Japan Update – Kishida and Ruto & more – 9th May 2023

th of May: 2023

On Wednesday the 3rd of May, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Kenyan President William Ruto met in Nairobi and agreed on a bilateral cooperation on certain matters, including decarbonization, infrastructure development support, and fair and transparent economic exchange. Alongside discussion of international issues, such as the conflict in Sudan and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the two strengthened diplomatic ties and shared goals, like the promotion of a free and open Indo-Pacific region, or FOIP.

Kenya was one of the stops along Kishida’s four-leg African tour, with the next stop being in Mozambique.

Afterwards, the Prime Minister flew directly to South Korea’s capital of Seoul, where on Sunday the 7th, he met with the South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol. There is still much tension between the two countries due to Japan’s thirty-year colonization of Korea in the first half of the 20th century, which the leaders are seeking to resolve in order to unite against the nuclear threat from North Korea.

The Prime Minister was not the only one engaging in diplomatic missions the past week. Japan’s Crown Prince and Princess Akishino left on Thursday the 4th to attend the coronation of King Charles III in Britain. The coronation took place in Westminster Abbey on Saturday the 6th, and the crown prince and princess returned to Japan on Sunday the 7th.

While they were away, on Friday the 5th of May, a strong earthquake hit Ishikawa Prefecture in central Japan around 3 p.m. It had a magnitude of 6.3 and was strongest in the city of Suzu. Over fifty aftershocks followed the quake throughout the evening. As of Saturday the 6th, thirty-five have been injured and at least one person has been found dead. Evacuations were also carried out due to heavy rains and the risk of landslides.

On Monday the 8th, COVID-19 was officially reclassified as a Class Five disease in Japan under the Infectious Diseases Control Law. This means that COVID-19 will now be treated like the seasonal flu. Plans for this move began back in January along with other post-pandemic measures such as loosening border restrictions and mask requirements. The rate of death amongst the infected has dramatically decreased in the past year, though there are some who are vulnerable to the virus, such as the elderly and immuno-compromised.

The policy change has also opened Japan’s doors to tourists from all over the world without restrictive quarantine or vaccine requirements. Economists predict that this will give the Japanese economy a 4.2 trillion yen boost (31 billion dollars), with about half coming from the expected boom in inbound tourism.

nic farming by forty times by: 2050

Despite public worry over China’s potential invasion of Taiwan, a poll by Kyodo News found that 80% of respondents are against tax hikes to fund defense spending. Rather than relying on military force, the majority of people suggested that diplomacy and economic sanctions were the best ways to handle a Taiwan contingency. 33% thought that, if military conflict arises, Japan should instead focus on acting in support of the United States, who could step in and defend the country against China.

The main reason why so many shunned the tax hikes was that the financial burden is too much to bear, especially in light of inflation and the rising cost of living.

r plan to raise wages for the: 2023

It’s good that plans are being made to address the economy, because Japan’s decreasing child population will only weaken it.

While many celebrated Children’s Day last week with raising carp streamers or making crowns out of an iris’s leaves, called shobu leaves in Japanese, the child population of Japan continues to drop for the forty-second year straight. The internal affairs ministry estimated the number of children aged fourteen or younger was 14.35 million as of the 1st of April, down 300,000 from last year, accounting for only 11.5% of the Japanese population. Among age groups, the smallest is that of infants aged up to two years at 2.43 million, meaning that unless there is a boom in births in the coming years, the percentage of Japan’s youth will only continue to decline. As this trend continues, worry grows over how this might affect the economy in the future.

On a brighter note, on Saturday the 6th of May, Australia returned four sets of ancient Ainu remains to the Japanese government. Ainu was an indigenous ethnic group from Hokkaido. The remains, all skulls, were originally sent to Australia eighty years ago for research purposes, but ended up being left in museum storage after being studied. After receiving the remains in a ceremony hosted at the Melbourne Museum, the Ainu Association of Hokkaido said they would hold a memorial service in Japan for the remains. Afterwards, they will be sent to a cultural complex for the Ainu called Upopoy and another Ainu organization.

Aaaand that's it for this week! Have you checked our website? Over there you can find more about us, how to contact us, and support us. Link to it in the show notes!

Mata Ne!