Tag: japan

China Sends Angry Memos While Japan Builds Real Defense

China keeps sending diplomatic tantrums toward Japan, and Tokyo keeps moving.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government placed four Japan Self-Defense Forces personnel at NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine headquarters in Germany. The Ministry of Defense described the dispatch as a way to learn from Ukraine’s battlefield experience and deepen Japan-NATO cooperation.

Beijing heard all of that and reached for the complaint drawer again. Lin Jian, spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, accused Japan of working with NATO to stir up confrontation, as reported by Gateway Hispanic, and interfering in China’s internal affairs. 

Spokespersons from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including Lin Jian , have condemned these developments as:

  • “Colluding with NATO to interfere in China’s internal affairs.”
  • “Stoking regional tensions.”
  • “Promoting confrontation.”

Beijing argues that NATO is a North Atlantic regional organization and therefore has no legitimate reason to expand its presence into the Indo-Pacific region.

Chinese officials also maintain that Japan should “learn lessons from history” rather than pursue what they describe as remilitarization.

Tensions have been further aggravated by broader diplomatic disputes, particularly those related to Taiwan .

Japan’s move grew from an offer made in April by Gen. Nakatini, then Japan’s defense minister, to Mark Rutte, NATO secretary general. The cooperation now includes cyber defense, new technologies, military teamwork, maritime security, and support for Ukraine. From Reuters:

Japan’s Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi on Sunday rejected accusations of “new militarism” by Tokyo and criticised China for rapidly expanding its military with ‌little transparency, underscoring mounting tensions between the two countries.

China continues to increase its defence spending at a high level, Koizumi said at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, adding: “China’s external approach and military activities are matters of serious concern for Japan and the international community at the same time.”

Rebutting criticism that Japan was embracing new militarism, he said: “Think about it. There’s a country that has a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons and strategic bombers. Japan ⁠has neither of such weapons, and yet Japan is labelled ‘new militarism’?”

Koizumi said Japan’s record since World War Two “speaks for itself”, citing its adherence to international law and commitment to the United Nations Charter, alongside efforts to uphold a “free and open international order.”

None of that creates a NATO war guarantee for Asia, but it does show Japan has stopped pretending the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific worlds live in separate rooms.

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Over 20 People Hospitalized After Man Sprays Mystery Substance in Luxury Tokyo Mall

Shopping became a dangerous activity.

The Japanese capital was hit with a mystery attack after an unidentified person sprayed an unknown substance in a luxury mall.

The incident led to over 20 people being taken to hospital.

Sky News reported:

“The Tokyo fire department said 26 people suddenly developed sore throats and felt unwell near the city’s luxury Ginza Six shopping complex. All but one of them were taken to hospital.

Their symptoms were believed to be mild, according to officials.”

Emergency workers wearing hazmat suits and face masks were seen helping people at the scene. Japanese authorities have not specified what substance was sprayed, but Japanese newspaper Yomiuri reported that police found traces of pepper spray.

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RADIOACTIVE HOGS: In the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Area, the Mutant Super Pig Population Is Surging Out of Control

Nuclear hogs reproduce faster than they can be culled.

In 2011, the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster was hit by a massive 9.0-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami, causing one of the worst radioactive disasters in history.

Around 164,000 people were forced to flee from their homes to escape the radiation zone.

The New York Post reported:

“Amid the chaos, domestic pigs escaped into abandoned farmland and began interbreeding with indigenous feral boars — creating a mutant pig population with alarming genes, Popular Science reported.

[…] Researchers from Fukushima and Hirosaki Universities discovered through DNA analysis that the hybrid progeny inherited the maternal domestic pig’s rapid reproductive cycle, allowing populations to quickly multiply, unlike that of the boar, according to findings from the Journal of Forest Research.”Hybrid pigs are also being developed in other parts of the world

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Japanese Are Feeling the Economy Collapse in Real-Time

Japan spent decades trying to convince the world that endless debt, money printing, and zero interest rates could continue indefinitely without consequences. Now ordinary Japanese citizens are beginning to feel the pressure directly as inflation rises, wages fail to keep pace, and living standards steadily deteriorate underneath the surface.

For the first time in generations, Japanese households are experiencing sustained cost-of-living stress while confidence in economic stability weakens sharply. Recent polling showed more than 80% of Japanese households now believe prices are rising faster than their incomes, while consumer confidence remains near recessionary levels despite years of government stimulus and intervention. Food inflation, utility costs, transportation expenses, and housing-related costs have all risen materially as the yen weakened dramatically against the dollar over recent years.

The psychological impact inside Japan is enormous because the country spent decades living through deflationary conditions where prices remained relatively stable. Japanese consumers became accustomed to stagnant prices and low borrowing costs. Once inflation finally arrived, the shock to household budgets was immediate.

Rice prices alone surged more than 20% year-over-year at one stage while basic food staples, imported goods, fuel, and electricity all moved sharply higher. Japan imports enormous quantities of energy and raw materials, which means yen weakness translates directly into higher consumer prices across much of the economy.

This is exactly what I warned would eventually happen once central banks lose control of sovereign debt cycles.

Japan now carries government debt exceeding 260% of GDP, the highest among major industrial economies. For years the Bank of Japan artificially suppressed interest rates and monetized government debt through massive bond purchases. The BOJ effectively became trapped because allowing rates to normalize aggressively would destabilize the government’s own financing structure.

Now Japan faces the consequences of that trap.

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Japan to Be Culturally Enriched With 300,000 Bangladeshi Migrants

Citing the “attractiveness” of Japan for Bangladeshi migrants, the Japanese authorities have announced a grand plan to culturally enrich the lamentably homogenous homeland with a third of a million Bangladeshis, with much more ambitious proposals in the pipeline.

Via Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (emphasis added):

“The government has intensified preparations to send huge numbers of skilled manpower to Japan under the Specified Skilled Worker (SSW) category, as Japan faces an ongoing shortage of qualified manpower.

The Japanese government has set a target to recruit [820,000] foreign workers across 16 sectors under the SSW category by March 2029.

Experts and officials believe that if Bangladesh prepares effectively, it can supply up to 40 percent of this demand that is more than 300,000 workers.

Previously, Bangladesh had the capacity to send workers in only six of these categories. Now, the government is working to develop skilled manpower for all 16 categories.

Professor Dr. Md. Jahangir Alam, Chairman of the Japanese Studies Department at Dhaka University described Japan as an attractive destination for Bangladeshi workers*.

He said with proper focus on skill development, Bangladesh can meet a substantial portion of Japan’s labour demand, boosting foreign currency earnings.”

*Obviously Japan is going to be “an attractive destination for Bangladeshi workers,” as it houses millions and millions of unraped exotic Orientals to pillage.

They’re going to have a field day.

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Nuclear Weapons Didn’t Save Lives in 1945. They Wouldn’t Today Either

False historical narratives abound in our contentious and divided world, as leaders and complicit historians endeavor to use public understanding of the past to push policies and gain control in the present. One of the most egregious cases is the widely accepted account of the decision by U.S. leaders to drop the atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9 of 1945, respectively.

The generally held view, which is frequently taught in schools across the U.S. and beyond, is that the bombings were necessary to save lives, both American and Japanese; just how many lives were saved has itself been subject to debate, though President Harry Truman claimed half a million U.S. lives in his 1955 memoirs. This assessment is not only disputed by the facts, but it ignores the realities of what the bombings meant for the initiation of the Cold War and the future of humanity, in a world long awash with civilization-ending weapons.

Most importantly, the bombings quite simply were unnecessary. There were at least three ways that Japanese surrender could have been induced without the instantaneous killing of more than a hundred thousand civilians and another several hundred thousand men, women, and children being subjected to third-degree burns, injuries, and radiation exposure that would either end their lives shortly thereafter, or cause health problems in the years and decades following the fateful attacks.

One option was that the U.S. could have altered the surrender terms to make them acceptable to the Japanese. What most Japanese leaders wanted in early August of 1945 was to keep their Emperor and the kokutai or emperor system. The Americans, who knew this from intercepted cables, should have accepted this term; they would eventually agree anyway out of self-interest. Sadly, most of Truman’s top military and political advisors urged this course of action, but Truman, with the support of Secretary of State Jimmy Byrnes, refused.

Another possibility was to allow the Soviet Union to proceed with its ground invasion upon declaring a war on Japan at midnight on August 8. The Joint Intelligence Staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff predicted on April 11, “If at any time the USSR should enter the war, all Japanese will realize that absolute defeat is inevitable.”  As Japan’s Supreme War Council stated in May, “At the present moment when Japan is waging a life-or-death struggle against the U.S. and Britain, Soviet entry into the war will deal a death blow to the Empire.” Japan would have surrendered once it saw that it would be fighting both the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Moreover, President Truman knew that the Soviets were about to invade, and wrote at least twice that that would end the war.

The last, albeit arguably the weakest, alternative was to demonstrate the enormous power of the atomic bomb by exploding it, as was done on July 16 in New Mexico, in the presence of foreign leaders, and as was recommended by a group of scientists in the Franck Report. Such a display could have exerted sufficient pressure on the Japanese government, especially in conjunction with the changed surrender terms and a warning about Soviet entry, to precipitate Japanese surrender. In fact, seven of America’s eight five-star admirals and generals in 1945 said the bombs were either militarily unnecessary, morally reprehensible, or both. Truman’s personal chief of staff Admiral William Leahy, who also chaired the meetings of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the use of the atomic bombs put us on the moral level of the ”barbarians of the dark ages.” General Douglas MacArthur wrote that the Japanese would have “gladly” surrendered months earlier if we’d told them they could keep the emperor.

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Japan Lifts Ban on Weapon Exports In Break With Post-WW2 Pacifism

Pacifist post-war Japan is no more.

Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s capitulation on August 15, 1945, and the instrument of surrender was signed on September 2, aboard the USS Missouri, ending WW2.

Since then, Japan turned its back on the martial aspect of its society and embraced pacifism.

But now, over eighty years later, Japan has scrapped most of its restrictions on weapons exports as it boosts both its own military and its arms industry.

Bloomberg reported:

“The cabinet of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Tuesday approved changes to defense export rules that will for the first time since World War II allow overseas shipments of weapons. Previously, companies could only export military equipment for use in operations related to rescue, transport, warning, surveillance and minesweeping.

’These decisions are intended to safeguard Japan’s security and further contribute to the peace and stability of the region and the international community amidst rapidly evolving changes in the security environment’, Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said in a press briefing after announcing the decision. ‘At the same time, the government will uphold the fundamental principles of a peaceful nation that have been built over more than 80 years since the end of the war’.”

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Nuclear Myths Continue To Fuel Neocon Fantasies

In a recent televised rant on the Fox News Channel, the neoconservative publicist Mark Levin made the eye-opening claim that the current US-Israeli War on Iran is “every bit as important as World War Two.” Still more, according to Levin, the specter of an Iranian nuclear weapon (for which there is approximately zero evidence), requires us, as good citizens to rally around the President and the military. Not surprisingly, Levin also noted that President Truman’s decision to use atomic weapons against Japan saved “a million men” by forestalling a US invasion of the Japanese Home Islands (the inference being: Trump should do likewise). Truman’s decision to incinerate Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic bombs remains a topic (among a number of others) with which we Americans largely deal in the counterfeit currency of myths.

Despite the conclusions of the US Bombing Survey, that “certainly prior to December 1, 1945, and in all probability prior to November 1, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated,” few myths are as entrenched in the psyche of America’a media and political elites as the claim that Truman’s decision (invariably valorized as “brave”) to incinerate a quarter of a million civilians – mainly women, children, and elderly – in Hiroshima and Nagasaki won the war in the Pacific.

The claim that Truman’s decision saved countless American lives has grown to proportions that would have surprised, if not shocked, Truman’s own military high command. President George H.W. Bush, himself a veteran of the Pacific campaign, claimed that the atomic bombs saved the lives of half-a-million US servicemen.

The record, however, rebuts the myth.

Truman’s military advisers disagreed with Truman. Five-star Navy Admiral William Leahy, who served as Roosevelt and Truman’s chief of staff, felt that the bombs were “of no material assistance in our war against Japan.” The Japanese, said Leahy, “were already defeated and ready to surrender.” Leahy believed Truman’s decision to use nuclear weapons had “adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages.” Likewise, Admiral William F. Halsey, Commander of the Pacific Fleet, noted that, “the Japs had put out a lot of peace feelers throughout Russia long before” Truman decided to drop the bombs. Two weeks after the nuclear attacks, General Curtis LeMay publicly criticized the decision, saying, “The war would have been over in two weeks. . . . The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all.”

The myth that the bombs “saved” a million US servicemen who would have otherwise perished in the invasion of the Home Islands came from the pen and imagination of the man who would become among the most infamous strategists and apologists for the War in Vietnam, McGeorge Bundy.

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YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS UP: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson Claims Stealing a Wallet in Japan Makes You ‘Locally Owe Allegiance’ in Bizarre Birthright Citizenship Argument

Far-Left Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson left many Americans scratching their heads after offering a bizarre analogy involving… stealing a wallet in Japan.

During oral arguments in the landmark case tied to President Donald Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship, Jackson attempted to redefine the concept of “allegiance” under the 14th Amendment, using a hypothetical crime committed abroad.

The exchange occurred during a discussion on the 14th Amendment and the definition of being “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States

In the warped world of the radical left, being subject to criminal prosecution is now the same thing as the “allegiance” required for birthright citizenship.

Jackson laid out a convoluted hypothetical involving a trip to Japan.

Her argument? If she steals a wallet in Tokyo and gets arrested, she is suddenly “owing allegiance” to the Japanese sovereign.

“If I steal someone’s wallet in Japan, the Japanese authorities can arrest me and prosecute me. It’s allegiance, meaning can they control you as a matter of law?” Jackson posited. “So there’s this relationship based on even though I’m a temporary traveler… I’m still locally owing allegiance in that sense.”

If the mere ability of a state to prosecute a crime constitutes “allegiance,” then the word has lost all meaning. Allegiance is a bond of loyalty to a nation; it is the commitment to defend its laws and its borders. It is not, as Jackson suggests, a “relationship” formed when a pickpocket gets caught in a Tokyo subway or here in America.

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Philippines Path to ASEAN’s Ukraine?

Last week, the Pentagon disclosed that the US-led military manufacturing partnership (PIPIR) is assessing funding for a major new ammunition assembly and production line in the Philippines.

Under its ultra-conservative PM Sanae Takaichi, Japan is taking the lead to set up a new program to produce propulsion systems used in many guided weapons, while the Philippines is tasked to host ⁠a large new weapons facility. The bilateral cooperation has intensified for half a decade.

Meanwhile, defense secretary Gilberto Teodoro has been negotiating stronger defense cooperation with the NATO leaders in Europe.

Following these reports, China’s foreign ministry warned the United States against bringing “conflict and the chaos of war” to the Asia-Pacific. In Beijing’s view, a potential ammunition facility would destabilize the region.

Toward major instability

The new military tasks of the Philippines were recently promoted by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). This US thinktank played a role in legitimizing Biden administration’s engagement in Ukraine, Israel’s Gaza “war”, and Iran mobilization.

From an international military standpoint, the Philippines is transforming itself to serve as a forward staging area for US forces, air and naval logistics hub, missile deployment sites, ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance), sea lane control in South China Sea, and protection of Japanese/US military supply routes.

In some ASEAN countries, the concern is that these strategic moves could pave the way to major instability and possibly a major Asian war.

The following commentary draws only from public sources and discourses on EDCA locations, logistics plans, ammo sites, and targeting doctrines seen in Ukraine, Middle East, and NATO war-gaming.

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