Who Is Up For A Yasukuni Visit Today?

UPDATE1: as of 09:45 JST, cabinet ministers SHINDO Yoshitaka and FURUYA Keiji have both visited Yasukuni Shrine, with Furuya declaring he signed in as "Minister of State Furuya Keiji." HAGIUDA Ko'ichi has also paid a visit, delivering Prime Minister ABE Shinzo's donation.

UPDATE 2: Minister of Japan Cool And Much Else INADA Tomomi paid her respects in the afternoon in the company of the History and Creativity Association, her small group of Diet member fellow travelers (here is their post-Yasukuni group shot from last year Link)completing the list of the Terrible Trio. Policy Research Council chief TAKAICHI Sanae, as at seemingly every major shrine event, was front and center of the Association of Diet Members For Everyone Making Visits To Yasukuni Together multi-party mass visitation. (Link - J)



Credit Abe Shinzo for having some sense. He has told the press that he will avoid making, either immediately prior to or immediately after the national ceremony commemorating the end of World War II, a visit to Yasukuni Shrine today. With his relations with the leaders of China and South Korea still in the deep freeze (Link), Putin acting like a woman scorned (Link or Link), investors showing less and less confidence in his economic reform program (Link) and world in general in turmoil, he has decided to not set the region on fire with a gratuitous end-of-The-War day visit. (Link - J video)

Instead, Abe will reprise his restraint of last year by having an aide make a a cash donation in his name instead.

So who should we be on the lookout for today at Yasukuni's gates?

Hagiuda Ko'ichi - it has been a quiet couple of months for the man who last year seemed to be speaking directly from Abe Shinzo's limbic system. If the Big Boy from Hachioji (where the Imperial tombs are located, as he will happily tell you) is once again the bag man for Abe's donation to Yasukuni, he should once again be viewed as the wide back door into Abe's chamber of secrets.

The Terrible Trio - Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Shindo Yoshitaka, State Minister for Japan Cool And A Lot Of Other Stuff Inada Tomomi and Chairman of the National Safety Commission Furuya Keiji -- the Terrible Trio -- have said nothing about going but will be going. Shindo and Furuya will probably not survive the Cabinet reshuffle on September 3 (somebody has to lose his/her job to make space for cabinet hopefuls and it is easier for Abe to dump his male Best Friends) so have an incentive to go out in a blaze of glory, signing the registers as "Member of The Abe Cabinet." Inada, who is rumored to be taking over for Taka'ichi Sanae at the Liberal Democratic Party's Policy Research Council (and one cannot think of a better way of cementing the continued irrelevance of the PARC - Link) will visit but probably either early in the morning or in the late afternoon in a private capacity. Not that she has to, mind you: Takaichi herself will be once again the smug front and center of the phalanx of Diet members paying their respects in today's heat.

Shimomura Hakubun - The arch-conservative and token poor person in Abe Shinzo inner circle has had a very quiet one and a half years, indulging in his inner revisionist only once in a florrid and ultimately pointless bid to stop the tiny Okinawan town of Taketomi from using a social studies textbook of its own choosing (Link). Oddly, he has not been mentioned among the cabinet members who are going to be retained in the reshuffle, despite his incredible patience in not carrying out the wholesale smashing of the education system long promised by Abe Shinzo loyalists and allies. If Shimomura shows up at Yasukuni today he will be signaling that he knows he will not be leading the revolution after September.

Any Other Cabinet Minister - If any other of the Cabinet's members pay their respects, it will be pretty much a declaration of his/her being in the "Shatter and splatter/Pitcher and platter/What do we care?/We won't be there!" category of September non-survivors. Since having the image of being "better than Abe at least" in terms of sensitivity to Chinese and Korean sentiments is one of the few selling points a challenger can offer, one cannot expect any of the bigwigs or factions leaders (Tanigaki, Ishihara, for example) to show up.

Ishiba Shigeru - If LDP Secretary-General Ishiba Shigeru shows up today, it means he is most definitely trolling for a "even more patriotic than Abe" reputation. Ishiba is looking to challenge Abe for the LDP presidency in September next year if the LDP's performance in local elections over the next nine months is less than stellar -- which is looking pretty likely (the  next two big tests, the Fukushima and Okinawa gubernatorial elections, look incredibly tough for the party). Ishiba has already planted his flag in more militant territory than Team Abe in the matter of a Diet examination of the recent recantations by The Asahi Shimbun of certain of their stories on the comfort women (Link). A Yasukuni visit today would indicate Ishiba is making a serious play for the affections of the radicals in the party.


Later -Yes, I too will be glad when this day is over, so I can stop talking about The War -- at least until December when Abe does make his annual pilgrimage to Yasukuni.


Image: Prime Minister Abe Shinzo laying a wreath at the atomic bombing memorial in Nagasaki on August 9, 2014.
Image courtesy: Abe Shinzo official Facebook page.

What Could Have Been - The Tokyo Governor's Election Edition

Campaign flyers for Tokyo Metropolitan District Governor's election. Left: Hosokawa Morihiro. Right: Tamogami Toshio. Click on image to open in large format.

Well let me tell you 'bout the way she looked
The way she'd act and the colour of her hair
Her voice was soft and cool
Her eyes were clear and bright
But she's not there.

- Rod Argent, "She's Not There" (1964)

This morning, election morning, the residents of the Tokyo Metropolitan District will be waking up to a city covered with a record-breaking but rapidly melting mass of snow. Fitting is it that a brief, intense and yet somehow empty gubernatorial campaign season ends with the metropole stuck beneath in a cold, damp white blanket.

Former Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare Masuzoe Yo'ichi seems guaranteed victory. He managed to campaign without controversy, on what seemed to be the unchallenging proposition, "Yes, I am good enough." And "good enough" seems indeed good enough to prevail, if enough of the electorate tramps out in the snow to the election centers.

Former Prime Minister Hosokawa Morihiro ran on the premise of "Utsunomiya Kenji, the anti-nuclear candidate, is too uninspiring to win" -- which might be true. However, Hosokawa turned out to be even less inspiring Utsunomiya or indeed any reasonably animate human being. Despite the electric jolt of having former prime minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro as buzz creator, Hosokawa's campaign was pretty much dead on arrival. As Okumura Jun pungently put it, "at least the Vasa sailed 1300 meters before it sank, much better than Hosokawa's candidacy." - Link).

Utsunomiya Kenji's candidacy needed more time. This seems weird for a candidate who did not stop running for the governorship even after losing to Inose Naoki in a landslide. In the year after finishing a distant second, Utsunomiya made 130 public appearances, as if he knew he was going to get another shot at the governorship soon. Of all the candidates, only Utsunomiya was ready from the git-go, his posters appearing in my mailbox the first day of the campaign season. As the campaign season progressed and voters could take a look at him his candidacy became more credible -- especially in contrast to Hosokawa's.

However, the presence of two strong anti-nuclear candidates, one supported by the traditional left parties, one not, divides the progressive and nuclear-phobic vote, meaning Utsunomiya seems destined to finish second again.

The candidature of former Air Self Defense Forces Chief of Staff Tamogami Toshio has been a travesty from beginning to end. The man has no business running for a local assembly seat, much less the governorship of the world's mightiest megalopolis. The news media, which should have buried him on the first day under a mountain of ugly facts about him and his followers, instead have at times seemed gleeful enablers of his candidacy. He will end up with an entirely revolting number of votes, most of which will come from voters who know next to nothing about him.

The voters of Tokyo, of course, have a right to feel robbed. In the build up to former governor Inose Naoki's resignation, the parties and the news media speculated about a whole raft of potential candidates, pretty much any of whom could have prevailed against the current core quartet. On the Liberal Democrat Party side, the potential nominees included Environment Minister Ishihara Nobuteru (whose home was literally around the corner from mine way back when in Suginami-ku), Education Minister Shimomura Hakubun (like he would ever give up that portfolio), former Finance Ministry bureaucrat/Koizumi assassin/Mr. Masuzoe and self-image train wreck Katayama Satsuki and former multiple Winter and Summer Olympian Hashimoto Seiko (I am sure Senator Hashimoto much prefers being where she has been, marching at the head of the Japan delegation at the Sochi games). On the Democratic Party of Japan side there was discussion of nominating of Nagatsuma Akira, the bureaucracy's bête noire.

Of December's would be candidates, there was one potential matchup that would have really sizzled. If only the Abe Shinzo LDP had put its reputation on the line by following up on the rumors and nominating Koike Yuriko to be its champion, with the Democrats responding in kind with Ren Ho. That would have been a battle for the ages, pitting sharp looks with sharp minds and even sharper tongues -- and one worthy of the prize that is Tokyo.

Is Nothing Sacred?

And the world and the world and the world.
The world drags me down...

- The Cult, "She Sells Sanctuary" (1985)

Here is an item for filing in the "Surprises That Come As No Surprise" file:

Japan may opt to give up 'sanctuary' on TPP items
Yomiuri Shimbun

The government and ruling parties will begin considering whether tariffs on five categories of agricultural products that have been regarded as a “sanctuary” can be removed in tariff negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) multilateral trade initiative, in which 12 countries, including Japan and the United States, are participants, according to sources.

The government and the ruling parties have treated five categories of products—rice; wheat; beef and pork; dairy products; and farm products that are used as sweeteners, such as sugar cane—as key product categories for which tariffs should be maintained.

But now that the talks are facing difficulties, the government and ruling parties have to consider whether tariffs on some products in the categories can be removed.

Koya Nishikawa, chairman of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s committee on the TPP, said Sunday he would consider removing items during his visit to Bali, Indonesia.

"We have to consider whether [some products in the five categories] can be removed [from subjects for maintaining tariffs]," Nishikawa told reporters.

Akira Amari, state minister in charge of TPP affairs, said Sunday in Bali, "It's helpful that our party will hold discussions," indicating that the government will start considering the issue in step with the LDP’s review.

In response, LDP Secretary General Shigeru Ishiba told reporters Monday morning at the LDP headquarters, "Unless we put individual items into consideration, we will not be able to lead the negotiations to our advantage..."

(Link)

Who would have ever guessed that up unto and through the July elections, where rural district votes outweigh urban and suburban ones at ratios up 5 to 1, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party would swear eternal protections for Japan's beautiful agriculture, only to turn around post-election and offer up those protections as a sacrifice in order to win a deal improving Japan's negotiating position in a trade pact Japan's large multinationals and major business lobbies see as crucial?

Who would have guessed at this treachery?

It is as if Abe Shinzo were beholden in some way to big business interests for his return to power (Link) -- and as if Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party were preparing for the possibility, however remote, that agriculture's inordinate and disproportionate influence on national affairs might be undone by a blow from on high.

An aside - while reversing course on the sanctuary status of agricultural products may hurt Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and the LDP in the long run, in the short run, the person in pain is Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Hayashi Yoshimasa. It is Hayashi's job to protect the interests of Japan's primary products producers in the Cabinet -- and he is clearly failing as champion.

That Hayashi would be hung out to dry does not come as much of surprise: he did run against Abe for the post of party president last year. Abe punished him for his temerity, giving him a portfolio destined to make him either decidedly unpopular or a laughingstock.

Hayashi's predicament is not exceptional: the other LDP presidents-in-waiting who had the misfortune of running against Abe are in similar straits. Ishiba Shigeru, who defeated Abe in the first round of voting but did not gain the majority necessary to become president, received the consolation prize of the party secretary-generalship -- only to be shackled with the chaperoning of two women (and thus undismissable) sanyaku who detest one another other. At the same time the Cabinet and the Prime Minister's Residence have been surreptitiously gobbling up powers, instigating without announcement a more Westminister-like system of policy and party management, diminishing the importance of party leadership posts.

As for Ishihara Nobuteru, Abe appointed him Minister of the Environment -- and no one has heard from or seen Ishihara since.

Later - What I have to guess is Tamzin Booth of The Economist has checked in with a fleshed out Banyan post on the Abe government's perfidity. (Link)

As for Ishihara Nobuteru, no sooner do I declare him missing-in-action but he turns up in Kyushu, at a most interesting United Nations conference. (Link)

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

Photo image of axe-wielding Hayashi Yoshimasa courtesy Yomiuri Shimbun

Bound Hand And Foot

In my most recent post on Abe Shinzo's soft and lazy tyranny, I referred to the New Komeito as a "restraint" upon Abe and the Liberal Democratic Party. Yesterday, in party leader's debate, Japan Restoration Party co-leader Ishihara Shintaro used a far more colorful term to describe the role the New Komeito will play in Abe & Company efforts to revise the Constitution:

"The New Komeito will without question become bindings on your hands and feet."

The term Ishihara used -- ashide matoi (足手まとい） -- is a pejorative, usually referring to clingy, needful persons rather than actual physical bindings.

Hecklers (The New Komeito has hecklers? Who knew?) immediately cried out, "Rude! Rude!" Ishihara, ever the self-assured provocateur, responded:

"What I am saying is the truth."

(Link - J)

So, a sign of the apocalypse: Ishihara Shintaro and MTC in agreement -- with the caveat that the Blinking One and I may not be copping the same attitude.

The great unfulfilled dream of the LDP is the revision of Article 9 of the Constitution. If the LDP joins forces with the JRA after the House of Councillors elections, the two parties could, with help from conservative independents and the DINOs inside the Democratic Party of Japan, get within striking distance of the 2/3rds majorities in both Houses of the Diet necessary for putting revisions of the Constitution to a national referendum.

One of the explanations for the pacifist New Komeito's continuing alliance with the LDP, an alliance that has persisted through thick and thin, with the New Komeito seeing its entire leadership go down to defeat in 2009, has been that the tie up keeps the LDP's commitment toward revision of Article 9 on an aspirational level.

With a seeming entente between the LDP and the JRA on lowering the 2/3rds threshold in Article 96, transforming constitutional revision into a cakewalk, New Komeito leader Yamaguchi Natsuo has issued a warning -- that no national consensus exists on a revision of Article 96. (Link - J)

The warning is something of a non sequitur. There is, as far as anyone knows, no national consensus on the LDP and the New Komeito controlling the government. However, because the two parties did well in the December 2012 elections, they do.

As for constitutional revision, the same principle should apply: if you have the votes, everything's on the table. Consensus is nice but nowhere in the rules. Only a believer in essentialist myths about a Japanese way would insist upon consensus being a prerequisite for action.

Despite Ishihara's labeling the New Komeito a shackle upon Abe Shinzo's and the LDP's ambitions, a JRA-New Komeito war is not preordained. Osaka City mayor and JRA co-leader has appealed to the Osaka New Komeito for its help in passing his municipal/prefectural reorganization plans, offering to cooperate with the New Komeito in national elections. The New Komeito also remained neutral in the gubernatorial and mayoral campaign last year, helping Hashimoto and his deputy Matsui Ichiro win both spots. (Link)

Furthermore, the JRA, which received an astonishing 12 million proportional seat votes in the December election and which is largely on course to pick up whatever seats the LDP and the New Komeito do not win in this summer's election, failed to win what should have been walkover municipal elections on April 14, revealing a precipitous deceleration in the forward momentum of the Hashimoto juggernaut. (Link - J)

We might be seeing Hashimoto paying a rare courtesy call on New Komeito members, asking them to quietly ignore the Sick Old Man and his "truths."

As for Article 9, the Cabinet has in its usual unanimous way (meaning with the New Komeito going along) just issued a Cabinet Decision approving a bill making it possible for members of the Ground Self Defense Forces to deploy for the purpose of facilitating the evacuation of Japanese citizens from foreign war zones or disaster areas. Until now, the law on Self Defense Forces overseas rescue dispatches only permitted the dispatch of Air Self Defense Forces planes and Maritime Self Defense Forces ships, with the transports and their crews confined to airport or port areas of the foreign country. (Link - J)

If the language of Article 9 can be construed as not impeding an armed and ready GSDF from driving around hither and yon in faraway conflict zones looking for folks to rescue, the imperative for revision of the article seems rather weak.

Later - For an English language report on the Cabinet Decision from Kyodo News via The Japan Times, click here.

Image courtesy: NHK

More On East Asia's Aristocracies

While political dynasties are a perverse development in democracies around the world, the case of East Asia is alarming. I have posted briefly and unremarkably here and here on the topic, which deserves far more attention. Over at the East Asian Forum, Julius Trajano and Yoes Kenawas bring me up to speed on the political dynasty situation in the Philippines, which I was aware of, and in Indonesia, which I was not (Link). Their analysis of the causes of dynasty formation and their proposed solutions indicate a parochial focus, though, rather than a broad-based comparative approach.

A big book to be written, or big conference to be organized. Problem: who will fund a deep look into such a discomforting subject?

Back in this blessed land, the members of the Cabinet revealed their assets yesterday, with caveats. As the Wall Street Journal reports, members of Abe II are by and large significantly better off than the members of the Noda Cabinet. (Link)

My morning dead-tree news delivery device devoted a full page to the members of the Cabinet and their holdings:

I had always wondered what was the juice behind Inada Tomomi, the card-carrying Friend of Shinzo and lawyer whose leaden pronouncements of doom have been a page-filler of the right wing press for the past decade. The answer seems to be her husband's diversified equity holdings and a bewildering number of small Tokyo rental properties the couple co-own.

In terms of landholdings, the very wealthy Taro Aso (whose dandyism is now a subject international commentary) and Prime Minister Abe Shinzo are the barons. In terms of number and variety of declared holdings, however, National Safety Commissioner and Abe family retainer Furuya Keiji puts all other Cabinet members to shame. He lists 62 real estate holdings, 9 of which are of less than 10 meters square. Three of his listed properties are only 1 square meter in size (total assessed value = 60,000 yen) while nine parcels of forest and field land are given an accounting value of zero (which means that the parcel is worth less than the cutoff point of 10,000 yen).

The person with the shortest report is, unsurprisingly, child of dire poverty Shimomura Hakubun. His holdings are not just small, but sadly unimaginative: his home, 200 million in bank savings accounts and 60 million in postal savings. Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide and State Minister for Declining Birthrate and Consumer Affairs Mori Masako, two of the Cabinet's coolest and most celebral members, are also asset-light.

Winners of the "we know what the rules are" awards are the earnest sons of privilege Sadagaki Tanigaki and Ishihara Nobuteru, both of whom list savings accounts with the guaranteed amount in them -- and not one yen more.

Keeping An Eye On Ishiba Shigeru

Abe Shinzo should be in the clover right now. His cabinet and the Liberal Democratic Party are basking in high and rising popularity ratings. The LDP's nominal rival, the Democratic Party of Japan is in disarray on both the policy and public relations fronts. Abe's continued striking of poses dear to the right wing, albeit not when he is on center stage, steals the thunder of Ishihara Shintaro-Hashimoto Toru's Japan Restoration Association. Unless a set of scandals emerges to debilitate Abe II the same way the Matsuoka office accounts and pension records scandals did in Abe I, the man from Minami Azabu Choshu seems set to rule this land for a long time.

However, Abe cannot sit in complete comfort...and not for the reason you are thinking.

Despite the heavy presence of Friends of Shinzo in cabinet and sub-cabinet posts* Abe has only a tenuous hold over the party membership. It is not by coincidence that where there are not Friends of Shinzo there are Faction Heads Who See Abe As A Means Of Furthering Their Own Goals.

Abe led the LDP to victory in the December election. However, it was with candidates approved by the Tanigaki Sadakazu-Ishihara Nobuteru leadership regime, which, given Tanigaki's arrested adolescence, means that the freshmen are most likely tacit Ishihara Nobuteru partisans.

In July, Abe will again be leading his party into a battle, this time for control of the House of Councillors -- a battle he is sure to win. However, the new faces and many of the old faces in the races will likly again not be beholden to Abe. Instead they will likely be quiet allies of Abe's second-in-command and rival, Secretary-General Ishiba Shigeru.

Abe beat Ishiba for the LDP presidency in a runoff election last September in a count of just the votes of the then shrunken LDP Diet membership. Ishiba had won the first round where the votes of the local party chapters were included. Appointing Ishiba the party's secretary-general was necessary from the standpoint of maintaining party unity. However, from the standpoint of controlling the levers of party power, the move made zero sense ("Appoint the guy I beat on points to run the party while I have my hands tied running the government? Great idea!").

Abe has not been negligent as to the threat Ishiba poses. He has declared, as he did in 2006, the status of the post of chairman of the Elections Strategy Committee (Senkyo taisaku iinkai) to be equal to that of the posts of secretary-general, policy research council chairman and general council chairman, turning the sanyaku into the yonyaku. He has appointed fellow Yamaguchi Prefecture member Kawamura Takeo to the newly elevated position.

Though the election measures chair may now be the nominal equal of the secretary-general, responsibility for the outcome of elections remains with the secretary-general. It is difficult to imagine that the PM or his proxy Kawamura will prevail in a contest with Ishiba over candidate selection.

Those whom Ishiba cannot choose directly he can buy -- since the position of secretary-general also gives him control of the party's purse strings.

One of the major stumbling blocks between Ishiba and greater power, however, is unity of the faction heads and former faction heads in support of Abe -- even when as individuals they have had serious policy disagreements with the current party president (yes Komura Masahiko, I am talking about you).

Which makes a pair of proposals put forth at the February 6th meeting of the LDP Political System Reform Headquarters (Seiji seido kaikaku honbu) most interesting.

The body, chaired by Aizawa Ichiro, a fellow alumnus of former Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko's in the Matsushita Institute of Management and Government's inaugural class, has proposed:

1) the move of all faction offices into the main LDP headquarters building, and

2) the banning of factional

a) searches for new candidates,

b) education of newly elected members of the Diet,

3) financial support for election losers,

4) distribution of party and government posts

(Link - J)

A list to which a faction head might respond drily, "Ummm, anything else you do not want us to do?"

Proposals to defang the factions have been tabled before, most importantly by former prime minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro, and reforms of the party structure have been undertaken that have weakened the influence of factions. Asking for the utter dismantlement of factions, the gist of the above proposals, is a serious throwing down of the gauntlet. The party is only just emerging from its longest, darkest period of relative weakness. An attack upon the party's structure coming from within after a major electoral victory is extraordinary.

While we are on the subject of Koizumi Jun'ichiro and factions, Koizumi Shinjiro (Koizumi Version 4.0), a better, if it can be believed, politician than his father (and so handsome he melts camera lenses), so controls the LDP's Youth Division (Seinen kyoku) as to be a defacto faction leader -- with a base of followers (81 Diet members are members of the Youth Division) that puts him at the front line of party powers.

A rising power that Ishiba hopes, possibly against hope, to coopt. (Link - J)

Not bad for a guy with a whopping two elections to the Diet.

------------
* For a fright, check out Asia Policy Point's translations of the prime minister's daily schedule (Link) for the amount of time the PM spends in the company of Seko Hiroshige, the "Stupidest Man To Ever Serve In The Kantei" until Hirano Hirofumi wrested the title from him in 2009.

Ishihara Shintaro Is A Waste Of My Time

Go to all the trouble of explaining the allusions and references in the name of his new party (Link) and Ishihara Shintaro goes ahead and pledges to disestablish it in order that the membership might join Hashimoto Toru's Japan Restoration Association. (Link - J)

Can we please go back to talking about the maneuvering of Ishihara the Younger, the real politician in the family, rather than the blinking dilletante?

With the absorption of the New Party Kizuna into Ozawa Ichiro's People's Life First and the disappearance of the Party of the Sun, we are down now to a mere thirteen parties vying for the attention of the voters.

It's ABErrant

How unlike was Abe Shinzo's victory in the Liberal Democrat Party election?

I) It had been 40 years since the LDP presidential election had gone to a runoff. It has been 56 years since the winner in the first round (here the former defense minister Ishiba Shigeru) lost in the second round.

A review of the totals from the two rounds of voting (Diet = Diet members)

Round 1

Abe - 141
Local 87
Diet 54

Ishiba - 199
Local 165
Diet 34

Ishihara - 96
Local 38
Diet 58

Hayashi - 27
Local 3
Diet 24

Machimura - 34
Local 7
Diet 327


Round 2

Abe - 108

Ishiba - 89


II) In a posting to the SSJ-Forum of September 4 and in private emails Professor John Campbell of The University of Michigan invited Japan specialists the world over to predict the winners of the Democratic Party of Japan leadership contest, the LDP presidential election and the next election for prime minister of Japan.

Twenty individuals responded to the challenge.

18 of the 20 picked Noda Yoshihiko as the winner of the DPJ contest.

Nobody picked Abe as the winner of the LDP contest.

It's Abe

The Liberal Democratic Party of Japan has elected former prime minister Abe Shinzo as its new leader.

This is a disaster for the party and for the country. The party of the stupid has elected a leader with history of failure in elections and a mental breakdown during his time as prime minister. He represents the most australopithecine of party's thinking. He will head out into hustings with much of the local party apparatus unenthusiastic if not openly hostile to his leadership, Ishiba Shigeru having won over half the local chapter vote in the five-way first round.

If there were any doubt that the LDP is thinking of a post-House of Representatives coalition of moderation with the Democratic Party of Japan, that scenario has just died. The LDP sees Hashimoto Toru's likely volatile Japan Restoration Party as its new partner in a ruling coalition driving Japan toward a radical dismantling of the post-1945 state.

Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko and the secretariat of the Democratic Party of Japan must be struggling to not leap out of their chairs, thinking, "This guy...this guy we can beat."

For the good of this blessed land, they had better succeed in doing just that.

Japan's Island Conflicts: What, Where, Why?

A few days ago a friend mailed me:

"Why such a crisis in between Japan and China? Where are we? Where are we heading? Is there a competition for regional leadership? Or are we fooled while something else is happening or coming?"

Sourabh Gupta believes that everything is all a show: that the foreign ministries are all aware where the limits are. So move on, make money, nothing is happening here. (Link)

Those of us watching the extraordinary images of yesterday's non-lethal reenactment of the Battle of Trafalgar (Video J - warnings on link rot apply) in the waters about the Senkakus might be less than confident about the ability of career bureaucrats of the region keeping matters within limits.

Indeed, even prior to yesterday's free-for-all in between a smattering of JCG vessels, 40 Taiwanese fishing boats and 12 Taiwan coast guard escorts, there were plenty of reasons to believe that the governments of the regions do not have matters under control.

One example is very helpfully provided by Mr. Gupta himself. He links to a translated Yomiuri Shimbun article detailing the internal deliberations of the Cabinet over how to best proceed following the government's purchase of the islands from their private Japanese owner. Plans were ranked A to H in terms of likelihood to provoke, "A" being the doing of absolutely nothing and "H" being the deployment of Self Defense Forces on the islands. Prime Minister Noda, who likely wanted to deflect domestic criticism that the government was doing nothing, favored Plan C, which was -- and I am not making this up -- replacing the incandescent bulb in the Uotsurijima's lighthouse with an LED bulb. Foreign Minister Gemba Ko'ichiro and Deputy Prime Minister Okada Katsuya talked the PM out of this plan, arguing that any physical act would be too much for the Chinese government to bear. (E)

This is the level of crazy we are at -- where the changing of a light bulb requires a Cabinet-level decision...

...and no, the foregoing the replacement of a navigational aid's current light source with a brighter, longer-lasting and more energy-efficient one in the end did not diminish one wit the extent to which the Chinese government lost its marbles over the island purchase.

Where is this headed? Ask the government of China. For all the cinematic grandeur of yesterday's maritime encounter, the government of Taiwan has yet to match its inaction with words. While President Ma Ying-jeou did praise those aboard the fishing vessels for their patriotism and those in the Taiwan coast guard for their devotion to duty (E) the government of Taiwan has so far avoided either threatening Japan or accusing the government of Japan of fomenting a state of crisis.

Not that it will not take an age, if that will be enough, to repair the damage yesterday's sea battle will have on Taiwan's previously vital relationship with Japan's right wing. The government of Taiwan will count the costs -- and find them huge.

The government of the People's Republic, however, has talked itself into a corner, ratcheting up the level of rhetoric so high that whoever is unfortunate enough to take over the reins of government from Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao will have to either have to demolish the Sino-Japanese relationship or engineer a deeply wounding climb-down.

Not a great way to start what is supposed to be a decade in power.

As for Japan's other inflamed island dispute, the South Koreans, already in the international doghouse for allowing its obsession over the Dokdo/Takeshima issue to mar the Olympics, yesterday raised their delusion level a notch, with Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan taking his turn at the podium at the United Nations to simultaneously support and denounce the use of international law for the use of solving international political disputes. (E)

The English language readout of the UN presentation is a study in self-absorption and victimhood:

3. Minister Kim emphasized that the rule of law should be based on indispensable values such as justice, morality, territorial integrity and sovereignty. He also highlighted the rule of law should not be used as an instrument of powerful nations to coerce weak nations as shown in the (sic) history; or one to advance political agendas.

4. Before Minister Kim's remark, Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba took the floor to state that "The International Court of Justice(ICJ) is an important instrument to resolve the international disputes peacefully, and I call on every member states (sic) to accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ."

※ 67 countries out of 193 UN member states in total, accepted compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ, stipulated in the second clause of Article 36.
- The US, China, France, Russia(permanent members of the UN Security Council), Brazil, South Africa, and Indonesia are among those countries which have yet to accept the ICJ's compulsory jurisdiction.

[An aside, but clearly MOFAT-ROK and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have different standards when it comes to English-language press releases. MOFA would discipline officers and their supervisors for releasing a text like the above.]

In a side bilateral meeting, the South Korean and Chinese foreign ministers had what seemed to be extremely cordial talks (E). With the South Korean Foreign Minister to come out from the bilateral meeting and to say that historical issues -- i.e., the behavior Japanese Imperial Forces and the national government of Japan during the period 1868 to 1945 -- should be brought before the UN (J), one cannot fault Japanese news media for finding a zero-sum game underway, with Sino-South Korean friendliness coming at Japan's expense.

Someone, perhaps Mr. Gupta, will have to reassure me that the South Koreans are not so stupid as to make common cause with China against Japan.

Why all are all these different island disputes coming to a head right now? A full answer to that question would fill a book....and needs to be left for another day.

Essential reading on the outlook for the immediate future is Stephanie Kleine-Ahlebrant's Foreigh Policy article "Dangerous Waters" (Link). Her pessimistic conclusion: China's recent moves in submissions to international organizations guarantee a constant Chinese presence in waters Japan considers its own. That in addition to fighting off a crowd of ships from Taiwan, the JCG had to keep an eye on 10 Chinese fisheries and maritime safety agency ships sailing in the same waters indicates that Japan is in for long, enervating and expensive confrontation with its larger, resentful and possibly ungovernable neighbor.

China's leadership, for reasons both temporary and potentially permanent, seems to have taken to abandoning Deng Xiaoping's advice to leave the issue of the sovereignty of the Senkakus to a later and wiser generation. Instead, the leadership seems to be acting on the geology lesson at the heart of the movie The Shawshank Redemption: all one needs to break through to what one's heart desires is time and pressure.

Meanwhile, the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan is in the process of selecting a new leader. Ishiba Shigeru and former prime minister Abe Shinzo, both of them the hardest of the hardliners in the five-way race, survived the first round of voting, the one that combined the votes of local chapters and members of the Diet. Ishiba ran away with the votes in the local chapters, winning over 50% of the local votes. Abe, however, squeaked into the second round with a strong second to Ishihara Nobuteru among the members of the Diet.

In the runoff between the two first round leaders, the decision is in the hands of the members of the Diet alone. Given that Abe has a history of failure and collapse, the election lights are shining on Ishiba.

LDP and DPJ Leadership Elections

Corey Wallace has written a dense and comprehensive post on the Liberal Democratic Party presidential election, handicapping the race and examining the ramifications of the elections of any of the main three candidates.

I would only have two caveats to what Mr. Wallace writes:

- I think he goes way too far in downgrading the abilities of Ishihara Nobuteru.

Ishihara has had to fight a battle with both hands tied behind his back, having to serve as the loyal lieutenant to Tanigaki Sadakazu, the least capable leader the LDP has ever had (Ed: worse than Mori Yoshiro? Wow!). So perversely attached are the members of the LDP to service to one's superior that voices in the LDP have been calling Ishihara the Akechi Mitsuhide of the Heisei Era. (Ed: Tanigaki Sadakazu is the current LDP's Oda Nobunaga? Double wow!!)

Speaking of wild tales of betrayal, not only has former prime minister Aso Taro -- the only serving LDP secretary-general to succeed a living party president since Takeshita Noboru took over in consensus-based transition in 1987 -- been the most vocal of Ishihara's attempt to make the same move, he is also campaigning on the behalf of Abe Shinzo, the man whom he drove over the edge over the course of August 2007.

Abe must really have no memory of his last weeks in office.

- There is no chance for an LDP-Democratic Party of Japan coalition for at least a calendar year after the next House of Representatives election.

The DPJ has had it with the LDP. The LDP's inability to comprehend even the most basic aspects of being the loyal opposition over the last three years has the DPJ in a "Don't call us; we won't call you" mode.

The DPJ also has the benefit of knowing what being a junior coalition partner to the LDP has meant for the party cutting the deal on forming a government. It has not been a pretty last 20 years for those who have joined hands with the LDP.

Furthermore, the DPJ has a perfectly reasonable response to LDP entreaties and Yomiuri Shimbun browbeating into joining the LDP in a coalition:

"We have had an election and the voter have delivered their verdict. They have found us wanting. We have been relegated to and deserve to be in the opposition."

Privately, DPJ members can tell their LDP counterparts, "Your automatic nay-saying to everything we did and incessant calls for an election fueled voter dissatisfaction with both our parties and energized the regional parties, particularly the Osaka Ishin no Kai. You indeed sponsored Hashimoto Toru in his run for governor of Osaka Prefecture. He is your baby -- you form your government with him."

All this, of course, will be moot if Noda Yoshihiko pulls a rabbit out of a hat over the next few months and leads the DPJ to the position #1 party in the House of Representatives following an election. Currently such an outcome seems farfetched. However, we have months ahead of us before this blessed land can hold an election that is not constitutionally suspect. That is a lot of time.

Noda will win the DPJ leadership election taking place today. He has locked down the votes of 220 of the DPJ's 336 Diet members. While this represents only 440 of the 617 points he needs to win reelection in the first round, it is an automatic win in a second round of voting, in which only the members of the Diet are voters.

The Four LDP Candidates At The FCCJ (Continued)

Of the four candidates present, Ishiba Shigeru seemed to be most confident.  At the initial four-way handclasp, his was the broadest and most assured of the smiles.  In his answers he was precise, eschewed generalities and tied current hot button issues to the underlying history of the policies involved.

A reputed wonk's wonk who actually is one, unlike the man he wants to succeed.

The only time he lost his cool was when one questioner (whom I respect immensely) asked the four candidates whether they will continue to follow the Tanigaki Line on the bond issuance bill -- i.e., the current Liberal Democratic Party strategy of refusing to approve of the issuance of new bonds to cover the costs of the budget, threatening the government with a shutdown as early as October.

One after the other, the four candidates repeated the party line that the Democratic Party of Japan-led government's budget was full of pork-barrel projects, so that the LDP was merely exercising a bit of ex post facto fiscal prudence. Furthermore, the survival of the current government was intolerable, so any act pressuring Noda into dissolving the Diet and calling elections was worth the risk.

After giving this stock response, Ishiba leaned away from the mike and grimaced.

At first I thought Ishiba was furious at the questioner. Upon reflection, he was more likely disgusted with himself. Back when his candidacy was just a notion, he was a thorn in the side of the Tanigaki-Ishihara leadership group. He would argue that the party leadership's policy of just saying "No" to everything, refusing to release the membership to vote for vital bills unless the prime minister promised to quit, was short-sighted, borderline unpatriotic and stupid.

Now that Ishiba was a candidate, however, he had had to tell a lie -- that he would continue the policy of pushing for elections, unconstitutional as he most likely knows they would be, even at the cost of the government of Japan's credibility.

Having to lie did not kill him...but it left him pretty darn ticked off.

The Four LDP Candidates At The FCCJ

Another very brief post, as I have yet another place to run to.

As regards the candidates:

As Wataru Tenga guesses in his comment to my last post, Machimura Nobutaka was not present. As the eldest of the five candidates, his succumbing to illness is not surprising -- the pace of the campaign being, as I noted in my last post, ridiculous in its intensity.

We hope for his early recovery. He is for all intents and purposes out of the race.

Really surprising was how chipper former prime minister Abe Shinzo looked. He indeed had none of the "I am about to explode" look and fist clenching under the table which have been his trademarks in this election campaign. Given six minutes for an opening statement, he spent 5 minutes and 45 seconds on Sino-Japanese relations, the deterioration of which have clearly perked him up.

Abe's sudden swerve into a comfort zone brings to mind the story of the Beirut psychiatrist who found that the sense of well-being of some of his patients improved as the country slid deeper and deeper into civil war. As everyday life unraveled, a reality of random death and ever-present fear became more consonant with the patients' own pathological views.

Ishihara Nobuteru's hair was black and styled today, rather than orangey-brown and sticking straight up as it was last week, making him look less like Beaker.

The makeover did not make Ishihara look more the winner. Of the four candidates, he was easily the most tentative, the most centrist in his thinking -- of the four candidates he was the only one to call for support for Foreign Minister Gemba Ko'ichiro during this time of crisis.

Ishihara did offer an interesting prescription for fighting deflation: putting folks to work. Drive down the unemployment rate, he suggested, and inflation will surge into positive territory.

Interesting. Just how one creates employment is the tricky bit of the equation, of course.

Hayashi Yoshimasa, while not exactly declaring himself a sideshow, did not comport himself as a serious candidate either. He indulged himself with philosophizing. When asked about his policies regarding nuclear power, he prefaced his remarks with the observation that he was of the era of both Godzilla and Astro Boy (Tetsuwan Atomu), where the Janus-face of the atom was the subject of debate in popular culture. He also did not endear himself with the other candidates when confronted with the question: "What makes you the correct person to be leader of the LDP?" After fumbling about, he blurted out that he was someone the people could trust.

Smooth move. Really smooth.

Seems he forgot he has still has several more days of standing up on top of minibuses with the other three candidates.

To be continued...

Can't Talk, Can't Say

About to head out the door to catch the Foreign Correpondents' Club appearance of the five candidates for the presidency of the Liberal Democratic Party.

I suppose I should write a post on what I see at the shindig. However, I am not sure I will see any more than what has already been on display. The fivesome has been omnipresent on broadcast media and has been on an on-again-off-again national speaking tour that would blow out the fuses of men half the candidates' ages.

The most important two developments of the last week have been the irruption of heretofore hidden animus in the local chapters against Ishihara Nobuteru and the fallout from the Sino-Japanese tensions over the Senkakus. Both of these developments have benefited the candidacy of Ishiba Shigeru, who is currently the man to beat -- despite his sounding like the python Ka in Disney's The Jungle Book.

More later, maybe. Gotta fly, as the rains will slow the trains down.

Japan's Politics Stomps On The Accelerator

In The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens entitles one of the chapters "TOO FULL OF ADVENTURE TO BE BRIEFLY DESCRIBED."*

I feel the same way about events in politics these past few days.

-- Liberal Democratic Party president Tanigaki Sadakazu faced reality yesterday, giving up on even running for reelection (E). That he waited so long, forcing his second-in-command Ishihara Nobuteru to forego advance preparation for his own bid for the presidency, either represents faith triumphing over observable fact, or payback for Ishihara's only half-hearted expressions of support for Tanigaki's running for a second term.

Though Ishihara appears to be on course for a victory in the presidential race, and, after the next House of Representatives election, the premiership, it bears noticing that historically his presidential bid is an aberration. Only two secretary-generals have taken over as president since the peaceful, negotiated transition from Nakasone Yasuhiro to Takeshita Noboru in November 1987.

The first was the closed-door, five person negotiated agreement for Secretary-General Mori Yoshiro to take over the premiership from the brain dead but still on life support Obuchi Keizo, three days after Obuchi suffered his fatal stroke.

The other instance of a secretary-general succeeding a party president was Aso Taro taking over for Fukuda Yasuo when Fukuda suddenly resigned on September 1, 2008. Aso had only been in office a month, having been named secretary-general in a leadership shakeup on August 1.

The Aso case points out the main reason why most secretary-generals cannot usually make the direct transition from the party #2 position to the presidency. Under normal circumstances, the secratary-general has been the right-hand man to the president, as much responsible for the daily decisions, right or wrong, as the man in the #1 spot. The secretary-general has also always been seen as bearing ultimate responsibility for the LDP's performance in elections. Many a leadership transition was triggered by the party having a poor showing in an election, mandating that the secretary-general resign and serve a brief stint in limbo.

However, in this instance, the abrasiveness and shallow party roots of Ishihara's main challenger, foreign and security policy specialist Ishiba Shigeru, seem to be showing a green light for Ishihara's election, possibly even in the first round vote of the LDP local chapters.

The other challengers in the LDP race -- former prime minister Abe Shinzo, Machimura Nobutaka and Hayashi Yoshimasa -- seem to be in the race for tactical or public relations reasons.

Hayashi is the Washington think tank candidate -- fluent in English and a familiar face in Washington. He is, however, a member of the House of Councillors -- whose members are seen as not having a personal investment in the party's performance in the House of Representatives.  Hayashi is seen as being only technically available to step into the position of prime minister.

Machimura is the faction head candidate, participating so that the list of candidates has at least one faction head in it. Machimura's candidacy presents another hurdle for Machimura faction member Ishihara, as he would normally count on the votes of his faction as the core of his support in the Diet members' round of voting.

Abe is entering the race for purely tactical reasons. He used to be both the ultra-conservative and Washington think tank candidate. His breakdown while in office, unsurprisingly cooled most Washington and national interest. He does remain, however, the most recognizable of the unapologetic, fantastic history-believing nationalists. He is thus probably running in order to play the part of kingmaker in between Ishiba and Ishihara, extracting a promise of accelerated militarization and anti-Chinese and anti-South Korean stances in return for the votes of his supporters.

-- The window for declaring oneself a DPJ leadership candidate closed yesterday. With Hosono Goshi having been talked out of running on Friday last, a field of four candidates-- deridable as "Noda Yoshihiko and the Three Dwarfs" -- now are set for a whirlwind campaign ending on September 21. (E)

As Okumura Jun has noted, the explosion of interest in a Hosono candidacy last week was prima facie evidence that the three remaining Noda challengers -- Haraguchi Kazuhiko, Akamatsu Hirotaka and Kano Michihiko -- do not inspire. In speeches yesterday, each of the candidates, whilst criticizing the prime minister and his policy of accommodation with the LDP-New Komeito alliance, revealed his particular weakness. Haraguchi fulminated about the public's loss of faith in the party due to the abandonment of the promises in the 2009 manifesto. Haraguchi seems unaware that 1) manifesto author Ozawa Ichiro and his most of his acolytes decamped a few months ago, leaving a very small audience, at least among Diet members, for the "we have forgotten our roots" message.

Akamatsu's and Kano's candidacies seem more tactical, given their comparatively advanced ages (Akamatsu is 63; Kano 70). Akamatsu represents the potential votes of the party's under-appreciated socialists, while Kano can offer the votes of his own group and the votes of the members with a visceral hatred/fear of a DPJ commitment to participate in the Trans Pacific Partnership. Kano already has a history of vote trading, his support having been a crucial component of Noda Yoshihiko's victory over the Ozawa-supported Kaieda Banri in the 2011 leadership election.

Both Akamatsu and Kano railed against the three-party agreement that made the passage of the social welfare and pension reform bills possible. Noda defended it, and defended the extension of the three party agreement into the fall extraordinary session. Both sides are just blowing smoke, however. The three party agreement has falls into abeyance with Tanigaki's withdrawal from the LDP presidential race and the automatic evaporation on Spetember 8 of the bond issuance bill and electoral reform bill.

-- Osaka City mayor Hashimoto Toru on Sunday hosted a symposium (E) introducing the ideas that will vault his regional movement into a national political party, the Nihon (or Nippon) Ishin no Kai (the Japan Renewal Party or Japan Restoration Party. By the way, forget about running a search on 日本維新の会 -- what you get is the Facebook page of a Haraguchi Kazuhiko study group of the same name). At the seemingly interminable meeting (five hours in real time) Hashimoto introduced the seven members of the Diet who will today (Tuesday) tender their resignations from their current parties in time for the the JRA's coming out reception on Wednesday. That three of the seven are House of Councillors proportional seat members of the Your Party indicates the prescience of Michael Penn's private circulation article, of August 27, "Yoshimi Watanabe's Your Party in Terminal Crisis."

Of the remaining four defectors, three come from the DPJ and one from the LDP. Matsunami Kenta of the LDP is a proportional seat member of the House of Representatives, and from the Kinki bloc where Osaka is located. That the majority of the JRA's Diet members are proportional seat members indicates the cautious attitude district seat holders are taking with towards to Hashimoto's leap into national politics. That the majority of the defectors are also from the House of Councillors, rather than the more volatile and politically significant House of Representatives, indicates a further lack of certainty among those dissatisfied with the status quo that Hashimoto has coattails.

Also attending and speaking at the meeting were the usual suspects of devolution of power to local governments: former comedian and Miyazaki governor Higashikokubaru Hideo and two of The Three Hiroshis: former Kanagawa Yokohama pretty boy governor mayor Nakata Hiroshi and former revisionist textbook inceptor and Suginami City mayor Yamada Hiroshi, whose Spirit of Japan Party (Nihon soshinto) went nowhere. (J)

That Hashimoto featured these pre-August 2009 election retreads at his talk fest, and indeed wants them to run as Nihon Ishin no Kai candidates, indicates that for all the media interest and public opinion poll enthusiasm for the new party, there is little meat yet on the bones.

-- The deployment of MV-22 Osprey aircraft to the Futenma Marine Corps Air Station in Okinawa received what was ostensibly a significant blow on Sunday from a mass protest (E). Organizers claimed 101,000 persons participated in the rally. Aerial images on television seemed to indicate the size of the crowd was closer to 20,000, though it is possible thousands were, like crowd at the July 16 nuclear protest, hiding under the trees from the blazing sun.

Given that signing off on Osprey operations is electoral poison, it is likely that the final OK will be given by a lame duck Cabinet after after the results of a House of Representatives elections are in. That the U.S. Marine Corps generally gets what it wants means that the effectiveness of the protest is about as doubtful as its crowd numbers.

-- The purported suicide of Financial Services and Postal Reform Minister Matsushita is still the top of the news -- as a such a rare occurrence should be.

I loathe conspiracy theories and theorists but the official narratives so far regarding this case do not hold together. We are supposed to believe that a man found toppled over had hanged himself, or strangled himself with cords of some kind. We are being asked to believe that his security detail did not have a key to his condominium, having to use Minister Matsushita's wife's key to open the condominium front door. We are being asked to believe that he left goodbye messages to his wife, Prime Minister Noda and the Cabinet. We are being asked to believe that the imminent publication of a Shukan Shincho expose of a purported mistress may have pushed Matsushita to take his own life. (J)

As to the last claim, when you are seventy-three, recovering from prostrate prostate cancer and are revealed to have engaged in extra-marital shenanigans, you are well past the "this will ruin my career" stage.

Next up should be revelations of the content of the purported three goodbye notes.

Do I expect to be seeing the actual texts, ever?

No.

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

* Demonstrating that British comic writing has been in the dead-pan, self-referential subversion of the narrative voice business for a very long time.

The Mini- And Micro-Parties Wing the DPJ And Clobber the LDP

There were a lot of long, exhausted faces at Liberal Democratic Party headquarters yesterday. A basic fact of life had sunk in: nobody loves the LDP.

Check out this [TBS video report - link already dead] NHK video report of the leaders minus Tanigaki filing into headquarters yesterday (WARNING – link will likely fail within 24 hours). Even someone knowing not a jot of Japanese can tell from LDP Secretary-General Ishihara Nobuteru’s blank stare and flat diction that his real message is: "Disregard what my lips and tongue are saying. I do not want to be here. If you do not believe what I am saying, don't worry: I don't either."

The LDP and its coalition partner the New Komeito had been hoping to have their cake and eat it too: first vote with the government on a set of reform bills including a rise in the consumption tax, then turn around and submit a motion of no confidence against the Cabinet in the House of Representatives and a motion of censure against Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko in the House of Councillors.

Coalitions of the mini- and micro-parties of the Diet blew that plan to splinters yesterday. A six-party coalition submitted their own no confidence motion to the Speaker of the House of Representatives. A seven-caucus coalition submitted a motion of censure to the president of the House of Councillors. (E)

Under the rules of order of both Houses, these submissions put all other Diet business on hold, pending the outcomes of the votes on these two bills. This includes the House of Councillors vote on the reform bills, which the LDP had seemingly forced the DPJ to move forward to today (August 8).

The only way the LDP can delay a vote on these no confidence and censure bills is to submit its own two bills, which the party has threatened to do if Prime Minister Noda does not promise today to dissolve the Diet within the next 40 days.

The LDP’s original deadline for action by the prime minister was yesterday. However, yesterday passed by without prime ministerial action. One can pretty much expect the same lack of action today.

If the LDP follows through with its threats to submit its own versions of the bills, the attempted flanking action runs up against a wall of procedure. Which versions of the no-confidence and censure motions make it to the floor is a matter of trans-party negotiations. Since the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the president of the House of Councillors are both members of the DPJ, though on hiatus from membership during their tenures in their offices, the likelihood that the LDP versions of the two bills will win out is nil.

In theory, the LDP could treat the six-party and seven-caucus submissions with contempt, absenting themselves from the votes saying:

"We are the main party of opposition. Nothing happens without us. You did this without consulting with us. We do not care what is on offer: we do not vote on motions where we have been passed over and our views not considered."

Such a strategy has an Achilles heel, however. There is a rule – but an unwritten one (kanrei) – that a House cannot consider the same bill twice in a single Diet session. The LDP’s voting down or abstaining from the vote on the six-party coalition motion or the seven-caucus motion would, under the accepted patterns parliamentary behavior, shut the door on revisiting the substance of those motions until the fall extraordinary session of the Diet.

Of course, the LDP could try to argue that the rule is an unwritten one, and submit a no-confidence motion or a motion of censure after the vote on the consumption tax bill. The news media and public's reaction to the LDP's opposing a piece of legislation only to resubmit it later would be ferocious.

Furthermore, a major party has a strong incentive to uphold the informal rules of order of the Diet, lest under its rule, the opposition, in a tit-for-tat response, flouts the rules to the point that the Diet becomes unmanageable.

A contrarian option remains open, whereby the LDP abstains or votes down the six-party coalition’s no-confidence motion and the censure motion now, freeing up the House of Councillors to vote on the reform package. The LDP then submits a motion for a vote of confidence in the Cabinet in the House of Representatives, which it then votes against.

This option is freakish (submitting a bill in order to vote against it?) and has not, to my knowledge, been discussed by major commentators. However, it does not violate the "one vote on a single bill per session" (ichiji fusaigi) principle.

As for the six-party and seven-caucus coalitions, all of their members deserve a bouquet from the DPJ. This includes, perversely, the People's Life First and Kizuna parties, which are composed of DPJ defectors. While submitting a no-confidence motion in the House of Representatives and a censure motion in the House of Councillors seems a strange way of making oneself beloved of the DPJ and the prime minister, the timing of submission has both tied the LDP up in knots and damaged the LDP's relations with its partner the New Komeito.

The mini- and micro-parties have their issues with the Democratic Party of Japan. There are many things that the mini- and micro-parties want that they are not getting. However, the leaders of the mini- and micro-parties are not nearly so stupid as to believe that they will receive the benefits they seek following a return to power by the LDP.

A pair of motions that appear to attack the DPJ but in fact box in the LDP, driving its leaders to commit absurd acts, are very much to the mini- and micro-parties’ liking. That the motions can be submitted out of what seems to be principle, opposing a raising of the consumption tax because an increased tax rate will have a depressive effect on the national economy, is icing on the cake.

The Show Must Go On

A grinning Ozawa Ichiro, leader of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan's splinter party "The People's Livelihood Must Come First" Party (a.k.a. - the "Livelihood Party") paying a courtesy call on the offices of the leading opposition Liberal Democratic Party, shaking the hand of a grinning LDP president Tanigaki Sadakazu.

O - "I am Ozawa, leader of the new Livelihood Party. Please look upon us kindly."

T - "Tanigaki of the LDP. You are the Anti-Christ."

O - "Thank you, thank you. You are the worst president the LDP has ever had."

T - "Your policy platform is pure pandering, without a hope of ever being implemented."

O - "Your party has no policies at all. You are mere hand puppets of the bureaucracy."

T - "When the election comes, your party will be annihilated."

O - "When the election comes, your party will be superseded by whatever that pipsqueak Hashimoto Toru cooks up."

T - "You call Hashimoto a pipsqueak now, but I know that once this meeting is over you will be on the phone, begging him to repudiate his praise of Prime Minister Noda."

O - "I am actually not here to see you. I came here to shake hands with Nobuteru and Tadamori, whom I know have an actual future in your party's leadership."

T - "I see you brought your nodding dashboard ornament Shozo with you. If he is such a committed policy wonk, where does he find the time to work on his suntan?"

O - "Don't diss him. He's got 5 elections to the Diet."

T - "I know. Second in your party to you in terms of Diet experience. Pathetic. You really have no friends, do you?"

O - "Permit me to shake hands with your colleagues."

T - "Be my guest, panda-hugger."

O- "Not the best of times to be using that epithet (E). Anyway, you're the one who refers to his own collected thoughts as "The Analects" (J) and whose grandfather was reassigned from his command in China because he was being too nice to the Chinese (J)."

T - "I look forward to our working together."

O - "Me too."


Ooooh, aaaahhhh...

Photo courtesy: The Yomiuri Online

Ishihara Nobuteru's Interesting Gambits

Ishihara Shintaro, the elected, if not actual, governor of the Tokyo Metropolitan District, sure has made himself scarce since the death of the Ueno Zoo's panda cub yesterday morning.

It was Ishihara who hilariously, in his own mind, at least, suggested that the new cub be named Sen-sen, with a later sibling to be called Kaku-kaku, in order to form the duo Sen-kaku, to needle, oh so very cleverly, the owners of the pandas the TMD, the proprietor of Ueno Zoo, is paying somewhere aroung 1 million USD a year to display, and highlighting Ishihara's suddenly favorite uninhabited islets -- the TMD seemingly not having enough far-flung uninhabited islands to keep him occupied. (J)

I cannot decide whether it is Ishihara's unwisecrack or the significance of panda exchanges to Sino-Japanese relations that had Google News Japan listing the death of the cub among the "Politics" stories all morning long.

Ishishara's attempted purchase of the Senkakus pushed the central government to muscle in on the sale this week, spoiling Foreign Minister Gemba Ko'ichiro's meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in Phnom Penh (E). The announcement of the government's plan to pip Ishihara and the TMD no doubt led to yesterday's riposte of Chinese fishery agency ships entering the 12 nautical mile exclusion zone about the Senkakus.(E)

While Ishihara Senior has been creating headaches for the Noda Cabinet, #1 son Ishihara Nobuteru, the Secretary-General of the Liberal Democratic Party, has been a positive boon for Noda Yoshihiko and his Democratic Party of Japan.

Yesterday, it was Nobuteru who delivered the most devastating of the many put-downs of Ozawa Ichiro's new Putting the People's Livelihood First Party:

"Cannot raise the consumption tax; eliminate the nuclear power plants... Can you protect the people's livelihood this way? Waving the Manifesto the DPJ could not carry out, will they not just go on down the same road the DPJ has come down?"

(Link - J)

Politician that he is (and long has he enjoyed my appreciation of his dedication to his craft), Ishihara did not rule out working with the Livelihood Party on a no-confidence motion against the Noda government.  However, he did say he would do so only following "an exhaustive examination of the situation."

On the same day, Ishihara hosted a coming out press conference for former Olympic speed skater Horii Manabu. Horii, a bronze medal winner at the Lillehammer Olympics, has been assigned the role of "assassin" (shikaku) of former prime minister Hatoyama Yukio, challenging him for the Hokkaido #9 seat in the House of Representatives. With Hatoyama the biggest, most pustulent boil on the face of the DPJ, the LDP's selection of a strong candidate to unseat him is like a Christmas gift in July to the prime minister and his party.

On paper, upending Hatoyama is a daunting task. He humiliated his 2009 LDP opponent, a former toy company employee (the beauty of the politics of this blessed land...I never have to make anything up), winning 66% of the vote to the LDP candidate's 26%.

However, Hatoyama was carried upon the wings of the public's rage against the LDP and Hatoyama's presumptive election as prime minister should the DPJ win and win big.

Since August 2009, Hatoyama has only stumbled, embarrassing his constituents. The manner by which he was forced to relinquish his premiership was epic in its combination of hubris, mendacity and blind stupidity. On one visit to his home prefecture, he mused about retiring from politics to take up farming, only to rescind that plan a week later.

Hatoyama's constituents would also not be out of place asking the Tokyo transplant: "Excuse us, but what have you done for us lately?" In Horii, the voters would have a chance to vote for someone who actually achieved something in his life, without his wealthy mother having bankrolled it.

The helpful Ishihara has also recently positioned himself as the next likely leader of the LDP. He did so by, paradoxically, declaring on July 6 that if current LDP President Tanigaki Sadakazu presented himself as a candidate for the party presidency in September, he, Ishihara, would support him. In the deliciously contrarian world of LDP internal politics, this was a knife in Tanigaki's back.

The primary qualifications of a candidate for the LDP presidency are loyalty and a studied disinterest in becoming president. By expressing his desire to be loyal to Tanigaki, Ishihara has put pressure on Tanigaki to reciprocate by not seeking reelection. Ishihara punctuated his camouflaged request with a whomping non-sequitur:

"If there is no dissolution of the Diet, there will be all kinds of folks coming out as candidates. I too may have to think about it."

(Link - J)

Try thinking that statement through. Think of the counterfactual: the Diet is dissolved, and an election is held. Tanigaki, as the president of the party, leads his forces into electoral battle. If the LDP triumphs, Tanigaki, as the president of the LDP, becomes the presumptive prime minister while Ishihara is rewarded with a reappointment to the position to the post of secretary-general. If the LDP fails to make significant gains, or is indeed wiped out, Tanigaki, if he still has a seat in the Diet, immediately resigns, setting up a leadership election. Ishihara, as the point man on elections, at least according to LDP tradition, follows Tanigaki into disgrace and becomes ineligible for the presidency.

So while sounding as though it says something, the statement actually says nothing -- except, of course, silently, "Tanigaki-san, if you cannot push the Noda Cabinet to the wall before the end of the Diet session on September 8, you had better get the heck out of my way."

Wonderful, wonderful stuff...

What Knowledgeable Friends Are For

It seems I have won my bet with Okumura Jun on the size of the July 6 protest in front of the Prime Minister's Residence. According to Tokyo Metropolitan Police estimates 17,000 demonstrators showed up on June 29, the day after the restart of the #3 reactor of the Oi nuclear power plant. According to the same source, 21,000 demonstrators showed up on Friday night (Protest organizers have of course said that far more protesters showed up on both nights than the police claim. Given the incentives, I am sure the correct number is somewhere in between).

Now Okumura-san can claim that the 24% increase in estimated crowd size, rather than the greater than 25% decrease he predicted, was due to the free-for-all that happened at the Foreign Correspondent's Club earlier in the day, when the non-Japanese press bludgeoned Kurokawa Kiyoshi, chairman of the National Diet of Japan Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Commission for the discrepancies between the English language précis and the Japanese text, including the foul attribution of the failure to "Japanese culture" found only in the English version ((F and E). Perhaps it was the obvious the desire of the folks on Friday to be out protesting in the rain, rather than under clear skies as was the case the week before.

Whatever.

All joking aside, what was stunning and important was that the mainstream news media on Friday stopped pretending the protests were not happening. TV news broadcasts had helicopters circling the Prime Minister's Residence (try that one in Washington DC, Beijing or Moscow) broadcasting live images of the crowd. The newspapers stepped up their coverage, including even the Yomiuri Shimbun, which refused to report on the June 29 protest. (J)

So over lunch at Aux Bacchanales (Okumura-san spent part of his formative years in a majority French-speaking city and I went to a bilingual school where one of the languages was French -- so our having lunch in a Tokyo bistro appropriate, thank you very much), I will have the chance to discuss why he and I have such different views of the timing of the next House of Representatives election.

As far as I can see, there is only one human being of consequence who wants a snap election after the passage of the consumption tax bill through the House of Councillors: Liberal Democratic Party President Tanigaki Sadakazu. Tanigaki knows that if the Diet is not dissolved before the end of its session on September 8, he will have to face an LDP presidential election. Due to his lackluster performance as LDP leader -- the party failing under his leadership to capitalize on numerous bumbles and fumbles of the Democratic Party of Japan -- he will go down as only the second LDP president, after Kono Yohei, to never become prime minister.

Sadly, and all too typically, Tanigaki is alone in believing that the stage is set for elections. The news media complex, after reporting at length in February that the current electoral map is unconstitutional, then repeating the process in May following the Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko's on-air admission that the districts are unconstitutional, are humming that elections will be held in the next two months -- proving once again that for the domestic media, facts will never be allowed to get in the way of a good story*.

For his party and party-to-be, Ozawa Ichiro has been declaiming that elections are imminent (J - check out the invaluable pyramid of the number of elections of the House of Representatives members of Ozawa's proto-party). However, Ozawa is merely using the threat of elections in order to 1) keep his fellow rebels close to him, 2) encourage to other members of the DPJ to defect (this in order that they might avoid going into elections tarred with the brush of raising taxes) and 3) perpetuate the illusion that he knows more than he actually knows**.

As for Tanigaki's fellow LDP's members, they are worried that entering a campaign with Tanigaki at the head of the party will lead to disaster. Better to wait until September, replace Tanigaki with someone more dynamic like Ishiba Shigeru, Ishihara Nobuteru or Hayashi Yoshimasa***, then push the Noda government to the wall in the fall extraordinary Diet session.

As always, there is the unresolved matter of rendering the holding of elections constitutional. The current situation would make a great trivia game "gotcha" question: "Name the countries in Northeast Asia where the holding of national elections is illegal." In a recent GlobalTalk 21 post, Okumura-san argues that a snap election is possible, either via the legislative fiddle devised by the LDP -- eliminate the five smallest electoral districts and their 5 seats in the Diet, lowering the discrepancy between the smallest remaining district and the largest to 1.78, well below the Supreme Court's threshold of 1.99 -- or simply bullrush the Emperor and the Supreme Court, in succession, over the unconstitutionality of the districts.

As for the latter solution, forget it. There is no way under the sun (intentional allusion) that Prime Minister Noda will convince the present emperor to send this blessed land spinning into an extra-constitutional void. He is a people's emperor, willing to junk tradition when tradition is contrary to fact or contemporary practice. Moreover, he is the son of Hirohito: he will never, ever, ever allow an extra-constitutional assertion of power by any branch of the government.

As for the first solution, not even the LDP, which dreamed it up, believes the DPJ will ever accept it. Redistricting is the key to the kingdom of heaven: he or she who holds in his or her hand determines who shall rule this nation for the next decade. It is the prize that the DPJ fought for -- to reward the DPJ's core urban/suburban constituencies with the representation they had so long been denied under LDP rule...and lest it be forgotten, the sad-sack district, the one whose voters are the least represented in the House of Representatives, whose votes are worth only 40% of the votes in the least populous Kochi #3 district -- that is Chiba District #4 -- Prime Minister Noda's district.

As if the DPJ needed any more reason to delay the next election, the popularity numbers for Hashimoto Toru's Ishin no kai have not yet plateaued. Until such time as it is clear just how far Hashimoto's political movement can roll, the incentive is to sit tight.

So a snap election? In the evening newspapers' dreams perhaps.

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* The "Ozawa Ichiro is corrupt" presumption is another example.

** This is a classic smart prophet's double game. If the prophesied comes about, then the prophet was right. If the prophesied does not come about, the prophet claims it was precisely because of his/her prophecy that those in control altered conditions so as to render the prophesied impossible.

*** Hayashi has already founded his own study group, a precursor to a major candidate's run for the office of the presidency. He is the default Washington candidate (E). He is, however, a member of the House of Councillors, a huge demerit in LDP internal politics. Party members want to a leader from the House of Representatives, where he/she will share in the fates of those thrown into an election by a Diet dissolution.

Catching Up On The News - Unconstitutional Elections

Something huge happened yesterday.

In a footnote to my post of yesterday, I noted that NHK announcer Okoshi Kensuke last Thursday confronted Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko with the bald fact that the current map of the House of Representatives districts is unconstitutional, rendering an election impossible on technical grounds. While the Prime Minister had no alternative but to concede that the current map is unconstitutional, he dodged the thrust of Okoshi's question, saying that the Diet had too many important and difficult issues before it for anyone to be discussing a dissolution and an election at this time.

Noda had been, until the live NHK interview, careful to not get cornered on the question of the constitutionality of holding an election. He had left it up to Koshi'ishi Azuma, the Democratic Party of Japan's secretary-general, to tell the seemingly bone-headed members of the political press over and over again that since the issue of the disproportionality of a single vote (ippyo no kakusa) had not been resolved in accordance with the standards set down by the Supreme Court judgment of March 2011, no House of Representatives elections could take place.

While any position aside from the one Koshi'ishi has taken is ludicrous -- unconstitutional meaning “contrary to the basic law of the land, the law upon which all other laws are based” -- Noda has been careful to preserve the notion that the holding of an election is a matter of opinion -- his opinion -- rather than a matter of law.

The reason Noda has needed to maintain this fallacy is simple: his power to call an election is the whip he needs to keep the followers of former DPJ party leader Ozawa Ichiro in line. Nothing terrifies the Ozawa-vetted first termers like the possibility being plunged into an election. With the disdain the public has at present for the DPJ and perhaps permanently for Ozawa, each and every one of these Ozawa acolytes would be wiped out.

Perversely, the opposition Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito have aided Noda in the maintenance of this illusion. The leaders of both the LDP and the New Komeito know just as well as anyone else that elections are impossible if the districts are unconstitutional. Nevertheless they have been calling for elections for two years straight. And why not? It is the biggest free lunch in history. The public opininon polls on the level of public support for the LDP and the New Komeito could find that both have 0% support and it would not matter: the two parties would still call for elections.

Noda, for his part, tacitly used opposition demands for elections as a means of bolstering the illusion he has wished to preserve. If the opposition is demanding elections, it stands to reason that the opposition at least believes elections can be held.

Hence the sound of breaking glass yesterday when LDP Secretary-General Ishihara Nobuteru asked Prime Minister Noda, in special Diet Committee session, whether in fact the failure to correct the disproportionality of votes in the electoral districts put a shackle on the right to dissolve the Diet. Noda replied that no, failure to act did not shackle the right and that elections would be held when they he thought they were needed. (J)

Technically, both men are correct. Following through on Ishihara's thought, a dissolution of the Diet would trigger the implementation of Article 54 of the Constitution, which states that following a dissolution of the Diet, an election must be held within 40 days. Since the current electoral districts have been ruled unconstitutional, and the Diet would no longer be in existence to fix them, the election would a priori be void.

As for Noda's insistence that the right to dissolve the Diet is not compromised, his position is true only via the most painstaking of hairsplitting. The right to dissolve the Diet, held by the Emperor but exercised upon the advice of the Prime Minister, is not compromised until the moment the right is exercised, at which point the country would be blasted out into extraconstitutional space.

While the constitutional implications of this conundrum are fascinating*, what was of immense political importance in Ishihara's question was that unless the LDP tries to pull off the same trick that the DPJ has been pulling -- i.e., having the party secretary-general insisting that holding a House of Representatives election is impossible while the party president maintains that it is not -- the delicate minuet Noda and the opposition have been dancing together has come to a sudden stop. If a gaggle of reporters corner LDP president Tanigaki Sadakazu and press him on whether or not Ishihara's question means the LDP now believes holding elections is unconstitutional, chances are the not terribly swift-thinking Tanigaki will not have an intelligible response.

If and when Tanigaki flubs his moment in the spotlight, the political game board will become completely scrambled, just when Ozawa Ichiro, the master of Go (Part 1 and Part 2) is set to meet with the prime minister. (J)

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* The current emperor, being the conscientious, cautious but independent-thinking man that he is, would likely, on the most perfect of legal grounds, toss post-1945 precedent into the dustbin by refusing the prime minister's request for a dissolution.