As Japan takes a more active role in military affairs, the defense minister has more on his mind than just threats here on Earth.
Shigeru Ishiba became the second member of the Cabinet to profess a belief in UFOs and said he was looking at how Japan's military could respond to aliens under the pacifist Constitution.
"There are no grounds for us to deny that there are unidentified flying objects [UFOs] and some life-form that controls them," Ishiba told reporters, saying it was his personal view and not that of the defense ministry.
Ishiba, nicknamed a "security geek" for his wonkish knowledge of defense affairs, noted that Japan deployed its military against Godzilla in the classic monster movie.
"Few discussions have been made on what the legal grounds were for that," the minister said with a slight grin, drawing laughter from reporters.
Ishiba said he was examining different scenarios for an alien invasion.
"If they descended, saying `People of the Earth, let's make friends,' it would not be considered an urgent, unjust attack on our country," Ishiba said.
"And there is another issue of how can we convey our intentions if we don't understand what they are saying," he said.
"We should consider various possibilities," he said. "There is no need at all to do this as the defense ministry, but I want to consider what to do by myself."
Ishiba's remarks came after the Tokyo government this week said it had no knowledge of UFOs, prompting a surprise rebuttal from the top government spokesman.
"Personally, I absolutely believe they exist," Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said on Tuesday.
Japan has deployed long-range missiles in a southwestern region near China, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday, at a time when ties with Beijing are at their lowest in recent years. The missiles were installed in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu, as Japan is attempting to shore up its military capacity as China steps up naval activity in the East China Sea. “Standoff defense capabilities enable us to counter the threat of enemy forces attempting to invade our country ... while ensuring the safety of our personnel,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. “This is an extremely important initiative for
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today accepted an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to lead a delegation to China next month, saying she hopes to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations and bring stability to the Taiwan Strait. “I am grateful and happy to accept this invitation,” Cheng said in a statement from the KMT chairperson’s office. Cheng said she hopes both sides can work together to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations, enhance exchange and cooperation, bring stability to the Taiwan Strait and improve people’s livelihoods. At today's news conference, Cheng said any efforts to
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
RSS