Rural and Urban? Think Again

Is it my imagination, or do I keep seeing English-language commentary about the rural-urban dichotomy in Japan? Specifically:

Rural (conservative, communal, loyal) Japan is losing out to (liberal, individualist, fickle) urban Japan economically (less income, fewer jobs) and demographically (fewer, older). The collateral argument is that rural Japan is overrepresented in the Diet, skewing public policy in favor of preserving an aging, decaying society.

There is a measure of truth to this line of argument, but it does the injustice of obscuring the much broader narrative:

Japan is a profoundly urban nation, where the agricultural (and forestry and fisheries) population is only a small fraction of the total even in the poorest provinces. Japan’s problem, as any one of you who reads Japanese will know, is the growing gulf between the center (中央) and the regions (地方).

Center and region, of course, depend on where you (literally) are coming from. Take Tokyo. From an Omotesando perspective—okay, even from a Tachikawa perspective—my neighborhood definitely belongs to the boondocks. But a 20 year old in Gifu might happily trade his lot for a freeter existence (and second guitar in an indies band) and a one-room apartment near my local train station. No, it’s not about foreclosed farms in North Dakota, it’s the shuttered storefronts on Main Street, Youngstown.

Pockets of vibrant anomalies aside—broadcast TV does not lack for anecdotes of successful municipalities and even prefectures—and barring massive fiscal transfers to the periphery—as advocated in principle by the DPJ manifesto—nobody has offered the general public a credible course of action that will stem this tide…assuming that it is a desirable course of action.

One of the Few Inoffensive Posts on Overheard in New York

Overheard in New York is not a blog for the faint in heart, but here’s a rare post that’s both inoffensive and about Japan.

Well, I thought it was inoffensive…

President Sarkozy's Personal Pick for Ambassador to Japan

Gildas Le Lidec, the French Ambassador in Tokyo, is an old Japan hand, on his third tour here. He has spent most of the rest of his career in South and Southeast Asia, and Africa. (Most recently, he was been ambassador to Ivory Coast and Liberia.) He did have three tours back home, twice in science, technology, and cultural affairs, and once in humanitarian activities. 60 years old, he will be transferred to Mozambique in January.

According to a Yomiuri dispatch from Paris by Michio Hayashi, Ambassador le Lidec will be replaced by the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Europe*. As Mr. Hayashi assures us, “it is unusual for the Ministry of Foreign Affair to see a Deputy Minister being appointed as Ambassador to Japan.” To him, “it appears that the objective of the Sarkozy administration, having fewer contact points than the previous President Chirac, who was pro-Japan, is to advertise a stance that puts a high value on relations with Japan.”

How nice. However, Mr. Hayashi mentions later in the article that “[the] Deputy Minister is known as a friend of former Prime Minister de Villepan**.” Yes. Mr. de Villepin, career diplomat, President Chirac’s protégé and intended successor, whose dislike for Mr. Sarkozy － the feeling is apparently mutual － is well documented.

So, has Mr. Hayashi has fulfilled his journalistic responsibilities? The Yomiuri international desk? I report, you decide.

* His name is rendered phonetically in Japanese characters, and I have been unable to trace it on the Internet; help me here, RD.

** Wikipedia as of 8 December 2007 notes that Mr. de Villepin “has a Chinese friend, Catherine Cheng.” This is yet another contact point with Japan. You see, I am Japanese, and I have three Taiwanese friends myself, and all of them happen to be women. None of them, however, are named Katherine Cheng. And my name is not, of course, Dominique de Villepin.

My Ghanaian Colleague Asked Me Tonight, What Is the One Book about Japan that I Should Read? Here’s My Answer, BWI

Hands down, it’s Fūshi Kaden. You are lucky, because a translation came out last year. Available here.

And if that doesn’t inspire you, find the 31-syllable poetry of Ōtomo no Yakamochi.

Finally, the short story written by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa about Satan in Japan. If you don’t get it, well, that’s the point of the story.

Kenji Nagai Is One of Many Murdered in Rangoon and It's Been Raining in Tokyo

The U.S. press statement on September 24 calls on the Burmese government to exercise restraint and engage in dialogue with its people for transition to a civilian, democratic government. By the 26th, things had taken an ominous turn in Burma with the security forces firing on the demonstrators. The joint U.S.-EU press statement on that day adds threats of sanctions against the Burma/Myanmar government. (The EU, unlike the US or the equally decisive Japan (see below), cannot make up its collective mind on what to call the mafia state.) On the 27th, President Bush has even harsher words for the "brutal military regime" and calls on "all nations that have influence with the regime to join us in supporting the aspirations of the Burmese people and to tell the Burmese Junta to cease using force on its own people." On the same day, the U.S. Treasury broadens sanctions on certain Burmese individuals. The following day, the State Department follows suit with more visa restrictions. Mr. Bush's wife issues a statement similar to her husband, but somewhat longer and even more harshly worded. The White House Press Secretary also let's us know that EU is also considering sanctions. Meanwhile, in Japan…

The Japanese press statement on the 25th basically makes the same points with the Myanmar government as the 24 September State Department statement did, in the typically mild-mannered Japanese way. On the 26th, his views on sanctions on Myanmar is the first question put to new Foreign Minister Komura in his first regular press briefing. He sidesteps the issue, and repeats the call for restraint on the part of the Myanmar government and says that he will be watching the situation carefully. Senior Vice Minister Onodera gives a longer regular briefing saying essentially the same things. On the 27th, Japanese freelance cameraman Kenji Nagai is murdered, shot in the back pointblank, by a Myanmar government soldier. By the 28th, Mr. Komura is in New York for the US General Assembly Plenary, and holds a talk with his Myanmar counterpart. In a press briefing there - no official records; this is as unofficial as the burasagaris, which became a bone of contention between Prime Minister Abe and the media - he reveals that he reiterated Japanese calls for restraint and dialogue and told his counterpart that the Japanese government "strongly seeks the revelation of the truth" with regard to Mr. Nagai's shooting. He remains noncommittal on sanctions.

You can see the differences in words and deeds, small and large, and imagine the time and effort that the bureaucracies expended in putting them together. And more sanctions may still be on their way - who knows, from Japan? Yet these are of little to no significance to an authoritarian natural-resource state. It's always the same: stop the cash flow; or the security forces refuse to fire on civilians, which also will be a long time in coming, if ever.

A certain Ibrahim Gambali visited Naypyidaw on the 29th, no doubt to be told that all is in order, there's nothing to see, please keep moving. You know, he should - to Thailand, and, even more important, China. Don't bother going to India, India will stay away if China does; and Russia is only following the money. As for Japan, Mr. Gambali may come, if he wishes, to express his condolences.

President Bush Hopes Iraq Will Go the Way of Japan. If This Story Sounds Familiar, Yes, You Have Heard It Before.

I want to open today's speech with a story that begins on a sunny morning, when thousands of Americans were murdered in a surprise attack -- and our nation was propelled into a conflict that would take us to every corner of the globe.

The enemy who attacked us despises freedom, and harbors resentment at the slights he believes America and Western nations have inflicted on his people. He fights to establish his rule over an entire region. And over time, he turns to a strategy of suicide attacks destined to create so much carnage that the American people will tire of the violence and give up the fight.

If this story sounds familiar, it is -- except for one thing. The enemy I have just described is not al Qaeda, and the attack is not 9/11, and the empire is not the radical caliphate envisioned by Osama bin Laden. Instead, what I've described is the war machine of Imperial Japan in the 1940s, its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, and its attempt to impose its empire throughout East Asia.

Ultimately, the United States prevailed in World War II, and we have fought two more land wars in Asia. And many in this hall were veterans of those campaigns. Yet even the most optimistic among you probably would not have foreseen that the Japanese would transform themselves into one of America's strongest and most steadfast allies, or that the South Koreans would recover from enemy invasion to raise up one of the world's most powerful economies, or that Asia would pull itself out of poverty and hopelessness as it embraced markets and freedom.

---The opening paragraphs of President Bush's August 22 speech before the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars---

---

Third, President Roosevelt believed that free nations are peaceful nations that would not threaten America. He knew that it was the lack of democracy in Japan that allowed an un-elected group of militarists to take control of the state, threaten our neighbors, attack America, and plunge an entire region into war. And he knew that the best way to bring peace and stability to the region was by bringing freedom to Japan.
……
With every step toward freedom, the Japanese economy flourished. With every step toward freedom, the Japanese became a model for others in the region. With every step toward freedom, the Japanese became a valued member of the world community, a force for peace and stability in the region, and a trusted and reliable ally of the United States of America.
……
Today we must not forget the lessons of the past, and the lesson of this experience is clear: The most powerful weapon in the arsenal of democracy is the spirit of liberty. In the 20th century, the spirit of liberty worked to spread freedom from Japan and Germany to Eastern Europe and Latin America and Southeast Asia and Africa. And the spirit of liberty is at work today. Across the broader Middle East, we can see freedom's power to transform nations and deliver hope to people who have not known it. In Afghanistan and Iraq and Lebanon and the Palestinian Territories, people have gone to the polls and chosen their leaders in free elections. Their example is inspiring millions across that region to claim their liberty, as well -- and they will have it.

As freedom advances across a troubled part of the world, it is once again opposed by fanatical adherence of a murderous ideology. And once again, the stakes are high. Now, as then, our enemies have made their fight a test of American credibility and resolve. Now, as then, they are trying to intimidate free people and break our will. And now, as then, they will fail.

---from President Bush's 2005 August 30 speech commemorating V-Day at Naval Air Station North Island, San Diego---

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There was a time when many said that the cultures of Japan and Germany were incapable of sustaining democratic values. Well, they were wrong. Some say the same of Iraq today. They are mistaken. (Applause) The nation of Iraq, with its proud heritage, abundant resources and skilled and educated people, is fully capable of moving toward democracy and living in freedom.

---from President Bush's 2001 February 23 address before a joint session of Congress---

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So maybe it's worth repeating that Japan had been a democracy well before General McArthur stepped foot on Japanese soil. And that it was under that democracy that the Japanese media---with the support of much of the Japanese public---consistently bashed the wishy-washy appeasers among the civilian leadership and all but encouraged the military to take the reins of government.

The democratic process works when it works; when it doesn't, it doesn't.

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Hitler blahblahblah, Milosevic blahblahblah, Hamas blahblahblah……

I Know that Life Can Imitate Art, but

When I wrote the latest description for this blog, Anyone can sell crap, we sell sh**, I was just having fun…

Never did I think that NYT would do anything like this.

Calvin, I know that there could be another Calvin Sims or two at NYT, but I can recognize that voice anywhere. What's going on at the NYT-Discovery Channel? Or is it just the NYT now? You make your Canadian colleague Norimitsu Ohnishi look like a flaming Japanese nationalist. You make Fox News look fair and balanced. Well, not really. But you see my point.

And Mr. Orr, I don't know you, but judging from this video, I think that you should stick to financial education.

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SG, who sent alerted me to this link, is reminded of Beijing and Pyonyang. I think that it's more unreconstructed old-school Socialist Partythink.

Guess Why I'm Not Going to Cash The TNI Check…

The check arrived today from The National Interest, and do you know what? I'm not going to cash it. But not because I'm going to frame it just yet, either. You see, I live in Japan, and the amount of the check is not even enough to cover the cost of having it cashed, then deposited in my bank account here. The BMW, which looked like this to me, now looks like this.

The moral of the story? Keep your McDay-Job, unless you've stumbled on to the next Harry Potter.

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Just having a little fun, Nick. I'll write for you any time, okay?

The Check Is in the Mail; The National Interest

I've been saying to everyone who will listen, i.e. KM, HO, RT, and one family member, that I'm appearing in The National Interest. Well, it turns out that I'd already been published. The catch? Not here, but here. Essentially, I've been telling the world I won a BMW in a raffle, and I come home to find the FedEx guy at my front door with this.

So, was the experience worth losing all my liberal friends? YES, in capital letters. Because they are paying real money, unlike the English language version of Japanese national daily X. My joy is palpable in the following email (slightly edited) I wrote in response when they asked for my mailing address:

"To be truthful, I'd be happy to write for The National Interest for free. But please by all means pretend you didn't read that (I was only speaking hypothetically anyway) and send the money. Since The Communist Institution that disguises itself by the name of The International Banking System rakes off an exorbitant share of the moolah when redeeming a check at an overseas location, my favorite mode of payment is the following:

Mail the money in unmarked hundred-dollar bills to:

Jun Okumura
******
JAPAN.

Barring that possibility, please mail a money order to the same address.

Wiring the money to the following account runs a poor third:

Bank:
Address:
Account number:
Holder of account: Jun Okumura

As for the fourth option, namely a check in the mail, personally serving cognac and salmon roe to Kim Jong-il would be more fun. But it beats not getting paid at all.

Yours sincerely,
Jun Okumura"

Publisher Drops New History Textbook; A Victory for China and South Korea? Not So Fast

Yomiuri and Asahi tell more or less the same story: Fusosha, the publishing arm of the conservative media conglomerate Fuji-Sankei Group, has decided to drop the controversial New History Textbook written by the members of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform and publish a new textbook that "receives broader support from all layers of society". After ten years, only 5,000 students, or less than 1% of the national total, use the textbook , and Fusosha could not take it any more, it seems. JSHTR is going to seek a new publisher. The JSHTR named Nobumasa Fujioka to replace the previous chairman, who had opposed the attempt to continue to publish the New History Textbook.

So, a victory for China, South Korea, and Japanese liberals?

No. Mainichi adds some crucial details. Fusosha is going to cooperate with the Nihon Kyouiku Saisei Kikou, or Japan Education Rebuilding Organization (my translation; its website does not display an English name) to produce the new one. Sankei goes even further and gives the name of the new Fusosha partner as the soon-to-be-established Kaisei Kyouiki Kihonhou ni Motozuku Kyoukasho Kaizen wo Susumeru Yuushikisha no Kai (Committee of Learned People Promoting the Improvement of Textbooks Based on the Revised Education Basic Law; my translation again) and the name of its head as Taro Yayama.

If Nihon Kyouiku Saisei Kikou, or Japan Education Rebuilding Organization, sounds familiar, take note that it was established on 22 October 2006, twelve days after the Abe administration's Kyouiku Saisei Kaigi or Education Rebuilding Council (official translation), and one of the six JERO advisors is Taro Yayama, a writer who is reputedly a close confidante of Shinzo Abe. Terumasa Nakanishi, the conservative historian, is a JERO advisor as well, and also has the prime minister's ear. However, neither the NKSK chairman, nor any of its six advisors nor 112 elders serves on the ERC.

Incidentally, one of the 112 elders is Tadashi Kobayashi, the deposed JSHTR chairman, and would be one of the three advisors to the new textbook committee. (The others would be Taro Yayama and Shuji Yagi, the JERO chairman.) There should be other overlaps in membership, which will likely be unwound in JERO's favor.

What does all this mean? I think Mr. Abe or his friends have engineered a masterful coup within the conservative ranks. Or, more gently stated, they put an old workhorse to pasture. Without financial support from the Fuji-Sankei Group, the money losing New History Textbook will surely wither away.

JERO, of course, has a much broader agenda (education rebuilding) than JSHTR; and a distinctly conservative one too, unlike the high profile and sometimes-unpredictable ERC. Mr. Abe may or may not long outlast the July Upper House election, and public acceptance of the conservative agenda becomes highly suspect, once you begin trying, for example, to define "patriotism". Yet, at worst, he will leave a legacy of an institutionalized advocacy in education for the conservative cause with the backing of a powerful national media group.

Falling Public Support for the Abe Administration Re Deaths and New Public Pension Scandal

No time to think; here's my end of a dialogue:

I believe that the fall in public support for Abe should viewed in terms of both the overall trend and the most recent, precipitous drop. The long-term downward vector is mainly the result of political mismanagement, i.e. the lack of effective leadership and public communication on the political financing scandals, the bloopers, and the return of the twelve penitents (of which there was leadership of sorts for the last, but only in a way that made him look out of touch in the eyes of independent voters.

The most recent, which occurred in less than a fortnight (according to Mainichi polls, if I remember correctly), seems to be traceable directly to the latest public pension scandal, and it remains to be seen how lasting its effects are. Remember that the numbers had been on a two-month upward swing, once the LDP party machine managed to stanch the verbal hemorrhage, and deflect some of the fallout from the financing scandal to the opposition. And the LDP is taking the latest public pension scandal extremely seriously, and has moved to enact emergency legislation with amazing alacrity. That should allow some clawback of public support.

The effects of the Matsuoka suicide is of course not reflected in the latest numbers, and everybody is having a hard time deciding what to make of it. Bad publicity, sure, but Abe has been rid of a gangrenous limb. Or so we thought. I think the second suicide, the death of the Japan Green Resources Agency ex-board member, ensures that the JGRA issue will continue to command public attention. Once Matsuoka died, the media were sure to begin releasing more information than ever in any case. (A dead politician without a viable successor is open game.) But the suicide adds depth and intrigue to the story, so the prosecution is sure to pursue it to the fullest, ensuring fodder for the media over the summer. Abe surely hopes that this will not happen and that his inherent likeability will make his numbers climb back up again.

Perhaps. But every bounce is shorter than the fall (I should copyright that); barring unforeseen, catalytic events like 9.11, Abe will find that his baseline numbers have again dropped another couple of notches as the July Upper House elections draw near.

Update: ShintoUpsurge? Let's Hope Richard Halloran Is Not a False Witness

Visitors to major Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples in 2007 during the Three New Year Days reached what appears to be an all-time high of 93.73 million. Attendance dipping below 80 million with the best of weather at the peak of the bubble economy years, the faithful are returning to the flock (at least for Oshogatsu) to the consternation of irreligious and/or proselytizing Japan-watchers around the world.

Of course there is always the possibility that the National Police, who are responsible for these statistics, are lying to us. And, as in the case of global warming, a sudden winter chill, sleet or rain, if not gloom of night, in 2008 could easily give fleeting heart to naysayers of the Great Awakening that Richard Halloran gives witness to.

Whaling Revisionists, at BBC of All Places

For an industry that contributes so little to our national calorific and animal protein needs, whaling has invited a disproportionately large amount of invective and violence from environmentalists and animal activists in the West. Whatever you make of the merits of the case, it's enough to make you wonder why we care. In fact, we don't really care that much, because it has taken the BBC of all places, and not the Japanese media, to remind us of the history behind it.

It's a story of sanctimony, treachery, accusations and counter-accusations, with lurking hints of something akin to racism. It also features Kazuo Shima, who should certainly rank as one of the top ten Japanese to have served in a leadership role as an international public servant with distinction.

Eat it up, JH.

Richard Halloran Holds Forth on Shinto Resurgence, Contrasts Yasukuni and Meiji Shrines

Veteran Japan hand Richard Halloran blew into town, did some walking around, came up with something that goes little noticed even here in Japan, and wrote it up in Real Clear Politics.

Maybe I've been too lazy to notice, maybe it's another case of it takes a gaijin, but Mr. Halloran's story of a resurgent Shinto makes sense. After all, there's solid evidence of a spiritual malaise begging to be taken care of, from soaring suicides rates to spiritual nostrum peddlers commanding center stage in the mainstream media (yes, I'm talking about the Sopranos-meets-Sylvia-Brown Kazuko Hosogi and the John-Edward-cum-Deepak-Chopra Hiroyuki Ehara*) to the more general dissatisfaction that seems to grip the Japanese mind whenever we are asked to answer opinion polls. We tend to blame the aftereffects of the bubble years. We are unsatisfied with the present, and worried about the future; where else are we to go?

A lesser hand might try to weave it into the surging right, military might, trope that earns space in the English-language mainstream media. Mr. Halloran instead focuses on the Meiji Shrine, and juxtaposes it with the Yasukuni, which has, fairly or unfairly, come to be solely identified in the ELMSM with the dark side of our post-Meiji Restoration history. Indeed, the two shrines surely provide the leitmotifs that weave through Prime Minister Abe's historical narrative, much in the way the pre-1945 and post-1945 biographies of his grandfather Nobusuke Kishi illuminate his personal animus (in the Jungian sense, so the dictionary tells me).

*I suppose I should be happy our low-key, ecumenical, quasi-animistic approach to the supernatural precludes the proliferation of televangelist knock-offs. Then again, some might argue that we have the Tokugawa Shogunate to thank (or curse, depending on your point of view) for being spared the worst effects of a dominant, proselytizing creed.

Japan: Sakaki, Masakaki; Big Difference, MTC Points Out

As the Shisaku blog points out, masakaki is what the 50,000 Yen paid for, not the name of the plant, which is masaki. Got it, me?

MTC always links through, never directly. This may be common courtesy, but it makes it easier to agree to disagree, as we so often do.

Japan: Yoshiko Sakurai Is Always on Top of the Facts

This BBC website article headlined New Proof of Japan Sex Slaves has prompted me to resurrect some ideas that has been sitting on my hard disk for some time..

Woe betide the (usually) man who dares to argue with Yoshiko Sakurai; for Ms. Sakurai has an unparalleled command of the facts, which she can coolly roll out one after another at a moment's notice. Couple this to her deep convictions, steely resolve and calm eloquence, and you have one of the most formidable debating machines, as well as investigative journalists, in Japan. However, even the great Ms. Sakurai can have her problems when it comes to connecting the dots. That is, in weaving a truth, out of the facts.

Early this year, as the comfort women issue flared up again over Congressman Honda's crusade, Soichiro Tawara's Sunday Project took it up, and the testimony of three women, one South Korean, one Taiwanese, and one Dutch (but none from mainland China) became the focus of the debate. When the Dutch case came up and it was pointed out that some Japanese figures were tried and convicted after the War for forcing Dutch women in Indonesia to have sex with Japanese soldiers, Ms. Sakurai retorted that this proved, to the contrary, that the Japanese government was not involved. To back this claim, she told us that the facilities existed only for a short time (I think she mentioned the number of months) and that the authorities back home ordered it dismantled when they got wind of it.

Now it is probably safe to assume that the Japanese authorities did not punish the military personnel who had been responsible in setting it up. After all, given her encyclopedic knowledge, Ms. Sakurai would surely have mentioned it if they had. And it is also safe to assume that Japanese military personnel were the authorities. Indeed, what government is not responsible for its actions, merely because the deed had not been sanctioned at its highest levels? More seriously, is she willing to accept the moral, as well as legal, authority of the war tribunal that convicted the Japanese military personnel in question?

I've wondered since then if Ms. Sakurai might have been pleading a more modest defense, namely that there was no overriding decision to coerce women into sexual slavery, and that therefore Tokyo and the Class-A War Criminals should not have been called to task. Indeed, from what little I know of the War, it seems that the ways the Japanese military treated everyone from its own soldiers to enemy soldiers, from its own civilians to the locals and Western internees, varied widely with time and locale. There was no overarching Japanese decision or concerted, sustained effort to render harm (other than the fact of war, and the decision to invade that led to them, of course) that triggered the atrocities that are now part of our global collective consciousness. But that would betray notions of the nobility of the Japanese military. I don't think Ms. Sakurai wants to countenance that possibility.

As for the current Japanese government, the latest BBC article does seem to elide over the much of what Shinzo Abe has said since then. To put it another way, by paraphrasing Ben Bot's words, Mr. Abe has surely expressed his "profound regret for all that suffering" and certainly must think that we were "on the wrong side of history". So perhaps he should be forgiven if he feels that "[w]e should not go into semantics".

For Mr. Abe must remember how his attempts to parse the word "coerce" was used to move the case to the forefront.

Japan: My Friend the Colonel Is Back

I've been needling him about his long absense, and I think it worked.

Good luck, colonel. Remember, in the blogosphere, your enemy is your second best friend.

Updates on Media Treatment of the High School "Payoff" Scandal and Prime Minister Abe's "Masakaki"

Shukan Shincho and Shukan Bunshun, two popular weekly magazines, are slamming the Japan High School Baseball Federation for its crackdown on the widespread practice of giving scholarships and other incentives to high school varsity baseball players in their May 17 issues with multi-article features.

In Shukan Shincho, "Stupid Idiots JHSBF" shares top billing with "The White House Astounded by 'Wrongheaded Akki' [the media's nickname for Prime Minister Abe's wife] Running Amok". (No, Shukan Shincho is one of the more reputable weeklies.) Shukan Bunshun leads with "The Rasputin Who Lopped the Heads off '8000 Scholarship Students'"; the theme of the feature is "The Interest Groups that Feed off Koshien". (Koshien is where they hold the two national high school baseball tournaments). Interestingly, both launch broadsides against Asahi Shinbun, Shukan Shincho with "The 'Director of the Sports Department at Asahi' Who Wrote an 'Article in Defense [of JHSBF]' Is a JHSBF Board Member", and "Shukan Bunshun with "Asahi Reporter Writes a Suck-Up Article: Actually a JHSBF Board Member" and "The Root of All Evil Was Asahi Shinbun's Claim that Baseball Was Harmful". (You may or may not be aware that early in the 20th Century Asahi Shinbun ran a huge campaign against baseball before it made a turnaround and not coincidentally inaugurated the summer version of the two main high school baseball tournaments that have become the staple of the Japanese sports calendar. You also may or may not have noticed that the Japanese media loves quotation marks.)

Shukan Shincho and Shukan Bunshun are general interest weeklies published by Shinchosha and Bungeishunju respectively, both venerable, major publishing houses. They land somewhere between the sedate, boring magazines published by newspaper companies that you typically find lying around in bank lobbies and the racy, bloodcurdling scandalmongers that rely heavily on photos of young females in states of extreme undress.

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What really matters politically with Prime Minister Abe's offering to the Yasukuni is, of course, how Beijing reacts. So, here's a translation of a Yomiuri article, since it looks too small to make it into the English version.

"China Expresses Concern While Avoiding Direct Criticism

"Concerning the fact that Prime Minister Abe had made an offering of 50,000 Yen at the annual spring festival at Yasukuni in late April, China's Foreign Ministry Deputy Spokesperson Jiang Yu on 8 May, after mentioning that "the Yasukuni issue is a serious and politically sensitive problem", stated that "both China and Japan already agreed to overcome the political obstacles that affect the bilateral relationship and promote the development of a healthy cooperative relationship. This common understanding should be protected appropriately," thus expressing concern while avoiding direct criticism.

"China would like to continue to put the mutual visits such as [another] trip to China by Prime Minister Abe to China and a trip to Japan by President Hu Jintao on a steady course. It seems that this day's statement by the deputy spokesperson reflects the feeling that they do not want to have the improving trend of the Japan-China relationship to be affected."

Let's hope, for China's sake as well, that Mr. Abe knows what he is doing. I'm sure Mr. Hu does, since China is the grandmaster of this thrust-and-parry mating game.

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Hey, even a broken clock gets it right twice a day.

Japan: Uh-oh, Mr. Abe Gives 50,000 Yen and a Nice Potted Plant to Yasukuni… Wait, What's This Other Name on the…

The prime minister also donated a potted two-meter high masakaki (cleyera japonica, just in case you wondered) as well. And South Korea is predictably angry. I wager that Beijing will shrug it off, and will let Mr. Abe revisit Beijing, later this year. Giving to Yasukuni must be a fad among the Japanese political leadership, since Yohei Kono, the President of the Lower House, also donated a potted plant.

If Mr. Kohno's name seems familiar to you, yes, he's the same Yohei Kono, the dovish LDP leader, who issued the Kohno Statement (the famous apology to comfort women) in 1993 as Foreign Minister. This Yomiuri article implies Mr. Kono also made a monetary offering, and has been doing this ever since he rose to the top post in the Lower House.

I can't wait to see how the Western media is going to parse this Kono angle. If they ever bother to look, that is. This is about as good as it gets.

Oh well, given BBC standards, it could be worse.

Japan: "Okinawa-gate: The Unknown Scandal"? Give Me a Break.

I know it won't help my social life any to admit that I was old enough (in fact, already in college) in 1972 to remember quite well the Nishiyama incident (read this if you understand Japanese). This TIME article employs this incident to demonstrate that Japan did indeed deserve its ranking "in last year's Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index than Ghana or Bosnia account. And I quote:

"Freedom of the press is a constitutionally guaranteed right in Japan — as long as you stick to what the authorities want you to write. How does a developed democratic country manage to rank lower in last year's Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom index than Ghana or Bosnia? Just ask Takichi Nishiyama, whose promising career as a star political journalist at a national daily ended in 1971, when he came across what should have been a career-making scoop — official documents revealing that the Japanese government had gone around a deal approved by Japan's legislature and secretly paid the U.S. $4 million to ends its occupation of Okinawa in 1972…"

Now I do not dispute that TIME did get the facts right, as far as I could discern. Mr. Nishiyama did receive the purported document from his MOFA paramour, and they both (Mr. Nishiyama in particular) were excoriated in the court of public opinion, including the entire mass media except Mr., Nishiyama's employer Mainchi Shinbun, and wound up being convicted of violating the Civil Servants Law. 35 years after the handover, Okinawa does continue to bear the burden of the US presence in Japan. Reporters Without Borders does rank Japan behind Ghana and Bosnia, 51st to be exact, only two places ahead of that bastion of oppression, the United States of America. (My condolences to the oppressed masses at TIME HQ. Aren't you lucky you are based in Tokyo, B.W.?) And I would not be surprised to learn that there had indeed been a secret deal to foot the US bill for the turnover, then some. It was not a done deal, in fact, a feat so unprecedented in human history that Eisaku Sato, the prime minister who engineered the transfer on the Japanese side, received a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.

But the TIME account omits a fact that was crucial to the unfolding of the incident. Mr. Nishiyama, instead of using the documents to expose the secret deal, decided to hand them over to two opposition Diet members, who used them to attack the government in Diet questioning. MOFA had no choice but to conduct an internal investigation to find the source of the leak, whereupon the paramour, who, according to her own account, had never intended the documents to be made public, fessed up. In other words, Mr. Nishiyama had crossed the line between a professional journalist and a political operator. It is no wonder that the media rightly attacked Mr. Nishiyama's actions, if the sex scandal (she was married at the time) did give it more legs than it perhaps merited. To imply that they did so because they only wanted to print "what the authorities want you to write" is a serious charge. Is TIME willing to back up this claim? Or will it issue an apology to the journalists working for Japanese publications?

Why then, does Japan merit such a low rating? If TIME had bothered to take a look at the Reporters Without Borders website, it would have seen that "[r]ising nationalism and the system of exclusive press clubs (kishas) threatened democratic gains in Japan, which fell 14 places to 51st. The newspaper Nihon Keizai was firebombed and several journalists physically [sic] attacked by far-right activists (uyoku)." Now the kisha clubs (not "kishas", which is the plural of Japanese for "reporter") are basically institution-specific, self-administered media cartels. There's one for each ministry, the stock exchange, Keidanren, and what have you. Membership gets you a desk and a telephone line on the premises and access to regular press briefings. In return, you must respect press embargoes. Any sanctions are imposed and enforced by the kishaclub. I don't know how oppressive they are, but they did open their doors to foreign correspondents in the early nineties. However, other than wire services, they generally find the upkeep too expensive.In any case, kisha clubs have been around for ages, so they cannot be the reason for the 2006 fall. As for the Nikkei firebombing, I'll have to look at the full report to see if it really merited a 14-spot downgrading, but it certainly can't have anything to do with sticking "to what the authorities want you to write".

That the Japanese government continues to deny the existence of a secret deal is no surprise; it's a government, for heaven's sake! And it is the job of the media to go and dig up the facts. We have our own version of the Freedom of Information Act, which has its own version of a national security clause, with which the Japanese government will surely deny disclosure of any documents pertaining to such a deal, particularly since they will have to claim that such document do not exist, since there was no deal in the first place, n'est-ce pas? For such are governments, and that is why we have journalists. Why, then, don't journalists care about this one? A secret deal with the government? Because "[a]dmitting to the secret pacts would be to admit that the U.S.-Japan alliance strategy was built on illegitimate grounds, and call for closer scrutiny of the current relationship"? As silly as it is to get into this conjecture game, I would have to conclude that getting back Okinawa (which the overwhelming majority of the people of Okinawa wanted) was much harder than the public had realized at the time. A secret ransom may be reason for embarrassment, but it certainly would not have rendered better terms for the people of Okinawa had it not been paid. I'm inclined to believe they don't care because it's old, and now irrelevant to current events, so they're happy to let historians take a crack at it.

TIME concludes: "In a recent press conference, the veteran scribe rounded on his colleagues who 'committed journalistic suicide' when they chose to do their muckraking in his bedroom rather than in the corridors of power. 'The defenders of democracy continue to suck up to power instead of fighting it.' Nishiyama would agree with Reporters Without Borders, which insists Japan still has a thing or two to learn from Panama and Montenegro about the free press."

Who knows, maybe Reporters Without Borders is right. But just because Mr. Nishiyama is still sore after all these years, it doesn't mean he has a case here. And TIME is wrong to publish an article that is constructed on insinuations, shoddy fact-checking, and denial of an inconvenient truth. I only hope that it's not in the hard copy version; people pay real money for that.

P.S. And Okinawa-gate? Lame-o. "Unknown Scandal"? On which planet? TIME, you need a copy editor.