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.