Half of Japanese detainees in China convicted of espionage
Nikkei staff writers
TOKYO -- Nine out of 17 Japanese nationals detained by Chinese authorities since an anti-espionage law went into effect in 2014 were found to have provided information to Japan's intelligence agency in exchange for compensation, Nikkei has learned.
China's judicial authorities determined the nine had committed espionage and were given prison sentences, according to multiple sources in the Japanese government briefed by Chinese officials.
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Japan Today
4 hours ago
- Japan Today
Intimate no more? Japan clamps down on 'host clubs'
Japan is cracking down on host clubs, where pseudo-romance has led some women into towering debt. By Tomohiro OSAKI Japan is waging war on "host clubs" -- where men entertain women willing to pay for romance, but authorities and industry insiders say customers have long been scammed and saddled with debt. Neatly coiffured, well-dressed "hosts" bedazzle women with sweet talk and the mirage of intimacy at glitzy establishments in big Japanese cities. In return, the women pay inflated prices for champagne and other expensive drinks while they flirt, sometimes splurging hundreds of thousands of yen a night. Authorities are clamping down because of allegations that some women are being tricked into towering debts by hosts, and even into sex work to pay them off. Under a new law that took effect in June, taking advantage of women's romantic feelings to manipulate them into ordering overpriced drinks has been banned. This has sent shockwaves through an industry where pseudo-romance, from casual flirtation to after-hours sex, has long driven relationships with clients. Emotional dependence John Reno, a star host in Tokyo's red-light district Kabukicho, said the crackdown was "unsurprising" after "scammer-like hosts increased". Hosts, he told AFP, used to employ intimacy primarily to entertain women. But "their mindset today is basically 'if you love me, then don't complain,' silencing women and exploiting their emotional dependence", the 29-year-old owner of Club J said. A growing number of victims have reported financial and sexual exploitation linked to these establishments. Official data shows there were around 2,800 host club-related cases reported to police in 2024, up from 2,100 two years before. These have ranged from hosts ordering drinks the clients did not ask for, to prostitution. Some hosts are racking up profits by introducing their cash-strapped clients to brokers known as "scouts", who then send them into the sex trade, police say. Women, for their part, strive to work hard for their crush. "These hosts in return promise them their effort will be rewarded with actual relationships or marriage," Reno said. "That's outright fraud," he added, while denying that his Club J employees engage in any such practices. 'No place to be' Difficulties such as poverty and abuse often make hosts the only escape for young women with low self-esteem, campaigners say. While high-flying businesswomen used to be the main clientele, girls "with no place to be" are increasingly seeking refuge, Arata Sakamoto, head of Kabukicho-based non-profit Rescue Hub, told AFP. To them, "host clubs have become a place where they feel accepted" and "reassured they can be who they are, albeit in exchange for money", he said. One recent night saw a 26-year-old woman surrounded by smiling men at a table of flamboyant Kabukicho club Platina. "Some hosts are bad enough to brainwash you, but I would say women should also know better than to drink far more than they can afford," the woman, a freelancer in the media industry who declined to be named, told AFP. Another customer comes to Platina to "spice up my mundane life". "I hope this will remain a place that keeps my female hormones overflowing," the 34-year-old IT worker said. The new law does not ban intimacy, but behaviour such as threatening to end relationships with clients if they refuse to order drinks. Industry insiders like Platina owner Ran Sena call the law "too vague". "For example, if a client tells me, 'I'm about to fall in love with you,' does that mean I'll have to forbid her from coming to see me again?" he said. Another disruptive change is also rocking the industry. Police have notified clubs that any billboard advertising that hypes up the sales and popularity of individual hosts is no longer acceptable. The rationale is that these bombastic, neon-lit signs boasting "No.1" status or "multimillion" sales can fuel competition among hosts and push them further toward profit-mongering. Self-identifying as Kabukicho's "conqueror," "god" or "king", and egging on prospective customers to "drown themselves" in love, for example, is similarly banned. To comply, clubs have hurriedly covered such slogans on Kabukicho billboards, defacing the pouting portraits of hosts with black tape. This signals a "huge" morale crisis for hosts, Sena says. "It's been the aspiration of many hosts to be called No.1, earn a title and become famous in this town," he said. "Now, they don't even know what they should strive for," the 43-year-old added. For women, too, the rankings were a way to reassure themselves that the money they spent on their "oshi (favorite)" hosts was not in vain -- proof they were helping them ascend in the cutthroat hosts industry. "I think the industry is heading toward decline," Sena said. © 2025 AFP
Japan Today
4 hours ago
- Japan Today
1995 Hachioji supermarket triple murder case remains unsolved after 30 years
Police in Tokyo on Wednesday renewed their call to the public for help in solving a triple murder at a supermarket in Tokyo's Hachioji in 1995. The National Police Agency is offering a 6 million yen reward for information leading to the arrest of the person or persons responsible for the murders of Megumi Yabuki, 17, Hiromi Maeda, 16, and Noriko Inagaki, 47. The Special Investigation Headquarters has received a total of 1,678 tips over the past 30 years, and 32 in the past year, NHK reported. At around 9:15 p.m. on July 30, 1995, the three employees — all part-time workers at the Nampei Owada supermarket in Hachioji city — were shot and killed in the store's second floor office. Each had been bound with tape and killed with a single gunshot to the head. Thirty years on, there has been no resolution to the case, although there are some theories. Initial police reports described it as a failed robbery attempt, since none of the three employees knew the combination of the store's safe. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police said that fingerprints lifted off the tape used to bind the victims, believed to be that of the perpetrator, were found to match closely those of a Japanese male who died of natural causes in 2005. Initially, those fingerprints were not considered complete enough to make a conclusive match that would be admissible as evidence. However, investigators, after extensive searches of print databases, believe that the prints correspond closely with a man who lived in the Tama district in west Tokyo. Normally, the legal criteria for a fingerprint match are correspondence at 12 or more points, which is why the initial searches of data bases failed to narrow down a suspect. An 8-point match is still said to have an accuracy of about 100 million to one. While the prints left behind on the tape could not provide a 12-point match, the man's prints were in the data base due to his having a prior criminal record. At the time of the killings, police found nothing to suggest the man had been in the area where the crimes took place. At this point, police concede that the 8-point fingerprint match is not conclusive, and would be insufficient to be used as evidence in solving the case. Police said they are still trying to establish links between the dead suspect and the murder weapon, an illegal handgun believed to have been manufactured in the Philippines. Police pursued an earlier lead in 2009, when a Japanese man on death row in China for drug trafficking made a statement that a Chinese man in Canada was involved in the Hachioji murders, as part of a gang of Japanese and Chinese who carried out a series of robberies in Japan in the 1990s. The Chinese man, Liang He, had been wanted in Japan for using a forged passport to leave the country in 2002. He obtained Canadian citizenship in 2006. The National Police Agency first filed an extradition request with Canadian authorities in 2010 with the Ontario High Court. Liang filed an appeal that was rejected and he was extradited to Japan in 2013 where he was jailed for passport fraud. But he has refused to talk about the supermarket murders. Police ask that anyone with any information about the case call 042-621-0110. © Japan Today
The Mainichi
14 hours ago
- The Mainichi
Court OKs provisional seizure of Unification Church's Tokyo HQ land
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- A Japanese court has approved the provisional seizure of the Unification Church headquarters' land in Tokyo as sought by alleged victims of the entity's aggressive donation solicitation practices, a lawyers' group said Wednesday. The 10 people, who are negotiating damages payment by the Unification Church in a separate procedure, filed for the land seizure in June, fearing the church could hide its assets to evade payouts, the group said. In the decision dated July 18, the Tokyo District Court gave the green light to the seizure, based on a new law enacted in December 2023 to strengthen monitoring of religious corporation assets that could be subject to legal claims. The law was crafted amid concerns that the Unification Church, which may lose religious corporation status and related tax benefits, could attempt to transfer compensation-liable assets overseas. The Unification Church was designated as a religious corporation covered by the law in March 2024. With the seizure, the church can continue its activities at the headquarters' building but cannot sell or donate the land. While an application for provisional seizure requires collateral, the Japan Legal Support Center, a public organization, provided the financial support based on the law, the group said. The law strengthens surveillance of a group under the threat of losing its religious corporation status, such as by requiring the entity to give central or prefectural government authorities at least one month's notice of any plan to dispose of assets. If a notification is not given, the organization is prohibited from any further liquidation. The Tokyo District Court in March ordered that the Unification Church be stripped of its religious corporation status, as sought by the Japanese government. But the legal proceedings continue, as the religious group has appealed to a high court. Such a dissolution order, if finalized, would deprive the group, formally known as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, of tax benefits as a religious corporation, although it would still be able to continue its activities in Japan. Following the finalization of the order, a liquidator will dispose of the Unification Church's assets, enabling victims who are recognized as creditors to receive compensation. Its practices came to the public eye after the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in July 2022 by a man claiming to hold a grudge against the organization because of financially ruinous donations taken from his mother. Tetsuya Yamagami, who has been indicted over the shooting, told investigators that he targeted Abe over the role of the politician's grandfather, former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, in helping establish the Unification Church in Japan in the 1960s. It was founded in South Korea by a staunch anti-communist in 1954.
