Archives Japan - Page 10 of 14 - New Eastern Outlook

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…