The Morimoto Appointment

There are many stories to be chasing after.

There is the humanization of arrested Aum Shinrikyo fujitive Kikuchi Naoko in the news media and the implications the humanization of a mass murderer could have on the imposition of the death penalty in her case -- a given, considering the sentences handed out to the other members of the cult -- or even the death penalty's continued application. Can the state kill a person who has, during her life on the run, worked as an eldercare provider? Is there such a thing as redemption after committing great evil? And what of the National Police Agency's incapacity to capture anyone unless that person is handed to them on a platter* or in the case of Hirata Makoto, tries desperately (Link) to hand himself in on a platter? And what of the irony of the Kikuchi arrest coming the day after rededication of a monument to Sakamoto Kuniko -- the Sakamotos being the first of Aum's victims, whose killings, had they been investigated (it would not have been too hard. One of the cult members, horrified at what he and his fellow followers had done, left his Aum Shinrikyo badge at the scene of the crime) would have stopped the whole mad murderous machine in its tracks? (Link - J)

One talk about the flip side of the collapse of the economies in rural areas: that larger-than-one-would-imagine-in-a-country-with-a-population-as-big-as-Japan's tracts of uninhabited land are available for renewable energy resource projects -- nicely graded and leveled abandoned rice paddies, failed golf courses, unused rural economic development zones and perhaps even an underused airport or two make fine candidates for solar farms. (Link) **

However, the big story is the Cabinet reshuffle (Link) and the big story of the Cabinet reshuffle the appointment of academic Morimoto Satoshi as Minister of Defense.

For those looking for background on the appointment there is a wealth of material. Morimoto has been in the public eye for two decades as a public intellectual of the first rank, serving as the media's go-to conservative academic on matters such as the Japan-U.S. security alliance, the DPRK, defense systems, the revolution in military affairs and the rise of Chinese military power. If someone were looking for "gotcha" moments -- stunningly incorrect predictions, overblown rhetoric, rumor mongering, untenable analysis -- there are hundreds of hours of video and ten of thousands of words to troll through. Luckily for Morimoto and Prime Minister Noda, the organizations with the most reflexive tendencies to go trolling for items with which to embarrass Morimoto and the government -- the Yomiuri Shimbun and its Nihon Terebi terrestrial TV network and the Sankei Shimbun and its terrestrial network Fuji TV -- both have relied on Morimoto as the outside expert most likely to hew to their editorial line.

Morimoto is a hardline realist. He has little love for Article 9 and the limits placed upon Japan's ability to engage in multilateral security actions. A former Air Self Defense Forces (the most gungho of the services) officer and a graduate of the National Defense Academy, he has probably always dreamed of being Minister of Defense. Now he has the responsibility to be one. He will be the man in the cross hairs and the guy with his name on the dotted line when the government signs the contract for the acquisition of F-35 Lightning IIs, with the costs and delivery dates to be determined.

Morimoto has previous experience in government, having been appointed the first Special Advisor to the Minister of Defense after the position was created during the premiership of Aso Taro. As a former member of an LDP administration with no previously noted links to the Democratic Party of Japan, he represents a bit of wicked deviousness on Prime Minister Noda's part: after disgracing the position with two Ozawa Ichiro-nominated defense ignoramuses -- whom the LDP had the House of Councillors censure -- he gives the country a defense minister about whom the LDP can raise not a peep of protest.

Morimoto, despite his defense smarts, comes into office with severe handicaps that will limit his ability to transform his own ideas into action. First, he is a non-politician: he will facing the bureaucracy naked, without even a political secretary to back him up. Such support as he will enjoy will come from the Prime Minister's Residence (the Kantei) and in the person of the man who appointed him. Second, the cost of acquiring the F-35 threatens to upset the balance between the ASDF and the already beset Ground Self Defense Forces and the proud and dominant Maritime Self Defense Forces. After personnel costs and procurement costs, Morimoto will have little to spend on actual operations or any expansion of operations he might press the government to consider.

The appointment of Morimoto once again raises the question of whether or not Noda is his own defense minister. While he for once has less experienced in defense matters than person he has appointed as his defense minister, being only the son of an SDF man rather than a former SDF man himself, Noda still believes himself an expert in the nuts and bolts of defense policy.

The appointment seems more a tactical move rather than a strategic one. At a stroke Noda has neutralized potential LDP, right wing and center-right media and nationalist complaints about his support for a robust Japanese defense capability and outlook. Left-leaning and leftist news media have indeed been hopping up and down that the appointment of an academic rather than a politician means that the MOD bureaucracy and uniformed officers will be too powerful, undermining the concept of civilian control (shibirian kontororu***). He will win the applause of the American think-tank-political-appointee merry-go-round ridership, who will be thrilled by Morimoto's heretofore unshakable support of the Japan-U.S. alliance and his hardline security stances, ignoring Morimoto's rather weak bureaucratic and non-existent political support. He also removes from the commentariat one of his most potent and visible potential critics.

So Morimoto has the "right" views and the wrong attributes. We shall have to see which of the two initial conditions proves the more significant.


Later - And yes, I did notice. It was the first thing out of my mouth when I saw the Cabinet lineup in the paper this morning: "What? Again? Where are the women, you torpid [expletive deleted] sea slug?"


Later still - This post has been edited for greater clarity.

Way later - The Magnificent Kiwis have checked in -- Bryce Wakefield in Comments and Corey Wallace over at Japan Security Watch (Link) -- with far more intelligent things to say about the Morimoto apppointment than I have.


-------------------------------
* Until further notice, I will remain agnostic regarding the police story that a neighbor recognized Kikuchi and turned her in. The difference in appearances between the 1994 Kikuchi and the woman arrested on Sunday are significant (Link). It seems unlikely that anyone looking at her would see the chubby, smiling former runner, especially as Kikuchi, while living in Sagamihara, was, according to residents, always hiding her face by looking at the ground.

A more likely scenario is that her lover, exhausted by life on the lam, turned her in with a promise of clemency for himself and mercy for her, with police concocting the alert neighbor story to keep the public on the lookout for the last remaining Aum fugitive, Takahashi Katsuya.

** Note to The Economist: the title of your story about this subject has to be, "Huge...tracts of land..."

*** One critic whose opinions I value has said that whenever elites in this blessed land want to reduce the ability of citizens to understand certain concepts, they simply take the English word and transliterate it using katakana. The plague of katakana eigo terms in finance industry terminology (konpuraiansu, gabanansu...) would tend to support the "let's keep them in the dark" thesis.

The League Of Incurious Stenographers

Journalism is a profession, or at least it should be.

This Kyodo news report declares it to be a profession in peril:

Experts scoff at allegations of spying by diplomat Li
Kyodo

BEIJING/TOKYO — Some people in diplomatic and intelligence circles are skeptical about the spying allegations leveled against Li Chunguang, a diplomat at the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo who fled Japan last month after rejecting a request to be questioned by the Japanese police.

The Metropolitan Police Department's Public Security Bureau handed over information on Li, a 45-year-old first secretary at the Chinese Embassy, to prosecutors for potential prosecution action on May 31, on suspicion that Li used a false identity to renew his alien registration card.

The prosecutors appear likely to decide against indictment in the absence of the diplomat, who left on May 23.

"Although we did need to question him, if we could (the request was turned down), so we decided to send the case to prosecutors after nearly completing the investigation," a bureau official said.

Initially, police and some media outlets speculated that Li was involved in espionage. A newspaper said the first secretary is suspected of having obtained information from classified documents leaked from the farm ministry about a project to promote exports of Japanese produce to China.

The public security investigation bureau had been following Li, who is thought to have belonged to an intelligence unit within the People's Liberation Army, since he was posted to Japan in July 2007 as an economic affairs officer.

On May 31, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Michihiko Kano said he met the diplomat five times and denied that he or any other farm ministry officials passed classified documents to him.

According to a friend of Li, since returning to Beijing the former first secretary has been fuming about media reports about his alleged spying and reportedly said he never wants to visit Japan again.

The Chinese Embassy in Tokyo said he left Japan because his stint abroad was up. Li's departure in late May came after nearly five years in Japan — which is typical for many embassy officials.

Ahead of that, Li is also said to have consulted with friends about job opportunities after returning from Japan and inquiring about whether there were any good posts with a government organization relating to economic affairs.

Japan's police suspect he renewed his alien card to open many bank accounts to receive "advisory" fees from Japanese firms.

However, people in diplomatic and intelligence circles say a professional spy typically pays for classified information.

"The Metropolitan Police Department tracked him for five years and came up only with the problem with an alien registration card," said an intelligence expert who worked in China. "What's more, evidence shows the first secretary has only received payments when he should have been paying for information."

"It's more than obvious that a fraudulent renewal of an alien registration card will easily be spotted if one does it using his real name," the expert added. "A pro would never do such a thing."

After the latest case, experts say Japan is "too open" when it comes to data held by the government, while China keeps a strict watch via law-enforcement and other government units.

In May 2009, a ranking official of China's Xinhua news agency was sentenced to 18 years in prison for spying and other charges.

The ruling said he was punished for receiving around 207,000 yuan, which was worth around ¥2.5 million at current exchange rates, in cash from then Japanese Ambassador Yuji Miyamoto in return for secret data on North Korea and other matters.

But the "secret" information was said to be about matters already in the public domain.

Unlike China, where even trivial data may be classified, Japan doesn't have strict laws on guarding confidential information. As a result, Chinese spies may view Japan as a sort of heaven where classified data can be obtained legally.

On Li's case, a Japanese police official suggested that the attempt to call him in for questioning was intended to remove someone they suspected of spying. "If we had let him go home without taking any action, he could come back again as a diplomat."

Atsuyuki Sassa, who was head of foreign affairs at the National Police Agency, said, "Requesting his appearance for questioning was perhaps the best they could do, but it certainly had the effect of checking (Chinese moves)."

(Link)*

How quickly we move from "experts" to "some people." The only "expert" named who supports the thesis is an anonymous individual whom we are told has expertise in China.

As for the article itself, it begins in one place, decides to tackle the subject, misses, lolls about regaling us with tales of yesteryear and ends up quoting a single security expert, Sassa Atsuyuki, whose thesis is the exact opposite of the one the article attempts to promote.

"So journalists on deadline on the weekend write crap. So what?"

Wrong! This is what Kyodo is reduced to releasing now that police informants, realizing what a complete disaster the Li case has become, are now either shutting their mouths or pointing reporters into speculating that perhaps Li was not a spy, after all.

Not that the screw up has been all bad for the NPA. As Shingetsu News notes, the Li case is not being used as a lever to pry an espionage bill out of the Diet -- which would be a neat way to play both sides of an issue ("He's a spy; we need a law. He's not a spy; we still need a law!") if the public is lulled into paying no further attention to the machinations of the security apparat.

That both the Japanese and the Chinese government are lying about the Li case is obvious.

Can you imagine how ticked off the career diplomats of the PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs would be if the story the Chinese government has been shopping around turned out to be true, that the #4 position in the embassy -- in the Economics Division, no less, where the misplacing of a single comma in a bilateral agreement could cost the country billions of yuan -- was handed off to some academic wanderer with loads of Japan experience?

Something big and bad happened here. Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Kano Michihiko, who gave crucial support to Prime Minister Noda in August of last year when Noda was running for the position of party president, will today lose his ministerial post, the prize which he had extorted from Noda in return for his support, because of what may have been the most innocent and perfunctory of contacts with Li.

The government is trying to bury this and bury this fast.

-----------------------------------------------
* I generally forego quoting whole articles. However, this one is so bad it is likely to disappear quickly into the ether, after having emerged from the muck.

I Spy With My Little Eye

There is always a well-known solution to every human problem--neat, plausible, and wrong.

- H. L. Mencken (1917)

The Shingetsu News Agency has just put up a story, "Japan’s “Spy” Case That Probably Isn’t." The article very kindly notes my skepticism regarding the narrative spewed out by Channel Sakura, the Yomiuri Shimbun and others -- that First Secretary of the Embassy of China Li Chunguang (now that the National Police Agency has sent papers to the Embassy, the mainstream news media is finally showing his image and reporting his name) used (a) bank account(s) opened under false premises to receive funds from Japanese companies. These funds were then used to pay for spying activities.

The SNA report speculates that a far more probable explanation for the illegal bank account(s) was Li's seeking to build up a little nest egg outside the knowledge of his superiors and outside China.

Correspondence with two veteran Asia watchers, one a Japan specialist, the other a businessman with decades of experience in China, finds them in agreement with the SNA: this is a story about an individual's greed.

I wish I could believe the simple answer. Occam's Razor suggests I should.

However, I cannot.

There are loose ends that make my head ache:

- Li purportedly could open bank accounts in Japan using an alien registration card (gaikokujin toroku shomeisho) which had been issued by a local municipality -- no reports as to which one (See second update below - Ed.) -- after he presented his old Tokyo University ID card.

Can one actually do this? In my experience, unless one can produce a passport, one which the staff members at the ward/town office will always politely ask whether or not they might photocopy, you had might as well not show up at all.

So Li showed up at the ward/town office with his expired Todai ID and a fake passport. The simplest answer as to how he procured this fake passport was from Chinese intelligence. However, it is not the only way he could have procured a faked passport.

Li, for attempting this runaround, must have nerves of steel: so many things could have gone wrong, exposing him. Except, of course, if higher authorities from the central government had forewarned the ward/town office of Li's request for an alien registration card, resulting in Li's documents not being examined with the ward/town's usual level of diligence.

- News reports have Li being under surveillance since 2007. The NPA knows/learns that he is a graduate of the People's Liberation Army language training program and a member of the PLA General Staff. It follows him around for five years (a long span of time for a diplomat to remain at a post - a flashing red light) as he visits and interacts with members of the Diet, the bureaucracy and the business community.

He is likely the highest-level asset China has in Tokyo. He has been followed for half a decade...and the NPA burns him over illegally obtained bank accounts?

Non, non, non, non, non...je suis un con, mais je ne suis pas con au point de croire cela...

We must assume that NPA counterintelligence would never permit the exposure of a compromised asset of Li's stature.

So the most plausible scenario is that someone inside the NPA made a huge mistake, such as:

- NPA counterintelligence uses the illegal bank accounts in order to threaten Li in what is a clumsy attempt to turn Li into a double agent. Knowing his cover blown and his illegal accounts compromised, Li goes back to his superiors with the bad news. Having failed in its amateurish attempt to blackmail Li into betraying his country, the NPA places a formal request with the Embassy to question Li. His usefulness in Tokyo now zero, Li is whisked back to China.

- A misguided patriot inside the financial crimes division, learning that a Chinese diplomat is conducting business inside Japan using false bank accounts and furious that his division does nothing to stop such criminal behavior, leaks information on Li to the right wing press -- in the same way Isshiki Masaharu leaked the video of a Chinese fishing vessel colliding with two Japan Coast Guard vessels in November 2010. The NPA, realizing that Li's cover is about to be irretrievably blown, resigns itself into allowing the financial crimes division to pursue Li through formal procedures.

Far-fetched?

...when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth...

- Sherlock Holmes in The Sign of the Four (1890)

Later - In my first post on the Li Chunguang Affair, I identified Akihiko Tanaka as the Vice President of Tokyo University. Reader RS reminds me that since April 1, Tanaka has been the president of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) - Link.

Later still - For the record, the NPA's sending of papers to Li via the Embassy of China makes sense only as a courtesy to the news media, allowing them to start showing Li's face and referring to him by name. As a holder of diplomatic passport, Li had full immunity from arrest for his violations of the Alien Registration Act.

Also for the record, Li filed his false application for an alien registration card and received it in Katsushika City (Katsushika-ku).

I Saw Him Standing There

A few years ago, when a good friend was writing his first book, I chided him gently for the section (he had me reading the drafts) he had penned on matsuri (festivals). From what little training I had had in the social sciences, I knew that festivals were much more than just displays of colored lights, children running about with the gifts and treats they had just received, neighbors greeting neighbors, truly awful food and reaffirmations of local and national traditions. They were about power: who in my neighborhood clung to it, who wielded it and who would never have it. From the lists of the donors to who was pouring sake from the big bottle, the matsuri was a palimpsest of the writhing vines of power binding the neighborhood together in a way that mocked the constitutional equality of all attending.

Due to my own ignorance, I did not point out the most significant oversight: the lack of a mention of the presence of organized crime. As the Lawyer has explained to me since, "Where there are matsuri, there are yakuza.

So I should not have been surprised to see while on a January 1 hastumode at X Hachimangu a tall, heavy-set man in a black suit, short-cropped hair and a gold watch on his wrist matter-of-factly taking a fan of thousand-yen bills from the hands of a food vendor, not three meters away from where I was standing in line.

"Look," I said, "a member of the local criminal element taking his cut."

"Not necessarily," countered my companion. "He could be just a member of the organizing committee."

Uh, no.

It was 6 degrees out; we were in the shade of a grove of trees. Everyone else was in winter wear, stamping his or her feet from the cold. This guy was in a suit, no coat...and he walked over to another guy, short-set, punch-permed hair, in black suit, no coat, smoking a cigarette outside a closed tent marked "RESERVED SEATING."

The only such tent on the grounds.

The ousting of gangsters from the Kitazawa Hachimangu's autumn festival was national news (E) last year, making the evening news broadcasts on NHK. The Kitazawa Hachimangu is a tiny little place. I know; I have been there. That the National Police Agency should make such a hullabaloo about kicking the gangsters out of a postage-stamp sized shrine and its festival is indicative of a serious national problem.

In December, the city of Yaizu pulped its official 2012 calendars after a known yakuza was spotted in a photo of the city's summer festival. Please take a look at the size of the crowd in the photo. How in Amaterasu's name could there not be a yakuza in the picture?

I had my camera with me in line on Sunday. However, as I was going to pray for peace and good fortune in the new year, it is probably a good thing I did not surrender to the temptation to take the shot.