Love Letter from Brussels
Closer than you think... (No.31)
February 8, 2016
Salon des Vacances
One of the events of the 150 Years of Friendship in February is the Salon des Vacances. The Salon des Vacances is a huge holiday fair with all kinds of everything about vacation held once a year around this time in Brussels. In this year’s edition, the Guest Country of Honor was Japan! At the entrance of the venue, the Japanese flag was waving and the large Japanese booth with its stage and cherry tree in the center of the Asian Pavilion attracted a great number of visitors.
According to the people on the ground, last year’s visitors often expressed a general wish to go to Japan, such as “I want to go to Japan but…” This year, however, people mainly asked specific questions such as “In this month, I’m going to city A and B and I would like to do α, could I have some pamphlets?” In 2015, the number of foreign visitors to Japan rose by half, amounting to over 19 million people and surpassing also for the first time the number of Japanese going abroad. According to a preliminary forecast, the number of Belgians visiting Japan has risen by 30% from 19,000 visitors in 2014 to about 27,000.“The Three C’s”
I was given an opportunity to talk, where I explained about the “3 C’s of Japan’s Appeal” and expressed my wish for 50,000 Belgian visitors to Japan in 2016.
① Cool; Japanese food is cool!
② Cheap; there’s this myth that everything in Japan is expensive. It is not true and the impact of weak yen by itself makes everything about 20 to 30% cheaper!
③ Convenient; by all means, please make use of ANA’s direct flight from Brussels to Tokyo! I often hear people say “Japan is really far away”. Now that there’s a direct flight, the flight time is approximately 12 hours. In terms of distance: Brussels-Tokyo is approximately 9500 kilometers, just a third more than Brussels-Washington, which measures 6200 kilometers. It is also about 1500 kilometers further than Beijing. Brussels-Tokyo is about the same distance as Brussels-Cape Town or even Rio de Janeiro. In essence, I think that this is not an insurmountable barrier if we make Japan attractive enough.Is it closer than you think or further than you think?
Speaking of distance, North-Korea’s another test launch of a long-range ballistic missile is a reckless act which violates repeated UN Security Council Resolutions and is absolutely unacceptable. At the same time, we must objectively analyze and reflect on what this means for Japan’s national security.
The projectile in question is generally said to be an improved Taepodong-2. The firing range DPRK is shooting for is estimated to be about 13,000 kilometers. In fact, the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of South-Korea announced that the projectile’s range most likely lies somewhere between 12,000 and 13,000 kilometers. Intrigued by this, I decided to look up the distance to some cities from Tongchang County, the area in the western part of North Korea where the missile was launched.
- The distance to Tokyo is slightly less than 1400 kilometers. Incidentally, North Korea has deployed a great number of Nodong missiles with a 1500 – 2000km range. If they would target Japan, they would not even need to develop Taepodong.
- Surprisingly, the distance from Tongchang County to Beijing is just over 700 kilometers, about half the distance to Tokyo.
- When we shift our focus to America, we see that to Washington DC or New York, the distance measures 11,000 kilometers. Even closer are San Francisco and Los Angeles, which are both situated about 9000-9500 kilometers away. Therefore, it is very clear that these missiles are being developed for becoming capable to reach the American mainland.
- • Just for reference, let us also take a look at the distances to Europe. First of all, there’s Moscow, which finds itself 6300 kilometers away. Brussels, Paris and London are all situated between about 8400 and 8700 kilometers, and even the furthest capital, Lisbon, is located 10,100 kilometers away.
In sum: from an objective point of view based on capability and distance, we can conclude that:
① The entire European continent is even closer to the North Korean missile base than Washington or New York is.
② If Taepodong-2 is successfully deployed, it is very likely that the entire European continent will be in the missile’s range.
Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not at all saying that North-Korea is targeting Europe and there is no information indicating such a thing. However, the earth is round and distance can be deceptive sometimes. No matter how you look at it, Europe and Asia may seem far away but they’re actually closer than you think.