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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and U.S. President Donald Trump will play golf in Japan in November. That will take place when Japan’s old – and after Tokyo’s Lower House election of October 22 also new – Prime Minister Abe will host Trump on November 5-7 on the first leg of his Asia trip. Yet another occasion for Abe to demonstrate that he agrees on essentially “everything” with the short-tempered Trump, who continues to conduct domestic and foreign policies mainly over Twitter in the early hours of the day.

Japan under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe does not have what a country geographically so close to and easily within range of North Korean short and medium-range missiles should have: a plan, let alone a North Korea strategy, that goes beyond announcing that Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear tests are an “unacceptable provocation”. 

On March 6, Pyongyang fired four missiles into the Sea of Japan and three of them landed in Japan’s ‘exclusive economic zone’ in Japanese territorial waters. The missiles travelled roughly 1.000 kilometres and landed as close as 300 kilometres from Japan’s northwest coast. For now, business as usual – at least more or less – for Japan’s defence planners and defence hawks. In 2016 alone North Korea conducted 20 missile and 2 nuclear tests and Tokyo has been within range of Pyongyang’s short and medium-range missiles for years.

Il Giappone, terza economia mondiale, ha un elevato fabbisogno energetico che viene quasi totalmente soddisfatto dalle importazioni. Con il 75% di materie prime provenienti dall’estero il paese è il primo importatore mondiale di gnl, il secondo di carbone e il terzo importatore netto di petrolio.

L'ultimo screzio tra Cina e Giappone si è consumato il 21 aprile scorso. Al centro delle polemiche è ancora il tempio Yasukuni che ospita le spoglie di 14 eroi di guerra giapponesi che Pechino annovera tra i criminali dell’invasione giapponese consumatasi tra il 1931 e il 1945.