The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department mobilized hundreds of riot police for the event this year.

Last year, two people were arrested. One was detained for punching a police officer while the other was taken into custody for molesting a woman.

Earlier in the day, singer Kyary Pamyu Pamyu called on partygoers in the capital to keep the streets clean as a large quantity of litter was expected to result from the gathering.

“I want everyone to help keep the streets clean, using these bags (provided by the city),” the singer said in front of Tokyo Tower in Minato Ward.

The event was organized by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government to raise awareness by handing out orange jack-o’-lantern-themed garbage bags.

“When you have fun, there will be lots of garbage,” the singer said. “I want to see people in the streets fill the bags in a kawaii (cute) way.”

The event formed part of a campaign dubbed “Halloween & Tokyo,” under the slogan of “cleanest Halloween in the world.”

The bags were handed out near stations and large road crossings in busy districts such as Shibuya, Shinjuku and Roppongi.

During last year’s boisterous Halloween celebrations, a large quantity of litter, such as drink cans, were thrown on the ground by revelers, prompting the metropolitan government to launch this year’s campaign.                                   

                                                                                                                                         Photo gallery of Halloween Eve on the Shibuya scramble.

KUALA LUMPUR – Divisions within Asia over China’s claims in the disputed South China Sea spilled over Wednesday to a meeting of U.S. and Asian defense ministers, where China insisted the group make no public mention of the strategic waters in a joint declaration intended as a public display of unity. Officials from Malaysia, which hosted the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) defense chiefs meeting, did not immediately comment on reasons for the cancellation. However, in a revised schedule of the day’s program, the signing ceremony for the Kuala Lumpur Joint Declaration was dropped. Earlier, a senior U.S. defense official said China was lobbying Southeast Asian nations to drop any reference to concerns over the South China Sea in the statement. “The reason is because the Chinese lobbied to keep any reference to the South China Sea out of the final joint declaration,” the official said, on condition of anonymity. “Understandably, a number of ASEAN countries felt that was inappropriate. It reflects the divide China’s reclamation and militarization in the South China Sea has caused in the region.” The U.S. official added, “This was an ASEAN decision but in our view no statement is better than one that avoids the important issue of China’s reclamation and militarization in the South China Sea.” China’s Defense Ministry, however, blamed “certain countries” outside Southeast Asia, a pointed reference to the United States and Japan. They “tried to forcefully stuff in content to the joint declaration,” and the responsibility for failing to come up with a joint statement was completely with those countries, the ministry said in a microblog post. Wednesday’s gathering brought together the 10 Southeast Asian defense ministers, along with ministers from countries such as the Australia, China, India, Japan and the United States. The meeting, first held in 2006, is a platform to promote regional peace and stability. It took place a week after a U.S. warship challenged territorial limits around one of Beijing’s man-made islands in the Spratly archipelago with a so-called freedom-of-navigation patrol. U.S. defense chief Ash Carter, who also attended the meeting, planned to go aboard the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt on Thursday as it transits the South China Sea off the Malaysian coast, a senior U.S. Official said. Carter planned to bring his Malaysian counterpart with him, the official added. China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion in global trade passes every year. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims. Officials this week said the United States and Japan were pushing to get concerns about the South China Sea included in the joint statement. Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani called for cooperation in keeping the South China Sea open, free and peaceful in a speech to the ASEAN meeting on Wednesday. Beijing had made clear as early as February that it didn’t want the South China Sea discussed at the meeting, a second senior U.S. defense official said earlier in the week. Malaysia had agreed to include a mention of the South China Sea in the final statement, said a Philippine defense official traveling with the defense minister. The official declined to give specific details but said the Philippines, which traditionally argues for a stronger stance against China’s territorial ambitions, was satisfied with the reference. A copy of remarks by Malaysian Defense Minister Hishamuddin Hussein that appeared to have been issued to media by mistake and was later retracted stated that ASEAN seeks a “peaceful resolution to the disputes” in the South China Sea. It added that “collisions in open seas and skies must be avoided at all costs” and that leaders should prioritize regional security. “The threat is not what is on a piece of paper,” Hishammuddin said later. “What is signed in the joint declaration is not going to resolve the issue of duplicating claims, nor is it going to wish the vessels that are in the South China Sea away. To dwell on the joint declaration is not going to solve the real problems.” Concluding the long-stalled code of conduct is needed “to build mutual trust and confidence and maintain peace, security and stability in the region,” Hishammuddin said in his chairman’s statement.

Some senior U.S. military and diplomatic officials have pressed Abe to dispatch the Self-Defense Forces on joint patrols with the United States in the South China Sea. Abe may well calculate that it is in Japan’s interests to do so, given its strategic investments in the region, as vast amounts of cargo is shipped to and from the country through the area every day. It is also inarguably important to maintain the military alliance with the United States.

But senior government officials The Japan Times has spoken to say nothing like that is on the cards. The three individuals, who are familiar with Japan’s decision-making processes on security policies, say the nation is not entertaining sending a Self-Defense Force unit to join patrols being carried out by the U.S. military. One of the three, who is a senior Defense Ministry official, said the Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) does not have a large enough capacity to deploy patrol airplanes and destroyers in both the South and East China seas at the same time. "Nobody at the Defense Ministry is now thinking of sending the SDF to the South China Sea,” the ministry official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Now, our priority is on the East China Sea. We need to concentrate on it first,” the official said. Another of the three, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, argued Japan should not join the so-called freedom of navigation operation by the U.S. Navy, which last week sent the guided-missile destroyer USS Lassen through what China is claiming as its territorial waters within 12 nautical miles (22 km) of man-made islands in the South China Sea. Japanese participation in such a risky navigation would be too provocative to Beijing and could “backfire,” the officials warned. Since 2012, Beijing has regularly sent government ships to the East China Sea to strengthen its territorial claim over the Japan-controlled Senkaku Islands, which are considered the flash point of any possible China-Japan military clash. The MSDF has regularly deployed P-3C patrol planes and destroyers in the sea around the Senkakus, known as the Diaoyus in Chinese, to monitor and keep in check Chinese ships. If Japan starts patrol operations in the South China Sea, Tokyo will need to considerably scale down its fleet and airplane units now being mobilized to defend the Senkakus, an option which defense officials say is not impossible but “would pose a very tough decision” for Tokyo. In June, the head of the United States Pacific Command, Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., reportedly told Japanese media in Tokyo that the U.S. would welcome Japanese participation during patrol operations in the South China Sea. Officially, in public, all of Japan’s top leaders, including Defense Minister Gen Nakatani and Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, have repeated an almost identical comment when asked by reporters: Japan “currently has no such plan” to send the SDF to the South China Sea but “may consider doing so” depending on how the situation develops. The apparent ambiguity has raised speculation over Japan’s intention. Despite Harris’ remark, Japanese government sources have suggested neither U.S. diplomatic nor defense authorities have officially asked Japan to send an MSDF unit to the South China Sea. “For now we won’t send the SDF to the South China Sea,” said a high-ranking government official Thursday. “(But) we don’t need to deny all (options) right now,” the official added.

The ministry official also said that having the MSDF fleet sail through the South China Sea, for example, on the way home from an overseas exercise was a possible future option. But nothing has been decided and whether Japan will conduct such an operation at all will depend on developments in the South China Sea, the official added. Meanwhile, an unnamed U.S. defense official was quoted by Reuters as saying that the U.S. Navy plans to conduct patrols within 12 nautical miles of artificial islands in the South China Sea about twice a quarter. Bonji Ohara, a research fellow at the Tokyo Foundation and former chief of the intelligence section at the MSDF Maritime Staff Office, said he believed Japan should engage in regular patrol operations over the South China Sea to maintain freedom of navigation and reject China’s territorial claims in the region. But Ohara also argued Japan should not sail its destroyers within the 12-nautical-mile limit of the man-made islands, as the U.S. did last week with the Lassen. Ohara pointed out that under the strict legal restrictions of Japan’s pacifist Constitution, an MSDF ship would only be allowed to attack in self-defense if a military clash with China was to ever break out. Japan should not engage in such risky navigation because Japan, unlike the U.S. military, did not have a “next option” to deal with a possible military clash with China, Ohara said.