Under the Diet Law, Article 74, a member of a House of the Diet may, with the approval of the presiding officer of the House, put a question in written form to the Cabinet. Article 75 states that “[t]he Cabinet must answer [the] question within seven days from the day of receipt of the concise statement. If an answer cannot be made within the period, the Cabinet is required to state clearly the reason, and the time by which an answer can be given.”
When the Cabinet receives an Article 74 question, the responsibility for drafting the answer is assigned to the Ministry or Agency that has jurisdiction over the subject matter. In practice, this may require several Ministries and Agencies to labor over different parts of the draft. When the separate parts of the draft answer are completed, they are put together and passed around the other Ministries and Agencies for approval. The draft is also reviewed by the Cabinet Legislation Bureau to make sure that the answer is consistent with the law of the land. Finally, the answer is submitted by the Minister (or Ministers) with jurisdiction to the full Cabinet for approval.
Although this particular question submitted by Councilor Ryūji Yamane (DPJ, Saitama Prefecture) on 10 December “with Regard to Unidentified Flying Objects” and transmitted to the Cabinet on 12 December flew under the radar of the entire mainstream media until Asahi and Sankei, two national dailies, took note that on 18 December the Cabinet adopted an answer, you can be sure that the issue received every bit of attention that it deserved and that the answer was imbued with the full authority of the administration. Although the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology was entrusted with the draft, I have been assured that the Ministry of Defense went over every jot, iota, scintilla and smidgen to make sure that our missile defense system would not be compromised. So nothing would please me more than to tell you that the Cabinet spoke with one voice, with full confidence that “the existence [of UFOs] has not been confirmed*”.
Alas, it was not meant to be. For according to this report from the Asahi, Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura claims that the Cabinet is wrong. “The government’s answer is extremely pro forma. Personally, I believe that there must be such things.” “Otherwise, those [Nazca lines] can’t be explained.” The Prime Minister merely said, “I haven’t confirmed* it yet”.
I’m sure － well, hopeful － that they’re kidding, and that Mr. Machimura is only faking insubordination. After all, we know what happened when those two normally well-grounded minds tried to wing it with the latest pension accounts revelations.
* In Japanese, “identify” and “confirm” are the same word 確認(kakunin).
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Monday, December 17, 2007
Sudden Drop in the Polls Convinces Prime Minister Fukuda to Apologize after All
The evening Yomiuri reported that Prime Minister Fukuda had made up his mind to apologizing for having to break the LDP/Abe campaign promise to go after every last public pension account owner and pay them. Plunging opinion polls will do wonders for your conscience. On the other hand, Mr. Fukuda’s performance seems to have left something to be desired in terms of showing true contrition. It’s not his style, I know… still.
Looking back, I can believe the sometimes insensitive Heath, Labor and Welfare Minister Yōichi Masuzoe making this kind of public communication blunder. Why, though, did Mr. Fukuda and worldly, astute Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura make this god-awful gaffe? Some of it must have been due to a sense of loyalty to Shinzō Abe, hapless Prime Minister and co-member of the Machimura faction. But a previous press conference by Mr. Masuzoe, where blaming the election campaign seemed to work, appears to have lulled the authorities into a false sense of security*.
Barring further bad tidings, Mr. Fukuda’s poll numbers will edge up again. But his likeability quotient has dropped, and his margin of error has narrowed. In the short run, though, this will make him even more determined to push the refueling resumption bill with a supermajority override, and even more unlikely to call a snap election. However, he will be more reluctant to push the opposition on other major issues.
Why? First, LDP hardliners will push for his resignation if he does not push the refueling bill. Second, nothing helps to discourage Mr. Fukuda from dissolving the Lower House more than prospects of losing more seats. Finally, his capacity to make the public feel that the DPJ is being unreasonable and disingenuous in any public confrontation has been diminished.
* I hope to have more on that later.
Looking back, I can believe the sometimes insensitive Heath, Labor and Welfare Minister Yōichi Masuzoe making this kind of public communication blunder. Why, though, did Mr. Fukuda and worldly, astute Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura make this god-awful gaffe? Some of it must have been due to a sense of loyalty to Shinzō Abe, hapless Prime Minister and co-member of the Machimura faction. But a previous press conference by Mr. Masuzoe, where blaming the election campaign seemed to work, appears to have lulled the authorities into a false sense of security*.
Barring further bad tidings, Mr. Fukuda’s poll numbers will edge up again. But his likeability quotient has dropped, and his margin of error has narrowed. In the short run, though, this will make him even more determined to push the refueling resumption bill with a supermajority override, and even more unlikely to call a snap election. However, he will be more reluctant to push the opposition on other major issues.
Why? First, LDP hardliners will push for his resignation if he does not push the refueling bill. Second, nothing helps to discourage Mr. Fukuda from dissolving the Lower House more than prospects of losing more seats. Finally, his capacity to make the public feel that the DPJ is being unreasonable and disingenuous in any public confrontation has been diminished.
* I hope to have more on that later.
The LDP Kicks Tax Reform Down the Road, Easing Pressure on the Next Diet Session
I’ve been saying for some time that the regular session is the real deal and the time-limited tax measures will be the main battlegrounds. Here’s why.
During the regular Diet session, which typically begins in mid-January, the Japanese Cabinet submits most tax measures in the form of an omnibus bill to the Lower House, after the usual housekeeping matters have been taken care of and the Prime Minister and other members of his Cabinet have delivered their policy statement speeches and subjected themselves to questioning in the plenary. This year, the Diet opened on 25 January. The omnibus tax bill was submitted to the Lower House on 20 February and was adopted and forwarded to the Upper House on 6 March. For technical and parliamentary reasons*, this process is extremely difficult to accelerate. This alone means that the coalition cannot use the Lower House supermajority to override a hypothetical Upper House veto until late April or early May, a month after time-limited tax measures － consisting mostly of tax deductions, tax credits and lower tax rates － expire at the end of this fiscal year.
That would mean that for a month or more, real estate, stock and a large array of other transactions may have to be conducted while there is substantial uncertainty about their taxation consequences. For starters, many major transactions, such as the purchase of new housing, may have to be deferred and the financial markets could be in for some turbulence, depending on the depth and scope of the disagreements between the coalition and the opposition.
However, the 31 March expiration of the “temporarily” gasoline tax rates would have even more serious effects. First, unlike tax benefits, the extra gasoline tax must be collected from the consumer, at the pump. But because of the anonymous nature of the transactions, it would be impossible to work out an arrangement acceptable to both vendor and buyer that is contingent on the outcome of the omnibus tax bill. So, giving up the extra gasoline tax revenue during the hiatus appears to be the only workable solution.
However, this temporary boon to car users may cause another long delay. Because of technical reasons, the omnibus bill will have to be redrafted to avoid imposing the higher tax retroactively on gasoline sold during the hiatus. But that means that the supermajority cannot be applied, since it will no longer be the same bill that had passed the Lower House. More specifically, unless a duly amended omnibus bill can be passed in the Upper House with the acquiescence of at least some elements of the opposition and readopted in the Lower House, the coalition, at worst, would have to submit an amended omnibus bill in the Lower House** that eliminates this retroactivity, have it adopted there, send it to the Upper House, wait 60 days, then do the supermajority thing in the Lower House. The coalition could draft the omnibus bill in the first place to avoid such an outcome, but that in turn would give the opposition an incentive to refuse cooperation with the overall business of the Diet, this time with the blessing of substantial segments of the press. In this case, the coalition will look like the ones who are being unreasonable.
But does this mean that the DPJ has the LDP up a certain proverbial creek without a paddle? Not quite. Even if some elements of the media turn out to be sympathetic to at least parts of the DPJ agenda, holding the entire tax package ransom at virtual gunpoint without due cause will create serious responsibility issues for the DPJ as well. This is not the refueling resumption bill; you play around with the public’s wallets at own risk. It can hurt you more than it hurts them.
However, the LDP must also tread with care. It so happens that there is a substantial constituency against the extension of the elevated gasoline tax rate***, which the DPJ is keen to exploit. If the LDP mishandles public communications, it could end up as the one being blamed for any trouble that ensues. I suspect that the Ministry of Finance (as well as Prime Minister Fukuda) wants to use this as a legislative ju-jitsu trick, to keep the LDP road tribe from clawing back more of the revenue from the general budget to build even more roads and other related infrastructure. (Look, do you guys want to risk losing it all?)
I don’t have a good handle on how exactly this will work out. My hunch is that the two sides will work out a compromise, if only because of the enormous uncertainties surrounding the potential political risk, including where and on whom the consequences are likely to fall. But this does appear to be the issue that most bears watching to see how (and if) the “twisted” Diet works. And it’s hard enough to come to an agreement when the one most politically controversial item that you have happens to be the legally most complicated one. No wonder, then, that the LDP decided to kick tax reform down the road when it agreed on next year’s tax package.
* Drafting a legislative bill and submitting it to the Diet is incredibly difficult and time-consuming work, and an omnibus tax bill is no exception. The bureaucrats really do need that time, and the drafting team’s game clock can really start ticking only after the LDP has spoken. The Diet has long-established rituals and procedures, which you meddle with at your peril. Remember, that was one of the objections that the LDP raised against the DPJ bid to summon Fukushirō Nukaga and Akio Kyūma for sworn testimony. In 2005, the Diet opened on 20 January, and the omnibus bill was submitted on 16 February and passed on 2 March.
** By custom, a legislative item that has been rejected may not be taken up again in the same Diet session. This does not appear to have the force of law, but the coalition should be reluctant to break this long-established custom.
***Urban car owners as well as businesses apparently do not appreciate the “temporary” measure.
Thanks, MTC, for the corrections to the footnotes.
During the regular Diet session, which typically begins in mid-January, the Japanese Cabinet submits most tax measures in the form of an omnibus bill to the Lower House, after the usual housekeeping matters have been taken care of and the Prime Minister and other members of his Cabinet have delivered their policy statement speeches and subjected themselves to questioning in the plenary. This year, the Diet opened on 25 January. The omnibus tax bill was submitted to the Lower House on 20 February and was adopted and forwarded to the Upper House on 6 March. For technical and parliamentary reasons*, this process is extremely difficult to accelerate. This alone means that the coalition cannot use the Lower House supermajority to override a hypothetical Upper House veto until late April or early May, a month after time-limited tax measures － consisting mostly of tax deductions, tax credits and lower tax rates － expire at the end of this fiscal year.
That would mean that for a month or more, real estate, stock and a large array of other transactions may have to be conducted while there is substantial uncertainty about their taxation consequences. For starters, many major transactions, such as the purchase of new housing, may have to be deferred and the financial markets could be in for some turbulence, depending on the depth and scope of the disagreements between the coalition and the opposition.
However, the 31 March expiration of the “temporarily” gasoline tax rates would have even more serious effects. First, unlike tax benefits, the extra gasoline tax must be collected from the consumer, at the pump. But because of the anonymous nature of the transactions, it would be impossible to work out an arrangement acceptable to both vendor and buyer that is contingent on the outcome of the omnibus tax bill. So, giving up the extra gasoline tax revenue during the hiatus appears to be the only workable solution.
However, this temporary boon to car users may cause another long delay. Because of technical reasons, the omnibus bill will have to be redrafted to avoid imposing the higher tax retroactively on gasoline sold during the hiatus. But that means that the supermajority cannot be applied, since it will no longer be the same bill that had passed the Lower House. More specifically, unless a duly amended omnibus bill can be passed in the Upper House with the acquiescence of at least some elements of the opposition and readopted in the Lower House, the coalition, at worst, would have to submit an amended omnibus bill in the Lower House** that eliminates this retroactivity, have it adopted there, send it to the Upper House, wait 60 days, then do the supermajority thing in the Lower House. The coalition could draft the omnibus bill in the first place to avoid such an outcome, but that in turn would give the opposition an incentive to refuse cooperation with the overall business of the Diet, this time with the blessing of substantial segments of the press. In this case, the coalition will look like the ones who are being unreasonable.
But does this mean that the DPJ has the LDP up a certain proverbial creek without a paddle? Not quite. Even if some elements of the media turn out to be sympathetic to at least parts of the DPJ agenda, holding the entire tax package ransom at virtual gunpoint without due cause will create serious responsibility issues for the DPJ as well. This is not the refueling resumption bill; you play around with the public’s wallets at own risk. It can hurt you more than it hurts them.
However, the LDP must also tread with care. It so happens that there is a substantial constituency against the extension of the elevated gasoline tax rate***, which the DPJ is keen to exploit. If the LDP mishandles public communications, it could end up as the one being blamed for any trouble that ensues. I suspect that the Ministry of Finance (as well as Prime Minister Fukuda) wants to use this as a legislative ju-jitsu trick, to keep the LDP road tribe from clawing back more of the revenue from the general budget to build even more roads and other related infrastructure. (Look, do you guys want to risk losing it all?)
I don’t have a good handle on how exactly this will work out. My hunch is that the two sides will work out a compromise, if only because of the enormous uncertainties surrounding the potential political risk, including where and on whom the consequences are likely to fall. But this does appear to be the issue that most bears watching to see how (and if) the “twisted” Diet works. And it’s hard enough to come to an agreement when the one most politically controversial item that you have happens to be the legally most complicated one. No wonder, then, that the LDP decided to kick tax reform down the road when it agreed on next year’s tax package.
* Drafting a legislative bill and submitting it to the Diet is incredibly difficult and time-consuming work, and an omnibus tax bill is no exception. The bureaucrats really do need that time, and the drafting team’s game clock can really start ticking only after the LDP has spoken. The Diet has long-established rituals and procedures, which you meddle with at your peril. Remember, that was one of the objections that the LDP raised against the DPJ bid to summon Fukushirō Nukaga and Akio Kyūma for sworn testimony. In 2005, the Diet opened on 20 January, and the omnibus bill was submitted on 16 February and passed on 2 March.
** By custom, a legislative item that has been rejected may not be taken up again in the same Diet session. This does not appear to have the force of law, but the coalition should be reluctant to break this long-established custom.
***
Thanks, MTC, for the corrections to the footnotes.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
How Empires Deal with History: The European Parliament Gives Me the Opportunity to Revisit the Comfort Women Issue
Once upon a time, I suggested that I would revisit the comfort women issue more fully than I had up till then. I’ve taken this occasion to put my tentative conclusions and the conclusions only in the form of a conjecture. A fuller treatment at this point would require my reasoning behind each assertion as well as many qualifiers and modifiers.
In an event that even wire services overlooked but the Japanese media dutifully recorded, the European Parliament in its plenary meeting on 13 December passed a resolution closely mirroring the U.S., Canadian and Dutch resolutions. The European Parliament apparently does not need a quorum, since out of the 785 EU MPs, only 54 voted in support while 3 abstained. Regardless, the Yomiuri is alarmed at the possibility of a chain reaction, and has decided to strike back with an editorial calling on the government to “review the Kōno Statement”, which according to the editorial, “suggested that Japanese officials systematically and coercively recruited women to be comfort women.” The editorial further states that “there is not one single document or a shred of evidence that substantiates this”. Knowing Japan hands will likely chide the Yomiuri for rising to the bait and advise it to let yet another non-binding resolution lie.
I for one would fully agree with any public efforts to revisit the entire issue. If such a thing is done, though, I believe that the picture of what most likely occurred over those years will disappoint many people, including the denialists as well as the people pushing the resolutions. It will also displease the Korean public. In fact, I am surprised to find nothing out there from my admittedly intermittent and usually accidental visitations to the issue that resembles what I have come to see as the probable. Since I do not feel the urge to expend my own resources to do the substantial spadework required to provide proper documentation, I offer it here as Okumura’s Conjecture. If anybody is interested in putting up real money to explore it more fully, I’ll be happy to spend some of my time on it. As things stand, the only thing that the denialists obtain is overseas opprobrium, while those who claim to be seeking reconciliation merely achieve revenge as proxy.
The comfort women from Korea and Taiwan were recruited in more or less the same way as the Japanese comfort women, with due adjustments for the greater poverty of those two colonies* as well as the lower status of Koreans and Taiwanese in the Japanese empire. Their treatment once in situ also reflected such status. The business was mostly a private sector affair dominated by Japanese operators but with substantial local involvement. Some of the women did receive financial rewards － if not emotional satisfaction or job security － far exceeding that of a general in the imperial army, but many, if not most, saw conditions quite different from those advertised, never for the better. Some, at times with the complicity of immediate family members, were totally ignorant of what would be in store for them. And speaking of advertisement, most comfort women did not of themselves find placement through newspaper ads.
As the Japanese military moved out beyond Manchuria**, it foraged for supplies***, including women. Beyond whatever contingent that it managed to bring along and locally available local supply, it gang-pressed unwilling women into sexual service****. The overall scope and relative proportion of the latter will never be known. The level and nature of this coercion, even its existence, varied widely from place to place, and also as result of the outlook of local commanding officers. It did this in mainland China, the Dutch Indies, the Philippines and Singapore. It is possible that it did this in other locations as well. The Dutch women were released because the Germans interceded. In any case, the military － local commanders and officers as well as Central Command －was a branch of government just as much as, say, the Emperor’s Privy Council.
The human condition of the comfort women as well as their ultimate fate also varied with time and place. The outlook of local commanding officers had a major effect. As the situation worsened for the Japanese military, the women also suffered. Under extreme conditions, they were treated at best no better than other civilians.
As I’ve said before, I see no reason to retract the Kōno Statement. If － it is an enormous if － the Cabinet decides to issue an apology over and beyond the Prime Ministers’ letters, or the Diet decides to adopt a resolution (passes a motion?) of its own, I think that one or the other will come up with something that I can support. But leaving the political practicalities aside (the resolutions have made a meaningful domestic dialogue impossible for the time being), any such action will have to follow the fullest possible search for the truth. And the truth should lie more or less in the above conjecture.
I believe that the reason that such a scenario fails to be adequately explored is because the public debate is dominated by the two extremes, one dominant in Japan and the other in the West and South Korea. The two ends focus on material that supports their conjectures to the neglect of other evidence direct and circumstantial, historical analogues both Japanese and non-, and other known facts and circumstances as well as common sense that speaks otherwise. Though I have no reason to doubt their sincerity, the truth may be too complicated and unpleasant for these people to handle. But my views, needless to repeat, are mere conjecture. I stand ready to be proven wrong.
Finally, to those legislatures that purport to pass moral judgment on the Japanese government, I will heed your words if and when you destroy your own glass houses. Otherwise I have no regard for your actions, which you believe, falsely, to be costless.
* I use the term “colonies” rather loosely here. In legal terms, imperial Japan in Korea and Taiwan went beyond what the old European empires did. Think Hitler and Sudetenland, only if there had been no ethnic Germans there.
** The origins and the fate of the comfort women from Manchuria should have been similar to those of the Korean, Taiwanese and Japanese comfort women, but I cannot pull any material on them from my memory, so I refrain from including them in the main body of my conjecture.
*** Logistics was never a strong point of the Japanese military.
**** There must have been a large number of women who were raped but were never subsequently conscripted as comfort women. That is a related but different issue.
In an event that even wire services overlooked but the Japanese media dutifully recorded, the European Parliament in its plenary meeting on 13 December passed a resolution closely mirroring the U.S., Canadian and Dutch resolutions. The European Parliament apparently does not need a quorum, since out of the 785 EU MPs, only 54 voted in support while 3 abstained. Regardless, the Yomiuri is alarmed at the possibility of a chain reaction, and has decided to strike back with an editorial calling on the government to “review the Kōno Statement”, which according to the editorial, “suggested that Japanese officials systematically and coercively recruited women to be comfort women.” The editorial further states that “there is not one single document or a shred of evidence that substantiates this”. Knowing Japan hands will likely chide the Yomiuri for rising to the bait and advise it to let yet another non-binding resolution lie.
I for one would fully agree with any public efforts to revisit the entire issue. If such a thing is done, though, I believe that the picture of what most likely occurred over those years will disappoint many people, including the denialists as well as the people pushing the resolutions. It will also displease the Korean public. In fact, I am surprised to find nothing out there from my admittedly intermittent and usually accidental visitations to the issue that resembles what I have come to see as the probable. Since I do not feel the urge to expend my own resources to do the substantial spadework required to provide proper documentation, I offer it here as Okumura’s Conjecture. If anybody is interested in putting up real money to explore it more fully, I’ll be happy to spend some of my time on it. As things stand, the only thing that the denialists obtain is overseas opprobrium, while those who claim to be seeking reconciliation merely achieve revenge as proxy.
The comfort women from Korea and Taiwan were recruited in more or less the same way as the Japanese comfort women, with due adjustments for the greater poverty of those two colonies* as well as the lower status of Koreans and Taiwanese in the Japanese empire. Their treatment once in situ also reflected such status. The business was mostly a private sector affair dominated by Japanese operators but with substantial local involvement. Some of the women did receive financial rewards － if not emotional satisfaction or job security － far exceeding that of a general in the imperial army, but many, if not most, saw conditions quite different from those advertised, never for the better. Some, at times with the complicity of immediate family members, were totally ignorant of what would be in store for them. And speaking of advertisement, most comfort women did not of themselves find placement through newspaper ads.
As the Japanese military moved out beyond Manchuria**, it foraged for supplies***, including women. Beyond whatever contingent that it managed to bring along and locally available local supply, it gang-pressed unwilling women into sexual service****. The overall scope and relative proportion of the latter will never be known. The level and nature of this coercion, even its existence, varied widely from place to place, and also as result of the outlook of local commanding officers. It did this in mainland China, the Dutch Indies, the Philippines and Singapore. It is possible that it did this in other locations as well. The Dutch women were released because the Germans interceded. In any case, the military － local commanders and officers as well as Central Command －was a branch of government just as much as, say, the Emperor’s Privy Council.
The human condition of the comfort women as well as their ultimate fate also varied with time and place. The outlook of local commanding officers had a major effect. As the situation worsened for the Japanese military, the women also suffered. Under extreme conditions, they were treated at best no better than other civilians.
As I’ve said before, I see no reason to retract the Kōno Statement. If － it is an enormous if － the Cabinet decides to issue an apology over and beyond the Prime Ministers’ letters, or the Diet decides to adopt a resolution (passes a motion?) of its own, I think that one or the other will come up with something that I can support. But leaving the political practicalities aside (the resolutions have made a meaningful domestic dialogue impossible for the time being), any such action will have to follow the fullest possible search for the truth. And the truth should lie more or less in the above conjecture.
I believe that the reason that such a scenario fails to be adequately explored is because the public debate is dominated by the two extremes, one dominant in Japan and the other in the West and South Korea. The two ends focus on material that supports their conjectures to the neglect of other evidence direct and circumstantial, historical analogues both Japanese and non-, and other known facts and circumstances as well as common sense that speaks otherwise. Though I have no reason to doubt their sincerity, the truth may be too complicated and unpleasant for these people to handle. But my views, needless to repeat, are mere conjecture. I stand ready to be proven wrong.
Finally, to those legislatures that purport to pass moral judgment on the Japanese government, I will heed your words if and when you destroy your own glass houses. Otherwise I have no regard for your actions, which you believe, falsely, to be costless.
* I use the term “colonies” rather loosely here. In legal terms, imperial Japan in Korea and Taiwan went beyond what the old European empires did. Think Hitler and Sudetenland, only if there had been no ethnic Germans there.
** The origins and the fate of the comfort women from Manchuria should have been similar to those of the Korean, Taiwanese and Japanese comfort women, but I cannot pull any material on them from my memory, so I refrain from including them in the main body of my conjecture.
*** Logistics was never a strong point of the Japanese military.
**** There must have been a large number of women who were raped but were never subsequently conscripted as comfort women. That is a related but different issue.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Is Chris Hogg an Idiot?
What’s this? Seriously:
The opposition's refusal to compromise is causing Mr. Fukuda severe problems.
While deliberations continue, it is hard for him to get anything else through the Diet or indeed to leave Japan on trips he wants to make to China and to Europe.
Look, Mr. Fukuda doesn’t have anything more to get through this Diet session “while deliberations continue."
As for delaying his trips to China and Europe, assuming that it is true, that would be the least of Mr. Fukuda’s problems.
As for my question, I report, you decide.
The opposition's refusal to compromise is causing Mr. Fukuda severe problems.
While deliberations continue, it is hard for him to get anything else through the Diet or indeed to leave Japan on trips he wants to make to China and to Europe.
Look, Mr. Fukuda doesn’t have anything more to get through this Diet session “while deliberations continue."
As for delaying his trips to China and Europe, assuming that it is true, that would be the least of Mr. Fukuda’s problems.
As for my question, I report, you decide.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Do You Know What the No.5 Kanji Is in This Year's Countdown?
The Kanji Nōryoku Kentei Kyōkai (literally, Kanji (Chinese Character) Skills Testing Association - my translation) is a public interest entity whose objective is to promote literacy. Specifically, it conducts tests to determine your kanji skills. Perhaps appropriately, its website does not have any English-language information*.
A successful result is a good thing to have on your resume, and a lot of people (our analog of spelling bee contestants and crossword puzzle lovers) take the test just for fun. The number of people taking the test has grown rapidly, from 1,675,959 (pass 686,388; fail 989,571) in FY2000 to 2,640,812 (pass 1,359,368; fail 1,281,444) in FY2006. But it is this time of the year that the rest of us less diligent Japanese also take notice of the association, when it announces the kanjiof the year**, which it determines by a five-week public poll conducted mainly through FAX and email.
The announcement itself takes place at Kiyomizudera, the illustrious Buddhist temple in Kyoto, in front of its usual crowd of worshipers and tourists. The highlight comes when the venerable head monk of Kiyomizudera ceremoniously reveals the kanji of the year by taking brush to a huge paper screen and writing with flourish.
Yesterday (12 December), the ceremonies took place, and the kanji of the year turned out to be: 偽, or fake***. The head monk was furious, saying, “This is particularly shameful, and my sadness and anger knows no bounds…” In fact, he would have been further incensed if he had had to write the kanji in the next three spots: No.2 嘘, or lie; No3. 食 or food (no, this had nothing to do with Tokyo Michelin and everything to do with the endless string of food processing and retail businesses that systematically faked source and quality of ingredients, production and consume-by dates, and what have you); and no.4 疑 or doubt (no explanation necessary here).
The head monk would have been somewhat mollified, though, by no.5: 謝.
Yes, apologize.
* Even more appropriately, the association is located not in Tokyo, but in Kyōto, the old imperial capitol. The website also has little information on the association itself, which means that it does not receive any government funds.
** This looks like as good a source as any for background information on this year’s choice.
*** No.1 偽 received 18.8% of the votes. By comparison, Nos. 2 through 10 only received 2.69% to 1.33% each. Click through from here.
A successful result is a good thing to have on your resume, and a lot of people (our analog of spelling bee contestants and crossword puzzle lovers) take the test just for fun. The number of people taking the test has grown rapidly, from 1,675,959 (pass 686,388; fail 989,571) in FY2000 to 2,640,812 (pass 1,359,368; fail 1,281,444) in FY2006. But it is this time of the year that the rest of us less diligent Japanese also take notice of the association, when it announces the kanjiof the year**, which it determines by a five-week public poll conducted mainly through FAX and email.
The announcement itself takes place at Kiyomizudera, the illustrious Buddhist temple in Kyoto, in front of its usual crowd of worshipers and tourists. The highlight comes when the venerable head monk of Kiyomizudera ceremoniously reveals the kanji of the year by taking brush to a huge paper screen and writing with flourish.
Yesterday (12 December), the ceremonies took place, and the kanji of the year turned out to be: 偽, or fake***. The head monk was furious, saying, “This is particularly shameful, and my sadness and anger knows no bounds…” In fact, he would have been further incensed if he had had to write the kanji in the next three spots: No.2 嘘, or lie; No3. 食 or food (no, this had nothing to do with Tokyo Michelin and everything to do with the endless string of food processing and retail businesses that systematically faked source and quality of ingredients, production and consume-by dates, and what have you); and no.4 疑 or doubt (no explanation necessary here).
The head monk would have been somewhat mollified, though, by no.5: 謝.
Yes, apologize.
* Even more appropriately, the association is located not in Tokyo, but in Kyōto, the old imperial capitol. The website also has little information on the association itself, which means that it does not receive any government funds.
** This looks like as good a source as any for background information on this year’s choice.
*** No.1 偽 received 18.8% of the votes. By comparison, Nos. 2 through 10 only received 2.69% to 1.33% each. Click through from here.
Why the Public Pension Accounting Scandal Blew Up Again on Tuesday
If you are a Japan politics otaku, you will remember that it was the revelations over the 50 million public pension accounts that had not been traced to their owners that really pushed the LDP over the cliff in the July Upper House election, the cake under the icing, if you will, of all those lesser scandals and misstatements. When Prime Minister Abe went over and above what his administration was promising (consolidation of all accounts by computer by March, the end of the Japanese fiscal year) and vowed to go after every last account and restore it to its rightful owner, most people thought he was overreaching. When Yōichi Masuzoe, a social welfare expert and one of the smartest Diet members in the LDP, assumed the Health, Labor and Welfare portfolio in the post-election Cabinet, he surely knew that it would be impossible to fulfill Mr. Abe’s campaign promise. Yet when Yasuo Fukuda took over as Prime Minister in September, choosing to keep on most of Mr. Abe’s Cabinet members and other political appointees including MHLW Minister Masuzoe, neither individual did anything to back away from Mr. Abe campaign promise*. On 31 October, a Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare committee consisting of independent experts and other notables issued a report that included ballpark figures that gave a fairly good idea of the causes and magnitude of the hardcore, intractable cases. Yet Mr. Masuzoe waited and chose this point in time to officially own up to the fact that millions of accounts not only would remain unattributed by the March deadline but might never be restored to their rightful owners.
All this predictably caused a furor, and the opposition is on the attack, most notably with calls for a censure motion against Mr. Masuzoe, and Diet testimonies by Prime Minister Fukuda, Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura, and of course Mr. Masuzoe**. Clearly, the opposition hopes to have a field day during the expected month-long extension of the extraordinary Diet session into mid-January. And that, in my view, is exactly why the announcement was made on Tuesday.
It has been clear for some time that this Diet session will be re-extended, the Upper House will vote it down, the Lower House will override it by a supermajority vote, the Upper House will pass a censure motion against the Fukuda administration/Prime Minister Fukuda, Prime Minister Fukuda will not call a snap election, and life will go on. Now there will be several other bills remaining on the agenda at the current 15 December recess date, but the ruling coalition has no intention of forcing them through during the re-extension, much less allowing the opposition to enact its own agenda items. Thus, activities during the extension had promised to be mostly, if not exclusively, about the refueling bill and the opposition’s efforts to link them to the Ministry of Defense scandals. This meant that there would be a lot of Diet members in both Houses sitting on their hands with little to do but wait to vote in the plenaries. Given such prospects, what more could a hungry opposition have asked for, if not another juicy chunk of the ruling coalition to sink their teeth into?
Normally, of course, that would be a political disaster for the Fukuda administration. However, in the case of the pension accounts scandal, it was bound to blow up anyway in March, during the regular Diet session, the real deal, when the budget and the budget-related bills, particularly the time-limited special tax measures, would be facing crunch time. Unlike the refueling activities, the public pension accounts are a domestic issue, a money issue, fruits of our real blood, sweat and tears***. At a minimum, it would have a disastrous effect on the legislative agenda****. Secondly, the aura of haplessness that would be cast on the Fukuda administration by the accretion of successive scandals would be compounded by the fact that, with time, the problem would become less and less Mr. Abe’s and more and more Mr. Fukuda’s. These two elements are enough to convince me that the Fukuda administration and LDP strategists decided that it would be better to take their lumps now, than to wait for the regular Diet session.
Then why this particular moment? Over the previous couple of weeks, the LDP had finally managed to win over skittish coalition partner New Kōmeitō to re-extending the extraordinary Diet session. It achieved this by assuring them that Prime Minister Fukuda would not call a snap election even if the opposition passed a censure motion in the Upper House after the coalition supermajority in the Lower House overrode an Upper House rejection of the refueling resumption bill. With that final piece of the puzzle in place, the time to clear the air had finally come.
This is not to say that the ruling coalition is not taking a hit. I would be surprised if Fukuda administration’s poll numbers do not take a dip. I would only be mildly surprised if Mr. Masuzoe (unfairly, if prudently, in my view) is forced to resign. However, the coalition is putting the blame on a desperate Prime Minister Abe making a campaign promise that could not be kept. That, together with best efforts by the authorities and a full, clear accounting of the limits of the ongoing efforts to identify the account owners, will be enough to keep the scandal from derailing Mr. Fukuda’s desire to hold the next Lower House general election at his convenience, sometime after the next G8 Summit in Hokkaidō in 2008 July and the end of the current four-year Lower House tenure in 2009 September*****.
* When questioned, Mr. Masuzoe would come close to repudiating it, but would pull back, citing the need and his will to fulfill a political promise.
** There is a public communications angle to this, and it’s clear that the Fukuda regime bungled some aspects of it. Specifically, poor public communications efforts by the Mr. Masuzoe and the Chief Cabinet Secretary appeared to compound the problem. This was not been one of Mr. Fukuda’s shining moments either, but he appears to have escaped the brunt of the initial media assault, mostly because of the way they timed Mr. Masuzoe’s press conference. But more broadly, I think that they should have done more spadework, so that they could ease into the new narrative when the official revelations were made. I’ll try to address this as part of a separate post on the scandal.
*** In a way, Ichirō Ozawa’s decision to force a showdown on the refueling extension was a strategic error that is somewhat analogous to Mr. Abe’s highlighting constitutional amendment and patriotism in education. None of them were hot-button issues with the vast majority of the Japanese public. The two men overestimated the quality, if not the numbers, of the support that their proposals received.
**** Note that the public pension accounts scandal is handled by the Health, Labor and Welfare Committees in the two Houses, about as far as possible in terms of jurisdiction as you can get from defense issues. Thus, pulling it back to a re-extended extraordinary Diet session means that the opposition will have a hard time using the former to mess up the schedule on other work that must be done.
***** It is possible that the reluctance in some opposition quarters to force a re-extension (e.g. People’s New Party co-leader Tamisuke Watanuki) or even to oppose the measure in the first place (e.g. DPJ deputy leader Seiji Maehara) helped to force the LDP’s hand as well. Without a Diet in session as a platform to press the pension accounts issue, the opposition would have had no choice but to wait for the regular session to be opened. Conversely, the opposition could be wishing that they could save the pension accounts for the regular session.
I stay away from these unverifiable conspiracy-type conjectures, which are usually no more than selective facts strung together with charming plausibilities. But in this case, the circumstantial evidence was too strong for me to resist. I am nevertheless more ready than usual to be proved the fool.
All this predictably caused a furor, and the opposition is on the attack, most notably with calls for a censure motion against Mr. Masuzoe, and Diet testimonies by Prime Minister Fukuda, Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura, and of course Mr. Masuzoe**. Clearly, the opposition hopes to have a field day during the expected month-long extension of the extraordinary Diet session into mid-January. And that, in my view, is exactly why the announcement was made on Tuesday.
It has been clear for some time that this Diet session will be re-extended, the Upper House will vote it down, the Lower House will override it by a supermajority vote, the Upper House will pass a censure motion against the Fukuda administration/Prime Minister Fukuda, Prime Minister Fukuda will not call a snap election, and life will go on. Now there will be several other bills remaining on the agenda at the current 15 December recess date, but the ruling coalition has no intention of forcing them through during the re-extension, much less allowing the opposition to enact its own agenda items. Thus, activities during the extension had promised to be mostly, if not exclusively, about the refueling bill and the opposition’s efforts to link them to the Ministry of Defense scandals. This meant that there would be a lot of Diet members in both Houses sitting on their hands with little to do but wait to vote in the plenaries. Given such prospects, what more could a hungry opposition have asked for, if not another juicy chunk of the ruling coalition to sink their teeth into?
Normally, of course, that would be a political disaster for the Fukuda administration. However, in the case of the pension accounts scandal, it was bound to blow up anyway in March, during the regular Diet session, the real deal, when the budget and the budget-related bills, particularly the time-limited special tax measures, would be facing crunch time. Unlike the refueling activities, the public pension accounts are a domestic issue, a money issue, fruits of our real blood, sweat and tears***. At a minimum, it would have a disastrous effect on the legislative agenda****. Secondly, the aura of haplessness that would be cast on the Fukuda administration by the accretion of successive scandals would be compounded by the fact that, with time, the problem would become less and less Mr. Abe’s and more and more Mr. Fukuda’s. These two elements are enough to convince me that the Fukuda administration and LDP strategists decided that it would be better to take their lumps now, than to wait for the regular Diet session.
Then why this particular moment? Over the previous couple of weeks, the LDP had finally managed to win over skittish coalition partner New Kōmeitō to re-extending the extraordinary Diet session. It achieved this by assuring them that Prime Minister Fukuda would not call a snap election even if the opposition passed a censure motion in the Upper House after the coalition supermajority in the Lower House overrode an Upper House rejection of the refueling resumption bill. With that final piece of the puzzle in place, the time to clear the air had finally come.
This is not to say that the ruling coalition is not taking a hit. I would be surprised if Fukuda administration’s poll numbers do not take a dip. I would only be mildly surprised if Mr. Masuzoe (unfairly, if prudently, in my view) is forced to resign. However, the coalition is putting the blame on a desperate Prime Minister Abe making a campaign promise that could not be kept. That, together with best efforts by the authorities and a full, clear accounting of the limits of the ongoing efforts to identify the account owners, will be enough to keep the scandal from derailing Mr. Fukuda’s desire to hold the next Lower House general election at his convenience, sometime after the next G8 Summit in Hokkaidō in 2008 July and the end of the current four-year Lower House tenure in 2009 September*****.
* When questioned, Mr. Masuzoe would come close to repudiating it, but would pull back, citing the need and his will to fulfill a political promise.
** There is a public communications angle to this, and it’s clear that the Fukuda regime bungled some aspects of it. Specifically, poor public communications efforts by the Mr. Masuzoe and the Chief Cabinet Secretary appeared to compound the problem. This was not been one of Mr. Fukuda’s shining moments either, but he appears to have escaped the brunt of the initial media assault, mostly because of the way they timed Mr. Masuzoe’s press conference. But more broadly, I think that they should have done more spadework, so that they could ease into the new narrative when the official revelations were made. I’ll try to address this as part of a separate post on the scandal.
*** In a way, Ichirō Ozawa’s decision to force a showdown on the refueling extension was a strategic error that is somewhat analogous to Mr. Abe’s highlighting constitutional amendment and patriotism in education. None of them were hot-button issues with the vast majority of the Japanese public. The two men overestimated the quality, if not the numbers, of the support that their proposals received.
**** Note that the public pension accounts scandal is handled by the Health, Labor and Welfare Committees in the two Houses, about as far as possible in terms of jurisdiction as you can get from defense issues. Thus, pulling it back to a re-extended extraordinary Diet session means that the opposition will have a hard time using the former to mess up the schedule on other work that must be done.
***** It is possible that the reluctance in some opposition quarters to force a re-extension (e.g. People’s New Party co-leader Tamisuke Watanuki) or even to oppose the measure in the first place (e.g. DPJ deputy leader Seiji Maehara) helped to force the LDP’s hand as well. Without a Diet in session as a platform to press the pension accounts issue, the opposition would have had no choice but to wait for the regular session to be opened. Conversely, the opposition could be wishing that they could save the pension accounts for the regular session.
I stay away from these unverifiable conspiracy-type conjectures, which are usually no more than selective facts strung together with charming plausibilities. But in this case, the circumstantial evidence was too strong for me to resist. I am nevertheless more ready than usual to be proved the fool.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
With This, Let's Hope I Stop Talking about the Refueling Bill for a Couple of Months
The latest Yomiuri poll (8-9 December) shows little change on the refueling resumption bill. Support dropped from the last Yomiuri poll’s 51% to 47.5% while opposition edged up from 40% to 41.1%*. This, after all the bad press that the Ministry of Defense and the defense establishment have been receiving, reaffirms my long-standing belief: the frontlines hardened a long time ago and resumption enjoys a strong plurality or a modest majority in an electorate that does not see this as a defining issue. The New Komeitō has been assured that Prime Minister Fukuda will not call a snap vote in the case of a censure vote － after all, Prime Minister sent troops to Iraq against the wishes of the majority of the Japanese public and the DPJH did squat; compared to that, this one is a cakewalk － and Taku Yamazaki has predictably eaten his words calling for a 2/3rds majority public support as a prerequisite.**
It is also important to realize that support for the Fukuda Cabinet (52.2% to 52.5%) and the LDP (34.3% to 35.3%) has held steady***. So the coast is clear for a ho-hum supermajority override. In the meantime, the coalition will keep reminding the public why we need to do it, just so support won’t slip further. Because, let’s face it, it’s so easy to forget.
Some LDP members may dread the thought of facing the same situation a year from now. If you want to play the guessing game though, first deal with what you know. And what you know is that there is going to be a presidential election on 4 November 2004, the resumption act will lapse, barring new legislation, on 15 January 2009 or thereabouts****, and Inauguration Day falls on 20 January 2009. The Japanese administration***** will have ample to time go over the issue with a rather junior level transition team member to determine what to do.
It is that kind of issue.
What then, are the real defining issues in the regular Diet session, which should be summoned in the bottom half of January? Will you let me pick two? Why, the time-limited tax measures (where the two sides will play yet another chicken game, this time for real money) and the public pension system (both the emotive 50 million missing records, of which more than 10 million will not be identifiable, and the chronic but ultimately more serious solvency issue), of course.
* Support for the DPJ has slipped from 22.5% to 17.1%. Did I overestimate core support for the DPJ? In any case, the DPJ must create an aura of competence. Otherwise, barring a macroeconomic catastrophe, it will never crack the force shield. By the way, I’ve been fascinated by the twist between the clear support for the operations, the much smaller plurality support for the bill (44.7% for, 42.6% against) and what is now a very slight plurality against an override (42.5% for, 43.9% against). The one group of people that this does not give aid and comfort to are the advocates of a censure vote.
** Mr. Yamazaki keeps making these preposterous statements that he has no way of backing up (remember ex-Prime Minister Koizumi Gearing up for a third trip to China?) Seriously, what does he put in the tea that he serves his faction members?
*** Unless the DPJ loses nerve and cuts a deal on the refueling bill that let’s everyone pull down the shutters and go home for the New Year’s Holidays; hey, stranger things have happened.
**** You’d have to be a huge risk-lover to bet against a Prime Minister Fukuda.
It is also important to realize that support for the Fukuda Cabinet (52.2% to 52.5%) and the LDP (34.3% to 35.3%) has held steady***. So the coast is clear for a ho-hum supermajority override. In the meantime, the coalition will keep reminding the public why we need to do it, just so support won’t slip further. Because, let’s face it, it’s so easy to forget.
Some LDP members may dread the thought of facing the same situation a year from now. If you want to play the guessing game though, first deal with what you know. And what you know is that there is going to be a presidential election on 4 November 2004, the resumption act will lapse, barring new legislation, on 15 January 2009 or thereabouts****, and Inauguration Day falls on 20 January 2009. The Japanese administration***** will have ample to time go over the issue with a rather junior level transition team member to determine what to do.
It is that kind of issue.
What then, are the real defining issues in the regular Diet session, which should be summoned in the bottom half of January? Will you let me pick two? Why, the time-limited tax measures (where the two sides will play yet another chicken game, this time for real money) and the public pension system (both the emotive 50 million missing records, of which more than 10 million will not be identifiable, and the chronic but ultimately more serious solvency issue), of course.
* Support for the DPJ has slipped from 22.5% to 17.1%. Did I overestimate core support for the DPJ? In any case, the DPJ must create an aura of competence. Otherwise, barring a macroeconomic catastrophe, it will never crack the force shield. By the way, I’ve been fascinated by the twist between the clear support for the operations, the much smaller plurality support for the bill (44.7% for, 42.6% against) and what is now a very slight plurality against an override (42.5% for, 43.9% against). The one group of people that this does not give aid and comfort to are the advocates of a censure vote.
** Mr. Yamazaki keeps making these preposterous statements that he has no way of backing up (remember ex-Prime Minister Koizumi Gearing up for a third trip to China?) Seriously, what does he put in the tea that he serves his faction members?
*** Unless the DPJ loses nerve and cuts a deal on the refueling bill that let’s everyone pull down the shutters and go home for the New Year’s Holidays; hey, stranger things have happened.
**** You’d have to be a huge risk-lover to bet against a Prime Minister Fukuda.
Monday, December 10, 2007
In Mr. Ozawa’s Defense: The DPJ’s China Ties Have a History
[DPJ] President Kan and Others Meet Hu Jintao, Chinese Vice President
Chinese Vice President Hu Jintao, who is visiting Japan, met President Kan, Secretary-General Hata and other leaders of the new Democratic Party on the 22nd. Vice President Hu proposed that “in line with the inter-party exchange with the Democratic Party up till now, [we] would like to have an official inter-party exchange with the new Democratic Party as well,” and President Kan agreed with enthusiasm, saying that “we have received a very welcome present five days before the new merger conference*.” (22 April 1998)
The history of the DPJ’s relationship with China is chronicled here, an attention that no other country receives**. What the first item shows, more than anything, is that official ties with the Chinese Communist Party go back to the beginning of the DPJ in its current reincarnation and beyond. In fact, the second item in the China archives, a report on the inaugural conference of the new DPJ, made into the China archives only because the people handling public communications believed that CCP Vice President Hu and Italian Prime Minister Prodi’s messages (Mr. Prodi, a head of government, sent a videotaped message, while Mr. Hu merely sent the customary telegram) were the only overseas messages worthy of mention.
The most recent December visit by 44 DPJ Diet members led by party leader Ichirō Ozawa had been in the works for months itself*** as the second meeting of the Japan-China (DPJ/CCP) "Exchange and Discussion Mechanism", which had held its inaugural session on 16 January of this year in Tokyo. The Mechanism, or the concept behind it, had been proposed originally in December 2005 by Seiji Maehara as DPJ President, and officially agreed to on 4 July 2006 between a DPJ delegation led by Mr. Ozawa and President Hu****. The visit, in other words, was one more significant step in the development of public diplomacy efforts by the DPJ that stretches back more than a decade. The timing may have been unfortunate, and the DPJ could have cut back some more on the size of the delegation, but it could claim to have planned out the itinerary long before the LDP made clear its intention of extending the current Diet session, perhaps even before the hiatus arising from Prime Minister Abe’s tragic-comedic demise had unexpectedly forced the Diet to continue meeting so late in the year.
The substance of the DPJ’s approach to China has been similarly consistent. The DPJ sees strong relationships with China and the U.S. as being equally important to Japan. Its views on China are broadly similar to the most liberal elements of the LDP. It is sympathetic to China’s position on history issues, to the point where it has implicitly blamed Japanese authorities when popular enmity spilled over into violence during the 2004 Asia Cup Soccer Finals in China*****. It will respond strongly when China trespasses on Japanese sovereignty, as in the case of the 2002 police intrusion into the Japanese Consulate-General in Shenyang, or the clandestine trespassing of a Chinese submarine in Japanese territorial waters******. This respect for sovereignty cuts both ways. The DPJ respects China’s position on Tibet and has responded to a Chinese complaint over JDP relationships with the Dalai Lama by dismissing them as “the private activities of a small number of Diet members”*******. On the other hand, although the DPJ also adheres to the One-China policy, it has supported the issuing of a visa to China nemisis Lee Teng-Hui on humanitarian grounds. All in all, the DPJ has been consistent on humanitarian concerns, as can be seen in the broader response to the treatment of North Korean refugees in China.
Although the DPJ has expressed mild concern about the Chinese military buildup and has sought greater (mutual) transparency, overall, it sees broadly consonant interests between the two countries in most areas, from protecting the environment to maintaining the security of the sea lanes. It is obvious that it is this mutually beneficial relationship that it seeks to enhance through the Mechanism. Many of the harsher words from the DPJ came while Mr. Maehara, who has stronger national security concerns than most, was Minister of Defense in the DPJ shadow cabinet and later President, but it is notable that he was the one who put forth the proposal for a formalized dialogue that came to fruition after Mr. Ozawa took over. Besides, those were the times of much difficulty between Japan and China, and some of it was clearly China’s fault. The past couple of years have seen major efforts on the Chinese side as well to ease and eliminate sources of tension********. That in itself is enough to justify the benignity of the agenda for the most recent trip********.
So, mea culpa for calling it a photo-op. In my defense, the media itself has been quite vague about the purpose of the visit, not to mention the broader and deeper background. Here, I am tempted, as I have done here, to blame a media that resents an unsympathetic Mr. Ozawa. But it is as likely, and I suspect more so, to be the result of poor public communications that allowed the issue to framed as the appropriateness of the DPJ flying off en masse to China in the midst of the struggle in the Diet, as well as the public domain, over the refueling resumption bill, Japan’s role in the regional conflicts, and more broadly Japan’s security needs*********. And the unwillingness, or inability, of the DPJ to put forth a viable alternative to standing government policy had surely added to the doubts.
* The 1998 merger formalized the relationship that had brought together the old DPJ and three other center, left-center parties at the beginning of the same year. Ichirō Ozawa’s New Frontier Party merged into the DPJ in 2003.
** The US (米国) gets 1008 hits on the DPJ news file, almost twice as much as China (中国) does. But news on the US does not have a dedicated server file that allows browsers to access the “Best Hits” directly from a China page linked to a China icon on every DPJ webpage.
*** As late as October, Mr. Ozawa was still talking about a 1000-strong delegation, according to this item.
**** See this and this.
***** See here
****** See this and this on the Shenyang intrusion, and this on the Chinese submarine.
******* See this.
******** I believe that this became official policy after the 2005 flare-up against Japan. The violent and out-of-control demonstrations showed the potential dangers to domestic stability of the combination of their perception of Koizumi’s response to history issues and their own anti-Japanese inoculation. See this for the DPJ response of a careful calibration of sovereignty concerns and its own take on history issues. I do believe that Mr. Ozawa should have brought it up during the meetings, if he didn’t. In any case, a full rendering of the discussions should be laid out for the Japanese public. That is the least that the DPJ could do to justify the absence of the oft-absent Mr. Ozawa and his entourage during what appears to be a crucial turning point in the political battle over the refueling resumption bill.
********* The LDP did not work this angle too heavily because it had to consider the possibility of Prime Minister Fukuda also going to Beijing during the Diet session. This should have made it easier for the DPJ to have framed the issue more to its liking. I suspect that the failure had to do as much with the lack of internal communication as the result of Mr. Ozawa’s imperious incommunicativeness as incompetence in the party machinery.
My thanks to Tobias for alerting me to the potential of the DPJ website.
Chinese Vice President Hu Jintao, who is visiting Japan, met President Kan, Secretary-General Hata and other leaders of the new Democratic Party on the 22nd. Vice President Hu proposed that “in line with the inter-party exchange with the Democratic Party up till now, [we] would like to have an official inter-party exchange with the new Democratic Party as well,” and President Kan agreed with enthusiasm, saying that “we have received a very welcome present five days before the new merger conference*.” (22 April 1998)
The history of the DPJ’s relationship with China is chronicled here, an attention that no other country receives**. What the first item shows, more than anything, is that official ties with the Chinese Communist Party go back to the beginning of the DPJ in its current reincarnation and beyond. In fact, the second item in the China archives, a report on the inaugural conference of the new DPJ, made into the China archives only because the people handling public communications believed that CCP Vice President Hu and Italian Prime Minister Prodi’s messages (Mr. Prodi, a head of government, sent a videotaped message, while Mr. Hu merely sent the customary telegram) were the only overseas messages worthy of mention.
The most recent December visit by 44 DPJ Diet members led by party leader Ichirō Ozawa had been in the works for months itself*** as the second meeting of the Japan-China (DPJ/CCP) "Exchange and Discussion Mechanism", which had held its inaugural session on 16 January of this year in Tokyo. The Mechanism, or the concept behind it, had been proposed originally in December 2005 by Seiji Maehara as DPJ President, and officially agreed to on 4 July 2006 between a DPJ delegation led by Mr. Ozawa and President Hu****. The visit, in other words, was one more significant step in the development of public diplomacy efforts by the DPJ that stretches back more than a decade. The timing may have been unfortunate, and the DPJ could have cut back some more on the size of the delegation, but it could claim to have planned out the itinerary long before the LDP made clear its intention of extending the current Diet session, perhaps even before the hiatus arising from Prime Minister Abe’s tragic-comedic demise had unexpectedly forced the Diet to continue meeting so late in the year.
The substance of the DPJ’s approach to China has been similarly consistent. The DPJ sees strong relationships with China and the U.S. as being equally important to Japan. Its views on China are broadly similar to the most liberal elements of the LDP. It is sympathetic to China’s position on history issues, to the point where it has implicitly blamed Japanese authorities when popular enmity spilled over into violence during the 2004 Asia Cup Soccer Finals in China*****. It will respond strongly when China trespasses on Japanese sovereignty, as in the case of the 2002 police intrusion into the Japanese Consulate-General in Shenyang, or the clandestine trespassing of a Chinese submarine in Japanese territorial waters******. This respect for sovereignty cuts both ways. The DPJ respects China’s position on Tibet and has responded to a Chinese complaint over JDP relationships with the Dalai Lama by dismissing them as “the private activities of a small number of Diet members”*******. On the other hand, although the DPJ also adheres to the One-China policy, it has supported the issuing of a visa to China nemisis Lee Teng-Hui on humanitarian grounds. All in all, the DPJ has been consistent on humanitarian concerns, as can be seen in the broader response to the treatment of North Korean refugees in China.
Although the DPJ has expressed mild concern about the Chinese military buildup and has sought greater (mutual) transparency, overall, it sees broadly consonant interests between the two countries in most areas, from protecting the environment to maintaining the security of the sea lanes. It is obvious that it is this mutually beneficial relationship that it seeks to enhance through the Mechanism. Many of the harsher words from the DPJ came while Mr. Maehara, who has stronger national security concerns than most, was Minister of Defense in the DPJ shadow cabinet and later President, but it is notable that he was the one who put forth the proposal for a formalized dialogue that came to fruition after Mr. Ozawa took over. Besides, those were the times of much difficulty between Japan and China, and some of it was clearly China’s fault. The past couple of years have seen major efforts on the Chinese side as well to ease and eliminate sources of tension********. That in itself is enough to justify the benignity of the agenda for the most recent trip********.
So, mea culpa for calling it a photo-op. In my defense, the media itself has been quite vague about the purpose of the visit, not to mention the broader and deeper background. Here, I am tempted, as I have done here, to blame a media that resents an unsympathetic Mr. Ozawa. But it is as likely, and I suspect more so, to be the result of poor public communications that allowed the issue to framed as the appropriateness of the DPJ flying off en masse to China in the midst of the struggle in the Diet, as well as the public domain, over the refueling resumption bill, Japan’s role in the regional conflicts, and more broadly Japan’s security needs*********. And the unwillingness, or inability, of the DPJ to put forth a viable alternative to standing government policy had surely added to the doubts.
* The 1998 merger formalized the relationship that had brought together the old DPJ and three other center, left-center parties at the beginning of the same year. Ichirō Ozawa’s New Frontier Party merged into the DPJ in 2003.
** The US (米国) gets 1008 hits on the DPJ news file, almost twice as much as China (中国) does. But news on the US does not have a dedicated server file that allows browsers to access the “Best Hits” directly from a China page linked to a China icon on every DPJ webpage.
*** As late as October, Mr. Ozawa was still talking about a 1000-strong delegation, according to this item.
**** See this and this.
***** See here
****** See this and this on the Shenyang intrusion, and this on the Chinese submarine.
******* See this.
******** I believe that this became official policy after the 2005 flare-up against Japan. The violent and out-of-control demonstrations showed the potential dangers to domestic stability of the combination of their perception of Koizumi’s response to history issues and their own anti-Japanese inoculation. See this for the DPJ response of a careful calibration of sovereignty concerns and its own take on history issues. I do believe that Mr. Ozawa should have brought it up during the meetings, if he didn’t. In any case, a full rendering of the discussions should be laid out for the Japanese public. That is the least that the DPJ could do to justify the absence of the oft-absent Mr. Ozawa and his entourage during what appears to be a crucial turning point in the political battle over the refueling resumption bill.
********* The LDP did not work this angle too heavily because it had to consider the possibility of Prime Minister Fukuda also going to Beijing during the Diet session. This should have made it easier for the DPJ to have framed the issue more to its liking. I suspect that the failure had to do as much with the lack of internal communication as the result of Mr. Ozawa’s imperious incommunicativeness as incompetence in the party machinery.
My thanks to Tobias for alerting me to the potential of the DPJ website.
Sunday, December 09, 2007
The Other Ichirō and Entourage Come Home to Mild Disappointment
Media reports have been mildly critical of Mr. Ozawa’s three-day Beijing photo-op. The enormous size of his DPJ entourage at this point in the Diet schedule that the media has chosen to build up as critical juncture － has allowed journalists of various stripes to express disappointment. Moreover, Mr. Ozawa’s forbearance in keeping the East China Sea gas fields off the agenda, no doubt part of the quid pro quo demanded by the Chinese Communist Party for maintaining the interparty dialogue － the LDP should be justified in establishing official contact with Chinese opposition parties, such as there are in Taiwan and Tibet － has drawn opprobrium.
But the editorials have been notably silent, and his audiences with Chinese dignitaries have been pushed off the front pages. That must be a disappointment for Mr. Ozawa, and an even greater one for his handlers.
But the editorials have been notably silent, and his audiences with Chinese dignitaries have been pushed off the front pages. That must be a disappointment for Mr. Ozawa, and an even greater one for his handlers.
Ruling Coalition and Opposition Work Together, Earn Passing Grade
The hard-copy Yomiuri gives regular updates on legislative activities. As of last week, 11 legislative bills that the Yomiuri considers important had been adopted, with eight more likely to make it by the 15 December deadline. Of the former, eight had been submitted by the Cabinet, of which five were passed unanimously, while three were adopted after the ruling coalition and the opposition parties agreed on a joint amendment. Of the three adopted bills submitted by Diet members, two were jointly submitted by the coalition and the opposition parties while the other was a joint proposal that unified bills submitted from both sides. Of the eight bills likely to be adopted, one, an amendment to the Broadcasting Act submitted by the Cabinet is likely to be adopted since the coalition agreed to alter a controversial article that would have enhanced the power of authorities to take action against a broadcasting station that aired false information. Of the other seven likely to be adopted, one will be jointly submitted by the coalition and the opposition parties while the other six are joint proposals unifying a couple of bills submitted from the two sides.
The Yomiuri report lists 10 other legislative bills (five Cabinet submissions, five Diet member submissions) still under consideration for which there is no likelihood of being adopted by 15 December. The refueling resumption bill is one of them. Since four other minor legislative bills* have also been adopted, the post-15 December supermajority override will bring the total of legislative bills adopted at this Diet session to at least 25.
It has become customary for the Diet to hold lengthy extraordinary/special Diet sessions after the summer hiatus following the regular Diet session. In fact, with another, more brief “Golden Week” interruption to the regular session, the legislative schedule looks increasingly like a two-semester school year with a brief spring break. So let’s see how the “twisted” Diet compares with its previous incarnations and issue grades.
In 2005, in the 42-day special Diet session (11 September-1 November) following Prime Minister Koizumi’s landslide victory in the Lower House general election, the Diet passed 28 legislative bills. Of this legislative total, seven were submitted by Diet members, of which five were submitted by committee chairmen. The last figure is significant, because a chairman submission appears to signify that there was at least some positive opposition input*. In 2006, an 84-day extraordinary Diet session (26 September-19 December) saw 25 legislative bills (as well as one treaty) adopted, of which 18 were Cabinet submissions and seven were Diet members submissions (including four committee chairmen submissions).
So the score is 2005 (Koizumi administration) 28, 2006 (Abe administration) 25, and 2007 (Fukuda administration) 25 minimum. Now the 2005 special Diet session did it in 42 days, and the 2007(-2008) extraordinary session is going to take 122 days (with the extension to 15 January), unless the DPJ decides that enough is enough and agrees to cut a deal. Moreover, there’s more to evaluating results than the number of legislative bills passed**. Still, making allowances for the time wasted by the Abe-Fukuda handoff and the Grand Coalition difficulties and the need to adjust to life under a “twisted” Diet, the current session appears to stack up quite nicely with comparative sessions from balmier days.
The real test will come in the regular session that convenes in the bottom half of January, particularly as the March 31 expiration date for so much time-limited legislation － most importantly special tax measures*** － approaches. But if the experience of this Diet session means anything, it is that, despite the contentiousness borne of the uncertainties of a divided house, including all the fuss about a censure motion and/or snap election, the ruling coalition and the opposition have worked to keep the legislative mill rolling. And the need to look reasonable and responsible in the public eye by convincing the media to see matters in that light is likely to keep it that way.
I do believe that the “twisted” Diet will make it more difficult to deal with the more serious questions concerning the long-term health of the nation, which I’ve briefly mentioned elsewhere. That, in fact, is why there is a good case to be made for a grand coalition. (No, not that Grand Coalition.) Still, the ruling coalition and the opposition do deserve passing grades for this lesser of the two semesters.
* I’d be happy to check this if someone paid me for doing it. Otherwise, you’ll have to do it yourself, or accept my educated guess.
** By law, salaries of public servants in four categories require annual adjustments by separate legislation. Housekeeping matters of the Diet sometimes require legislative action, further inflating the number of bills passed in any given session.
*** The loss of gasoline surtaxes alone could reduce the public take by a trillion yen more or less.
The Yomiuri report lists 10 other legislative bills (five Cabinet submissions, five Diet member submissions) still under consideration for which there is no likelihood of being adopted by 15 December. The refueling resumption bill is one of them. Since four other minor legislative bills* have also been adopted, the post-15 December supermajority override will bring the total of legislative bills adopted at this Diet session to at least 25.
It has become customary for the Diet to hold lengthy extraordinary/special Diet sessions after the summer hiatus following the regular Diet session. In fact, with another, more brief “Golden Week” interruption to the regular session, the legislative schedule looks increasingly like a two-semester school year with a brief spring break. So let’s see how the “twisted” Diet compares with its previous incarnations and issue grades.
In 2005, in the 42-day special Diet session (11 September-1 November) following Prime Minister Koizumi’s landslide victory in the Lower House general election, the Diet passed 28 legislative bills. Of this legislative total, seven were submitted by Diet members, of which five were submitted by committee chairmen. The last figure is significant, because a chairman submission appears to signify that there was at least some positive opposition input*. In 2006, an 84-day extraordinary Diet session (26 September-19 December) saw 25 legislative bills (as well as one treaty) adopted, of which 18 were Cabinet submissions and seven were Diet members submissions (including four committee chairmen submissions).
So the score is 2005 (Koizumi administration) 28, 2006 (Abe administration) 25, and 2007 (Fukuda administration) 25 minimum. Now the 2005 special Diet session did it in 42 days, and the 2007(-2008) extraordinary session is going to take 122 days (with the extension to 15 January), unless the DPJ decides that enough is enough and agrees to cut a deal. Moreover, there’s more to evaluating results than the number of legislative bills passed**. Still, making allowances for the time wasted by the Abe-Fukuda handoff and the Grand Coalition difficulties and the need to adjust to life under a “twisted” Diet, the current session appears to stack up quite nicely with comparative sessions from balmier days.
The real test will come in the regular session that convenes in the bottom half of January, particularly as the March 31 expiration date for so much time-limited legislation － most importantly special tax measures*** － approaches. But if the experience of this Diet session means anything, it is that, despite the contentiousness borne of the uncertainties of a divided house, including all the fuss about a censure motion and/or snap election, the ruling coalition and the opposition have worked to keep the legislative mill rolling. And the need to look reasonable and responsible in the public eye by convincing the media to see matters in that light is likely to keep it that way.
I do believe that the “twisted” Diet will make it more difficult to deal with the more serious questions concerning the long-term health of the nation, which I’ve briefly mentioned elsewhere. That, in fact, is why there is a good case to be made for a grand coalition. (No, not that Grand Coalition.) Still, the ruling coalition and the opposition do deserve passing grades for this lesser of the two semesters.
* I’d be happy to check this if someone paid me for doing it. Otherwise, you’ll have to do it yourself, or accept my educated guess.
** By law, salaries of public servants in four categories require annual adjustments by separate legislation. Housekeeping matters of the Diet sometimes require legislative action, further inflating the number of bills passed in any given session.
*** The loss of gasoline surtaxes alone could reduce the public take by a trillion yen more or less.
Saturday, December 08, 2007
President Sarkozy's Personal Pick for Ambassador to Japan
Gildas Le Lidec, the French Ambassador in Tokyo, is an old Japan hand, on his third tour here. He has spent most of the rest of his career in South and Southeast Asia, and Africa. (Most recently, he was been ambassador to Ivory Coast and Liberia.) He did have three tours back home, twice in science, technology, and cultural affairs, and once in humanitarian activities. 60 years old, he will be transferred to Mozambique in January.
According to a Yomiuri dispatch from Paris by Michio Hayashi, Ambassador le Lidec will be replaced by the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Europe*. As Mr. Hayashi assures us, “it is unusual for the Ministry of Foreign Affair to see a Deputy Minister being appointed as Ambassador to Japan.” To him, “it appears that the objective of the Sarkozy administration, having fewer contact points than the previous President Chirac, who was pro-Japan, is to advertise a stance that puts a high value on relations with Japan.”
How nice. However, Mr. Hayashi mentions later in the article that “[the] Deputy Minister is known as a friend of former Prime Minister de Villepan**.” Yes. Mr. de Villepin, career diplomat, President Chirac’s protégé and intended successor, whose dislike for Mr. Sarkozy － the feeling is apparently mutual － is well documented.
So, has Mr. Hayashi has fulfilled his journalistic responsibilities? The Yomiuri international desk? I report, you decide.
* His name is rendered phonetically in Japanese characters, and I have been unable to trace it on the Internet; help me here, RD.
** Wikipedia as of 8 December 2007 notes that Mr. de Villepin “has a Chinese friend, Catherine Cheng.” This is yet another contact point with Japan. You see, I am Japanese, and I have three Taiwanese friends myself, and all of them happen to be women. None of them, however, are named Katherine Cheng. And my name is not, of course, Dominique de Villepin.
According to a Yomiuri dispatch from Paris by Michio Hayashi, Ambassador le Lidec will be replaced by the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Europe*. As Mr. Hayashi assures us, “it is unusual for the Ministry of Foreign Affair to see a Deputy Minister being appointed as Ambassador to Japan.” To him, “it appears that the objective of the Sarkozy administration, having fewer contact points than the previous President Chirac, who was pro-Japan, is to advertise a stance that puts a high value on relations with Japan.”
How nice. However, Mr. Hayashi mentions later in the article that “[the] Deputy Minister is known as a friend of former Prime Minister de Villepan**.” Yes. Mr. de Villepin, career diplomat, President Chirac’s protégé and intended successor, whose dislike for Mr. Sarkozy － the feeling is apparently mutual － is well documented.
So, has Mr. Hayashi has fulfilled his journalistic responsibilities? The Yomiuri international desk? I report, you decide.
* His name is rendered phonetically in Japanese characters, and I have been unable to trace it on the Internet; help me here, RD.
** Wikipedia as of 8 December 2007 notes that Mr. de Villepin “has a Chinese friend, Catherine Cheng.” This is yet another contact point with Japan. You see, I am Japanese, and I have three Taiwanese friends myself, and all of them happen to be women. None of them, however, are named Katherine Cheng. And my name is not, of course, Dominique de Villepin.
My Ghanaian Colleague Asked Me Tonight, What Is the One Book about Japan that I Should Read? Here’s My Answer, BWI
Hands down, it’s Fūshi Kaden. You are lucky, because a translation came out last year. Available here.
And if that doesn’t inspire you, find the 31-syllable poetry of Ōtomo no Yakamochi.
Finally, the short story written by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa about Satan in Japan. If you don’t get it, well, that’s the point of the story.
And if that doesn’t inspire you, find the 31-syllable poetry of Ōtomo no Yakamochi.
Finally, the short story written by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa about Satan in Japan. If you don’t get it, well, that’s the point of the story.
Friday, December 07, 2007
If Miss Tibet Has Problems with the Chinese Authorities, Imagine What the DPJ Has to Go Through
CNN says in this news report that Miss Tibet took herself out of a beauty contest in Malaysia because the Chinese authorities put pressure on its organizers to use the name Tibet-China (like the good people of the Republic of China). Good thing for the guys who run Miss World that this year’s contest, held in China, was over and done with. But imagine the embarrassment for China next year, when the U.S. Congress puts pressure on the corporations that run Miss World and Miss Universe. The Bush administration will be of no help to China, because it will have to lean on a Democratic Congress in an election year. That is, if Miss Tibet shows up again.
According to this Sankei article, Ichirō Ozawa should be able to feel Miss Tibet’s pain, because the DPJ had to cancel a 28 November study group meeting on the plight of the Uighur in China to facilitate Mr. Ozawa’s upcoming trip to Beijing. Sankei itself was thrown out of China during the Cultural Revolutions in the 1960s when it refused to lick Mao Zedong’s… well, I hope for the sake of correspondents from a couple of other newspapers at the time that rumors about Mr. Mao’s aversion to showers were only a myth. So, although it hasn’t found the smoking gun, it has good reason to suspect China of leaning on the DPJ to deep-six the Uighur meeting.
China is one of the last empires left standing; democracy is a luxury it can ill afford in dealing with minorities.
According to this Sankei article, Ichirō Ozawa should be able to feel Miss Tibet’s pain, because the DPJ had to cancel a 28 November study group meeting on the plight of the Uighur in China to facilitate Mr. Ozawa’s upcoming trip to Beijing. Sankei itself was thrown out of China during the Cultural Revolutions in the 1960s when it refused to lick Mao Zedong’s… well, I hope for the sake of correspondents from a couple of other newspapers at the time that rumors about Mr. Mao’s aversion to showers were only a myth. So, although it hasn’t found the smoking gun, it has good reason to suspect China of leaning on the DPJ to deep-six the Uighur meeting.
China is one of the last empires left standing; democracy is a luxury it can ill afford in dealing with minorities.
Flop Like Vlade; Obama’s Got Game
The following excerpt from this Washington Post article is a brief but good encapsulation of the case in point in this post:
Over the weekend, the Clinton camp sent reporters a memo taking Obama to task for saying he hadn't been planning for years to run for president _ unlike "some of the other candidates."
On the contrary, the Clinton folks said, he'd made his plans clear to law school friends and even wrote an essay as a young child saying that was his ambition.
After an event in Iowa on Monday, Obama was asked to comment and said, "No."
But then he said, "It's silly season. I understand she's been quoting my kindergarten teacher in Indonesia." He then walked out of the room without responding to additional shouted questions.
Anyone reading this exchange would think that Barack Obama gave an evasive answer at best, then refused to elaborate on the Clinton camp’s charge about his longstanding ambitions (good) in that he was being less than truthful about them (bad). But that was not story that dominated the media and the blogs. Instead Mr. Obama’s countercharge was so effective that the Clinton camp had to take the purportedly offensive memo off its official web site. Fortunately, the offensive document is available on a Hillary-news web site here. If you don’t have the time to read it, imagine a stand-up comic:
Look, Obama was running for president, no s---, the moment he hit the Senate floor. I mean his biographer says so, and he must know, because Obama told his brother-in-law he wanted to run for president, and that was before he even ran for dog catcher. Hey, that’s what he was telling his classmates in law school. Oh, and speaking of classmates, get this, there’s this third-grade essay by Obama titled “I Want to Be a President”. No, wait, there’s more, there’s his kindergarten essay: title? “I Want to Become President”, natch! Ha ha HAHAHAHA ha… ha…
Okay, I bombed.”
But it was a joke, claimed the Clinton camp, and I believe those guys. The third grade and kindergarten part, that is. Nevertheless, the “she accused him of lying because he’d written an essay in kindergarten, for goodness sakes” took off like hell, though Mrs. Clinton proved, unlike John F. Kerry and Shinzō Abe, that she knew when to stop talking and cut losses.
So why did one narrative, which looks closer to the facts of the case, fail to take hold while another, less truthful countercharge stuck? For one thing, “Clinton’s Kindergarten Offensive” makes a better headline than, say, “Obama’s Presidential Ambitions Pre-Date Political Career”. But that’s what happens when the gag writers are a humorless bunch of control-freaks. And that leads to the real problem for Mrs. Clinton, which is that the media simply don’t like her.
As I’ve written before, the media will cut you little slack if they don’t like you, and, when they have competing narratives to choose from, will go with the one that hurts you most. As the 2000 Presidential election showed, this has little to do with the overall media bias*.
So why don’t they like Mrs. Clinton? In her case, I believe that the foremost reason for this is the sense (rather than the actual fact, including this case) of being controlled and manipulated. Her margin of error is correspondingly narrow.
Mr. Obama’s more casual supporters must be very happy, now that they know that he can flop like Vlade Divac**, that he can play the political game with the best of them*. He needs that as his star rises, exposing him to enemy － and friendly － fire. Moreover, it’s an indication that he (likely Mike Huckabee as well) is this presidential campaign’s Teflon candidate. There can be nothing but good coming to the Obama camp from that.
* The “liberal” media also shamelessly carried the “Al Gore invented the Internet” trope.
** His poker cronies and pickup basketball buddies probably already knew that. His years in Chicago politics also prepared him for that. The media took note of this at the beginning of his campaign but tended to forget about it as he cultivated the image of the great unifier of your hopes and dreams.
Over the weekend, the Clinton camp sent reporters a memo taking Obama to task for saying he hadn't been planning for years to run for president _ unlike "some of the other candidates."
On the contrary, the Clinton folks said, he'd made his plans clear to law school friends and even wrote an essay as a young child saying that was his ambition.
After an event in Iowa on Monday, Obama was asked to comment and said, "No."
But then he said, "It's silly season. I understand she's been quoting my kindergarten teacher in Indonesia." He then walked out of the room without responding to additional shouted questions.
Anyone reading this exchange would think that Barack Obama gave an evasive answer at best, then refused to elaborate on the Clinton camp’s charge about his longstanding ambitions (good) in that he was being less than truthful about them (bad). But that was not story that dominated the media and the blogs. Instead Mr. Obama’s countercharge was so effective that the Clinton camp had to take the purportedly offensive memo off its official web site. Fortunately, the offensive document is available on a Hillary-news web site here. If you don’t have the time to read it, imagine a stand-up comic:
Look, Obama was running for president, no s---, the moment he hit the Senate floor. I mean his biographer says so, and he must know, because Obama told his brother-in-law he wanted to run for president, and that was before he even ran for dog catcher. Hey, that’s what he was telling his classmates in law school. Oh, and speaking of classmates, get this, there’s this third-grade essay by Obama titled “I Want to Be a President”. No, wait, there’s more, there’s his kindergarten essay: title? “I Want to Become President”, natch! Ha ha HAHAHAHA ha… ha…
Okay, I bombed.”
But it was a joke, claimed the Clinton camp, and I believe those guys. The third grade and kindergarten part, that is. Nevertheless, the “she accused him of lying because he’d written an essay in kindergarten, for goodness sakes” took off like hell, though Mrs. Clinton proved, unlike John F. Kerry and Shinzō Abe, that she knew when to stop talking and cut losses.
So why did one narrative, which looks closer to the facts of the case, fail to take hold while another, less truthful countercharge stuck? For one thing, “Clinton’s Kindergarten Offensive” makes a better headline than, say, “Obama’s Presidential Ambitions Pre-Date Political Career”. But that’s what happens when the gag writers are a humorless bunch of control-freaks. And that leads to the real problem for Mrs. Clinton, which is that the media simply don’t like her.
As I’ve written before, the media will cut you little slack if they don’t like you, and, when they have competing narratives to choose from, will go with the one that hurts you most. As the 2000 Presidential election showed, this has little to do with the overall media bias*.
So why don’t they like Mrs. Clinton? In her case, I believe that the foremost reason for this is the sense (rather than the actual fact, including this case) of being controlled and manipulated. Her margin of error is correspondingly narrow.
Mr. Obama’s more casual supporters must be very happy, now that they know that he can flop like Vlade Divac**, that he can play the political game with the best of them*. He needs that as his star rises, exposing him to enemy － and friendly － fire. Moreover, it’s an indication that he (likely Mike Huckabee as well) is this presidential campaign’s Teflon candidate. There can be nothing but good coming to the Obama camp from that.
* The “liberal” media also shamelessly carried the “Al Gore invented the Internet” trope.
** His poker cronies and pickup basketball buddies probably already knew that. His years in Chicago politics also prepared him for that. The media took note of this at the beginning of his campaign but tended to forget about it as he cultivated the image of the great unifier of your hopes and dreams.
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Are Mssrs. Watanuki and Maehara Abandoning the Peace Boat Because They Read My Blog?
Fat chance. In fact, strains in the opposition’s support for Ichirō Ozawa’s extreme hard-line on the refueling resumption bill had already begun to surface when Yukio Hatoyama, ex-DPJ leader and Mr. Ozawa’s co-deputy, indicated* that he could support putting the bill to a vote in the Upper House (instead of (make-believe) running out the clock and facing down Prime Minister Fukuda). Now, a couple of more serious cracks have emerged as two opposition leaders aired their dissatisfaction yesterday (5 December).
Opposition micro-party leader Tamisuke Watanuki** gave a press conference and according to the Asahi said, “Unless we reach a conclusion [on the refueling resumption bill], we will be ignoring the people. [The DPJ] says that [the Upper House, where the bill has been forwarded,] will only hold sessions on the regularly scheduled days, but think how much we waste if we extend the Diet session for a single day?”
Now Mr. Watanuki may have an extra axe to grind, because according to this report, his People’s New Party are mad at the DPJ because the latter is not forthcoming in coordinating support for the next election. Besides, he hasn’t quite come out in favor of the bill itself. But the same day, the pro-defense Seiji Maehara, another Ozawa co-deputy and DPJ ex-leader, revealed his dilemma in a talk he gave in the Diet building, saying, in report from the Asahi, “If we gave up and didn’t extend the extraordinary Diet session, the activities in the Indian Ocean will face a long interruption. Our party will be in trouble if we are criticized for this. (They’ll ask) if we are considering the national interest? I don’t know how I will be able to make election campaign speeches.”***
Whatever their real views are, these men have gauged the public sentiment, as has Mr. Fukuda in making up his mind to re-extend the Diet session and exercise the supermajority override in the Lower House if necessary (if this report is to be believed). Now I’m pretty sure that the Prime Minister had intended all along to do that. But it’s significant that he (or his handlers) is now informing the public. It is even more extraordinary that Mssrs. Watanuki and Maehara are going public as well; it’s their way of saying, Ozawa isn’t listening.
Today, Mr. Ozawa and his entourage leave for the Beijing photo-op. So I guess my question is, did the emperor pack any clothes?
* Reported here, and commented briefly in the third footnote of this post
** Mr. Watanuki’s heart, if not his soul, still belongs to the LDP. It is important to remember that Mr. Watanuki never believed that Prime Minister Koizumi would call a snap election in 2005 after the Upper House voted down his Post Office privatization bill. If Mr. Watanuki had known how things would turn out, he － or Shizuka Kamei for that matter － would never have forced a showdown.
*** Mr. Maehara also stated, “It’s important to enhance the status of the UN, but we should not take the position that Japan will not act if there is no UN resolution whatever the case may be.”
Opposition micro-party leader Tamisuke Watanuki** gave a press conference and according to the Asahi said, “Unless we reach a conclusion [on the refueling resumption bill], we will be ignoring the people. [The DPJ] says that [the Upper House, where the bill has been forwarded,] will only hold sessions on the regularly scheduled days, but think how much we waste if we extend the Diet session for a single day?”
Now Mr. Watanuki may have an extra axe to grind, because according to this report, his People’s New Party are mad at the DPJ because the latter is not forthcoming in coordinating support for the next election. Besides, he hasn’t quite come out in favor of the bill itself. But the same day, the pro-defense Seiji Maehara, another Ozawa co-deputy and DPJ ex-leader, revealed his dilemma in a talk he gave in the Diet building, saying, in report from the Asahi, “If we gave up and didn’t extend the extraordinary Diet session, the activities in the Indian Ocean will face a long interruption. Our party will be in trouble if we are criticized for this. (They’ll ask) if we are considering the national interest? I don’t know how I will be able to make election campaign speeches.”***
Whatever their real views are, these men have gauged the public sentiment, as has Mr. Fukuda in making up his mind to re-extend the Diet session and exercise the supermajority override in the Lower House if necessary (if this report is to be believed). Now I’m pretty sure that the Prime Minister had intended all along to do that. But it’s significant that he (or his handlers) is now informing the public. It is even more extraordinary that Mssrs. Watanuki and Maehara are going public as well; it’s their way of saying, Ozawa isn’t listening.
Today, Mr. Ozawa and his entourage leave for the Beijing photo-op. So I guess my question is, did the emperor pack any clothes?
* Reported here, and commented briefly in the third footnote of this post
** Mr. Watanuki’s heart, if not his soul, still belongs to the LDP. It is important to remember that Mr. Watanuki never believed that Prime Minister Koizumi would call a snap election in 2005 after the Upper House voted down his Post Office privatization bill. If Mr. Watanuki had known how things would turn out, he － or Shizuka Kamei for that matter － would never have forced a showdown.
*** Mr. Maehara also stated, “It’s important to enhance the status of the UN, but we should not take the position that Japan will not act if there is no UN resolution whatever the case may be.”
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Ichirō Ozawa’s Photo-Op in China Displays His Weaknesses
Befitting a top disciple of Kakuei Tanaka, who as Prime Minister reestablished diplomatic relationships with China, Ichirō Ozawa has long been known as a Sinophile*. So it is no surprise for him to be seen hopping on a plane every once in a while to visit his Old Friends there. Now 44 Diet members and a gaggle of lesser lights as an entourage seem a little too much, but it is hard to begrudge his first real victory procession since the July Upper House election. Besides, this was supposed to be the off-season between the post-election extraordinary Diet session, when housekeeping matters as well as the expiration of the counter-terrorism act and other pressing needs would be taken care of in a matter of weeks, and the January commencement of the regular session where the FY 2008 budget, taxes, and other weightier matters would be taken up through the early summer. Besides, the DPJ claimed, the LDP had already given the green light.
But that was then. The extraordinary session, if the DPJ hardliners have their way, will drag on all the way into mid-January. At that point, if the ruling coalition exercises its Lower House supermajority to extend the refueling extension bill and the DPJ implausibly manages to force a snap election, (or slightly more plausibly, the LDP believes and can convince junior Coalition partner New Kōmeitō to believe that the DPJ has committed so many blunders that their polls show them that there will be few if any better opportunities to call one,) it will be another month before the Diet can be summoned for its annual regular session and the new Lower House is up and running again. This means that there will only one-and-a-half months instead of the customary two-and-a-half to pass the budget (a delay would be inconvenient, but there are rules in place to deal with it) and extend time-limited legislation (most importantly special tax measures, which typically lapse as of the fiscal year (1 April-31 March)’s end), and if possible pass all the budget-related bills**. And to do all this with a split Diet at that. The electorate, regardless of individual positions on the refueling extension, is not going to like that***.
In short, the opposition must demonstrate its sense of urgency, while dragging its feet as surreptitiously as possible. Any action that runs counter to this imperative must have a huge upside if it is to be undertaken. And taking Thursday and Friday off to go to Beijing for a three-day photo-op is not****.
Seriously, what is Mr. Ozawa’s entourage going to achieve in those three days? Joint development agreement on the East China gas fields? Get the Chinese to turn the screw on North Korea on behalf of the abductees and their families? As if the Chinese authorities would do something to piss off the Fukuda administration so that Tarō Asō could take a crack at offing the Prime Minister?) Friday is a relatively slow day in the Diet (although committees, even the plenary, have held Friday sessions), but a lot of work gets done/committees hold lots of meetings on Thursdays.
The LDP will not make too much of this; Mr. Fukuda must make his own trip with his own team (fewer Diet members, but a good number of Cabinet Ministers and their subordinates) in January, so they don’t want to say anything now that will be thrown back at them. They don’t need to; in politics, own goals have a way of repeating themselves, as the LDP painfully learned with Shinzō Abe at the helm.
Finally, this incident highlights three of Mr. Ozawa’s most serious weaknesses. For one thing, he is not a good debater. He does not have the patient wonkishness of a Kaoru Yosano, the acidulous wits of a Naoto Kan, or the sound-bite sensibilities of a Junichirō Koizumi. He is at his best, if you can call it that, when he can simply intimidate and hold forth; bluster his way through. He is Shintarō Ishihara without his intelligence.
How much of this personal flaw is due to a second weakness, his asocial personality (anecdotes from Kōzō Watanabe and other associates of his reinforce this impression from his public appearances or lack thereof), or the other way around is open to debate. What is obvious is that he does his best to avoid all public forums, except set pieces, where his lack of command over policy details as well as the give and take of political discourse does not show.
These two explain the origins of his disdain, conscious and unconscious, for the visible political process in the Diet, the give-and-take, which in turn explains why he did not see the need to rethink his victory procession to Beijing.
And the third? His inability to take counsel, also related to the first two, that kept his acolytes and his DPJ rivals from forcing him to rethink, at a minimum, his itinerary and retinue.
* The latest MS Word believes that there is no such word as Sinophile It thoughtfully suggests as an alternative Sinophobe, in my view not the best way to convince the Chinese authorities to help Microsoft deal with its intellectual property issues.
** The last item is less inconvenient than the tax measures and other legislation that, like Cinderella’s entourage, expire automatically. The execution of individual budget items can be delayed, many for months, if need be.
*** Yukio Hatoyama, who makes up for his lack of charm with a healthy load of common sense, the yin to his brother’s yang, has indicated that he might be willing to support an Upper House vote on the refueling resumption act instead of just waiting for the 60-day limit to lapse. It remains to be seen how many of his DPJ colleagues realize that if there is going to be a snap election being fought on account of an override vote, it is better that the DPJ not be blamed for an extra month of delay that forces a delay of the more urgent, annual business that must be taken care of before the end of FY 2007, i.e. 31 March 2008.
**** They are coming back on Saturday. When I wrote this, I had mistakenly thought the 6th was Friday.
But that was then. The extraordinary session, if the DPJ hardliners have their way, will drag on all the way into mid-January. At that point, if the ruling coalition exercises its Lower House supermajority to extend the refueling extension bill and the DPJ implausibly manages to force a snap election, (or slightly more plausibly, the LDP believes and can convince junior Coalition partner New Kōmeitō to believe that the DPJ has committed so many blunders that their polls show them that there will be few if any better opportunities to call one,) it will be another month before the Diet can be summoned for its annual regular session and the new Lower House is up and running again. This means that there will only one-and-a-half months instead of the customary two-and-a-half to pass the budget (a delay would be inconvenient, but there are rules in place to deal with it) and extend time-limited legislation (most importantly special tax measures, which typically lapse as of the fiscal year (1 April-31 March)’s end), and if possible pass all the budget-related bills**. And to do all this with a split Diet at that. The electorate, regardless of individual positions on the refueling extension, is not going to like that***.
In short, the opposition must demonstrate its sense of urgency, while dragging its feet as surreptitiously as possible. Any action that runs counter to this imperative must have a huge upside if it is to be undertaken. And taking Thursday and Friday off to go to Beijing for a three-day photo-op is not****.
Seriously, what is Mr. Ozawa’s entourage going to achieve in those three days? Joint development agreement on the East China gas fields? Get the Chinese to turn the screw on North Korea on behalf of the abductees and their families? As if the Chinese authorities would do something to piss off the Fukuda administration so that Tarō Asō could take a crack at offing the Prime Minister?) Friday is a relatively slow day in the Diet (although committees, even the plenary, have held Friday sessions), but a lot of work gets done/committees hold lots of meetings on Thursdays.
The LDP will not make too much of this; Mr. Fukuda must make his own trip with his own team (fewer Diet members, but a good number of Cabinet Ministers and their subordinates) in January, so they don’t want to say anything now that will be thrown back at them. They don’t need to; in politics, own goals have a way of repeating themselves, as the LDP painfully learned with Shinzō Abe at the helm.
Finally, this incident highlights three of Mr. Ozawa’s most serious weaknesses. For one thing, he is not a good debater. He does not have the patient wonkishness of a Kaoru Yosano, the acidulous wits of a Naoto Kan, or the sound-bite sensibilities of a Junichirō Koizumi. He is at his best, if you can call it that, when he can simply intimidate and hold forth; bluster his way through. He is Shintarō Ishihara without his intelligence.
How much of this personal flaw is due to a second weakness, his asocial personality (anecdotes from Kōzō Watanabe and other associates of his reinforce this impression from his public appearances or lack thereof), or the other way around is open to debate. What is obvious is that he does his best to avoid all public forums, except set pieces, where his lack of command over policy details as well as the give and take of political discourse does not show.
These two explain the origins of his disdain, conscious and unconscious, for the visible political process in the Diet, the give-and-take, which in turn explains why he did not see the need to rethink his victory procession to Beijing.
And the third? His inability to take counsel, also related to the first two, that kept his acolytes and his DPJ rivals from forcing him to rethink, at a minimum, his itinerary and retinue.
* The latest MS Word believes that there is no such word as Sinophile It thoughtfully suggests as an alternative Sinophobe, in my view not the best way to convince the Chinese authorities to help Microsoft deal with its intellectual property issues.
** The last item is less inconvenient than the tax measures and other legislation that, like Cinderella’s entourage, expire automatically. The execution of individual budget items can be delayed, many for months, if need be.
*** Yukio Hatoyama, who makes up for his lack of charm with a healthy load of common sense, the yin to his brother’s yang, has indicated that he might be willing to support an Upper House vote on the refueling resumption act instead of just waiting for the 60-day limit to lapse. It remains to be seen how many of his DPJ colleagues realize that if there is going to be a snap election being fought on account of an override vote, it is better that the DPJ not be blamed for an extra month of delay that forces a delay of the more urgent, annual business that must be taken care of before the end of FY 2007, i.e. 31 March 2008.
**** They are coming back on Saturday. When I wrote this, I had mistakenly thought the 6th was Friday.
Chinese Authorities Have a Cow with Japanese Beef
Actually, I wrote this post only because I couldn't pass up the title. I’ve also used a footnote to get rid of something that has been festering in my brain for a long time.
The five teppanyaki restaurants and two steakhouses in the new Tokyo Michelin serve as a good reminder that, for the gaijin foodie, Japan is the MBL of beef*. And it’s no different for the nouveau richein China.
Unfortunately, in one of the greatest of ironies**, Japanese beef has been banned in China since 2001, after Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy was discovered in Japan. So Chinese Customs are frequently catching smugglers posing as tourists trying to smuggle in large amounts of Japanese beef, according to this Sankei report.
* I understand that Kobe beef is quite popular at expensive weddings and bar mitzvahs in the U.S. Which raises the question: Where do they find kosher Kobe beef? And yes, that’s where Kobe Bryant’s name comes from. Only a quirk of fate saved him from being named Fugu Bryant, or Matsutake Mushroom Bryant. Which in turn raises yet another question: Could Torii Hunter just as easily have been named Minaret Hunter?
** In fact, this is a double irony. Can you spot them both?
The five teppanyaki restaurants and two steakhouses in the new Tokyo Michelin serve as a good reminder that, for the gaijin foodie, Japan is the MBL of beef*. And it’s no different for the nouveau richein China.
Unfortunately, in one of the greatest of ironies**, Japanese beef has been banned in China since 2001, after Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy was discovered in Japan. So Chinese Customs are frequently catching smugglers posing as tourists trying to smuggle in large amounts of Japanese beef, according to this Sankei report.
* I understand that Kobe beef is quite popular at expensive weddings and bar mitzvahs in the U.S. Which raises the question: Where do they find kosher Kobe beef? And yes, that’s where Kobe Bryant’s name comes from. Only a quirk of fate saved him from being named Fugu Bryant, or Matsutake Mushroom Bryant. Which in turn raises yet another question: Could Torii Hunter just as easily have been named Minaret Hunter?
** In fact, this is a double irony. Can you spot them both?
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
How Empires Deal with History: President Sarkozy Goes to Algeria
No, this is not an apology. But I suppose that it beats passing funny laws.
Weird Poll Numbers on Refueling Bill from Asahi
On the latest Asahi “random sample” telephone poll (Dec.1-2; numbers in parenthesis from previous Nov.3-4 poll):
The online article provides the following numbers:
1. Resuming the refueling operations: necessary 44(43)%, unnecessary 44(41)%
2. Refueling resumption bill: support 36(35)%, oppose 43(43)%
3. Using the supermajority override in case the bill is voted down in the Upper House: appropriate 46%, inappropriate 37% (appears to be new question)
Hard to make sense out of the relationship between points 1 and 2. However, the battlefront appears to have moved only slightly in the face of all the stench emanating from Takemasa Moriya and defense dealer Yamada Yōkō and their environs. The article reports that 25% of those opposed to the bill found the override “appropriate”. This should give Ichiro Ozawa and his 50-strong entourage something to think about on their TGIF, weekend photo-op in Beijing (a reminder, by the way, from Chinese authorities that the Fukuda administration － the Prime Minister is due for a newly routine*, confirmative visit in January － is not the only game in town).
The headline of the article reads:
LDP, DPJ Neck-and-Neck at 32% If Lower House Proportional Seats Voting Now
Asked their preference for the go-to party for the next administration, 37% opted for the LDP while 36% chose the DPJ. But in the regular questions, support for the Fukuda administration (support 44%, not support 36%) as well as for the LDP (31%) and DPJ (23%) remained unchanged**. In any case, only 36% want an early snap election, while 55% oppose it.
The collective message from the Asahi-poll-responsive public***:
We’ve already made up our minds and we think passing the refueling bill by any means is sort of okay. In any case, it’s not that a big deal so we don’t want you guys going to the mattresses over it. (from here on, I am sort of speculating)In fact, if you have any time left after you - yes, you Mr.. Ozawa, you, Mr. Kōmura, and yes, of course you, Mr. Fukuda - pay your respects to Chinese leaders while our Diet is in session, we want you to look at more important stuff like all the time-limited tax measures that expire as of the end of this fiscal year (31 March), and for the long-term, to start talking seriously about the financial viability of the public pension and health systems and more broadly the public finances. We could go on, but you know the laundry list. A little statecraft, please; we are watching you.
* Prime Minister Abe flying to Beijing (and stopping over at Seoul) was a novelty. Prime Minister Fukuda’s trip is merely the continuation of a routine resumed, like the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. The only cloud on the horizon seems to be the disagreement over the East China Sea gas fields. I’m beginning to think that a deal can be struck, and that an agreement that keeps Chinese and Japanese nativists at bay is at least plausible. I’ll post it if I can put more focus into the particulars of a possible deal. But otherwise, don't put much meaning into the visit. Or Mr. Ozawa's.
** These numbers do support my contention that the LDP and DPJ own a third and one-fourth/fifth respectively and are fighting it out for the floater one-third.The New Kōmeitō, the Japan Communist Party and the micros account for the remainder of the committed electorate.
*** Don’t you wish that all the media polls asked the same questions so that we could compare them? That could make way for a whole slew of controlled test.
The online article provides the following numbers:
1. Resuming the refueling operations: necessary 44(43)%, unnecessary 44(41)%
2. Refueling resumption bill: support 36(35)%, oppose 43(43)%
3. Using the supermajority override in case the bill is voted down in the Upper House: appropriate 46%, inappropriate 37% (appears to be new question)
Hard to make sense out of the relationship between points 1 and 2. However, the battlefront appears to have moved only slightly in the face of all the stench emanating from Takemasa Moriya and defense dealer Yamada Yōkō and their environs. The article reports that 25% of those opposed to the bill found the override “appropriate”. This should give Ichiro Ozawa and his 50-strong entourage something to think about on their TGIF, weekend photo-op in Beijing (a reminder, by the way, from Chinese authorities that the Fukuda administration － the Prime Minister is due for a newly routine*, confirmative visit in January － is not the only game in town).
The headline of the article reads:
LDP, DPJ Neck-and-Neck at 32% If Lower House Proportional Seats Voting Now
Asked their preference for the go-to party for the next administration, 37% opted for the LDP while 36% chose the DPJ. But in the regular questions, support for the Fukuda administration (support 44%, not support 36%) as well as for the LDP (31%) and DPJ (23%) remained unchanged**. In any case, only 36% want an early snap election, while 55% oppose it.
The collective message from the Asahi-poll-responsive public***:
We’ve already made up our minds and we think passing the refueling bill by any means is sort of okay. In any case, it’s not that a big deal so we don’t want you guys going to the mattresses over it. (from here on, I am sort of speculating)In fact, if you have any time left after you - yes, you Mr.. Ozawa, you, Mr. Kōmura, and yes, of course you, Mr. Fukuda - pay your respects to Chinese leaders while our Diet is in session, we want you to look at more important stuff like all the time-limited tax measures that expire as of the end of this fiscal year (31 March), and for the long-term, to start talking seriously about the financial viability of the public pension and health systems and more broadly the public finances. We could go on, but you know the laundry list. A little statecraft, please; we are watching you.
* Prime Minister Abe flying to Beijing (and stopping over at Seoul) was a novelty. Prime Minister Fukuda’s trip is merely the continuation of a routine resumed, like the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. The only cloud on the horizon seems to be the disagreement over the East China Sea gas fields. I’m beginning to think that a deal can be struck, and that an agreement that keeps Chinese and Japanese nativists at bay is at least plausible. I’ll post it if I can put more focus into the particulars of a possible deal. But otherwise, don't put much meaning into the visit. Or Mr. Ozawa's.
** These numbers do support my contention that the LDP and DPJ own a third and one-fourth/fifth respectively and are fighting it out for the floater one-third.The New Kōmeitō, the Japan Communist Party and the micros account for the remainder of the committed electorate.
*** Don’t you wish that all the media polls asked the same questions so that we could compare them? That could make way for a whole slew of controlled test.
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