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Japan said on Wednesday that Tokyo would “strongly protest” against Russia’s military exercises on disputed Pacific islands also claimed by Japan, a row over which has strained relations between the two nations since the end of World War Two. The exercises on the islands are a blow to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s efforts to court resource-rich Russia and keep the door open to dialogue with Moscow, despite the Ukraine crisis. The dispute over the islands, which Russia seized from Japan in the waning days of World War Two, has also prevented the two countries from signing a formal peace treaty....

The Japanese economy shrank at an annual pace of 6.8 percent in the second quarter after spending got slammed by a sales tax hike that kicked in from April, government figures showed Wednesday. Japan’s gross domestic product, or the total output of goods and services, also contracted 1.7 percent during the April-June period from the previous quarter. The decline in GDP was the worst since the March 2011 tsunami and quake disaster in northeastern Japan. In the first quarter of 2011, Japan’s economy shrank at an annual rate of 6.9 percent. The weak figures were expected as consumers and businesses...

TOKYO -- Nearly three months after lifting its long-standing arms embargo, Japan recently approved plans to supply missile parts to the U.S. and conduct joint military research with a British company. Behind the scenes, however, there was a deal that fell through. Under new guidelines governing the transfer of defense equipment and technology, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on July 17 convened the National Security Council to look into two applications submitted by private companies. One was Mitsubishi Heavy Industries' request for permission to export seeker gyros used in Patriot surface-to-air missiles to the U.S. The other involved Mitsubishi Electric, which...

Japan will give six navy boats to Vietnam to boost its patrols and surveillance in the East Sea (aka South China Sea), Japan's foreign minister said on Friday, in the latest sign of a strengthening of alliances between states locked in maritime rows with China. The used vessels, worth 500 million yen (US$4.86 million), would be accompanied by training and equipment to help the coastguard and fisheries surveillance effort, Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said after talks with Vietnamese counterpart Pham Binh Minh. The deal represents a notable shift in the two countries' close diplomatic and investment ties towards defense,...

Poland has asked the United States to open its market quickly to Polish apples banned by Russia in a sanctions war over the crisis in Ukraine. Poland's ambassador to Washington, Ryszard Schnepf, said he had met Michael Scuse, a senior official in the US Department of Agriculture, about the steps needed to open up the US market, the Polish press agency PAP reported. "We are interested in a quick decision because the situation is extraordinary," Schnepf was quoted as saying. "He told us to begin the procedure. We have a new meeting planned for August 18 with the heads of...

Already scrambling to confront multiple simultaneous international crises, the Obama administration stepped up efforts Saturday to avert another, as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called on China and its smaller neighbors to take new steps to ease tensions over maritime disputes in Asian waters that many fear could spark conflict....

Japanese researchers find new giant picture on Peru's Nazca Plateau The new Nazca Plateau image discovered by the research team from Yamagata University. (Photo courtesy of Yamagata University)A new giant picture on the Nazca Plateau in Peru, which is famous for giant patterns that can be seen from the air, has been discovered by a team of Japanese researchers. The image is 65 meters long, and appears to be an animal with horns. It is thought to have been drawn as a symbol of hopes for good crops, but there are no similar patterns elsewhere, and the type of the...

China has successfully developed it own airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) system, with the KJ-2000 and the KJ-200, reported overseas Chinese news outlet Duowei on Aug. 4. After China's initial attempts to develop its own system in the 1970s, the nation looked to Russia but the price was too high and the functionality fell short of China's expectations. An attempt to import the Israeli A-501 in the mid-1990s was blocked by the US and eventually fell through. In 2002, China stopped importing Russian AEW&C systems and developed its own, the KJ-2000 and KJ-200 which served as the lead aircraft...

Japanese World War II officer Shigeta Kage's written confession, published on Monday, reveals the murder of at least 13 Chinese. According to the original document, available on the State Archives Administration (SAA) website, the Japanese garrison army killed at least five anti-Japanese armed guerrilla soldiers and staff in Liuhe County in May 1937. Kage admitted to killing one of them with a Japanese sword himself, according to the document. The criminal recalled that the Japanese army forced some 6,500 households in Liuhe to move out of their houses to create depopulated zones starting July 1936. During that period, Kage killed...

Chinese authorities executed on Friday a Japanese man who had been sentenced to death in connection with stimulant drug smuggling, Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said. The identity of the man is not immediately known. Kishida told a news conference that while it is up to China to decide what kind of penalty should be imposed on criminals, "We have conveyed to the Chinese side that we have taken a heightened interest in the death penalty handed down to Japanese nationals." China informed Japan of the execution in the morning, Kishida said. A court in Dalian in northeastern China conveyed...

This week Major Theodore Van Kirk, the last surviving Veteran of the Enola Gay that dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan, joined the rest of his comrades. His passing is a reminder of why using the atomic bomb was the right thing. In August 1945 the Allied Powers, led by the United States, were at war with Imperial Japan in the latter days of World War II. Japan would not give up. For every ten thousand Japanese soldiers that were killed by the Allies only a minuscule amount gave up; usually in the single digits. We were at...

BEIJING -- China has acknowledged the existence of a new intercontinental ballistic missile said to be capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads as far as the United States, state-run media reported Friday. A government environmental monitoring center in Shaanxi said on its website that a military facility in the province was developing Dongfeng-41 (DF-41) missiles, the Global Times reported. The DF-41 is designed to have a range of 12,000 kilometers (7,500 miles), according to a report by Jane's Strategic Weapon Systems, putting it among the world's longest-range missiles. It is “possibly capable of carrying multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles,” the...

YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — U.S. defense contractors sense that there’s money to be made out of Japan’s decision to expand the role of its military amid Chinese aggression in the East China Sea. Aerospace companies Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin held a joint news conference Thursday in Tokyo touting RQ-4 Global Hawk and E-2D Advanced Hawkeye surveillance planes as potential additions to the Japanese Air Self Defense Force. A national security strategy, approved by Japan’s cabinet in December, calls for better air and maritime surveillance. Last month, the ruling coalition adopted a resolution that will allow the nation’s armed...

Just days after the taking Chicken McNuggets off its menu in the light of the China food scandal, McDonald’s Japan has unveiled a brand new, rather unusual product: Tofu Shinjo Nuggets and Ginger Sauce, a combination of bean curd, fish and vegetables shaped into bite-size pieces and deep-fried. Turning to tofu–a food that has long been a favourite in Japan and known for its health benefits–is certainly a wise move, and McDonald’s is undoubtedly in need of something new to entice customers back with, but while we’ve no doubt all craved deep-fried chicken at some point in our lives, we’d...

China's loss of the first Sino-Japanese war has been attributed to a disorganised navy. Although the northern fleet equalled, some say exceeded, the Meiji navy in terms of firepower, it was annihilated because it lacked coordination among its military units. Today while Japan's navy may have a qualitative advantage over China's, the People's Liberation Army is catching up, analysts say. In sheer manpower, China has the upper hand, with Beijing putting the PLA Navy's strength at 235,000, or more than five times the number in the Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force. But the Japanese navy has being training with modern warfare...

North Korea launched a short-range ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan on Saturday. The launch came the day before the 61st anniversary of the Korean War armistice. South Korean military officials say the North fired a Scud missile from around Ryongyon county in South Hwanghae Province on the western coast near the military demarcation line on Saturday night. North Korean media on Sunday suggested the country's leader Kim Jong Un himself ordered the missile to be fired. The official Korean Central News Agency reported that Kim directed a firing drill after checking on the deployment of US forces in...

Japanese CPI printed 3.6% in June, modestly down from May's 3.7% YoY, but hotter than the expected 3.5% YoY analysts predicted. If you don't eat food or use energy then inflation merely bit 2.3% of your income this year but if you did then you may have noticed that energy costs are 9.1% higher YoY, TVs +8.0%, and Food +4.1%

Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera plans to tell his French counterpart that Japan has strong concerns about France’s planned sale of two helicopter carriers to Russia, according to a Japanese government source. In a move meant to show support for the stance of the United States, Onodera will tell French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who will visit Japan next week, that the sale of amphibious assault ships to Russia “would not be appropriate in view of the international situation” following the recent downing of a Malaysian airliner in Ukraine, the source said. The Mistral-class warships to be sold to Russia...

Five months after the first pictures surfaced in February 2014, the Type 055 cruiser testing rig at Wuhan has taken significant steps towards completion. The advantages of a land based test rig allow Chinese naval engineers to make cheaper adjustments and modifications to the electronics, compared to rebuilding an expensive cruiser on sea trials. Once launched, the Type 055 cruiser will be among the world's most powerful surface combatant warships, giving the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) a multipurpose warship useful for both blue water expeditionary warfare and anti-access/area denial missions. While much scaffolding remains, the photos show recent additions...

Navi Pillay said Tel Aviv's two-week onslaught on Gaza - which has cost more than 650 Palestinians lives - would be thoroughly investigated. Ms Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the attacks have destroyed houses and hospitals and killed civilians. "These are just a few examples where there seems to be a strong possibility that international humanitarian law has been violated, in a manner that could amount to war crimes. "Every one of these incidents must be properly and independently investigated." According to Gaza officials, 475 houses have been destroyed and 2,644 damaged, while 46 schools, 56 mosques...