Indonesian President Joko Widodo was set to arrive in Tokyo late yesterday, commencing a week-long tour of Japan and China aimed at attracting investment and boosting defense cooperation.
“We want to develop [infrastructure], with particular focus on electric power plants, railways and expressways. I would like to ask [Japanese] Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for cooperation on this issue,” Widodo said in footage aired by Japan’s public broadcaster NHK.
Widodo, who took office in October last year, is to be in Japan until Wednesday, and is scheduled to meet Abe as well as Japanese businesspeople. Widodo told the Yomiuri Shimbun that he and Abe would sign a memorandum on boosting defense cooperation.
He said that China’s claim to virtually all of the South China Sea “has no legal foundation supported by international law.”
“We would absolutely like to learn Japan’s excellent experiences in protecting its waters,” he told the Yomiuri.
China has had occasionally tense confrontations with Japan and Southeast Asian countries — the Philippines and Vietnam in particular — over maritime disputes in the East China Sea and the South China Sea, respectively.
Indonesia “is ready to play a role of mediator,” Widodo told NHK.
Widodo has vowed to boost Indonesia’s economic growth, which slipped to its slowest pace in five years last year, and is seeking new investment.
The president, nicknamed Jokowi, is also to meet Japanese Emperor Akihito during the trip, which is his first as leader outside Southeast Asia. Widodo, in China on Thursday and Friday, is scheduled to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Chinese businesspeople. He is also to participate in the Boao Forum for Asia — an annual gathering of political and economic leaders.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not