The only company who used to sell iPhones in Japan was Korean-born Masayoshi Son‘s Softbank. TEPCO subsidiary KDDI / AU is now allowed to sell iPhones from next week. TEPCO is the third largest shareholder in KDDI after Kyocera and Toyota. Softbank has been pushing for the development of green energies in Japan and enjoys tremendous popularity as Masayoshi Son is one of the only successful self-made entrepreneur in Japan, a kind of local Steve Jobs. Japanese hate to see a nail sticking out of a row and previous successful entrepreneur, Takafumi Horie, another IT icon who created Livedoor, has been under legal attack and is now in jail, whereas TEPCO president is not. Besides, Japanese have a problem with Korean (and Chinese) successful people and Masayoshi Son, although a naturalized Japanese citizen, is bound to be the next target, as “becoming Japanese” is only a legal concept. In response to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011, Masayoshi Son criticized the nuclear industry for creating “the problem that worries Japanese the most today”, and engaged in investing in a nation-wide solar power network for Japan. The counter-attack from TEPCO was quicker than their reaction to solve Fukushima issue and they will bite into Softbank’s iPhone monopoly successfully via their AU company with the government back-up, and diminishing the likelihood of Softbank’s solar network to ever see the light. Although this is not a direct topic to surviving in Japan, I personally recommend boycotting any company where TEPCO has some significant share-holding like AU. TEPCO should focus solely on solving the nuclear issue and not battle against companies who promote green energies. There isn’t much that anyone can do to stop nuclear power in Japan but this kind of small actions is more effective than demonstrating protest in the street. If you have friends in high places in Apple, please have them remove any commercial agreement with KDDI / AU and other TEPCO subsidiaries. TEPCO also use their Internet subsidiaries to control media about the nuclear crisis and enforce an information black-out (Cf. TEPCO Subsidiary Used To Spy On Dissent in SurvivalJapan). It also shows that Japan will never surrender nuclear power since the ultimate goal is to acquire nuclear weapon technology and amend the constitution to allow their powerful Self-Defense Force to become a regular army with nuclear deterrence capacity in front of Chinese military and economic build-up, as well as North Korea and Russia. This intention was clearly stated by Tokyo governor just a week before 3-11 as reported in The Independent article below. This policy and goal has been followed up consistently since WWII as is thoroughly documented on the Internet and it is not just a rogue politician statement. Besides, as in every other country, the Japanese space program carried out by JAXA is a cover-up for intercontinental ballistic missile R&D (Cf. also Japanese nuclear weapon program on Wikipedia) : the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency does not carry much more exploration in space than the Institute of Cetacean Research carry scientific research when they kill whales.
TEPCO shareholding in KDDI / AU is displayed on this screenshot below available from KDDI website :
Here is the link to the au by KDDI by TEPCO iPhone which I would be happy if you decided not to buy, for all TEPCO’s victims in half of Japan.
Just a week before Fukushima disaster, here is what The Independent reported :
Japan must develop nuclear weapons, warns Tokyo governor
By David McNeill in Tokyo
Tuesday, 8 March 2011
AFP/Getty
Japan’s non-nuclear principles were constituted in response to public revulsion at the US atomic stikes on Hiroshima, pictured, and Nagasaki in 1945
Tokyo’s outspoken Governor says his country, which suffered history’s only nuclear attack, should build nuclear weapons to counter the threat from fast-rising China.
In an interview with The Independent, Shintaro Ishihara said Japan could develop nuclear weapons within a year and send a strong message to the world.
“All our enemies: China, North Korea and Russia – all close neighbours – have nuclear weapons. Is there another country in the world in a similar situation?
“People talk about the cost and other things but the fact is that diplomatic bargaining power means nuclear weapons. All the [permanent] members of the [United Nations] Security Council have them.”
The comments from the leader of Japan’s second-most powerful political office come amid concerns about China’s growing military muscle.
Beijing announced last week that its 2011 defence budget will be hiked by 12.7 per cent to 601.1bn yuan (£56.2bn) up from 532.1bn yuan last year. Most experts say that those figures are an underestimate.
China officially overtook Japan as the world’s second largest economy last month. Despite booming bilateral trade, the relationship has regularly been shaken by disputes over territorial and historical issues. Ties are still struggling to recover from a maritime clash last year over the Senkaku Islands, which are owned by Tokyo but claimed by Beijing.
Mr Ishihara said the clash, which ended when police released the captain of a Chinese ship accused of ramming Japan’s coastguard vessels, had exposed his country’s weakness in Asia. “China wouldn’t have dared lay a hand on the Senkakus [if Japan had nuclear weapons].”
The right-wing Governor added that a nuclear-armed Japan would also win more respect from Russia, which seized four Japanese-owned islands during the Second World War. And he advised his constitutionally pacifist nation to scrap restrictions on the manufacture and sale of weapons. “We should develop sophisticated weapons and sell them abroad. Japan made the best fighters in the world before America crushed the industry. We could get that back.”
Conservatives have long demanded that Tokyo ditch its postwar constitution, which was written during the American occupation of the country and renounces war as a sovereign right.
Japan’s so-called non-nuclear principles, produced during the time of Prime Minister Eisaku Sato in 1964-72, later committed the country to never produce, possess or allow the entry of nuclear weapons. The principles were partly a response to popular revulsion over the deaths of more than quarter of a million mostly civilians in the 1945 US bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Mr Ishihara claimed that Mr Sato, who won the 1974 Nobel Peace Prize for his opposition to plans for a nuclear weapons programme, was at the same time secretly approaching the US for help in developing an atomic bomb.
“If the Sato administration had unilaterally developed nuclear weapons then, for a start North Korea wouldn’t have taken so many of our citizens,” said the Governor, referring to Pyongyang’s abduction of an unknown number of Japanese people.
Mr Ishihara is expected to step down this year after 12 years governing the city of 13 million people. He once called gay people “abnormal” and elderly women who can’t have babies “useless”. His right-wing politics and persistent warnings about the rise of China have earned him the sobriquet “Japan’s Jean-Marie Le Pen”.
survivaljapan 