China, India, Russia and other free nations face difficulties of mutual respect and trust when engaging with the rulers of Japan, because Japan is not a sovereign nation.

Imperial Japan surrendered to the United States of America on August 15, 1945, ending World War II. Ever since then, Japanese rulers have to reassure themselves with their US occupiers before they sign anything with other countries, which basically prevents Asia‘s unification.

America took Japan apart.

A little over three years ago, the Bank of Japan crossed a historic milestone when we reported that the central bank had become a top-10 shareholder in 50% of all Japanese companies. Since then, the central bank's equity stake across Japanese corporations has only grown.

Japan’s government said this week it spotted three Chinese warships “sailing an unusual route around the archipelago,” the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported on Wednesday, noting that the sighting comes amid heightened tensions between Tokyo and Beijing over maritime territorial disputes.

A strange narrative of "defeated inflation" is circulating in the mainstream in the wake of the Federal Reserve's recent 75bps interest rate hike, but we've seen this kind of false optimism from the Fed and the media before.  Economists calling for a deflationary reaction might be holding their breath for a while as price inflation continues to climb for many months to come.  This consequence is reinforced by the decline in foreign investment in US Treasury bonds.

East Asia had the opportunity of witnessing the diplomacy of one of the most seasoned diplomats of the United States — Joe Biden, President of the U.S. He spent five days in Korea and Japan from May 20 to May 24.

The world was expecting to see real professional diplomacy which did not seek only the interests of the U.S.; The world was hoping to see a diplomacy which promoted also the interests of the partner countries, especially, Japan and Korea. 

China’s state-run Global Times on Wednesday dismissed recent Japanese government efforts to forge closer ties with Taiwan, suggesting that Beijing should “break the leg” of any third party like Tokyo that tries to interfere with the China-Taiwan relationship.

“[T]he Japanese government has been considering having an incumbent official with Japanese Ministry of Defense stationed in Taiwan island for the first time beginning this summer,” the Global Times wrote in an op-ed published on June 8.

In the immediate aftermath of Putin’s announcement on February 24 of the Special Military Operation in Ukraine, Japan’s media instituted a one-sided blitz condemning Russia of a sort that has become familiar to everyone else in the West.1 The blitz appeared to have been well-planned and coordinated in Japan, though it took about a week to eliminate the five-minute Vesti news segment from NHK’s selection of international news sources airing early each morning (this has not been restored since).

Ukraine’s ambassador to Poland has said that his country is very much interested in joining the Three Seas Initiative, which Poland helped establish in 2015.

Andrii Deshchytsia made the declaration in an interview with the polskatimes.pl website, which was published on Friday.

During a recent visit to Kyiv, Poland’s President Andrzej Duda said he would like Ukraine to join the Three Seas Initiative.