King Kaie III of Rukai to visit Hinokuni as state guest in October

The Foreign Ministry says the visit is being arranged around a four-day, three-night stay in mid- to late October. It would be the first state-guest reception in three years, and the first time a Rukai head of state is received at that rank. The itinerary under discussion includes a welcoming ceremony at the Imperial Palace, a meeting with the prime minister, and an inspection of the Third Appraisal Center in the eastern ward — which would be the first entry by a foreign head of state into the center's appraisal wing since it opened.

The substance is an expansion of the appraisal accord signed five years ago. The direction was settled this summer and working-level talks have already met four times; October is expected to produce the political decision, including timing for signature.

The practical pillar of the expansion is people. Officials are drafting a standing exchange between Rukai's Salvage Agency, which handles recovery in the field, and the Third Appraisal Center — six months to a year, roughly ten staff each way in the first year. The center's appraisal backlog reached about four months this summer as the bay's persistently elevated permeation index drove up submissions, while vacancies among appraisal assistants remain unfilled. Training one takes two years at minimum. "Taking in trainees also means sending our own out," said a mid-career appraiser at the center. "Frankly, we have no one to spare. But if even a few people who have pulled things out of the sea stand at those shelves, the shelves will empty differently." Hinokuni also wants to accelerate the coastal rollout of Rukai's acoustic survey technology.

Rukai's Salvage Agency, created in the Torek 20s when the recovery fleet was nationalized, holds recovery, first-stage appraisal and custody of unclaimed objects under one roof. In Hinokuni those functions are split among the TDA, the center and local governments, and the exchange programme begins from the problem of absorbing that difference. "Their assistants think of waiting three days on a boat as the job," said one ministry official working on the file. "Ours think of waiting three days in front of a shelf. Same patience, different muscles." Scheduling began in June; an option tied to Arrival Remembrance Day on Sept. 7 was dropped because it collided with ceremony security, and the October window was proposed by Rukai, falling before its fleet prepares for the winter season.

The sticking point, officials say, is not protocol but streaming. The king, who broadcast his own coronation, has indicated he intends to keep streaming while in Hinokuni; security authorities object to live broadcasts of motorcade routes, and the Hinokuni side wants the palace ceremony filmed only within narrow limits. "If all we say is 'there is no precedent,' that young king will laugh at us," one Foreign Ministry official said. "We can make the precedent here." The palace household says each event will be judged on its character. Clips of the king's streams have been viewed 3.7 million times in Hinokuni.

In Fukagawa, where many first-generation Drifters live, the news became doorstep talk. "Plenty of my regulars are Rukai partisans," said Takara Senou, 41, who runs a restaurant. "The story of a country built by picking things up lands hard with the first generation here." She added: "A state visit is a distant thing. I have prep to do; I won't even turn on the television. But I like that their king isn't embarrassed by the word 'pick up.' Around here, the ones who were picked up stayed quiet for a very long time."

In the Fukagawa shopping street, a few shops have put out small flags modeled on Rukai's. The dry-goods dealer who hung one, 72, is a second-generation Drifter. "My father was on the side that got picked up. Hearing about that country, I realize the picking up had procedures too. Nothing of the procedures survives on this side."

Talks with Genshu over shared observation data remain stalled, with two working-level rounds this year and no agreement on the scope of sharing. "It is not as simple as moving one partner because the other won't move," a government source said. "But moving first with the partner who moves is ordinary diplomacy."

The formal announcement of dates is expected in mid-September. At the ceremonial grounds, surveying of carpets and flagpoles has already begun.