Japan OKs aid to foreign troops' non-military operations

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/10/us-japan-diplomacy-idUSKBN0LE06G20150210
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TOKYO Mon Feb 9, 2015

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks during a Northern Territories Day rally to call on Russia to return a group of islands, known as the Northern Territories in Japan and the Southern Kuriles in Russia, in Tokyo February 7, 2015.

Credit: Reuters/Yuya Shino

 
(Reuters) - Japan revised its foreign aid charter on Tuesday to allow funding of non-military operations of other country's armed forces as part of its drive for a bigger role in global security.
The charter repeated Japan's long-standing policy that foreign aid should not be used for military purposes, but added that aid for armed forces' non-military operations such as disaster relief should be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Tokyo has previously extended such aid but it is the first time such a policy has explicitly been stated in Japan's foreign aid charter, a foreign ministry official said.
The stance has raised concerns that Japan's overseas aid could, in fact, end up funding foreign military activities.

"The government says its aid is only for such purposes as post-disaster rescue. Let's say trucks or helicopters were bought under such programs. The problem is it is impossible to make sure they are used only for such purposes," said Yoichi Ishii, professor emeritus at Kanagawa University.

"The best we can do is to make sure intended equipment was purchased. When it comes to how they are used, it is very difficult to draw a clear line between military and non-military," he added.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has a stated goal of a stronger security profile for Japan that includes passing a law in 2015 to reinterpret its pacifist constitution.

This would allow the country to come to the aid of an ally and pave the way for its troops to fight overseas for the first time since World War Two.

The new foreign aid charter, revised for the first time in 12 years and approved by Abe's government, also extended official development assistance to richer nations.

The adoption of the new charter coincides with China's decision to expand its foreign assistance, particularly to resource-rich African countries.

Japan is the world's fourth-largest donor of official development aid behind the United States, Britain and Germany, and its foreign minister, Fumio Kishida, has called its development aid "Japan's biggest diplomatic tool."

(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

Some Japanese see slain hostages, Abe as troublemakers

By MARI YAMAGUCHI 11 hours ago 

original article at
http://news.yahoo.com/japanese-see-slain-hostages-abe-troublemakers-153800659.html 
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TOKYO (AP) — In Japan, where conformity takes precedence over individuality, one of the most important values is to avoid "meiwaku" — causing trouble for others. And sympathy aside, the two Japanese purportedly slain by the Islamic State group are now widely viewed as troublemakers.

So is Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Many Japanese feel that if the hostages had not ignored warnings against travel to Syria, or if Abe had not showcased Tokyo's support for the multinational coalition against the Islamic State militants, Japan wouldn't have been exposed to this new sense of insecurity and unwelcomed attention from Islamic extremists.

"To be honest, they caused tremendous trouble to the Japanese government and to the Japanese people. In the old days, their parents would have had to commit hara-kiri (ritual suicide) to apologize," said Taeko Sakamoto, a 64-year-old part-time worker, after first expressing sympathy over the deaths of Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawa.

Sakamoto also sees Abe as part of the problem, for not being more mindful of the risks at a time when he had already been pushing to expand Japan's military role, which is limited to its own self-defense under the U.S.-drafted pacifist constitution after its defeat in World War II.
"I don't want Mr. Abe to do anything else that may be seen as provocation, because that's what would put us at a greater risk," Sakamoto said.

Japan until recently had not become directly involved in the violence surrounding Islamic State militants, who now control about a third of Syria and neighboring Iraq. Days after Abe announced during a Middle East trip last month that Japan would give $200 million in non-military aid to support the fight against Islamic State, the militants demanded a $200 million ransom for the two hostages.

 

The hostage crisis came to a grisly end with news Sunday that Goto, a journalist, had been beheaded by the extremists. The killing of Yukawa was announced earlier.

In the video posted on militant websites that purportedly shows Goto's slaying, a man says, "Abe, because of your reckless decision to take part in an unwinnable war, this knife will not only slaughter Kenji, but will also carry on and cause carnage wherever your people are found. So let the nightmare for Japan begin."

Abe has been adamant about his commitment to fight terrorism as part of an international effort. On Thursday, Japan's lower house, the more powerful of the two parliamentary chambers, unanimously endorsed a resolution condemning the Islamic State group's "beyond dastardly act of terrorism" against the two Japanese nationals.

In the resolution, Japan also vowed to expand humanitarian support for the Middle East and Africa, and to strengthen anti-terrorism efforts with the international community.

Japan's tensions with other countries have been largely limited to its neighbors China and South Korea. The Middle East is an unfamiliar, distant, dangerous place.

"That's where the two men dared to go and that's probably why many people see them causing trouble," said Koichi Nakano, international politics professor at Sophia University in Tokyo.

The public's response to the hostages was chilly from the beginning. Few seemed to sympathize with Yukawa, a 42-year-old gun aficionado and adventurer who was taken hostage in August. Media attention toward his case quickly faded and he was largely forgotten until Jan. 20, when militants made their ransom demand in a video that showed Yukawa and Goto in orange gowns and kneeling beside a masked militant.

Goto's reputation as a veteran journalist whose reports focused on children and refugees in war-torn areas won him more sympathy and small rallies by his friends and other supporters. According to his wife and others who had spoken with him, Goto had gone to Syria late last year to try to save Yukawa.

Still, to address the "meiwaku" problem, both victims' families apologized repeatedly to the government and the people for "the trouble" their sons caused, even after they died.

Just two days after Abe's office put a national flag at half-staff to mourn for the pair, a senior member of his ruling party cast Goto as a troublemaker, not a tragic hero.

Masahiko Komura, vice president of the Liberal Democratic Party, said Wednesday that Goto ignored the government's repeated warnings against his trip to Syria.

"I must say that was reckless courage, not true courage, no matter how high his aspirations might have been," Komura told reporters, reminding them not to cause trouble by following Goto's path.

Criticizing the dead in public is extremely rare in Japan, and Komura's comment reflects how individuals are expected to act in line with the national interest.

When three young Japanese were taken hostage in Iraq and later freed in 2004, they faced nationwide bashing as troublemakers. They had to cover their own medical examinations and part of their chartered flights home.

Some critics accuse the government of promoting the "self-responsibility" idea as a way to shirk its own responsibility to protect Japanese citizens.

"It's a dangerous trend and we must watch," said Taku Sakamoto, a journalist and Middle East expert.
While Abe, his party's lawmakers and other nationalists say the terrorist threat justifies Abe's push for a tougher military posture, others say it is exactly that sort of policy that is putting Japan at greater risk of attack.

"The hostage crisis is causing a tremendous impact on Japanese society, and has polarized views about which direction Japan should go in terms of national security," said Nakano, the professor. "In a way, people saw what could happen under Abe's security policy."

Some Japanese, like Toshihiko Ozeki, a 67-year-old pensioner, say Japan should be strong enough to defend itself, and that he supports Abe's push to expand Japan's defense role.

"Mr. Abe has gone a bit too far, trying to make Japan look tough," said a 55-year-old man who would provide only his family name, Arai, because he is afraid of being targeted by the Islamic militants. "We don't want to be seen in that image, and we don't want to have anything to do with combat."

Abe pledges Japan constitution rewrite after election win

http://news.yahoo.com/abe-pledges-japan-constitution-rewrite-election-win-074002992.html

By Shingo Ito 28 minutes ago

 

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday vowed he would try to persuade a sceptical public of the need to revise Japan's pacifist constitution, the day after scoring a thumping election victory.

The premier, who was re-elected by a landslide in Sunday's polls, pledged to pursue his nationalist agenda while promising to follow through on much-needed economic reforms.

"Revising the constitution... has always been an objective since the Liberal Democratic Party was launched," Abe told reporters.

"I will work hard to deepen people's understanding and receive wider support from the public."

Abe's desire to water down Japan's constitution, imposed by the US after the end of World War II, has proved divisive at home and strained already tense relations with China.

His attempt earlier this year was abandoned, with the bar of a two-thirds parliamentary majority and victory in a referendum thought too high.

The conservative leader has also said he wants reforms to education that would instil patriotism in schoolchildren and urges a more sympathetic retelling of Japan's wartime misdeeds.

His ruling LDP and its junior partner Komeito swept the ballot on Sunday with a two-thirds majority in the lower house of parliament.

The coalition won a combined 326 of the 475 seats, crushing the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan. Their slightly-improved tally of 73 did not include leader Banri Kaieda, who fell on his sword on Monday.

Abe is expected to reappoint a broadly similar cabinet after he is formally named prime minister again by the lower house on December 24.

- Abenomics go-ahead -

He insisted the election had been a necessary plebiscite on his big-spending, easy-money policies, known as Abenonmics, although critics said the record low turnout of around 52 percent tarnished his mandate.

"We must go ahead with Abenomics swiftly, this is exactly what has been shown in the vote. We have to respond to that," Abe said, pledging to "compile an economic stimulus package immediately, within this year".

The 60-year-old stormed to power in 2012, pledging to revive the animal spirits of Japan's flagging economy with a blend of monetary easing, government spending and structural reforms to cut red tape.

The printing presses at the Bank of Japan have run hot ever since, pushing down the value of the yen -- to the delight of exporters -- and giving the stock market a huge boost, as stimulus programmes have provided an economic shot in the arm.

But the premier has shied away from tough reforms that economists say are vital if Japan is to get back on a firm footing, including employment deregulation and tackling the entrenched interests of the agriculture lobby.

A sales tax rise in April snuffed out consumer spending, sending Japan into the two negative quarters of growth that make a recession.

"From now on, he has to show results in line with his promises," said Hideo Kumano, chief economist at Dai-ichi Life Research institute.

"If he fails to improve the economy, his political capital will be reduced easily. A crucial phase is still ahead."

On the diplomatic front, his election victory may temper frayed relations with China, which has painted him as a dangerous revisionist, said Gerald Curtis, a veteran Japan watcher and professor at Columbia University.

Relations began to thaw last month after more than two years of chill, which Beijing blamed on Abe's provocative nationalism, including a visit to a war shrine and equivocations on Japan's wartime record of enslaving women for sex.

Beijing said it had "noted" the outcome of the election, and offered a familiar call for Japan to "learn its lessons from history (and) play a constructive role in regional peace and stability".

"In the short-term, at least, Sino-Japanese relations are on a better track... signals coming from Beijing and from Abe (are aimed at trying) to improve the relationship," Curtis said.

Masaru Kohno, a politics professor at Waseda University in Tokyo, said despite his professed desire to retell the history of Japan's aggressive warring -- an instinct largely unshared by the Japanese public -- Abe will be pragmatic.

"Many of the issues Japan is facing such as depopulation and women's advancement should be resolved with liberal policies," he said.

 

Hit by recession and higher taxes, Japan's working poor speak out

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/12/2/hit-by-recessionandhighertaxesjapansworkingpoorspeakout.html

Analysis: Prime Minister Abe promises economic recovery, but working people shoulder the heaviest burden of his policies

December 2, 2014 3:00AM ET

by Chie Matsumoto

Higher sales taxes have hit Japan's working poor and shaken faith in the economy. The prime minister has called snap elections for Dec. 14.

Yoshikazu Tsuno / AFP / Getty Images

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TOKYO — Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe faces a vote on Dec. 14, seeking a mandate to continue economic policies that have imposed a harsh cost on working people. Eighteen months ago, Abe vowed to “bring back a strong Japan,” but the economy is reeling and a growing section of the electorate is losing faith.

Many analysts were shocked last week by the release of GDP figures showing that the world’s third-largest economy is in recession. Those numbers are widely seen as a key factor in Abe’s decision to call a snap legislative election.

Abe hopes the poll will restore some of the momentum he lost after hiking the sales tax from from 5 percent to 8 percent in April, which triggered a plunge in demand and a second consecutive quarterly downturn in the economy. The latest GDP bombshell forced him to postpone next year’s planned hike that would have brought Japan's sales tax to double the pre-April 2014 rate.

The prime minister argues that raising the sales tax will help pull Japan out of years of deflation by generating revenues to help offset the country’s mounting debt. But critics say that sales taxes are regressive—forcing the less affluent to shoulder a greater share of the tax burden—and they argue that Abe's policies are pushing more workers into unstable jobs while only temporarily boosting corporate profits.   

Stock prices have risen, and the yen has weakened since Abe came to power, which has helped export-dependent companies. But critics argue there is no evidence of a trickle-down effect from “Abenomics,” the prime minister’s market-oriented economic creed, and that its policies have hurt the working poor.

“I couldn’t quite see how Abenomics would ever work,” said Koichi Nakano, a political scientist at Tokyo’s Sophia University. 

The third arrow

Abe had promised to fire three “arrows” into Japan’s stagnating economy. In 2013, he implemented the first two: fiscal stimulus in the form of more than 10 trillion yen ($117 billion), and monetary easing, which boosted stock prices and weakened the yen.

But his third arrow — creating a national growth strategy based on long-lasting structural reforms — has proved most painful to many ordinary Japanese.

Midori Ito, a care worker, said her life has become “extremely difficult” following Abe’s sales-tax hike.

She is among the growing ranks of Japan’s working poor who earn less than 2 million yen (about $17,000) a year. Their numbers have increased by about 290,000 since Abe came to power in 2012, according to the National Tax Agency.

Ito has been trying to cut spending by socializing less and trimming non-essentials. Working two days a week caring for old people and juggling other small jobs, she lives on 100,000 yen a month ($851).

Living in Tokyo, where even cheap accommodation can cost as much as her monthly income, Ito says she has become more creative with money — one of her recipes involves cooking a 25 yen (21 cent) bag of bean sprouts to feed herself and her roommate. “We have learned to lower our living standards,” Ito says.

The company she works for has begun assigning workers to short shifts of less than an hour, which means less income for Ito and her colleagues. Even if their pay complies with the legal minimum wage of 888 yen ($6.80), care-workers struggle to earn enough income to cover the cost of living.

Abe has sought to make it easier for companies to hire and fire irregular workers but has not raised the minimum wage. The prime minister believes that Japan’s job market is still too protected and that job mobility will boost productivity.

But the erratic schedules and poor pay drive many casual staff away, Ito says, and full-timers end up working late into the night, on weekends and holidays. Even then, they pocket no more than 200,000 yen ($1,685) a month. “We are made to think that’s still better than nothing.”

Ito is not alone. Real wages fell for the 15th consecutive month in September, and the working class is spending less than last year, according to the labor ministry. Evenmajor corporations, which have so far this year enjoyed rising profits, have expressed concerns over consumer spending trends, according to a survey by the Asahi newspaper.

“Consumers have become sensitive to prices,” an executive with Nippon Ham, a major Japanese food processor, told Asahi. “We can’t yet claim that consumers are experiencing economic growth.”

To boost corporate spending, Abe asked major companies in April to raise wages for salaried workers but left out casual workers. Critics say this only encouraged corporations to replace permanent stable jobs with temporary work.

Japan had 1.23 million more irregular workers in the July-September quarter this year than in the same period a year earlier. They now make up over 30 percent of Japan’s workforce.

The change has been especially tough on women. They now make up half of Japan’s entire workforce but are disproportionately represented among part-time workers—despite Abe’s promise that his policies would provide more opportunities for women to “shine.”

Calls for help

Akai Jinbu, a Tokyo Youth Union organizer, said temporary workers are regarded as even more expendable today than in 2008, when tens of thousands were dismissed at the start of the global recession.

Many temp workers in their 30s, 40s and even 50s end up living with their parents or sharing rooms because they cannot afford the rent in Tokyo, where a single bedroom can fetch $1,100 a month.

“I’m just stunned thinking about how they are going to be able to survive after the layoff,” Jinbu said.

The union says that calls for help from workers have doubled over the past year. Jinbu says his organization fields more than 200 phone calls a month—most from callers who have been left without any backup plans or social security after being laid off.

Abe sees things differently. He says that without the second sales tax hike, Japan’s economy will worsen and investors will lose confidence. The nation must stabilize social security systems and rebuild its finances, Abe said this month. Japan carries the largest debt in the industrialized world.

Political scientist Nakano calls Abe’s economic policies a time bomb, warning that the snap election will simply postpone the explosion. “As long as it doesn’t blow up while he’s holding it, he doesn’t seem to mind,” Nakano says.

Analysts believe that a strong showing in the election would give Abe a mandate to pass unpopular policies, including plans to steer Japan away from its postwar pacifism; beef up defense; increase government secrecy; and switch on the nation's nuclear reactors.

But public interest in the election is low, Japan’s opposition is in disarray, and Abe may be reelected simply because voters see no alternative. The big question then is not whether Abe and his Liberal Democrats will win, but whether his conservative coalition government will return with a clear majority.

“Many people are finding it hard to believe that there is something better to follow,” Nakano said. “We had the lowest voting rate the last time in December 2012 in postwar history, and it’s most likely to be lower this time.”

Japan's economy

18 more months of just 8%~

Below are some conflicting views.  In the second video, the man with the mustache/beard says, around 4 min 35 sec into it, that the only way to increase capital investment is to make it costly to sit on cash. . .to create inflation. . .Then people will go out and take financial risks and invest for a higher return.

Of course, there are risk-takers in this country and in every country, but most of the people I know here are pretty reluctant to make the leap.  I'm more inclined to agree with the economist without the mustache and beard (nothing against mustaches or beards, though).  De-regulating the country, liberalizing the workforce, and cutting corporate tax rates, he thinks, could do the trick.

I took macro- and micro- economics in high school, and I just barely passed, so I think I'm pretty terrible in understanding any economy.  In terms of language, though, the one thing I see in common with the second video and with other videos that I saw last week (when I watched, in a bit of a drunken state, the news that Japan had put out another stimulus) is that America and Japan, while facing some similar problems, differ in this:  America can solve its workforce problems by changing its immigration laws, while Japan will not do this.

Halloween has exploded here

The past couple Halloweens I wasn't much in the mood for doing anything on the eve, so I've been a little out of touch with how big it's gotten in Tokyo.  I started to get an inkling last week Saturday (Oct 25) when I strolled through Ikebukuro Sunshine Street（池袋サンシャイン通り）and found red carpets lined in the middle of the road.  At first I thought it was for a promotional event of some sort--for a movie, an anime, or something--but it seemed that cosplay people were generally welcome to pose while observers and passersby took pictures.

 It was almost a week before Halloween, and here we were already, Ikebukuro packed  with costume delight.  I started to wonder if this area would replace Shibuya as the location of choice for Halloweeners.  Boy, was I wrong.  Below are pictures from last night's festivities in Shibuya Sentā-gai 渋谷センター街.  It was insane.  Like a hanabi festival （花火、 or はなびたいかい), like Meiji-jingu on New Year's Eve, you could hardly move in some areas.  It was pretty great though.  People were coming out of their shells for this night of disguising and pretending.  I only walked around for an hour or two, but it seemed like a playful, sensible friendliness; strangers were talking to one another, but I didn't see anything get out of hand.  Hopefully, this festive thing can keep on going peacefully and safely; this city can benefit from such great communal events.

This is one minute out of a very nice walk~

           

And these are videos posted by other people: