A Crisis Made at Home

 On November 7th, during a session of Japan’s Lower House Budget Committee, Prime Minister Takaichi made a remark that immediately stirred controversy. She was asked whether a Chinese maritime blockade of Taiwan would constitute a “situation threatening Japan’s survival,” which would legally enable Japan to exercise collective self-defense. Her answer was blunt: “If battleships are deployed and the use of force is involved, then yes, it could fall under that category.”

In effect, the prime minister had suggested that a Taiwan contingency might trigger Japanese military involvement, a statement of enormous weight in East Asian security.

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The reaction was swift. The Chinese Consul General in Osaka posted on X in Japanese,

“If that filthy head of yours sticks itself in where it doesn’t belong, we’ll cut it off without hesitation.”

Japanese social media erupted with outrage, “Stand firm against China!” “Don’t tolerate insults to the prime minister!”—an explosion of pure emotion, detached from context or strategy.

The diplomat’s comment was, of course, wildly inappropriate and unbecoming of his position. But what troubles me far more is why the prime minister chose to recklessly abandon the strategic ambiguity that Japan, and the United States, have spent decades maintaining in order to prevent precisely this sort of escalation.

Former Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba criticized her remarks succinctly,

“No previous administration has ever defined specific cases regarding Taiwan. That is something governments have deliberately avoided.”

Indeed. And not only in Japan. Even the United States officially upholds the “One China” policy and refrains from stating clearly what Taiwan’s legal status should be. Donald Trump—often caricatured as impulsive—never overturned the Republican Party’s long-standing strategic ambiguity. President Biden, on the other hand, has repeatedly hinted that the U.S. would defend Taiwan militarily, only for the White House to rush out statements afterward insisting that “U.S. policy has not changed.”

The danger of Takaichi’s remark lies in the opposite response, there was no clarification, no correction, only a doubling down. On November 10th, when pressed to retract her statement, she refused, saying only that her remarks “did not alter the government’s traditional stance.”

To even discuss this issue responsibly, one needs at least a minimal grasp of modern history. Many of those shouting patriotic slogans online seem unaware of how we arrived at the current delicate balance. At the very least, one must understand the chain of events from Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government in the 1920s to the 1979 normalization of U.S.–China relations. Without that, any opinion offered is little more than noise.

The story, in brief, is this,
In 1928 the Nationalist government established itself in Nanjing. Japan’s 1931 Manchurian Incident and the 1937 Marco Polo Bridge Incident pushed China into full-scale war, during which the Nationalists and Communists formed a temporary united front. After Japan’s defeat in 1945, the Soviets entered Manchuria and handed vast quantities of captured Japanese weapons to the Chinese Communist Party, allowing the Chinese Civil War to reignite in 1946.
By 1949, the Communists had won. Mao Zedong declared the founding of the People’s Republic of China in Beijing, while Chiang Kai-shek retreated to Taiwan, continuing the Republic of China there. Both governments claimed to be the sole legitimate regime of all China. For two decades, the world largely recognized Taiwan as “China.” But in 1971 the UN transferred China’s seat from Taipei to Beijing. Japan normalized relations with the PRC in 1972, and the United States followed in 1979. Yet Washington could not simply abandon Taiwan; it was politically impossible. So Congress created the Taiwan Relations Act—neither an alliance nor formal recognition, but a legal mechanism allowing the U.S. to support Taiwan indefinitely.

And so a diplomatic “sacred zone” was born. Since 1979, U.S. policy has rested on three pillars,

• Taiwan is not recognized as a sovereign state, but neither is it accepted as part of China.
  
  

• The U.S. opposes any attempt by China to take Taiwan by force.
  
  

• Whether the U.S. would intervene militarily is left deliberately undefined.
  

The entire architecture of peace in the Taiwan Strait relies on this studied vagueness. Takaichi’s remarks stomped directly onto this diplomatic landmine.

For more than seventy years, Beijing has told its domestic audience, “Japan still believes Taiwan belongs to them.” It was propaganda—but now, thanks to the prime minister’s comment, China can say, “See? We were right.” Japan has handed them a perfect narrative weapon. Diplomatically, it is difficult to imagine a worse move.

A brief aside: the prime minister used the word “battleship.” There are no battleships in active service anywhere in the world today. A battleship is a specific type of capital ship, long obsolete, its last combat deployment was in the 1991 Gulf War. For a sitting prime minister to use that word in the context of modern security policy betrays a rather worrying lack of basic military literacy.

And while the Chinese diplomat’s language was outrageous, the so-called Japanese “patriots” raging on social media may be even more dangerous to Japan’s future. They know no history, no international norms, no diplomatic logic. They shout “Be firm!” and “Don’t lose to China!” without the faintest idea of why the prime minister’s remark is destabilizing. Ignorance is not harmless, it is often the most destructive weapon a nation can wield against itself.

If I were to describe the odd discomfort I felt watching this unfold, it would be something like this, imagine a married couple having an argument. Out of nowhere, the wife’s ex-boyfriend from decades ago barges in, uninvited, and snarls at the husband, “Lay a hand on her and I’ll take you down myself.” That is the level of absurdity we are dealing with. And the unsettling part is that there are people who look at this behavior and call it “brave.” Where this situation will drift from here, I can’t help but worry.

When Patriotism Becomes a Pretext

 Recently, a new proposal has been stirring debate in Japan: a plan to revise the Penal Code and create a brand-new offense called the “Japanese Flag Desecration Crime,” which would punish anyone who tears or burns the national flag with the intent to insult the nation. I stand firmly against this proposal.

Japan already has Article 92 of the Penal Code, which punishes the desecration of foreign flags or national emblems. If someone damages another country’s flag to insult that nation, they can face up to two years of imprisonment or a fine of up to 200,000 yen. Supporters of the new law argue that it is only “balanced” to protect the Japanese flag in the same way.

A well-known public figure added fuel to the fire by saying, “Just make it a crime to burn the flag. Only bad people will be troubled,” and “Every advanced country punishes flag desecration.” These remarks received enthusiastic applause.

But I reject this line of thinking, both philosophically and democratically.

To begin with, who decides who the “bad people” are? That power always rests with the authorities. Law is not a tool for those in power to silence people they find inconvenient. If anything, a democratic society must constantly revisit the foundational question: Why do we protect even speech that offends us?

As for the claim that “all advanced countries punish flag desecration.” This is simply false.

In the United States, the landmark cases Texas v. Johnson and United States v. Eichman clearly established that punishing flag burning violates the First Amendment. In other words, Americans who burn the American flag on American soil cannot be prosecuted—because political expression is protected at the highest constitutional level.

In Europe, countries such as Germany, France, Spain, and Italy technically have laws against desecrating national symbols, but enforcement is extremely cautious and narrow, precisely because political expression is so highly valued. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom and the Nordic countries have no such laws at all.

I am particularly resistant to adding criminal provisions when there is no legitimate legislative basis for them. Does the act of damaging the Japanese flag cause any serious social harm? Are the majority of citizens actually affected by it? Is there any factual necessity that would justify creating such a law? If the answer to these questions is no, then the only function of the law would be to restrict people’s freedom, nothing more.

The supporters of this bill must understand that those who oppose it are not doing so because they want to burn the Japanese flag. I love Japan—the country where I was born. Nothing gives me more peace than the familiar landscape of my hometown. Needless to say, I find the act of desecrating the Japanese flag deeply offensive and difficult to witness. Nevertheless, whether such a law should exist is a question that must be approached with great caution.

If this law passes, the next step may be a “Refusal to Sing the National Anthem Crime.” After that, perhaps a revival of “Lèse-majesté.” Then, one day, “Criminal Criticism of the Government.”

Freedom is rarely taken away in one dramatic sweep. Fascism does not arrive with marching boots. It seeps in quietly, one harmless-sounding restriction at a time.

Those who say “I don’t care—punish the bad guys” fail to see how this story unfolds. You assume you will never be classified as one of the “bad guys.” But history shows that once freedom is trimmed at the edges, the definition expands, and the liberties of ordinary, harmless people shrink.

That is what I fear. And that is why I cannot support this law.

Before closing this piece, I want to share a photo I took at Ritsurin Garden. We must resist the urge to react emotionally or impulsively, and instead let our thoughts settle, like a reflection on an undisturbed pond.

We Are All “sort of” Flat-Earthers

 “How the maps we grow up with quietly shape our sense of the world.”

I grew up in Japan, and the world map I knew as a child looked very different from the one most people abroad are used to seeing.

Japan sits proudly in the middle, the Pacific Ocean stretches wide to the right with the United States beyond it, while the vast Eurasian continent unfolds to the left.

When I was in middle school, I was fascinated by the late Edo period — that turbulent time when Japan opened its doors to the world. The arrival of the Black Ships, the cry of “Revere the Emperor, expel the barbarians,” the clash between isolation and modernization — it all felt alive to me.

During lunch breaks, I would bury myself in the library, devouring books about that era. Through those pages, I could almost feel the heat of that age, the pulse of young men waiting for dawn with swords in hand, even the scent of iron and blood in the air.

…Until I got used to something.

That “something” was a different kind of map —
the Eurocentric world map.

this is what’s considered the “standard” world map.

In that version, Europe sits at the heart of the world. The Americas spread across the center like a great axis, and Japan appears as a small scattering of islands at the far right edge of the sea.

 Once I became accustomed to that image, something in my perception changed.

The era I had once felt so vividly — the passionate chaos of Japan’s transformation — suddenly seemed like a minor skirmish that took place on a tiny island at the edge of the world. When I realized how easily that feeling had shifted, I was genuinely frightened by the power of maps.

Let me be clear, I don’t mean to say that Eurocentric maps are unfair or discriminatory. What I realized is that the human brain seems to perceive the world as a flat map, not as a globe. And the impression we form from that flat image is far stronger than we imagine.

Most American children, for instance, grow up seeing a very different map.

notice how the perception of Greenland completely changes.
To most Japanese people, Greenland feels like a remote corner of the earth, to Americans, it’s an enormous northern extension of their own continent, a presence that feels much larger, not even comparable.

Our heads are shaped like a globe, and yet what fits inside them is only a flat map. It’s strange, isn’t it?

When Obeying the Law Becomes Dangerous!?

 Starting in April 2026, Japan will finally introduce the “blue ticket” system for bicycle riders.

Until now, minor offenses usually ended with a warning or a polite scolding, but soon, cyclists aged sixteen and older will face fines equivalent to those imposed on motorcyclists. The law will be enforced uniformly throughout the country.

Violations and Fines (calculated at ¥150 = $1 USD)

Violation	Description	Fine (JPY)	Approx. USD
Cell-phone use	Operating a smartphone while riding	¥12,000	≈ $80
Ignoring a red light	Running a red signal	¥6,000	≈ $40
Riding on the wrong side	Cycling against traffic	¥6,000	≈ $40
Riding on the sidewalk	Using a sidewalk where bicycles are prohibited	¥6,000	≈ $40
No headlight	Riding at night without a light	¥5,000	≈ $33
Holding an umbrella / earphones	One-handed or distracted riding	¥5,000	≈ $33
Riding side-by-side	Two bicycles riding abreast	¥3,000	≈ $20

The legal principle behind it is that a bicycle is a vehicle, and should therefore be subject to the same rules of the road.

The Gap Between Principle and Reality

But there is a wide gap between principle and reality. The Street View image below shows a main road in Ehime Prefecture, where I live. If you explore Japan’s streets on Google Street View, you’ll see this isn’t cherry-picking —outside the major metropolitan areas, this kind of road is the norm.

(Source: Google Street View)

As you can see, the portion of the roadway that a bicycle can realistically use is only about 20 to 30 centimeters wide. It’s unthinkable that an elderly person with a full front basket could safely pedal along this narrow edge after visiting the hospital or supermarket, watching a mother with a child seat wobbling just inches from passing cars is enough to make your heart stop.

The sidewalk looks far safer. Yet under this new law, that elderly woman riding peacefully on the sidewalk would be guilty of a “lane violation” and fined ¥6,000 ($40).

By the way, a fine of $40 may not sound substantial, but for those earning minimum wage, it’s crushing. The minimum wage in Japan is a little under $7 an hour. After working a full eight-hour day and deducting taxes and social insurance, one is left with roughly ¥6,000 in hand. In other words, a single fine can wipe out an entire day’s earnings. And many young people rely on bicycles precisely because they can’t afford to own a car.

The roadside is full of dangers

The space between the white line and the sidewalk is often sloped for drainage or uneven, making it hazardous even for skilled riders.

 On the right side of the Street View image, you can see a grated drainage ditch — those metal mesh covers common across Japan. When it rains, they become as slippery as ice. When I was in high school, I once slipped on one of these grates, crashed, scraped my knee, and had to pick up my soaked textbooks in the rain — a pitiful memory that still lingers.

What the Police Say

I don’t believe the police will fine every offender they see. According to their official guidelines, the basic policy is to issue guidance or warnings first. Unless the behavior is particularly dangerous or malicious, enforcement will begin with education, not punishment. That approach sounds reasonable — but I still have one major concern.

The Risk of Being “Too Law-Abiding”

Once this law becomes widely known, I fear that the most conscientious people will make the most dangerous choices. The Japanese, as a whole, are earnest and sensitive to how others perceive them. No one wants to be thought of as disobedient or careless.
Out of fear of being judged, many will push themselves to ride on the roadway even when it’s clearly unsafe.

But in most parts of Japan, the roadways are narrow and not designed for bicycles. A sudden gust from a passing truck can easily knock a rider off balance, and one unlucky moment could mean a fatal accident. I worry that people will lose their lives precisely because they are trying to obey the law.

To be fair, I understand the rationale presented by the government. Accidents caused by texting while riding, unlit bicycles at night, and red-light violations are serious problems, and regulations are necessary. However, when it comes to enforcing the principle of “ride on the roadway,” that should only be mandated after the government ensures that the roadways themselves are safe for cyclists.

In countries like the Netherlands or the United States, where cycling infrastructure is well-developed, people can follow the law safely. In Japan, that fundamental premise simply doesn’t exist.

The Quiet Art of Reading

 In recent years, it’s become common to hear that children are reading less and less, and the numbers seem to bear that out.

According to the PISA survey (which measures the academic performance of 15-year-olds worldwide), Japan ranked fourth in reading literacy in 2012. By 2015 it had slipped to eighth, and by 2018, all the way down to fifteenth. In another survey of cram school teachers, 82% said they felt that “students with weak reading comprehension have increased.”

Of course, PISA rankings are relative, Japan’s score may have fallen in part because other countries improved. But it seems hard to deny that Japanese students’ overall reading ability is in decline.

Dr. Noriko Arai of the National Institute of Informatics once created a deceptively simple test of Japanese reading comprehension, known as the Alexandra Syntax Problem. It goes like this:

“Alex” is a name used for both males and females. It is a short form of “Alexandra,” a female name, but also of “Alexander,” a male name.

Question: In this context, what is the nickname for “Alexandra”?
(1) Alex (2) Alexander (3) Male (4) Female

At first glance, it seems almost childishly easy. Yet, according to Arai’s research, only 38% of public junior high students answered correctly—and even among students at elite high schools, the accuracy rate was only 65%. (The correct answer, of course, is (1) Alex.)

How one interprets this result may vary, but to me the conclusion is clear: when people stop reading, they lose their grasp of language. A Benesse survey found that 49% of students reported spending zero minutes reading for pleasure on a typical weekday. The average reading time fell from 18.2 minutes per day in 2015 to 15.2 minutes in 2022. In another study, the average number of books read per month by elementary school students dropped from 9.1 in 1989 to just 3.1 in 2019.

And this decline in reading comprehension isn’t confined to children. Browse the comment sections of online news articles, and you’ll find countless people unable to understand even a few lines of text accurately. They react to single words without grasping context, twist arguments beyond recognition, and before long, the discussion devolves into personal attacks. We’ve all seen it happen, and it’s disheartening every time.

A brief digression: my favorite local bookstore closed its doors this spring. Of course, we can still buy books online or read them digitally, but I can’t help preferring paper. I love the scent of ink and paper when I open a book, the quiet sound of a page turning, the feel of it between my fingers, and that tactile memory of knowing a particular line was “somewhere near the bottom left of page 120.” Reading, to me, is not a purely visual act; it’s a sensory experience. And I like having my favorite books as tangible companions, resting quietly on the shelf.

My beloved book "Escape from Freedom," which I bought as a teenager, was written by German-born social psychologist Erich Fromm and published in 1941, while the world was still shaken by Hitler's totalitarianism. Drawing from his analysis of Germany's embrace of Nazism, it examines the root causes that brought the nation to such circumstances and the forces that led the people to advance willingly down that road.

In today’s world, loneliness has become almost the default condition of modern life. Social media may have been invented to connect people, but somewhere along the way it turned into a machine that amplifies isolation.

That’s why I love reading. Reading allows us to enjoy solitude—to walk through another person’s thoughts, trace the author’s mind, sense the world between the lines. You can’t read at a party or while chatting with friends.

Costco Comes to Toon

 When I opened the morning edition of the Ehime Shimbun, a bold headline leapt off the page:

“Costco to Open in 東温(Toon), Shikoku’s First, Targeting Late 2027.”

The store will be built in Toon City, only a short drive from my home in Matsuyama. For years, young people in Shikoku have looked enviously at other regions where Costco’s giant warehouse stores already stood. The fact that this news appeared on the front page says everything about how significant it is for our prefecture.

The front page of the Ehime Shimbun.

Btw, the city name Toon (東温) is pronounced “Toh-on,” with two distinct syllables. English speakers read “Toon” as in “cartoon,” but in Japanese it’s softer and longer, almost like saying “toe-on.”

According to the report, the Costco Wholesale Toon Warehouse will occupy a 66,000-square-meter lot just south of the Fujigrand Shigenobu shopping complex. The facility will include parking for about 1,000 cars and an attached gas station, with an estimated 400 employees.
At the press conference, Ehime Governor Tokihiro Nakamura and Toon Mayor Akira Kato shook hands with Costco Japan’s president, Ken Theriault—a symbolic moment sealing Ehime’s long-awaited connection with a global retail powerhouse.

Local reactions, however, have been a mixed bag.
Many residents are thrilled—saying things like “Finally, we don’t have to drive all the way to Kobe or Hiroshima for Costco!”—while others express concern about weekend traffic jams on Route 11, noise from the gas station, or the future of smaller local shops.

Incidentally, Japanese people pronounce the name as “Cost-to-co” (コストコ), clearly enunciating the t sound in the middle. In English, however, the t is almost silent, the tongue briefly touches the alveolar ridge but releases no sound before gliding into co. The result is something closer to [kɑːskoʊ].

 So why “コストコ” in Japanese? Perhaps it’s because コスコ—without the t—was already taken by China COSCO Shipping Corporation Limited, a major Chinese shipping company. Besides, that extra “to” adds a hint of rhythm and warmth, almost like the onomatopoeia tokotoko—the gentle sound of little footsteps. To Japanese ears, “コストコ” feels friendlier, even a bit cute.

I often drive past the planned construction site, so I’ll be able to watch the warehouse gradually take shape, enjoying the countdown until its 2027 opening.

The Curious Case of Japan’s “Blue” Traffic Light

 In Japan, what we call the green light is known as “青信号 (blue light).” Yet the actual color is a bluish green, unmistakably closer to green than to blue. If you were to ask, “Is that blue or green?” almost everyone would answer, “It’s green.” And still, everyone calls it blue.

Back in the days of incandescent bulbs, before LEDs took over, the light looked even greener. When I was a child, I couldn’t quite accept that. On my walk home from school, I once pointed at the signal and asked my friend, “Isn’t that green?” She nodded and said, “Yeah, it is.” But still, everyone around us kept calling it “blue.” How curious that was.

Japanese “blue” traffic light — clearly bluish green

The story goes back to 1930, when Japan installed its first mechanical traffic lights at the Hibiya intersection in Tokyo. They were imported from the United States, so naturally, the three colors were red, yellow, and green. In other words, it started out as a green light.

But when newspapers and magazines reported it as blue, yellow, and red, the phrase 青信号 (blue light) caught on among the public.

In older Japanese, the word 青—blue—covered a much wider range than it does today. It included what we now call green. That’s why we still say 青葉 (green leaves), 青菜 (leafy greens), and 青りんご (green apples).

Originally, the legal term for the signal was “green light.” However, by 1947, the word 青信号 had become so common that the law was officially revised to read “blue light.” That wording remains unchanged in the Road Traffic Act to this day.

Then, around the year 2000, Japan began replacing old traffic lights with LEDs. The color shifted slightly toward blue, as if the light itself were moving closer to match its name.

Interestingly, modern American traffic lights are nearly the same bluish-green hue as those in Japan. And yet, Americans have never stopped calling it a green light. The light we see may be identical, but the way we describe it—and thus the way we perceive it—depends on language.

Green light in San Francisco — bluish green, just like Japan’s

Language doesn’t merely label colors, it defines where we draw the lines between them, and how we feel about what we see.

For the Japanese, 青 (blue) evokes purity, youth, freshness.

For English speakers, green represents nature, safety, calm.

So when that bluish-green signal glows above the street, Japanese hearts see blue, while American eyes see green. The light is the same, but the worlds it belongs to—are ever so slightly different. How fascinating!