The administration of President Barack Obama made much ado about their “pivot to Asia,” an attempt to prioritize the continent over traditional alliances with Europe.
Japanese apprehension over the North Korean crisis is driving a surge in sales for nuclear and gas survival equipment, according to Reuters.
From the deck of the USS Ronald Reagan as it sat alongside Yokosuka Naval Base in Japan, Vice President Mike Pence commended military troops with a message from the president, in the same speech bringing robust affirmation of the United States’ commitment to longtime ally Japan.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stressed the importance of peaceful diplomacy to resolve the North Korean crisis on Monday, but he added that mere dialogue would be “meaningless.”
Contents: North Korea’s neighbors tense as the ‘Day of the Sun’ approaches on Saturday; Japan’s Shinzo Abe: N. Korea may be able to attack Japan with Sarin gas missile; China’s tripwires for invading North Korea
Japan scrambled Air Self-Defense Force jets over one thousand times in the 2016 fiscal year, the most on record, partly due to growing tensions with China over ownership of the Senkaku Islands.
North Korea has begun preparing festivities for the “Day of the Sun,” a holiday celebrating communist leader Kim Il-Sung. Satellite images suggest that among those festivities may be the nation’s sixth nuclear test, which would arrive at a particularly tempestuous time in the relationship between Pyongyang and its largest benefactor, China.
(Reuters) — Japanese automakers are looking beyond the industry trend to develop self-driving cars and turning their attention to robots to help keep the country’s rapidly graying society on the move.
China sent its top nuclear envoy, Wu Dawei, special representative for Korean Peninsula Affairs, to South Korea on Monday to discuss reaction to an increasingly belligerent North Korea, days after President Xi Jinping arrived from an in-person summit with President Donald Trump in Florida.
Contents: Egypt in 3-month state of emergency after Coptic church bombings; US aircraft carrier strike force heads for Korean peninsula; South Korean anxiety over North Korea and anger at China grow over THAAD deployment
Contents: Japan to repopulate 148 remote islands, as confrontation with China looms; Taiwan and Japan try to settle their disputes peacefully
The Pew Research Center has released a new poll that shows Americans have a very low opinion of North Korea and would support the use of military force against it should Pyongyang assault an American ally.
On Tuesday, U.S. officials revealed that North Korea tested another advanced ballistic missile engine last Friday. It was the third such test in the past month.
The Chinese state publication Global Times has published two editorials appearing to use the defeat of the Republican-supported American Health Care Act (AHCA) to push a “weakened” President Donald Trump into a compromising state of mind before his in-person meeting with President Xi Jinping in April.
A U.S. official tells Fox News that North Korea may be in the final stages of preparing its sixth nuclear weapons test as South Korean officials insist Pyongyang may already have the capacity to launch a nuclear weapon test at any time, executing it within hours of dictator Kim Jong-un’s command.
A scathing column in the Chinese government publication Global Times condemns the nation’s Communist allies in North Korea as “the most insecure country in the world,” calling for a political solution to tensions between Pyongyang and Washington.
Emboldened by a visit from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that Beijing has celebrated as a success, China has lodged a protest with the United States over a B-1 bomber flying within an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) set over Japan’s Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.
A Japanese Health Ministry survey released this week found that nearly one out of four citizens has considered suicide, with more women admitting to the impulse than men but higher suicide rates among men than women.
Japan’s opposition parties and civil liberties protesters are objecting to a legislative bill that would greatly expand Japanese police’s capability to prosecute would-be terrorists on conspiracy charges.
“The U.S. global ballistic missile defense poses a deep risk to the security of the region,” declared Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday after meeting with Japanese officials in Tokyo.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has returned from a tour of Asia that concluded with a cordial meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, one The New York Times reports featured significantly sterner tones in private than the “win-win cooperation” message of their joint public statement.
On Friday, Japan conducted its first-ever civilian missile evacuation drill, simulating an attack by North Korea against a fishing town in the Oga peninsula.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters in Seoul on Friday that the Trump administration is open to military action against North Korea as a last resort, and that the Obama-era policy of “strategic patience has ended.”
China finally got around to responding to Japan’s planned tour of the South China Sea with the helicopter carrier Izumo, its largest warship. The Chinese response was predictably unpleasant, as reported by Reuters.
Due to an shortage of laborers, the Japanese construction market is looking towards robots and drones to fill jobs usually performed by humans.
Multiple news outlets have confirmed that Vice President Mike Pence will travel to Asia and Australia next month. He is expected to visit Japan, China, and Indonesia, among other stops.
Upon assuming the presidency, many observers expressed reservations about what a Trump administration foreign policy would look like. More than any other representative of President Donald Trump’s government, United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley has answered those critics.
Contents: Japan’s largest warship will train with US Navy in the South China Sea; A sad picture
Sources within the Japanese government revealed plans on Monday to send the Izumo helicopter carrier, the nation’s largest warship, on a three-month tour of the South China Sea.
U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley said on Wednesday that the United States is “considering every option that’s on the table” in response to North Korea’s provocative launch of ballistic missiles at Japan on Monday.
Repercussions from North Korea’s latest illegal ballistic missile test continue as Japanese lawmakers are pushing for pre-emptive strike options against Pyongyang’s missile facilities.
State Department Acting Deputy Spokesman Mark Toner — a holdover from the Obama administration — told reporters that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has been busy meeting with his global counterparts.
Contents: Malaysia’s relations with North Korea continue rapid deterioration; China promises retaliation over surprise deployment of THAAD in South Korea; South Korea threatens to sue China in World Trade Organization (WTO)
China angrily denounced the beginning of America’s THAAD deployment to South Korea on Tuesday, vowing “consequences” for both Washington and Seoul as the anti-missile system comes online.
Multiple reports in South Korean and Japanese news outlets suggest Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will be visiting Asia as early as next weekend, seeking to unite South Korea, Japan, and China in cooperation against a growing North Korea threat.
Islamic State has made suicide attacks “a pillar of its insurgency”, deploying them on a scale which only the infamous kamikaze pilots, who flew suicide missions for the Japanese Empire during the Second World War, can rival.
The United States, Japan, and the Republic of Korea (South Korea) issued a trilateral statement on North Korea on Monday, denouncing Pyongyang’s “flagrant disregard for multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions prohibiting its ballistic missile and nuclear programs” and calling for “strong international pressure on the regime.”
Contents: Washington tax reform plans may include a ‘Border Adjustment Tax’; Historical comparison with the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Bill
Not all of the world’s disputed islands can be found in the South China Sea. On Tuesday, Japan announced it was filing a formal protest with Russia over Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s decision to name several disputed islands in the Kuril chain after prominent figures from Russian history.
On Thursday’s Breitbart News Daily, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton discussed the significance of President Trump’s apparent openness to a “one-state” rather than “two-state” solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
