U.S. has been pushing its allies to bar Huawei equipment from telecommunications networks as a security threat. The government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is seeking to rebuild long fractious ties with Beijing and also reliant on the U.S. for its defense. Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-29/china-says-unfair-treatment-of-huawei-could-damage-japan-ties
Japan and the United States plan to hold bilateral trade talks as U.S. President Donald Trump pushes for what he calls fair and reciprocal trade. Agriculture produce is expected to be a tricky area at a time when the U.S. beef industry has seen its market share in Japan increasingly taken by competitors under the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade pact that was revised and implemented after Washington abruptly withdrew. Tokyo
Japan’s unemployment is at its lowest in almost three decades. There are more than two jobs for every applicant in Tokyo. Pay in Japan is estimated to have risen just 0.9 percent in February from a year earlier. That’s well short of the 3 percent economists say is needed to drive spending and prices toward the Bank of Japan’s 2 percent inflation goal. Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-29/japanese-job-seekers-are-experiencing-the-best-market-in-decades
The name of the imperial era is to mark time and it appears on everything from official forms and identity documents to coins, calendars and newspapers, as well as being used in everyday conversation. The announcement will give companies and public bodies time to incorporate the new era’s name into their paperwork and computer systems when Naruhito becomes emperor on 1 May. Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/29/japan-poised-to-reveal-name-of-new-imperial-era-as-akihito-abdicates
The country’s working age population will fall an average of 1.1% a year over the next 50 years and will place a huge burden on the economy. Changes to Japan’s residency law could see 350,000 new foreign laborers in the country over the next 5 years Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/28/japan-needs-foreign-workers-as-population-ages-abe-aide-tomomi-inada.html
JR Group is currently planning to establish a cryptocurrency company to create its own exchange or infrastructure to process payments similar to Rakuten. This will potentially become the biggest stimulus in retail and mainstream cryptocurrency. Rakuten is speculated to have done so as profits do not need to be passed to a third party such as a cryptocurrency exchange or a payment service provider. Japan is already leading in merchant
Membership of Yakuza gangs shrunk to 30,500 from 184,000 in the early 1960s. Yakuza control Japan’s drug and sex industries and thus earned a reasonable living. As a result of Ongoing police crackdown on organized crime Communities no longer afraid of gangs and forced groups to close offices in residential districts Prefectural governments setting up programs that provides financial assistance to gangsters who want to get a legitimate job It
Voters in the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa resoundingly rejected the construction of a new U.S. military base on their island. The U.S. military says its presence on the island is vital not only for the defense of Japan, but also for keeping peace in the region. “a vote against the Abe administration” for ignoring the popular will expressed in Tamaki’s victory. Opposition also attracted support from young voters normally seen
Parents increasingly shun traditional classrooms for more global education. International schools, which typically conduct classes in English, are flourishing in Japan. The number of students at these schools has jumped about 30% in four years. also serve Japan’s growing foreign population. regulations place these institutions in a separate category from public schools, meaning Japanese students’ attendance often technically falls outside the law.
There is currently a fresh spat between Japan and Korea over whether Japan will participate in multilateral naval exercises set to take place off Busan in late April – amid renewed hostility over Japan’s past colonisation of the Korean peninsula. Tokyo and Seoul have sparred over decisions in South Korea’s top court requiring two of Japan’s biggest firms to pay compensation to Koreans forced into labour during Japan’s 1910-45 colonial
