On March 20 in Japan (March 19 in the US), the biggest full moon since March 1993 will occur. It’s called a super "perigee moon.” The tide will come in more than usual. People on the coastline hit by tsunamim, just in case, better watch the tide .
日本時間の3月20日(米国時間19日)は1993年3月以来の満月の大きさとなる。その分、大きな満ち潮となる。津波被害にあった海岸地域の方々、ぜひ頭に入れておいてください。
Friday, March 18, 2011
A list of Twitter hashtags on Japan earthquake
#jishin : 地震情報(info on earthquake)
#j_j_helpme : 救助要請(a call for help)
#hinan : 避難情報(info on evacuation)
#anpi : 安否確認(safety confirmation)
#311care : 医療支援(medical support)
#j_j_helpme : 救助要請(a call for help)
#hinan : 避難情報(info on evacuation)
#anpi : 安否確認(safety confirmation)
#311care : 医療支援(medical support)
Thursday, March 17, 2011
(My latest story for Asia Times) Record-high yen assaults Japan
Very, very good news. This afternoon I just got a phone call from my relative in Miyagi Prefecture. He and his mother survived. I was pretty much relieved to hear they are safe.
Mitsunori Goto, 48, my relative, who survived the earthquake one week ago, said his car was swept by the tsunami but he managed to escape alive. At that time, he was in Ishinomaki City of Miyagi. He gave me a phone call today. He is a former SDF member.
Also, my late grandma's house located in Tome City of Miyagi did not collapse during the earthquake. My mother and I always go to this house every Obon season around mid-August.
Here is my latest story for Asia Times. I criticized speculative FX trading, which took advantage of nuke fears in Japan. Cheers, Kosuke
Record-high yen assaults Japan
By Kosuke Takahashi
TOKYO - Greed and fear move markets, one popular proverb on Wall Street says. Speculative market players, taking advantage of greed and fear, are now assaulting Japan, seeking to gain in the wake of the country's worst recorded earthquake, subsequent big aftershocks, massive tsunami, tremendous loss of life and nuclear panic.
With nuclear fears on the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant rising, speculators are aggressively buying the Japanese yen amid cat-and-dog surging demand for the currency, pushing up the yen to a record post-World War II high of 76.25 to the US dollar on early Thursday in Tokyo. The yen at this level will likely hit the profitability of Japanese exporters such as Toyota and Sony in coming months, although it can help lower prices of imported crude oil and other raw materials.
Why do speculators buy the yen, instead of selling it, as geopolitical risks of Japan on nuclear radiation are rising and the Japanese economy is expected to slow down in coming months due to massive earthquake damage?
The prevailing notion in the markets is that global money managers and hedge funds, as well as Japanese mom-and-pop investors, are increasingly seeking to reduce investment risk due to the global downturn in stocks, and that those investors are unwinding so-called yen carry trades, which under less volatile financial times allow traders to capitalize on Japan's ultra-low interest rates to buy higher-yielding assets in Australia and elsewhere.
But the real reason is not a simple yen-buying based on risk aversion. They are actually taking big speculative risks to bet on the yen's further rise by buying it. They simply buy the Japanese currency, as they think that people want to buy the yen in times of emergency world-wide.
Yen-buying and losses in the stock markets started to pile up late morning New York time on Wednesday after European Union Energy commissioner Guenther Oettinger warned of "further catastrophic events" in the coming hours in Japan, saying they "could pose a threat to the lives of people on the island".
He said that one of Japan's nuclear plants was "effectively out of control", and that the situation could continue to deteriorate. Europe's energy chief later played down his warning, as his spokeswoman said his comments were based on media reports, his personal fears and so forth after the comments alarmed global financial markets.
Then, losses in the stock markets and yen-buying accelerated after the United States Embassy in Japan urged American citizens living within 80 kilometers of the quake-hit Fukushima nuclear power plant to evacuate as a precautionary measure.
Nuclear pundits around the globe have mentioned Japan’s possible nuclear crisis as being equivalent to the 1986 Chernobyl accident. They seldom mention a basic but important fact. Unlike Chernobyl, Japan managed to automatically shut down all the nuclear power reactors in Fukushima immediately after the earthquake on March 11. This is quite different from Chernobyl.
"The yen is being bought as nuke fears are exaggerated abroad," said Yuji Saito, director of the foreign exchange department in Tokyo at Credit Agricole Corporate & Investment Bank. "By taking advantage of those exaggerated fears, speculators aimed to trigger massive stop-loss orders of yen-buying at the level of a previous record-high of 79.75 yen against the dollar. They succeeded in doing so by triggering those stop orders amid very thin trading between New York and Tokyo times."
Saito said now that speculators had finished hitting another record-high of the yen against the dollar, they fear intervention by the Japanese authorities in the currency markets by selling the yen, and have already started to sell the yen by riding on possible future intervention by the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Japan.
"Crucially, FX [foreign exchange] carry positions have likely been wiped out, without a severe jump in volume, so overall, conditions for risk appetite/releverage actually appear to be reasonable and there will be investors with strong interest in buying cross-JPY," UBS wrote in a report on Thursday. "Of course, if the news flow deteriorates yet again, the market could yet turn, but overall last night's price action seems very FX-specific and stops/barriers driven than any indication of fundamental fear-induced deleveraging."
Expectations are rising that central bank officials and the Group of Seven finance ministers will decide to assist Japan's recovery efforts and also approve, or at least understand, Japan's currency intervention at an emergency meeting by phone on Friday. The Group of Seven is composed of the United States, Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Canada.
"Japan will be forced to sell US Treasuries if it really needs the costs of its reconstruction," Saito said. "This would be severely damaging to the US. So I think the world led by the US will help Japan this time."
As of January 2011, Japan holds $885.9 billion of US Treasuries, the second-largest holder, following China's $1.15 trillion.
Kosuke Takahashi is a Tokyo-based Japanese journalist. He is a regular TV commentator at Nikkei CNBC in Tokyo. He previously was a currency reporter for Bloomberg News in Tokyo under the pen name of Kosuke Goto.
(Copyright 2011 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
Mitsunori Goto, 48, my relative, who survived the earthquake one week ago, said his car was swept by the tsunami but he managed to escape alive. At that time, he was in Ishinomaki City of Miyagi. He gave me a phone call today. He is a former SDF member.
Also, my late grandma's house located in Tome City of Miyagi did not collapse during the earthquake. My mother and I always go to this house every Obon season around mid-August.
Here is my latest story for Asia Times. I criticized speculative FX trading, which took advantage of nuke fears in Japan. Cheers, Kosuke
Record-high yen assaults Japan
By Kosuke Takahashi
TOKYO - Greed and fear move markets, one popular proverb on Wall Street says. Speculative market players, taking advantage of greed and fear, are now assaulting Japan, seeking to gain in the wake of the country's worst recorded earthquake, subsequent big aftershocks, massive tsunami, tremendous loss of life and nuclear panic.
With nuclear fears on the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant rising, speculators are aggressively buying the Japanese yen amid cat-and-dog surging demand for the currency, pushing up the yen to a record post-World War II high of 76.25 to the US dollar on early Thursday in Tokyo. The yen at this level will likely hit the profitability of Japanese exporters such as Toyota and Sony in coming months, although it can help lower prices of imported crude oil and other raw materials.
Why do speculators buy the yen, instead of selling it, as geopolitical risks of Japan on nuclear radiation are rising and the Japanese economy is expected to slow down in coming months due to massive earthquake damage?
The prevailing notion in the markets is that global money managers and hedge funds, as well as Japanese mom-and-pop investors, are increasingly seeking to reduce investment risk due to the global downturn in stocks, and that those investors are unwinding so-called yen carry trades, which under less volatile financial times allow traders to capitalize on Japan's ultra-low interest rates to buy higher-yielding assets in Australia and elsewhere.
But the real reason is not a simple yen-buying based on risk aversion. They are actually taking big speculative risks to bet on the yen's further rise by buying it. They simply buy the Japanese currency, as they think that people want to buy the yen in times of emergency world-wide.
Yen-buying and losses in the stock markets started to pile up late morning New York time on Wednesday after European Union Energy commissioner Guenther Oettinger warned of "further catastrophic events" in the coming hours in Japan, saying they "could pose a threat to the lives of people on the island".
He said that one of Japan's nuclear plants was "effectively out of control", and that the situation could continue to deteriorate. Europe's energy chief later played down his warning, as his spokeswoman said his comments were based on media reports, his personal fears and so forth after the comments alarmed global financial markets.
Then, losses in the stock markets and yen-buying accelerated after the United States Embassy in Japan urged American citizens living within 80 kilometers of the quake-hit Fukushima nuclear power plant to evacuate as a precautionary measure.
Nuclear pundits around the globe have mentioned Japan’s possible nuclear crisis as being equivalent to the 1986 Chernobyl accident. They seldom mention a basic but important fact. Unlike Chernobyl, Japan managed to automatically shut down all the nuclear power reactors in Fukushima immediately after the earthquake on March 11. This is quite different from Chernobyl.
"The yen is being bought as nuke fears are exaggerated abroad," said Yuji Saito, director of the foreign exchange department in Tokyo at Credit Agricole Corporate & Investment Bank. "By taking advantage of those exaggerated fears, speculators aimed to trigger massive stop-loss orders of yen-buying at the level of a previous record-high of 79.75 yen against the dollar. They succeeded in doing so by triggering those stop orders amid very thin trading between New York and Tokyo times."
Saito said now that speculators had finished hitting another record-high of the yen against the dollar, they fear intervention by the Japanese authorities in the currency markets by selling the yen, and have already started to sell the yen by riding on possible future intervention by the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Japan.
"Crucially, FX [foreign exchange] carry positions have likely been wiped out, without a severe jump in volume, so overall, conditions for risk appetite/releverage actually appear to be reasonable and there will be investors with strong interest in buying cross-JPY," UBS wrote in a report on Thursday. "Of course, if the news flow deteriorates yet again, the market could yet turn, but overall last night's price action seems very FX-specific and stops/barriers driven than any indication of fundamental fear-induced deleveraging."
Expectations are rising that central bank officials and the Group of Seven finance ministers will decide to assist Japan's recovery efforts and also approve, or at least understand, Japan's currency intervention at an emergency meeting by phone on Friday. The Group of Seven is composed of the United States, Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Canada.
"Japan will be forced to sell US Treasuries if it really needs the costs of its reconstruction," Saito said. "This would be severely damaging to the US. So I think the world led by the US will help Japan this time."
As of January 2011, Japan holds $885.9 billion of US Treasuries, the second-largest holder, following China's $1.15 trillion.
Kosuke Takahashi is a Tokyo-based Japanese journalist. He is a regular TV commentator at Nikkei CNBC in Tokyo. He previously was a currency reporter for Bloomberg News in Tokyo under the pen name of Kosuke Goto.
(Copyright 2011 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Greed and fear move markets..
Nuke fears are exaggerated abroad. Unlike the 1986 Chernobyl accident, remember that Japan managed to shut down all nuke plants in Fukushima immediately after the earthquake. This is a basic fact and quite different from Chernobyl.
Well, some people need such fears, especially market players on the Wall Street, as greed and fear move markets...
Well, some people need such fears, especially market players on the Wall Street, as greed and fear move markets...
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Here is a search site to find missing persons in Japan
Here is a search site to find missing persons in Japan.
Please spread out this with Twitter and Facebook and whatever.
http://japan.person-finder.appspot.com/ (Japanese)
http://japan.person-finder.appspot.com/?lang=en (English)
http://japan.person-finder.appspot.com/?lang=zh-CN (Chinese)
http://japan.person-finder.appspot.com/?lang=ko (Korean)
Thanks and regards,
Kosuke
Please spread out this with Twitter and Facebook and whatever.
http://japan.person-finder.appspot.com/ (Japanese)
http://japan.person-finder.appspot.com/?lang=en (English)
http://japan.person-finder.appspot.com/?lang=zh-CN (Chinese)
http://japan.person-finder.appspot.com/?lang=ko (Korean)
Thanks and regards,
Kosuke
Friday, March 11, 2011
Japan hit by largest earthquake in country's history
On Friday afternoon Japan was hit by the biggest earthquake ever.
I was at home on the 17th floor of an apartment building when the earthquake hit. At that time I'd just finished off writing a story for Asia Times Online(ATol), which I posted here, and submitted it to ATol's desk. I was dead tired around that time because I had worked all through the night. The previous night, or Thursday night, I was working on a story for Jane's Defence Weekly. But this earthquake made me completely awake. I felt big waves for a couple of minutes. I thought I would die. My mother, 67, became pale and could not stand up. Flower pots, books, fluorescent lights all came down from shelves and the ceiling.
This earthquake is, for sure, the biggest I have ever experienced. (I went to Kobe in 1995 to cover stories on the Great Hanshin Earthquake, which killed 6,434 people, as staff writer of the Asahi Shimbun, but that was a few weeks after the Great Hanshin Earthquake. So I did not experience that exact moment of happening.)
I went out to the streets to make sure how people are coping with this situation. Many people just kept walking on the streets after this major earthquake and subsequent dozens of aftershocks. All public transportations such as trains, subways and most buses are still being stopped. Aftershocks make it very dangerous to use them. People just needed to walk to go home on cold Friday night. The photo below was taken in my hometown Kawsaki City, adjoining Tokyo.
Softbank, my mobile phone service, didn't work including SMS/MMS(intermittent emails/text msgs) .
My IPhone 4, my favorite item, became useless. It was not connected until just before mid-night. My home phone was also disconnected until night.
Well. here is my latest story for Asia Times.
Scandals strain US-Japan relations
By Kosuke Takahashi
TOKYO - A new division is developing in the Japan-United States relationship after Kevin Maher, policy chief on Japan affairs at the US State Department, said it would be bad for the US if Japan's war-renouncing peaceful constitution was changed because Japan would not need the American military.
Anti-US sentiments are particularly flaring up again in Okinawa, Japan's southernmost island, after Maher, director of the Office of Japan Affairs at the State Department and former consul general in Okinawa, described Okinawan people as "masters of manipulation and extortion" in their dealings with the long-standing, thorny issue of the relocation of the US Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station on Okinawa.
Maher gave a lecture to American University students in Washington on December 3, 2010. He was sacked from his position by the State Department on March 10, four days after Kyodo News first reported Maher's statement.
"Maher's remarks on the constitution surely cast a shadow on Japan's long-term national security," Ukeru Magosaki, the former chief of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's international intelligence bureau, told Asia Times Online on Friday. "His comments hurt the Okinawa people's feeling severely. This would make it further difficult to put the US base relocation plan into practice."
Japan, meanwhile, has its own problems. It took a stop-gap measure by promoting Takeaki Matsumoto on Wednesday as foreign minister from his deputy position at the ministry to succeed Seiji Maehara, who abruptly resigned on March 6 over a scandal involving a political donation from a South Korean resident of Kyoto.
The scandals from both sides of the US and Japan surfaced at a time when the significance of closer ties between two nations cannot be overemphasized to cope with the rapid rise of the Chinese military, the warmongering from North Korea against South Korea and Russia's movement towards the south by strengthening its military presence on four disputed islands, known as the Southern Kuril islands in Russia and the Northern Territories in Japan.
Tense incidents
Most recently, two Chinese military planes - a Y-8 surveillance aircraft and a Y-8 anti-submarine aircraft - on March 2 flew to about 55 kilometers (34 miles) from the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. This prompted the Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) to scramble F-15J fighters.
In addition, a Chinese State Oceanic Administration helicopter on Monday flew to just within 70 meters of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) destroyer Samidare. Military experts said China tested Japan's reflexes amid Tokyo's weakening diplomatic power caused by its domestic political turmoil.
According to the Japanese Defense Ministry's Joint Staff, it was the first time Chinese military planes had approached so close to the Senkaku islands. Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa on Tuesday slammed the Chinese helicopter's buzzing of a Japanese destroyer, saying, "It was an extremely dangerous act."
China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu, meanwhile, said that China's right to claim the islands is "indisputable" and that its actions were in accordance with international law.
The number of scrambles the JASDF conducted against Chinese airplanes reached 48 from April to December of the 2010 fiscal year, which ends on March 31. This is already the highest in the past five fiscal years, and it does not yet include the January to March figures.
Damage-control
The US was forced into damage-control mode by swiftly sacking Maher. US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell, Maher's superior, offered an apology during a meeting with new Japanese Foreign Minister Matsumoto in Tokyo on Thursday. The US ambassador to Japan, John V Roos, also flew to Okinawa and apologized in person to Okinawan governor Hirokazu Nakaima, who is calling for relocating US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma out of Okinawa.
About half of the 50,000 American military personnel in Japan are located on the island of Okinawa.
"I don't think Article Nine of the Japanese constitution should change," Maher said. "If the Japanese constitution was changed the United States would not be able to use Japanese land to advance US interests. The high host nation support the Japanese government currently pays is beneficial to the US. We've got a very good deal in Japan."
The two nations last December agreed that Tokyo will maintain the annual costs of hosting US bases at the current level of 188.1 billion yen (US$2.3 billion) for a five-year period from fiscal 2011 starting April.
He also said, "Okinawans are too lazy to grow goya." Goya is the bitter cucumber vegetable and a local specialty of Okinawa.
Japan and the US last May agreed that the Futenma base would be moved from a densely populated district in Ginowan to a coastal area in the Henoko district of Nago, but local people are fiercely opposed to the plan and want the base to be moved outside of Okinawa.
Reconciling the local demand to move the base with US strategic interests appears impossible, especially after Maher's controversial remarks.
"I was shocked that a diplomat could say such hurtful things about our allies," Tori Miyagi, a 20-year-old American University student who attended the meeting and who also helped compile the memo, told Asia Times Online. "Our alliance with Japan is the foundation of American foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific, so I was amazed Mr Maher would use such strong language to describe our friends. That type of thinking is not productive to the Japan-US partnership."
Miyagi, a fourth-generation Japanese-American whose family came from Okinawa, also said, "It's unfortunate that Mr Maher has to be removed."
"He did not have to be removed, but the State Department should try to remove that type of thinking," he said. "I think the alliance managers do not realize or do not care about the growing frustration in Japan and they are the ones to blame and they are the ones who are preventing a stronger US-Japan alliance. As Campbell is saying the US and Japan are partners, so it's time the US starts treating Japan like a partner and a friend."
Speaking of the memo, Miyagi said, "We did not have a recorder with us, so the memo is not a transcript, but it is accurate. Other students have now come forward and have confirmed what has been reported."
Kan's days may be numbered
Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Wednesday promoted Matsumoto, State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, to succeed Maehara, who stepped down on the news he had accepted donations from a South Korean resident in Kyoto in violation of Japan's campaign-fund laws.
Japanese media increasingly have pointed out Kan's days in office might be numbered, especially after the Asahi Shimbun reported on Friday that Kan also accepted donations of 1.04 million yen (US$12,600 ) from a South Korean resident in Yokohama City in violation of Japan's campaign-fund laws. Opposition parties have demanded that Kan resign.
A major earthquake, which hit Japan on Friday, may benefit Kan's administration as opposition parties are forced to stop political battles amid the government’s emergency measures.
Matsumoto, 51, is a member of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and is close to former DPJ leader Ichiro Ozawa, Kan's political rival. Matsumoto supported Ozawa, not Kan, in the party leadership election in September 2010.
Matsumoto served as a secretary of his father Juro Matsumoto, who served as Defense Agency chief from 1989 to 1990. He is a cousin of Japanese ambassador to the US Ichiro Fujisaki. He is known as well-versed in issues ranging from financial affairs to foreign and security policies.
"My policy is to further promote the deepening of the Japan-US alliance," Matsumoto said at an inaugural press conference on Wednesday. "I intend to make efforts toward the deepening of the Japan-US alliance in a way that is appropriate in the 21st century."
One of his immediate tasks is to make preparations for Kan's visit to the US scheduled for the first half of this year.
Matsumoto is due to attend a two-day meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of Eight nations from March 14 in Paris and host two days of trilateral foreign ministerial talks with China and South Korea from March 19 in Kyoto.
Kosuke Takahashi is a Tokyo-based journalist. Besides Asia Times Online, he also works for Jane's Defence Weekly as Tokyo correspondent.
(Copyright 2011 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
I was at home on the 17th floor of an apartment building when the earthquake hit. At that time I'd just finished off writing a story for Asia Times Online(ATol), which I posted here, and submitted it to ATol's desk. I was dead tired around that time because I had worked all through the night. The previous night, or Thursday night, I was working on a story for Jane's Defence Weekly. But this earthquake made me completely awake. I felt big waves for a couple of minutes. I thought I would die. My mother, 67, became pale and could not stand up. Flower pots, books, fluorescent lights all came down from shelves and the ceiling.
This earthquake is, for sure, the biggest I have ever experienced. (I went to Kobe in 1995 to cover stories on the Great Hanshin Earthquake, which killed 6,434 people, as staff writer of the Asahi Shimbun, but that was a few weeks after the Great Hanshin Earthquake. So I did not experience that exact moment of happening.)
I went out to the streets to make sure how people are coping with this situation. Many people just kept walking on the streets after this major earthquake and subsequent dozens of aftershocks. All public transportations such as trains, subways and most buses are still being stopped. Aftershocks make it very dangerous to use them. People just needed to walk to go home on cold Friday night. The photo below was taken in my hometown Kawsaki City, adjoining Tokyo.
Softbank, my mobile phone service, didn't work including SMS/MMS(intermittent emails/text msgs) .
My IPhone 4, my favorite item, became useless. It was not connected until just before mid-night. My home phone was also disconnected until night.
Well. here is my latest story for Asia Times.
Scandals strain US-Japan relations
By Kosuke Takahashi
TOKYO - A new division is developing in the Japan-United States relationship after Kevin Maher, policy chief on Japan affairs at the US State Department, said it would be bad for the US if Japan's war-renouncing peaceful constitution was changed because Japan would not need the American military.
Anti-US sentiments are particularly flaring up again in Okinawa, Japan's southernmost island, after Maher, director of the Office of Japan Affairs at the State Department and former consul general in Okinawa, described Okinawan people as "masters of manipulation and extortion" in their dealings with the long-standing, thorny issue of the relocation of the US Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station on Okinawa.
Maher gave a lecture to American University students in Washington on December 3, 2010. He was sacked from his position by the State Department on March 10, four days after Kyodo News first reported Maher's statement.
"Maher's remarks on the constitution surely cast a shadow on Japan's long-term national security," Ukeru Magosaki, the former chief of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's international intelligence bureau, told Asia Times Online on Friday. "His comments hurt the Okinawa people's feeling severely. This would make it further difficult to put the US base relocation plan into practice."
Japan, meanwhile, has its own problems. It took a stop-gap measure by promoting Takeaki Matsumoto on Wednesday as foreign minister from his deputy position at the ministry to succeed Seiji Maehara, who abruptly resigned on March 6 over a scandal involving a political donation from a South Korean resident of Kyoto.
The scandals from both sides of the US and Japan surfaced at a time when the significance of closer ties between two nations cannot be overemphasized to cope with the rapid rise of the Chinese military, the warmongering from North Korea against South Korea and Russia's movement towards the south by strengthening its military presence on four disputed islands, known as the Southern Kuril islands in Russia and the Northern Territories in Japan.
Tense incidents
Most recently, two Chinese military planes - a Y-8 surveillance aircraft and a Y-8 anti-submarine aircraft - on March 2 flew to about 55 kilometers (34 miles) from the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. This prompted the Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) to scramble F-15J fighters.
In addition, a Chinese State Oceanic Administration helicopter on Monday flew to just within 70 meters of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) destroyer Samidare. Military experts said China tested Japan's reflexes amid Tokyo's weakening diplomatic power caused by its domestic political turmoil.
According to the Japanese Defense Ministry's Joint Staff, it was the first time Chinese military planes had approached so close to the Senkaku islands. Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa on Tuesday slammed the Chinese helicopter's buzzing of a Japanese destroyer, saying, "It was an extremely dangerous act."
China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu, meanwhile, said that China's right to claim the islands is "indisputable" and that its actions were in accordance with international law.
The number of scrambles the JASDF conducted against Chinese airplanes reached 48 from April to December of the 2010 fiscal year, which ends on March 31. This is already the highest in the past five fiscal years, and it does not yet include the January to March figures.
Damage-control
The US was forced into damage-control mode by swiftly sacking Maher. US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell, Maher's superior, offered an apology during a meeting with new Japanese Foreign Minister Matsumoto in Tokyo on Thursday. The US ambassador to Japan, John V Roos, also flew to Okinawa and apologized in person to Okinawan governor Hirokazu Nakaima, who is calling for relocating US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma out of Okinawa.
About half of the 50,000 American military personnel in Japan are located on the island of Okinawa.
"I don't think Article Nine of the Japanese constitution should change," Maher said. "If the Japanese constitution was changed the United States would not be able to use Japanese land to advance US interests. The high host nation support the Japanese government currently pays is beneficial to the US. We've got a very good deal in Japan."
The two nations last December agreed that Tokyo will maintain the annual costs of hosting US bases at the current level of 188.1 billion yen (US$2.3 billion) for a five-year period from fiscal 2011 starting April.
He also said, "Okinawans are too lazy to grow goya." Goya is the bitter cucumber vegetable and a local specialty of Okinawa.
Japan and the US last May agreed that the Futenma base would be moved from a densely populated district in Ginowan to a coastal area in the Henoko district of Nago, but local people are fiercely opposed to the plan and want the base to be moved outside of Okinawa.
Reconciling the local demand to move the base with US strategic interests appears impossible, especially after Maher's controversial remarks.
"I was shocked that a diplomat could say such hurtful things about our allies," Tori Miyagi, a 20-year-old American University student who attended the meeting and who also helped compile the memo, told Asia Times Online. "Our alliance with Japan is the foundation of American foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific, so I was amazed Mr Maher would use such strong language to describe our friends. That type of thinking is not productive to the Japan-US partnership."
Miyagi, a fourth-generation Japanese-American whose family came from Okinawa, also said, "It's unfortunate that Mr Maher has to be removed."
"He did not have to be removed, but the State Department should try to remove that type of thinking," he said. "I think the alliance managers do not realize or do not care about the growing frustration in Japan and they are the ones to blame and they are the ones who are preventing a stronger US-Japan alliance. As Campbell is saying the US and Japan are partners, so it's time the US starts treating Japan like a partner and a friend."
Speaking of the memo, Miyagi said, "We did not have a recorder with us, so the memo is not a transcript, but it is accurate. Other students have now come forward and have confirmed what has been reported."
Kan's days may be numbered
Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Wednesday promoted Matsumoto, State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, to succeed Maehara, who stepped down on the news he had accepted donations from a South Korean resident in Kyoto in violation of Japan's campaign-fund laws.
Japanese media increasingly have pointed out Kan's days in office might be numbered, especially after the Asahi Shimbun reported on Friday that Kan also accepted donations of 1.04 million yen (US$12,600 ) from a South Korean resident in Yokohama City in violation of Japan's campaign-fund laws. Opposition parties have demanded that Kan resign.
A major earthquake, which hit Japan on Friday, may benefit Kan's administration as opposition parties are forced to stop political battles amid the government’s emergency measures.
Matsumoto, 51, is a member of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and is close to former DPJ leader Ichiro Ozawa, Kan's political rival. Matsumoto supported Ozawa, not Kan, in the party leadership election in September 2010.
Matsumoto served as a secretary of his father Juro Matsumoto, who served as Defense Agency chief from 1989 to 1990. He is a cousin of Japanese ambassador to the US Ichiro Fujisaki. He is known as well-versed in issues ranging from financial affairs to foreign and security policies.
"My policy is to further promote the deepening of the Japan-US alliance," Matsumoto said at an inaugural press conference on Wednesday. "I intend to make efforts toward the deepening of the Japan-US alliance in a way that is appropriate in the 21st century."
One of his immediate tasks is to make preparations for Kan's visit to the US scheduled for the first half of this year.
Matsumoto is due to attend a two-day meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of Eight nations from March 14 in Paris and host two days of trilateral foreign ministerial talks with China and South Korea from March 19 in Kyoto.
Kosuke Takahashi is a Tokyo-based journalist. Besides Asia Times Online, he also works for Jane's Defence Weekly as Tokyo correspondent.
(Copyright 2011 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Hey Mr. Kevin Maher, you should resign right away!
Hey Mr. Kevin Maher, you should resign as your discriminatory remarks on Okinawans caused a big fuss in Okinawa and elsewhere.
U.S. diplomat said to have likened Japanese idea of harmony to extortion
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- A U.S. official in charge of Japanese affairs at the State Department is said to have likened the Japanese culture of maintaining social harmony to a means of "extortion" and described the people on the southern island of Okinawa as "lazy" in a speech given in Washington late last year.
According to a written account compiled by some students who attended the lecture at the department, Kevin Maher, who heads its Japanese affairs office and served as consul general in Okinawa Prefecture, also described people in Okinawa as "masters of manipulation and extortion" in their relations with the central government.
Maher told Kyodo News, "I am not in a position to comment on the record at this time," saying his briefing was an off-the-record event. He said the account made available to (Kyodo) -- News is "neither accurate nor complete."
Maher has been involved in bilateral negotiations with Japan over the controversial issue of relocating the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station and is known to advocate a plan to relocate the base to another location within the prefecture, an idea widely opposed by local residents.
The remarks attributed to Maher are being seen as provocative in Japan. They are "racially discriminating against Okinawa," said Teruo Hiyane, a scholar on postwar Okinawan history. Ukeru Magosaki, a former Japanese diplomat, said Maher's reported views on Japan were "biased and completely distorted."
Maher spoke on Dec. 3 at the request of American University to a group of 14 students just before their roughly two-week study tour to Tokyo and Okinawa.
In the speech, Maher was quoted as saying, "Consensus building is important in Japanese culture. While the Japanese would call this 'consensus,' they mean 'extortion' and use this culture of consensus as a means of extortion."
"By pretending to seek consensus, people try to get as much money as possible," he said.
Maher also criticized people in Okinawa as "too lazy to grow 'goya' (bitter gourd)," a traditional summer vegetable in the southern prefecture, saying other prefectures in Japan grow more than Okinawa, according to the account.
On the Futenma base, located in a crowded residential area of Ginowan, Maher allegedly said while Okinawans claim the base is the most dangerous in the world, they know that is it not true.
Civilian airports in Fukuoka and Osaka are "just as dangerous," he reportedly said.
Maher was quoted as saying that the Japanese government "needs to tell the Okinawan governor, 'if you want money, sign it," in reference to the Futenma relocation plan.
Students who produced notes of Maher's speech said he definitely made the remarks, with at least one saying it was surprising to hear statements full of bias from a person with a position in the U.S. government.
Maher, 56, served as consul general in Okinawa from 2006 and 2009 after joining the State Department in 1981 and being posted to Tokyo and Fukuoka.
Maher said of the account provided to Kyodo that he "cannot control how individual students themselves might interpret remarks" and "it would therefore not be appropriate" to attribute any specific remarks to him "based upon secondhand information coming from students or others."
In the summer of 2008, while he was posted in Okinawa, Maher sparked controversy after questioning why the local authorities were allowing the construction of homes in the residential area around the Futenma base. Plaintiffs seeking damages over noise from the U.S. base presented him with a written demand calling on him to immediately leave Okinawa.
Hiroshi Ashitomi, who leads a local group in Nago opposed to the relocation of the base to a coastal area of the city, said of Maher's alleged statements, "They indicate that he views Japan and Okinawa as a (U.S.) colony. If the U.S. government is crafting its policies on Japan and Okinawa based on such views, we will have to ask the U.S. military to get out entirely."
Magosaki, former head of the international intelligence office at the Foreign Ministry, said he had the impression that "U.S. officials in charge of recent U.S.-Japan negotiations shared ideas like those of Mr. Maher," adding "in that sense, his remarks were not especially distorted."
Hiyane, professor emeritus of the University of the Ryukyus, said he "cannot overlook" remarks describing Okinawans as "lazy" and "masters of manipulation and extortion," adding Maher's remarks represent "a blatant mentality of occupation."
"The U.S. military has for over 60 years after the war occupied land best fit for agriculture in Okinawa," he said. "Were it not for (U.S.) bases, the (local) economy including agriculture would have been different."
U.S. diplomat said to have likened Japanese idea of harmony to extortion
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- A U.S. official in charge of Japanese affairs at the State Department is said to have likened the Japanese culture of maintaining social harmony to a means of "extortion" and described the people on the southern island of Okinawa as "lazy" in a speech given in Washington late last year.
According to a written account compiled by some students who attended the lecture at the department, Kevin Maher, who heads its Japanese affairs office and served as consul general in Okinawa Prefecture, also described people in Okinawa as "masters of manipulation and extortion" in their relations with the central government.
Maher told Kyodo News, "I am not in a position to comment on the record at this time," saying his briefing was an off-the-record event. He said the account made available to (Kyodo) -- News is "neither accurate nor complete."
Maher has been involved in bilateral negotiations with Japan over the controversial issue of relocating the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station and is known to advocate a plan to relocate the base to another location within the prefecture, an idea widely opposed by local residents.
The remarks attributed to Maher are being seen as provocative in Japan. They are "racially discriminating against Okinawa," said Teruo Hiyane, a scholar on postwar Okinawan history. Ukeru Magosaki, a former Japanese diplomat, said Maher's reported views on Japan were "biased and completely distorted."
Maher spoke on Dec. 3 at the request of American University to a group of 14 students just before their roughly two-week study tour to Tokyo and Okinawa.
In the speech, Maher was quoted as saying, "Consensus building is important in Japanese culture. While the Japanese would call this 'consensus,' they mean 'extortion' and use this culture of consensus as a means of extortion."
"By pretending to seek consensus, people try to get as much money as possible," he said.
Maher also criticized people in Okinawa as "too lazy to grow 'goya' (bitter gourd)," a traditional summer vegetable in the southern prefecture, saying other prefectures in Japan grow more than Okinawa, according to the account.
On the Futenma base, located in a crowded residential area of Ginowan, Maher allegedly said while Okinawans claim the base is the most dangerous in the world, they know that is it not true.
Civilian airports in Fukuoka and Osaka are "just as dangerous," he reportedly said.
Maher was quoted as saying that the Japanese government "needs to tell the Okinawan governor, 'if you want money, sign it," in reference to the Futenma relocation plan.
Students who produced notes of Maher's speech said he definitely made the remarks, with at least one saying it was surprising to hear statements full of bias from a person with a position in the U.S. government.
Maher, 56, served as consul general in Okinawa from 2006 and 2009 after joining the State Department in 1981 and being posted to Tokyo and Fukuoka.
Maher said of the account provided to Kyodo that he "cannot control how individual students themselves might interpret remarks" and "it would therefore not be appropriate" to attribute any specific remarks to him "based upon secondhand information coming from students or others."
In the summer of 2008, while he was posted in Okinawa, Maher sparked controversy after questioning why the local authorities were allowing the construction of homes in the residential area around the Futenma base. Plaintiffs seeking damages over noise from the U.S. base presented him with a written demand calling on him to immediately leave Okinawa.
Hiroshi Ashitomi, who leads a local group in Nago opposed to the relocation of the base to a coastal area of the city, said of Maher's alleged statements, "They indicate that he views Japan and Okinawa as a (U.S.) colony. If the U.S. government is crafting its policies on Japan and Okinawa based on such views, we will have to ask the U.S. military to get out entirely."
Magosaki, former head of the international intelligence office at the Foreign Ministry, said he had the impression that "U.S. officials in charge of recent U.S.-Japan negotiations shared ideas like those of Mr. Maher," adding "in that sense, his remarks were not especially distorted."
Hiyane, professor emeritus of the University of the Ryukyus, said he "cannot overlook" remarks describing Okinawans as "lazy" and "masters of manipulation and extortion," adding Maher's remarks represent "a blatant mentality of occupation."
"The U.S. military has for over 60 years after the war occupied land best fit for agriculture in Okinawa," he said. "Were it not for (U.S.) bases, the (local) economy including agriculture would have been different."
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