A Forbidden Phrase Resurfaces

"Hakko ichi-u" (八紘一宇) is found in the Nihon Shoki, the words of the prayer "ama no shita oite is to nasamu" (掩八紘而爲宇) the ancient era Emperor Jimmu is reported to have said at his accession.

(By the way, Foundation Day, February 11, is the day of Emperor Jimmu's accession.)

This "Hakko ichi-u", in simple terms, "Shall I not found a nation where all can live together as one family?"

The text "Building of a Nation" (建国) written in Showa 13 [1938] says:

"Hakko ichi-u" means that the whole world should be tied together as though one family. What that means is as in a single family, the strongest member does not exploit the weakest. In a family the system is that the strongest works for the weakest. Has this been the basic principle demonstrated in standard international behavior? No, standard international behavior has been "the strong devour the weak as prey." Strong countries exploit the weak. Anything is allowed, based upon strength. A strong country thrives; the weaker races are laid low. When throughout the whole world a system is put in place where the very strongest countries work for the weak nations and weak races, that is when the world will know peace. Japan has become the strongest of countries, where the hearts of all that stand in between Heaven and Earth beat as one. Is it not commanded that we work on behalf of the weaker races? (1)

It is not often that Minister of Finance Aso Taro is struck speechless. He almost never intimidated by a microphone. More often than not, Aso Taro's tongue and public manner are way too loose, resulting in outrageous, off-the-cuff bombshells that are the despair of his bureaucrat handlers.

On Monday, March 16, however, Aso Taro was struck speechless. Well, not exactly speechless, just wishing desperately, hopelessly, in sweating, head-shaking abandon that he could find a way to get away from a microphone WITHOUT SAYING ANYTHING.


Mihara Junko, House of Councillors Budget Committee Session, 16 March 2015

LDP member of the House of Councillors Mihara Junko has been turning heads since she was 13 years old. In that year she appeared in her first television drama. Her reward for her precociousness was getting herself kicked out of her elite private school, having not cleared her appearance beforehand. She finished her middle school years in a public school.

Two years later, Mihara dropped out of high school when she rocketed to fame as a cold-blooded juvenile delinquent in a television drama. Her character's explanation on how to properly abuse a victim

"Not the face. The face is bad. Do it to the body, the body."

became a catchphrase for calculated evil, famous enough for Mihara to reprise as a joke in a personal healthcare product ad years later:



At 16 she began a singing career. Her debut single "Sexy Night" (no, I am not making this up. Here is the cover)



was a surprising (?) hit. Her burst of hit singles landed her a place on NHK's end-of-the-year Kohaku Gassen program two years later.

From then until her marriage in 1999 Mihara appeared in numerous acting roles, though always seemingly typecast as either the villain or the evil accomplice. She was also a much sought after model and product spokesperson.

In 1991, she took up competitive auto racing (again, I am not making this up):



Over seven years she compiled a record of 23 finishes out of 31 starts in three different car classes, her highest finish being a 9th place in 1995 (Link). Her driving career also reportedly featured seven accidents resulting in broken bones.

In 1999, Mihara married television celebrity and talent agency manager Coala (real name: Miyatani Nobuya) and settled down to what she must have thought would obscurity with her husband as the breadwinner.

In 2007, however, her husband's talent agency went bankrupt. The couple divorced (as it turns out, it was to be her husband who was to fade into obscurity. Nikkan Gendai found him in 2014 running a production company organizing shows at shopping malls). A year later, Mihara was diagnosed with cervical cancer. She had a complete hysterectomy to save her life.

Recovery from cancer transformed Mihara. She became an activist for women's health issues, primarily the free provision of the HPV vaccine. It is in this role of health activist that she won international recognition. (Link)

The political recruiters came knocking, and soon. In addition to her fame, her inspirational story of cancer survival, her looks (she caused a stir when she had her face remade on camera, having botox, laser spot removal and minor facial surgery done live) Mihara had also revealed herself to be a rock-ribbed conservative. She said (and continues to say) all kinds of internationallly problematic things about comfort women, about the Asahi Shimbun and about Yasukuni (she pays her respects at the Spring and Autumn festivals as well as on August 15). She is against separate surnames for married couples (Link - J) -- kind of surprising, given her former profession and divorce.

On Monday, Mihara was the seventh and penultimate questioner in a session of House of Councillors Budget Committee session. Sitting in the front row of the seats reserved for Cabinet members were Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, Finance Minister Aso Taro, Economics Minister Amari Akira and Rural Revitalization Minister Ishiba Shigeru. They waited for the questions Mihara was to put to them.

They waited a long time. Mihara began with a long and pretentious speech about the social and government response to the Jogan Earthquake in 869 CE. It seemed a bit of a stretch to start out with a tale of Emperor Seiwa reducing taxes in the affected provinces of Mutsu and Dewa (the modern Tohoku) in a question time session supposedly about getting tough on corporations. However the tale of Emperor Seiwa's response to an earlier Tohoku disaster did set up Mihara's introduction of the supposed Emperor Jimmu prayer for hakko ichi-u as a model of modern international behavior.

Mihara's hobby horse, upon which she was to ride into controversy, is corporate tax avoidance. For her (and for many others, all around the world) it is wrong for "companies like Amazon to make use of Japan's infrastructure and yet pay no taxes to maintain it." It is also wrong in Mihara's view (and again, for many, many others) that corporations can claim tax exemptions through legal but clearly spurious corporate registrations in places such as the Cayman Islands and Guernsey.

It was in this context that Mihara introduced, or reintroduced, the phrase hakko ichi-u. Would it not be better, she asked Finance Minister Aso Taro, if the global standard of corporate behavior be one of hakko ichi-u, where the strongest corporations play the role of leaders and protectors and providers in their countries? She then read out the passage, paraphased in the blog post above, from Shimizu Kentaro's Kenkoku (1938).

Aso Taro is not a man necessary familiar with the thought of economic and social writers of the pre-war era. He knows when to steer clear of the land mines of public discourse, though.

The phrase hakko ichi-u is one of those landmines. While the text at the top of this post exhibits an admirable desire for a post-imperialist world of the strong defending the weak (a world which we live in now, more or less) the final two sentences of the passage foreshadow the interpretation of the phrase favored by pre-1945 Japanese leaders and intellectuals. For those running and leading in Japan in 1938, hakko ichi-u was the justification for the presence of Japanese soldiers and colonists in Korea, Manchuria, China and the South Pacific. Japan was not invading or occupying these non-Japanese territories of East Asia. It was protecting them, in the stern and possessive way a father protects members of his family, from the invading forces of the western imperialists. (Link - J)

Since 1945, the phrase hakko ichi-u has been toxic and explosive. How explosive? The U.S. Occupation directive ordering the dismantlement of State Shinto has a specific ban on the use in public documents of two phrases. One is of those phrases is Daito'a senso - "the Great East Asia War." The other is hakko ichi-u. (Link - J)

For an equivalent event, think of the response if a member of the Christian Democratic Union were to ask the Labor Minister, in a live televised Bundesrat session, about modification in Germany's apprenticeship programs, with this:

"You know, we used to have a phrase in this country 'Arbeit Macht Frei' that really expresses the liberating feeling of being involved in gainful employment. Mr. Minister, what do you think of this idea as a model for our contemporary era?"

To Mihara Junko's blithe resurrection of a forbidden and fraught phrase, the normally loquacious Aso Taro could only offer a spluttering, shuddering response:

Well, uh, there were only two of use here (gesture) born before the end of World War II. Uuhhhh. There isn't anyone else here I think. Uh, there is standing in Miyazaki Prefecture a so-called Hakko Ichi-u tower. Noone from Miyazaki Prefecture here? (gesture). There is a hakko ichi-u tower, isn't there? You don't know yes or no? Well, uh, oh, Fukushima-san [former leader of the Socialist Party Fukushima Mizuho - Ed.] you know about it? I have no connection to Miyazaki Prefecture but uh hakko ichi-u is that kind of thing, you know.

You see they brought all these stones from every prefecture of Japan, piled them all up and called it hakko ichi-u, and it is in Miyazaki Prefecture, I think...and it appears in pre-1945 songs, like in Ike, hakko to ie nashi and such...there are lots of such songs. Anyway, that there was this kind of thing where, well it was one kind of mainstream thought, I think.

As for myself, well, you know...hmm, how to say this...because this was in a world of more than 1500 years ago, where if one is going to say anything, what we call the country of Japan today, that country, when saying the same word is the same place, for any place other than Japan of these emperors of the unbroken line back to the beginning of time, it's not applicable. Other than Japan there is probably not a country that exists now that existed before the 10th century when Denmark appeared, or thereabouts... where in the 5th century the Nihon Shoki existed as a document written in a foreign language and the Kojiki existed as a document written in the Japanese language, a well established nation state...well there aren't any. That the country has continued to exist in this form, uninterrupted is perhaps what this Mr. Shimizu was trying to say in his writing.

That a person of Mihara-sensei's generation would have this is as a way of thinking, is frankly astonishing to me. (2)

Aso then strode away from the dais, quickly.

The monument to which Minister Aso referred does exist. It is, as he surmised, in Miyazaki Prefecture. It was built in 1939 for the 2,600th anniversary celebration of the accession of the Emperor Jimmu, a 1940 event remembered by few now living. A few years back Kenneth Ruoff of Arizona revisited the all-encompassing commemoration in his Imperial Japan at Its Zenith (2010).

And as you can see in the top photograph and on the website for the park, the incongruously named Heiwadai Koen ("Peace Plateau Park" - Link - J), the monument is a stunning, sinister, Brutalist Angkor Wattish stone tower, with the phrase prominently displayed on the front.

Gotta go there someday. Really.

Here, by way of reference, is the Asahi Shimbun's English language version of the story (Link). I disagree with their characterization of Aso's response. In the archived video on House of Councillors Television (Link - J), Aso looks absolutely furious about being questioned on hakko ichi-u.


Later - Many thanks to reader MK for the link to the Heiwadai Koen website.

Later still - Thanks to reader JK for pointing out that Ken Ruoff is at Portland State. (Link)


-------------------

1)「八紘一宇」というのは、『日本書紀』において、初代神武天皇が即位の折りに「掩八紘而爲宇」（あまのしたおおひていえとなさむ）とおっしゃったことに由来する言葉です。
（※2月11日の建国記念日が、神武天皇が即位したとされる日）。

この「八紘一宇」とは、簡単に言えば、「ひとつの家族のように仲良く暮らして行ける国にしていこうではないか」ということなのですが、昭和13年に書かれた「建国」という書物によりますと、

『八紘一宇とは、世界が一家族のように睦(むつ)み合うこと。一宇、即ち一家の秩序は一番強い家長が弱い家族を搾取するのではない。一番強いものが弱いもののために働いてやる制度が家である。これは国際秩序の根本原理をお示しになったものであろうか。現在までの国際秩序は弱肉強食である。強い国が弱い国を搾取する。力によって無理を通す。強い国はびこって弱い民族をしいたげている。世界中で一番強い国が、弱い国、弱い民族のために働いてやる制度が出来た時、初めて世界は平和になる。日本は一番強くなって、そして天地の万物を生じた心に合一し、弱い民族のために働いてやらねばならぬぞと仰せられたのであろう。』ということです。

Mihara Junko blog post "Hakko ichi-u to wa." Retrieved at http://ameblo.jp/juncomihara/entry-12002521691.html

2)

もうここで戦前生まれの方というのは、2人くらいですかね、あの、他におられないと思いますけど、これは、今でも宮崎県に行かれると八紘一宇の塔というのが立っております。宮崎県の人、いない？　八紘一宇の塔あるだろ？　知ってるかどうか知らないけど。ねえ、福島（みずほ）さんでも知っている。宮崎県関係ないけど、八紘一宇っていうのは、そういうものだったんですよ。

で、日本中から各県の石を集めましてね、その石を全部積み上げて八紘一宇の塔っていうのが宮崎県に立っていると思いますが、戦前の中で出た歌の中でもいろいろ「往け、八紘を宇（いえ）となし」とか、いろいろ歌がありますけれども、そういったもののなかにあってひとつのメインストリームの考え方のひとつなんだと私はそう思いますけれども。

私どもはやっぱり…なんでしょうねえ…やっぱり世界の中で1500年以上も前から、少なくとも国として今の日本という国の、同じ場所に同じ言語を喋って、万世一系天皇陛下というような国というのは他にありませんから。日本以外でこれらができているのは10世紀以降にできましたデンマークくらいがその次くらいで、5世紀から少なくとも「日本書紀」という外交文書を持ち、「古事記」という和文の文書を持ってきちんとしている国ってそうないんで。そこに綿々と流れているのはたぶんこういったような考え方であろうということで、この清水（芳太郎）さんという方が書かれたんだと思いますけれども。

こういった考え方をお持ちの方が三原先生みたいな世代におられるのに、ちょっと正直驚いたのが実感です。

Huffington Post, "'Hakko ichi-u' to wa nani ka? Mihara Junko giin ga hatsugen shita kotoba wa GHQ ga kinshi shite ita." Retrieved at http://www.huffingtonpost.jp/2015/03/17/hakko-ichiu_n_6883314.html.

Very Kind Of Them #24

On line radio program Asia Now had me on for a conversation about The Asahi Shimbun's retraction of some of its reporting on the comfort women (jugun ianfu) and role of the issue in the Japan-South Korean relationship.

http://asianewsweekly.net/2014/08/18/comfort-women/

One correction: at one point I say that Yoshida Seiji began telling his tale of rounding up women in Cheju-do in the "late 1980s." Yoshida published his memoir in 1983.


Later - If you have a comment, please submit it to the Asia Now website.

Finance Minister Aso Taro's Golden Tongue

Aso Taro's talking without thinking has gotten him into trouble again.

Japan Finance Minister's 'Weimar Constitution' Comment Draws Fire
JapanRealTime

[Snip]

During a Tokyo speech Monday, Mr. Aso — who also serves as deputy prime minister and was once prime minister — said Japan should learn how Germany’s constitution under the Weimar Republic was transformed by the Nazis before anybody realized what was happening.

"Germany's Weimar Constitution was changed before anyone noticed. It was changed before anyone was aware. Why don’t we learn from that technique," Japanese media quoted Mr. Aso as saying. The comments were confirmed by his office.

His aides said Mr. Aso was in his local district on the southern island of Kyushu on Wednesday and couldn't be reached for comment. But they said his remarks were taken out of context, and Mr. Aso didn’t say anything to praise Nazi Germany. Rather, he was trying to convey how discussions over constitutional revision should be conducted in a calm environment.

"Minister Aso referred to pre-war Germany as a negative example for Japan," said Ichiro Muramatsu, one of Mr. Aso's secretaries. "Continuing emotionally charged discussions could lead the discussions into a wrong direction. Mr. Aso didn't in any way support the Nazi constitution or the way they changed the Weimer constitution."

A report by Kyodo news agency also quoted Mr. Aso as saying how the Weimar constitution was the most "progressive" in Europe at the time, but that the Nazis emerged under it. "Even under a good constitution, things like that happen," he was quoted as saying...

(Link)

As the human charged with doing damage control for Aso Taro, Mr. Muramatsu must enjoy some of the best job security of any person on the planet.

But what of Mr. Aso? Has this latest incident of mental diarrhea marked the end of his usefulness?

Aso Taro is by his own admission a cheerful dolt. His book Totsute mo nai Nihon is a gleeful celebration of his doltishness. His outbursts, simultaneously colorful and idiotic as they are, demand explanation by bon mot. Indeed, I have prepared a trio of such, for anyone who needs one:

- "It is not correct to say that Mr. Aso is a stranger to his own mind. It is clear, though, that the two are not communicating most of the time."

- "Claiming one can understand what Aso is trying to say presumes that Aso understands what it is he is trying to say. There is nothing in his history to support this latter assumption."

- "Aso was appointed Finance Minister because of his inability to understand what he would be defending. For Abenomics to fly, it needed an advocate at Finance who not only could not understand what he was saying, but who would not even try to understand what he was saying."

Unfortunately, in this instance, Aso Taro probably knew exactly what he was saying. His extraordinary "Isn't there something we can learn from the Nazi takeover of Weimar?" flourish was made to an audience provided by the Japan Institute for National Fundamentals (Kokka kihon mondai kenkyujo - Link) -- former Prime Minister's Residence frequent visitor Sakurai Yoshiko's talk shop for purveyors of myths of former national greatness and present-day national peril all wrapped in a love of the state power that Meiji oligarchs might have found overwrought (well, aside from Yamagata Aritomo, for whom no amount of love of state power could be overwrought).

When Aso was pointing out how easy it was for the Nazis to push aside the constitution of Weimar he was obviously not telegraphing an unstated "We must therefore be vigilant in preserving Japan's liberal democratic charter" to the assembled. He was telling these True Conservatives to stay cool, keep quiet and let an indigenous form of state-centered revisionism take over by degrees.

Over the course of these first months of the second coming of Abe Shinzo MOF minister Aso has provided the domestic and international news media with a string of bizarre statements, fashion and otherwise. These deviations from message have all rolled off his and the Abe Cabinet's collective backs with such ease that many critics of Abe Shinzo and Abenomics believe the domestic news media and the Abe government are in cahoots, or at least signed a secret armistice.

Aso's latest excursion into bizarro world, however, may be his last as Finance Minister. While Abe clearly appointed Aso because there was no chance of Aso ever understanding what the Finance Ministry bureaucrats wanted him to say (a trick Abe learned from Koizumi Jun'ichiro, who neutralized the Finance Ministry by appointing Tanigaki Sadakazu to lead it) he also needed Aso close by tied to an impossible-to-shirk mountain of major responsibilities so as to keep Aso from wandering off and indulging himself in the kinds of intra-party machinations that brought the first Abe premiership to crisis and collapse. Aso's motor mouth has therefore been allowed to run rampant, despite the titters of the world community.

With this utterance, however, Aso has crossed a red line. He has revealed the carefully concealed truth that the Abe Cabinet's core illiberal supporters, rather than being supplanted by the Economy Firsters in Abe's circle of advisors, have been merely biding their time offstage, secure in the final victory of their cause. For this blunder Aso may find himself bereft of a portfolio after the next Cabinet reshuffle -- which many news organizations are projecting will take place in the first days of September.

Aso's failure to check himself should be met with gratitude, not umbrage or opprobrium. He has once again, without fully intending to do so, pulled aside the curtain of respectability hiding the dark intentions of a political movement with little, when seen under the bright light of the rising sun, to recommend it.

For as long as he is in office Aso remains, as he has been, the Cabinet's inadvertent patriot.

Excerpts From The Miyazaki Essay On Constitutional Revision - An Unofficial Translation

Animation giant Miyazaki Hayao is catching a lot of grief in the social mediasphere for an essay he wrote for the July edition of the Studio Ghibli in-house magazine Neppu (Link). Writing for Japan Focus, Professor Matthew Penney examines the essay (Link) in the context of the release of Miyazaki's latest and possibly most ambitious film, Kaze Tachinu and the greater Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli oeuvre.

This below is my personal, stuttering translation of the excerpts from the essay published on page 6 of the morning edition of the Tokyo Shimbun of 19 July 2013. One of the difficulties is trying to decide what to do with Miyazaki's loose, conversational style. In the essay he is talking through writing, bouncing around among a lot of different registers. The result sounds, in my poor translation, as though Miyazaki wrote or dictated the piece while stoned.

Miyazaki's thinking is also is non-systematic and idiosyncratic, just like some of his movies (Ponyo violates the cinematic convention of fantasy worlds having at least some recognizable physical laws, leading to extreme annoyance with the film among some segments of the fan base). There is plenty in what appears below to exasperate and tick off just about everyone.

As for changing the Constitution, it is not even a question that I am against it. If one considers the election [of December 2012], the percentage of votes won and the voter turnout were both low. It is inconceivable to profit from the confusion to go about changing the constitution on the merest whim.

To legally change the stipulations of Article 96 and then doing come-what-may based upon the changes, is fraud. It should not be done. Since [altering the Constitution] is something that will determine the future of the nation, it must reflect the opinions of the greatest number of persons possible. Even though I do not believe at all that "if there are many involved it will then be correct" -- if we are going to change it, then we must have meticulous debates.

Despite this being the case, right now if someone lets the truth slip out and a big brouhaha ensues, they seem to deceptively dance around the subject, saying stuff like, "Oh, we did not mean it like that."　When this happens, one just gets fed up with the lack of historical awareness and/or guiding principles among the top leaders of the government and the political parties. It is best that those lacking a capacity to think not be allowed to play around with things like constitutions.

[Snip]

Of course, if you line up the Self Defense Forces alongside Article 9, clearly something weird is going on. Let it be weird. There is no reason to make it into a "National Defense Military." This is because it will be incredibly idiotic to create a massive force of bureaucrats whose whose employment is military activity. Right now, watching the Self Defense Forces getting dispatched on disaster relief here and there, I feel very happy that the SDF exists.　The personnel of the SDF are doing good things and doing them properly. Even when they could not avoid being sent to Iraq, they came home having not fired a single shot, without killing a single human being. I think this admirable.

After the end of the Gulf War, the dispatch of a minesweeping flotilla could not be avoided. The tiny ships silently cleared the waters that [on the surface] seemingly had no sea mines. I am sure it was terribly difficult. Then they quietly returned to port. Though I said nothing at the time, I was deeply moved.

I am not sure, when the spark of war is in fact struck, whether in that moment the articles of the constitution will be in need of change or not. What I do know is that if we decide to only defend ourselves that will be enough.　Even though this means that our response will be delayed, we will not strike the first blow, and not have to defend overreaction. If we do not [limit ourselves to self-defense only], I tell you, we in this country, not used to international politics, will simply be led around by the nose. Even in the case of the breakout of war, [the suffering from our slower response] is still preferable to the alternative.

[Snip]

Anyway, because we have told these lies up to this point, I believe it best that we continue doing so. Those who seek consistency, they probably want to say, "Pre-war Japan was not bad." Though they say it, [pre-war Japan] was bad. If you do not recognize this, forget it. For the comfort women problem, for the humiliation of the various peoples [of Asia], we must properly apologize and must pay proper compensation. As for the territorial disputes, let us make the offer of dividing the territory in half, or make the offer of "Let's jointly administering these territories." These problems, no matter how worked up we get over them, or whether we submit them to the International Court of Justice, will not likely die down.

Certainly there are countries which are acting in an expansionist manner, just as once upon a time Japan acted in an expansionist manner. However, that does not mean we have to go to war. I honestly believe that right now, rather than [traditional security actions] we have to grapple sincerely and honestly with Japan's corporate structures. Can a country strewn with nuclear power plants like ours go to war? Absurd! That China is becoming expansionist is due to problems intrinsic to China. In addition, the internal contradictions of China are now the internal contradictions of the whole world. So it is not the case, I think, that we could settle the problems simply by increasing our stock of military materiel and changing [the name of the our forces] to a "National Defense Military."

Later - The Mainichi Shimbun English edition now has put up its account of the brewing storm (Link). Hat tip to reader JL.


Original image courtesy: The Foreign Correspondent's Club of Japan

Into The Skies

Today is the long-awaited, much publicized big day -- and I am not referring to my having completed another orbit around the sun. Today Miyazaki Hayao's magnum opus Kaze Tachinu opens nationwide.



How big the hype over Miyazaki's and Studio Ghibli's first biopic? Nippon Television has been showing most of the Ghibli canon for the past two years in preparation for this opening -- broadcast rights which likely cost the network a fortune. The marketing beat has been in a steady crescendo over this time, reminding us that a cinematic event is coming. Just type the word "wind" (kaze) into Google Search and the auto-complete suggests tachinu. If you have your computer configured like mine, the screen, without even hitting the return button, displays the poster for the film and the list of theaters and show times.

Miyazaki has pulled out all the stops. The film is of immense length: 126 minutes of hand-drawn animation. It tackles huge, challenging subjects: the 1923 Great Kanto Eartquake, the Great Depression and the march to global war. In addition to securing for the nth time a score by Hisaishi Jo, Japan's greatest living composer, Miyazaki roped in Matsutoya Yumi (a.k.a. Yuming) to provide the theme song. He coaxed his colorist of 50 years to come out of retirement for this one last film.

And the subject of the first Miyazaki film about a real person: the life of Horikoshi Jiro, the designer of the Mitsubishi A6M, the Zero fighter.

Whaaaaaaaat?

Miyazaki, who responded to the mad glee of the Iraq War with Howl's Moving Castle? Who emptied every tearduct with the traumatic Grave of the Fireflies? Who had his gallant fighter pilot condemned to living life as a pig in Porco Rosso -- is now releasing a film about a weapons platform designer?

Oh no, have the historical revisionists gotten to Miyazaki too?

Of course not. We can be sure that whatever Kaze Tachinu is, it will be damn complex and ambiguous, offering no easy answers -- to anything.

And absolutely great.

The Last Man

The Past
Was
Be Here Now

- George Harrison, "Be Here Now" (1973)

This one really is for the history books: at 2 a.m. local time, Kimura Jiroemon of Kyotango City, Kyoto Prefecture, died. (Link - J)

Kimura, born in the 30th year of the Meiji era, was 116 years, 54 days old at his death. For followers of the Gregorian calendar, Kimura was the last man alive to have been born in the 19th century.　(Link)

The Hashist In The Lion's Den

What should be the hottest ticket in the TMD, if it is not already? Osaka City mayor and Nippon Ishin no Kai co-leader Hashimoto Toru's appearance at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan on Monday. (Link)

Hashimoto intends to confront or put up a huge show of confronting foreign prejudice. He will try to deflect outward his comments earlier this month excusing the Japanese Imperial Army's sanctioned brothel system (the ianfu seido, a.k.a., the "comfort women system") and decrying the lack of U.S. military personnel patronage at Okinawa's sexual services establishments. He will try to paint everyone as black, then ask why Japanese citizens -- and by extension Hashimoto Toru -- have been singled out for criticism.

It is likely that Hashimoto will see a measure of success in his quixotic quest. He is a lawyer, which means his capacity for spewing reasonable-sounding nonsense is near infinite. He also a veteran of the pressure cooker world of "wide-show" infotainment programs, as well as of years standing before the microphones in hot pursuit of public office. He has honed a supercilious, in-your-face, bullying style that crushes most questioners, even the experienced journalists.

If I were present at Monday's session, and was given the grace of a moment at the microphone, what would I ask him?

I guess I would question the assumption that war makes men beasts in heat:

"Hashimoto-sensei, let me read to you what you said on the 13th of this month:

'Amidst a storm of flying of bullets, when you are trying arrange rest and relaxation for groups whose members are all wound up psychologically, the sanctioned brothel system is a necessity. Anyone can understand this.'

Are you not making the situation sound a lot more out-of-control and sexier than reality? Were not the patrons of comfort stations mostly assigned to boring garrison duty? Was not the 'Recreation and Amusement Association' created after Japan's surrender in order to procure women not for troops psychologically wound up by a storm of bullets but instead Occupation forces doing desk work and guard duty in a pacified and flying-bullet-free Japan? How did you come to accept occupying forces taking advantage of country's military and economic domination by using its women as sex toys to be instead a kind of sexual psychotherapy treating potential sociopaths? And what is the basis for your belief, seeing as how you have no personal experience of military life?"

Too long. Too complex. I know.

Still I would love to hear his response.

Original image courtesy: Sankei Shimbun

A More Comprehensive View

Over at The Telegraph Ambrose Evans-Pritchard presents the pros and cons of Abenomics, with a bias toward an acceptance of Abe's program as being more than just a way of buying victory in the July House of Councillor's election. (Link)

I will admit it: I am a sucker for anyone who pays proper respect to Takahashi Korekiyo. Keysnesians of all nations should lay wreaths on the pedestal of the old man's statue (it is in the park next to the Canadian Embassy -- the former site of his home, the building having been moved to the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum) on the February 26 anniversary of his assassination.

Statue of Finance Minister Takahashi Korekiyo
Minato Ward, Tokyo Metropolitan District
June 12, 2007
Image credit: MTC

Former prime ministers have returned to the government as finance ministers three times in the modern era. Takahashi was the first to do so. His record of leading Japan out of the Great Depression places him in the pantheon of the greats of not Japanese but World History.

The second was Miyazawa Kiichi, whose return to the cabinet as finance minister had a decidedly less spectacular effect on the country's economic well-being. Miyazawa will have to be remembered for having been in charge of the Economic Planning Agency during the miracle years*.

Our present finance minister, Ambassador from Mangaland, bon vivant and empathy-challenged (Link) Aso Francisco Taro is the third former PM to take the helm of the nation's financial apparatus in a time of (in this case decidedly minor) economic crisis.

What a degenerate era we live in.

--------------------
* Miyazawa, despite his huge contribution to the making of post-1945 Japan, has nearly vanished from public consciousness. The only online memorial to him seems to be a bleak page in the Hiroshima prefectural government's online Hall of Worthies. (Link - J)

Imperator

Hmmm...Tommy Lee Jones as General Douglas MacArthur...with a script seemingly by someone from the George Lucas School of Overstating the Obvious (There is a right time to set a spark to a powder keg?)

(Link - video comes on in a few seconds' time)

Strangely, I do not think that MacArthur would have had any problem in knowing what to say to a god.

As for guessing games, Nishida Toshiyuki, who has been running himself ragged crusading for his native Fukushima, plays...I'm guessing, Yoshida Shigeru?

Ibu Masato plays...the Showa Emperor?

Nakamura Masatoshi (featured in the clip) plays...an impossibly wooden and black-haired Shirasu Jiro?

The film opens in U.S. theaters on March 8. Japan release will not be until the summer. (Link - J)

Speaking of Tommy Lee Jones -- his BOSS commercials in the wake of 3/11, where Mr. Jones signs up for another stint on Earth, were uplifting at a hard time for this blessed land -- a damn difficult thing for a canned coffee commercial to be.

A Plan Only An OB Could Love And Kyodo Could Report With A Straight Face

I was intrigued, as well as a bit dismayed, with the headlines appearing starting a few hours ago.

Japan may "acknowledge" China's claim to Diaoyu Islands to calm tension: media
Xinhua

TOKYO, Oct. 10 -- Japan is considering plans to calm tensions with China by acknowledging Chinese claims to the disputed islands in the East China Sea, while maintaining its own position, Kyodo news cited sources as saying on Tuesday.

The report said that the plans would allow Japan, without changing its long-held position, to compromise a little with China, which has called on Tokyo to acknowledge the existence of a dispute over the Chinese Diaoyu Islands, referred to as Senkaku Islands in Japan...

Bummer, I thought. The Government of Japan has no reason to acknowledge Chinese claims to the islands. To do so would be reckless to the point of idiocy unless it had iron-clad promises from the PRC and ROC governments to take the dispute to the International Court of Justice -- which the PRC n-e-v-e-r does.

So I rescanned the top paragraph again to confirm the source of the report.

Oh Amaterasu, it is Kyodo News, citing unnamed sources.

Kyodo News, jointly owned by all the prefectural newspapers, answers to no one. Unsurprisingly, this makes it Trial Balloon Central.

Let us go to the original, English-language report:

Japan may "acknowledge" China's claim to island to calm tension
Kyodo

TOKYO, Oct. 10, Japan is considering plans to calm heightened tensions with China by acknowledging Chinese claims to disputed islands in the East China Sea, while maintaining its position that no official territorial dispute exists over the islet group, sources close to the matter said Tuesday.

The plans would allow Japan, without changing its long-held position, to compromise a little with China, which has called on Tokyo to acknowledge the existence of a dispute over the Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands, called Diaoyu by the Chinese.

It remains uncertain, however, whether China would be encouraged by the Japanese step to improve the soured ties, according to the sources...

(Link)

Really? The sources are not certain the Chinese would want to be played for fools, with the GOJ in superposition, simultaneously admitting and not admitting the existence of a dispute?

The sources are not sure the Chinese are not in the mood to play games with Schrödinger's Cat?

Meow!

This is the kind of logical nonsense (at the macroscopic level) that Ministry of Foreign Affairs OBs ("Old Boys" - and yes, they are all boys, in both the sexual and development meanings of the term) just love to churn out, in their certainty that the rest of residents of this blessed land and people just about everywhere else are really, really stupid. It is on par with "Yes we apologizing, no we are not -- but look, here's a nifty signed letter from prime minister what's-his name-this-year?!? Now take the money. Take it! TAKE THE DAMNED MONEY AND SHUT UP!" nonsense that has the country in such trouble with the Republic of Korea over the sexual slaves of the Japan Imperial Forces.

Unless the Government of Japan has decided to radically restructure, operating now only on the quantum level, we should expect to hear this idea, though it hardly deserves the appellation, come crashing into the ground.

From Out Of The Mailbag

"Rather than writing a hatchet job based largely on snark about grammar, why don't you spend a little more time laying out what you think is wrong with the argument? Surely that would be more illuminating?"

Thus was I challenged the other day by an anonymous commentator as regards my dismissal of Dr. Jeffrey Hornung's essay for The Diplomat, "South Korea’s Irresponsible Diplomacy With Japan."

The commenter is absolutely right. I had indulged my aggravation with the misuse of language (a sin from which Seth Garrett has pointed out, I am not immune), metronomic recitation of facts and strained metaphors. Under this veneer of faults lay a more fundamental flaw: the thesis that those in power in Japan have made brave and insufficiently appreciated efforts at reconciliation and reflection in regards to the country's expansionist imperial period. That these efforts have been insufficiently appreciated because they have been insufficiently brave does require illuminating, especially since Dr. Hornung's essay is part of what seems a concerted push by elements of CSIS and the CSIS Pacific Forum across the spectrum of online media:

"South Korea’s Irresponsible Diplomacy With Japan"
Dr. Jeffrey Hornung
Associate Professor at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu and an Adjunct Fellow with the Office of the Japan Chair at CSIS.

"War memories and territorial disputes in Northeast Asia"
Preeti Nalwa
Non-Resident Kelly Fellow at the Pacific Forum CSIS, a Japan Foundation Doctoral Fellow and PhD candidate at the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Delhi.

"Korea-Japan: enough is enough!"
Ralph Cossa
President of the Pacific Forum CSIS of Honolulu, an affiliate of CSIS in Washington.

Cossa's essay contains certain annoying items that do not exist, such as Japan's king and its National Assembly (it is Japan's Emperor and the Diet, respectively). However, I can hardly giggle and point, as in a recent post I claimed that the Heisei emperor had visited South Korea -- an assertion for which thoughtful correspondent A. R. has asked me to provide supporting evidence.

Ooops.

I was also recently chided in comments by reader Philippe for writing a puff piece on the final nail being driven in the coffin of Tanigaki Sadakazu's campaign for a second term as Liberal Democratic Party president. The post could be read as trying to beat some life into what had long been an exceedingly dead horse.

To an accusation that the post was a puff piece I plead guilty. I needed for myself, if not for the readership, to balance with the light with the dark, having written the previous day of my uncomprehending horror at the touted candidacy of Abe Shinzo for LDP president. Also, having only recently stumbled across Elvis Costello's "A Monster Went And Ate My Red 2" I was looking for an opportunity to share it.

However, on the broader issue of Tanigaki Sadakazu even thinking about running for a second term, and news media's treatment of the subject as anything more than a joke, that should be a subject of wide and deep discussion.

Tanigaki Sadakazu has been something of a guide star in my writing on the LDP and its problems. In July 2006 I went so far as to call him "the man who put the 'idiot' in idiot-savant." I have probably written more posts about him than on any other politician who was not a prime minister.

Tanigaki is the modern politician who should not have been. He has the social graces of a teenage boy, took eight years to finish his Bachelor's, failed the lawyer's exam six times before finally passing on his seventh try and has never had a real job. Nevertheless he managed to be annointed decades ago the dauphin of the Miyazawa Faction -- the faction led by the flat out smartest man in the Diet. That his rise through the ranks in the faction and the party could be explained by a compliant press -- who could not hide his cringeworthy attempts at ingratiating himself -- as being due to his being a policy wonk (seisaku tsu) should befuddle, perplex and finally anger anyone believing in the role of the Fourth Estate in a free society. Any intelligent person's review of his public statements makes plain he has not the slightest understanding of not just policy, but of common everyday occurrences (failing, for example, to understand that the intersection of the demand curve and the supply curve is the price).

That the political classes and the news media should collude in labeling Tanigaki what he clearly was not, even as they provided evidence that he was not what they were saying he was, has been a source of constant wonder to me. That he should rise to the post where he could have stepped into the role of leader of this blessed land should give everyone pause.

I felt it proper to mark the occasion when the Tanigaki farce seemed finally, irretrievably over.

Tien An Men...Or Should I Say "Ten An Mon?"

Retired officials and think tankers...they really are not just allowed to have their own opinions...but their own facts.

What Roosevelt would do in the South China Sea
The Financial Times

James Clad and Robert Manning

Planting flags on islets, declaring cities where there are too few residents to fill a restaurant, and huffing and puffing over uninhabited rocks are acts more suited to a Gilbert and Sullivan farce than to nations in the 21st century.

Absurdities aside, the tensions in the South China Sea could shape the balance of power in Asia and put at risk the $18tn east Asian economy. However, a century-old diplomatic idea used by a former US president offers a solution to the crisis.

[snip]

To find something new, we might try looking backwards - to a type of split-the-difference US diplomacy last deployed after Russia and Japan had fought a war in 1905. The next year, Theodore Roosevelt brokered a peace that lasted three decades, allowing China, Europe and the US to adjust to Japan's rise as a major power.

(Link)

Mr. Clad and Mr. Manning, please elaborate, in written form, precisely which three decades of peace, starting when and ending when, you are talking about. Please send the results to the following addresses (since these are local addresses, you will be saving on postage):

2450 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20008

and

3505 International Place NW
Washington, DC 20008

I am sure the recipients will be surprised...though I cannot guarantee it will be pleasantly so.

The Great Peace of Portsmouth: we all remember it so well.

The Longer The Explanation...

...the more strained the metaphors, the more hyperbolic the rhetoric ("This has arguably brought bilateral ties to their worst nadir..." -- oh please, consult a dictionary and find out what "nadir" means) the less likely the essay in question will make its point...or has a point to make.

"South Korea’s Irresponsible Diplomacy With Japan"

Dr. Hornung's affiliations tell you why this essay was written. A man has to do his job(s). I cannot fault him for that.

However, one has to do one's job well. If one is going to pummel President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea, do not segue into the "Japan-has-apologized-enough-and-here-let-me-run-down-the-list" routine. Is there not a better way?

The other question is, with Jason Miks no longer at the helm at The Diplomat -- Miks having moved on to CNN -- who is letting this flotsam and jetsam over the transom?