PM Shinzo Abe

Abe’s Legacy for New Delhi: Enmeshed Strategic Ties and Bringing India Into the Quad

With the looming threat of a growing China, bilateral trade and ties increased exponentially between India and Japan during Shinzo Abe’s tenure.

Note: This article was originally published on August 30, 2020 and is being republished on July 8, 2022 in light of Shinzo Abe’s assassination.

New Delhi: Japan’s embrace of India may not have begun under Shinzo Abe, but his term as prime minister not only accelerated the move for closer ties with India through a strategic prism of keeping a rising China at a distance, but also pulled New Delhi into the club of democratic major powers in Indo-Pacific.

At a press conference on Friday, Abe announced that he would be stepping down due to persistent ill health. During his nine years as Japan’s prime minister, he has visited India four times, including as chief guest for Republic Day parade on Rajpath.

When Abe became prime minister for the first time in September 2006, India and Japan had been in a self-declared “global partnership” for five years. A year earlier in 2005, both countries decided on annual bilateral summits that would be held in each other’s country on alternate years.

Building on that foundation, Abe hosted then Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh within three months, upgraded ties and committed to discuss cooperation in civil nuclear agreement.

Also read: Shinzo Abe: Stepping Down or Just Stepping Back?

This promise made in the 2006 joint statement was the key signal that Japan was seeking to leave behind its trepidation over improving relations with India following its 1998 Pokhran nuclear tests, especially since anti-nuclear stance has been at the heart of Japanese foreign policy. A Japanese foreign minister even described the decision to start negotiations with India on nuclear agreement as one of his “toughest decision”.

When Japan resolved to restart stalled negotiations on the nuclear pact, it was Abe who made the announcement during Singh’s visit in May 2013 – just six months into his second tenure. Three years later, Abe witnessed the signing of the nuclear agreement along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Tokyo.

According to veteran analyst Takenori Horimoto, the initial catalyst for Japan’s relook at ties with India was the 2004-5 anti-Japan demonstrations in China which triggered the necessity to dilute and spread the risk to massive overseas Japanese investments to other countries.

As per Japanese government records, bilateral trade between India and Japan increased from 740 billion yen ($7.023 billion) in 2005 to 1,821 billion yen ($172.8 billion) in 2018 – a rise of 146%.

Further, Japanese investment in India increased at a higher pace – by 1165% from 29.8 billion yen ($2.8 billion) in 2005 to 377 billion yen ($35.8 billion) during the same period. India even opened a special window for clearance of Japanese projects, but the slow pace of bureaucratic approval and land acquisition did dull the sheen of some of the major flagship proposals.

However, more than economic relations, Horimoto asserts that the bigger factor “was security policy to cope with rising China as the top priority in common”.

The lasting legacy of Abe’s years to India-Japan relationship would probably be in term of a strong political backing to building the components towards the more strategic relationship.

Even before he became PM, India had been on his mind. In his article for Japan Institute for International Affairs, Horimoto recounts that as chief cabinet secretary, Abe had observed in 2006 that “just as no one predicted 10 years ago that Japan-China trade including Hong Kong would top the US, it would not be at all strange if Japan-India relations were to have outweighed Japan-US and Japan-China relations 10 years from now”.

Also read: Japan’s PM Shinzo Abe Resigns Citing Poor Health

While the seed of the concept of Quad and the Indo-Pacific may have been planted after the 2004 tsunami, Abe can take the credit for having formed the four-nation grouping .

Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd noted that Shinzo Abe had proposed the Quad in 2007. During his short one-year term, Abe had managed to persuade PM Singh and US vice president Dick Cheney, and the first informal meeting of the Quadrilateral Strategic Dialogue was held at Manila in August 2007.

While Japan had not publicly painted a target on China’s back, Japanese foreign minister Taro Aso’s promotion of an ‘arc of freedom and prosperity’ in Asia which listed all the major democracies in the region, including the Quad members, but omitted China. Aso is one of the contenders for succeeding Abe as prime minister.

On his first visit to India as PM, Abe had also delivered the famous “confluence of the seas” speech at the Indian parliament, where noted that “the Pacific and the Indian Oceans are now bringing about a dynamic coupling as seas of freedom and of prosperity”. In September 2007, he witnessed the Malabar exercises off the coast of Okinawa island, which included all the four Quad members and Singapore.

Just before winning the election before his second term in 2012, Abe wrote an article, “Asia’s democratic security diamond”, which asserted that Japan’s relations with India “deserves greater emphasis”. He had noted that Indian government government had shown “political savvy’ by forging an agreement with Japan on rare earth mineral manufacturing.

Similarly, the red-carpet to Japanese companies to invest in Northeast India, a substantive part of which was claimed by India, was an unmistakable signal of the strength of the strategic relationship.

In the 2012 article, Abe had explicitly warned South China Sea increasingly becoming a “Lake Beijing”, comparing it to Soviet Union’s Sea of Okhotsk.

It was in that backdrop that Abe pushed forward legislative changes which would allow it to exercise the right to collective self-defence.

The South China sea dispute has made a frequent appearance in India-China joint statements, with both sides emphasising the role of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

But the Japanese prime minister also embarked on an engagement with China late in his term. He sent a senior official to the 2017 flagship summit of the Belt and Road initiative, which was boycotted by India. The 2017 India-Japan joint statement, incidentally, did not have an explicit mention of the South China dispute by name, unlike its previous iterations.

The broad contours in Japanese foreign policy about a cautious engagement with China, while improving close ties with Asian countries and Beijing’s neighbours through economic ties and infrastructure development, as laid down by Abe, would certainly be taken forward by his successor.

Shinzo Abe: Stepping Down or Just Stepping Back?

Given his declining popularity over the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and other red flags over the years, Abe’s resignation on health grounds may be an opportunity for him.

Last year, Steven Bannon, once security advisor to US president Donald Trump, and now under arrest for fraud, praised Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe as a great hero to the grassroots, the populist and the nationalist movement throughout the world. The speech was delivered in Tokyo to a group of Liberal-Democratic Party members so it may have been a bit effusive, but Bannon certainly understood the thrust of Abe’s political philosophy.

Abe started his political career in the years of the lost decade when the economic ‘bubble’ had burst and the years of high growth and prosperity seemed a distant dream. The promise of the 21st century being a Japanese century had vanished. The birth rate was declining and neighbouring China was fast developing into an industrial powerhouse. Japan seemed incapable of meeting the economic and social challenges it was confronting.

Abe’s economic policy and his nationalist position struck a cord with the electorate and has kept him in power as prime minister since 2012. But many have seen is ideas as a ‘war on truth’. His political vision and historical ideas echo Trump in the US or the agenda of the BJP and its affiliates here. Perhaps that is why he seems to have an appeal in India as well.

Also read: Japan’s PM Shinzo Abe Resigns Citing Poor Health

Abe comes from an illustrious political family, replete with viscounts, generals, bureaucrats, prime minsters and Class-A war criminals. His maternal grandfather Nobusuke Kishi was a key figure in the puppet state of Manchukuo, a supporter of the army and of the ‘national defense state’. An admirer of the Nazis, he went on to become prime minster after the war.

Abe carries this legacy forward.

Shinzo Abe comes from an illustrious political family. Photo: Reuters

Abe has dismissing the idea that Manchukuo (what are now the northern provinces of China) was ever a puppet state, denied that the Japanese army employed what are euphemistically called ‘comfort women’ for their troops, argued that the Japanese tried as war criminals in the Tokyo War crimes tribunals were never war criminals under Japanese domestic law, visited the controversial Yasukuni Shrine both as cabinet secretary of the Liberal-Democratic Party and as prime minister; and has tried to revise the postwar constitution.

The constitution, drafted and enacted during the US-led Allied occupation, restricted the Japanese from building a military force – though they have got around that over the years. In particular, he wanted to remove Article 9 that renounced the use of force in the conduct of foreign relations, and make Japan a ‘normal country’. This Article prevents Japan from participating in military actions outside Japan.

These were all the standard red flags that marked the political boundaries after World War Two. Progressive and democratic forces saw the new constitution as a way to build a democratic Japan and looked to recognise their responsibility for the devastation they had visited in their colonies and in their wars in China, Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands. The nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki further re-enforced the idea that Japan had to carve out a new, non-violent path. Peace movements advocated limiting the defence forces and civil society groups began to address the biases in the textbooks to make the new generation aware.

The historian Ienaga Saburo in 1953 took the Ministry of Education to court for censoring his textbook as he dealt with past atrocities and massacres, this at a time when the Chinese, under Mao Zedong, were quite willing to forget about the past. Ienaga’s long drawn fight led to changes in the rules and ensured that the committee’s examinations and objection are now public and debated. Of course, non-prescribed textbooks can be freely published.

Also read: The Quad Is Poised to Become Openly Anti-China Soon

Conservative resistance, which had always been there, has increased. Many continue to argue either that in war such things happen and the Japanese were doing nothing exceptional, or outright deny the massacres or brutality as myths. In fact, the defense has usually been centred around the idea that Japan was waging a war against Western colonialism to liberate Asia. Today, this historical whitewashing is recombined with a patriarchal idea of family, and closing Japan to foreign immigration. This is a battle that continues. That is why apologies, compensation for past wrongs, and constitutional revision, or immigration, continue to be important markers of political positions.

Abe has been a strong backer of the Japanese Society for Textbook revision which denies sexual slavery but he was forced to acknowledge its existence when the government report produced by the cabinet secretary of the LDP Yohei Kono officially acknowledged that there was sexual slavery. But he pressed on. He instituted a Restoration of Sovereignty Day in 2015 to mark the end of the US Occupation, and has supported very tight immigration laws.

As in many other parts of the world, political conservatism and economic neo-liberal policies have gained strength since the ’90s and Abe has represented that and been an important shaper of these policies. He has been popular, but not always effective. He failed to push through the revision of the constitution, which he thought would be the mark of his legacy. Some see him as pragmatic given how he has tried to work with China. In the disputes over the Senkaku, or Diaoyudai, as the Chinese call them, islands in 2012, he acknowledged that there was a dispute.

But his track record during the COVID-19 pandemic has been poor. In comparison to neighbouring South Korea, Abe was slow off the mark and hesitant. The COVID-19 cases on the Diamond Princess, the cruise ship that docked in Yokohama Bay, were badly handled, and his popularity plummeted in May with a majority disapproving his management. The public thought he was using the crisis to help his business friends.The Expert Group that had been set up to decide on what measures to take gave recommendations that Abe did not like, so he disbanded the group and formed another one, bringing in celebrities with little medical expertise.

Also read: Postponing The Olympics May Not be As Bad an Idea As We Think

Abe has been focused on allowing business to continue as the economy is doing badly and the public thinks he is ignoring the health risks. Reports also suggest that he was pushing officials to approve Avigan, a domestic drug for treating COVID-19 though the initial results of tests were disappointing.

The canceling of the Tokyo Olympics is another huge economic blow. Abe dithered till the last possible moment before canceling, winning no friends.

Abe’s resignation on health grounds may be an opportunity for him. The elections for the president of the LDP are due to be held September 2021 and elections for the Lower House are due in December 2021. Abe will continue as prime minster till the new one is appointed, which means he continues to have power and can influence the political manoeuvring for leadership.

Commentators have suggested he could even have an early party presidential election, or even call for a snap poll. Given his declining popularity over the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, the cancelling of the Olympic games, and the economic downturn, this may have been an opportune moment for him to take a step back.

Brij Tankha retired as professor of modern Japanese history from Delhi University and is an honorary fellow at the Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi.

Japan’s PM Shinzo Abe Resigns Citing Poor Health

Under fire for his handling of the coronavirus and scandals among party members, Abe has recently seen his support fall to one of the lowest levels of his nearly eight years in office.

Tokyo: Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest-serving premier, announced his resignation because of poor health on Friday, ending a stint at the helm of the world’s third-biggest economy in which he sought to revive growth and bolster its defences.

Abe has battled the disease ulcerative colitis for years and two recent hospital visits within a week had fanned questions on whether he could stay in the job until the end of his term as ruling party leader, and `hence, premier, in September 2021.

“I cannot continue being prime minister if I do not have the confidence that I can carry out the job entrusted to me by the people,” Abe, 65, told a news conference as he announced his decision to step down.

He said he wanted to avoid a political vacuum as the country copes with the novel coronavirus.

“I apologise from the bottom of my heart that despite all of the support from the Japanese people, I am leaving the post with one full year left in my term,” Abe said, at times blinking back tears and his voice choking up.

It was the second time Abe has resigned as prime minister because of poor health.

As news of the resignation spread, Japan’s benchmark Nikkei average fell 2.12% to 22,717.02, while the broader Topix shed 1.00% to 1,599.70. The selling wiped $47 billion off Tokyo’s $5.7 trillion stock market value, which had more than doubled during Abe’s tenure.

The resignation will trigger a leadership race in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) – most likely in two or three weeks – and the winner must be formally elected in parliament. The new party leader will hold the post for the rest of Abe’s term.

Former defence minister Shigeru Ishiba and former foreign minister Fumio Kishida both expressed interest in the top job, media reported. Among others whose names have been floated is Abe’s close aide, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga.

Whoever wins the party poll is likely to keep Abe’s reflationary “Abenomics” policies as Japan struggles with the impact of the novel coronavirus but may have trouble emulating the political longevity that may be Abe’s biggest legacy.

“The broad picture remains in tact. In terms of economic and fiscal policy, the focus remains very much on reflation,” said Jesper Koll, senior adviser to asset manager WisdomTree Investments. “Longevity will be a struggle.”

On Monday, Abe surpassed a record for longest consecutive tenure as premier set by his great-uncle Eisaku Sato half a century ago.

“As head of the ruling party he worked hard on Abenomics for eight years,” said Naohito Kojima, 55, a brokerage employee.

“There were various problems but if someone else had been leader, it’s questionable whether they could have maintained a stable government as long as Mr Abe. He did various diplomatic negotiations and I think the pros outweighed the cons.”

Abe won praise for reasserting Japan’s presence on the global stage after years of revolving-door premiers.

His resignation comes amid an uncertain geopolitical environment, including an intensifying confrontation between the United States and China and ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November.

Falling support

The conservative Abe returned as prime minister for a rare second term in December 2012, pledging to revive growth with his “Abenomics” mix of hyper-easy monetary policy, fiscal spending and reforms. He also pledged to beef up Japan’s defences and aimed to revise the pacifist constitution.

Abe was also instrumental in Japan’s successful bid to host the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, though they were delayed to next year because of the coronavirus.

Doubts persist as to whether the Games will go ahead then.

“We must fulfil our responsibility as the host country of the Olympics,” Abe told the news conference. “Of course, I believe my successor will work to host the Olympics under the same belief.”

Under fire for his handling of the coronavirus and scandals among party members, Abe has recently seen his support fall to one of the lowest levels of his nearly eight years in office.

Japan has not suffered the explosive surge in virus cases seen elsewhere – it has had nearly 67,000 cases and 1,255 deaths – but Abe drew fire for a clumsy early response and what critics saw as a lack of leadership as infections spread.

Japan’s economy suffered its biggest slump on record in the second quarter as the pandemic emptied shopping malls and slashed demand for cars and other exports, bolstering the case for bolder action to avert a deeper recession.

Abe kept his promises to strengthen defences, boosting spending on the military after years of declines and expanding its capacity to project power abroad.

In a historic shift in 2014, his government re-interpreted the constitution to allow Japanese troops to fight abroad for the first time since World War Two.

A year later, Japan adopted laws scrapping a ban on exercising the right of collective self-defence or defending a friendly country under attack.

But Abe proved unable to revise the US-drafted, post-war constitution’s pacifist Article 9, a personal mission that also eluded his grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, who quit as premier in 1960 because of uproar over a U.S-Japan security pact.

Abe resigned from his first stint as prime minister in 2007, citing ill-health after a year plagued by scandals in his cabinet and a huge election loss for his ruling party. He had since kept his illness in check with medicine that was not previously available.

(Reuters)

As Anti-CAB Protests Rage in Guwahati, India-Japan Summit Postponed

Assam has been witnessing massive protests in the last two days over the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, with thousands of people hitting the streets defying prohibitory orders to demand to scrap the bill.

New Delhi: India announced on Friday that the annual India-Japan summit has been ‘deferred’, with Assam continuing to witness clashes and curfew being further extended over protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill.

“With reference to the proposed visit of Japanese PM Abe to India, both sides have decided to defer the visit to a mutually convenient date in the near future,” MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said on Friday.

Unless the next meeting occurs within the next 15 days, it effectively means that bilateral summit which occurs annually, will not take place in 2019.

India had previously announced that the summit between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese premier Shinzo Abe would take place on December 15-17. The venue had not been formally declared.

However, both state and Central government officials had confirmed that Guwahati had been chosen as the venue due to its key location as part of India’s Act East Policy and Japanese involvement in the development of connectivity in north-eastern India.

According to sources, the only alternate venue that could have been considered with such short notice was Delhi. But, having the summit in Delhi would not give it the aura of a special meeting, which previous summits usually had, said a senior Indian government official.

“It would have seemed like any other foreign visit. This has not been the nature of these summits,” he said.

These annual prime ministerial summits have been held since 2006, with each country hosting the event every alternate year. However, since 2014, at least some of the events are held outside the national capitals.

In 2014, Abe hosted Modi at Kyoto, while the Indian PM took the Japanese guest to Varanasi the next year. The Indian leader organised a roadshow with Abe in his home state of Gujarat in 2017. Next year, Abe invited Modi to his holiday home in the Yamanashi prefecture.

In the same theme, Guwahati had been chosen as a suitable venue. Japan had also been keen that Abe should visit Manipur to pay tribute to the Japanese soldiers who died during World War II at the India Peace memorial.

It would also have been logistically difficult to change the venue, even if it was Delhi. “It would take at least three days for arrangements…More than that, this is peak hotel season. Finding suitable hotel rooms for the large delegation that accompanies a head of government would have been difficult at this time,” said an official.

On Wednesday, officials from Japan’s embassy and Central government ministries inspected the sites in Guwahati. Even then, the MEA had expressed confidence that the summit would go ahead.

MEA officials expressed helplessness at the postponement of the summit less than 48 hours before the scheduled date, even though clashes have been continuing for the past three days. “We can only go by what the state government had been telling us. Even on the evening that CAB was passed, they had been telling us that they will manage the situation,” said sources.

Officials said that India would host the next summit, but it would certainly not take place this year. However, Abe would have to visit India in early 2020, as there is no plan to change Japan’s chance to host the annual summit in November-December next year.

Japan PM Shinzo Abe’s Approval Rating Falls Amid Accusations of Party Funding

His disapproval rating rose to 36% from 34% last month, with 45% of respondents citing “lack of trust in the prime minister”.

Tokyo: Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s approval rating has taken a hit in the past month, a media poll shows, amid opposition accusations that his office may have violated political spending laws.

Allegations that his political office sponsored a party for supporters are the latest in a string of gift-giving scandals that have brought down politicians across Japan in recent months, eroding public sentiment.

A monthly Yomiuri Shimbun poll conducted late last week showed an approval rating of 49% for Abe’s cabinet, down 6 points from the October poll, and falling below 50% for the first time since February.

The disapproval rating rose to 36% from 34% last month, with 45% of respondents citing “lack of trust in the prime minister” over the party–funding allegations.

Abe on Monday confirmed that 800 guests attended the dinner reception at a five-star hotel in central Tokyo in April, which he and his wife attended, adding that attendees each paid a 5,000 yen ($46) admission fee.

Also read: Japan-South Korea Dispute Far From Reconciliation

“Neither my office nor the party‘s supporters organisation contributed funding towards admission for guests or myself at the dinner event,” Abe told reporters on Monday, adding that his office held no record of the event.

Opposition parties say that the admission price was much lower than that of other receptions held at the Hotel New Otani, which start at 11,000 yen per head, according to the hotel’s website. They say if Abe subsidised the admission, it may violate the Political Offices Election Law and Political Funds Control Law.

“Abe has said that his office sponsored the reception, so it’s mandatory that it keeps records of the event for bookkeeping purposes,” Jun Azumi, deputy secretary-general of the centre-left Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, told reporters. “The fact that these records do not exist shows that his office had no intention to keep such records, that his office doesn’t acknowledge the event. This is an issue.”

Politicians are strictly forbidden to give anything to constituents that even hints at being a gift. The rule is so strict that one cabinet minister quit in 2014 after distributing paper fans during the summer.

Last month, two government officials separately resigned over accusations that they had given fruit and vegetables to constituents as gifts.

Ten Killed as Storms Ravage Eastern Japan

Authorities warned of the chance of further landslides and floods, especially in areas where levees remained broken after Typhoon Hagibis.

Tokyo: The death toll from torrential rains that caused flooding and mudslides in Japan climbed to 10 on Saturday, with three others missing, public broadcaster NHK reported, just two weeks after the region was hit by a powerful typhoon.

Landslides ripped through waterlogged areas in Chiba and Fukushima prefectures, in eastern and northeastern Japan, on Friday. In some places, a month’s worth of rain fell in just half a day.

Evacuation orders and advisories were issued along much of the northern corridor already hit by two typhoons since last month. The city of Ushiku in Chiba received 283.5 mm (11 inches) of rain over 12 hours.

Although the storm had moved away from Japan by Saturday, hundreds of residents were still in evacuation centres and some rail and bus services remained suspended.

Also read: In the Face of Climate Catastrophe, How Should We Live?

Some roads were closed and about 4,700 households were still without water in the city of Kamogawa, Chiba, the public broadcaster said.

Smartphone screen maker Japan Display Inc said it had suspended production at its Mobara factory in Chiba on Saturday, due to a partial blackout.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held a disaster task force meeting on Saturday.

Authorities warned of the chance of further landslides and floods, especially in areas where levees remained broken after Typhoon Hagibis.

That typhoon killed at least 88 people, with seven others still missing and more than 300 injured, according to NHK.

Japan-South Korea Dispute Far From Reconciliation

Friction between Tokyo and Seoul could result in negative consequences for both countries, given that regional cooperation looks difficult to come through.

On the streets of Seoul in late August, a young Japanese tourist was assaulted by a Korean man and the footage went viral on social media sites. On Tuesday in Tokyo, a letter containing a bullet and a message saying the sender intends to “target” South Koreans was delivered to Seoul’s embassy.

A year after the already rocky relations between the northeast Asian neighbours began to spiral downward, both governments remain locked in a series of increasingly bitter tit-for-tat accusations. And the friction between governments is now spilling over into the public realm, threatening to do even more damage to bilateral ties.

Given the growing sense of aggrievement among the general population on both sides of the divide, fanned in part by partisan media reports, the two governments may find it hard to back down from the positions that they have taken.

“It is difficult to see how the situation can get better as, unfortunately, that would take leadership on both sides,” said Daniel Pinkston, a professor of international relations at the Seoul campus of Troy University.

Also read: Japan Wants to Work With India on ‘Concrete’ Infra Projects in Third Countries

“There is a lot of finger-pointing going on by both sides, and the tragedy is that both are going to end up worse off. It seems that there are also domestic political gains to be had in both Seoul and Tokyo by continuing the animosity.”

Representative image. Photo: Reuters

Japan has hinted it might institute new travel restrictions on South Korean tourists. The South Korean public responded with a wide-ranging boycott of popular Japanese brands, from Kirin beer to Toyota cars.

There are also suggestions that Seoul is planning to tighten import controls on food products from parts of Japan affected by the 2011 accident at the Fukushima nuclear plant, despite Japanese protestations that all produce is tested.

Japan and South Korea trade economic jabs

On Tuesday, Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry submitted a written opinion to its South Korean counterpart criticising Seoul’s decision, announced on August 12, to remove Japan from its list of favoured trading partners. The Korean announcement came a month after Tokyo removed South Korea from its list of trusted trading partners.

The trade row has taken centre stage in the worsening relationship, largely because of Japan’s decision to severely curtail exports of chemicals critical to South Korea’s chip manufacturing industry. This threatens the long-term viability of a sector that was already under pressure from rival nations.

Japan says it acted because it has evidence that South Korea is permitting banned technology to be shipped to North Korea, in contravention of United Nations sanctions on Pyongyang for its nuclear and missile programs.

However, it is widely believed that Tokyo’s move was provoked by South Korean courts granting Korean forced labourers from Japan’s colonial occupation era the right to sue Japanese firms for damages.

Japan insists that all claims were settled under the terms of a 1965 treaty that normalised relations between the two counties and saw Tokyo pay $500 million (€454 million) in compensation.

The Rising Sun and territorial disputes

On the geopolitical front, Japan has reiterated its claim to Takeshima, a small rocky archipelago located halfway between the two countries and presently controlled by South Korea, which refers to them as Dok-do. Last week, a group of South Korean politicians landed on the island and symbolically called on Japan to lift trade restrictions.

In December 2018, a Korean warship reportedly locked its fire control radar onto a Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force patrol aircraft operating between the two countries.

Seoul denied the incident happened and barred a Japanese warship from a Korean port unless it took down the rising sun flag that is the recognised ensign of the MSDF, but which South Korea claims is a throwback to the flag of imperial Japan when it ruled the Korean Peninsula.

On Tuesday, South Korea demanded that Japan not permit rising sun flags to be displayed at the Tokyo Olympic Games, which will be held in 2020.

Representative image, Photo: DW

‘Political Suicide’

“From my perspective, it does seem that South Korea always needs to be in the position of the aggressor, which plays very well for the supporters of President Moon Jae-in,” said Jun Okumura, a political analyst at the Meiji Institute for Global Affairs.

“A group of their politicians went to Takeshima to denounce Japan’s claim to the islands. They already control those islands, so why bother?” he told DW.

Okumura believes that after decades of rather meekly accepting criticism from Korea about Japan’s imperial past, the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has finally put its foot down and is fighting back. Unfortunately, he added, that has left Seoul with little room to manoeuvre. For Moon, backing down is out of the question as it would be political suicide with few options other than escalation.

Tokyo would appear to hold the advantage if the trade war worsens further, due to Korea’s heavy reliance on products from Japan, with Pinkston suggesting that the next seven months will be critical to how the situation plays out.

“South Korea has elections for its national assembly in April and there is already a lot of very deep concern about the state of the economy, employment and job security,” he pointed out.

“Standing up to Japan is always an electoral winner for South Korean parties, but if that would inevitably lead to real economic damage and hardship for ordinary people ,and if they hold the Moon administration to blame for that, then the voters will show their dissatisfaction,” he said.

This article was first published in DW.

China Marks Nanjing Massacre Anniversary but Xi Silent

China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 massacre in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in its then capital.

Children hold candles as part of a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the Nanjing massacre in Nanjing December 13, 2007. China marked 80 years since Japan’s Nanjing massacre, also known as the “Rape of Nanking”, today invoking memories of the atrocity to remind Tokyo that the wartime past remains a bitter backdrop to an improving relationship. Credit: Reuters/Nir Elias

Beijing: China marked the 80th anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre on Wednesday with a call to work with Japan for peace, but president Xi Jinping kept a low profile and left the public remarks to another senior official.

China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 massacre in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in its then capital.

A postwar Allied tribunal put the death toll at 142,000 but some conservative Japanese politicians and scholars deny a massacre took place at all.

Ties between China and Japan, the world’s second- and third-largest economies, have been plagued by a long-running territorial dispute over a cluster of East China Sea islets and suspicion in China about efforts by Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe to amend Japan’s pacifist constitution.

However the two countries have sought to get relations back on track, and Abe and Xi met last month on the sidelines of a regional summit in Vietnam.

Speaking at a memorial in the eastern city of Nanjing, Yu Zhengsheng, who heads a high profile but largely ceremonial advisory body to China’s parliament, said China and Japan were neighbours with deep historic ties.

China will deepen relations with all its neighbours, including Japan, on the basis of amity, sincerity and friendship, Yu said, in comments carried live on state television.

“China and Japan must act on the basis of both their people’s basic interests, correctly grasp the broad direction of peaceful and friendly cooperation, take history as a mirror, face the future and pass on friendship down the generations,” Yu said.

A sombre Xi, wearing a white flower in his lapel to symbolise mourning, stood in the audience but did not speak.Doves flew overhead to signify peace once Yu finished speaking.

It was the second time Xi has attended the event since as the country marked its first national memorial day for the massacre in 2014. At that time he did speak, calling on China and Japan to set aside hatred and not allow the minority who led Japan to war to affect relations now.

(Reuters)

Japan’s Shinzo Abe Mulling Snap Election as Early as October

Abe’s ratings had sunk below 30% in some surveys in July, battered by suspected cronyism scandals and a perception that he had grown arrogant.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks to reporters about North Korea’s missile launch in Tokyo, Japan in this photo taken by Kyodo on August 29, 2017. Credit: Reuters

Tokyo: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is considering calling a snap election as early as next month to take advantage of an uptick in approval ratings and disarray in the main opposition party, domestic media reported on Sunday.

Abe’s ratings have recovered to the 50% level in some polls, helped by public jitters over North Korea’s missile and nuclear tests and chaos in the opposition Democratic Party, struggling with single-digit support and defections.

Abe told the head of his Liberal Democratic Party’s junior coalition partner, the Komeito party, that he could not rule out dissolving parliament’s lower house for a snap poll after the legislature convenes for an extra session from September 28, public broadcaster NHK reported, citing unidentified informed sources.

“Until now, it appeared the election would be next autumn, but … we must always be ready for battle,” media quoted Komeito party chief Natsuo Yamaguchi as telling reporters on Saturday during a visit to Russia.

Speculation has mounted over a snap election on October 22, when three by-elections are scheduled, although other possibilities are later in October or after US President Donald Trump makes a likely visit in early November, media said.

Abe’s ratings had sunk below 30% in some surveys in July, battered by suspected cronyism scandals and a perception that he had grown arrogant after more than four years in office.

His popularity rebounded a bit after an early August cabinet reshuffle and has since been helped by worries over a volatile North Korea, which on Friday fired a ballistic missile overJapan, its second such move in less than a month.

“If we have a snap election now, we need to explain it to the public, including how we will cope with the threat from North Korea,” said Koichi Hagiuda, a senior LDP executive, according to NHK.

As Japan faces its first impending major security crisis since World War II, it is vital to secure public understanding, he said.

No general election need be held until late 2018, and calling a snap poll could spark criticism that he was creating a political vacuum amid rising regional security tensions.

But an early vote would not only take advantage of Democratic Party disarray but also dilute a challenge from an embryonic party that allies of popular Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike, an ex-LDP lawmaker, are trying to form.

Abe’s coalition would likely lose its two-thirds “super” majority” in the lower house, but keep a simple majority, political sources have said.

Loss of the two-thirds grip would dim prospects Abe can achieve his controversial goal of revising Japan‘s pacifist constitution to clarify the military’s role. Any constitutional amendment requires approval by two-thirds of both chambers and a majority in a public referendum.

That risk could make Abe hesitate.

“I am skeptical about the consensus that Abe will call a snap election because doing so poses a risk, albeit small, to his agenda of constitutional revision,” said Jeffrey Kingston, director of Asian studies at Temple University Japan.

(Reuters)

US Makes Largest Okinawa Land Transfer Since 1972

The returned land is part of the Northern Training Area, or Camp Gonsalves or the Jungle Warfare Training Centre, and is the largest US installation in Japan with 19,300 acres of land.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (R) reaches his hand towards US Forces Japan commander Lieutenant General Jerry P. Martinez (L) while US Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy (C) looks on during a joint announcement on the return of American military to the island of Okinawa at the Abe’s official resident in Tokyo on December 21, 2016. Credit: Reuters/Toshfumi Kitamura/Pool

Tokyo: The US and Japan held a ceremony on Wednesday marking the US military’s return of nearly 10,000 acres of land on Okinawa island to the Japanese government, the largest transfer since 1972.

Resentment on the southern island has simmered for years among residents opposed to the US Marines’ Futenma air base there. They want the base moved off the island but the central government aims to relocate it to a less-populated part of Okinawa.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the US ambassador to Japan, Caroline Kennedy, attended the ceremony in Tokyo, with another event on Okinawa planned for Thursday.

The US military said in a statement Japan had made sufficient progress in building helipads and access roads to consolidate military training in other areas and allow for the return of the 9,909 acres.

The returned land is part of the Northern Training Area, or Camp Gonsalves or the Jungle Warfare Training Centre, and is the largest US installation in Japan with 19,300 acres of land.

Okinawa, which was under US occupation until 1972, hosts the bulk of the approximately 50,000 US military personnel in Japan.

Although agreed in 1996, the return of the land was delayed by protesters blocking the construction of helipads. The Japanese government recently resumed work at the site.

Japan’s top court on Tuesday ruled in favour of the government plan to relocate the Futenma base to another part of the island, dealing a blow to islanders’ efforts to get rid of it altogether.

Tension between Okinawa authorities and the US military increased this month when a MV-22 Osprey aircraft crashed southwest of Okinawa, the first accident involving the aircraft in Japan.

Okinawa residents worry about crashes in populated areas.

Japanese media reported Okinawa governor Takeshi Onaga planned to skip the ceremony on Thursday and instead attend a protest against the US military presence on the island.