Japan
2020
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MAY 2020
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Japan Upgrades S.Korea to 'Important Ally'
By Lee Ha-won, Roh Suk-jo
May 20, 2020 13:03
Japan refers to South Korea as an "important ally" for the first time in three years in its latest diplomatic policy paper. The new Diplomatic Blue Book for 2020 also omits mention a spat back in 2018 triggered by Japanese spy planes buzzing South Korean warships. But it continues to claim sovereignty over South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo.
The naval spat was cited in last year's Blue Book as a factor in worsening bilateral relations. Japan's Foreign Ministry did not say why the spat was not included in the latest edition, but the move could reflect some progress in icy relations between the neighbors, which are locked in an uneasy alliance with the U.S. against China and North Korea in the region.
Until 2017 South Korea was formulaically referred to as the "most important neighbor that shares strategic interests with Japan." But that reference was deleted in a huff in 2018 as relations froze over historical and other issues.
Bilateral relations soured over compensation claims for Koreans forced to labor for Japan during World War II, and the 2019 Blue Book described ties as facing "very difficult circumstances."
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also referred to South Korea as the "most important neighbor" for the first time in three years during a speech to the Diet in January, and the latest diplomatic paper appears to have followed suit.
A diplomatic source in Seoul said, "The Abe administration has found itself in a tight spot due to its mishandling of the coronavirus epidemic. It looks like it doesn't want diplomatic friction to make things more difficult for it."
But the Blue Book insists on all the other perpetual sticking points -- Dokdo, and the refusal to admit state responsibility for wartime forced labor and sex slavery. It claims South Korea "illegally occupies" Dokdo.
It also defends a decision last year to make it more difficult for South Korean businesses to import key materials used to manufacture microchips, claiming the move was "necessary" to "adequately manage" trade of dual-use products and technology.
The Foreign Ministry here summoned Hirohisa Soma, a senior Japanese Embassy official, on Tuesday for the ritual dressing-down. A ministry spokesperson said Seoul demanded that Tokyo "immediately retract" the "repeated and unjust claim" to Dokdo.
[Japan SK]
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Federal Appeals Court Allows US Military Base Construction in Okinawa Despite Environmental Concerns
By Rebecca Salamacha
Global Research, May 11, 2020
Jurist 8 May 2020
A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that the US military can construct a base in Okinawa, Japan, despite environmental activists’ concerns over the base’s construction threatening the local dugong population. The activists filed suit under the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA).
[Okinawa] [Bases] [Environment] [Extraterritoriality]
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Japan raises stakes with hypersonic missiles
Difficult to stop, it is a weapon that could cause havoc for the Chinese navy in the South China Sea
by Dave Makichuk May 1, 2020
Japan's plan to build hypersonic weapons is a direct challenge to the Chinese navy, experts say. Credit: Sino Defence.
It travels toward its target faster than five times the speed of sound, making course corrections nearly impossible to track, and carries a “Sea Buster” tandem charge warhead designed to attack surface warships and penetrate carrier decks.
According to Jane’s, it is composed of a main warhead, which carries armour-piercing high-explosive shells and a nose fuze, and a precursor warhead that uses shaped charges.
Difficult to stop and capable of breaking through enemy air defense systems, it is a weapon that could cause havoc for the Chinese navy in the South China Sea, and the Japanese military plan to put it in use by 2026 — a “game changer,” as it’s described by ATLA, the agency developing the missile.
According to David Axe of The National Interest, Japan’s defense ministry is developing what it calls an anti-ship “hypervelocity gliding projectile,” or HVGP, for deployment on island bases.
[Japanese remilitarisation] [China confrontation] [Hypersonic]
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APRIL 2020
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Abe Prioritized Olympics, Slowing Japan’s Pandemic Response
Jeff Kingston
April 1, 2020
Volume 18 | Issue 7 | Number 5
Article ID 5387
Abstract: Prime Minister Abe Shinzo has been widely criticized for ineptitude in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Keen to host the Olympics in 2020, he put public health at risk. Strong international criticism finally forced the IOC and Abe to accept the inevitable and defer the Olympics until 2021. Now both parties are now trying to claim credit for making this decision. The Japanese policy of limiting testing kept policymakers and citizens in the dark and handicapped responses to the outbreak. As the number of infections surges, the government is playing catch up. The combination of an accelerating COVID-19 outbreak in Japan and imminent global economic recession will hit Japan hard and could lead to Abe’s ouster. For now, there are growing concerns that he may exploit this crisis to advance his political agenda of constitutional revision.
[Abe Shinzo] [Olympics] [Coronavirus]
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MARCH 2020
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China and Japan: Facing History By Ezra F. Vogel
Richard McGregor
Belknap Press, 2019(Global Asia Book Review)
Posted on 6 March 2020
A strategic China would have seduced Japan as a way of undermining US power in Asia. Their failure to do so in all likelihood means that the US is in East Asia to stay, no matter what.
Go into any bookstore in the US, and you will find shelves groaning with volumes about America’s relations with China, Europe and the Arab world. Likewise, in the UK, the spiritual home of the Anglosphere, the libraries and bookstores are overflowing with works chronicling Great Britain’s ties with France and Germany, and, now, in the age of Brexit, modern Europe.
What you won’t find, bar one or two exceptions, are any books on the relationship between China and Japan. The lay follower of geopolitics shouldn’t need a tutorial on the importance of the ties between Asia’s two great powers. They are the world’s second and third largest economies, respectively, and sit at the heart of the economic and logistical miracle that has allowed postwar East Asia to flourish. Factory Asia dominates global trade. If the two countries fell into conflict, it is no exaggeration to say that business around the world would contract overnight.
[Japan China] [Ezra Vogel] [China confronation]
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FEBRUARY 2020
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US Marines Futenma Replacement Facility in Okinawa Delayed – For How Long?
Douglas Lummis
February 1, 2020
Volume 18 | Issue 3 | Number 1
Article ID 5339
Abstract
New evidence from the Japanese government indicates that long-delayed plans to build a new Marine base at Okinawa's Henoko will be further delayed with best prospects for completion of the project now pushed back to approximately 2032, or fifteen years. The cause of the delay, which may in fact preclude completion of the costly project permanently, is the discovery of soil in the bay of the consistency of mayonnaise, requiring implanting of 77,000 sand pillars at great depth prior to land filling. Together with the robust anti-base movement, the prospects for completion of the Henoko base continue to fade.
[Okinawa] [Bases] [China confrontation]
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Is Japan a Climate Leader? Synergistic Integration of the 2030 Agenda
Andrew DeWit
February 1, 2020
Volume 18 | Issue 3 | Number 2
Article ID 5340
Abstract
In recent years, Japan has been labeled an “environmentally backward country.” Yet Japan’s integration of decarbonization and all-hazard-resilience is more advanced than critics generally admit. The evidence shows that, when compared to its peer countries, Japan is achieving significant climate mitigation and adaptation via a multilevel industrial policy. Moreover, Japan’s synergistic integration of mitigation and adaptation to climate is important for the 2030 Agenda, which comprises the Paris Agreement, Sustainable Development Goals, and the Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction. That is not to say Japan’s present pace of reductions in emissions and waste, increased resilience against climate and other hazards, and performance on other metrics is sufficient to meet the goals of the 2030 Agenda. However, the evidence assessed in this paper suggests that Japan deserves closer scrutiny for potential lessons in collaborative, cost-effective and equitable mitigation and adaptation.
[Japan] [Climate change]
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JANUARY 2020
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Carlos Ghosn's escape from Japan raises more questions than answers
People in Japan are split on whether the former Renault-Nissan boss' flight proves his guilt or confirms that he could not get a fair trial. Ghosn says he is a victim of "injustice" at the hands of Japan's legal system.
Japan was abuzz with rumors, theories and counterclaims as the sun rose on the first day of the new year. The news was sinking in that Carlos Ghosn, the former chairman of Renault-Nissan, had managed to evade police surveillance and flee to Lebanon ahead of his eagerly awaited trial here on charges of financial misconduct.
In a statement released on New Year's Eve, a day after he arrived in Beirut via Turkey apparently on a French passport, Ghosn claimed that he was escaping "injustice and political persecution."
He added that he would no longer be "held hostage by a rigged Japanese justice system where guilt is presumed, discrimination is rampant and basic human rights are denied."
The Japanese government has made no official statement on the 65-year-old former auto executive jumping bail and leaving the country, although former Foreign Minister Masahiso Sato told local media that "if this is true, it was not 'departing the country,' it was an illegal departure and an escape and this is a crime in itself."
"Was there help extended by an unnamed country?" Sato asked. "It is also a serious problem that Japan's system allowed an illegal departure so easily."
Ghosn was arrested by Japanese authorities in November 2018 on charges of financial misconduct. Prosecutors believe that he funneled millions of dollars from his former company for his own personal use and deceived shareholders about the size of his salary.
Authorities tight-lipped
Japanese authorities remain tight-lipped about precisely how one of the most well-known foreigners in the country managed to escape. Ghosn was under close police surveillance since being released on more than €8 million ($8.9 million) bail in April.
The Japanese public has been engrossed in reports suggesting that Ghosn was smuggled out of his Tokyo apartment in a container for a large musical instrument after a private performance and surreptitiously put aboard a private jet at a small regional airport, avoiding immigration officers.
The opening hearings for Ghosn's trial were held in January 2019
The opening hearings for Ghosn's trial were held in January 2019
Ghosn's lawyers have gone to great pains to insist they knew nothing about his plans to flee and are still in possession of his three passports issued by France, Lebanon and Brazil.
The rumors suggest that Ghosn's Lebanese-born wife, Carole, was behind the meticulously planned operation and that she worked with contractors for months to carry out his extraction.
Another facet of Ghosn's escape that is attracting scrutiny are the suggestions that his departure — and the likelihood that he will never stand trial in Japan — may actually benefit prosecutors who were struggling to make a watertight case against him and that this move may have been sanctioned by the government in order to avoid embarrassment.
Robert Dujarric, a professor of international relations at the Tokyo campus of Temple University, told DW that two theories surrounding Ghosn's departure are being tossed around.
"The first is that the police guarding him were simply incompetent and let one of the most high-profile criminal suspects leave the country," he said. "The alternative is that the trial would look really bad for 'Japan Inc.' and the Japanese government."
It has been suggested, Dujarric pointed out, that Ghosn was encouraged to flee "just to get rid of him."
"Any trial would uncover the dark underbelly of the system in Japan and that is not something that business or the government wants aired in public," he said.
[Ghosn]
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