When I wrote this post, I stupidly forgot (BWI, likely) about the legislative proposals to tighten political financing reporting requirements. Here, the two sides are working furiously not to look bad in the public eye, which means that they have to come up with a compromise. The LDP does not want total disclosure, the more presentable excuse being that it would be too costly and time-consuming. I'm surprised that no one on the DPJ side appears to be making the point that, in reporting, all the receipts and accounting books could simply be digitally photographed (if not already available in some digital format), posted on a secure site, and made available for anyone to download. The original documents can be referenced when there is doubt.
Note that the agreement in principle to report every expenditure item down to the last yen follows Ichiro Ozawa's original proposal, which the DPJ itself had vetoed back then.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Media as Advocate: The Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force Refueling Operations
Here, I wrote how the major newspaper editorials broke* on the Fukuda administration's new JMSDF refueling bill. Now it is my belief, based on an admittedly small sample**, that few Japanese voters bother to read editorials. What then, accounts for the fact that Yomiuri random-sample opinion polls consistently show higher support (say, 5-10 percentage points) for the ruling coalition than Asahi polls? The answer is simple: The media uses the reporting, consciously or unconsciously, to advocate. For example:
On 6 November, the DPJ produced its counterproposal to the Fukuda administration's refueling bill, and the English translations of the reports came out today. The headlines read:
Yomiuri DPJ flexible on refueling bill
Asahi Minshuto: Refueling must have U.N. OK
In other words, Yomiuri and Asahi attend the same press conference and read the same press release, but Yomiuri comes up with a favorable reading for the Fukuda administration while Asahi shows us a DPJ that is sticking to its guns. Here, Yomiuri is the one that appears to be editorializing. To claim as Yomiuri's does that "saying that if the United Nations adopts a resolution authorizing multinational antiterrorism operations in the Indian Ocean, Japan would then consider whether it should take part in the activities" is anything but a reiteration of Mr. Ozawa's original position is a little far fetched. Parsing that as a demonstration of "flexibility" requires a stretch of the imagination and more than a dollop (what the heck is a dollop?) of hope.
This continued. The following day (7 November), Masayoshi Teraoka, the Defense Director of the Maritimes Staff who had realized that JMSDF's Tokiwa had transferred 800,000 gallons, not 200,000 gallons as announced, to the US Forces, testified (not under oath) in the Lower House. The headlines? Here is Yomiuri:
給油量訂正問題、寺岡元課長は未報告認める (Refueling Volume Correction Problem, Former Director Teraoka Admits Not Reporting [Error]) (no English version available)
It follows this up today (8 November) in a much smaller article tucked away on page 4 that adds a potentially crucial point with:
給油量問題、元海幕防衛課長は上司に相談…参考人質疑 (Refueling Volume Problem, Former Maritime Staff self-Defense Director Consulted Superiors… from Testimony Q&A) (no English version available yet)***.
Asahi came forward on 7 November on the former director's testimony with all those points and more in:
元課長「給油量誤り、幹部に相談」 守屋氏認識の可能性 (Former Director "Refueling Volume Mistaken, Consulted High Officials"****, Possibility Mr. Mori Knew)
Note that not only did Asahi put the former director's superiors/high officials in the breaking (7 November) story, it injected a bit of speculation, albeit a not unreasonable conjecture, into the headline. The article itself says, "He revealed that, at the time, after being pointed out by reporters after Tōru Ishikawa, Chairman of the JSDF Joint Staff Committee, announced the erroneous refueling volume that the refueling volume was too small, he had consulted with Takemasa Moriya, then Defense bureau Director-General, and other high officials at the Self-Defense Agency." (translated from: 当時、誤った給油量を石川亨統合幕僚会議議長が発表した後に記者から給油量が少ないとの指摘を受け、守屋武昌防衛局長ら当時の防衛庁幹部と相談していたことを明らかにした。) Now unless Asahi is outright lying, I think that it is fair to infer, as Asahi did, that it is plausible, even likely, that the Mr. Moriya and his colleagues had understood the possibility of an error****. This possibility does not translate into certain knowledge, or even willful ignorance. On the other hand, Yomiuri did not even mention this exchange. Moreover, Asashi attached the photo of Mr. Teraoka in the Diet after his testimony to the article. Yomiuri did not, and explicitly stated in its 7 November article that the head of the special committee that called him in had requested the media to refrain from taking his picture in the Diet.
Today (8 November), Asahi continues at top of its web page (at a minimum the equivalent of the print version front page) with:
元課長「中間報告、内局*****への調査不十分」 給油量問題 (Former Director, "Interim Report, Investigation of Bureaucracy (naikyoku) Insufficient"****, re Refueling Volume Problem)
Note the contrast with the laconic, bare-bones Yomiuri report on the same day.
It is hard not to assume that this difference is connected to the editorial decision on the part of the respective newspapers to oppose or support the resumption of the refueling operations. It is also hard not to think that with this steady advocacy, Yomiuri readers will tend more and more to support extension while Asahi will increase their mistrust of the administration's intentions. In other words, it is through the articles that the media conducts a usually subtle form of advocacy. Journalism cannot completely free itself from this. Editorial decisions must be made about the relative importance of facts and incidents as they are put together as articles, sections, and entire editions. This will inevitably be informed by the individual and collective judgment of the reporters and editors. Still, it is my view that a thorough, comparative survey will reveal that the media too often slips into advocacy without informing public that they are no longer engaging in straight reporting. This, of course, is not limited to the Japanese media.
Finally, as a kind of sidebar, I'm sure that no media organization hides its identity when it conducts polls. Although the selection of the telephone numbers (or households) may be random, I'm also sure that willingness to answer questions would be higher if, say, the newspaper conducting the poll is the one the responder subscribes to. In this respect, it would be interesting to see a poll that shows the correlation between newspaper subscription and opinion. In fact, I'm sure somebody must be doing it.
* MTC kindly points out in the comments that Asahi had already come out against the return of the JSDF refueling vessels.
**True confessions: I never read editorials until I started blogging. Even today, I usually look at them to see if I can work them into a narrative.
*** The print version is headlined differently: 給油量訂正問題 石破氏らに報告 元防衛課長> (Refueling Volume Correction Problem, Reported to Mr. Ishiba, etc. Self-defense Director) (no English version available yet).
**** Note that Asahi plays fast and loose with quotation marks. The Teraoka quotes are not direct quotes, but are summaries of or could even be inferences from his words. But it is not alone. Shisaku takes note of this widespread, annoying journalistic conventionhere. No reputable U.S. media outlet to my knowledge does this.
***** In the article itself, Mr. Teraoka is reported to have been referring to 内局（同省制服組), or bureaucracy (uniformed officials of the Ministry), a clarification , if true, that would exclude bureaucrats like Mr. Moriya, which is the whole point of the DPJ investigation, which Asahi wholeheartedly supports.
I can play this game too. For example, change the next-to-last sentence in the first paragraph like this:
What then, accounts for the fact that Asahi random-sample opinion polls consistently show higher opposition (say, 5-10 percentage points) for the ruling coalition than Yomiuri polls?
Don't you think that the switch casts a (very) slightly unfavorable light on Asahi, in contrast to the original version, which gives you the feeling that it's the Yomiuri that is pushing an agenda? In fact, I'm sure do it all the time, without even thinking.
On 6 November, the DPJ produced its counterproposal to the Fukuda administration's refueling bill, and the English translations of the reports came out today. The headlines read:
Yomiuri DPJ flexible on refueling bill
Asahi Minshuto: Refueling must have U.N. OK
In other words, Yomiuri and Asahi attend the same press conference and read the same press release, but Yomiuri comes up with a favorable reading for the Fukuda administration while Asahi shows us a DPJ that is sticking to its guns. Here, Yomiuri is the one that appears to be editorializing. To claim as Yomiuri's does that "saying that if the United Nations adopts a resolution authorizing multinational antiterrorism operations in the Indian Ocean, Japan would then consider whether it should take part in the activities" is anything but a reiteration of Mr. Ozawa's original position is a little far fetched. Parsing that as a demonstration of "flexibility" requires a stretch of the imagination and more than a dollop (what the heck is a dollop?) of hope.
This continued. The following day (7 November), Masayoshi Teraoka, the Defense Director of the Maritimes Staff who had realized that JMSDF's Tokiwa had transferred 800,000 gallons, not 200,000 gallons as announced, to the US Forces, testified (not under oath) in the Lower House. The headlines? Here is Yomiuri:
給油量訂正問題、寺岡元課長は未報告認める (Refueling Volume Correction Problem, Former Director Teraoka Admits Not Reporting [Error]) (no English version available)
It follows this up today (8 November) in a much smaller article tucked away on page 4 that adds a potentially crucial point with:
給油量問題、元海幕防衛課長は上司に相談…参考人質疑 (Refueling Volume Problem, Former Maritime Staff self-Defense Director Consulted Superiors… from Testimony Q&A) (no English version available yet)***.
Asahi came forward on 7 November on the former director's testimony with all those points and more in:
元課長「給油量誤り、幹部に相談」 守屋氏認識の可能性 (Former Director "Refueling Volume Mistaken, Consulted High Officials"****, Possibility Mr. Mori Knew)
Note that not only did Asahi put the former director's superiors/high officials in the breaking (7 November) story, it injected a bit of speculation, albeit a not unreasonable conjecture, into the headline. The article itself says, "He revealed that, at the time, after being pointed out by reporters after Tōru Ishikawa, Chairman of the JSDF Joint Staff Committee, announced the erroneous refueling volume that the refueling volume was too small, he had consulted with Takemasa Moriya, then Defense bureau Director-General, and other high officials at the Self-Defense Agency." (translated from: 当時、誤った給油量を石川亨統合幕僚会議議長が発表した後に記者から給油量が少ないとの指摘を受け、守屋武昌防衛局長ら当時の防衛庁幹部と相談していたことを明らかにした。) Now unless Asahi is outright lying, I think that it is fair to infer, as Asahi did, that it is plausible, even likely, that the Mr. Moriya and his colleagues had understood the possibility of an error****. This possibility does not translate into certain knowledge, or even willful ignorance. On the other hand, Yomiuri did not even mention this exchange. Moreover, Asashi attached the photo of Mr. Teraoka in the Diet after his testimony to the article. Yomiuri did not, and explicitly stated in its 7 November article that the head of the special committee that called him in had requested the media to refrain from taking his picture in the Diet.
Today (8 November), Asahi continues at top of its web page (at a minimum the equivalent of the print version front page) with:
元課長「中間報告、内局*****への調査不十分」 給油量問題 (Former Director, "Interim Report, Investigation of Bureaucracy (naikyoku) Insufficient"****, re Refueling Volume Problem)
Note the contrast with the laconic, bare-bones Yomiuri report on the same day.
It is hard not to assume that this difference is connected to the editorial decision on the part of the respective newspapers to oppose or support the resumption of the refueling operations. It is also hard not to think that with this steady advocacy, Yomiuri readers will tend more and more to support extension while Asahi will increase their mistrust of the administration's intentions. In other words, it is through the articles that the media conducts a usually subtle form of advocacy. Journalism cannot completely free itself from this. Editorial decisions must be made about the relative importance of facts and incidents as they are put together as articles, sections, and entire editions. This will inevitably be informed by the individual and collective judgment of the reporters and editors. Still, it is my view that a thorough, comparative survey will reveal that the media too often slips into advocacy without informing public that they are no longer engaging in straight reporting. This, of course, is not limited to the Japanese media.
Finally, as a kind of sidebar, I'm sure that no media organization hides its identity when it conducts polls. Although the selection of the telephone numbers (or households) may be random, I'm also sure that willingness to answer questions would be higher if, say, the newspaper conducting the poll is the one the responder subscribes to. In this respect, it would be interesting to see a poll that shows the correlation between newspaper subscription and opinion. In fact, I'm sure somebody must be doing it.
* MTC kindly points out in the comments that Asahi had already come out against the return of the JSDF refueling vessels.
**True confessions: I never read editorials until I started blogging. Even today, I usually look at them to see if I can work them into a narrative.
*** The print version is headlined differently: 給油量訂正問題 石破氏らに報告 元防衛課長> (Refueling Volume Correction Problem, Reported to Mr. Ishiba, etc. Self-defense Director) (no English version available yet).
**** Note that Asahi plays fast and loose with quotation marks. The Teraoka quotes are not direct quotes, but are summaries of or could even be inferences from his words. But it is not alone. Shisaku takes note of this widespread, annoying journalistic conventionhere. No reputable U.S. media outlet to my knowledge does this.
***** In the article itself, Mr. Teraoka is reported to have been referring to 内局（同省制服組), or bureaucracy (uniformed officials of the Ministry), a clarification , if true, that would exclude bureaucrats like Mr. Moriya, which is the whole point of the DPJ investigation, which Asahi wholeheartedly supports.
I can play this game too. For example, change the next-to-last sentence in the first paragraph like this:
What then, accounts for the fact that Asahi random-sample opinion polls consistently show higher opposition (say, 5-10 percentage points) for the ruling coalition than Yomiuri polls?
Don't you think that the switch casts a (very) slightly unfavorable light on Asahi, in contrast to the original version, which gives you the feeling that it's the Yomiuri that is pushing an agenda? In fact, I'm sure do it all the time, without even thinking.
LDP and DPJ Collaborate to Raise Minimum Wage; Other Legislation in the Pipeline
Even as the Fukuda-Ozawa Grand-Coalition Summit (engineered by ex-Prime Minister Mori and Yomiuri Pharaoh Watanabe, though Yomiuri subscribers will never read about that) fell through and Ichiro Ozawa did his now-you-see-me, now-you-don't act, and I went on about the DPJ's need to look reasonable and responsible, the LDP and DPJ continued work on a number of legislative initiatives, one of which on 6 November produced an agreement to amend the Minimum Wage Act. Other bills, including one that expands housing assistance for victims of disasters, are in the works.
Nobody wants to be the spoiler. The ruling coalition and the DPJ will continue their bipartisan efforts on the little things, and the budget will take care of itself. (The Lower House prevails automatically.) The JMSDF refueling bill is the only sure candidate for a supermajority override as of now.
What, then, will be the real test of the ability of the two sides to work together? The tax bill for one, particularly the time-limited measures that come due next fiscal year.
The DPJ has more to prove, and consequently the narrower margin of error. Trust Mr. Ozawa and the rest of the DPJ leadership to give up all thoughts of an early snap election.
Nobody wants to be the spoiler. The ruling coalition and the DPJ will continue their bipartisan efforts on the little things, and the budget will take care of itself. (The Lower House prevails automatically.) The JMSDF refueling bill is the only sure candidate for a supermajority override as of now.
What, then, will be the real test of the ability of the two sides to work together? The tax bill for one, particularly the time-limited measures that come due next fiscal year.
The DPJ has more to prove, and consequently the narrower margin of error. Trust Mr. Ozawa and the rest of the DPJ leadership to give up all thoughts of an early snap election.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Ichiro Ozawa: Jason or Jesus?
Let's see, there's the LDP (1969-93, where in 1991 a 49 year old Ichiro Ozawa declined the party presidency and also had his first angina attack, foreshadowing in true theatrical fashion the rest of his career), the Japan Renewal Party (1993-94), the New Frontier Party (1994-98), the Liberal Party (1998-2003), the DPJ (2003-), and now DPJ 2. That's six. Now Jason Vorhees has made it to eleven with Jason vs. Freddy, and shows no sign of letting up, while Jesus by all widely accepted accounts has made only one Resurrection. So I guess Mr. Ozawa belongs somewhere between Heaven and Hell, like us mere mortals.
I wish I could say that I'd purposely used the drama metaphor in this post and left Mr. Ozawa out of the post-climax - a la Holmes at Reichenbach Falls - in the anticipation of yet another sequel. In fact, I had thought – if I'd given the matter any thought at all - that it went without saying that Mr. Ozawa was finally finished as a political leader. My only solace is that all I have to do as an update is add the following line to the end of that post, now that Mr. Ozawa is back:
Mr. Ozawa's return, if anything, will make it even more imperative for the doubly embarrassed DPJ to look responsible and reasonable.
The fear of defection was palpable among the other party leaders, as was their alpha-doglessness.
I wish I could say that I'd purposely used the drama metaphor in this post and left Mr. Ozawa out of the post-climax - a la Holmes at Reichenbach Falls - in the anticipation of yet another sequel. In fact, I had thought – if I'd given the matter any thought at all - that it went without saying that Mr. Ozawa was finally finished as a political leader. My only solace is that all I have to do as an update is add the following line to the end of that post, now that Mr. Ozawa is back:
Mr. Ozawa's return, if anything, will make it even more imperative for the doubly embarrassed DPJ to look responsible and reasonable.
The fear of defection was palpable among the other party leaders, as was their alpha-doglessness.
Monday, November 05, 2007
Notice
Please ignore the preceding post, and several subsequent ones. They are copies of posts that I am deleting because they have been taken over by blog spammers. I have reported them to Blogspot, but nothing has been done to eliminate them. Blogspot should take measures to enable bloggers to block selectively, but in the meantime, this is the best that I can do.
ADD: Please ignore above. Problem solved; as noted in the comments.
ADD: Please ignore above. Problem solved; as noted in the comments.
As a Great Admirer of the Prime Minister, I'd Like to Help Him Out Financially
Saturday, October 27, 2007
As a Great Admirer of the Prime Minister, I'd Like to Help Him Out Financially
The Cabinet members (and their spouses) have declared their assets and shown the world how much they are worth. A typical article will tell you that the assets of a typical Cabinet Minister average out to 116.95 million yen, just enough to make one a millionaire at current exchange rates. Yes, the average Cabinet Minister is better off than the average me, but I do not begrudge him/her his/her good fortune. After all, I want successful people minding our nation’s business, not some freeter who might be tempted to dip into the public coffers to pay the rent.
But some Cabinet members are not so well off. For example, Yasuo Fukuda, our Prime Minister, is worth only 72.11 million yen. Not bad, but still, he's the Prime, not Subprime, Minister. Moreover, he seems to have a liquidity problem. And, though I’m no rich man, I think that I can help him out. Specifically, he has 3 million yen in time deposits, while carrying 38 million yen in debts. I can tell you, this is bad. Fortunately, he owns a house and the land under it, which together are worth 23.76 million yen. I’ll buy that piece of real estate from him. In fact, because Mr. Fukuda is such a nice man, I’ll pay double, no, triple price. That’s 71.28 million yen. He can pay off that loan, and have plenty left over to make the down payment on that retirement home in Karuizawa, to go along with that golf club membership he has at the Karuizawa Country Club. And I’ll rent it back to him cheap, when he leaves office and has to move out of that Official Residence. Which could come sooner, rather than later.
Incidentally, Mr. Fukuda’s residence is located in Setagaya Ward, which readers in Japan will recognize as one of the better locations in Metropolitan Tokyo. The land is valued at 3.76 million yen, the house (most likely a condominium) at a somewhat more realistic 17.77 million.
The assets of State Ministers, etc. and their spouses and children under their care shall be disclosed when they assume and leave their positions.
Article 1, paragraph 4; Norms for State Ministers, Senior Vice Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries (Cabinet Resolution 06 January 2001 as amended by Cabinet Resolutions 24 October 2006 and 26 December 2006)
Since the law requires Diet members to follow more or less the same disclosure rules, this has the effect of capturing non-Diet member Ministers, such as Hiroko Ota, the State Minister for Economic and Fiscal Policy.
The listed values for real estate are the values used in assessing local fixed asset taxes. Golf club memberships and shareholdings are disclosed, but not by value. On-demand bank deposits are not subject to disclosure. Asahi makes something of an issue of the lack of transparency on yet another, more substantive point.
Labels: Japanese politics, Yasuo Fukuda
The Man Who Would Not Wait, and What Comes after
If the art of drama lies in surprising the audience, only to leave it saying, of course how else could it have been, then Ichiro Ozawa is a true genius of the political theater. Once again, he has fulfilled the hopes and fears of every friend and foe, as well as the expectations of bystanders, in grasping for the Holy Grail and, falling short, exiting stage left - leaving everything around him, not least of all his ambitions, in shambles. His parting soliloquy (surely Naoto Kan and Yukio Hatoyama's crocodile tears will fail to convince him to turn back) was vintage Ozawa in all his haughty splendor, heaping scorn on his amateurish colleagues and pouring invective on the lying, scheming press. All this with an air of post facto inevitability that few, if anyone else, could conjure.
The DPJ will survive; the old left and the new right have nowhere else to go. With time, the old guard will grow old and pass away, and the rest will learn to live with their differences, as the LDP has done for years.
The LDP gains some short-term momentum. This should serve the Fukuda administration well in dealing with the refueling extension bill, as the fear of a censure motion leading to a forced snap election (a fear that I never understood) recedes. The Prime Minister has also been spared of the worst effects of party dissent at compromising the overseas projection of the JSDF and, more important, giving up a substantial portion of the Cabinet posts.
My guess is that the DPJ will keep slamming the LDP and the Ministry of Defense on the outstanding discrepancies and corruption issues, but will go to an Upper House vote on the refueling bill in time to allow the ruling coalition to use the Lower House supermajority override. The Upper House will subsequently pass a censure motion (or a less strident resolution), and everyone will see where the chips fall before deciding the course of action in the next general Diet session when it is convened in mid to late January. On another significant matter in the current session, there will be further negotiations on the political financing reform bill to beef up reporting requirements. The results should be such that the DPJ will be able to claim a modest victory.
Sunday, November 04, 2007
Do You Know What It's Like to Be Poor, Old, and Lonely in Japan?
But enough about me. Instead, let's talk about Norimitsu Onishi, the New York Times correspondent who has been tracking the travails and agonies of an aging society here (78 year old Okinawan pastor protests whitewash of government role in WW II mass suicide), here (52 year old losing his welfare benefits and starving to death), here (61-year old royal talks of his battle with cancer and alcoholism, family woes, and the stress of life in the troubled extended imperial family), and here (prisons adapting to aging prisoners). That's four of the eight articles he published in the past four weeks. And another story - on sumo - centers on the brutal hazing death of a 17 year old and the rebellious Yokozuna Asashōryū (and a deranged middle-aged woman who tried to crawl onto the sumo ring as a gratuitous throw-in), but "rural areas [emptying] out of young people" weighs heavily in the background.
It is not hard to see in these chronicles a society whose time has passed, where traditions wither and personal ties fade away, where only loneliness and, ultimately, death prevail; an aging nation resigned to its bleak fate. Perhaps appropriately, the characters are all men (unless you count the mad woman); where a newly-widowed Japanese woman often gain a new lease on life, widowers and bachelors run the risk of an early death.
But contrast this desolate vision with this story (Washington Post) of a 64 year old ex-cab driver, happily homeless in downtown Tokyo, homeless that is, until his pension kicks in when he turns 65. For here is a society that may lack the hands-on activism of the soup kitchens of Manhattan, but offers gentle tolerance and understated charity. It is notable that in Mr. Onishi's story on the aged prisoners, the special care and consideration that they receive in the prison system is ultimately used to illuminate a society that is unwilling to accept ex-convicts. (Has Mr. Onishi bothered to compare recidivism rates across age groups and countries?)
Saturday, November 03, 2007
So That's Why Mr. Fukuda and Mr. Ozawa Took So Long. Here Are Some Thoughts about the Political Implications
I'd wondered why Yasuo Fukuda and Ichiro Ozawa were taking so long. It turns out that they had plenty to talk about. For the Prime Minister Fukuda went well beyond offers of a vague promise to work together and the "refueling extension in exchange for favorable consideration of permanent legislation for overseas projection of the Sself-Defense Force" deal of my daydreams, and actually proposed an LDP+New Komeitō+DPJ Grand Coalition. Even more surprisingly - and this is surely why they huddled all afternoon and into the early evening - Mr. Ozawa agreed to take the Grand Coalition proposal back to the DPJ leadership for consideration, and it was only after his colleagues overwhelmingly rejected it in what must have been a tempestuous meeting that he phoned Mr. Fukuda and informed him that the proposal could not be accepted. Mr. Ozawa, according to Yomikuri, also had been favorably disposed to a temporary extension of the refueling activities while a more permanent, overall solution for the JSDF would be worked out.
That Mr. Fukuda broached a Grand Coalition - if not its timing - is understandable, given his collaborative instincts and his administration's need to get things done. What is far more surprising was Mr. Ozawa's willingness to consider it. Did he allow his genius for the political game to be overwhelmed by his love of statecraft? Did the awareness of mortality that comes from his well-advertised health problems attract him to an ill-advised deal? Or is he at heart still the rightful heir of the 1955 status quo? These and other questions will be mulled over and over again, as biographers and historians revisit this chapter in Ichiro Ozawa's many-storied life.
The major dailies have lined up more or less predictably, from get a room now now at Yomiuri to cut a deal on the policies first at Sankei to what a dumb idea at Mainichi to how dare they collude to rob the public of an opportunity for regime change at Asahi. But the media lineup mirrors their respective positions on the refueling operations and preferences for regime change, and little else, which highlights the following point:
On the policy front, overseas deployment of the JSDF including the suspended refueling operations appeared to have been the main, if not sole, subject of the Fukuda-Ozawa talks. The JSDF package was also at the heart of the political game for a Grand Coalition. Domestic policy concerns such as fiscal reform and the funding of the public pension system appear to have figured in the abstract only, in the sense that the public would be the ones to suffer from the legislative deadlock a the result of a political standoff.
This in turn is a reflection of the political reality that the policy divide between the LDP and DPJ owes more to tactical considerations than to genuine differences in political, social and economic philosophies. In fact, the internal policy differences and the resultant tensions in each party (more so in the DPJ due to its ideologically and politically disparate origins) are far wider, relatively speaking, than the gap between the two parties.
Such internal contradictions, to borrow an old Marxist term, fed by the internal discordance that has been exacerbated by the Grand Coalition proposal within each party, the ruling coalition, and the opposition respectively, will lead some to renew speculations over a Grand Realignment along more ideologically compatible lines. And a tradition of strong party discipline (unlike the US; witness the fate of LDP Post Office privatization rebels) that continues to cause discomfort for dissidents will lend force to such calls.
But I have come to believe that such a turn of events is highly unlikely. Japanese politicians are like those old edge-notched cards; you shake out a different set for every different hole, and it is hard to find two sets of holes sufficient to gather all or most of the cards into two more or less neat piles. And without willing subjection to coherent, discrete, and distinctive sets of policy objectives and the means to achieve them that go beyond the politically expedient, incumbency and vested interests in the status quo will prevail.
This argument, if true, means that the Japanese electorate does not have a substantive policy choice. This is not necessarily a bad thing; if the policy parameters within which the political game is being played are appropriate to the circumstances, Japan could do much worse than to evolve a two-party system whose real purpose would be to keep the actors honest by the threat of removal from power. On the other hand, if perceptions shift and a consensus emerges that the conditions are such that radical changes to the status quo are required but on not much more, then public demand, if nothing else, will cause a reshuffling of the deck. Looking at the talks and the response thereto, my sense is that, despite the dissonance revealed and uncertainty caused by this unexpected overture and response, Japanese politics is still on course towards a status-quo bipolarity.
If you wanted to know what Asahi really wanted, you only had to read today's editorial. See the following paragraph:
両党は夏の参院選で激突し、自公連立政権が過半数割れし、民主党が初めて参院第１党に躍り出たばかりだ。遠からず行われる衆院の解散・総選挙でいよいよ政権交代が問われる。ほとんどの国民はそう思っていたはずである。
The two parties had just recently collided this summer in the Upper House election, where the LDP-New Komeitō coalition lost, and the DPJ had leaped forward to become the largest party in the Upper House. Regime change would finally be at stake with the soon-to-come dissolution of the Lower House and [subsequent] general election. That is surely what most Japanese citizens had been thinking.
(my translation; the Asahi version should be available by tomorrow.)
That Mr. Fukuda broached a Grand Coalition - if not its timing - is understandable, given his collaborative instincts and his administration's need to get things done. What is far more surprising was Mr. Ozawa's willingness to consider it. Did he allow his genius for the political game to be overwhelmed by his love of statecraft? Did the awareness of mortality that comes from his well-advertised health problems attract him to an ill-advised deal? Or is he at heart still the rightful heir of the 1955 status quo? These and other questions will be mulled over and over again, as biographers and historians revisit this chapter in Ichiro Ozawa's many-storied life.
The major dailies have lined up more or less predictably, from get a room now now at Yomiuri to cut a deal on the policies first at Sankei to what a dumb idea at Mainichi to how dare they collude to rob the public of an opportunity for regime change at Asahi. But the media lineup mirrors their respective positions on the refueling operations and preferences for regime change, and little else, which highlights the following point:
On the policy front, overseas deployment of the JSDF including the suspended refueling operations appeared to have been the main, if not sole, subject of the Fukuda-Ozawa talks. The JSDF package was also at the heart of the political game for a Grand Coalition. Domestic policy concerns such as fiscal reform and the funding of the public pension system appear to have figured in the abstract only, in the sense that the public would be the ones to suffer from the legislative deadlock a the result of a political standoff.
This in turn is a reflection of the political reality that the policy divide between the LDP and DPJ owes more to tactical considerations than to genuine differences in political, social and economic philosophies. In fact, the internal policy differences and the resultant tensions in each party (more so in the DPJ due to its ideologically and politically disparate origins) are far wider, relatively speaking, than the gap between the two parties.
Such internal contradictions, to borrow an old Marxist term, fed by the internal discordance that has been exacerbated by the Grand Coalition proposal within each party, the ruling coalition, and the opposition respectively, will lead some to renew speculations over a Grand Realignment along more ideologically compatible lines. And a tradition of strong party discipline (unlike the US; witness the fate of LDP Post Office privatization rebels) that continues to cause discomfort for dissidents will lend force to such calls.
But I have come to believe that such a turn of events is highly unlikely. Japanese politicians are like those old edge-notched cards; you shake out a different set for every different hole, and it is hard to find two sets of holes sufficient to gather all or most of the cards into two more or less neat piles. And without willing subjection to coherent, discrete, and distinctive sets of policy objectives and the means to achieve them that go beyond the politically expedient, incumbency and vested interests in the status quo will prevail.
This argument, if true, means that the Japanese electorate does not have a substantive policy choice. This is not necessarily a bad thing; if the policy parameters within which the political game is being played are appropriate to the circumstances, Japan could do much worse than to evolve a two-party system whose real purpose would be to keep the actors honest by the threat of removal from power. On the other hand, if perceptions shift and a consensus emerges that the conditions are such that radical changes to the status quo are required but on not much more, then public demand, if nothing else, will cause a reshuffling of the deck. Looking at the talks and the response thereto, my sense is that, despite the dissonance revealed and uncertainty caused by this unexpected overture and response, Japanese politics is still on course towards a status-quo bipolarity.
If you wanted to know what Asahi really wanted, you only had to read today's editorial. See the following paragraph:
両党は夏の参院選で激突し、自公連立政権が過半数割れし、民主党が初めて参院第１党に躍り出たばかりだ。遠からず行われる衆院の解散・総選挙でいよいよ政権交代が問われる。ほとんどの国民はそう思っていたはずである。
The two parties had just recently collided this summer in the Upper House election, where the LDP-New Komeitō coalition lost, and the DPJ had leaped forward to become the largest party in the Upper House. Regime change would finally be at stake with the soon-to-come dissolution of the Lower House and [subsequent] general election. That is surely what most Japanese citizens had been thinking.
(my translation; the Asahi version should be available by tomorrow.)
Friday, November 02, 2007
You Drink Our Calpis and We'll Eat Your McWrap
The Golden Arch launched McWrap today. For some reason, the page is entitled: WrapSLYME
The gaijin cachet that transforms hopeless dork into irresistible hunk has been chronicled here by The Asian Exile. But this phenomenon is not limited to men. It extends to all sorts of consumer products and services, not the least of which is the fast food industry.
Take Krispy Kreme: Now as doughnuts go, I think that KK is fine. In fact, I thought it was much better than Dunkin' Donuts, or even (I am ashamed to admit) most of the donuts sold at New York delis. Not only did they come warm to the touch, but managed to maintain their chewiness longer than their scientifically less sophisticated competitors.
But donuts is donuts, and it never fails to amaze me when, almost a year after it opened, I walk past the Shinjuku Krispy Kreme and rain or shine; weekdays, weekends; morning, noon, or night; always I see that one-hour-plus waiting line folding over itself again and again like a small intestine until it spills over onto the JR Higashi Nihon overpass nearby.
And it's not just Krispy Kreme. Maybe it was just New York, but I remember inner city McDonalds, Burger Kings, and Wendys as down-scale, often depressing, once even alarming, places, and not the brightly-lit shops full of high school students, moms with kids, and salarymen in a hurry that we see in Japan.
So I guess my question is: can White Castle be far behind?
Of course it works the other way around as well. The basic Yoshinoya beef bowl debuted in New York at roughly twice the Japanese price (this was before the mad cow disease scare), and you had to get used to paying $10 and more for non-gourmet udon and ramen. And much of Japan cool is actually Japan kitsch.
The gaijin cachet that transforms hopeless dork into irresistible hunk has been chronicled here by The Asian Exile. But this phenomenon is not limited to men. It extends to all sorts of consumer products and services, not the least of which is the fast food industry.
Take Krispy Kreme: Now as doughnuts go, I think that KK is fine. In fact, I thought it was much better than Dunkin' Donuts, or even (I am ashamed to admit) most of the donuts sold at New York delis. Not only did they come warm to the touch, but managed to maintain their chewiness longer than their scientifically less sophisticated competitors.
But donuts is donuts, and it never fails to amaze me when, almost a year after it opened, I walk past the Shinjuku Krispy Kreme and rain or shine; weekdays, weekends; morning, noon, or night; always I see that one-hour-plus waiting line folding over itself again and again like a small intestine until it spills over onto the JR Higashi Nihon overpass nearby.
And it's not just Krispy Kreme. Maybe it was just New York, but I remember inner city McDonalds, Burger Kings, and Wendys as down-scale, often depressing, once even alarming, places, and not the brightly-lit shops full of high school students, moms with kids, and salarymen in a hurry that we see in Japan.
So I guess my question is: can White Castle be far behind?
Of course it works the other way around as well. The basic Yoshinoya beef bowl debuted in New York at roughly twice the Japanese price (this was before the mad cow disease scare), and you had to get used to paying $10 and more for non-gourmet udon and ramen. And much of Japan cool is actually Japan kitsch.
The Self-Defense Force Moves Out of the Indian Ocean (including the Persian Gulf) and Yomiuri and Sankei Weigh in
The Antiterrorism Act authorizing the OEF-MIO refueling activities expired on November 1 and the JSDF ships and planes are leaving the theater of operations. Yomiuri and Sankei have weighed in with editorials. Predictably, they call on the ruling coalition to exercise the supermajority override if need be. Only slightly less surprising, Asahi and Mainichi are silent. FYI, the somewhat leftish Tokyo Shinbun of the Chunichi Shinbun group (yes, the media sponsor of the Japan Series champion Chunichi Dragons) says it should be put on hold until "the lesson have been learned [from all the scandals and incidents]".
Will the other two come off the fence when the chips are down? My current thinking is, Asahi and possibly Mainichi will call for "caution (慎重)" as the act looms, and "regret it (遺憾である)" post facto while reiterating their criticism of the MOD/JSDF. But it doesn't look like the DPJ will get enough media backing to use an Upper House censure vote to force the Fukuda administration to call a snap election, And the public surely will not see it as a vital issue on which it feels compelled to weigh in. I'm leaning towards the view that the LDP is setting a trap of sorts for the DPJ.
(note) The Fukuda-Ozawa bilateral may have been designed in part to further just such an agenda. As Shisaku notes in this persuasive post, the meetings are driving a wedge between the DPJ and the rest of the opposition. And the microparties do not want to go into an election being fought between the two behemoths (plus the dependable LDP sidekick New Komeitō).
I hate to be prescriptive - after all, this is a blog; no one who actually makes the decisions is reading it - but I think that the DPJ should let it come to a vote in the Upper House, have the ruling coalition override it in the Lower House, and pass a non-censure resolution deploring the dictatorship of the majority in the Upper House. They should cut a side deal to give positive consideration (前向きに検討する) to new, permanent legislation for overseas JSDF operations. That way, Mr. Ozawa can save face and everyone can table the matter until the expiration date for operations in Iraq roll around, by which time many things can have happened.
Incidentally, the DPJ is catching plenty of fire for not producing its own legislative proposal for operations in Afghanistan, and not all of it is coming from the LDP; similar criticism has been leveled at other DPJ proposals. This is justified where the dithering is the result of internal dissent, or lack of seriousness. But there is another, better reason why the DPJ cannot easily come up with its own bills.
Drafting a legislative bill is very time-consuming, labor-intensive work. An enormous amount of digging out the necessary facts and using them to put together a coherent set of measures is necessary before you can begin drafting the bill. And the drafting itself requires an incredible amount of double-, triple-, …-checking to make sure that the bill fits seamlessly into the existing body of Japanese law. Thus, it is difficult to draft any substantial bill without the full cooperation of the bureaucracy. So there's a good reason why the Cabinet winds up submitting most bills.
With ISAF, of course, a quick survey of available information will show you that there is no way that the JSDF can fit into PRT operations without a babysitter a la Samawa. That's a luxury that ISAF cannot afford in Afghanistan. So that was a non-starter from the beginning.
Will the other two come off the fence when the chips are down? My current thinking is, Asahi and possibly Mainichi will call for "caution (慎重)" as the act looms, and "regret it (遺憾である)" post facto while reiterating their criticism of the MOD/JSDF. But it doesn't look like the DPJ will get enough media backing to use an Upper House censure vote to force the Fukuda administration to call a snap election, And the public surely will not see it as a vital issue on which it feels compelled to weigh in. I'm leaning towards the view that the LDP is setting a trap of sorts for the DPJ.
(note) The Fukuda-Ozawa bilateral may have been designed in part to further just such an agenda. As Shisaku notes in this persuasive post, the meetings are driving a wedge between the DPJ and the rest of the opposition. And the microparties do not want to go into an election being fought between the two behemoths (plus the dependable LDP sidekick New Komeitō).
I hate to be prescriptive - after all, this is a blog; no one who actually makes the decisions is reading it - but I think that the DPJ should let it come to a vote in the Upper House, have the ruling coalition override it in the Lower House, and pass a non-censure resolution deploring the dictatorship of the majority in the Upper House. They should cut a side deal to give positive consideration (前向きに検討する) to new, permanent legislation for overseas JSDF operations. That way, Mr. Ozawa can save face and everyone can table the matter until the expiration date for operations in Iraq roll around, by which time many things can have happened.
Incidentally, the DPJ is catching plenty of fire for not producing its own legislative proposal for operations in Afghanistan, and not all of it is coming from the LDP; similar criticism has been leveled at other DPJ proposals. This is justified where the dithering is the result of internal dissent, or lack of seriousness. But there is another, better reason why the DPJ cannot easily come up with its own bills.
Drafting a legislative bill is very time-consuming, labor-intensive work. An enormous amount of digging out the necessary facts and using them to put together a coherent set of measures is necessary before you can begin drafting the bill. And the drafting itself requires an incredible amount of double-, triple-, …-checking to make sure that the bill fits seamlessly into the existing body of Japanese law. Thus, it is difficult to draft any substantial bill without the full cooperation of the bureaucracy. So there's a good reason why the Cabinet winds up submitting most bills.
With ISAF, of course, a quick survey of available information will show you that there is no way that the JSDF can fit into PRT operations without a babysitter a la Samawa. That's a luxury that ISAF cannot afford in Afghanistan. So that was a non-starter from the beginning.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
If the Refueling Operations Are So Important, Why Not Use the Supermajority?
Nobutaka Machimura, the Chief Cabinet Secretary, is quoted here as saying, “Japan will drop out of the battlefront of the war on terror because of extremely domestic reasons. This will leave a large blot on Japan’s future, in the sense that Japan will be relegated to the minor leagues by giving up its responsibilities as a member of the international community.”
“Extremely domestic reasons” as in: We’re afraid that the opposition will pass a censure motion in the Upper House that will force Prime Minister Fukuda to call a snap election?
Now I’ve always had difficulty in understanding this logic, which says that exercising a constitutional prerogative inevitably leads to an early election, when the LDP knows that, regardless of the Moriya scandal, at the end of the day, Yomiuri and Sankei are going to support that. More seriously, if the LDP follows the advice of Bunmei Ibuki, its Secretary General, and Shigeru Ishiba, the Defense Minister, and leave the OEF-MIO refueling extension bill to be taken up again when the Diet reconvenes in January unless the public opinion polls show a two-thirds to 60% majority in favor, then it is giving up its responsibilities as the public's representative.
Few things can be more damaging in the long-run than a loss of political will, particularly when a plurality of both the public and the mainstream media has your back.
“Extremely domestic reasons” as in: We’re afraid that the opposition will pass a censure motion in the Upper House that will force Prime Minister Fukuda to call a snap election?
Now I’ve always had difficulty in understanding this logic, which says that exercising a constitutional prerogative inevitably leads to an early election, when the LDP knows that, regardless of the Moriya scandal, at the end of the day, Yomiuri and Sankei are going to support that. More seriously, if the LDP follows the advice of Bunmei Ibuki, its Secretary General, and Shigeru Ishiba, the Defense Minister, and leave the OEF-MIO refueling extension bill to be taken up again when the Diet reconvenes in January unless the public opinion polls show a two-thirds to 60% majority in favor, then it is giving up its responsibilities as the public's representative.
Few things can be more damaging in the long-run than a loss of political will, particularly when a plurality of both the public and the mainstream media has your back.
The Japanese Government Needs Better Public Communications on the Need for Movement on the Remaining Abductees
Once every five years, the Japanese government conducts a public opinion poll on the protection of human rights, and one of the things it tries to find out is what human rights issues the public is interested in. This year, they included the "victims of abduction by North Korea, etc." for the first time. The issue/category came in fifth at 31.5%, behind "the handicapped (44.1%)", "the old (40.5%)", "children (35.0%)", and "human rights abuses using the Internet (32.7%)", but ahead of such issues/categories as "women (25.0%)", "victims of crime, etc. (24.1%)", and "HIV carriers, etc. (18.9%)".
This and other information on the abductees issue is available on this web page that came with the Headquarters for the Abductee Issue that the Abe administration established in September 2006. The web page is full of information on the abductees issue, with new material being added every month. Some of it is intriguing, such as this document, which lays out the Japanese case for all the discrepancies, irregularities, and lack of cooperation on the part of the North Koreans. As I read it, I realize that they must be the unanswered questions that are keeping Japan from pitching in with the fuel oil shipments and acquiescing to the US delisting of North Korea as a terrorist sponsor.
Unfortunately for all you monolingual gaijins, until recently, all this information was available only in Japanese. Somehow, the people who were responsible for this forgot that it was the other parties to the Six-Party Talks who were wondering when Japan would come around to helping out with the quid pro quo for the North Korean nuclear program, and that the Japanese government needed to work on public opinion beyond Japanese borders as well as the Japanese public. Somebody in the Fukuda administration must have notice the omission, and there is now an English-language page as well.
But there are problems. The English page is merely a digest version of the Japanese page. This means that the document I linked to in the second paragraph that argues the Japanese case becomes more of an English-language talking points memo. Perhaps more seriously, the page is poorly designed and lacks a sense of mission and purpose. There is little effort to draw attention to the salient points, to make your case leap out at you even before you start clicking on the links. Technically, intellectually, emotionally, it's a job done on the cheap.
If the objective of this and other PR campaign efforts (among other things, the web site links to Paul Stookey's Song for Megumi) is to show that "the government cares", then this state of affairs is fine. If the intent is to make sure that "the Japanese people care", then the fifth-place finish might be a cause for mild concern. But either way, the government needn't have bothered with the English-language digest version at all. But if it wants to win the hearts and minds of the public beyond its borders and convince them of the need for answers before it moves on, then it has a long way to go in public communications, starting here.
This and other information on the abductees issue is available on this web page that came with the Headquarters for the Abductee Issue that the Abe administration established in September 2006. The web page is full of information on the abductees issue, with new material being added every month. Some of it is intriguing, such as this document, which lays out the Japanese case for all the discrepancies, irregularities, and lack of cooperation on the part of the North Koreans. As I read it, I realize that they must be the unanswered questions that are keeping Japan from pitching in with the fuel oil shipments and acquiescing to the US delisting of North Korea as a terrorist sponsor.
Unfortunately for all you monolingual gaijins, until recently, all this information was available only in Japanese. Somehow, the people who were responsible for this forgot that it was the other parties to the Six-Party Talks who were wondering when Japan would come around to helping out with the quid pro quo for the North Korean nuclear program, and that the Japanese government needed to work on public opinion beyond Japanese borders as well as the Japanese public. Somebody in the Fukuda administration must have notice the omission, and there is now an English-language page as well.
But there are problems. The English page is merely a digest version of the Japanese page. This means that the document I linked to in the second paragraph that argues the Japanese case becomes more of an English-language talking points memo. Perhaps more seriously, the page is poorly designed and lacks a sense of mission and purpose. There is little effort to draw attention to the salient points, to make your case leap out at you even before you start clicking on the links. Technically, intellectually, emotionally, it's a job done on the cheap.
If the objective of this and other PR campaign efforts (among other things, the web site links to Paul Stookey's Song for Megumi) is to show that "the government cares", then this state of affairs is fine. If the intent is to make sure that "the Japanese people care", then the fifth-place finish might be a cause for mild concern. But either way, the government needn't have bothered with the English-language digest version at all. But if it wants to win the hearts and minds of the public beyond its borders and convince them of the need for answers before it moves on, then it has a long way to go in public communications, starting here.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
The Future of Japan's Relations with the US and China Et Cetera Et Cetera… Glad You Asked…
LH is teaching a class on East Asia in the US. She has asked these questions of several people here, but I know of at least two people beyond her list who actually read this blog whose knowledge and understanding of these issues are far superior to mine, and several others whom I consider to be, at a minimum, my peers. And of course there must be others who I am not aware of. So I decided to post this draft on my blog, since I am sure that LH will very much appreciate any comments you may have.
LH asks: What you think about the future of Japan's relations with the US and China. Do you see a rivalry developing between China and Japan? What kind of foreign policy do you see developing with the new PM?
Me: I know all the answers to your questions. Unfortunately, God has told me that if I tell anyone, He will immediately strike me down with one of his trademark lightning bolts. And He told me in no uncertain terms where I would find myself when I came to. So I'll stay away from the crystal ball and confine myself to talking around the matter by outlining what I think are some (hopefully a very large proportion) of the most salient conditions that should be the basis of scenarios for the future.
First of all, I often hear questions similar to these about Japan and its relations with its two largest neighbors. I believe that this is mainly because of China's recent and remarkable economic, military and diplomatic ascendancy. Moreover, though an increasingly influential civil society has grown up within the confines of one-party rule, there are still enough political legacies in the Chinese regime from a more totalitarian era to cause people to see China in an inherently ominous light. Add to all this the impact from the sheer size of China in every dimension, and no wonder there is talk of the Chinese threat. But I have never seen things that way since I began thinking about this matter and I still do not.
The starting point of my argument is that the current regimes in Japan, the US and China share a fundamental interest in sustaining and enhancing a market-oriented global system. In the world we now live in, this makes Japan, the US and China status quo states with a strong interest in global and regional stability. The enormous geopolitical footprints of the US and China in East Asia, the asymmetries in their bilateral economic relationship, and fundamental differences in their approaches to governance, as well as Japanese fears of the Chinese ascendancy sometimes obscure this reality, but the issues speak for themselves.
Let's look at the main regional issues:
The Korean Peninsula. None of the regimes in the three states want North Korea to have a nuclear weapons program. The reasons for that are not necessarily consonant. That is, for the main part, the Japan regime does not want North Korea to have it because it is the most natural target for the nuclear weapons, the US regime because it fears nuclear proliferation, and the Chinese regime because of the arms race that a successful North Korean program might touch off. Thus, there are inevitable differences in the scope and extent of measures each state is willing to resort to in order to contain and roll back the North Korean nuclear weapons program. Still, the three states have enough in common that they can cooperate within the framework of the Six-Party Talks. Also significant is the fact that, because of economic and security concerns, none of the three regimes seek a precipitous regime change there but would prefer a more graduated process of integration into the regional and global economic and security systems. This also happens to coincide with the interest of the South Korean regime.
Taiwan. Here again, the desires of the three regimes roughly coincide. All three regimes accept Chinese claims of sovereignty over the island but want the future course of the course of action to be determined peacefully. The US position is somewhat constrained by the Taiwan Relations Act, but, if Taiwan unilaterally declares independence, China will challenge this by force, and it is doubtful that the US would come to its rescue barring catastrophic humanitarian consequences. Japan has a role of sorts by way of the US military presence on its territory and the strategic ambiguity maintained over "areas surrounding Japan", but it is a subsidiary and passive one. In any case, the common interest of the three regimes lies in maintaining the status quo.
Looking beyond the regional stage, the most compelling issue is energy. Here again, the three regimes share a common objective that is often obscured by arguments about competition for oil and gas, as well as over human rights concerns in resource-rich states with poor and worse governance. China is sometimes accused, mainly by the US regime (most prominently by powerful members of the legislative wing) of propping up undesirable regimes - some of them downright repugnant - in order to obtain access to their energy (and other) resources, most evident in Sudan and Myanmar (or Burma, if you will). In fact, we are all net importer heavyweights and, as such, need to keep global supply steadily expanding and easily accessible. From an energy security perspective, any investment that increases supply is welcome. Besides, leaving aside for now the broader question of who is doing what business that enables which undesirable regimes to maintain itself by collecting and distributing economic rent on which scarce natural resources, China satisfies most of its oil and gas requirements the old fashioned way, that is, by paying what the market demands. This will be even more so, as they come to rely more and more on foreign sources to satiate an ever-expanding domestic demand. Some people in Japan and elsewhere see this as a threat in itself. But all sources of demand, not just the increments, for oil and gas compete against each other. The growth of Chinese (as well as Indian) demand is certainly an important factor to enter in our calculations, but to call it a threat merely obscures the way to the proper response, which is conserving energy and bringing additional and new energy sources to the market.
note: I am ignoring climate change as an issue here in great part because I am of two minds on that and consequently do not have a good idea on how to treat that matter within this context. More generally, it is difficult to talk about global externalities in bilateral and plurilateral contexts.
There is potential for real conflict in international trade. Such conflicts are not due to an inherent conflict between states under the WTO, free-trade regime, but are caused by domestic conflicts between the larger but diffused gains as the whole and the cumulatively smaller but individually more painful losses to specific interests. But understanding by policymakers of the common interest is keeping states from spinning into the damaging realms of extensive protectionism that swept the world in the inter-War years in the 20th Century. That is true of all three states concerned here.
note: An increasingly likely failure of the Doha Round does not mean that international trade will collapse. It merely signals that the free-trade system remains where it stands for the time being. All things considered, that is not such a bad place to be.
Having said all this, it is in the nature of the beast to compete. That is why we root for the home team, haggle over seating arrangements, and what have you. Politicians and pundits will pay heed to how the two states match up as measured by the nebulous concept of 'influence' over, say, ASEAN; and the Japanese authorities will chafe as their Chinese counterparts conspire to deny Japan a permanent seat at the UN Security Council's table. However, unless Japan is willing to surrender its sovereignty to the UN (and in effect to the Security Council), this disparity is almost as trivial to the Japanese national well being as the relative performance of our respective national teams at the next FIFA World Cup. The public, of course, understands this. That is why such matters never become the focus of our national debate come election time.
As for what the Fukuda administration will do by way of foreign policy, I can be brief. In a nutshell: continuity. This is not a prophecy; it is an observation. For it is remarkable the extent to which the need for popular consent ultimately winds up confining every Japanese administration within the perimeters of the Yoshida Doctrine. Now let's stretch it out a little.
Note that Prime Minister Abe's already modest ambitions for constitutional reform was drastically scaled down by the time the Diet got around to passing the procedural act (neglected for 60 years!). And his predecessor Prime Minister Koizumi was often mistakenly portrayed as a conservative revisionist or worse because of a misunderstanding over his visits to Yasukuni Shrine. But virtually all Japanese administrations since the Nakasone administration have continued efforts to find more uses for our military in a multilateral context; and enhance, where possible, mutual defense relationships of a modest nature. And, in more recent years, without increasing military budget expenditures. There is no reason to believe that the Fukuda administration will waver.
On international trade, Japan has been reduced (with an inaudible sigh of relief) to the sidelines of the Doha Round as the negotiations have apparently reached an insurmountable impasse mainly over agricultural products. In the meantime, Japan, like so many other states, seek to cultivate bilateral agreements - some erroneously assume in competition with China - with its Asia-Pacific neighbors and further abroad. There is no reason to believe that this situation will change either.
note: Popular consent also drives our policy on abductees, as well as the reshaping of the contours of US Forces in Japan. Here also can be seen how the need for popular consent enforces a form of continuity.
All this makes the Fukuda administration, indeed any Japanese administration, decidedly unthreatening to China, and at a minimum not seriously detrimental to US interests. Thus, the future of the relationships… but I fear that I am already inviting the wrath of the Almighty.
(Sidebar)
I notice that I have written mainly about China. Is this a sign of personal complacency over our relationship with the US?
It is important to note that China will be facing demographic pressures similar to Japan's in a couple of decades. Can China grow quickly enough to become rich before it becomes poor?
Japan is blessed with plenty of fresh clean water and fertile volcanic and sedimentary soil. Its archipelagic geography stretching from the subtropics to the northern edge of the temperate zone endow it with an outsized exclusive economic zone. China is less well-endowed; it is less resilient in the face of environmental challenges.
LH asks: What you think about the future of Japan's relations with the US and China. Do you see a rivalry developing between China and Japan? What kind of foreign policy do you see developing with the new PM?
Me: I know all the answers to your questions. Unfortunately, God has told me that if I tell anyone, He will immediately strike me down with one of his trademark lightning bolts. And He told me in no uncertain terms where I would find myself when I came to. So I'll stay away from the crystal ball and confine myself to talking around the matter by outlining what I think are some (hopefully a very large proportion) of the most salient conditions that should be the basis of scenarios for the future.
First of all, I often hear questions similar to these about Japan and its relations with its two largest neighbors. I believe that this is mainly because of China's recent and remarkable economic, military and diplomatic ascendancy. Moreover, though an increasingly influential civil society has grown up within the confines of one-party rule, there are still enough political legacies in the Chinese regime from a more totalitarian era to cause people to see China in an inherently ominous light. Add to all this the impact from the sheer size of China in every dimension, and no wonder there is talk of the Chinese threat. But I have never seen things that way since I began thinking about this matter and I still do not.
The starting point of my argument is that the current regimes in Japan, the US and China share a fundamental interest in sustaining and enhancing a market-oriented global system. In the world we now live in, this makes Japan, the US and China status quo states with a strong interest in global and regional stability. The enormous geopolitical footprints of the US and China in East Asia, the asymmetries in their bilateral economic relationship, and fundamental differences in their approaches to governance, as well as Japanese fears of the Chinese ascendancy sometimes obscure this reality, but the issues speak for themselves.
Let's look at the main regional issues:
The Korean Peninsula. None of the regimes in the three states want North Korea to have a nuclear weapons program. The reasons for that are not necessarily consonant. That is, for the main part, the Japan regime does not want North Korea to have it because it is the most natural target for the nuclear weapons, the US regime because it fears nuclear proliferation, and the Chinese regime because of the arms race that a successful North Korean program might touch off. Thus, there are inevitable differences in the scope and extent of measures each state is willing to resort to in order to contain and roll back the North Korean nuclear weapons program. Still, the three states have enough in common that they can cooperate within the framework of the Six-Party Talks. Also significant is the fact that, because of economic and security concerns, none of the three regimes seek a precipitous regime change there but would prefer a more graduated process of integration into the regional and global economic and security systems. This also happens to coincide with the interest of the South Korean regime.
Taiwan. Here again, the desires of the three regimes roughly coincide. All three regimes accept Chinese claims of sovereignty over the island but want the future course of the course of action to be determined peacefully. The US position is somewhat constrained by the Taiwan Relations Act, but, if Taiwan unilaterally declares independence, China will challenge this by force, and it is doubtful that the US would come to its rescue barring catastrophic humanitarian consequences. Japan has a role of sorts by way of the US military presence on its territory and the strategic ambiguity maintained over "areas surrounding Japan", but it is a subsidiary and passive one. In any case, the common interest of the three regimes lies in maintaining the status quo.
Looking beyond the regional stage, the most compelling issue is energy. Here again, the three regimes share a common objective that is often obscured by arguments about competition for oil and gas, as well as over human rights concerns in resource-rich states with poor and worse governance. China is sometimes accused, mainly by the US regime (most prominently by powerful members of the legislative wing) of propping up undesirable regimes - some of them downright repugnant - in order to obtain access to their energy (and other) resources, most evident in Sudan and Myanmar (or Burma, if you will). In fact, we are all net importer heavyweights and, as such, need to keep global supply steadily expanding and easily accessible. From an energy security perspective, any investment that increases supply is welcome. Besides, leaving aside for now the broader question of who is doing what business that enables which undesirable regimes to maintain itself by collecting and distributing economic rent on which scarce natural resources, China satisfies most of its oil and gas requirements the old fashioned way, that is, by paying what the market demands. This will be even more so, as they come to rely more and more on foreign sources to satiate an ever-expanding domestic demand. Some people in Japan and elsewhere see this as a threat in itself. But all sources of demand, not just the increments, for oil and gas compete against each other. The growth of Chinese (as well as Indian) demand is certainly an important factor to enter in our calculations, but to call it a threat merely obscures the way to the proper response, which is conserving energy and bringing additional and new energy sources to the market.
note: I am ignoring climate change as an issue here in great part because I am of two minds on that and consequently do not have a good idea on how to treat that matter within this context. More generally, it is difficult to talk about global externalities in bilateral and plurilateral contexts.
There is potential for real conflict in international trade. Such conflicts are not due to an inherent conflict between states under the WTO, free-trade regime, but are caused by domestic conflicts between the larger but diffused gains as the whole and the cumulatively smaller but individually more painful losses to specific interests. But understanding by policymakers of the common interest is keeping states from spinning into the damaging realms of extensive protectionism that swept the world in the inter-War years in the 20th Century. That is true of all three states concerned here.
note: An increasingly likely failure of the Doha Round does not mean that international trade will collapse. It merely signals that the free-trade system remains where it stands for the time being. All things considered, that is not such a bad place to be.
Having said all this, it is in the nature of the beast to compete. That is why we root for the home team, haggle over seating arrangements, and what have you. Politicians and pundits will pay heed to how the two states match up as measured by the nebulous concept of 'influence' over, say, ASEAN; and the Japanese authorities will chafe as their Chinese counterparts conspire to deny Japan a permanent seat at the UN Security Council's table. However, unless Japan is willing to surrender its sovereignty to the UN (and in effect to the Security Council), this disparity is almost as trivial to the Japanese national well being as the relative performance of our respective national teams at the next FIFA World Cup. The public, of course, understands this. That is why such matters never become the focus of our national debate come election time.
As for what the Fukuda administration will do by way of foreign policy, I can be brief. In a nutshell: continuity. This is not a prophecy; it is an observation. For it is remarkable the extent to which the need for popular consent ultimately winds up confining every Japanese administration within the perimeters of the Yoshida Doctrine. Now let's stretch it out a little.
Note that Prime Minister Abe's already modest ambitions for constitutional reform was drastically scaled down by the time the Diet got around to passing the procedural act (neglected for 60 years!). And his predecessor Prime Minister Koizumi was often mistakenly portrayed as a conservative revisionist or worse because of a misunderstanding over his visits to Yasukuni Shrine. But virtually all Japanese administrations since the Nakasone administration have continued efforts to find more uses for our military in a multilateral context; and enhance, where possible, mutual defense relationships of a modest nature. And, in more recent years, without increasing military budget expenditures. There is no reason to believe that the Fukuda administration will waver.
On international trade, Japan has been reduced (with an inaudible sigh of relief) to the sidelines of the Doha Round as the negotiations have apparently reached an insurmountable impasse mainly over agricultural products. In the meantime, Japan, like so many other states, seek to cultivate bilateral agreements - some erroneously assume in competition with China - with its Asia-Pacific neighbors and further abroad. There is no reason to believe that this situation will change either.
note: Popular consent also drives our policy on abductees, as well as the reshaping of the contours of US Forces in Japan. Here also can be seen how the need for popular consent enforces a form of continuity.
All this makes the Fukuda administration, indeed any Japanese administration, decidedly unthreatening to China, and at a minimum not seriously detrimental to US interests. Thus, the future of the relationships… but I fear that I am already inviting the wrath of the Almighty.
(Sidebar)
I notice that I have written mainly about China. Is this a sign of personal complacency over our relationship with the US?
It is important to note that China will be facing demographic pressures similar to Japan's in a couple of decades. Can China grow quickly enough to become rich before it becomes poor?
Japan is blessed with plenty of fresh clean water and fertile volcanic and sedimentary soil. Its archipelagic geography stretching from the subtropics to the northern edge of the temperate zone endow it with an outsized exclusive economic zone. China is less well-endowed; it is less resilient in the face of environmental challenges.
Friday, October 26, 2007
I Arrive in Hino City; Two Years Later A Quarter Century of Communist Rule Ends There. Coincidence? Maybe…
Mind you, this happened in 1997, exactly ten years ago, even as the national government raised the consumption tax rate from 3% to 5% and the economy was taking a dive, which would lead the following year to an LDP loss of epic proportions in the Upper House election and the demise of the Hashimoto administration.
Then, again, the downfall of the Hino Communists may have had something to do with the fact that the incumbent had been mayor for all of those 24 years and was 85 years old when he hit the campaign trails for the last time.
In fact, Kimio Morita was the last surviving member of the massive wave of progressive governors and mayors supported by the Socialist and Communist Parties that saw its heyday in the mid-seventies. At its peak in 1975, 12 (out of 47) provinces including Tokyo, Osaka, Kanagawa and Kyoto were administered by progressive governors, and countless municipalities, including major metropolitan centers such as Yokohama, Nagoya, Kyoto and Kobe had progressive mayors. This progressive surge came during the high-growth sixties and maintained its front through the mid-seventies, but receded as Japan reached the bubbly eighties.
Currently, the progressives have only one governor (Yukiko Kada; Shiga Prefecture), eight city mayors including one in a Prefectural capital (Okinawa), and a smattering of mayors in smaller municipalities. Remarkably, four of the eight mayors, in Warabi, Higashi-Osaka, Yuzawa and Komae, are Japanese Communist Party members or received their main support from it in the election, while two others, in Ginowan and Kunitachi, received support from both parties. (The Ginowan candidate also received support from the DPJ and a local progressive party.) The other two mayors are Social Democrats.
This is a far cry from the Golden Era of progressive politics. Still, the public can be quite adventuresome in local governance (remember, these are winner-take-all elections), and experimentation is not limited to electing comedians.
But one of the principles of JCP diplomacy:
“We will work for the reversion of the Chishima (Kurile) Islands, and Habomai and Shikotan Islands, which are Japan’s historical territories.”
Those namby-pamby appeasers like Taro Aso and Shoichi Nakagawa will clearly have a hard time fitting into a coalition led by the revanchist JCP.
note: This is a very rough survey based on online sources (news reports and official websites). Wikipedia has an article on progressive governors and mayors if you would like to do your own digging.
Then, again, the downfall of the Hino Communists may have had something to do with the fact that the incumbent had been mayor for all of those 24 years and was 85 years old when he hit the campaign trails for the last time.
In fact, Kimio Morita was the last surviving member of the massive wave of progressive governors and mayors supported by the Socialist and Communist Parties that saw its heyday in the mid-seventies. At its peak in 1975, 12 (out of 47) provinces including Tokyo, Osaka, Kanagawa and Kyoto were administered by progressive governors, and countless municipalities, including major metropolitan centers such as Yokohama, Nagoya, Kyoto and Kobe had progressive mayors. This progressive surge came during the high-growth sixties and maintained its front through the mid-seventies, but receded as Japan reached the bubbly eighties.
Currently, the progressives have only one governor (Yukiko Kada; Shiga Prefecture), eight city mayors including one in a Prefectural capital (Okinawa), and a smattering of mayors in smaller municipalities. Remarkably, four of the eight mayors, in Warabi, Higashi-Osaka, Yuzawa and Komae, are Japanese Communist Party members or received their main support from it in the election, while two others, in Ginowan and Kunitachi, received support from both parties. (The Ginowan candidate also received support from the DPJ and a local progressive party.) The other two mayors are Social Democrats.
This is a far cry from the Golden Era of progressive politics. Still, the public can be quite adventuresome in local governance (remember, these are winner-take-all elections), and experimentation is not limited to electing comedians.
But one of the principles of JCP diplomacy:
“We will work for the reversion of the Chishima (Kurile) Islands, and Habomai and Shikotan Islands, which are Japan’s historical territories.”
Those namby-pamby appeasers like Taro Aso and Shoichi Nakagawa will clearly have a hard time fitting into a coalition led by the revanchist JCP.
note: This is a very rough survey based on online sources (news reports and official websites). Wikipedia has an article on progressive governors and mayors if you would like to do your own digging.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
When Is History History? (The U.S.H.R. Resolutions)
And here a terrible spectacle displayed itself: the women first cast their infants down the cliff, and then they cast themselves after their fallen little ones, and the men likewise. In such a scene, Aeneas the Stymphalian, an officer, caught sight of a man with a fine dress about to throw himself over, and seized hold of him to stop him; but the other caught him to his arms, and both were gone in an instant headlong down the crags, and were killed. Out of this place the merest handful of human beings were taken prisoners, but cattle and asses in abundance and flocks of sheep.
- from The Anabasis by Xenonphon (ca. 431 – 355 BC), as translated by H. G. Dakyns
I remember being stunned by this passage many, many years ago, in my youth. In fact, it is about the only thing I retained from the book. Nevertheless, it did not evoke the sense of anger and revulsion that I much, much later felt over the 9.11 attacks. It was, after all, history. (note: I was in Manhattan at the time.)
But so much of the Middle East has yet to pass into history. Europeans carved out Israel after WW II to solve their Jewish problem, and the wound continues to fester; many of the other ill-fitting borders they etched across tribal and religious boundaries have not lost their tenuousness either. Likewise, so many of the deeds and misdeeds of the local actors continue to resonate in the hearts of their descendants. The Armenian genocide may have looked like history to Democrats, but not to its Armenian-American constituency in California, nor to the Turks.
Did Nancy Pelosi think that since Japan was a good sport, Turkey would roll over too? But there was only one loach under this willow tree. Japan put WW II and everything that led to it behind when we lost to the Americans. Thus, we do not vent our anger at Russia for unlawfully shipping our soldiers and civilians to Siberia to use them as slave labor, or seek recompense for the Japanese women who were forced to provide sexual satisfaction to the Soviet soldiers who marched into Manchuria. And the Hiroshima Epitaph famously leaves us wondering, “Who will not repeat the mistake?” even as we bade them, “Sleep peacefully”. Never mind the righteousness (or not) of such grievances. We decided, collectively, that it was all history.
Actually, though I did not notice it at the time (I think), Xenophon, a disciple of Socrates, and his men appear to have been uncommonly civilized for those days. For later in the narrative, Xenophon explains: “But wherever we come, be it foreign or Hellenic soil, and find no market for provisions, we are wont to help ourselves, not out of insolence but from necessity. There have been tribes like the Carduchians, the Taochians, the Chaldaeans, which, albeit they were not subject to the great king, yet were no less formidable than independent. These we had to bring over by our arms. The necessity of getting provisions forced us; since they refused to offer us a market.”And there is nothing in the narrative to suggest that they did otherwise.
- from The Anabasis by Xenonphon (ca. 431 – 355 BC), as translated by H. G. Dakyns
I remember being stunned by this passage many, many years ago, in my youth. In fact, it is about the only thing I retained from the book. Nevertheless, it did not evoke the sense of anger and revulsion that I much, much later felt over the 9.11 attacks. It was, after all, history. (note: I was in Manhattan at the time.)
But so much of the Middle East has yet to pass into history. Europeans carved out Israel after WW II to solve their Jewish problem, and the wound continues to fester; many of the other ill-fitting borders they etched across tribal and religious boundaries have not lost their tenuousness either. Likewise, so many of the deeds and misdeeds of the local actors continue to resonate in the hearts of their descendants. The Armenian genocide may have looked like history to Democrats, but not to its Armenian-American constituency in California, nor to the Turks.
Did Nancy Pelosi think that since Japan was a good sport, Turkey would roll over too? But there was only one loach under this willow tree. Japan put WW II and everything that led to it behind when we lost to the Americans. Thus, we do not vent our anger at Russia for unlawfully shipping our soldiers and civilians to Siberia to use them as slave labor, or seek recompense for the Japanese women who were forced to provide sexual satisfaction to the Soviet soldiers who marched into Manchuria. And the Hiroshima Epitaph famously leaves us wondering, “Who will not repeat the mistake?” even as we bade them, “Sleep peacefully”. Never mind the righteousness (or not) of such grievances. We decided, collectively, that it was all history.
Actually, though I did not notice it at the time (I think), Xenophon, a disciple of Socrates, and his men appear to have been uncommonly civilized for those days. For later in the narrative, Xenophon explains: “But wherever we come, be it foreign or Hellenic soil, and find no market for provisions, we are wont to help ourselves, not out of insolence but from necessity. There have been tribes like the Carduchians, the Taochians, the Chaldaeans, which, albeit they were not subject to the great king, yet were no less formidable than independent. These we had to bring over by our arms. The necessity of getting provisions forced us; since they refused to offer us a market.”And there is nothing in the narrative to suggest that they did otherwise.
Walter Russell Mead Tells Us How America Can’t Help Being Good, Even When It Is Bad
Walter Russell Mead unleashes another big one, with Failing Upward, subtitled Relax, America will survive George W. Bush, in the New Republic. In the article, he asks:
For two centuries, the United States has astounded critics with its bad foreign policy--and, for two centuries, the United States has steadily risen to an unprecedented level of power and influence in the international system. Why does the team with the worst skills in the league end up with so many pennants?
His answer:
But there is another dimension to our special providence, one that has come into greater prominence during the Bush administration. U.S. foreign policy isn't successful just because our process reflects the varied interests and priorities of our diverse and dynamic society (which I think was the core argument in Special Providence, the book). We also succeed because our core strategic interests--liberal society, global economic growth, geopolitical stability--fit well with the interests and aspirations of other people around the world. They remain popular even when U.S. policy is widely disliked; when we fail to achieve our goals, others often do the work for us.
Does this sound like American triumphalism with a little help from its friends, neo-con lite, if you will? Perhaps. But Mr. Mead does a breathtaking around-the-world analysis for the Bush era that argues in essence that the world is indeed buying into the deal despite the Bush Presidency.
No doubt you should be able to amass all the regional downsides to construct a different argument For example, the concentration of liquid and gaseous energy resources in the Middle East and Russia is troubling; I also have no handle on what to me was a revelation over the inroads Christianity has been making in Africa and its effects.
Still, on first reading, I find him persuasive. I think that this is going to be one of those articles that are widely talked about.
The article is split into 10 pages, but it’s not that long and can easily be read during lunch break, if you must. You can also read page 9 for the gist of his underlying argument (it is not that unfamiliar; remember the resemblance to neoconservatism), then go over the entire piece.
For two centuries, the United States has astounded critics with its bad foreign policy--and, for two centuries, the United States has steadily risen to an unprecedented level of power and influence in the international system. Why does the team with the worst skills in the league end up with so many pennants?
His answer:
But there is another dimension to our special providence, one that has come into greater prominence during the Bush administration. U.S. foreign policy isn't successful just because our process reflects the varied interests and priorities of our diverse and dynamic society (which I think was the core argument in Special Providence, the book). We also succeed because our core strategic interests--liberal society, global economic growth, geopolitical stability--fit well with the interests and aspirations of other people around the world. They remain popular even when U.S. policy is widely disliked; when we fail to achieve our goals, others often do the work for us.
Does this sound like American triumphalism with a little help from its friends, neo-con lite, if you will? Perhaps. But Mr. Mead does a breathtaking around-the-world analysis for the Bush era that argues in essence that the world is indeed buying into the deal despite the Bush Presidency.
No doubt you should be able to amass all the regional downsides to construct a different argument For example, the concentration of liquid and gaseous energy resources in the Middle East and Russia is troubling; I also have no handle on what to me was a revelation over the inroads Christianity has been making in Africa and its effects.
Still, on first reading, I find him persuasive. I think that this is going to be one of those articles that are widely talked about.
The article is split into 10 pages, but it’s not that long and can easily be read during lunch break, if you must. You can also read page 9 for the gist of his underlying argument (it is not that unfamiliar; remember the resemblance to neoconservatism), then go over the entire piece.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
The Tokyo Special Investigations Department Has Gone into Action on the Yamada Yōkō Affair
To a Japanese public used to watching beleaguered CEOs, politicians, and top bureaucrats scurrying away from persistent TV reporters and their camera crews, it must have been a refreshing sight to see a calmly serious Takemasa Moriya in his civvies, holding an impromptu news conference in front of his doorsteps. Not that he appeared to be very forthcoming in the snippets that I caught, as he begged off, stating that he was being questioned by the Defense Ministry. I went to bed, thinking that Defense Minister Ishiba better get hold of Donald Rumsfeld's interrogation manual, get to the bottom of things, then do everything in his power to set things right. Mr. Moriya was sure to be grilled in the Diet, and it is usually the case that the conclusions of 'internal investigations' invariably fall apart in the light of serious third-party scrutiny. You don't want to be caught between lame excuses and harsh realities, nor do you want to cede the initiative to the opposition. And Prime Minister Fukuda should start showing face himself if he wants to salvage the refueling operations and shore up long-term prospects for his administration.
And then I get up, go out, pick up the morning paper, and the front page is emblazoned with the headline:
Yamada Yōkō's US Subsidiary Investigated
Yomiuri has found out that the Public Prosecutors Office has been receiving judicial assistance from US authorities in investigating the US subsidiary for accounting irregularities. According to the report (citing multiple Yamada Yōkō sources) a former head of the US subsidiary built a multimillion dollar slush fund, some of which the sources suspect was used to entertain JSDA officials visiting the US as well as US vendors. The former US subsidiary head was a close associate of the former Yamada Yōkō executive who had treated Mr. Moriya to golf and meals excursions, and was one of the people who joined hands with him to form Nihon Mirise. Ominously, the Special Investigations Department of the Tokyo Local Public Prosecutors Office is in charge of the case. This particular Special Investigations Department (Osaka and, since 1996, Nagoya have one each as well) handles most major economic and political crime investigations, as well as large tax evasion cases.
At a minimum, this guarantees that the issue will be in the public eye for the duration of this Diet session. I think that the chances of the Fukuda administration retaking the initiative on the refueling extension bill have diminished substantially.
Incidentally, running alongside this story on the same front page is yet another revelation (not yet online) in an ongoing medical scandal, where a pharmaceutical company and the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has failed to act on information that could have led to early treatment for victims of drug-induced hepatitis. This falls on the shoulders of Yoichi Masuzoe, the MHLW Minister who is already charged with cleaning up the public pension records.
When it pours, it pours.
And then I get up, go out, pick up the morning paper, and the front page is emblazoned with the headline:
Yamada Yōkō's US Subsidiary Investigated
Yomiuri has found out that the Public Prosecutors Office has been receiving judicial assistance from US authorities in investigating the US subsidiary for accounting irregularities. According to the report (citing multiple Yamada Yōkō sources) a former head of the US subsidiary built a multimillion dollar slush fund, some of which the sources suspect was used to entertain JSDA officials visiting the US as well as US vendors. The former US subsidiary head was a close associate of the former Yamada Yōkō executive who had treated Mr. Moriya to golf and meals excursions, and was one of the people who joined hands with him to form Nihon Mirise. Ominously, the Special Investigations Department of the Tokyo Local Public Prosecutors Office is in charge of the case. This particular Special Investigations Department (Osaka and, since 1996, Nagoya have one each as well) handles most major economic and political crime investigations, as well as large tax evasion cases.
At a minimum, this guarantees that the issue will be in the public eye for the duration of this Diet session. I think that the chances of the Fukuda administration retaking the initiative on the refueling extension bill have diminished substantially.
Incidentally, running alongside this story on the same front page is yet another revelation (not yet online) in an ongoing medical scandal, where a pharmaceutical company and the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has failed to act on information that could have led to early treatment for victims of drug-induced hepatitis. This falls on the shoulders of Yoichi Masuzoe, the MHLW Minister who is already charged with cleaning up the public pension records.
When it pours, it pours.
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.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
A Monkey Wrench Named Takemasa Moriya in the OEF-ISAF Refueling Issue
I've been prefacing my prediction that the refueling extension bill will be passed with the words "barring unforeseen circumstances", or something of the sort. Those are part weasel words of someone who's been wrong too often, but also part truth. In politics, unforeseen circumstances do happen, with uncommon frequency. Here, I am thinking, Edmund Muskie's “tears”, Gary Hart-Donna Rice, Prime Minister Uno and the geisha girl, George Allen's macaca moment, ad infinitum.
And then, you have Takemasa Moriya.
Revelations of political financing irregularities that dogged the Abe administration (and the DPJ) continued under the Fukuda adminstration, and Yoichi Masuzoe, the Health, Labor and Welfare Minister and other LDP worthies have had their share of verbal gaffes in the new administration. But the media has been more or less willing to hand out mulligans to the media-friendly Prime Minister. But there is a good chance that this will end with the latest scandal to break out.
The DPJ had been pushing in the Diet to summon as a witness Takemasa Moriya, the previous Administrative Vice Minister at the Ministry of Defense, who had been the head of the MOD bureau responsible for the refueling operations when the 800,000-200,000 gallon accounting error occurred. The LDP had resisted, claiming that it was not the custom of the Diet to summon private citizens. For one, the LDP must be afraid of the spill over to another ongoing struggle, where the DPJ has also been trying to haul in Fujio Mitarai, head of Keidanren, for questioning on labor practices irregularities at his firm Canon.
But on Friday the deluge struck, as the media jumped all over Mr. Moriya with accusations of enjoying over a hundred all-expenses-paid golf and dinner outings courtesy of Yamada Yōkō, a mid-major MOD supplier, by way of a senior executive there. News reports add that his wife accompanied him on some of these excursions, and they signed in using aliases on at least some occasions. If true, all this would have served as grounds for severe punishment under Ministry rules. Although there is no way to formally punish him, barring criminal charges, the opposition is beside itself with joy. The fractious DPJ in particular has been handed an excellent sideshow in which to rake the MOD over the coals and take the public’s eyes off their own lack of agreement on a viable alternative. This not only calls into question the reliability of the executor of the refueling but also casts a pall of scandal on the defense establishment and more specifically the LDP-New Komeitō coalition government. Predictable calls from an unnamed LDP sources are suggesting that it might be wiser to shut the Diet down as scheduled and put the bill forward in the regular Diet session.
This should not have come as a total surprise to the LDP. Mr. Moriya had been asked about his relations with the executive at the press conference he held when he retired. He gave an evasive answer that sounded very much like playing for time until he could disappear from the scene. But it appears that the LDP had not prepared themselves for this contingency. Still, the LDP could throw him under the bus, and wait it out until the two months are up. Evading the Diet on the scandal now makes the Fukuda administration only makes it look even more guilty by association, raises questions of leadership, and calls into question the importance of the refueling operations. It’s not as if Mr. Moriya will conveniently take himself out in the meantime.
If only.
But the story could be bigger than the moral degeneracy of a wayward bureaucrat. Sankei has the best backstory on the scandal. According to the article, the former senior executive had been responsible for handling MOD and politicians. He left Yamada Yōkō with a few dozen colleagues to form his own company Nihon Mirise, which quickly became a formidable competitor to Yamada Yōkō. Ymada Yōkō is suing its former employees for 1.5 billion yen in damages, and Sankei believes that the Prosecutors Office is also questioning senior executives at both companies for accounting irregularities at Yamada Yōkō while the former executive worked there. For someone who may be under criminal suspicion, the former executive seems to be talking freely to anyone who comes asking. I assume that the DPJ will try to use this controversy to discredit the entire defense establishment.
Now all this is not directly linked to the refueling operations, and it does not have any of the makings of another Lockheed bribery scandal. But the plurality public support for the refueling operations is, like its majority/plurality support for constitutional amendment, lukewarm, and lacks the compelling power of domestic pocketbook issues. I'm not ready (vicariously) to throw in the towel yet, but the air of inevitability is definitely gone.
Quote of the day:
鳩山由紀夫「法案の形で[党独自のアフガン対策を]法案の形で作り上げたいが、(守屋氏の)疑惑を最優先にしていかなければならなくなった」(Yomiuri, 20 October; assuming, of course, that he actually said that)
“We would like to put [DPJ’s own proposal for Afghanistan] in the form of a bill, but we have been forced to make suspicions over (Mr. Moriya) our top priority.”
-Yukio Hatoyama, DPJ Secretary-General
And then, you have Takemasa Moriya.
Revelations of political financing irregularities that dogged the Abe administration (and the DPJ) continued under the Fukuda adminstration, and Yoichi Masuzoe, the Health, Labor and Welfare Minister and other LDP worthies have had their share of verbal gaffes in the new administration. But the media has been more or less willing to hand out mulligans to the media-friendly Prime Minister. But there is a good chance that this will end with the latest scandal to break out.
The DPJ had been pushing in the Diet to summon as a witness Takemasa Moriya, the previous Administrative Vice Minister at the Ministry of Defense, who had been the head of the MOD bureau responsible for the refueling operations when the 800,000-200,000 gallon accounting error occurred. The LDP had resisted, claiming that it was not the custom of the Diet to summon private citizens. For one, the LDP must be afraid of the spill over to another ongoing struggle, where the DPJ has also been trying to haul in Fujio Mitarai, head of Keidanren, for questioning on labor practices irregularities at his firm Canon.
But on Friday the deluge struck, as the media jumped all over Mr. Moriya with accusations of enjoying over a hundred all-expenses-paid golf and dinner outings courtesy of Yamada Yōkō, a mid-major MOD supplier, by way of a senior executive there. News reports add that his wife accompanied him on some of these excursions, and they signed in using aliases on at least some occasions. If true, all this would have served as grounds for severe punishment under Ministry rules. Although there is no way to formally punish him, barring criminal charges, the opposition is beside itself with joy. The fractious DPJ in particular has been handed an excellent sideshow in which to rake the MOD over the coals and take the public’s eyes off their own lack of agreement on a viable alternative. This not only calls into question the reliability of the executor of the refueling but also casts a pall of scandal on the defense establishment and more specifically the LDP-New Komeitō coalition government. Predictable calls from an unnamed LDP sources are suggesting that it might be wiser to shut the Diet down as scheduled and put the bill forward in the regular Diet session.
This should not have come as a total surprise to the LDP. Mr. Moriya had been asked about his relations with the executive at the press conference he held when he retired. He gave an evasive answer that sounded very much like playing for time until he could disappear from the scene. But it appears that the LDP had not prepared themselves for this contingency. Still, the LDP could throw him under the bus, and wait it out until the two months are up. Evading the Diet on the scandal now makes the Fukuda administration only makes it look even more guilty by association, raises questions of leadership, and calls into question the importance of the refueling operations. It’s not as if Mr. Moriya will conveniently take himself out in the meantime.
If only.
But the story could be bigger than the moral degeneracy of a wayward bureaucrat. Sankei has the best backstory on the scandal. According to the article, the former senior executive had been responsible for handling MOD and politicians. He left Yamada Yōkō with a few dozen colleagues to form his own company Nihon Mirise, which quickly became a formidable competitor to Yamada Yōkō. Ymada Yōkō is suing its former employees for 1.5 billion yen in damages, and Sankei believes that the Prosecutors Office is also questioning senior executives at both companies for accounting irregularities at Yamada Yōkō while the former executive worked there. For someone who may be under criminal suspicion, the former executive seems to be talking freely to anyone who comes asking. I assume that the DPJ will try to use this controversy to discredit the entire defense establishment.
Now all this is not directly linked to the refueling operations, and it does not have any of the makings of another Lockheed bribery scandal. But the plurality public support for the refueling operations is, like its majority/plurality support for constitutional amendment, lukewarm, and lacks the compelling power of domestic pocketbook issues. I'm not ready (vicariously) to throw in the towel yet, but the air of inevitability is definitely gone.
Quote of the day:
鳩山由紀夫「法案の形で[党独自のアフガン対策を]法案の形で作り上げたいが、(守屋氏の)疑惑を最優先にしていかなければならなくなった」(Yomiuri, 20 October; assuming, of course, that he actually said that)
“We would like to put [DPJ’s own proposal for Afghanistan] in the form of a bill, but we have been forced to make suspicions over (Mr. Moriya) our top priority.”
-Yukio Hatoyama, DPJ Secretary-General
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