The New Abe Lineup At Party Central

In few hours Prime Minister Abe Shinzo will unveil his new lineup for the top party posts of the Liberal Democratic Party and a new Cabinet. From hints that have been leaked to the new agencies so far, Abe seems to be proceeding on the assumption that loyalty and closeness to him, not competence, experience or judgment, should be his main selection criteria.

LDP Party Secretariat

Replacing the seriously injured Tanigaki Sadakazu at Secretary-General will be Nikai Toshihiro. Leader of a medium-sized faction, Nikai was long seen as a potential rival of the Prime Minister. During his stint as chairman of the Diet Budget Committee Nikai was extremely solicitous of opposition members pounding away at the Abe government and the prime minister himself. In the last year or so, however, Abe has made a special effort to woo Nikai, kicking him upstairs into the special post of Chairman of the General Council and visiting him in his home district. The Wakayama legislator has reciprocated with pledges of loyalty and friendship, the most dramatic of which was his recent post-election expression of support for an extension of Abe's presidential term past the party rules-determined 6 years.

[For those with issues as regards Japan's killing of cetaceans, it's panic time. The whaling fleet's mother ship is homeported in Abe's district. The Taiji dolphin-killing "cove" is in Nikai's.]

The appointment of Nikai means that once again the LDP's day-to-day management will be in the hands of a politician with links to China. Tanigaki's ties were largely emotional, his affection for Chinese poetry being one of his remarked-upon traits. Nikai's ties, however, are much more nuts-and-bolts. He is probably the active legislator with the deepest and broadest network of ties with officials and politicians of China. His appointment will likely both please and pain the CCP. If Nikai asks to come across the water and meet with a few old friends, how can the Chinese government refuse?

Ostensibly keeping an eye on Nikai will be Hosoda Hiroyuki, who will take over Nikai's chairmanship of the LDP General Council. Hosoda is the leader of the Seiwakai, the largest faction and the faction to which Abe belongs. It is a measure of Abe's respect for and wariness of Nikai that he has asked his faction leader to step in and run the party’s main meetings.

Moving out of her party position of policy chief and into the Cabinet is Inada Tomomi, a protégé of the Prime Minister's and a fellow Seiwakai member. She will be taking over the defense portfolio – a symbolic, not substantive choice, as Inada has heretofore not been seen as taking a particular interest in defense issues (her own interests can be gleaned from the name of her personal Diet member group, "The Tradition and Innovation Association"). She is also something of an arriviste in party circles, having only served four terms in the Diet. She will be leapfrogging over some 70 LDP legislators who 1) have more elections to the Diet than her and 2) have never served in a Cabinet post.

Taking over her spot as chairman of the Policy Research Council and rising ever so slightly in party rank will be Motegi Toshimitsu. Motegi was the chairman of the party's elections strategy committee and thus nominally the architect of the party's wins in the Hokkaido #5 by-election and the July 10 House of Councillors election this year. However, since the LDP is fighting what is still a prostrate and disarmed opposition, Motegi's actual motivational and organizational strengths remain in question.

Motegi seems to be one of Abe's most important cultivated allies. The Harvard master's degree holder and former McKinsey consultant is a frequent guest and golf partner of the PM. He also has as many elections to the Diet (8) as the PM. Motegi would seem a possible a dark horse candidate to step in to the premiership, should the PM need to suddenly step down. However, Motegi did not start out his political career in the LDP, having first won his seat as a member of the opposition Japan New Party (Nihon Shinto).

Eat, Pray, Fund, Party, Pose

Source: Prime Minister's Residence

http://japan.kantei.go.jp/96_abe/actions/201409/11article3.html

I will be happier when the day comes -- and the day may never come -- when Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's minions stop pretending that the PM's meeting the persons he vacations with is work.

Just to remind everyone, Abe attended a five hour party on August 22 at Sasakawa Yohei's vacation villa in the lakes region of Yamanashi Prefecture. The other guests at the party were former Prime Minister Mori Yoshiro, METI Minister Motegi Toshimitsu, Senior Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Kishi Nobuo (the PM's brother), Senior Vice Minister Nishimura Yasutoshi, Cabinet Parliamentary Secretary Kato Katsunobu, Hagiuda Ko'ichi, Yamamoto Yuji and Fuji TV's CEO Hie Hisashi...

...which was a quid pro quo for Sasakawa's being one of the guests, along with Mori, Motegi, Hagiuda and Environment Minister Ishihara Nobuteru, at the dinner at the Abe vacation villa on 15 August 2013, in the evening after the PM had completed his 2013 End-of-War day responsibilities and had his hair done at the Imperial Palace Hotel.

Yes, the Nippon Foundation funds important work. No, that does not make it OK for the Kantei to pin up a photo of Sasakawa-san with his employees and collaborators, pretending that the group got a face-to-face with the PM on the merits.

Golf Is Just A Four Letter Word

It is 4:35 a.m. I am wondering whether the paper man has left my morning paper in the mailbox.

Yes, I still get news the old fashioned way. Though perhaps not for long, for as of August 1, the Tokyo Shimbun has electronic delivery.

If and when I do go downstairs, I will turn to the inner pages, ignoring the immense tragedy in my old hometown, the humble city of Hiroshima.

One of the ignored aspects of the rural-vs-urban struggle in Japan is the number of medium-sized cities like Hiroshima with insanely high quality of life. Hiroshima is a modern city, with a reasonable economic mix and a fairly stable outlook where hiking trails and verdant seclusion are a 30 minutes's walk from midtown. Unlike most of Tokyo and the central Kanto, the mid-sized cities have retained, like Kamakura and Zushi, the forested hills, sending green fingers deep into the residential and even business areas.

It was, of course, these hillsides that came crashing down on the valley floor housing in the downpour two days ago.

But I digress.

My purpose in going downstairs would be to open the paper to the inner folds, where, in a tiny feature, the full listing of the prime minister's day yesterday will be printed. The PM is on vacation right now, up at his villa in the lakes region of Yamanashi Prefecture. Vacation time means barbecue, hanging out with allies, working out the details of the September 3 Cabinet reshuffle and golf.

Lots of golf.

Damn near daily rounds of golf.

Monday was an exception. The PM and Akie-sama spent the morning at the villa, with probably a smattering of security officers and aides milling about. Just after lunch the PM went for a soak at the local hot springs, coming home just after 3 p.m.

Just before 5, the pace at the villa kicked up into another gear entirely. Tanaka Kazuho, the head of the Ministry of Finance's budget bureau, showed up in advance of what an early (5:36 - probably a barbecue) dinner of with Abe and his aides. The group was joined at 5:43 by Honda Etsuro, one of Abe's two main economics advisors and a fervent critic of Finance Ministry thinking fiscal consolidation. Discussion of next year's budget and the economic outlook, with probably a pretty intense debate over the advisability of a further rise of the consumption tax went on for hours afterward. Most of the guests left just after 10:30, with Honda the last to leave at 10:47.

Those of the "growth first/tax rise whenever" persuasion might want to take heart in Honda's having the last ten minutes of the prime minister's attention to himself and presumably the last word on the subject of the consumption tax rise.

However, Prime Minister Abe in his second run has been extremely savvy as regards the management of personnel. Giving special attention to an advisor is just as often an indicator that Abe will be ignoring that advisor's counsel as he will be taking special heed of it. Remember that in the midst of the initial staged "debate" on whether or not to go forward with the rise of the consumption tax, Abe made the time to have a private lunch with Honda and Hamada Ko'ichi, the PM's other big economics advisor who like Honda was against the 3% jump in the consumption tax scheduled for April this year. Abe gave the pair a big chunk of face time. In the end it seems it was only so the two would not feel humiliated by their inevitable defeat in the rigged contest of ideas.

Knowing how to let people down without alienating them: a really important skill for someone wishing to stay in power a long time.

Just to hammer home the point on collegiality and remaining friends, the next day the prime minister and Akie-sama brought Honda, Tanaka, and Hie Hisashi, the CEO of Fuji Television, together for a round of golf.

In the evening, the PM attended what one should call, I suppose, the gathering of the tribe at the villa of Sasakawa Yohei, the head of the Nippon Zaidan. Also at the dinner pow wow were:

Former Prime Minister Mori Yoshiro
METI Minister Motegi Toshimitsu
Senior Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Kishi Nobuo (also the PM's brother)
Senior Vice Minister Nishimura Yasutoshi
Cabinet Parliamentary Secretary Kato Katsunobu
Representative Hagiuda Ko'ichi (the PM's August 15 offering carrier to Yasukuni, just like last year)
Representative Yamamoto Yuji

as well as Fuji TV's Hie-san.

The PM arrived back at the villa from the party just after 10 p.m.

Rounds of golf occupied most of the PM's waking hours on the weekend as well. On the first day of his vacation, Saturday the 16th, Abe was out on the golf course with his closest political aides. Why he should spend his first day off with all the same persons he spends his every working day with is beyond me (then again, much is beyond me).In the evening he had dinner with his mother and his wifein the restaurant of a members only resort hotel.

Considering the ludicrous packing of Abe schedule the day before, the end-of-war day (no, he did not have his hair done after the memorial service like last year) his kicking back and hanging out with his family and underlings on his first day of what is projected to be a near postwar record length prime ministerial summer vacation deserves an "OK, so he's kind of dull" shrug.

The next day, Sunday the 16th, was a full day of Abe 2.0 recreation strategy at its purest. In the morning the PM was on the golf course with:

Chairman of Nippon Keidanren, former chairman of Toray Industries Sakakibara Sadayuki

Former chairman of the Nippon Keidanren (Sakakibara's predecessor but one), chairman and CEO of Canon Mitarai Fujio

Honorary advisor and former CEO, JX Holdings Watari Fumiaki

Wait a minute, you might be saying, each of these hefty executives has made his name in the past few years using his position to preserve/resurrect the foreign investor-suspicious, government coddled and coddling Japan Inc. big business model. Does a foursome like this one not send a terrible message to the outside world what kind of economy Abe favors? Is not Abe also setting himself up for having a very skewed view of his country's path forward, too?

Yes and yes.

Dinner in the evening was a relatively restrained affair, with the PM and Akie-sama joining Hie-san and Kato-san for dinner at a French dining area of the Hotel Mount Fuji.

Wait a minute, longtime readers of this blog might be again saying, this is exactly the same group of cronies and power brokers Abe vacationed with last year. (Link)

Yep.

Indeed, in his first four days of vacation, Abe has spent quality time with virtually all of his tight circle of cronies and family member. And basically no one but his cronies and family members.

Which is why I am itching to go downstairs and fetch the paper, to find out the answer to my impertinent question:

"OK, but does the prime minister have any new friends?"

[Pause]

But upon picking my newspaper up, and checking the political news, I learn that yesterday for Abe, like for Mori before him, golf became a four letter word. (Link - J video)


---------------------
N.B. The title is an allusion to the Robert Allen Zimmerman song making an even more provocative assertion. (Link)

And Everything Under The Sun

All that you eat
And everyone you meet...

- Roger Waters, "Eclipse" (1973)

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo has been on vacation since his appearance at the commemorative events on the August 9 anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. He purportedly most definitely needed a vacation after seven frenetic months where he visited 12 (?) foreign countries, took one day off per month and led a leave-no-stone-unturned effort to win the July 21 House of Councillors election.

The PM's dedication to rest and recuperation has been only nominal. Looking at his schedule, it would scarcely count as a vacation.

Mr. Abe has had some days when the only items on his schedule have been a round of golf and a dinner at an eatery close by his second home in the Fuji Lakes area. However, he has all been away from the villa almost as much as in it. He had a two day trip to Yamaguchi Prefecture for grave visits and political support network meetings on August 12 -13 where he tucked in sympathy calls at locales damaged by recent torrential rains (since these were in his and right hand man and fellow Choshu Mafia member Kawamura Takeo's districts, the pair had good local support reasons for the special sympathy tour). He had his public duties in Tokyo on August 15, which included a cabinet meeting, receiving the chairman of the U.S. Senate's Foreign Affairs Committee, laying a wreath on the tomb of the unknowns at Chidorigafuchi, co-presiding with the Emperor at the official end-of-war service and an hour-long visit to the salon to get his hair done.

No, I am not making that last one up.

Even when he has restricted himself to eating and playing golf, he has been power lunching, power dining and power putting.

On Saturday, for example, the PM played golf with former Nippon Keidanren chairman and the current chairman and CEO of Canon Mitarai Fujio and former Nippon Keidanren vice chairman and JX Holdings advisor Watari Fumiaki -- an activity which lasted from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon. For dinner, the PM went to the Hotel Mount Fuji for a meal with Japan Restoration Party co-chairman Ishihara Shintaro and Environment Minister and I. Shintaro’s second oldest child Ishihara Nobuteru. After a spell Hieda Hisashi, the CEO of the right-leaning Fuji Television Network and the PM’s wife Akie joined the group.

The day before, on Friday, the PM and Akie played a round of golf with Komori Shigetaka, the CEO of the Fuji Film group and Mrs. Komori from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. (when did they eat lunch?). Dinner was at the not hideously expensive but not shabby either Oshino Yashima with Watari Fumiaki and Special Advisor the Prime Minister Hasegawa Ei’ichi (Link - J). Akie-sama again was the hostess.

The day before that (Thursday) the PM played golf (sense a pattern here?) with former Prime Minister Mori Yoshiro (one would think that after the Ehime Maru Incident former PM Mori would have learned to stay away from the golf course...but obviously no), Minister of Economics, Trade and Industry Motegi Toshimitsu, Ishihara Nobuteru and Yasukuni cash envelope delivery man and member of the House of Representatives Hagiuda Ko'ichi. Their play began before 7 am and lasted until 2 pm. In the late afternoon the PM was the host of a barbecue at the villa where the main guests were Komori Shigetaka and Hieda Hisashi.

For the record, Hagiuda seems to have been well rewarded for the task of being the PM's envoy to Yasukuni on the morning of the 15th. He not only scored a round of golf with his betters on the 16th but had dinner on the night of the 15th at the villa with the PM, Mori, Ishihara, Motegi and Sasakawa Yohei, the chairman of the Nippon Foundation. (Link - J)

On the 14th, after a morning at an exercise fair in Yokohama the PM was at his home in Tokyo. However, in the evening, after a paying his respects at the wake for a relative of his personal secretary, he had dinner at the Hotel New Otani with Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide, former Liberal Democratic Party Secretary-General Nakagawa Hidenao (a.k.a., Big Nakagawa, a.k.a. Nakagawa the Sane) and Shida Tsutomu, the supreme advisor and former chairman and CEO of the Shidax food and entertainment conglomerate.

This is relaxing?

There are days in the schedule since this holiday began where the PM's schedule has listed only "played golf with friends" and "ate dinner with friends." For the most part, though, the PM's daily activities seem to have been organized around lining up key allies and advocates among the movers and shakers in Big Business, the Cabinet, free marketers (Nakagawa), the LDP, former bureaucrats and even the opposition before the fall extraordinary session of the Diet. Huge decisions loom as regards the constitution and education reform, revisions to Japan’s security policies, the Trans Pacific Partnership, greentlighting the 3% rise in the consumption tax and the heretofore unannounced parts of the Third Arrow of Abenomics -- and Abe seems to spending his purported rest period smoothing whatever edges he can prior to the session's start.



Even the deeply personal trips, like the one to Yamaguchi to pay respects at his father's grave -- a seasonal and filial duty he neglected in 2007 in the chaos after the defeat in the House of Councillors election, a botched selection of a new Cabinet and ill-timed official trips abroad -- provided an opening for political box checking. The family grave in Nagato was not the only pilgrimage site. The PM also traveled a few kilometres further up the coast to Hagi to pay his respects at the grave site of martyr to the Restoration movement Yoshida Shoin (Link - J -- for those less mobile than the PM, Yoshida has another grave marker in Setagaya -- Link - J). As "a son of Choshu" a visit to Yoshida's school and grave marker represents an understandable nod to historical geography and hometown sensitivities (the PM, while nominally from Nagato, is really from Tokyo).

An aside...but Yoshida worship seems to have, in recent years, been in something of an eclipse. Other figures from the age have enjoyed greater study and exposure. Perhaps the PM is trying to jump start a Yoshida boom. Whether or not the Yoshida boom ensues, visiting the gravesite of the spiritual father of the Meiji Restoration does the PM no harm in the more nationalist patriot segments of the electorate.

How do I know what the PM has been doing in so much detail? I read it in the newspaper, of course. To get the PM's schedule of where he went, who he met and where he ate (if not exactly what he ate) just copy 首相動静 into the search window of the Japanese news aggregator you like best. If you are language challenged but willing to wait for a while, Asia Policy Point has been doing the yeoman's duty of translating Abe's published schedule into English (Link - J). The APP translations are a great complement to the pretty decent job the Prime Minister's Residence is doing keeping the public abreast of highlights in the PM's day (Link), some of which are downright bizarre (taking part in this art exhibition, for example). The PM and his staff fill in further information via the famous/infamous postings to his Facebook page.

There are so many windows allowing us to peer into the PM's life. T'is a thing of wonder he still so enjoys throwing the occasional stone.

Top image courtesy: MTC
Original image by Storm Thorgerson

Photo courtesy: Mainichi Shimbun

The latest Kyodo poll numbers…

...in an initial glance tell me perilously close to nothing.

But let us take a longer look anyway, shall we?

As has seemingly been the case with every prime minister since time began, or since Koizumi Jun’ichiro, the top line number of support for the Cabinet fell from its initial reading.

Numbers are percentages. The previous month’s readings are in [ ].

Do you support the Cabinet or not?

Support 54.6 [62.8]
Do Not Support 27.8 [18.1]
Don’t know/Don’t care 17.6 [18.1]

There is has been a slight drop (30.0 to 23.5) in the number of respondents who say they support the Cabinet because they trust the prime minister. By contrast, there has been a big rise in the number who say they support the Cabinet because they see no one else as appropriate as prime minister (32.2 to 47.5).

It is this latter number that Policy Research Council Chairman Maehara Seiji has to worry about if should he seek to challenge Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko in the next Democratic Party of Japan leadership election, scheduled to be held next September. The basis of Maehara’s potential leadership run is his popularity with the public. The more Noda is accepted as the only real candidate for the job of prime minister, the harder it will be for Maehara to convince his peers that he is the leader the party needs to prevail in the next House of Representatives election.

This is an an aside, but Maehara also has to worry about being lulled into fealty to Noda through Noda’s expansion of the powers and influence of the position of Policy Research Chairman. Maehara has to keep reminding himself, as the months click by, “I am being bought off. I am being bought off…”

As to the all-important numbers of support for the parties, the numbers for the two main parties have not budged at all. There has been a slight tick upward in the number for the party of cynics and smartasses Your Party and for the Communists – but not so great as to say that voter dissatisfaction with the status quo is rising.

Which party do you support?

DPJ 27.1 [27.2]
LDP 23.2 [23.6]
Your Party 5.7 [4.9]
New Komeito 4.0 [3.5]
Communist 3.2 [2.2]
Socialist 0.9 [0.8]
PNP 0.4 [0.1]
Sunrise 0.2 [0.6]
Other 0.3 [0.1]
Support no party 33.8 [35.7]
Don't know/Don't care 1.2 [1.3]

As for the big news of the weekend (at least it was big news inside the confines of Nagata-cho) – that the Liberal Democratic Party’s factions, which had been rather dormant, rose up to lop off a few heads in party’s executive offices – it has scarcely entered the public’s consciousness:

LDP President Tanigaki Sadakazu retained Secretary-General Ishihara Nobuteru, but named Motegi Toshimitsu Chairman of the Policy Research Council and Shionoya Ryu Chairman of the General Council. Do you have any expectations of this new LDP party executive?

Have expectations 32.1
Have no expectations 60.6
Don’t know, Don’t care 7.3

Replacing the human quote machines Ishiba Shigeru and Koike Yuriko (to be fair, having the Iron Butterfly as the head of the General Council did not make much sense, considering the number of parties she has been in. But absent the ability of giving her a cabinet post, how else could Tanigaki put her in the spotlight?) is a risky move for Tanigaki, as he is cringeworthy when cornered by the cameras. Faction leaders Machimura, Koga and Nukaga could not be denied having their own representatives in the power positions, however.

Overall, Prime Minister Noda should be pleased with the results of the poll. The index of public testiness, the date at which the prime minister should dissolve the Diet and call an election, has receded into the haze of the distant future:

When do you think that the next dissolution of the Diet and House of Representatives election should take place?

This year 15.6
Next year 33.2
In 2013, when the term of the present Diet ends 46.6
Don’t Know, Don’t care 5.2


Later - I thought the questions about the supplementary budget and tax rises were idiotic, as they did not ask the respondents, "What would you do if you were in the prime minister's position? What mix of taxes, budget cuts and bond issuance would you propose?" Instead, the respondents were asked whether or not they "value" or "appreciate" (hyoka suru) the proposed third supplementary budget or the proposed tax rises.

Others thought these questions and their answers newsworthy.

Telegraphing Realignment Or Just Hanging Out?

If you are infatuated with, and some people are, the idea that the Liberal Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of Japan are destined to sort themselves out into ideologically coherent parties, with reformers banding together into a new political force--then you are going to love the new meeting of minds being set up by Special Advisor to the Cabinet Okuda Hiroshi, the former chairman of Toyota Motors.

According to today's Nihon Keizai Shimbun, sometime after the Golden Week holidays a gang of folks will start getting together on a regular (teikiteki) basis to talk about...well, gosh, what could they be talking about?

From the LDP
Former Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichirō
Former Minister of Defense/the Environment Koike Yuriko
Former McKinsey consultant and Harvard M.A. holder Motegi Toshimitsu
Tōdai Law graduate and former aide to U.S. Senator Willian Roth Hayashi Yoshimasa
Tōdai Law graduate and holder of an M.A. from the Maryland School of Public Policy Nishimura Yasutoshi

(Nota Bene - are we talking considerable experience in either work or study abroad here, or what?)

From the DPJ
Former Party Leader Maehara Seiji
Tōdai Law graduate and the Socialist Party's go-to guy on legal issues Sengoku Yoshito
Deputy Policy Research Council Chairman Fukuyama Tetsurō
Former Deputy Secretary-General Genba Kōichirō

(Maehara, Fukuyama and Genba are all products of the Matsushita Institute of Government and Management political finishing school)

From the corporate sector
Rakuten founder Mikitani Hiroshi

and others.

I ask again, what would these folks have to talk about, meeting on a regular basis?

For some odd reason I think that neither "above all loyalty to party or one's organization" or "in order to make Japan great again we must lead a revival of traditional values" will be major themes.