The U.S.-Japan Alliance and
A fixture on Japan's political scene, long-time Governor of Tokyo (1999-present) Shintaro Ishihara is far and away one of Japan's leading political figures... [Link]
the Debate Over Japan's Role in Asia
The Honorable Shintaro Ishihara
Governor of Tokyo
...we can state with some degree of certainty that:
1) Ishihara Shintaro is more interested in drumming up interest for his new, "true conservative" party than running the world's richest city
2) The person keeping the lights on, the sewers flowing and the roads passable is Inose Naoki and not the Tokyo Metropolitan District's elected leader.
The latter of those two points is a damn good thing.
[Hyperbolic hyperbole alert: "...is far and away one of Japan's leading political figures"
"Far and away"?
What is wrong with "is one of Japan's leading political figures"?]
Too right. The English language sphere's obsession with making Ishihara as relevant as possible is rather unhealthy, perhaps suggesting "we" may be the ones to not have gotten over the war. I wish I could say it is the media but even in academia it is not unusual to read things along the lines of "Ishihara Shintaro, Japan's most popular politician...xyz about Japan's inferiority complex...no longer an economic superpower....bombastic...nostalgia blah blah blah"
ReplyDeleteWell. he's far and away if he'sin DC....
ReplyDeleteMany thanks! Sharp content & dry, witty style a welcome palliative after some of the latest in Japanese English-language media..
ReplyDeleteThanks for the most enlightening insight, Mike.
ReplyDeleteNext time I shall attempt to point out this fact to my Japanese mates skeptical of Ishihara that he is more irrelevant than they may think.
Odds are, that tag line was written by an intern trying to curry some favor...(I say this as a former intern at the Japan program of another think tank)
ReplyDeleteAnonymous #2 -
ReplyDeleteYou are no doubt correct.
Nevertheless, "is far and away one of" makes no sense at all.
Um, I thought Blinky was popular with the locals here.
ReplyDeleteHe did get elected mayor, multiple times...
(though not by pluralities, I'm sure)
TheStrawMan -
ReplyDeleteThat the blinking one is popular is not relevant. What is relevant, at least for those hoping to promote an understanding of what is going on in this blessed land, is that Ishihara is the chaser-after of pet projects and tough-talker. The person keeping the city running, however, is the non-elected public intellectual who earned his post simply by writing about such things as improper investment in infrastructure.