Racial Profiling By ICE Agents Mirrors The Targeting Of Japanese Americans dDuring World War II

People of Japanese ancestry arrive at the Santa Anita Assembly Center in California before being moved inland to relocation centers, April 5, 1942. © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images

BY ANNA STORTI

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF GENDER SEXUALITY,

AND FEMINIST STUDIES AND ASIAN AMERICAN

STUDIES, DUKE UNIVERSITY

The Department of Homeland Security in September 2025 said that 2 million undocumented immigrants had been forced out of the United States since the start of Donald Trump’s second presidency.

Through its use of the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime law from 1798, the Trump administration has bypassed immigration courts and the right to due process to more easily detain and deport immigrants.

The Trump administration has, in part, reached these numbers by arresting immigrants in courthouses and at their workplaces. It has also conducted raids in schools, hospitals and places of worship.

And the Supreme Court in September, in its Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo decision, lifted a federal court order that barred agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement from racially profiling suspected undocumented immigrants. For now, ICE agents can use race, ethnicity, language and occupation as grounds for stopping and questioning people.

This form of targeting has disproportionately affected Latino communities, which represent 9 in 10 ICE arrests, according to a UCLA study published in October.

Targeting immigrants is a centuries-old American practice. In particular, Asian Americans have drawn parallels between the attacks on Latinos today and the forced relocation and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Notably, the passage of the War Brides Act, passed just three months after the end of WWII, in December 1945, broke with the nation’s centuries-long practice of exclusionary immigration policy. The act allowed American servicemen to bring their non-American spouses and children to the United States. The measure seemed to inaugurate a new era of inclusive immigration policy.

As a feminist studies scholar and author, I know the War Brides Act forever altered the nation’s racial demographics, increasing both Asian migration to the U.S. and the birth of biracial children.

On the 80th anniversary of the War Brides Act, I’ve also noticed an alarming contradiction: Although America may be more multiracial than ever before, the U.S. immigration system remains as exclusive as it has ever been.

Exclusionary immigration policy

The racial profiling of Latino people by ICE agents today is not unlike what took place during World War II in the U.S.

Following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order authorizing the forced removal of anyone deemed to be a national security threat. Anyone, that is, who was Japanese. From 1942 to 1945, the U.S. government incarcerated approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans in internment camps.

To determine who was a national security threat, the government used overt racial profiling. Similar to today, when the U.S. government often misidentifies Latino Americans as noncitizens, a majority of the Japanese people incarcerated in WWII were U.S. citizens.

Amid the Trump administration’s treatment of immigrants, it’s worth recalling the exclusionary origins of U.S. immigration policy.

The first restrictive immigration law in the U.S., the Page Act of 1875, barred Chinese women from entering the country. The assumption the law was based on was that all Chinese women were immoral and worked in the sex trade.

The Page Act laid the groundwork for the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which banned all Chinese immigration into the U.S. for 10 years. This was the first federal law to ban an entire ethnic group, launching an era of legalized and targeted exclusion.

With the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, the U.S. created its first border control service, which enforced new immigration restrictions. It also implemented a quota system, which banned or limited the number of immigrants from specific regions, including Asia and Southern and Eastern Europe.

The act stemmed from nativism – the policy that protects the interests of native-born residents against those of immigrants – and a desire to preserve American homogeneity.

The 1945 War Brides Act largely diverged from these previous measures, helping to dismantle the Asian exclusion made commonplace in the 19th and early 20th centuries. From 1945 until 1948, when the War Brides Act expired, more than 300,000 people entered the country as nonquota immigrants, people from countries not subject to federal immigration restrictions.

Exclusionary tendencies

Decades later, in 1965, the U.S. formally abolished the quota system. America opened its doors to those who President Lyndon B. Johnson deemed most able to contribute to the nation’s growth, particularly skilled professionals.

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 eliminated racial exclusion. As a result, the U.S. population diversified. Immigrants deepened the multiracialism initiated by the War Brides Act.

This trend increased later in the 1960s when the Supreme Court, in Loving v. Virginia, overturned anti-miscegenation laws, which criminalized marriage between people of different races. The justices ruled that laws banning interracial marriage violated the 14th Amendment.

Multiracialism further increased after the Vietnam War. Subsequent legislation such as the 1987 Amerasian Homecoming Act facilitated the entry of biracial children born in Vietnam and fathered by a U.S. citizen.

By the 1960s, however, exclusion was taking on a different shape.

After 1965, immigration policy initiated a preference system that prioritized skilled workers and relatives of U.S. citizens. Quotas related to race and national origin were abolished. Nonetheless, preferences for families and professionals excluded people from Latin America.

For the first time, immigration from the Western Hemisphere was limited. This directly affected migrant workers in the farming and agricultural industries, many of whom were Latino.

Recalling the War Brides Act allows Americans to better comprehend the fiction that undergirds the U.S. immigration system: that immigration policy’s preference for certain immigrants is enough to justify the discriminatory policies which deem some families more valuable than others.

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Japanese Film Noir High And Low Is A Remarkable Example Of Nail-Biting Tension – And Now It’s Inspired Spike Lee

In the first half, the film resembles a chamber-play. Toho

BY KRISTIAN RAMSDEN

PH.D CANDIDATE IN ENGLISH,

CREATIVE WRITING AND FILM,

UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE

“Wake up y’all. The king is here!”

So proclaims Denzel Washington in Spike Lee’s new film, Highest 2 Lowest, where Washington portrays a hip hop mogul, David King, who finds himself the centre of a high-profile kidnapping case.

Highest 2 Lowest is a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 classic crime drama High and Low. In that film, Toshiro Mifune plays high powered executive Kingo Gondo, who, on the eve of the most important night of his career, receives a surprising phone call informing him that his son has been kidnapped.

Kurosawa’s film begins as a corporate thriller before transforming into a police procedural as detectives traverse the streets of Yokohama in the hope of solving the crime. At the same time, the film sees the director examining social tensions under the surface of reconstruction-era Japan.

More than just a historical document, the film stands up as a remarkable example in nail-biting tension, 60 years after release.

From America …

Kurosawa’s original film is already derived from an American source, adapted from King’s Ransom (1959), an instalment in a series of police procedural paperbacks collectively titled 87th precinct, from author Ed McBain.

The novel’s prose is streamlined and action oriented. Simple sentences like “The room was full of cigarette smoke” or “The 87th Precinct building was on Grover Avenue” read like blueprints for a screenplay.

McBain was a pseudonym for the screenwriter Evan Hunter, who would adapt many of his own novels, including King’s Ransom, for a short lived TV series of the same name which aired from 1961–62.

The series was a late entry in a trend of procedural TV shows popular in Eisenhower’s America, epitomised by The Naked City (1958–63) and Dragnet (1951–59).

… to Japan

The Japanese studio Toho bought the rights for King’s Ransom for US$5,000 in 1961. Kurosawa must have sensed the opportunity for second chance, having been disappointed in his earlier attempt to make a detective film with 1949’s Stray Dog.

However, believing McBain’s novel “wasn’t particularly well written”, he started to make radical adjustments.

The biggest change Kurosawa makes to the novel is to split it into two distinct sections.

In the first half, Kurosawa takes the majority of McBain’s novel and restricts it to the sleek living room of Gondo’s nouveau riche mansion. Gondo’s luxurious air conditioned home overlooks the sweltering overcrowded shanty towns of Yokohama – yet the curtains are often drawn.

This section resembles a chamber-play. Kurosawa’s masterful blocking of the actors forces the audience’s eyes to shift around the widescreen frame; examining each character’s reaction in real time to every gradual reveal of information.

In the second half, Kurosawa abandons the claustrophobia of Gondo’s living room and sends the investigation into the streets below. Abandoning the plot of the novel, this is when the film’s observations of contemporary Japanese society come to the forefront.

An era of Americanisation

The film comments on the “Americanisation” of Japan that took place in the postwar era. Following the end of American Occupation, Japan entered into an unprecedented period of production, prosperity and profit known as the Economic Miracle.

A huge demand for “Western” cultural and commercial goods reshaped much of private and public life. The “three sacred treasures” of domestic goods during the 1960s would be the colour television, the automobile and the air conditioner. The continued presence of United States Army bases allowed the proliferation of American comic books and magazines, jazz and rock ‘n’ roll records.

But for the Japanese, America was both a figure of aspirational culture, and of ongoing military control. During protests in 1960 hundreds of thousands protested against American military expansion. Violent clashes with the police ensued, and one young student was killed. US President Dwight D. Eisenhower cancelled a scheduled visit and Japanese Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi was forced to resign.

This split vision of America is almost directly reflected in the dual structure of High and Low. Gondo’s home represents desire; the streets of Yokohama represent violence, and Kurosawa employs the aesthetic of film noir in intensifying the anxiety of the urban environment.

The film was released one year prior to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, which sought to reintroduce Japan onto the world stage, showcasing the country’s remarkable transformation.

Kurosawa presents audiences with the repercussions of such progression, asking us to consider the lives and choices of those who have been left behind.

And back to America again

Kurosawa’s films have proved fertile material for American remakes. Seven Samurai (1954) became The Magnificent Seven (1960 and 2016); Yojimbo (1961) became A Fistful of Dollars (1964); and Last Man Standing (1996) and The Hidden Fortress (1958) were an inspiration behind Star Wars (1977).

High and Low has long been earmarked for an American remake. In 1993, Martin Scorsese tried to get a version off the ground, and in 2008 Scorsese tried to pass directing duties to Mike Nichols. Now finally, Lee’s version has premiered at Cannes and to positive reviews.

Kurosawa’s original film continues to impress over half a decade later.

It is ranked 77 on IMDb’s top 250 films of all time and is number six on a similar list from Letterboxd.

In late 2024, the film received a 4K restoration and, along with numerous other Kurosawa classics, was part of a Kurosawa retrospective across cinemas worldwide.

The film has had a remarkable shelf life. It has transcended not only its low brow source material but also language, culture and history.

If Lee’s remake manages to capture even a small portion of the original, then it’s sure to be a great film.

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Survivors’ Voices 80 Years After Hiroshima And Nagasaki Sound A Warning And A Call To Action

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial stands as it has since 1945, partially destroyed by the atomic bomb blast and serving as a reminder of the 140,000 people who died in the attack and its aftermath. Masako Toki, CC BY-ND

BY MASAKO TOKI

SENIOR EDUCATION PROJECT MANAGER

AND RESEARCH ASSOCIATE, NONPROLIFERATION

EDUCATION PROGRAM, MIDDLEBURY

Eighty years ago, in August 1945, the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were incinerated by the first and only use of nuclear weapons in war. By the end of that year, approximately 140,000 people had died in Hiroshima and 74,000 in Nagasaki.

Those who survived – known as Hibakusha – have carried their suffering as living testimony to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear war, with one key wish: that no one else will suffer as they have.

Now, in 2025, as the world marks 80 years of remembrance since those bombings, the voices of the Hibakusha offer not only memory, but also moral clarity in an age of growing peril.

As someone who focuses on nuclear disarmament and has heard Hibakusha testimonies in my native Japanese language, I have been enthusiastically promoting disarmament education grounded in their voices and experience. I believe their message is more vital than ever at a time of rising nuclear risk. Nuclear threats have reemerged in global discourse, breaking long-standing taboos against even talking about their use. From Russia and Europe to the Middle East and East Asia, the possibility of nuclear escalation is no longer unthinkable.

Japan’s deepening reliance on deterrence

Ironically, increasing nuclear threats are contributing to further reliance on nuclear deterrence, the strategy of preventing attack by threatening nuclear retaliation, rather than renewed efforts toward nuclear disarmament, which seeks to eliminate nuclear weapons entirely.

Nowhere is this contradiction more visible than in Japan. While the Hibakusha have long stood as global advocates for nuclear abolition, Japan’s approach to national security has placed growing emphasis on the role of nuclear deterrence.

In the face of regional threats, the Japanese government has strengthened its dependence on U.S. nuclear protection – even as the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki warn not only of the dangers of relying on nuclear weapons for security, but also of the profound moral failure such reliance represents.

Listen to Hibakusha voices

For eight decades, the Hibakusha have shared their stories to prevent future tragedy – not to assign blame, but to awaken conscience and spark action.

Masako Wada, assistant secretary general of Nihon Hidankyo, a nationwide organization of atomic bomb survivors working for the abolition of nuclear weapons, was just under 2 years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Her home, 1.8 miles from the blast center, was shielded by surrounding mountains, sparing her from burns or injury. Though too young to remember the bombing herself, she grew up hearing about it from her mother and grandfather, who witnessed the devastation firsthand.

In July 2025 at a nuclear risk reduction conference in Chicago, Wada told the attendees:

“The risk of using nuclear weapons has never been higher than it is now. … Nuclear deterrence, which intimidates other countries by possessing nuclear weapons, cannot save humanity.”

In a piece she wrote for Arms Control Today that same month, she further implored:

“The Hibakusha are the ones who know the humanitarian consequences of the use of nuclear weapons. We will continue to convey that reality. Please listen to us, please empathize with us. Find out what you can do and take action together with us. Nuclear weapons cannot coexist with human beings. They were created by humans; let us assume the responsibility to abolish them with the wisdom of public conscience.”

This plea – rooted in lived experience and moral responsibility – was recognized globally when the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Nihon Hidankyo. The award honored not only the survivors’ suffering, but their decades-long commitment to preventing future use of nuclear weapons through education, activism and testimony.

A dwindling number

But time is running out. Most Hibakusha were children or young adults in 1945. Today, their average age is over 86. In March 2025, the number of officially recognized Hibakusha fell below 100,000, according to Japan’s Ministry of Health.

As Terumi Tanaka, a Hiroshima survivor and longtime leader of Nihon Hidankyo, said at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony:

“Ten years from now, there may only be a handful of us able to give testimony as firsthand survivors. From now on, I hope that the next generation will find ways to build on our efforts and develop the movement even further.”

The role of empathy in disarmament education

Empathy is not a luxury in disarmament education – it is a necessity. Without it, nuclear weapons remain abstract. With it, they become personal, real and morally unacceptable.

That’s why disarmament education begins with human stories. The Hibakusha testimonies illuminate not only the physical destruction caused by nuclear weapons, but also the long-term trauma, discrimination and intergenerational pain that follow. They remind us that nuclear policy is not just a matter of strategy – it is a question of human survival. Nuclear weapons are the only weapons ever created with the power to annihilate all of humanity – and that makes disarmament not just a political issue, but a moral imperative.

Yet opportunities for young people to learn about nuclear risks, or hear from the Hibakusha directly, are extremely limited. In most countries, these issues are absent from school and university classrooms. This lack of education feeds ignorance and, in turn, complacency – allowing the flawed logic of deterrence to remain unchallenged.

Disarmament education that puts empathy and ethics at its center, along with survivors’ voices, can empower the next generation not only with knowledge, but with moral strength to choose their path.

From remembrance to responsibility

Commemorating 80 years since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is not about history alone. It is about the future. It is about what people choose to remember – and what people choose to do with that memory.

The Hibakusha have never sought revenge. Their message is clear: This can happen again. But it doesn’t have to.

The Hibakusha’s journey shows that human beings are not destined to remain divided, nor are they doomed to repeat cycles of destruction. In the face of unimaginable loss, many Hibakusha chose not to dwell on anger or seek retribution, but instead to speak out for the good of all humanity. Their activism has been marked not by bitterness, but by an unwavering commitment to peace, empathy and the prevention of future suffering. Rather than directing their pain toward blame, they have transformed it into a powerful appeal to conscience and global solidarity. Their concern has never been only for Japan – but for the future of the entire human race.

That moral clarity, grounded in lived experience, remains profoundly instructive. In a world increasingly filled with conflict and fear, I believe there is much to learn from the Hibakusha. Their testimony is not just a warning – it is a guide.

I try to listen, and urge others, as well, to truly listen to what they have to say. I seek the company of people who also refuse complacency, question the legitimacy of nuclear deterrence, and work for a future where human dignity, not mutual destruction, defines human security.

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The Treaty Meant To Control Nuclear Risks Is Under Strain 80 Years After The US Bombings Of Hiroshima And Nagasaki

U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, right, looks on as Secretary of State Dean Rusk signs the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty on July 1, 1968. Corbis via Getty Images

BY STEPHEN HERZOG

PROFESSOR OF THE PRACTICE,

MIDDLEBURY INSTITUTE OF

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES AT

MONTEREY, MIDDLEBURY

Eighty years ago – on Aug. 6 and 9, 1945 – the U.S. military dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, thrusting humanity into a terrifying new age. In mere moments, tens of thousands of people perished in deaths whose descriptions often defy comprehension.

The blasts, fires and lingering radiation effects caused such tragedies that even today no one knows exactly how many people died. Estimates place the death toll at up to 140,000 in Hiroshima and over 70,000 in Nagasaki, but the true human costs may never be fully known.

The moral shock of the U.S. attacks reverberated far beyond Japan, searing itself into the conscience of global leaders and the public. It sparked a movement I and others continue to study: the efforts of the international community to ensure that such horrors are never repeated.

Racing toward the brink

The memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki cast a long shadow over global efforts to contain nuclear arms. The 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, more commonly known as the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, was a powerful, if imperfect, effort to prevent future nuclear catastrophe. Its creation reflected not just morality, but also the practical fears and self-interests of nations.

As the years passed, views of the bombings as justified acts began to shift. Harrowing firsthand accounts from Hibakusha – the survivors – reached wide audiences. One survivor, Setsuko Thurlow, described the sight of other victims:

“It was like a procession of ghosts. I say ‘ghosts’ because they simply did not look like human beings. Their hair was rising upwards, and they were covered with blood and dirt, and they were burned and blackened and swollen. Their skin and flesh were hanging, and parts of the bodies were missing. Some were carrying their own eyeballs.”

Nuclear dangers increased further with the advent of hydrogen bombs, or thermonuclear weapons, capable of destruction far greater than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What had once seemed a decisive end to a global war now looked like the onset of an era wherein no city or civilization would truly be safe.

These shifting perceptions shaped how nations viewed the nuclear age. In the decades following World War II, nuclear technology rapidly spread. By the early 1960s, the United States and the Soviet Union aimed thousands of nuclear warheads at one another.

Meanwhile, there were concerns that countries in East Asia, Europe and the Middle East would acquire the bomb. U.S. President John F. Kennedy even warned that “15 or 20 or 25 nations” might be able to develop nuclear weapons during the 1970s, resulting in the “greatest possible danger” to humanity – the prospect of its extinction. This warning, like much of the early nonproliferation rhetoric, drew its urgency from the legacies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Perhaps the starkest indication of the gravity of the stakes emerged during the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962. For 13 days, the world teetered on the edge of nuclear annihilation until the Soviet Union withdrew its missiles from Cuba in exchange for the secret withdrawal of U.S. missiles from Turkey. During those long days, U.S. and Soviet leaders – and external observers – witnessed how quickly the risks of global destruction could escalate.

Crafting the grand bargain

In the wake of such “close calls” – moments where nuclear war was narrowly averted due to individual judgment or sheer luck – diplomacy accelerated.

Negotiations on a treaty to control nuclear proliferation continued at meetings of the Eighteen Nation Disarmament Committee in Geneva from 1965 to 1968. While the enduring horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki helped to drive the momentum, national interests largely shaped the talks.

There were three groups of negotiating parties. The United States was joined by its NATO allies Britain, Canada, Italy and France – which only observed. The Soviet Union led a communist bloc containing Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Romania. And there were nonaligned countries: Brazil; Burma, now known as Myanmar; Ethiopia; India; Mexico; Nigeria; Sweden, which only joined NATO in 2024; and the United Arab Republic, now known as Egypt.

For the superpowers, a treaty to limit the spread of the bomb was as much a strategic opportunity as a moral imperative. Keeping the so-called “nuclear club” small would not only stabilize international tensions, but it would also cement Washington’s and Moscow’s global leadership and prestige.

U.S. leaders and their Soviet counterparts therefore sought to promote nonproliferation abroad. Perhaps just as important as ensuring nuclear forbearance among their adversaries was preventing a cascade of nuclear proliferation among allies that could embolden their friends and spiral out of control.

Standing apart from these Cold War blocs were the nonaligned countries. Many of them approached the atomic age through a humanitarian and moral lens. They demanded meaningful action toward nuclear disarmament to ensure that no other city would suffer the tragic fate of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The nonaligned countries refused to accept a two-tiered treaty merely codifying inequality between nuclear “haves” and “have-nots.” In exchange for agreeing to forgo the bomb, they demanded two crucial commitments that shaped the resulting treaty into what historians often describe as a “grand bargain.”

The nonaligned countries agreed in the treaty to permit the era’s existing nuclear powers – Britain, China, France, the Soviet Union (later Russia) and the United States – to temporarily maintain their arsenals while committing to future disarmament. But in exchange, they were promised peaceful nuclear technology for energy, medicine and development. And to reduce the risks of anyone turning peaceful nuclear materials into weapons, the treaty empowered the International Atomic Energy Agency to conduct inspections around the world.

Legacies and limits

The treaty entered into force in 1970 and with, 191 member nations, is today among the world’s most universal accords. Yet, from the outset, its provisions faced limits. Nuclear-armed India, Israel and Pakistan have always rejected the treaty, and North Korea later withdrew to develop its own nuclear weapons.

In response to evolving challenges, such as the discovery of Iraq’s clandestine nuclear weapons program in the early 1990s, International Atomic Energy Agency safeguard efforts grew more stringent. Many countries agreed to accept nuclear facility inspections on shorter notice and involving more intrusive tools as part of the initiative to detect and deter the development of the world’s most powerful weapons. And the countries of the world extended the treaty indefinitely in 1995, reaffirming their commitment to nonproliferation.

The treaty represents a complex compromise between morality and pragmatism, between the painful memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and hard-edged geopolitics. Despite its many imperfections and its de facto promotion of nuclear inequality, the treaty is credited with limiting nuclear proliferation to just nine countries today. It has done so through civilian nuclear energy incentives and inspections that give countries confidence that their rivals are not building the bomb. Countries also put pressure on each other to obey the rules, such as when the international community condemned, sanctioned and isolated North Korea after it withdrew from the treaty and tested a nuclear weapon.

But the treaty continues to face serious challenges. Critics argue that its disarmament provisions remain vague and unfulfilled, with some scholars contending that nonnuclear countries should exit the treaty to encourage the great powers to disarm. Nuclear-armed countries continue to modernize – and in some cases, expand – their arsenals, eroding trust in the grand bargain.

The behavior of individual countries also points to strains on the treaty. Russia’s persistent nuclear threats during its war on Ukraine show how deeply possessors may still rely on these weapons as tools of coercive foreign policy. North Korea continues to wield its nuclear arsenal in ways that undermine international security. Iran might consider proliferation to deter future Israeli and U.S. strikes on its nuclear facilities.

Still, I would argue that declaring the treaty to be dead is simply premature. Critics have predicted its demise since the treaty’s inception in 1968. While many countries have growing frustrations with the existing system of nonproliferation, most of them still see more benefit in staying than walking away from the treaty.

The treaty may be embattled, but it remains intact. Worryingly, the world today appears far removed from the vision of avoiding nuclear catastrophe that Hiroshima and Nagasaki helped awaken. As nuclear dangers intensify and disarmament stalls, moral clarity risks fading into ritual remembrance.

I believe that for the sake of humanity’s future, the tragedies of the atomic bombings must remain a stark and unmistakable warning, not a precedent. Ultimately, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty’s continued relevance depends on whether nations still believe that shared security begins with shared restraint.

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Righting A Wrong, Name By Name − The Irei Monument Honors Japanese Americans Imprisoned By the US Government During World War II

President Ronald Reagan signs the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 on Aug. 10, 1988, formally apologizing to Americans of Japanese descent who were incarcerated during World War II. Densho Encyclopedia, CC BY-NC-SA

AUTHORS:

SUSAN H. KAMEI

ADJUNCT PROFESSOR (TEACHING) OF

HISTORY AND AFFILIATED FACULTY, USC

SHINSO ITO CENTER FOR JAPANESE 

RELIGIONS AND CULTURES, USC

DORNSIFE COLLEGE OF LETTERS,

ARTS AND SCIENCES

DUNCAN WILLIAMS

ALTON BROOKS PROFESSOR OF 

RELIGION AND PROFESSOR OF 

AMERICAN STUDIES & ETHNICITY

AND EAST ASIAN LANGUAGES & 

CULTURES, UNIVERSITY OF

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

June Aochi Berk, now 92 years old, remembers the trepidation and fear she felt 80 years ago on Jan. 2, 1945. On that date, Berk and her family members were released by military order from the U.S. government detention facility in Rohwer, Arkansas, where they had been imprisoned for three years because of their Japanese heritage.

“We didn’t celebrate the end of our incarceration, because we were more concerned about our future. Since we had lost everything, we didn’t know what would become of us,” Berk recalls.

The Aochis were among the nearly 126,000 people of Japanese ancestry who had been forcibly removed from their West Coast homes and held in desolate inland locations under Executive Order 9066, issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Feb. 19, 1942.

Approximately 72,000, or two-thirds, of those incarcerated were, like Berk, American-born citizens. Their immigrant parents were legal aliens, precluded by law from becoming naturalized citizens. Roosevelt’s executive order and subsequent military orders excluding them from the West Coast were based on the presumption that people sharing the ethnic background of an enemy would be disloyal to the United States. The government rationalized their mass incarceration as a “military necessity,” without needing to bring charges against them individually.

In 1983 a bipartisan federal commission found that the government had no factual basis for that justification. It concluded that the incarceration resulted from “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.”

The commission recommendations resulted in the passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. Signed by President Ronald Reagan, the law provided surviving incarcerees with an apology for the unjustified government actions and token $20,000 payments. This legislation and various judicial rulings have recognized that the incarceration was an egregious violation of U.S. constitutional principles, a race-based denial of due process.

No formal, comprehensive records

A key element of this tragic and disgraceful chapter of American history is that nobody ever kept track of all the people who had been subjected to the government’s wrongful actions.

To reckon with this injustice, the Irei Project: National Monument for the WWII Japanese American Incarceration was launched in 2019. This community nonprofit project was originally incubated at the University of Southern California Shinso Ito Center for Japanese Religions and Culture, with a goal to create the first-ever comprehensive list of the names of every individual incarcerated in America’s wartime internment and concentration camps.

Taking the project name “irei” from the Japanese phrase “to console the spirits of the dead,” the project was inspired by stone Buddhist monuments that the detainees built while incarcerated in Manzanar, California, and Camp Amache, Colorado, to memorialize those who had died while wrongfully detained.

The phrase “approximately 120,000” incarcerees has often been used by scholars, journalists and the Japanese American community because the exact number of those incarcerated has never been known. By creating an actual list of names, the Irei Project has sought to confirm an accurate count and to restore dignity to each person who experienced some constitutional injustice when the U.S. government reduced them to faceless enemies.

With the goal of leaving no one out, a dozen part-time researchers on the Irei team searched records in the National Archives and in the collections of other government institutions. Working with Ancestry.com and FamilySearch, Irei researchers have developed innovative methodologies and protocols to verify identities, the places of detention and, importantly, the accurate spelling of names.

More than 100 volunteers assembled and fact-checked the data.

As just one example of making sure the historical record is correct, a search through National Archive microfilm records revealed that “Baby Girl Osawa” was born to a mother incarcerated in the temporary detention facility known as the Pomona Assembly Center. Sadly, the baby lived only a few hours.

Leaving no one out means that this infant is now among the nearly 6,000 additional people that the Irei Project has documented as among those who were incarcerated. As of November 2024, the number is 125,761; as the research continues, the number of documented incarcerees will continue to grow.

The pain of enduring and remembering

Without any means to return to their prewar neighborhood in Hollywood, California, the Aochis went to Denver, Colorado, where friends offered to help them get back on their feet. They and the other incarcerees girded themselves to face prejudice and hostile treatment that had only intensified during the war, to the point of terrorism.

“After the war, we just had to concentrate on restarting our lives, and we had to put the trauma of the incarceration behind us,” Berk explained.

For Berk, her fellow incarcerees and their descendants, the Irei Project provides some acknowledgment of the loss of dignity suffered by individuals, families and communities.

“We were taught not to complain,” remembers Berk, “and yet it’s painful now to think about the endless ways in which we were mistreated. Do you know what it is like to be forced to live in a horse stable?”

In the years following their incarceration, survivors would often cite how each incarcerated family was rendered nameless when the government issued them a family number that supplanted their surname. Betty Matsuo, incarcerated at 16 and detained in the Stockton Assembly Center and Rohwer Relocation Center, told the congressional commission, “I lost my identity. At that time, I didn’t even have a Social Security number, but the (War Relocation Authority) gave me an ID number. That was my identification. I lost my privacy and my dignity.”

For others, suppressing their anger, frustration and shame at being treated like a criminal when they had not done anything wrong impaired their health and relationships. Mary Tsukamoto, incarcerated at 27 and detained in the Fresno Assembly Center and Jerome Relocation Center, felt powerless after the war as the government actions were continuously held up as justified, even though there was never any factual basis for suspecting the Japanese American community of wholesale disloyalty. In 1986, she testified before a congressional committee that for decades “we have lived within the shadows of this humiliating lie.” Tsukamoto thought it was important to “gain back dignity as a people who can all dream of a (n)ation that truly upholds the promise of … (j)ustice for (a)ll.”

Healing and reconciliation

To see the names of those who were incarcerated in a ceremonial book called the Ireichō, which means “record of consoling spirits” in Japanese, is to recognize their suffering. The Ireichō has been on display for the past two years at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles.

Any member of the public could make a reservation to place a blue dot stamp beneath the names, symbolically representing the Japanese tradition of leaving stones at memorial sites. Although anyone could stamp names without any relationship to an incarceree, many surviving incarcerees have assembled their descendants and friends together to stamp names of extended family members.

“The Ireichō has become an iterative form of a monument, drawing visitors as if they are pilgrims to a sacred site,” said Ann Burroughs, the museum’s president and CEO.

Berk was one of the first to stamp the book, choosing to honor her parents, Chujiro Aochi and Kei Aochi. “My parents set such a resilient example, and by paying this tribute to them, I am able to do something positive to help overcome all of the difficult memories,” Berk explained. For the community, each stamp is a small but meaningful act toward repairing the indignities suffered by each incarceree and reconciling with the past.

Plans are for the Ireichō to go on a national tour, with the goal of having each name stamped at least once. Other components of the Irei Project include the Ireizo, an interactive and searchable online archive, and the Ireihi, light sculptures slated to be placed at eight former World War II confinement sites starting in 2026.

On Dec. 1, 2024, Berk gathered her five children and eight grandchildren with their partners to stamp her name and to place additional stamps by the names of her parents. She said, “My children and grandchildren have a better understanding now of what happened to us during the war. This is a time of history we should never forget, lest our government ever takes such actions again and inflicts this painful experience upon any other person or group.”

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

Japan’s PM offers Ukraine support as China’s Xi backs Russia

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and Emine Dzhaparova, First Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine shake hands at the railway station in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 21, 2023. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)

BY KARL RITTER

KYIV, UKRAINE (AP) — Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida made a surprise visit Tuesday to Kyiv, stealing some of the global attention from Asian rival President Xi Jinping of China, who is in Moscow to show support for Russia against the West over the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.

The two visits, about 800 kilometers (500 miles) apart, highlighted the nearly 13-month-old war’s repercussions for international diplomacy as countries line up behind behind Moscow or Kyiv. They follow a week in which China and Japan both enjoyed diplomatic successes that have emboldened their foreign policy.

Kishida, who is to chair the Group of Seven summit in May, will meet President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Ukrainian capital, coinciding with Xi’s talks with President Vladimir Putin.

Kishida will “show respect to the courage and patience of the Ukrainian people who are standing up to defend their homeland under President Zelenskyy’s leadership, and show solidarity and unwavering support for Ukraine as head of Japan and chairman of G-7,” during his visit to Ukraine, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said in announcing his trip to Kyiv.

Kishida told Ukrainian officials that he plans to “provide maximum support in order to restore peace in Ukraine.”

Kyodo News said he visited a church in Bucha, a town outside Kyiv that became a symbol of Russian atrocities against civilians, laid flowers at a church there and paid his respects to the victims.

“I’m outraged by the cruelty. I represent the Japanese citizens to express my condolences to those who lost their lives,” he was quoted as saying.

U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel tweeted about the “two very different European-Pacific partnerships” that unfolded Tuesday.

“Kishida stands with freedom, and Xi stands with a war criminal,” Emanuel said, referring to last week’s action by the International Criminal Court, which issued an arrest warrant for Putin, saying it wanted to put him on trial for the abductions of thousands of children from Ukraine.

Putin warmly welcomed Xi on Monday for a three-day visit the two major powers described as an opportunity to deepen their “no-limits friendship.”

At a meeting Tuesday with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Xi said he invited Putin to visit China later this year for a top-level meeting of China’s One Belt, One Road regional initiative, which seeks to extend Beijing’s influence through economic cooperation projects.

Moscow and Beijing have both weathered international condemnation of their human rights record. The Chinese government has been widely condemned for alleged atrocities against Uighur Muslims in its far western Xinjiang region. The allegations include genocide, forced sterilization and the mass detention of nearly 1 million Uighurs. Beijing has denied the allegations.

Japanese public television channel NTV showed Kishida riding a train from Poland to Kyiv. His trip comes just hours after he met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi and a week after a breakthrough summit with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yoel.

In New Delhi, Kishida called for developing and Global South countries to raise their voices to defend the rules-based international order and help stop Russia’s war.

Japan, which has territorial disputes over islands with both China and Russia, is particularly concerned about the close relationship between Beijing and Moscow, which have conducted joint military exercises near Japan’s coasts.

Beijing’s diplomatic foray follows its recent success in brokering a deal between Iran and its chief Middle Eastern rival, Saudi Arabia, to restore diplomatic ties after years of tensions. The move displayed China’s influence in a region where Washington has long been the major foreign player.

China looks to Russia as a source of oil and gas for its energy-hungry economy, and as a partner in standing up to what both see as U.S. aggression, domination of global affairs and unfair criticism of their human rights records.

Kyiv’s Western allies have expressed concern that China might help Russia’s war effort, though Beijing insists it is a neutral broker in peace efforts.

Ukraine’s military intelligence spokesman Andriy Yusov said Monday that Kyiv is unaware of any Chinese arms transfers to Russia so far. He told Ukrainian TV that while Beijing has provided some dual-use technology to Moscow, such as semiconductor chips, “there is no talk about weapons so far, and no such (supplies) have been recorded.”

Kishida was the only G-7 leader who hadn’t visited Ukraine and was under domestic pressure to do so. U.S. President Joe Biden took a similar route to visit Kyiv last month, just before the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion.

Kishida, Japan’s first postwar leader to enter a war zone, was invited by Zelenskyy in January to visit Kyiv.

Due to its pacifist principles, Japan’s support for Ukraine has been limited to equipment such as helmets, bulletproof vests and drones, and humanitarian supplies including generators.

Japan has contributed more than $7 billion to Ukraine, and accepted more than 2,000 displaced Ukrainians and helped them with housing assistance and support for jobs and education, a rare move in a country that is known for its strict immigration policy.

Tokyo joined the U.S. and European nations in sanctioning Russia over its invasion and providing humanitarian and economic support for Ukraine. In contrast, China has refused to condemn Moscow’s aggression and criticized Western sanctions against Moscow, while accusing NATO and Washington of provoking Putin’s military action.

Japan was quick to react because it fears the possible impact of a war in East Asia, where China’s military has grown increasingly assertive and has escalated tensions around self-ruled Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory.

In Beijing, foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Beijing’s contacts with Russia will help to bring about peace. “President Putin said that Russia appreciates China’s consistent position of upholding fairness, objectivity and balance on major international issues,” he said. “Russia has carefully studied China’s position paper on the political settlement of the Ukrainian issue, and is open to peace talks.”

Asked about Kishida’s trip to Kyiv, he added, “We hope Japan could do more things to deescalate the situation instead of the opposite.”

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AP reporter Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

TICAD 7: African Leaders Make A Clarion Call For Increased Private Sector Engagement

BY AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK GROUP

YOKOHAMA, JAPAN (ADBC) - The African Development Bank delegation’s packed sessions kicked off on Thursday with President Adesina addressing Plenary Session 3 on Public-Private Business Dialogue: Enhance Trade and Investment between Japan and Africa.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe officially opened the session, chaired by Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and co-chaired by South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa. The Presidents of Nigeria, Muhamadu Buhari; Namibia, Hage G. Geingob; Niger, Mahamadou Issoufou; and the continent’s top captains of industries were in attendance.

“Our government has put in place measures, seeking to diversify our economy by developing agriculture, emphasizing manufacturing and addressing the energy and infrastructure deficit. With this we shall be placing Nigeria on the path of rapid growth and sustainable development,” Buhari said, before inviting Japanese investors to invest in power and renewable energy, petrochemicals and gas, maritime shipping, ports, agribusiness and healthcare, some priority sectors identified by his administration.

“Nigeria has very attractive investment opportunities with some of the highest returns in investment,” Buhari said.

Africa needs quality infrastructure, and presents the biggest deal of all: a market investment of $68 - $108 billion a year. There is increased foreign direct investment all across Africa. “Think of it,” Adesina told the 2,000 delegates, “TICAD, China-Africa Forum, India-Africa Forum, US-Africa Forum the Russia-Africa Forum. What do they all see? A population of two billion people. Rapid urbanization, with increased demand and infrastructure and the world’s largest youth population.

Adesina urged Japanese companies “to be at the table and on the ground in Africa,” because “the truth is, there is no risk-free environment - not even in Japan. In reality, perceived risks in Africa are actually much higher than real risks. Africa presents a compelling return for investors,” he said.

Wrap up of Day 2 with key moments for the African Development Bank’s delegation

At the African Development Bank Side Event on Investing in Human Capital Development in Africa: A case for Education & Skills, Nutrition, Health & Jobs for Youth, delegates heard from Senegal’s President Macky Sall, the Bank’s chief Adesina and Jennifer Blanke, Vice President Agriculture, Human and Social Development.

“Education is also a societal leveler that enables the children of the poor to be on an even playing field as those of the rich. To ensure a more equal world, we must provide quality education for all,” Adesina pleaded. Link to President Adesina’s full speech.

Adesina underscored the need to rapidly end stunting at the Global Panel on Agriculture & Food Systems for Nutrition (GPAN) - Ending Malnutrition in Africa: Towards Nutrition for Growth 2020 & Beyond.

“We have a responsibility in our time to unite, to defeat the twin scourges of stunting and malnutrition,” Adesina said, while VP Jennifer Blanke offered the Bank’s approach and perspectives on combatting malnutrition. “The Bank is rolling out a nutrition lens across all its agricultural investment. I want to tell policy makers, think about all the investments in education, investing in nutrition is also a good investment,” she noted.

At the Panel discussion on “How to mobilise private sector investment for sustainable infrastructure development in Africa and the role of the financial sector” Vice President for Finance and Chief Finance Officer of African Development Bank, Bajabulile Swazi Tshabalala, shared insights on the Bank’s role in helping crowd in the private sector to bridge Africa’s infrastructure gap.

A number of Bank-led initiatives are in place to create an enabling environment for doing business. “The Bank provides concessional and non-concessional Policy Based Loans to countries focusing on governance to support their sector wide initiatives that are aimed at improving the business environment and ease of doing business in Africa,” Tshabalala said.

The Bank Group also deploys de-risking instruments, including the Partial Risk Guarantee (PRG) and the Partial Credit Guarantee (PCG), to help leverage and catalyze private sector financing by covering private lenders/investors against well-defined political and commercial risks.

“With its unique position in Africa, the Bank leverages its AAA rating and its Preferred Creditor Status (PCS) to attract private financing for development by covering risks that private investors are unable or unwilling to absorb or mitigate,” Tshabalala noted.

Last month, the Bank executed a EURO 470 million partial credit guarantee (PCG) to help Senegal hedge its inherent currency risk from its 2021 and 2033 Eurobonds. The transaction attracted interest from 13 international commercial banks including Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG Bank).

African heads of states and key business leaders from around the world are attending TICAD7 which provides an opportunity to explore investment opportunities and learn from Japan’s experience. The event, held every 3 years, has been convened alternately in Japan and Africa since 2016. The last TICAD was held in Nairobi, Kenya.

Contact: 

Nafissatou Diouf, Communication and External Relations Department: n.diouf@afdb.org

G-20 Leaders Clash Over Values, Face Calls To Protect Growth

President Donald Trump talks with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during a group photo at the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan, Friday, June 28, 2019. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

BY ELAINE KURTENBACH, FOSTER KLUG

OSAKA, JAPAN (AP) — World leaders attending a Group of 20 summit in Japan that began Friday are clashing over values that have served for decades as the foundation of their cooperation as they face calls to fend off threats to economic growth.

“A free and open economy is the basis for peace and prosperity,” Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told his counterparts in opening the two-day G-20 meeting, which comes as leaders grapple with profound tensions over trade, globalization and the collapsing nuclear deal with Iran.

While groups like the G-20 endeavor to forge consensus on broad policy approaches and geopolitical issues, they also are divided on an array of issues.

Defying Chinese warnings not to bring up the issue of recent protests in Hong Kong, Abe told Chinese President Xi Jinping it was important for “a free and open Hong Kong to prosper under ‘one country, two systems’ policy,” Japanese officials said, referring to the arrangement for the former British colony’s autonomy when China took control in 1997.

They said Abe reminded Xi of the importance of guaranteeing freedom, human rights, the “rule of law” and other universal values in raising concern over proposed Hong Kong legislation that would allow some criminal suspects to be extradited for trial in mainland China. The bill, now shelved, prompted protests by hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong residents and minor demonstrations elsewhere in Asia, including Osaka.

Xi is not the only leader facing a pushback from his Western counterparts.

European Union Council President Donald Tusk blasted Russian President Vladimir Putin for saying in an interview with the Financial Times newspaper that liberalism was “obsolete” and conflicts with the “overwhelming majority” in many countries.

“We are here as Europeans also to firmly and unequivocally defend and promote liberal democracy,” Tusk told reporters. “What I find really obsolete are: authoritarianism, personality cults, the rule of oligarchs. Even if sometimes they may seem effective.”

In the interview, Putin praised President Donald Trump for his efforts to try to stop the flow of migrants and drugs from Mexico and said that liberalism “presupposes that nothing needs to be done. That migrants can kill, plunder and rape with impunity because their rights as migrants have to be protected.”

Trump has at times found himself at odds with other leaders in such international events, particularly on issues such as Iran, climate change and trade.

The schisms can vary.

Putin, Xi and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met and agreed on the need to rely on international law, respect national sovereignty and refrain from interference in the internal affairs of other nations, Putin said.

Such statements are a swipe at Trump’s “America First” approach in rejecting multilateral initiatives, but also draw a line against criticism of authoritarian governments like China’s and Russia’s.

China has often sought support for defending global trade agreements against Trump’s “America First” stance in gatherings like the G-20.

A planned meeting between Trump and Xi on Saturday has raised hopes the world’s two largest economies could attain a rapprochement in their festering dispute over technology and China’s chronic trade surplus.

The two sides have levied billions of dollars’ worth of tariffs on each other’s products. In Beijing, officials urged the U.S. side to meet China halfway in resolving the standoff.

In a meeting with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Trump said he had not promised to hold back on imposing new tariffs on China.

“I think it’ll be productive,” Trump said of his meeting with Xi. “We’ll see what happens tomorrow. It’ll be a very exciting day I’m sure,” he said. “It’s going to come out hopefully well for both countries.”

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross accompanied Trump to Osaka, suggesting potential for some movement after 11 rounds of talks with China stalled in May.

But while prospects for detente in the trade war are in the spotlight, many participants prefer a broader approach to tackling global crises.

“I am deeply concerned over the current global economic situation. The world is paying attention to the direction we, the G-20 leaders, are moving toward,” Abe said. “We need to send a strong message, which is to support and strengthen a free, fair and indiscriminating trade system.”

Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the EU Commission, told the G-20 leaders their work was essential for building confidence to keep the world economy growing.

Abe has sought to make the Osaka summit a landmark for progress on environmental issues, including climate change, on cooperation in developing new rules for the “digital economy,” such as devising fair ways to tax companies like Google and Facebook, and on strengthening precautions against abuse of technologies such as cybercurrencies to fund terrorism and other types of internet-related crimes.

On the rising tensions between Iran and the U.S., U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the world can’t afford the conflict and it is “essential to deescalate the situation” and avoid confrontation. Iran is poised to soon surpass a key uranium stockpile threshold, threatening the nuclear accord it reached with world powers in 2015.

Iran’s moves come after Trump announced in May 2018 that he was pulling the U.S. out of the deal and re-imposing economic sanctions on Tehran.

The leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, in a meeting on the G-20 sidelines, called for joint efforts to stabilize international trade and oppose protectionism.

Putin, whose country faces an array of U.S. and EU sanctions, said at the meeting that “international trade has suffered from protectionism, politically motivated restrictions and barriers.” He also emphasized the need for the BRICS nations to take coordinated action to help block sources of funding for terrorist groups.

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AP journalists Kaori Hitomi and Vladimir Isachenkov contributed to this story.

Trump, Japan's Abe At Odds Over North Korean Missile Tests

President Donald Trump, left, speaks during a news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, at Akasaka Palace, Monday, May 27, 2019, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

BY JILL COLVIN, DARLENE SUPERVILLE

TOKYO (AP) — President Donald Trump said Monday he is not “personally” bothered by recent short-range North Korean missile tests and doesn’t believe they violated U.N. Security Council resolutions, breaking with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who is hosting the president on a four-day state visit full of pageantry and pomp.

Trump also continued his attacks against former Vice President and 2020 Democratic hopeful Joe Biden, siding with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, who recently criticized Biden as having a low IQ.

The visit was designed to highlight the U.S.-Japan alliance and showcase the warm relations between the leaders. Trump said he and Abe deliberated over economic issues, including trade and Iran, during hours of talks at the Akasaka Palace. But North Korea’s recent firing of short-range missiles emerged as an area of disagreement at a press conference Monday.

Asked if he was bothered by the missile tests, Trump said: “No, I’m not. I am personally not.”

Japan has long voiced concern about short-range missiles because of the threat they pose to the Island nation’s security.

Trump also said he disagrees with the assessment of many experts — as well as his own national security adviser — that the tests violate U.N. Security Council resolutions.

“My people think it could have been a violation,” Trump said. “I view it differently. I view it as a man — perhaps he wants to get attention and perhaps not. Who knows?”

Standing beside Trump at a news conference held after hours of talks, Abe, who has forged a strong friendship with Trump and showered him with praise throughout the day, disagreed with the U.S. president, saying the missile tests were “of great regret.”

The Republican president has sought to downplay the significance of the missile tests, even though his own national security adviser, John Bolton, said over the weekend that they violated the U.N. resolutions.

Trump was invited to Japan to be the first world leader to meet with the country’s new emperor . And despite being far from Washington, he didn’t miss the chance to lob another broadside against Biden. Trump didn’t hold back at the news conference, telling the world he agreed with the authoritarian North Korean leader’s assessment of Biden and declaring himself “not a fan.”

“Kim Jong Un made a statement that Joe Biden is a low-IQ individual,” Trump said. “He probably is based on his record. I think I agree with him on that.”

U.S. officeholders have in the past generally avoided engaging in politics while on foreign soil, hewing to the adage that politics stops at the water’s edge. But Trump’s sharp attack on Biden, through his declaration of agreement with Kim, set aside that long-standing norm.

Biden, during a recent campaign event, accused Trump of cozying up to “dictators and tyrants” like Kim.

Trump continues to hold out hope of getting Kim to agree to give up his nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, even though the two summits he’s had with the North Korean leader have produced no concrete pledge to denuclearize the Korean peninsula.

Trump praised Kim, calling him a “smart man” who might have launched the missiles earlier this month to “get attention.”

“All I know is there have been no nuclear tests, no ballistic missiles going out, no long-range missiles going out, and I think that someday we’ll have a deal,” Trump said, adding that he is in “no rush.”

Trump is correct that North Korea has not recently tested a long-range missile that could reach the U.S. But earlier this month, North Korea fired off a series of short-range missiles that alarmed U.S. allies in closer proximity to North Korea, including Japan. The tests broke a pause in North Korea’s ballistic missile launches that began in late 2017.

Abe reiterated his previous statement that the tests were conducted in defiance of the U.N.

“This is violating the Security Council resolution,” Abe said, adding that, as North Korea’s neighbor, Japan feels threatened. “It is of great regret. But at the same time between Kim Jong Un and President Trump a certain new approach was taken and that is something that I pay tribute to.”

Earlier Monday, Trump said he backed Abe’s interest in leveraging his country’s good relations with Iran to help broker a possible dialogue between the U.S. and its nemesis in the Middle East. Abe said he is willing to do whatever he can to help to reduce escalating tensions between the U.S. and Iran.

“Peace and stability of (the) Middle East is very important for Japan and the United States and also for the international community as a whole,” Abe said.

Abe could visit Iran next month.

Trump also said his only aim is to prevent the country from obtaining nuclear weapons.

“We’re not looking for regime change,” he said. “I just want to make that clear. We’re looking for no nuclear weapons.”

Trump and Abe held hours of talks Monday after the U.S. president, at Abe’s invitation, became the first world leader to meet Japan’s new emperor, Naruhito, who ascended to the throne May 1.

The meeting with Naruhito and his wife, Empress Masako, was preceded by a grand outdoor welcome ceremony at Japan’s Imperial Palace, where Trump walked solo across red carpets, reviewing Japanese troops as the guest of honor.

Trump’s official visit also included golf with Abe, presenting a trophy he created to a sumo wrestling champion and a black-tie banquet at the palace — as well as hours of one-on-one time for Trump and Abe, who has been trying to remain on Trump’s good side despite disagreements, including over trade.

Trump and Abe largely glossed over those differences, despite the potentially crippling tariffs on foreign autos that Trump is threatening to impose on Japan and the European Union. Trump declined to say what Japan would have to do to avoid those tariffs but complained of an “unbelievably large” trade imbalance with the nation.

Still, he said he expects to reach trade deals with Japan and China, but wouldn’t rush it.

“I think we will have a deal with Japan. Likewise, I think we will have a deal with China sometime into the future,” he said.

Trump has tried to pressure China by slapping tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese goods.

“I don’t believe that China can continue to pay these really hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs,” Trump said.

In fact, tariffs are paid primarily by U.S. businesses and consumers.

Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to meet during a world leaders’ summit next month in Osaka.

Follow Superville and Colvin on Twitter at https://twitter.com/dsupervilleap and https://twitter.com/colvinj .

Trump For The Nobel Peace Prize? Japan’s Nomination Is Part Of A Strategic Plan

Abe and Trump met at the White House for trade talks on April 26, 2019. Image: Susan Walsh/AP via The Conversation

BY CHRIS G. POPE

Japan wants talks with North Korea, and its prime minister thinks Donald Trump can help.

On May 3, North Korea, a nuclear power, launched short-range missiles off its east coast, uncomfortably close to neighboring Japan. It is not the first time North Korea has shot ballistic missiles over, near or into Japanese territory in recent years.

After the most recent test, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called U.S. President Donald Trump – whom he had recently visited in Washington for trade talks – to discuss his intent to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for “unconditional” denuclearization talks.

Abe’s call to Trump comes several months after Abe apparently nominated Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize in February for his efforts to forge a dialogue with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The recommendation was unexpected, given Trump’s aggressive “America first” foreign policy and disdain for multilateral international cooperation. After U.S. talks with North Korea collapsed shortly thereafter, a Nobel nod seemed wholly unwarranted.

While Prime Minister Abe has refused to clarify his reasoning for the nomination, a February 17 article in Japan’s Asahi newspaper reported that the U.S. asked Japan to put Trump’s name forward. Trump has confirmed that Abe nominated him in a “beautiful” five-page letter.

Other world leaders might have turned down that request. But Abe needs U.S. support to achieve many economic, political and foreign policy goals. From my perspective as a Kyoto-based scholar of Japanese politics, nominating Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize is, for Abe, more sensible than it might seem.

Japan and North Korea

Trump’s unexpected decision last year to engage in discussions with Kim aligns much more closely with the diplomatic goals of China and South Korea – which say their goal is maintaining stability in the Asia region – than with Japan, which has taken a hardline stance against the North Korean regime.

Well before taking office as prime minister in 2012, Abe has demanded nothing less from North Korea than “denuclearization for peace.”

That was the U.S. position before Trump’s recent rapprochment, too. So Trump’s diplomatic approach to North Korea has basically left Japan out in the cold.

Beyond wanting to protect Japan from North Korean military aggression, Abe has another big demand for the Kim regime. He hopes to force North Korea to return the remaining 12 Japanese citizens believed to have been abducted by North Korea between 1977 and 1983.

In 2002, North Korea officially admitted to abducting 13 Japanese citizens and, in an effort to restore good faith with Japan, agreed to return five of them temporarily – provided they were forced to return to North Korea.

Japan agreed.

However, Abe, who was then deputy prime minister, ensured that the detained Japanese citizens never went back, breaking his government’s agreement with North Korea. Ever since, North Korea has either denied that it still is detaining the remaining Japanese prisoners or claims that those in North Korea have since died.

Abe assumes they are alive and is eager to get them back – and show to his electorate he has the clout to do so.

This is where Trump comes in.

Trump’s dialogue with Kim Jong Un, which may be restored in a third U.S.-North Korea summit, could give Japan the opportunity to push its case. To get Trump to put it high up on the negotiating agenda, Abe needs to be on the U.S. president’s good side.
‘Abenomics’ and Japan’s waning global role

A good working relationship with the United States is essential for Abe to realize his other ambitions, too.

Japan, once the world’s second-largest economy, has an aging population and entrenched deflation. Abe has a domestic economic strategy – dubbed “Abenomics” – to spur revitalization, but the United States, as Japan’s largest trade surplus partner, is critical to keeping the Japanese economy afloat.

Trump has made numerous statements regarding “unfair Japanese trade practices” that endanger this trade relationship. His administration already levied tariffs on Japanese steel and aluminum and has threatened to tax Japanese automobiles, too.

For Abe to succeed in office, economic growth is key. Public approval for his government is flagging, having fallen to 39% in March.

So Abe desperately needs to stay in the good graces of the United States, which means, right now, getting on the good side of Donald Trump.

Alignment with the U.S. may also help Abe convince voters to approve a controversial change to Japan’s post-World War II Constitution his administration has pushed since 2012.

Abe wants to amend the Japanese Constitution, which was drafted by the United States to prohibit the defeated country from having a standing army, to strengthen Japan’s domestic security forces. Trump has encouraged Japan to remilitarize, citing its need to protect itself from North Korea.

But critics in Japan say the new draft Constitution gives far too much power to the prime minister’s office, and public support for amending the Constitution appears low.

Abe’s effort to expand Japan’s military role may have something to do with North Korea. But the prime minister also wants to raise Japan’s profile as a global power.

He has, for example, argued vehemently for it to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council – a move that would put Japan on equal footing with its powerhouse neighbor, China.

Recognizing how many of his political goals depend on an unpredictable U.S. president, Abe has worked hard to foster amicable relations with Trump. He has played frequent rounds of golf with the U.S. leader, invited him to meet the country’s new emperor – and, yes, even nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize.

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