In June of this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law according to which the victory over militaristic Japan will be commemorated in Russia on September 3. The State Duma passed the law, the Federation Council approved it. The newspapers of the Land of the Rising Sun wrote lengthy stories in which the alleged territorial problem in some way reappeared because of this fact, which significantly hurt the Japanese ego. The Kishida administration chose a stance antagonistic to Moscow and backed anti-Russian sanctions in order…

From July 16 – 18 this year, the Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida traveled to three of the Arab Gulf states – the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait. It was his first trip to the region – which is of growing strategic importance to all the major participants in the current stage of the great game of global geopolitics – since he took up office in autumn 2021. Despite all the talk about the need to replace the current “carbon-based” economy, which is dependent on the burning of hydrocarbon fuels, with a so-called “green” economy, the main global powers are as interested as ever in securing…

It may well be that some of the readers (perhaps even most of them) will be surprised by the title of this article. Since the data from this space’s content adds to the idea that “Japan is not actually searching for anything in the international arena, having given its foreign policy to the capable hands of Big Brother USA,” This is roughly how the general public perceives Germany’s current position on the world stage—that is, as Japan’s ally during World War II. It is impossible to claim that these perceptions are completely subjective…

Even a visit to the Fukushima Daichi Nuclear Power Plant by a delegation of government experts did not dampen the excitement surrounding Japan’s planned radioactive water discharge, and the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) with its leader Lee Jae-myung played a crucial part in fueling it. On May 24, 2023, the Democratic Party proposed that the National Assembly should adopt a resolution against…

Fumio Kishida’s cabinet continues to create plans to strengthen Japan’s self-defense capabilities while fully ignoring contributing factors. Tokyo is presenting itself with impressive rearmament opportunities. The country aims to invest $320 billion in its defense capabilities over five years, according to the National Security Strategy announced in December 2022. After 2027, military spending must be increased to 2% of GDP, i.e. twice as much as it is now. Japan plans to acquire offensive capabilities, with the first phase consisting of the procurement of 500 US Tomahawk cruise missiles. Izumo class helicopter carrier is being converted…

The disputable situation surrounding the safety of discharging water from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which the author discussed in Part 1, prompted a team of 21 South Korean experts to visit Japan from May 21 to 26 to inspect the plant and the treatment of radioactively contaminated water that Japan plans to begin discharging into the ocean in the near future because the tanks are full. Many Koreans are concerned about this because they believe the waters are still contaminated and will have a negative impact on the environment and health of the population of the area, especially South Korea. A presidential administration official stated that Seoul feels a real inspection of the nuclear disaster by South Korean experts is required…

As previously noted, the outrage over Japan’s discharging of over 1 million tons of radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean (“discharge” for short) continues to persist. For instance, thousands of Koreans rallied in downtown Seoul on May 20, 2023, to protest the discharge. The leader of the main liberal opposition party in Korea, Lee Jae-myung, told the protesters that the national government should not support Japan’s decision to dispose…

The prospect of an early dissolution of the lower house of parliament, with an immediate deadline set for the election of a new parliament, is gradually coming to the forefront of Japan’s domestic political turmoil. Under the current constitution, the prime minister has this power and usually uses it for certain purposes. More often than not, it is an act of obtaining the vote of confidence from the population by the then ruling political bloc. The very fact of which, of course, must be predictable. Otherwise, what’s the point of doing it all. Usually, this political technique…

On April 9 and 23 of this year, that is, in two rounds, elections were held in Japan, which in the general electoral process of the country can be called “intermediate-local”. While the “main” element of it is the general parliamentary elections. These latter may be held at a certain interval or extraordinary. Because the Prime Minister of the country has the right to dissolve the lower house of parliament ahead of time and set a date for the election of a new parliament. As a matter of fact, the question of whether acting Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will exercise this right was perhaps the main intrigue of the just held elections. Usually, the head of the Japanese Cabinet resorts to such an opportunity…

This year Japan is hosting the annual meetings of the G7 group, which includes four leading Western European nations (Germany, the UK, France and Italy) plus the USA, Canada and Japan. This group, (sometimes incorrectly referred to as an “organization”) has been in place since the mid-1970s, and provides a forum in which the seven main nations of the so-called “collective West” (itself an increasingly meaningless term) attempt to develop a unified strategy in the face of current international challenges. For the USA, as the leader of the “collective West”…

Fumio Kishida, the current , was at the heart of a number of significant events that occurred over the course of a very brief (one-week) period in March of this year and had a significant impact on the Indo-Pacific region as a whole. Furthermore, the sheer fact that these events are happening makes it increasingly obvious that Japan’s…

The leaders of the "generalized West" have recently demonstrated their cavalier behavior, even with their own key allies. It is sufficient to refer to everything that surrounds one of the most significant terrorist attacks of this century, which occurred in the Baltic Sea. Against this backdrop, US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel...