Japanese abductees reacted warily to the North Korean announcement, saying, "We can't swallow it unless we see formal responses from the U.S. and Japanese governments." Sakie Yokota, 71, the mother of Megumi Yokota, who was taken to North Korea in 1977 when she was 13, said, "I can't comment because I have not confirmed anything." "It may be an absurd one-sided remark by North Korea, and we have to observe what the United States will say," Yokota said, adding she has not received any official explanation from the Japanese government. Shigeo Iizuka, 69, whose younger sister Yaeko Taguchi was taken to North Korea in 1978 when she was 22, said, "It seems North Korea is merely trying to create a flow that is favorable to itself in future negotiations by first sending out information that it interprets conveniently itself." "We'll get confused if we are taken in by their tricks," Iizuka added. The National Association for the Rescue of Japanese Kidnapped by North Korea, a group supporting the families of abductees, issued a statement indicating that the abductions are tantamount to terrorism that is currently occurring. "If the North Korean administration wants to realize its delisting, it must have all abduction victims returned now and the spy agencies dissolved," it said. [Terrorism List] [US Japan relations]
• Japan dismisses reports on N. Korea's removal from U.S. terror list
  TOKYO, Sept. 4 KYODO      The Japanese government and the kin of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea brushed off reports Monday that the United States had agreed to remove North Korea from its list of terrorism-sponsoring states, saying they will continue to watch developments closely.      The United States ''will not move unilaterally without Japan's consent to remove it (North Korea) from the list,'' a Japanese government source said, referring to Tokyo's repeated requests to Washington not to delist North Korea until the issue of Japanese abductees is resolved. [Terrorism List] [US Japan relations]

• Tokyo relaxes its stance on N. Korea
  Japan to send aid to N. Korea but keeps economic sanctions
    TOKYO -Ahead of a meeting to be held on Sept. 5-6 in Mongolia to discuss normalization of diplomatic ties between Japan and North Korea, the Tokyo government is showing a relatively flexible stance by expressing its intention to provide humanitarian aid to the flood-stricken country.
• [Editorial] Urging fundamental change in Japan's N. Korea policy
      Japan's new foreign minister, Nobutaka Machimura, has announced that he is considering humanitarian aid for North Korea, the idea being that the fact that North Korea is suffering from massive storm damage has nothing to do with the issue of abducted Japanese citizens is because it was a natural disaster. Lately Japan has been insisting that it would not participate in aid for the North unless there was progress on the issue of its abducted citizens, maintaining a hard-line approach that was all about sanctions and pressure. The last time Japan sent aid was in August 2004, in the form of food and pharmaceuticals, through an international agency. If Machimura's comments indicate that there is change in Japan's stubborn attitude, then it is a welcome development indeed. Helping a neighboring nation in times of difficulty is a matter of course and the right thing to do.
• Japan, North Korea to meet in Mongolia
  Reuters Tuesday, August 28, 2007; 12:33 AM TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan and North Korea will hold talks on establishing diplomatic relations next week in Ulan Bator, Japanese Foreign Ministry officials said on Tuesday. The two-day talks from September 5 will be held as part of a six-country deal to scrap Pyongyang's nuclear arms programmes in exchange for aid and diplomatic recognition.
• Shinzo Abe: out of time
  Noriko Hama Japan's ruling party is imploding - and that can only be good news for Japanese democracy, says Noriko Hama. 24 - 08 - 2007 He came, he was blind, he was slaughtered. Shinzo Abe succeeded Junichiro Koizumi as prime minister of Japan in September 2006 claiming he would put an end to Japan's post-war regime. He looks well on the way to achieving that very goal. For what was Japan's post-war regime if not the overwhelming political dominance of the Liberal Democratic Party (Jiminto / LDP), whose party leadership Abe clings to in face of calls for his resignation across the country? A seasoned member of the opposition went on record saying he hopes Abe will stay, as that would give it the best chance yet of winning the next general election, due by September 2009.
• Abe's new cabinet is much like the old
  Following his recent defeat in upper house elections, Abe moves to salvage his political fate
        "Still, it fails to dispel concerns over (Abe's) image of politics with friends and allies." Koichi Kato, a former secretary-general of Japan's governing Liberal Democratic Party, expressed this cold-hearted assessment of the new cabinet formed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Abe announced the makeup of the new cabinet on Monday, after having suffered from a landslide defeat in the July 29 elections in the upper house of Parliament. Abe has appointed several heavyweights from the governing party to salvage his political fate amid his sinking approval ratings. However, Kato, who has been dubbed the leader of the LDP's liberal faction, pointed out that the new cabinet is filled with politicians with ideological and historical views similar to Abe's own, when compared to the previous one.    
  The new cabinet is also representative of Abe's attitude toward the former foreign minister Taro Aso, who was appointed as secretary-general of the LDP. Since North Korea's missile launches and first-ever nuclear test last year, Abe has been in tune with Aso. In addition, Abe and Aso both share a negative view of the Tokyo court against war criminals, the creation of which was a starting point for post-war Japan. Some political observers say that Aso was appointed to the post because he is widely anticipated to be the successor should Abe choose to resign.
• Lee Hak Rae, the Korean Connection and “Japanese” War Crimes on the Burma-Thai Railway
  Introduction by Utsumi Aiko Translated by Herbert Bix Lee Hak Rae was a Korean youth who went to work at age fifteen supervising prisoners of the Japanese mobilized to build the Burma-Thailand railway. Hintok, where he served, was the most dangerous place along the railway. Prisoners called it "Hellfire Pass." Of approximately 700 Australians, 100 died there, mainly from overwork and diseases such as dysentery and cholera. Lee was indicted by an Australian court in Singapore on September 25, 1946, but on October 24 his case was dismissed. In Hong Kong, en route to Japan, he was again forced to return to Singapore. On March 10, 1947 he was indicted for a second time. On March 20 Lee was condemned to death by hanging, but eight months later, on November 11, his sentence was reduced to twenty years imprisonment. What explains the large numbers of Koreans convicted in B/C class tribunals after WW II? What was their responsibility given their position at the lowest rung of the Japanese wartime hierarchy? We offer three perspectives on the issues. Utsumi Aiko, professor of humanities at Keisen University, Tokyo introduces the issues. Articles by Nakamura and Gil examine the issues from the 1940s to the present. This series was posted at Japan Focus on August 26, 2007 [Japanese colonialism]
• After 40 Years, Japan Achieves Warship Dream
  Last Thursday, as hundreds of guests watched, a naval vessel with a large flight deck reminiscent of a light aircraft carrier was launched at the IHI Marine United shipyard in Yokohama, Japan. The 13,500-ton vessel Hyuga, a helicopter-carrying destroyer for the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, made its magnificent presence known to the public for the first time. The name comes from an Imperial Navy warship that saw action in World War II. The original Hyuga was a battleship, but toward the end of the war it was modified into a unique aircraft-carrying battleship that could load some 20 fighters. The new Hyuga-class vessel meanwhile can carry several choppers and is mainly tasked with chasing and destroying enemy submarines. Despite minimal attention from the Korean press, the launch of the Hyuga is worth noting for several reasons. First, the Hyuga, which is also known as 16DDH, is Japan's largest warship since World War II, and it's the Maritime Self-Defense Force's first warship greater than 10,000-tons. The Hyuga is also equipped with a state-of-the-art radar system, likened to a mini Japanese version of the Aegis system. The radar can cover all directions around the clock just as the Aegis does. What's most noteworthy about the vessel is the debate over what exactly it is. Japan officially calls it a helicopter-carrying destroyer, claiming it is neither a light aircraft carrier nor a helicopter carrier. But many Korean and foreign media outlets are calling it Japan's first post-war helicopter carrier or light aircraft carrier [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japanese Leader Hails Indians Who Backed Tokyo in '40s
  / By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Published: August 24, 2007 CALCUTTA, Aug. 23 (Agence France-Presse) - Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan voiced admiration on Thursday for two Indians who stood up to Britain, the country's colonial ruler, during World War II and sided with Japan. Mr. Abe came here to meet relatives of the two, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, a nationalist leader who advocated armed resistance to the British, and Radhabinod Pal, the sole judge who dissented at the Allied tribunal that condemned to death war-time Japanese leaders. "Many Japanese have been moved deeply by such persons of strong will and action of the independence of India like Subhas Chandra Bose," Mr. Abe said in a speech at the opening of the Indo-Japan Cultural Center. "Even to this day, many Japanese revere Radhabinod Pal." Mr. Abe, who was completing a three-day official visit to India, had dismissed suggestions back home that meeting Judge Pal's son would anger other Asian nations resentful over Japan's wartime atrocities and Japan's recent actions to play down the atrocities in textbooks and other historical accounts.
• Japan courts India to counter China: Analysts
  23 Aug, 2007, 1858 hrs IST, AGENCIES NEW DELHI: Japan's bid for a strategic partnership with India aims to counter China's rising influence, with Tokyo omitting Beijing from its vision of an Asian 'arc of freedom', analysts said on Thursday. The highlight of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's three-day visit to India was the signing of a roadmap for strategic and global partnership between the two Asian giants. Abe called for greater political, security, defence and trade relations. "They are keen to consolidate their relations with India, which they see as a balance of power in the east against China's growing influence," said Sushila Narsimhan, professor of Japanese history at Delhi University. Abe made no reference to China on Wednesday when he called for the creation of an "arc of freedom and prosperity" bringing together Australia, India, Japan and the United States, but Beijing loomed large in the background. [China confrontation] [India Japan]
• How Realistic Is a Nuclear-Armed Japan?”
  By Tetsuya Endo
  Tetsuya Endo, former vice chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission of Japan, writes, “Japan has the technology to develop nuclear weapons and, with the relevant legal revisions, Japan could actually embark on a nuclear weapons development program… However, it would require huge commitments of manpower, material and money, and it would not be so easy to change the persisting popular anti-nuclear sentiment. More importantly, a nuclear-armed Japan would face severe isolation from the international community. Given all these grave risks, it is clear that the nuclear option is surely not in the national interest of Japan and far from a realistic policy choice.” [Japanese remilitarisation] [Nuclearisation]
•   A North Korean Mystery
  Tessa Morris-Suzuki (Tessa) [Video] Why did 90,000 Japan-born Koreans migrate to NK in the 1960s and 70s
• Kenneth B. Pyle’s Japan Rising: And Richard J. Samuels’ Securing Japan:
  Kenneth B. Pyle’s Japan Rising: The Resurgence of Japanese Power and Purpose
  New York, NY: PublicAffairs, 2007 ISBN: 1-5864-8417-6 (cloth)
  Richard J. Samuels’ Securing Japan: Tokyo’s Grand Strategy and the Future of East Asia
  book review roundtable Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007 ISBN: 0-8014-4612-0 (cloth)
  T.J. Pempel Mike M. Mochizuki Ming Wan Christopher W. Hughes Richard J. Samuels Kenneth B. Pyle asia policy, number 4 (july 2007), 187–211 • http://asiapolicy.nbr.org • [Japanese remilitarisatioon] US Japan alliance]
• As Japan and India Forge Economic Ties, a Counterweight to China Is Seen
  By HEATHER TIMMONS Published: August 21, 2007 NEW DELHI, Aug. 20 — When Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan touches down in India this week, it will be the highest-level step yet in what analysts say is a long-term effort to balance, if not contain, China’s growing economic and political might.
  Abe and his Indian counterpart, Manmohan Singh, above, are expected to announce plans for a $100 billion high-tech manufacturing and freight corridor. As Beijing’s influence in Asia and around the world has grown, their common interests have forced Tokyo and New Delhi to begin warming their historically chilly relationship and to start forging closer economic ties. “The key issue facing the whole region is how to accommodate the rise of China,” said Suman Bery, the director general of the National Council of Applied Economic Research, a New Delhi research group. Indian economists estimate that Japanese investment in India will reach $5.5 billion by 2011, compared with just $515 million in the 2006 fiscal year. [China competition] [China confrontation] [Japan India relations] [FDI] [Nuclear energy]
• Japan Claims Innocence -- Even in India
  On a visit to India starting next Tuesday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe plans to meet a descendent of Radhabinod Pal, one of the 11 judges in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and the only justice to maintain the innocence of the Class A war criminals on trial. Abe reportedly sought the meeting. The tribunal, which took place in Tokyo between 1946 to 1948, passed judgment on 25 defendants including wartime leader Hideki Tojo, who was responsible for starting the war in the Pacific. Seven Class A war criminals including Tojo were sentenced to death. Back then, Judge Pal claimed, "the accused were prisoners of war who enjoyed protection under international law against arbitrary acts of revenge." Before his death in 1967, Pal visited Japan four times and said children must not be taught a distorted view of history that Japan was responsible for war crimes. In 1966, Japan bestowed the emperor's medal on Pal. That was during the reign of Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, Abe's maternal grandfather. In June 2005, a monument was erected at the militarist Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo honoring Pal's achievement. [Japanese colonialism]
• Will Japan return to East Asia or go west, to America?
    Choi Tae-uk Professor, Hallim Institute of Advanced International Studies It was during the government of Keizo Obuchi (1998-2000) that Japan adopted Northeast Asian regionalism as the basic tone of its foreign diplomacy, since prior to Obuchi Japan had consistently supported American-led multilateral regimes like the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the World Trade Organization. Japan suffered the indirect effects of the East Asian financial crisis of 1997 and realized how closely connected its own interests are to the East Asian economy and that it needed to strengthen economic cooperation with East Asia to prevent a similar situation from unfolding. It began pursuing policies designed to reduce its dependence on the dollar and increase monetary stability within the region by internationalizing the yen, to expand free trade agreements in order to speed up the pace of regional economic integration, and to strengthen ASEAN+3 so as to eventually formalize East Asian regionalism. [US Japan alliance]
• Freedom Fighter's Statue to Be Set Up in NK
  By Bae Ji-sook Staff Reporter A memorial statue of Yoon Bong-gil, an independence fighter during Japan's colonial rule, will be erected in North Korea next year. Hwang Eui-man, the head of the memorial foundation for Yoon, said the statue will be built in Seoncheon, North Pyeongan Province, where he was arrested and imprisoned for 45 days in 1930. Yoon was an independence fighter and was involved in an attempt to assassinate the Japanese emperor. In 1932, he detonated a bomb disguised as a food package at a Japanese army event to celebrate Emperor Hirohito's birthday in Shanghai, which killed a general, a government chancellor and many officials of the Japanese Empire. He was immediately arrested and later executed. [Terrorism]
• The End of Alliance “Business as Usual”? Ozawa’s Rejection of Japan’s Indian Ocean Deployment
  Richard Tanter The defeat of the ruling Liberal Democratic party-led coalition by the Democratic Party of Japan in Japan’s Upper House elections on July 29 has already sent shock waves through the US-Japan security alliance. Surprising many who saw only his bullying style and right wing policies, DPJ leader Ozawa Ichiro moved quickly to set the DPJ on a course deeply antagonistic to US hopes for Japan as a global military partner. [US Japan alliance]
• The Mansfield Asian Opinion Poll Database
  Latest Asian Opinion Polls from Nikkei, Asahi Shimbun, Yomiuri Shimbun, including:
  * Support for Prime Minister Abe and his cabinet
  * Opinions about reform of Japan’s constitution
  * Interest in local elections
  * And more
• Rift flares anew over Japan's wartime 'comfort women'
  By Tim Johnson | McClatchy Newspapers * Posted on Thu, August 9, 2007
  TOKYO - As one of Japan's former top television newscasters, Yoshiko Sakurai used a sweet modulated voice to convey the view shared by the country's elite on a controversy dating back more than 60 years: Japan's wartime use of "comfort women," the euphemism for sex slaves. No documents exist to prove that Japan's military coerced women into sexual servitude during the war, Sakurai said. The allegations "are not based on fact." A great many historians outside Japan consider Sakurai's view mistaken, and the issue simmers abroad. On July 30, the U.S. House of Representatives urged Japan to apologize "in a clear and unequivocal manner" for coercing thousands of women into laboring as sex slaves in World War II-era military brothels.
• Hyundai Drives Into Japan's 'Invisible Wall'
  Sales of Japanese cars in Korea are soaring, but Hyundai Motor isn't doing nearly so well in its eighth year in Japan. The problem may be the high non-tariff barrier, a stumbling block for Korean automakers in Japan. The Korean government meanwhile does not discriminate against Japanese cars and Korean consumers are also generous towards their hefty price tags. A Hyundai official in charge of vehicle shipments in Japan shared a recent bizarre episode. A Japanese customs official, detecting a tiny scratch on the windshield of a Hyundai car, demanded the company replace the windshields of all 500 cars that were going through customs at the time. The Hyundai official thought the request was preposterous but had no option but to do as told. [Hallyu] [NTB]
• No Justice, No Peace
  By Mindy L. Kotler
  August 7, 2007 Mindy L. Kotler, Director of Asia Policy Point, a nonprofit membership research center that studies the U.S. policy relationship with Japan and Northeast Asia, writes, "Reconciliation and regional peace in Asia are at the heart of the Congressional Comfort Woman resolution. Long overdue apologies and respect for these victims of wartime violence are among the elements needed to achieve this peace. After 60 years of constructive, responsible, and resolutely peaceful membership in the world community, it is unfortunate that Japan must be reminded of the power of justice as a tool for peace." [Japanese colonialism]
• Intelligence Brief: Japan's Foreign Policy After the Elections
  07 August 2007 It was widely expected that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party (L.D.P.) would lose the July 31 elections for Japan's upper house of the Diet (parliament). Still, the margin by which his party lost exceeded most predictions. The L.D.P. won only 37 of the 121 contestable seats in the election, losing 27 seats it previously held. The L.D.P.'s coalition partner, New Komeito, lost three additional seats, and for the first time since the L.D.P.'s formation in 1955 an opposition party became the largest party in the upper house. The opposition coalition led by the Democratic Party of Japan (D.P.J.) gained the majority in the upper chamber, with 137 out of 242 seats. [Abe Shinzo] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan as a Nuclear State
  Gavan McCormack
  The following text appears as chapter 8 in the just published book Client State: Japan in the American Embrace (New York and London, Verso), and is reproduced here by kind permission of the publishers.
  Client State: Japan in the American Embrace The nuclear question in relation to Japan is commonly understood in the narrow sense of whether Japan might one day opt to produce its own nuclear weapons, but I argue for a much broader construction. Japan is simultaneously unique nuclear victim country and one of the world’s most nuclear committed countries. Protected and privileged within the American embrace, it has evolved into a nuclear-cycle country and plutonium super-power. [nuclearisation] [Nuclear energy] [NPT] [Double standards]
• 5 Myths About the Japan That Just Said No
  By Michael Zielenziger Sunday, August 5, 2007; Page B03
  Just a few weeks ago, the Bush administration seemed convinced that it could rely on a newly assertive Japan to contain China's rise and help prosecute the global fight against terrorism. Then last weekend, Japan's voters just said "No." The stinging electoral rebuke to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his ruling Liberal Democratic Party (which lost control of the upper house of the Diet for the first time since the party was founded in 1955) does more than usher in a new era of drift and unpredictability in Japanese politics. Abe's drubbing should also dispel some dangerous misperceptions about today's Japan:
  4.Japan will help the United States solve the North Korean nuclear problem. Abe's weakness makes this tough. The old game plan ran as follows: Washington and Pyongyang finally negotiate a deal that trades North Korea's nuclear weapons and technology for diplomatic recognition and a pledge not to wage war, then Tokyo writes the large check that helps isolated, bedraggled North Korea leap into the 21st century. But Abe and the Bush administration no longer see eye to eye here. While Washington recognizes that the Iraq debacle heightens the need to cut a deal with Kim Jong Il, many Japanese leaders think Washington is eager to abandon Tokyo's quest for a fuller accounting of the civilians abducted by North Korean agents decades ago. Pyongyang says it has returned all those it kidnapped and made a detailed accounting of its bizarre espionage campaign. Washington isn't clear what sort of "full accounting" Tokyo expects. But Abe first gained notoriety for his hard-line stance on the abduction question, and his electoral crash last weekend may convince him that he has to push harder, even to the point of incurring White House wrath.   [Japanese remilitarisation] [US Japan alliance] [Abductees]
• Rodong Sinmun on Abe Regime's Crushing Defeat in Upper House Election
  Pyongyang, August 3 (KCNA) -- The Liberal Democratic Party of Japan suffered a smashing defeat in the election to the House of Councillors held a few days ago, losing its control on the upper house for the first time since its emergence in 1955. It is no more No.1 party in the house. Commenting on this, a Rodong Sinmun analyst Friday says: The Abe group itself is to blame for the defeat of the LDP in the election. Japanese voters turned their backs on the LDP because they felt disillusioned about the political incompetence of the Abe Cabinet and its corrupt policy and its policy poor in substance, though showy in appearance
• Japan deems U.S. House resolution on comfort women "regrettable"
  Formal condemnation of Japan's WWII actions deals a blow to Abe and is likely to incite conservative ire
      TOKYO-In response to passage of the U.S. House of Representative's resolution condemning Japan's sexual enslavement of women during World War II, the Japanese government expressed its disappointment, but did not announce whether it would apologize for the atrocities reportedly committed in the past century. "Regarding this issue, I explained during my visit to the United States in April my views as well as the response the Japanese government has taken so far," Japan's Prime Minster Shinzo Abe was quoted by Kyodo as speaking to reporters. "The approval of the resolution was regrettable."
• Abe Troubles May Affect U.S. - Japan Work, Experts Say
  By REUTERS Published: July 31, 2007 Filed at 8:53 p.m. ET Skip to next paragraph WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Faced with an emboldened opposition after his electoral defeat, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may find it difficult to back U.S. security policies, U.S. experts said on Tuesday.
  American policy goals may meet Japanese ambivalence as a result of U.S. moves to accommodate North Korea in nuclear talks and due to a U.S. House of Representatives resolution demanding Japan apologize for forcing thousands of women to work in World War Two brothels, the analysts said. Green said his recent trip to Japan revealed widespread dismay at U.S. policies toward North Korea, which Japan refuses to deal with as a diplomatic partner until Pyongyang clarifies the fate of more than a dozen Japanese kidnapped by the North. The nonbinding resolution on the sex slaves that passed the U.S. House on Monday "doesn't make any of this easier for the government in respect to issues in U.S.-Japan relations," he said. "Instead of causing reflection in Japan, it's causing resentment -- not just on the right, but in the middle," Green said of U.S. lawmakers' demand for an official apology. Tokyo says it has apologized repeatedly for the women's ordeal. [Abe Shinzo] [Japanese remilitarisation] [US Japan alliance]
• US Missile Defense In Northeast Asia and the Rule of Law in Japan:
  Evidence from the July 5,2006 North Korean Missile Test
  By Umebayashi Hiromichi Translated by Richard Tanter
  July 31st, 2007 Umebayashi Hiromichi, Founder and President of Peace Depot, a non-profit organization for peace research and education in Japan, writes, “The use of US bases in Japan directly for the defense of the United States proper is something quite new. Strict rule of law must be followed in relation to the military, and particularly in case of a foreign military using the territory of an independent state… it is more necessary than ever in this circumstance to reaffirm the importance of keeping the military strictly within the rule of law.” [Missile defense] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan's sexual enslavement during war
  The U.S. House on Monday for the first time approved a resolution condemning Japan's sexual enslavement of women during the past century, no small victory for tens of thousands of victims who battled for decades to have Japan admit its wrongdoing. Resolution 121, initiated by Japanese-American legislator Michael Honda in January, passed the House unanimously about a month after it was endorsed by the Foreign Affairs Committee. It demands that Japan "formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner" for coercing young women into sexual slavery.
• Abe should take election outcome as serious criticism
  [Editorial] Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has suffered a major defeat in the upper house election held July 29. Being the first time the opposition has taken over the upper house of the Diet since the (LDP) was formed in 1955, it is only natural the Japanese media is calling the results a non-confidence vote on the government of Shinzo Abe. However, the LDP has still decided to keep Abe as prime minister. Abe himself says his basic policies are understood by the majority of the people and that he is not going to step down. What he said reflects his thinking that the vote was against his approach to the pension issue and a rebuke of his cabinet for corruption, rather than an expression of opposition to his rebuilding of postwar Japanese conservatism. The direct reasons for the LDP's defeat are indeed the pension issue, corruption on the part of members of his cabinet, and socioeconomic disparity in Japanese society. But it goes too far to say that most Japanese agree with the direction in which he is taking the country. In last year's general elections, the LDP called for the "end of the postwar regime" and the creation of a "beautiful country," and Abe won when the results were in. This time around, he desperately appealed to voters with calls for the need for a national referendum to amend the Constitution, and yet he failed to win support. This confirms that at the very least, constitutional revision is not an urgent issue with the Japanese people. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan's Prime Minister Holds on Despite Rebuke From Voters
  By NORIMITSU ONISHI Published: July 31, 2007
  TOKYO, July 30 - Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday resisted calls to resign after a devastating defeat in Sunday's election for the upper house of Parliament, insisting that voters still supported his policies. Mr. Abe rejected the urging of opposition politicians, newspaper editorials and even members of his own Liberal Democratic Party that he step down, in keeping with a practice followed by past prime ministers after a loss for their party in the upper house. He attributed his party's loss to anger over scandals and a record-keeping problem related to national pensions, and not to a rejection of his administration's overall policies. "I can't run away at this point," Mr. Abe said. "The situation will become very severe, but even in this kind of situation, we can't afford a political vacuum." But in an indication of how the loss may force him to shift his priorities, Mr. Abe spent most of a 30-minute news conference talking about economic and everyday issues that have been close to voters' hearts. He avoided mentioning North Korea, Japan's military, transforming Japan into "a beautiful country" and other leitmotifs of his nationalist agenda. Tellingly, he never brought up the issue he had long considered the most important of his administration - the revision of the pacifist Constitution - until a reporter asked him about it. He said he wanted to engage voters in a "wide and deep discussion" about the Constitution. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan: A Period of Political Uncertainty
  PM Abe resists calls to resign after electoral drubbing
  [Commentary] Hisane Masaki (hmasaki)
  Published 2007-07-31 06:04 (KST) As widely expected a political tsunami has swept through Japan and altered the nation's political landscape amid an ever-swelling wave of public anger over the government's pension records-keeping fiasco and other scandals

• Governing Party in Japan Suffers Election Defeat
  By NORIMITSU ONISHI Published: July 30, 2007 TOKYO, Monday, July 30 - Japan's governing Liberal Democratic Party suffered a crushing defeat Sunday in the election for the upper house of Parliament, but Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vowed that he would not step down.
    The main opposition Democratic Party seized control of the upper house by a landslide, capturing seats not only in cities but also in rural districts that had long been strongholds of the Liberal Democratic Party. The rout was widespread, with household names in the governing party falling one after another before opposition newcomers. It could also stall Tokyo's moves toward a more assertive foreign policy and active military.
  The Democratic Party has been critical of Mr. Abe's tendency to revise Japan's wartime past and wary of the strengthening of the Japanese military, initiatives that were led by conservatives in Mr. Abe's party and encouraged by the United States. The opposition opposed the deployment of Japanese troops to Iraq. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• The Australia-Japan FTA Negotiations: What Do they Really Mean?
  Ono Kazuoki
  Translated by Ando Takemasa and Gavan McCormack Opposition to free trade is commonly treated as a heresy. Yet farmers in Japan, and in other countries across the Asian region, have persistently opposed the WTO order, and now oppose its extension through bilateral or multilateral Free Trade Agreements, of which most notable are those currently being negotiated between the United States and South Korea and between Japan and Australia. Commonly, those negotiations are conducted at high bureaucratic level, with direct input from major business federations but little or no voice for farmer and consumer groups. With the Doha round of WTO negotiations stalled, the United States, Japan and others are shifting their attention to bilateral FTAs. Ono Kazuoki, veteran of Japanese and Asian farmer movements, here comments on the projected Australia-Japan FTA. (Japan Focus)
• Odd Candidates Spruce Up Japan Elections
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: July 29, 2007 Filed at 1:48 a.m. ET TOKYO (AP) -- There's Peru's former authoritarian leader, Albert Fujimori; and Yuko Tojo, whose grandfather ordered Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor; and the inventor who calls himself Dr. Nakamats and claims he knows how to turn North Korean missiles around in midair. Japan's national elections, which began Sunday morning, feature some unlikely candidates. It's not that the ballot is in any way a frivolous affair. Battered by funding scandals and a huge pensions blunder, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government will be fighting to hold onto its slim majority in parliament's upper house. Defeat could prompt calls for Abe to resign. But plenty of wannabes are sharing the campaign spotlight with Abe. ZAKI -- a wandering musician and peace activist who writes his name that way in Latin characters -- has resorted to unconventional tactics to woo voters: impromptu rock performances on the streets of Tokyo. ''I've long campaigned against evil government policies from outside the system. Now I want in!'' a guitar-wielding ZAKI, whose real name is Masatoshi Nozaki, recently shouted to a crowd in the shopping district of Shibuya between performances that slammed the prime minister's nationalist agenda. In part, the shift toward more outlandish candidates is due to media-savvy former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who drew celebrity candidates from entertainment, academia and business to push his reformist agenda in the 2005 elections. Koizumi's star-studded lineup whipped up a media frenzy, helping him return a huge majority to parliament's lower house. Now, disappointed by Abe's much duller style of politics -- and incensed by a series of scandals enveloping his Cabinet -- celebrities are coming forward to push for change. Dr. Nakamats says Japan should draw on its technological prowess to better protect itself from its missile-wielding neighbor, North Korea. ''North Korea is one day going to launch a missile attack. But Japan has no plan for when that happens,'' the popular inventor warned during a campaign stop in Tokyo last week. ''I have an idea for a device that could turn missiles round 180 degrees in midair.'' Yuko Tojo, the granddaughter of the executed wartime leader Gen. Hideki Tojo, has an equally ambitious plan for defending Japan: scrapping its pacifist constitution and developing a full-fledged military. She says she often prays at a Tokyo war shrine for Japan's fallen soldiers, including her grandfather, who ordered the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and was hanged for war crimes after World War II. [Bizarre] [Threat] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Ruling coalition suffers huge defeat
  DPJ comes out on top as LDP, Komeito lose Upper House control Compiled from staff, Kyodo reports Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling coalition was thoroughly trounced in Sunday's election, losing its majority in the House of Councilors, nearly complete returns showed. The Democratic Party of Japan meanwhile took over as the leading force in the Upper House. Despite the huge setback for his Liberal Democratic Party, Abe said he plans to stay in power. "As prime minister, I have promised to carry out reforms . . . and it is my duty (as prime minister) to fulfill that promise," he said in a televised interview at LDP headquarters.
  He won high approval ratings of around 70 percent in a number of polls soon after taking office. Many LDP lawmakers and candidates had hoped the telegenic hawk on North Korean issues would lead them to victory in the Upper House election. But his popularity has nosedived, even to below the critical 30 percent line in some polls, after the pension record blunder by the Social Insurance Agency, money scandals involving LDP lawmakers and Cabinet gaffes. [Threat] [Abe Shinzo]
• Is blunt-speaking Aso next act after Abe?
  By REIJI YOSHIDA Staff writer
  Foreign Minister Taro Aso looked satisfied on the evening of Sept. 20, 2006 — right after the results of the Liberal Democratic Party's presidential election came in. The day happened to be his 66th birthday, and he got an unexpected gift — winning 136 votes — far more than earlier forecast. Although Aso ended a distant runnerup, he emerged as a likely successor to the winner, Shinzo Abe, who got 464 votes and went on to become prime minister.
  Described variously as an outspoken right-leaning conservative, an adept speaker and an avid fan of "manga" comics, Aso was born on Sept. 20, 1940, the oldest son of Takakichi Aso, who headed a zaibatsu conglomerate centered on coal mining in Kyushu.
  He drew attention last October when he defended LDP policy chief Shoichi Nakagawa, who openly called for policy debate on whether Japan should develop nuclear weapons. Aso argued that "various discussions" on the issue should be encouraged, sparking speculation that the foreign minister favors the nuclear option. He later emphasized that going nuclear is not an option being considered by the government. Aso had, however, described China as a growing military threat, and got Beijing's dander up last year when he described Taiwan as a "law-abiding country," a remark that came not long after he said colonial ruler Japan's compulsory education was a good thing for Taiwan
  Without a majority in the Upper House for the coalition, the next prime minister would be forced to make a series of political compromises if the government wants to enact legislation. For example, it would be difficult for Aso to push for changing the war-renouncing Constitution as strongly as Abe has advocated, Toshikawa said. "An administration (led by Aso) would be, in a sense, a caretaker Cabinet until the next election of the Lower House," he said. [China confrontation] [Japanese colonialism] [Nuclearisation] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Abe intends to stay in power despite major defeat for LDP
  TOKYO, July 30 KYODO
       Japan's ruling coalition led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is bracing itself for a crushing defeat in Sunday's upper house election, facing the loss of its majority in the chamber for the first time since 1998, a result that could increase pressure on Abe to step down.      Abe, who heads the Liberal Democratic Party, said, ''This humiliating setback is my responsibility.'' But he appeared determined to hang on to power, repeatedly saying he would do so in a series of television interviews late Sunday night.      ''Our nation building has just begun,'' he said in one of the programs. ''I would like to continue to fulfill my responsibility as prime minister.'' [Abe Shinzo] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Koreans in Utoro Call for Home Country's Help
  By Bae Ji-sook Staff Reporter Korean descendents living in Utoro, Japan are facing a difficult time as their residence is about to be sold to another buyer. The move could oust them from their homes as early as this month. Nine of the 200 residents of Utoro, a hamlet in Kyoto, visited Korea to ask for the government's support as the deadline for the purchase agreement approaches. Utoro was first built in the 1940s when the Japanese colony drafted 1,300 Koreans to build strips for the air force. But the construction was not completed because the war ended before the development was finished. As a result, those Koreans were left stranded in the middle of nowhere.
• Fad Marketing's Balancing Act In Japan, Pepsi's limited edition flavors can be huge hits—and then it kills them
  Only a lucky few ever got to try Pepsi's Ice Cucumber soda. The pale green drink began appearing on shelves at Japanese convenience stores in early June. Within days, clips of people swigging the stuff were showing up on YouTube (GOOG ), and bloggers were debating whether the taste was more melon than cucumber. A couple of weeks later, all 4.8million bottles of Ice Cucumber had sold out. But instead of ratcheting up production, Pepsi brand managers in Japan did the unthinkable: They discontinued the drink. "We didn't want it on the market past the summer," says Keiko Ishihara, who oversees PepsiCo Inc. (PEP ) sales for Suntory, the Tokyo beverage maker that markets the soda giant's products in Japan. "The value of Ice Cucumber is that it's gone already."
  It might seem strange to kill off a product at the peak of its popularity. But for Pepsi, Ice Cucumber was largely a marketing stunt: a way to generate buzz for the brand in what is arguably the world's most cutthroat beverage market. It's a $30 billion-a-year business in Japan, spanning everything from run-of-the-mill brown colas to drinks derived from green tea, coffee, and even kimchee, the spicy cabbage mix that is a staple of Korean cuisine. Of the estimated 1,500 drinks that come to market each year, only a handful survive long enough to win a loyal following. [IM]
• Japan Ruling Bloc Heads For Loss, PM Wants to Stay
  By REUTERS Published: July 26, 2007 Filed at 2:17 a.m. ET Skip to next paragraph TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's ruling camp is headed for a loss, possibly by a hefty margin, in Sunday's upper house election, a newspaper reported, as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he wanted to keep pushing reforms no matter what. Thursday's forecast by the Yomiuri newspaper was the latest to predict a loss for Abe's coalition after his support rates were halved to around 30 percent on anger over bungled pension records and a series of gaffes and scandals that forced two cabinet ministers to resign and led one to commit suicide. Abe's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its coalition partner, the New Komeito, need a total of 64 seats to keep their majority in the upper house, where half of the 242 seats are up for grabs. The New Komeito is aiming for 13 seats. The Yomiuri said the LDP could win fewer than 40 of the 63 seats it has up for reelection, a performance seen by many analysts as likely to spark calls in the LDP for Abe to quit.
  Abe, writing in his weekly e-mail magazine, said he wanted to complete his mission of achieving changes such as education reform and revising the pacifist constitution. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan's Leader Attacked by His Own Party
  Ko Sasaki for The New York Times Kohei Tamura, center, who was campaigning for Parliament on Monday in Kochi, accused Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of using "pie in the sky" language that ignored the plight of people in western Japan.
  By NORIMITSU ONISHI Published: July 26, 2007 KOCHI, Japan, July 24 - In his campaign for a third term in Japan's upper house of Parliament, Kohei Tamura has been crisscrossing his district's verdant mountains, hugging its dark blue coastline and running all the while against the deeply unpopular Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
  He has been tone-deaf to the economic anxieties of the average Japanese, and has hewed to an ideologically driven agenda of promoting patriotism in schools, revising the pacifist Constitution and pushing an assertive foreign policy.
  But a big loss would undermine the premise under which the Liberal Democrats chose Mr. Abe, who, at 52, was relatively young and inexperienced but popular for his hawkish stance against North Korea and China. [Japanese remilitarisation] [Abe Shinzo]
• Defense Ministry eyes domestic fighter jet
  The Yomiuri Shimbun
  The Defense Ministry will include in its fiscal 2008 budgetary request funds to develop a manned prototype fifth-generation fighter jet equipped with stealth capabilities and other advanced technologies, sources said Monday. With the production of F-2 support fighters, jointly developed by Japan and the United States, scheduled to end in fiscal 2011, the ministry apparently plans to maintain the foundations for future technological development, the sources said.
  As the U.S. government could be reluctant to see warplanes manufactured in Japan, some observers argue the ministry should only produce a prototype for the time being. [Japanese remilitarisation] [Tribute] [Arms sales]
• Missile Defence Response to the July 5, 2006 North Korean Missile Test by US Naval Vessels Home-Ported at Yokosuka
  By Umebayashi Hiromichi Translated by Richard Tanter
  July 25th, 2007 Umebayashi Hiromichi, Founder and President of Peace Depot, a non-profit organization for peace research and education in Japan, writes, “These operations by US naval vessels homeported in Yokosuka tasked with ballistic missile defence of the US itself is an absolutely new development, one not provided for under the Japan-USA Mutual Security Treaty. This matter must be fully discussed from the point of view of control of military activities by law in both the international and national spheres.” [Missile defense] [Japanese remilitarisation] [Threat]
• Japan Dropped Live Bombs in Guam Sorties
  Japan's Air Self-Defense Force dropped live bombs near Guam as part of an exercise last month, the New York Times reported Monday. The U.S. daily said Japan practiced dropping 500-pound live bombs as part of its annual joint drill with the U.S., which is held at the U.S. Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. "The exercise would have been unremarkable for almost any other military, but it was highly significant for Japan, a country still restrained by a Constitution that renounces war and allows forces only for its defense."
• Japanese war criminals and their offspring
  [Column]     Han Sungdong, Senior Reporter "If grandfather did anything wrong it was that he lost the war, not that he got Japan into it," says Yuko Tojo, granddaughter of Hideki Tojo, general and wartime prime minister of Japan during World War II. "I remain proud of the history in which the Japanese fought bravely against aggression by the white man." The 67 year-old Tojo was interviewed in the July 16 edition of the weekly Hankyoreh 21. Hideki Tojo oversaw the Asia-Pacific War while prime minister and while holding several other cabinet posts between October 1941, right before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, to July 1944. Today his granddaughter speaks for the sentiment of the Japanese right, which still thinks Korea is supposed to be part of Japan. She does not see Imperial Japan's aggression and colonial rule of Korea or its invasion of China as aggression. What she has to say, then, makes sense in this context. [Japanese colonialism]
• Koreans speak out on schooling
  Students, parents, teachers defend Pyongyang-linked institutions in Japan
  By JASON WILLIAMS Special to The Japan Times Since the publication of my article about the Okayama Korean Primary and Middle School (Community, May 22), I have had several people ask me questions about the attitudes, opinions and beliefs of the people involved with the school.
• Will election turn the tables on Abe & Co.?
  DPJ HOPES VOTERS JUMP RULING BLOC SHIP By HIROKO NAKATA Staff writer The campaign for the July 29 House of Councilors election officially kicked off Thursday, with the ruling coalition, reeling from a string of scandals involving Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Cabinet and the public pension debacle, facing a fierce battle with the opposition camp.
• Ruth Benedict's Obituary for Japanese Culture
  C. Douglas Lummis
  Preface I first found Ruth Benedict’s The Chrysanthemum and the Sword in the Charles Tuttle Bookstore in Okinawa in 1960. I had just decided to spend some time living in Japan (little suspecting that “some time” would turn out to be a big part of the rest of my life) and I was delighted to discover that Benedict, whose Patterns of Culture I greatly admired, had written this book too. I read it avidly, and for some years was corrupted by the myth of (as Malinowski called it) the “ethnographer’s magic”. I walked around Japan like a miniature Benedict, seeing “patterns” everywhere, and thinking it was wonderfully clever to be able to “analyze” the behavior of the people around me, including even invitations to dialogue and expressions of friendship. I claim no monopoly to this kind of attitude; in those days it was rampant within the community of Westerners in Japan, and especially among the Americans, so many of whom saw themselves not only as miniature Benedicts, but also as miniature MacArthurs (some still do today). After some time I realized that I would never be able to live in a decent relationship with the people of that country unless I could drive this book, and its politely arrogant world view, out of my head. The method I chose was to begin the research that led to the following essay.
• War, Empire and the Making of Japanese National Cuisine
  Katarzyna Cwiertka
  During the last two decades, Japanese food succeeded in penetrating a wide spectrum of global gastronomy. From posh dining through healthy meal to a quick bite, Japanese cuisine is present in practically every niche of the ever diversifying restaurant market. While classic establishments proudly dish up kaiseki menus for the connoisseurs of exclusive dining, teppanyaki steak-houses provide culinary entertainment to those with less privileged taste buds, and sushi and noodle bars appeal to young customers As elsewhere, modern armed forces played a critical role in turning the inhabitants of the Japanese isles into a nation. [2] The conscription experience confronted young Japanese farmers with objects, practices, and opinions that they would otherwise have had little opportunity to encounter. This holds as true for diet as it does for the custom of smoking cigarettes or inculcation of patriotism. Military menus reinforced the spread of the ideal of rice as the centrepiece around which a meal was constructed, and of soy sauce as a key flavouring agent. These had originally been the characteristic features of the meal pattern of the upper classes and the urban population, still a minority of the Japanese population even in the early twentieth century. The majority – mostly peasants – relied on other staples, or perhaps on a mixture of rice with vegetables and other grains. Peasants customarily flavored their food with home-made soybean paste (miso), while soy sauce, either home-brewed or purchased from commercial brewers, was reserved for special occasions. Thus, by virtue of conscription, the sons of farmers enjoyed the new ‘luxury’ of being sustained by menus that would have been considered too extravagant for daily consumption back home.
• Bomb by Bomb, Japan Sheds Military Restraints
  Chang W. Lee/The New York Times By NORIMITSU ONISHI Published: July 23, 2007 ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam - To take part in its annual exercises with the United States Air Force here last month, Japan practiced dropping 500-pound live bombs on Farallon de Medinilla, a tiny island in the western Pacific's turquoise waters more than 150 miles north of here.
  The pilots described dropping a live bomb for the first time - shouting "shack!" to signal a direct hit - and seeing the fireball from aloft. "The level of tension was just different," said Capt. Tetsuya Nagata, 35, stepping down from his cockpit onto the sunbaked tarmac. The exercise would have been unremarkable for almost any other military, but it was highly significant for Japan, a country still restrained by a Constitution that renounces war and allows forces only for its defense. Dropping live bombs on land had long been considered too offensive, so much so that Japan does not have a single live-bombing range. Flying directly from Japan and practicing live-bombing runs on distant foreign soil would have been regarded as unacceptably provocative because the implicit message was clear: these fighter jets could perhaps fly to North Korea and take out some targets before returning home safely. But from here in Micronesia to Iraq, Japan's military has been rapidly crossing out items from its list of can't-dos. [Japanese remilitarisation] [Threat]
• Rearming Japan - Video
  [Japanese remilitarisation]
• U.S. Unhappy With Warning Letter From Japan
  The U.S. State Department appeared displeased by a warning letter from Japanese Ambassador to the U.S. Ryozo Kato. Kato warned in the letter that Japan-U.S. relations could suffer serious, long-term harm if the House of Representatives passes a resolution urging Japan to apologize for forcing women into sexual slavery during World War II. The letter cited Japan's support for reconstruction in Iraq as an example of what could be hurt by the vote. [Comfort women] [Japanese colonialism]
• DPRK Foreign Ministry Blasts Abe Group's Racket over "Abduction Issue"
  Pyongyang, July 19 (KCNA) -- The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the DPRK released a memorandum Thursday to warn the international community of the dangerous consequences to be entailed by the Japanese authorities' attempt to abuse the "abduction issue." The memorandum says: The Abe group is now busy with soliciting diplomacy in a bid to put international pressure upon the DPRK while asserting that the "abduction issue" has not yet found a solution. As if it were not enough with applying economic sanctions against the DPRK under the pretext of the "issue," it is even scheming to destroy the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan. The "abduction issue" had already been settled thanks to the DPRK's sincere efforts.
      It was by no means a simple decision that the DPRK government opted to settle among other things the issue of a little more than ten Japanese abductees out of sincerity, given the fact that Japan had not compensated for the huge damage done to the Koreans by the Japanese imperialists in the earlier period of the same century when they committed such hideous crimes against humanity as forcibly drafting more than 8.4 million Koreans, killing more than one million and forcing 200,000 Korean women into sexual slavery for the Imperial Japanese Army.
  The Abe group is now concocting stories about more "abductees" as the probe into and handling of the issue of the 13 abductees raised by the Japanese side at the outset have come to an end. The Abe regime is working hard to keep the "abduction issue" debated in a bid to use it for the purpose of stepping up the rearmament of Japan. [Abductees] [Japanese colonialism] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Not Going Nuclear: Japan’s Response to North Korea’s Nuclear Test
  By Hajime Izumi and Katsuhisa Furukawa July 19th, 2007
  Hajime Izumi, Professor at the University of Shizuoka in Japan and Katsuhisa Furukawa, a research fellow at the Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society at the Japan Science and Technology Agency, write, “Thus, the consensus in Japan today favors continued reliance on the Japanese-U.S. alliance, the U.S. nuclear umbrella, and missile defense to negate North Korea’s nuclear capability…The focus is to examine what type of bilateral mechanism may be appropriate to conduct regularized dialogue with the United States on nuclear strategy issues, whether in official or unofficial channels, and what agenda Japan may want to discuss as well as what type of information the United States may want to share with Japan under what conditions.”
  Since North Korea’s nuclear test on October 9, 2006, there has been considerable foreign speculation that the explosion might prompt Japan to develop its own nuclear weapons arsenal. These views do not reflect the relatively restrained reaction in Japan itself. Although the test helped break a public taboo on discussing the possibility of a Japanese nuclear capability, there is little serious desire to replace the U.S. nuclear umbrella with a homegrown nuclear option. [Japanese remilitarisation] [Nuclearisation]
• Rodong Sinmun on Japan's False "2007 White Paper on Defence"
  Pyongyang, July 17 (KCNA) -- The Abe team some time ago released the "2007 White Paper on Defence" in which it kicked up dust over a "missile threat," branding the DPRK as "the very one disturbing the regional security," and it cried for establishing a missile defense system (MD) to cope with the "arms buildup" of surrounding countries while expanding the international role of the "Self-Defense Forces." Terming the "white paper" a document for staging a comeback to Korea and a scenario for overseas aggression, a Rodong Sinmun analyst Tuesday says: The invective of the Japanese reactionaries in the "white paper" that the DPRK is "the very one disturbing the regional security" is a nonsensical vituperation of those obsessed with militarist ambition. The Abe team put in the "white paper" the fiction of "threat" from someone. This reveals the wicked attempts to justify the revival of militarism and overseas aggression. [Japanese remilitarisation] [Missile defense] [Threat]
• Letters to UN Secretary General and President of UN General Assembly
  Pyongyang, July 15 (KCNA) -- The DPRK permanent representative at the United Nations sent letters to the UN secretary general and the president of the UN General Assembly on July 6 as regards the Japanese authorities' evermore pronounced suppression of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon). He in the letters cited facts to disclose the Japanese security authorities' suppression of the Koreans in Japan. [Harassment]  
• Japan in the New Global Demography: Comparative Perspectives
  Roger Goodman and Sarah Harper
  Ageing in the Asian Region
  The Asian/Pacific region, currently home to six hundred million older people, is the most rapidly ageing world region, with twenty percent of its projected population over sixty by 2050, which will at that date account for two-thirds of the world’s two billion elders. Indeed, UN projections predict that by 2040 there will be more individuals aged over sixty than under fifteen in the region and Asia will have followed Europe in becoming the world’s second so-called ‘mature’ region. Key here is the speed at which this transition is occurring. [Ageing society]
• War Responsibility Revisited: Auschwitz in Japan
  Miriam Silverberg
  Introduction by Ann Sherif
  Japan Focus introduction: For more than five decades after the end of the World War II, Japan articulated an official identity as a pacifist, anti-nuclear nation both domestically and in the international arena (its formidable Self Defense Force notwithstanding). Since the end of the Cold War and the first Gulf War in the early 1990s, however, the debate over revising Japan’s “Peace Constitution” intensified. In particular, Article 9 of the Constitution, by which Japan renounces offensive war, has been under attack by politicians proclaiming the goal of becoming “a normal nation”, and the present Abe administration has prioritized Constitutional revision. Along with politicians and the citizenry, many intellectuals and artists have spoken against the possibility of Japan identifying itself as a “nation that wages war”--thus rejecting its assumed role as advocate of peace and foe of nuclear arms. In June 2004, Nobel Prize winner Oe Kenzaburo, along with artists and intellectuals Inoue Hisashi, Komori Yoichi, and Kato Shuichi and others, formed the Article 9 Association, which advocates “protection” or preservation of the present Constitution. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Hammering Down the Educational Nail: Abe Revises the Fundamental law of Education
  Adam Lebowitz and David McNeill
  True to his word, Abe Shinzo is radically overhauling Japan’s education system, the single most important item accompanying his attempt to revise the Constitution. In his basic policy speech to the Diet in 2006, the prime minister vowed to rewrite the Fundamental Law of Education, rebuild education and “nurture people who value their families, their communities, and their country.” That makes his reform agenda the most ambitious since 1947, when the education law, written under US occupation, swept away the fascist-tinged classroom policies of the Imperial era. [Abe Shinzo] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Softly, Softly
  Did the Japan Institute of International Affairs buckle under right-wing pressure? No, says Ambassador Satoh Yukio. Yes, say his critics.
  David McNeill
  Fred Varcoe interviews Amb. Satoh Yukio As some members of the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan know only too well, Japan can be a very uncomfortable place when the right starts sharpening its rhetorical spears. The Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA) discovered this to its cost last year when it wandered into the debate over prime ministerial visits to Yasukuni Shrine: a key issue for Japanese conservatives. The spat began in May 2006 when the JIIA published Tamamoto Masaru’s essay “How Japan Imagines China and Sees Itself” on its website, criticizing then-Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro for attempting to “revive the cult of Yasukuni.” The Sankei Shimbun’s special Washington correspondent, Komori Yoshihisa, responded with a furious op-ed, branding Tamamoto “a radical leftist scholar who has often attacked the policies of the Japanese government.” As the wolves gathered outside the JIIA’s door, president Satoh Yukio yanked the entire English-language commentary from the institute’s website in August and, apart from a fulsome mea culpa, declined to comment on his decision to the media. Until now. In the ensuing vacuum, foreign academics and journalists churned up the media with accusations of right-wing intimidation and dark reminders of the past.
• 32% of LDP election candidates OK on studying nuclear armament: poll
  TOKYO, July 16 KYODO      Thirty-two percent of Liberal Democratic Party candidates for the July 29 upper house election think Japan should study nuclear armament, a Mainichi Shimbun poll showed Monday.      The latest figure is 7 percentage points higher than a similar poll conducted before the previous 2004 House of Councillors election, the major daily said.      A growing number of LDP members think it necessary for Japan to study the option of nuclear armament due partly to last October's nuclear test by North Korea. [Japanese remilitarisation] [Nuclearisation] [Threat]
•   Hague Even Remembers Tragic Effort to Save Korea
  A ceremony to mark the centennial of the Hague Secret Emissary Affair was held in the Dutch city on Saturday. Three secret emissaries from Korean Emperor Gojong -- Lee Sang-sol, Lee Jun, and Lee Wi-jong -- arrived in the Dutch city on June 25, 1907 at the time of the Second World Peace Conference. The three were tasked with trying to save Korea from Japan's colonial ambitions. But their last-ditch diplomatic efforts were neglected by Western powers and frustrated by Japan, and the emissaries failed to attend the conference. Lee Jun died on July 14, possibly by his own hand. [Japanese colonialism]
• DPRK's Abductee Interviewed
  Pyongyang, July 12 (KCNA) -- To Chu Ji, Korean woman who had been abducted to Japan, was interviewed by media persons at Pyongyang Koryo Hotel on Thursday. It was attended by Korean media persons and foreign correspondents here. To said at the conference that a resident in Pukchang County, South Phyongan Province, she was lured by the words of bad people that she might be given help in living and was taken to Japan against her will where she spent three years and seven months before coming back to the homeland. Answering the questions put by reporters, she gave an account of how she was lured and abducted to Japan. She said: In October 2003, I was lured by unidentified persons into crossing the River Tuman and going to Shenyang from where she was taken to Japan. She added that she thus fell victim to an anti-DPRK plot-breeding organization of Japan. Saying about what she felt while staying in Japan, she noted that the Japanese authorities enforced a very harsh policy of national discrimination and that the Japanese society was corrupt and ailing one. She went on to say: I keenly realized that the place one was born and grew up is neither one's native place nor one's motherland, but the place which takes care of one's destiny and future is the genuine cradle and homeland. She noted: The anti-DPRK organizations made up of riff-raffs in Japan are now busy with all forms of false propaganda against the DPRK and the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon), raising a hue and cry over "abduction issue" and "human rights issue" etc. They demanded me to attend what they called "press conference" and "meeting" in a bid to use even me for their purpose. They attempted to use even the kindred ties between parents and their children for their political purpose. Speaking of what she felt after coming back into the care of General Kim Jong Il, she said she felt ashamed when she was warmly greeted and kindly treated by everyone she met.
• Japan and India as Partners for the Peace and Stability of Asia
  Hiroshi Hirabayashi, a councilor of the Japan Forum on International Relations who is expected to become the president of the Japan-India Association soon and served as Ambassador of Japan to India between 1998 and 2002, writes, "In the Asian theater in particular, where numerous elements of insecurity persist, it [India] is expected to become a guarantor of peace and stability. This will be more effective if India strengthens its partnership with Japan, an increasingly proactive contributor to this end."
  Meanwhile, Beijing appears to be endeavoring to come out into the Indian Ocean by extending its sphere of influence through Pakistan and Myanmar. No country will ever succeed in containing China's ambition, but India and the US will at least be able to play a part in neutralizing its impact.
  Japan prohibits itself from projecting its armed forces to far-away sea lanes under the current legal framework but does permit their use in some operations having international blessings. These include missions in the Arabian Sea, where MSDF vessels provide fuel to naval vessels of the US, the UK, France and others fighting against Al Qaeda. [China confrontation] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan’s Red Purge: Lessons from a Saga of Suppression of Free Speech and Thought
  Hirata Tetsuo and John W. Dower Translation by Ben Middleton Japan Focus Introduction. History often taps us on the shoulder unexpectedly. War and occupation—and, more particularly, occupied Iraq vis-a-vis occupied Japan a half-century ago— is a good example of this In this case, the tap on the shoulder really began in 2002 as a crude, hubristic shove. In the propaganda campaign that preceded the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, officials in the Bush administration frequently evoked the example of Japan after World War Two, where the U.S.-led occupation proceeded smoothly and ended happily in a democratic and prosperous nation staunchly loyal to the United States. President Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell, NSC director Condoleezza Rice, and many others repeatedly evoked this reassuring analogy before the invasion, and before chaos consumed Iraq. Astonishingly, the president has continued to do so up to the present day—using the fifth anniversary of V-J Day in 2006 to resurrect all the by-now tattered and torn analogies to World War Two and its aftermath, and using the Washington visit of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo in April 2007 to murmur the same incantation. The deceptiveness (and tragedy) of this false analogy is a subject in itself. Japan in 1945 was a vastly different state and body politic than Iraq, and the America of today is likewise a very different state and society than it was all those many decades ago. Beyond this, the point has been made that even the relatively successful “occupation of Japan” was an anomaly, for there were really three U.S. occupations in post-World-War-Two East Asia: in Japan proper, in the isolated and militarized Japanese prefecture of Okinawa, and in the Republic of Korea. Cold War strategy dictated occupation policies, and varied conspicuously from place to place, with Okinawa and Korea receiving much harsher treatment.
• Is it Fine for Japan to Do Without Agriculture? Negotiating Japan-Australia Economic Partnership
  Okada Motoharu
  Translated by Rumi Sakamoto
  On the 23rd and 24th of April the first round of negotiations for the Japan-Australia Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) was held in Canberra, the Australian capital. This is the first negotiation since the telephone conversation four months ago between Prime Ministers Abe Shinzo and John Howard, in which a decision was made to begin negotiations. To avoid negative political repercussions the negotiations were scheduled to follow the Japanese General Election and were held in Australia. [Protectionism]
• Abe Group's Suppression of Chongryon Assailed
  Pyongyang, July 7 (KCNA) -- The Abe group is working hard to force upon the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) the sale of the plottage and the hall of its headquarters through the Resolution and Collection Corporation. This is a wanton infringement upon the sovereignty of the DPRK which no previous regime of Japan has ever dared as it is a move to physically remove the centre of Chongryon and stamp out the activities of Chongryon and Koreans in Japan. Rodong Sinmun today says this in a signed commentary. [Harassment]
• Korea Slams Japan's Dokdo Claim in Paper
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter The Ministry of National Defense lodged an angry complaint with the Japanese government over its description of South Korea's Dokdo islets in the East Sea as being their territory on Friday.
• Japan in the Balance
  By Michael Auslin Posted: Thursday, July 5, 2007
    With the elections of Nicolas Sarkozy in France and Angela Merkel in Germany, two important countries are turning away from anti-Americanism. But now one of America's most important Asian allies, Japan, may reject a leader who is steadfastly committed to expanding relations with Washington.
• Told to commit suicide, survivors now face elimination from history
  New mood in Tokyo to sanitise one of war's darkest episodes Justin McCurry in Tokyo Friday July 6, 2007 The Guardian Choho Zukeran was a schoolboy, mobilised to dig beachfront trenches, when US soldiers landed on his native Okinawa, sparking one of the bloodiest battles of the second world war. Over the next few weeks, some 200,000 Japanese and Americans would die, including more than a quarter of Okinawa's civilian population. Some died in the invasion, others killed themselves - on the orders of the army that was supposed to be protecting them.
  This year the education ministry ordered publishers of seven high-school textbooks to be introduced next April to remove references to the forced suicides. The ministry said "it was not clear there were military orders [to commit suicide]" and that "recent studies suggest there were no such orders". The demand is part of a growing movement to sanitise - or simply ignore - the darkest episodes in modern Japanese history, which have gathered pace under one of the most conservative governments of recent decades, led by the hawkish prime minister, Shinzo Abe.
• Japan dissatisfied with nuclear dialogue
  [Analysis] Hostile policy on North Korea takes toll on East Asian diplomatic situation
    TOKYO-While there are signs of optimism and a thaw on the Korean peninsula as North Korea began to fulfill its promise to denuclearize, per the Feb. 13 agreement of the six-party talks, relations between North Korea and Japan are still frosty, leaving some Japanese to voice concern over Japan's potential diplomatic isolation.  
  Though it has not yet been successful, the Japanese government was rapidly moving to change its constitution, which officially bans Japan from having a military, to adopt the U.S.-led Missile Defense system. The United States, meanwhile, had seemed to show an attitude of support for Japan's hostile policy against North Korea. However, the situation changed after the U.S. switched its policy on North Korea to dialogue from pressure.
  On July 29, the result of upper house elections may be a watershed in Japan's North Korean policy. If the Japanese prime minister, with support ratings in the low-30th percentile, steps down after failing to survive in the July elections, the new government would have no choice but to change Japan's North Korean policy. Even if Abe survives, many say the Japanese government may not have enough leadership and power to continue its hostile North Korean policy.
• A Political Tsunami Approaches Japan
  For Abe, things are going from bad to worse ahead of national election
  [Commentary] Hisane Masaki (hmasaki) Published 2007-07-06 04:35 (KST)   A political tsunami may sweep Japan soon and alter the nation's political landscape amid an ever-swelling wave of public anger over the government's pension records-keeping fiasco and other scandals. Will the government of beleaguered Prime Minister Shinzo Abe manage to keep itself afloat? Or will it be written off by voters and pensioned off in a key national election this month? Or will there be any other sea changes?
• Japan says North Korea, China security concerns
  By Isabel Reynolds Reuters Friday, July 6, 2007; 3:22 AM
  TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan kept up the pressure on North Korea over its nuclear weapons and missiles and expressed concern about the lack of transparency on China's burgeoning military spending in a government defense paper published on Friday. North Korea has tested at least three short-range missiles over the past month, in what a U.S. expert has said were successful launches of an advanced weapon, adding to regional fears after it tested its first nuclear weapon last year.
    "In particular, North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile problems are becoming even more serious," the Defense Ministry said in its first annual paper since being upgraded from an agency in January. [Japanese remilitarisation] [Threat] [China confrontation]
• Japan's Participation in Six-Party Talks Would Create Only Instability in Their Work : KCNA
  Pyongyang, July 4 (KCNA) -- Japan is now becoming so impertinent as to be unusually fretful over the issue of the DPRK's implementation of the February 13 agreement. This is evidenced by a string of outbursts let loose by high-ranking politicians including Prime Minister Abe. They blustered that "north Korea should conduct prompt specific actions to implement the steps to be taken at the preliminary phase," "in case it does not honor the agreement, the international community should take strict measures", "Japan would closely follow deeds, not words, as regards the implementation of the Feb. 13 agreement" and "it would strongly push for progress in the efforts to settle the 'abduction issue'".
• DPRK Foreign Ministry Spokesman Blasts Anti-Chongryon Campaign in Japan
  Pyongyang, July 1 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the DPRK Sunday issued a statement denouncing the Abe group's evermore undisguised suppression of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon). The statement said: These days the Abe group's anti-Chongryon campaign has reached such a reckless and hideous phase that it can never be tolerated. Abe inherited ultra-nationalism and national chauvinism from his ancestors who had been steeped in the antipathy towards Koreans to the marrow of their bones. He has escalated the anti-DPRK, anti-Chongryon racket since he assumed the premiership by inciting bitterness towards the DPRK. [Harassment]
• N. Korea expresses concern over Japan's participation in nuke talks
  North Korea's Foreign Ministry said Sunday that it is deeply concerned about Japan's participation in the six-way talks on the North's nuclear weapons program, accusing Tokyo of trying to disband a pro-Pyongyang group based there. "These days the Abe group's anti-Chongryon campaign has reached such a reckless and hideous phase that it can never be tolerated," an unidentified ministry spokesman was quoted as saying by the North's official news agency, referring to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
• KCNA Indicts Japan for Its Moves to Emerge Military Power
  Pyongyang, June 29 (KCNA) -- The Korean Central News Agency on Friday released an indictment blasting the Japanese reactionaries' ever-more undisguised moves to turn Japan into a military giant. The indictment says: To turn Japan into a military giant is the policy goal of the Japanese authorities and their strategic line. Since its emergence the Abe cabinet has worked hard to perfect the legal groundwork for turning Japan into a military giant, talking about "departure from the postwar regime" and the "adoption of a new Constitution". [Japanese remilitarisation]

• Kim Is Squeezed as North Koreans in Japan Switch Citizenship
  By Hideko Takayama An undated handout image showing a malnourished boy June 29 (Bloomberg) -- Kim Jong Il no longer supports the government of North Korea. Kim is a 66-year-old businessman who owns a shoe factory in Kobe, Japan. In 1997, he resolved to switch his citizenship to South Korea from North Korea after deciding that ``I could no longer support a government that allowed children to starve to death.'' Since then, thousands of North Korean residents in Japan have made the same decision. And that is bad news for the other Kim Jong Il -- the one, no relation to the businessman, who has ruled North Korea since 1994. For the last four decades, Japan's North Korean residents have sent billions of yen in money and goods back home to their relatives and the Pyongyang regime. As more and more of them switch their allegiance to South Korea, they are choking off the flow of resources to an isolated and impoverished country already coping with trade sanctions. While there is no way of knowing exactly how much they have sent, Katsumi Sato, director of the Modern Korea Institute in Tokyo, estimated that in the early 1990s, the annual total was some 60 billion yen ($600 million) in money and supplies. [Blame] [Victim] [Remittances]
• Ex-intelligence agency chief Ogata held over Chongryon premises deal
  TOKYO, June 28 KYODO      Public prosecutors arrested former intelligence agency chief Shigetake Ogata and two other people Thursday on suspicion of fraud in connection with an aborted purchase of the head office of the pro-Pyongyang Korean residents group in Japan.      The prosecutors suspect that 73-year-old Ogata, a lawyer who formerly headed the government's Public Security Intelligence Agency, and the two others defrauded the General Association of Korean Residents of Japan, known as Chongryon, of the ownership of its headquarters building and associated land in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward.      The two others are Tadao Mitsui, the 73-year-old former president of a real estate company, and Koji Kawae, 42, a former bank official and company executive. Both are believed to have brokered the purported deal between Ogata and Chongryon.      Ogata and Mitsui have denied the allegation, while Kawae admitted to the charge when they were questioned after being arrested by a special squad of the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office, investigative sources said.      Asked to comment on the arrest of Ogata by reporters, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said, ''It is highly regrettable as he once assumed a post of heavy responsibility as a public intelligence chief.''      The prosecutors moved to arrest the three after determining that they had intended to deceive Chongryon from the outset of the negotiations, while Chongryon was looking for a buyer for the head office to hamper the possible seizure of the property in connection with a lawsuit filed by a state-backed debt collector with the Tokyo District Court. [Corruption] [Harassment]
• N. Korea to probe abducted Japanese: Reuters
  BEIJING, June 28 KYODO      North Korea will conduct a thorough investigation into the abduction of Japanese citizens, marking a departure from its stand that the divisive issue has been settled, Reuters news service reported Thursday, quoting a source with ties to Pyongyang.      ''Kim Jong Il has ordered a thorough investigation into the issue...North Korea intends to resolve this issue,'' the source told Reuters, requesting anonymity [Abductees]
• Japan Cited as Worst Human Trafficker of 20th Century
  The Foreign Affairs Committee at the U.S. House of Representatives passed with overwhelming support Resolution 121 condemning Japan's sexual enslavement of women during the past century and demanding an apology for the atrocity. The resolution was passed with 39 votes in favor and two against. It says the so-called "comfort women" were part of "a forced system of prostitution by the Japanese government" and "ranks among the worst cases of human trafficking in the 20th century in terms of its scale and sadistic nature." The resolution says it "would help" resolve recurring questions about Tokyo's sincerity "if the prime minister of Japan were to make" a clear-cut apology.
• Japanese Ambassador Criticizes North Korea
  By Kang Hyun-kyung Staff Reporter
  North Korea should become a responsible member of the international community, Japanese Ambassador to Seoul Shortaro Oshima said Wednesday. In his speech at a forum organized by the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, he said Japan and South Korea share much in common in resolving the security issue. The ambassador said Japan would maintain its pacifist stance in the future. A growing number of experts have expressed worries over the Japanese parliament's approval in May of a bill describing procedures for a referendum on the constitutional revision. He made it clear that Japan would not produce a security threat even after the revision of its Constitution. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Fujimori Running for Japan's Parliament
  By EDUARDO GALLARDO The Associated Press Thursday, June 28, 2007; 1:28 AM
  SANTIAGO, Chile -- Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori said efforts to extradite him to his home country on human rights and corruption charges will not stop him from running for a seat in Japan's Parliament. In an interview with The Associated Press late Wednesday, the 68-year old former authoritarian leader _ who holds both Peruvian and Japanese citizenship _ confirmed he had accepted an offer from the People's New Party (PNP) to run in Japan's July election.
  The former president said that as a lawmaker in Japan he could help the country with issues such as relations with North Korea, but made clear that he still has political ambitions in Peru. [Corruption]
• U.S. House Committee Passes 'Comfort Women' Resolution
  The U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday passed a resolution denouncing Japan's sexual enslavement of Asian women during World War II. Submitted by Rep. Michael Honda, a California Democrat of Japanese descent, the resolution urges Japan to acknowledge and apologize for enslaving the so-called "comfort women".
• North Korean claims Japan kidnapped her
  June 27, 2007     To Chu-ji, left, leaves a news conference yesterday at the North Korean Embassy in Beijing, where she accused Japan of abducting her in 2003. Tokyo has been pressing Pyongyang on the issue of Japanese kidnappings decades ago. [REUTERS / YONHAP] BEIJING ? At a rare press conference at the North Korean Embassy in China, a North Korean woman claimed she recently escaped from Japan, which had kidnapped her four years ago. When she was finished speaking, she sang a theme song from a political propaganda film, praising Kim Jong-il. She did not take any questions. Accompanied by two North Korean diplomats, To Chu-ji, 58, said she was born in Japan as the third daughter of a Korean father and a Japanese mother. "In 1960, my family moved to North Korea," she said. "On Oct. 18, 2003, I was lured by bad people and crossed the Tumen River, then was smuggled into China. Right after I arrived, I was kidnapped."
• Korean Woman Abductee Returns Home
  Pyongyang, June 26 (KCNA) -- To Chu Ji, Korean woman who had been abducted to Japan, came to Pyongyang Tuesday by air. At the airport she had an emotion-charged reunion with her children whom she had so much longed to see. She was interviewed by mediapersons at the airport upon her arrival here and at the DPRK embassy in Beijing and route to the homeland. [Refugee reception]
• Moves to Turn Japan into Military Giant under Fire
  Pyongyang, June 26 (KCNA) -- "The Council to Examine the Constitution" of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan at its recent first meeting held at its head office openly declared that it would submit to the Diet the original bill on the "constitutional revision" which calls for turning Japan into a military power by the year 2010. Meanwhile, F-2 fighters of the Air Self-Defence Force of Japan were busy flying in the air over Guam under the pretext of the joint military exercise with U.S. air force, thus making the first precedent in which Japanese fighters operated outside the territorial air of Japan. Minju Joson today observes in a signed commentary carried in this regard: This cannot but be a serious development, a grave threat to peace and security in Northeast Asia and the rest of the world as it goes to prove that the Japanese reactionaries' policy of militarist overseas expansion has begun assuming a potential danger. It goes on: The most noticeable in the above-said moves is the establishment of the missile defence system (MD). [Japanese remilitarisation] [Missile defense]
• Who is Responsible? The Yomiuri Project and the Enduring Legacy of the Asia-Pacific War
  Tessa Morris-Suzuki
  I When, in mid-2005, Japan’s Yomiuri newspaper began to publish a series of articles on the question of “war responsibility”, the event attracted nationwide and even international interest. Now the newspaper series has become a book, published in a two-volume version in Japanese and in a one-volume abridged English translation entitled Who Was Responsible? From Marco Polo Bridge to Pearl Harbour. There can be no doubt that these publications mark an important moment in the long and vexed history of East Asia’s “history wars” – the ongoing conflicts between Japan and its neighbors (particularly China and both Koreas) about memory of and responsibility for Japan’s 20th century military expansion in Asia.
• Japan as a Global Contributor: Envisioning an expanded role in a world of militarism, global warming and multipolarity
  Asahi Shimbun
  Japan Focus introduction. Below are the first two in a twenty-one part series published by the Asahi Shimbun and International Herald Tribune on May 23, 2007 that seeks to chart Japan’s role in shaping the world’s future. The Asahi editors target the twin dangers of militarism, particularly nuclear weapons and global warming, at the center of their effort to frame an appropriate role for Japan in the coming decades. These are indeed two of the most intractable issues facing the Asia Pacific and the world. Yet the series nowhere confronts the central obstacles to an expanded Japanese contribution toward peaceful resolution of global problems: that is Japan’s subordination within a US-Japan security relationship. Nor, in reaffirming Article 9, does it address the implications of the US-Japan relationship or Japan’s contemporary drive for a more powerful, expansive, and constitutionally mandated military role. It remains, in short, at the level of rhetorical commitment to “peace” without engaging the intractable geostrategic issues that challenge peaceful outcomes, above all the nature of US global power and Japan’s subordination to it. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• U.S. Unhappy with Japanese Comfort Women Ad
  A source in Washington said on Saturday that the White House and U.S. Congress are displeased by a newspaper ad from 63 Japanese lawmakers that denied the Japanese government and military had a hand in conscripting women from Asian countries as sex slaves for the Imperial Army during World War II. The source said the Bush administration and Congress are likely to address the full-page ad, which appeared in the Washington Post on Thursday. The White House is expected to express its opposition to the ad's claims that several countries set up brothels during the war to prevent soldiers from raping civilians and that the U.S. requested "comfort stations" from the Japanese government after it occupied Japan in 1945. [Double standards]
• The Rise of Liberal Japan,
  by Joseph S. Nye
  Most people looking at the rise of Asian power focus on China and India. They often forget that Japan’s $5 trillion economy is the second largest in the world more than China and India combined with a per capita income that is ten times that of China. In addition, Japan spends $40 billion annually on defense, and has one of the top five military forces in the world. China’s economy is growing more rapidly, and its total size will probably overtake Japan’s in a decade or two, but any serious analysis of power in East Asia must include Japan as a major factor. Japan has played a unique role in world history. It was the first Asian country to encounter the forces of globalization, master them, and then make them serve its own interests. [Japanese remilitarisation] [Softpower]
• Japan Lawmakers Take Out U.S. Ad on Comfort Women
  An Ad in the Washington Post on Thursday denying the Japanese government and military's involvement in the mobilization of "comfort women" by the Imperial Army during World War II./Yonhap A group of Japanese lawmakers in a full-page ad in the Washington Post on Thursday denied the Japanese government and military had a hand in conscripting women from Asian countries as sex slaves for the Imperial Army during World War II. Titled “The Facts”, the ad published Wednesday claims “no historical document has ever been found” proving the direct involvement of the Japanese government and military, contrary to a recent U.S. congressional resolution sponsored by the Democrat Representative Mike Honda. The ad was co-sponsored by some Japanese academics, political commentators and journalists.
• N.Korea Mouthpiece in Japan Sells Headquarters
  The General Association of Korean Residents in Japan or Chongryon, a pro-Pyongyang grouping, sold its headquarters in Tokyo on May 31, a Japanese daily reported Tuesday. The Mainichi Shimbun estimated the price of the 10-story concrete building on land covering 2,392 sq. m at 2 billion yen or W15.2 billion (US$1=W938,) given taxes of 420 million yen a year. The exact reason the organization sold its headquarters was not known, but speculation has it that Chongryon has been in financial difficulties due to the defection of members since North Korea’s missile and nuclear tests last year. The organization faces a suit filed by Japanese authorities which acquired bad loans from 16 bankrupt credit savings banks. It must repay 62.8 billion yen for the loans. [Sanctions]
• On the list
  Yet another visitor made a controversial visit to the Yasukuni Shrine recently, a new unfortunate development.
  June 11, 2007
  Former Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui visited Japan last week. While there, he paid his respects at the Yasukuni Shrine, where his older brother is registered under the Japanese name Takenori Iwasato. Lee’s brother fought in World War II as a Japanese soldier. Many people were startled. The act poured cold water on the efforts made by other Taiwanese people who have sued the Japanese government asking for the names of their fathers and brothers to be removed from the Yasukuni list of soldiers. [Japanese colonialism]
• Rodong Sinmun on Corrupt Abe Cabinet
  Pyongyang, June 8 (KCNA) -- The Japanese Democratic Party and other opposition parties strongly attacked Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, demanding the resignation of Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Matsuoka involved in the political funds scandals such as false declaration of the utility costs of the parliamentary office. Matsuoka, writhing in agony over the issue of the accountability for political funds scandals, hanged himself to death on May 28. Rodong Sinmun today observes in a signed commentary carried in this regard: This was the first suicide ever to be committed by an incumbent Cabinet member of Japan in the postwar period. The Abe Cabinet is a scandal-ridden Cabinet and a group of morally deficient guys and political imbeciles.
• Ex-Taiwan President Visits Yasukuni
  Lee Teng-hui calls trip 'private, family event'
  Hisane Masaki (hmasaki) Email Article Print Article
  Published 2007-06-08 13:57 (KST) In a move that apparently upset Beijing, former Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui visited Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine on Thursday to pray for his elder brother enshrined there. It remains to be seen what effect, if any, Lee's visit to the shrine will have on a meeting between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese leader Hu Jintao slated for Friday in Germany on the fringes of the Group of Eight (G-8) meeting of major countries.
  Lee's brother reportedly died in the Philippines while in the Japanese military. Lee, an arch-foe of the communist rulers in mainland China, is now in Japan on an 11-day visit that is to end on Saturday.
• It Is Legal and Moral Obligation of Japan to Protect Rights of Koreans
  Pyongyang, June 6 (KCNA) -- The Japanese reactionaries recently decided to extend the embargo on DPRK-flagged ships including "Mangyongbong - 92" and the enforcement of other sanctions against the DPRK by six months and formally passed the bill related to the matter through both houses of the Diet. Rodong Sinmun today in a signed commentary brands the decision of the Japanese reactionaries to extend the embargo as an unpardonable action against ethics and humanitarianism as it is a revelation of their criminal intention to completely block the humanitarian shipping service to ensure visits of Koreans in Japan to their homeland. It goes on: It is well-known to the world that "Mangyongbong - 92" is a ship which has operated for the sole humanitarian purpose of ensuring the above-said visits according to the agreement reached between the Red Cross organizations of the DPRK and Japan.
• Proof of POW Forced Labor for Japan’s Foreign Minister: The Aso Mines
  (Japanese translation available) By William Underwood One year after media reports that Aso Mining used 300 Allied prisoners of war for forced labor in 1945, Foreign Minister Aso Taro is refusing to confirm that POWs dug coal for his family’s company—and even challenging reporters to produce evidence. That is not hard to do. Records produced by both Aso Mining and the Japanese government clearly show that POWs toiled at the Aso Yoshikuma mine in Fukuoka Prefecture. But the Foreign Ministry’s provocative stance raises questions about Japan’s commitment to historical reconciliation even with current Western allies. It also highlights the growing tendency of the Japanese state to contest criticism of the nation’s wartime past, as the government moves to revise the no-war clause of Japan’s constitution and promote patriotic education. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Prime Minister Abe's Visit to the United States
  By Yukio Okamoto May 17th, 2007 The article is originally published in AJISS-Commentary, an online publication of The Association of the Japanese Institutes of Strategic Studies consisting of four leading Japanese think tanks: Institute for International Policy Studies, The Japan Forum on International Relations, The Japan Institute of International Affairs, and Research Institute for Peace and Security Yukio Okamoto, president of Okamoto Associates, Inc., and former chairman of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizmi's Task Force on Foreign Relations, writes, “The summit should be seen as a solid first step. In the coming year, Prime Minister Abe will be probably be asking the Bush Administration to join his government in the crafting of a detailed and inspiring vision of America's and Japan's common future.” [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Did It Really Help to be a Japanese Colony? East Asian Economic Performance in Historical Perspective [1]
  Anne Booth
  Since the 1980s, a widespread view has arisen in the literature that the post-1950 economic successes of Taiwan and the Republic of Korea have been due, in part at least, to the legacy of Japanese colonialism. This paper challenges that view by comparing Japanese economic achievements in both Taiwan and Korea with those of the British, French, Dutch and Americans in their Southeast Asian colonies. The paper examines the record of economic growth and structural change across the various colonies, and also discusses policies relating to government revenue and expenditure and to trade, exchange rates and the balance of payments. The paper also looks at some non-monetary indicators relating to living standards, including mortality rates and educational enrolments. The main conclusion is that the facts do not wholly support the case for Japanese exceptionalism. [Japanese colonialism] [Making]
• Japan, the F-22 and History
  Defense News
  Defense News describes itself as “the authoritative, independent, professional news source for the world's defense decision-makers.” Reaching a “highly selective VIP list of top leaders and decision-makers in North America and in Europe, Asia and the Middle East,” it “provides the global defense community with the latest insight and news analysis on defense programs, policy, business and technology.
  The $339 million F-22, built by Lockheed Martin, is widely considered the most advanced air-superiority fighter in the world. With electronically scanned array radar for cruise-missile detection, it is capable of eluding advanced air defenses to bomb ballistic-missile launch sites. With a 2,000 kilometer operation radius, it has the capability of flying at 65,000 feet, higher than other fighters. However, the deal is caught up in regional conflicts whose origins can be traced to the era of war and colonialism and the continuing memory wars involving Japan and its neighbors. Japan wants to purchase the F-22 and it is prepared to pay royally. But there are complications, from criticism by some of Japan's neighbors to the Obey amendment which prevents sale of state of the art technologies critical to US hegemonic power. Japan Focus [Japanese remilitarisation] [Military balance]

• Japan Weighs Role of Its Military
  By KANA INAGAKI The Associated Press Friday, May 18, 2007; 11:46 AM TOKYO -- A government panel began debate Friday on how far Japan's military should be allowed to go to help defend its allies if they come under attack, an issue that could stretch the bounds of its post-World War II pacifist constitution. The 13-member panel is meeting to formulate policy for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who said the matter is gaining urgency because of growing threats in the region. "Although the Cold War ended, the security environment surrounding Japan has become far more hostile with North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile issues and frequent outbreaks of regional conflicts across the world," Abe said. "As the prime minister, I have the responsibility to establish a more effective security system that can respond to these situations." [Japanese remilitarisation] [Threat]
• S. Korea expresses regret over Japanese premier's gift to war shrine
  The South Korean government on Tuesday expressed regrets that Japan's prime minister sent a gift last month to a controversial shrine that honors convicted war criminals from World War II. "Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's offering last month to the Yasukuni shrine, which glorifies the country's past expansionist invasions and houses war criminals, runs counter to the correct interpretation of history that provides the very foundation of peace and stability in the region," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "Our government greatly regrets this." The gift, a flowerpot bearing a banner with the Japanese prime minister's name and his official title, was the first sent to the shrine by a Japanese prime minister in 20 years.[Yasukuni]
• New Energy Fuels Japan's Diplomacy: From the Middle East to Central Asia
  Hisane MASAKI
  TOKYO - The past week has seen an unprecedented flurry of top-level Japanese diplomacy aimed at ensuring the resource-poor nation's energy security through stable supplies of oil and other resources. [Energy security]
• Japan's F-22 bid could upset power balance
  May 07, 2007     This U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor goes vertical in a cloud of water vapor during an air show Friday in Florida. [AP] When reports surfaced last month that Japan is trying to purchase the new F-22 Raptor, the most advanced U.S. fighter plane, the news had a ripple effect in the region. Despite Korea's drive to modernize its air force, the ultra-modern plane could alter the balance of air power and spark a drive by South Korea and China to catch up. [military balance] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Korea Faces Heavy Seas at Ocean Conference
  The government is tense ahead of the International Hydrographic Organization conference in Monaco next Monday, which is expected to decide the official name of the body of water dividing Korea and Japan. The body is to settle whether a new edition of "Limits of Oceans and Seas," a guide book for map makers around the globe, will use both "East Sea," Korea's name, and "Sea of Japan." In a closed-door meeting on Thursday, Korean officials reportedly stressed the need to prepare for the worst-case scenario.
• Abe's Constitutional Amendment Misses the Mark
  In a statement on Thursday marking the 60th anniversary of Japan's constitution, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called for a revision of the country's pacifist constitution, saying he wished a comprehensive dialogue could take place on the matter. Last month, Japan's ruling camp--the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito - passed a national referendum bill at the Lower House that aims to put to popular vote a constitutional amendment proposal that was ratified by the Diet. If that bill is passed by the Upper House, then the legal preparations will be finished to make the constitutional amendment possible. Abe's latest comments demonstrate his confidence that public sentiment had shifted in favor of the amendment, while the legal framework has been prepared.
  Regarding Article 9, which the Abe regime is hell-bent on changing, 78 percent of the respondents said it has played a role in ensuring peace in Japan, while 58 percent said it played a role in maintaining peace and stability in East Asia. This shows how the amendment envisaged by the Abe government differs from the Japanese public's aspirations [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Sino-Japanese relations, Korea-Japanese relations
    Lee Jong-won, Rikkyo University professor of International Affairs Chinese prime minister Wen Jiabao came Japan in mid April. It was the first visit by top Chinese leadership in six years, when his predecessor Zhu Rongji came in October 2000. Chinese leaders have refused to visit Japan, in protest of Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi's trips to worship at Yasukuni Jinja. You can see in the reciprocal visits that began when current Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe visited Beijing shortly after his inauguration in October a deliberate attempt to demonstrate that relations are recovering from the situation that began because of the Yasukuni issue.
  Naturally, Japan has complex motives, too. It is simultaneously going to respond in kind to Chinese "smile diplomacy" and try to legalize its "right to collective self-defense" and, based on that, move on to the next level when in the integration of its military with that of the U.S. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Government to Seize Assets of Collaborators in Colonial Era
  By Kim Rahn Staff Reporter
  A government body Wednesday decided to confiscate land owned by the descendants of pro-Japan collaborators during the colonial period (1910-1945). For the first time in 58 years, the government has taken the first steps to clear away the colonial-era legacy. But the seizure invited immediate protest from those affected. They threatened to file suits for the infringement of private property ownership. [Japanese colonialism] [Japanese collaborators]
• President Bush and Prime Minister Abe of Japan Participate in a Joint Press Availability
  Camp David 11:09 A.M. EDT PRESIDENT BUSH: Thank you. Welcome. Mr. Prime Minister, Shinzo, welcome to Camp David. I thank you very much for making the long journey. I also thank you for bringing your gracious wife to dinner last night.
  The alliance between Japan and the United States has never been stronger.
  We spent a lot of time talking about North Korea and our mutual desire for North Korea to meet its obligations. Our partners in the six-party talks are patient, but our patience is not unlimited. We expect North Korea to meet all its commitments under the February 13th agreement, and we will continue working closely with our partners.
  Q A question on the wartime comfort women issue. Mr. Prime Minister, on this issue, did you explain your thoughts to President Bush, and on this matter, did you talk about further factual investigations on the matter, and any intent to apologize on the issue? Also, a question for Mr. President on the comfort women issue. From the perspective of human rights and Asian history perceptions, I wonder if you could express your thoughts or views. PRIME MINISTER ABE: Well, in my meeting with the congressional representatives yesterday, I explained my thoughts, and that is I do have deep-hearted sympathies that my people had to serve as comfort women, were placed in extreme hardships, and had to suffer that sacrifice; and that I, as Prime Minister of Japan, expressed my apologizes, and also expressed my apologizes for the fact that they were placed in that sort of circumstance. The 20th century was a century that human rights were violated in many parts of the world. So we have to make the 21st century a century -- a wonderful century in which no human rights are violated. And I, myself, and Japan wish to make significant contributions to that end. And so I explained these thoughts to the President. PRESIDENT BUSH: The comfort women issue is a regrettable chapter in the history of the world, and I accept the Prime Minister's apology. I thought it was very -- I thought his statements -- Kono's statement, as well as statements here in the United States were very straightforward and from his heart. And I'm looking forward to working with this man to lead our nations forward. And that's what we spent time discussing today.
  As for the importance of the abduction issue, George and our American friends, I'm sure, are fully aware, and they understand our thinking and they support our position. In resolving that abduction issue, as well, Japan and the United States will cooperate with each other, when we need to cooperate with each other. And the President thinks the same way. PRESIDENT BUSH: We have shown the North Korean leader that obstinance on this issue, that there's a price to pay. We have come together as a group of nations, all aiming to achieve the same objective, and that is for the leader to North Korea to verifiably give up the weapons program that he has, just like he said he would do. And we have proven that we can work in collaboration to deny certain benefits to the North Korean government and people. That's what we've shown so far. I think it's wise to show the North Korean leader, as well, that there is a better way forward. I wouldn't call that "soft," I'd call that wise diplomacy. It's his choice to make, ultimately, not our choice, as to whether he honors the agreement he agreed to. Our objective is to hold him to account. But he's got different ways forward and we have made that avenue available for his choice. So the meeting today, of course, is to hope for the best and plan for the worst. We're hoping that the North Korea leader continues to make the right choice for his country. But if he should choose not to, we've got a strategy to make sure that the pressure we've initially applied is even greater. That's our plan. And so it is -- he ought to know that if he makes right choices, there is a way for him to be able to deal with a listing that our government has placed on him; in other words, there's a way forward. And this is -- what you're referring to is the beginning of a process, it's the beginning of an opportunity for him to be in a different position, vis- -vis the United States government on a variety of fronts. [Japanese colonialism] [Abductees] [Terrorism]
• Abe striving to mend Japan-US ties
  During his visit to the United States on April 26-27, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had wide-ranging consultations with President George W. Bush on Japan-US ties of alliance, the situation in Iraq, the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula and other issues of mutual concern. Moreover, they issued a joint statement and other documents on the promotion of energy and economic and trade cooperation, environmental protection and cultural exchanges between the two nations.
  On the issue of "comfort women", however, he contradicted himself time and again, and this drew vehement reactions internationally, including the U.S. Flanked by close to 100 protesters, Young Soo Lee, 78, who was forced to work as a "comfort woman" in Japan's wartime military-run brothels, walked slowly but deliberately across the street to the White House gate on Thursday. Outside the White House, she and other protesters charged Japan with its "war crimes", called for Abe apology and demanded "official apology and compensation", which had been almost unprecedented for protesters in front of the White House. Third, what is to mend with a sense of urgency is Japan-US rift on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue. The Japanese side showed a displeasure with the U.S. on bilateral talks with DPRK, on the financial issue and criticized the U.S. but, meanwhile, it was eager to communicate with it. Japan put an emphasis in the summit with the U.S. to coordinate their stance. Abe proposed to the U.S. to delist or remove DPRK from those countries involved to back up terrorism, and he also asked for a faster tempo for resolving the issue on kidnapped Japanese, to which, Bush replied that the issue was also under consideration. [US Japan relations] [Friction] [Agreement070213]
• Abe and Bush sing duet on comfort women
      Let's hypothesize for a moment and say that the Japanese Diet had a resolution before it condemning American bombings of civilians in Iraq. Then lets say the president of the United States apologized to Japan and that the Japanese prime minister said he accepted that apology. Would that solve the issue at hand and eased the minds of the victims? Clearly it would only make the situation worse. Still, it is exactly the kind of exchange you saw last Friday in Washington D.C., between Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe and U.S. president George W. Bush. At a press conference following his meeting with Bush, Abe said he feels "deep-hearted sympathies that the people who had to serve as comfort women were placed in extreme hardships" and that offers his "apologies for the fact that they were placed in that sort of circumstance." His comment was not an apology, because all he did was say he recognized that comfort women had suffered; he did not even admit that there had been coercion on the part of the Japanese government. It was a rare comedy for the history of diplomacy for his comments to take the form of an apology to Bush instead of to former comfort women and the countries they came from
• S. Korea, Japan to spar over East Sea name at IHO meeting
          South Korea and Japan are expected to collide head-on next week over the name of the waters between the two countries, a contentious issue in their checkered relationship, officials said Monday. Seoul officials plan to ask the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) to consider adopting the Korean name of the "East Sea" along with the "Sea of Japan" when the organization holds a general meeting in Monaco on May 7-11 to update its sea maps this year. "We will never tolerate the sole use of Sea of Japan. The government position is that East Sea and Sea of Japan be used together, so we will make efforts to prevent the IHO from holding a vote on the issue. If the vote is held, we will pursue the goal of making member countries abstain," a senior Foreign Ministry official said on condition of anonymity.
• Japan's History Wars and Popular Consciousness
  Revisionist academics and best selling authors fuel a revival of nationalism that is poisoning Japan’s relations with neighboring nations
  David McNeill
  Tokyo~ Ko Bunyu's comic book Introduction to China is not for the fainthearted. In 300 graphic pages, it claims that the Chinese are incapable of democracy, practice cannibalism, and have the world's leading sex economy. In one sequence, famous political figures say the country is the source of most of Asia's contagious diseases. In another, illustrated with naked, spread-eagled women, China is said to have exported 600,000 "AIDS-infested" prostitutes. Mr. Ko spends much of the quieter moments in the comic book developing an unusual historical narrative: that China, not Japan, was the aggressor in the Pacific war. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• The Unprecedented Shift in Japan’s Population: Numbers, Age, and Prospects
  Vaclav Smil
  Three recent statistical releases have led me to revisit the future of Japan’s population. On December 20, 2006 the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research (NIPSSR) published its latest long-range forecast of the country’s population that showed, once again, a faster decline than previously anticipated: the medium variant projects the total population of only about 90 million (89.93) people by 2055, the figure that both Asahi Shimbun and Mainichi Shimbun found “shocking” [1]. [Ageing society]
• Abe, Bush in Apology Farce
    At the U.S.-Japan summit in Washington D.C. on Friday, something absurd happened in the matter of women forced into sexual slavery by Japan during World War II. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe apologized to U.S. President George W. Bush, saying "As an individual, and the prime minister, I sympathize from the bottom of my heart with the former comfort women who experienced this extreme hardship. I'm deeply sorry about the situation in which they were placed." President Bush said, "I accept the prime minister's apology." Why did Abe apologize to Bush, as opposed to the elderly women who are still living with the nightmares of being forced into sexual slavery, and what authority does the U.S. president have to accept such an apology? It's not Bush, nor by extension the American public, but the 200,000 Asian women from Korea, China and other countries who were dragged off by the Japanese military to suffer rape, forced abortions and torture during World War II. When he was chief cabinet secretary, Abe said the issue of sex slaves was a "fabrication and concoction by the media." When he became prime minister, Abe said "there is no evidence of forced mobilization of the comfort women." [Japanese colonialism]
• Korea, Japan Renew Arm Wrestling Over East Sea
  South Korea and Japan will once again wrangle over the name for the body of water that divides them at an international conference. The venue will be the International Hydrographic Organization conference that opens in Monaco on May 7, five years after the last. Both countries have already started their diplomatic campaigns over the name of what Korea calls the "East Sea", and Japan has nominated a maritime affairs specialist as its candidate for the IHO Board of Directors.

• Protesters Mar PM's Visit
  Kim Se-joung Contributing Writer
  WASHINGTON _ It must have been a big day for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, marking his first visit here during his office tenure. It was also a big day for Koreans in the area who welcomed Abe with rallies and pickets insisting him to change his stance toward the comfort women. But as some might have already predicted, that didn't happen. Koreans told the Washington Post readership about the comfort issue by running a full-pate ad ``the Truth about 'comfort women.'' [Japanese colonialism]
• [Editorial] U.S.-Japan Alliance More Dangerous
  Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe is visiting Washington D.C. for the first time since he assumed office, and he is running into harsh criticism about the issue of Japan's military comfort women. Again he has made a comment that is vaguely apologetic, but public opinion within the United States remains critical. Nevertheless, the issue was not even a main part of the summit agenda. Instead of touching on the issue, the U.S. is using Abe's vulnerability on the issue as a card to play and advance U.S. interests. Japan, in turn, has hurriedly accepted American demands. The result is a more dangerous U.S.-Japan alliance. In time for the summit, the White House announced that there are no plans to remove North Korean from the U.S.'s list of terror sponsoring nations before Pyongyang resolves the issue of its Japanese abductees. The statement was stronger than what had been the position earlier, that resolving the abductee issue is merely important. Granted, it will be hard to resolve the question of North Korea's inclusion on the state terrorism list without progress on the nuclear issue. The February 13 statement from the six party talks says discussion on shutting down North Korea's nuclear facility and the terror list issue are to be discussed simultaneously. The question of North Korea's Japanese abductees, however, is something that needs to be resolved between North Korea and Japan. If the U.S. accepts Japan's unreasonable demand to make solving the abductee issue a precondition for taking Pyongyang off the state terror list, it would do serious harm to the six party process. [Abductees] [Terrorism] [Agreement070213]
• Japan Court Rules Against Sex Slaves
  TOKYO, April 27 - In two landmark rulings, Japan's highest court on Friday rejected compensation claims filed by former wartime sex slaves and forced laborers from China but acknowledged that they had been coerced by the Japanese military or industry.
    The decisions were handed down as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe tried to head off a resolution on Japan's wartime sex slavery in the House of Representatives during a two-day visit to Washington. It was the first time that the Supreme Court has ruled on lawsuits by Japan's mostly Chinese and Korean captives during World War II, effectively quashing dozens of similar cases that have been working their way through the lower courts in recent years. The court said in both cases that the Chinese plaintiffs had lost their rights to seek individual legal claims against the Japanese government and companies because of a 1972 joint statement in which Beijing renounced war reparations from Japan, a decision supporting the government's position that postwar agreements cleared Japan of responsibility for future individual claims. China's Foreign Ministry denounced the rulings, describing them as "illegal and invalid" and calling the court's interpretation of the 1972 statement as "arbitrary." [Japanese colonialism]
• Stealth Fighter Sale to Japan Could Upset Regional Balance
  The U.S. is willing to talk about selling the ultramodern F22 stealth fighter jets, which are restricted for overseas sale, to Japan, it emerged Wednesday. Each of the jets deployed by the U.S. starting late 2005 costs up to US$300 million. The fighter jets, which are undetectable by radar, have an operational radius of more than 2,000 km. The Chinese government expressed dissatisfaction on Thursday since their sale to Japan would change the strategic balance in Northeast Asia drastically. In a briefing Wednesday on Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's U.S. visit, the senior Asia director at the U.S. National Security Council, Dennis Wilder, said Washington is "very positively disposed" to talk to the Japanese about the aircraft. Asked about rumors that Japan eyes 100 F-22s, Wilder said the Japanese obviously feel some threat from North Korea's development of missile and nuclear capabilities, while China is modernizing its air force at a rapid pace. He said the question was which aircraft model would suit Japan's needs best.
      In 1998, the U.S. Congress banned the overseas sale of F-22s for fear of the technology finding its way to China. In a press briefing Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said Beijnig "is watching" reports on the sale of the fighter jets. "We hope that nations which have an interest in Northeast Asia will not damage to the stability of the region," he said. China hawks in the White House believe the sale of F-22 fighter jets to Japan will make it possible to entrust Tokyo with some responsibility for the security of Taiwan and want to upgrade strategy against China to that extent [China confrontation] [US Japan alliance] [Taiwan]
• F-22 Fighter Jets Emblazoned with the Rising Sun
    The U.S. government has aid it is "positively inclined" to selling 100 F-22 fighter jets to Japan. It would be the first overseas sale of the state-of-the-art stealth fighter jets. The F-22 Raptor is a fighter jet capable of incapacitating entire air forces of other countries. It has radar-evading stealth technology and its range of surveillance is vastly wider than that of other fighter jets. It boasts radically improved maneuverability. Its effectiveness in aerial combat is guaranteed by the fact that it can see others, while being invisible to others. In mock battles with F-15, F-16 and F-18 fighter jets, the F-22 won 144 dogfights and lost none. The South Korean Air Force, composed mainly of F-15 and F-16 fighters, would be powerless in front of the Japanese Air Self Defense Force equipped with F-22s. [China confrontation] [US Japan alliance]
• Japan's Plan to Buy F-22s Alerts S. Korea
  The F-22 Raptor By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter
  Japan's full-fledged weapons acquisition push including the stealthy F-22, considered the most powerful aircraft in the world, has alarmed South Korea, which has already slipped in the regional arms race. On Wednesday, a senior White House official confirmed that the U.S. government is ``very positively disposed'' toward selling the fifth-generation fighter to Japan, which sees the multi-role U.S. aircraft as an antidote to the growing missile threats from North Korea. [Military balance] [Japanese remilitarisation] [Threat]
• Very much alive, Koreans ponder their enshrinement at Yasukuni
  Controversial Japanese shrine honors the memory of war dead [Feature]
    "It makes no sense," said Kim Ji-gon, 89. Elderly and hunched over, he shook with rage, muttering strings of words that were hard to catch. Kim is enshrined at controversial Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. The shrine memorializes those that died on the side of Japan during conflicts since the Meiji Restoration in the mid-1800s, and includes many class-A war criminals. Kim's name at the shrine is written as "Kanemura Takeshida," a reflection of the banning of Korean names during the latter half of the Japanese colonial period (1910-1945). Many Koreans either chose to enlist or were forced to serve in the Japanese military. Kim's enshrinement - as in all of those honored at Yasukuni - comes for his supposed martyrdom on behalf of the Japanese emperor.    
• Japanese soldiers recall gov't coercion of comfort women
  Tearful recounting of women being forced into sexual slavery comes in face of PM's denial of Tokyo's role
  "I wasn't aware of it. I didn't feel guilty at that time. Tens of thousands of women had been forced to do such a horrible thing because of war...I just wept after watching the movie. I believe they were coerced into a cruel fate. I would like to make a deep and unambiguous apology to the women."
• Remarks by Japanese leader raise stakes for meeting with Bush
  By William Douglas McClatchy Newspapers
  WASHINGTON - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's first Washington meeting with President Bush was supposed to be a low-key, getting-to-know-you affair designed to highlight the tight relationship between the United States and its Asian ally. But the Bush-Abe sessions on Thursday and Friday will be a gathering of politically wounded leaders: a president severely weakened by the war in Iraq and a prime minister hurt by a series of missteps, including controversial remarks he made about "comfort women" - women forced into sexual servitude for the imperial military forces during World War II.
• Japan Police Raid N.Korea - Linked Group Over Kidnap
  By REUTERS Published: April 25, 2007 Filed at 1:54 a.m. ET Skip to next paragraph TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese police on Wednesday raided the offices of a group linked to North Korea and the home of a woman suspected of abducting two children to the reclusive communist state more than three decades ago. Tokyo and Pyongyang are locked in a simmering dispute over Japanese citizens abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s -- a major stumbling block to forging diplomatic ties between the World War Two foes. Tokyo police searched the premises of three facilities linked to the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) in Tokyo and the house of a 55-year-old woman, sources close to the investigation said. Police believe the woman played a key role in the abduction in 1974 of two children of a Japanese woman married to a pro-Pyongyang Korean resident in Japan, the sources said [Abductees] [Manipulation]
• Tension lurks but tight ties in focus for Abe, Bush
  By Linda Sieg Reuters Tuesday, April 24, 2007; 6:13 AM TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese angst over Washington's stance on North Korea and other simmering tensions may lurk backstage at this week's U.S.-Japan summit, but talk of a tight alliance will almost certainly take centre stage in public. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe leaves on Thursday for a two-day U.S. visit -- his first since taking office in September -- that includes a trip to President George W. Bush's Camp David retreat.
  "In reality, they are at odds over North Korea, but they won't let that show. It's his first visit to the United States and in many ways is like a courtesy call," said Takahide Kiuchi, a senior economist who analyses politics at Nomura Securities. [US Japan]
• 39 Japanese lawmakers visit Yasukuni for spring festival
    A group of Japanese ruling and opposition lawmakers visited the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine on Monday, the final day of its three-day spring festival, Japan's public broadcaster NHK reported. The 39 lawmakers belong to a supra-party group of parliamentarians promoting visits to the shrine in Tokyo, which honors 14 World War II Class-A war criminals along with 2.5 million war dead. The group comprised 37 lawmakers from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and two from the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, including two in senior government posts, Kyodo News said. In April last year, 96 Diet members from various political parties paid a visit to the shrine.
  Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stopped short of joining the group, apparently out of diplomatic considerations
• A Conversation With Shinzo Abe
  By Lally Weymouth Sunday, April 22, 2007; Page B03
  President Bush will welcome new Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to the White House and Camp David this week. The first Japanese head of government born after 1945, Abe is a staunch nationalist who has aroused controversy with his dismissive remarks about "comfort women" -- women forced to serve the Japanese army as prostitutes during World War II. Newsweek-Washington Post's Lally Weymouth sat down with Abe in Tokyo to discuss issues ranging from changing Japan's constitution to forging a new relationship with China. What do you hope to accomplish in Washington?
  I had the pleasure of meeting President Bush last year in Hanoi, and I am looking forward to seeing him again. I believe the Japan-U.S. alliance is the only indispensable alliance, and I'd like to use my visit to further strengthen this relationship. How do you feel about the recent agreement on the North Korean nuclear program that was reached in the Six Party T alks? I welcome this agreement, but what is important is that North Korea actually act in a concrete manner to abandon nuclear weapons in accordance with that agreement. It is also important that we make the North Koreans understand that if they do not act accordingly, none of the problems they are facing today will be resolved and the situation they find themselves in will only get worse. Do you feel sidelined [in the talks] because the Japanese government has said it will not participate in the U.S.-led deal until the issue of abductees [as many as 17 Japanese were abducted by North Koreans in the 1970s to teach Japanese language and culture to their security services] is resolved? On this question, Japan and the United States are fully coordinated. I discussed this matter on the phone with President Bush. It is a matter to be discussed at the North Korea-Japan working group. To the extent that the issue remains unresolved, there will be no normalization of diplomatic relations between Japan and North Korea, and therefore there will be no attainment of the objectives of the Six Party Talks. All the participating countries in the Six Party Talks understand that if there is no progress on the abduction issue, Japan will not participate in energy assistance for North Korea.
• Japan Denounced for Disturbing 6-Party Talks
  Pyongyang, April 19 (KCNA) -- Japan, making much ado about the "abduction issue" which does not deserve a passing note, has no job to do at the 6-party talks, declares a Rodong Sinmun analyst Thursday, adding: If the talks get rid of such filibuster as Japan, a favorable atmosphere for the talks will be created and the implementation of the agreement will run on oiled wheels. Noting that Japan is persistently bringing forward quite an irrelevant issue which has nothing to do with the 6-party talks, the analyst goes on: This is because it has a sinister intention to obstruct the implementation of the February 13 agreement and, furthermore, derail the 6-party talks at any cost. It is Japan's approach to the dialogue and real intention to lay obstacles in the way of the 6-party talks and curb the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. By doing so, the Japanese reactionaries seek to invent a pretext for the nuclear armament of Japan and gratify their ambition for the building of a military power and overseas aggression. [Threat] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• `Japan's Stance on NK Abduction Causing Concern in US'
  Concern is growing in the United States that Japan's strong position on abductions by North Korea may pose problems as a denuclearization deal moves forward, the Yonhap News Agency reported quoting a congressional researcher Wednesday.
  Yonhap quoted Emma Chanlett-Avery, Asian affairs analyst at the Congressional Research Service, as saying that Tokyo is losing sympathy on the abduction issue because of its recent remarks denying coercion in its military brothels during World War II.
  ``I think the issue has become more complicated in the last couple of months as the (U.S.) administration has moved towards negotiations with North Korea within the six-party talks,'' Yonhap quoted Chanlett-Avery as saying at a Washington think tank forum.
  Japan's focus on the issue has become more of a concern for some in Washington, she said. ``Japan's decision not to participate in aid that is going to North Korea could certainly be problematic in the long run,'' she said. ``I think that is the key element to many people.'' The analyst also pointed out that Tokyo has not explained what it means by a full resolution of the abduction issue. ``So basically, there has been no realistic plan or roadmap put forward on how it is to be resolved,'' she said.   [Abductees] [Manipulation] [US Japan relations]
• KCNA Dismisses Japanese Sankei Shimbun's Ridiculous Assertions
     Pyongyang, April 18 (KCNA) -- Sankei Shimbun again came under fire for staging a diatribe as a typical reptile newspaper of the right-wing conservative forces.     The paper in its recent article titled "Patient efforts to wipe out the misunderstanding of the comfort women issue" openly denied the coercive recruitment of the "comfort women" for the imperial Japanese army, the worst crime committed by the Japanese imperialists against humanity in the past.     The newspaper falsified the historical truth in breach of the elementary press ethics which regards the impartiality and accuracy as a lifeline. It made much ado about the "uncertainty of the ground with which Kono made his statement," describing the natural public opinion at home and abroad on the "comfort women" issue as a "misunderstanding" and asserting that the imperial Japanese army had never been directly involved in such coercive recruitment as slave hunting. This was blatant denial of history. [Japanese colonialism]
• The China-Japan spring romance: thus far, how much farther?
  Noriko Hama
  17 - 4 - 2007
  A successful working partnership between Beijing and Tokyo has been built on economic integration. Now for the hard part, says Noriko Hama.
  "I'll love you, dear, I'll love you / Till China and Africa meet / And the river jumps over the mountain......" So wrote the poet WH Auden. China has certainly been going out of its way to meet Africa over recent months and hopefully that does not mean that the end is nigh for eternal love. Meanwhile, the Chinese premier Wen Jiabao chose to seek a bit of love nearer home this April. And what better time than mid-April to be visiting Japan?
  The bilateral economic relationship has been unique and unprecedented because it was a case of new China meets old Japan. The Chinese economy started to take off in a truly big way as the world entered the 21st century. This meant that the nation was in need of what amounted to actually rather old economic goods to build up its infrastructure very quickly. Goods such as steel. Such as construction machinery. Such as ships that would carry these goods to Chinese shores in an efficient and reliable fashion. All of which Japan was able to supply very readily. Thus, Japan's final ascent out of the clutches of spiralling deflation was made possible not by the softer and more high-tech end of the industrial spectrum as everyone had assumed. Help came from the older, heavier and emphatically non-soft manufacturers into whom the Chinese great economic take-off had breathed new life. All those industries which we had taken to calling the "smokestack" league and written off as basket-cases suddenly became the stars of economic growth in Japan once more. All because of new Chinese demand. [China demand][Globalisation]
• Japan's Military "Comfort Women" System
  Congressional Research Service
  On April 9, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) released a report on the military comfort women, which Japan Focus presents here in full. Much of the report’s content will not be new to Focus readers. The research and reporting of scholars and journalists such as Yoshimi Yoshiaki, Yuki Tanaka, Sarah Soh, George Hicks, and Norimitsu Onishi contribute much to author Larry Nikch’s findings. But the report also draws extensively on responses to the issues by the Yomiuri Shimbun, Sankei Shimbun, Asahi Shimbun and other Japanese newspapers as well as successive Japanese government press conferences illustrative of the official disarray in the face of US Congressional pressures on the eve of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s first visit to the US since taking office. It also provides an extensive record of the Japanese government’s official handling of the comfort women issues, including apologies and unofficial reparations over a fifteen year period.
  The CRS report is above all significant because it stands now as America’s official knowledge on the comfort women’s history. Given its tenor, this is staggering and also helps explain why South Korean news agencies among others have been collectively jumping up and down for joy that the CRS “rebutted” Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s series of denials during March 2007. [Japanese colonialism] [US Japan relations]
• Roh Denounces Japan for Misguided Nationalism
  President Roh Moo-hyun By Lee Jin-woo Staff Reporter President Roh Moo-hyun has warned Japan to stay away from its misguided nationalism and stop beautifying its wartime atrocities in order to remove a major stumbling block to regional cooperation and peace. In an article contributed to the latest issue of Global Asia, a new journal of the East Asia Foundation, Roh said Japan disappointed him by not making any efforts to resolve the burden of its wartime history. Japan, instead, undertook a series of actions to justify its grim history of wartime aggression including paying tribute at the Yasukuni shrine, he said.
• U.S. and Japanese Reactionaries' Moves for Establishing MD under Fire
  Pyongyang, April 9 (KCNA) -- It is preposterous for the U.S. imperialists to raise a hue and cry over "missile threat" from the DPRK and assert that they would expand and push forward the plan for the establishment of the missile defence system (MD) to "protect" themselves and their allies. Rodong Sinmun Monday observes this in a signed commentary denouncing the U.S. and Japanese reactionaries for their adventurous moves to build MD.
• US Congressional Report Rebukes Abe Over WWII Sex Slavery
  A U.S. congressional report on Monday rebutted Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's denial of coercion in the sexual enslavement of women during World War II, according to the Yonhap News Agency. The report pointed out that Abe's denial contradicts his own government's earlier report as well as testimony by hundreds of victims from Asian and other countries. The denial raises the new, deeper question of whether Tokyo is repudiating the verdicts of a war crimes tribunal against its army officers for forced prostitution and rape of women, the report published by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) said. It also could erode international support for Japan's demand that North Korea account for the kidnappings of Japanese citizens in the 1970s, Yonhap quoted the report as saying. [Abductees]
• Yasukuni Shrine at the Heart of Japan’s National Debate: History, Memory, Denial
  Takahashi Tetsuya
  Tomita Tomohiko, former grand steward of the Japanese imperial household, recorded in his diaries (1) that Emperor Hirohito ceased visiting the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo when it decided to honour certain men sentenced to death by the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal (2). Seven of the 14 class A criminals condemned, including the prime minister, former general Tojo Hideki, were executed; the others died in prison. The Shinto Yasukuni shrine was built in 1869 on the sacred order of the Emperor Meiji, to glorify the deeds of soldiers who fell during the overthrow of the shogunate and the restoration that inaugurated the new imperial state of the Meiji period (3). Subsequently this shrine honoured all the soldiers and auxiliaries from the former Japanese armed forces -- 2,460,000 "heroic souls" -- killed in foreign wars from modern Japan's first overseas deployment, the Taiwan Expedition of 1874, up to the Pacific war of 1941-45.
• The Future of Japan’s Immigration Policy: a battle diary
  By Sakanaka Hidenori
  Introduction by Andrew Taylor and David McNeill A former director of the Tokyo Immigration Bureau, Sakanaka Hidenori ended his 35 year career as a Justice Ministry official in 2005. Shortly after retiring, he published Immigration Battle Diary probably the most detailed discussion yet on the future of Japanese immigration policy and the role of immigrants in the world’s second largest economy. The abridged translation presented here is based mainly on the book's final chapter, which summarizes Sakanaka's views on the immigration options facing Japan. Sakanaka’s intervention could not be more timely. With little net immigration to offset a falling fertility rate, the population of over 127 million is set to plummet to just over 100 million by the middle of the century. [Migration] [Ageing society] [IM]
• Nationalist Wins Tokyo Governor's Race
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: April 8, 2007 Filed at 3:25 p.m. ET TOKYO (AP) -- Tokyo's outspoken nationalist governor was re-elected Sunday despite his waning popularity, signaling Japan's acceptance of its resurgent right wing. Shintaro Ishihara, once seen as a contender for prime minister, is known for his criticism of China, North Korea, foreigners, immigrants, women -- and even the French language. He has ignited outrage by ordering public school teachers in Tokyo to sing Japan's national anthem at school functions or face punishment. ''Tokyo residents' good sense brought this result,'' a beaming Ishihara told supporters at campaign headquarters after Japanese media reported he was certain to win citing exit polls, securing his third four-year term. Ishihara, 74, received 50.1 percent of votes, while the runner-up was trailing at 30.3 percent with 99.22 percent of the total votes counted as of early Monday, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government said on its Web site. Sunday's vote came ahead of nationwide parliamentary polls in July and was seen as a test of support for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, also known for his hawkish and nationalist stance. Since taking office in September, Abe's conservative government has bolstered Japan's international military role and amended the constitution to require schools to teach patriotism. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Comfort Women Debate Uncovers Japanese and Korean Nationalism
  06 April 2007 several weeks after inciting international anger by disputing whether comfort women during World War II were coerced, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe formally apologized last week for his country's use of female sex slaves from occupied territories during that era. Speaking from the upper house of the Japanese parliament, he supported an official 1993 statement by the Japanese government, which acknowledged that the imperial army had organized brothels for its troops during the war. His earlier statement rubbed salt in the wounds of South Korea particularly and threatened to destabilize the relationship between the two states [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan's diplomatic isolation and hard-line policy toward North Korea
  Column]   By Jang Jung-soo, Editorial Writer WASHINGTON, D.C. - Entangled in issues of the past, Japan is becoming isolated in the process of establishing a Northeast Asia regional security framework. Though the path toward North Korean nuclear disarmament was set with the 13 February round of the six-party talks, Japan has continued to harp upon the issue of abductions of its citizens by the North and play but a minor role in the negotiations. Moreover, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's denial of the Japanese government's role in the conscription and kidnapping of female victims to become so-called "comfort women" during the Japanese occupation has dealt a serious blow to Japan's moral standing. Japanese diplomatic isolation is also manifesting itself in relations toward the U.S. Though Japan pushed for the abduction issue to be included as a central issue in the six-party talks, its demands were rejected. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and head of the U.S. delegation to the six-party talks Christopher Hill clearly affirmed that the abduction issue was one to be decided between Japan and North Korea. Yet Japanese frustrations did not end there. Japan asserted that the provision allowing for the deletion of North Korea from the U.S. list of terror-sponsoring states be removed from any agreement until the abduction issue was resolved, but ultimately Japanese efforts again fell short. In turn, there is a strong sense of betrayal among the Japanese regarding American actions. CEO of the Center for a New American Security Kurt Campbell observed that in view of recent developments, Japan no doubt felt as if the Americans had abandoned it.    
  According to Korea expert Selig Harrison, the Japanese emphasis on the abduction issue serves to prolong troubled relations with the North and to further justify Japanese remilitarization. Of course, the true reason for Japan's rearmamament is related to its deep-seated rivalry with China. Yet a full confrontation with China would be politically burdensome, so Japan is using North Korea as a convenient prop in the meantime. [Japanese remilitarisation] [Threat]
• Foreign Ministry Spokesman on Japan's Distortion of History Textbooks
  Pyongyang, April 3 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry issued a statement Tuesday denouncing the Japanese authorities for becoming all the more undisguised in their moves to distort history despite unanimous censure and condemnation by the public at home and abroad. [Japanese colonialism]
• Japan PM Abe to Visit United States for Bush Talks
  By REUTERS Published: April 4, 2007 Filed at 8:43 a.m. ET Skip to next paragraph TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will pay his first official visit to the United States from April 26-27, the top government spokesman said on Wednesday. He will meet U.S. President George W. Bush at Camp David for talks on the bilateral alliance as well as issues including North Korea and Iraq, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki told reporters.
• Responsibility Denied: Japan’s Debate Over the Comfort Women
  Violence Against Women in War-NET Japan
  On March 29, 2007, members of  the Japan Acton Network for the 'Comfort Woman' Issue, accompanied by three Diet representatives, visited the Cabinet Office to submit letters of protest against Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s series of statements denying Japanese governmental involvement in coercing the comfort women into the military’s wartime system of sexual slavery. They also raised concern over efforts to revise the 1993 “Kono Statement.”
  Japan Focus is making available in translation some of the key documents in a controversy that has spilled over into the international arena. VAWW-NET Japan's letter powerfully draws attention to the fundamental issue at stake: what counts as truth, and who has the right speak concerning modern Japanese history.
  Also find below the full text of the 1993 “Kono Statement” as it appears in English translation on the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs website. Following these two documents, find links to major stories that Focus has published on related topics, which we hope will be useful to those currently researching and teaching the issues. (JF) [Japanese colonialism] [Abe Shinzo]
• Japan Shields Itself from Attack
  By Hisane MASAKI
  TOKYO - It's not the fictional Super X project, designed to defend Tokyo, in the Godzilla movie series. It's a real project designed to shield Japan - the capital first and other parts of the country later - from a real threat. Amid skyrocketing concerns about neighboring North Korea's nuclear and missile programs, Japan has recently revved up efforts to boost its defense capabilities, including a missile-defense system, either on its own or with its most important ally, the United States [Threat] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• FM Song Suggests Cooperation with China, Japan on Oil
  South Korea, China and Japan will hold regular ministerial-level talks to discuss ways to jointly deal with political matters in Northeast Asia and energy issues such as oil imports from the Middle East. An official from the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said on Sunday that Foreign Minister Song Min-soon, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing and Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso will meet on Jeju Island on June 3. In a meeting with Aso on Sunday, Song said the three countries should stop competing with each other at home and in other areas such as the Middle East and instead cooperate to further each other's interests. A South Korean government official said the three countries will deal with energy issues, including oil, at future ministerial talks. To this end, the South Korean government has decided to begin consultations with the bureau directors in charge of Middle Eastern affairs at the foreign ministries of South Korea and Japan. Meanwhile, Song and Aso failed to reach an agreement on the issue of Japan's distortion of history at their talks on Saturday and Sunday. In a press conference on Saturday, Song said, "Foreign Minister Aso has made it clear he stands by the Kono Statement, which acknowledged the coercion of the comfort women."
  But Aso merely repeated the previous government's apology for comfort women and did not apologize for the absurd denials made recently by Japanese government officials. Song also proposed that Korea and Japan jointly conduct a maritime survey of the East Sea, rather than Japan doing the survey alone as it has planned. Song said his proposed joint survey would be based on the methods agreed to by the two nations. Aso seemed unreceptive to this suggestion. [Japanese colonialism][Japan Korea issues] [SK-Japan relations]
• As seen at ministerial meetings, Korea-Japan relations face uphill battle
  The foreign ministers of Korea and Japan met on Jeju Island over the weekend and demonstrated that developing relations between the two countries is not going to be easy. Much was said but little was agreed upon, and the difficult issues remain unresolved. [Japan Korea issues] [SK-Japan relations]
• Japan Not Qualified to Participate in Six-party Talks: KCNA
  Pyongyang, March 26 (KCNA) -- Japan has persistently misbehaved in the international arena only to see its poor image sagging. At international meetings now, Japan is behaving rashly, hammering repeatedly away at its chosen theme of "abduction issue", ignorant of their main theme and purport.
• KCNA Blasts Japan's Nasty Behavior to Derail Six-party Talks
  Pyongyang, March 30 (KCNA) -- The chief executive and other politicians of Japan let loose a spate of balderdash over the action taken to defreeze the DPRK's funds at Banco Delta Asia in a bid to throw a hurdle in the way of the six-party talks. Taking issue with the DPRK over its principled stand on the above-said measure, Abe impertinently blustered that "such attitude would get north Korea nowhere". He, insisting on the "abduction issue" which has nothing to do with the agenda of the talks, threatened that Japan would not participate in "energy aid" to the DPRK. The DPRK dismisses this as nothing but a nasty attempt of the Japanese politicians to derail the talks come what may, displeased with the progress made there. Its participation in the talks or wish to see a satisfactory solution to the issue of defreezing its funds at the bank are not intended to get something from someone or to receive any aid. As clarified by the DPRK more than once, its purpose is to realize the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and have its right to the legal funds regained.
• Japan revises wartime history in textbooks
  By Norimitsu Onishi Published: April 1, 2007
  TOKYO: In another sign that Japan is pressing ahead in revising its history of World War II, new high school textbooks will no longer acknowledge that the Imperial Army was responsible for a major atrocity in Okinawa, the government has announced. The Ministry of Education has ordered publishers to delete passages stating that the Imperial Army ordered civilians to commit mass suicide during the Battle of Okinawa, as the island was about to fall to U.S. troops in the final months of the war. The decision was announced as part of the ministry's annual screening of textbooks used in all public schools. The ministry also ordered changes to other delicate issues to dovetail with government assertions, though the screening is supposed to be free of political interference. "I believe the screening system has been followed appropriately," said Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has long campaigned to soften the treatment in textbooks of Japan's wartime conduct. The decision on the Battle of Okinawa, which came as a surprise because the ministry had not objected to the description in the past, followed recent denials by Abe that the military had coerced women into sexual slavery during the war. [Japanese colonialism] [Abe Shinzo]
• Protecting the Human Rights of Comfort Women
  By Mindy L. Kotler
  March 29th, 2007 Mindy L. Kotler, Director of Asia Policy Point, a Washington, DC nonprofit research center that studies the U.S. policy relationships with Japan and Northeast Asia, writes that "The Comfort Women issue is not yesterday’s problem. It is today’s and, if it is not dealt with now, it will be tomorrow’s problem as well. A multitude of vital U.S. interests are served by a definitive resolution of this moral issue still troubling the governments and peoples of Asia. It is also good for our very close ally Japan, as its government seeks long-overdue recognition of Japan’s 60-year history of constructive, responsible and resolutely peaceful membership in the modern world community."
• In Japan, a Historian Stands by Proof of Wartime Sex Slavery
  Ko Sasaki for The New York Times By NORIMITSU ONISHI Published: March 31, 2007 TOKYO IT was about 15 years ago, recalled Yoshiaki Yoshimi, a mild-mannered historian, when he grew fed up with the Japanese government’s denials that the military had set up and run brothels throughout Asia during World War II. Instead of firing off a letter to a newspaper, though, Mr. Yoshimi went to the Defense Agency’s library and combed through official documents from the 1930s. In just two days, he found a rare trove that uncovered the military’s direct role in managing the brothels, including documents that carried the personal seals of high-ranking Imperial Army officers. Faced with this smoking gun, a red-faced Japanese government immediately dropped its long-standing claim that only private businessmen had operated the brothels. A year later, in 1993, it acknowledged in a statement that the Japanese state itself had been responsible. In time, all government-approved junior high school textbooks carried passages on the history of Japan’s military sex slaves, known euphemistically as comfort women. “Back then, I was optimistic that this would effectively settle the issue,” Mr. Yoshimi said. “But there was a fierce backlash.” The backlash came from young nationalist politicians led by Shinzo Abe, an obscure lawmaker at the time in the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party, who lobbied to rescind the 1993 admission of state responsibility. Their goal finally seemed close at hand after Mr. Abe became prime minister last September. [Japanese colonialism] [Abe Shinzo]
• Japan to Begin PAC3 Deployment
  It's not the fictional Super X project, designed to defend Tokyo, in the Godzilla movie series. It's a real project designed to shield Japan -- the capital first and other parts of the country later -- from a real threat. Amid skyrocketing concerns about neighboring North Korea's nuclear and missile programs, Japan has recently revved up efforts to boost its defense capabilities, including a missile-defense system, either on its own or with its most important ally, the United States.   [Threat] [Japanese remilitarisation]

 
• Tokyo Okays Emergency Response Guideline against Missile Attack
  Japan approved a guideline on March 23 to enable Japan to respond quickly to ballistic missiles being fired toward the country. The approval of the so-called "emergency response guideline" came before the government deploys ground-based Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missile interceptors at the Air Self-Defense Force' Iruma base in Saitama Prefecture, next Thursday, according to Kyodo News.
• Shinzo Abe's Double Talk
  He's passionate about Japanese victims of North Korea -- and blind to Japan's own war crimes. Saturday, March 24, 2007; Page A16 THE TOUGHEST player in the "six-party" talks on North Korea this week was not the Bush administration -- which was engaged in an unseemly scramble to deliver $25 million in bank funds demanded by the regime of Kim Jong Il -- but Japan. Tokyo is insisting that North Korea supply information about 17 Japanese citizens allegedly kidnapped by the North decades ago, refusing to discuss any improvement in relations until it receives answers. This single-note policy is portrayed as a matter of high moral principle by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has used Japan's victims -- including a girl said to have been abducted when she was 13 -- to rally his wilting domestic support. [Manipulation] [media] [Abe Shinzo]
• North Korea prefers Bush?
  By GREGORY CLARK
  Japan's distress over the rapid progress in U.S.-North Korean talks for normalization of relations is palpable. The government as well as the mainstream media seem united in hopes that Washington will delay normalization until North Korea meets Japan's demands over the abductee issue -- the return of a claimed 12 abducted Japanese additional to the five returned in 2002, and said to be still alive in North Korea. Few seem to want to realize one reason why the United States is now so seemingly willing to ease its formerly hostile attitude to North Korea: that Washington is finally discovering that Pyongyang is still quite willing to abandon its nuclear ambitions once the U.S. begins to stick to its long-forgotten 1994 promises to normalize relations and assist North Korea's energy requirements. Even less is there any realization of an even more important factor possibly at work -- namely, the strong hints now surfacing that Pyongyang is eager to embrace Washington as a way to distance itself from Beijing and possibly even from Seoul. [NK_US_China]
• Knocked back in Beijing
  By GREGORY CLARK
  Tokyo tries to keep a brave face on the agreements reached at last week's six-nation talks in Beijing aimed at putting an end to North Korea's nuclear development plans. But no amount of strong talk about refusing any direct participation in aid or other concessions to North Korea unless Pyongyang accepts Tokyo's demands on the "abductee issue" can disguise the fact that Japan is in breach of an important international agreement even before the ink has dried on it. Nor can it disguise the extent of the embarrassing knockback it has suffered at the hands of its ally, the United States [Agreement070213] [US Japan relations]
• Abe Could Learn a Thing or Two From Murayama
  Former Japanese prime minister Tomiichi Murayama said, "It is an indisputable fact that the Japanese military set up and operated 'comfort centers' and the Japanese government is responsible." He added, "It is almost pointless to argue whether the Japanese military played a role in forcibly recruiting comfort women." He was directly refuting comments by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who said there was no evidence or records to prove the forced mobilization of sex slaves. He was also refuting an official Japanese government announcement that its investigation found no records that directly show the Japanese military's or government's role in forcing women into sexual slavery. [Japanese colonialism]
• KCNA Blasts Japan's Scheme to Scuttle Six-Party Talks
  Pyongyang, March 20 (KCNA) -- A working group meeting for the normalization of the DPRK-Japan relations recently took place in Hanoi under a joint agreement reached at the third session of the fifth round of the six-party talks on February 13. Many countries hoped measures would be discussed for the normalization of the bilateral relations based on Japan's redemption of its inglorious past and solution of pending issues between the two countries at the meeting. Japan, however, insisted on the repatriation of all the abductees it claims still alive, probe into the truth and extradition of criminals, etc. saying that the diplomatic relations can be opened only when the "abduction issue" is settled, to begin with. It even made far-fetched assertions that the issue can not be considered as settled although it was confirmed that some of the victims are no longer alive and all of the abductees should be repatriated to Japan on the premises that all of them are alive.
• Japan's Bid to Grab Permanent UNSC Seat Ridiculed
  Pyongyang, March 19 (KCNA) -- Japan, a target of international denunciation, distrust and vigilance, is on the run day in and day out to be a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Ridiculing this as the height of shamelessness, a Rodong Sinmun analyst Monday says: For Japan to desperately drive to become a permanent member of the UNSC is an act of overreaching itself, forgetting its position. If things are to take the right course, Japan should frankly admit the crimes perpetrated by the Japanese imperialists in the past and apologize and compensate for them and win trust from the international community by giving up its militarist wild ambition. However, it is fooling public opinion by arrogantly talking about its "important responsibility" and "international role" and it claims that it is qualified to be a permanent member of the UNSC and other countries want that and support its bid.  
• The New American-led Security Architecture in the Asia Pacific: Binding Japan and Australia, containing China
  Richard Tanter
  When Prime Ministers Abe Shinzo and John Howard signed Japan's first comprehensive security agreement in half a century, and its only one apart from the treaty with the United States, the two countries raised five crucial foreign policy signals, and fundamentally securitised the relationship between the two countries.
  Firstly, the Japan-Australia Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation [1] codifies and publicly acknowledges for the first time the existing wide-ranging security cooperation between Japan and Australia. Their bilateral cooperation already includes intelligence collaboration, Japanese bases in Australia, maritime cooperation, official exchanges, joint exercises, and counter-terrorism activities, in addition to joint participation in a wide range of mainly US-led multilateral activities. Already in 2006, Desmond Ball judged that: "the security relationship between Australia and Japan has now grown to the extent that, if the range of cooperative activities could be summated, Japan would be in the top five of Australia's security partners - after the US, UK, New Zealand, but ahead of Indonesia, [and that] Australia would probably rank in the top five in Japan's list of security partners." [2] [China confrontation]
• `N. Korea Has 3 Stimulant Drug Factories'
  Japan's National Police Agency (NPA) has reported that it suspects there are at least three secret factories producing illicit stimulant drugs in North Korea, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported Saturday. The Japanese daily said that Hiroto Yoshimura, deputy commissioner general of the NPA, mentioned the suspicion of the facilities during his speech as a Japanese representative at the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs' closed-door meeting in Vienna on Wednesday. [Drugs] [Evidence]
• Japanese deny forcing women into WWII sex
  March 17, 2007 TOKYO ? The Japanese cabinet added fuel to the emotional debate over its use of sex slaves during World War II yesterday by insisting that a 14-year old study found no hard evidence that foreign women were forced to serve in army brothels. [Japanese colonialism]
• Japanese professor calls PM's historical stance 'bizarre'
  Prof is expert on issue of WWII sexual slavery by Japan [Interview]
  "It is bizarre that Prime Minister Abe only speaks of whether or not the 'comfort women' were taken forcefully by the Japanese military. Wasn't the very system of 'comfort women' one based upon sexual slavery?" "Abe said that there were no violent abductions of women, but in fact there were. The 1994 report released by the Netherlands found such actions took place in at least eight separate locations."     [Japanese colonialism]
• Chongryun to Tell UN About Japan Crackdown
  The main pro-North Korea group of Korean residents in Japan will send a delegation to the U.N. Human Rights Council, meeting this month in Geneva, to give testimony on what it says is a discriminatory crackdown by Japanese authorities on its members, Kyodo News reported Friday quoting group officials. [Human rights]
• Japan May Block N.Korea's Terror List Removal
  The National Intelligence Service (NIS) believes that opposition from Japan will likely affect the decision by the U.S. to remove North Korea from its list of states sponsoring terrorism, which is called for under the Feb. 13 six-nation agreement.    
• Convicted of war crimes during WWII, 80-year-old Korean tells his story
  Lee Hak-rae was born in 1925, in Boseong, South Jeolla Province. He has two younger siblings. His father, a poor farmer, hoped to give him a modern education and so he was sent to elementary school, which he almost graduated. He could not even dream of advancing to secondary school. His first job was at a shipyard in Yeosu, and his second was at a lumberyard. Yet young Hak-rae could not endure the heavy labor. Thus he applied to a job under a rich Japanese family that owned many fishing ships, for work as a household servant    
  One day, the local mayor summoned him. "They're hiring prison guards at a POW camp in Southeast Asia," the mayor told him, urging him to seek employment there. The contract was for two years, with a monthly salary of 50 Won. At the time, he thought to himself that if he got the job, he could dodge the forced conscription that was bound to take him away otherwise. [Japanese colonialism]
• The complicated history of Korean war criminals
      After their victory in World War II, the Allied nations established tribunals for the purpose of administering justice to those who had committed war crimes. Under the ordinances of the tribunals, three separate classifications of war criminals were assigned: classes A, B, and C. The first group was said to have committed crimes against the peace, the second to have perpetrated "typical" war crimes such as the abuse of prisoners, and the third to have inflicted crimes against humanity.
• Seoul, Tokyo Discuss Military Cooperation
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter Top military officers from South Korea and Japan on Wednesday met to discuss ways of promoting defense cooperation, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said Wednesday.
• The Forgotten Victims of the North Korean Crisis
  by Tessa Morris-Suzuki March 13th, 2007
  Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Professor of Japanese History in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University and author of the forthcoming book Exodus to North Korea: Shadows from Japan’s Cold War, writes, “Today in Japan, relatives of those who “returned” to North Korea in the Cold War years watch the difficult process of nuclear diplomacy quietly but with intense concern… While the story of the Japanese kidnap victims has dominated news headlines, this tragic story of the 93,340 who were “returned” remains little known, and hostility to North Korea (as well as fears for the fate of relatives in the North) makes it difficult for the small group of survivors now living in Japan to raise their voices.”
• The North Korean Nuclear Problem, Japan, and the Peace of Northeast Asia
  Wada Haruki
  Translation by Gavan McCormack
  Since the Six Party Beijing Agreement on North Korea of 13 February 2007, optimism has spread on all fronts save one – Japan. For the Abe government, nuclear weapons constitute only part of the North Korea problem. Indeed, as Wada Haruki notes below, for the Japanese government it is not nuclear weapons but the abduction problem that constitutes “the most important problem our country faces.”
  Former US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage recently commented to a Korean newspaper (Hankyoreh, 18 February) that it might take more than a decade to achieve the denuclearization of North Korea, and raised the possibility of the US having to “sit down with Japan and prepare for the possibility that North Korea will remain in possession of a certain number of nuclear weapons even as the [Korean] peninsula comes slowly together for some sort of unification.” The well-informed Russian observer Georgy Bulychev also suggested a 10-year scenario in writing for Japan Focus.
  The shift in policy on the part of the Bush administration since the North Korean nuclear test, opening the possibility of accommodation with North Korea, is having a seismic shock effect on Japan that could prove comparable to the shock of Nixon’s China policy shift of three decades ago. With Bush now requiring Japan to negotiate normalization, Abe’s North Korea “containment policy” is in disarray, as the Asahi Shimbun commented on 15 February. Nobody in Japan, least of all its Prime Minister, is ready for the sort of “sitting down” that Richard Armitage suggests. Confusion and anger spreads, and some political instability may perhaps be expected.
• Abe's Evasions
  Now in his late 80s, Kaneko Yasugi, a former machine gunner with the Imperial Japanese Army in China during World War II, said in an interview with TV Tokyo he and his comrades searched nearby villages and kidnapped women as sex slaves for the military. The testimony contradicts Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's denial of direct army or governmental role in the coercion of the so-called comfort women. "The conditions facing the comfort women were horrendous and we can't deny what we did," Yasugi said. "It is laughable to argue about what was forced and what was not, and I hope the Japanese government will offer its deepest apology and repent." [Japanese colonialism]
• U.S. ambassador to Japan criticizes PM's recent comments
  Envoy warned about Abe's stance on Japan's WWII sex slaves, saying the issue 'touches a nerve' in the U.S.
      Thomas Schieffer, United States ambassador to Japan and one of the U.S.'s more prominent officials familiar with Japan, has come out criticizing Japanese prime minister Abe Shinzo's recent comments on the issue of so-called comfort women issue. Abe had said there was no evidence of the Japanese government practicing coercion in rounding up 'comfort women.'
•   The assault of Koreans by Japan's right wing
  [Column]   Takahashi Tetsuya, Tokyo University Professor of Philosophy
  This year's March First Day speech by president Roh Moo-hyun was reported on in Japan, as well. In Japan, the day was marked by a serious set of events surrounding a rally by Chongryun, or Chosen Soren, the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan. The group's commemoration of Korea's March First Independence Movement against Japanese colonization was supposed to be held in an outdoor music theater in Hibiya Park on March 3, but the government of Tokyo, which had given the group a permit on January 25, suddenly changed its mind and withdrew the permit on February 16. The reason it gave was that right-wing groups registered protests about the planned celebration with the government, saying that Tokyo should not grant permission to a group associated with North Korea to hold a public assembly when North Korea has abducted Japanese citizens. Supposedly, the authorities were worried about an opposing protest and were unable to guarantee the safety of participants. On February 28, the Tokyo District Court sided with Chongryun and recognized the group's right to hold an assembly at the stated location. Tokyo protested and went to a higher court, but its appeal was rejected.    
  Recent comments by the police commissioner give you strong reason to suspect that it is more a project than an investigation, one intended to corner North Korea.
• Japanese Prime Minister's Reckless Remarks Accused
  Pyongyang, March 11 (KCNA) -- The reckless remarks made by Abe openly denying the coercive recruitment of the "comfort women" for the imperial Japanese army are nothing but a crafty and shameful attempt to conceal the Japanese imperialists' crimes against humanity and evade state responsibility for the crimes, an unbearable mockery of the victims of the crimes and their bereaved families and an unpardonable challenge to all the Koreans and other members of the international community urging Japan to make an apology and compensation for them. A spokesman for the Central Committee of the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland declared this in a statement issued on Sunday. [Japanese colonialism]
• S.Korea to File Complaint over Abe's Comment
  Seoul is expected to raise issue over Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's recent comment on Korean comfort women in bilateral vice ministerial talks that open today in Tokyo. Abe has stirred much controversy by saying no proof exists that Japan forced Korean women to provide sex to Japanese soldiers during the World War II. A diplomatic source said Seoul will express worry that the comment questions the sincerity of Tokyo's earlier pledge to carry on its 1993 apology for the matter mentioned by then Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono. The 1993 statement by Kono, now speaker of the House of Representatives, admits the military was involved in forcing the women into the frontline brothels. [Japanese colonialism]
• Japan PM's comments on 'comfort women' raise hackles in U.S.
  U.S. resolution demanding Tokyo's apology now seen as likely to pass
    Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's recent denial that the Japanese military forcibly rounded up women into sexual slavery and that there is any need to apologize is having ripple effects. Among other things, a resolution calling for Japan to apologize will pass in the United States House of Representatives is more likely to pass as a result of Abe's words.
• Japan Could Re-Investigate Comfort Women
      Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is considering a fresh official investigation of whether the Japanese military forced women from neighboring Asian nations into sex slavery during World War II, the Kyodo news agency reported Thursday. The investigation would examine if a 1993 statement acknowledging responsibility by the Imperial Army, the so-called Kono statement after chief cabinet secretary Yohei Kono, went too far, Kyodo said. Members of the Japanese government were quoted as saying the investigation is necessary to find new testimony and records now 14 years have passed since the last probe. If any re-investigation leads to a revision of the Kono statement, it is bound to anger Korea and China. [Japanese colonialism]
• Conservative press backs Abe's denial of sex slavery
  Meanwhile, NY Times slams Japanese government's 'contortion of truth' Amid the controversy surrounding Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's denial that the Japanese military forced foreign women into sexual slavery during World War II, Japan's conservative newspapers such as the Yomiuri Shimbun and Sankei Shimbun have supported Abe's stance as of March 7. [Japanese colonialism]
• NK, Japan Restart Talks on Normalizing Ties
  North Korea and Japan resumed talks on normalizing ties in Hanoi, Vietnam, Thursday in spite of the abrupt cancellation of Wednesday's afternoon session, the Yonhap News Agency reported. The North cancelled the scheduled talks Wednesday after Japan insisted that they resolve all lingering questions about past abductions of Japanese citizens before normalizing their ties. Yonhap reported that in Wednesday's morning session, Song Il-ho, the North's chief delegate, warned that Japan ``will face fierce resistance'' from North Korea ``if Japan tries to highlight only the abduction issue and ignores the authentic agenda of the meeting, the normalization of relations.'' Two Japanese officials went to the North Korean Embassy later in Hanoi, and the two sides agreed to meet again on Thursday to discuss the abductions and wartime reparations in one last session, according to press reports.
• Time for the Truth on 'Comfort Women'
  [Opinion] Japan sacrifices historical truth for short-term political expediency
    Tessa Morris-Suzuki (internews) Published 2007-03-09 12:22 (KST)
  In August 2000, the German Foundation Act established a fund to compensate tens of thousands of survivors of Nazi slave labor. The €5.1 billion (US$6.7 billion) fund was financed jointly by the German government and companies which had been involved in the use of wartime slave labor, and by 2005, over 70,000 claims for compensation had been recognized. [1] Some scholars of Japanese history object to the comparison between Japanese and German attitudes to war responsibility. And indeed, it is deeply misleading to make a simple dichotomy between a "good" Germany, which has faced up to its past, and a "bad" Japan, which has failed to do so. German attitudes to historical responsibility are complex and divided, and moreover in Germany a key issue is responsibility for the Holocaust, which has no obvious parallel in Japanese history. [Japanese colonialism]
• 751st weekly protest on Comfort Women
  The 751st weekly protests by the Korean Council for the Woman Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan was held in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul on Wednesday. Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe recently said there was "no evidence" that comfort women were forced by the Imperial Army to become sex slaves during World War II. [Japanese colonialism]
• N. Korea says normalization talks with Japan canceled: report
  North Korea said Wednesday that the afternoon session of the normalization talks with Japan has been canceled, reports said, citing the North's embassy in Hanoi, the venue of the talks. The North Korean embassy said that the afternoon talks with Japan will not be held as scheduled, the Associated Press reported. It provided no further details about the cancellation.
• Understanding Japan requires an 'intrinsic approach'
  [Column] Kim Do-hyeong, Tokyo Correspondent Living in a foreign country means you're always having new experiences and discoveries. I've been here as the Hankyoreh's correspondent in Tokyo for not two full months yet, but I've already had various personal encounters that have given me plenty of food for thought about Japanese society. It would be hard to describe it in one picture, as I do feel like I've already seen diverse representations of this country that would be hard to frame. Here is what I have a hard time understanding about Japan.
• Denial Reopens Wounds of Japan's Ex-Sex Slaves
  By NORIMITSU ONISHI Published: March 8, 2007 SYDNEY, Australia, March 7 - Wu Hsiu-mei said she was 23 and working as a maid in a hotel in 1940 when her Taiwanese boss handed her over to Japanese officers. She and some 15 other women were sent to Guangdong Province in southern China to become sex slaves. Inside a hotel there was a so-called comfort station, managed by a Taiwanese but serving only the Japanese military, Ms. Wu said. Forced to have sex with more than 20 Japanese a day for almost a year, she said, she had multiple abortions and became sterile. The long festering issue of Japan's war-era sex slaves gained new prominence last week when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe denied the military's role in coercing the women into servitude. The denial by Mr. Abe, Japan's first prime minister born after the war, drew official protests from China, Taiwan, South Korea and the Philippines, some of the countries from which the sex slaves were taken. [Japanese colonialism] [Media]
• North Korea and Japan salvage talks for another day
  By Teruaki Ueno Reuters Wednesday, March 7, 2007; 10:16 AM HANOI (Reuters) - Japan and North Korea salvaged their first diplomatic talks in more than a year on Wednesday after negotiations were suspended over discord about Pyongyang's abduction of Japanese citizens.
• Abe Digs In Heels Over Comfort Women
    Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stood firm against a resolution before U.S. Congress calling on Japan to acknowledge and apologize for forcing women into sexual slaves during World War II.  [Japanese colonialism]
• Abe’s Violent Denial: Japan’s Prime Minister and the ‘Comfort Women'
  By Alexis Dudden and Kozo MIZOGUCHI
  On March 1, 2007, Japan’s Prime Minister Abe Shinzo denied the comfort women. Technically, Abe denied Japanese governmental responsibility for the forced coercion of women and girls into the system of sexual slavery that involved an estimated 80,000 to 200,000 victims from throughout Asia, particularly Korea and China. Looked at in starkest relief, the democratically elected leader of the world’s second richest nation — one that currently aspires to international leadership in the UN Security Council — committed an act of open violence. He denied the few remaining survivors of a well-documented history the right to claim the dignity that has come as a result of telling their story since 1993 when the Government of Japan first publicly accepted responsibility. Since last September, many have predicted that Abe would do something along these lines because of his track record prior to committing to the contours of the so-called “Kono Statement” which has provided the baseline terminology for Japan’s official acceptance of this history throughout the last thirteen years. Over the coming weeks, pundits of all stripes will explain why Abe chose now to make his move. Is it because the U.S. Congress is currently deliberating a resolution calling on Japan to formally apologize for this history, thereby pushing Japan into the hands of the right? Is it because Abe is so personally committed to constitutional revision that, despite rapidly plummeting polls, he will do anything to stay in power through the July elections to secure this possibility? [Japanese remilitarisation] [Japanese colonialism]
• The Good Son Falters: Japan’s Abe Regime in Decline
  By Christian Caryl and Akiko KASHIWAGI
  [Abe Shinzo, Japan's nationalist prime minister, surprised many observers with a strong start abroad. Now he's in trouble at home. Caryl and Kashiwage show how distant the Abe Junzo regime's ideologically-driven obsessions with constitutional revision and patriotic education are from the pocketbook issues that concern most Japanese voters. Their findings were backed up recently with empirical proof. A Yomiuri newspaper opinion poll released on February 20th shows that Abe's pet issue, constitutional revision, is listed as a priority by only 6.2% of respondents. This marginal level of support contrasts sharply with the 61.7% ranking for reforms to social security, 52% for economic and employment initiatives, and 34% for child-care and other policies dealing with the dwindling birthrate, issues on which the Abe administration has been virtually silent. Even the "North Korea problem" - which poll respondents presumably associated with the abductee issue - only weighs in at 32.8% after years of pounding by the media under both Koizumi and Abe regimes [Japanese remilitarisation] [Abductees]
• The Great Japan-Mongolia Love Affair: What price the UN Security Council Seat?
  By Hisane MASAKI TOKYO - Japan rolled out the red carpet for Mongolian President Nambaryn Enkhbayar when, at Tokyo's invitation, he arrived on Monday for a five-day visit for talks with Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and a luncheon hosted by Emperor Akihito in his honor at the Imperial Palace.
  Abe and Enkhbayar agreed in a telephone conversation on January 24 that Japan will seek a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council for a two-year term starting in 2009 in lieu of Mongolia. Enkhbayar conveyed to Abe Mongolia's decision to withdraw its bid for a seat to let Japan run for the post.
  In Ulan Bator, Koizumi pledged new grant-in-aid worth 350 million yen (US$2.91 million). While thanking Japan for its assistance as the biggest donor, Ulan Bator asked Tokyo to consider extending yen loans for a new international-airport project. [UNSC]
• Abe Remarks on Comfort Women Make Waves
      Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe seems to have ended his honeymoon with the international community when he reiterated on Thursday that there was no proof the Japanese military forced the so-called comfort women to become sex slaves during World War II. Asked about his position on a 1993 official statement acknowledging the Imperial Army's responsibility, Abe said there was "no evidence of coercion" by the army in conscripting comfort women. He did not say whether he wants to revise the 1993 statement, where then-Cabinet secretary Yohei Kono acknowledged the involvement of military authorities in setting up brothels. [Japanese colonialism]
• Is Japan worthy of a place at the six-party talks?
        [Editorial] Follow-up discussions on the six-party agreement forged on February 13 are moving forward quickly. North Korea and the United States are going to hold talks on normalizing relations on March 5 in New York, and North Korea and Japan are going to talk about the same on March 7 in Hanoi. Each meeting has a lot to cover and accomplish, and the road ahead will be a long one. This being the case, the parties to this process really need to work in good faith if these talks are going to see progress. Top South Korean negotiator Chun Young-woo, after meeting with deputy North Korean foreign minister Kim Kye-gwan on Saturday, said the North is very determined to implement the first phase of the six-party agreement. The United States, for its part, looks like it has a changed approach to the question of highly enriched uranium, and is working to move the process forward. Recent behavior on the part of Japan, however, is as disappointing as can be. On March 1, prime minister Abe Shinzo told Japan's ambassador for normalization talks with Pyongyang that Japan will not participate in giving North Korea energy aid if the issue of abducted Japanese citizens is not resolved. Then, the Japanese foreign minister said on Saturday that Japan would not give a single Yen unless there is progress on the abductees. Granted, Japan's approach here might be part of a strategy to get more from Pyongyang in the course of negotiations. Considering the fact that Abe cultivated his political strength by taking a hard-line stance on the abductee cause, his comments do not read as being issued simply for the negotiating table. It looks as if, with elections coming up, he is trying to gain back the popularity his government has lost by bringing the abductee issue to the forefront and thus winning back right-wing support. His recent statement that there is "no evidence of coercion in the recruitment of comfort women" appears to have been made in the same context. Seeing all this, you are forced to wonder if Japan is a responsible enough partner in Northeast Asia to participate in the six-party process. [Friction]
• Abe sparks new debate on issue of sex slaves
  Comfort women coercion disputed March 05, 2007 Recent remarks by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe about comfort women during World War II "gloss over the historic truth," South Korea's Foreign Ministry said Saturday in a statement. On Friday, Mr. Abe told Japanese reporters in Tokyo, "The fact is that there is no evidence that the Japanese military or government mobilized comfort women under compulsion." His comments came on Korea's national holiday commemorating the 1919 independence movement against Japan's colonial rule here from 1910 to 1945. Mr. Abe was referring to as many as 200,000 comfort women, many of them Korean, who were forced to work as sexual slaves for Japanese soldiers on the front lines. [Japanese colonialism]
• Japan's Moves for Establishing War System under Fire
  Pyongyang, March 4 (KCNA) -- Prime Minister Abe and other reactionaries of Japan are these days talking about "evasion from the post-war system". In this regard Rodong Sinmun Sunday says in a signed article: It is a deliberate militarist agitation offensive aimed at turning Japan into a state for aggression and war by erasing the system of the "pacifist constitution", which bans the exercise of the "right to collective self-defense" and overseas dispatch of troops, and providing a legitimate state system for overseas aggression. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• KCNA Raps Japan's Stand on Issue of "Comfort Women"
  Pyongyang, March 3 (KCNA) -- Japan is much upset after congressional hearing was held recently on the issue of the "comfort women" for the Imperial Japanese Army and a resolution on this issue was presented to U.S. Congress. Thrown into an awkward situation by what victims of the "comfort women" whom the international community described as clear evidence proving abuses of women testified at the hearing, Japan is resorting to a desperate lobbying operation to stonewall the congressional passage of the resolution come what may.
• Japan's Top Court Poised to Kill Lawsuits by Chinese War Victims
  [Analysis] A special report by Japan Focus     William Underwood and Kang Jian (internews)     Published 2007-03-05 11:32 (KST)           At a moment when the "comfort women" controversy is dominating the growing global discussion about Japanese war responsibility, the Japan Supreme Court is set to permanently foreclose the possibility of redress for Chinese war victims within the Japanese court system. Japan's top court will hold a special hearing on March 16 in a compensation lawsuit brought by Chinese forced labor survivors against Nishimatsu Construction Corp. and the Japanese government. If, as expected, the Supreme Court rules that the victims' right to file the claim has been extinguished by state treaties, it will ensure final defeat for all lawsuits by Chinese victims filed in Japanese courts. [Japanese colonialism]
• 'No Proof' Army Forced Comfort Women: Abe
    Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday reiterated that there was "no evidence or testimony" that the Japanese military forced the so-called comfort women to become sex slaves during World War II. Understanding of an earlier official statement acknowledging the Imperial Army's responsibility "must be premised on a change in what constitutes the definition of coercion," the Kyodo news agency quoted Abe as saying. Abe was answering questions from reporters who asked him about his position on a statement from 1993 where then-Cabinet secretary Yohei Kono acknowledged the involvement of the military authorities in setting up brothels. The remarks coincided with the day when Korea commemorated the March 1, 1919 independence movement against Japanese colonial rule where some 7,500 were killed and 45,000 arrested. [Japanese colonialism]
• Roh Calls on Japan to Respect Historical Truth
  President Roh Moo-hyun on Thursday called for "respect for historical truth" from Japan, saying many contentious issues between Korea and the island country -- distortions in Japanese textbooks, compensation for Korean "comfort women", and visits to the militarist Yasukuni shrine -- can be resolved if Tokyo is sincere.
• Japan's PM says women 'not forced' into sexual servitude
  Int'l demands increase for official apology for so-called WWII 'comfort women'
      Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said March 1 that the Japanese government never forced women in Asia to be "comfort women," or sex slaves, for the Japanese military during World War II. His statement is expected to enrage countries neighboring Japan, especially China and Korea, which have long taken the Japanese government to task for its past aggression. The comments also come at a time when the United States House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on a resolution that would call on Japan to "formally and unambiguously apologize for and acknowledge the tragedy that comfort women endured at the hands of its Imperial Army." Abe did not deny the existence of comfort women, sent to the front lines to serve as prostitutes for Japanese troops, but did state that the 200,000 women were not forced into the situation by the Japanese military or any other Japanese government entity. "There is no evidence to support the claim there was coercion," Abe said.     [Japanese colonialism]
• Abe Rejects Japan's Files on War Sex
  By NORIMITSU ONISHI Published: March 2, 2007 TOKYO, March 1 - Prime Minister Shinzo Abe denied Thursday that Japan's military had forced foreign women into sexual slavery during World War II, contradicting the Japanese government's longtime official position. Mr. Abe's statement was the clearest so far that the government was preparing to reject a 1993 government statement that acknowledged the military's role in setting up brothels and forcing, either directly or indirectly, women into sexual slavery. That declaration also offered an apology to the women, euphemistically called "comfort women." "There is no evidence to prove there was coercion, nothing to support it," Mr. Abe told reporters. "So, in respect to this declaration, you have to keep in mind that things have changed greatly." The United States House of Representatives has begun debating a resolution that would call on Tokyo to "apologize for and acknowledge" the military's role in wartime sex slavery. But at the same time, in keeping with a recent trend to revise Japan's wartime history, a group of conservatives in the governing Liberal Democratic Party is stepping up calls to rescind the 1993 declaration. Mr. Abe, whose approval ratings have been plummeting over a series of scandals and perceived weak leadership, seemed to side with this group [Japanese colonialism] [Abe Shinzo]
• The N.K. abduction issue and the Abe administration's dilemma
  Lee Jong-won, Rikkyo University professor of International Affairs   North Korea's kidnapping of Japanese citizens years ago is haunting the Japanese government of Abe Shinzo. It's an ironic situation, because his hard-line stance on North Korea had been a political asset. In some ways this is an inevitable phenomenon. George F. Kennan, an American strategist and diplomat in the early stages of the Cold War, opposed the Truman Doctrine, saying hard-line policies tend to boomerang. He was worried that approaching intervention in Greece and Turkey with a dichotomy that saw developments in the region as a conflict between good and evil, a historic struggle between freedom and oppression, would harden public opinion and then make it difficult to engage in flexible diplomacy that would serve the national interest. Sure enough, that Cold War hysteria known as McCarthyism overtook the United States and led to wasteful Cold War confrontations like America's policy toward China.

• 3rd joint Japan-Korea textbook tackles difficult issues
  Latest edition touches upon sexual enslavement during WWII, murder of Empress Myeonseong
  The third history textbook jointly authored by historians from Korea and Japan will be published simultaneously in both countries next month. The book, titled "The History of the Korea-Japan Exchange from Ancient to Modern Times," is a product of work by 40 historians over a ten-year period. It follows the titles "History that Opens A Future," (2005) about modern history in Korea, China, and Japan, and "Korea-Japan History Looking Across at Each Other" (2006), about ancient history in both countries.
• Japan to Start Talks With NK Next Month
  Working group talks on the bilateral relations between North Korea and Japan as well as those on North Korea-U.S. relations could be launched as early as next month, according to diplomatic sources in the six-party nuclear talks.
• Japan Launches Its 4th Spy Satellite
  By CARL FREIRE The Associated Press Saturday, February 24, 2007; 1:09 AM TOKYO -- Japan launched its fourth spy satellite Saturday, completing its capabilities to monitor activities worldwide and bolstering its ability to observe neighboring North Korea's nuclear program. The satellite, along with a smaller test prototype, was launched from the country's space center on a remote southern Japan island atop an H-2A rocket, the workhorse of Japan's space program. [Threat] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Shinzo Abe and the Diverging US-Japan Relationship
  Setting Sun By CHINA HAND February 20, 2007One element that continues to amaze is how cavalierly the United States threw Shinzo Abe under the bus while negotiating the North Korea agreement. The abductee issue-which Abe had ridden to power and which forms the core of his image as Japan's new generation assertive foreign policy hard case-was dismissively pushed off to the working groups. While President Bush poured praise on the Chinese for facilitating the deal, Japan was left as the odd man out, refusing to join the energy aid program. And it's not as if Abe extracted any political capital by packaging this embarrassing outcome as a piece of principled intransigence. [Agreement070213] [US-Japan relations] [Abe Shinzo]
• Japanese foreign minister calls U.S. apology bid 'extremely regrettable'
  Proposed Congressional measure would seek formal apology for sexual slavery during WWII Japanese Foreign Minister Aso Taro on February 19 expressed his displeasure regarding a proposed U.S. congressional resolution seeking Tokyo's apology for the Japanese Army's forcing of women to serve as sex slaves during World War II. Minister Aso said, "The resolution wasn't based on objective fact, and it is extremely regrettable that it didn't consider any of the measures [already taken] by the Japanese government" relating to the issue. When asked the following question by a member of Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) at a parliamentary committee meeting - "According to the resolution, the Japanese soldiers forcefully used young women as sex slaves and killed them or drove them to commit suicide in the end. Do you share such a view?" - Minister Aso replied that he did not.
• US report tries to ease Japan alliance drift
  By Demetri Sevastopulo and Eoin Callan in Washington Published: February 17 2007 03:33 | Last updated: February 17 2007 03:33 A bipartisan Washington report on the US-Japan alliance has recommended that Tokyo reduce restrictions on arms exports and create a separate budget for ballistic missile defence in order to improve military co-operation between the two allies. The report by Richard Armitage, the former Republican deputy secretary of state, and Joseph Nye, a former Clinton-era senior Pentagon official, recommended that Japan take the steps to improve co-operation on missile defence “in light of recent events”. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• US pressures Tokyo over Japan Post
  By Eoin Callan in Washington and Michiyo Nakamoto in Tokyo Published: February 15 2007 06:25 | Last updated: February 15 2007 18:28 The Bush administration is to increase pressure on Tokyo to ensure US companies do not lose out in the privatisation of Japan Post, the world's biggest financial institution, even as a senior Japanese official on Thursday called US concerns “a misunderstanding”. Susan Schwab, US trade representative, said the administration was closely monitoring the process and was prepared to resort to litigation if US financial services groups were unfairly disadvantaged. In October, Japan’s post office will be split into four companies – a bank with assets of Y226,000bn (£956bn, $1,867bn, €1,428bn), a life assurance company with assets of Y114,000bn, a mail delivery service and a post office network.
• Rising no more: why Abe is in trouble months after becoming Japan's leader
  By David Pilling Published: February 6 2007 02:00 | Last updated: February 6 2007 02:00 Asked how Shinzo Abe has done in his first four months in office, one of the Japanese prime minister's warmest supporters grimaces before making the sound of a heavy object clattering down a flight of stairs. "Gadan, gadan, gadan," he says, employing onomatopoeia to represent Mr Abe's breakneck fall from grace. Keiichiro Nakamura, long acquainted with Mr Abe, is referring to evidence including the prime minister's poll ratings, which have skidded from nearly 70 per cent when he took office in late September to barely 40 per cent today. Mr Abe, he says, has been undermined by scandals and gaffes by cabinet members, fuelling the impression that he cannot impose discipline or strategic direction. . [Abe Shinzo]
• South Korea and Japan Split on North Korea Pact
  By NORIMITSU ONISHI Published: February 15, 2007 TOKYO, Feb. 14 — The deal to freeze North Korea’s nuclear program has had immediate ripple effects in Japan and South Korea, apparently freeing South Korea’s hands and tying Japan’s. A day after the accord was brokered, requiring the North to shut its main nuclear reactor in return for food and fuel assistance, the South Korean government invited North Korea to resume ministerial talks suspended after its nuclear test last October. Seoul announced that officials from both sides had agreed to meet Thursday in Kaesong, just north of the demilitarized zone.
  The deal also made it more unlikely that South Korea would alter its policy even if the conservative opposition were to win in next December’s presidential election. “Many Koreans feel that President Roh has been too lenient on North Korea,” Ms. Shin said. “But there is a national consensus on the engagement policy, and, if the conservatives gain power next December, there might be a few tweaks but no fundamental change in the policy.”
  Mr. Abe made his political career by championing the abduction issue, which critics say he has exploited to stir nationalist sentiments. Analysts say it would be difficult for Mr. Abe, whose approval ratings have plummeted after a series of scandals and gaffes, to compromise on the issue.
• WWII Sex Slavery Victims Testify at US Congress, Demand Japan's Apology
  Lee Yong-soo, a victim of Japan's wartime sexual enslavement, wipes away tears, while testifying at a hearing of the foreign affairs subcommittee on Asia at the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., Friday. /Yonhap Three elderly women, victims of Japan's wartime sexual slavery, testified before the U.S. Congress on Thursday, denouncing Tokyo for its refusal to apologize and vowing that they will not let the issue die out, the Yonhap News Agency reported. Two Korean and one Dutch woman appeared before a House subcommittee in what was the first congressional hearing on ``comfort women,’’ a euphemism for the young girls, mostly from Korea, who were lured or forcibly taken to frontline brothels to provide sex to Japanese soldiers
• Pro-Japan Collaborators’ Land to Be Seized
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter The government plans to confiscate the assets of 41 descendents of those who amassed riches through cooperation with Japan during its colonial rule of Korea between 1910 and 1945, the Ministry of Patriots and Veteran Affairs said Thursday. About nine million square meters of land owned by the 41 will be confiscated, said Park Yu-chul, minister of patriots and veteran affairs, in a briefing. The land is valued at 70 billion won ($74 million), according to ministry officials.
• Koreans to Sue Yasukuni Shrine
  By Kim Tong-hyung Staff Reporter Families of Korean war victims plan to file a suit against Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, which is dedicated to Japan’s war dead, to remove the names of Koreans who are enshrined there. The Shinto shrine in Tokyo lists the names of 2,466,532 people, including 21,181 Koreans and 27,863 Taiwanese, who are honored for dying for the Japanese emperor during World War II. [Japanese collaborator]
• Japan-Australia Cement Military and Economic Ties: Defence pact with Australia to extend Japan’s security relationship with US
  By Peter Alford
  [Japan Focus 12 February 2007]
  Canberra and Tokyo are negotiating a defence and security agreement that will open the way for Japanese troops to train on Australian soil. The co-operation pact will bring a new dimension to Australia's relations with its biggest trading partner, providing for joint military exercises, regular meetings between foreign and defence ministers, exchanges of officials and closer work on regional challenges such as North Korean nuclear proliferation. It will be Japan's first bilateral security agreement, other than the US-Japan alliance, which remains the linchpin of the Japanese defence arrangements.
• Postwar Japanese Intellectuals’ Changing Perspectives on “Asia” and Modernity
  By Oguma Eiji Translated by Roger Brown
  [Japan Focus 12 February 2007]
  Japan’s critical intellectuals, whose views on Asia Oguma Eiji analyzes in the context of Japan’s postwar history, were quite influential at least through the 1970s. They regularly published not only in books but in monthly magazines read by hundreds of thousands and newspapers with circulations in the millions. As Oguma shows, their perspectives on Asia and modernity have fluctuated in response to a variety of factors, including most prominently Japan’s relations with the U.S. but also in response to the changing course of Asian revolutions. In 1950, Shimizu Ikutaro, one of Japan’s most popular intellectuals, commented that, “now, once again, the Japanese are Asians.” [1] For intellectuals disoriented by defeat in World War II and reduced to economic impoverishment, Japan was no longer one of the Western powers but merely one of the minor countries of “Asia.” From that point forward there emerged in modern Japanese history a repeated confrontation between competing inclinations to learn from the West and to reassess “Asia” and tradition. Having until now researched post-Meiji theories of Japanese ethnicity (minzoku) and colonial policies, in this paper I wish to concentrate on what “Asia” meant to postwar Japan’s “progressive intellectuals.” [Making]
• Japan in the Edo Period: Global Implications of a Model of Sustainability
  By Ei-Ichiro OCHIAI
  [Japan Focus 12 February 2007]
  During the Edo period (1600-1867) Japan inadvertently experimented to sustain itself virtually without input of energy and material from the outside; i.e., depending solely on solar energy. The population density during the Edo period was approximately 80/km2, which is a quarter of the current population density of Japan and about twice the present world population density. In a sense, it was a small-scale model for the spaceship Earth. It not only succeeded in sustaining the relatively high population density and a vibrant culture, but also improved its environment; that is, it increased its forested area, and made the soil more fertile and the waterways cleaner. Japan was at the time an agrarian, pre-industrial society with a significant level of manufacturing. Industrialization starting in the mid 18th century in the West enormously changed the material and energy use of mankind. It is the major reason for increased material wealth of mankind in general, but it is also the major cause of the present crisis of environmental degradation and excessive resource exploitation. It may not be possible to go back to pre-industrial society, but mankind has to approach as closely as possible that level of resource use if it is to sustain itself. Hence the Japanese experience merits reflection. [Environment] [Making]
• KCNA Blasts Japan's Sinister Moves to Scuttle Six-party Talks
     Pyongyang, February 9 (KCNA) -- The six-party talks for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula are now underway in Beijing as already reported. Many countries of the world have expressed sympathy with the principled stand of the DPRK to fundamentally settle the nuclear issue between the DPRK and the U.S. and hoped the talks would prove fruitful substantially conducive to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.     Japan, however, is swimming against such trend of the international community.
• Dutch Victim to Join Koreans at Comfort Women Hearings
  A Dutch victim of Japanese sexual enslavement will testify alongside two Korean victims before the U.S. Congress in a hearing on "comfort women" scheduled for Feb. 15. It will be the first time such victims have testified in House hearings. The hearings before the House subcommittee on the Asia-Pacific follow a resolution introduced last week by Rep. Michael Honda (D-California) urging Japan to apologize and accept responsibility for the abuse of thousands of such women during World War II. The Dutch witness is Jan Ruff-O'Herne (85) who was taken captive with her family in Java, Indonesia when the Japanese invaded the Southeast Asian country during the Pacific War. The 19-year-old woman was forced into sexual slavery and had to endure rape and other violence at the hands of Japanese soldiers. She survived the experience and married after the war, but kept the secret from her husband and children. [Japanese colonialism]
• Controversial author stands by story of her war ordeal
  First casualty of war is the truth but not in this novel February 02, 2007 Illustration by Bae min-ho Controversy continues over the account of a young girl in the turbulent days at the end of World War II. “So Far from the Bamboo Grove” begins with an 11-year-old girl being beaten by a soldier in her own home. But this novel should not be confused with a book like “The Diary of Anne Frank.” Although it’s in a similar genre, there is one large difference: This book is styled “autobiographical fiction.” The book was written by the Japanese-American novelist Yoko Kawashima Watkins, and despite the fact that it induced rage in Korea, it has been used in the 6th-grade curriculum at some American junior-high schools.
• U.S., Japan Hit for Distortion of History
  Pyongyang, February 4 (KCNA) -- The United States has used as a textbook for middle school students the history novel written by descendant of a Japanese war criminal which seriously defiles the Korean nation. Such behavior is an intolerable mockery of the Korean nation and an act of going against justice, conscience, truth and history that is little short of painting evil as good and an assailant as a victim. A spokesman for the History Society of the DPRK stressed this in a statement on Sunday. As for the novel, it is a book made up of falsehood and fabrication quite contrary to the then historical backgrounds and facts, the statement said.

• Japan's Monstrous Experiments on Living Bodies of People under Fire
  Pyongyang, January 30 (KCNA) -- A confidential document with a hundred thousand pages on the experiments conducted by the imperial Japanese army on the living bodies of people to prepare a germ warfare was declassified in the United States some days ago. The confidential document said that Lieut. General Ishii, commander of Unit 731 of the imperial Japanese army, manufactured germ weapons through the massive experiments conducted on the living bodies and systematized the germ warfare strategy and methods of their tactical use and after being taken prisoner by the U.S. forces he handed all the results of the researches conducted for more than two decades to the U.S. side in return for guaranteeing his safety. [Human rights] [cbw]
• Japanese Reactionaries' Bid for Permanent Membership of UNSC Ridiculed
  Pyongyang, January 30 (KCNA) -- Ruling quarters of the land of Japs are now busy with shuttle diplomacy, nonsensically asserting that they would present "a new draft proposal for the reform of the UN" to it and there should appear "semi-permanent member states" in the UNSC. Rodong Sinmun today observes in a signed commentary in this regard: It is their ulterior intention that the number of the permanent members of the Security Council should be increased for the sake of Japan and if it is impossible for it to do so right now, there should be temporary "semi-permanent member states" in the Security Council and Japan be invited to take one of the seats.
• Can a Japanese Official Criticize George W. Bush?
  U.S. protests Kyuma's criticism of Iraq invasion, but Japan’s Defense Chief raps Washington again
  By Kyodo News The U.S. government has filed a protest over Defense Minister Kyuma Fumio's remarks last week criticizing President George W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq, diplomatic sources said Saturday. But on Saturday, Kyuma criticized Washington again, this time for failing to understand the need to consult with Okinawa over plans to relocate the Futenma air base. Kyuma at the Japan National Press Club on January 24, 2007. James Zumwalt, director of the Office of Japanese Affairs at the State Department, made the protest to the Japanese Embassy in Washington, saying the United States takes the remarks seriously as they came shortly after Bush's State of the Union speech, the sources said. He also said the remarks could have a negative impact on the bilateral alliance.
• Can ‘Sea of Peace’ Mend S. Korea-Japan Fences?
  By Ryu Jin Staff Reporter President Roh Moo-hyun has created a stir in the relations between South Korea and Japan by proposing the ``Sea of Peace’’ or the ``Sea of Friendship’’ as the new name for the waters between the two countries. He made the proposal in a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Hanoi, Vietnam, last November. While Abe is said to have turned a cold shoulder to Roh’s proposal at the meeting, the South Korean people reacted even more fiercely when the fact was disclosed by news media on Jan. 8.
• Japanese Reactionaries' Moves for Retrogressive Revision of Constitution under Fire
  Pyongyang, January 25 (KCNA) -- The Korean Jurists Committee Thursday made public a white paper stripping bare the reactionary and illegal nature of the moves of the reactionaries of the land of Japs to retrogressively revise the constitution in a bid to undisguisedly justify their policy to turn Japan into a military power and launch overseas aggression by throwing away the mask of "a pacifist state" which it has so far professed to be. The moves to rewrite the constitution stepped up by the island country under the pretext of "making a constitution suited to the 21st century" is not an issue confined to the internal affair of a country but a serious issue as it jeopardizes peace and security not only on the Korean Peninsula but the rest of Northeast Asia and the world and an unpardonable criminal act, the paper noted, and went on: The above-said moves of the land of Japs are a wanton violation of the obligation under international law. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Abe Vows to Revise Pacifist Constitution
  Japan's election battle virtually kicks off
  [Analysis] Hisane Masaki (hmasaki) Published 2007-01-27 02:37 (KST) Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe opened the current session of the Diet by making it clear that he will give top priority to revising the U.S.-written constitution. As a step toward that goal, Abe said he wanted the Diet to pass for the necessary legislation enabling popular referendum on any constitutional changes. The prime minister said earlier that he would make constitutional amendments the key issue in the upcoming election for the House of Councilors, the Diet's upper house. The current Diet session ends in June, after which the members will adjourn to campaign in the upper house election in July. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan’s Korean Residents Caught in the Japan-North Korea Crossfire
  By Matsubara Hiroshi and Tokita Mayuko
  Introduction by John Feffer
  The Asahi Shinbun and the International Herald Tribune recently published a five-part series on Korean residents in Japan. Many of these zainichi – the word literally means “residing in Japan” – have lived in the country for two, three and even four generations. Having been deprived of the Japanese citizenship that they obtained under colonial rule in the years 1910-1945, the 600,000 zainichi are those Korean residents who have not become naturalized Japanese citizens. The series shows that they now find themselves in a crossfire between the North Korean and Japanese governments. The zainichi are the largest ethnic minority in a country that often prides itself, mistakenly, on being homogenous. The Asahi series, which uses as a news peg the impact of North Korea’s nuclear test on the Korean community, is fascinating as much for what it reveals as for what it leaves out.
• First into Nagasaki: George Weller’s Censored Eyewitness Dispatches on the atomic bombing and Japan’s POWs
  By Anthony Weller
  Japan Focus is pleased to introduce First Into Nagasaki: The Censored Eyewitness Dispatches on Post-Atomic Japan and Its Prisoners of War, by George Weller and Anthony Weller, with a foreword by Walter Cronkite. The story presented here explores MacArthur’s censorship of Weller’s reportage as the first journalist to enter Nagasaki, where he interviewed military and medical personnel, and the first to write at length on Japan’s POW camps, where he interviewed hundreds of allied prisoners. Weller brings direct experience to bear on questions of US censorship of the atomic bomb, and particularly issues of radiation. Extraordinarily, not only were his Nagasaki dispatches censored, but his detailed interviews with POWs were also censored. Weller’s reports, censored for sixty years, have only now become available.
• Japan to Repatriate Remains of Koreans
  By Yoon Won-sup Staff Reporter The Japanese government decided to repatriate the remains of 140 Korean soldiers and civilians who died in Japan during World War II, a Japanese newspaper reported Friday. Yomiuri Shinbun reported the decision, which came after joint Seoul-Tokyo research successfully identified the remains of Koreans who were forced to work for the Japanese military during the war. Senior officials of the two governments will meet in Seoul soon to discuss procedures for the repatriation, the newspaper said. The joint research was initiated by the summit between President Roh Moo-hyun and then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in December 2004. But so far Japan has returned only the remains of only two Koreans.
• Japanese woman's account contradicts book about harrowing escape from Korea
  An autobiographical book by a Japanese-American writer claiming rape and slaughter by Koreans was contradicted by another Japanese woman who said she and others were able to travel safely through a similar route at about the same time.
  Some argue this, in turn, suggests Watkins' father may also have worked at Unit 731. A publisher's note said the author's father returned to Japan after six years in a Siberian prison camp. The author said he attended Oxford University, but the parents who tried to confirm it found no record of his name there. Kim Chang-gwon, head of a truth-finding committee on Unit 731, said all the Japanese war criminals who served in the Siberian camp and later returned to Japan were those who worked for the unit. "Twelve people from Unit 731 who were tried at the war tribunal in Khabarovsk in December 1949 were sentenced between two and 25 years and sent to Siberia. They were all released in 1956 and went back to Japan," he said. [Unit 731]
• Japanese-written book in U.S. schools slammed for historical distortion
  Korean-American students and parents throughout the United States are joining forces to remove a high school book they say distorts history based on the author's personal experience they believe is fabricated. Written by Japanese-American Yoko Kawashima Watkins, "So Far from the Bamboo Grove" recounts the final years of the 1910-1945 Japanese colonial occupation of the Korean Peninsula from her perspective as a little girl. The book is part of the language arts curriculum in junior high schools in Boston, New York and Los Angeles. It is also read at international schools in South Korea. Watkins says her father was a Japanese government official who worked in Manchuria at the time but was always against the war. She and the rest of her family lived in Nanam, a city now in North Korea. Her book is about her escape from Nanam with her mother and sister and what she says she saw until they arrived in Japan. She tells of the rape and slaughter of Japanese by Koreans during their escape southward, of having to walk endlessly after their train is destroyed by American bombings, scrounging for food and traveling at night to avoid getting caught by Koreans.
• Tension over North at S.K.-Japan-China summit
  S.K., China propose regular meeting; Japan balks: sources
  The atmosphere was reportedly tense at the South Korea-China-Japan summit held in Cebu, the Philippines on January 14, as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe rejected making the summit an annual event, sources said. The leaders of the other two nations attendant, President Roh Moo-hyun and Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, had made the suggestion, said a high-ranking official of the South Korean government. According to the official, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue, President Roh and Prime Minister Wen suggested the regularization of the summit as a channel for top officials to coordinate on important issues such as the North Korean nuclear problem, but Abe rejected the proposal at the final stage. "Abe, who has maintained a position to link the six-party talks with the resolution of Pyongyang’s abduction of Japanese citizens, may have judged that to regularize the summit with South Korea and China would damage his nation’s interests, because [South Korea and China] have cooperated on the North Korean nuclear issue," added the official. He is referring to the fact that, at the six-nation talks aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear program, South Korea and China have taken a somewhat softer approach toward the North, whereas Japan has maintained a hard-line stance. [Friction]
• A Strategic Partnership Between Japan and India?
  By Vivek Pinto The first lines of Robert Browning’s poem, ‘The Patriot’ – “It was roses, roses, all the way” – may well characterise the splendid success of prime minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Japan during December 13-15. It all started with the “breaking of protocol for a late evening arrival at Tokyo International Airport, Haneda, by the Japanese foreign minister Taro Aso”. [1] The next day he had an afternoon audience at the Imperial Palace with the emperor of Japan, Akihito, and empress Michiko, followed by a historic honour – a first for an Indian prime minister – to address the joint session of the Diet, the Japanese parliament. The visit concluded on December 15 with a joint public statement, with the prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, on “India-Japan Strategic and Global Partnership”.
  Any keen student of recent Indo-Japanese relations could ingenuously ask: Why is Japan so keen on establishing much closer and friendly ties with India? A recent clue could be the Japanese prime minister’s speech to the Diet, on October 3, where Abe in a “shift to proactive diplomacy” said, “I will engage in strategic dialogue at the leader’s level with countries that share fundamental values such as India... with a view to widening the circle of free societies in Asia.” [2]
• Rodong Sinmun Lambastes Japan for Upgrading Defence Agency to Ministry
  Pyongyang, January 14 (KCNA) -- The land of Japs on Jan. 9 upgraded the Defence Agency to a ministry. This is a very dangerous military step taken to reorganize the "Self-Defence Forces" into the offensive armed forces and prepare them so that they may be mobilized for a war of aggression any time. Rodong Sinmun Sunday says this in a signed article. It goes on: The militarists in the land of Japs has described their country as a "pacifist state" while crying for "peace" but they are now refusing to say the word "peace". [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan, Europe Pledge Greater Cooperation
  Guardian 12Jan 2007 - Friday January 12, 2007 3:01 AM AP Photo BRU101 By PAUL AMES
  Associated Press Writer BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - Japan's new prime minister, breaking tradition by visiting Europe before the United States, agreed Thursday to boost cooperation with the European Union in the face of threats ranging from climate change to North Korea's nuclear program. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was at European Union headquarters as part of a tour aimed at giving his country a higher international profile. He is seeking support for Japan's bid to secure a permanent, veto-wielding, seat on the U.N. Security Council as welk as his efforts to change the country's postwar pacifist constitution so Japan's defense forces can play a bigger role in international peacekeeping missions.
• Abe warns world against N Korea
  By Chris Hogg BBC News, Tokyo
  Japan's PM Shinzo Abe says his country cannot tolerate a nuclear-armed North Korea and wants closer international co-operation to stop such an outcome. In a BBC interview, Mr Abe also defended his plans for Japan to develop a more assertive foreign policy. He made clear he believes North Korea poses a very grave threat to the world. [Threat] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan, UK agree on N Korea call
  By William Horsley BBC World affairs correspondent
  It is Mr Abe's first trip outside Asia since taking office four months ago Japan's Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, has held talks with his British counterpart Tony Blair in London. The two leaders have agreed on the need for more efforts to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions. Mr Blair said he fully supported Japan's efforts to win a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Love Your State, Love Your Boss: Whither Japan?
  By Nagata Minoru Talk of love, beauty, and hope filled the air in Tokyo as 2007 dawned. It is not that Japanese people were suddenly smitten with such romantic sentiments, but that their leaders were demanding it of them. The country’s political and economic leadership was insisting that the Japanese love their country and their corporations. It is the phenomenon described by Japanese critic Sataka Makoto as that of a “stalker state,” to which now, in light of the document introduced below, may be added “stalker corporation.” Nowhere else in the industrial world is there anything quite like this. Those in Japan itself with long memories recall the time in the first half of the 20th century when citizens were compelled to love their state and told that its deeds were incomparably beautiful. It did not end well. Hence the general foreboding in the wake of new state and corporate demands. [Abe Shinzo]
• U.S. Stars Shine Again in Japan Ads
  Booming Firms Dust Off Their Yen for A-Listers By Anthony Faiola Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, January 14, 2007; Page A01
  TOKYO -- Forget the rising stock market or fifth straight year of economic growth. The latest sign of Japan Inc.'s comeback is Cameron Diaz in a slinky black dress gabbing on a phone and strutting to the tune of Aerosmith's "Walk This Way" on Japanese television. But this is no film trailer or wacky guest appearance -- it's a 30-second commercial for a cellular telephone company. And Diaz is hardly alone. As the decade-long recession drifts into memory here, the "Only in Japan" celebrity commercial is enjoying a sudden comeback -- with Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Scarlett Johansson and Kiefer Sutherland among the American stars coming back down to earth in Japan to peddle everything from dairy products to power bars. Long a guilty financial pleasure of the Hollywood A-list -- and one that is increasingly difficult to keep under wraps in the Internet age -- the so-called "OIJ" ad emerged and bloomed during the 1970s and '80s. Named because of strict deals forbidding distribution or publicity outside Japan, such ads offered a chance for megastars to blatantly cash in on their fame while maintaining loftier images at home, where top-grossing movie actors might deign to pitch high-end perfume or elite watches, but rarely food or whiskey.
• Japanese Reactionaries' Moves to Discard "Pacifist Constitution" Assailed
  Pyongyang, January 9 (KCNA) -- The Abe government's claim to revise the "Pacifist Constitution" during its term of office discloses its wild ambition to convert Japan into a state for a war of aggression at any cost, says Minju Joson Tuesday in a signed commentary. For Japan to rewrite its constitution which it has so far claimed to be a pacifist one can not but be a very dangerous development as it is aimed at putting the peace and security in Northeast Asia and the rest of the world at peril, the commentary notes, and goes on: [Japanese remilitarisation]
• 62 Percent Oppose Renaming of East Sea
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter More than 60 percent of South Koreans oppose giving a neutral name to the East Sea, which Japan calls the Sea of Japan, a survey said Friday. According to a public opinion poll conducted by the Christian Broadcasting System (CBS) on Jan. 8, 61.8 percent of the respondents said they object to renaming the East Sea, an idea presented by President Roh Moo-hyun, while 26.6 percent support the idea. In a summit in Vietnam last November, Roh reportedly said to Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that there is need to rename the East Sea and gave examples such as the ``Sea of Peace’’ or ``Sea of Friendship’’ to resolve the long-standing dispute between the two countries over the name of the sea.
• U.S., Japan may be developing joint plan on N.K.: media
  Plan would be similar to one in existence between U.S., S.K. » Batteships of the Japan Maritime Self Defense Force (Reuter Yonhap) Japanese newspapers have reported that Japan and the United States are drawing up a joint contingency plan in case of an emergency on the Korean peninsula. Japan’s Asahi Shimbun reported on January 5 reported that the Japanese government is trying to plan measures regarding possible emergency situations due to North Korea, based on the premise that about 100,000 to 150,000 refugees could come into Japan should the North’s regime collapse. The Yomiuri Shimbun the same day reported that the U.S and Japan are trying to formulate a joint plan based on possible such emergencies stemming from the situation in North Korea. {Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan to revise pacifist position
  Justin McCurry in Tokyo Thursday January 4, 2007 Guardian Unlimited
  The prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said Japan would pursue a more 'assertive' foreign policy. Photograph: Shizuo Kambayashi/AP The Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, today vowed to reform his country's pacifist constitution, a controversial move that is expected to influence the outcome of upper house elections later this year.[Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan PM Vows Assertive Foreign Policy
  By CHISAKI WATANABE The Associated Press Thursday, January 4, 2007; 3:34 AM TOKYO -- Japan will pursue assertive foreign policies and strengthen its ties with the U.S. and Europe in response to new security threats in the region, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Thursday. Abe, who took office in September, has taken a tougher stance on the international stage than many of his predecessors, appealing to a greater sense of nationalism in Japan following more than a decade of economic stagnation. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan’s Neonationalist Offensive and the Military
  By John Junkerman
  When Abe Shinzo was installed as prime minister in September 2006, there was some concern that he would push into high gear the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s proposal (announced in November 2005) to revise Japan’s constitution and gut the no-war provisions of Article 9. He is, after all, known as a strong supporter of revision and often boasts that he inherited the DNA of his grandfather Kishi Nobusuke, who began pushing for revision of the constitution in the early 1950s. Kishi created a constitution review commission in the Diet (which proved fruitless) while he himself became prime minister later in that decade. Abe is eager to bring his grandfather’s, and the LDP’s, dream to fruition. But Abe adopted a surprising and politically astute strategy, creating what is referred to in Japan as the “soft mood.” His first overseas trip, within weeks of taking office, was to Beijing and Seoul to mend relations strained by Koizumi Junichiro’s repeated visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine. Abe himself has dodged the question of whether he’ll visit Yasukuni in the future, assiduously avoided controversial statements, and, on the constitution, announced a go-slow approach that aims to bring about revision within six years (he assumes, with supreme confidence, he’ll remain in office that long).
  Few constraints remain on Japanese remilitarization. But there is one, and it is highly significant. The constitution states that “the right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.” Japan has a military. It will now have a Ministry of Defense. It now claims the right to send its military around the globe. But it doesn’t have the ability to declare war and it doesn’t have the authority to shoot to kill except in self-defense. Its military may be armed to the teeth, with the highest technology and lethal weaponry, but it is not authorized to pull the trigger. It can’t kill. For the present, Japan’s forces overseas are restricted to noncombat roles.
  Japanese military convoy in Iraq The authority to wage war is what Abe and his cohort want. It won’t come easily, which is why he is willing to go slow. But every step in that direction, from the ideological framing of history and education to the functional repositioning of Japan’s military, creates a “reality on the ground” that is further divorced from the word of the law. Ultimately, they aim to make the disjunction so extreme that there will be no choice but to abandon the Peace Constitution. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Korea University Fetes 50th Anniversary of Its Founding
  University Aims to Contribute to World Peace
  Korea University celebrated the 50th anniversary of its founding on Nov. 10 at the Keio Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Attending the celebration were more than 300 persons, including Chang Byong Tae, the president of the university; Pak Yong Shik, the chairman of its board of directors of the university; its professors and instructors as well as its office workers; Pak Chung U, the chairman of the celebration committee and other committee members; and persons who had contributed to the development of the university, as well as professors and others from Japanese universities, researchers, media-related and sports-related people, artists and those related to their activities as well as ambassadors from various countries.