U.S. tells Japan to address child abductions but balks at sanctions
AFP-JIJI (May 11, 2013)
WASHINGTON – The U.S. State Department called Thursday for Japan to take action on child abductions but rejected lawmakers’ calls to pose the threat of sanctions to force action on one of the allies’ few open disputes.
Hundreds of non-Japanese parents, mostly men from the United States and elsewhere, have lost access to their children as their estranged partners whisked them away to Japan, where joint custody is never granted.
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If, as Christopher Smith (R-NJ) says the mere threat of sanctions might compel Japan to resolve this issue, then I’d say that was a reasonable strategy. But the reality is America is never going to impose economic sanctions against one of its most important strategic allies in the world over parental abductions. In my mind, there seems to be a near-total lack of understanding of how things get accomplished in Japan on the part of the American LBP community, and also a deep misunderstanding of the pace of change here. Sex slaves from World War II, for example, are still seeking reparations. Consider that