Category: 未分類

Posted on

It’s how Japan’s defense info (and indirectly U.S.’s) leaks to China and Russia

TOKYO, July 13, 2024—It happened in the past, albeit by a more obscure scale, compelling the U.S. defense and intel authorities to be cautious about sharing vital information with Japan. 

Every time missteps erupt, the Japanese government apologizes and promises ‘never’ to cause recurrence but they continue surfacing – by more often than before. Though classified defense information was not leaked to third parties this time, it’d be no surprise if it did given that the foundation isn’t likely to change. 

China and Russia have been seizing on this lax Japanese defense intel structures with precision, with their operatives in Japan disguised as journalists and embassy personnel as well as employees of Japanese companies snuggling up to Japanese Defense Ministry uniform officials to obtain vital info.

What can be done about it? In essence, very little, even though it’s not impossible if the World War II period Imperial Army legacy that still lurks around in the Japanese Maritime and Ground forces is thrashed and burned, the process that would take years as it concerns their core organization and administrative structures.

-0-

(Yomiuri Japan News. Julyb13, 2024 on-line edition.)

The Defense Ministry took disciplinary action against an unprecedented 218 Self Defense Forces members on Friday for various code violation, including disciplining 119 members of the Maritime Self-Defense Force for mishandling classified security information categorized as specially designated secrets.

The ministry also announced punishment for misconduct including power harassment by defense bureaucrats and improper receipt of allowances by MSDF divers.

“We have been completely lacking in fundamental attitudes, such as respect for the law, sense of ethics and strict discipline,” Defense Minister Minoru Kihara said at a press conference held after the Cabinet meeting Friday. “I will do my utmost to quickly rebuild the Defense Ministry and the SDF and restore the public’s trust.”

Kihara himself will give back a month’s salary.

MSDF Chief of Staff Ryo Sakai will take a one-month pay cut as a disciplinary measure and resign. Administrative Vice Defense Minister Kazuo Masuda; Gen. Yoshihide Yoshida, who is chief of staff of the Joint Staff; and chiefs of staff from the Ground Self-Defense Force and the Air-Self Defense Force were reprimanded for shirking their supervisory responsibilities.

Specially designated secrets are information required to be kept particularly secret for the purposes of defense, diplomacy, counterespionage and counterterrorism. Those who handle them must undergo a security clearance assessment, in which points such as their economic conditions and potential criminal history are investigated. As of the end of last year, 135,479 people were qualified, of which 122,459 were connected with the Defense Ministry. These rules were stipulated in the Law on the Protection of Specially Designated Secrets, which came into effect in 2014.

The cases of misconduct by the ministry and the SDF announced Friday fell into four categories: mishandling of specially designated secrets; improperly receiving perks for diving missions; improperly receiving food and drink on an MSDF base; and abuse of subordinates by defense ministry bureaucrats.

A total of 58 cases of specially designated secrets being mishandled were uncovered: 45 by the MSDF, nine by the ASDF, two by the GSDF and one each by the Joint Staff Office and the Defense Intelligence Headquarters. The information has not been leaked outside the SDF, according to sources.

Within the MSDF, a series of cases were confirmed in which personnel who lacked the proper qualifications were on duty at combat instruction centers (CIC) — areas with computer screens displaying information such as ship wake — and on the bridges of 38 vessels.

Kishida apologizes for SDF scandals

By Hirotaka Kuriyama / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Prime Minister Fumio Kishida apologized Friday for a series of scandals involving the Defense Ministry and the Self Defense Forces.

“I must apologize for the concern we have caused the people of Japan,” Kishida told reporters the outskirts of Washington, where he was visiting.

“Defense Minister [Minoru] Kihara must exercise strong leadership and do his utmost to regain the nation’s trust,” he added.

####

Posted on

China expands its territorial claim toward Japan: Next target is Senkaku

TOKYO, July 7, 2024—As expected and as if scripted, China has installed a buoy on Japan’s continental shelf in the Pacific, the Yoimiuri Shimbun daily reported July 5, in its methodical expansion into other countries’ sovereign waters. The next Chinese move, likely more aggressive, is set to be Senkaku Islands claimed by both countries where China also had floated buoys earlier and chasing after Japanese fishing boats as it is doing to Philippine fishermen.

Despite the escalating Chinese aggression, Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, said only that the Chinese act was ‘regrettable.’ A Chinese spokeswoman said July 5 that the area is an international water, not Japan’s, describing the buoy installation as legitimate by international law.

The buoy is located north of Okinotorishima Island, a tiny speck of rocks that emerged as a result of a deep ocean volcanic eruption about two decades ago that Japan registered as its territory with the United Nations and that China unilaterally denies as a rock and not an island.

More details as reported by the Yomiuri as follows:

-0-

A Chinese government vessel in June installed a buoy on Japan’s continental shelf in the Shikoku Basin region, north of Japan’s southernmost Okinotorishima Island, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.

While China has previously installed buoys in the East China Sea including an area near the Senkaku Islands in Okinawa Prefecture, it is quite unusual for the country to install a buoy in the waters under the jurisdiction of Japan on the Pacific Ocean. The government is examining the purpose and other details of the buoy.

The Xiangyanghong 22, a large Chinese working ship, in July 2023 installed an ocean survey buoy with a diameter of about 10 meters in Japan’s exclusive economic zone about 80 kilometers northwest of the Senkaku’s Uotsuri Island without permission. It is believed that wave and other data collected by the buoy is transmitted to China using satellites. The government has demanded the immediate removal of the buoy at summit meetings and foreign ministerial meetings between Japan and China, among other occasions, but China has not responded to the requests.

According to multiple government sources, Xiangyanghong 22 left Shanghai on June 5 this year and arrived in the Pacific Ocean via the Osumi Strait off the coast of Kagoshima Prefecture. It then installed the buoy in the Shikoku Basin region in mid-June. The buoy is reportedly smaller than the one installed in July 2023 and is equipped with a light emitting device that can be seen from ships traveling nearby at night.

The Shikoku Basin region is surrounded by Japan’s EEZ and covers an area almost equivalent to half the size of Japan, which is 378,000 square kilometers. Since there are no islands in or around the region, it is supposed to be outside the EEZ. However, the U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) recognized the Shikoku Basin region as Japan’s continental shelf in 2012, with Okinotorishima Island as its base point. Under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, Japan exercises sovereign rights over the continental shelf for the purpose of exploring the sea bed and exploiting its natural resources.

Unlike EEZs, oceanographic surveys conducted in waters above continental selves do not require approval of coastal states. However, mineral resources including rare metals are said to be distributed in the seabed of the region, and if the recently installed buoy is related to the exploration of the seabed and other such activities, it is highly likely that it violates the U.N. convention.

On the other hand, China claims that Okinotorishima is not an island but a rock and that neither an EEZ nor a continental shelf can be established based on it. China has repeatedly conducted oceanographic surveys and military exercises in the western Pacific including areas near the island. Since it could install buoys in Japan’s EEZ in the Pacific Ocean side in the future, just like in the East China Sea, the government is stepping up vigilance and surveillance activities.

Hayashi: ‘Disappointed’

“It is regretful that China installed the buoy without explaining its purpose, plan and other details,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said at a press conference Friday.

Hayashi also said that Tokyo has asked Beijing to provide a transparent explanation about it. According to him, China has explained that the buoy is designed to observe tsunami and is not intended to violate Japan’s rights over the continental shelf.

###

Posted on

Chinese property investor Fosum sells off a popular Japanese resort property

TOKYO, July 2, 2024—Fosum International Limited, a Chinese property investor, has sold off Hoshino Resort Tomamu for 40.8 billion yen ($25 million), a resort and hotel facility managed by the Hoshino Resort group of Karuizawa, Nagano, believed to be the first selloff by a Chinese investor reeling on the back with China’s lingering property recession.

It was reported by Kyodo and Jiji news services as Beijing dispatches.

The selloff is believed to be for reducing Fosum’s debts, leaving it with no equity in the popular high-end and lucrative Hokkaido resort. It was sold to YCH16 of Minato-ku, Tokyo, a property investor. Fosum acquired its Tomamu equity from previous equity holders including a Dutch one in 2015.

Fosum was started and owned by Guo Guangchang, who was at one time known as China’s Warren Buffet. Over the past few years, he has been disposing of his many stock holdings of companies including Tsingtao and other Chinese and Japanese companies, according to Bloomberg.

YCH16’s details were not available.

###

Posted on

Japan to become No. 1 next-gen automakers by2030, trade ministry claims. Really??

TOKYO, July 2, 2024—While the world is seeing the country as a tourist destination and has written off as an industrial power house that it was once, Japan is devising a stealth digital economy strategy to make it the largest manufacturers of what it calls the software defined vehicle that drives on its own without a driver.

Call it a pipe dream or hog wash, government officials are dead serious about the SDV project that’s a core part of the country’s digital economy transformation named the ‘Mobility DX Strategy,’ engaging private-sector automakers, digital nerds and academia experts to sit on a special committee to hash out long PDF documents that to lay people are cryptic and a big bore.

(https://www.meti.go.jp/policy/mono_info_service/mono/automobile/jido_soko/mobilitydxsenryaku3.pdf)

It would mobile all conceivable digital technologies including next-gen semiconductors, generative AI, autonomous driving, high-speed telecom, among them. SDVs can be used for robo taxis, regular private cars, buses and trucks.The SDV project aims to manufacture and sell 12 million SDVs in Japan and globally by 2030 and boost output to 19 million by 2035, which would be about 3/10th of global SDVs to be sold.

Is this a viable, serious project? Yes, for those eIT geeks at churning out smart PDF documents on PCs. That’s what they did in drafting this colorful document.

AN ABSOLUTE NO in the real world. For one, Japan barely has 20,000 EV charging stations as of March 2024, little changed from a year ago and of which quick charging accounted for less than half. The country aims to have 150,000 charging stands (different from the number of stations that may have more than two stands).

Having far more EV stations is vital for the SDV project as one of the Mobility DX Strategy’s core aim is greenhouse gas emissions reductions, along with hydrogen mobilization for which filling stations totaled 171 as of March 2024, hardly changed from several years ago and still short of the 200 target that Japan set 10 years ago. Without clean energy, SDVs won’t take off.

Another challenge is building high-speed telecom lines all over Japan for stable, constant connections between SDVs and servers and other stationary hubs. For it, 5G or faster signals are absolutely necessary by even on smart phones, many Japanese people use 4G phones, and telecom carriers are slow to moving to faster signals for cost reasons, particularly in rural areas, where signals often are lost now.

###

Posted on

Production of pickled plums, Japan’s staple food, becomes regulated and endangered as Vehicle Reg Proposed

TOKYO, June 28, 2024—Lately, probably by coincidence, the Japanese bureaucracy’s regulatory grip of industry has tightened even more than before, and it is telling the world to follow its lead for human safety. Part of it is justified, for sure, but at the end of the day, it amounts to more paper work and added costs for the private sector.

As I wrote on May 28, effective June 1, producers of the centuries-old foodstuff must clear stringent government regulations on food safety under the latest Food Sanitation Law amendment introduced in 2023. The law bore a grace period until June 1 before enforcement. Fish condiments, picked and cured plums, various wild mountain vegetables and sea foods are subject to the regulations that require producers to have their food processing procedures to meet Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) rules.

In May, Ogose Town, Saitama, northwest of Tokyo, one of the famous plum producing areas, had a rare poor harvest that local folks blamed on climate change, and the town canceled the annual festival. The town produces about 200 tons of Umeboshi, or pickled and cured plums: Not this year.

The HACCP sanitary mandate is compounding the plum, farmers’ plight forcing many to give up the business, according to a town official.

It’s by and large the same situation on fishing villages of northern Japan, where fish catches have plummeted to the lowest in decades – some say in centuries – because of fast-warming sea water temperatures as fish hauling costs are soaring because of sky-high fuel prices resulting substantially from the weak yen. Add the cost of HACCP rules to making dried fish products, small fishermen cannot continue operating.

So, inland farmers and fishermen are retiring at what looks to be a scaring pace. The result is doubling and tripling of retail store shelf prices. And the impact has yet to show up in supermarket prices because what’s happening at production areas will ripple to retail stores only gradually.

Rice production, which is not directly affected by the latest food safety regs, also is affected as farmers that make plums or fishermen catching fish straddle between their trades and rice paddies are quitting working altogether. Rice prices are soaring and so are sake prices that ferment rice to produce alcohol.

And yet, ruthless bureaucrats are resolved to expand their administrative reach, this time, cross-border, to motor vehicles. At a recent UNECE WP.29 expert meetings, Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport officials successfully sold a proposal to install sudden unintended acceleration prevention devices to all vehicles in the world.

This entails that all new vehicles sold in Japan would have to be installed with such devices from June 2025. MLIT officials explained that the devices are for preempting accidents caused by senior drivers who misstep on the gas pedal instead of brake, one of the largest causes of accidents involving seniors in Japan.

Though officials were mum when asked, Japan seemed to have convinced other WP.29 countries to accept its proposal – though voluntarily, perhaps – in response to the Toyota Prius’s sudden acceleration in the 1990s in the United States.

The Japanese proposal is likely to be debated and approved at the UNECE November conference.

###

Posted on

It’s not about money Japan’s birth rate continues slipping

TOKYO, June 6, 2024—Japan’s national birth rate has been slipping ever since 1947, when it was at a post-WWII high 4.54, to a record low 1.20 in 2023, with Tokyo’s rate falling to 0.99, meaning only 99 new borns to every 100 females, according to Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare data released June 5. It’s hardly surprising. And it’s unsurprising that the Japanese government is taking the same old path as before to staunch the decline – subsidies and incentives to young couples to have more babies, when most of them are disinterested in doing so and instead want to enjoy their childcare-free life.

The difference between the national rate of 1.20 and Tokyo’s 0.99 alone underscore young Japanese people’s views about life: Tokyo offers all conceivable funs of life to befit their vanity and creature comfort; theater, good restaurants, fashion, and not to be ignored, fast internet connections that has become new integral social infrastructure. Rural areas are backward in all those dimensions, and to make matters worse, centuries-old community norms supersede many new things that draw young people. The 2022 birth rate was 1.26, so the 2023 rate showed a further acceleration of small child births.

The number of births in 2023 was 727,277, decreasing as much as 5.6 percent from 2022, while the number of deaths rose 0.4 percent to 1.575 million, a clear recipe of Japan’s accelerating population contraction. ‘Artificial new born deaths’ in bureaucracy parlance, or abortions, jumped 7.6 percent to 8,382 in 2023, in yet more proof that young people are lukewarm to having babies. Young people also elect to stay single, as shown in the fact that 2023 marriages fell 6 percent from 2022 to a record low of 474,717, while divorces rose 2.6 percent to 183,808, which yields the divorce rate of of horrific high 38 percent by some calculations.

Some more interesting numbers in the report: The average age of mothers that gave birth to first babies was 25.7 years old in 1975. In 2023, it was 31.0 years old.

Deducing what’ll happen to Japan’s progressing population aging, now totaling 125 million, is simple and sobering. No matter how much the government provides to encourage marriages and young couples to have babies, the population will shrink, the latest report portending at a much faster pace than what government demographics map out as shrinking to 99 million by 2060. 

That’s even if Japan further and sharply relaxes immigration policy.

(More information about MHLW data: https://www.mhlw.go.jp/toukei/saikin/hw/jinkou/geppo/nengai23/dl/kekka.pdf)

###

Posted on

Number of unclaimed remains in 2022 jumps 30% over 5 years

TOKYO, June 3, 2024—The number of unclaimed remains in 2022 in Japan jumped 32 percent compared with 2018, according to a newspaper survey published on June 3.

The Yomiuri daily newspaper said its survey of 74 Japanese municipalities taken between February and May 2024 showed a total of 11,602 persons’ remains were unclaimed, up 32 percent from 2018, with big cities like Tokyo, Yokohama and Sapporo showing conspicuous rises – reflecting problems leading to isolated deaths and not claimed by kins.

Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare demographic data showed the 2022 number of deaths at 1,569,050, up 15 percent from 2018, so the survey mirrors unclaimed remains were double the national deaths.

Reasons are diverse and complicated, such as that seniors facing death had been living alone and isolated from relatives and society, the condition that’s becoming increasingly pronounced in Japan as family relations are steadily thinning, as well as the high and growing cost of funeral services. In Tokyo, most crematoriums are owned and managed by a Chinese controlled company that roughly doubled the cremation fees.

###

Posted on

AI generated real-person child porns sold in Japan, report says

TOKYO, June 3, 2024—It’s in Japan too and not surprisingly, the authorities are sucking their fingers and doing little.

AI training data that can be used to produce images closely resembling real children is being sold online, the Yomiuri daily reported June 2..

‘The fine-tuning datasets include images of Japanese former child celebrities. Sexual images closely resembling the children were being sold on a separate website, and it is believed that the data was used to create them.

Regulating the trade of this type of data is said to be difficult under Japan’s law against child prostitution and child pornography, and experts are calling for the establishment of legislation to address the problem.

Learning from a vast amount of image data, AI image generators produce elaborate, photorealistic images through simple written instructions. Generating an image that closely resembles a specific person is difficult with just the input of their name. But some AI image generators can create images that closely resemble particular people if trained on fine-tuning datasets containing dozens of images of that person. This fine-tuning data is called “LoRA” among other names.

The Yomiuri Shimbun identified an English-language website selling fine-tuning datasets on several former child celebrities who have worked in Japan and abroad. The site listed the names of actual personalities in the descriptions of the data, and each was being sold for the equivalent of $3 in crypto assets. The site also offered data on adult women.

A separate Japanese site was selling sexual images closely resembling Japanese child celebrities on whom fine-tuning data was available to buy, and the images were marked as having been produced by AI. According to some experts, the characteristics of the images indicate that they were likely produced using fine-tuning data.

AI image generators can quickly produce a massive number of images, and the subject’s pose and facial expression can be freely set. If fine-tuning datasets on real people are circulated, sexually explicit images that closely resemble not only real children but also real adults may spread widely.

According to the Justice Ministry, the law against child prostitution and child pornography is applicable only when a child victim exists. Court precedents show that even computer-generated images can be subject to regulations if they appear to depict a specific real child. However, some experts say that the law may not apply unless the physical and facial features of the generated images closely resemble a particular existing child. Therefore, whether AI-generated sexual images of children can be regulated remains to be seen.

“The finding uncovered the fact that generative AI and fine-tuning datasets are being misused to violate the rights of children,” said Prof. Takashi Nagase of Kanazawa University, a former judge well versed in issues related to online speech and expression. “The fear is that the damage may be spreading under the surface. This is a situation unanticipated by the current law, so it’s necessary to consider establishing relevant legislation to regulate AI-generated sexual images of children.”’

#####

Posted on

Traditional Japanese foods face risk of extinction for safety regulations

TOKYO, May 28, 2024—Traditional pickled vegetables, cured plums, fish condiments that for centuries have been on Japanese household tables as ‘mountain and sea treats’ are facing extinction as new, stringent food safety regulations kick in on June 1, 2024 demanding that tiny mom-and-pot shops observe the rules.

A farmers shop in Shimogo town, Fukushima that sells cured plums called umeboshi and miso-marinated pickles as well as fresh vegetables made by local independent farmers has already lost more than 30 percent of cargo arrivals as an increasing number of farmers are giving up manufacturing products for reason of high investment costs to refurbish their old manufacturing facilities such as new sinks, storages to meet government permits, local newspapers reported.

What independent producers make bear special flavors, unlike those manufactured at large factories , the general manager of a farmers market in Fukuyama City, Hiroshima, was quoted as saying. Because those home-made products do not use preservatives and food additives, they do not last long, so the independent makers give up making altogether instead of investing millions of yen in modernizing facilities, he said.

Effective June 1, 2024, those that do not have government permits under the 2021 Food Safety Law amendment are banned from shipping products to the marketplace. An official of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare’s Food Safety Division told The Prospect that they had no data on pickles and other food manufacturing that the new regulations might have on manufacturers. 

It was obvious, though, that small and independent makers are folding their operations because of high costs to modernize facilities, which some news reports have put at 5 million yen ($33,000) just for installing new faucets and sinks and obtaining permits.

###

Posted on

Japan makes first arrest for AI-generated computer viruses

TOKYO, May 28, 2024—Police May 27 arrested a 25-year-old man for producing AI-generated computer virus, the first such arrest in the country, the daily Yomiuri reported on its on-line site May 28.

The unidentified man manufactured computer viruses by mobilizing a plural number of interactive generative artificial intelligence programs that are publicly available on the internet with his PCs and smart phones, a violation of the 2011 amendment to the Criminal Law on Information Processing Advancement that prohibits the manufacturing of computer viruses with generative AI programs.

His viruses bore such properties as encrypting target data so the data owner would not be able to access, and/or demanding payments in crypro assets to unlock such data, the newspaper quoted police as explaining. The man had admitted to have manufactured the ransomware viruses, telling the police that he intended to defraud targets for money.

CHAT-GPT and other generative AI programs disable answers relating to crimes, police said, but interactive AI programs publicly accessible on the internet provide answers that can be used as ransomware. The man instructed to those programs without disclosing virus manufacturing intentions, obtaining architectural information and source codes on data encryption and ransoms.

The police did not give details on which provisions of the law the man infringed on.

Violations of the law are subject to a range of fines from 500,000 yen ($3,200) to 5 million yen and/or five years of imprisonment.

The February 2024 National Police Agency annual report on crimes took note of growing cyber crimes. Internet banking crimes in terms of the sum of damage surged 465 percent in 2023, compared with 2022, it said. Ransomware cases decreased more than 10 percent in 2023 but the report cautioned against complacency. Potentially ruinous cyberspace access jumped nearly 20 percent, it said.

###