Mar. 19, 6pm The Latest NEWS

Thursday March 19, this is the the Asahi Shimbun Asia and Japan watch news briefing.

Komeito calls for caution on arms exports with 1976 Miyazawa quote.

Quoting a prominent liberal Democrat party statesman from a half a century ago, a senior

Komeito official urged Prime Minister Sanahi to kai-ching out to let Japan stoop solo

as to profit off the exports of lethal weapons.

At an upper-house budget committee session on March 17, Makoto Nishita, Secretary General

of Komeito, read out remarks made by Foreign Minister Keichi Miyazawa in 1976 and calling

on to kai-cheat reconsider her administration's plan.

Even if some foreign exchange surplus could be earned, our nation has not stoop solo as

to make money by exporting weapons, Miyazawa Prime Minister between 1991 and 1993, said

before the lower-house foreign affairs committee.

In response, to kai-chi countered, we must expand our network of like-minded partner nations

and achieve regional stability.

I feel that the times have changed.

She went on to argue that many useful technologies have emerged from the defense industry, citing

electronic toll collection, ETC, systems and titanium bolts used to repair fractured

bones as examples.

I do not believe that linking defense to industry and earning money amounts to a nation, having

stoop so low, to kai-chi said.

Japan adopted a ban on arms exports to the Communist bloc and other destinations in 1967

under Prime Minister Isaku Sato.

In 1976, Prime Minister Takedo Miki went further and effectively decided on a comprehensive

embargo.

Miyazawa, known as a security dove, served as foreign minister in the Miki Cabinet.

Komedo, which left the coalition government with the LDP last autumn, prided itself on

acting as a break on the conservative partner's hawkish policies.

The passiveist party, backed by the nation's largest lay Buddhist organization, has maintained

a cautious stance toward the sweeping deregulation of arms exports.

Nishida pressed to kai-chi further, asking whether Japan should be a country that greedily

pursues short-term economic gains at the expense of peace.

The Prime Minister only said, the defense industry is positioned, so to speak, as being

our defense capability itself.

She added that the matter was an urgent issue.

The LDP in Nippon, Eishin, Japan Innovation Party, which formed a new governing coalition,

submitted proposals to Takedo Miki on March 6 that included abolishing a rule that restricts

the purposes of weapons exports.

The government is expected to revise the implementation guidelines for the three principles on transfer

of defense equipment and technology in April to fully lift the ban on exports of lethal

weapons.

Nippon Eishin has vowed to serve as an accelerator within the coalition government to push its

hawkish agenda.

Major firms meet wage demands to retain talent and labor crunch.

A wave of major companies accepted pay-hike demands from their labor unions in full, driven

by inflation and labor shortages, in this year's Shuntos spring wage negotiations.

Toyota Motor Corporation on March 18 fully agreed to its unions demands for the six consecutive

year, although it did not disclose the specific amount of its wage increase.

March 18 marked the peak response day of this year's labor offensive, when management

of many large corporations presented responses to their labor unions.

According to the Confederation of Japan Automobile Workers' unions, all 12 major member unions

have reached agreements with management that met or exceeded their demands.

The average increase agreed came to 19,333 yen, $122 per month, up 863 yen from last year

and marking the highest level since comparable data became available in 1993.

The amount combines a base pay-hike, which lifts the underlying wage scale, and the regular

annual increment.

Even Honda Motor Company, which is projected to post a loss of hundreds of billions of

yen due to a review of its electric vehicle strategy, fully accepted its unions demand

for a monthly base pay raise of 12,000 yen.

Labor unions at major electronics manufacturers submitted a unified demand for a monthly

base pay-hike of 18,000 yen, the highest since the current negotiation format was adopted

in 1998.

Most of the 12 major companies, including Hitachi Limited and Panasonic Holdings Corporation,

responded in full.

The driving forces behind these high-level offers are intense competition to secure

competent personnel as well as efforts to improve workers' living standards.

Speaking to reporters on March 18, Yoshino-Butsutsui, chairman of Kaidan Ren, Japan Business Federation,

set a string of full responses reflect companies' efforts to overcome labor supply constraints,

and attract talented workers through investment in people.

Investing in human capital enhances corporate value and also leads to appropriate distribution

of wealth to workers, he said.

Hisashi Yamada, a professor of labor economics at Housai University, said, dealing with structural

labor shortages has become the most critical management challenge for companies.

By contrast, major steel makers, which have been facing sluggish business performance, fell

short of their union's demands for a 15,000-yen monthly base pay increase.

Nippon Steel Corporation offered 10,000 yen, while JFE Steel Corporation granted 7,000

yen.

The Japan Council of Metal Workers' Unions, which brings together unions in auto, electronics

and other key manufacturing industries, said the average wage increase offered to 49

major member unions stood at 15,450 yen as of 1230 pm on March 18.

The figure is the highest since comparable data became available in 2014.

However, escalating tensions in the Middle East have fueled concerns about further price

increases.

Shudo, CDP, Commado to Join Panel on Cutting Taxes for Food

Worried about being left out, the main opposition block decided to join Cross-Bardi Council

sessions on Prime Minister Sanyi de Kaichis planned to remove the consumption tax on food

items and introduce refundable tax credits.

Leaders of the Central Reform Alliance, Shudo, the Constitutional Democratic Party of

Japan and Commado reached the agreement at a meeting in the Diet Building on March 18.

Shudo consists of lower-house members from the CDP and Commado, but upper-house members

of the two parties have not joined the alliance.

The three parties intend to join the Council sessions as early as next week after confirming

its objectives, the structure of the Council's Secretariat and how to disclose minutes of

the meetings.

If the conditions are met, we'd like to begin coordinating our participation together

as three parties, Shudo leader Junyao Gawa told reporters after the meeting.

Ogao emphasized that the primary shared interest of the three parties is a refundable tax

credit, while indicating his intention to take part in other discussions as well.

As for a consumption tax cut, he said he would like to make it a precondition for the ruling

parties to take responsibility.

The opposition parties initially refused to take part in the Council, citing such reasons

as the Takaichi administration's forceful handling of budget deliberations in the lower

house.

However, the government intends to compile an interim report on the tax issues as early

as June, and other opposition parties the Democratic Party for the people and team Mariah

participating in the Council.

Consequently, Shudo, the CDP and Commado decided to join out of concern that they would

otherwise be left out.

The three leaders also discussed their strategies on the unified local election scheduled for

spring 2027, confirming they would cooperate to maximize the total number of seats

one.

While the CDP and Commado have decided to feel their own candidates in the unified local

elections, the three leaders said they intend to move forward with developing shared policy

proposals.

New tech gives bullet trains a 22nd edge on megacquake.

West Japan Railway Company, JR West, will integrate data from NNET, a new submarine observation

network in the Nankai troughs assumed at the central region, into its earthquake emergency

system for the Sano-Sing Kong Sen starting in April.

JR West President Shoji Kurosaka announced at a news conference on March 18 that the update

will enable emergency stops of the bullet train up to 20 seconds faster than previously.

JR West first introduced the detection system in 1996, the year after the Great Hanchen

earthquake.

The urgent earthquake detection and alarm system utilizes seismometers on the coast and along

the railway line to detect the small primary tremor or P-Wave.

If a large tremor is predicted, it activates an emergency break for the Shing Kong Sen before

the arrival of the more destructive secondary S-Wave, which travels more slowly.

Since 2010, the system has used data from the Japan Meteorological Agency's earthquake

early warning.

The system also began incorporating data in 2019 from Donut, dense ocean floor network

system for earthquakes and tsunamis.

The submarine observation network operated by the National Research Institute for Earth

Science and Disaster Resilience, and IED, stretches from off the coast of Mia prefecture

to off the eastern coast of Kochi prefecture.

And Net is a similar observation network using submarine cables, installed by Need last

year, which covers the area from off the coast of Kochi prefecture to off the coast of Miyazaki

prefecture.

Integrating and net data will speed earthquake detection by up to 20 seconds, allowing

for quicker emergency stops on the Shing Kong Sen to mitigate potential damage.

Be enforcing the tracks.

This upgrade is part of JR West broader earthquake countermeasures.

Following the derailment of a Joetsu Shing Kong Sen during the 2004 Nikita Chats of earthquake,

the company has been installing derailment prevention guards inside the tracks to prevent

trains from deviating significantly if they derail.

JR West aims to complete the installation on approximately 395 km of high priority sections

by the end of fiscal 2027, with the entire line scheduled for completion by the end of

fiscal 2052.

Fecal Geographer Professor pushes restrooms studies in textbook.

A piece of poop rests on the right shoulder of Noriko Yuzawa, a professor with Housai University

in Tokyo, drawing grins from people attending her classes in public lectures.

The excrement is actually a plush toy of her own making?

Yuzawa would normally be described as a human-jin bun-geographer.

But the 51-year-old has come up with a different title for herself, a fecal-jin bun-geographer.

Her job is to focus on poop and studying history and society.

Yuzawa wrote society with access to safe restrooms of diverse forms, a double-spread column

in Yamakawa Shupinja Limited's Geography, a senior high school textbook to be used in

the next school year from April.

The column is about sewage sludge and the diversity of restrooms that depends on the living

environment, culture and habits.

Yuzawa was discouraged by the lack of teaching materials about restrooms, although sanitation

is featured in one of the UN's sustainable development goals.

Restrooms are so essential to life, Yuzawa said she thought as she wrote the column.

The historical Geographer started out as a girl who loved to cook.

She discovered records of transactions and human waste along with documents showing

dietary habits at factories during the Taisho era, 1912 to 1926.

I got that letter about poop from a century ago, she said.

The documents show that a circular economy, where human waste is reused as fertilizer, existed

at that time.

The finding expanded Yuzawa's scope of research.

She also realized the distinctive nature of contemporary Japan, where people have grown

so fast, didious about cleanliness that they tend to conceal things that smell foul.

Yuzawa's current research subjects include public restrooms and complaints that women's

toilets are sometimes unavailable.

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See you next time and stay safe.