Hello and welcome to the Intelligence, from the Economist. I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

Daniel Smith may be the last living offspring of an American slave. Our correspondent hears

of his father's horrifying stories, the civil rights leaders he met, and how he felt

about a Confederate flag parading through America's capital in January.

And things have very much changed in Thailand when it comes to cannabis policy. The best

way to see the shift it turns out is to take a look at restaurant menus across the country.

First up though. Earlier this year I was traveling in the southwest of Japan along an island

chain called the Nancei.

Noah's Niter is the economist Tokyo Burocheef. I went in fact all the way out to the edge

of this island chain to an island called Yonaguni. It's a tiny little rocky speck of an island

at the edge of the East China Sea. So we took a flight initially to Naha which is the

airport on the main island of Okenawa. Spent a night in a cozy little airport hotel and

woke up early the next morning to catch the one flight a day on a small propeller plane

that takes us out to Yonaguni. And as you fly you get this really sweeping view of the

islands. I mean obviously gorgeous open seas and gorgeous view onto the edge of the Pacific

Ocean. And really as we flew it hit me just how vast a territory this is. We're talking

about dozens of islands, some of them inhabited others not, and that has big implications

for Japan's defense. And that's ostensibly what took us out to Yonaguni in the first place.

But why Yonaguni in particular and what is it in general that got you thinking about

Japan's defense? So it's in fact closer to Taiwan than it is to the Japanese mainland.

And Yonaguni was the site of the first of a number of military bases and installations

...