Live Blogging The Yasukuni Visit Shuffle

12:55 - If the current level of Cabinet visitation of Yasukuni holds -- with only the Terrible Trio paying their respects in person and the Prime Minister sending an envoy -- then the "Japan is turning rightward" argument really does not hold up.

By staying away from Yasukuni when he was but a few hundred meters away, Abe Shinzo has lobbed the ball into the Chinese leadership's side of the court. Plainly and without shouting, he has declared, "There, I have foregone my favorite ceremonial act and my electoral base's litmus test to reach out to you. What, if anything are you going to do for me?"


--

12:10 - The Prime Minister and the Emperor　have delivered their speeches at the official war's end ceremony at the Nihon Budokan. Neither man's speech, in a cursory listen, had anything surprising or new in it.

For the record, the PM, in addition to the official noontime ceremony, did lay a wreath at around 11:30 a.m. on the altar to the unknown war dead at Chidorigafuchi. (Link)

11:55 - Minister for Administrative Reform and a few other things Inada Tomomi has basically confirmed that she will visit Yasukuni later today. After this morning's cabinet meeting she told reporters, "I believe it is accepted that the citizens of a sovereign nation have the right to show their gratitude, respect and condolences for those who have given up their lives for country."

If Inada does go, three of the four most radical members of the Cabinet (Education Minister Shimomura Hakubun is on an official overseas trip), the three I have dubbed the Terrible Trio, will all have paid their respects on this the most sensitive day.

(Note that by saying, "those have given up their lives for their country" (jibun no kuni no tame ni inochi o sasageta katagata, she includes those who were executed or died after being imprisonned for doing what they thought was right.)

10:10 - Hagiuda Ko'ichi, member of the House of Representatives (Tokyo District #24), the Special Advisor to the Party President (a rarely filled Liberal Democratic Party advisory position) and rugby enthusiast (he is 180cm tall and weighs 93 kg) has visited Yasukuni as Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's representative. He paid for an offering (tamagushiryo) in the PM's name, supposedly with money that the PM gave him, and signed the register "Abe Shinzo, President of the LDP" on the PM's behalf. (Link - J)

10:05 - Correction, Furuya Keiji paid his respects in an official capacity, signing the register as "Minister of State, Furuya Keiji."

9:30 - Shindo Yoshitaka, minister of Internal Affairs and Communications, grandson of Kuribayashi Tadamichi, the commander of the defense of Iojima (Iwo Jima), and failed visitor to Ulleung-do (Link) has visited in a private capacity.

Furuya Keiji, Chairman of the National Public Safety Commission and the Minister of State for the Abduction Issue, and a Abe family retainer, has visited in a private capacity. Asked for comment, he replied, "I paid homage as a Japanese."

(It's not as though anyone was expecting him to pay homage as a Korean...)

(Link - J)

Any Signs Of Abenomics' Working Yet? A Rant's Worth

As a huge fan of the writings of Princeton's Paul Krugman, I have been hoping that today's GDP release today would provide some evidence of Abenomics actually changing spending habits.

Maybe there is.

If mortgage rates are going to rise dramatically, one should see desperate buying in the interest-rate sensitive sectors. Lo and behold, looking at the nominal increase figures one finds a year-on-year quarterly rise of 9.4% (correct me if I am wrong, but when annualized, this is 44%) in private residential investment. Over that same span private consumption overall rose only 1.2%, or 4.9% annualized. (Link).

Some of this rush into housing, though, must result from the prospect of a sudden jump in costs taking place at the stroke of midnight on 31 March 2013. With the new fiscal year comes the rise of the consumption tax from 5% to 8% -- a huge price increase for consumers to swallow.

Either excuse -- rising interest rates or a big, bad new tax on transactions -- would be reason enough to get cracking on buying that piece of land, home or condo.

If consumers had fear of the new tax but only a weak fear of inflation, one should see weak or negative growth in big ticket items not bought on credit, i.e. - where borrowing rates do not enter into the equation. Consumers considering these big purchases would be right to oscillate between the temptation to buy now so as to to beat out the imposition of the tax and the fear of cheating oneself by failing to enjoy the new features of the latest generation of products becoming available in the new year -- items one still can buy before the March 31 tax tax rise kicks in.

Looking at the purchases of durable goods, we do find a -5.4% drop year-on-year (-23% when annualized) in the second quarter. This continues the shrinkage that began in the fourth quarter of 2013. The rate of decline is decelerating but the year-on-year figures for durables remain in the red, unlike the numbers for semi-durable and non-durable items. (Link).

Consumers should be worried about the price rises manufacturers are going to try to impose. Nevertheless, that fear has not manifested itself. Either that or consumers are not going on to go on a buying spree until the last few weeks of this year, when distributors and retailers slash prices to clear the way for new merchandise.

So in the aggregate consumers are spending more, but none of the extra spending may have anything to do with Abenomics creating inflationary expectations or expectations of robust (kencho na - borrowing the adjectival used this morning by Minister of Economics, Trade and Industry Amari Akira - Link - J) growth.

Where Abenomics has been successful is, of course, in the dumb stuff: government spending, exports and national income.

- Increase public spending, replicating the temporary burst the Democratic Party of Japan-led government deployed to prevent the triple disaster of 3/11 from engulfing the economy -- but this time without any disaster other than the continuing catastrophe at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station to counter, and yep, you can get nominal GDP back to where it was at its post-disaster stimulus height.

-　Have the Cabinet and the Bank of Japan swear to debase the yen expand the BOJ's balance sheet indefinitely. Calculate one's export earnings and the income from overseas investments in the newly debased currency's units. Look like a sales and investment genius, despite having done diddly (exports and income from abroad are up 4.7% and 16.6%, respectively, from the second quarter 2012 - Link)

Does the dumb stuff count? Sure...but the DPJ would be doing itself a great favor if one of its officers would just stand up and declaim:

"Borrow money and spend it? We could have done that. But we had a sense of responsibility toward the future, to not further deepen Japan's debt hole at the expense of future taxpayers. Actively attack the yen's value, telling folks to better get rid of their yen because we are going to fritter away the currency's relatively worth? We could have done that. Since we care about small businesses and consumers losing their domestic purchasing power, rather than the profits of the large exporters, we didn't. We didn't because we cared ...and even if we had not cared, nobody -- the media, the opposition parties of the time, the voters -- would have allowed us to behave so irresponsibly.

But the Liberal Democratic Party, coming in, manipulating the currency, increasing the deficit, stiffing consumers and savers? That, that is OK. In fact it is not just OK, you all are cheering it on!

The DPJ is in disarray, a loser because it does not know what it stands for? Ii kagen ni seyo!"

I know such a speech is not on anyone's daily schedule. Instead, likely as not those clining to the shell of a party will just keep carping about "wasteful public works spending" as if the voters know how do differentiate what is wasteful from what is necessary in a depressed economy.

However, that something will not happen does not keep me from smiling at the thought of what the reaction would be if it did.

As for my hopes that reality-based economists like Krugmam, Joseph Stiglitz, Brad DeLong and Noah Smith are right about the effects of ferocious quantitative easing and big fiscal stimulus packages -- they remain only that, hopes.

--

For the full press release on the preliminary estimates for Q2 2013 GDP: (Link - J)

Later -Thanks to all those who responded to the request for a correction.

Zenpukuji Park on August 10, 2013

It may have been that the temperature was 37 degrees in the shade and that we are in the middle of the Obon holidays, but Zenpukuji Koen in Suginami-ku was largely deserted yesterday, a Saturday afternoon. The location of the headwaters of the Zenpukujigawa (once a river, now a rivulet running in a concrete trench until it empties into the similarly concreted and diminished Kandagawa) the park is relatively difficult to visit: far from a major train station and a terrible riverside bicycle ride from Ogikubo to the park itself.


Pond at Zenpukuji Park


Great Cormorant (Kawa'u - Phalocrocorax carbo)


Great Egret (Daisagi - Egretta alba)


Grey Egret (Aosagi - Ardea cinerea) and Little Egret (Kosagi - Egretta garzetta) in flight


Koi and water lilies



Photo courtesy: MTC

The Baddest Bad Bank Of Them All

Over at The Telegraph, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard either did not get the email, or ignored the postscript: "And for Amaterasu's sake, do not let on to what it is that we are doing!" (Link)

Once in an exchange with a noted Japan expert I described Japan Government Bonds as toxic assets. Evans-Pritchard clarifies what I mean.

What is peculiar is the mention of bond vigilantes. More curious still is the mention comes from BNP Paribas chief economist Kono Ryutaro.

What bond vigilantes? Over 90% of JGBs held by domestic investors and most of that, when not by  the Bank of Japan, is by Japan's largest financial institutions. Anyone demanding yield -- a.k.a, lower of bond prices - would open up craters in the capital bases of every major participant in the financial system. So everyone has had an incentive to play nice, especially since the financial system has continued to gorge itself on real income (thanks to deflation) producing JGBs long after the national debt-to-GDP-ratio made any sense.

Exit was kept in check by both the lack of reasonable investment alternatives (see the graphs of Japan's equities markets and real estate prices since 1989) and mutually assured financial destruction if any big player tried to opt out of the game.

So no vigilantes. Instead, a genteel Mexican standoff -- no participant having the ability to get out fast enough to make up for the losses on its hoard of JGBs.

What Bank of Japan Governor Kuroda Haruhiko is offering -- and what made the interest rate volatility in May so inexplicable -- is an orderly and gradual exit from the standoff for non-government market participants. The Bank of Japan promises to expand its balance sheet without limit, under the aegis of doing everything it can to create inflation. Japan's financial giants, not working in sync but not being disharmonious either, sell their JGBs to the BOJ, reducing the riskiness of their portfolios.

Of course, if the BOJ is successful in triggering inflation, then the pressure will be on the financial system players to get out of JGBs all the faster -- faster perhaps than the BOJ can buy the securities on offer.

At that point reported increases in government tax revenues had better be spectacular. If they are not, the JGBs in the portfolios of Japan's financial system will indeed be toxic, transformed into poison by the loss of credibility of the ultimate cover story of the Japanese government's being able to pay JGBs off.

So good luck with that asset switchover, everyone.

As for idle cash appearing on the balance sheets of Japanese megabanks and insurance giants, some of it is going to flow into the equities markets and possibly real estate, reinforcing the emerging bubbles there. However, the financial giants, which employ at least a few individuals who remember the 1980s, are going to direct a lot of the BOJ-printed money overseas. Which means global asset reflation and a tumbling yen. Higher import prices, primarily of energy and raw materials, from the lower yen, yes -- but also more competitive export prices and enormous profits for exporters, at least in their debased accounting currency. Which in turn would mean higher government tax receipts.

Where does the virtuous, BOJ-inspired cycle break down? In competing devaluations of the won and the yuan? Too stupid am I to say.

Of China’s Pizza Preparations, Chess And Miyazaki Hayao

Commenter Jeremy Whipple asked me a few weeks back for my take on Brahma Chellaney’s essay, "China's salami slice strategy," published in The Japan Times. (Link)

Basically I am on the same line, verse and page as Chellaney. To be honest, I have the greatest difficulty not falling for any essay bringing up the Aksai Chin, the only major region of Earth resistant to a one-degree of separation challenge (No matter how many persons you know, you do not know anyone who has been there).

I would differ with Chellaney in repeated use of "China" as a singular origin for Chinese actions. Chinese government ministries, state owned enterprises and People's Liberation Army commands create facts on the ground surprising not only to the targeted regions but to the top central government civilian officials in Beijing. Too often the spokespersons of the Foreign Ministry are just blinking at the camera lights, unable to even offer even standardized cover stories for events -- the anti-satellite interceptor test in 2007 being the starkest example of the FMPRC's being the last to know.

I also have problems with Chellaney's use of the word "strategy." If there is no controlling hand, or small set of hands, deploying the various capabilities of state and quasi-state actors, can one call result a strategy? If the scattered actions evolve out the intrinsic structures or ideologies of the state, is that not more an ethos than a strategy? If it is in the nature of states at China's levels of wealth and income distribution to experience disjointed security policy entrepreneurship, should we not be talking about a zeitgeist rather than a strategy?

Strategy also always implies sacrifice, which sends us back to the question of the ability to decide*. If the blur of action emanates not from a single node but disparate points on a grid, adopting an attitude of "We know what you are doing so cut it out!" is probably pointless. For the smart-aleck reply would be, "If you know what we are doing, please tell us. We are always playing catch-up with our own people."

As for what a state should do in the face of an expansionist power, controlled or uncontrolled, I find the prescriptions of Bruce Pandofini's Commandments of Chess (Link) helpful in clearing away the dross and foam. I cannot judge the merits of the application of these commandments to the chess board. However, I sense that the person reputed to be America's greatest teacher of chess has to at least have a few worthwhile insights into the fundamental principles as regards protecting a vulnerable core, deflecting threats and advancing interests, all whilst coping with severe limitations placed on mobility, time-to-react and deployable resources.

Not all the commandments of have real world applications. However, enough of them do.

In the case of what to do about a salami-slicing Chinese grid mind, commandments #6 and #7 offer a snapshot of the conundrum:

6) Answer all threats. Try to do so by improving your position and/or posing a counter-threat.

7) Play for the initiative. If you already have it, maintain it. If you don't have it, seize it.

In his now famous essay attacking constitutional reform, Miyazaki Hayao takes one look at potential outcomes arising from a binomial expression of these two principles and ends up waving the white flag. No matter how much one may try to deter aggression by following commandment #6, a Chinese application of commandment #7 means conflict. So if you cannot fend the Chinese off with talk, just let them have the islands already.

But of course, assuming that this blessed land can play but a single round against an expanding power with multiple means of challenging the status quo seems a huge gamble...with horrible odds against being able to hold the line after that one round.


Later -The East Asia Forum has just published an essay on the potential of a strategy's underlying the Sino-Indian pushing and shoving over in the Ladakh/Aksai Chin Line of Actual Control (Link). Inside the essay is a link to a wonderful Srinath Ragavan opinion article explaining the difficulty an unbiased observer would have in trying to separate legitimate actions from illegitimate ones as regards the LAC. (Link)

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

* I once read of the idiot manager who at a business meeting asked the assembled, "Why can"t we just focus our energies across-the-board?"

A Win Is A Win Is A Win Is A Win

They call it the Miracle in Miami (Maiami no kiseki).

On 21 July 1996, the under-23 teams of Japan and Brazil faced off in the first round of the Olympic soccer tournament. Brazil, which had won every major crown except an Olympic gold medal, sent to the Miami pitch what was essentially its national team. To a side that had Bebeto at forward and Rivaldo at mid-field, the Brazilian coach added the maximum three overage players, inserting Roberto Carlos, Juninho and Ronaldo.

Japan, which was not expected to advance, put its actual under-23 squad on the pitch. Japan's indeed was the only team in the Olympic tournament composed entirely of players under 23 year of age. Only two of the players on the Japan side of the pitch had played for the national squad.

It was a hopelessly unfair contest of legends against kids.

The match began, with Brazil pressing from the start. The difference in individual skill levels was clear and humiliating. The ball almost never left the Japan side of the field, the Brazil players passing it around amongst themselves. From left, right and center, the Brazilians unleashed a fusillade of shots-on-goal.

But the strangest thing happened. Despite running the Japanese ragged and firing away without restraint, the Brazilians were failing to put the ball in the goal mouth. Sometimes the shot sailed wide; sometimes it struck the post. Desperately lunging Japanese players blocked others. A multitude bounced, glided or rocketed into the gloved hands of Kawaguchi Toshikatsu, who had what the Brazilian coach later called "the match of a lifetime."

The crowd, which was composed almost entirely of Brazil supporters, began to get frustrated. A Brazilian fan ran on to the pitch, disrupting play.

Halftime came, the players switched sides. The ball still never left the Japan side; the Brazilians still could not get a goal.

Then, in the 73rd minute of play, a long clear from the sidelines sailed toward the penalty area in front of the Brazil goal. Two Brazilian defenders and two Japanese attackers rushed to meet it. In what was a scene replayed a million times afterward, Brazil national team goalie Dida abandoned his position in a flying attempt to wrest the ball away from the four. What he managed to do instead was crash into one of the two Brazil defenders, wiping out Brazil’s line of defense. The ball, with excruciating slowness, bounced toward the empty net. Midfielder Ito Teruyoshi, who is still playing professional soccer today (Lifetime J1/J2 record: 636 appearances/36 goals. International record: 27 appearances/ 0 goals), gave it a final, perverse tap.

The freak goal made the Brazilians mad. They went to a full press, no defenders back. The action on the pitch began to get ugly, with scrambles and kicking fests in front of the Japan goal familiar to anyone who has watched six year olds play.

Still the ball refused to curl Brazil's way.

After what was the longest 17 minutes in any of the Japanese players’ lives, the referee blew his whistle.

Final score: Japan 1 - Brazil 0

The Brazilians had taken 28 shots on goal. The Japanese were generously credited with 4 -- but their only real shot had been Ito's toe tap.

* * *

Why bring up what many Japanese fans consider the greatest match in Japanese soccer history -- and the most improbable victory?

Keeping in mind the result on that crazy afternoon in 1996 might help curb the tongue when the subject of conversation turns to the implications of voter turnout in the December 2012 House of Representatives election or last month's House of Councillors election. There have been a lot of well-meant analyses pointing out that the majority of folks did not vote for the Liberal Democratic Party in the last two national elections, with the implication that the Abe government's mandate to rule based on control of both House of the Diet is somehow less than legitimate.

It ain't.

As to voter turnout, if the voters do not show up to vote, and the LDP benefits, do not blame the LDP.

As to the district first-past-the-post system and a fractured opposition's meaning an awful lot of anti-LDP votes get nullified, do not blame the LDP. Be thankful for the positives: first-past-the-post gives the most popular party at least a chance at forming a stable government.

Yes the gearing of the first-past-the-post system is inequitable. So is the electoral college system for choosing U.S. presidents. Most of the time, with U.S. turnout rates the way they are, only ¼ of the U.S. electorate has voted for a U.S. president.

Do not blame the LDP also for claiming a mandate from the elections. What would you want the party to do instead? Shrug and mumble, "You know, most folks did not vote for us so we really should not presume to take any action"?

Voter turnout is the significant number in terms of making good choices as regards candidates. It should not be seen as significant as regards the right to govern...

[For the record, given

a) historical downward drift in voter turnout,
b) the reality that the outcome in the House of Councillors election was never in doubt and
3) the many horrible candidates of the opposition

voter turnout for the 21 July 2013 election was fantastic.]

The significant number for governance is Cabinet popularity. With high levels of public support, a prime minister can lead the country and his Cabinet can provide stable government.

Lose support, and the election results of a few months ago become meaningless. Just ask Hatoyama Yukio how this happens.

As long as Abe Shinzo can keep himself from creating international incidents and Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide can keep in the air all of the dozens of balls he is juggling, Japan will have the possibility of effective government. There are going to be some real crisis points -- whether to go forward with 3% rise in the consumption tax, whether or not to wave the white flag in the Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations. That the folks who won election under the banner of Abe's leadership of the LDP may not see as the party secretariat does regarding these and other issues mean huge problems.

The LDP and the New Komeito won last year and last month, ostensibly according to the rules. That the Supreme Court might decide in the autumn to toss the results of the December 2012 House of Representatives in the trash can will be a judgment on the validity of the rules, not on the victory.

To somehow imply that the LDP is on shaky ground making decisions because it does not have the support of 50% + 1 of the voters -- no.

If it is according to the rules and within regulation, a win is a win is a win is a win -- no matter how ridiculous.


Later - Thanks to reader DS for catching the error.

On Hugh White's China-American Mirages

A huge　fan am I of the East Asian Forum (Link). Dr. Peter Drysdale and associates publish pertinent articles by smart authors on a huge variety of topics. Though I wish I could be more omnivorous, I usually have to restrict myself to the contributions on Japan. While not everything that gets published is great (an occasional contribution by yours truly slips in, for example) the EAF essays in the build up and aftermath of the 21 July 2013 election were thought-provoking and enriching. Stalwarts authors like Aurelia George Mulgan and Soeya Yoshihide were their usual fascinating selves, while new talents like Ben Ascione and Toshiya Takahashi offered balanced broader pictures of the landscape of this blessed land's politics.

In its admirable open-mindedness the EAF every so often publishes a huge white whale of an essay that demands attention and, if possible, a harpooning. The Moby Dick of this weekend, which has caused me to leave the confines of my usual Japan-only reading list, comes from Dr. Hugh White of Australia National University: "Containing or counterbalancing China." (Link)

Dr. White is a prolific and much-quoted author of Big Cross-Temporal Themes And Hard-Nosed Advice pieces about foreign policy. In this essay, he tries to distill and transmit his ideas on the future of American power in the Indo-Pacific region in the face of a rising China, a theme he has explored at length elsewhere. (Link)

The essay, after a little revving up of mental engines, launches with a cascade of related questions and a brief answer.

The key questions are pretty simple: what is the aim of the current US policy towards China? What are its likely costs? Will it succeed? What if it fails? And what are the alternatives?

America's primary aim in relation to China today is to preserve its position as the primary strategic power in Asia. This aim is seldom scrutinised or even acknowledged. It is taken for granted because it assumes that primacy is the only conceivable strategic role for America in Asia, that perpetuating US primacy is thus the only alternative to strategic withdrawal, and that US primacy therefore provides the only possible basis for a stable and secure future for Asia, as it has done for so many years past. And it assumes that everyone else wants Asia to remain peaceful, and that they all agree that continued US primacy is the only way to ensure that.

Uhhhhhh…no.

And no, no, and uhhhhh...no.

While the usual pattern is to smack the first answer, then knock off each subsequent answer in turn, that is not the best way to proceed here. The last three statements can be disposed of without refutation, as they are little more self-aggrandizing positioning of the author as a seer who has thought about the implications of China's rise -- and detractors as acolytes of dead religions who have not examined their received notions.

Which leaves the first answer to the first question as worthy of contention:

"America's primary aim in relation to China today is to preserve its position as the primary strategic power in Asia."

No.

America's aim in its Asia Pacific policy is not primacy. It is presence with depth. The U.S. wants East Asia to operate in ways that further U.S. interests in the aggregate. It is agnostic on the means by which this influence is exercised or the particular hierarchy of interests it is pursuing at any one moment. What the U.S. seeks most of all, however, is to never be reliant on an ideal set of reactions by regional participants to systemic stress or a crisis.

Call it the anti-Blanche DuBois Strategy, where the ultimate goal is to never be dependent on the kindness of strangers. (Link)

Primacy in a region is only one means of realizing U.S. policy. Building up the capacities, either individually or in concert, of allies is another.

That U.S. policy is not obsessed with being the big boss but is instead careful about remaining flexible and sensitive to change in the region is why U.S. community of Japan watchers is so split over the downfall of Hatoyama Yukio. Hatoyama had faults by the bucketful (Link). He was clearly doomed by his dependence on then Secretary-General Ozawa Ichiro and Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirano (The Stupidest Person To Ever Serve in the Kantei) Hirofumi.

However, the United States government's intransigence in the face of Hatoyama's attempt to reopen the issue of the relocation of Marine Corps Airbase Futenma -- a conversation the United States had an obligation to have, as Japan had just changed governments after decades of a single party's dominance -- set the stage for Hatoyama's whirling dervish death spiral of contrite reversals.

The Obama Administration's intransigence, undermining as it did the duly elected government of an ally, leaves the Japan analysis community divided into antagonistic tribes. On the one side is the shrugging (and occasionally smirking) defenders of U.S. interference and on the other the holding-their-heads-in-their-hands-in-disbelief critics. Members of either camp can lunch together but cannot start talking about Hatoyama or the Democratic Party of Japan without the conversation degrading into testy sniping over the U.S. government's having transgressed or not transgressed a fundamental principle of U.S. policy.

Getting back to the essay, Dr. White's initial wrong assumption -- that the U.S. is wedded to primacy in the region -- cripples the rest of Dr. White's argument and his prescriptions. While well begun is half done, badly begun means even the sharpest of cooks (and Dr. White is sharp) can only pull out items seemingly half-baked.

How did Dr. White misread the fundamental nature of the goal of U.S. policy in the Indo-Pacific?

One strong candidate is the conflation of strategic and tactical mendacity. Strategic mendacity is the mask of wisdom one must adopt when one cannot, for propaganda purposes, admit the fluidity of situations and limits of human knowledge. Tactical mendacity is an intentional spewing forth of a mix of truth and falsehood under the guise of appearing to get something done.

For those with a greater interest in tactical mendacity, the philosopher John Frankfurt has written the book on it, calling it by its common name. (Link)

White has listened to purveyors of tactical mendacity on the Indo-Pacific -- members of the U.S. Congress, a lot (but not all) of the uniforms in the uniformed services, think tank enablers in Washington...and their respective correlates in the Chinese establishment. He concludes that what they have been saying is indicative of intents or plans.

However, what they are saying is complete...tactical mendacity. It is neither true nor false. Whether the adamant stomping of "America cannot accept a peer rival in the Pacific" or the sly misrepresentation of history of "China seeks a level of military power commensurate with its traditional cultural and economic role" -- the obvious impracticality of the goal should be a flashing red sign with the words "Ignore Me" on it.

Strategic mendacity -- the obvious and not-so-obvious nonsense that governments say because they have to keep up appearances -- is by contrast a worthy subject of attention and dissection. The lies governments tell because they have to can be lined up alongside truths, with the writer and the reader learning something from the differences in between the two.

As for truth, what Xi Jinping and Barack Obama can talk about in private...or what Abe Shinzo and Barack Obama can talk about in private, if and when President Obama feels confident that Prime Minister Abe understands the difference between reality and strategic mendacity -- that neither Dr. White nor I can be privy to for a very long span of decades.

Oh Really, Minister Shimomura?

It had been a conundrum.

Of the four arch-revisionist Friends of Shinzo in the Cabinet -- Inada Tomomi, Shindo Yoshitaka, Furuya Keiji and Shimomura Hakubun -- all except Shimomura had paid their respects at Yasukuni. It took Inada a little bit longer to make the trip. However, she eventually made it, turning the event into a minor plug for her minor effort at organizing young reactionaries into a movement.

Until yesterday it seemed as though Shimomura, for all the horrible, authoritarian, illiberal nonsense he has sworn to inflict upon the primary-through-high-school education system, had the strategic sense to follow a less provocatively ideological line than the Terrible Trio.

Yesterday, Minister Shimomura stopped the seeming:

Minister reveals visit to Yasukuni Shrine
Jiji Press

Education minister Hakubun Shimomura revealed Friday that he has visited war-related Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo since he took office in December.

"I've already visited there [Yasukuni Shrine]. I have also visited as a minister," Shimomura said at a press conference. He did not explain when he visited the shrine or the style of prayer he made...

(Link)

This revelation, on the heels of Aso Taro's brilliant attempt to convince an audience of revisionists to look to the undoing of the Weimar Republic, will do little to reassure folks outside of Japan that the barking mad within the Abe entourage are any less in lock-step than they were during the last Abe Cabinet.

As to the possibility of Shimomura's revelation of a clandestine visit's being a part of efforts to provide the proper atmospherics for an Abe climbdown on his vow to visit Yasukuni (Link) -- of that I would not be surprised. I would not be surprised if it turns out that Shimomura lied -- that he indeed has not paid his respects at Yasukuni since becoming a minister -- but was willing to say that he did in order to make it look as though the excursions into national pride malarkey the Abe administration can take are not as constrained by geo-politics and economics as they really are.

Later - Yes, I agree. Having the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology claiming he makes Yasukuni visits on the sly is not helpful to Tokyo's bid for the 2020 Olympics.

Then again, given some of the illiberal governments of recent winners in the Olympics beauty pageant (Beijing 2008; Sochi 2014), having a lousy international reputation does not necessarily hurt one's standing among the Olympic villagers.

High School Girls in Short Skirts, Middies and Werhmacht Jackets

What's not to like?

In line with this week's "let's think about a takeover by Nazis" theme provided to us by our unthoughtful Finance Minister -- who yesterday repudiated his discombobulated attempt to illustrate...well, no one knows what (Link) -- there is the news out Oarai Township, Ibaraki Prefecture. Oarai is home to one of Japan's, which is to say the world's, great aquariums. I visited Aqua World (Link) in March and, despite a debilitating bout of hay fever, had a wonderful time.

Unfortunately, when folks talks about tanks and Oarai nowadays, chances are they are not talking about fish tanks:

Ibaraki town's tank attracts tourists
The Yomiuri Shimbun

MITO--The town of Oarai, Ibaraki Prefecture, has adopted an unusual symbol to attract visitors: a Ground Self-Defense Force tank.

Oarai is the setting of the popular TV anime series "GIRLS und PANZER" in which high school girls learn "senshado," a fictitious popular martial art that uses tanks as its main weapon, at Oarai Joshi Gakuen girls' high school, a fictional school in the Ibaraki Prefecture town. Many tanks appear in the series, in which various facilities and streets of the town are precisely re-created.

The series is popularly called "Garupan" (a portmanteau combining "girls" and "panzer") by its fans.

During a recent seasonal beach-opening festival, the town displayed a real state-of-the-art GSDF tank with the cooperation of the GSDF.

Events were held during the three-day festival, which began on July 13, with the participation of GSDF equipment and personnel. The town's efforts to attract sightseers, whose numbers fell after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, harmonized with the GSDF’s wish to promote the significance of GSDF tanks in the nation's defense among the public.

[Snip]

The town proposed the idea of bringing a real GSDF tank to the festival.

Oarai Mayor Takaaki Kotani said, "We wanted visitors to see a real tank like those that appear in 'Garupan.'"

The GSDF willingly accepted the offer to provide the tank and even provided information about various tanks to a company that produces the anime.

The GSDF apparently was eager to cooperate because it feels its status lags behind that of the other two forces--the Air Self-Defense Force and Maritime Self-Defense Force. For instance, originally 1,200 tanks were scheduled to be deployed mainly in Hokkaido in the 1970s, but the GSDF currently deploys only 400 in Hokkaido due to such reasons as the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In contrast, the number of submarines possessed by the MSDF, which has to deal with Chinese submarines and ships in the South China Sea, has been beefed up from 16 to 22.

"We'd like to make the public aware of the necessity of tanks and other GSDF equipment through various events," a senior GSDF official said.

Hosei University Prof. Toshiyuki Masubuchi, who specializes in "content tourism," a field that actively uses movies and dramas to promote tourism, said: "'Garupan,' in which the townscape, shops and streets of Oarai are quite precisely rendered, is widely supported by the town's residents, so the current boom should last for a long time.

"There are pros and cons to using tanks to promote a town, but this can be a good chance to once again consider what peace means to Japan."

(Read the whole article, and do please read it, here)

Ummmm...where to begin...

OK, let us leave aside the issue of the charms of the short-skirt-wearing high school girls of Oarai Joshi Gakuen (a prefectural school -- come on we are not talking about one of those sleazy private institutions) lolling about atop functioning tanks (Hey, you can buy the shirt here). What some folks fantasize about is really none of my or anyone else's business.

The governance question is who in the Ministry of Defense is signing off on the release orders for the transport of top-of-the-line tanks to anime events? If one really wants to demonstrate that your tanks are of zero military value -- i.e., for display purposes only -- I cannot think of a more blatant way of doing it.

Then there is the icky business of the "und Panzer" and at least one girl's dressing up as a Werhmacht dominatrix (Elvin (sp?) is a member of the school's moody "Hippopotamus Team." The Hippos drive and maintain one of the the school's two German tanks. No, I am not making this up). Or the ersatz Iron Crosses on collars (Link) and on the sides of some of the tanks?

OK, if edgy is what one is shooting for, the use of the German language and modified Wehrmacht symbology is edgy. But do the inter-titles of the promotional videos really have to replicate the graphical elements, shakes and flickers of pre-1950s movie reels? (Check out the second video here)

Whilst we are on the subject of appropriateness, at least one blogger maintains that the Type 10 tank famously used as a campaign prop by Prime Minister Abe Shinzo was at the Nico Nico Douga event as a part of the GSDF's collaboration with the Girls und Panzer Projekt (yes, that is what it calls itself). I do not know whether this is true or not. However, Girls und Panzer certainly has increased interest -- though possibly not the kind of interest one needs when facing appropriations committees or recruitment quotas -- in battle tanks.

I encourage the readers to go back to the Yomiuri's story and reread Professor Masubuchi's end comment. Honestly, one cannot pay folks to come up with lines like it.

[For those wanting to know more about Girls und Panzer, the website is here]


Later - If you are planning a trip to Oarai this summer, you might want to put your Girls und Panzer knowledge to the test. Those scoring 80% or more on the 20 question "Japan Federation of the Way of the Tank Mock Test" (Nihon senshado renmei mogi shiken) turned in to the information counter at Oarai Station receive a special certificate from the Oarai Tourism Board. (Link)

Think of how good this certificate would look on your wall...

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.