AI Library
The Double Structure of Digital Sovereignty
Europe’s Departure from Palantir and the Chains of American Big Tech
Kim Kyung-jin, Attorney at Law
This is a record of 2026, when European intelligence agencies and defense ministries began removing analytics tools from America’s Palantir. It covers the replacement decisions made by France’s General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI), Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), and the Netherlands Ministry of Defense; the incident in which US export controls severed an ally’s ac…
New English Edition
Artificial Intelligence in Horticulture
Kim Kyung-jin, Attorney at Law
Across five chapters and ten sections, this book examines computer vision for crop diagnosis, harvesting robots and autonomous field systems, smart greenhouses and digital twins, precision irrigation and supply-chain quality control, high-throughput phenotyping, and predictive breeding.
New English Edition
Artificial Intelligence in Food Crop Agriculture
Kim Kyung-jin, Attorney at Law
Across six chapters and eighteen sections, the book examines digital agricultural infrastructure, remote sensing, crop diagnosis, yield forecasting, precision irrigation, genomics, molecular breeding, agricultural robotics, climate-smart agriculture, and global food security.
New English Edition
The Future of Forestry and Agroforestry
Kim Kyung-jin, Attorney at Law
Driven by Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation
Across five chapters and fifteen sections, the book follows satellites, drones, LiDAR, digital twins, forest-specific language models, wildfire and pest forecasting, forestry robotics, agroforestry, timber traceability, and forest carbon markets.
New English Edition
Smart Livestock Farming: AI Enters the Barn
Kim Kyung-jin, Attorney at Law
Sensors listen, cameras watch, and artificial intelligence helps farmers decide.
Across five chapters and fifteen sections, the book follows precision livestock farming from animal health and reproduction to robotic milking, virtual fencing, digital twins, methane reduction, welfare, and data ownership.
Table of Contents
Han Dong-hoon, Busan Buk-gu Gap: A Record of the 100 Days Before and After the Election (Mar. 26-Jul. 3, 2026)
Kim Kyung-jin
Table of Contents and 13 sections
From March 26 to July 3, 2026, this record follows the spring after expulsion, the Busan Buk-gu Gap by-election, victory as an independent, and the first bill submitted in the National Assembly.
Table of Contents
Artificial Intelligence and Medicine
Kim Kyung-jin, Attorney at Law
AI in clinical care, hospitals, education, and research
AI in medical imaging, risk prediction, treatment planning, hospital operations, education, and research, with patient safety, privacy, and accountability.
[AI Library] Epilogue — Japan in the Spring of 2026
Beyond the Glass Ceiling
Epilogue — Japan in the Spring of 2026
Kim Kyung-jin
Tokyo, March 2026.
It is the season just before the cherry blossoms bloom. Though a cold wind still blows, small buds have formed on the tips of the tree branches in the parks around the Imperial Palace. Soon, those tiny buds will become white flowers, coloring the entire city. In Japan, the blooming of cherry blossoms signals the start of a new year. It is the season when the new school year begins, new jobs start, and a new government settles in.
Five months have passed since Sanae Takaichi became Prime Minister.
Five months is a short time. On the scale of history, it is but a blink of an eye. Yet, if one lists the events that have unfolded within these five months, it becomes clear that they have been anything but short.
In November 2025, an impromptu remark at the National Diet Budget Committee fell on Beijing like a bomb: a statement regarding a 'situation of an existence-threatening crisis' in the event of a Taiwan contingency. China responded harshly. Diplomatic channels froze. Chinese tourists dwindled. The business community expressed its concerns. Yet, Takaichi did not back down.
In December, pressure continued to mount surrounding the Yasukuni Shrine. She publicly mentioned the possibility of visiting as Prime Minister. Neighboring countries grew tense.
In January 2026, a summit was held with South Korean President Lee Jae-myung in the ancient city of Nara. The two leaders stood side by side in front of the stone walls of Horyu-ji, a 1,500-year-old temple. Her comment, 'I like Korean seaweed,' became a topic of conversation. The weight of the complex history behind them cannot be resolved by such words alone. However, the fact that those words were spoken, and that the meeting took place, says something significant.
A general election was held in February. The results were historic: 316 seats for the LDP alone. Never in postwar Japan had a single party secured so many seats. The LDP, which had been shaken by scandals, achieved its greatest victory ever under the banner of a new face.
In March, she flew to Washington and met President Trump at the White House. She brought a $550 billion investment package for the United States to the table. During the dinner, they exchanged words calling each other 'the strongest partners.' Building a relationship with an unpredictable American president in her own way—that is what Shinzo Abe once did, and it is what Takaichi is doing now.
All of this happened within just five months.
Looking back, these five months are also a condensation of a 32-year journey.
I recall the scene from the prologue. October 21, 2025, in the Plenary Chamber of the National Diet. The Prime Ministerial designation vote. The moment the name 'Sanae Takaichi' was confirmed with the most votes. A silence so profound one could almost hear someone in the gallery holding their breath. The moment the first female Prime Minister in Japanese constitutional history was born.
It took thirty-two years to create that moment.
In the summer of 1993, a 32-year-old independent woman was elected with the highest number of votes in Nara Prefecture. She started with nothing. She had no party organization, no shadow of a senior mentor, and no inherited local support base from her parents. What she did have was what she had learned during four years at the Matsushita Institute of Government and Management, what she had seen and learned during a year in the U.S. Congress in Washington, and something ingrained in her from growing up in Kashihara City, Nara Prefecture.
The path she followed since then has been recorded in this book. Defeat, a comeback, defeat again, and another comeback. Returning as an 'assassin candidate,' her first cabinet appointment, visiting Yasukuni as a minister, her tenure as the longest-serving Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications, divorce and remarriage, the assassination of Shinzo Abe, three challenges for the party presidency, and finally, Prime Minister. It was not a straight line. The twists and turns made her who she is. Two defeats tempered her. Three presidential election bids completed her. Even after losing her benefactor, Abe, she had to stand on her own. That process forged the Sanae Takaichi of today.
In the spring of 2026, when the cherry blossoms bloom at the Prime Minister’s Official Residence, what will she be thinking? Will she recall the child who played on a bicycle in the fields of Unebi, Nara? Will she remember the racing of her heart when she first stood at the podium of the National Diet’s Plenary Chamber? Will she remember the nights after two defeats when she held back tears in front of her supporters? We cannot know. Only she knows these things.
For Takaichi, now Prime Minister, Japan remains in a difficult position.
The population is shrinking. The total fertility rate continues to hit record lows. How can a country where more people die than are born be made sustainable? The fiscal burden is growing, with the world's highest national debt relative to GDP. Increasing defense spending, measures against the declining birthrate, and expanding social security—all of these require funding. Tensions with China persist. Uncertainty remains in the Taiwan Strait. Diplomatic conflicts have been sparked by her Yasukuni visits. The road to constitutional amendment is long and arduous. And the uncertainty regarding the United States does not fade.
These difficulties were not created by Takaichi. However, they are hers to solve. That is the burden of those who hold power.
This book was an attempt to fully understand Sanae Takaichi. But complete understanding is impossible. Like everyone else, she possesses an inner world that cannot be fully known from the outside. What she truly feels when she visits Yasukuni, what her emotions were when she heard the news of Abe’s death, what she thought when she won her third presidential election—these are things we cannot know.
However, where she came from, what she experienced, and what choices she made—these things can be recorded. And those records allow us to understand her a little better.
Understanding is not the same as agreement. Among those who read this book, many will disagree with Takaichi’s political positions. This is especially true for South Korean readers. Understanding a Japanese Prime Minister who visits Yasukuni is entirely different from condoning it. Understanding a Japanese government that pursues constitutional amendment is different from supporting it. This book has never asked the reader to agree with her positions.
Yet, understanding is necessary. It is necessary to know which direction Japan is heading, to judge what that means for Korea, Asia, and the world, and to consider how to manage relations with this complex neighbor.
Understanding Japan is not about loving Japan. Understanding Japan means seeing it as it is. It means seeing the country’s strengths and weaknesses, its history and present, its possibilities and its limits, all together. Only with such a perspective can we wisely manage our relationship with this neighbor.
Sanae Takaichi is still in the Prime Minister’s Official Residence today. In the Diet, on the diplomatic stage, and at press conferences, her story continues even where this book ends. What challenges she will face, what choices she will make, and what history she will write—those are chapters yet to be written.
When spring comes, the cherry blossoms bloom. They bloom for about ten days and then fall. But the tree remains. The tree forms buds again for the next spring. History flows within that repetition.
A 32-year journey filled with ups and downs. Dozens of choices. And now, Prime Minister. Her story is not over yet.
Afterword
This book is the first biography I, Kyung-jin Kim, have written about a foreign political leader.
During my time as a member of the National Assembly, I had many opportunities to observe Japanese politics up close. The relationship between South Korea and Japan has always been complex. The weight of history, current interests, and expectations for the future—these three elements have always been intertwined. For a Korean politician, understanding Japan was a task that was uncomfortable, yet absolutely necessary.
My interest in Sanae Takaichi began when she first ran for the LDP presidency. The result—where she received overwhelming support from party members but fell behind in the parliamentary vote—revealed much about the structure and culture of Japanese politics. It was a fascinating and suggestive landscape of conflict, showing what happens when what the grassroots supporters want differs from what the power establishment desires.
There were many moments while writing this book when I felt uncomfortable. When describing her visits to Yasukuni, or explaining differences in historical perception, I had to calmly describe things that I, as a Korean, could not sympathize with. I tried to convey facts without letting emotions take the lead. Those moments were not easy.
But that was also the purpose of this book. It was an attempt to understand even that which I could not agree with. Understanding does not necessarily have to lead to agreement. However, the belief that nothing can begin without understanding guided this work.
I hope this book will be of some small help to Korean readers in understanding Japan more deeply. Living with a complex neighbor is difficult. But living without understanding that neighbor is even harder.
March 2026, awaiting the spring
Author: Kyung-jin Kim
References
- Sanae Takaichi Official Website: https://www.sanae.gr.jp/ - Prime Minister’s Official Residence Official Website: https://www.kantei.go.jp/ - 高市早苗 Wikipedia (Japanese): https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%AB%98%E5%B8%82%E6%97%A9%E8%8B%97 - LDP's Landslide Victory with 316 Seats in 2026 General Election (nippon.com): https://www.nippon.com/ja/japan-data/h02703/ - Takaichi Washington Summit Report: https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQOUA0333X0T00C26A2000000/