Britain, Japan agree to strengthen trade and security partnership

U.K run by an imbecile.

Japan also run by an imbecile.

The big difference between the two is that Boris is a lucky imbecile, he always finds a way to end up smelling of roses..

This seems a political show to China. We democratic countries have many good friends to help each other. China! do you have any good friends? something like that probably.

U.K run by an imbecile.

Japan also run by an imbecile.

Perfect match.

From Brexit to Brentry into Indo-Pacific. Welcome.

Isn’this the same Motegi who was negatively sarcastic to foreign journalist on last year press conference when Japan decided to ban even long term residents to return back to the country?

And now I see him seeking help and cooperation to a foreign country.

How amusing.

Britain, Japan agree to strengthen trade and security partnership.

There must/has to be a sound political and economic grounding/substance to the partnership.

The free trade agreement must sincerely be beneficial to both Countries.

In every sector. UK drop all tariffs on EVs and hybrids, allow Japan unfettered access to government procurement contracts, through a clear less convoluted tendering process.

This must be reciprocated in the areas the UK would benefit within the J market place.

Also free movement of peoples, employment exchange programs, lose the red tape.

danToday  07:26 am JST

U.K run by an imbecile.

Japan also run by an imbecile.

Perfect match.

Being democracies neither are in office for the rest of their lives.

Perfect match. 119 years since the Anglo-Japanese Alliance was signed.

The big difference between the two is that Boris is a lucky imbecile, he always finds a way to end up smelling of roses..

It's not luck, it's because the media, i.e., right-wing press and the (ever more right wing) BBC, give Johnson an easy ride. He's just a rogue/upper class twit and it's all just a laff and japes. Which it might be if your house is paid off and you have money in the bank. For people who are comfortable, politicians can be clowns and entertainers and there is no harm done. Recent quotes include "let the bodies pile high" and "I can't live on (sum which is 10 times the average salary)". Previous PMs would have been buried for them alone. Any corruption, and there is plenty of it now, and it's "all politicians are the same". No, because stealing a few paperclips corruption is not giving a huge contract to your mate corruption.

Japan seems to be frantic in seeking " security " alliances from anybody. They do realize one thing perhaps, they're the ones closest to the potential theater of war among the QUAD countries, with the most to lose.

Perhaps your not aware of all the water between China and Japan? Quad member India is on China's border so it is much closer than Japan and it also has just as much if not more to lose.

If anything Japan should be trying to strengthen trade and security with their closest neighbour or at least try to be friendly

Why on earth would you strengthen trade with a belligerent nation trying to steal your territory? Japan already attempts to be friendly with everyone but you dont reward those trying to take your stuff.

Japan extending its hands in friendship and solidarity with far of England is good for both. Safety in numbers and more trade the better for everyone. Seems to be win win at the moment.

And that photo doesn't do Motegi any favours, especially when standing next to Raab.

Any agreement between these two countries is going to see the UK get the short end of the stick, as usual. Partly because of the way Japan taxes the hell out of everything foreign and its xenophobic practices, and partly because the UK is such a weak country nowadays that it's so desperate for any crumbs. And how about making entry at airports equal. The way things stand now, Japanese tourists can come and go through UK airports as they please, through the same automatic gates as for UK citizens, whereas UK citizens residing in Japan (forget about tourists) are separated, fingerprinted, and checked by an officer.

I'll give you a better example: you remember how a year ago the US snatched a shipment of masks that was intended for Europe? And that's just one example of the "friendship".

@Alex

That's Trump's decision. He is an abnormal president. Trump always thinks "America First" He doesn't care about friendship. Biden will not do this kind of things because he thinks friendship is more important.

He is an abnormal president.

correction:

He was an abnormal president.

Japan seems to be frantic in seeking " security " alliances from anybody. They do realize one thing perhaps, they're the ones closest to the potential theater of war among the QUAD countries, with the most to lose. Can you imagine the heat being next to China and Russia ?

Security, thoug, shouldn't necessarily mean antagonism, it could also mean they're ambassadors for securing peace or at least in modulating it...hopefully.

That's a beautiful building behind them and a nice bit of lawn. Japan can only dream of having such spaces.

Isn't Japan bigger than the UK?

Japan as island is a little bigger than UK, but Japan has whole mountains and less flat lands. UK has much more flat lands than Japan.

The left leg trouser is so wrinkled........wonder why,

cant he wear it on waist properly

Of all the minster in Johnson cabinet, Raab does not inspire confidence to get the job done.

Raab possesses a near callous disregard for employment rights and protection.

Raab’s regressive ideological bent does not stop at employment rights, Raab decries feminism as a form of bigotry.

Ai Wonder

Will Toshimitsu Motegi come back with a new strain of covid? Why on earth have a meeting like this face-to-face? Can you imagine the entourage that would have had to go with him to the UK? No doubt a small army of staff, reporters and the like marched into covid-ridden Britain for this daft meeting. The UK has been an epicentre for the covid virus and has been one of the top three worse countries in world for dealing with it. So many, many lives lost. About the only thing they got right recently was the roll out of vaccines, something the Japanese fossils at the top here can't seem to get their heads around.

More than half the adult population of the UK have had their first dose of the vaccine, and we had ONE recorded death from Covid yesterday. Covid-ridden?

I'm more concerned about Motegi's entourage bringing a new strain here than flying about.

While Mr. Raab and the UK pledge to help police this region from aggressions, let’s pray the UK rescind their proposed domestic policies of over policing their citizen’s right to “peaceful” protest.

“Under the new legislation, the Brit govt wants to increase police powers to block non-violent protests which have a "significant disruptive effect" on the public or parliament.” “Many protesters on Sat said they did not trust police to protect them and that the new laws would give authorities too much power to shut down politically awkward protests.” -

We democratic countries have many good friends to help each other.

Don't be so optimistic. Rephrasing a famous quote, there are no friends in politics, only interests.

We democratic countries have many good friends to help each other.

Don't be so optimistic. Rephrasing a famous quote, there are no friends in politics, only interests.

@Alex

I give you an example about political friends. Democratic countries such as US, Britain, France, Germany, Canada, India,,,etc. support Japan about discharge of diluted tritium water. They don't get any interests about Japan's discharge. As long as being democratic country, we can get more international support from them.

@kwatt

As I mentioned, that was just one example, you can find many more like it googling the news from a year ago. Here is another example: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/coronavirus-european-solidarity-sidelined-as-french-interests-take-priority-1.4216184

Again, there is no friendship in politics, only interests.

@Alex

You gave one bad example. Trump was a only bad president he did not think partnership/friendship among democratic countries. Regarding covid vaccine, America made vaccine, so Americans have top priority first and UK made vaccine, so British have top priority first and EU countries also have priority of vaccine. Priority is very normal. Japan did not make it yet, so just have to wait for vaccine from EU. Vaccine are lately often coming little by little until all people get one. Japan's priority is a little higher. So friendship does exist in politics. it is reported Japan would make its own covid vaccine until end of this year or beginning of next year.

Funny the caption only mentioned the two men and not the women as perhaps an interpreter.

@Martimurano

You forgot to mention the 100,000 + deaths from COVID19 in the U.K which could have been avoided if Boris hadn't opted for the 'lets all get infected herd approach' in the early stages of the pandemic.

Lets start with appearances.

Boris is an obese Eton toff with about as much charm as a mosquito and as for his charisma if you call gibbering waffling on and larking about charismatic then you are in a tiny minority there!

Booming economy you say?!

I hear that Brexit has and will continue to be a disaster for England and the U.K with Scotland & possibly Wales looking to go independent and N.Ireland on the brink of a return of the return of the New IRA due to the hard border and being generally ignored by Westminster.

Boris and the Tory party are losing a lot of ground in the opinion polls so where are you getting 'he is very popular' from?

Business people are only really interested in encouraging the enablers and simply making sure business can get done.

With that thought in mind I wouldn't be too sanguine about the UKs future. UK has done nothing but decline for the last 75 years.

The UK would not be a G7 country and a permenant member of the UN if it has declined. I guess it is how one would define "decline".

That's a beautiful building behind them and a nice bit of lawn. Japan can only dream of having such spaces.

Isn't Japan bigger than the UK?

Motegi should go to Fleet Street and buy a decent suit and some decent shoes he looks awful.

Motegi should definitely invest in a couple of suits out of Saville Row!

The UK is a bit of a mixed bag at the moment.

The housing market is ballistic but retail is flat apart from food, it is very depressed.

And Motegi’s attitude to Japan’s foreign residents seemed very discriminatory a few months ago.

Is he really the best man to represent Japan in the UK?

Sure, China, Russia, whatever. But, what I really hope this means is more BBC programs on NHK.

I don't think UK has ever had a larger naval presence in East Asia than Japan since the early 1900s.

Correct, that is why I think this is more case of Japan securing allies against China, who Japan feels threatened by.

@kwatt

I'll give you a better example: you remember how a year ago the US snatched a shipment of masks that was intended for Europe? And that's just one example of the "friendship".

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/03/mask-wars-coronavirus-outbidding-demand

MartimuranoMay 4  09:43 pm JST

I don't think so UK is actually run by an incredibly astute, charismatic and dynamic operator - he is a brilliant academic, a guy who actually gets things done (egs. lockdowns, mass vaccination roll-outs, booming-economy, getting-the-hell-out-of-the-European-muddlers-and-morons).....

He also gets rich Tory supporters to lend him money for expensive interior refurbishments, fails to declare the loans and lies about it when questioned in Parliament. He's also reported to have said he'd rather see bodies piled high in the streets than declare another lockdown.

small wonder that he's very popular really.

He's just lucky that a lot of British people, willfully or otherwise, seem to be blind to his faults.

What's new. Uk has had a small naval presence in East Asia for many years.

What's new. Uk has had a small naval presence in East Asia for many years.

I don't think UK has ever had a larger naval presence in East Asia than Japan since the early 1900s. The Japanese had a pretty good navy by the beginning of the 20th Century, good enough to drub the Russians twice. In WWII it took the IJA very little time to run the British and Dutch navies out of the region, not to return until the war was nearly over. What naval power the UK had between WWI and WWII was concentrated in Singapore and the Indian Ocean where UK had colonies. Hong Kong had only three old destroyers in the harbor when Japan attacked, and two of those withdrew without fighting.

If the Scots gain their independence and considering the only drydocks in the UK able to handle the the RNs two new aircraft carriers are at Rosyth in Scotland, the RN might want to sell those two aircraft carriers to the Japanese to prevent the Scots from getting them.

Business people are only really interested in encouraging the enablers and simply making sure business can get done.

With that thought in mind I wouldn't be too sanguine about the UKs future. UK has done nothing but decline for the last 75 years.

Two lonesome in May. Breeding some more Thatcherisms?

Dan, Simon,

Don't listen to the tittle-tattle tabloid-nonsense and other unsubstantiated hearsay - the open- / broad- / liberal-minded cognoscenti recognise the headway the UK is trying to make in dealing with the wider-world's businesses and economies.

Most Brits don't give a flying-fig about the silly domestic arguments, the pecadillos of the guys in charge, the petty functionaries of the EU - we only see the bigger-picture of real people conducting real business, just as I've managed to achieve with my business connections in Tokyo, New York, various European cities, the Middle East, from my London base. Business people are only really interested in encouraging the enablers and simply making sure business can get done.

The UK would not be a G7 country and a permenant member of the UN if it has declined. I guess it is how one would define "decline".

I assume you meant to say UK was a permanent member of the US Security Council. Many would argue the current membership of the Security Council set as it was in the late 1940s no longer reflects the world of today and should be changed. Neither Russia nor the UK are among the top five economies today. There are a lot more than five nuclear powers and many of them are not Security Council members today. India has both a larger economy than the UK, a much larger overall military and nuclear weapons. Israel might have a larger nuclear force than UK has. Security council? Not a chance.

UK's economic position has slid steadily and is now number 7. Even California has a larger GDP than UK (it would be no5 at a touch over $3 trillion), and California has only 57% of the population of UK. And unlike UK California keeps growing their GDP strongly, stronger than the US GDP growth rate, and knocking off other nations for higher positions. Since the end of WWI and the founding of the UN, UK has slid from the second or third most powerful economy in the world (always a little uncertain of the stats for the USSR) to number 7. France is number 5 and the nation UK fought two world wars against is number 4. If you look at the UK military it is a shadow of what it was even in the 1980s. Aircraft UK used to make in house like maritime patrol aircraft and AWACS (different versions of the Nimrod) are now bought from the US (P-8 and Wedgetail, though the order for Wedgetails was just cut to the point the RAF won't be able to keep even one airborne all day every day). The long range bombers are all retired with no replacement. The once abundant RAF aerial tankers are gone and their replacements are privately owned on contract to the RAF when not flying civilian passengers and freight! The UK doesn't even have enough aircraft to fill out the air wings of their two aircraft carriers and currently there are no plans to buy enough aircraft to ever get there. The US Marines will flesh out their air wings for the foreseeable future. UK is retiring their armored combat vehicles without a replacement where just a year ago the plan was to upgrade the whole fleet. Now the British Army will have to do without an ACV. Their armored force is drastically reduced from OIF days. BAOR is long gone. If Scotland goes the UK looses its whole nuclear weapons establishment and the only shipyard capable of drydocking their two aircraft carriers. In fact all of UKs shipbuilding capability is in Scotland, the RN having decided to stop building new ships at Portsmouth and Cammel Laird in Belfast abandoning shipbuilding for offshore wind power. The UK has spent my entire adult life "rationalizing" its forces into a force of no particular consequence backed by an economy that keeps going down notch by notch relative to its competitors.

Will Toshimitsu Motegi come back with a new strain of covid? Why on earth have a meeting like this face-to-face? Can you imagine the entourage that would have had to go with him to the UK? No doubt a small army of staff, reporters and the like marched into covid-ridden Britain for this daft meeting. The UK has been an epicentre for the covid virus and has been one of the top three worse countries in world for dealing with it. So many, many lives lost. About the only thing they got right recently was the roll out of vaccines, something the Japanese fossils at the top here can't seem to get their heads around. But much more than this, is it really worth jetting off all around the world to be at a meeting like this with all the SEVERE pollution it causes? Are they not aware of the CLIMATE EMERGENCY? All meetings can be conducted by using technology and everyone can stay put. It is for the sake of our health and the planet's health. Should be a no-brainer, but there again, we are talking about politicians here.

Riiight, so a trade agreement with a continent two hours away door to door by rail, and 2 hours more by sea is binned, and now the UK gov is trumpeting the prospect a 'replacement' with a continent 5 to 7 weeks away by sea. Makes perfect sense.

https://www.searates.com/services/distances-time/

And the UK is now small fry sitting at the negotiating table, so gets the deals that go with its ranking. Japan has already got one over on the UK with its bilateral trade agreement which is a copy and paste of the existing EU agreement that used to cover the UK, just with better terms for Japan on the things it wants.

And yes, how many in the entourage jumped the vaccine queue for this little junket?

As other posters have said, 3 months is a long time in a pandemic, and the contagion risk is pretty much 50-50. Not good news for either side, as the vaccinated can still take bring variants with them (we still don't know how much). Haven't they heard of Zoom?

"UK run by an imbecile.

Japan also run by an imbecile.

Perfect match...."

I don't think so UK is actually run by an incredibly astute, charismatic and dynamic operator - he is a brilliant academic, a guy who actually gets things done (egs. lockdowns, mass vaccination roll-outs, booming-economy, getting-the-hell-out-of-the-European-muddlers-and-morons)..... small wonder that he's very popular really.

Whereas the Japanese SupremoSuga has all the appeal of a dithering tadpole, and unfortunately has the appearance of your average Tokyo taxi-driver.

Confusing. Japanese Constitution Article 9 states we can’t join US/UK/Aussie in there upcoming war with China, and also prevents us from joining in the upcoming UK war in Northern Ireland.

i hope they get receipts for all these flights, hotels, gifts and meetings meetings and quarantine for two weeks.

What a waste for UK.

Can't collaborate with European neighbours and seeking alliance with countries 10.000kms away.

Backstabbers alliance.