Sunday (June 8) Yomiuri carries a story headlined Mr. Maehara Criticizes Ozawa Manifest… in July Chuou Kouron. According to the report, Chuou Kouron is carrying a dialogue between Seiji Maehara, one of the most vocal Ozawa critics in the DPJ, and Kaoru Yosano, the LDP troubleshooter and perennial pundit favorite. The report says that Mr. Maehara took the 15.3 trilion yen bill for the 2007 DPJ Policy Manifest, added, and came up with an 18 trillion yen price tag**. It offers the following Maehara quotes from the dialogue:
[Regarding the 2007 Policy Manifest, we) won’t be able to run the government properly, even if we win power under prevailing conditions.
It’s absolutely impossible to come up with [18 trillion yen, the price tag for the 15.3 trillion yen 2007 Manifest plus the costs of eliminating the gasoline tax surcharge and other subsequent promises] by administrative reform alone. I’ve been told that when we put the Manifest together, the people responsible for policy making at the time were reluctant because there was little justification on the revenue side, but it ended up with Mr. Ozawa just winging it.
What the DPJ must not do above all is the tell the people only things that are sweet music to their ears, then say after we take power, “We can’t do that after all”. The LDP will take back the administration immediately. That’s the worst [thing that could happen].***
A few takeaways from this article:
Couple this huge revenue shortfall in the DPJ program with the unlikelihood of the ruling coalition to come up with a convincing fiscal/administrative reform package, and you have a politically intriguing if depressing showdown coming up this autumn. At least that’s what I’ve been claiming on this blog.
The seams have certainly been showing on the LDP side, but Mr. Maehara’s frustration tells us that all is not well with the DPJ either. So it’s no wonder that there’s all this attention going to the caucusing activities, both within and across party lines. But is this a harbinger of a major realignment? Not in the short run. (Say, not before at least two election cycles (House of Representatives and/or Councilors) have come and gone?) As I’ve claimed before, the fault lines are too many to create a clear-cut, policy/ideology division, and there’s too much to lose from breaking away to form a small party of narrowly likeminded people. (For example, what could 30 nationalist Diet members leaving the LDP to cluster around independent heavyweight Takeo Hiranuma—former Prime Minister hopeful exiled from the LDP for revolting against Prime Minister Koizumi’s Post Office privatization package—hope to achieve, instead of staying to pick up the pieces if Prime Minister Fukuda leaves office discredited?)
The most revealing piece of information, though, is that the July Chuou Kouron only hits the stands on the 10th, two days after the Yomiuri report. Mind you, no way is this a scoop.When Chuou Kouron threatened to go into bankruptcy, Yomiuri saw the chance to take over a venerated media institution, and a middle-of the-road one at that, with a highly-regarded publication that would fit nicely into Yomiuri’s then-vacant corner of the high-end niche of monthly opinion magazines. The report, then, is a deliberate attempt to drum up interest in the July issue, just before its publication. In a way, it’s a no-cost (to Yomiuri anyway) infomercial, yet another example of a media group generating synergy for its product lineup. In that sense, it’s part of a long tradition, and Chuou Kouron is no different from the Yomiuri Giants. There is a distinction here though. With Chuou Kouron, it’s not just the money. Although the center-right Yomiuri often strikes a populist pose, it is in fact the most pro-establishment, pro-LDP-Komeito coalition member of the mass media. The report, then, is part of the pitch for its political agenda, and Chuou Kouron is happy to oblige.
* Such a dialogue is typically hosted by someone from the media outlet, to keep the talkers on track. Given the political star powers of Mssrs. Maehara and Yosano, it’s very likely that the editor-in-chief hosted this one himself.
** To put this in proper perspective, remember that the FY 2008 general budget is 82.9 trillion yen, of which only 53.6 trillion yen is covered by tax revenues. 25.3 trillion yen of the shortfall is scheduled to be funded by government bonds, with “other revenues” covering the remainder. On the expenditure side, 20.2 trillion yen goes to cover debt service and 15.6 trillion yen to direct transfers to local governments. Of the remaining 47.2 trillion yen, social welfare accounts for 21.8 trillion of that amount. That leaves 25.5 trillion yen to spend on infrastructure, national security and other functions of the central government. Mr. Maehara should be excused for wondering where that extra 18 trillion yen is going to come from.
*** In the report, Mr. Maehara is also quoted from a June 7 meeting in Kyoto agreeing with critics of the trillion yen subsidy to farmers in the Manifest who regard it as an indiscriminate political payoff.
Showing posts with label Seiji Maehara. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Seiji Maehara. Show all posts
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Monday, December 10, 2007
In Mr. Ozawa’s Defense: The DPJ’s China Ties Have a History
[DPJ] President Kan and Others Meet Hu Jintao, Chinese Vice President
Chinese Vice President Hu Jintao, who is visiting Japan, met President Kan, Secretary-General Hata and other leaders of the new Democratic Party on the 22nd. Vice President Hu proposed that “in line with the inter-party exchange with the Democratic Party up till now, [we] would like to have an official inter-party exchange with the new Democratic Party as well,” and President Kan agreed with enthusiasm, saying that “we have received a very welcome present five days before the new merger conference*.” (22 April 1998)
The history of the DPJ’s relationship with China is chronicled here, an attention that no other country receives**. What the first item shows, more than anything, is that official ties with the Chinese Communist Party go back to the beginning of the DPJ in its current reincarnation and beyond. In fact, the second item in the China archives, a report on the inaugural conference of the new DPJ, made into the China archives only because the people handling public communications believed that CCP Vice President Hu and Italian Prime Minister Prodi’s messages (Mr. Prodi, a head of government, sent a videotaped message, while Mr. Hu merely sent the customary telegram) were the only overseas messages worthy of mention.
The most recent December visit by 44 DPJ Diet members led by party leader Ichirō Ozawa had been in the works for months itself*** as the second meeting of the Japan-China (DPJ/CCP) "Exchange and Discussion Mechanism", which had held its inaugural session on 16 January of this year in Tokyo. The Mechanism, or the concept behind it, had been proposed originally in December 2005 by Seiji Maehara as DPJ President, and officially agreed to on 4 July 2006 between a DPJ delegation led by Mr. Ozawa and President Hu****. The visit, in other words, was one more significant step in the development of public diplomacy efforts by the DPJ that stretches back more than a decade. The timing may have been unfortunate, and the DPJ could have cut back some more on the size of the delegation, but it could claim to have planned out the itinerary long before the LDP made clear its intention of extending the current Diet session, perhaps even before the hiatus arising from Prime Minister Abe’s tragic-comedic demise had unexpectedly forced the Diet to continue meeting so late in the year.
The substance of the DPJ’s approach to China has been similarly consistent. The DPJ sees strong relationships with China and the U.S. as being equally important to Japan. Its views on China are broadly similar to the most liberal elements of the LDP. It is sympathetic to China’s position on history issues, to the point where it has implicitly blamed Japanese authorities when popular enmity spilled over into violence during the 2004 Asia Cup Soccer Finals in China*****. It will respond strongly when China trespasses on Japanese sovereignty, as in the case of the 2002 police intrusion into the Japanese Consulate-General in Shenyang, or the clandestine trespassing of a Chinese submarine in Japanese territorial waters******. This respect for sovereignty cuts both ways. The DPJ respects China’s position on Tibet and has responded to a Chinese complaint over JDP relationships with the Dalai Lama by dismissing them as “the private activities of a small number of Diet members”*******. On the other hand, although the DPJ also adheres to the One-China policy, it has supported the issuing of a visa to China nemisis Lee Teng-Hui on humanitarian grounds. All in all, the DPJ has been consistent on humanitarian concerns, as can be seen in the broader response to the treatment of North Korean refugees in China.
Although the DPJ has expressed mild concern about the Chinese military buildup and has sought greater (mutual) transparency, overall, it sees broadly consonant interests between the two countries in most areas, from protecting the environment to maintaining the security of the sea lanes. It is obvious that it is this mutually beneficial relationship that it seeks to enhance through the Mechanism. Many of the harsher words from the DPJ came while Mr. Maehara, who has stronger national security concerns than most, was Minister of Defense in the DPJ shadow cabinet and later President, but it is notable that he was the one who put forth the proposal for a formalized dialogue that came to fruition after Mr. Ozawa took over. Besides, those were the times of much difficulty between Japan and China, and some of it was clearly China’s fault. The past couple of years have seen major efforts on the Chinese side as well to ease and eliminate sources of tension********. That in itself is enough to justify the benignity of the agenda for the most recent trip********.
So, mea culpa for calling it a photo-op. In my defense, the media itself has been quite vague about the purpose of the visit, not to mention the broader and deeper background. Here, I am tempted, as I have done here, to blame a media that resents an unsympathetic Mr. Ozawa. But it is as likely, and I suspect more so, to be the result of poor public communications that allowed the issue to framed as the appropriateness of the DPJ flying off en masse to China in the midst of the struggle in the Diet, as well as the public domain, over the refueling resumption bill, Japan’s role in the regional conflicts, and more broadly Japan’s security needs*********. And the unwillingness, or inability, of the DPJ to put forth a viable alternative to standing government policy had surely added to the doubts.
* The 1998 merger formalized the relationship that had brought together the old DPJ and three other center, left-center parties at the beginning of the same year. Ichirō Ozawa’s New Frontier Party merged into the DPJ in 2003.
** The US (米国) gets 1008 hits on the DPJ news file, almost twice as much as China (中国) does. But news on the US does not have a dedicated server file that allows browsers to access the “Best Hits” directly from a China page linked to a China icon on every DPJ webpage.
*** As late as October, Mr. Ozawa was still talking about a 1000-strong delegation, according to this item.
**** See this and this.
***** See here
****** See this and this on the Shenyang intrusion, and this on the Chinese submarine.
******* See this.
******** I believe that this became official policy after the 2005 flare-up against Japan. The violent and out-of-control demonstrations showed the potential dangers to domestic stability of the combination of their perception of Koizumi’s response to history issues and their own anti-Japanese inoculation. See this for the DPJ response of a careful calibration of sovereignty concerns and its own take on history issues. I do believe that Mr. Ozawa should have brought it up during the meetings, if he didn’t. In any case, a full rendering of the discussions should be laid out for the Japanese public. That is the least that the DPJ could do to justify the absence of the oft-absent Mr. Ozawa and his entourage during what appears to be a crucial turning point in the political battle over the refueling resumption bill.
********* The LDP did not work this angle too heavily because it had to consider the possibility of Prime Minister Fukuda also going to Beijing during the Diet session. This should have made it easier for the DPJ to have framed the issue more to its liking. I suspect that the failure had to do as much with the lack of internal communication as the result of Mr. Ozawa’s imperious incommunicativeness as incompetence in the party machinery.
My thanks to Tobias for alerting me to the potential of the DPJ website.
Chinese Vice President Hu Jintao, who is visiting Japan, met President Kan, Secretary-General Hata and other leaders of the new Democratic Party on the 22nd. Vice President Hu proposed that “in line with the inter-party exchange with the Democratic Party up till now, [we] would like to have an official inter-party exchange with the new Democratic Party as well,” and President Kan agreed with enthusiasm, saying that “we have received a very welcome present five days before the new merger conference*.” (22 April 1998)
The history of the DPJ’s relationship with China is chronicled here, an attention that no other country receives**. What the first item shows, more than anything, is that official ties with the Chinese Communist Party go back to the beginning of the DPJ in its current reincarnation and beyond. In fact, the second item in the China archives, a report on the inaugural conference of the new DPJ, made into the China archives only because the people handling public communications believed that CCP Vice President Hu and Italian Prime Minister Prodi’s messages (Mr. Prodi, a head of government, sent a videotaped message, while Mr. Hu merely sent the customary telegram) were the only overseas messages worthy of mention.
The most recent December visit by 44 DPJ Diet members led by party leader Ichirō Ozawa had been in the works for months itself*** as the second meeting of the Japan-China (DPJ/CCP) "Exchange and Discussion Mechanism", which had held its inaugural session on 16 January of this year in Tokyo. The Mechanism, or the concept behind it, had been proposed originally in December 2005 by Seiji Maehara as DPJ President, and officially agreed to on 4 July 2006 between a DPJ delegation led by Mr. Ozawa and President Hu****. The visit, in other words, was one more significant step in the development of public diplomacy efforts by the DPJ that stretches back more than a decade. The timing may have been unfortunate, and the DPJ could have cut back some more on the size of the delegation, but it could claim to have planned out the itinerary long before the LDP made clear its intention of extending the current Diet session, perhaps even before the hiatus arising from Prime Minister Abe’s tragic-comedic demise had unexpectedly forced the Diet to continue meeting so late in the year.
The substance of the DPJ’s approach to China has been similarly consistent. The DPJ sees strong relationships with China and the U.S. as being equally important to Japan. Its views on China are broadly similar to the most liberal elements of the LDP. It is sympathetic to China’s position on history issues, to the point where it has implicitly blamed Japanese authorities when popular enmity spilled over into violence during the 2004 Asia Cup Soccer Finals in China*****. It will respond strongly when China trespasses on Japanese sovereignty, as in the case of the 2002 police intrusion into the Japanese Consulate-General in Shenyang, or the clandestine trespassing of a Chinese submarine in Japanese territorial waters******. This respect for sovereignty cuts both ways. The DPJ respects China’s position on Tibet and has responded to a Chinese complaint over JDP relationships with the Dalai Lama by dismissing them as “the private activities of a small number of Diet members”*******. On the other hand, although the DPJ also adheres to the One-China policy, it has supported the issuing of a visa to China nemisis Lee Teng-Hui on humanitarian grounds. All in all, the DPJ has been consistent on humanitarian concerns, as can be seen in the broader response to the treatment of North Korean refugees in China.
Although the DPJ has expressed mild concern about the Chinese military buildup and has sought greater (mutual) transparency, overall, it sees broadly consonant interests between the two countries in most areas, from protecting the environment to maintaining the security of the sea lanes. It is obvious that it is this mutually beneficial relationship that it seeks to enhance through the Mechanism. Many of the harsher words from the DPJ came while Mr. Maehara, who has stronger national security concerns than most, was Minister of Defense in the DPJ shadow cabinet and later President, but it is notable that he was the one who put forth the proposal for a formalized dialogue that came to fruition after Mr. Ozawa took over. Besides, those were the times of much difficulty between Japan and China, and some of it was clearly China’s fault. The past couple of years have seen major efforts on the Chinese side as well to ease and eliminate sources of tension********. That in itself is enough to justify the benignity of the agenda for the most recent trip********.
So, mea culpa for calling it a photo-op. In my defense, the media itself has been quite vague about the purpose of the visit, not to mention the broader and deeper background. Here, I am tempted, as I have done here, to blame a media that resents an unsympathetic Mr. Ozawa. But it is as likely, and I suspect more so, to be the result of poor public communications that allowed the issue to framed as the appropriateness of the DPJ flying off en masse to China in the midst of the struggle in the Diet, as well as the public domain, over the refueling resumption bill, Japan’s role in the regional conflicts, and more broadly Japan’s security needs*********. And the unwillingness, or inability, of the DPJ to put forth a viable alternative to standing government policy had surely added to the doubts.
* The 1998 merger formalized the relationship that had brought together the old DPJ and three other center, left-center parties at the beginning of the same year. Ichirō Ozawa’s New Frontier Party merged into the DPJ in 2003.
** The US (米国) gets 1008 hits on the DPJ news file, almost twice as much as China (中国) does. But news on the US does not have a dedicated server file that allows browsers to access the “Best Hits” directly from a China page linked to a China icon on every DPJ webpage.
*** As late as October, Mr. Ozawa was still talking about a 1000-strong delegation, according to this item.
**** See this and this.
***** See here
****** See this and this on the Shenyang intrusion, and this on the Chinese submarine.
******* See this.
******** I believe that this became official policy after the 2005 flare-up against Japan. The violent and out-of-control demonstrations showed the potential dangers to domestic stability of the combination of their perception of Koizumi’s response to history issues and their own anti-Japanese inoculation. See this for the DPJ response of a careful calibration of sovereignty concerns and its own take on history issues. I do believe that Mr. Ozawa should have brought it up during the meetings, if he didn’t. In any case, a full rendering of the discussions should be laid out for the Japanese public. That is the least that the DPJ could do to justify the absence of the oft-absent Mr. Ozawa and his entourage during what appears to be a crucial turning point in the political battle over the refueling resumption bill.
********* The LDP did not work this angle too heavily because it had to consider the possibility of Prime Minister Fukuda also going to Beijing during the Diet session. This should have made it easier for the DPJ to have framed the issue more to its liking. I suspect that the failure had to do as much with the lack of internal communication as the result of Mr. Ozawa’s imperious incommunicativeness as incompetence in the party machinery.
My thanks to Tobias for alerting me to the potential of the DPJ website.
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Are Mssrs. Watanuki and Maehara Abandoning the Peace Boat Because They Read My Blog?
Fat chance. In fact, strains in the opposition’s support for Ichirō Ozawa’s extreme hard-line on the refueling resumption bill had already begun to surface when Yukio Hatoyama, ex-DPJ leader and Mr. Ozawa’s co-deputy, indicated* that he could support putting the bill to a vote in the Upper House (instead of (make-believe) running out the clock and facing down Prime Minister Fukuda). Now, a couple of more serious cracks have emerged as two opposition leaders aired their dissatisfaction yesterday (5 December).
Opposition micro-party leader Tamisuke Watanuki** gave a press conference and according to the Asahi said, “Unless we reach a conclusion [on the refueling resumption bill], we will be ignoring the people. [The DPJ] says that [the Upper House, where the bill has been forwarded,] will only hold sessions on the regularly scheduled days, but think how much we waste if we extend the Diet session for a single day?”
Now Mr. Watanuki may have an extra axe to grind, because according to this report, his People’s New Party are mad at the DPJ because the latter is not forthcoming in coordinating support for the next election. Besides, he hasn’t quite come out in favor of the bill itself. But the same day, the pro-defense Seiji Maehara, another Ozawa co-deputy and DPJ ex-leader, revealed his dilemma in a talk he gave in the Diet building, saying, in report from the Asahi, “If we gave up and didn’t extend the extraordinary Diet session, the activities in the Indian Ocean will face a long interruption. Our party will be in trouble if we are criticized for this. (They’ll ask) if we are considering the national interest? I don’t know how I will be able to make election campaign speeches.”***
Whatever their real views are, these men have gauged the public sentiment, as has Mr. Fukuda in making up his mind to re-extend the Diet session and exercise the supermajority override in the Lower House if necessary (if this report is to be believed). Now I’m pretty sure that the Prime Minister had intended all along to do that. But it’s significant that he (or his handlers) is now informing the public. It is even more extraordinary that Mssrs. Watanuki and Maehara are going public as well; it’s their way of saying, Ozawa isn’t listening.
Today, Mr. Ozawa and his entourage leave for the Beijing photo-op. So I guess my question is, did the emperor pack any clothes?
* Reported here, and commented briefly in the third footnote of this post
** Mr. Watanuki’s heart, if not his soul, still belongs to the LDP. It is important to remember that Mr. Watanuki never believed that Prime Minister Koizumi would call a snap election in 2005 after the Upper House voted down his Post Office privatization bill. If Mr. Watanuki had known how things would turn out, he － or Shizuka Kamei for that matter － would never have forced a showdown.
*** Mr. Maehara also stated, “It’s important to enhance the status of the UN, but we should not take the position that Japan will not act if there is no UN resolution whatever the case may be.”
Opposition micro-party leader Tamisuke Watanuki** gave a press conference and according to the Asahi said, “Unless we reach a conclusion [on the refueling resumption bill], we will be ignoring the people. [The DPJ] says that [the Upper House, where the bill has been forwarded,] will only hold sessions on the regularly scheduled days, but think how much we waste if we extend the Diet session for a single day?”
Now Mr. Watanuki may have an extra axe to grind, because according to this report, his People’s New Party are mad at the DPJ because the latter is not forthcoming in coordinating support for the next election. Besides, he hasn’t quite come out in favor of the bill itself. But the same day, the pro-defense Seiji Maehara, another Ozawa co-deputy and DPJ ex-leader, revealed his dilemma in a talk he gave in the Diet building, saying, in report from the Asahi, “If we gave up and didn’t extend the extraordinary Diet session, the activities in the Indian Ocean will face a long interruption. Our party will be in trouble if we are criticized for this. (They’ll ask) if we are considering the national interest? I don’t know how I will be able to make election campaign speeches.”***
Whatever their real views are, these men have gauged the public sentiment, as has Mr. Fukuda in making up his mind to re-extend the Diet session and exercise the supermajority override in the Lower House if necessary (if this report is to be believed). Now I’m pretty sure that the Prime Minister had intended all along to do that. But it’s significant that he (or his handlers) is now informing the public. It is even more extraordinary that Mssrs. Watanuki and Maehara are going public as well; it’s their way of saying, Ozawa isn’t listening.
Today, Mr. Ozawa and his entourage leave for the Beijing photo-op. So I guess my question is, did the emperor pack any clothes?
* Reported here, and commented briefly in the third footnote of this post
** Mr. Watanuki’s heart, if not his soul, still belongs to the LDP. It is important to remember that Mr. Watanuki never believed that Prime Minister Koizumi would call a snap election in 2005 after the Upper House voted down his Post Office privatization bill. If Mr. Watanuki had known how things would turn out, he － or Shizuka Kamei for that matter － would never have forced a showdown.
*** Mr. Maehara also stated, “It’s important to enhance the status of the UN, but we should not take the position that Japan will not act if there is no UN resolution whatever the case may be.”
Sunday, October 21, 2007
National Defense Twofer:Minister Wants Procurement Done His Way, and Seiji Maehara Denies Ichiro Ozawa
One of the quirks of Japanese defense procurement is that trading companies have traditionally acted as go-betweens for foreign vendors in their dealings with the Self-Defense Agency (now the Ministry of Defense). This is why trading companies showed up in the center of the 1976 Lockheed bribery scandal, which took down a Prime Minister (Kakuei Tanaka), a Transport Minister (in Japan, although the Grumman-Lockheed battle for the JSDA next-generation fighter was at the core of the controversy, the criminal case revolved mainly around government influence on the procurement of civilian aircraft by Japanese airlines), the Marubeni CEO, and a host of other lesser political figures and businessmen. (It also spawned the New Liberal Club, the first of the so-far unsuccessful challenges to provide a viable alternative to the LDP.) They were also featured in the 1978 Grumman/McDonnell-Douglas bribery scandal, which threatened to implicate LDP politicians, before the investigation petered out the following year after a key witness, a senior executive in the trading company Nissho-Iwai (now part of Sojitsu), committed suicide, leaving many questions unanswered. Raizo Matsuno, the one Diet member whose career was derailed by the scandal, managed to escape prosecution. Things have changed little, if the latest scandal is any indication.
Shigeru Ishiba, the LDP defense otaku, doesn’t like this state of affairs one bit, and has long been an advocate of taking the trading companies out of the procurement process and dealing directly with vendors. Now, as Minister of Defense, he is in a position to do it. And, as luck would have it, the Takemasa Moriya scandal gives him the opportunity to do something about it, and he vowed this morning on the Sunday Project, the must-see program for Japan politics otakus), to do just that.
It will not be an easy task; the bureaucracy will be required to do a lot of homework that the trading companies had been doing for them, and people do not become smart overnight. Less significantly, foreign vendors will have to face the consequences of the American Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (1977) or the EU equivalent thereof. But the establishment has no choice, since corruption is something that the public can wrap its mind around, and the extension of the refueling operations, on which so much of the Fukuda administration’s credibility depends, will turn on how Mr. Ishiba handles not only Takemasa Moriya (under the bus, drawn-and-quartered, Class A War Criminal), but the broader issue as well.
The silver lining for the LDP in the latest defense procurement scandal is that it does not look likely to implicate anyone beyond the bureaucracy. In that sense (and that sense only), it is more like the Defense Facilities Administration Agency scandal, where it came to light that former DFAA officials employed by construction firms and other vendors had been at the center of widespread collusion in bidding for DFAA contracts. The DFAA was fully folded in the Self-Defense Agency as a consequence, allowing the mainstream JSDA bureaucracy to rein in the somewhat autonomous DFAA.
I suspect that there are some people out there who are wondering, what are the political prospects of Shigeru Ishiba if he saves the day? For my two bits: zero chance of becoming Prime Minister. He’s a one-trick pony, and defense wins only in the NBA.
Mr. Ishiba’s DPJ soulmate Seiji Maehara joined him on Sunday Project. Think Romeo and Juliet, without the sex. Yes, they argued. Three things caught my attention:
Mr. Maehara stated at least twice that the DPJ has never claimed that the OEF-MIO operations are unconstitutional and that Ichiro Ozawa’s views are his personal opinions, nothing more. This is, of course, not what the public is hearing from Mr. Ozawa and Yukio Hatoyama, his DPJ deputy and two-time party head.
Mr. Maehara gave the lack of proper governance and civilian control, citing the long string of JSDA/MOD misdeeds (he mentioned corruption in the JDAA, the Winny information leaks, 800,000/200,000 gallon discrepancy, missing ship logs, and possibly one or two others; Shisaku should have the video tape) as the main reason for opposing extension. As for the 800/200 K, he repeatedly said that it was one thing to say that there had been mistakes back then, but the refueling activities are crucial to Japan’s national interest and quite another to claim that nothing was amiss and demand that the extension be passed under that premise. This is, of course, not what the public is hearing from Mr. Ozawa and Yukio Hatoyama, his DPJ deputy and two-time party head.
Mr. Maehara would not say that the DPJ would submit a bill on Japanese participation in ISAF, no matter how hard Sōichirō Tawara, the ugliest emcee this side of the Crypt Keeper, pushed him. Only an outline; that seems to be the limit for Mssrs. Ozawa, Hatoyama, and Maehara. For now.
Shigeru Ishiba, the LDP defense otaku, doesn’t like this state of affairs one bit, and has long been an advocate of taking the trading companies out of the procurement process and dealing directly with vendors. Now, as Minister of Defense, he is in a position to do it. And, as luck would have it, the Takemasa Moriya scandal gives him the opportunity to do something about it, and he vowed this morning on the Sunday Project, the must-see program for Japan politics otakus), to do just that.
It will not be an easy task; the bureaucracy will be required to do a lot of homework that the trading companies had been doing for them, and people do not become smart overnight. Less significantly, foreign vendors will have to face the consequences of the American Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (1977) or the EU equivalent thereof. But the establishment has no choice, since corruption is something that the public can wrap its mind around, and the extension of the refueling operations, on which so much of the Fukuda administration’s credibility depends, will turn on how Mr. Ishiba handles not only Takemasa Moriya (under the bus, drawn-and-quartered, Class A War Criminal), but the broader issue as well.
The silver lining for the LDP in the latest defense procurement scandal is that it does not look likely to implicate anyone beyond the bureaucracy. In that sense (and that sense only), it is more like the Defense Facilities Administration Agency scandal, where it came to light that former DFAA officials employed by construction firms and other vendors had been at the center of widespread collusion in bidding for DFAA contracts. The DFAA was fully folded in the Self-Defense Agency as a consequence, allowing the mainstream JSDA bureaucracy to rein in the somewhat autonomous DFAA.
I suspect that there are some people out there who are wondering, what are the political prospects of Shigeru Ishiba if he saves the day? For my two bits: zero chance of becoming Prime Minister. He’s a one-trick pony, and defense wins only in the NBA.
Mr. Ishiba’s DPJ soulmate Seiji Maehara joined him on Sunday Project. Think Romeo and Juliet, without the sex. Yes, they argued. Three things caught my attention:
Mr. Maehara stated at least twice that the DPJ has never claimed that the OEF-MIO operations are unconstitutional and that Ichiro Ozawa’s views are his personal opinions, nothing more. This is, of course, not what the public is hearing from Mr. Ozawa and Yukio Hatoyama, his DPJ deputy and two-time party head.
Mr. Maehara gave the lack of proper governance and civilian control, citing the long string of JSDA/MOD misdeeds (he mentioned corruption in the JDAA, the Winny information leaks, 800,000/200,000 gallon discrepancy, missing ship logs, and possibly one or two others; Shisaku should have the video tape) as the main reason for opposing extension. As for the 800/200 K, he repeatedly said that it was one thing to say that there had been mistakes back then, but the refueling activities are crucial to Japan’s national interest and quite another to claim that nothing was amiss and demand that the extension be passed under that premise. This is, of course, not what the public is hearing from Mr. Ozawa and Yukio Hatoyama, his DPJ deputy and two-time party head.
Mr. Maehara would not say that the DPJ would submit a bill on Japanese participation in ISAF, no matter how hard Sōichirō Tawara, the ugliest emcee this side of the Crypt Keeper, pushed him. Only an outline; that seems to be the limit for Mssrs. Ozawa, Hatoyama, and Maehara. For now.
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