Japan Roundup

Some interesting news happening in Japan right now, summarized below:

1. Shintaro Ishihara won reelection to a third term as governor of Tokyo. The 74-year old faces waning popularity. From my own soundings of plenty of residents, plenty of people are tired of Ishihara, but as is often the case in elections in Japan, the opposition was hopeless and divided. Sunday also saw a number of local gubernatorial elections in Japan, in which most incumbents retained their seats.

2. The South Korean Chosun Ilbo is outraged that Mr. Abe is clarifying the comfort women issue to the US only.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe apparently called U.S. President George W. Bush on Tuesday to clarify any misunderstandings over his stance regarding Japan’s use of military brothels during World War II. According to Japanese media reports, Abe said in the 20-minute phone call that he had apologized to women forced into sexual slavery during World War II and his remarks on the issue hadn’t been accurately conveyed.

[Japan] says it apologizes, but it neither admits to its forced mobilization of women to serve as sex slaves nor does it take responsibility for such actions. If he truly wishes to apologize for Japan’s use of military brothels during World War II, he must express such intentions publicly to Korea, China and other Asian countries who suffered under Japanese aggression, as well as to the women who were forcibly mobilized into sexual slavery. But Abe just dialed up the president of the United States, which is just a third party, to make the apology. This is simply ridiculous.

3. Several Japanese naval officers—one with a Chinese wife! scandalous!—is being investigated for potentially leaking classified data about AEGIS destroyers that could jeapordize Japanese and US national security.

Police launched a probe last week after a navy officer married to a Chinese woman was found to have taken home a computer disk containing information about the high-tech Aegis radar system, domestic media said.

Aegis is used on Japanese destroyers that are to be fitted with SM-3 missile interceptors from this year as part of the missile defense program.

The officer told police he accidentally copied the confidential data onto his computer’s hard disk when copying porn from a computer belonging to a crew member from another destroyer, the Yomiuri newspaper reported.

A third officer was also found to have copied data on the Aegis system alongside pornographic images, the Yomiuri said.

Police suspect senior officers were also involved in the swap because none of the three were authorized to access the confidential information, the Yomiuri said.

Japan sped up the implementation of its missile defense program after
North Korea fired a volley of ballistic missiles last year. Last Friday, its first ground-based interceptors were trucked into Iruma air base in Saitama prefecture, north of Tokyo, to protect the capital.

Any defense leak could potentially affect Japan’s biggest ally, the United States, whose navy also uses the Aegis system.