India and Japan: News and Discussion

[ramana]

Right. Can you give some pointers for folks to develop and interest and expertise on Japan?

Your exposition was masterly and had so many facts that show its no flash in the pan recent development.

[SSridhar]

Ramana, as is true of almost all other threads in BRf, this Japan thread is a vast source of information. Anyone who follows this thread will get a good understanding. So many diverse posters and so many views. Truly informative.

The 'Rainbow' incident was truly game changing after Shakti II, IMHO, though of course, historically, we may go a long way back. The positive thing to be noted is that whether it is the right liberal LDP of Shinzo Abe or the ex-PM Noda's DJP, both have been extremely strategic with India. Abe should take the relationship to much higher levels if India does not get nervous about imaginary Chinese fears etc. Unlike the US, Japan will maintain a stable relationship with us without other agenda provided we elevate this to much higher levels. It is possible provided Indian leadership and bureaucracy show that vision.

[Rony]

From The Japan Institute of International Affairs by Hideaki Kaneda who is a retired Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force Vice Admiral. He is currently a director of the Okazaki Institute and an adjunct fellow at JIIA.

Japan Should Strengthen Naval Cooperation with India

India and the Indian Navy

India has the world's second largest population of more than 1.2 billion, comprising multiple ethnic groups, religions, languages and cultures, and is the world's largest democratic country with an administration elected through free and fair elections under a multi-party system. It shares a great deal with major developed countries such as Japan in terms of fundamental values and systems, including liberalism, democracy and a market economy, and it has significant influence in the South Asian region. India enjoys a geographic position that is significant for maritime traffic, connecting the Asia-Pacific region with the Middle East and Europe, and it is expected to play an important role in maritime security.

Given the uncertain regional security environment, India has pursued military modernization. China and Pakistan present direct security concerns for India. Specifically, the continuing enhancement of China's military capabilities remains the primary influence on India's military build-up. China's newly-commissioned first aircraft carrier Liaoning and other broader modernization programs spur on Indian naval development. The potential for friction between India and China is shown by recent developments concerning maritime resources in the South China Sea. Moreover, India is significantly concerned by Chinese naval activities in the Indian Ocean.

The Indian navy is the largest and strongest in terms of quality and quantity in the Indian Ocean region with two fleets of about 160 warships, including one aircraft carrier, 20 destroyers and frigates, one attack nuclear submarine and 14 conventional submarines totaling approximately 420,000 tons, as well as about 80 tactical naval aircraft and helicopters, all operated by well-trained personnel with good seamanship and high morale. It is expanding procurement of equipment from foreign countries as well as undertaking joint development with them to modernize its weaponry, and has emerged as the world's largest arms importer. India plans to add one aircraft carrier (INS Vicramaditya: ex-Russian Admiral Gorshkov), while it also plans to deploy one domestic aircraft carrier in 2014. In July 2009, India's first domestic nuclear submarine (Arihant) was launched. The Indian navy has introduced USN P-8 ASW patrol aircraft and wishes to introduce some JMSDF US-2 rescue flying boats.

Importance of the SLOCs

Needless to say, "the security of SLOCs (Sea Lines of Communications)" is important to the security and economy of the Indo-Pacific region. The regional economy has developed with, and is largely dependent on, maritime transportation using secured vital SLOCs. In particular, shipments of oil resources indispensable for the existence and prosperity of regional countries are largely dependent on the security of the wide-area SLOCs connecting the Indian Ocean, the Malacca-Singapore Strait, the South China Sea and the East China Sea. Hence these SLOCs are literally the lifelines of the region.

The Malacca-Singapore Strait is in fact the "lifeline of Indo-Pacific countries", making it in a way the "Achilles' tendon" of the world economy. Annually about 50,000 ships, more than a quarter of the world's maritime cargo shipping, and about one-half of the entire trade volume of the countries of Northeast Asia pass through this Strait. Looking just at tanker shipments, about 50% of the world's tankers and about 85% of the oil tankers that sail from the Middle East to Northeast Asia pass through the Indian Ocean, the Malacca-Singapore Strait, the South China Sea and the East China Sea.

To ensure the security of the SLOCs through the Indo-Pacific region is, in itself, certainly important but SLOCs do not end in one single region. Inter-regional trade among the Asia-Pacific region, the Indian Ocean region, and the Oceania region has continued to grow in recent years.

If there is any potential threat in these regions, it may be the possibility of an aggressive maritime advance by China both inside and outside of its 1st island chain, including the South China Sea, the East China Sea and Indian Ocean, as its naval capabilities continue to mount. Thus China's activities will require continued attention. In this regard, close maritime security cooperation to secure vital SLOCs among key maritime powers in the region such as Japan, India, Australia, certain ASEAN members and the United States will require a maritime security coalition for ensuring the security of the SLOCs through the Indo-Pacific region.

Japan-India Maritime Security Cooperation

Japan and India have a very long history of intimate exchange that has been bolstered since 2000. For Japan-India security relations, the summit meeting between Japan's Prime Minister Abe and India's Prime Minister Singh in August 2007 was an epoch-making event. They released a joint communique and agreed on the recognition that "a strong India is to Japan's benefit, and a strong Japan is to India's benefit."

Mr. Abe stated that Japan and India should address, in cooperation with other countries, measures to ensure the security of SLOCs as two major maritime powers and democratic countries that share basic values and interests. In his speech on "the exchange between two oceans" delivered at the Indian parliament, he reflected upon the long history of ties between Japan and India, and opined that the newly emerging "expanded Asia" integrating East Asia and South Asia through exchange between the "two great oceans" (the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean) could grow into an open and transparent network that covers the entire Indo-Pacific region.

Since then, relations between Japan and India have gone forward through annual summit talks, and the first Administrative Vice-Ministerial "2+2" Dialogue was held in July 2010 based on the Action Plan, as was the second Subcabinet Defense Policy Dialogue. In June 2012, the first joint naval exercise was carried out between the Indian navy and the JMSDF in Sagami Bay in accordance with the Joint Statement by Prime Ministers Singh and Noda in December 2011.

The 2011 Joint Statement also stressed the need to undertake Japan-India-US trilateral security coordination to deepen the Trilateral Strategic Global Partnership among the three countries. As we have seen, trilateral cooperation among Japan, India and the US has been gradually and steadily developing.

I sincerely expect the new Abe administration to strengthen maritime security cooperation with India as well as with the US.

[SSridhar]

Lack of Infrastructure, Transparency & Inconsistent Policy Hinders Japanese Investments : Japanese Consul General - Business Line

Accurate. The GAAR mess created by the previous Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, created a huge problem for investments. Also, the retrospective application of laws such as in the Vodafone case.

Infrastructure deficiency, low transparency in systems and procedures and inconsistent policy were the major concerns of Japanese companies considering investments in India, according to Masanori Nakano, Consul-General of Japan in Chennai.

India is second only to China globally as an attractive destination for overseas investments by Japanese companies in the medium term.

But the survey of over a 1,000 companies by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation showed nearly half of them were concerned about the infrastructure deficiency in India, apart from the lack of transparency in rules and regulations, complicated tax system and shifts in policies, Nakano said.

Infra projects

Gujarat, after Tamil Nadu, is attracting keen interest from Japanese investors. In the southern State, the power shortage is a serious issue driving up costs for investors.

The Japan International Cooperation Agency has completed a preliminary study of infrastructure needs, with focus on power and transportation, in the Chennai-Bangalore industrial corridor.

Japanese companies are keen on partnering with India in infrastructure projects, said at a meeting on infrastructure business cooperation between Japan and Tamil Nadu.

Port facilities

M. Velmurugan, Executive Vice-Chairman, Tamil Nadu Industrial Guidance and Export Promotion Bureau, said the State has charted out plans to double its present capacity of about 18,000 MW of power generation over the next five years.

From the middle of this year, the power shortage would be addressed.

Chennai has three major ports in close proximity including the L&T Port at Kattupalli to the North where over 1.2 million TEUs of container capacity is available.

With car exports taking off from Chennai ports, a multilevel car park with RORO facility is being planned on DBFOT basis, he said.

Shinya Fujii, Director-General, Japan External Trade Organisation, said the port at Kattupalli is a welcome addition to the port infrastructure for Japanese companies looking at exports.

The private port will be competitive in terms of usage costs as compared with the public sector ports – the Chennai Port and the Ennore Port, he said.

But the road connectivity is as much an issue as it is to the Ennore Port as the companies use the same roads. It is up to the State Government to upgrade the linkage, he said. {This is simply not happening. The Chennai Port-Maduravoyal Elevated Expressway has been halted by egoistic Tamilnadu Government. It was halted immediately after the the new AIADMK came to power last year. There is not even an attempt to find a solution to that problem. The Ennore-Manali Road Improvement Project is progressing at a snail's pace. It has been on the drawing boards for 15 years now. It is politics in everything.}

[abhishek_sharma]

Bremmer: The Japan-China Crisis Is The Most Significant Geopolitical Tension In The World

Blodget: What’s going to happen with China and Japan?

Bremmer: The big problem is that the relationship, the balance of power between these two countries, has changed and is changing dramatically—and really, very strongly not in Japan’s favor.

From a security perspective, a political perspective, an economic perspective, this is just creating big, big problems for the Japanese. And now they finally have a leader that has a good shot at staying around for a while. He has a more—not just nationalist inclination—but a more pro-democracy inclination. He was prime minister last time and people said he was more pragmatic, but if you met with him, he talked about wanting to create a league of democracies in Asia [and] orienting much more towards India and Australia and New Zealand. He was Mr. Pivot before pivoting was fashionable, right?

Now he comes into a context where the U.S. is already acting in a way that’s concerned about a Chinese challenge in the region. It’s the single biggest strategic effort that the Obama administration has engaged in, from a foreign policy perspective.
And you have to think that the Chinese are going to see all this as provocative. The real question is, to what extent is the Chinese government prepared to respond in an escalatory fashion? Is this Russia vs. Georgia? A little bit, right. Are you poking the bear?

And I don’t know the answer to that, but I suspect it’s not good.

A couple of quick points on that:

First of all, unlike Hu Jintao who really didn’t have control over the military, Xi Jinping does. He has much more direct consolidation of these, sort-of standing committees around him. He’s a much stronger figure, much stronger personality, has much more loyalty from the military. So, if he wants to escalate, he can feel much more comfortable and confident that he can ratchet up and ratchet back without it getting out of control.

That’s dangerous for Japan.

Also if you look at the way the Chinese have engaged before on this issue: buzzing the territories with planes right before the elections, almost as if they didn’t want [Shinzo] Abe in, [but] they certainly didn’t mind Abe in. Anti-Japanese nationalism is a fairly easy play for the Chinese to engage in that allows them to defuse some of what would otherwise be discontent with things that would be more problematic for the Chinese government.

One final point on this: when you look at China vs. Japan, compared to all of the other territories in the region — you talk about East China Sea, South China Sea — with all those countries in the South China Sea, the Chinese themselves are a much larger economy than any of those countries, but also the Chinese have very large diaspora communities that dominate the economies of those countries. They are the key business people, and over time, that makes the Chinese much more comfortable. They know what’s going on inside the country, it creates more transparency. But also it means that over time the Chinese really feel like if they just build the economic relationship, the security will come.

They are going to get the political influence, they’re going to get the security influence, bilaterally. All they can do is make sure the U.S. isn’t able to create strong multilateral ties in the region.

With Japan that’s not true.

There are no Chinese in Japan that have significant business influence. It’s very opaque to them the way the system actually works. Japan’s much bigger, so if you’re China, [you are] thinking about how you’re going to tip the balance over time in your direction. When you become the world’s largest economy, as you’re building out your military, your problem is Japan.

The country that you’re prepared to be more aggressive towards — call it assertive now — but over time perhaps aggressive is Japan. And all of these things, all of these structural factors, really worry me. There’s no question that the economic ties are still important between these two countries. There’s no question that the United States certainly does not want to see conflict between their allies Japan, and the Chinese. But how much effort the U.S. will be able to put into stopping it and given how tied the Americans are to the Japanese; it's not clear to me this isn’t going to get worse. If I had to bet right now, I think there is [going to be] a significant run of escalation in 2013.

And I think by far, China-Japan is the most significant geopolitical tension on the map, in terms of direct bilateral conflict in the coming years.

Blodget: Do you think they’ll go to war?

Bremmer: I think they are at war. I think that cyberwarfare against Japanese banks has gone up greatly. I think you look at the anti-Japanese demonstrations that were clearly stimulated by the Chinese government, and the impact that’s had directly on Japan investment in China. Warfare is conducted by other means today. And we can certainly not say that these guys are friends. The question is are they frenemies or are they enemies?

I would tell you that looking at the entire G20, the single worst bilateral relationship among any two countries in the G20 is China-Japan, right now. I think that’s clear. By the way, 10 years ago, it was Russia-Japan. Now, at that point it was also over contested territories. The Japanese actually worked really hard to try to improve that relationship.

It was a lot easier for many, many reasons. You didn’t have the cultural issues. The Russians saw Japanese as being able to write checks, and all this sort of thing. In China-Japan, it’s radically harder.

Do I think that they will come to direct [confrontation]? This isn't Russia invading Georgia with tanks, but we could absolutely see direct military skirmishes over the contested territory, sure. And that potentially could involve escalation of American presence in the region. The danger here is that it has the knock-on impact of deteriorating U.S.-China relations as well.

Blodget: So what happens if we get exactly that. A Japanese plane shoots tracers at a Chinese plane. The Chinese plane responds and shoots down the Japanese plane. What happens?

Bremmer: Well, first of all, you’re gonna see a cut-off of diplomatic ties between the two countries. The ambassadors of course, will immediately be withdrawn. Not complete secession, but that’s the first thing that happens. You’ll see anti-Chinese and anti-Japanese across the board. You’ll see some violence.

There will probably be Japanese ex-pats living in China that will be roughed up and killed. Japanese exposure in China which has already taken a beating would be considered unsustainable. Japanese companies would be leaving China in droves.

That’s bad enough. Those are things that are virtually certain to happen if you had that type of a confrontation. The question would then be, can both sides dial it back?

I suspect from a military perspective they would. The Americans [would] immediately have a show of force. There obviously would be highest alert for both sides, but there would also be a lot of confidence-building measures between the U.S. and China to try to assure the Japanese-China military conflict would not spill out of control.

Now keep in mind, Japan spends something like 1% of its GDP on the military. The Japanese aren’t defending themselves on this stuff, we are. That makes life easier in terms of thinking about how bad it can get, but because there’s no danger of going to war, right — direct military conflict — that allows both sides to believe that escalation is more feasible.

The Cold War, if there had been conflict — East and West Germany — people were talking World War III. No one’s talking about that here.

Blodget: Because Japan’s so weak.

Bremmer: In part because Japan’s so weak. In part because Japan, China, and the United States have so many interlocking interests with the Chinese.

Blodget: But if the U.S. has a show of force, it is to protect the Japanese?

Bremmer: Has to be. Japan’s our ally.

Blodget: We have huge interests in China as well.

Bremmer: Yes, we do.

Blodget: We’re going to take a side immediately?

Bremmer: We have taken a side. If you look at Hillary Clinton on this point, it is very much, “We don’t want to get involved in this conflict, but let’s be very clear: we support Japanese territorial integrity.” And look, we gave the Japanese administration over these islands. They are our strategic ally. We are committed to that.

We have huge interests in the Middle East in energy that are going down over time. Israel is our ally. That gets us into trouble. This is clearly an analogous-type situation, but China is much more important to us economically than all these folks in the Middle East.

BIodget: So if China decides to take these islands, we defend Japan? Do we go to war with China?

Bremmer: I think the likelihood of that scenario is very low indeed, precisely because the United States is involved. And so, while the Chinese have prepared to play hardball with Japan, I don’t believe the Chinese are prepared to play hardball with the United States.
And that’s going to have a knock-on economic effects. It’ll impact U.S.-China trade relations, and it’ll certainly make it much colder between the two countries. It makes the potential for a nascent cooperation on things like Syria over time very de minimis. North Korea and plenty of places where we need to cooperate are much, much harder.

These are the world’s two most important powers right now.

But, I think the likelihood of the Chinese [engaging militarily] with the Americans in the region defending the Japanese is very low indeed. That to me, is fear mongering.

Where I think the potential is — for actual serious economic conflict between Japan and China, over a military skirmish. That’s actually real, that’s on the table right now, that could happen tomorrow.
That’s a real thing.

Blodget: Thanks, Ian.

[RajeshA]

Bremmer: The Japan-China Crisis Is The Most Significant Geopolitical Tension In The World

Where I think the potential is — for actual serious economic conflict between Japan and China, over a military skirmish. That’s actually real, that’s on the table right now, that could happen tomorrow. That’s a real thing.

[RajeshA]

Published on Nov 26, 2012
Record 80% don't feel close to China, poll says: Yomiuri Shimbun

A record 80.6 percent people "do not feel close to China," according to a public opinion survey conducted by the Cabinet Office.

The figure, which is up by 9.2 percentage points from the 2011 survey, is the highest since the Cabinet Office started taking opinion polls on diplomacy in 1975.

The percentage of people who do not feel close to South Korea also rose sharply, to 59 percent, up 23.7 percentage points from the previous survey.

A Foreign Ministry official said, "Confrontations between Japan and these countries over the Senkaku Islands, Okinawa Prefecture, and the Takeshima islands, Shimane Prefecture, led to the deterioration of public sentiment."

The survey was conducted between Sept. 27 and Oct. 7 and covered 3,000 adults nationwide. Of them, 1,838 people, or 61.3 percent, gave valid responses. The results of the survey were announced Saturday.

Regarding Japan-China relations, a record 92.8 percent of the respondents said they are "not good," up 16.5 percentage points. Asked about relations between Japan and South Korea, a record 78.8 percent said the same, up 42.8 points.

Public sentiment about relations with China likely was influenced by the anti-Japan demonstrations that erupted in the country after Japan nationalized some of the Senkaku Islands in September. During the riots, several Japanese companies were set on fire or looted.

Though relations with South Korea had been good thanks to increased interest in the country among Japanese, South Korean President Lee Myung Bak's visit to the Takeshima islands in August chilled the relationship.

Only 4.8 percent of the respondents said Japan-China relations "are good," down 14 points, while 18.4 percent said the same about Japan-South Korea relations, down 40.1 points. Both figures were record lows.

[Prem]

Any thing For Barri Battaa With Them in this field


Japan launches reconnaissance satellites

An H-2A rocket placed two Japanese reconnaissance satellites into orbit on Sunday during a period of heightened tensions in the region. The H-2A lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center at 11:40 pm EST Saturday (0440 GMT, 1:40 pm local time Sunday) and placed the two Information Gathering Satellite (IGS) payloads into orbit. One satellite, IGS Radar 4, is a radar imaging satellite, while the other, IGS Demo, is believed to be an experimental optical imaging satellite. The launches, planned long in advance, coincide with an increase in tensions in the region, after North Korea launched a satellite last month that many observers believe was also a demonstration of a long-range missile, and more recently threatened to conduct another underground nuclear weapons test.

[Prem]

http://news.yahoo.com/japan-boost-milit ... 43640.html
Japan to boost military headcount amid china island row

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan is set to boost the number of military personnel, Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera said on Sunday, as the new government led by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) tackles a territorial spat with China over East China Sea islets.Prime Minister Shinzo Abe led the LDP to a landslide election victory last month, promising to beef up the military and stand tough in the dispute over tiny, uninhabited islands, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.The number of personnel, now standing at about 225,000, will increase by 287 in the next fiscal year starting in April, Onodera told reporters after meeting Finance Minister Taro Aso for the final budgetary negotiations.Onodera said the increase was the biggest in two decades. The figure represents an expansion of about 0.1 percent.

[krisna]

The Myth of Japan's faliure

Time and again, Americans are told to look to Japan as a warning of what the country might become if the right path is not followed, although there is intense disagreement about what that path might be. Here, for instance, is how the CNN analyst David Gergen has described Japan: “It’s now a very demoralized country and it has really been set back.”

But that presentation of Japan is a myth. By many measures, the Japanese economy has done very well during the so-called lost decades, which started with a stock market crash in January 1990. By some of the most important measures, it has done a lot better than the United States.

Part of what is going on here is Western psychology. Anyone who has followed the story long-term cannot help but notice that many Westerners actively seek to belittle Japan. Thus every policy success is automatically discounted. It is a mind-set that is much in evidence even among Tokyo-based Western diplomats and scholars.

This is also done on India. Acharya and many others say this frequently.

[SSridhar]

The following is not directly related to India-Japan relationship, but it may have a huge bearing in the years to come if it happens.

Japan PM Wants to Change Post War Constitution - ABC News

Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe has told parliament he intends to change the country's post-World War II constitution, lowering the bar for further amendments.

"I will start with amending Article 96 of the constitution, a move that many factions (inside his Liberal Democratic Party) support," Mr Abe told upper house politicians today, referring to the clause stipulating amendments require a two-thirds majority in parliament.

In the run-up to his landslide election victory in December, Mr Abe said he wanted to study the possibility of altering the definition of Japan's armed forces contained in the document.

The country's well-funded and well-equipped military is referred to as the Self-Defence Forces (SDF), and barred from taking aggressive action. Its role is limited to defence of the nation.

Mr Abe has said he would like to look into making the SDF a full-fledged military, a plan that sets alarm bells ringing in Asian countries subject to Japan's sometimes-brutal occupation in the first half of the 20th century.

US occupying forces imposed the constitution in the aftermath of World War II, but its war-renouncing Article Nine is held dear by many Japanese.

Critics of the current constitution say the article complicates Japan's right of self-defence as it says "the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes".

"In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognised," it says.

Mr Abe, a third-generation politician whose grandfather was a World War II cabinet member and became a post-war prime minister, has long agitated for revision.

Constitutional amendments require a two-thirds majority of politicians in both houses, and must be ratified by a referendum, where they can pass with a simple majority of those voting.

The LDP and its junior coalition partner New Komeito have a more-than two-thirds majority in the lower house after elections in December, but New Komeito and some factions inside the LDP are cautious about amendments.

The less powerful upper house is controlled by no single party, but the opposition Democratic Party of Japan has the greatest number of seats.

Elections for half of the seats in the upper house must be held later this year.

[Christopher Sidor]

Japans becoming a normal nation would have tremendous repercussions. I am not bothered about PRC. It is the reaction of south Korea and Russia that concerns me, but mainly South Korea. Korea and Japan have some unresolved business. Basically Korean attitudes towards its former colonial master have not healed with time. They have been kept alive. If Japan explicitly goes nuclear the pressure on Koreans to follow suit would be massive.

Please note Japan is an implicit nuclear weapons power. With means to deliver nuclear weapons deep into PRC territories.

Korea is an important partner as far as India is concerned economically and strategically and in many cases more important that Japan. Korea will eventually share a land frontier with China which will be very near to Beijing, almost as close as Pakistan shares a border close to New Delhi. While japan due to its nuclear prickliness has been wary of embracing India in the nuclear field, Korea has no such hangups. In many cases Korea is more apt match/fit for what India needs.

While we should go and build a very close relationship with Japan, it should not be at the cost of our relationship with Korea. Korea which if one looks at a map is essentially a dagger pointed at the heart of PRC.

[SSridhar]

Japan eyes Chennai city suburbs for investment - The Hindu

Three areas in the city’s suburbs may soon have a Japanese connection.

A team of officials from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), met with officials of the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority on Thursday, and reviewed three infrastructure development projects in Madhavaram, Karunakaracheri and Manjambakkam.

The possibility of these projects, as well the localities they are in, attracting Japanese investment figured in the discussion.

The projects, including a truck terminal and a logistics park, have already been listed in the State’s investment promotion programme for the Chennai metropolitan area.

The logistics park is to be set up in 117.25 acres of land in Karunakaracheri and Annambedu. Land acquisition is expected to begin once State government sanction has been received.

In Manjambakkam, a truck parking yard is to come up. Administrative sanction for this project was granted in 2011. Work is expected to be completed by 2014.

In Madhavaram, where a truck terminal has been proposed, work is expected to begin in September. The preparation of a design and a detailed estimate is underway. The terminal is likely to become operational by October 2014.

JICA, which supports socioeconomic development in developing regions, provides bilateral aid through technical cooperation and loans.

[Prem]

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-N ... e-invasion
Japan scrambles jets, claiming Russian airspace invasion

Two Russian fighter jets briefly entered Japan's airspace near disputed islands and the northern island of Hokkaido on Thursday, prompting Japan to scramble combat fighters and lodge a protest, Japan's Foreign Ministry said.Russia, which is currently holding military manoeuvres around the disputed Kurile Islands, denied any such intrusion took place.Former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori is expected to visit Moscow later this month to discuss territorial matters.Thursday was Japan's "Northern Territories Day," when rallies are traditionally held calling for the return of the disputed islands it calls the Northern Territories.Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had told a rally he was determined to press ahead with negotiations with Russia for the return of the islands."I had telephone talks with President [Vladimir] Putin in December and told him I would like to work to find a mutually acceptable solution to this last-remaining major problem between Japan and Russia," Mr. Abe said."The government intends to follow its basic policy of settling the territorial issue and then sign a peace treaty. We will press ahead with negotiations with strong will so that progress will be made towards the conclusive resolution of the territorial problem."

( Manoeuvring Have Started For Upcoming Show Between Joe, Mow, Row and Chow )

[D Roy]

http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/arti ... a-disputes

[hnair]

Both Japan and Korea will fail lungi-tests of the kind that Axis of Evil types are being asked to undergo. They both have large diameter rocket programs and industrial capabilities to refine glowing stuff into booming stuff.

Heck, SoKo was even caught with their pants smoking a bit, and claimed the original baki-defense of "non-state players" for their enrichment pilots.

[SSridhar]

I would like India to impress upon Japan that the latest North Korean nuke test is actually a Pakistani one with the support and encouragement from China. As China did with Pakistan to target India, it is now doing so through North Korea to do the same against Japan (and South Korea). The information that India shares with Japan on this issue must be credible.

[Aditya_V]

The Japanese know what needs to be done as per the recent Japan times report on Kargil and Ghauri failures. Question is are the they willing to toe the US line and continue to give the Pakis a helping hand. Over the last 5-10 years high oil prices have meant that Saudis have been able to fund Pakis in the name of NRP remittances.

I think Japanese under US pressure as Donor to Pakis has come down significantly in recent times.

[Prem]

Will rising tensions in Asia push Japan toward a full-fledged military?

BR Wish coming True

Japan is governed by a famously “pacifist” Constitution, imposed by the United States after World War II, whose ninth article declares that “land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained.”
Yet military experts here and abroad are confident that should the current crisis degenerate into an open fight with China, Japan would win.“Japan’s Self Defense Forces could easily repel Chinese forces from the Senkakus,” says Takashi Kawakami, a defense expert who advises leaders of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), using the Japanese name for the islands that China calls the Diaoyu.That is because for half a century successive Japanese governments have interpreted – or ignored – the Constitution in such a way as to build the most sophisticated armed forces in Asia.Now, new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is moving to fulfill a dream that right wing Japanese nationalists have long nurtured – to amend the Constitution in ways that would loose the nation’s soldiers from some of the legal constraints that bind them.He is moving slowly, his aides say, and not only so as to avoid spooking Japan’s neighbors, who still harbor ugly memories of Japanese aggression. Japanese public opinion, too, is nervous about steps that could lead the country down familiar, and much feared, paths.
One proposal Mr. Abe has made is to rename the “Self Defense Forces” the “National Defense Forces." Even that apparently minor tweak worries some.
“People are convinced it would not just be a name change, but would really be turning [the SDF] into a full fledged normal military, allowing them to get offensive weaponry. I don’t think the Japanese are ready for that,” says a Western diplomat.But China’s incursions into Japanese territorial waters around the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands and North Korea’s recent tests of a nuclear device and missiles to carry it are prompting a re-think here.“People’s mindsets have greatly changed with the North Korean tests and Chinese intrusions,” says Akihisa Nagashima, a former vice Defense minister and member of Parliament for the opposition Democratic Party of Japan. “Support is widening for the idea that Japan should assume a bigger security role.”Indicative of that trend, says Masaru Kohno, a professor of Politics at Waseda University in Tokyo, is “an across the board tidal shift in favor of strengthening the SDF.” Abe’s proposal to increase Japan’s defense budget for the first time in more than a decade “is in line with public opinion,” says Professor Kohno. This mood is spurred in part by alarmist media reports of the way in which Chinese military vessels had "locked on" their missile guidance systems to a Japanese helicopter and ship. “China-Japan War Starts: Their Target – Metro Tokyo” blared last week’s cover of Shukan Gendai, Japan’s biggest-circulation weekly magazine.The other triggerIt has also been triggered by a widening realization that the current Constitution does not allow Japan to forge military alliances with other nations except the US, or even exercise a right to “collective self defense,” meaning that Tokyo cannot militarily help its allies.Were North Korea to launch a nuclear missile aimed at San Francisco, for example, Japan would be legally barred from shooting it down en route.'Japan will become a normal country'
It could be several years before Japan trusts itself with a conventional military force, some observers here believe. In the meantime, Abe’s bold words about the nation’s readiness to defend itself ring a little hollow.In Parliament just after North Korea’s most recent nuclear test, the prime minister said he believed that “under the precondition that no alternative exists,” the Constitution allowed Japan the right to preemptively strike “enemy bases that hold guided missiles and other weapons.”

[RajeshA]

The way to solve North Korea and Pakistan cooperation on nuclear missiles is for India to take Arihant and beat the shit out of the North Koreans and for Japan to take their subs and bomb Pakistan to stone age.

Each can declare their target an enemy because of this nuclear and missile partnership. Would Pakis object if North Korea is hit by Indians? Well maybe! But do they want to start a war because of that? Would North Koreans attack Japan if Japan hits Pakistan's nuclear sites? Don't think so!

[SSridhar]

Japanese Township in Chennai to be ready by 2014 - New Indian Express

The Rs 3,500 crore Japanese industrial township near Chennai will be completed by 2014, according to the Director General of Japan External Trade Organisation Shinya Fuji.

Fuji told City Express on the sidelines of a seminar on ‘Tamil Nadu – A Potential Investment Location for Automotive Related Industry’ organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry here on Tuesday, that almost 1,500 acres of land on the Old Mahabalipuram Road had been acquired for the Omega Satellite township project. “We are short of a few acres of land and hope it will be acquired soon,” he added.

He said work on the satellite industrial township would begin once it gets the Environment Inpact Assessment clearance from the government.He said the newly-opened Nemelli desalination plant would provide 20 MLD of water to the Japanese township.

The agreement to set up the township was signed between the Tamil Nadu industrial investment facilitating agency, the Guidance Bureau, Ascendas and a Japan consortium comprising Mizuho Corporate Bank and JGC Corporation, a programme management contractor and investment partner. This also comes in the wake of more and more Japanese companies vying to invest in the State, particularly Chennai, as it gives the Japanese firms access to port.

Interestingly, Japanese Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry (METI) director of Financial Cooperation Division Masashi Iwanaga is expected to meet the CM J Jayalalithaa for the third round of talks on continued cultural cooperation with Tamil Nadu. He also vowed Japanese help in developing the infrastructure of the State. M Velmurugan, Executive Vice Chairman of State Guidance Bureau invited the Japanese SMEs to invest in TN, stating that many global auto majors have set up plants in Chennai. He said that both BMW and Hyundai were planning to set up their third plants in Chennai. He said in the next four to five years Chennai would become the world’s largest auto corridor.

[Prem]

Japan economy grew in last quarter

GoodNews on Japan Front

Japan's economy did better than first thought in the last quarter of 2012, eking out a slight expansion instead of shrinking.SAYONARA RECESSION? The government upgraded its annualized growth figure for the fourth quarter to 0.2 percent, suggesting the world's No. 3 economy is emerging from recession.YEN FOR GROWTH: A sharp weakening in Japan's currency in recent months is seen as a boost for the country's export manufacturers — especially big names like Toyota Motor Corp. and Sony Corp., but it also has raised costs for imports of fuel and other commodities.

[Cosmo_R]

I would like India to impress upon Japan that the latest North Korean nuke test is actually a Pakistani one with the support and encouragement from China. As China did with Pakistan to target India, it is now doing so through North Korea to do the same against Japan (and South Korea). The information that India shares with Japan on this issue must be credible.

+1 S2!

They know it, we know it. Political acumen is needed to convert this into actionable items to signal PRC, that it comes with a price--too high.

[prashanth]

+1 S2!

Easy there, Russia will not be pleased! We have to tread carefully on this issue. Remember Japan was in the forefront in condemning India during shakti tests when Russia kept quiet. Helping Japan with S2 would cause unnecessary (and unseen) diplomatic and strategic problems.
I'm not comparing Japan with any other country, but it is wise to wait until they come to us asking for help. As for S2 help, a strict no. IMO.

[SSridhar]

Prsahanth, if we look at Russia, it is getting very close to China and trying to cosy up to Pakistan too. The kind of offensive weapons, aircraft engines, BMD systems that it is supplying to PRC obviously raise a huge concern for us. The reason these two are coming together at this level after some decades is the swinging US pivot to Indo-Pacific region. We also need to be equally worried about an unholy alliance among Russia, PRC and Pakistan. It is only India's forceful and robust diplomacy that stopped Putin from visiting Pakistan ahead of India in his third term at Presidency. That was replaced by Kayani visiting Moscow and talks of arms sales.

Obviously, Russia has not been sensitive to India's twin concerns of China and Pakistan. In today's fluid geopolitics, over sensitivity to such situations may only lead to logjam because each country or alliance or relationship has something or the other against another friendly country, or alliance. Too much sensitivity or analysis an only lead to logjam. For both Russia and China, the immediate and grave danger is the US, its decision to place Aegis BMD systems in Japan, Philippines etc. India has to do a similar calculus.

Of course, USSR was our great friend during the Cold War era but that was two decades back. Russia has been also hard-nosed in arms deals with us and has been petulant with us after the selection of Rafale for MMRCA. We cannot let the India-Russia relatinship suffer because we have Chakra, Arihant, FGFA, MTA, Glonass and other economic (oil&gas, trade though it is minuscule), diplomatic and geostrategic interests with Russia. Of course Japan condemned us in harsh terms after Shakti. But, that unpleasant chapter has been effectively closed and a diametrically opposite equation has begun for quite sometime now between the two nations, compelled by geostrategic and geopolitical ground realities in the region today. See this post for how far India-Japan relationship has progressed.

I don't think Cosmo_R's reference of S2 was to Shakti-2, if that was what you intended. I do not also think that either India will be a proliferator or Japan has no better means or source, if they decide to go that way (which is a very long way away).

[RajeshA]

I think it is time for Japan to sign a Peace Treaty with Russia, which accepts Russian sovereignty over the Kuril Islands but explicitly states that sovereignty over the islands, should it come to it, cannot be transferred to any other country except Japan.

I think the solution of this international dispute is vital for Indian interests, perhaps more vital than any other dispute outside the Indian Subcontinent, except perhaps the one with China-Taiwan equation.

I don't think the Americans would welcome such an agreement between Russia and Japan, but it changes the whole equation in the Pacific!

[shyamd]

Will also be interesting to see what effect the ongoing policy of Abe to lower the Yen and create more or less a currency war will have on relations between the Japan and US etc

[Cosmo_R]

+1 S2!

Easy there, Russia will not be pleased! We have to tread carefully on this issue. Remember Japan was in the forefront in condemning India during shakti tests when Russia kept quiet. Helping Japan with S2 would cause unnecessary (and unseen) diplomatic and strategic problems.
I'm not comparing Japan with any other country, but it is wise to wait until they come to us asking for help. As for S2 help, a strict no. IMO.

S2 = SSridhar

[shyamd]

India Japan Naval Meet
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes ... me-affairs

[prashanth]

S2 = SSridhar

Oh. Sorry about that post.
But he is SS right?

[Cosmo_R]

S2 = SSridhar

Oh. Sorry about that post.
But he is SS right?

S2 as in S squared.

Boy! sometimes acronyms and elisions are just not worth it, My bad

[SSridhar]

India Japan Naval Meet
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes ... me-affairs

This is significant. As I said before, in late 2011, during the Japanese PM Noda Yoshihiko’s visit to India, it was announced that the two navies would establish interoperability between them. India is the only other country, apart from the US, with which Japan would have such an interoperability. India’s preference for a bilateral framework (apart from the US-India-Japan trilateral one) was agreed to by the Japanese only after some initial hesitation.

It is also significant, as the above report says, that the two sides discussed 'non-traditional threats'.

[krishnan]

i figured out the S2 thing

[Prem]

This is game Changer. End of ME Geopolitical Importance and India must have it

Japan to Begin Test Production for Frozen Gas Locked in Seabed

Japan, which has almost no natural energy resources of its own, will begin the world’s first offshore drilling operation this week to extract frozen natural gas locked under the seabed.
Japan Oil, Gas & Metals National Corp., known as JOGMEC, and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology will begin test production for methane hydrate as soon as today in the Nankai Trough about 50 kilometers (31 miles) off the coast of the country’s main island of Honshu, the trade and industry ministry said in a statement. Deposits of methane hydrate, known as “burnable ice,” could provide Japan with a “next-generation source of clean energy” and may be large enough to supply the country’s natural gas needs for about 100 years, according to JOGMEC. The government plans to develop technology to enable commercial use of methane hydrate by fiscal 2018, according to the agency. The two-week trial will use a depressurization method in which icy gas crystals are returned to gaseous form inside a drilled hole, the trade and industry ministry said in the statement. Japan and Canada used the same technology to successfully extract gas from methane hydrate stored in permafrost found in northern Canada in a joint project running from 2007 to 2008, according to the statement.

(Waited over 10 years for this Khaber with potential to dig ME Qabar)

[abhishek_sharma]

Spector, Ronald In the Ruins of Empire: The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia Random House, Inc.

Allied policy was that all these Japanese were to be returned to Japan.20 In principle, Allied forces would occupy the whole of Japan’s former empire, where they would receive formal surrenders from various commands and disarm and repatriate the Japanese. The basic surrender document, General Order No. 1, hastily drafted in the State Department and the Pentagon during the night of August 10, provided that Japanese forces in China, Taiwan, and northern Indochina, but not Manchuria, were to surrender to Chiang Kai-shek. All Japanese forces in Manchuria and in Korea north of the 38th parallel were to surrender to the commander in chief of Soviet forces in the Far East. Japanese forces in Southeast Asia and the southwest Pacific were instructed to surrender to the Supreme Allied Commander, Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, and those in other parts of the Pacific to Admiral Chester Nimitz, commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. The Japanese government and all forces in the Home Islands were to surrender to General Douglas MacArthur, designated the Supreme Allied Commander in Japan. Japanese forces in Korea south of the 38th parallel and in the Philippines would also surrender to MacArthur.

...

The Soviets were the first to arrive.

...

Soviet soldiers swiftly took up where the local residents had left off, cheerfully robbing both Chinese and Japanese houses. In the opinion of the OSS team, “The Russians excelled the Chinese in large scale housebreaking, looting and, in numerous cases, rape.”50 The Japanese consulate reported that women were raped at bus stops, in railroad stations, and simply by Russians passing on the roads. Rumors held that local authorities had been instructed “to offer up a certain number of women each night” to the Soviets.”51 Women cut their hair and put ink and bandages on their face to make themselves as unattractive as possible.52 To the Soviets, recently arrived from a country that had long lacked consumer goods of all kinds, Manchuria appeared far more opulent than Russia. They set out immediately to right this imbalance. Russian soldiers “burst into private homes and ransacked the house, removing everything of value except the furniture. Then a military truck would come and haul away the furniture.”53 Soviet officers seldom attempted to restrain their men from looting and indeed often joined in.54

...

The individual Red Army soldier’s adventures in larceny paled into insignificance beside the systematic deindustrialization of Manchuria by the Soviet authorities. Working around the clock, the Soviets dismantled entire factories and power plants and sent them north to Siberia on endless trains of flatcars. New York Times correspondent Hallett Abend reported that even the giant locomotive and railway-car building plants at Dairen “were transported bodily north of the Amur River.”61 The Soviets concentrated on power-generating equipment, electric motors, laboratories, and hospitals as well as the latest machine tools.62 About $3 million in gold bullion disappeared from Mukden banks. “It is probably safe to assume,” wrote Major Lamar of the Cardinal mission, “that the Soviets are intent on taking control of all factories and sending their equipment to Russia before their withdrawal from the country.”63

...

The devastating Soviet sojourn in northern China was only one of the unintended consequences of the U.S. and British invitation to the Russians to enter the war against Japan. When Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin had met at Yalta in February 1945, Soviet help to subdue Japan still appeared very important. The Japanese were on their last legs in the Pacific with American forces preparing to land on Okinawa, but Tokyo still had large armies on the continent who might have to be engaged at some point to prevent their participation in the battle for the Japanese Home Islands.

Stalin’s price was the restoration of all the special privileges that Czarist Russia had held in Manchuria before she had been deprived of them “by the treacherous attack of Japan in 1904.” This included control of Dairen and Port Arthur and joint operation of the Manchurian railroads. The Soviets would recognize China’s “full sovereignty” in Manchuria, but China would have to accept the continued existence of the Soviet-sponsored regime in Outer Mongolia, the Mongolian People’s Republic. This agreement on the Far East was reached without any consultation with the Chinese government.

Roosevelt promised to obtain Chiang Kai-shek’s consent to the agreement, and the Soviets promised to sign a “treaty of friendship and alliance” with China. Such a treaty would explicitly recognize Chiang’s Kuomintang regime as the only legitimate government of China and, in effect, abandon the Chinese Communists. Negotiations over the treaty in Moscow dragged on from June through August. The Soviets were alternately contemptuous and wheedling, the Chinese worried but unflappable. Finally on August 10 Stalin warned Chiang’s representatives that they had better sign the treaty quickly because the Chinese Communist armies were moving into Manchuria in the wake of the Soviet invasion.70 On August 14, the day of Japan’s final surrender announcement, the Chinese and Soviet foreign ministers signed the treaty. The price to Chiang was high: everything agreed at Yalta and then some; but the Chinese Communists had been isolated, and the world’s two strongest powers were now formally tied to Chungking.

[abhishek_sharma]

Spector, Ronald In the Ruins of Empire: The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia Random House, Inc.

For many months before the Japanese surrender, rumors had been flying concerning secret understandings between Chiang, the puppet regimes, and the Japanese to form a common front against the Communists. “In China,” observed one Chinese journalist, “no matter what happens there is always the same set of career bureaucrats.”88 With the Allied victory, high officials who had collaborated with the Japanese now proclaimed themselves advance agents charged to “maintain order” by the Nationalist government. In Hopeh Province, the former Japanese-controlled puppet army now became the Kuomintang’s “Hopeh Advance Army,” commanded by a former collaborationist official.89 Japanese messages decrypted by American intelligence revealed that the Nanking puppet government and a Nationalist government representative, Ku Chu-tung, “had been in contact for over a year.” Ku and General Ho Ying-chin had reportedly “secretly proposed to the puppet government a joint defense against the Communists.” In Peiping, “the local puppet government, with full knowledge (indeed under the direction) of Chungking, is taking steps to cooperate with the Japanese to keep the Chinese [Communists] from gaining control of the area.”90 In Shanghai, the mayor, Chou Fo-hai, a former high-ranking minister in the collaborationist Wang Ching-wei regime, had run the city for the Japanese. He now announced that he had been instructed by Chiang to maintain public order—of course, in cooperation with the Japanese.91

The tacit Japanese realignment with Chiang was made easier by the fact that several of Chiang’s top generals had attended military schools in Japan during the 1920s and early 1930s and retained a deep respect for their erstwhile mentors. When Major General Imai Takeo, Okamura’s deputy chief of staff, arrived at Chekiang to arrange the formal surrender of Japanese forces, he found that three officers of the Chinese delegation were his former pupils at the Japanese military academy. According to Imai, the head of the Chinese delegation had provided a round table for the surrender conference to imply that the Japanese were to be treated as equals. The Americans, however, had insisted on two long tables facing each other. The American representative at the surrender ceremony was also concerned that the Chinese seemed inclined to allow the Japanese officers to retain their personal swords as they were “family heirlooms.” He reminded the Chinese of the “Potsdam declaration that the Jap military caste must be destroyed.”92 The Chinese officers reportedly were “annoyed at the American lack of understanding of politeness between fellow Orientals. After the conference was over they talked with the Japanese delegates about Japan with great pleasure.”93

General Okamura himself, despite having carried out one of the largest gas attacks of the war against Chinese troops and having directed a brutal pacification campaign in northern China that caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians,94 was cordially received by Chiang’s generals. One of General Ho Ying-chin’s aides recalled that when Ho arrived in Nanking for the formal surrender ceremony, “he immediately visited General Okamura, who had taught him at the military academy in Tokyo, and, addressing him as ‘sensei’ [teacher], apologized profusely for having to subject him to the indignity of surrendering.”95 Ho’s senior interpreter, Major Wang Yao-wu, was so distressed by Ho’s conduct that he confided to an American adviser his fear that “his countrymen had forgotten about the rape of Nanking.”96 The Nationalist general Yen His-shan (Yan Xishan), warlord of Shanxi Province, had been a classmate of Okamura’s at the military academy and remarked to one of Okamura’s staff officers that he did not believe that Japan had really been defeated in Asia.97

...

In addition to the Japanese, Mao Tse-tung faced another problem in the north: the Russians. News of the Soviet treaty with Chiang flabbergasted many in Yenan (Yan’an). Despite differences in doctrine, the Chinese Communists had always aligned themselves ideologically and politically with the Soviet Union. The Chinese Communist Party was part of the Communist International. As recently as April, Mao had called the Soviet Union “the best friend of the Chinese People.”104 Officially the Party accepted the treaty as “beneficial to China and the world,” but, as one Party cadre added after repeating the official line in a lecture, “We do not understand actual Russian policy.”105 An American newsman who managed to reach Manchuria in early October was “impressed by the fact that the Communists were puzzled and disappointed by Soviet policy.”106 Privately some Party leaders speculated that Stalin had been frightened by the U.S. atomic bombs and was eager to avoid anything that could lead to a clash with the Americans.107

...

“Chiang has lost his soul,” Mao declared on his return from Chungking. “He is merely a corpse and no one believes him anymore.”119 Yet while Mao felt confident in his ability to read Chiang, understanding Stalin’s intentions was a different matter. The first contacts between the Soviets and the Eighth Route Army were not auspicious. Chinese Communist units that encountered the Red Army early in the campaign in Manchuria found themselves unable to establish real contact because they could not speak Russian and the Red Army had no Chinese interpreters until early September, when a few Soviet consular officials arrived.120

...

Adding to their anger and concern about the Soviet pillage and abuse of the population, Chinese Communist leaders soon discovered that the Red Army could be less than cooperative in helping the Party’s armed forces to establish themselves in Manchuria. Although ordinary Red Army officers and soldiers, graduates of Soviet ideological indoctrination, were inclined to be friendly to their brother proletarians of the Eighth Route Army, the higher Soviet command knew that Moscow had its own interests in Manchuria and was unwilling to endanger its very good deal with Chiang. In some towns and regions, the Red Army welcomed Chinese Communist cadres and turned over captured Japanese arms and equipment to them. In Jehol, local residents reported that the Soviets kept the best arms for themselves, turned over the next best to the Communists, and destroyed the rest.124 Nevertheless, officially and sometimes in practice, the Soviet generals supported Chungking.

In early September, Moscow directed Marshal Vasilevskii to send a delegate to Yenan to try to set the ground rules for Chinese Communist–Soviet military relations in Manchuria. Vasilevskii’s representative told Yenan leaders that the Soviets were obliged to observe the terms of the Sino-Soviet Treaty and hold the large cities of Mukden, Changchun, and Harbin plus the railroads for the Nationalists. Elsewhere the Communists were free to move and receive Soviet help if they agreed to avoid the large cities, not to openly carry on their activities in Soviet-occupied areas, and not to allow their forces to operate under the name of the Eighth Route Army.125

It was not a great bargain, but it was enough. On the first night after their meeting with the Soviet representative, the Party Politburo agreed to gamble on an all-out effort to gain control of Manchuria. From Shantung, from the Yangtze and central China, thousands of soldiers and party cadres converged on the northeast. “So long as we place the Northeast and Jehol and Chahar [Changsha] provinces under our control,” wrote Liu Shao-chi (Liu Shaoqi), who had chaired the Politburo meeting, “we will ensure the victory of the Chinese people.” By December there were four hundred thousand soldiers and cadres in Manchuria ready to try.

[SSridhar]

Japan to fund Chennai's grade separators ? - The Hindu

Several new grade separators coming up in the city are likely to be funded by the Japan International Corporation Agency (JICA).

The Chennai Corporation Council will soon pass a resolution on a list of grade separators it wants funding for, and the list will then be submitted to the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority . The CMDA, which is JICA’s nodal agency for the city, will pass on the list and facilitate the funding.

While the number of proposed grade separators and their location is not clear, the Corporation will probably ask for funding for projects it has already considered.

For instance, a link road between Thiru-Vi-Ka bridge and Kotturpuram bridge along Adyar River has been under discussion by Corporation and PWD officials for over a year now. If this is funded by JICA, it would lead to significant reduction of traffic congestion in Adyar and Guindy.

Last year, the civic body announced it was considering connecting the two flyovers on Usman Road and extending the combined structure right up to Anna Salai. The entry and exit ramps of the flyovers would be removed under this proposed project, while the central portions would be connected to form a single flyover.

The list however, will be finalised based on a number of feasibility studies, a Corporation official said.

[Varoon Shekhar]

Question to anyone in the know: Does the Japanese media report India, in the same way that the American, British, Canadian, Australian, French, German, Swiss et al media do? Is there an accent on the stange, brutal, criminal and controversial? Are child labour, bride burnings, Kashmir, position of women, poverty and deprivation, the main topics? Do you hear murmurs, or more, of Japan scaling back aid to India for one reason or another, from the general populace a la the UK and Canada? Why or why not( ask I naively )

[member_22872]

One thing I know is, recently it did report about Hyd bombings.

[member_19686]

Japan extracts gas from methane hydrate in world first

Japan says it has successfully extracted natural gas from frozen methane hydrate off its central coast, in a world first.

Methane hydrates, or clathrates, are a type of frozen "cage" of molecules of methane and water.

The gas field is about 50km away from Japan's main island, in the Nankai Trough.

Researchers say it could provide an alternative energy source for Japan which imports all its energy needs.

Other countries including Canada, the US and China have been looking into ways of exploiting methane hydrate deposits as well.

Pilot experiments in recent years, using methane hydrates found under land ice, have shown that methane can be extracted from the deposits.

Offshore deposits present a potentially enormous source of methane but also some environmental concern, because the underwater geology containing them is unstable in many places.

"It is the world's first offshore experiment producing gas from methane hydrate," an official from the economy, trade and industry ministry told the AFP news agency.

A survey of the gas field is being run by state-owned Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC).

Engineers used a depressurisation method that turns methane hydrate into methane gas.

Production tests are expected to continue for about two weeks.

Government officials have said that they aim to establish methane hydrate production technologies for practical use within five years.

A Japanese study estimated that at least 1.1tn cubic metres of methane hydrate exist in offshore deposits.

This is the equivalent of more than a decade of Japan's gas consumption.

Japan has few natural resources and the cost of importing fuel has increased after a backlash against nuclear power following the Fukushima nuclear disaster two years ago.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21752441