Japan

2012
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DECEMBER 2012

• Don’t hyperventilate about Japan turning right
  By Michael J. Green, Special to CNN Editor’s note: Michael J. Green is Senior Vice President for Asia and Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Associate Professor at Georgetown University. The views expressed are his own. With the landslide victory of Japan’s conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) this past Sunday, the media is atwitter with warnings of dangerous new friction in Northeast Asia. Shinzo Abe, the man about to return to power after resigning as prime minister five years ago, has said he will get tough with China and might reconsider past apologies for some of Japan’s wartime transgressions. If the new government follows through on some of this overheated rhetoric, it could complicate U.S. foreign policy and hurt Japan’s image abroad. But that does not mean that Japan is becoming a dangerous nation. If anything, the growing realism in Japanese security policy should be welcomed by the United States. [Abe] [China confrontation] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Abe Appoints Rightwingers to Cabinet
  Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Wednesday appointed two rightwingers as internal affairs and communications minister, and as administrative reform minister. Yoshitaka Shindo and Tomomi Inada are figures of the far right who were denied entry to Korea in August last year when they came here to assert Japan's flimsy colonial claim to the Dokdo islets.
• Right now, we don't need an alliance with Japan
  December 11, 2012 Hugh White China is the real reason why Tokyo wants closer defence ties with us. PEOPLE in Canberra and Tokyo are starting to talk about a formal defence alliance between Australia and Japan in the not-too-distant future. Expectations are already being raised, not just in Tokyo but in Washington and Beijing as well. And yet there has been no serious discussion in Australia, either in public or (one suspects) in government, about whether this is a good idea. Already our defence links with Japan have quietly grown a lot over the past few years. There are two reasons to take this seriously. The first is that the Japanese signed up to it. They are usually obsessive about anything that hints of defence engagement beyond their alliance with the US. This is probably the most forthright statement of common strategic purpose that Japan has made with any country except America since World War II. So, for Japan it is a big deal. The second is the regional strategic context. At a time when Japan's relations with both China and South Korea are strained by serious disputes, this seems to put Australia on Japan's side against two countries of importance to us. So, we have waded into pretty deep water here. [China confrontation] [Allegiance]
• Abe Days Are Here Again: Japan in the World
  Gavan McCormack The Second Coming On 26 December 26, 2012 Abe Shinzo is to resume the position of Prime Minister of Japan, following the resounding victory of the Liberal-Democratic Party (LDP) under his presidency in the elections two weeks earlier. He came to power with an explicit agenda: seeing the US alliance as central to Japan and therefore attaching priority to carrying out Japan’s obligations under it, revising the constitution so as to convert the current Self Defense Forces into a Kokubogun or National Army and adopting a stance of authorizing participation of Japan’s forces in “collective security” operations (i.e., fighting wars shoulder-to-shoulder with American forces), establishing a national “Takeshima Day,” (to reinforce the Japanese claim to the island that South Korea knows as Tokdo and refuses to consider yielding),1 and adopting a hardline stance towards China, insisting there was “no room for negotiation” on the matter of conflicting claims to the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. “What is called for in and around the Senkaku Islands,” he wrote, “is not negotiation but physical force incapable of being misunderstood.”2 Abe politics has long been stamped by the contradiction between his fidelity to the US on the one hand and his commitment to a particular, and incompatible, view of Japanese history and identity on the other. This short essay addresses exclusively questions of history, identity, and international relations, setting aside questions about Abe’s social, economic, and energy/nuclear power policies. [Abe] [US Japan Alliance] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• U.S. Nervous About Japan's New Prime Minister
  by Jackie Northam December 18, 2012 2:11 AM The Obama administration will soon be dealing with new leadership in Japan. Over the weekend, Japanese voters returned a former prime minister to the country's top job. Shinzo Abe took an assertive stand on several issues during the election, sparking concern in the U.S. his win could stir up tension in the region. DAVID GREENE, HOST: And there is new leadership in another Asian nation. Over the weekend, Japanese voters returned a former prime minister to the country's top job. Shinzo Abe took an assertive stand on several big issues during the election. And as NPR's Jackie Northam reports, this sparked concern in the United States that his win could stir up tensions in the region. JACKIE NORTHAM, BYLINE: There was a strong current of nationalism running through Shinzo Abe's campaign. He took a hawkish position on territorial issues and a less-apologetic approach to Japan's recent history. That may have helped the 58-year-old Abe capture the prime minister's seat, but it also created a nervousness among some allies, including the U.S., says Sheila Smith, a Japan specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations. SHEILA SMITH: I think there's a certain amount of ambiguity about how he wants to proceed, especially on security and foreign policy issues. NORTHAM: Smith says there are several causes for concern in Washington, among them, how Abe will handle bitter territorial claims with China over disputed islands in the East China Sea. Although Japan has administered the islands for decades, China claimed sovereignty, and has been sending patrol boats into the area. Under a U.S.-Japan treaty, the U.S. is obligated to defend Japanese territory. Smith says there is deep concern in Washington about how to manage the dispute. [Abe] [US global strategy] [Client]
• Japan’s ‘nothing’ election
  December 16th, 2012 Author: Michael Cucek, MIT In the 1990s Japan tumbled from the pedestal of economic wunderkind into the bed of the sick man of the world economy. Japanese pundits jokingly described the deterioration of Japan’s international image as the slide from ‘Japan bashing’ to ‘Japan passing’ to ‘Japan nothing’. The relegation of Japan to the garbage heap of history turned out to be premature, as the country post-millennium regained economic momentum thanks to a rapid expansion of Chinese imports of Japanese goods. Yet in the six years since Junichiro Koizumi’s long stint as prime minister, the country has struggled. The slide in national confidence has only accelerated after the present ruling coalition, led by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), lost its majority in the House of Councillors in 2010. The opposition’s control of the upper house forced two consecutive prime ministers to throw away their political lives in order to win passage of crucial bills. Prime Minister Naoto Kan had to promise to resign in order to win passage of a supplementary budget for the Tohoku disaster recovery effort, a bond issuance bill and a new electricity policy bill. And in November 2012 Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda dissolved the Diet in return for the passage of another bond issuance bill and a Supreme Court-ordered adjustment of the electoral map. There was no ideological clash behind either act of self-sacrifice: the opposition was simply saying ‘no’ to everything the DPJ-led government proposed. Opposition intransigence reached an absurd zenith in August, with the LDP voting to condemn a bill it had voted for only two months earlier and refusing to approve a bill it itself had authored. The passage of the bond issuance bill and the execrable LDP-authored +0/-5 electoral reform bill had a serious side-effect of clearing from the government’s docket the only two issues in play.
• Fan sings the praises of Kyoto tram lines
  December 06, 2012 By CHIKAKO NUMATA/ Staff Writer KYOTO--Charmingly retro, the city's only remaining tram cars have attracted admirers from around the world, but perhaps none so ardent--and dedicated--as Ayumi Mori. Mori, 26, was so carried away by the Randen trams that she has taken on the self-proclaimed role as PR official. Operated by Keifuku Electric Railroad Co., the trams running on the Arashiyama and Kitano lines are collectively called Randen. The Arashiyama Line, connecting Shijo-Omiya and Arashiyama stations in the nation's ancient capital, marked its 100th anniversary in 2010. [Kyoto]
• Is China trying to implode Japan's economy?
  By Peter Lee Is the People's Republic of China (PRC) trying to implode the Japanese economy? It is starting to look that way. The PRC has counterprogramed the US pivot to Asia - and US advantages in military and softpower - by leveraging its economic strengths. When Japan kicked off this year's edition of the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Follies with the national purchase of the uninhabited rocks, the PRC leadership responded by giving free rein to nationalist Nipponphobic demonstrations, boycotts, and occasional anti-Japanese thuggery - and then refused to allow relations to renormalize. [Boycott]
• Japan Gets Ready to Shoot Down N.Korean Rocket
  The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force transport ship Kunisaki, carrying ground-based Patriot Advanced Capability-3 interceptors, leaves the MSDF base in Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture, western Japan. /AP-Newsis The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force transport ship Kunisaki, carrying ground-based Patriot Advanced Capability-3 interceptors, leaves the MSDF base in Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture, western Japan. /AP-Newsis Ahead of North Korea's rocket launch slated for between Dec. 10 and 22, the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force transport ship Kunisaki carried ground-based Patriot Advanced Capability-3 interceptors from a base in Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture, western Japan on Monday. The Kunisaki and another MSDF transport ship, the Osumi, took the missile interceptors for deployment to Okinawa in case the rocket strays toward Japan. [Satellite] [Japanese remilitarisation]

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NOVEMBER 2012

• Can Japanese politics be saved?
  November 13th, 2012 Author: Gerald Curtis, Columbia University Political leadership presupposes that there are leaders, that they know where they want to lead, and that they are able to communicate their ideas to voters and obtain their support. Political leadership in Japan falls short on all these measures. Japan’s prime ministers have changed with such rapidity since Junichiro Koizumi left office in 2005 that many Japanese voters would be hard pressed to recall all their names. Abe, Fukuda, Aso and Hatoyama were each out within a year and Naoto Kan did little better, holding on for 15 months. It is anyone’s guess at this point how long Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, who took over last September, will last. Even more dramatic than the annual turnover of prime ministers has been the brief tenure of other cabinet ministers since the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) came to power in the fall of 2009. Ministers in the Hatoyama and Kan governments served an average of 8.7 months (under Koizumi it was 18.6 months). The minister responsible for dealing with the low birth-rate has changed eight times in the past two-and-a-half years. There have been seven DPJ ministers of state for consumer affairs and food safety and seven ministers of justice [Governance]
• NK-Japan hold first ministerial talks in more than 4 years
  Posted on : Nov.16,2012 14:42 KST At meeting in Mongolia, Tokyo hopes to discuss kidnappings of Japanese nationals By Jeong Nam-ku, Tokyo correspondent Japan and North Korea began two days of director-general level talks on Nov. 15 in the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator, Kyodo News reported. These are the first talks in four years and three months, with the last coming in August 2008. The talks at the Mongolian government’s state guest house were attended by Shinsuke Sugiyama, director-general of the Japanese foreign ministry’s Asia-Pacific bureau, and Song Il-ho, North Korea’s ambassador for negotiations on the normalization of diplomatic relations, Kyodo reported.
• Trampled Islands – Bases, Violence and Unheard Voices
  Nov. 04, 2012 Shinjo Ikuo, introduction by Gavan McCormack In September 1995, the Okinawan problem in its present acute form originated from the rape of a 12-year old school girl by three US servicemen. The prefecture galvanised in fury and elicited a pledge the following year from the two national governments that Futenma Marine Air Station would indeed be returned “within five to seven years.” Sixteen years on, there is no sign whatever of that happening; instead Futenma’s runways are reinforced, the base’s military functions upgraded, and plans for a new (“substitute”) base in the north, at Henoko, are pressed forward in the face of islandwide opposition. “Futenma” and “Henoko” were the major focus of the Okinawan struggle during the decade and a half that followed. Now they are joined by “Osprey.” During the environmental impact study required for the Henoko project, the government of Japan deliberately withheld any mention of the planned impact of an entirely new type of aircraft that the Pentagon planned to introduce, the MV22-Osprey (VTOL, or vertical take-off and landing) aircraft, eventually informing Okinawan local government of it by a cursory one page fax in 2011. The Osprey is not only a significant upgrade on existing helicopters, twice as fast, carrying three times as much load, and with an operational radius four times greater, but it also has a poor safety record, including two crashes and one emergency landing just in 2012. Okinawan outrage grew. All 41 of the prefecture’s city and town and village assemblies, and the Okinawan parliament (the prefectural assembly), passed resolutions of opposition, and 101,500 people gathered in a mass meeting in September 2012 to make clear that the prefecture spoke with one voice. Yet the two governments were undeterred. [Bases]
• DPRK, Japanese Governments to Hold Talks
  Pyongyang, November 9 (KCNA) -- The DPRK and Japanese governments will hold talks in Ulan Bator of Mongolia on November 15 and 16 under the mutual agreement reached in the wake of the contacts between section chiefs of foreign ministries of the two countries in August 2012. The talks will discuss issues for the improvement of the bilateral relations.
• A CASE FOR A COMMON JAPAN-ROK STRATEGIC VISION
  Hiroyasu Akutsu 26 September 2012 Japan-ROK security cooperation goes nowhere when populism overcomes pragmatism. With the failure to conclude GSOMIA and ACSA earlier this year, the defense community inside and outside the Japanese and South Korean governments must be greatly disappointed. On the other hand, there is some hope for the future. Japan-ROK security cooperation, which has its origin in the first Korean nuclear crisis of 1994, has expanded enough to envision the conclusion of GSOMIA and ACSA by 2012. After so many complications, hardly anyone could have expected the relationship would come this far 20 or even 10 years ago. The unpredictability of the new North Korean regime and the rapid military buildup of China do not reduce but rather increase the objective necessity of Japan-ROK security cooperation. It is time to return to pragmatism over populism. [MISCOM] [Unpredictable] [SK Japan]
• Japanese prof. says Korea and Japan must seek real solution to Dokdo
  Posted on : Nov.6,2012 15:16 KST Wada Haruki, Emeritus Professor of Tokyo University Other experts argue for letting the issue simmer, while Wada Haruki calls for active resolution By Gil Yun-hyung, staff reporter South Korea and Japan have clashed repeatedly over the Dokdo issue in recent months, but how can the thorny dispute be resolved? A leading Japanese conscientious intellectual, Wada Haruki, Emeritus Professor of Tokyo University, maintains, “Instead sweeping the issue of Dokdo under the rug, South Korea and Japan should put their heads together and actively seek a solution.” Prof. Wada took part in a meeting of experts hosted by Kookmin University Institute of Japanese Studies on Nov. 2. There he stated there were three main options for South Korea and Japan to choose from concerning Dokdo. First, continuing the enmity while holding fast to “territorial sovereignty,” second, putting the issue on the back burner to prevent it from harming bilateral relations, and third, taking proactive steps towards a solution. [Territorial disputes]
• Panasonic Feels Pain of Chinese Backlash
  By Bruce Einhorn on October 31, 2012 Those islands in the East China Sea at the center of the dispute between Japan and China are uninhabited, but we’re told they’re still worth fighting over because they might have valuable oil and gas nearby. Let’s hope so. That might at least provide some consolation to Japanese employees, executives, and shareholders of companies such as Panasonic (6752:JP), which have suffered badly as Chinese consumers shun Japanese goods in order to show their displeasure over the islands. [Boycott]
• Man who bombed Japanese embassy could be extradited after court ruling
  Posted on : Nov.3,2012 16:06 KST Modified on : Nov.3,2012 16:16 KST The Chinese national confessed to having set fire to Yasukuni Shrine last December By Kim Tae-gyu, staff reporter With the recent decision by the South Korean Ministry of Justice to hand over custody of Liu Qiang, a 38-year-old Chinese national who was arrested in January for throwing a Molotov cocktail at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul while calling for Japan to address the issue of comfort women, a court is now expected to hear the case for his extradition to Japan. The ministry’s decision was made in the midst of Liu’s claims that he also set fire to the Yasukuni Shrine last December. The Japanese government has requested that South Korea turn him over. Meanwhile, China has asked the South Korean government to repatriate him to China, and considers him a political prisoner. The Ministry of Justice on Nov. 2 entrusted the Seoul High Prosecutors’ Office with deciding on the extradition. The High Prosecutors’ Office asked to issue an arrest warrant for extradition from the Seoul High Court. If the Seoul High Court issues the warrant, Liu will be brought before the court to face extradition to Japan. Liu is set to be released from his 10-month jail term on Nov. 7.
• Japan Outsmarts Korea, China in Territorial PR Campaign
  Japan has managed to outwit both Korea and China in global PR campaigns surrounding its territorial claims. After it succeeded in getting web search giant Google to delete the Korean address of Dokdo on its map service, it also got the U.S. company to use mainly the Japanese name for a chain of islands in the East China Sea to which both Japan and China lay claim, it emerged on Thursday. Google had used both "Senkaku" and "Diaoyu" for the disputed island chain on its global map service and its map service in Japan. Now only "Senkaku" is used in Japan. Google China still uses "Diaoyu" as before, but the global service uses three versions, "Senkaku" (for Japan), "Diaoyu" (for China), and "Tiaoyutai" (for Taiwan). [Sidelined]
• Korea seeks US-China dialogue New trilateral format comes at Japan’s cost
  2012-11-01 17:19 By Chung Min-uck Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan said that China will be a new key partner in maintaining peace and security on the Korean Peninsula alongside the United States, adding the launch of Seoul-Washington-Beijing trilateral talks was urgent. [SK Japan] [Alliance]

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OCTOBER 2012

• Shintaro Ishihara, brash Tokyo governor, quits, launches national party
  Koji Sasahara/AP - Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara speaks during a news conference in Tokyo on Thursday. The outspoken and nationalistic governor said he is quitting after nearly 14 years in office to form a new political party ahead of expected national elections. By Chico Harlan, Oct 25, 2012 10:41 AM EDT The Washington Post SEOUL — One of Japan’s highest-profile nationalists, Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara, said Thursday that he will resign his post and form a political party in a bid to gain power in the country’s central government. The new party figures to drive Japan even farther to the right at a time when the nation’s two leading political parties have approval ratings below 25 percent. Japan must call a new parliamentary election by August. During his 13 years as governor — the top post in Japan’s capital — Ishihara, 80, denounced immigrants, spoke about Japanese people’s superior sensibilities and advocated that the nation acquire nuclear weapons. He also said the devastating March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami were “divine punishment” because Japan had become too greedy. He was then reelected.
• Court Orders Tokyo to Reveal Files on Treaty with Korea
  A Japanese court ordered the government in Tokyo on Thursday to make public hundreds of documents relating to the Korea-Japan Normalization Treaty of 1965 in a case relating to victims of Japanese wartime atrocities. The court subpoenaed 328 documents, 212 of them to be revealed fully and 56 partially. The court ruled that documents whose contents Koreans could find insulting or humiliating, as well as those that could impact talks on normalizing ties with North Korea, must remain sealed.
• Shinzo Abe takes reins at Japan's LDP, raising eyebrows in China, South Korea
  Justin McCurry | GlobalPost.com | Oct 01, 2012 TOKYO — Japan’s main opposition party has elected an outspoken nationalist as its new leader, risking a rise in tensions with China and South Korea over already-bitter territorial disputes. Six years ago, Shinzo Abe resigned after just one year as prime minister, citing poor health. Now he is attempting a comeback after being chosen to lead the Liberal Democratic Party [LDP] earlier this week. The LDP, a largely pro-US, conservative party that has dominated Japanese politics for most of the past six decades, has endured a rare period in opposition since being swept from office by the left-of-center Democratic Party of Japan in 2009. But with a possible election due before the end of the year, Abe is expected to capitalize on the government's dismal approval ratings following a controversial tax hike — which the LDP helped to push through parliament in return for an early election — and its handling of the economy.
• Japanese Patrol Boats Frequently Stray Close to Dokdo
  Japanese patrol boats have appeared in waters near Dokdo 440 times since 2008, according to data the Joint Chiefs of Staff submitted to lawmaker Chung Hee-soo of the National Assembly's Defense Committee last Friday. The figures show that Japanese patrol boats came near Dokdo 71 times from January to September this year alone. They appeared in these waters 94 times in 2008, 87 times in 2009, 95 times in 2010, and 93 times in 2011. They did not cross Korea's 22 km territorial sea limit, but came close to the 44 km so-called contiguous zone of the Korean Navy’s operational area. A contiguous zone is not a territorial water but an area where a coastal state can inspect ships to prevent crimes and take other precautionary measures. "The Japanese patrol boats sailed not in our territorial waters, but in international waters where ships are guaranteed their right of innocent passage," a military officer said. "They posed no problem as far as international law is concerned." Meanwhile, Chinese state-owned aircraft appeared in skies over the submerged rocks of Ieo Island 14 times from January until September this year. They were detected there by Air Force radar only twice in 2010 and seven times in 2011. [Territorial disputes]
• SDF members spread the Hinomaru in U.N. operations
  By RYUJI KUDO/ Staff Writer When Lt. Col. Chizu Kurita served as a Self-Defense Force military liaison officer with the U.N. Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste, she was torn between her nation and the United Nations. Before she was dispatched to East Timor in 2011, Kurita, 37, the first female SDF officer sent as an individual to take part in a U.N. peacekeeping operation, was eager to contribute as a member of the U.N. mission. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• No Love Lost Between Koreans and Japanese
  Koreans and the Japanese have the least affection for each other since the 2002 World Cup that was hosted jointly by both countries, according to a survey by the Chosun Ilbo and the Mainichi Shimbun. Some 61 percent of Koreans said they have no affection for the Japanese, compared to 36 percent who do. The Japanese were more evenly split, with 48 percent of saying they feel no affection for Koreans, as against 47 percent who do. In the six joint surveys conducted by the two papers since 1995, the proportion of Koreans who feel friendly toward the Japanese jumped from 26 percent in 1995 to 42 percent in July 2002, right after the World Cup, but dropped to 37 percent in 2008.
• Japanese Prime Minister again insists comfort women issue is “closed”
  Posted on : Sep.25,2012 14:24 KST Still no Japanese official apology for wartime sexual slavery By Park Byung-su, staff reporter and Jeong Nam-ku, Tokyo correspondent Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda recently told the Wall Street Journal once again that on the topic of compensation for comfort women, young Korean women abducted and forced to serve as sex slaves for the Japanese military, “The matter is closed”. Prime Minister Noda, who was re-elected as the Democratic Party leader, said in the Sept. 23 interview that Japan had already provided compensation through the Asia Women’s Fund but that this was refused by the Korean side. This, he added, “hurt the feelings of conscientious Japanese, and is a pity.” The Prime Minister also said that there were candidates for the Democratic Party leadership that wanted to revise the Kono communique, while Noda has tried to follow it.
• South and North Korean Christians jointly condemn Japan
  Posted on : Sep.27,2012 15:47 KST ??? 0 0 Organizations from both Koreas speak out again rise of rightwing activism in Japan By Cho Yeon-hyun, religion correspondent The National Council of Churches in Korea and North Korea’s Chosun Christian League on Sept. 25 announced a joint declaration condemning the recent revival of Japan’s ultra right and militarist movements. [Joint Korean]
• Yonaguni: Dilemmas of a Frontier Island in the East China Sea
  Gavan McCormack Forty years after they were “normalized,” relations between Japan and China are so abnormal that events planned to celebrate the anniversary in September had to be scrapped. Tension rises throughout the East China Sea and especially in the vicinity of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands where Japanese, Chinese and Taiwanese fishing and coastguard vessels jostle, each insisting that the islands and their adjacent waters are their own sovereign territory. National, and to some extent global, attention focusses on an “Okinawa problem” that has, until recently, been almost entirely seen in the context of the main island of Okinawa, where the “world’s most dangerous base,” Futenma Marine Air Station, continues to sit in the middle of Ginowan City 16 years after its promised return, where works on a projected new base to replace it at Henoko in Nago City to the north remain blocked, and where plans to introduce the highly controversial tilt-rotor MV-22 Osprey aircraft have roused the entire prefecture to fierce united protest. Yonaguni opens a new front in the contest between the agenda that the governments of Japan and the United States are intent on imposing and local aspirations for an order of peace and cooperation that would finally supplant Cold War confrontation. On 24 September 2012, a special session of Yonaguni Island’s Town Assembly voted 3:2 against a proposal to conduct a town plebiscite on the question of whether or not to host a Self-Defense Force facility. The speech delivered on that occasion to the Town Assembly by Mr Tasato Chiyoki is attached below as a document. It was a decision to which little attention was paid elsewhere, yet it showed in microcosm the way in which the Obama administration’s “pivot” to Asia is affecting local communities in the Northeast Asian region. Yonaguni assumes – if the island’s controversial decision to host a SDF facility is carried out – the role of front line in an emerging East Asian Cold War. To China, the Japanese decision to implant a military force within the first Chinese maritime line of defense, and in the closest Japanese island territories to the contested Senkaku or Diaoyu islands, and to Taiwan, would inevitably be seen as a challenge. Few islands face choices of such moment.
• Fresh Insight into Korean Forced Laborers in Japan
  A commission under the Prime Minister's Office has drawn up a report on imperial Japan's mobilization of Koreans into forced labor in a coal mine on Hashima Island, a spokesman said Thursday. Hashima, 18 km from Nagasaki Port, was a prison island with a harsh natural environment and working conditions. According to the report, some pits were more than 1,000 m deep, with seams under the sea bed. The victims' skin was permanently infected as seawater sometimes flooded into the pit and toxic gases rose from the rock wall.
• Japanese Destroyer Strays Too Close to Dokdo
  A Japanese naval destroyer violated Korea's air defense identification zone near the easternmost islets of Dokdo on Sept. 21, the military said Thursday. "A Japanese vessel believed to be a 4,200-ton destroyer approached within 48 km east of Dokdo on Sep. 21," a military source said. An SH-60 helicopter conducted two takeoff and landing drills aboard the destroyer.

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AUGUST 2012

• Scrap Japan's Admissions of Guilt, Says Ex-PM Shinzo Abe
  Ex-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has proposed scrapping three past official statements reflecting on the country's World War II atrocities, the Sankei Shimbun reported on Tuesday. Abe said if his Liberal Democratic Party takes power again, the statements "need to be revised. The new government must come up with a new opinion." The statements were made by former Chief Cabinet Secretary Kiichi Miyazawa in 1982 pledging to consider Japan's World War II atrocities in authorizing school textbooks, by former Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono in 1993 which acknowledged the existence of "comfort women" and to a certain extent the role played by the Imperial Army, and in 1995 by then-Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, apologizing to all Asian victims of Japanese aggression. [Japanese colonialism]
• N.Korea, Japan to Hold First Talks in Four Years
  For the first time in four years, North Korea and Japan will hold direct talks over a range of bilateral issues. The top item on the agenda at Wednesday's meeting in Beijing will be the return of the remains of Japanese nationals from World War II. But Japan reportedly also wants to raise the issue of its citizens abducted by North Korea to be trained as spies in the 1970s and '80s.
• North Korea-Japan meeting brought down a level
  Posted on : Aug.25,2012 21:38 KST Members of the Korean NGO Council for Cooperation with North Korea near the demilitarized zone at Dorasan Inter-Korea Transit Office. They are going to North Korea to discuss aid for victims of recent floods. (by Kim Tae-hyung, staff photographer) Less-senior negotiators to take part, so hopes of real progress are diminished By Lee Hyung-sub, staff reporter North Korea has demanded that a meeting between North Korea and Japan be brought down to a lower level than had been planned. Pyongyang asked that the participants of the meeting scheduled for August 29 be at the director level; it was originally planned to be at the director general level. Since negotiators at this level don’t have the authority to make significant decisions, this meeting could end up being just for show. Kyodo News reported on August 24 that at the preparatory gathering, the Japanese side wanted that the official meeting take place at the director general level while Pyongyang asked that this be lowered to a director level.
• Osaka Mayor Demands Evidence on 'Comfort Women'
  Toru Hashimoto The mayor of Osaka, a strong contender to become the next prime minister of Japan, on Tuesday claimed there is no proof showing that Korean women were forced to serve as sex slaves for Japanese troops during World War II. "There is no evidence that comfort women were assaulted and threatened by the [Japanese] military and dragged off," Mayor Toru Hashimoto said. "Comfort women" is the euphemism used by Japan to refer to the women from Asia and elsewhere who were forced to work in battlefield brothels by the Imperial Army. [Japanese colonialism]
• Japan’s territorial troubles
  August 20th, 2012 Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum Tensions have flared again over the Takeshima/Dokdo islands between Japan and Korea and continue to simmer over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands with China. The recent spat with Korea was sparked by Korean President Lee Myung-bak’s bizarre trip to the islands a week or so ago. In taking the territorial issue right up to Tokyo at the end of his presidency, Lee has taken a leaf out of the book of Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who was the first Russian president to set foot on the Kuril Islands (or the northern territories, as Japan calls these islands in dispute with Russia). Lee’s visit has jeopardised a bilateral summit planned at APEC in Vladivostok and bolstered Japan’s determination to take the dispute to the International Court of Justice. Japan’s dispute over the Senkakus with China has been simmering below boiling point since the confrontation over a Chinese fishing boat’s ramming a Japanese coast guard vessel in September 2010. Japan’s arrest of the Chinese fishing captain and ramping the incident up to a diplomatic stoush over territory, rather than dealing with it as a low-key fisheries matter, were bad missteps in managing the incident, and they continue to play into Japanese politics and diplomacy in unhelpful ways. [Territorial disputes]
• Seoul 'May Ignore Japanese Protest Letter'
  Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda on Friday wrote to President Lee Myung-bak complaining about Lee's Aug. 14 visit to Dokdo and his call on Japan's Emperor Akihito to apologize for the occupation of Korea, but Seoul may ignore the letter due to what it believes was a breach of diplomatic protocol. The Japanese government called in the chief political officer of the Korean Embassy to hand him the letter and simultaneously published it on its Foreign Ministry website and revealed it to the press.
• Territorial disputes prevent cooperation in East Asia
  Posted on : Aug.20,2012 14:07 KST A territorial marking stone was placed on Dokdo signifying that the land belongs to South Korea. The side of the sign reads that it was placed there in the summer of 2012 by President Lee Myung-bak. The August 19 event was organized by North Gyeongsang provincial government and was attended by Lee Byung-seok (left) National Assembly speaker, Meang Hyung-kyu, Minister of Public Administration and Security. (Provided by North Gyeongsang provincial government) String of disagreements between China, South Korea and Japan keep escalating By Park Min-hee, Beijing correspondent and Jeong Nam-ku, Tokyo correspondent The countries of East Asia should be enjoying a cordial atmosphere these days. With South Korea celebrating the twentieth anniversary of diplomatic relations with China on Aug. 24 and the fortieth anniversary of relations with Japan on Sept. 28, many were expecting the region to be celebrating the end of the Cold War and stepping up cooperative efforts. The reality is the exact opposite. The East Asia of today is a morass of territorial disputes and nationalism.
• Seoul-Tokyo relations at rock bottom
  Posted on : Aug.18,2012 10:35 KST Modified on : Aug.18,2012 10:44 KST Shin Kak-soo, Korean Ambassador to Japan, passes reporters as he leaves the Japanese Foreign Ministry on Aug. 17. Shin received a proposal from Japan to take the issue of the Dokdo Islets to the International Court of Justice, which was immediately refused by the South Korean government. (Reuters) Series of recent spats posing risk to economic cooperation between neighbors By Kim Young-hee , Ha Eo-young and Seong Yeon-Cheol, staff reporters Tokyo has been taking action against Seoul in a variety of ways over the days following President Lee Myung-bak's recent visit to Dokdo. Conflicts between South Korea and Japan over the islets and other unresolved historical issues are nothing new, but this situation is different, as its effects are now beginning to reach over into the economy, culture, and private exchange. As the game of chicken stretches out, observers are saying a restoration of normal ties appears unlikely under the current administrations??? Both countries will hold elections in the near future. [SK Japan] [Dokdo]
• Taking Japan back to past
  Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda Noda turns nationalistic on neighbors By Kang Hyun-kyung, Chung Min-uck Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda is a determining factor in Japan’s confrontational stance in dealing with historical disputes with Korea, China and Russia. The history of Tokyo’s militarism and its devastating effects are on many people’s minds. Experts say that Noda was conciliatory at least on the surface when he became prime minister last year but domestic political needs are forcing him to shift his stance. Some say that he is a “historical setback” to a political process to have Japan reflect its World War II and colonial misdeeds and reconcile with its neighbors. [Japan SK]
• Japanese Extremists 'Planning to Storm Dokdo'
  Government official believe members of rightwing Japanese groups will attempt to land on Dokdo, angered by President Lee Myung-bak's recent visit to Korea's easternmost islets. Japan maintains a dubious claim to the islets. "The chances" that they will storm Dokdo "have become stronger than ever," a government official here said on Thursday. Japanese extremists could be inspired by the recent landing of Chinese activists on the Senkaku or Diaoyu Islands, which are disputed between China and Japan.
• Diplomatic Tensions Rise in Northeast Asia
  President Lee Myung-bak urged Japan on Wednesday to take responsible steps to compensate women who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II. In a televised speech marking Liberation Day, Lee said the sexual enslavement of women was a violation of "universal human rights and historic justice." Earlier this month, Lee became the first Korean president to visit the easternmost islets of Dokdo and said on Tuesday that Japan's emperor should sincerely apologize for the country's colonial rule if he wants to visit Korea.
• Rightwing Japanese Protest at Korean Embassy
  Japanese rightwing groups protest in front of the Korean Embassy in Tokyo on Wednesday. /Yonhap Anti-Korean sentiment is growing in Japan with rightwing groups rallying in front of the Korean Embassy in Tokyo and plans to cancel Korean TV dramas after President Lee Myung-bak visited Dokdo last week and urged the Japanese emperor to apologize for Tokyo's wartime crimes. Activists started protesting in front of the Korean Embassy in Tokyo at 8 a.m. on Wednesday using vehicles with blaring loudspeakers. The number of cars swelled from just three in the morning to around 20 by 1:15 p.m. and to 50 to 60 by 3 p.m. The groups apparently gathered in front of the embassy after visiting the militarist Yasukuni Shrine, which houses the remains of convicted war criminals among the country's war dead [SK Japan]
• Japan must not cross line in Diaoyu spat
  Global Times | 2012-8-15 0:35:04 By Global Times Whether a Hong Kong ship carrying 14 activists from the Chinese mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong will arrive at the Diaoyu Islands as expected and how Japanese authorities respond to them are of great concern. Sino-Japanese relations are facing a severe test. The dispute over the Diaoyu Islands is more controversial than the Southern Kuril Islands and Dokdo Islands. The Southern Kuril Islands are home to a large number of Russian residents while the Dokdo Islands are firmly under the control of South Korea, which has military personnel stationed there. But the Diaoyu Islands are uninhabited. There is nothing on them. Japan takes for granted that the Diaoyu Islands are under its actual control. This is wrong.
• Japanese outrage grows over Lee’s remarks on emperor
  Members of Japanese rightist groups have responded angrily to President Lee Myung-bak’s demand that Japan's emperor apologize for the colonial rule of Korea (1910-1945). On Tuesday, Lee said the Japanese emperor should sincerely apologize for Japan’s colonial rule of Korea, if he wants to visit Seoul. The emperor "does not need to come," if he is going to offer an insincere apology couched in vague language, recalling the hard-to-understand, ancient wording Emperor Akihito used in his 1990 apology, Lee said. Lee’s remarks have ignited protests from Japanese leaders. Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba said Tokyo has lodged an official protest with Korea over Lee's remarks on the country's emperor. Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda also said he "cannot understand the remarks." "It is regrettable," Noda said, according to news reports. In a telephone conversation with Yonhap news agency Thursday, an official of a Japanese rightist group said on condition of anonymity that “President Lee’s visit to Dokdo (Takeshima in Japanese) is one thing, and Lee's remarks on the emperor is another. “Many group members think that the latter has hurt their pride. Nobody knows what will happen in the future,” he said. He did not rule out the possibility that some may attack Korean residents in Japan or Korean tourists. The Japanese responded sensitively as they regard the emperor as an “authority,” which is distinct from “the man who takes power,” he said. [SK Japan]
• ‘Tokyo, Pyongyang seek talks to increase leverage over Seoul’
  By Kim Young-jin Japan could use upcoming talks with North Korea to strengthen its hand against Seoul amid persisting tension over President Lee Myung-bak’s visit to the Dokdo Islets, analysts said Thursday. North Korea, meanwhile, is expected to exploit the flare-up to drive a wedge amongst regional players and ratchet up pressure to resume negotiations, during the talks slated for Aug. 29 in Beijing. The Japan-North talks were announced Tuesday, four days after Lee surprised many with his trip to the nation’s rocky outcroppings that Tokyo also claims as its territory. The sides have exchanged heated rhetoric since, with Japan threatening to take the issue to international arbitration. “Japanese policymakers may think that an improvement in ties with Pyongyang could pressure the South to rethink its policy toward Tokyo and to think twice about excluding Japan when it comes to dealing with the North,” one analyst said, asking not to be named. The announcement came after the Red Cross societies from both sides met to consult over the repatriation of remains from Japan’s occupation of the peninsula. The next rounds are expected to discuss the North’s abduction of Japanese citizens and allowing Japanese people to visit the graves of relatives who died in the North during and after World War II. [Sidelined]
• China demands Japan release activists over island protest
  Wed Aug 15, 2012 9:20pm IST * Japan arrests China activists after landing on disputed island * China demands immediate, unconditional release of activists * Japanese cabinet ministers visit controversial war dead shrine * Japan protests South Korean president's emperor remarks By James Pomfret and Linda Sieg HONG KONG/TOKYO, Aug 15 (Reuters) - China demanded Japan immediately and unconditionally free 14 Chinese activists held over a protest landing on disputed islands on Wednesday, as tensions between Tokyo and its neighbours flared on the anniversary of the end of World War Two. [Territorial disputes] [Japanese colonialism]
• President Lee asks for apology from Japanese Emperor
  Posted on : Aug.15,2012 10:57 KST Modified on : Aug.15,2012 10:59 KST By Ahn Chang-hyun, Blue House correspondent President Lee Myung-bak demanded an apology on August 14 for Japan's imperial history from Emperor Akihito. His remarks came while attending a teachers' workshop on eradicating school violence at the Korea National University of Education in Cheongwon, North Chungcheong province. "If [the Emperor] wishes to visit Korea, he should go visit the people who gave their lives fighting for independence and apologize to them," Lee said. [SK Japan]
• Japanese athletes in London wear controversial uniform
  Posted on : Aug.14,2012 10:58 KST Modified on : Aug.14,2012 11:07 KST Japanese gymnasts wearing uniforms that resemble the 'rising sun' flag, a symbol of imperialism. Uniform resembled rising sun flag, a symbol of Japanese imperialist past By Jung Hwan-bong, staff reporter Controversy is flaring after it was belatedly learned that Japanese athletes at the London Olympics appeared in competition - and even on the medal stand - wearing uniforms that resembled the rising sun flag, a symbol of the country’s imperialist past. [SK Japan]
• Moves of Japan Engrossed in Grabbing Tok Islets Ridiculed
  Pyongyang, August 13 (KCNA) -- The chief executive of south Korea toured Tok Islets on August 10. As soon as his plan to visit the islets was announced, different circles of south Korea were critical of it, saying that the visit was intended to cover up his true colors as a pro-Japanese lackey, calm down the angry public and weather his ruling crisis. The Japanese government authorities made much fuss about the south Korean chief executive's visit to the islets. The Japanese prime minister, the foreign minister and others made public appearance one after another to say that "it was regretful" and "they would strongly react to it".
• White Paper of DFRK Central Committee Slams S. Korea-Japan Military Nexus
  Pyongyang, August 13 (KCNA) -- The Central Committee of the Democratic Front for the Reunification of Korea (DFRK) released a white paper on Monday dealing with the present situation and danger of the south Korea-Japan military nexus and the south Korean puppet regime's sycophancy towards Japan. According to the white paper, no sooner had traitor Lee Myung Bak took office than he drastically expanded the scope of military exchange and cooperation with the Japanese reactionaries. [Lee Myung-bak] [SK Japan]
• Mr. Noda, try and visit Dokdo, if you can
  By Shim Jae-yun Japan has taken issue with President Lee Myung-bak’s recent visit to Dokdo, Korea’s easternmost islets. Tokyo is trying to make Lee’s visit look as if it were a violation of its territory, threatening to take the matter to the International Court of Justice. Pity! Our neighbor apparently doesn’t have any sense of reality. The President may visit it as part of his duty as head of state to take trips to parts of the nation and see if there is anything he can do to improve the people’s livelihood, while confirming the country’s territorial integrity. In other words, he exercised his right at the same time as fulfilling his duty. If Japan claims that Dokdo is theirs, the burden of proof is on them. We dare King Akihito or Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to visit the Korean islets. If they set foot on Dokdo without Seoul’s permission, it would subject them to a search and subsequent punishment under Korean law for the crime of entering Korea illegally. [SK NK]
• N. Korea slams Lee, Japan over Dokdo
  By Kim Young-jin North Korea on Monday criticized President Lee Myung-bak for his surprise visit to Dokdo last week ? the nation’s easternmost islets ? that ratcheted up tensions with Japan. In a dispatch, Pyongyang’s state media accused Lee of trying to stave off his status as a lame-duck president by politically exploiting the issue of the rocky outcrops that Seoul holds control over but Tokyo lays claim to. It said Lee was covering up for what it deemed as his favorable stance to Japan. The visit was "intended to cover up his true colors as a pro-Japanese lackey, calm down the angry public and weather his ruling crisis," the Korean Central News Agency said. Lee, in the face of two North Korean provocations in 2010, has bolstered trilateral cooperation with Tokyo and Washington.
• Japan differs over Dokdo, Kuril Islands
  People hold placards which read “Dokdo is Korean territory” during an event in Wonju, Gangwon Province, Wednesday, to celebrate Liberation Day. / Yonhap By Kang Hyun-kyung Japan’s reaction to President Lee Myung-bak’s trip to Dokdo last Friday was almost identical to that when former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visted Kuril Islands in 2010, except for one fact. Back then, Japan didn’t threaten to involve the International Court of Justice (ICJ). This time Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba announced a day after Lee’s trip to the islets it is considering referring the case to the ICJ,.
• Lee’s rhetoric stirs speculation
  President Lee Myung-bak By Kang Hyun-kyung Of late, President Lee Myung-bak has been tougher than ever on Japan, prompting speculation about his motives. Political analysts speculate that Lee sharpened his message against Japan as the lame duck President strives to turn the tide on the negative domestic political situation. Lee’s ratings fell after prosecutors questioned his aides and relatives for their involvement in bribery scandals with some of them being put behind bars. [Lee Myung-bak] [Corruption]
• Korean Olympic Footballer Faces Probe Over 'Political Message'
  The International Olympic Committee is investigating a Korean football player for holding up a sign deemed to have a political message after Korea's 2-0 victory over Japan at the London Olympics on Saturday. Midfielder Park Jong-woo held up the sign with a slogan supporting Korea's sovereignty over the Dokdo islets, to which Japan maintains a dubious claim. The IOC prohibits political, religious or racial statements by athletes and players and believes that the sign Park held up, which read "Dokdo is Our Land," violated the statute. [Territorial disputes] [SK Japan]
• Japan Makes Waves Over Lee's Dokdo Visit
  The Japanese government is moving to take its dubious claim to Korea's Dokdo islets to the International Court of Justice following President Lee Myung-bak's recent visit to the islets. The Korean government does not intend to respond to the move, but Tokyo is likely to make as much noise as possible to give the impression that this is a bona fide territorial dispute. Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Genba told reporters on Friday and Saturday, "We have refrained from taking the issue to the ICJ until now because we fear that it can do harm to bilateral relations. But now that it seems unnecessary to mind that [with Lee's visit], we want to take the issue to the ICJ." [Territorial disputes] [SK Japan]
• Japan could take Dokdo issue to the International Court of Justice
  Posted on : Aug.13,2012 12:22 KST Screens at a television store in Tokyo show footage of President Lee Myung-bak’s August 10 visit to Dokdo. (Yonhap News) While digging in on Dokdo, prime minister discourages ministers from visiting Yasukuni shrine By Jeong Nam-ku, Tokyo correspondent Tokyo is warning about strong action after President Lee Myung-bak’s surprise August 10 visit to Dokdo. For now, it plans to take the Dokdo issue before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), but it has also put a halt to moves by some sitting Cabinet ministers to visit the Yasukuni Shrine. Japan previously made two proposals to Seoul to resolve the Dokdo issue before the ICJ. The first came in 1954, and the second at a summit talk between the two countries’ foreign ministers in 1962. Korea rejected the offer both times and no trial was held. [Territorial disputes] [SK Japan]
• [Editorial] Both Seoul and Tokyo will lose by dragging out Dokdo issue
  Posted on : Aug.13,2012 13:21 KST Tokyo is up in arms over President Lee Myung-bak’s surprise August 10 visit to Dokdo. Japanese foreign minister Koichiro Gemba formally stated that the country is considering taking the matter of the islets’ ownership before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Meanwhile, the Japanese press is reporting on a number of aggressive measures that Tokyo may be considering, including setting up an organization exclusively to handle the Dokdo issue and holding off on any further summit meetings with Seoul. It is very troubling to see what appears to be an attempt to legitimize past imperialist incursions and ignite an international dispute over South Korean territory. It is inconsistent of Japan to defer to the ICJ’s authority on the Dokdo issue while defying it when it comes to the Senkaku Islands, where Japan itself is doing the occupying. There is no reason whatsoever for us to agree to an international hearing over Dokdo when it is clearly South Korean territory by every historical and practical standard [Territorial disputes] [SK Japan]
• The aftermath of President Lee’s sudden visit to Dokdo
  Posted on : Aug.13,2012 12:17 KST Modified on : Aug.13,2012 13:01 KST Experts foresee indefinite chill in relations between South Korea and Japan By Kim Kyu-won and Son Won-je, staff reporters and Jeong Nam-ku, Tokyo correspondent President Lee Myung-bak’s out-of-nowhere visit to Dokdo on August 10 is further complicating already tense relations with Japan. Experts are divided in their analysis on the reasons for the fly-by and how it might affect ties with Tokyo in the immediate future. The Hankyoreh spoke with three specialists on South Korea-Japan relations. “A bit of shock treatment to drum up popular support” - Moon Chung-in, Professor at Yonsei University The first reason Lee Myung-bak carried out his Dokdo visit was to turn things around with his political situation at home. He and his associates don’t want to see this lame duck situation continue, so they came up with a bit of shock treatment to drum up popular support. In the past, the administration characterized its foreign policy as an “alliance of values,” but at the end of the day it went with the situation calculus. [Territorial disputes] [SK Japan]
• Japan taking Lee’s Dokdo visit “extremely seriously”
  Posted on : Aug.11,2012 09:50 KST Relations between Seoul and Tokyo set to worsen as Japan plans response By Jeong Nam-ku, Tokyo correspondent The Japanese government reacted with shock to President Lee Myung-bak’s surprise visit to Dokdo on August 10. The situation, which appears poised to push already strained relations to a breaking point, came out of nowhere. That afternoon, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda had been planning to celebrate the House of Councilors’ final passage of a bill raising the consumption tax, something he had staked his political career on. Hiroshi Nakai, head of the Lower House budget committee and deputy chairman of the Korea-Japan Parliamentarians’ Union, told the Asahi Shimbun that he was “angry that a current South Korean President would do such a thing when his term is nearing its end.” An official from South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MOFAT) said Tokyo was taking the situation “extremely seriously.” [Territorial disputes] [Lee Myung-bak] [Yasukuni]
• Presidential hopefuls clash on Dokdo
  By Lee Tae-hoon The leading presidential contenders of the ruling and main opposition parties are waging a verbal war over the late President Park Chung-hee’s remarks on Dokdo. Rep. Moon Jae-in of the opposition Democratic United Party (DUP) alleged the late former President expressed his desire to destroy the country’s easternmost islets to a senior U.S. official in 1965. “President Park said he would like to bomb the island out of existence to resolve the problem,” Moon said, citing a diplomatic document that Yonhap News Agency disclosed on June 20, 2004. The dossier detailing a conversation between President Park and U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk reveals that the former President described the territorial dispute with Japan over Dokdo as one of the irritating problems ahead of the signing of the Korea-Japan Basic Treaty on June 22, 1965. [Territorial disputes] [SK Japan]
• Korean, Japanese Football Squads Forced to Share Hotel
  As if tension between the Korean and Japanese Olympic football teams was not sky-high already ahead of their bronze-medal match, the two sides were surprised to find themselves assigned to the same hotel in Cardiff by the London Olympics organizing committee. The Korean squad arrived in the Welsh capital on Thursday after a brief training session in Manchester to learn that the country standing in the way of Korea's first Olympic football medal was staying two floors above it at the Marriott Hotel. [SK Japan]
• Japan Recalls Korean Ambassador Over Island Visit
  Japan has recalled its ambassador to Korea to protest President Lee Myung-Bak's visit to a group of islands claimed by both countries. Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba said Friday that Lee's visit was "utterly unacceptable," and would have a "strong impact" on Korean-Japan relations. "In protest, we are temporarily pulling out Ambassador Masatoshi Muto from the Japanese Embassy in Korea. Additionally, we passed the message to the Korean ambassador that we were given no choice but to take suitable measures against it." [Territorial disputes] [Lee Myung-bak] [Election]
• Lee becomes first president to visit Dokdo
  Posted on : Aug.11,2012 09:27 KST Modified on : Aug.11,2012 09:34 KST President Lee Myung-bak at an observation post off of a lighthouse on Dokdo, August 10. (Blue House photo pool) Surprise visits irks Japan, begs questions about president’s motivation By Park Byong-su and Ahn Chang-hyun, staff reporters President Lee Myung-bak paid a surprise visit to Dokdo on August 10. The chilling effect on relations with Tokyo was immediately apparent as the Japanese government responded with vehement protests. Lee left Seoul on his presidential helicopter at around 10 am, visiting Ulleungdo and Dokdo before returning to the Blue House at around 6 pm. Minister of Environment Yoo Young-sook, Minister of Culture Choe Kwang-sik, and writers Yi Mun-yol and Kim Joo-young accompanied him. This was Lee’s first-ever visit to Dokdo. He is the highest-ranking official to travel there since then-Prime Minister Han Seung-soo in July 2008. [SK Japan]
• Japanese and North Korean Red Crosses to hold meetings
  Posted on : Aug.9,2012 13:49 KST Will discuss returning the remains of Japanese who died in World War II By Jeong Nam-ku, Tokyo correspondent The Japanese Red Cross is meeting with its North Korean counterpart in Beijing on Aug. 9 and 10 to discuss the return of its citizens’ remains from North Korea, Japanese news media reported on August 8.
• Extended Nuclear Deterrence in Northeast Asia
  Nautilus Peace and Security (NAPSNet) by Jeffrey Lewis August 1, 2012 A version of this report was originally presented at the East Asia Nuclear Security workshop held on November 11, 2011 in Tokyo, Japan. All of the papers and presentations given at the workshop are available here, along with the full agenda, participant list and a workshop photo gallery. Jeffrey Lewis argues that US allies such as Japan have been mislead by the manner in which past administrations have sought to emphasize the strength of their extended deterrence commitments by reference to particular weapons systems in that role. Lewis writes that “there is no specific commitment to use any of those nuclear weapons in defense of Japan – or any other ally.” Rather, Lewis states, “it is time to be honest that the primary source of nuclear deterrence for US allies comes from the strategic triad of intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine launched ballistic missiles and bombers.” He concludes that “US nuclear weapons continue to play role, albeit a declining one, in meeting US security commitments. The US is committed to defending Japan, but the use of nuclear weapons neither necessary nor desirable in the current strategic environment.” [Nuclear umbrella] [US Japan alliance]

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JULY 2012

• Tokyo Seeks to Expand Defense Against China
  By YUKA HAYASHI A territorial dispute over a set of islands in the East China Sea is reigniting between Japan and China. The WSJ's Deborah Kan speaks to reporter Yuka Hayashi about the latest move by Tokyo to oppose Beijing's military might. . TOKYO—As a territorial dispute strains bilateral relations between Japan and China, Tokyo Tuesday criticized Beijing's expansionary maritime strategies, and called for beefed up surveillance and defense capabilities around remote islands in contested waters. In the latest edition of its annual Defense White Paper, the Japanese government said for the first time that the relationship between Beijing's political elite and its military leadership has been growing complex and that "the degree of military influence on foreign-policy decision has been changing." That, in turn, creates challenges for Japan's crisis management, the defense ministry said. [China confrontation] [Territorial disputes] [Threat] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Post-War Warriors: Japanese Combatants in the Korean War
  Tessa Morris-Suzuki In May 1947 Japan, under the influence of its US occupiers, adopted a new constitution which stated, ‘aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.’1 Yet, just two years after this proclamation of lasting peace (and only five years after their defeat in the Asia-Pacific War) thousands of Japanese citizens were once again in a war zone, engaged in combat-related tasks in their newly liberated former colony of Korea; and this engagement was initiated and overseen by the United States, the very country which had ensured the inclusion of the peace clause in the Japanese constitution. [Korean War] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• DoCoMo Looks for Growth Among Japan's Elderly
  By Mariko Yasu and Shunichi Ozasa on June 28, 2012 The iPhone has become the must-have smartphone for young and hip consumers around the globe. Not for Kazuko Ohara. The 81-year-old Tokyo resident is planning to buy her new handset from NTT DoCoMo (DCM), the only major Japanese carrier not selling Apple’s (AAPL) hit product. “I’ve been planning to get a smartphone and try the voice app since I saw it on TV,” says Ohara, who doesn’t own a personal computer. “My eyesight is weak because I had a cataract operation. The voice app might help me write e-mails, and I want to use the map function to go places.” [Demographics] [Ageing society]
• DPRK Deadlock: Implications for the Future of US-Japan Defense Cooperation
  By Yuki Tatsumi It has been nearly four years since the Six Party Talks last took place. Since then, the North Korean nuclear problem has been essentially at a standstill. While some had hoped for a resumption of the Talks when the United States and DPRK reached the February 29 Agreement, that hope quickly turned into disappointment when the North Korean government announced less than three weeks later its intention to conduct a “satellite launch.” Although the test itself ended in failure, Pyongyang’s defiance brings about a renewed sense of frustration, one that is close to despair. North Korea’s provocative behavior under its new leader Kim Jong Un has dashed any hopes had before the power succession that the young Kim might be open to negotiating with the West. So far, there is little hope that North Korea will return to the Six Party Talks anytime soon. In fact, the most disturbing development on the North Korean problem since 2008 is the growing possibility that North Korea may never give up its nuclear program, no matter how long diplomatic efforts go on. This presents a serious problem for the United States. On the one hand, upcoming presidential elections in Washington and Seoul, an anticipated leadership transition in China, and continuing political uncertainty in Japan all suggest that the next six to twelve months will not be the best time for diplomacy. In this sense, “strategic patience”—maintaining pressure on the North by enforcing existing economic sanctions, sending a clear signal that any provocative behavior would be promptly met by decisive action, and keeping channels of communication open while not rushing to enter into negotiations prematurely—may be the best course of action in the short term. On the other hand, “strategic patience” should not mean continuing the status quo forever. If North Korea consistently refuses to return to negotiations (Six Party Talks or otherwise) as it continues to make progress on its nuclear program, Washington may be forced to change its declared policy goal vis-à-vis North Korea’s nuclear program from “dismantlement” to “containment,” acquiescing to Pyongyang’s status as a de facto nuclear weapons state as long as it does not proliferate. The probability of such a policy shift by the US will only grow as the current diplomatic impasse persists. Should the US make such a shift, it would have a devastating impact on the international community’s effort to curb the proliferation of nuclear weapons. What is potentially more serious for US security interests in Northeast Asia, however, is its possible impact on alliance relations with Japan and South Korea. [US Japan alliance] [Inversion]
• Japan’s Political Upheaval and Massive Public Dissent
  Karel van Wolferen On the surface the story is simple enough. Japan's most powerful and controversial politician has done it again: shaking up the party political world by leaving, and perhaps breaking up, the DPJ, Japan's ruling party. And that because things did not go his way. The Japanese media were, predictably, ready with their favorite epithet, ‘the destroyer’, and with quotes from political commentators that this time his star may be truly fading because the perennial polls show that the people have had it with him. Almost all foreign reporting trying to make sense of his latest turbulence in Japanese politics meekly follows the lead of the big national newspapers, as it has done for the last couple of decades (note that the number of regular full-time correspondents in Tokyo has dwindled to a small fraction of what it used to be). The financially-oriented foreign reporting quotes resident analysts praising the leadership qualities of Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko, whose insistence that a law aimed at doubling the consumption tax must be pushed through Parliament triggered Ozawa Ichiro's move.
• Keep a Close Eye on Japanese Moves to Re-Arm
  A committee under the Japanese prime minister has issued a report recommending that Japan should assert its right to "collective self-defense" under Article 51 of the UN Charter. This would allow Japan to sidestep its pacifist postwar constitution and engage in military activities overseas even if it is not directly attacked. Japan has a bad track record when it comes to its military aspirations [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Who Will Be Held Responsible for the Japan Pact Fiasco?
  The government passed in the Cabinet last Wednesday a pact with Japan on the sharing of military intelligence. The signing of the pact, the first military accord between the two countries since the Japanese occupation, was postponed at the last minute on Friday when faced with massive opposition from the South Korean public and political parties. [SK Japan][Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan Seeks to Relax Curbs on Military Deployment
  A committee under the Japanese prime minister has issued a report saying Japan should be allowed to exercise its right to "collective self-defense," meaning its troops could intervene to help its allies even when it is not directly attacked. According to Japanese broadcaster NHK on Thursday, the committee under the national strategy council said, "In order to deepen cooperation in security guarantees with countries including the U.S. that share the same values, it is necessary to boost the value of Japan as a cooperative partner." It added, "Related interpretations [of laws] should be changed to allow collective defense, in order to uphold proactive pacifism in the long-term." [Japanese remilitarisation] [Spin]
• Japan apparently moving toward more active military
  Posted on : Jul.6,2012 15:23 KST Modified on : Jul.6,2012 15:25 KST Prime minister’s office mulling change to constitutional interpretation of use of force By Jung Nam-ku, Tokyo correspondent and Park Byong-su, staff reporter A significant change in Tokyo’s official position on collective self-defense may be afoot after a committee under the prime minister’s office drafted a reform calling for the amendment of the Constitutional interpretation that permits it. The conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has consistently made calls for a change in the interpretation or amendment of the Constitution along these lines, but the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) has been reluctant to do so. The fact that a government committee is now echoing the LDP calls three years after the DJP took office hints strongly that a change could be in the offing. [Japanese remilitarisation] [US Japan alliance] [US global strategy]
• KCNA Commentary Dismisses Japanese Newspapers' Story about DPRK's Uranium Enrichment
  Pyongyang, July 6 (KCNA) -- Japanese papers Tokyo Shimbun and Mainichi Shimbun on July 2 released misinformation that they got what they called a "document" on the DPRK's program for developing nuclear weapons, "there was an instruction to make nuclear bombs by use of highly-enriched uranium" and "it was a political behest". It is a politically-motivated plot to create a fresh atmosphere for ratcheting up international pressure on the DPRK as the story is a totally groundless and sheer fabrication. It betrayed a foolish intention to legalize Japan's moves to go nuclear and emerge a military giant and calm down the vigilance and opposition of its neighboring countries to them. Of late Japan added a provision on "contribution to ensuring state stability" to the basic law on atomic energy and revised the basic law on space, laying down legal foundations for going nuclear and militarizing the space. [Japanese remilitarisation] [Nuclearisation] [Disinformation] [HEU]
• Korea to Claim Oceanic Continental Shelf
  The government wants to ask the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf to recognize Korea's scientific and technical rights over a massive continental shelf south of Jeju Island. The letter to the commission, to be sent later this month, is part of the government's efforts to claim sovereignty over the 19,000 sq. km continental shelf that stretches for 200 nautical miles to Okinawa. "The Korean government's position is that the continental shelf is a natural extension of the peninsula," a high-ranking diplomatic source in Seoul said Wednesday. "Korea will soon submit geological, scientific and legal data proving this to the CLCS." The maritime area covered by the shelf is under joint development by Korea and Japan under a 1974 agreement and is equivalent to 20 percent of Korea's land mass. The government began researching the area in 1999 and in 2009 submitted preliminary data to the CLCS. [Territorial disputes]
• Largest Demonstrations in Half a Century Protest the Restart of Japanese Nuclear Power Plants
  Piers Williamson On 29 June, Japan witnessed its largest public protest since the 1960s. This was the latest in a series of Friday night gatherings outside Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko’s official residence. Well over one hundred thousand people came together to vent their anger at his 16 June decision to order a restart of Units 3 and 4 at the Oi nuclear plant . This article discusses the events of the last several weeks which sparked this massive turnout as well as the nature of the protest. It begins by outlining the Japanese government’s recent policies affirming nuclear power, from Noda’s nationwide address of 8 June justifying the Oi restarts on the grounds of ‘protecting livelihoods’, and continuing with the move on 20 June to revise the Atomic Energy Basic Law and establish a law to set up a new, yet potentially toothless, nuclear regulatory agency. It then examines the main criticisms that drove people into the streets in successive demonstrations. Popular suspicions centre not only on regulatory questions, namely concerns over the neutering of a new regulatory agency, and the half-hearted temporary ‘safety’ standards applicable to restarts, but also on conditions on the ground at Oi. It concludes with accounts of the 22 June demonstration in which 40,000 citizens suddenly appeared to vent their anger, and the even larger 29 June action. [Nuclear energy]
• Rebellion against lame duck
  President Lee Myung-bak, left, shakes hands with speaker Kang Chang-hee, after his speech to members of the 19th National Assembly, Monday, the first day of the parliament’s session. / Yonhap Did foreign minister endorse staff’s criticism of Cheong Wa Dae’s Japan pact handling? By Kang Hyun-kyung President Lee Myung-bak tried to patch up a rift exposed over the handling of a military pact with Japan, admitting to a “procedural” flaw Monday. This came a day after a senior foreign ministry official blamed Cheong Wa Dae, in what could be seen as an “open rebellion” against the lame duck President, for its heavy-handed approach to the pact that would enable the two countries to share sensitive information on North Korea, among other things. [Lee Myung-bak]
• Foreign ministry hits Blue House over pact
  Lee Myung-bak DUP calls for dismissal of Prime Minister By Lee Tae-hoon A senior government official Sunday criticized Cheong Wa Dae for pressuring the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MOFAT) to push ahead with the failed signing of a controversial military pact with Tokyo last week. “MOFAT opposed Cheong Wa Dae’s push to approve the deal in a close-door Cabinet meeting, but to no avail,” the official said asking for anonymity on fears of political backlash. “Cheong Wa Dae expressed its view that it was an issue that should be dealt with by MOFAT. Eventually it became a matter that the foreign minister should handle.”
• Who Will Be Held Responsible for the Japan Pact Fiasco?
  The government passed in the Cabinet last Wednesday a pact with Japan on the sharing of military intelligence. The signing of the pact, the first military accord between the two countries since the Japanese occupation, was postponed at the last minute on Friday when faced with massive opposition from the South Korean public and political parties.
• S.Korea Could End Up Sandwiched Among Nuclear Powers
  The Japanese government has given the green light to resumption of work on a nuclear reprocessing plant that some people here fear could be adapted to military use. Construction of the mixed oxide fuel processing plant was halted following the nuclear accident in Fukushima last year. [Dilemma] [Japanese remilitarisation][Nuclearisation]
• By bumbling Japanese military pact, Blue House gets in another mess
  Posted on : Jun.30,2012 13:11 KST Modified on : Jun.30,2012 13:31 KST President Lee Myung-bak offers condolences to the families of soldiers who died in the second Yeongpyeong sea battle. The June 29 event was to commemorate the battle’s tenth anniversary. (Blue House pool photo) Both domestic and diplomatic situations thrown into disarray by hasting attempt to pass controversial pact By Ahn Chang-hyun, Kim Bo-hyeop and Gil Yun-hyung, staff reporters The delay of the signing of an intelligence protection treaty with Japan on June 29 has left the Blue House a loser on all fronts. Not only is it now more likely that the treaty will come to nothing, President Lee Myung-bak and all the figures involved have taken a heavy blow.
• MB government getting uncomfortably cozy with Japan
  Posted on : Jun.29,2012 15:51 KST Modified on : Jun.29,2012 16:03 KST Railroaded military pact comes at a time of antagonism with former colonial occupier By Lee Kyung-mi and Yoon Hyung-joong, staff reporters The Lee Myung-bak government is rushing through a major military agreement with Japan at a time of heightened anti-Japanese sentiment in South Korea. A Japanese activist recently placed an offensive statement next to a statue of a comfort woman outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul. The police’s weak response to the vandalism angered citizens still unhappy with Japan’s lack of contrition over its colonial era atrocities. On June 28, a group campaigning for the rights of former comfort women issued a statement slamming the move, saying, “The Lee Myung-bak government has delivered an even greater insult to the Korean public and former comfort women than Japanese right-wingers. After talking only of a humanitarian, rather than a legal, solution to the comfort women issue, it has now confirmed that it is pro-Japanese to the bone.”
• Korea-Japan military agreement being rushed through
  Posted on : Jun.29,2012 15:42 KST Politicians and civic groups both decry lack of public debate on important pact By Kim Kyu-won and Um Ji-won, staff reporters The government said it plans to move according to schedule in signing a military intelligence protection agreement with Japan. The pact was approved in a cabinet meeting on June 25 and is scheduled to be signed on June 29. Normally such acts are made public two or three days before the meeting, but this was pushed through without any public scrutiny.
• Military agreement with Japan of questionable value
  Posted on : Jun.29,2012 15:53 KST Claims of improved intelligence are less than convincing, while agreement could spur tensions in the region By Park Byong-su and Ha Eo-young, staff reporters The government plans to go ahead with its military intelligence protection agreement with Japan, but many are raising questions about just how much such intelligence exchanges would actually help national security. Analysts have argued that South Korea has little to gain from the agreement, which they said only satisfies Japan‘s demands for human intelligence (HUMINT) from the South Korean side.
• Landmark agreement was devised behind closed doors
  Posted on : Jun.29,2012 15:39 KST DUP floor leader says repeated requests to publicly discussed the matter were rebuffed By Kim Bo-hyeop, staff reporter Democratic United Party (DUP) floor leader Park Jie-won said June 28 that South Korea “must not deliver key military secrets like human intelligence (HUMINT) to Japan when Tokyo is looking to acquire nuclear weapons.” “We are opposed to the South Korea-Japan [military] intelligence protection agreement because we know full well just how the Japanese Self-Defense Forces are going to develop,” he added. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Seoul-Tokyo military pact would be useful: US
  WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- The U.S. government said Friday that a Seoul-Tokyo accord on sharing military information, if signed, will be "useful, but it maintained a largely cautious stance on the sensitive bilateral issue. "Such agreements would be useful but we recognize that this is a bilateral issue for the ROK and Japan," a State Department spokesperson told Yonhap News Agency on the customary condition of anonymity. “This is a decision for the ROK and Japan to make. We refer you to their governments for any further information. "It would be inappropriate for us to comment further.” The ROK is the acronym for South Korea's formal name, the Republic of Korea. [US global strategy] [Alliance]
• At last minute, S. Korea postpones signing first military pact with Japan since World War II
  Stringer-Korea/Reuters - South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak speaks during the 10th anniversary commemorative ceremony of the second naval battle of Yeonpyeong at the Navy's 2nd Fleet Command in Pyeongtaek, about 45 miles south of Seoul, on June 29, 2012. The speech came in lieu of a botched intelligence-sharing pack between Seoul and Tokyo. By Chico Harlan, Published: June 30 TOKYO — Japan and South Korea had planned on Friday to sign a new intelligence-sharing agreement that would show off their growing trust. But when Seoul unexpectedly backed out of the deal, the neighbors were left only with a new disagreement and a reminder of their long-running animosities. The pact had been designed to allow Tokyo and Seoul to exchange classified information on their mutual concerns — specifically, China’s military and North Korea’s weapons program. But one hour before the scheduled signing, South Korean officials notified Japan’s Foreign Ministry that they were postponing, a Japanese government spokesman said. The planned agreement had stoked fury in Seoul, with media and ruling-party politicians ripping the government for joining hands with the country that used to be South Korea’s brutal colonial ruler.

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JUNE 2012

• Cabinet Approves Military Pact with Japan
  The government plans to sign a pact with Japan as early as this week on the sharing of military intelligence, marking the first military accord between the two countries since the Japanese occupation. There were indications that the government tried to smuggle the pact past public notice, probably due to its incendiary potential. It was brought up and passed in the Cabinet on Wednesday without review at the lower ministerial level, and any reference to its military nature was omitted from the name of the pact, which is only labeled an "information" agreement. The government also did not mention the military pact in a press briefing following the Cabinet meeting.
• Potentially landmark military pact agreed to by Korea and Japan
  Posted on : Jun.28,2012 14:20 KST Modified on : Jun.28,2012 14:51 KST From left, Japanese Deputy Defense Minister Watanabe Shu, US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and South Korean Minister of Defense Kim Kwan-jin at a trilateral meeting in Singapore’s Shangri-la Hotel, June 2. (Yonhap) Korean Government pushes through without public knowledge or scrutiny By Park Byong-su, Kim Kyu-won and Jeong Nam-ku, staff reporters It emerged June 26 that the South Korean government approved a military cooperation agreement with Japan in a closed-door Cabinet meeting the previous day. A senior Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade official said Wednesday that the agreement had been raised before the Cabinet the previous day and voted through. The agreement marks the first military pact between South Korea and Japan since Japan’s colonial occupation of Korea. The two countries are historical rivals with a host of unresolved historical issues.
• Washington hails Seoul-Tokyo military accord
  WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- The United States supports an envisioned pact between South Korea and Japan on sharing military information, a State Department official said Wednesday. "We welcome closer ties between our allies, Japan and the Republic of Korea," the official told Yonhap News Agency. [Alliance]
• Korea, Japan to sign military accord on intelligence exchange: source
  Korea and Japan are poised to sign a military agreement that will allow them to exchange key military intelligence, a government source here said Wednesday. The source said the two countries will soon reach the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA). "The two governments will officially sign the deal as early as this week, or sometime next week at the latest," the source said, adding Korea passed the bill on reaching the GSOMIA at its Cabinet meeting on Tuesday. [SK Japan] [Intelligence]
• Japan to Boost Defense in Pacific, Minister Says .
  By YUKA HAYASHI TOKYO—Japan's new defense minister said the government is preparing to enhance its air and sea defense capabilities to protect islands and waters in the nation's southwest, part of the broad swath of the western Pacific where China has increased its maritime activities in recent years. "Japan has 6,800 islands, and territory that stretches over 3,300 kilometers [2,000 miles]; it's necessary to have troops at its southwestern end to beef up our warning and surveillance capability," Satoshi Morimoto told The Wall Street Journal on Monday in his first interview with a non-Japanese news organization since he took office this month. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan Sets Alarms Ringing with Ominous Nuclear Bill
  The Korean press was in uproar Thursday after reports that a new bill passed this week in the Japanese Diet paves the way for Tokyo to acquire nuclear weapons. The Asahi Shimbun reported that the revised bill, amended Wednesday by the Liberal Democratic Party and endorsed by the ruling Democratic Party and New Komeito Party, includes a controversial clause that nudges open the door to defensive use of nuclear arms. The clause says that the safe use of atomic power contributes to "national security." Japan's Atomic Energy Basic Act allows it to research and develop atomic energy, but the parameters were limited to peaceful use. But the first revision to the act in 34 years has raised concerns since the term "national security" in Japan encompasses defense and military purposes. The bill also entrusts the management and supervision of Japan's atomic power plants to a single body following the Fukushima nuclear disaster last year. The clause was not in the draft bill proposed by the Japanese government but added as part of an amendment by the LDP and NKP. The Communist Party and Socialist Party of Japan opposed that clause, but the ruling DP supported it. Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura played down any intention to use atomic power for military purposes. "The government has no goal at all for its military use," he told reporters Thursday. But his comments failed to quell fears that Japan may have paved the way to develop nuclear weapons later on. [Japanese remilitarisation] [Nuclearisation]
• Japan’s extreme right getting nastier
  Posted on : Jun.23,2012 11:38 KST Policemen guard the statue of a young comfort woman in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul, after Japanese right-wingers’s terror. (by Kim Jung-hyo, staff photographer) Recent actions outside Japanese embassy in Seoul is latest case in an escalation of tasteless tactics By Heo Jae-hyun and Yoon Hyung-joong, staff reporters On June 18, a Japanese right-wing extremist tied a stake with the slogan “Takeshima belongs to Japan” to the statue of a young comfort woman in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul. It has since emerged that Japanese right-wingers have been continuously threatening the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan (KCWDMSSJ), a group that works to help former comfort women. On June 22, KCWDMSSJ team leader An Seon-mi stated, “For several years now, every Wednesday morning, when we hold a rally outside the Japanese embassy with former comfort women, unidentified people have been calling our office and harassing us, saying, in Japanese or English, 'I hate Korea, why are you doing this?' Worse still, a package containing photos of women's genitals was delivered to our office last year, which shocked the elderly women.” The council believes the package was sent as a threat by Japanese right-wing activists, but they did not ask the police to investigate at the time because it contained only photographs.
• Japan hinting at using nuclear power for ‘security’ instead of energy
  Posted on : Jun.22,2012 12:49 KST Modified on : Jun.22,2012 23:37 KST Japan’s self-defense forces stand at attention at a ceremony held at Asaka base in North Tokyo in 2010. (AP) Early, vague signs come up that Japan may be clearing a path toward weapons development By Jung Nam-ku, Tokyo correspondent, and Gil Yun-hyung, staff reporter Japan may be moving towards acquiring nuclear weapons, a move that is expected to draw objections from within the country and from its neighbors in Asia. The issue came up after the National Diet of Japan amended the Atomic Energy Basic Act to add “contributing to security guarantees” as one of the goals for nuclear power. According to June 21 news reports, the Diet’s House of Councilors voted the amendment through on the previous day. The amended act includes a twelfth supplementary article. A second item was added to Article 12, which prescribes the goals for the research and use of nuclear power. The new item states that nuclear power “is intended to protect citizen lives and property, preservation of the environment, and guaranteeing the nation’s security.” The original article stated only that research and use of nuclear power would take place “under democratic management for only peaceful goals, with emphasis on ensuring security.” [Japanese remilitarisation] [Nuclearisation]
• Japanese stake heart of Korea
  A 90 centimeter-long stake claiming Dokdo is Japanese territory is tied to a monument, representing the Korean women forced into Japanese military brothels during World War II, in this photo captured from the blog of Nobuyuki Suzuki, 47. Suzuki and another man were involved in the incident which took place in front of the Japanese Embassy on Tuesday in Jongno, Seoul. By Kim Susan Se-jeong “‘Takeshima’ is Japanese territory,” stated the white, 90-centimeter- long stake painted with the red orb of the Japanese flag, in Korean and Japanese text, referring to the South Korean territory Dokdo. The stake was tied to a bronze statue of a young girl, sitting in a chair wearing traditional Korean hanbok with her fists tightened and her eyes wide open, a monument built in memory of the women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military in World War II during their colonial occupation here. Two Japanese extremists, including Nobuyuki Suzuki, 47, had placed the stake, claiming the Dokdo islets are Japanese territory, onto the statue in front of the Japanese Embassy in Jongno, Seoul on Tuesday. [Territorial disputes]
• Japan’s nuclear ambition
  Tokyo has only to strike out controversial phrase The world has long regarded Japan as a virtual nuclear power. On Wednesday, Tokyo took its first step toward becoming a ``real” one. The upper house of Japan’s Diet passed an amendment to the country’s Atomic Energy Basic Law to allow the use of nuclear power for ``national security,” according to the Tokyo Shimbun. The addition of these controversial words was made so furtively that not only the Japanese public but even many Lower House lawmakers didn’t know about it, other reports say. Despite denials from the Japanese government, there should be little doubt about Tokyo’s intention ? nuclear armament. The stealthy way the Japanese parliament handled the matter proves it. [Japanese remilitarisation] [Nuclearisation]
• Koreans Irked by Apple's Use of Japanese Name for Dokdo
  The map service on the beta version of Apple's new mobile operating system iOS6 has incensed Korean patriots by labeling the Dokdo islets with their Japanese name Takeshima. Tokyo maintains a dubious claim to the islands.
• Pro-NK residents in Japan strengthen personality cult of Kim Jong-un
  TOKYO (Yonhap) -- Pro-North Korea residents in Japan are stepping up their propaganda campaign to strengthen the personality cult surrounding North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, activists said Monday. The pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, also known as "Chongryon," has held three-day courses in Osaka since May 28 to indoctrinate the organization's key officials in the leadership qualities of Kim Jong-un, according to the Osaka-based civic group, Rescue The North Korean People! Urgent Action Network. Members of Chongryon sympathize with the North Korean regime and are often descendants of Korean laborers who were forcibly brought to Japan during Tokyo's 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
• Japan’s Economy in 2012: Multiple Challenges
  Vaclav Smil “Adding insult to injury” sounds like a lawyerly phrase compared to its painfully evocative Japanese equivalent ???? nakitsura ni hachi -- literally “a bee to a crying face”. But even that stinging proverb fails to convey what Japan has been through during the recent past. In March 2011 its economy, slowly recovering from the worst global post-World War II downturn, was hit by a powerful earthquake followed by a massive tsunami. That twin disaster disrupted many supply chains of Japan’s important manufacturing sector and caused a catastrophic failure of the Fukushima nuclear power plant; the ensuing fears led to the eventual shut-down of all of the country’s nuclear generating stations, limited electricity supply, increased imports of fossil energies and the first annual foreign trade deficit in a generation. But even without these setbacks the country’s record during the past two decades would stand in sharp contrast to its 35 year-long rise from post-WW II destruction (pre-war GDP was equalled only in 1954) to the world’s second largest economy whose accomplishments by the 1980s were widely seen as a foundation for further advances toward possible global leadership in the 21st century. Japan’s economic face has not been smiling for more than two decades, since the early months of 1990 when the bursting of the real estate bubble and the falling stock market exposed the fragility of those seemingly solid pre-1990 achievements and ushered in decades of stagnation and uncertainty.
• President Ma backs justice for comfort women
  Publication Date:06/01/2012 Source: Taiwan Today By Grace Kuo ROC President Ma Ying-jeou said May 31 that the central government would do its utmost to ensure the painful history of military sex slaves is not forgotten or distorted. “We cannot let this history be forgotten, for that would be extremely unjust to the grievances these women experienced,” Ma said. The president made the remarks while receiving former comfort women and representatives of the Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation at the Presidential Office in Taipei City. Ma said the government would also make sure that inaccurate and misleading accounts of the history of comfort women are excluded from the nation’s textbooks. [Japanese colonialism]
• Seoul Can't Just Welcome Japanese Warships to the West Sea
  A senior Cheong Wa Dae official on Sunday said Seoul will raise no objection to Japan's dispatch of Aegis destroyers near the West Sea since the government believes "guaranteeing navigational freedom on the high seas coincides with Seoul's security interests." Tokyo claims it is sending the destroyers to detect North Korean missile launches. When North Korea launched what it said was a space rocket in April, Japan dispatched Aegis destroyers to the East Sea and East China Sea, but they were unable to detect the launch. Tokyo nonetheless continues to mull deploying the Aegis destroyers in waters near the expected launch site -- whether they are the East Sea or West Sea -- claiming the North is planning another missile test. [Dilemma]
• Nikon comfort women photographer told to ‘stop lying’ and ‘go back to Korea,’
  Posted on : Jun.6,2012 13:48 KST Modified on : Jun.6,2012 14:17 KST Japanese conservatives mobilize to disrupt photo exhibition and photographer’s personal life By Jung Nam-kyu, Tokyo correspondent A Korean-Japanese photographer whose planned exhibition on comfort women in China was abruptly canceled by Nikon Salon is now receiving direct and indirect threats from Japanese right-wingers. Ahn Se-hong, 40, had planned to stage an exhibition on comfort women left behind in China. The event was abruptly cancelled by camera maker Nikon, who had been sponsoring the event. Nikon purported to sponsor events such as the comfort women exhibition to encourage creative photography, but buckled under pressure from conservative groups to call off the event. Discussion of Japan’s wartime atrocities is still taboo in that country; the comfort women issue remains unresolved as Japan still refuses to apologize to South Korean women forced into sexual slavery during World War II. [Japanese colonialism]
• Conventional Deterrence and Japan’s Security
  Nautilus Peace and Security (NAPSNet) by Shinichi Ogawa May 22, 2012 This report was originally presented at the East Asia Nuclear Security workshop held on November 11, 2011 in Tokyo, Japan. All of the papers and presentations given at the workshop are available here, along with the full agenda, participant list and a workshop photo gallery. Shinichi Ogawa explores the probability of Japan heightening its conventional deterrence capabilities and the possible ways in which it may do so. His report first evaluates how Japan might augment its defensive capabilities (and invest in offensive weapons) were it’s military relationship and security guarantees with the United States to dissolve. He then assesses possible changes to Japan’s conventional military capabilities were the United States to maintain its ‘nuclear umbrella’ over Japan–and whether or not this arrangement could be compatible with a Northeast Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Nikon cancels comfort women photo exhibit without explanation
  Camera maker claims to support photographic arts, but bows to reactionary pressure By Jeong Nam-ku, Tokyo correspondent In an interview with the Hankyoreh on Thursday, 41-year-old photographer Ahn Se-hong, said “I still can’t accept it at all. I will carry on preparing for the exhibition as normal.” Ahn was informed by Nikon Salon on May 22 that his photo exhibition had been cancelled. Ahn photographs of South Korean comfort women were scheduled to be shown from June 26 to July 29 in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Ahn had been aware that rightwing groups in Japan would oppose the exhibition. But he never believed, he says, that Nikon Salon would suddenly cancel the entire event. It was in December last year that Ahn entered his photographs in a Nikon Salon competition. On January 24, Nikon Salon accepted his work for exhibition. For the next four months, there were no problems. Ahn started publicizing his exhibition, with activities including a lecture in Nagoya on May 19. That day, a large article on the lecture and exhibition was published in the local edition of the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. Nikon Salon’s Osaka exhibition space also suggested displaying Ahn’s works from September 13 to 20. [Japanese colonialism] [Public opinion]
• Seoul-Tokyo ties put to test over forced labor claims
  By Chung Min-uck The Japanese are reacting negatively to the Supreme Court’s ruling, which allows Korean victims of forced labor during Japan’s colonial rule (1910-45) to claim compensation. This reaction by the former colonial power is straining Seoul-Tokyo ties. The strain comes at a time when negotiations for a free trade agreement (FTA) which was stalled in 2004 are to resume. A number of Korean civic groups, which support wartime laborers and their bereaved family members, announced plans to file lawsuits against Japanese firms for compensation following the landmark decision.
• Japan Protests Over Korean Builders on Kuril Islands
  Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiru Gemba on Wednesday complained that Korean businesses are taking part in development of Kuril Islands, which are subject to a long-standing territorial dispute between Japan and Russia. Gemba was quoted by Japanese media on Thursday as saying, "Korea's involvement in the development of the Kuril Islands is unacceptable and extremely regrettable as it seems to be based on acknowledging Russian sovereignty over the territory." Gemba has already complained to Russia and delivered the same message to the Korean government. [Territorial disputes]
• West Sea Becomes New Arena for Big-Power Rivalry
  The West Sea is turning into a new arena of competition between the U.S., China and Japan. China plans to launch its first aircraft carrier in August, while Japan is mulling the deployment of Aegis destroyers near the West Sea. The U.S. is willing to dispatch its own aircraft carriers to the West Sea at any time if necessary. The West Sea drew international attention following the sinking of the South Korean Navy corvette Cheonan in 2010. Eight months later North Korea shelled South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island in the same waters. China fiercely protested when the U.S. dispatched the aircraft carrier George Washington to the West Sea to discourage further provocations from North Korea. Japan's Defense Ministry is mulling the deployment of Aegis destroyers to waters near the West Sea under the pretext of detecting North Korean missile launches. Experts suspect this is really a creeping expansion of the Japanese military's range. "This appears to be a highly political move aimed at keeping China in check," said a high-ranking government official here. [Japanese remilitarisation] [China confrontation]
• Japan to send destroyers to China’s doorstep
  Posted on : May.31,2012 13:20 KST Modified on : May.31,2012 18:07 KST Tokyo claims beefed up presence is due to North Korea’s rocket launch By Jung Nam-ku, Park Byung-soo and Ha Eo-young, staff reporters Japan is considering dispatching Aegis destroyers from its Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) to international waters west of the Korean Peninsula in the event of another rocket launch by North Korea. Though the MSDF claims the vessels would be sent to gather intelligence, some are concerned that sending destroyers equipped with a cutting edge maritime battle system onto China’s doorstep and near the two Koreas could cause backlash and further raise tensions in the West Sea area. [Japanese remilitarisation]

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MAY 2012

• Supreme Court Rules Japanese Firms Must Pay for Forced Labor
  The Supreme Court has ruled that Japanese companies must compensate Korean victims of forced labor. The ruling on Thursday has paved the way for victims to receive the money they are owed for their work 67 years after Korea gained independence from Japanese colonial rule. [Japanese colonialism]
• Ruling for conscripted laborers comes after years of bumbling
  Government mishandling allowed compensation claims to linger for so many years By Kim Kyu-won, staff reporter The Supreme Court ruled on May 24 that the 1965 Korea-Japan Claim Agreement did not nullify individual claims to damages for illegal actions by Japan during its colonial rule of Korea. The ruling comes after years of ineffective handling by the South Korean government. [Japanese colonialism]
• Supreme Court ruling reverberates in Japan
  Many wait for South Korean government response as Japan expresses hurt feelings By Jung Nam-ku, Tokyo correspondent Japan showed no change in its official position after a May 24 South Korean Supreme Court ruling that Japanese companies ought to pay damages to Korean workers conscripted as laborers in the Japanese empire. Japanese foreign minister Koichiro Gemba reiterated Tokyo’s position that the issue of personal claims had already been resolved. While his remarks only took the form of a rebuttal, analysts attributed them to the fact that there has only been a Supreme Court decision ordering compensation so far, with no amount or enforcement measures decided upon.
• World War Zero? Re-assessing the Global Impact of the Russo-Japanese War 1904-05
  Gerhard Krebs On the occasion of its centennial, the Russo-Japanese War drew great attention among historians who organized many symposia and published numerous studies. What have been the recent perspectives, debates and insights on the historical impact of the Russo-Japanese War on the imperial world order, evolution of international society, and global intellectual history? Gerhard Krebs provides a comprehensive historiographical essay introducing the major works published in the last ten years on the world-historical impact of the Russo-Japanese War, including works in Japanese, Russian, English and German.
• Lee Myung Bak Group's attempt to Conclude Military Agreements with Japan under Fire
  Pyongyang, May 18 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the National Peace Committee of Korea made public a statement on Friday slamming the south Korean puppet group for frantically pushing forward its moves to conclude a pact on the protection of defense secrets and an Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement with the Japanese reactionaries these days. The statement says: The above-said moves are grave military provocations to the DPRK and hideous criminal acts of blatantly challenging the world trend towards peace as they are dangerous military moves to tighten the military collusion with Japan in its efforts to realize the old dream of "Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere" and zealously follow the U.S. Asia-Pacific strategy.
• KCNA Dismisses Japan's Much Ado about "Abduction of American"
  Pyongyang, May 17 (KCNA) -- Japan kicked up a row about abduction in the U.S. this time. Some time ago, a Japanese organization related to the "abduction" issue and a group of right-wing politicians flew into the U.S. to kick off another noisy anti-DPRK smear campaign. Yamatani, Dietman from the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, held a press conference in Washington at which he claimed that an American who was reported missing in 2004 while studying in China might be abducted by the DPRK and 13 countries including the U.S. fell victim to "the abduction operations" of the DPRK. We cannot but be stunned by the far-fetched assertion of this lawmaker that the DPRK "might abduct" the American who was reported missing while touring Yunnan Province of China after finishing his study of Chinese at Beijing University. He is a common student whose whereabouts is unknown to the DPRK. But, Japan is so well-informed of him. This makes people feel that the student might be abducted by Japan. [Abductee]
• Seoul treading carefully on military agreement with Japan
  There are benefits to cooperation, but reluctance to give Japan capacity to intervene on the peninsula By Park Byung-soo and Ha Eo-young, staff writers The government recently decided to temporarily hold off on a logistical support agreement with Japan. Seoul’s reluctance is being interpreted as an attempt to slow things down after objections back home over military cooperation with Tokyo. Seoul still plans to go ahead with an agreement on military intelligence protections. A Ministry of National Defense senior official said on May 15 that there had previously been plans to push for the signing of a mutual logistical support agreement and military intelligence protection agreement with Japan at a defense ministers’ meeting initially scheduled for the end of May. But a decision was reached to wait and proceed more cautiously with the mutual logistical support agreement in view of sensitive public opinion, the official added.
• Extended Deterrence in the Japan-U.S. Alliance
  by Ken Jimbo May 8th 2012 This report was originally presented at the East Asia Nuclear Security workshop held on November 11, 2011 in Tokyo, Japan. All of the papers and presentations given at the workshop are available here, along with the full agenda, participant list and a workshop photo gallery. In the following report Ken Jimbo assesses the impacts of U.S. extended nuclear deterrence in Asia--especially on the Korean peninsula and in China--and how it relates to Japan's "dynamic defense" policy adopted in the 2010 National Defense Program Guidelines. He states that "[s]ince the strategic landscape in Northeast Asia is increasingly complex in character, it is difficult to apply the concept of deterrence in a “one-size-fits-all” manner. For extended deterrence to succeed, the Japan-U.S. alliance needs continuous updates on the assessment of the distribution of powers and threats, then to apply tailored deterrence to the regional dynamic." [US Japan alliance] [Nuclear umbrella]
• S.Korea, Japan to Sign Military Agreement
  Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin is to visit Japan at the end of this month for talks with his Japanese counterpart Naoki Tanaka about accords to share military intelligence and facilitate cooperation in exchanging military goods and service. Military officials from the two countries "are finalizing preparations for the signing of the two agreements," a government source here said. It will be the first military agreement between the two sides since the end of Japan's occupation of Korea in 1945. [SK Japan] [Buildup] [Pretext]

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APRIL 2012

• U.S. comes to agreement with Japan to move 9,000 Marines off Okinawa
  By Greg Jaffe and Emily Heil, Published: April 27 | Updated: Saturday, April 28, 2:27 AM The U.S. and Japanese governments said Thursday that they will move about 9,000 Marines off Okinawa to other bases in the Western Pacific, in a bid to remove a persistent irritant in the relationship between the two allies. The Marine Corps Air Station Futenma on Okinawa has been seen by both sides as essential to deterring Chinese military aggression in the region. But the noisy air base’s location in a crowded urban area has long angered Okinawa residents, and some viewed the Marines as rowdy and potentially violent. “I am very pleased that, after many years, we have reached this important agreement and plan of action,” Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said in a statement. Still unresolved is the issue of establishing a replacement for Futenma. The failure to find a suitable spot for a new air base had held up a previous effort to relocate the Marines to Guam, but the current agreement removes that barrier. U.S. Marines would leave Futenma as soon as suitable facilities on Guam and elsewhere are ready. [Bases] {china confrontation]
• Japan slowly extends its tendrils of military reach
  Global Times | April 27, 2012 00:40 By Yu Jincui The Sankei Shimbun reported Tuesday that Japan and the US have reached an agreement on their joint use of US military bases in the Pacific region. According to the report, the Japanese Self-Defense Forces are planning to station forces alongside US troops in the Philippines. A base on Palawan is most likely to be the first choice for their stay. Since the 90s, confronted with changes to the security situation in East Asia, the US and Japan have intensified their military cooperation and gradually extended it outside Japan. However, considering the sensitivity of the US-Japanese agreement relative to the South China Sea disputes, China should be wary of Japan's expansion. Japan's interest in the South China Sea disputes is obvious. Its Self-Defense Forces jointly conducted a military drill with the US and Australia in the South China Sea near Brunei last July. They also joined the US-Philippines military drill this month. Expanding the influence of their military forces overseas is a means for Japan to prove its international clout. The move is important to shore up domestic confidence as Japan's growth has remained stagnant for a lon [Japanese remilitarisation] [Territorial disputes] [US Japan alliance]
• China, and Japan’s foreign policy posture
  April 8th, 2012 Author: Yoshihide Soeya, Keio University Many thought after the end of the Cold War that the time of traditional balance-of-power games was over. Japan, too, attempted to re-establish its international presence by responding to the new trend of multilateral cooperation, and sought to help build a new international order in Asia and the world. To this end, Tokyo expended great effort trying to settle historical disputes with its neighbours, such as through prime ministerial statements, summit meetings and joint communiqués, participation in the ASEAN process, parliamentary resolutions and the establishment of the Asian Women’s Fund. But the memory of these serious attempts to deal with the history question eventually faded away after Japan’s immediate neighbours rejected them as ‘cosmetic’. Instead, a sense of trauma — more than a sense of fatigue — remains among those who worked on these efforts so conscientiously in the 1990s. This has now led to the emergence of a social and political atmosphere in Japan where conservative and inward-looking views regarding Japan’s history and its diplomatic agenda have gradually gained ground in domestic debates and politics.
• Ire over Kurils causes Tokyo's Dokdo hysteria
  Hirataka Matsuo, center, counsellor at the Japanese embassy in Korea, waits for the elevator at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Seoul, Friday. The foreign ministry summoned the counsellor to express “deepest regret over Japan’s wrongful claim to jurisdiction over Dokdo” in its Diplomatic Blue Book 2012 issued the same day. / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul By Kang Hyun-kang Japan’s weakened position in territorial disputes with China and Russia over the past 10 years have made Tokyo more aggressive in pursuing its claim over South Korea’s easternmost islets, Dokdo, an expert said Friday. During a seminar hosted by the state-run think tank, the Northeast Asian History Foundation, Nam Sang-gu, a senior researcher, said that Japan has been frustrated by the two big neighbors in their conflicting maritime sovereignty claims, causing it to find an outlet with Dokdo. [Territorial disputes]
• Japan Readies Missiles for N.Korean Rocket Launch
  A lorry loaded with PAC-3 missiles disembarks from Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force's transport ship, Kunisaki, at Ishigaki port, southern Japan on Thursday. /Reuters-Newsis Japan on Thursday deployed PAC-3 missiles in Okinawa. Tokyo has decided to intercept what North Korea says is a space rocket if it strays off course and threatens Japan. [Satellite] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Mr. Hashimoto Attacks Japan's Constitution
  Lawrence Repeta The Hashimoto Survey On February 6, 2012 Osaka Mayor Hashimoto Toru issued an order to all Osaka City employees compelling them to disclose personal information concerning labor union activity, their support for political candidates, and other sensitive matters. The survey includes such questions as “In the last two years, have you participated in any activities in support of a particular politician?” and “In the last two years, has a co-worker ever requested that you vote for a particular politician?” It goes on to request the identities of such co-workers or others who invited the respondent to participate in political activities. Each respondent must provide name, employee number and work description. (An English translation of the Hashimoto Survey is found at the end of the article.) Although most questions in the Survey require respondents to identify themselves, the Survey also provides directions to a designated “reporting window” that creates the opportunity to snitch on one’s enemies anonymously. Mr. Hashimoto’s cover note includes a stiff reminder that he’s the boss: “this questionnaire is not a voluntary matter. It requires factually correct responses from all employees by order of the Mayor. In cases where responses are not true, penalties may be applied.” The audacity of this inquiry into workers’ political and union activities and relationships is breathtaking. [Human rights]
• N. Korea Confident of China Rocket Support: Analyst
  Mar. 29, 2012 - 04:21PM | By KYOKO HASEGAWA, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE | TOKYO — North Korea is confident of China’s ultimate backing over the launch of a rocket that the West suspects is a disguised missile test, a Japanese defense adviser has warned. Hiroyasu Akutsu, professor at the National Institute for Defence Studies (NIDS), said the secretive state would not back down over the launch, despite the urging of countries across the globe and the threat of the withdrawal of much-needed food aid. “They are confident that China will ultimately support them if they launch the satellite” despite international pressure, he told reporters ahead of the publication of the “East Asian Strategic Review” published by NIDS. Washington has asked Beijing to rein in its errant ally, but the response so far has been muted. China has expressed concern over the planned launch and urged “restraint” on all sides following pronouncements from some countries — including Japan — that any rocket could be shot down. Pyongyang insists it has the right to launch what it maintains is a satellite for peaceful purposes, but the U.S. and its allies say any launch would contravene U.N. sanctions aimed at curbing North Korea’s missile program. The study, to be published March 30, is an annual venture commissioned by Japan’s Defence Ministry, which influences national defense policy. It warns improvements in nuclear technology, coupled with the change in leadership that has seen the untested Kim Jong Un take control in Pyongyang, have increased the danger for the region. Experts have said the communist state may have succeeded in miniaturizing its nuclear weapons, raising alarm bells among defense analysts. “If this leads to North Korea gaining the ability to mount its nuclear warheads on ballistic missiles, it would pose a major threat to countries in the region, including Japan,” the study said. [Satellite] [Threat] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Nuclear-Armed Japan is Not Out of the Question
  Mainichi Shimbun, Japan “It cannot be said that Japan has no military intentions. At any time, programs involving the peaceful use of nuclear energy can be converted to military uses. In 1969, a senior Foreign Ministry research team produced a secret internal document advising that Japan's always maintain the economic and technological prowess to produce nuclear weapons. … Japan already possesses 45 tons of enriched plutonium that could be converted to military use. That is enough to build about 4,000 ‘Nagasaki-type’ bombs.” By Takao Yamada Translated By Ryuichi Sato March 25, 2012 Japan - Mainichi Shimbun, Japan - Original Article (Japanese) Mother and son survivers of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima: Given the rising tension surrounding North Korea's nuclear weapons program, might Japan decide to build its own? AUSTRALIAN NEWS NETWORK: At Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, President Obama delivers nuclear warning to North Korea, Oct. 10, 00:02:08 There are two types of atomic weapons. One is a uranium-based or a "Hiroshima-type" bomb, and the other is plutonium-based or a "Nagasaki-type" device. Iran claims to be stockpiling enriched uranium for peaceful purposes but is suspected of having nuclear ambitions. Japan also maintains a reserve of plutonium, but is not so suspected. However, it cannot be said that Japan has no military intentions. The fact is that at any time, programs involving the peaceful use of nuclear energy can be converted to military uses. Nuclear power and the military are not mutually exclusive. [Threat] [Nuclearisation] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan Gets Ready to Intercept N.Korean Missile
  Japanese naval transport ship Osumi leaves its base in Hiroshima Prefecture on Sunday. /Reuters-Newsis Japan's largest naval transport vessel Osumi armed with the latest PAC-3 Patriot missiles has left port in Hiroshima and was heading toward its area of deployment, Japanese media reported on Sunday. Tokyo has decided to station PAC-3 missiles in Okinawa to intercept what North Korea says is a space rocket, to be launched in mid-April, in case it strays off course and threatens Japan. Japan has also deployed three Aegis-class destroyers armed with SM-3 missiles on the East China and East seas in order to intercept the North Korean missile. Japan Gets Ready to Intercept N.Korean Missile Japanese naval transport ship Osumi leaves its base in Hiroshima Prefecture on Sunday. /Reuters-Newsis Japan's largest naval transport vessel Osumi armed with the latest PAC-3 Patriot missiles has left port in Hiroshima and was heading toward its area of deployment, Japanese media reported on Sunday. Tokyo has decided to station PAC-3 missiles in Okinawa to intercept what North Korea says is a space rocket, to be launched in mid-April, in case it strays off course and threatens Japan. Japan has also deployed three Aegis-class destroyers armed with SM-3 missiles on the East China and East seas in order to intercept the North Korean missile. [Satellite] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Why Does Japan Want to Teach Lies to Future Generations?
  The Japanese Education Ministry approved 39 high school textbooks on Tuesday to be used in the next academic year, and 21 of them claim that Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo as belonging to Japan. That is three more than before. The newly-approved textbooks are based on ministry guidelines adopted in 2009 that stressed the need to "deepen understanding" of Japan's stance on territorial disputes over the Dioyutai or Senkaku Islands with China and Kuril Islands with Russia as well as Dokdo. [Territorial disputes]

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MARCH 2012

• Behind Japan's Big Arms Buy: How Washington Is Militarizing Its Asian Ally
  Humza Ahmad March 22, 2012 Article Summary and Author Biography With the recent deal to sell F-35 fighter jets to Japan, the United States has bulked up its main regional ally against China while still cutting its own defense budget by a planned $487 billion. HUMZA AHMAD is the speechwriter at the Consulate General of Japan in New York and a Nonresident Fellow at Asia Policy Point. The views expressed here are his own and do not represent the views of the Japanese Government. Last December, Tokyo announced that it would purchase Lockheed-Martin's F-35 Lightning II as its next-generation jet fighter. In doing so, it disappointed BAE Systems, the European maker of the Eurofighter Typhoon, which had hoped to win the $4.7 billion contract itself. For a while, it seemed as though it might. The Lockheed deal had its downsides: Initially, Japanese firms would have played no role in producing the new jets; likewise, they would not have had access to the secret technologies used in the F-35's design. It was not until Lockheed agreed to allow domestic contractors to participate in building the new jets and share some top-secret technologies that Japan decided to make the deal. In retrospect, that move should never have been in much doubt. The contract closely follows Japanese defense policy precedent: acquiring the most advanced American military hardware available under licensing agreements, producing that hardware in Japan to boost the economy, and keeping the U.S.-Japan alliance tight, positing Japan as a buffer between the United States and the region's major powers. [Japanese remilitarisation] [China confrontation] [Arms sales]
• Japan Dismisses Korean Protests Over Textbooks
  The Japanese government says it will not change newly adopted textbooks that claim Korea's Dokdo islets are Japanese territory, despite protests from the Korean government. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said Tokyo will deal with the matter "consistently." The Kyodo news agency reported Wednesday that more Japanese textbooks claim Dokodo is Japanese territory. All seven geography textbooks that are to be used in high schools staring next spring contain the claim. [Territorial disputes]
• Japanese PM Stirs Up Trouble with 'Comfort Women' Remark
  Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda stirred up a long-simmering dispute between his country and Korea with comments Tuesday about a Korean statue in honor of the so-called comfort women forced into sexual slavery during World War II. The Sankei Shimbun on Tuesday reported that Noda at a session of the Diet told lawmakers that wording on the statue saying "comfort woman forced into sexual slavery" is "far from accurate." His comment came in response to a question by lawmaker Eriko Yamatani from the conservative Liberal Democratic Party. [Japanese colonialism]
• Japan's New Diplomatic Paper to Repeat Dokdo Claim
  The Japanese government is likely to repeat its territorial claim to Korea's Dokdo islets for a second year in its new Diplomatic Blue Book, which is due out on April 6, HNK reported Monday. The Diplomatic Blue Book is the annual report of Japan's foreign policy and activities. [Territorial disputes]
• Japan's Far Right Set Up Dokdo Stele at Korean Embassy
  A wooden stele stands in front of the consular section of the Korean Embassy in Tokyo stating Japan's claim to Korea's Dokdo Islets. Members of rightwing organizations in Japan on Sunday set up a wooden stele in front of the consular section of the Korean Embassy in Tokyo stating Japan's claim to Korea's Dokdo Islets. The stele, which is about 90 cm high, carried the message in black letters on white-painted wood. [Territorial disputes]
• Japanese Leader Warns on China's Military Buildup
  By HIROYUKI KACHI TOKYO—Japan's prime minister issued a new warning about Beijing's military build-up Sunday, two days after his government made a fresh protest over a Chinese ship's entering waters near a chain of islands claimed by both countries. In an address to graduating cadets of the Self Defense Forces, Prime Minister Yoshiko Noda cited China and North Korea as the main military challenges Japan faces in Asia. ."Circumstances in our surrounding regions are increasingly severe, complicated, and remain uncertain, as depicted in moves by North Korea including nuclear and missile issues, and China, which is reinforcing its military capabilities and continuing activities in surrounding waters," Mr. Noda said in his speech at the National Defense Academy in the Tokyo suburb of Yokosuka. [China confrontation] [Threat] [Japanese remilitarisation]

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FEBRUARY 2012

• Vets win payouts over Agent Orange use on Okinawa
  U.S. soldier unloaded barrels at Naha Port, ex-marine handled tainted Vietnam gear By JON MITCHELL The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has awarded two more former service members compensation for exposure to Agent Orange while serving on Okinawa during the 1960s and '70s. [cbw]
• Mage – Japan’s Island Beyond the Reach of the Law
  Gavan McCormack While a great deal of attention focuses on the chain of islands dividing the East China Sea from the Pacific Ocean between Japan’s Kyushu and Taiwan, it tends to focus heavily on those that are part of Okinawa prefecture and to neglect those in the northern part of he chain that are close to Kyushu and administratively part of Kagoshima rather than Okinawa prefecture. Mage is one such. Mage (literally: Horsehair) island sits well north of the line that separates Kagoshima from Okinawa prefecture. It is not Okinawa but is worthy of attention because it shows the same general trends as does Okinawa – of “remote island” blues (especially depopulation), dependence on whims of the central government, and the insidious workings of a military base mentality (even though not one soldier has yet set foot on it).

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JANUARY 2012

• Makgeolli Exports to Japan Exceed Sake Imports
  Makgeolli exports to Japan were three times higher by sales than sake imports from the neighboring country last year, according to data released by the Korea Customs Service on Thursday. While total exports of the milky white Korean rice wine more than doubled last year from 2010, some 92 percent of these were sent to Japan as demand there continues to surge.
• Henoko and the U.S Military: A History of Dependence and Resistance
  By Steve Rabson Attention in Japan and elsewhere has focused recently on the seaside village of Henoko (Ryukyuan: Hinuku) in northern Okinawa where a powerful protest movement has stymied the Japanese and U.S. governments from building an offshore air base.1 Attempting to ameliorate outrage in Okinawa after three U.S. servicemen raped a twelve-year-old schoolgirl in 1995, the governments in Tokyo and Washington announced an agreement in 1996 to close Futenma Marine Corps Air Station, located in the middle of Ginowan City. However, the agreement stipulated that a “replacement facility” be built in Okinawa “within five to seven years.” 2 Yet, after more than fifteen years and numerous bi-lateral declarations reiterating the two governments’ determination to build the base, construction has yet to begin. In 2006 they announced a related agreement to transfer 8,600 of the 18,000 Marines in Okinawa and their 9,000 dependents to Guam, but this is conditioned on relocation of Futenma MCAS to Henoko and remains on hold.3 [Bases]
• Japan's Supreme Court Limits National Anthem Punishments for Teachers
  Jan. 22, 2012 Asia-Pacific Journal Feature The Asia-Pacific Journal has closely followed the case of a group of Tokyo teachers punished because they refused to stand during school ceremonies for the playing of Kimigayo, Japan's national anthem. Some consider the anthem, a hymn of praise to the emperor, to be too closely connected to Japan's history of militarism and imperialism. For them, not standing is a form of conscientious protest. From 2004, Tokyo Governor and staunch conservative Ishihara Shintaro has led a drive to have the anthem played at Tokyo schools and to take punitive action, including fines and suspensions, against teachers who refuse to stand. That crackdown has spread, moreover, to Osaka and other cities. In 2011, the Tokyo High Court rejected the claim of the teachers to protection based on based on constitutional language which declares "Freedom of thought and conscience shall not be violated." Last week, however, the teachers won a victory of sorts when the Supreme Court deemed that punishments for not standing during the national anthem must not be "excessive". Below are editorials on the issue from the Mainichi Shimbun and Yomiuri Shimbun outlining this new development and its potential consequences. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Makgeolli Rides Korean Wave into More Japanese Stores
  The traditional Korean rice wine makgeolli is establishing a strong presence at supermarkets and convenience stores in Japan. CJ Cheiljedang said its own brand of canned makgeolli will add further momentum to the market as it has gone on sale in 10 of 11 Japanese convenience store chains and major shopping outlets starting Wednesday. The company said it has made arrangements for its product to be available in 25,000 out of 43,000 convenience stores across Japan, accounting for 60 percent of the stores, and 70 percent of the supermarkets, in the country. "This is the highest penetration rate for a Korean beverage or food brand sold in Japan," said a CJ Cheiljedang employee. "Even Sapporo Breweries, which is handling sales of the product in Japan, expressed surprise at the demand." Last year, Lotte Liquor teamed up with Seoul Takju, Korea's No. 1 makgeolli maker, to produce Seoul Makgeolli and exported more than W20 billion (US$1=W,1,42) worth of the product to Japan. Korean Wave star Jang Keun-suk modeled for the product to drive sales, while Japanese liquor company Suntory joined hands with Lotte Liquor to sell the makgeolli. Jinro Makgeolli also saw its exports of the rice wine surpass 700,000 boxes in 2010, while it sold 1.2 million boxes last year, up more than 70 percent. Makgeolli exports to Japan in 2011 totaled $48.42 million, up 210.7 percent from 2010, and shipments this year are expected to reach W70 billion. [Hallyu] [Makgeolli]

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