JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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- Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) in Kanto region
- RCS (RCSコーポレーション), Kanto
- Salary: ¥180,000 ~ ¥250,000 / Month includes performance bonus
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- Assistant Language Teacher - TOKYO - late-March start
- Interac, Tokyo
- Salary: ¥230,000 ~ ¥255,000 / Month
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- Assistant Language Teacher - Kanagawa Prefecture - late-March start
- Interac, Kanagawa
- Salary: ¥230,000 ~ ¥255,000 / Month
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Hikozaemon
Everything I like and dislike about Noda is that he really is the first LDP PM the country has had in two years.
He stands for a return to governance by administration and politicians resuming a back seat, and is completely uninterested in political reform.
And he actually has a clue when it comes to foreign policy.
It's nice to see someone in the DPJ talking common sense on foreign policy. Sengoku's pro-China handling of the drunken sailor affair, and antagonism toward the Japanese coast guard represents the absolute low part of Japanese foreign policy in the last 20 years.
The international community needs to apply pressure to China to behave now while they still can. 10-20 more years and China is going to be completely out of control in the region, and unstoppable.
Peace
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Hikozaemon
Konsta - amen to that :)
Posted in: S Korea to propose sex slave talks with Japan
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Hikozaemon
mshimusa2000 - on relations between Korea and Japan in general... It is nice to hear you are so optimistic. I personally have never heard any Korean over 50 say that they hate Japan. In fact, I've had a lovely time talking with elderly Koreans in Korea, and New Zealand IN JAPANESE, and them talking nostalgically about visits to Japan. I'd say I HAVE heard nearly half of the Koreans my own age say that, having no issue at all with using the word "hate". I think younger Koreans harbour more ill feeling toward Japan than the elderly, and it is because of campaigns like this, and the feeling that Japan is continuing to victimize Korea. It is sad to me that nationalism in Korea is fostered in education, and that anti-Japanese feeling has been adopted as a part of modern Korean identity. It is also sad that the government looks for issues to fight Japan over, like Dokdo, East Sea, spelling of Corea, etc, etc.
I think Korea is a strong enough country to have a built of national pride built separately to lingering on unfortunate, but resolved history between the two countries. I hope one day there will be leaders in Korea brave enough to stand up to anti-Japanese nationalism and point out that Japan is a natural partner and ally of Korea in NE Asia - I like president Lee because he does this to some extent (being born in Japan probably helped) - these lawsuits and this bad policy are a legacy of Roh encouraging them, and the policies of the military government.
Korea has a lot of internal history it also needs to confront about itself (including the complicity of many Koreans in colonial rule, war crimes, and sex slavery), and learn not to project all these problems onto Japan. I hope these issues can be resolved soon so Korea and Japan can be the friends and allies they should be.
Peace
Posted in: S Korea to propose sex slave talks with Japan
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Hikozaemon
mshimusa2000 - Let's start where I think we can agree. I think we can agree that these old ladies went through a terrible time under Japanese administration of Korea. We also I think seem to agree that they deserve compensation, and probably are asking for it now partly because many of them are in circumstances where they need the compensation they are entitled to in order to survive.
Hence, in not receiving compensation, they are being victimized.
So the question becomes, who is victimizing the old ladies by withholding their compensation. ROK or Japan?
Japan's position is that claims relating to Japan's colonial rule of Korea were settled by the treaty establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1965, whose purpose was to settle all such claims. The amount of compensation given to ROK at the time was not insubstantial at the time - it was a substantial chunk of Japan's GDP, and amounts were agreed based on what Japan owed Korea as compensation, and what amounts could be offset by the substantial investments Japan made in Korea under colonial rule that Korea continued to benefit from, such as national infrastructure.
The ROK government received the compensation package over many years, and made a decision at the time that the best use of the money was to spend it on rebuilding South Korea from its war with the North - the investment helped build Korea's economic miracle. But it was also decided that the compensation was best spent for the benefit for the whole country, and not individuals. I can understand the rationale of that decision, and it was easier to make because the government at that time was not democratically accountable. But it was the legitimate government of South Korea, and it was their decision to make.
The problem is of course, you have these old ladies, many of whom are destitute, and need some help. The South Korean government denied their requests for compensation saying it was owed to them by Japan. But ROK didn't support them in their private cases against Japan, most likely in part because they were sensitive to how direct participation would raise the 1965 treaty issue. My guess is that they knew that their involvement would solidify the strength Japanese position that compensation has been paid and is the responsibility of the ROK government to provide. So they encouraged them to come over to Japan on their own, where, supported by sympathetic Japanese, they brought their cases, and were told that the ROK government had already agreed to extinguish their claims.
Old ladies are out of pocket, and have wasted more money and time on what was essentially a publicity campaign to get people angry at Japan for those crimes under colonial rule.
The only people who have gained any mileage from this is the ROK government, that has raised more anti-Japan nationalist hate, which is good for popularity and diplomacy, and they haven't had to spend a cent on helping or compensating these poor old ladies.
I think they have been cynically manipulated by the ROK government as part of a nationalist publicity stunt, in a way that has left them worse off than before.
I think that constitutes abuse. The ROK government should back up its words of support, with a share of personal compensation for each of these old ladies. However, I don't think this will happen, because it will open the floodgates to everyone in Korea victimized by Japan to do the same, and all the compensation money was already spent long ago. So they blame Japan. Japan keeps apologizing....
I think the treatment of these old ladies by ROK government constitutes abuse.
Posted in: S Korea to propose sex slave talks with Japan
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Hikozaemon
mshimusa2000 - the only problem is that Japan has already paid. The Korean government took a compensation package for colonial rule releasing Japan from all liability relating to that rule, and decided it would not share the compensation money with private citizens. Now its citizens are old, poor and want compensation - their government is telling them to go and get it from Japan themselves, instead of paying them their share.
The decision for sex slaves not to get compensation was made by the South Korean government in 1965 - the government today is quite welcome to reverse that decision. They are sending them to Japan because it is an easy way to raise popular nationalist sentiment against Japan, and because they are cheap, and don't care about these old ladies. They are just being abused by the South Korean government for nationalist point scoring.
Posted in: S Korea to propose sex slave talks with Japan
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Hikozaemon
Maybe China has it right - China is the second biggest economy in the world, and it got there by refusing to float its currency and maintaining a fixed exchange rate against the dollar making it devalued, which is why so many "heartland" Japanese manufacturers are relocating there.
In the end of the day, the Yen is high not because Japan has a great economy, low debt, and a bright economic outlook. They are here because the Greek economy is about to go bankrupt and destabilize the Euro, and the US is unable to raise taxes to service its current debt - Japan has the highest levels of personal debt in the world, and it is being treated as a haven for people worried about more immediate crashes in their own economies.
Surely China has proven that the international currency system doesn't work. It has ignored the international rules governing currency value and it is where everyone is investing.
I don't see why Japan needs to be getting so punished for the sins of Greece and the US congress - why not just fix the exchange rate at 100 yen to the dollar, or more - just like China is allowed to do, and be done with it?
Posted in: High yen could 'hollow out' Japan's industrial heart: Noda
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Hikozaemon
What if the government of Korea now is a thief, and so a future government asks for more money?
Just a convenient way for Korea to get paid twice.
Posted in: S Korea to propose sex slave talks with Japan
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Hikozaemon
Nice to see that even the Korean courts agree that responsibility for this now lies with the South Korean government.
This is just a case of the Korean government absconding on its own responsibility to share the compensation package it got with victims of colonialism, absolving Japan from financial and legal responsibility.
Posted in: S Korea to propose sex slave talks with Japan
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Hikozaemon
Allthough I'm against most of the LDP reversals of policy by Noda, the one I hope he does go back to is proactively pressuring North Korea. I'm sure Japan will do its best to look out for the welfare of these defectors by sending them to South Korea as they wish.
The real question is first how to force North Korea to first respect the human rights of the Japanese abductees it still holds and return them, and secondly how to get it to respect the human rights of it's people in general. The nuclear issue is a red herring - returning abductees is not reversible, their nuke program is, as they have shown. It is better to focus on and putting a financial price for DPRK on letting all abductees from all countries go.
Fact is that Japan remains one of the greatest sources of income for the regime in North Korea to survive - Japan needs to cut off all that income, and work with the other six party nations to ensure that no one breaks ranks to go soft on them - as China and Russia recently are - to leave the regime with no incentive to improve its conduct.
I hope that Japan sends these defectors to South Korea and makes a big noise about it, antagonizing the hell out of them and drawing the world's attention to what a completely morally redundant aristocratic despotic regime that country is ruled by.
Posted in: Nine North Koreans to get temporary refuge in Japan
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Hikozaemon
Welcome back to LDP style rule by administrative guidance - politicians just sitting there collecting back handers and campaign contributions while leaving it to bureaucrats to run the country in cruise control, backing a bunch of policies that the country clearly shows in polls it doesn't want (a return to nuclear power reliance), and without any mandate from anyone to do.
I wouldn't be surprised if he soon repeals Ozawa's rule that bureaucrats are not allowed in parliament to answer questions on policy in Q&A. This is just a complete surrender of the change that the DPJ was supposed to represent.
Shameful.
Posted in: Noda says Japan will restart nuclear reactors, but review energy policy
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Hikozaemon
Noda will go there next week, in order to apologize for this apology...
Posted in: Edano apologizes to Fukushima governor for Hachiro's comments
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Hikozaemon
Spidapig24 - the EU parliament and the US back Japan's interpretation on this issue. Those islands remain occupied territory.
CrazyJoe - there is no way Japan could block the Pacific Fleet from just those four islands beside Hokkaido. Russia has complete access to the Pacific through nearly the entire strait between Kamachatka and Hokkaido, regardless of whether the four islands beside Hokkaido are returned to Japan, and the Japanese refugee landowners of those islands.
Posted in: Russia seeks 'calm' talks with Japan over disputed islands
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Hikozaemon
sfjhp330 - The Southern Kurils alone give no ability to Japan and the US to blockade the sea of Okhotsk, Russia still has 90% of the territory between Kamachatka and Hokkaido. Holding onto the Norhteast Territories is just needless overkill on Russia's part - something Breshnev understood.
Posted in: Russia seeks 'calm' talks with Japan over disputed islands
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Hikozaemon
BBC is not a reliable source on anything related to Japan - there is a dispute over whether the Northeast territories are included in the definition of "Kurils" which Japan signed back to Russia. The US backs Japan's assertion that the "Southern Kurils" are not part of the Kuril island chain that Japan signed over to Russia - worth noting of course that the Southern Kurils had never been part of Russian territory at any time in history, the return of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands down to the Northeast territories represented the return of Russian territory lost by Russia in the 1904 invasion of Japan. Fact is that the northeast territories were long inhabited settled Japanese territory.
Stalin wanted the islands mainly for strategic reasons - with the US occupying Japan and the cold war starting, it didn't want the US to have any ability to impede its access to the Pacific using Hokkaido bases, so it just took all the islands between Kamachatka and Hokkaido, and deported all the residents to Siberia for 20 years before letting them return to Japan.
Breshnev acknowledged that the occupation of those islands was unjust when he came to power and let the residents return to Japan, and tabled the proposal for the reversion of the islands to Japan in exchange for a peace treaty.
Recent Russian presidents have become more assertive mainly for nationalistic reasons, and of course the fact that residents deported by Stalin to live on those islands have themselves been living on the occupied islands for more than a generation now.
The criteria for reconciliation has long been clear - the Japanese/Ainu residents of those islands must be allowed to return to their homes and properties there. It's a reasonable demand.
Peace
Posted in: Russia seeks 'calm' talks with Japan over disputed islands
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Hikozaemon
Japan is the Ainu nation. So we agree.
Posted in: Russia seeks 'calm' talks with Japan over disputed islands
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Hikozaemon
Good news! Edano was just announced as the new METI minister! http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20110912/t10015541891000.html
Posted in: Noda apologizes after minister quits over 'town of death' remark
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Hikozaemon
Smithinjapan - I think Japan's position has never officially changed from the 2+2 solution proposed by Breshnev - Japan gets the two most inhabited islands back first, then the two countries sign a peace treaty and a bunch of economic tie ups and then negotiate the timetable for the remaining two.
It's a good plan for both sides.
Posted in: Russia seeks 'calm' talks with Japan over disputed islands
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Hikozaemon
Boris - if we are going to include the Ainu, we should also include the Germans and Chechens, given that so many of the colonists planted on those islands by Stalin were from those groups deported there by force as part of Soviet collective punishment.
I guess they share in common with the Ainu, that like the Ainu on the islands, they also spent decades in Soviet concentration camps in Siberia, except in this case their crime was living on islands that stopped Russia having unhindered access to the Pacific Ocean.
The mainly Ainu refugees from the Northwest territories still live in Nemuro, regularly visit family burial sites on the islands, and are at the forefront of the lobby in Japan to return their family homes on those islands. They are well represented and sympathized with by people who know what suffering they have been put through over the last 60 years.
Posted in: Russia seeks 'calm' talks with Japan over disputed islands
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Hikozaemon
If there was meant to be one benefit of the DPJ giving up on having policy and returning to LDP style bureaucratic leadership on policy, it was to avoid incompetent political leaders causing any more damage than has occurred under the last two PMs.
It is amazing that even with a cabinet with virtual training wheels now reattached, ministers are still incapable of sitting there and letting bureaucrats run things without doing something awful like this.
The LDP was bad, but honestly, given the number of gaffe induced resignations, I'm seriously starting to question now whether it can really be said that they were less competent than the DPJ. I find it amazing that DPJ PMs keep finding people like this to appoint to such important positions.
The degree of incompetence within Japanese politics is mind-boggling.
Posted in: Noda apologizes after minister quits over 'town of death' remark
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Hikozaemon
Haha, I love 99ri, but the comparison to Hawaii is a little optimistic...
Posted in: Discover 'Little Hawaii' just an hour from Tokyo