Chinese Vessel in Japan’s Waters & more –19th Sep 2023

Konnichiwa from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Japan Update from the 19th of September twenty twenty-three A quick summary of what's going down in Japan.

On Friday the 15th, a Chinese government ship sailed through Japan’s territory. The Chinese vessel sailed near the Senkaku Islands, Japan’s southernmost islands near Taiwan. China’s ship cruised for nearly two hours, during which the coast guard repeatedly told them to leave because their route violated international law.

This is the twenty-third time this year that Chinese government ships have been spotted in the area. Japan made an official complaint to the Chinese government about the boat’s trespassing. The diplomatic situation is a bit dicey since, although Japan is in charge of the Senkaku Islands according to international law, China says the islands belong to them.

Such activity is one of the many reasons that Japan’s defense ministry has been seeking partnerships with other countries. For instance, it has already made a security cooperation pact with the UK called the Reciprocal Access Agreement, and on Friday the 15th, the Diet decided that it would take effect on the 15th of October. This deal will let the countries deploy troops on one another’s soil for joint drills and other military activities. This is the second agreement Japan has made with another country, with the first being Australia. The Self-Defense Force and the British Army plan to run through the first joint drills in November.

Perhaps one day, these efforts will help turn today’s opponents into future allies, much like how Prime Minister Fumio Kishida just made a new ally out of a former opponent.

On Friday the 15th, Kishida reshuffled his Cabinet and appointed Wakako Yata, a member of the opposing party, the Democratic Party for the People, as his advisor. Experts believe he chose Yata because he’s interested in working with the opposition on policies where they have shared interests. Yata will advise Kishida on wage increases and employment, and other officials are hopeful that she will push for labor reforms.

Still, Kishida’s Cabinet reshuffle didn’t stop there. The PM appointed Yoko Kamikawa as foreign minister. She’s the first woman foreign minister in nineteen years and will be starting her new position strong by representing Japan at the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting in the US. She boarded her flight on Monday the 18th and will be in the US until Friday the 22nd. The meetings will likely discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s increased military activity around Japan and Taiwan.

Kishida also flew off to the US on Tuesday the 19th for the UN General Assembly. He’ll likely talk about global food and energy issues along with climate change. He will also make a speech about how important it is for countries to come together and support one another in these times of difficulty. Love, not war, and all that. While there, he also plans to have a meeting with leaders from the Philippines and Australia about a pact to ban fissile material used for nuclear weapons.

In environmental news, the government is looking to make it easier to charge electric vehicles, or EVs, as a way to encourage people to buy them instead of gas-powered cars. In twenty twenty-one, the industry ministry said they would aim to install 150,000 EV stations across the country by twenty thity. Last month, they said they would try to double the number to 300,000. The private sector is also chipping in, with one company renting out portable chargers to make things even easier. That way, even if you run out of batteries in the middle of nowhere, you can pop a charger out of your trunk to get you to the end of the day.

On a related note, Toyota just announced it has come up with a better way to make EVs. Instead of assembling the cars bit by bit on a conveyor belt, they’re going to start designing cars that can drive themselves while they’re being built. Once the basic body of the car is put together, they add in some sensor recognition and self-driving technology so that the cars will be able to navigate through the factory by themselves. Toyota has already started testing this out in one of its factories in Aichi Prefecture and said it helped to streamline the manufacturing process. They’re still perfecting this new method and the company said that this new line of EVs should be ready by twenty twenty-six. Toyota also hopes to start using all-solid-state batteries with quicker charging times in twenty twenty-seven.

Moving onto the subject of health, Okinawan officials sent out a warning on Friday the 15th for tourists to avoid jimami tofu if they have a peanut allergy. Jimami tofu looks like regular tofu, but it’s made of peanuts rather than soybeans. Locals don’t get confused since jimami means peanuts in the local dialect, but quite a few tourists who don’t know the local slang have ended up in the hospital.

For the next health-related item: if you’re looking to engage in some hanky-panky, keep in mind that the National Institute of Infectious Diseases reported over 10,000 cases of syphilis this year. The cases of syphilis have been steadily increasing since twenty thirteen, and at the current rate, twenty twenty-three will be the third year in a row with a record-breaking number of cases. Experts said that anyone who thinks they might be infected should get tested, even if they haven’t gotten any symptoms yet.

Onto weather, an earthquake measuring five on the Ritcher scale occurred just off the coast of Miyagi Prefecture on Tuesday the 19th. People all across northeastern Japan felt the quake, but weather officials said it wouldn’t trigger a tsunami.

Meanwhile, Time magazine announced that they were putting two Japanese women, Rina Gonoi and Eri Arfiya, on their 100 Next, a list of 100 leaders who make the world a better place.

Gonoi is a former member of the Ground Self-Defense Force who spoke out against the servicemen who sexually harassed and assaulted her. At the time, she told military authorities, but they dismissed her due to a supposed lack of evidence. Guess it wasn’t really that lacking, though, since after she went viral on social media, the military publicly apologized and punished the nine servicemen who harassed and assaulted her, dishonorably discharging five of them. Gonoi filed lawsuits against her assailants and the government for their lack of action.

Arfiya, meanwhile, is a thirty-four-year-old House of Representatives member and stands out amongst her colleagues who are mainly men and in their fifties. Although she’s only been in office since April of this year, she has been active in championing gender equality.

Time isn’t the only US organization taking note of Japan, though the Ig Nobel Prize, as a parody of the Nobel Prize, covers much more lighthearted subject matter. On Thursday the 14th, Ig Nobel awarded two Japanese university professors thetwenty twenty-three prize for nutrition for their research on how electrified chopsticks and straws change the taste of food. Turns out, electricity makes food taste saltier. Thus, the professors made an electrified spoon so that people could enjoy all the health benefits of low-sodium food without it tasting like cardboard.

Finally, in entertainment news, famous director Hayao Miyazaki has given up driving and donated his beloved car, a Citroen 2CV, to Ghibli Park in Aichi Prefecture. The director featured the car in the first film he ever directed, and his son also featured a similar car in his first-ever film for Studio Ghibli. Now that the Citroen 2CV is in Ghibli Park, tourists can see the legendary director's car with their own eyes. He made this decision on Sunday the 10th after the government began requesting that elderly people give up driving earlier this year due to the increasing number of car accidents among senior citizens.

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Mata Ne!