富士市の日常。

Japan is seeking another record-busting defense budget as China regularizes concerning military moves near Taiwan and North Korea continues its nuclear saber-rattling. japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/08/3…

…and ‘Globally the renminbi is still a distant second to the dollar for trade financing. It also makes up just 4.74 per cent of global payments, behind the dollar, euro and sterling…’ China’s international use of renminbi surges to record highs via Financial Times on.ft.com/3Z6natL

This morning’s exercise - the harvest is in and some lovely late-summer haze. #Cotswolds

China: ‘Leverage is basically migrating from private to public balance sheets, as we saw in the US after 2008 and — most canonically — in Japan.’ Chinese leverage has crept up to a new record via Financial Times on.ft.com/3z1m1Jg

“Winston Churchill was stark naked, a drink in one hand, a cigar in the other.” Roosevelt, clearly flustered, offered to leave, but Churchill demurred: “You see, Mr President, I have nothing to hide.” The two leaders then spoke for an hour. economist.com/culture/2024/0…

Japan prepares to restart another nuclear reactor 🇯🇵☢️ 👉 Tohoku Electric will begin loading fuel into Onagawa No. 2, with a goal of restarting around November 📅 Its been offline since 2010 🌳 Japan's government wants more nuclear to help hit green goals, curb power prices

China’s ‘frantic push to localize chip supplies and mitigate the risk of further Western export restrictions…’ China buys more chip tools than South Korea, Taiwan, U.S. combined asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tech/…

The past does not nec point to future. Maritime space is where CN is most active trying to change the status quo—which affects/threatens Japan/others. Less benign picture than author paints Western hawks falsely attempt to paint China as Pacific conqueror asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/Wester…

‘The most important thing is to strengthen deterrence to prevent a…situation like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from occurring in the Indo-Pacific’ INTERVIEW/ Yoshihide Yoshida: Top SDF officer vows to deter aggression in Indo-Pacific | The Asahi Shimbun asahi.com/ajw/articles/1…

#DefenseofJapan 2024 New Release! Today, on September 3, English version of Defense of Japan 2024 (Annual White Paper) was released on MOD website. Please check our website for further details! ▼Click below mod.go.jp/en/publ/w_pape…

This is 1 scary chart if you're a Chinese economic policy maker (ie, Xi). You/he should be having a panic attack. Does he/do they care? Weakest broad monetary growth and collapsing M1 are pointing to slumping money GDP growth, and persistent deflationary pressures. 1/3

The chart in this page from the 2024 Defense of Japan white paper highlights Japan’s position in the front line of Asia’s shifting geopolitics. No other G7 member faces such threats in such close proximity. Full digest report here: mod.go.jp/j/press/wp/wp2…

The Defence Minister’s opening statement in the annual Defense of Japan white papers sets the tone for the rest of the document. Struck in the 2024 paper by the specificity of DM Kihara’s focus—see screenshots. Last year’s paras were more general. Already in para 2 two areas of

This is good news given the geopolitical tensions in the region. Will also involve information sharing, which sld help deepen this important bilateral relationship. Japan, South Korea to agree on mutual expat evacuations from abroad asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Japan…

Trade trends are many layered, but, nonetheless, the decoupling of US trade from China is striking. FT pic.

Piece makes the right point about how many products/much tech has a national security dimension. Given breath of overlap, perhaps it’s now time to question the utility of the ‘dual use’ term. How national security has transformed economic policy via Financial Times on.ft.com/3XvYQAv

The covers of Japan’s defence white papers have become a genre in their own right. The 2024 cover shows the forging of a sword of deterrence powerful enough not to have to be drawn by Japan. A message of action and delivering on the 2022 NSS. The 2023 kanji cover was rather

Circumventing US, EU etc economic security barriers is elongating Chinese supply chains - interesting Chinese investment flow trends in this chart in today’s FT.

In this #JapanMemo, Robert Ward hosts Kei Koga, Hideyuki Shiozawa SPF & Euan Graham to analyse: ➡️ Japan’s approach to the Pacific Island countries ➡️ Geopolitical competition in the South Pacific ➡️ Outlook of different players in the South Pacific 🎧 go.iiss.org/3yDDG9U