2010-1-18
An aerial view of part of Sinopec's ethylene project with an annual capacity of 1 million ton in Tianjin's Binhai New Area. Sinopec, as China Petroleum and Chemical Corp is known, has started production at the facility, which is estimated to raise Tianjin's gross industrial output value by more than 4 percent and drive up investment of 100 billion yuan (US$14.6 billion) in downstream industries and support projects.
KOBE, Jan. 17 KYODO
The Japanese western port city of Kobe and its neighboring cities which were devastated in the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake commemorated Sunday the 15th anniversary of the disaster that claimed the lives of 6,434.
People gathered before dawn at a park located at the center of Kobe to light thousands of bamboo lanterns in the shape of ''1995'' and ''1.17'' and offered silent prayers at 5:46 a.m., the time the magnitude 7.3 quake hit the city.
Kiyomi Mabuchi, 53, whose husband and in-laws were killed after their house collapsed on top of them, came from Tokushima Prefecture to mourn them at Higashi-Yuenchi Park.
''People say it's been 15 years, but whether it's 15 or 20 years, our feelings do not change,'' she said.
Wearing a necklace her husband was wearing at the time of his death, Mabuchi said, ''There may be no recovery for my heart.''
Some kneeled before the lanterns to pray while others were seen standing and crying during the countdown to the moment at the park filled with people.
Junji Yamashita, an elementary school vice-principal who lost his parents due to the quake, came to the site, which he started visiting 9 years ago after deciding he has to face the experience before he can teach his young students about it.
The 48-year-old used to teach at a Japanese school in Tehran and collected donations at his school when a major earthquake hit Bam, Iran, in 2003. The school gave a total of some 250,000 yen to a local aid worker who later established a care home for young quake victims.
He said he had told his students a few days earlier that other countries helped Kobe recover, and the students responded, ''We have to take action'' over the earthquake that devastated Haiti earlier in the week.
In a city-hosted memorial ceremony that followed the prayers, gospel singer Yuri Mori, who lost her younger brother in the Great Hanshin quake, sang a song written to wish recovery for the city.
Mori earlier said she would sing the song, ''Shiawase Hakoberu yo ni'' (To Carry Happiness), so that she can bring happiness not to just her deceased brother Wataru, a 22-year-old university student, but to all the victims and survivors of the disaster.
Hiromi Shimoura, a 49-year-old resident of Kobe, who also lost her 85-year-old grandmother Kimino Sugimoto, gave a speech to represent the bereaved families in the city.
''Every time when this day arrives, I recall the event vividly as if it had just happened, and it makes me cry,'' she said, mentioning the rows of houses diminished to rubble and the death of her grandmother, whom she said she ''loved dearly.''
''The earthquake took away many precious lives and things from us. But it also taught us many things that are important to people...I want to continue passing them down to the children who do not know about the disaster and children yet to be born so that the event that day would not fade away,'' she said.
Kobe Mayor Tatsuo Yada offered condolences at the ceremony to families of those killed in the disaster and mentioned the continuous threats of earthquakes, referring to the powerful one that marred Haiti.
''Overseas, just few days ago, a powerful earthquake struck Haiti, and serious disasters have occurred in other regions as well, forcing us to realize that we are always fraught with the dangers of disasters.''
Various memorial events were held throughout the city and other parts of Hyogo Prefecture, allowing people to offer flowers, post their messages on the disaster in front of office buildings and sign condolence books.
January 17, 2010, 09:22 PM EST
Commentary by William Pesek
Jan. 18 (Bloomberg) -- If you think nothing ever changes in Japan, consider Naoto Kan and Kazuo Inamori.
Kan is the new finance minister and Inamori is Japan Airlines Corp.’s new chief executive officer. Both men have three notable things in common. One, neither is a natural choice for the task at hand. Two, both hold the outlook for Asia’s biggest economy in their hands. Three, the odds are stacked firmly against either succeeding.
Japan is turning to Kan and Inamori in a sign of change, and it’s a good one. So let’s consider what could be if things break their way.
Kan’s job has “impossible” written all over it: boost growth and avoid a downgrade to Japan’s Aa2 credit rating. Rating companies are registering their dismay that Japan has had six finance ministers in 18 months. Such “revolving-door” leadership “doesn’t engender confidence,” says Thomas Byrne, senior vice president of Moody’s Investors Service.
The good news is that Kan, 63, is breaking the mold of the typical keeper of Japan’s all-powerful Ministry of Finance. Staffers are abuzz that he hasn’t visited the place much since getting the job on Jan. 6. There’s a reason for that. Kan wants to yank control over an economy heading in the wrong direction from the shadowy bureaucrats who run it.
It’s not the kind of revolution that lends itself to television-news reports, but it’s a huge one. Out of the gate, Kan told staffers that “the minister is not a representative of the ministry. He is a representative of the people.”
Arm’s Length
It’s not just semantics. Kan has a track record as a political rebel. By limiting his time at MOF headquarters, Kan is signaling that he plans to keep the bureaucrats at arm’s length. This is a big deal in change-averse Japan and it has the political class chattering.
Inamori’s job would seem equally impossible. Beleaguered JAL soon may file for what would be the nation’s sixth-biggest bankruptcy. The former flagship carrier holds a key place in the Japanese psyche. A few decades ago, its high level of service represented Japan’s rise from the ashes of World War II. Now it’s a national punch line and a reminder that Japan’s zombie- company problem lives on.
As deflation returns and pessimism about the future grows, JAL’s prognosis weighs heavily on the nation’s 126 million people. Just as U.S. President Barack Obama helped General Motors Co. to support consumer sentiment, Yukio Hatoyama must ensure JAL is handled skillfully for a change. That can be seen in how Prime Minister Hatoyama’s Democratic Party of Japan is breaking with the tradition of bailing out JAL every few years.
Seniority-Obsessed Japan
Enter tycoon Inamori, one of Japan’s most celebrated entrepreneurs. In few countries could a 77-year-old wear that moniker. In seniority-obsessed Japan, he’s that and more. Inamori founded electronics company Kyocera Corp. and set up one of the three companies that merged in 2000 to become KDDI Corp., Japan’s second-biggest wireless operator.
Last week, Forbes magazine named Inamori Japan’s 28th- richest man. It’s not his money that intrigues people, though. It’s his role as a business philosopher and writer -- a kind of Japanese Jack Welch. In a Nov. 2 column, I postulated that JAL needed a Steve Jobs -- a creative multitasker with uncanny business acumen. Inamori isn’t the Apple Inc. CEO, but he may do.
It’s strangely fitting that Inamori also is an ordained Buddhist priest. He may need more than good karma to tame the unholy alliance of labor unions, bankers and politicians standing in his way. Then again, Inamori is thought to have something equally useful: the support of the prime minister.
Airport Fetish
The idea that JAL is an independent company is rubbish. Technically privatized in 1987, it has never been allowed to run itself for one reason: The Liberal Democratic Party, which ran Japan virtually uninterrupted for 54 years until last August, had an airport fetish. The LDP built white-elephant terminals and runways all over the nation to create construction jobs.
Then, it browbeat JAL’s compliant executives into utilizing them. It left JAL with a stable of unprofitable routes -- not unlike Amtrak in the U.S. A key task for Inamori is halting those flights, a radical step that will require political support at the highest levels.
I don’t feel terribly bad for all of JAL’s shareholders. For the retirees about to see their investments vanish, one has to have more sympathy. The many investors out there targeting JAL as a “moral hazard” strategy bet on bailouts for years. It’s about time the government ended the JAL gravy train.
That phenomenon is at the core of Japan’s two-decade-long economic funk. Japan Inc. picks corporate winners and then coddles them into complacency. And so, Hatoyama isn’t exaggerating when he says: “The revival of Japan Airlines is deeply connected to the revival of the Japanese economy.”
There’s wisdom in putting the economy and JAL into fresh and unpredictable hands. Yes, it may be business as usual and history might show little was achieved by Kan and Inamori. It’s also possible the reform that investors have waited for in Japan for decades is suddenly afoot.
January 17, 2010
By John M. Glionna
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has created a panel to investigate Japan's role in a decades-old secret pact allowing nuclear-armed U.S. vessels to dock at Japanese ports, against Japanese laws.
Koji Murata, a political scientist at Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan, has discussed in his classes the issue of the secret 1969 accord between Tokyo and Washington allowing nuclear-armed U.S. naval vessels to continue docking, despite Japanese laws to the contrary. His personal opinion is that there are times when the government can withhold the truth. (John M. Glionna / Los Angeles Times / January 10, 2010)
Reporting from Kyoto, Japan - Professor Koji Murata likes to ask his political science students a tough policy question: Is it ever proper for a government to lie to its constituents?
Class opinions vary, but Murata, a scholar of international security issues at Doshisha University in Kyoto, has his own view.
"I think it's OK to lie to the public for the public good," he said. "As long as what you say is not contrary to national intent, really important secrets must be kept."
The philosophical question has gained urgency in the wake of revelations here of a decades-old secret pact between Tokyo and Washington that allowed nuclear-armed U.S. vessels to dock at Japanese ports, despite laws here against it.
For 40 years, the government denied the existence of the 1969 agreement between President Nixon and Prime Minister Eisaku Sato, the architect of Japan's post-World War II pacifism and staunch antinuclear policies.
Successive Japanese administrations were wary of a public outcry in a nation that suffered two devastating nuclear attacks 65 years ago.
Days after he took office in September, however, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama assigned a panel of government officials and historians to investigate Japan's role in the agreement.
Since the end of the Cold War, nuclear-armed U.S. ships have stopped docking in Japan, officials say.
The findings, due out this month, could further complicate a tense standoff between Hatoyama and the Obama administration over Japan's calls for the removal of a controversial U.S. military presence on the southern island of Okinawa.
"This revelation makes maintaining a stable alliance even more challenging," said Carl Baker, director of programs at the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Pacific Forum.
Many Japanese applauded Hatoyama's effort to create a more open government but said they felt betrayed by leaders who had publicly railed against nuclear arms, only to secretly acquiesce to the demands of a powerful nation.
Some are particularly incensed that the deal was struck with the United States, which dropped the atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima at the end of World War II, killing as many as 220,000 people.
Bloggers have ridiculed Sato's 1974 Nobel Peace Prize, calling Japan's longest-serving postwar prime minister a hypocrite.
As she boarded a train home to Tokyo recently, Aikiko Shiono said she felt betrayed by the pact and the government stonewalling.
"Japan is the only country on Earth to suffer the devastation of a nuclear bomb," said Shiono, who works for a political think tank. "We shouldn't allow nuclear weapons to enter our country. We have to keep advocating to the world how Nagasaki and Hiroshima were a tragedy. To do otherwise is an insult to the victims."
Sitting a few seats ahead, Shiono's father said he disagreed.
"There are things the government has to hide from us," said Kenji Kobori, 60. "They have to make some tough decisions. Some of those have to remain secret."
The agreement, which scholars say violates a Japanese law forbidding nuclear weapons from being made, possessed or stored on this country's territory, was made public by American officials after the U.S. military stopped sending nuclear-armed ships to Japan in 1991.
Despite the U.S. government's admission, Japanese leaders continued to deny that there was such a pact.
"They did not exist," then-Prime Minister Taro Aso said during a nationally televised news conference last year in response to a reporter's query about the pact and revealing documents.
The deal restoring Okinawa to Japanese sovereignty reportedly hinged, in its secret portions, on the U.S. retaining the right to dock nuclear warships at the base in case of emergency.
Security analysts were divided over Japan's handling of the secret agreement.
"I think it's always useful for citizens to know what their government is up to, even decades after the fact," said Jerome Cohen, a legal expert at the New York University School of Law. "We learn what to do for the future from our mistakes of the past."
Baker said the issue was more complex than learning a history lesson.
"Is it useful to bring out information about this pact now? These kinds of things are never useful when it comes to national security."
He said the revelation could play a role as Tokyo and Washington hammer out a deal on a new location for a controversial U.S. Marine Corps air station on Okinawa.
"This is another thorn to deal with, on top of everything else between the two nations," Baker said. "Part of me says that, like it or not, history has to be revealed. But how far do you take it? At what point do you trade off national security for full disclosure? Should we start disclosing past CIA operations? We know they existed.
"It's a tough issue. There's just no easy answer."
One former Japanese government official said that such secrets are kept by all nations.
"It isn't just Japan," said the former ambassador, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
The ambassador said Sato was empowered to enter into such a deal to help Japan secure the return of Okinawa. But he said the deal should have been made public years ago.
"It was a lie, and they should have corrected it after the Cold War ended and the U.S. nuclear ships stopped coming," he said.
Murata, the political science professor, says the debate will continue in his classes as to how Japan should treat U.S. nuclear vessels in the future.
"It was a betrayal and it went on for decades," he said. "Now the government has finally come clean. But the question remains: With an unstable North Korea, how do we assist our closest ally without a secret pact?"
January 15, 2010
By Jessica Guynn
Escalating cyber attacks on Google and other companies alarm government officials who say the U.S. may be powerless to stop the online industrial espionage.
A worker at a Beijing office checks stories and photos of the Dalai Lama on the Google China search page. Google has threatened to pull out of China after a series of cyber attacks originating from that nation. (STR / AFP / Getty Images / January 14, 2010)
The scale and sophistication of the cyber attacks on Google Inc. and other large U.S. corporations by hackers in China is raising national security concerns that the Asian superpower is escalating its industrial espionage efforts on the Internet.
While the U.S. focus has been primarily on protecting military and state secrets from cyber spying, a new battle is being waged in which corporate computers and the valuable intellectual property they hold have become as much a target of foreign governments as those run by the Pentagon and the CIA.
"This is a watershed moment in the cyber war," James Mulvenon, director of the Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis at Defense Group Inc., a national-security firm, said Thursday. "Before, the Chinese were going after defense targets to modernize the country's military machine. But these intrusions strike at the heart of the American innovation community."
The attacks on Google and several dozen other companies have alarmed government officials and lawmakers who warned that the U.S. may already be losing the battle to protect the nation's besieged cyber infrastructure.
"The recent cyber intrusion that Google attributes to China is troubling and the U.S. government is looking into it," White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said Thursday.
Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Menlo Park), a senior member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, called China a pervasive hacker. "This behavior is unacceptable. We used to use the term 'highway robbery.' This is high-tech robbery."
The cost has been huge, according to a recent study by a congressional advisory panel, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. While it is hard to quantify the value of the intellectual property that is stolen by the Chinese each year -- because many businesses do not like to report getting hacked -- Dan Slane, chairman of the commission, estimated it was in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
Hacker strategy
Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute, a Bethesda, Md., security firm, said Chinese hackers target Western companies with an approach dubbed "1,000 grains of sand," meaning they go after every piece of information in search of competitive intelligence. Most companies keep silent about the attacks, but they draw heavy scrutiny from law enforcement officials.
"The odds of the 25 biggest companies in California not being fully compromised by the Chinese is near zero," Paller said. "That is true of companies across the country."
China defended its Internet policies at a news conference Thursday. Jiang Yu, spokeswoman for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said China's Internet is open and welcomes foreign companies. She also said Chinese law prohibits hacker attacks but declined to say whether the Chinese government is bound by the law.
Google on Tuesday revealed that it had fallen prey to a series of cyber attacks originating from China. The Mountain View, Calif., Internet giant said it believed the attackers wanted access to the e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. But the incursions, which also included theft of intellectual property, raised the possibility that the hackers were also attempting economic espionage.
Google took the bold stance of making the attacks public, catching the Chinese government off guard. The company's defiance of the world's most populous country stunned observers. It also prompted questions about the scope and nature of the attacks.
"For a big multinational company to consider leaving a critical market means the overall damage to its operation and assets is likely to be greater than the benefits," said Oded Shenkar, a professor of business management at Ohio State University and the author of "The Chinese Century." "Google is not only making a human rights statement; my educated guess is that there is much more to it than that."
It is unclear exactly where the attacks came from, and Google was careful not to directly accuse the Chinese government of orchestrating them. But Chinese cyber spying has been a persistent problem for years with dozens of attacks on commercial, government and military targets, analysts say.
A growing menace
The attacks against the U.S. are ramping up, according to the congressional U.S.-China commission, which noted in October that Chinese espionage was "straining the U.S. capacity to respond."
The report focused on an attack on one company, concluding that it was supported and possibly choreographed by the Chinese government. The report also alleged that China's military, the People's Liberation Army, is responsible for aspects of cyber spying and has created cyber warfare units.
McAfee Labs, which has analyzed the attacks on Google and other companies, said Thursday that the hackers had deployed highly sophisticated "advanced persistent threats" that in the past were primarily used against governments. The attacks targeted individuals with known access to valuable corporate information.
Google may have been particularly vulnerable because all of its technology is online and networked, said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
On Wednesday, Google said it would improve security for Gmail users by encrypting data to its servers. Such steps are crucial for Google, whose business hinges on its ability to protect its users' privacy and maintain their trust, said Collins Stewart analyst Sandeep Aggarwal.
"Commercial organizations can rarely defend themselves against sophisticated government attacks," said Phil Lieberman, chief executive of Lieberman Software, a Los Angeles security software firm.
Last week, a Santa Barbara software maker filed a $2.2-billion lawsuit against the Chinese government and several Chinese technology firms, accusing them of conspiring to steal and disseminate the U.S. firm's Internet filtering technology.
The Los Angeles law firm representing Cybersitter in the lawsuit said Thursday that it was besieged by similar cyber attacks originating in China. On Monday evening its lawyers began receiving 10 different Trojan horse e-mails designed to retrieve information from its computers, said Gregory Fayer, an attorney at Gipson Hoffman & Pancione. The law firm has turned over the e-mails to the FBI, which is investigating, Fayer said.
After Google's announcement, Adobe Systems Inc. and Rackspace Hosting Inc. also reported attacks.
A national priority
Early last year, President Obama identified protecting computer networks in the private and public sectors as a national security priority. But bureaucratic infighting among law enforcement and intelligence agencies and disagreements with business interests about the role of government in controlling the Internet delayed naming a White House cyber-security "czar."
In December, Obama appointed Howard Schmidt, a former chief security executive at Microsoft with 31 years' experience in law enforcement and the military, to the post.
How to protect the nation's cyber infrastructure, largely in private sector hands, from alleged state-sponsored attacks has become a matter of intensifying debate in Washington, analysts say. The U.S. has no formal policy for dealing with such attacks. Renewed attention could help shape policy and smooth passage of legislation, analysts said.
"This highlights a core dilemma for the U.S. cyber strategy," Mulvenon said. "What can the U.S. government do to defend Google? Really not very much."
jessica.guynn@latimes.com
Times staff writer W.J. Hennigan contributed to this report.
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