JAPAN: North Korean Invitation & more – 20th Feb 2024

Konnichiwa from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Japan Update from the 20th of February twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what's going down in Japan.

On Thursday the 15th, the North Korean leader’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, said that they would invite Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to Pyongyang to talk about relations between Japan and North Korea - but only if Japan stops bringing up the abduction of the seventeen Japanese nationals from forty years ago. She insisted that they already settled the matter in two thousand two by returning five of the nationals to Japan, showing death certificates for another eight, and insisting they had only kidnapped thirteen in total.

However, Japan never gave up on pushing the issue because all the death certificates looked like they had been written in two thousand two; like they were all made at the same time. It seems that North Korea didn’t bother to look for the thirteen missing individuals, and just came up with the certificates to say they were dead. Because of that, many suspected that Korean officials had forged the certificates and that the abducted nationals weren’t actually dead.

Shunji Hiraiwa, a professor of policy studies, said Kim made that statement to disturb the alliance between the US, Japan, and South Korea. The three countries have recently been talking about North Korea’s human rights violations. However, if Japan decides to accept Kim’s offer to go to Pyongyang, then that would mean that the country is willing to drop its side of the human rights issue.

The Chief Cabinet Secretary responded to North Korea on Kishida’s behalf, saying that he would be open to meeting with President Kim Jong Un, but said that the abduction issue was not over and done with.

Then on Monday the 19th, Kishida met with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal in Tokyo during the Japan-Ukraine Conference for Promotion of Economic Growth and Reconstruction. In the meeting, Kishida agreed to give more support to Ukraine as they try to rebuild amidst their ongoing conflict with Russia. Shmyhal talked about how to bring about lasting peace in Ukraine as soon as possible.

The two leaders signed over fifty memorandums of cooperation, which sounds fancy but just means short letters where they agree to work together. They also decided to start official talks on signing an information security agreement.

On the same day that the conference took place, a Japan Defense Ministry panel of experts held its first meeting to talk about how to buff up its defensive abilities. The panel has seventeen members in total and includes a former defense minister and the honorary chair of the Japan Business Federation. They talked about bolstering the Self-Defense Force, improving current defense plans, and even reviewing the defense budget for the next five years.

The panel will continue to hold talks about defense-related issues, such as making the military more efficient, taking the public burden into consideration, and funding resources.

Meanwhile, Germany officially overtook Japan as the world's third-largest economy. Japan's GDP for twenty twenty-three was 4.2 trillion dollars, but Germany's GDP hit nearly 4.5 trillion.

The main reasons for Japan’s relative decline are deflation, slow growth, weak consumer spending, and weak investment. The Nippon Life Insurance Research Institute, which specializes in studying finances and the economy, said that even though Japanese companies have had an increase in profits, they haven’t been using those profits on things that would increase the country’s GDP, like capital spending or raising wages.

Germany, on the other hand, had higher inflation, which helped its GDP grow.

Speaking of growth, Japan’s space industry is getting a boom in popularity. After its moon landing in January, the space agency successfully launched its new flagship H3 rocket on Saturday the 17th. It lifted off from a space center in Kagoshima Prefecture in southwestern Japan.

The president of the agency said that they were very happy about the success since the last launch attempt in March twenty twenty-three failed. However, there is still a lot more work to do since they had more plans for the H3 rocket.

Back down on earth, researchers have been keeping an eye on the Nankai Trough, an underwater trough about 560 miles south of Japan that’s about as long as the whole country. The trough was created by the Eurasian and Philippine tectonic plates moving against each other. This movement also builds up a lot of strain, which researchers said will cause a mega earthquake of magnitude eight to nine in the next thirty years.

The researchers have already planted thirty-nine gauges to measure the built-up strain along the Nankai Trough, but none in the part of the trough near Kyushu yet. To remedy this, the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology will install a gauge in Oita Prefecture, with plans for another in Miyazaki Prefecture. This will help improve data collection and give researchers a better understanding of the earth’s tectonic movements along the trough.

Moving on, Japan's education ministry is going to start offering financial aid to non-Japanese university students starting in April. At the moment, only Japanese citizens and permanent residents can apply for a university’s financial aid. The new rules will allow students with dependent status, such as spouses and children of foreign workers, to apply for aid as long as they have graduated from elementary, middle, and high school in Japan and plan to keep working in Japan after they’re done with college.

The ministry made the decision in part because of the increasing number of foreign workers in Japan, asking for support for non-Japanese children seeking higher education. The ministry thinks around 200 non-Japanese students will be eligible annually and is asking the public what they think before finalizing the changes in March.

In business news, chipmaker Renesas Electronics recently said it planned to buy US-based software firm Altium for nearly 6 billion dollars. Renesas specializes in chips meant for vehicles and industrial equipment. Meanwhile, Altium has a digital platform for circuit board designs. Together, they hope to speed up the development and design process. The CEO of Renesas said speeding production is vital if they want to meet ever-changing consumer preferences.

The company expects to finish acquiring Altium in the second half of the year, pending approval from stockholders and international authorities in charge of business regulation.

Another company might need some help from regulatory authorities. LY Corporation, the operator of the popular Line messaging app, had a huge data breach back in November. Originally, they said that a cyberattack on Naver, the app’s subcontractor system, compromised 440,000 items of personal data.

However, over the past three months, they found over 79,000 more leaked items, which brings the total of leaked personal data to around 519,000. This number includes both Line users and the company’s business partners.

LY Corporation apologized for the data breach and said it would strengthen its security and subcontractors’ systems.

A lot has been going on in the world of entertainment. On Saturday the 17th, the Annie Awards named Hayao Miyazaki’s most recent film, The Boy and the Heron, the Best Character Animation Feature and Best Storyboarding Feature.

The ceremony took place in Los Angeles, and Takeshi Honda, the film’s animation director, accepted the award on the director’s behalf. During his speech, he said that Miyazaki was feeling bored and would probably start a new project soon.

The Annie Awards also nominated another Japanese film, Suzume, for Best Feature, but that prize ultimately went to another movie.

But those aren’t the only films making waves. On Friday the 16th, director Takashi Yamazaki appeared on a talk show regarding his hit movie Godzilla Minus One. The Academy Awards have already nominated the blockbuster film for its visual effects.

The director said he thought some voted for his movie out of nostalgia. He had a small set that they expanded with computer-generated imaging, and a lot of the set pieces had been handcrafted before computer graphics became big. He said he looked forward to the award ceremony but just felt grateful for being nominated.

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Mata Ne!