Does The Seoul Comfort Women Agreement Exist?

A technical question...but one with implications as to the conduct of foreign policy and the behavior of elites in elective democracies: does the Seoul agreement "finally and irreversibly" ending the comfort women dispute between Japan and the Republic of Korea actually exist?

By "exist" I mean in the way an English speaker would understand an agreement existing, as in "Is there an actual text on paper, parchment, stone tablet or pdf which both sides have signed -- with a pen, a brush, a mouse or a stamp? Is there some object, real or virtual, with the names of representatives of both sides on it?"

And if so, can we see it?

My current thinking is that there is no actual, signed agreement between the two nations containing the details announced at the press conference on December 28. The lack of a signed agreement would explain some of the odder bits of Monday's announcement, including

- why the announcement was not accompanied by a printout (Link)

- why the Japanese government promises in section 1(iii) of the announcement to do what it said it would do in sections 1(i) and 1(ii), with the government of the ROK repeating the assumption ("on the premise that the Government of Japan will steadily implement the measures specified in 1. (1) (ii)above") in 2(i). Under normal circumstances governments making declarations do not immediately double check themselves.

- why a Japanese embassy official in Washington has said the current agreement would not need to be approved by the Cabinet and

- last but not least that stunning adverb "approximately" in the English language version of the agreement, as in "approximately 1 billion yen". In the Japanese version, the numeral is modified not once but twice (omune ni 10 oku en teido - "roughly in the vicinity of 1 billion yen") -- not your everyday binding agreement figure of speech, to put it mildly.

Of course, that the Japanese press describes Monday's announcement as introducing to the world a go'i ( 合意 - "our meanings are in sync") rather than a kyotei (協定 - "formal agreement") should be probably be seen as prima facie evidence there is no document underpinning this supposed final and irreversible settlement.

If no actual document exists perhaps one will be produced later, possibly as a requirement of legalization of the transfer of "approximately one billion yen" from the government of Japan to a special account created by the government of the ROK.

I hope I am wrong in all this: I hope there is an actual signed agreement. I very much like signed agreements when the goal is to end a bitter, longstanding dispute.

However, if there is not one and the two countries end their animosity on the issue with proper restitution and respect being paid to the women, I am not going to niggle about a technicality.

Not today at least.

The So-Called So-Called Comfort Women Issue Resolution Proposal

There is nuts. Then there is full blown, hair-askew, pants-on-backwards insane.

From news reports, the proposal on resolution of the comfort women issue Foreign Minister Kishida Fumio will be offering to his South Korean counterpart in a few hours's time is the latter.

According to news reports, Kishida is going to ask the ROK side to accept:

1) a fund of 100 million yen (currently about USD $825,000) for the medical, welfare and income needs of the surviving Korean comfort women

2) a request that the ROK government also contribute to the fund

3) letters from Prime Minister Abe Shinzo to all the survivors expressing his remorse at their pain, deprivation and humiliation

4) the ROK government's declaring that the government of Japan bears no legal responsibility for acts done to the comfort women, i.e. that the repudiation of ROK legal claims in the 1965 normalization treaty apply also to the comfort women's claims

5) that the ROK government will agree to remove or move the statue of the seated young girl installed by private interests in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul

6) that the two governments sign a binding agreement declaring the comfort women issue resolved.

I am not making any of the above up. (Link - J video)

I know very little about contemporary South Korean politics (it is hard enough to keep track of the politics of Japan, thank you very much) but my cursory knowledge still tells me there is virtually nothing in the above that the Park Geun-hye government can accept, given its level of popularity with the voters.

With unacceptability as the assumption, two alternative explanations have been bandied about:

A) That the above is actually not the proposal, and that the news media of Japan have been quoting sources who are voicing their virulent opposition to whatever the Abe administration is actually proposing, or

B) The above is really what the Abe Administration is offering, fully cognizant that the ROK will reject it, allowing Abe and Company to shrug their shoulders and say, "Look, we made an offer and they turned us down flat. Next."

Of course, there is always:

C) the ROK through gritted teeth accepts the above.

The reason for (C) even being remotely plausible is pressure from the United States, ally of both of these headstrong governments. According to the Asahi Shimbun " numerous persons in the loop of Japan-ROK relations" have confirmed that if an accord is reached the U.S. government will immediately issue a statement of congratulating its allies for resolving this difficult bilateral issue. (Link - J)

A statement of congratulations...oh whoop-de-doo.

As persons following my tweets on Twitter know I am firmly in the (B) camp. My reading is that key members of the Abe government are certain the current ROK government and a large chunk of the South Korean public have no intention of ever letting Japan and the Japanese off the hook for the colonial era -- and why should they, as resolution of historical/territorial issues would open the door for closer Japan-US-ROK military cooperation, upsetting China?

As a consequence, any realistic Japanese attempt at a rapprochement would be pointless, leaving Japan looking like a rejected beggar.

Japan's main interest in these talks seems to be the pleasing of U.S.A. policy makers, putting on a show of seeking resolution so that the Japan Hands can check off the "a more concerted effort toward resolving the comfort women issue" box on the U.S. list of "Things the Abe Government Needs to Do."

In a few hours' time we will know better.

The One Child Left Behind Policy

I hope to be on Al-Jazeera later today, talking about the Park-Abe-Li trilateral summit.

In the meanwhile, the latest* from Japan's master of political cartoons, Sato Masaaki, on the reception Mr. Abe may receive when he meets with the other two leaders in Seoul.



TOP PANEL

Li Keqiang: "The One Child All By His Lonesome" Policy will continue!

Park Geun-hye: You mean the "One Child Policy"? Aren't you discontinuing that?

BOTTOM PANEL

(no translation necessary)

CAPTION

Tomorrow, try to not end up left out.

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

* Original image in color. Color removed to avoid copyright infringement.

Very Kind Of Them #55 - Straight Out Of Coffee Edition

A non-appearance (phone only) appearance on Channel News Asia.

Monday's collapse of service on Tobu Railways's Nikko Line (memo to me: I think* Tobu Railways is an absolutely terrible company) left me far from my computer and Skype, with the battery on my phone at near empty.

With the recording window immanent, I stepped off the train at X Station, went to the local Major International Coffee House Chain outlet, bought a mug of coffee, plugged in my near dead phone into one of the complimentary electrical outlets and asked to talk to the manager.

Manager Y was a magnificently self possessed young woman, who at no point seemed fazed by a crazed, backpack-toting hiker babbling about doing a smartphone Skype broadcast from her store. She had me explain twice what I wanted to try to do, told me that company policy allows no video recording without explicit permission from headquarters -- so a Skype call with video was a no-no -- but if I wanted to talk on the phone to a international television network about South Korea-Japan relations in the 50th anniversary year of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, sure, she would be happy to turn down the volume of the music in the packed store for the quarter-to-half an hour I might be talking to the host in Singapore.

Which is what she did.

Thanks also to the network, for their flexibility, patience and professionalism. The staff improvised, pulling down from the Web the picture of me from almost a decade ago and pasting it to a photo of Mt. Fuji with cherry blossoms (full disclosure: I am not a big sakura fan) to make up for the lack of a Skype video feed.

Please check out the result.




----------------------------------------------
* My friends with legal backgrounds have explained to me that sticking a superfluous "I think" in front of a statement makes it an opinion and thus not legally actionable. Not having the "I think" (it is my blog, who else would be doing the thinking?) could be considered either slander or libel.

First Read - 7 March 2015

Screenshot of 6 March 2015 NHK morning news caricature of U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman and East Asian leaders unable to sit down and talk because of discord over history in this year, the 70th anniversary of the final year of World War II.

- There is a huge amount to like in Professor Jennifer Lind's essay for the Council on Foreign Relations on the prospects for warming Japan-Republic of Korea ties (Link). However, the essay does not emphasize strongly enough how the current frozen state of ties, the government of South Korea having, or pretending to have, concerns in common with the government of China as regards Japan, furthers the ROK's best interests. One would only has to consider the hypothetical of an East Asia without a Japan to realize there is nothing fundamental to the current Sino-ROK warmth, that the ROK would be in a perilous position indeed if not for the focus Japan's presence provides.

Rather than offer hints about Japan-ROK spring, Professor Lind should have hammered away at the likelihood of a long frost.

The knife attack this week on U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert (Link) and the government of Japan's revision of its description of the ROK on the Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs website from "a neighboring country with whom we share common values of liberty, democracy and free markets" to "most important neighbors to each other" (sic) - Link J - video) may be harbingers of change in the ROK's heretofore rather cushy position in East Asian politics. The U.S. government has been fairly tolerant toward the ROK government's and civil society's anti-Japanese radicalism, allowing South Korean activists to push past the envelope of what are normally acceptable expressions of historical anger. The government of Japan has also been mild in its responses to violence against its diplomats and citizens. The GOJ clearly has had enough of the ROK's special status. The US Gov may be less automatic in its support as well.

- The big story in the news today is the general positive noises coming out of the bilateral talks in between the Liberal Democratic Party and the Komeito on the legal framework for an exercise of the right of self-defense (Link). The Komeito is purportedly signaling an understanding of the LDP position in the aggregate. The LDP's coalition partner needs more specifics about the levels of response to distant attacks that might threaten the safety of Japan. (Link - J)

The LDP has to be feeling pretty good about the Komeito's mild distress at this point. With the Unified Local Elections coming up on April 12 and April 26, the Komeito should be in the position to arm wrestle the LDP into moderating or even abandoning its more ambitious security proposals. That the Komeito is merely reticent at this point bodes well for major Komeito retreats in May.

- The really big story on security on Friday was the Cabinet Decision on changing the structure of the Defense Ministry giving uniformed, active-duty officers of the Self Defense Forces direct access to the Ministery of Defense (Link). Arguments for the change are feeble: there is no evidence the requirement that the requirement to work with the "suits gang" (sebiro gumi) prevented the "uniform gang" (seifuku gumi) from acting or offering their views to the minister or director-general. Arguments against the change are the results of memory, both in terms of the nation in general and the Self Defense Forces in particular. The current structure has been supported, like the determination of the unconstitutionality of the exercise of collective self-defense, by generations of prime ministers. That the minister leading the change, Nakatani Gen, is a former member of the Ground Self Defense Forces, makes the change look less like a reform and more like a rejection of the reality of history.

In a broader sense, I am beginning to think that "escape from the postwar regime" means "in our future, there will be no history."

The change is still only a proposition. Like the 1 July 2014 Cabinet Decision on collective self-defense, it is not enshrined in legislation. Like the July 1 Decision, it is the subject of withering criticism from the opposition parties.

However, like the July 1 Decision, any delay or modification in the implementation of the plan depends upon the Komeito's intestinal fortitude.

A Month Away

Been away...doing things...and not doing things too.

Much has happened in the interim...and in at the same time, not much, aside from world spot oil prices (huge shifts there) has changed.

Two items of note:

1) Abe Shinzo did not go to Yasukuni Shrine in the 2014 calendar year.

He may have done so in secret. Prime Minister Miyazawa Kiichi supposedly paid a secret visit in 1992. Current Education Minister Shimomura Hakubun supposedly paid a secret visit sometime in 2013, proving that the trick can still be pulled off.

By not publicly paying his respects at Yasukuni, Abe has betrayed the revisionists and the mawkish sentimentalists, those who have been the rungs on the ladder he has climbed to prominence within the Liberal Democratic Party and ultimately into the premiership. It is fitting: what one does with rungs is step on them.

In not visiting Yasukuni, Abe has also shown he is playing a very long game indeed in terms of being a mover and shaker in East Asian politics, sacrificing immediate political and psychological advantages for a bigger political payoff later.

2) Anti-government conservative forces triumphed in the Saga gubernatorial election.

A Japan Agriculture (JA)-supported candidate defeating the LDP-Komeito supported candidate. Most analysis focuses on the supposed black eye suffered by the Abe administration, a third embarrassment after last year's humiliations in Shiga and Okinawa -- and on the supposed red flag the victory portends for the Abe Administration's hopes to reorganize Japan's agricultural sector -- both for growth and to facilitate the completion of Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations.

What is less talked about is the implications of the victory of a non-LDP supported conservative for the basing of U.S. forces in Japan. Since his victory, the new governor of Saga has been desperately trying to reverse the agreement the prefecture has with the national government to host Self Defense Forces V-22 Ospreys at Saga Airport. As a special Socialist Party project team noted in 2009, Saga Airport boasts a very, very long runway, is not very, very far from Sasebo and its U.S. Navy homeported amphibious strike group, and is surrounded on three side by hectares of hectares of rice paddies, with narry a dwelling in sight -- the perfect place, really, for a Futenma replacement facility (FRF). The already agree-upon SDF deployment, with the ancillary development of the infrastructure to host Ospreys, is an open door to deployment of U.S. Marines Ospreys at the same dedicated facility.

How Pyrrhic a victory JA's triumph over the Abe government will appear in retrospect -- and how clever the administration -- if Saga Airport becomes a supplement to, a second, or in the extreme a replacement for the fraught Henoko FRF.

Tanigaki Pulls Out The Fire Extinguisher

A bit of good news that might otherwise slip by...

Remember how last month, in response to The Asahi Shimbun's retractions of a number of its stories on the comfort women from over two decades ago, the Liberal Democratic Party's Policy Research Council (PARC), under the direction of the now Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications Takaichi Sanae, announced its intention to demand that Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide formulate a new Statement to replace the Kono Statement? (Link)

Funny thing about that demand: it had to get past the desk of the LDP's secretary-general.

Now if the LDP secretary-general were still Ishiba Shigeru, the gentleman who really wants to replace Abe Shinzo as president of the LDP and prime minister, the demand might have had a chance of receiving the necessary stamp of approval. Ishiba needs the votes of the freshmen and freshwomen of the Houses of Representatives and Councillors if he is to have even a chance against Abe or Abe's anointed successor in the LDP's internal elections for president. These Diet newcomers are for the most part stubborn on issues of national pride and national honor. Ishiba would have had no choice but to acceded to the PARC's nihilistic demand.

Ishiba, however, has moved on to the possibly greener pastures (it is still unclear whether his choice is a coup or a trap) of wandering about the least populated areas of the country making promises about economic and demographic revival the government cannot possibly keep. In his place at LDP secretary-general is certified Friend of China Tanigaki Sadakazu, who harbors not the least hope or desire to become the party president again.

In a press conference on Tuesday, Tanigaki was asked about the pending demand for a new Statement to replace the Kono Statement. Tanigaki replied:

"Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga has said on numerous occasions that he will not revise the Kono Statement. I would like to be with him on this."

(Link - J)

Tanigaki's response is weak-sounding. Paradoxically, flaccidity makes the response all the more credible. Tanigaki has a history of tripping himself up whenever he has played the implacable tough guy. Saying that he would merely "like to be with" the chief cabinet secretary on the matter of not revising the Kono Statement, however, is in character and thus plausible. Tanigaki's phrasing also leaves plenty of space for him to tell the militants in his party, "Look, I only said 'like to be' -- not 'will,' you know."

For as long as Tanigaki is secretary-general, it seems, the LDP will not be submitting a formal request for a Statement replacing the Kono Statement. This is regardless of Takaichi's having been replaced at PARC chair by Inada Tomomi whose revisionism no less feral than her predecessor's.

All in all, a very good bit of news -- for the Kono Statement is the keystone of the Japan-South Korea relationship. Mess with it and the architecture collapses.


Original creen shot courtesy: NHK News

An Appreciation Of Green

Just in case anyone who read my post of yesterday thinks I am down on Dr. Michael Green, I am not. In the two-part interview he has given to Peter Ennis ( Part I , Part II ) he demonstrates his incredibly fine-grained knowledge of the political arena, policy structure and technical demands constraining the operations of the Japan-U.S. alliance. The reader may not like the assumptions Green and his counterparts make (the nonchalance in Abe's justification of reinterpretation over revision takes the breath away) but knowing that the PM, his advisor and military planners on both sides are thinking ante- and not just post-facto is reassuring.

Underappreciated also is "Japan is Back: Unbundling Abe's Grand Strategy," the analysis Dr. Green produced for the Lowy Institute (Link). I am eternally grateful for the devastating anecdote (in the "Values, History, and The Korea Problem" section) on the effect Abe's weekend golf partners have on the PM's thinking.

And yes, the above statement is true, too. My favorite opera is also by a guy named Green, for good measure.

Now That's Revisionism!

Chief Liberal Democratic Party propagandist Koike Yuriko, who somehow managed to be at once female, an LDP Diet member, a noted hard liner, ally of Abe Shinzo and NOT PICKED for a cabinet or party top leadership position on Wednesday, quietly and without much of a fuss published an opinion piece with Project Syndicate that if is at all possible is even more outré than her shivving of Angela Merkel and Park Geun-hye (Link) of a month and half ago.

Ending East Asia's History Wars

TOKYO – Georges Clemenceau, who, as France's prime minister, led his country to victory in World War I, famously said that "war is too important to be left to the generals." Japan is now discovering that history is too important to be left to newspaper editors.
In the 1990s, the newspaper Asahi Shimbun caused a firestorm at home and in South Korea by publishing a series of articles, based upon testimony by the former Japanese soldier Seiji Yoshida, on "comfort women" – Koreans forced to provide sexual services to the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. Asahi has now admitted that the soldier's confessions were unfounded, and has disavowed the core supporting evidence for the articles.

That retraction appears to be causing as much embarrassment – and diplomatic vitriol – in Japan and South Korea today as the original series did. But, at a time when both countries cannot afford to permit partisan or sloppy abuses of history to roil their bilateral relations, Asahi's careless work has turned out to be more than abysmal journalism; it has introduced a dangerous element into regional diplomacy.

[snip]

Japan and South Korea need to take responsibility for the future, not obsess about the past. A recent Japanese government white paper called South Korea the country "that shares the closest relationship with Japan historically and in areas such as economy and culture." No doubt, many, if not most, South Korean foreign-policy experts and strategists share that sentiment. But it will take committed leadership to transcend the history wars and tap the full potential of Japanese-Korean cooperation, something that both countries' key ally, the United States, strongly desires, as it seeks to draw China into a lasting and peaceful Asian order.

For too long, intemperate historical debates – often driven by biased newspaper accounts – have poisoned bilateral relations. Now, as another war of words heats up, Japanese and South Korean leaders need to step back, recognize where the real interests of their people lie, both today and in the future, and calmly begin to take the measures required to ensure durable reconciliation.

(Link)

Bravo, Koike-sensei, bravo. I have not seen such breath-taking leaps -- albeit from non-sequitur to false congruence to unsupported assumption to evasion of responsibility, and not from the flying trapeze -- since I went and saw the Bolshoi Circus this summer at Jingu.

My favorite, favorite, favorite line in the whole piece, however, is this one:

Of course, given that Japan and Korea have not fought a series of wars against each other, their relationship is not the same as that between Germany and France.

Lety us put aside the fact that there are hundreds of years of military conflicts between Korean and Japanese, including some full scale invasions, occupations and colonial rule. It is the "Of course" that gets me, like I am supposed to be able to agree with her a priori.

A New Comfort Women Statement? Uh-oh

This is PARC chair Takaichi Sanae at her happiest. Really.

In the realm of bad ideas, the latest one to erupt out of the Liberal Democratic Party's Policy Research Council (PARC) is a doozy: a request to Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide that he provide a revision of the Kono Statement in light of the recent retractions of some articles on the comfort women by The Asahi Shimbun and in time for the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. (Link - J)

Press reports of the meeting of the Council yesterday read like a festival of provocation and point scoring. "We must summon those connected to The Asahi to testify in the Diet" and "We must disseminate with determination the results of the government's investigation into the composition of the Kono Statement" were among the demands from the floor. (http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20140821/k10013977241000.htmlLink J - video)

It is unsurprising that the moderately crazies in the LDP, particularly the hardliners in the freshmen classes of 2012 and 2013, would be clamoring for a party response to the Asahi admissions of error. The extreme revisionists contention has been that the comfort women are a fiction concocted by The Asahi Shimbun and anti-Japan non-government organizations in South Korea. The Asahi's long overdue retractions would, in their eyes, require a government response, as a remorseful Statement like Kono's may indeed no longer be necessary.

What is somewhat surprising is how quickly and avidly PARC Chair Takaichi Sanae has taken up the banner of a demand for a new Statement.

Takaichi is considered a shoo-in for a significant Cabinet post in the upcoming Cabinet reshuffle (Link). She has a long record of being a loyal retainer to Prime Minister Abe Shinzo (she was the most junior minister of his first Cabinet in 2006-7; she sat next to him during the LDP party meeting where Abe was elected party president in 2012), is a True Conservative (she is always in front and center of the phalanxes of Diet members of the "Let's Visit Yasukuni Together" league on their shrine visits - see above) and a prominent female member of the LDP at a time the PM wants to make a show of appointing women to the Cabinet (Link). Securing a Cabinet post at this point would seemingly require her to sit tight, make no trouble and have the prize drop in her lap.

So why embrace a movement demanding a change in a fundamental building block of Japan's relationship with South Korea at a time when the prime minister and his advisors are trying to bridge the gap between the two countries? One that furthermore puts an onus on Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga to craft a new Statement when he has way too much on his plate already?

If one wanted to mess up a potential Cabinet appointment, making Suga Yoshihide's life difficult would seem a great way to do it.

One explanation for Takaichi's enthusiasm, and the reason I use the "somewhat" above, is that she is probably tone deaf when it comes to what she believes are matters of Japan's dignity. She has her own small group of lawmakers -- the Association of Creativity and Tradition -- that brings together lawmakers who style themselves innovative iconoclasts with a fantabulist, knee-jerk defensiveness about pre-1945 Japan. The cognitive dissonance of the ideals -- believing at once in the value of disruption and the beauty of traditional order, as is reflected in the group's name -- indicates that in matters pertaining to the constructed concept "Japan" Takaichi-san may not be prone to deep thought.

Another possibility for Takaichi's unshaded embrace may come from a gnawing sense of her having achieved very little in her present position. Despite Takaichi being one of the longest-serving PARC chairs, even close watchers of politics would be hard pressed to think of a single, significant initiative she led during her tenure. Policy making under Abe 2.0 has been almost entirely in the hands of the bewildering forest of commissions, councils and private advisors reporting directly to the prime minister. Movement of legislation through the PARC has been largely a pro forma affair. When political observers think of Takaichi at all, it is for her skirmishes with General Council chair Noda Seiko, diminishing the power and value of both of the institutions they have headed.

In forwarding the PARC's request for a new Chief Cabinet Secretary's Statement to Suga, Takaichi can claim at least one signatory achievement during her tenure, one endearing her to radical, unthinking revisionists -- her only constituency within the party.

Assuming that the PARC's request is forwarded to Suga early next week as scheduled, what happens? As a direct request from the party, Suga cannot reject the request as unhelpful, no matter that it is. He could shelve the request for a while but not indefinitely. The request is for a new Statement in time for the August 15, 2015 anniversary -- which means at some point Suga will have to come out with a clear position on the question of whether he will provide a new Statement or not. The most likely scenario is Suga turning down the request on the grounds that it would detract from the prime minister's new, "forward-looking" Statement on the end of the World War II which the PM hopes will replace the Murayama Statement as the definitive Japanese government view of the war.

Until Suga moves decisively against the PARC's request, his inaction will be read or portrayed by South Koreans as a prelude to a revision of the Kono Statement and thus one more reason to delay the reestablishment of more normal relations between the governments of Japan and the ROK.

Way to go, Takaichi-san.

Very Kind Of Them #24

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

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

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


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

Dancing Toward A Better Japan-South Korea Relationship

On the occasion of Tokyo Governor Masuzoe Yo'ichi's 40 minute summit meeting with President Park Ge-Hyun (keep in mind that until the Abe-Kuroda devaluation, Tokyo's economy was assessed to be bigger than Indonesia's - Link) a gratuitous embed of World Order's "Permanent Revolution" - where Sudo Genki and the boys posit their Japanese Ultra Everymen as the agents of an East Asian concord in such sharp contrast with the current, discouraging discord.

(In HD - so do click on the Full Screen button)

It has been a lousy several weeks and months for the human species - where we seem hellbent on spinning out ever farther from Sudo's definitely quirky (and deeply skeptical of the role and motives of the United States) appeal for hitotsu no sekai e.

Later - The concantenation of ironies of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's having to rely on freshly minted Governor Masuzoe, who had been Abe's nemesis during Abe's annus horribilis of 2007, in order to get the president of South Korea, a fellow U.S. ally, to talk to him, is not lost upon me.

Later still -For those who catch it -- in the scene shot in front of Seven & I Holdings's world headquarters, Sudo demonstrates he has issues with the Masons too.

From The Places They Have Seen We Might Know Who They Are

This morning Prime Minister Abe Shinzo paid a visit to the Tomioka Silk Works, Japan's first Western-style silk production facility, recently named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. He paid tribute to the citizens' groups which had cared for the site through its many decades of sleepy neglect and who spearheaded the drive to have the site designated a part of the world's heritage (Link). The prime minister also showed his appreciation for the women whose labors inside Tomioka and Japan's other giant silk mills produced the export yen that helped pay for the national strengthening policies of the Meiji Era.

Local community efforts, women working with the nation reaping benefits, international recognition - all great political messages to latch onto and integrate in the prime minister's Abenomics master narrative.(Link - J video)

However, in the "recognition for the previously under-recognized" travel league, the prime minister got trounced this week by their Imperial Majesties.



Yesterday the Emperor and the Empress finished a forty six year long project of national contrition and inclusiveness. They visited the Tohoku Shinseien, a former leprosarium, fulfilling a promise made in 1968 to visit all the former incarceration sites for sufferers of Hansen's Disease. (Link - J video)

Japan's leprosariums, where education and care was minimal, stayed in operation decades after other countries had ceased to isolate their Hansen's disease sufferers. It was not until 1996 that the draconian Leprosy Control Act was repealed. It took a 2001 unconstitutionality ruling by the Supreme Court (a rarity) to open the door for the Koizumi Cabinet to apologize for successive Japanese governments's violations of the patients's civil and human rights. (Link)

Their Highnesses's travel itineraries do not shirk revisiting the dark sides of the country's history. In May they visited the areas affected by Ashio Copper Poisoning Disaster, indicating that his Highness was not entirely displeased by House of Councillors member Yamamoto Taro's clumsy reinactment of the Tanaka Shozo Appeal last year -- and that their Highnesses are keeping their eyes on the government's fumbling at Fukushima Daiichi. In June their Highnesses paid their respects at the location of the wreck of the wartime evacuation ship Tsushima Maru, sunk by a U.S. submarine in August 1944 with loss of 1418 persons, most of them children. (Link - J)

It is hard not to love the Emperor and Empress for their efforts, at their advanced ages, to promote a full and complete reckoning of the nation's history.

Which suggests an intriguing idea. If Abe Shinzo's views of history make him unsuitable to meet or invite to China or South Korea, how about inviting their Imperial Majesties instead? By inviting them one proves that one's problems are with the policies of the Japanese government, not the Japanese people. One also gives oneself a wonderful chance to get off the merry-go-round of hatred and suspicion the region finds itself on.


Images courtesies: NHK News

The Washington Post Editorial On The Yanai Report

I confess I could not understand why the United States government and those in the Washington-New York power corridor first tried to dissuade Prime Minister Abe Shinzo from paying a visit to Yasukuni Shrine, then went ballistic when he ignored their warnings and went anyway.

The adult reaction to Abe Shinzo's Yasukuni visits (by the way, Abe is going to pay a visit to the shrine again this year -- whether Xi Jinping dangles the prospect of a summit in front of him or not) would be:

"OK, OK. It is horrible. Terrible. Lamentable. However, if all that it takes to keep Abe and his hopped-up followers to be happy is his pretending for one day a year that if he goes to a special hall he can then talk to ghosts, fine. What we in the real world get in return is 364 days of dealing with a politically invulnerable and almost avuncular Japanese prime minister whose name we can actually remember."

A not entirely distasteful prospect, one would think.

But as the Washingon Post editorial on makes clear, visiting Yasukuni is seen not as Abe Shinzo seeking stress relief. Instead visiting Yasukuni is an impediment to Japan's casting off its special status of a nation with a peace constitution:

But Mr. Abe has needlessly stoked those fears. His visit to a Shinto shrine where Japanese war criminals are honored, statements that have seemed to question the extent of Japan’s culpability in the war, and his associations with right-wing politicians whose statements are even more extreme — all of these have made his motives suspect in neighbors' eyes. That, in turn, has complicated his reasonable quest to turn Japan, nearly seven decades after war’s end, into a more "normal" country."

(Link)

The gist of the editorial is rather simple and rather straightforward:

"We, the Wise Men and Women of the West, want a Japan that will work hand-in-glove with our already pretty ideal friend South Korea to be the bulwark of freedom and democracy in the East Asian region which we so very much no longer wish to be because doing anything hard and complicated takes us away from working on the remodel of the kitchens of our second homes in the countryside."

To harsh an assessment?

I am not ashamed to admit my being indisposed toward any essay beginning its arguments with the hoary "if North Korea fires a missile passing high over the Japanese islands, the commanders of Japanese Kongo-class Aegis destroyers do not have permission to order a missile shoot-down, even if the computed trajectory of the missile predicts impact in U.S. territory" canard. This is the rhetoric of an Okazaki Hisahiko, conjuring up phantasms of Japanese passivity in order that we might wet ourselves.

What the author (my guess is that his initials are F. H.) of this editorial fails to consider is whether the citizens of Japan or South Korea have any interest in being the docile pieces under the control of the American grand master. The answer to that question is that they do not, not now, not for the foreseeable future. Furthermore, the peoples of the two countries do not want to work with each other on security affairs if only because making China feel further ostracized and beset is not in their interests (Of course, inducing the Chinese to feel the world is ganging up on the Country of the Center is indeed in nobody's interest).

Also glossed over is the matter of the reinterpretation debate, the core issue highlighted by the excellent New York Time editorial of 10 days ago (Link). While plurality or even a majority of the population (depending upon the poll one consults) are currently sceptical about collective self-defense in general, a larger majority is fairly clear, even at this early stage, that there is no reinterpretation eye of the constitutional needle that the camel of CSD can pass through. These negative numbers will increase if the Abe Cabinet tries either to explain its views of reinterpretation, or worse, seeks to bum rush the necessary Cabinet Decision without a broad public and intra-Diet consensus.

It would be helpful if the Serious Adults of the sort who can pound out these opinion pieces remembered that one should not ever make policy prescriptions on the basis of what would be convenient for oneself. One has to try harder than that and make the case for settling for that which serves the interests of all.

Three Cartoons By Sato Masaaki On The Abe-Park Meeting

Tokyo Shimbun editorial cartoonist Sato Massaki is a national treasure. With the U.S.-Japan-South Korean trilateral meeting on the fringes of the nuclear security summit at The Hague, the first face-to-face meeting of any substance between the leaders of Japan and South Korea since Abe Shinzo became prime minister, only hours away, here are a trio of recent Sato cartoons on the fraught Abe-Park relationship.

[N.B. The sequence of cells within a cartoon is supposed to be read from the top right to the bottom left.]

"A Collection of Contemporary Disappeared Items"
Published: 18 March 2014


Click on Image To Enlarge

Relevant URLs:

"Japan's Beethoven Admits He Is A Fraud"
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-26039226

"Reliability of STAP cells 'breakthrough' questioned"
http://www.nhs.uk/news/2014/03March/Pages/Reliability-of-stem-cell-breakthrough-questioned.aspx

"For Abenomics, 'Third Arrow 'Is Hardest -- And Most Needed"
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/02/25/for-abenomics-third-arrow-is-the-hardest/


"Ending? Beginning?"
Published: 22 March 2014


Click on Image To Enlarge

Two hooks here. The seemingly eternal run of noontime variety show Waratte ii to mo ("It's OK to Laugh") comes to a close on April 1. Abe, in tribute to the show's longtime appeal and in order to counter his reputation of being a stiff, made the first and what will be last appearance by a sitting prime minister on the show on Friday. (Link)

The recurring bit in the show is to have the guest call up a "friend" on the telephone and invite that friend to appear on the show. The friend, after some banter, is supposed to agree with a cheery "that sounds good."

In reality, Prime Minister Abe called up superstar actor and musical performer Kimura Takuya, who did his part by replying cheerily in the affirmative. In Sato's cartoon world, Abe calls up President Park of South Korea. Her response to his invitation to appear is a grudging, scowling, shrugging resignation.


"We Want This To Be A Match Without An Audience”
Published 25 March 2014


Click on Image to Enlarge

The title reference is to the Urawa Reds - Shimizu S-Pulse match played to a stadium of empty seats in a league punishment for a fan group's display of a xenophobic banner. (Link)

However, the audience behind Madame Park that Mr. Abe and for the most part U.S. President Barack Obama want gone is composed of North Koren leader Kim Jong-un, a South Korean flag-waving President Xi Jinping of China and the comfort woman statue installed both in front of the Japan Embassy in Seoul and in a park in the California city of Glendale.

We Don't Report The News, We Just Guess What It Might Be

Yamada Hiroshi asking his questions on the comfort women in House of Representatives Budget Committee session on 20 February 2014. Screen capture courtesy Shuugiin TV.

For those of us who are formalists - who tend to believe that Abe Shinzo, Suga Yoshihide and the rest of the Abe Cabinet should be judged on what they say and do, not what we think what their words and actions mean -- last week was a pretty good week. Prime Minister Abe Shinzo Abe and Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide successfully deflected the demands of Japan Restoration Party member Yamada Hiroshi for an immediate investigation and moves toward repudiation of the Kono Statement -- this after Yamada's distasteful badgering of 87 year-old retired Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Ishihara Nobuo over how the Kono Statement came to be.

Suga, when pressed by Yamada for some kind of action on the Kono Statement, promised that the government would study whether or not it was appropriate to continue protecting of the identities of the 16 Korean women interviewed as a part of the drafting process of the Kono Statement -- this since the use of these anonymous and thus uncheckable interviews is proof, in revisionist circles, that the Kono Statement is not based in fact.

Later, when Yamada could not get the credit for pushing the government where it did not want to go, Suga also thought out loud about whether or not the government should study an investigation of the interview process.

Considering the pressures Abe and Suga are under from their own rank and file to put some meat on the program of "casting off the postwar regime" (Link) these vague promises seemed to indicate a general Cabinet consensus that hate it though they might there is no alternative to the Kono Statement -- not if Government of Japan wants to have a relationship of any kind with the Government of the Republic of Korea.

Then on Monday, after the end of the day's session in the Budget Committee, Abe Shinzo may have thrown everything into doubt.

Having caught wind of a Fuji Sankei Group public opinion poll showing 59%% of voters desiring a revision of the Kono Statement and 66% wanting at least an investigation of the process that produced it, Abe approached Yamada and said, well...something to Yamada seemingly indicating that he, Abe, personally shared Yamada's desire to get on with the work of dismantling the Kono Statement. (Link)

Unfortunately for anyone wishing to say "Aha! I told you so!" no one seems to know what it was that Abe said to Yamada.

If you ask the newspapers, literally each and every one of them has a different answer.

According to the august Nihon Keizai Shimbun, the PM said to Yamada:

「（一部報道機関の）世論調査で河野談話の（検証への）賛成が６割を超えている。先生の質問のおかげだ」

"From the public opinion polls (of one part of the news media), those in favour (of an investigation) of the Kono Statement exceeded 60%. It is all thanks your questions, Sensei."

To which Yamada replied:

「政府と国会で役割を分担しましょう」

"In the government and the Diet, let us divide up the workload according to our roles."

The Mainichi Shimbun quotes the PM as telling Yamada.

「（一部報道機関の）世論調査で高い支持率を得ているのは、山田さんが質問してくれたおかげだ」

"High levels of public support for this in the public opinion polls (of one part of the news media) are achieved thanks to the questions you, Yamada-san, asked us."

The Mainichi's version of the cooperation pledge is also different:

「政府だけではできないこともあるので協力していきましょう」

"Let us cooperate because there are some things the government cannot do alone."

Akahata ("Red Flag"), the Japan Communist Party's House organ, has Abe saying:

「世論調査で河野談話（見直し）賛成が約６割だった。山田さんのおかげだ」。

"In the public opinion poll, those in favour (of revision) are around 60%. Thanks to you, Yamada-san."

In The Asahi Shimbun the prime minister says:

「（一部メディアの）世論調査で、河野談話の検証に対する賛成が60%を超えた。山田さんのおかげだ」

“In public opinion polls (of one part of the media) agreement has topped 60% regarding the investigation of the Kono Statement. Thanks to you, Yamada-san."

(My underlining in the above - MTC)

As for the Sankei Shimbun, the paper whose public opinion poll (I have seen one journalist refer to the poll as a poll of Sankei Shimbun readers. This is incorrect. The poll was conducted via telephone calls placed to voters through RDD - random digit dialing) started this whole business, its version of the encounter does not have any of the above. Instead, according to Sankei, Abe told Yamada:

「時機を逸せずに、議論を真剣にやる必要がある]

"It is necessary for seriously discuss of this matter, without any dilly-dallying."

Now as far as I have been led to understand, the kisha clubs are a cabal where the news organizations get together and decide as a group what the news is, leaving the framing to the editors of each organization.

If so, why does each outlet report the Abe-Yamada conversation differently?

One answer is, of course, is that the source of the story is Yamada himself, at least according the Sankei Shimbun. This would set the bar of veracity at very low level. Yamada could very likely have given a different version of the conversation to each media company.

I do not know.

What I do know is that on the same day as the Abe-Yamada tête–à–tête, Foreign Minister Kishida Fumio told the Secial Committee on Okinawa and the Northern Territories Issues:

「私としても、政府としても、談話の見直しを一度も申し上げたことはない」

"For myself or for this government, I have never ever said anything about a revision of the Kono Statement."

(Link)

As long as the members of the Cabinet keep denying that a revision is what is being discussed, I will hold my breath -- in hope.

At least until Abe Shinzo personally tells me otherwise.


Later - The main message is, whatever you read, don't panic. Whoever it was who said, "You are entitled to your own opinions but you are not entitled to your own facts," clearly was not a reader of Japanese newspapers.

On Asada Mao And Mori Yoshiro - By Request

No question as to which country she hails from: Asada Mao's profile on the Japan Skating Federation website lists her blood type.

In comments I was asked my thoughts as regards Tokyo 2020 Olympics Organizing Committee Chair and former prime minister Mori Yoshiro's comments on skater Asada Mao’s performance in the short program half of the women's singles figure skating competition at the Sochi Olympics. (Link)

Mori Yoshiro has reputation of saying idiocies when he should know not to. I would argue that Mori is no more of an idiot than the average run of Japanese politician and is far more entertaining than most. He knows what he thinks and is willing to say what he thinks. This makes him a great guest on morning talk shows, as he ends up talking wonderful trash about the current prime minister, the Liberal Democratic Party, the nation's sports organizations...whatever.

Where Mori tends to get into trouble is when he tries to explain why he thinks what he thinks. He could take the easy route and simply excuse himself for following his instincts. Instead he tries to provide an explanation on the fly for opinions he himself has not, until that very moment, thought through. To add a layer of complexity (thereby guaranteeing failure) he tries to read the mood and intellectual level of the room and gear his ad hoc explanation to whatever audience he thinks is out there.

The results are not pretty.

The architecture of his controversial comments on Asada's collapse goes something like this.

a) Asada Mao fell down in the short program in the women's singles figure skating.
b) She fell down because she felt pressure.
c) She felt pressure because she felt responsible for the poor showing of Japan in the team competition.
d) Mao fell down in the team competition, skating the women's short program segment.

SKIP

x) The Reed siblings live in the United States.
y) The Reed siblings are mediocre ice dancers who had no chance at representing the United States.
y) The Reed siblings represent Japan because Japan has no ice dancers.

SKIP

Ergo: Asada Mao fell down in the singles competition because the Reed siblings are not really Japanese?

(Link - J)

Of course, Mori being Mori, the above was not bad enough. He had to go and make the whole thing personal:

"I was watching thinking, 'C'mon girl, give it your best shot for us.’ However, Mao, brilliantly, fell down. That girl, whenever it's really important, she falls down, doesn't she?"*

The tragedy in the complete train wreck of racism, sexism and misguided sports nationalism is that there was in it the germ of an idea, one that was indeed worthy of one whose responsibiilties include the goading of everyone into making an Olympian effort for 2020:

"Mao-chan tends to fall down and usually at the very worst moment. Everybody knows this. She should therefore have never competed in the team competition. When she fell in the team competition's short program segment she felt responsible for the team's finishing out of medal contention. That led her to overcompensate in the singles competition, leading to her breakdown in the short program.

Japan's real problem is that it has no ice dancers or pairs skaters worth a damn. If you look at the final team competition standings, Japan finishes in fifth place with 51 points. Mao finished third in her group, contributing a respectable 8 points to the final tally. Japan's pairs skaters and ice dancers both finished in eighth place in the preliminaries and dead last in the six-team finals. (Link)

How lousy is our domestic ice dancing program? We have to rely on the Reed siblings -- who are Japanese neither by residence nor upbringing and who have zero chance of ever making the U.S. Olympic team -- to fill out our roster."

Does anyone know -- did Mori saying anything about the pairs where Japan's representatives were young, inexperienced, shaky and also not Olympic caliber?

[Takahashi & Kihara finished 18th out of 20 pairs; the Reed siblings finished 21st out of 24 pairs.]

What complicates the story is that Mori's original, unadorned reaction to Asada falling down (and doubling a planned triple jump) in the short program -- “I was watching thinking, 'C'mon girl, give it your best shot for us.' However, Mao, brilliantly, fell down. That girl, whenever it's really important, she falls down, doesn't she?" -- is probably what at least half the country was thinking, and probably still thinks.

Asada is a ferociously talented and dedicated skater, one of the greats. She is also almost never able to put together two clean programs in one competition (I have seen it happen only once: her victory in the nationals in 2009). She is also a national emblem, her image used to sell a huge variety of products, her face the image of Japan’s winter sports programs. Feed those three items into a heady mix of an underperforming country (Link and Link - Gremo Slovenija!) looking for well-groomed sports heroes (Japan's X-sports stars being, for what are sadly obvious reasons, not seen as big corporate sponsorship material) to fight against a beautiful South Korean super villain -- and you get a huge, resentful reaction by half the nation to a young woman's losing her concentration at what future generations will mock as Vladimir Putin's Potemkin Village Festival.

In truth, Asada Mao's legend was best served by her short program collapse and her stunning long program skate. First, it was true to her longtime personal narrative of blowing the short program only to claw back into contention in the free skate -- the 2010 Vancouver Olympics being the one time her long program proved her downfall. Second, had she been in contention after the short program, her immaculate free skate performance, glorious in its pointlessness, would have been swallowed up in the grubby competition for the medals (Link). I have yet to see a commentator or announcer on television point out that Asada skated her program, technically the most difficult of all those competing in Sochi, as well as she possibly could, earning a personal best score-- and still managed to only finish third in the free skate . If she had skated two clean programs she might have won, yes -- but then again, she might have ended up in third or even fourth place.

Asada's plummeting to 16th place in the short program and the lackluster performances by Suzuki Aiko and Murakami Kanako kept Japanese well away from medal contention and thus a safe distance from South Korean anger over the final result. Given Japan's relations with both South Korea and Russia, being away from the fray is very definitely in the national interest. (Link - Nota bene: if you have to put "politely" in your message, your request ain't too polite.)

Asada seems destined to go down in history as the magnificently flawed hero, the skater who was at her best only when she was at her worst, driving her countrymen and countrywomen to distraction and despair.

So Mori-sensei, keep voicing amazed frustration. It is a feeling one can enjoy on its own terms, without explanation.


Later - To clarify what I mean by sexism, Asada Mao falls down once and earns demeaning commentary. Male singles Olympic champion Han'yu Yuzuru falls down twice and is a national hero.

---------

*「頑張ってくれと見ていましたけど（浅田）真央ちゃん、見事にひっくり返りました。あの子、大事なときには必ず転ぶんですね。」If anyone has a suggestion on how to translate this passage so as to better capture the semi-sarcasm of migoto ni please post it in comments.

Abe Shinzo And The Right, Rightly

Trending: "Japan tilting/turning/sliding to the right in an alarming way"

Example #1

Example #2

Example #3

Example #4

Hmmm...

Japan is probably not shifting, tilting, sliding, skipping, turning cartwheels or anything else to the right. If that were so, we would see hatred of "foreigners" irrespective of origins. Try as one might, one will find little evidence of generalized increased hatred toward non-Japanese. Antipathy and empathy fatigue are focused on two national groups, Chinese and South Koreans, and is it not even an ethnic disdain: Chinese and South Korean tourists are portrayed as a huge and vital business opportunity. (Link - J)

As for remilitarization, Japan presently spends around 1% of GDP on defense. After the Abe military build up, Japan will be spending...approximately 1% of GDP on defense. Do not even get me started on where in an Aging Japan the government is going to find enough youngsters to meet its force recruitment goals.

As for Abe's Yasukuni visit on December 26, he put off his annual visit until the morning of the one year anniversary of his election as prime minister. He was and is going to make visits on an annual basis. Let us take some solace in his having waited until the very last moment.

So what about the secrecy law, the appointment of mediocrity Momii Katsuto as the head of NHK, wannabe fixer Watanabe Tsuneo as the head of the commission on the secrecy law, Education Minister Shimomura Hakubun's new suggestions on what language teachers should use when talking about the Senkakus and Dokdo -- is it not all of a pattern?

Yes.

But the pattern is not one of a shift to the right.

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's cronies are getting greedy, grabbing for stuff the public is not quite ready to cede to them, and which the public may never be willing to cede to them. These cronies are rightists, if by rightist you mean skeptical of/loathing China, tired of Japan's having World War II hung around its neck forever (and no, these cronies do not understand why persons hanging World War II around Japan's neck is possible) and pugnaciously defensive of a Japaneseness they alone can define.

It would be foolish for Abe, his sycophants and puppeteers to think the public is not aware of this piggishness and is not marking down in a ledger all the reasons it should not trust Abe and Friends.

The public has been exceedingly and aberrantly supportive of the Abe Cabinet and the Liberal Democratic Party. This support, however, does not evolve out of love for Abe policies, other than for the extremely activist and liberal (and contrary to longtime LDP theories on the national debt) macroeconomic program. According to the polls, the second most popular reason for supporting the Abe Cabinet, after the economic program, is "Because there is no appropriate alternative ready to step in."

Look around the political landscape of Japan today: to say that "there is no other appropriate person" ready to take Abe's place is really not that bizarre.

So "greedy Friends of Abe" + "liberal economics" + "little hope for anyone better" is supposed to equal "a shift to the right"?

I hope that that is not the math.

What Japan-South Korean Relations Really Needed

I tend to shy away from the weird stories...mostly because the seemingly dull stories, upon examination, turn out to be tightly wrapped around a hard core of weird.

This tale of too few details, however, is just too weird not to forward:

Official found dead off Kyushu
Kyodo

KITAKYUSHU – A member of the Cabinet Office was found dead last month in a dinghy off Kitakyushu, officials of the 7th Regional Coast Guard Headquarters said Saturday.

The body of the civil servant, aged 30, was clothed in a black jacket and found with South Korean currency notes after the dinghy was located close to concrete wave barriers on Jan. 20. There were no noticeable external injuries on the body.

The 3-meter-long dinghy, which had a motor, was made in South Korea, according to the coast guard.

The coast guard said the man’s death is under investigation and that it is unknown whether foul play was involved. Investigators said the man probably died before around Jan. 13...

For those wishing to learn more (not that there is much more to learn), here is the link.

It is telling that when a real mysterious death of a government official turns up, the anti-Korean xenophobes -- who see spies and conspiracies everywhere -- are not all over the place with explanations.

I guess someone has to come out with a simple explanation ("He loved fishing") to attack before the crazies will speak up.

All Out Of Ammo

Gimme back my bullets
Put 'em back where they belong
Ain't foolin' around
Cause I've done had my fun
Ain't gonna see no more damage done...

- Rossington/Van Zandt, "Gimme Back My Bullets" (1976)

The pathetic story of the peripatetic 10,000 rounds of ammunition lent by Japanese Self Defense Forces to their bereft South Korean counterparts participating in a UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan has come to an absurd close. The South Korean troops on Thursday transferred the bullets to UN custody, their government having flown in from South Korea the same amount of ammo, using up precious space in UN cargo helicopter flights to deliver politically correct incipient chunks of flying death to South Korean forces. (Link)

So much for appreciation of the Abe Cabinet's doctrine of "proactive pacifism" (sekkyokuteki heiwashugi), so much for practicality, so much for an "we're all in this together" Band of Brothers bonding among forces under UN command.

Over at The Marmot's Hole, Robert Koehler last year documented most of the background to this week's return. It is not a pretty tale. Particularly depressing is that objections to the ammunition transfer preceded Abe Shinzo's visit to Yasukuni. (Link)

While it is appropriate to dump on the government of South Korea for Olympian levels of pettiness, the actions and stances of the Abe administration deserve an equal measure of ridicule. The much ballyhooed new National Security Council, in only its second meeting and in its first decision, choose to at least circumvent if not trash precedent.　The 1976 expansion of the original 1967 Three Principles on Arms Exports (Buki yushutu sangensoku) states that Japan shall "take precautions against not making a mistake in exporting weaponry" (buki no yushutsu o tsutsushimu mono to suru). While lending ammunition to folks who insult you by sending it back to you untouched would in most instances be classified as a mistake, "not making a mistake" in the 1976 interpretation is the violation of Japan's self-reimagination as a "peace state" (heiwa kokka - Link -J).

Strictly speaking, the NSC's approval of the SDF's lending South Korean forces their ammunition did not transgress the boundaries of the expanded Three Principles. If the South Korean forces had actually used the ammunition, however, the loan would have immediately fallen outside the boundaries of permitted action.

So the South Koreans, by acting like idiots, actually did Abe's NSC a favor.

Exactly why Japan needed to establish an NSC has never been satisfactorily explained. Lionel Pierre Fatton, writing in The Diplomat, does his damnedest to make the innovation seem worthwhile. (Link)

However, reading the Fatton's argument, one comes away with the question:

"Restricting the number of persons having input into major decisions helps make the process faster. However, when in the history of humankind has the reduction of the number of persons offering their opinions ever made a decision better?"

That the NSC's first action was a double fiasco -- a violation of precedent had it succeeded in arming the South Korean forces and an embarrassment because it did not -- casts into doubt the rhetorical edifice supporting the establishment of the NSC.

There is an argument that the first decision of the NSC went sour precisely because the decision was made prior to the creation of an NSC secretariat and the assignment of staff -- deficiencies that have since been partially remedied (Link and Link). Presumably, once the NSC secretariat gets up to speed analyzing issues and suggesting solutions, the chances of another South Sudan fiasco will fall.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

If a group of officials start out their terms in an office with a demonstration of a willingness to approve violations of stated government principles without consulting with staff experts aforehand, it becomes harder to believe promises that the group will never, ever do it again.