Chinese Fighters Enter Japanese Airspace

Chinese J-20 fighter in Japanese air space

China and Japan traded accusations over two encounters between their military aircraft yesterday, with Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera terming the events “dangerous” and China warning Japan not to intrude on its joint naval exercises with Russia.

Russian military leaders are meeting Monday to decide whether it would be best to cancel the Russian involvement set for Wednesday through Friday so as not to inflame situations further.  Russia is concerned about their part being seen as supporting China in the territorial claims China is enmeshed with Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia.  Russian officials have stated since last week that Russia neither supports nor agrees with the Chinese position.

Apparently this view also helped to keep the Chinese from agreeing to a gas deal with the Russians last week until Moscow finally caved into the Chinese rock bottom offers.

Japan’s Defense Ministry said last night that Chinese SU-27 and J-20 fighter jets flew unusually close to two of its military planes, an Air Self-Defense electronic intelligence aircraft and an OP-3C observation plane of the Maritime Self-Defense Force. Public broadcaster NHK later reported one Chinese fighter, apparently armed with missiles, flew within 30 meters of the MSDF’s YS-11EB.

Chinese SU-27 in Japanese air space

Tensions between China and Japan have mounted over disputed islands in the East China Sea, where Chinese and Japanese ships regularly confront each other. The two countries also have overlapping air-defense identification zones over the waters.

China’s Defense Ministry said Japan must stop intruding into airspace where its navy is conducting exercises with Russia, or bear responsibility for “possible resulting consequences.” The maneuvers are “routine” and a no-fly notice was released earlier, the ministry said in a statement on its website.  Russian military leaders distanced themselves from the Chinese comments and asked all parties refrain from mentioning Russia in the discussions.

China has made representations to the Japanese to respect its legitimate rights and stop all “detection and interference” activities, the ministry said.

Regional tensions between China and its neighbors have also mounted as it presses claims to the South China Sea with countries such as the Philippines and Vietnam, triggering anti-China protests in Vietnam.

Zengoku

Abe Administration Finally Seeking Help With Fukushima Dai-ichi

On Friday morning, officials from the International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning (IRID) in Japan attending a seminar asked for input from engineers in Japan and across the world on removing melted nuclear fuel from the crippled reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Tokyo Electric plans to fill the containment vessels with water in order to shield the workers from the high levels of radiation they would be exposed to while retrieving the damaged fuel.  The roadmap for decommissioning developed by the utility estimates fuel removal activities could begin by 2020, or later.

At the seminar which began Thursday, IRID officials announced to any engineers interested in giving their input that the plan to fill the containment vessels may not be feasible, as not all leaks may be located or plugged prior to fuel removal.  

Friday morning members of the IAEA were given a tour of the crippled nuclear plant.  Among the group were criticisms of how the operation was being approached by TEPCO.  The chief complaint was that contaminated water was being pumped into the ocean without monitoring equipment.  Also the fact that suggestions from both the IAEA and IRID have been ignored by the Abe administration and TEPCO up to now.

The announcement infers that the containment vessels may be more damaged than initially estimated by Tokyo Electric.  Even if the containment vessels were able of holding the water there are also questions as to whether they would be structurally sound enough to hold the additional weight of the water required for shielding.

Engineers are invited to submit their input on technology that can identify and remove fuel debris in a highly radioactive atmosphere while protecting workers without the aid of shielding by water.  The Japanese government will begin accepting proposals in June.

Zengoku 

Putin's China Pivot Won't Reshape Russian Economy

As Ukraine's political crisis poisons Russia's relationship with the West, Moscow is increasingly talking of China as a possible replacement for the European Union as Russia's key economic ally.

Such a pivot would mean Russia exchanging a partnership with the world's most economically developed region for closer ties with another developing nation. How will that shift transform the Russian economy?

Analysts interviewed by the Moscow Times said China can become a good-enough, if imperfect, replacement for the EU in most sectors of Russia's economy, including petroleum exports, technology and investment.

But an alliance with a developing nation would only solidify the economic status quo, they warned, doing nothing for Russia's chances of moving beyond a commodity economy.

Also, embracing China as its sole economic ally risks giving Beijing de facto control of the Russian economy — though that can be avoided if Moscow remembers to diversify its economic ties.  What does a 30 year 400 billion dollar gas deal actually mean between two emerging economies that are still far from being a "superpower" in any sense of the term?

The deal is big for Gazprom and for the Chinese lust for a coal alternative.  But both are still major rural and agricultural nations that have industrial capabilities.  Both are far from the technology innovators and financial capitals of Europe and the US, or even Japan and South Korea.  Neither has a Google, an Apple, a Samsung, a Toyota, or any innovative company that is not reliant on a joint venture with a Western corporation.  Most of Russia's joint ventures are in alternative energy, their consumer products are South Korean, Japanese, German, and American.  The same for China except where the government can use Chinese nationals in Europe and the US to steal technology and plans.  Again, this will not help to create a climate of trust.  In an alliance of thieves where is integrity or trust?

First Steps

And diversification seems to have been low on Russia's priority list in recent years, said Vasily Kashin of the Moscow-based Institute of Far Eastern Studies: Currently, Russia's trade relationship is unhealthily skewed toward Europe.

"We are just a raw materials supplier for a single market now," Kashin said. "So we can at least make it more than one market."

Russian exports to the EU stood at $238 billion, significantly above the imports, worth a mere $134 billion, according to the Federal Customs Service. Exports to China were at $35 billion over the same period, compared to $53 billion in imports.

Moscow has spent years mulling an eastward move, which can only be done through oil and gas, the linchpin of the Russian economy and the main reason to embrace Russia both for Brussels and for Beijing.

A breakthrough came Wednesday, when China signed a long-delayed 30-year deal worth $400 billion to buy Russian gas. The final price was not made public, but is estimated at $350 per 1,000 cubic meters — at the lower end of the price range Russia gets from European buyers.

The EU has long declared that it wants to cut dependence on energy exports from Russia. The issue has snapped into focus thanks to the crisis in Russia-West relations caused by the standoff in Ukraine, where Brussels and Moscow back opposing sides in a tense and occasionally bloody standoff teetering on the brink of civil war.

However, changing the direction of gas exports would take several years — most Russian pipelines are westward-bound.

Natalya Orlova, chief economist at Alfa Bank, sees benefits for both sides in Russia's reorientation east — Europe would diversify its energy imports, she said, while Russia could reduce the dependence of its economy on political conflicts like the one unfolding over Ukraine.

Luring In Chinese Money

European funds accounted for 75 percent of all direct foreign investment in Russia as of 2012, the latest year for which the Russian Mission to the EU has released figures. Russian official statistics put total direct foreign investment for that year at $18.6 billion.

European businesses have so far been keen to invest in Russia because it was outpacing the EU on growth, Orlova said. European funds have flowed into sectors ranging from energy to construction, IT, retail and manufacturing.

But whether China is interested in the Russian market beyond oil and gas is open to question.

China trounces Russia on economic growth, achieving 7.7 percent last year as against Russia's 1.3 percent. This means that Chinese investors, unlike European ones, will get a better return on their capital if they invest it at home, Orlova said.

"Chinese investment in Russia has been a trifle compared to investment from the rest of the world," agreed Konstantin Styrin, a professor of the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. "We have nothing to offer [the Chinese] but oil."

But Kashin pointed out that the Chinese government is still encouraging businesses to invest abroad, which means at least some of the money will likely trickle down to Russia. China is chiefly interested in infrastructure and trade, but would invest in major industrial projects in Russia if they are well pitched and backed by the state — which basically leaves the ball in Moscow's court, he added.

While the deal will be paid in the local currencies by abandoning the dollar both risk a financial crash.  Both China and Russia play too many games with their currency values and this will likely cause both to become distrustful and suspicious.  Many in Putin's regime are already questioning the logic of dumping the dollar.  China simply has rigged its currency valuation and Russia does the same to get an upper hand on exchange.  

Neither has shown an interest in changing their valuation being linked to non-currency backing.  Neither China nor Russia have a reserve bank like European nations or the US that actually has the authority to reign in over aggressive currency printing.  This may what begins a long list of complaints against the other.  Neither Putin nor Jinling actually trrust each other.  Medvedev and Xi also are said to be rather suspicious of the other.

Copying From Copycats

What Russia gets from Europe is technology: High-tech products and industrial equipment constituted 47 percent of imports inbound from the EU in 2013, according to Europe's statistics service, Eurostat. In contrast, 77 percent of Russian exports to the EU are oil and gas.

China, a developing nation, is no match for Europe when it comes to innovation, Styrin said.

But technology can still be had from China, which, while not a trailblazer in this field, is good at adopting advances made elsewhere and is not picky about sharing it, according to Kashin, who added: "It is not state-of-the-art, but it is good enough for us."

Besides, he said, many products imported by Russian companies from Europe are already Chinese-made — they are purchased in the West simply because the market is more familiar to Russians, where more businessmen read English than Chinese.

This is another issue that is likely to cause trouble.  All through the talks leading to this deal, which was nearly abandoned altogether Tuesday, the delegations became flustered when translators had to be changed for rest.  One Russian negotiator complained, "We are wanting to trade with people who understand nothing of Russia.  This is insane."  The Chinese delegation also found it irritating that "Russia wants us to spend our money in their gas but cannot provide anyone who speaks Chinese."  The talks having to be translated into English shows neither side is taking the other seriously and went in expecting the other to acquiesce to them.  Not a good beginning, the honeymoon is over before it began. 

Alone With the Celestial Empire

The expert consensus was that Russia's main risk is over-reliance on China at the expense of other potential partners — China will have no qualms exploiting an over-exposed Russia if it can.

"China gets a very strong negotiating position" if Russia cuts ties to Europe, Orlova stated. Styrin was less equivocal, speaking about the risk of Russia becoming "hostage to buyer's market."

But Styrin also said the talk about severing ties with Europe is likely just a smokescreen for geopolitical bargaining over Ukraine and not a serious strategy.

And if Russia manages to strengthen its link to China while keeping other economic partners it would not bring about any structural change to the economy, but would actually be a long-awaited boost to development, Kashin said.

"If that happens, you could say this Ukrainian nightmare had some unexpected benefit, prompting an overdue move for which we have long lacked the political will," he said.

Government Report - Immigration Would Cause Harm To Japan's Racial Harmony

The LDP and Japanese government is in denial over Japan's looming demographic disaster and adopting unrealistic solutions rather than face the need to accept large numbers of immigrants, a former senior immigration official said Friday.

Immigration as a solution is being ignored not only by the ruling LDP, but coalition partner New Komeito a wing of the Soka Gakkai, Japan's largest Buddhist association.  Other parties opposed to immigration are the opposition DPJ, Japan Restoration Party, and Socialist Democratic Party.

Hidenori Sakanaka, a former director of the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau who now heads the Japan Immigration Policy Institute, said his voice has long gone unheard because an anti-immigration culture exists among Japan's LDP contreolled intellectuals and media.

Speaking at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan, Sakanaka said that policies such as trying to push the elderly and more women into the workforce to combat shrinkage shows "the government's desperate desire to avoid opening up their nation to immigration - at all costs."

On Tuesday, an advisory panel to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in an interim report that the government should focus on raising Japan's birthrate to save the nation from an impending crisis of shrinking towns and workforces.  Immigration should not be a viable option as, "Immigration would cause harm to the cultural and racial harmony of Japan.  Too much expense would be needed to aid in immigrants being incultured into Japan and this would cause imbalance to Japan's culture and unique national and racial harmony." the report states.

For Japan to maintain a population of around 100 million over the next 50 years, the report said that Japan's fertility rate must rise to 2.07 percent from the current 1.41. But it also said it would not recommend the wholesale acceptance of immigrants to forestall the projected decline in the population - as Sakanaka advocates.

Jiji Press

Fukushima Water Leak Source Detected

Officials of Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) say they have confirmed the source of radioactive water leaking from a storage tank at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant’s No. 3 reactor.

The source of the leakage, which began in January, was discovered on Thursday as TEPCO personnel were inspecting the damaged areas of the storage container with a video camera. Fuji TV quoted a TEPCO official as saying workers found a pipe joint that was showing signs of radioactive water leakage. This is the first time officials have been able to confirm the source of the water leaks at the No. 3 reactor.

TEPCO said the contaminated water is seeping out of the pipe joint at a slow rate. 

The utility also said that it plans to start releasing uncontaminated groundwater around the facility into the ocean some time next week.

TEPCO has lobbied local fishermen to allow a groundwater bypass for nearly two years and finally got their approval in March.

TEPCO has built a thousand tanks at the Fukushima plant that hold more than 431,000 tons of radioactive water. Nearly 90% of available capacity in the tanks are already filled with radioactive water.

Contaminated water accumulates at a rate of 400 tons a day at Fukushima as groundwater flows downhill into the destroyed basements of the reactor buildings and mixes with highly radioactive water used to cool melted fuel. Radioactive water poses a long-term risk to the shutdown of the plant, a task expected to span more than three decades.

TEPCO’s bypass will release 100 tons of groundwater a day that flows downhill toward the devastated plant and funnel it to the sea before it reaches the reactor buildings.

Both Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority and the International Atomic Energy Agency have said controlled release of low-level water should be considered to make storage space at the facility for irradiated water.

Local fisheries unions had been bitterly opposed to TEPCO’s proposed bypass after irradiated water leaked from tanks that were just uphill of the proposed groundwater drains last year. The leaks sparked international alarm and led to a boycott of Fukushima fish by South Korea.

As part of its approval of the bypass, local media reported that fishermen requested a third party organization to check radiation levels of groundwater before it is released and any released water to have less than 1 becquerels per liter of Cesium-134, a radioactive element that has a half life of around two years.

The legal limit of releasing Cesium-134 into the ocean is 60 becquerels per liter.

Reuters

Protests Widen In Vietnam Against Chinese

Tension is rising in Vietnam with protests reported nationwide amid the country's dispute with Beijing over a Chinese oil drilling platform deployed near the Paracel islands.

According to local newspapers in Hanoi, thousands of workers at Hong Kong and Taiwanese factories in South Vietnam were taking to the streets, calling for China to remove a giant state-run oil rig from Vietnamese waters.

A hotel at a popular beach town reportedly is refusing Chinese guests, and Vietnamese tourists are canceling trips to China.

Over the weekend, hundreds of people demonstrated outside the Chinese embassy in Hanoi, with similar protests taking place across the country. More protests are expected to take place this week.

Vietnam's state-controlled media usually only carry muted coverage of diplomatic relations with China. This week there has been extensive reporting, however, on the confrontation and the protests.

Growing dispute

Vietnam expert and former U.S. diplomat David Brown said initial reports of the oil rig incident were more restrained, but then quickly changed.

“This was from a guy at one of the mainstream papers who said they had been told that they could reprint anything they had got from foreigners. But they were supposed to be careful about what they wrote otherwise, that was the first day or so,” said Brown.

Vietnam’s Communist Party has long stressed the economic and political importance of what it calls the East Sea, an area believed to be rich in oil and gas reserves.

However, Block 143, where China's state-owned oil rig HD-981 was towed earlier this month, is not being developed. Professor Carl Thayer at the Australian Defense Force Academy, said there’s “a kind of consensus among oil industry people that it’s not the most promising.”

“Bloc 143 is not being developed. Vietnam has made little efforts to do so, so in other words they are just arguing to maintain their Exclusive Economic Zone. If you go to the next block, there are operations going on there. ExxonMobil are a couple of fields away,” said Thayer.

Some observers have speculated that the move was driven by the China National Offshore Oil Company, CNOOC, though Thayer disagrees.

“I’ve heard that the China National Offshore Oil Company, when asked to go there initially, argued back that no, it was too costly to operate over an extended period of time and it wasn’t a high priority for them. Then they were ordered to go in,” he said.

Thayer said the issue is about sovereignty, not economic gain.

Dominating ASEAN

This was the message repeated by the local Vietnamese media over the last week, which ties in with the government’s strategy to seek international support to counter China and avoid military engagement.

At a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Burma, also known as Myanmar, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung issued a statement saying the “extremely dangerous situation has been and is directly threatening peace, stability and maritime security and safety in the East Sea.”

Vietnam Major General Le Van Cuong, Former Chief of the Ministry of Public Security’s Strategy Institute said the prime minister is clearly calling for international support. He said previous responses of Vietnam have not lived up to the seriousness of the situation, but this time was different.

However, at China's foreign ministry this week, spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters Monday that the South China Sea is not a problem between China and ASEAN nations. She said China has a consensus with ASEAN countries on insuring safety and stability in the sea.

In Vietnam, there are concerns tensions could continue to escalate. At a news conference in Hanoi, Cuong said many people worry about the imbalance of military forces between Vietnam and China. But he said Vietnam has history on its side.

He said he believes Vietnam has nothing to worry about. If the world isolates China, he asked, how can it survive?

He compared Vietnam’s economic weakness to countries like France, which Vietnam defeated in 1954, and the United States in the 1970s.

VOA

Buri Teriyaki

Buri (ぶり) or Japanese Yellow-tail is a very popular fish in Japan.  The ocean caught are available from Autumn to early Winter and the farmed variety are available at grocery stores year round.  The most popular dish using Buri is Buri Teriyaki and is remarkably easy to make.

Hat tip to Setsuko Yoshizuka for emailing the recipe.

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients:

• 4 fillets buri 
• For marinade:
• 2 Tbsp sake, 1 Tbsp soy sauce
• For sauce:
• 2 tsp sugar, 3 Tbsp soy sauce, 4 Tbsp mirin

Preparation:

Mix sake and soy sauce in a bowl and marinate fish for 5-10 minutes. Mix ingredients for sauce in a small bowl and set aside. Wipe the fish with paper towels. Heat some oil in a frying pan and fry fish until changes color. Wipe some excess oil in the frying pan with a paper towel. Pour the seasoning mixture over fish. Simmer on low heat for about 10 minutes, or until the liquid is almost gone.

Japanese Communist Party Sponsors Diet Protest

Kazuo Shii, JCP President

Protesting against what they term as an effort to turn Japan into “a pro-war country,” around 2,500 people linked up in a human chain at noon on Tuesday around the Diet building. The protest was visibly against Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s efforts to reinterpret Japan’s pacifist post-war Constitution, especially the country’s self-imposed ban to exercise the right to collective self-defense.

The protest rally was made up of citizens groups and labor unions, with the protesters calling for the preservation of war-renouncing Article 9 of the nation’s constitution. One participant, 50-year-old writer Yoshihiro Abe, criticized the panel that is poised to give its recommendation to the prime minister on Thursday. The protester said that these “like-minded friends” are determined to make Japan a stronger ally of a “warmongering military power” like the United States. A private panel of security experts hand-picked by Abe is set to submit a proposal Thursday to lift Japan’s long-held ban on exercising collective self-defense.

Chiba University professor Yoshiko Kimura also addressed the crowd, challenging the prime minister’s claim that being able to exercise the right to collective self-defense will protect the nation from foreign attacks, which she says Japan is fully entitled to respond to if it happens. “Wielding the right has nothing to do with Japan’s self-defense,” she said. Noting how the U.S. used its alliances in the Vietnam War in the 1960s, Kimura said that it would possibly bring Japan closer to similar conflicts. The protest was supported by several prominent figures in Japanese politics, including Japanese Communist Party President Kazuo Shii, Social Democratic Party leader Mizuho Fukushima and former Japan Federation of Bar Associations President Kenji Utsunomiya.

Zengoku

Bigger Pay In Asia - Not Japan

For white collar workers in many parts of Asia, this is a good time to ask for a raise. Recruiting specialist Hays has just published its annual survey of more than 2,600 employers in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, and Singapore and found that, with the notable exception of Japan, workers can expect significantly fatter pay packets this year. “Asia remains a hotbed of recruitment activity  and omnipresent high-level skills shortages are the continuous bane of hiring managers,” the Hays report says.

In China, 12 percent of employers surveyed last year increased salaries by more than 10 percent, and another 54 percent of companies gave raises ranging from 6 percent to 10 percent. The Year of the Horse looks to be a good year for workers, too, with Hays finding that 58 percent of Chinese employers surveyed expect to give raises of from 6 percent to 10 percent.

The one disappointment, not surprisingly, is Japan. Stagnant wage growth is a problem for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s plan to revive the country’s economy. Base salaries (excluding overtime and bonuses) fell 0.2 percent in April compared to a year earlier. That’s the 19th consecutive month of declining wages.

With prices already rising and a tax increase that hit in April, consumers need to take home more money in order to feel comfortable spending. That’s why Abe has been using his bully pulpit to pressure Japanese companies to raise wages. The government’s goal is “profits rise, then salaries rise, so consumption will increase, and again profits will rise. We get into a virtuous cycle,” Abe said in an interview with Bloomberg News in Germany earlier this month. “What we want is for wages to rise more than prices.”

Employers in Japan haven’t been too generous, though. According to the Hays survey, 16 percent of Japanese companies gave workers no raise last year, while the 64 percent that did increase salaries limited the raises to less than 3 percent. The outlook is pretty much the same this year, with 64 percent expecting raises of zero to 3 percent and 12 percent of employers surveyed saying they don’t expect to give raises at all.

Another of Abe’s goals is to increase the role of women in the Japanese workforce. Japan ranked 105th among 136 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report last year, and improving prospects for women who want to work is a “vital component” of Abenomics, the Prime Minister wrote in the Wall Street Journal last September. By the time Tokyo hosts the Olympic Games in 2020, he wants women to hold 30 percent of leadership positions in Japanese society.

Again, though, the Hays report shows just how much Japan lags behind the rest of the region. When asked the percentage of women in management positions, China did best  with 36 percent, followed by Hong Kong at 33 percent, Malaysia at 29 percent, and Singapore at 27 percent. Japan was last, with women holding only 15 percent of management positions at companies surveyed.

Bruce Einhorn

Trial Set In Nagoya For Man Who Went On Rampage

Ryota Onogi who was arrested on February 23 after going on a driving rampage near Nagoya Station, will be tried for 13 counts of attempted murder. The trial is set to begin May 19 in Aichi Superior Court. Details of the incident on February 23 were released by the prosecutors office yesterday after the jury selection finished and the trial date was set by judge Nobu Kitazawa.

Ryota Onogi, a 30-year-old resident of Nagoya, Japan was arrested on Sunday, February 23 after he admitted to intentionally driving his car onto a sidewalk and hitting 13 pedestrians near the Nagoya Station, this according to the police reports. He was apprehended a little after 2:15 that afternoon.

“I tried to kill people with the car,” Onogi was quoted as admitting to the investigators after he was taken into police custody. He had apparently steered the car he was driving car onto the sidewalk, bowling over unsuspecting pedestrians and running the car for around 35 meters before finally crashing the vehicle into a tree. The police apprehended Onogi right on the spot after his car had crashed. Onogi hit around 13 pedestrians, seriously injuring a 22-year-old man who sustained a broken hip, according to information from released police reports. The other 12 victims had sustained only minor injuries. According to the police, it was fortunate that the car was not going too fast, only around 35 to 40 kph when Onogi drove onto the sidewalk and plowed into the crowd.

The car was rented near the scene 15 minutes before Onogi went on the rampage. Onogi was unemployed and was angered over the fact his parents threw him out of their home that morning. Onogi’s father is a policeman on the Aichi police force and is due to retire later this year. The Aichi Prefectural Police did not hold the elder Onogi with any responsibility for his son’s actions. Ryota Onogi refused to appear at the proceedings yesterday in court leading prosecutors to comment to the judge that Onogi still remains uncooperative.

During the course of the investigation all Onogi would comment, “I wanted to kill people because of my parents.” When bailiffs went to bring Onogi into the courtroom Onogi refused to enter, so the judge allowed the proceedings to continue via video link to a cell Onogi was being held in. The trial is expected to run about a week as Onogi has already admitted to the charges and refuses to speak to his court appointed counsel. Onogi’s parents have visited him at the Aichi Detention Center but he refuses to speak to them detention have commented.

Nagoya Morning News

Friedman Says Japan Was His Best Move

Jamie Ludwig of Noisey recently conducted an interview with former MEGADETH guitarist Marty Friedman. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Noisey: Take me back to the tail end of your time in Megadeath. It's a difficult thing to reinvent yourself. Once the transition was over and you were in Japan, how did you go about establishing a new life in a completely different culture?

Friedman: It wasn't really that difficult. Quite the opposite. On paper, it sounds weird to leave a multi-platinum band and start from ground zero, but I just knew I could reach my potential so much more by being in Japan. It was really the best decision I've ever made. As a musician, or anything where you're making decisions on your own personal tastes and your creativity, you know where you need to be to make those things happen. If you're a French chef and you're in Boise, Idaho, you're in the wrong place. I looked at the Top 10 in Japan and I'd like nine of the songs, and I looked at the Top 10 in America and I'd maybe like one of them. So, I'm a musician — where should I be? It was that simple. What was happening in America, musically, wasn't nearly as appealing as what was happening every day in Japan. I was missing out.

Noisey: I read an interview where you said the concept of genre as it exists for American audiences is something that doesn't really apply in Japan. Can you tell me a little more about that?

Friedman: That's really important. Growing up and playing music in America, you know how it is... if you play heavy metal, you're not necessarily going to make a lot of friends playing R&B. If you play hip-hop, you're not going to make a lot of friends playing country. The borders are very strictly drawn and there's not a lot of mixing. It's "heavy metal or die," or "country music or die." The fans of all this music like to have an open mind, but I think people are afraid to share that information in front of their friends. They might act like they're totally into metal all the time, but when they get home they listen to something else by themselves. In Japan there's much less stigma about that. It's better suited for me and my taste, particularly.

Noisey: Outside of music, you're very busy with television in Japan. Was that ever a career option you'd thought of back in the states?

Friedman: No way. I was never interested in doing it. It seemed like so much work and I thought it might take away from my music. When I was first offered some television work, I did it reluctantly, but it went really well from the first day and it became the great stimulus for my music. When you just record and tour all the time, you just get in that habit, but doing a different TV show every week or whatever, there is so much preparation and brainwork, there's so much stimulation that when I go back to making music, it's just fresher. I can definitely look at my musical output since I started doing television and say, "This blows away what I've done before." I don't think I'm that good at TV. It's not something I aspire to do, but I love doing it, it's fun, and it helps my music. Sometimes you don't have to prepare much, but sometimes you have to be prepared to talk about a subject you might not have a lot of knowledge of, and you have to do a lot of research to be prepared to come up with something to say off the top of your head. It's just really simulating.

Noisey: In America, most of the clips we see from Japanese television are the crazy game shows. Have you ever had to do anything completely nuts?

Friedman: You do so much stuff that none of it stands out any more. Some of the Japanese things that make their way to American TV are completely off-the-wall, but not everything in Japan is like that. I've done some crazy stuff, but I have a manager who is pretty strict about making sure I don't go on anything that makes me look like an idiot.

Read the entire interview at Noisey.

Shinsei Bank Blocks Bitcoin Transfers

Shinsei Bank Ltd. has been refusing international money transfer requests from customers if they find that the transactions are related to the buying and selling of bitcoin.

“The decision, which has been effective since February, is based on our comprehensive judgment as a bank,” a bank spokeswoman told The Wall Street Journal. “We have not determined yet whether we will lift the ban in the future.” She declined to specify why the bank made the decision.

Like in other countries, bitcoin’s public image in Japan has taken a bit of a beating, especially after news broke about the connections between bitcoin and online drug marketplace Silk Road, as well as the collapse of Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, which said it had lost 850,000 bitcoins, worth half a billion dollars at the time.

No other major banks in Japan, including Internet-based lenders, have said they will take similar action on the crypto-currency.

Bitcoin users have been complaining on a public Facebook group page that the bank has been refusing money transfers from overseas bitcoin exchanges to their accounts at the bank.

The Shinsei spokeswoman said the decision is currently effective only on international wire transfers but not on domestic money transfers. That’s because it is easier for the bank to be aware of the purpose of international transactions as it is required by Japanese law to ask customers about why they are making the wire transfer.

“On domestic wire transfers, it is very difficult to implement such a policy,” the spokeswoman said.

Wall Street Journal

Curtis Hits Lamestream Media Where It Counts

Drew Curtis, the founder of fark.com has a book out that truthfully exposes why the media reports on stories that continually make us question why it is news.  The over reporting of the 9/11 truthers, the DPRK using racist language about Obama, the continual end of the world reports, and the celebrity quotes that stir controversy.

It's not news, it's FARK, exposes the media refusing to report real news because the media has become too profit driven.  Reporting in 1979 for example that big oil killing the electric car would have meant certain death to the newspapers and TV networks because a huge chunk of the advertising revenue came from big oil.  Even on PBS, Mobil - Exxon sponsored such series as Masterpiece Theatre, NOVA, and Wild Discovery.  BP still sponsors many musical programs on A&E. That advertising revenue is what keeps the media running.

Also Curtis informs of the fact that the media is politically driven today.  MSNBC unapologetically touts itself as the far left media analysis network.  RTE has become by its own admission the source for alternative news which caters to the "fringe".  Fox News has finally admitted to being a "right of center alternative to the progressive American media".  This means the news is filtered so that it will not upset the viewing base and also slants to make the "other guys" look bad.

Some news reported really is crap.  Things like a man who loses his lottery ticket that could have been a winner.  Pushing obvious agendas and items that slight the integrity of people who have no public image and are out of the scope of publicity.  News that serves to stir controversy to create publicity.  Infomercial articles inserted in newspapers and magazines that are not labeled as being advertising.  These are the worst crap Curtis riles against.

Curtis finishes by suggesting we stop paying too much attention to the mainstream media.  Too much political motivation, fluff, entertainment, and division drive the media today, and besides the media no longer informs.  Curtis says blogs are the perfect alternative.  If you want a review for a car then go to the blogs operated by Consumer Reports.  Electronics shoppers can go to Wired and diners can utilize Urban Spoon.  Real news can be found on independent blogs that cover news for the region you are interested in (our suggestion - like the Japan Times Herald).  Where there is no worry about money driving the review or news.

While the book is informative, there are times that repetition becomes annoying.  There were instances I found myself thinking, "I know, I know, money is the reason."  Curtis does give a very welcomed view and a breath of reality as to what the media's goal is.  It's not news, it's FARK, is very much worth reading.  A must read for bloggers as there is vital advice for bloggers.

Bill Moves To Upper House To Lower Voting Age

Diet Building Tokyo

A bill requesting a constitutional amendment to the national referendum laws regarding the legal voting age in Japan was passed in the lower house of the Diet on Friday. The amendment will bring the legal voting age from 20 to 18 years of age, but won’t go into effect for at least another four years.

The ruling Liberal-Democratic Party, its coalition New Komeito Party, the Democratic Party of Japan, Japan Restoration Party, Your Party, Yui no To, and the People’s Life Party all participated in submitting the bill. The New Renaissance Party said it will support the bill in the House of Councilors (upper house).     

Prior to the bill being deliberated in the lower house, NHK polled people on the street to see what they thought. Many older people expressed concern that 18 might be too young to understand politics, while a majority of teenagers polled expressed indifference in the political process.

A previous referendum law was enacted in 2007 to remedy the fact that no detailed process existed in order to hold national referendums, but that amendment did not touch upon the voting age.

The bill comes under the Act on Procedures for Amendment of the Constitution and is expected to pass in the upper house before the current Diet session ends on June 22. It is seen as an important step in Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s plan to amend the constitution which must be approved by a majority in a referendum.

Japan Today

BOJ To Increase Currency Reserves

Bank of Japan

The Bank of Japan will set aside four times the amount of money it normally would as reserves to offset the risk posed by the assets it is rapidly adding to its balance sheet with its quantitative easing.

The BOJ said on Friday that it has requested permission from the finance ministry to set aside 20 percent of the funds left over after the central bank closes its books for fiscal 2013, which ended in March. The finance ministry is likely to approve.

Currently, the BOJ is required to set aside only 5 percent of excess funds. The BOJ will announce its results for fiscal 2015 sometime in late May.

Since April last year, the BOJ has rapidly increased its purchases of government debt and riskier assets, such as real estate investment trusts and exchange-traded funds, as part of quantitative easing aimed at ending 15 years of deflation.

As a result, the BOJ's balance sheet has expanded to 246 trillion yen ($2.42 trillion) at the end of April from 164 trillion yen at the end of March last year.

This has pushed the central bank's capital adequacy ratio below its desired level of 8 percent, so the central bank judged that it was necessary to increase the reserves it would set aside, according to an official from the monetary policy board's office.

The BOJ has kept monetary policy steady since expanding quantitative easing in April last year, when it pledged to double base money via aggressive asset purchases to accelerate consumer inflation to 2 percent in two years.

Reuters

Exports Dim Japan's Q1

Japan's economy probably grew the most in a year in the January-March quarter as consumers rushed to spend before a sales-tax increase, a Reuters poll showed, but persistent weakness in external demand could pose a risk to growth ahead.

Analysts say exports could remain a drag on the economy in the current quarter while domestic demand takes a hit from the April 1 sales-tax hike, complicating policymakers' efforts to drive a durable economic recovery.

Although policymakers say the pullback in demand following the tax rise is so far within expectations, further weakness in exports could raise expectations of fresh central-bank stimulus sooner rather than later to support the economy.

"I expect the Bank of Japan will act in the summer or autumn to sustain price gains as upward pressure on prices from a weak yen will peter out from now on," said Yasuo Yamamoto, senior economist at Mizuho Research Institute in Tokyo.

"The BOJ's focus is primarily on prices, but it could act sooner if external demand fails to cushion the expected slump in consumption after April. That would pose a major downside risk to the Japanese economy."

Gross domestic product likely grew at an annualized pace of 4.2 percent in the first quarter, according to the median estimate in a Reuters poll of 27 economists. That would mark the sixth straight quarter of expansion by the world's third-largest economy.

It would also be the fastest expansion since 4.5 percent growth in the same quarter last year, after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe returned to power pledging to regalvanize the economy with aggressive fiscal and monetary stimulus.

The Cabinet Office will release the GDP data on Thursday, May 15, at 8:50 a.m. (2350 GMT on Wednesday).

Q1 CONSUMPTION, CAPEX STRONG

"Abenomics" helped Japan's economy grow faster than those of its Group of Seven peers in the first half of last year, but it lost momentum in the second half as exports, capital spending and private consumption disappointed.

On a quarter-on-quarter basis, the economy is expected to have grown 1.0 percent in January-March, accelerating from 0.2 percent growth in the previous quarter, the poll showed.

Private consumption, which makes up about 60 percent of the economy, is seen up 2.1 percent during the quarter. That would match a high last seen in the first quarter of 1997, just before a similar increase in the sales tax.

Capital spending - which has been a weak spot in the economic recovery - is forecast to have increased 2.1 percent, the most since it rose 7.9 percent in the final quarter of 2011 on post-disaster reconstruction.

But external demand is expected have shaved off 0.4 percentage point from quarterly growth, following a 0.5-percentage-point subtraction in the previous three months.

The negative contribution was caused by the Japan's hefty trade deficit, as a weaker yen has made imports more expensive and fuel imports have skyrocketed to compensate for the loss of nuclear power after the Fukushima catastrophe in 2011.

Japan's current account surplus probably halved to 305 billion yen ($3 billion) in March from the previous month, undermined by persisting trade deficits, the Reuters poll showed. The Ministry of Finance will release the current account data on Monday at 8:50 a.m. (2350 GMT Sunday).

Meanwhile, Bank of Japan data due on Wednesday at 8:50 a.m. (2350 GMT Tuesday) is likely to show that wholesale prices in April rose 4.0 percent from a year earlier and grew 2.8 percent from the prior month, in a sign of steady inflation.

Reuters