China to make its own quantum computer fridges

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China is going to produce its own dilution refrigerators to chill superconducting chips in quantum computers, aiming to reduce its reliance on foreign cryogenic devices.

Earlier this year, two physical scientists at Anhui University developed a dilution fridge that can create and maintain an absolute zero environment at as low as 8.5 milli-Kelvin (mK), meeting the international standard that Western firms have achieved.

The two scientists are Shan Lei, a professor at Anhui University’s institutes of physical science and information technology, and Wang Shaoliang, a cryogenic engineer at the same university.

On Tuesday, the duo secured seed funding from the state-owned Hefei Technology and Innovation Group to start a project that aims at commercializing their fridge from a base in the Hefei High Technology Development Zone. They said that, if the project succeeds, China will no longer have to import dilution fridges from overseas.

Currently, major dilution fridge suppliers include the United Kingdom’s Oxford Instruments, Finland’s BlueFors and the United States’ Lake Shore Cryotronics. Last September, IBM, which operates the world’s fastest quantum computer known as Osprey, launched a super-fridge project, dubbed Goldeneye, to build the world’s biggest dilution fridge for cooling quantum computing experiments.

IBM is building the world’s largest dilution refrigerator in a program called Goldeneye. Photo: IBM

Wang, also the president of Hefei Zhileng Low Temperature Technology Group, said his company will receive the first tranche of seed funding from the Hefei Technology and Innovation Group to begin the commercialization of its dilution fridge.

He said his company chose to move into the Hefei High-Technology Development Zone as many other quantum firms have formed an ecosystem in the area. He did not disclose a timetable for the company’s development, but said his company targets becoming the top dilution fridge supplier in China.

Cryogenic technology

There are three main types of quantum computers: electron-based (superconducting), atom-based (cold atom or trapped ion) and photon-based.

Superconducting quantum computers are more common than the other two but they can only operate at absolute zero temperatures, ideally below 10mK.

Such an ultra-low temperature can be achieved by a helium dilution fridge, which creates cooling power by mixing helium-3 and helium-4 isotopes. The first dilution fridge was realized in the laboratory at Leiden University in the Netherlands in 1964, reaching as low as 0.22K. 

As of now, the lowest temperature that has been achieved by dilution fridges in the laboratory is 2mK. 

Proteox5mK is the most powerful dilution refrigerator for commercial use. Photo: Oxford Instruments

In October 2020, Oxford Instruments unveiled a dilution fridge called Proteox5mK, which can reach base temperatures lower than 5mK and has a cooling power of more than 850 microwatts (μW) at 100mK.

In the late 1970s, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) developed a dilution fridge that achieved a temperature as low as 34mK, Chinese media said. But it later discontinued the research

The decision was followed by the establishment of a diplomatic relationship between China and the US in 1979 and the opening of the Chinese economy in the early 1980s.

At present, all Chinese superconducting quantum computers still use foreign-made dilution fridges.

New breakthroughs

After the US-China trade war broke out in 2018, CAS restarted its research on dilution fridges.

In June 2021, the CAS Institute of Physics said its cryogen-free dilution refrigerator (CFDR) reached a base temperature of around 10.9 mK for continuous circulation and 8.6 mK for single-shot operations. 

Ji Zhongqing, an associate researcher at the CAS Institute of Physics, told media that he hoped the tool could be commercialised as soon as possible, so the development of China’s quantum computers would not be constrained by the West’s possible sanctions.

In late March this year, Ji’s team in Beijing saw its dilution fridge reach a base temperature of 7.6mK.

At the same time, Wang announced that his team’s dilution fridge achieved 8.5mK with a cooling power of 435 μW at 100mK. Before that, it had already reached 9.2mK on December 31 last year.

Over the past two years, the US has in several moves banned the export of its high-end semiconductors, chip-making equipment and supercomputer parts to China and has called on its allies to follow suit. To date, it has not extended the curbs to quantum computing.  

Commentators noted that, even if China can self-supply its dilution fridges, it still needs electron-beam lithography to make superconducting chips. US ally Japan remains dominant in the e-beam lithography market.

Read: China’s fastest yet quantum computer still way behind US

Follow Jeff Pao on Twitter at @jeffpao3

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Japan lawmakers advance controversial Bill to promote LGBTQ awareness

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TOKYO: Japan’s lower house on Tuesday (Jun 13) approved proposed legislation aimed at “promoting understanding” of LGBTQ issues but campaigners criticised the Bill for its watered-down language. The country’s coalition government had debated the wording for months, with conservative politicians saying an anti-discrimination clause could deepen social divisions or openContinue Reading

Indonesia-led ASEAN sea drills will take harder aim at China

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Indonesia, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ current revolving chair (ASEAN), is set to stage the first-ever joint military drills among just Southeast Asian bloc’s navies, crucially at a time of escalating US-China tensions.

According to Indonesian military chief Yudo Margono, the drills will be held in “the North Natuna Sea,” a resource-rich area off the coast of Indonesia’s Natuna islands.

Jakarta expressly renamed the area as the “North Natuna Sea”, similar to the Philippines’ designation of its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the South China Sea as the “West Philippine Sea”, in order to challenge Beijing’s claims of “traditional rights” in the waters. The islands have been a long-time site of illegal Chinese fishing more recently fortified by a Chinese Coast Guard ship presence.

Back in 2020, Indonesian armed forces deployed at least six warships and four jet fighters to the area in order to protect the country’s claimed sovereign rights.

During a rare high-profile visit to the Natuna Islands, Indonesian President Joko Widodo took an uncompromising position by categorically rejecting any Chinese claims in the resource-rich waters, which overlap with the tip of Beijing’s expansive “nine-dash line” claims in the South China Sea.

Indonesian military spokesperson Julius Widjojono made it clear that the planned ASEAN joint exercises are in response to the “high risk of disaster in Asia, especially Southeast Asia.”

In recent months, Manila has accused China’s coast guard of engaging in “aggressive tactics” and “dangerous maneuvers” in Philippine waters, just as Chinese armed forces challenged American reconnaissance activities in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait.

As the regional body’s chairman this year, Jakarta seems intent on reversing the growing marginalization of ASEAN in shaping crises in its own backyard.

Enmeshing superpowers

To be clear, ASEAN nations are no strangers to joint military drills. Over the past decade, Southeast Asian nations have conducted such activities with all major powers.

Back in 2019, for instance, ASEAN navies conducted a five-day-long ASEAN-US Maritime Exercise (AUMX), which began at Thailand’s Sattahip naval base in Chonburi province in the Gulf of Thailand and extended all the way to Cape Cà Mau in southern Vietnam in the South China Sea.

Pre-drills, meanwhile, were held in Brunei and Singapore, underscoring the depth and sophistication of the joint exercises. As many as 1,260 personnel, eight warships, and four aircraft took part in AUMX, with Indonesia and Malaysia serving as observers.

Back then, the Pentagon deployed the USS Wayne E Meyer guided-missile destroyer,USS Montgomery littoral combat ship, P-8 Poseidon aircraft and multiple MH-60 helicopters for the joint drills with ASEAN nations.

Meanwhile, Southeast Asian nations also deployed their own main warships, namely the RSS Tenacious frigate (Singapore), the HTMS Krabi (Thailand), KDB Ramon Alcaraz (Philippines), the KDB Darulaman offshore patrol vessel (Brunei) and UMS Kyan Sittha frigate (Myanmar).

ASEAN and China held joint maritime drills in 2018. Image: Twitter

By that time, ASEAN nations had already conducted three naval drills with China. The most high-profile was the inaugural ASEAN-China Maritime Exercise drills in the southern Chinese city of Zhanjiang a year earlier in 2018.

Vice Admiral Shen Jinlong, commander of the (PLA) Navy, characterized the exercises as the country’s vision of “building a maritime community with a shared future” with ASEAN nations.

Meanwhile, ASEAN states also participated in Joint Maritime Drill in Qingdao, China to commemorate the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) 70th founding anniversary. China also conducted naval drills in Singapore’s waters in the same year.

But regional maritime tensions have only escalated over the succeeding years. In late 2019, a number of key ASEAN states began to toughen their stance against China in contested waters.

First came an unprecedented warning by Vietnamese deputy foreign minister Le Hoai Trung, who openly threatened potential “arbitration and litigation measures” against China amid festering disputes in the South China Sea.

A month later, Malaysia took observers by surprise when it submitted a claim for an extended continental shelf to the United Nations, directly challenging China’s (and Vietnam’s) expansive claims in the southern portions of the South China Sea basin.

In response to China’s criticisms, then-Malaysian foreign minister Saifuddin Abdullah dismissed Beijing’s claims as “ridiculous” and went so far as to threaten international arbitration to assert his country’s claim, similar to the Philippines successful move at an arbitral tribunal at The Hague in 2016.

Within weeks of Malaysia’s moves, Indonesia found itself at loggerheads with China over the Natuna Islands.

Amid a growing Chinese paramilitary presence in the North Natuna Sea area, the Indonesian Foreign Ministry openly accused China of a “violation of [its] sovereignty” and directly rejected the latter’s claim to “traditional fishing rights” in the area as having “no legal basis” in modern international law including UNCLOS.  

It didn’t take long before Indonesian President Widodo, earlier accused of being too soft on China, made a historic visit to the Natuna area, where he declared: “We have a district here, a regent, and a governor here. There are no more debates. De facto, de jure, Natuna is Indonesia.”

The Indonesian military also bolstered its position in the Natuna area to counter any potential contingencies.

Rising Resistance

Although more assertive on an individual basis, ASEAN nations failed to present a collective response. In fairness, Indonesia repeatedly tried to steer regional states towards greater unity on the maritime disputes.

In 2015, the de facto ASEAN leader proposed joint patrols to send a clear message that no single nation should “build up strength or threaten anyone” in the area.

Eager to maintain stable ties with Beijing back then, however, Indonesia didn’t rule out joint patrols with China. But two years later, during the inaugural Australia-ASEAN Summit in Sydney, Widodo proposed a variation on the same theme, except this time he called for joint patrols by non-claimant regional states excluding China.  

In 2021, the Indonesian Maritime Security Agency, known as Bakamla, proposed an ASEAN Coast Guard forum as a “great opportunity for ASEAN coast guards and maritime law enforcement agencies to talk and cooperate with each other.” 

Earlier this year, Widodo once again emphasized the need for “ASEAN unity” in order to address regional crises. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr highlighted rising maritime tensions and underscored the “necessity to resolve all sovereignty and jurisdictional issues pertaining to the South China Sea by peaceful means without resort to force.”

A Philippine Navy ship with 200 crew gets ready to participate in the first ASEAN-US maritime exercise in 2019. Image: Screengrab / Al Jazeera

In response, ASEAN leaders welcomed “develop[ing] guidelines for accelerating the early conclusion of an effective and substantive” Code of Conduct (COC) in the South China Sea during the summit in Indonesia last month.

The Indonesian-led ASEAN drills later this year are thus seen as part of ongoing efforts to arrest escalating tensions in the region as well as reinforce the regional body’s “centrality” in shaping its own backyard.

“We will hold joint military drills in the North Natuna Sea,” Indonesian military chief Yudo Margono said after a meeting of Southeast Asian defense chiefs in Bali this month.

The top Indonesian general made it clear that the ASEAN naval drills, scheduled for September, won’t include combat operations but emphasized the need for strengthening “ASEAN centrality.”

Follow Richard Javad Heydarian on Twitter at @Richeydarian

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Global crackdown on laughing gas as abuse rises; Singapore doctors see few cases

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“BROAD RANGE OF LEGITIMATE USES”: MHA

In response to CNA’s queries, Singapore authorities said nitrous oxide has not been outlawed here since it has various legitimate uses across various industries.

Nitrous oxide is not regulated under the Misuse of Drugs Act, which was amended in March to better tackle psychoactive substances, because it “falls under the category of substances which have a broad range of legitimate uses”, said the Ministry of Home Affairs.

It is currently listed as a permitted food additive in the Eighth Schedule of the Food Regulations, the ministry added.

A spokesperson from the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) said it regulates the gas only when it is used in a specific therapeutic product for treating a medical condition.

She added: “For such uses, the product is required to be registered with HSA to ensure that it meets the quality, safety, and efficacy standards before the product can be supplied for use by registered medical practitioners.”

OVERSEAS MOVES

The BBC reported in March that as part of a crackdown on anti-social behaviour, the UK government will criminalise the possession of laughing gas – the second most prevalent drug among young adults there aged 16 to 24 years, after cannabis. It is already illegal to produce, supply or import nitrous oxide for human consumption.

Last year, the European Union’s drugs agency warned that recreational use of the gas has been increasing among young people in Europe due to its wide availability, low price and perception that it is safe.

Closer to Singapore, Taiwan listed nitrous oxide as a controlled substance – the first non-toxic chemical under its Toxic Chemical Substances Control Act – in late 2020.

The Taipei Times reported that this came after the unregulated use of nitrous oxide for recreational purposes had risen in the past few months. The number of such cases in Taoyuan city jumped from 134 in 2019 to 455 in the first seven months of 2020.

Australia bans the supply of nitrous oxide for recreational purposes, but abusers like Kevin can easily turn to “smoke shops” or online delivery services to get their hands on canisters or even tanks of laughing gas.

Over the past decade, media reports have flagged locals and tourists in nearby countries like Vietnam, Thailand and Laos inhaling nitrous oxide using party balloons.

FEW CASES OF ADDICTION IN SINGAPORE

When CNA approached several doctors, addiction specialists and public and private hospitals in Singapore, most said they do not see many cases of nitrous oxide addiction, though they have treated a few patients who usually use it in tandem with other drugs.

They also cautioned that criminalising it could drive the trade underground, possibly leading to more abusing it for recreational purposes.

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Is China challenging the US in Its own back yard?

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Is the Monroe Doctrine about to meet Xi Jinping Thought?

Cuba, the Caribbean Sea island and Cold War remnant isolated from its northern neighbor for most of the past 60 years, has agreed to let China construct an electronic spy base on its territory, according to the Wall Street Journal.

China is willing to pay Cuba “several billion dollars” to allow construction of the eavesdropping station, the Journal said Monday.

Such an accord would indicate China’s willingness to incur American wrath by placing a military intelligence facility 90 miles off US shores. It would stand as an expression of Beijing’s anger over moves by the US to “contain” China by building new or supplementing old military alliances in the Western Pacific Ocean.

It would indicate, in short, that Chinese leader Xi Jinping means to show that China can flex military muscle in the Caribbean, even if only in the form of electronic espionage equipment.

The US administration denied the substance of the report. If it were acknowledged to be true, President Joe Biden would be under great pressure to respond.

The Monroe Doctrine is an American foreign policy dogma dating from the early 19th Century. It was meant to prohibit European colonial powers from threatening the US through other hemispheric countries.

It last gained prominence in 1962, when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev tried to supply Communist Cuba with nuclear weapons. Khrushchev declared the doctrine dead as he transported nuclear missiles via ship toward Havana.

US President John F. Kennedy invoked the doctrine and set up a maritime blockade of Cuba. The Soviet ships retreated.

Comrades: Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro (left) and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev display their solidarity during a post–Cuban Missile Crisis get-together in Moscow. Photo: US Naval Institute

Biden, as a young politician, used to ape JFK’s speaking style. Now he may be faced with trying to emulate the missile crisis result.

Washington became aware of the Cuba-China espionage plan a few weeks ago, the Journal report said. Installation of a spy station would allow Beijing to gather electronic communications from military bases in southeastern American states and to monitor ship traffic.

China is not shy about its own construction of alliances. It has built a strategic partnership with Russia and is unwilling to criticize Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Beijing also made a small effort to extend its naval reach into the Pacific far beyond its shores last year. It signed a security agreement with the Solomon Islands, north of Australia. The accord focuses on building the islands’ defenses, along with offering humanitarian aid.

It also includes a clause that lets China make naval “visits to carry out logistical replacement,” and send Chinese forces to “protect the safety of Chinese personnel” employed there.

Earlier this year, what the US government identified as a Chinese “spy balloon” transited across US territory, and over several military bases and facilities. US President Joe Biden ordered it shot down as it exited over the Atlantic Ocean.

US sailors fish the collapsed Chinese spy balloon out of the Atlantic off South Carolina. Photo: US Navy

Biden, recently trying to ease tensions with China, had sent one of his top officials, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, to Vienna for talks with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi.

After the Sullivan-Wang meeting, Biden signaled his desire to warm relations with China and blamed recent tensions on “the silly balloon that was carrying two freight cars’ worth of spying equipment.” He added that relations would “begin to thaw very shortly.”

China provided no comparable happy talk. Rather, Wang said he had focused on the issue of Taiwan, whose future as part of China is a “solemn position” and none of Washington’s business.

A quick arrival at warm relations seems unlikely, even though the US National Defense Strategy paper issued last year blandly listed China as a “competitor” and Biden has gone beyond that only far enough to label it a “stiff competitor.” Washington’s current view of China seems better described by deeds rather than bland diplo-speak.

This year, Washington deepened its military alliance with South Korea by reaching an agreement to deploy nuclear-armed submarines there and by inviting Korean participation in regional nuclear planning.

In return, Seoul agreed not to build its own atomic weapons. (The US fears some sort of tit-for-tat nuclear exchange between the South and Communist-ruled North Korea.)

Not long after the Korean accord, Japan, alarmed by Chinese naval nearby activity, said it would increase defense spending up to two percent of its gross domestic product by 2027. The increase meets a longstanding pledge made by Japan and its NATO partners in 2014; Japan’s promise requires a 60% increase above its current defense outlay.

Meanwhile, the Philippines said it was permitting US forces access to four military camps, widening American presence in the Southeast Asian island country.

Last year, the US, United Kingdom and Australia agreed to construct a fleet of at least eight nuclear submarines in Australia. Although the sophisticated subs will take several years to produce, it was yet another sign of a quick and broad naval expansion in the Pacific under US leadership.

If the Australian accord was not signal enough of the creation of a watery Great Wall against China, Papua New Guinea and the US signed a preliminary security cooperation pact. It is designed to strengthen Papua New Guinea’s defense force – a “natural progression” in US-Papua contacts,  the State Department wrote.

Rounding out the frenetic revamping of Pacific military resources, the United States approved the sale of $619 million in new weapons to Taiwan, including missiles for its F-16 military jet fleet.

While the speed of alliance-building is unusual, the Biden Administration moves represent realization of a US wish that is more than a decade old to make a military “pivot to Asia” to confront China.

President Barak Obama made a stab at pivoting during his two terms in office that ended in 2017. Obama increased the US naval presence in the western Pacific by 60%, but further efforts were hampered by budget constraints and the American involvement in wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.

Obama’s successor, Donald Trump, focused less on a military pivot than on changing trade imbalances, curbing intellectual property theft by China and Chinese influence on US universities.

Biden’s policies have received steady criticisms from Beijing. The US alliance with  Japan, for instance, “Will pose a threat not only to China, but also to North Korea and Russia in the region. China is right to take strategic action to respond,” Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert, told China’s Global Times newspaper.

China expressed both perplexity and opposition to US military interest in Papua New Guinea. “China believes the rest of the world needs to give more attention and support for development and prosperity in Pacific island countries,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin. “We oppose bringing geopolitical contest into the region of Pacific island countries.”

Generally, Chinese critiques of US and allied moves focus on opposing efforts to “contain” China and what Beijing decries as persistent promotion of a “Cold War mentality” and “bloc building.“

Use of economic muscle has been China’s main tool of influence. The fruits of its Belt and Road initiative span the globe. Along those lines, Beijing has made inroads into the American backyard of Latin America, supposedly off-limits to potential enemies.

Take Brazil, the continent’s biggest country. Over the last twenty years, China went “from being practically irrelevant to Brazil’s economy to becoming the country’s main economic partner, both in trade and, more recently, in direct investments and finance,” wrote the United States Institute of Peace in a recent report.

The benefits for Brazil include big commodity exports, especially of meat and soy. Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva shares some geopolitical positions with Xi that are dear to the Chinese leader. During his recent state visit to Beijing, Lula called for replacing the US dollar as the word’s chief trading currency with some other basket of currencies. China wants the same thing.

Lula also joined Xi’s expression of neutrality over the war on Ukraine, though he stated that, “Putin shouldn’t have invaded.”

And Cuba? Commerce with China appears locked in a classic imbalance of trade between a poor country selling low-priced commodities in order to import industrial products. Cuba exports sugar, tobacco and nickel to China; China sells machinery, electronic goods and medicines to Cuba.

US officials’ initial reaction to the Journal’s report said it contained some inaccuracies, but the officials declined to specify what those might be or to comment on the overall thrust of the article.

Cuban Vice Foreign Minister Carlos F. Cossío said in a press conference that the Journal had reported “fallacies promoted with the deceitful intention of justifying the unprecedented tightening of the blockade, destabilization, and aggression against Cuba and of deceiving public opinion in the United States and the world.”

This article first appeared in Daniel Williams’s newsletter Next War Notes. It is republished with permission.

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No means no: Japan is set to redefine rape in landmark legal reform

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Megumi OkanoBBC News / Tessa Wong
By Tessa Wong & Sakiko Shiraishi
BBC News, Tokyo and Singapore

Warning: this article contains details that some readers may find distressing.

Days after their rape, Megumi Okano says, they already knew the attacker would get away scot-free.

Megumi, who uses they as a personal pronoun, knew the man who did it, and where to find him. But Megumi also knew there would be no case, because Japanese authorities were not likely to consider what happened as rape.

So the university student decided not to report the incident to the police.

“As I couldn’t pursue [justice] that way, he got to live a free and easy life. It is painful to me,” Megumi says.

But change may be coming. The Japanese parliament is now debating a landmark bill to reform the country’s sexual assault laws, only the second such revision in a century.

The bill covers a number of changes, but the biggest and most significant one will see lawmakers redefine rape from “forcible sexual intercourse” to “non-consensual sexual intercourse” – effectively making legal room for consent in a society where the concept is still poorly understood.

Current Japanese law defines rape as sexual intercourse or indecent acts committed “forcibly” and “through assault or intimidation”, or by taking advantage of a person’s “unconscious state or inability to resist”.

This is at odds with many other countries which define it more broadly as any non-consensual intercourse or sexual act – where no means no.

Activists argue that Japan’s narrow definition has led to even narrower interpretations of the law by prosecutors and judges, setting an impossibly high bar for justice and fostering a culture of scepticism that deters survivors from reporting their attacks.

In a 2014 Tokyo case, for instance, a man had pinned a 15-year-old girl to a wall and had sex with her while she resisted. He was acquitted of rape as the court ruled his actions did not make it “extremely difficult” for her to resist. The teenager was treated as an adult because the age of consent in Japan is only 13 years – the lowest among the world’s richest democracies.

“The actual trial processes and decisions vary – some defendants were not convicted even if their acts were proven to be non-consensual, as they did not meet the case of ‘assault or intimidation’,” says Yuu Tadokoro, a spokesman for Spring, a sexual assault survivor group.

It’s why Megumi says they did not go to the police after the assault by a fellow university student.

According to Megumi, the two of them were watching TV together when he began making sexual advances towards Megumi, who said “No”.

Then, he attacked. The two “wrestled” for a while, says Megumi, before Megumi froze and gave up resisting. This well-documented response to an attack is sometimes not covered by the current law, according to activists.

In the days afterwards Megumi – a law student – pored through the penal code and case precedents and realised what had happened would not meet court standards of “assault and intimidation”.

A young woman is seen on the street using an umbrella to protect herself from the midday sun on June 27, 2022, in Tokyo's popular Shibuya district in Tokyo, Japan.

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They had also heard of survivors experiencing victim blaming and “second rape” – where survivors are re-traumatised when encountering insensitivity from the police or hospital staff – in Japanese investigations.

“I did not want to go through that process [of an investigation] for my scarce hope of getting justice. That’s why I didn’t go to the police. I wasn’t even sure whether my report would be accepted,” they say.

Instead, Megumi says, they went to the university’s harassment counselling centre, which launched an investigation and ruled the attacker had committed rape.

When approached by the BBC, the centre refused to comment on the case, citing confidentiality.

By the time the investigation concluded, the attacker had graduated – so he suffered little consequences apart from receiving a warning, says Megumi. “I felt disappointed that I could not make this person properly regret his action through criminal procedure.”

A clamour for change

Megumi is not alone. In Japan only a third of cases recognised as rape result in prosecutions, slightly lower than the general criminal prosecution rate.

But there has been a growing public clamour for change.

In 2019, the Japanese public was enraged when a series of four sexual assault cases, each resulting in the acquittal of the alleged attacker, emerged within a month.

In one case in Fukuoka, a man had sex with a woman who’d passed out drunk – which could be considered as sexual assault in other places. The court heard the woman took part for the first time at a regular drinking session at a restaurant.

According to reports, the man said he thought “men could easily engage in sexual behaviour” at the event, which was known for its sexual permissiveness, and others who witnessed the incident did not stop him. He also assumed the woman gave consent because at one point during intercourse she had opened her eyes and “uttered noises”.

In another case in Nagoya, where a father had sex with his teenage daughter repeatedly over many years, the court doubted he had “completely dominated” his daughter because she went against her parents’ wishes in picking a school to attend, even though a psychiatrist testified she was generally psychologically incapable of resisting her father.

Following the public outcry, most of these cases were re-tried and the attackers were found guilty. A nationwide campaign, known as the Flower Demo, was launched by activists to show solidarity with sexual assault survivors.

Activists say this, along with the burgeoning #MeToo movement and journalist Shiori Ito’s landmark victory, helped to spur the national conversation on sexual assault and moved the needle on legal reform.

As part of the redefinition of rape, the new law explicitly sets out eight scenarios where it is difficult for the victim to “form, express, or fulfil an intention not to consent”.

They include situations where the victim is intoxicated with alcohol or drugs; or subject to violence or threats; or is “frightened or astonished”. Another scenario appears to describe an abuse of power, where the victim is “worried” they would face disadvantages if they do not comply.

The age of consent will also rise to 16 years, and the statute of limitations will be extended.

Some rights groups have called for more clarity on the scenarios, saying they are too ambiguously worded. They also fear that they make it more difficult for prosecutors to prove the charges. Others have said the statute of limitations should be extended even further, and that there should be more protection for survivors who are minors.

Nevertheless, if passed, the reforms would mark a victory for those who have long lobbied for change.

“The very fact that they are changing even the title of this law, we are hoping that people will start this conversation in Japan on: What is consent? What does non-consent mean?” says Kazuko Ito, vice-president of the Tokyo-based Human Rights Now.

Shiori Ito holds up sign showing victory in front of the Tokyo District Court on December 18, 2019 in Tokyo, Japan. A Tokyo court awarded 3.3 million yen (US$30,000) in damages to journalist Shiori Ito, who accused a former TV reporter of rape in one of Japanese #MeToo movement cases.

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But time is running out. The upper house of the Diet, Japan’s parliament, must pass the new law by 21 June, but it is currently embroiled in a debate over immigration.

Missing that deadline would throw the sex assault reforms into uncertainty. Activists last week denounced the delay as “unacceptable” and called on lawmakers to take action immediately.

Reshaping ideas of sex

But the reforms address only one part of the problem, say activists, whose call for change stretches well beyond the courtroom.

Sexual assault is still a taboo subject in Japan and has gained national attention only in recent years in the wake of high-profile cases such as Shiori Ito’s court battle, former member of the Self Defence Force and sexual assault survivor Rina Gonoi‘s public statements, and the Johnny Kitagawa expose.

Part of the problem, Kazuko Ito says, is that generations of Japanese have grown up with “a distorted idea of sex and sexual consent”.

On the one hand, sex education is usually taught in a veiled and modest way, and consent is hardly touched upon. And yet, Ms Ito says, Japanese children have easy access to porn where an all too common trope is of a woman enjoying having sex against her will.

Japan should offer more financial and psychological support for sexual assault survivors, says lawyer and rights advocate Sakura Kamitani.

But the attackers should also receive help, she adds. “Sex crimes have such a high recidivism rate, we must focus on prevention, otherwise there would be more and more victims.”

But the more important task at hand now, activists say, is ensuring the reforms are passed and enacted, encouraging survivors to report cases.

“If this becomes a superficial change and doesn’t actually save victims, it would be devastating to people,” says Ms Ito.

Megumi says they would consider reporting their attack to the police if the law changes – but not immediately.

“I kind of succeeded in settling my feelings already. I think it is too hard to put myself into that serious position of the ‘first penguin’,” they say, using a Japanese term for the first person to take the plunge into something new.

Instead Megumi, who identifies as gender-fluid, is focusing on campaigning for sexual assault survivors and sexual minority rights, and hopes to start a law firm to help these groups.

“I am relieved that I now see some hope. Many are starting to realise that the current situation we are in is distorted and wrong.

“I believe things are going to change faster and more significantly than we think, if everyone joins in and works together. My message [to everyone] is: ‘If you think something is wrong, let’s change it together.'”

If you are affected by the issues in this story you can contact the BBC Action Line.

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Did Shangri-La give birth to a new Quad?

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The recently-concluded Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore was among the most high-stakes confabs in recent years, as multiple powers explored ways to avoid a full-blown New Cold War and armed confrontation between the US and China.

But with no sign of any immediate thaw between the two superpowers, new, inchoate security groupings are emerging on the margins.

After months of intense anticipation, defense chiefs from the US, the Philippines, Australia and Japan held their first-ever quadrilateral talks on the sidelines of the Shangri-La forum, with Beijing’s maritime assertiveness in mind.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Japan’s Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada, Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles and Philippine Acting Defense Secretary Carlito Galvez held an unprecedented meeting with huge symbolic and big operational implications.

Atop their agenda was proposed quadrilateral joint patrols in the South China Sea for later this year, which if held would mark a major milestone for America’s evolving “integrated deterrence” strategy to contain China’s rise in the region.

Although playing down the idea earlier this year, Washington seems increasingly open to new quadrilateral mechanisms beyond its existing “Quad” partnership with India, Australia and Japan, which by accounts has been beset by internal divisions over confronting Russia in the wake of the Ukraine conflict.

Over the weekend, yet another incident served as a stark reminder of rising geopolitical volatility in the Indo-Pacific. Following a rare joint sail by US and Canadian naval forces through the Taiwan Straits, Beijing responded with aggressive counter-maneuvers and strident diplomatic protests.

During a “routine” transit through the area, the US Navy’s 7th Fleet said the guided-missile destroyer USS Chung-Hoon and Canada’s HMCS Montreal reportedly came close to blows with a Chinese navy ship, which cut across the bow of the American destroyer on two occasions.

Just days earlier, the Pentagon released footage that showed a Chinese fighter jet performing a similar maneuver, albeit in the skies, against an American surveillance aircraft.

The Chinese J-16 fighter cutting directly in front of the nose of the US RC-135 Rivet Joint reconnaissance aircraft on May 26, 2023. Image: CNN / Screengrab

Rising tensions in the seas and the skies were mirrored by tough diplomatic exchanges between US and Chinese defense chiefs at the Singapore forum. For his part, China’s defense chief Li Shangfu warned against a “Cold War mentality” in a not-so thinly-veiled jab at the Australia-UK-US (AUKUS) alliance and Quad.

“In essence, attempts to push for NATO-like [alliances] in the Asia-Pacific is a way of kidnapping regional countries and exaggerating conflicts and confrontations, which will only plunge the Asia-Pacific into a whirlpool of disputes and conflicts,” the Chinese official warned while reiterating an uncompromising position on Beijing’s plans to “reunify” self-ruling Taiwan.

For his part, US defense chief Austin warned against any aggressive maneuvers against Taiwan while underscoring his vocal concerns over the virtual breakdown of military-to-military communication channels with China.

“I am deeply concerned that the PRC (People’s Republic of China) has been unwilling to engage more seriously on better mechanisms for crisis management between our two militaries,” Austin said during his speech in Singapore.

“The more that we talk, the more that we can avoid the misunderstandings and miscalculations that could lead to crisis or conflict,” he added.

The deadlock in Sino-American relations has likely forced Washington to reconsider its earlier apprehensions with new Quad groupings in the region.

Earlier this year, US Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Kritenbrink, during a regional tour in Asia, played down suggestions of a new Quad grouping, including by Philippine Senator Francis Tolentino, who has pushed for “own version of Quad” to check China’s ambitions in adjacent waters.

“I guess regarding what you called, a new Quad, I would say, ‘no.’ We’re not looking to establish a new quad,” Kritenbrink said in an online press briefing during his Manila visit last month.

“We’re not looking to establish any new formal mechanisms in the Indo-Pacific at this point,” the senior US diplomat said, adding how his country is “happy to assist with the ongoing modernization of the Armed Forces of the Philippines including in the maritime domain.”

Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force at the Malabar 21 – an inter-nation exercise with the Indian Navy, US Navy and Royal Australian Navy – to improve tactical skills and further strengthen the Quad navies. Photo: AFP / EyePress News

Nevertheless, Kritenbrink left the door open for “opportunities in the future for such close allies as the United States, Philippines and Japan to look at ways that maybe we could expand our cooperation” amid growing discussions over a trilateral Japan-Philippine-US (JAPHUS) security grouping.

Following Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s consequential visit to the White House and the Pentagon last month, which saw the two treaty allies sign new bilateral defense guidelines, moves to forge de facto alternative quadrilateral groupings are accelerating.

Historically, Manila served as a venue for the two key moments in the birth of the original Quad. The first US, Australia, India, and Japan inaugural meeting took place on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) gathering in Manila in 2007. Exactly a decade later, the leaders of the four powers, wearing traditional Filipino barongs, held their first formal official-level discussions also in Manila.

Now, the US is overseeing the emergence of a new quadrilateral grouping, especially with the Philippines’ emergence as a new star ally in Asia under a more Western-friendly regime.

During the Shangri-La Dialogue, Philippine Defense Chief Carlito Galvez took an uncompromising position on the South China Sea disputes, signaling Manila’s hardening line against China’s assertiveness over its claimed features and islands. 

“We view the 2016 arbitration award as not only setting the reason and right in the South China Sea, but also as an inspiration for how matters should be considered by states facing similar challenging circumstances,” Galvez said before his Indo-Pacific counterparts.

“President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has strongly emphasized his directive to safeguard every square inch of our territory from any foreign power… The UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) and the 2016 arbitration are and will continue to be the twin anchors of our policies and actions in the West Philippine Sea and the broader South China Sea,” he added while emphasizing his country’s commitment to enhance maritime security cooperation with like-minded powers.

Last week, the Philippines, Japan and US held their first-ever joint coast guard drills in Manila Bay. Later this year, the US and its regional allies including the Philippines are expected to conduct potentially unprecedented quadrilateral joint patrols in the South China Sea.

This photo taken by the Philippine Coast Guard shows Chinese vessels anchored at the Whitsun Reef 175 nautical miles west of Bataraza in Palawan in the South China Sea. Photo: AFP

Closer intelligence-sharing, expanded joint drills and arms transfers among the four allies are likely to follow, with Tokyo exploring its own visiting forces agreement with Manila, which has already hosted large-scale US and Australian military presences in the past decade.

In an official statement following the inaugural Philippine, US, Japan and Australia quadrilateral meeting in Singapore, Japan’s Ministry of Defense said that the four allies “discussed regional issues of common interest and opportunities to expand cooperation,” while vowing to double down on new and pre-existing cooperative agreements.

“It was an honor to meet with Secretary Galvez, Minister Hamada, and DPM Marles to discuss opportunities to expand cooperation across our four nations, including in the South China Sea,” Austin said in a tweet after the meeting. “We are united in our shared vision for advancing a free and open Indo-Pacific,” he added.

Follow Richard Javad Heydarian on Twitter at @Richeydarian

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BRICS currency gambit a timely warning to the buck

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On the sidelines of the recent BRICS gathering in Cape Town, South Africa, officials contemplated as rarely before the five most dangerous words in economics: things are different this time.

For years now, Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and other emerging economies hoped to break the dollar hegemony that complicates geopolitical calculations. In Cape Town, BRICS foreign ministers presided over what might be remembered as the moment the anti-dollar movement grew genuine legs.

In the lead-up to the confab, BRICS members urged the bank that the grouping set up to study how a joint currency might work — logistics, market infrastructure and how sanctions against Russia play into things.

Equally important is the flurry of foreign exchange arrangements popping up that exclude the dollar: China and Brazil agreeing to settle trade in yuan and reals; France beginning to conduct some transactions in yuan; India and Malaysia increasing use of the rupee in bilateral trade; Beijing and Moscow trading in yuan and rubles.

The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is joining forces to do more regional trade and investment in local currencies, not dollars. Indonesia, ASEAN’s biggest economy, is working with South Korea to ramp up transactions in rupiah and won.

Pakistan is angling to begin paying Russia for oil imports via yuan. The United Arab Emirates is talking with India about doing more non-oil trade in rupees.

Over the weekend, Argentina announced it plans to double its currency swap line with China to roughly US$10 billion. It’s partly desperation as Argentina’s foreign currency reserves evaporate amid 109% inflation that has its central bank in damage control mode.

But it’s also a sign of the rising anti-dollar movement in South America.

“Despite America’s likely opposition, de-dollarization will persist, as most of the non-Western world wants a trading system that does not make them vulnerable to dollar weaponization or hegemony,” says Frank Giustra, co-chair of the International Crisis Group. “It’s no longer a question of if, but when.”

Economist Rory Green at TS Lombard adds that “geopolitics and China’s economic heft is driving — and will continue to drive — RMB adoption for trade and reserve holdings. Greater international use of the RMB will provide channels for sanctions-busting, but the dollar is not under threat.”

A clerk counting yuan and US dollar notes at a bank. Photo: AFP

To be sure, Green adds, “China is politically unwilling and economically unable — barring significant structural reform — to run a sustained current account deficit and to provide sufficient supplies of RMB assets globally,” which complicates Beijing’s designs on competing with the dollar.

Here, BRICS members’ stepping up with a strength-in-numbers gambit could be a game-changer.

Already, they account for 23% of global gross domestic product (GDP) and more than 42% of the world’s population. At present, at least 19 other countries — including Saudi Arabia — want to join the BRICS fold, which would greatly grow its influence.

For now, the five BRICS nations are pooling $100 billion of foreign currency to act as a financial shock absorber. The funds can be tapped in emergencies, allowing members to avoid going to the International Monetary Fund. Since 2015, the BRICS bank has approved more than $30 billion of loans for infrastructure, transportation and water.

The BRICS currency issue has been gaining greater traction since mid-2022, when the 14th BRICS Summit was held in Beijing. There, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the BRICS were cooking up a “new global reserve currency” and were open to expanding its usage more widely.

In April, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva threw his support behind a BRICS monetary unit.

“Why can’t an institution like the BRICS bank have a currency to finance trade relations between Brazil and China, between Brazil and all the other BRICS countries?” he asked. “Who decided that the dollar was the trade currency after the end of gold parity?”

Lula’s return to the presidency four months earlier was a boost to the “Global South” ambitions that Chinese leader Xi Jinping has been championing. In his third term, Xi is putting greater emphasis on morphing the Global South, or developing countries in the regions from Latin America to Africa to Asia to Oceania, into a bigger economic and diplomatic force.

Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando Haddad has been highlighting the increased use of local currencies in bilateral trade instruments like credit receipts. The focus, he says, must be phasing out the use of a third currency.

“The advantage is to avoid the straitjacket imposed by necessarily having trade operations settled in the currency of a country not involved in the transaction,” he told reporters.

Lula may get his answers in August when the BRICS summit of heads of state is held in Johannesburg. The desire for a BRICS version of the euro might get a boost from countries like Egypt, Indonesia, Turkey and Saudi Arabia joining.

Visiting Brazilian President Lula da Silva and Chinese President Xi Jinping (left), at an official reception in April 2023. Photo: Wikipedia / Ricardo Stuckert

BRICS Ambassador Anil Sooklal says others keen to join include Afghanistan, Algeria, Argentina, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Iran, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal, Sudan, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, Thailand, Tunisia, Uruguay, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. Sooklal hints that some European countries might sign up, too.

That, of course, also could add to the BRICS’ troubles. The more this grouping adds members with disparate economies and challenges and conflicting ambitions, the more vulnerable the enterprise becomes. Russia’s involvement alone, post-Ukraine invasion, complicates the broader legitimacy of the BRICS project.

The main problem, says Paul McNamara, investment director at GAM Investments, is that BRICS is still an acronym in search of a cohesive economic argument. It was coined in 2001 by then-Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill.

More likely, McNamara says, it will be one country alone that challenges the dollar: China. After all, he reasons, without China at the core, would most current global elites care about the BRICS?

Some think it could take longer to dislodge the dollar. Though the dollar’s dominance will take time to unravel, the trajectory away from it is clear, says Vikram Rai, a senior economist at TD Bank.

“Within the next decade or two, there is great potential for regionally dominant currencies and a multipolar international regime to emerge, with the roles filled now by the dollar shared with the euro, a more open yuan, future central bank digital currencies and possibly other options we have yet to see,” Rai argues.

In a report last week, Moody’s Investors Service analysts wrote: “We expect a more multipolar currency system to emerge over the next few decades, but it will be led by the greenback because its challengers will struggle to replicate its scale, safety and convertibility in full.”

Yet a bigger US pivot to protectionism, further risks of a default and weakening institutions are threatening the dollar’s global influence, Moody’s warns.

“The greatest near-term danger to the dollar’s position stems from the risk of confidence-sapping policy mistakes by the US authorities themselves, like a US default on its debt for example,” Moody’s analysts say. “Weakening institutions and a political pivot to protectionism threaten the dollar’s global role.”

Even though US lawmakers raised the debt ceiling this time, Fitch Ratings is keeping Washington on watch for a potential downgrade. Fitch worries that the threat of default is now becoming a routine political ploy.

Fitch cautions “that repeated political standoffs around the debt-limit and last-minute suspensions before the X-date — when the Treasury’s cash position and extraordinary measures are exhausted — lowers confidence in governance on fiscal and debt matters.”

What worries Fitch analyst James McCormack is US lawmakers missing the plot of protecting America’s AAA rating. Politicians must understand that “you’re playing with live ammunition here,” McCormack told CNN. “This is an extremely dangerous situation. There is a lot at stake.”

US Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy pushed the US to the brink of its first ever debt default. Image: CNN Screengrab

Among the biggest risks the US is taking is losing the “exorbitant privilege” that comes with printing the international reserve currency. This phrase was coined by 1960s French Finance Minister Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, who noted the dollar’s pivotal role allowed the US to live beyond its financial means, year after year.

In April, French President Emmanuel Macron said that Europe should curb its dependence on the “extraterritoriality of the US dollar.”

That’s particularly so as Sino-US tensions intensify. If the tensions between the two superpowers heat up, Macron said, “We won’t have the time nor the resources to finance our strategic autonomy and we will become vassals.”

That same month, Tesla founder Elon Musk warned via tweet that “de-dollarization is real and is happening fast. If you weaponize currency enough times, other countries will stop using it.”

Economist Stephen Jen at Eurizon SLJ Asset Management notes that “exceptional actions” — including sanctions imposed by the US and its allies against Moscow — have made all too many nations less willing to hold dollars.

Jen is quoted saying that the dollar suffered a “stunning collapse” in its market share as a reserve currency in 2022, “presumably due to its muscular use of sanctions.”

He calculates that the dollar’s share of official global reserves fell to 47% last year, down from 55% in 2021 and a marked collapse from the 73% in 2001. Its loss of market share in 2022 alone was 10 times faster than the steady erosion over the past two decades, Jen says.

Billionaire Ray Dalio, founder of the Bridgewater Associates hedge fund, agrees that “there’s less of an eagerness to buy” US Treasury securities.

He points to Western steps to freeze about $300 billion of Russian central bank assets, punitive moves Dalio says, “increased the perceived risk that those debt assets can be frozen in the way that they’ve been frozen for Russia.”

Yet, even just based on the economics, says BRICS concept founder O’Neill, the global system seems ready for a pivot.

“The US dollar plays a far too dominant role in global finance,” O’Neill notes. “Whenever the Federal Reserve Board has embarked on periods of monetary tightening, or the opposite, loosening, the consequences on the value of the dollar and the knock-on effects have been dramatic.”

That dynamic helped pave the way for events in Cape Town over the last few days, an event that may have legs in currency circles for generations to come.

Follow William Pesek on Twitter at @WilliamPesek

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