Can Japan strike a new green tourism deal?
Both the capital city Tokyo and the 'nation's kitchen' Osaka have evolved out of exchanges between East Asia and Europe. These cities have always hosted foreigners, and meeting tourists and immigrants is an inevitable part of urban life. Recall that over a century ago, Chinese people responded to Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary call from Japan.
Today, travel is also a cherished pastime for many around the world. Nonetheless, tourism is not an industry without its environmental and societal impacts. According to a pre-pandemic study, tourism is estimated to account for 8 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions. It may be time to consider a new green tourism deal.
Striking a balance between benefits and drawbacks requires coordination among policymakers, businesses and the local community. This would help ensure travellers' convenience while respecting local traditions.
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AllAfrica
15 hours ago
- AllAfrica
Scott Bessent's got a Japanese blind spot
TOKYO – Fresh off getting outmaneuvered by Tokyo on a 'trade deal,' President Donald Trump's team is going even further to demonstrate its ignorance of the state of play in Japan. Case in point: US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent complaining that the Bank of Japan isn't hiking interest rates fast enough, when his boss is the reason officials can't tighten policy. As Bessent told Bloomberg this week: 'They're behind the curve. So they're going to be hiking and they need to get their inflation problem under control.' Sure, just as soon as Bessent gets Trumponomics under control. Does Bessent not understand that four months ago, BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda was on track to get Japanese rates the furthest away from zero they've been in 26 years, only to get derailed by Trump's tariffs? To be sure, it's hard to know what the global face of the Trump 2.0 economy really believes and what he must say on television to keep his job. And it's painfully obvious what Bessent is up to here: trying to weaken the dollar via Japanese monetary policy as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell slow-walks US rate cuts. Fair enough, but such comments are inspiring more eye-rolling in Asia than intellectual debate about BOJ policies. In Tokyo, in fact, the BOJ has become a backburner issue. With Japan expected to grow just 0.7% in the current fiscal year and inflation pressures easing, the odds of the BOJ raising rates at its September 18-19 or October 29-30 meetings have dwindled to the point that economists have pivoted to other topics. Yes, inflation is still way too high in Japan. But news that Japanese wholesale prices rose just 2.6% in July year on year suggests that the urgency for raising rates is diminishing. Perhaps Bessent has missed, too, that the Nikkei 225 Stock Average, on the same day he spoke to Bloomberg, rallied to an all-time record. The reason: delight over a US-Japan tariff deal that, in the end, demanded little of Tokyo. While a 15% Trump tax on Japanese goods is no one's idea of fun, it's a world away from the 35% the White House threatened. Japanese automakers are sure happy to be paying, in theory, a lower rate than the 25% Detroit must pay on imports from plants and suppliers in Canada and Mexico. To be sure, much of this is still shrouded in confusion as Trump gets an earful from unhappy US automakers. As Matt Blunt, president of The American Automotive Policy Council, puts it, 'any deal that charges a lower tariff for Japanese imports with virtually no US content than the tariff imposed on North American-built vehicles with high US content is a bad deal for US industry and US auto workers.' For automakers, there's a bit of a deja-vu-all-over-again dynamic here. As Blunt explains, the trade framework Trump negotiated with the UK did more to lower tariffs to 10% on some luxury cars built in England, such as the Rolls-Royce, Bentleys, Land Rovers, Jaguars and Aston Martins, than aid Detroit. The risk of Trump World reneging has the team of Japan's top tariff negotiator Ryosei Akazawa anxious. There's also been controversy over a practice called 'stacking,' whereby one 15% tariff is piled atop existing tariffs. After considerable back and forth, Japan claims Team Trump has agreed not to stack tariffs. For now, at least. All this is the product of a hastily assembled tariff deal with no written materials. The bottom line is that 'without a written agreement between Japan and the US, no promise or claim of mutual understanding is secure until it appears in an Executive Order,' says Richard Katz, who publishes the Japan Economy Watch newsletter. Lawmakers are deeply worried, too, that Trump could simply have a bad day and decide the US and Japan should negotiate a new, new tariff arrangement with its closest ally in Asia. 'Washington is just randomly shooting, and they are shooting some like-minded countries from behind,' says Taro Kono, a member of Japan's House of Representatives, who's often mentioned as a future prime minister. And that US$550 billion that Japan is expected to invest in the US at Trump's direction? What Trump calls a 'signing bonus' to be handed over to the White House – it's'our money,' as he said – Tokyo views as more of an aspirational endeavor with a vague timeline, perhaps over a number of years. Rather than forking over a pile of cash, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's team is eyeing a series of loans, grants and financial guarantees run through government-linked organizations like the Japan Bank for International Cooperation and Nippon Export and Investment Insurance. Suffice to say, the logistics of this are going to take lots of back and forth and loads of additional negotiation sessions. In the meantime, Ishiba's inner circle hopes the US courts will rule Trump's tariffs are unconstitutional, enabling Japan to avoid this whole mess. Also, Tokyo will watch closely to see how South Korea proceeds with the $350 billion it agreed to deploy in the US and what the European Union does about the $600 billion worth of US energy purchases Trump is demanding as part of its deal. None of these really matters in the end if Trump and Bessent don't get China to the table. Trump World's stuck-in-1985 policy mix has missed that in our globalized era, where supply chains matter more than national borders, bilateral trade deals mean less than multilateral ones. That is, unless Trump manages to get one with China's nearly $18 trillion economy. Combined, the US and China represent $45.5 trillion of gross domestic product (GDP). As tariff pain weighs on the US economy, Trump's challenge is to convince his base that the inflation, market chaos and extreme uncertainty of the last several months were somehow worth it. The only way, really, is a big, beautiful China trade deal that Trump can tout as proof he's still got some 'art of the deal' game left. Xi is playing hard to get, though, scoring another 90-day extension on talks. As Xi's China complicates the US Treasury's 2025, Bessent is having to do some Japan maintenance. One avenue is prodding the BOJ to raise rates in lieu of its inability to cajole the US Fed to lower them. Another: soothing nerves in Tokyo about its $1.1 trillion exposure to Trumponomics. Japan is by far the biggest holder of US Treasury securities. That's a rough place to be when Trump is working to morph the Fed into the People's Bank of China by stripping it of its independence. Trump, of course, has threatened to fire Powell for not bowing to his demand for big rate cuts. Bessent, commenting on how much Fed easing he wants, argues that 'we should probably be 150, 175 basis points lower' from the current 4.25% to 4.5% target range. If the Fed is perceived as becoming an extension of Trump's West Wing, the dollar would drop for all the wrong reasons. And Trump's assumption that the Fed slashing rates at his behest would lower borrowing costs might not end well. It's very likely that Powell cutting rates sharply in a cloud of Trumpian suspicion would result in long-term yields surging. Already, the US is spending more on interest payments on the national debt each year than on the American military. Tokyo worries deeply about the prospect of sustaining hundreds of billions of dollars of losses if Trump crashes the US government debt market. But then Tokyo has also had to fend off an avalanche of misinformation from Trump World. Trump claims, for example, that Tokyo's non-tariff barriers keep Japanese from buying US cars. The real reason is that Japan makes high-quality, fuel-efficient cars geared for narrow Japanese streets and claustrophobic parking spaces, while oversized American vehicles often lack practicality on Japan's roadways. And here's Bessent adding to the mountain of misconceptions as he argues that volatility in Japan is putting US Treasuries at risk. 'There's definitely leakage from — the Japanese have an inflation problem,' he says. Bessent added that he's spoken with BOJ head Ueda recently, noting: 'My opinion, not his — they're behind the curve. So they're going to be hiking.' Not exactly. Certainly not until Bessent finds the courage to counsel Trump against the forever trade wars he seems to be launching in real time. Thanks to the collateral damage from the tariffs, the odds are rising that the BOJ's next move will be to cut rates as GDP takes hits, not raise them. Follow William Pesek on X at @WilliamPesek
HKFP
15 hours ago
- HKFP
Tropical Storm Podul makes landfall in China after raking Taiwan as typhoon
Typhoon Podul weakened to a severe tropical storm when it roared ashore in southeastern China early Thursday, state media said, after carving a path across Taiwan, shutting down businesses, grounding flights and knocking out power to thousands of homes. Podul made its second landfall in Fujian province's Zhangpu County, Chinese state news agency Xinhua said, citing the provincial meteorological observatory, reporting maximum sustained winds of 108 kilometres (67 miles) per hour. On Wednesday, wind gusts of up to 178 kilometres per hour were recorded shortly before the typhoon slammed into Taiwan's Taitung County, the country's Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. One person is missing after he went fishing and was swept away, and 112 have been injured, disaster officials said. More than 8,000 people were evacuated from their homes. As Podul swept across storm-battered central and southern areas of Taiwan, it toppled dozens of trees and triggered flooding. Streets in the port city of Kaohsiung were littered with fallen branches. Embed from Getty Images 'Kaohsiung, Tainan and Chiayi will become major rainfall hotspots tonight, with increasing rain also expected in Penghu and Kinmen,' CWA Administrator Lu Kuo-chen told a briefing attended by President Lai Ching-te. Flights scrapped, schools shut All domestic flights across the island of 23 million people were cancelled on Wednesday, along with dozens of international journeys. More than 63,000 households were still without power. High-speed rail services on the west coast were reduced, while train services in the southeast were cancelled. Many ferry services were also suspended, and businesses and schools across the south closed. More than 31,500 soldiers were ready to assist in rescue and relief efforts, disaster officials said. The CWA said mountain areas in Kaohsiung and Tainan could be hit with a cumulative 400-600 millimetres (16-24 inches) of rain from Tuesday to Thursday. In mainland China, some schools in Guangdong paused classes while train and ferry services have been temporarily halted, China state broadcaster CCTV said. Embed from Getty Images Parts of other provinces such as Hunan and Jiangxi in central China will also see heavy to torrential rain, CCTV added. Intense weather Podul comes after weeks of intense weather in central and southern Taiwan, which is accustomed to frequent tropical storms from July to October. Typhoon Danas, which hit Taiwan in early July, killed two people and injured hundreds as the storm dumped more than 500 mm of rain across the south over a weekend. That was followed by torrential rain from July 28 to August 4 that left at least five people dead, with some areas recording more than Taiwan's total rainfall of 2.1 metres in all of 2024. Natural disasters are common across China, particularly in the summer, when some regions experience heavy rain while others bake in searing heat. The death toll from flash floods and mudslides in northwest China last week has risen to 13, state media said on Saturday. Heavy rain in Beijing in the north also killed 44 people last month, with the capital's rural suburbs hardest hit and another eight people killed in a landslide in nearby Hebei province. Scientists have shown that human-driven climate change is causing more intense weather patterns that can make destructive floods more likely. Global warming, driven largely by the burning of fossil fuels, is not just about rising temperatures, but the knock-on effect of all the extra heat in the atmosphere and seas. Warmer air can hold more water vapour, and warmer oceans mean greater evaporation, resulting in more intense downpours and storms.
South China Morning Post
16 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Hopes for China-US side effect as Washington boosts Pakistan counterterrorism measures
As the United States vows to strengthen counterterrorism efforts with Pakistan and take a hard line against Pakistani separatist groups, experts suggest it could open a rare window in the South Asian country for Sino-US cooperation The move might also ease Beijing's long-held concerns over the region's fatal terrorist attacks that often target Chinese, analysts added. On Monday, the US Department of State added 'the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and its alias, the Majeed Brigade', to its list of foreign terrorist organisations (FTO). 01:58 Massive blast in Karachi kills 2 Chinese nationals as separatist group claims responsibility Massive blast in Karachi kills 2 Chinese nationals as separatist group claims responsibility The BLA and its suicide bomb squad, Majeed Brigade, will face an asset freeze and restrictions on material support, with the measures taking effect upon publication in the US Federal Register. 'Today's action taken by the Department of State demonstrates the Trump administration's commitment to countering terrorism. Terrorist designations play a critical role in our fight against this scourge and are an effective way to curtail support for terrorist activities,' a department press release said. The announcement came soon after Washington issued a joint statement with Islamabad on counterterrorism, drawing attention to prominent militant groups the BLA, Isis-Khorasan and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) . All three have posed a significant threat to Chinese investment in Pakistan. '[It] opens a window for China to cooperate with the US on counterterrorism through Pakistan,' said Abdul Basit, an associate research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.
