Tokyo announces its biggest military build-up since World War II.
Japan says the strategic challenge posed by China is the biggest it has ever faced.
Besides Beijing, Japan has two other nuclear-armed neighbours: North Korea and Russia.
It has expressed concerns about intensifying Russian military activity in its far east, even as Moscow presses on with its war against Ukraine.
And a North Korean missile flew over Japan in October.
Japan wants to significantly increase its military spending, targeting $315bn in the next five years, or two percent of its gross domestic product (GDP).
But Tokyo’s plans are a reminder of an imperial past, when it occupied the Korean peninsula and parts of China and seized all of East Asia during the second world war.
So, what does the new military drive mean for Japan’s Pacifist Constitution?
Presenter: Laura Kyle
Guests:
Kotaro Tamura – Adjunct Professor at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. He is a former senator with Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party.
Nancy Snow – Communications Director, International Security Industrial Council. She’s also a Foreign Policy Adviser to the Japanese Government.
David Arase – Resident Professor of International Politics at The Hopkins-Nanjing Center of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
Newswise — Chapters start by revealing the declining impacts of social capital on politics, the shrinking range of political parties from which to choose, and the mixing of Asian values with liberal democratic values. Then, by conceptualizing and empirically examining anxiety over governance, i.e., the perception of excessive risk for future governance, Ikeda explores the links of anxiety to Japanese political behavior. While the high regard for democratic politics lowers anxiety among the Japanese, the changes in Japanese political behavior/environment and culture contribute to a generally high level of anxiety, which also had a significant negative impact on the evaluation of countermeasures against COVID-19.
Chapter 1 captures the changes in Japanese political behavior in the 21st century by contrasting social capital and political actors as determinants. A gradual decline in social capital and weakening of the ties with political actors occurred. By examining the elections from 1983 to 2019, especially the 2009 election that switched power from the long-dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), Chapter 1 shows that the transition of power to the DPJ in the 2009 election was not supported by the social capital of civil society, but rather by perceptions regarding the political actors. The DPJ administration ended along with a decline in their reputation, whereas what is visible in the LDP administration after regaining power is a decline in the prospective expectations on the administration.
Chapter 2 examines the changes that have occurred in micro-level vote choice and macro-level meaningfulness since 1996 when voters became entitled to cast two votes in every national election in both Houses. Voting behavior is a choice for a set of alternatives, i.e., a set of political parties, but voters do not vote from the full range of the set as available choices; rather, they vote from a limited set of parties. On the other hand, the set of possible party choices defines the sense of meaningfulness that voting brings, i.e., the subjective empowerment on national politics. In fact, voters’ perceived set of party choices fluctuated in multiple LDP- and DPJ-centered clusters, and vote choices were basically distributed among possible choice sets of parties in each cluster. The LDP-centered clusters were consistently stable in determining vote choice, while the DPJ-centered clusters were less stable, and vote choice for the DPJ was rather heavily dependent on selective cues provided by its political actors. After the collapse of the DPJ administration, the perceived set of possible political parties to choose from has been greatly reduced to for or against LDP-centered clusters, along with the sense of empowerment.
Chapter 3 examines whether the Japanese are unique in Asia and the world (which is often claimed) and whether such uniqueness is linked to the Japanese people’s social capital and their support for democracy, using extensive international comparative data from the Asian Barometer and World Values Surveys over a 20-year period. Although the Japanese are outliers in the Asian value system, which consists of the two dimensions of “vertical emphasis” and “harmony orientation,” in that the Japanese are weak in these characteristics, Japan is not uniquely positioned on the cultural map of the world. Nevertheless, Japanese people’s attitudes and actions are influenced by Asian values in terms of general trust and political participation, which are formed through social interactions with others, whereas this is not the case in terms of support for liberal democracy, which is enculturated by the post-war formal education. Overall, the Japanese may not necessarily be capable of making political and social decisions in a value-consistent manner, which may have a negative impact on the operation of the process of politics.
Chapter 4 examines Japanese idiosyncrasy in their perception of social and national risk. In the World Values Survey, the degree of anxiety about future unemployment, education, and possible involvement in war, terrorism, and civil war perceived by the Japanese is considerably higher than objective indicators, demonstrating excessive risk perception, termed the “anxiety over governance index.” It was presumed that this excessiveness comes from Japanese people’s sense of worry over the future governance of their country. Analyses confirmed the excessive level of risk perception among the Japanese and revealed that this perception was reduced when the country was perceived to be democratically governed, i.e., the index was precisely related to perceptions of governance. Finally, anxiety over governance was more conceptually sophisticated as a pair conception, i.e., political distrust and anxiety over governance expressing diffuse negative evaluations of the past and the future, respectively.
Chapter 5 explores the structure of Japanese anxiety over governance in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite Japan’s relatively good control during its first wave, an international comparative survey demonstrated that not only was there an overperception of risk, but the intensity of fear (risk perception) was positively correlated with a low evaluation of government handling ability, especially among the Japanese, which is consistent with Chapter 4. An Internet survey on the first general election of the Kishida administration in October 2021 revealed that Japanese excessive risk perception corresponded to the newly constructed direct measure of anxiety over governance, indicating that it was indeed anxiety about the future direction of Japanese politics and political dysfunction. Anxiety was reduced by perceptions of Japan’s degree of democracy, while its high level was explained by the cumulative negative effects of factors such as nonfunctioning social capital, reduced party choice, and inconsistent values.
Chapter 6 examines a possible countervailing approach from citizens’ perspectives using an analysis of the 2021 election. While criticizing the government in the face of anxiety over governance, many Japanese are less involved in politics, even when confronted with the pandemic. However, the analyses indicated possible pathways for the Japanese to engage in politics, starting with protecting their everyday lives. The book closes by arguing that such grassroots movements are one way to reduce Japanese people’s anxiety over governance.
[Book URL] http://www.routledge.com/9781032159331
[About the author] Dr. Ken’ichi Ikeda is a professor in the Department of Media Studies at Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan since April 2013, after 21 years of teaching at the University of Tokyo. He has been involved in many national/international survey research as the Principal Investigator of Japan, such as Japanese Election Study, World Values Survey, Asian Barometer, and Comparative Study on Electoral Systems(CSES).
BOSTON (AP) — Former Boston pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka passed along some advice to Masataka Yoshida, another Japanese star who came over to play for the Red Sox.
“His advice to me: Boston is really cold,” the 29-year-old outfielder said through a translator on Thursday after he signed a five-year, $90 million deal with the Red Sox. “Obviously, you have to bring your jacket.”
Yoshida won a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics and twice led Japan’s Pacific League in batting. He also helped Orix to a victory in the Japan Series in October, homering twice in Game 5 — including a walk-off as the Buffaloes rallied from a ninth-inning deficit.
“We became the champion in Japan. Next season, I would like to contribute to your world championship for the Red Sox,” he said, offering this assessment of Fenway Park upon seeing it for the first time: “The Green Monster is really tall.”
Yoshida has a .326 average with a .419 on-base percentage in seven seasons in Japan, all with Orix.
He greeted the Boston media on Thursday by explaining — in English — that he doesn’t speak English.
“So, nervous,” he said. “I want to learn English and I want to speak it my daughters. I am honored to be in Red Sox Nation. I will do my best. Thank you.”
Although the Red Sox have signed other Japanese players — including closer Koji Uehara, who helped them win it all in 2013 — Yoshida is Boston’s highest-profile addition from Japan since Matsuzaka arrived in 2007 after a bidding war that resulted in the team paying more than $100 million in posting fees and salary.
The Red Sox never let this one get to that, making an offer on the first day teams were allowed to talk to Yoshida’s agent, Scott Boras, and convincing him to cancel scheduled Zooms with other teams.
“You have to be prepared with the evaluation of the player when the light turns green,” Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom said. “We felt we were. We knew that there was going to be a lot of interest.”
Word of Yoshida’s signing first emerged at the winter meetings at the same time that free agent shortstop Xander Bogaerts agreed to leave the Red Sox and join the San Diego Padres. Bogaerts had been the cornerstone of Boston’s offseason plans.
To make room for Yoshida on the roster, Boston designated infielder Jeter Downs for assignment. Downs had been acquired in the trade that sent former Mookie Betts to the Los Angeles Dodgers and hit .154 in a 14-game major league tryout.
“I think that speaks to some of the struggles we’ve had getting him on track,” Bloom said. “I still think there’s a lot of physical ability there, but we haven’t been able to unlock it consistently.”
Bloom said there was no added disappointment in setting Downs free just because he was a key part of a decision — already unpopular — to trade Betts, the 2018 AL MVP.
“No doubt he’s a big part of a really significant trade, and that we haven’t gotten him to the level that we expected hurts,” Bloom said. “But at the end of the day, we we want to do right by all of the players. And he was the right decision (in) this case.”
___
AP Baseball Writer Ronald Blum contributed to this report.
___
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
BANGKOK — Asian shares followed Wall Street and Europe lower on Friday, with markets jittery over the risk that the Federal Reserve and other central banks may end up bringing on recessions to get inflation under control.
Oil prices and U.S. futures edged higher.
China’s move to relax COVID restrictions has raised hopes for an end to massive disruptions from lockdowns and other strict measures to prevent infections. But signs of sharply rising case numbers have raised uncertainty, with some alarmed over the possibility that the pandemic will continue to drag on the economy.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was flat, at 19,369.65 while the Shanghai Composite index shed 0.3% to 3,160.67.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 lost 1.7% to 27,569.56 after a survey of manufacturers showed a further contraction in output.
The Kospi in Seoul edged 0.2% lower to 2,357.97, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 declined 0.3% to 7,180.50.
Shares in Taiwan fell 1.2% and the SET in Bangkok lost 0.2%. Mumbai dropped 1.4%.
On Thursday, the S&P 500 fell 2.5% to 3,895.75, erasing its gains from early in the week. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite lost 3.2% to 10,810.53 and the Dow gave back 2.2% to 33,202.22.
The wave of selling came as central banks in Europe raised interest rates a day after the U.S. Federal Reserve hiked its key rate again, emphasizing that interest rates will need to go higher than previously expected in order to tame inflation.
European stocks fell sharply, with Germany’s DAX dropping 3.3%.
Like the Fed, central bank officials in Europe said inflation is not yet corralled and that more rate hikes are coming.
“We are in for a long game,” European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said at a news conference.
Small company stocks also fell. The Russell 2000 index slid 2.5% to close at 1,774.61.
The Fed raised its short-term interest rate by half a percentage point on Wednesday, its seventh increase this year. Central banks in Europe followed along Thursday, with the European Central Bank, Bank of England and Swiss National Bank each raising their main lending rate by a half-point Thursday.
Although the Fed is slowing the pace of its rate increases, the central bank signaled it expects rates to be higher over the coming few years than it had previously anticipated. That disappointed investors who hoped recent signs that inflation is easing somewhat would persuade the Fed to take some pressure off the brakes it’s applying to the U.S. economy.
The federal funds rate stands at a range of 4.25% to 4.5%, the highest level in 15 years. Fed policymakers forecast that the central bank’s rate will reach a range of 5% to 5.25% by the end of 2023. Their forecast doesn’t call for a rate cut before 2024.
The yield on the two-year Treasury, which closely tracks expectations for Fed moves, rose to 4.24% from 4.21% late Wednesday. The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which influences mortgage rates, slipped to 3.45% from 3.48%.
The three-month Treasury yield slipped to 4.31%, but remains above that of the 10-year Treasury. That’s known as an inversion and considered a strong warning that the economy could be headed for a recession.
The central bank has been fighting to lower inflation at the same time that pockets of the economy, including employment and consumer spending, remain strong. That has made it more difficult to rein in high prices on everything from food to clothing.
On Thursday, the government reported that the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell last week, a sign that the labor market remains strong. Meanwhile, another report showed that retail sales fell in November. That pullback followed a sharp rise in spending in October.
In other trading Friday, benchmark U.S. crude oil gained 38 cents to $76.49 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It lost $1.17 on Thursday to $76.11 per barrel.
Brent crude, the pricing basis for international trading, added 49 cents to $81.70 per barrel.
The dollar fell to 137.25 Japanese yen from 137.81 yen late Thursday. The euro rose to $1.0651 from $1.0627.
——
AP Business Writers Damian J. Troise and Alex Veiga contributed.
BOSTON — Former Boston pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka passed along some advice to Masataka Yoshida, another Japanese star who came over to play for the Red Sox.
“His advice to me: Boston is really cold,” the 29-year-old outfielder said through a translator on Thursday after he signed a five-year, $90 million deal with the Red Sox. “Obviously, you have to bring your jacket.”
Yoshida won a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics and twice led Japan’s Pacific League in batting. He also helped Orix to a victory in the Japan Series in October, homering twice in Game 5 — including a walk-off as the Buffaloes rallied from a ninth-inning deficit.
“We became the champion in Japan. Next season, I would like to contribute to your world championship for the Red Sox,” he said, offering this assessment of Fenway Park upon seeing it for the first time: “The Green Monster is really tall.”
Yoshida has a .326 average with a .419 on-base percentage in seven seasons in Japan, all with Orix.
He greeted the Boston media on Thursday by explaining — in English — that he doesn’t speak English.
“So, nervous,” he said. “I want to learn English and I want to speak it my daughters. I am honored to be in Red Sox Nation. I will do my best. Thank you.”
Although the Red Sox have signed other Japanese players — including closer Koji Uehara, who helped them win it all in 2013 — Yoshida is Boston’s highest-profile addition from Japan since Matsuzaka arrived in 2007 after a bidding war that resulted in the team paying more than $100 million in posting fees and salary.
The Red Sox never let this one get to that, making an offer on the first day teams were allowed to talk to Yoshida’s agent, Scott Boras, and convincing him to cancel scheduled Zooms with other teams.
“You have to be prepared with the evaluation of the player when the light turns green,” Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom said. “We felt we were. We knew that there was going to be a lot of interest.”
Word of Yoshida’s signing first emerged at the winter meetings at the same time that free agent shortstop Xander Bogaerts agreed to leave the Red Sox and join the San Diego Padres. Bogaerts had been the cornerstone of Boston’s offseason plans.
To make room for Yoshida on the roster, Boston designated infielder Jeter Downs for assignment. Downs had been acquired in the trade that sent former Mookie Betts to the Los Angeles Dodgers and hit .154 in a 14-game major league tryout.
“I think that speaks to some of the struggles we’ve had getting him on track,” Bloom said. “I still think there’s a lot of physical ability there, but we haven’t been able to unlock it consistently.”
Bloom said there was no added disappointment in setting Downs free just because he was a key part of a decision — already unpopular — to trade Betts, the 2018 AL MVP.
“No doubt he’s a big part of a really significant trade, and that we haven’t gotten him to the level that we expected hurts,” Bloom said. “But at the end of the day, we we want to do right by all of the players. And he was the right decision (in) this case.”
———
AP Baseball Writer Ronald Blum contributed to this report.
———
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports
Japan’s largest electric power company is about to start mining bitcoin.
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) Power Grid is partnering with TRIPLE-1, a local semiconductor designer and developer, to mine bitcoin with excess energy across the country, CoinDesk first reported. TEPCO is the country’s largest electric power company in total assets, per Statista data.
TEPCO is the utility behind the Fukushima nuclear reactor, which in 2011 was struck by an earthquake and huge tsunami that knocked out some of its cooling systems, allowing three reactors to melt down. The power company later admitted that it had failed to take stronger measures to prevent such disasters. TEPCO is still suffering from the accident, as compensation for victims is taking a toll on its profitability to this day. Now, its power transmission and distribution company, TEPCO Power Grid, is seeking ways to monetize surplus power with bitcoin mining through its wholly-owned subsidiary Agile Energy X.
TEPCO is joining major global energy companies in jumping on the bitcoin mining bandwagon. And a common denominator for most of them is a need to monetize excess power, something BTC mining does very well. ConocoPhillips is selling stranded gas to bitcoin miners in the Bakken, an oil-abundant region in the U.S. –– a similar strategy to what Exxon is doing. The oil giant reportedly has an agreement with Crusoe Energy Systems to redirect gas that would otherwise be wasted from an oil well pad to mobile bitcoin mines. TEPCO’s setup also goes along those lines.
According to a translated version of a Wednesday statement by the Japanese energy giant, Agile Energy X signed a memorandum of understanding with TRIPLE-1 on November 11 to build a constructive strategic partnership. Through the collaboration, Agile aims to deploy distributed data centers throughout Japan that repurposes surplus electricity from renewable energy with semiconductors from TRIPLE-1.
A pilot project has already been set up on the premises of TEPCO Power Grid’s office in the Tokyo metropolitan area, per the statement. “We have started experiments to confirm the system behavior and the impact on the power grid when equipment is operated with a large amount of power on the scale of 1,500 kW, and have confirmed that the equipment can operate normally.”
TEPCO’s bitcoin mining pilot venture in Tokyo with TRIPLE-1. (Image/TEPCO)
“TRIPLE-1’s state-of-the-art process technology will be used for the computational computers used in this project, and we will exclusively introduce semiconductors with extremely high power performance,” per the statement. “We believe that selecting and introducing energy-saving products that have a low environmental impact is an important initiative toward the realization of a carbon-neutral society.”
As a bullet train speeds by in the background, a liquid hydrogen tank towers over solar panels and hydrogen fuel cells at Panasonic’s Kusatsu plant in Japan. Combined with a Tesla Megapack storage battery, the hydrogen and solar can deliver enough electricity to power the site’s Ene-Farm fuel cell factory.
Tim Hornyak
As bullet trains whiz by at 285 kilometers per hour, Panasonic’s Norihiko Kawamura looks over Japan’s tallest hydrogen storage tank. The 14-meter structure looms over the Tokaido Shinkansen Line tracks outside the ancient capital of Kyoto, as well as a large array of solar panels, hydrogen fuel cells and Tesla Megapack storage batteries. The power sources can generate enough juice to run part of the manufacturing site using renewable energy only.
“This may be the biggest hydrogen consumption site in Japan,” says Kawamura, a manager at the appliance maker’s Smart Energy System Business Division. “We estimate using 120 tons of hydrogen a year. As Japan produces and imports more and more hydrogen in the future, this will be a very suitable kind of plant.”
Sandwiched between a high-speed railway and highway, Panasonic’s factory in Kusastsu, Shiga Prefecture, is a sprawling 52 hectare site. It was originally built in 1969 to manufacture goods including refrigerators, one of the “three treasures” of household appliances, along with TVs and washing machines, that Japanese coveted as the country rebuilt after the devastation of World War II.
Today, one corner of the plant is the H2 Kibou Field, a demonstration sustainable power facility that started operations in April. It consists of a 78,000-liter hydrogen fuel tank, a 495 kilowatt hydrogen fuel cell array made up of 99 5kW fuel cells, 570kW from 1,820 photovoltaic solar panels arranged in an inverted “V” shape to catch the most sunlight, and 1.1 megawatts of lithium-ion battery storage.
On one side of the H2 Kibou Field, a large display indicates the amount of power being produced in real time from fuel cells and solar panels: 259kW. About 80% of the power generated comes from fuel cells, with solar accounting for the rest. Panasonic says the facility produces enough power to meet the needs of the site’s fuel cell factory — it has peak power of about 680kW and annual usage of some 2.7 gigawatts. Panasonic thinks it can be a template for the next generation of new, sustainable manufacturing.
“This is the first manufacturing site of its kind using 100% renewable energy,” says Hiroshi Kinoshita of Panasonic’s Smart Energy System Business Division. “We want to expand this solution towards the creation of a decarbonized society.”
The 495kilowatt hydrogen fuel cell array is made up of 99 5KW fuel cells. Panasonic says it’s the world’s first site of its kind to use hydrogen fuel cells toward creating a manufacturing plant running on 100% renewable energy.
Tim Hornyak
An artificial intelligence-equipped Energy Management System (EMS) automatically controls on-site power generation, switching between solar and hydrogen, to minimize the amount of electricity purchased from the local grid operator. For example, if it’s a sunny summer day and the fuel cell factory needs 600kW, the EMS might prioritize the solar panels, deciding on a mixture of 300kW solar, 200 kW hydrogen fuel cells, and 100kW storage batteries. On a cloudy day, however, it might minimize the solar component, and boost the hydrogen and storage batteries, which are recharged at night by the fuel cells.
“The most important thing to make manufacturing greener is an integrated energy system including renewable energy such as solar and wind, hydrogen, batteries and so on,” says Takamichi Ochi, a senior manager for climate change and energy at Deloitte Tohmatsu Consulting. “To do that, the Panasonic example is close to an ideal energy system.”
With grey hydrogen, not totally green yet
The H2 Kibou Field is not totally green. It depends on so-called grey hydrogen, which is generated from natural gas in a process that can release a lot of carbon dioxide. Tankers haul 20,000 liters of hydrogen, chilled in liquid form to minus 250 Celsius, from Osaka to Kusatsu, a distance of some 80 km, about once a week. Japan has relied on countries like Australia, which has greater supplies of renewable energy, for hydrogen production. But local supplier Iwatani Corporation, which partnered with Chevron earlier this year to build 30 hydrogen fueling sites in California by 2026, has opened a technology center near Osaka that is focused on producing green hydrogen, which is created without the use of fossil fuels.
Another issue that is slowing adoption is cost. Even though electricity is relatively expensive in Japan, it currently costs much more to power a plant with hydrogen than using power from the grid, but the company expects Japanese government and industry efforts to improve supply and distribution will make the element significantly cheaper.
“Our hope is that hydrogen cost will go down, so we can achieve something like 20 yen per cubic meter of hydrogen, and then we will be able to achieve cost parity with the electrical grid,” Kawamura said.
Panasonic is also anticipating that Japan’s push to become carbon-neutral by 2050 will boost demand for new energy products. Its fuel cell factory at Kusatsu has churned out over 200,000 Ene-Farm natural gas fuel cell for home use. Commercialized in 2009, the cells extract hydrogen from natural gas, generate power by reacting it with oxygen, heat and store hot water, and deliver up to 500 watts of emergency power for eight days in a disaster. Last year, it began selling a pure hydrogen version targeted at commercial users. It wants to sell the fuel cells in the U.S. and Europe because governments there have more aggressive hydrogen cost-cutting measures than Japan. In 2021, the U.S. Department of Energy launched a so-called Hydrogen Shot program that aims to slash the cost of clean hydrogen by 80% to $1 per 1 kilogram over 10 years.
Panasonic doesn’t plan to increase the scale of its H2 Kibou Field for the time being, wanting to see other companies and factories adopt similar energy systems.
It won’t necessarily make economic sense today, Kawamura says, “but we want to start something like this so it will be ready when the cost of hydrogen falls. Our message is: if we want to have 100% renewable energy in 2030, then we must start with something like this now, not in 2030.”
TOKYO — Japan’s parliament on Saturday enacted a law to restrict malicious donation solicitations by religious and other groups, which mainly targets the Unification Church, whose fundraising tactics and cozy ties with the governing party caused public outrage.
The South Korean-based religious group’s decades-long ties with Japan’s governing Liberal Democratic Party surfaced after the July assassination of former leader Shinzo Abe. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, whose support ratings tumbled, sought to calm public fury over his handling of the scandal and has replaced three Cabinet ministers — one over his church ties, another over a capital punishment gaffe and a third over political funding problems.
The new law, approved at this year’s closing parliamentary session, allows believers, other donors and their families to seek the return of their money and prohibits religious groups and other organizations from soliciting funds by coercion, threats or linking donations to spiritual salvation.
Kishida, who has heard former adherents’ experience, described their sufferings as “ghastly” and praised the law as a bipartisan effort to help the victims and their families.
The law’s passage was one of Kishida’s top priorities that also include Japan’s new national security strategy and defense policy to achieve a substantial buildup of its military over the next five years.
Kishida, who earlier this week set five-year defense spending targets of 43 trillion yen ($316 billion), said his government will need an extra 4 trillion yen ($30 billion) annually. Of that, a quarter will have to be funded through tax increases, Kishida said.
On Saturday, Kishida said Japan needs to continue reinforcing military power beyond the next five years. He said a planned tax increase will be gradual from 2024 and that income tax won’t be raised. He said he was against issuing government bonds to cover the defense increase.
“We must secure the source of funding to reinforce our defense power for our future,” Kishida said. “To do so is our responsibility for the future generations.”
A revised national security strategy, which is expected to be released later this month, would allow Japan to develop a preemptive strike capability and deploy long-range missiles. It marks a major and contentious shift away from Japan’s self-defense-only policy adopted after its World War II defeat in 1945.
“Our ongoing project will involve a major change to our national security and finance policies,” Kishida said.
The suspect who fatally shot Abe at an outdoor campaign rally in July told police he targeted the former prime minister because of his links to the Unification Church. A letter and social media postings attributed to the suspect said large donations by his mother to the church bankrupted his family and ruined his life.
A police investigation led to revelations of widespread ties between the church and members of the governing party over shared interests in anti-communist and conservative causes.
The case also shed light on the suffering of children of church followers, including some who say they were forced to join the church or were left in poverty or neglected by their parents’ devotion. Many critics consider the church to be a cult because of financial and mental hardships experienced by followers and their families.
The Education Ministry, which is in charge of religious issues, formally started an investigation into the church. It could potentially lead to a court decision revoking the group’s legal status, though the church can still continue its religious activity.
The Health and Welfare Ministry is separately investigating questionable adoptions involving hundreds of children among church followers.
Opposition lawmakers who proposed tougher measures have accused Kishida of being lax and slow because his party’s coalition partner, Komeito, is backed by the Buddhist sect Soka Gakkai.
Some experts say the law lacks teeth, including donation limits, protection for children of church members and consideration for those believed to be brainwashed into joining the group and making large donations.
Kishida has said he has no links to the church and has pledged his party will cut all such ties.
The Unification Church, founded in South Korea in 1954 by Sun Myung Moon, obtained legal status as a religious organization in Japan in 1968 amid an anti-communist movement supported by Abe’s grandfather, former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi.
Since the 1980s, the church has faced accusations of devious business and recruitment tactics, including brainwashing members into making huge donations to Moon, often ruining their finances and families.
The group has acknowledged cases of “excessive” donations but says the problem has since been mitigated for more than a decade and recently pledged further reforms.
Experts say Japanese followers are asked to pay for sins committed by their ancestors during Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula, and that the majority of the church’s worldwide funding comes from Japan.
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa (center) and the eight people he selected for his “dearMoon project,” plus two chosen as backups, are seen in a promotional image from the dearMoon project website.
dearMoon project
Tokyo — Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa said Friday that K-Pop star T.O.P. will be among the eight people who will join him on a flyby around the moon on a SpaceX spaceship next year. The Japanese tycoon launched plans for the lunar voyage in 2018, buying all the seats on the spaceship. He began taking applications from around the world in March 2021 for what will be his second space journey after his 12-day trip to the International Space Station on the Soyuz Russian spaceship last year.
The eight people Maezawa selected for his “dearMoon project” are T.O.P., who debuted as a lead rapper for the K-Pop group Big Bang; American DJ Steve Aoki; filmmaker Brendan Hall and YouTuber Tim Dodd, also of the United States. The other four are British photographer Karim Illiya, Indian actor Dev Joshi, Czech artist Yemi AD and Irish photographer Rhiannon Adam. American Olympic snowboarder Kaitlyn Farrington and Japanese dancer Miyu were chosen as backups.
T.O.P.’s real name is Choi Seung-hyun. The 35-year-old started out as an underground rapper before joining Big Bang, one of the world’s top boy bands, in 2006.
T.O.P. said in a video released by the dearMoon website that he has always fantasized about space and the moon since he was a child and, “I cannot wait.”
“When I finally see the moon closer I look forward to my personal growth and returning to the earth as an artist with an inspiration,” he said.
Maezawa made the announcement on his Twitter and the dearMoon Project website on Friday, after he tweeted last week saying he held an online meeting with Elon Musk and that his “major announcement about space” was underway.
He and the others would be among the first to travel on the SpaceX vehicle. The trip is expected to take about a week. The spaceship will not make a lunar landing but is expected to come within 120 miles of the moon’s surface while circling it for three days.
The trip is expected next year, though the exact schedule has not been disclosed.
After a smooth rendezvous, Japanese space tourist Yusaku Maezawa and his assistant, piloted by a Russian commander, docked with the International Space Station for a 12-day stay in 2021.
NASA
The billionaire initially launched a high-profile campaign to recruit a soulmate for his first journey to the moon, but after receiving applications from nearly 28,000 would-be romantic partners from around the globe, he pulled the plug on that idea. Maezawa said he’d cancelled his involvement in the “Full Moon Lovers” project for personal reasons, noting his regret at disappointing those who had applied to appear on the show.
Maezawa made his fortune in retail fashion, launching Japan’s largest online fashion mall, Zozotown. In 2019, he resigned as CEO of the e-commerce company Zozo Inc. to devote his time to space travel. Forbes magazine estimates his wealth at $1.9 billion.
The United Kingdom, Japan and Italy announced Friday they are teaming up to build a sixth-generation fighter jet, designed to rival or eclipse the best warplanes now employed by the likes of China and Russia – and possibly even the United States, the main ally of the trio.
“We are announcing the Global Combat Air Program (GCAP) – an ambitious endeavour to develop a next-generation fighter aircraft by 2035,” British, Japanese and Italian leaders said in a joint statement.
The leaders’ statement did not mention China or Russia by name, but said the new fighter jet is needed because “threats and aggression are increasing” against the “rules-based, free and open international order.”
“Defending our democracy, economy and security, and protecting regional stability, are ever more important,” the leaders said.
In a separate statement, the British government said development of the new warplane is expected to begin in 2024, and it is expected to be flying by 2035.
It will showcase technologies from each of the three partners, the British statement said.
“The ambition is for this to be a next-generation jet enhanced by a network of capabilities such as uncrewed aircraft, advanced sensors, cutting-edge weapons and innovative data systems,” it added.
The new jet is seen as a replacement for Britain’s Typhoon fighters and Japan’s F-2s.
The new program will see Britain, Japan and Italy going their own way without the assistance of the US, the world’s preeminent warplane maker.
All three countries are part of the US fifth-generation F-35 stealth fighter program, under which all three fly the F-35 and versions of the warplane are assembled in Italy and Japan. The new jet is not expected to affect the F-35 program.
In a joint statement with the Japanese Defense Ministry, the Pentagon backed the development of the new warplane.
“The United States supports Japan’s security and defense cooperation with likeminded allies and partners, including with the United Kingdom and Italy – two close partners of both of our countries – on the development of its next fighter aircraft,” the US-Japan statement said.
Meanwhile, the UK-Japan-Italy statement said the new plane would be designed to integrate with the defense programs of all their allies and partners.
“Future interoperability with the United States, with NATO and with our partners across Europe, the Indo-Pacific and globally – is reflected in the name we have chosen for our program. This concept will be at the center of its development,” it said.
The leaders said the GCAP program “will support the sovereign capability of all three countries to design, deliver and upgrade cutting-edge combat air capabilities.”
Critics say that strict US export controls on military technology have sometimes limited what customers of planes like the F-35 can do to adapt them to their specific needs.
The US also has a sixth-generation fighter jet – known as the Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program – in the works. It is designed to be the successor to its F-22, which along with the F-35, is considered the world’s top fighter jet.
The NGAD program has similar aims to the joint UK-Japan-Italy plan.
“The Air Force intends for NGAD to replace the F-22 fighter jet beginning in 2030, possibly including a combination of crewed and uncrewed aircraft,” a US Congressional Research document says.
But as of now the US is pursuing the NGAD program alone.
The British, Japanese and Italian leaders highlighted the benefits of working together.
“It will deepen our defense cooperation, science and technology collaboration, integrated supply chains, and further strengthen our defense industrial base,” their joint statement said.
The program is also expected to provide an economic boost.
“This program will deliver wider economic and industrial benefits, supporting jobs and livelihoods across Japan, Italy and the UK,” the statement said.
The British statement said a 2021 analysis by PricewaterhouseCoopers predicted the new warplane program could support about 21,000 jobs a year by 2050 and contribute an estimated $32.1 billion (£26.2 billion) to the economy.
Meanwhile, China and Russia are also thought to be pursuing sixth-generation aircraft.
China and Russia now fly fifth-generation fighters – Beijing’s J-20 and J-31 jets and Moscow’s Su-57.
But the US-designed F-35s are widely seen as equal to or better than the Chinese or Russian aircraft.
TOKYO — Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa said Friday that K-Pop star T.O.P. will be among the eight people who will join him on a flyby around the moon on a SpaceX spaceship next year.
The Japanese tycoon launched plans for the lunar voyage in 2018, buying all the seats on the spaceship. He began taking applications from around the world in March 2021 for what will be his second space journey after his 12-day trip to the International Space Station on the Soyuz Russian spaceship last year.
The eight people Maezawa selected for his “dearMoon project” are T.O.P., who debuted as a lead rapper for the K-Pop group Big Bang; American DJ Steve Aoki; filmmaker Brendan Hall and YouTuber Tim Dodd, also of the United States. The other four are British photographer Karim Illiya, Indian actor Dev Joshi, Czech artist Yemi AD and Irish photographer Rhiannon Adam. American Olympic snowboarder Kaitlyn Farrington and Japanese dancer Miyu were chosen as backups.
T.O.P.’s real name is Choi Seung-hyun. The 35-year-old started out as an underground rapper before joining Big Bang, one of the world’s top boy bands, in 2006.
T.O.P. said in a video released by the dearMoon website that he has always fantasized about space and the moon since he was a child and, “I cannot wait.”
“When I finally see the moon closer I look forward to my personal growth and returning to the earth as an artist with an inspiration,” he said.
Maezawa made the announcement on his Twitter and the dearMoon Project website on Friday, after he tweeted last week saying he held an online meeting with Elon Musk and that his “major announcement about space” was underway.
He and the others would be among the first to travel on the SpaceX vehicle. The trip is expected to take about a week. The spaceship will not make a lunar landing but is expected to come within 200 kilometers (120 miles) of the moon’s surface while circling it for three days.
The trip is expected next year, though the exact schedule has not been disclosed.
Last year, Maezawa, 47, and his producer Yozo Hirano became the first self-paying tourists to visit the space station since 2009. He has not disclosed the cost for that mission, though reports said he paid $80 million.
Maezawa made his fortune in retail fashion, launching Japan’s largest online fashion mall, Zozotown. In 2019, he resigned as CEO of the e-commerce company Zozo Inc. to devote his time to space travel. Forbes magazine estimates his wealth at $1.9 billion.
World champions Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier did nothing to harm their chances of becoming the first American pairs team to win the prestigious Grand Prix Final, turning in a brilliant short program Thursday in Turin, Italy.
Knierim and Frazier trailed their biggest rivals, Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara of Japan, by less than half a point heading into Friday’s free skate at Torino Palavela, where the capstone to the Grand Prix season is being held after the event’s two-year hiatus caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We both skated from our hearts and we skated with passion and we are very proud and happy with how we skated today,” Knierim said. “We made a big improvement from the (Grand Prix season) and we are relieved with the outcome.”
In the men’s event, world champion Shoma Uno led a Japanese sweep of the first three spots following his short program, scoring a world-leading 99.99 points to “Gravity” by John Mayer. Sota Yamamoto and Kao Miura were close behind, while American hopeful Ilia Malinin was in fifth after a series of shaky jumps.
The women’s short program and rhythm dance also take place Friday. The men’s free skate is Saturday.
The pairs competition figured to be a summit meeting between Knierim and Frazier, fresh of a successful Olympics, and the team of Miura and Kihara, who finished second to the Americans at the world championships earlier this year.
Neither of the pairs teams disappointed.
Knierim and Frazier put together their best program of the Grand Prix season, highlighted by a high-amplitude throw triple flip. They’re looking to become the first U.S. team to ever win the Grand Prix Final. Knierim closed her eyes as their scores were read, and both lit up in smiles when they heard the total of 77.65 that briefly put them in the lead.
“I was very proud how we performed,” Frazier said. “We tried to add some details and tonight it came alive.”
Miura and Kihara were last on the ice and also performed flawlessly to a mashup of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” by Marcus Mumford and Elvis Presley. The winners of Skate Canada and the NHK Trophy landed their side-by-side triple toe loop and a big throw triple lutz to earn 78.08 points, nearly eclipsing their own season best.
“Unbelievable,” coach Bruno Marcotte said as they exited the ice. “That was amazing.”
Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps of Canada were third with 69.34 points, putting them in podium position. They were followed by the two Italian teams of Sara Conti and Niccolo Macci and Rebecca Ghilardi and Filippo Ambrosini, as well as the second American team of Emily Chan and Spencer Akira Howe.
“We went through some tough times together,” said Kihara, who has dealt with a series of injuries over the course of his career, “and we were able to share these feeling and we can now enjoy every competition and it’s wonderful.”
Uno, who has two silver and two bronze medals from Grand Prix Final, did what he could to position himself for gold. He landed his opening quad flip, a quad flip-triple toe loop and triple axel in his best short program this season.
Yamamoto was more than five points behind with 94.86 for his short program. Miura scored 87.07 points, while Daniel Grassl performed well for his home crowd. Malinin faltered through his program to leave him playing catch up, though his big-air quads — and the quad axel that only he has landed in competition — keep his podium chances alive.
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BANGKOK — Shares were mostly lower in Asia on Thursday after Wall Street sagged under weakness in tech stocks.
U.S. futures turned higher and oil prices rebounded more than $1 a barrel.
Japan revised upward its GDP data to show the economy contracted less than earlier reported in July-September, in a sign the country weathered its latest big COVID wave with less damage than had been thought.
The Cabinet Office reported Thursday that the economy shrank at a 0.8% annual rate in July-September. That was better than minus 1.2% annual growth reported earlier.
In quarterly terms, the world’s third-largest economy contracted 0.2% instead of 0.3%.
Shares rose in Hong Kong as investors assessed the potential impact of a rollback of many pandemic restrictions on the Chinese mainland.
On Wednesday, rules on isolating people with COVID-19 were eased and virus test requirements were dropped for some public places in a dramatic change to a strategy that had confined millions of people to their homes and sparked protests and demands for President Xi Jinping to resign.
Experts warned, however, that the “zero-COVID” restrictions can’t be lifted completely until at least mid-2023 because millions of elderly people still must be vaccinated and the health care system strengthened.
“Specifically, there are three reasons to be restrained, if not circumspect, on China cheer. First, the simple point that the unwind of entrenched zero-COVID policies will take time and perhaps be a bumpy process rather than a linear path to instant gratification,” Mizuho Bank said in a commentary.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 3.5% to 19,475.45, while the Shanghai Composite lost 0.1% to 3,197.35.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 sank 0.8% to 7,175.50 and South Korea’s Kospi dropped 0.5% to 2,371.08. Shares also fell in Bangkok, Mumbai and Taiwan.
Wall Street ended a wobbly day of trading with more losses Wednesday, with the S&P 500 down 0.2% in its fifth straight loss. It closed at 3,933.92.
Technology and communication services stocks were the biggest weights on the benchmark index. Apple fell 1.4% and Google parent Alphabet dropped 2.1%.
The Nasdaq composite, which is heavily weighted with tech stocks, fell 0.5% to 10,958.55 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average managed a 1.58 point gain, essentially flat, at 33,597.92.
The Russell 2000 index fell 0.3% to 1,806.90.
Treasury yields fell significantly. The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which influences mortgage rates, slid to 3.42% from 3.53% late Tuesday. The two-year Treasury yield, which tends to track market expectations of future action by the Federal Reserve, fell to 4.27% from 4.36%.
Investors have been dealing with a relative lack of news ahead of updates on inflation and consumer sentiment later this week, and the Federal Reserve’s meeting next week. Inflation, the Fed’s aggressive interest rate increases and recession worries remain the big concerns for Wall Street.
Investors are watching for data that may yield more insights into inflation’s path ahead and how the Fed will continue fighting high prices.
The U.S. will release data on weekly unemployment claims on Thursday. The jobs market has been a strong area of the otherwise slowing economy and that has made it more difficult for the Fed to tame inflation.
The government will release a report on wholesale prices Friday that will provide more details on how inflation is affecting businesses. The University of Michigan will release a December survey on consumer sentiment on Friday.
Inflation has been easing and economists expect the upcoming data on wholesale and consumer prices to reflect that trend.
The central bank is expected to raise interest rates by a half-percentage point at its meeting next week. It has raised its benchmark rate six times since March, driving it to a range of 3.75% to 4%, the highest in 15 years. Wall Street expects the benchmark rate to reach a peak range of 5% to 5.25% by the middle of 2023.
A growing number of analysts expect the U.S. economy to slip into a recession in 2023, but are unsure of its potential severity and duration.
In other trading, U.S. crude oil prices rose $1.18 to $73.19 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On Wednesday, it fell 3%, settling at $72.01 per gallon, the lowest price this year.
Brent crude oil gained $1.12 to $78.29 per barrel.
BANGKOK (AP) — Shares are mostly lower in Asia after Wall Street sagged under weakness in tech stocks.
U.S. futures edged lower while oil prices rebounded.
Japan revised upward its GDP data to show the economy contracted less than earlier reported in July-September, in a sign the country weathered its latest big COVID wave with less damage than had been thought.
The Cabinet Office reported Thursday that the economy shrank at a 0.8% annual rate in July-September. That was better than minus 1.2% annual growth reported earlier.
In quarterly terms, the world’s third-largest economy contracted 0.2% instead of 0.3%.
On Wednesday, rules on isolating people with COVID-19 were eased and virus test requirements were dropped for some public places in a dramatic change to a strategy that had confined millions of people to their homes and sparked protests and demands for President Xi Jinping to resign.
Experts warned, however, that the “zero-COVID” restrictions can’t be lifted completely until at least mid-2023 because millions of elderly people still must be vaccinated and the health care system strengthened.
“Specifically, there are three reasons to be restrained, if not circumspect, on China cheer. First, the simple point that the unwind of entrenched zero-COVID policies will take time and perhaps be a bumpy process rather than a linear path to instant gratification,” Mizuho Bank said in a commentary.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 2.4% to 19,267.52, while the Shanghai Composite lost 0.2% to 3,193.14.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 sank 0.6% to 7,183.00 and South Korea’s Kospi dropped 1% to 2,360.24. Shares also fell in Bangkok, Mumbai and Taiwan.
Wall Street ended a wobbly day of trading with more losses Wednesday, with the S&P 500 down 0.2% in its fifth straight loss. It closed at 3,933.92.
Technology and communication services stocks were the biggest weights on the benchmark index. Apple fell 1.4% and Google parent Alphabet dropped 2.1%.
The Nasdaq composite, which is heavily weighted with tech stocks, fell 0.5% to 10,958.55 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average managed a 1.58 point gain, essentially flat, at 33,597.92.
The Russell 2000 index fell 0.3% to 1,806.90.
Treasury yields fell significantly. The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which influences mortgage rates, slid to 3.42% from 3.53% late Tuesday. The two-year Treasury yield, which tends to track market expectations of future action by the Federal Reserve, fell to 4.27% from 4.36%.
Investors have been dealing with a relative lack of news ahead of updates on inflation and consumer sentiment later this week, and the Federal Reserve’s meeting next week. Inflation, the Fed’s aggressive interest rate increases and recession worries remain the big concerns for Wall Street.
U.S. crude oil prices fell 3%, settling at $72.01 per gallon, the lowest price this year. Early Thursday, it was up 67 cents at $72.68 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Brent crude oil gained 64 cents to $77.81 per barrel.
Investors are watching for data that may yield more insights into inflation’s path ahead and how the Fed will continue fighting high prices.
The U.S. will release data on weekly unemployment claims on Thursday. The jobs market has been a strong area of the otherwise slowing economy and that has made it more difficult for the Fed to tame inflation.
The government will release a report on wholesale prices Friday that will provide more details on how inflation is affecting businesses. The University of Michigan will release a December survey on consumer sentiment on Friday.
Inflation has been easing and economists expect the upcoming data on wholesale and consumer prices to reflect that trend.
The central bank is expected to raise interest rates by a half-percentage point at its meeting next week. It has raised its benchmark rate six times since March, driving it to a range of 3.75% to 4%, the highest in 15 years. Wall Street expects the benchmark rate to reach a peak range of 5% to 5.25% by the middle of 2023.
A growing number of analysts expect the U.S. economy to slip into a recession in 2023, but are unsure of its potential severity and duration.
___
AP Business writers Damian J. Troise and Alex Veiga contributed.
TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s economy contracted less than previously thought in the last quarter, weathering the country’s latest big COVID wave with less damage than had been thought.
The Cabinet Office reported Thursday that the economy shrank at a 0.8% annual rate in July-September. That was better than minus 1.2% annual growth reported earlier.
In quarterly terms, the world’s third-largest economy contracted 0.2% instead of 0.3%.
Pandemic precautions eased in the late summer, allowing normal business activity and travel to resume after many months of on-again, off-again limits. Exports also were stronger than earlier thought, expanding 2.1% in annual terms, up from the earlier estimate of 1.9%.
Growth in the last fiscal year, which ended in March, also was revised upward to an annual 2.5% pace from 2.3%. The new data also showed corporate investment rose more than reported earlier.
The economy has picked up steam in the current quarter, as border controls were eased to allow foreign tourists to enter the country. But subdued demand from China and slowing growth in other major markets as central banks raise interest rates to counter inflation are expected to limit the pace of recovery.
Decades-high inflation poses another threat, undermining purchasing power and raising costs for both businesses and consumers in a country that depends heavily on imports. With the economy still in the doldrums, the Bank of Japan has shied away from the interest rate hikes being used to slow growth and relieve price pressures in the U.S. and elsewhere. That has weakened the Japanese yen versus the U.S. dollars, compounding the impact of higher costs for oil, gas and other commodities.
This side could become only the second Asian nation to reach the quarter-finals of a World Cup.
Kagoshima, Japan – Japan take on Croatia in the group of 16 of the World Cup 2022 on Monday. The 6pm (15:00 GMT) kickoff means it will be midnight in Japan when the first whistle is blown.
Many will sacrifice their sleep to watch their team play. With extra time and penalties a possibility, there is a chance that Japanese football fans may be awake and glued to their screens well past 3am.
The wins over Germany and Spain mean that even casual football fans are glued to their screens and are willing to sacrifice their sleep, hoping and praying for one more sleepless night after every match.
Japan progressed beyond the group stage of the World Cup three times but never went beyond the last-16 stage.
The Group E wins over Germany and Spain have created strong hope and belief that Hajime Moriyasu’s team can become the first to cross that barrier. Should the Blue Samurai down Croatia, they will become only the second Asian nation to reach the quarter-finals after South Korea in 2002.
For 44-year-old Japanese fan Takuro Shinmyozu, the player who has made a difference in Moriyasu’s charges is Ritsu Doan. The SC Freiburg winger has scored twice, his goals helping Japan beat Germany and Spain.
While Shinmyozu has been happy with the performances of Doan, dubbed by some as “the Japanese Messi”, he does feel that the 24-year-old needs to improve his behaviour.
“Doan is the best player. He knows what Japan should do. He may need to work on his attitude though,” said Shinmyozu who credits Japan’s disciplined strategy for having helped them overcome Germany and Spain.
“Higher-ranked teams like Germany and Spain have better individual skills and passing than Japan. Japan fended off their attacks and responded with well-organised strategies in the second half of those games,” he added.
Shinmyozu conceded that the team surprised him. He admitted he turned off his television and went to sleep when the team was trailing 1-0 against Germany in their World Cup opener but realised what he had missed out on when he woke up.
Yoichi Tominanga feels that the strong performances of the Samurai Blue in Qatar will serve the national team going well into the future.
He also noticed a change in the mentality of players who now “do not give strong nations respect” on the field as previous generations of Japanese footballers may have been doing to their own detriment.
“We have picked up confidence. We don’t give too much respect to strong nations any more. We are not afraid of them. There are many strong nations like Brazil, Germany, Argentina, Spain and France that we could still learn a lot from. Kids who are watching these games will not think that we are just an underdog. They will think that we can beat these teams. It gives the future of Japanese football a lot of meaning,” he said.
After witnessing the team make gradual improvement since its first World Cup appearance in 1998, longtime football fans such as Tominaga, 38, expected the group-stage games to be difficult but always knew that Japan would have a fighting chance of getting out of the group.
“I thought the group would be hard. I knew we would have a chance of advancing beyond the group stage as most football fans know that anything can happen in football,” said Tominaga.
LONDON — Three years after leaving the EU to chart its own course, Britain finds itself caught between two economic behemoths in a brewing transatlantic trade war.
In one corner sits the United States, whose Congress in August passed the Biden administration’s much-vaunted $369 billion program of green subsidies, part of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
In the opposing corner is the European Union, which fears Washington’s subsidy splurge will pull investment — particularly in electric vehicles — away from Europe, hitting carmakers hard.
The EU is preparing its own retaliatory package of subsidies; Washington shows little sign of changing course. Fears of a trade war are growing fast.
Now sitting squarely outside the ring, the U.K. can only look on with horror, and quietly ask Washington to soften the blow. But there are few signs the softly-softly approach is bearing fruit. Britain now risks being clobbered by both sides.
“It’s not in the U.K.’s interest for the U.S. and EU to go down this route,” said Sam Lowe, a partner at Flint Global and expert in U.K. and EU trade policy. “Given the U.K.’s current economic position, it can’t really afford to engage in a subsidy war with both.” The British government has just unleashed a round of fiscal belt-tightening after a market rout, following months of political turmoil.
For iconic British motor brands, the row over the Biden administration’s IRA comes with real costs.
The U.S. is the second-largest destination for British-made vehicles after the EU, and the automotive sector is one of Britain’s top goods exporters.
Manufacturers like Jaguar Land Rover have warned publicly about the “very serious challenges” posed by the new U.S. law and its plan for electric vehicle tax credits aimed at boosting American industry.
Kemi on the case
U.K. Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch has for months been privately urging top U.S. officials to soften the impact of the electric vehicle subsidies on Britain by carving out exemptions, U.K. officials said.
When Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo visited London in early October, Badenoch pushed her to rethink the strategy. The U.K. trade chief brought that same message to Washington in a series of private meetings earlier this month, including at a sit-down with Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo.
Badenoch has “raised this issue on many levels,” an official from the U.K.’s Department for International Trade said, citing conversations with U.S. Ambassador to Britain Jane Hartley, with Secretary Raimondo, “and with members of the Biden administration and senior representatives of both parties.”
The Cabinet minister has also spoken out in public, telling the pro-free market Cato Institute in Washington earlier this month that “the substantial new tax credits for electric cars not only bar vehicles made in the U.K. from the U.S. market, but also affect vehicles made in the U.S. by U.K. manufacturers.”
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo | Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
Badenoch’s comments echo concerns raised by both British automotive lobby group the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), and by Jaguar Land Rover, in comments filed with the U.S. Treasury Department.
The SMMT warned that Biden’s green vehicle package has several “elements of concern that risk creating an uneven competitive environment, with U.K.-based manufacturers and suppliers potentially penalised.” The lobby group is taking aim at the credit scheme’s requirement for green vehicles to be built in North America, with significant subsidies available only if critical minerals are sourced from the U.S. or a U.S. ally.
In response to Washington’s plans, the EU is preparing what could amount to billions in subsidies for its own industries hit by the U.S. law, which also offers tax breaks to boost American green businesses such as solar panel manufacturers. Britain faces being squeezed in both markets, while lacking any say in whatever response Brussels decides.
Protectionism that impacts like-minded allies “isn’t the answer to the geopolitical challenges we face,” the British trade department official warned, adding “there is a serious risk” the law disrupts “vital” global supply chains of batteries and electric vehicles.
The conversations Badenoch had this month in Washington were “reassuring,” the official added. “But it’s for them to address and find solutions.”
‘Ton of work to do’
Yet others believe Badenoch will have a hard time getting her colleagues in the U.S. — now cooling on a much-touted bilateral trade deal — to take action. “The U.S. is minimally focused on how any of their policies are going to impact the U.K.,” admitted a U.S.-based representative of a major business group.
While Britain and the U.S. are “very close allies”, they added, those in Washington “just don’t really view the U.K. as an interesting trade partner and market right now.” The U.S. is more focused, they noted, on pushing back against China, meaning Badenoch has “a ton of work to do” getting the administration to soften the IRA.
Nevertheless the U.S. is still working out how its law will actually be implemented, the business figure said, and is assembling a working group on how the IRA impacts trade allies. This has the potential, they added, to “alleviate a lot of the concerns coming out of the U.K.”
Late Tuesday evening, the SMMT called on the British government to provide greater domestic support for the sector as it prepares to ramp up its own electric vehicle production. The group wants an extension past April on domestic support for firms’ energy costs; a boost to government investment in green energy sources; and a speedier national rollout of charging infrastructure and staff training.
In the meantime, Britain’s options appear limited.
Newly manufactured Land Rover and Range Rover vehicles parked and waiting to be loaded for export | Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images
The U.K. “could consider legal action” and haul the U.S. before the World Trade Organization or challenge the EU through provisions in the post-Brexit Trade and Cooperation Agreement, said Lowe of consultancy Flint. “But — to be blunt — neither of them care what we have to say.”
Anna Jerzewska, a trade advisor and associate fellow at the UK Trade Policy Observatory, suggested pressing ahead “with your own domestic policy and efforts to support strategic industries is perhaps more important” than complaining about foreign subsidy schemes. But she noted that after a “chaotic” political period, Britain is “likely to take longer to respond to external changes and challenges.”
And in truth, Britain “can’t afford to out-subsidize the U.S. and EU,” said David Henig, a trade expert with the European Centre For International Political Economy think tank.
Outside the EU, Britain could work to rally allies such as Japan and South Korea who are also unhappy with the Biden administration’s protectionist measures, he noted. “But I don’t think we’re in that position,” Henig said, as it would take a concerted diplomatic effort, and the U.K.’s automotive sector would “have to be well positioned” in the first place, not struggling as it is. He predicted London’s lobbying in Washington and Brussels is “not going to get anywhere.”
The transatlantic reset between Brussels and Washington is on life support.
After four years of discord and disruption under Donald Trump, hopes were high that Joe Biden’s presidency would usher in a new era of cooperation between Europe and the U.S. after he declared: “America is back.”
But when senior officials from both sides meet in Washington on Monday for a twice-yearly summit on technology and trade, the mood will be gloomier than at any time since Trump left office.
The European Union is up in arms over Biden’s plans for hefty subsidies for made-in-America electric cars, claiming these payments, which partly kick in from January 1, are nothing more than outright trade protectionism.
At the same time, the U.S. is increasingly frustrated the 27-country bloc won’t be more aggressive in pushing back against China, accusing some European governments of caving in to Beijing’s economic might.
Those frictions are expected to overshadow the so-called EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council (TTC) summit this week. At a time when the Western alliance is seeking to maintain a show of unity and strength in the face of Russian aggression and Chinese authoritarianism, the geopolitical stakes are high.
Biden may have helped matters last Thursday, during a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron, by saying he believed the two sides can still resolve some of the concerns the EU has raised.
“We’re going to continue to create manufacturing jobs in America but not at the expense of Europe,” Biden said. “We can work out some of the differences that exist, I’m confident.”
But, as ever, the details will be crucial.
It is unclear what Biden can do to stop his Buy American subsidies from hurting European car-markers, for example, many of which come from powerful member countries like France and Germany. The TTC summit offers a crucial early opportunity for the two sides to begin to rebuild trust and start to deliver on Biden’s warm rhetoric.
Judging by the TTC’s record so far, those attending, who will include U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, will have their work cut out.
More than 20 officials, policymakers and industry and society groups involved in the summit told POLITICO that the lofty expectations for the TTC have yet to deliver concrete results. Almost all of the individuals spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be attending the TTC | Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Some officials privately accused their counterparts of broken promises, particularly on trade. Others are frustrated at a lack of progress in 10 working groups on topics like helping small businesses to digitize and tackling climate change.
“With these kinds of allies, who needs enemies?” said one EU trade diplomat when asked about tensions around upcoming U.S. electric car subsidies. A senior U.S. official working on the summit hit back: “We need the Europeans to play ball on China. So far, we haven’t had much luck.”
Much of the EU-U.S. friction is down to three letters: IRA.
Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which provides subsidies to “Buy American” when it comes to purchasing electric vehicles, has infuriated officials in Brussels who see it as undermining the multilateral trading system and a direct threat to the bloc’s rival car industry.
“The expectation the TTC was established to provide a forum for precisely these advanced exchanges with a view to preventing trade frictions before they arise appears to have been severely frustrated,” said David Kleimann, a trade expert at the Bruegel think tank in Brussels.
Biden’s room for flexibility is limited. The context for the subsidies and tax breaks is his desire to make good on his promise to create more manufacturing jobs ahead of an expected re-election run in 2024. The U.S. itself is hovering on the edge of a possible recession.
In addition, the U.S. trade deficit with the EU hit a record $218 billion in 2021, second only to the U.S. trade deficit with China. The U.S. also ran an auto trade deficit of about $22 billion with European countries, with Germany accounting for the largest share of that.
Washington has few, if any, meaningful policy levers at its disposal to calm European anger. During a recent visit to the EU, Katherine Tai, the U.S. trade representative, urged European countries to pass their own subsidies to jumpstart Europe’s electric car production, according to three officials with knowledge of those discussions.
“It risks being the elephant in the room,” said Emily Benson, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, when asked about the electric car dispute.
After a push from Brussels, there were increasing signs on Friday that the TTC could still play a role. In the latest version of the TTC’s draft declaration, obtained by POLITICO, both sides commit to addressing the European concerns over Biden’s subsidies, including via the Trade and Tech Council. Again, though, there was no detail on how Washington could resolve the issue.
Politicians across Europe are already drawing up plans to fight back against Biden’s subsidies. That may include taking the matter to the World Trade Organization, hitting the U.S. with retaliatory tariffs or passing a “Buy European Act” that would nudge EU consumers and businesses to buy locally made goods and components.
Officials and business leaders pose for a photo during the TTC in September 2021 | Pool photo by Rebecca Droke/AFP via Getty Images
Privately, Washington has not been in the mood to give ground. Speaking to POLITICO before Biden met Macron, five U.S. policymakers said the IRA was not aimed at alienating allies, stressing that the green subsidies fit the very climate change goals that Europe has long called on America to adopt.
“There’s just a huge amount to be done and more frankly to be done than the market would provide for on its own,” said a senior White House official, who was not authorized to speak on the record. “We think the Inflation Reduction Act is reflective of that type of step, but we also think there is a space here for Europe and others, frankly, to take similar steps.”
China tensions
Senior politicians attending the summit are expected to play down tensions this week when they announce a series of joint EU-U.S. projects.
These include funds for two telecommunications projects in Jamaica and Kenya and the announcement of new rules for how the emerging technology of so-called trustworthy artificial intelligence can develop. There’s also expected to be a plan for more coordination to highlight potential blockages in semiconductor supply chains, according to the draft summit statement obtained by POLITICO.
Yet even on an issue like microchips — where both Washington and Brussels have earmarked tens of billions of euros to subsidize local production — geopolitics intervenes.
For months, U.S. officials have pushed hard for their European counterparts to agree to export controls to stop high-end semiconductor manufacturing equipment being sent to China, according to four officials with knowledge of those discussions.
Washington already passed legislation to stop Chinese companies from using such American-made hardware. The White House had been eager for the European Commission to back similar export controls, particularly as the Dutch firm ASML produced equipment crucial for high-end chipmaking worldwide.
Yet EU officials preparing for the TTC meeting said such requests had never been made formally to Brussels. The draft summit communiqué makes just a passing reference to China and threats from so-called non-market economies.
Unlike the U.S., the EU remains divided on how to approach Beijing as some countries like Germany have long-standing economic ties with Chinese businesses that they are reluctant to give up. Without a consensus among EU governments, Brussels has little to offer Washington to help its anti-China push.
“In theory, the TTC is not about China, but in practice, every discussion with the U.S. is,” said one senior EU official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “If we talk with Katherine Tai about Burger King, it has an anti-China effect.”
Gavin Bade, Clea Caulcutt, Samuel Stolton and Camille Gijs contributed reporting.
NATO allies finally agreed earlier this year that China is a “challenge.” What that means is anyone’s guess.
That’s the task now facing officials from NATO’s 30-member sprawl since they settled on the label in June: Turning an endlessly malleable term into an actual plan.
Progress, thus far, has been modest — at best.
At one end, China hawks like the U.S. are trying to converge NATO’s goals with their own desire to constrain Beijing. At the other are China softliners like Hungary who want to engage Beijing. Then there’s a vast and shifting middle: hawks that don’t want to overly antagonize Beijing; softliners that still fret about economic reliance on China.
U.S. Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith insisted the American and NATO strategies can be compatible.
“I see tremendous alignment between the two,” she told POLITICO. But, she acknowledged, translating the alliance’s words into action is “a long and complicated story.”
Indeed, looming over the entire debate is the question of whether China even merits so much attention right now. War is raging in NATO’s backyard. Russia is not giving up its revanchist ambitions.
“NATO was not conceived for operations in the Pacific Ocean — it’s a North Atlantic alliance,” said Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, in a recent interview with POLITICO.
“Certainly one can consider other threats and challenges,” he added. “But [for] the time being, don’t you think that we have enough threats and challenges on the traditional scenario of NATO?”
The issue will be on the table this week in Bucharest, where foreign ministers from across the alliance will sign off on a new report about responding to China. While officials have agreed on several baseline issues, the talks will still offer a preview of the tough debates expected to torment NATO for years, especially given China’s anticipated move to throttle Taiwan — the semi-autonomous island the U.S. has pledged to defend.
“Now,” said one senior European diplomat, “the ‘so what’ is not easy.”
30 allies, 30 opinions
NATO’s “challenge” label for China — which came at an annual summit in Madrid — is a seemingly innocuous word that still represented an unprecedented show of Western unity against Beijing’s rise.
In a key section of the alliance’s new strategic blueprint, leaders wrote that “we will work together responsibly, as Allies, to address the systemic challenges” that China poses to the military alliance.
It was, in many ways, a historic moment, hinting at NATO’s future and reflecting deft coordination among 30 members that have long enjoyed vastly different relationships with Beijing.
The U.S. has driven much of the effort to draw NATO’s attention to China, arguing the alliance must curtail Beijing’s influence, reduce dependencies on the Asian power and invest in its own capabilities. Numerous allies have backed this quest, including Canada, the United Kingdom, Lithuania and the Czech Republic.
China is “the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it,” the U.S. wrote in its own national security strategy released last month.
NATO is a wide-ranging alliance | Denis Doyle/Getty Images
But NATO is a wide-ranging alliance. Numerous eastern European countries lean toward these hawks but want to keep the alliance squarely focused on the Russian threat. Some are wary of angering China, and the possibility of pushing Beijing further into Moscow’s arms. Meanwhile, a number of western European powers fret over China’s role in sensitive parts of the Western economy but still want to maintain economic links.
Now the work is on to turn these disparate sentiments into something usable.
“There is a risk that we endlessly debate the adjectives that we apply here,” said David Quarrey, the United Kingdom’s ambassador to NATO.
“We are very focused on practical implementation,” he told POLITICO in an interview. “I think that’s where the debate needs to go here — and I think we are making progress with that.”
For Quarrey and Smith, the U.S. ambassador, that means getting NATO to consider several components: building more protections in cyberspace, a domain China is seeking to dominate; preparing to thwart attacks on the infrastructure powering society, a Western vulnerability Russia has exposed; and ensuring key supply chains don’t run through China.
Additionally, Quarrey said, NATO must also deepen “even further” its partnerships with regional allies like Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
While NATO allies can likely broadly agree on goals like boosting cyber defenses, there’s some grumbling about the ramifications of pivoting to Asia.
The U.S. “wants as much China as possible to make NATO relevant to China-minded Washingtonians,” the senior European diplomat said. But, this person added, it is “not clear where NATO really adds value.”
And the U.K., the diplomat argued, is pressing NATO on China because it is “in need of some multilateral framework after Brexit.”
Perhaps most importantly, a turn to China raises existential questions about Europe’s own security. Currently, Europe is heavily reliant on U.S. security guarantees, U.S. troops stationed locally and U.S. arms suppliers.
“An unspoken truth is that to reinforce Taiwan,” the European diplomat said, the U.S. would not be “in a position to reinforce permanently in Europe.”
Europeans, this person said, “have to face the music and do more.”
Compromise central
Smith, the U.S. ambassador, realizes different perspectives on China persist within NATO.
The upcoming report on China therefore hits the safer themes, like defending critical infrastructure. While some diplomats had hoped for a more ambitious report, Smith insisted she was satisfied. The U.S. priority, she said, is to formally get the work started.
“We could argue,” she said, about “the adjectives and the way in which some of those challenges are described. But what was most important for the United States was that we were able to get all of those workstreams in the report.”
But even that is a baby step on the long highway ahead for NATO. Agreeing to descriptions and areas of work is one thing, actually doing that work is another.
“We’re still not doing much,” said a second senior European diplomat. “It’s still a report describing what areas we need to work on — there’s a lot in front of us.”
Among the big questions that remain unanswered: How could China be integrated into NATO’s defense planning? How would NATO backfill the U.S. support that currently goes to Europe if some of it is redirected to Asia? Will European allies offer Taiwan support in a crisis scenario?
Western capitals’ unyielding support for Kyiv — and the complications the war has created — is also being closely watched as countries game plan for a potential military showdown in the Asia-Pacific.
Asked last month whether the alliance would respond to an escalation over Taiwan, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told POLITICO that “the main ambition is, of course, to prevent that from happening,” partly by working more closely with partners in the area.
Smith similarly demurred when asked about the NATO role if a full-fledged confrontation breaks out over Taiwan — a distinct possibility given Beijing’s stated desire to reunify the island with the mainland.
Instead, Smith pointed to how Pacific countries had backed Ukraine half a world away during the current war, saying “European allies have taken note.”
She added: “I think it’s triggered some questions about, should other scenarios unfold in the future, how would those Atlantic and Pacific allies come together again, to defend the core principles of the [United Nations] Charter.”
Costa Rica shocked Japan with a 1-0 win, thanks to an 81st minute goal from Keysher Fuller, as it kept its hopes of qualifying for the World Cup knockout stages alive with a crucial three points to pull level with Spain and Japan in Group E.
Japan, fresh from a surprise victory over Germany that has given them a real chance of reaching the knockout stages, could not find a foothold in this game despite Costa Rica still licking its wounds from a chastening 7-0 defeat against Spain.
It was a cagey, underwhelming opening first 45 minutes marked by untidy passing from both sides as neither could muster a single shot on target.
Straight after half-time, however, the pace immediately lifted with the introduction of two new faces for Japan – Takuma Asano and Hiroki Ito.
Hidemasa Morita shimmied his way to the penalty box and lined up a shot on goal that was batted away by Keylor Navas.
Japan continued to press but could not capitalize and the game soon settled back into the tepid rhythm of the first half.
Then, against the run of play, Costa Rica capitalized on a mistake on the edge of the box and Fuller rifled the ball into the top corner of the net, past the outstretched hand of Shuichi Gonda, for his side’s first shot on target and first goal of the tournament.
With just nine minutes of regular time remaining, Japan saw its hopes of sealing a spot in the knockout stages slip away, and a chance late on with the ball ricocheting around the box was marshalled by Navas as Costa Rica held on for the win.
With Spain and Germany playing later on Sunday, both teams’ fates will be decided in the last round of fixtures.
