Over The Borderline Of Stupid

Ceci est un Japon

Yesterday the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) announced the results of the screening (kentei) of social science textbooks . The screening, which is for textbooks to be used in the nation's middle and high schools beginning April 2016, found 102 of 104 textbooks passed the new criteria established this past January -- a rather stunning display of quickstep obedience. (Link)

What is making this story newsworthy is the lockstep acceptance by book publishers of a word, that word being koyu (固有), usually translated as "inherent" -- as in the following:

All social studies textbooks for middle school students will include descriptions of the Takeshima islets and the Senkaku Islands as "territories inherently belonging to Japan," among other similar phrases, according to the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry.

By saying that not just the Senkaku Islands, where Japan has administrative control, but Dokdo and the Southern Kuriles, where it does not, are all "inherent" territories, the government of Japan is saying that no deals can be struck as regards the final sovereignty of any of these territories and territorial waters.

Which, if you are in the business of solving problems and working toward better tomorrows, which is sort of what democratic governments are supposed to be doing, most of the time (thank you, Immanuel Kant) would be an INCREDIBLY STUPID THING TO INSIST IS YOUR POSITION.

Let us say a Chinese, Russian or South Korean diplomat meets her counterpart in Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The conversation between the two will have to go something like this:

Japanese Diplomat - "I am sorry, but we have nothing to discuss on the matter of sovereignty. The territories are Japanese. End of discussion."

which will most likely be immediately followed by a:

"Hey, wait, where are you going? Stop, stop! I am supposed to sit down with you and discuss things!"

One of the great characteristics of Japanese diplomacy, at least until recently, was the careful consideration done of the potential repercussions of a statement. Whereas Russian or Chinese diplomats (I cannot speak about the ROK diplomatic corps) can be trusted to utter provocative, extremist nonsense, Japanese diplomats have prided themselves on locutions that almost-but-not-quite stake out a position -- a stance that reflects both national aspirations AND reality.

These new criteria claiming that Takeshima, all of the Northern Territories and the Senkakus are all inherent territories -- which is to say that letting go of even a square millimeter of them would diminish Japan as an entity -- mark a surrender to the surreal.

Any deal on control of the Senkakus, on Dokdo, on the Southern Kuriles would be just that: a deal. A deal presupposes compromise and compromises means sacrifice. If one states at the outset that no sacrifice is possible -- "It's either my way or the highway, amigo" -- then one is just being an ass and a damned dangerous one too.

A declaration of a standard of "negotiations without sacrifice" is an example of the threat highlighted by Professor Alexis Dudden in her widely misunderstood op-ed for The New York Times, "The Shape of Japan to Come" (Link). Many reading the op-ed thought Dr. Dudden was issuing a warning that the Abe government was positioning Japan for a military conquest/occupation of disputed territories and territorial waters. Calling Mr. Abe's views "revanchist" did little to discourage such an interpretation.

What Dr. Dudden was trying to convey was likely a more limited warning -- that the Abe administration is leaving reality behind, promising not only to do things it has no intention of doing (the usual business of politics) but also things it cannot possibly do. A government that promises its citizens they are all going to Heaven (a paraphrase of the reaction of one my colleagues to Abe's speech to the Diet of 10 September 2007, delivered two days before he announced his resignation) is not likely to be a helpful international actor, nor a particularly reliable one.

That MEXT officials (and their counterparts in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) want to claim for themselves that the impossible is true is bad. That they should want, through the kentei process (and in MOFA's case, through the intimidation of non-Japanese journalists) to insist that everyone shares their grand delusions, is idiocy.


Later - Thanks to reader AO for quickly catching my superfluous insertion of a decade.

Coming Up At Temple University Japan - ICAS In December: Sracic and Okumura

I cannot attend but I hope you can what is likely to be a no-holds barred intellectual tussle between two sophisticated veterans. Paul Sracic and Okumura Jun will tangle this month at Temple University Japan - ICAS over a deceptively simple-looking and very much hush-hush question: if push comes to shove in the East China Sea, would the United States really go to war with China over the Senkakus?

http://www.tuj.ac.jp/icas/event/will-the-us-defend-the-senkakus-paul-sracic-and-jun-okumura/

The pair have already gone through a couple rounds of sparring over at The Diplomat:

- Will the U.S. Really Defend Japan?

- Yes, the U.S. Will Defend Japan

- Will the U.S. Defend Japan? More of a Definite Maybe

I would love to see the pair in live action...but I will be otherwise occupied that eve.

If you wish to attend, make sure to find out whether the event is being held at the Azabu Campus or the Mita Campus. A long trudge awaits you if you show up at the wrong venue.

To RSVP for the event, email ICAS at: icas@tuj.temple.edu

Very Kind Of Them #20

Lucy Craft interviewed a bunch of smart, smart folks - Andrew Horvat, Miyake Kunihiko and Michishita Narushige -- for a report on President Barack Obama's Senkakus declaration and the significance of rebalancing for Japan.

And she also talked to me. (Link - audio)

Out of my depth again.

Rebalancing is what it says it is. It is taking U.S. attention away from regions where leaders and elites spend too much of their time thinking about how to destroy human life to the region of the world which has been working the hardest to improve the sad lot of humanity. Forces within China, tempted by the weakening of the international system by the many stupdities of America's great national nightmare (a.k.a., the G. W. Bush Presidentcy), wish for understandable but selfish reasons to throw a wrench into the workings of this the greatesst prosperity engine in human history.

The U.S. and its allies wish only to offer the suggestion, "Chinese patriots, think this through first. Cogitate upon whether what you dream of doing is really worth the pain."

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 I Want For Christmas Is A Train Set, Among Other Things

The Okinawa Prefectural Government (OPG), in what is looking like an end game move in the longstanding battle over approval of the plan to begin destroying habitat for the critically endangered dugong landfill at the Futenma Replacement Facility (FRF) site at Henoko, released a wish list on Tuesday of the projects and programs it would want the central government to pay for prior to Governor Nakaima Hirokazu's authorization of the landfill permit.

The list of requests is long and presumptuous:

1) Termination of operations and swift return of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma within 5 years;

2) Total return of Camp Kinser within 7 years;

3) Revision of the Status Of Forces Agreement between the US and Japan including

- On-site investigations from the viewpoints of environment and excavating cultural assets by Okinawa, inside the military facilities three years before their returns,

- On-site investigations by experts in the Okinawa Prefectural Government inside both existing and new facilities, in cases where environmental pollution is suspected,

- Application of tighter environmental regulations, those of either the U.S. or Japan, to the US military facilities;

4) Deploying about a dozen of the Ospreys currently deployed in Okinawa out of the prefecture

- Relocating of the majority of Osprey training exercises

- Removal of Ospreys from Okinawa after the termination of operations of MCAS Futenma.

In addition:

1) a budget allocation for FY 2014 of about 340.8 billion yen to be used for enhancing the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) [the fast developing technology center where the honorable Janne of Janne in Osaka hangs his hat], etc.;)

2) 300 billion yen by 2021 for the second runway of Naha airport, etc.;

3) funding for the a railway system and for the recovery for commercial use of the land returned land from the US military bases;

4) the implement tax reform (preferential tax treatments for investments in Okinawa) in FY 2014.

Source: Okinawa Prefectural Government

Demanding sweeping changes, including swift alternations to the Status Of Forces Agreement (Oh, you do so not want to go there!) could be Governor Nakaima's way fending off Abe goverment pressure to OK the necessary permits. More likely though Nakaima is simply following the rule of thumb of negotiating where if you are only going to get 70% of what you ask for, you should ask for 140% of what you want.

The Okinawa list does not include a casino license, despite the rumors that such a license is high on the prefectural list of economic development priorities. Since such a license does not yet exist, seeing as how casino gambling is still illegal, the prefectural government can hardly demand one from the national government.

According to the Yomiuri Shimbun, the U.S. government responded to the Nakaima requests by declaring it will not acquiesce to any changes in the SOFA (Link) -- demonstrating that when it comes to Okinawan face, there is just no stopping the USG's trampling upon it.

Governot Nakaima and his advisors know that Okinawa's options are much more limited now than they were when Nakaima won reelection in 2010. Chinese activities in the Senkakus, which are in the OPG's jurisidiction, have skyrocketed. Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's ruling coalition owns whopping majorities in both House of Diet. If Nakaima does not sign the permits by the end of the year -- his time limit on a decision regarding the first phase of construction for the Henoko FRF -- then the Abe government will simply submit a bill to the Diet authorizing the work, bypassing the prefecture's objections. If A Diet vote takes place, Nakaima's capacity to request compensatory action and budget allocations for the presence of U.S. bases on Okinawa will evaporate.

The pressure on the hospitalized Nakaima (the atmospherics of the hospitalization are great: Nakaima is in Tokyo but the prime minister and the chief cabinet secretary can only visit him at his convenience, not theirs) and the OPG is immense. Asking for the construction of a train line (Uh, where are the rights-of-way for a railroad going to come from on an island with such severe land use constraints that the FRF has to be built out over the ocean?) shows that the Okinawans, for all their happy-go-lucky, let's dance libidinous reputations, remain up to the mainland challenge.

A Chinese Nightmare, Post-Sochi

VLADIVOSTOK - When Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan sat down last Thursday with President Geun-hye Park at the finals of women's figure skating in Sochi, Russia, the physical and emotional distance between the two leaders seemed an illustration of the freeze in relations between the two countries. Mr. Abe and President Park sat apart, acknowledging each other's presence only once at the start of the evening. Japan First Lady Akie Abe, a fan of Korean culture and a speaker of the Korean language, sat in between the two leaders, eagerly and energetically chatting with the South Korean leader in a manner that made the frostiness between President Park and Prime Minister Abe all the more glaring.

The lack of interaction between President Park and Mr. Abe last week made yesterday's announcement of a broad-based, multilateral agreement on East Asian territorial issues all the more unexpected. Foreign ministers of Japan, South Korea, Russia and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, meeting in this frigid Pacific port, held a news conference outlining an intricate plan for countries in the region to settle longstanding territorial disputes in a wave of mutual recognitions of each other’s territorial claims.

"President Park and Mr. Abe put on an incredible show on Thursday night, better perhaps than the two young ladies," quipped one of President Park's advisers, who asked to remain anonymous. "The two governments had already cut the deal on Dokdo recognition, ending the feud. The two leaders showed no warmth at all toward each in order to keep the whole deal under wraps."

Though the details are not fully hammered out regarding Japanese rights on the northernmost of the two islands the Russians call the Southern Kuriles and the Japanese call their Northern Territories, the basic outlines of yesterday's agreements are:

- Russia will return to Japan of the islands of Shikotan and Habomai, seized by Soviet forces in 1945. Russia will gain sovereignty over the two remaining islands currently under dispute, with former Japanese residents of the islands and their descendants winning special extraterritorial rights of residency and self-rule on the islands.

- Japan and Russia will sign a peace treaty, officially ending World War II.

- Japan will recognize of South Korean sovereignty over islets known as Dokdo, which the Japanese call Takeshima. In return, the South Korea government promises to suspend all official efforts to change the name of the sea in which Dokdo is located from "Sea of Japan" to "East Sea."

- Russia, South Korea and the United States will recognize Japanese sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands, which China and the government of Taiwan both claim.

The responses of the Chinese government to the declaration on the Senkakus, which Chinese call the Diaoyu Islands, have been confusion, disbelief and anger. Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin, China's senior representative at the Vladivostok talks after the departure of Foreign Minister Wang Yi two days ago, had no prepared statement, leaving the conference hall in a rush with reporters trailing in his wake. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei, in a hastily arranged news conference in Beijing, declared, "Japan does not have sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands and no agreement among outsider nations can change this reality. The perfidy of today's illegitimate acts will reverberate through history but will never break China's bond to its sovereign territories."

"China overplayed its hand and absented itself from efforts to find a solution," explained a senior U.S. official, speaking on background. "The declaration of the East China Sea air defense zone in November got everyone's attention, making it clear that just leaving sovereignty issues in limbo was just going to continue to generate threats to everyone's security. Once the ball started rolling on the need for mutual recognitions and mutual sacrifices, the negotiations gained unstoppable momentum, bringing us to the agreement we have today."

The broad-based agreement, which the ministers and Secretary Kerry will be taking back to their capitals for approval...

Togo Kazuhiko At ICAS

I do not always agree with the ideas of Togo Kazuhiko, the former rising star at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and current the Director of the Institute of World Affairs at Kyoto Sangyo University. I thought and still do think disastrous his proposal that the government of Japan accede to Chinese demands for a recognition of the existence of a dispute over the sovereignty of the Senkakus in return for reopened high-level dialogue. Togo's proposal insufficiently appreciates the window of opportunity such a concession provides for Chinese to claim the Senkakus are one of the "stolen" territories whose return is promised to China under the Cairo Declaration. Perhaps Chinese escalation of the crisis since he first made the proposal has changed Togo's thinking.

Despite my differences with some of Togo's ideas, he is a towering figure in the analysis of the diplomatic issues facing Japan. Well worth watching is the video of his recent talk at Temple University Japan on the background to the current state of Japan-Russia relations and the chances for the Abe Cabinet to resolve the Northern Territories issue and sign a peace treaty.

I very much agree with Togo's assessment in the video that if one wishes to understand the strategic thinking of Abe Shinzo, one needs to read Toward a Beautiful Country, the book Abe published this year. Unfortunately, when one reads the book one finds that the strategic ideas are 1) few in number and 2) arise from a rather bonkers view of the world (Most folks have to be cautioned that correlation does not imply causation. Prime Minister Abe has to be further cautioned that juxtaposition does not imply correlation).

Temple University Japan's Institute for Contemporary Asian Studies is open minded in its invitations. In addition to heavyweights like Togo, they offer a microphone to lesser talents like this odd individual, who will be offering his take on the Abe Cabinet on January 9.

ADIZ-y

Three thoughts as regards the Chinese declaration of an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) including the airspace over the Senkakus.

1) Some of the world's media and Japanese officials have portrayed the U.S. Air Forces' flying of two B-52s unannounced into the Chinese ADIZ on November 26 as a gutsy finger-in-the-eye response to the Chinese declaration. Some in Japan also see it as a strong vote in support of the Japanese government's contention that the zone is invalid. (Link)

This would seem to be an over reading of the U.S. Defense Department's actions.

U.S. military aircraft never announce their entry into the ADIZs of other nations, unless of course under orders to do so. Not alerting the Chinese as to the entry of the B-52s into the new ADIZ was standard operating procedure.

So the B-52s were not challenging Chinese resolve. They were just flying.

2) Some commentators on last week's events concluded that while there may be teething problems and that some adjustments may needed, China's new ADIZ is entirely within its rights and is thus here to stay. (Link)

Maybe.

ADIZs are seen as extensions of a country's right to establish conditions for entry into its territory or airspace. An ADIZ thus assumes a clear position on sovereignty.

By declaring an ADIZ extending over the Senkakus, over which Japan has had administrative control since 1972 and which the Japanese government insists are Japan's alone, the Chinese government has taken the argument over its claims on the Senkakus out of the realm of conjecture and the hands of Coast Guard ship commanders and given it over to military air forces commanders and fighter pilots on both sides -- with all the possibilities of errors snowballing into mass conflict that such a handover might produce.

If China were to now try to ease tensions by carving out from their new ADIZ the airspace above the Senkakus and the corridor projecting back to Japan's airspace, the resulting ADIZ would not affect the status quo in terms angry meetings of militaries. It would, however, be read as a tacit acknowledgement of Japan's sovereignty over the Senkakus.

So the ADIZ will either result in the degradation of Chinese security or the undermining of China's territorial claims on the Senkakus.

So China is within its rights? Maybe. Within its right mind? Seemingly not.

3) By declaring that it will enforce its claims over the Senkakus with fighter jets, the Chinese have brought the tale of the Senkakus close to its only reasonable end game scenario, undoing the damage inflicted upon the region by the duplicitous, self-serving Nixon Administration: the United States recognizing Japanese sovereignty over the islands.

One hopes that Vice President Biden made this point clear in his talks with President Xi two days ago.

The Chinese View Of The Senkakus

Over at East Asia Forum, Ren Xiao, the Director of Center for the Study of Chinese Foreign Policy, has published an essay describing in broad strokes background to the Chinese government's stance on the Diaoyus/Senkakus debate. It is a worthwhile read, and I say that as one who has gone on television to defend the Abe government's statements and actions as regards the Senkakus. (Link)

The key points for one on an insignificant perch in Tokyo are:

1) the Chinese government wants it both ways -- hysterically denouncing last year's nationalization of three islands as an inexcusable deviance from the status quo (bad!) and sending its ships into the territorial waters described by the islands to establish a constant physical presence (good!).

2) the Chinese government feels, with some degree of justification, that it has been played by the government of Japan, or at least by its prime ministers. It thought that when money-machine-political phenomenon, medium-bore construction magnate Tanaka Kakuei agreed in off-the-record talks to shelve the issue of the sovereignty of the islands, that it had just cut a verbal deal with Japan. They do not want to acknowledge that the only person they cut a deal with was with a multiply-disgraced and now seriously dead former prime minister. They also do not want to admit that a verbal deal is as good as the paper it is (not) written on.

3) "The history question" comes up, in such a manner as to obfuscate responsibility:

This difficult situation is exacerbated by history. China was invaded by Japan and suffered atrocities at the hands of Japanese imperial forces. These acts live on in China's collective memory, especially because Japanese politicians insist on touching this wound again and again. Relations with Japan have always been a complex and sensitive issue in China's foreign policy. Every time Japan and the Diaoyu/Senkaku dispute comes up in the news, people in China become emotional and angry. Chinese leaders and officials cannot afford to be seen as soft towards Japan.

The explanation "people in China become emotional and angry" may be possibly the worst rationalization ever for national policy. It is also an indication of how frayed is the legitimacy of the current Chinese government. China's leaders, for all their pretensions to dictatorial power, have to forswear national self-interest in favor of behavior capable of keeping calm the mob at their doors.

As for the explanation that memories of Japanese misdeeds in the 1930s and 40s remain fresh and painful "because Japanese politicians insist on touching this wound again and again" -- commenter "Arthur" points out the author's glaring dereliction:

And not even in part because the Chinese government insists on pointing out the wound, digging its fingers in and saying "See? See how painful that is?" again and again.

4) Xi Jinping's and the Chinese government's refusal to hold high-level meetings (to my knowledge there has been only the trilateral meeting of the education ministers) much less a bilateral summit, with Abe Shinzo and his government, is petulance not worthy of second grade elementary school recess. However, and this is an indication of how much of a rules-bound giant China has become, not meeting Abe Shinzo or his top ministers is the only card the Chinese government has. Everything and anything else -- rioting, trade curbs, landings on the islands in question -- and China finds itself in the international doghouse, be it with the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the majority of members of ASEAN, et cetera. The only action the Chinese leadership can undertake which does not instigate institutionalized punitive proceedings -- and here is where the similarity between the stance of a nation of 1.3 billion and the miffed seven year-old hits home -- is the refusal to hold someone's hand.

All in favor of a web of international commitments as a way of keeping the peace, raise your hands.

The problem for the Chinese government: if it did, indeed, "grow up" and start behaving like a collection of adults, it would have nothing left with which it could placate its emotional and angry non-electorate.

5) I am not sure if the author, if writing in Chinese, would use the verb "force" one finds at the end of this passage:

One of the steps China has taken is to send in Chinese ships to the disputed waters for regular patrol and 'law enforcement'. The objective is to bring about de facto joint jurisdiction and joint patrolling in the relevant waters as a way to deny Japan's unilateral 'control' of the islands. Beijing wants to force Japan to change its 'no territorial dispute' position. {Emphasis added}

Prime Minister Abe has made it very clear, and has the backing of his electorate behind him on this point, that under no circumstances will any change in the Japanese government's position come as the result of force (Link). Any attempt to "force Japan to change" will be met by unshakable and fierce resistance.

In a larger sense, what we are seeing in Sino-Japanese and Japanese-South Korea government relations (and here I am veering away from Ren Xiao's essay) are the consequences of the triumph of democracy in East Asia -- and the failures of the habits of the governments and parties in the region to keep pace with the internal changes undergone by their respective societies. The main elements of the framework of relations between the states of the region were thrown up by authoritarian or semi-authoritarian governments, by leaders who could make private deals amongst themselves. These leaders shrugged at issues that did not interest them　and faced muted possibilities of public backlash for the deals they negotiated.

Today's leaders do not have the liberty of action their ancestors -- and in the case of the main trio of Xi, Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye, "ancestors" is the correct term (not just a figure of speech but an actual description of the persons involved). For these children and grandchildren of giants the publics of China and South Korea are emotional and angry. Perhaps they always were. The change is that these publics are now also empowered, capable of forcing their political leaders to act according to the dictates of the mob, be it smoldering or flash.

The conundrum for Japan's policy makers is what to do over the long-term with neighbors who seem to have lost the capacity to, as Gordon Sumner memorably urged, "learn to throw the past away." Certainly a surrender of one's positions is one option -- one that has its advocates in the "China and Korea are returning to their original places in the Asian order" school. Surrender is in fact the only option for Japan's policy makers as regards the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute.

For the Senkakus, though, no such option exists. Whatever ornate vision of a nation's glory/destiny one may espouse, a democratically elected government's surrendering to a dictatorial government is an abomination. This is what the Chinese people, for all its trumpeted greatness and its extraordinary size, has to come to understand: that in any conceivable, livable world order, the tiniest democracy, the merest gathering of a few tens of thousands of souls on a mountain massif or a lonely atoll, outranks China.

SDF Personnel Are Public Officials

English language news outlets are reporting that Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide, in responding to a journalist's prompt, suggested today that the Abe government has the option of considering having "public officials" (komuin) deployed as a continous presence upon the Senkaku Islands. (Link - J)

What the news outlets are not explaining is that soldiers and sailors of the Self Defense Forces are, like the prime minister, judges, the policy secretaries of Diet members and Japanese employees of UNESCO working inside Japan (I have no idea why the last category gets special mention or consideration, but it does), "special employment national-level public officials" (tokubetsu shoku kokka komuin). (Link - J).

I think that that decoding this invitation to casuistry -- where a government spokesman can, in the aftermath of a garrisoning of the Senkakus, say, "But we told you we were considering permanent deployments of public officials to the islands!" -- would really help readers, listeners and viewers comprehend the threat of crisis implicit in Suga's airy and evasive suggestion.

For longtime readers, I am aware that this is not the first time I have shown irritation over the omission of crucial background about the legal status of SDF personnel. Ignosce mihi.

Threatening Nonsense

You may recall Suzuki Nobuyuki, the radical right winger who managed to capture 74,000 votes in the Tokyo Metropolitan District on July 21 (introduced here, with the look at how he might have been a sponsored spoiler candidate here).

The frighteningly well-spoken Suzuki holds forth in a new video report from Michael Penn: "Japan Grapples With The Rise Of Hate Groups."

If you have 12 minutes, it is worth a watch.

I would take exception to the statement in the report that the noisy, threatening ultra-right is a new phenomenon. All kinds of things were yelled out at political events in the 1960's (the audio to the video of the assassination of Socialist Party leader Inejiro Asanuma demonstrates how out of control the audience was - Link). However, it is true that threats of death and other violence have been beyond the pale for the past 40 years.

I also worry about misinterpretation of the statement that Prime Minister Abe Shinzo shares many of the ideological beliefs of the radical fringe. Rather than sharing ideology, it is probably better to say that Abe-san and his friends in business, academia, and the media have same the data points and talking points in their arsenals as one finds in the speeches and online drivel produced by the fringe groups and politicians like Suzuki.

The claims of radical parties like Suzuki's Restoration New Wind and organizations like former air self defense forces general Tamogami Toshio's Ganbare Nippon are outlandish in their paranoia. They would not have any attraction, though, if they did not in some way provide a template for understanding actual events. The intrusion of Chinese coast guard ships into the territorial waters around the Senkaku Islands (Link) or the erection of monuments to the comfort women -- the women (and some boys) trafficked by the brothel network established to serve the troops and officers of the Imperial Army -- on public land in the United States (Link) provide Japanese hate groups all the evidence they need of a vast global anti-Japanese conspiracy encircling and strangling the nation. These groups do on their own then layer on farcical claims, perhaps out of theatricality, perhaps as ornamentation in order to disguise the poverty of their intellectual wares.

That the relationship between Chinese and South Korean patriots and right wing fringe groups in Japan is symbiotic, each side providing the other with the justification for festering hatred and provocation (possibly providing a comfortable living for some of the participants) rarely makes the news anywhere.

Philosophical Difference

Otto: Apes do not read philosophy.

Wanda: Yes they do, Otto. They just don't understand it.

-- A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

I have a standard paragraph about the impossibility of trying to accommodate the international claims of the present Chinese government. It hinges on the hopeless anachronicity of Chinese assertions:

"China's is only major government, aside from government of Bolivia, that insists its 19th maximum area of administration should delineate its natural borders. The key difference is that Bolivia lost its access to the sea, condemning the country and its people to isolation from world prosperity. As a consequence the Bolivian claims, though retrograde, at least engender some degree of sympathy."

My illustration is not particularly strong, however. There are probably a few other countries contesting for territories and Exclusive Economic Zones based upon the legacy of the grand Era Of Empire -- but none so blatantly, loudly and dangerously as the current Beijing regime.

Which is why I am glad that Sinologist J. Mohan Malik of the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies has produced a long essay for The Diplomat examining the modern Chinese failure, intentional or not, to accept the premises for the proper limits on the interactions of nation-states.

History the Weak Link in Beijing's Maritime Claims

The essay may not be as rigorous as policemen and policewomen of international law would want. However, it still manages to lay down the main point -- that China's current territorial and maritime claims are embodiments and efflorescences of narratives, not de jure claims made under the auspices of international law. As such they are indefensible, provocative, potentially unlimited and certain to promote conflict.

It has been this anachronicity, or even a-chronocity, of China's claims that justifies the current Japanese government position of there being no dispute over the sovereignty of the Senkakus. Many extremely competent, even visionary security policy practitioners have argued that Japan would be conceding nothing of substance by admitting the existence of a dispute and indeed would be strengthening its position as regards both policing the Senkakus and bringing international pressure to bear on the can of worms that is Dokdo (Link). In theory, maybe, but trying to reposition Japanese assertions of sovereignty within a framework of international law seems pointless if the Chinese side is talking about rights and claims predating and outside the Westphalian framework.

With the Chinese officials lumbering about, ostensibly trying to craft coalitions of the unwilling against nations arguing the validity of their own claims (Link) the best course for the Japanese government is to just sit tight and wait for the next bout of Chinese government overreach -- based largely, in Malik's view, upon a inability to accept discontinuities in the conduct of international relations.

In the grander scheme, China's officials and China's defenders are frequently adept at quoting principles of international law in order to justify Chinese behavior. They just seem unclear on the point of the whole enterprise. Whether intentionally or not, they fail to understand that international law is not an instrument of state power. It is a replacement of the exercise of power. The paradox of great power -- and a great one it is, for its spares humankind from an eternity of horror -- is that it bides longest in the hands that wield it the least.

As In "Bush Clover"

As we enter September we should be seeing the Lespedeza coming into bloom...which is an awkward and gratuitous introduction to the subject of the non-existence of one of the Prime Minister's closest aides. With a rather astonishing frequency I have been reading of the exploits of Liberal Democratic Party Deputy Secretary-General, Representative for the Tokyo #24 District, Abe Shinzo's Yasukuni cash courier and government spokesman on matters nuclear for no apparent reason Haguida Ko'ichi.

Astonishing in that Hagiuda, the Big Man from Hachioji's actual surname (Link) is peculiar but not entirely impenetrable -- the direct translation of which is "Bush Clover Raw Paddy Field" (somebody please call Monty Python's Flying Circus!).

Reading the misspelling "Haguida" on my screen sends my synapses into conniptions. "What is that, Tagalog? Bahasa Indonesia?" may poor cortex shouts at me at really too early an hour in the morning.

Hagi-u-da. A name to remember in September.

* * *

As for Abe Shinzo and Yasukuni, I predicted back on July 9 that Abe Shinzo would pay a visit to Yasukuni in August.

Well here we are in September...and no visit.

Wrong MTC! You were wrong, wrong, wrong. Nyah, nah, nah, nah, nah.

Yes.

However, if the Chinese government keeps making impossible, ahistorical demands of the Abe Administration as regards Japan's sovereignty over the Senkakus, these as preconditions to a summit (Link) Abe may become so frustrated at Chinese and South Korean intransigence as to visit Yasukuni during the Autumn Festival, which will be held October 17-20. (Link)

And the Latin month name "October" means "the Eighth Month."

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Photo image:
Pale Grass Blue (Yamato Shijimi - Pseudozizeeria maha) resting on Hagi (Lespedeza sp.)
Katsunuma-cho, Koshu City, Yamanashi Prefecture.
September 21, 2008
Photo image credit: MTC

Of China’s Pizza Preparations, Chess And Miyazaki Hayao

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

Unthinking On Why Abe Will Visit Yasukuni In August

Once we are past the July 21 elections, Sino-Japanese relations will be in a sweet spot. Both China and Japan will have ostensibly new, legitimate leaders, with significant political succession campaigns far off. It will be years before either side has to gin up the paranoia/resentment machine to advance its political program. Both leaders, with their inherited political bona fides, would be in a position to find ways to work together to keep the bilateral relationship on an even keel. Given the tight intermeshing of the economies of the two countries, crippling relations over pride would be daft. This is doubly so because the Chinese economy is going to be entering a rough patch, with growth gearing down sharply from deleveraging and a shift from investment-led to consumption-led growth. It is trebly so because big business in Japan, which is invested in China up to its earlobes, has been an unquestioned and unquestioning backer of Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party.

Nevertheless, Abe will toss the opportunity to make history into history's dustbin and go to Yasukuni in August. He not do so on the August 15 defeat day but on another day (I have bet that it will be August 12) -- not with a herd of lawmakers and flunkies in tow but quietly, without warning.

Why? Abe does not have to prove anything. The revisionist base loves him, whether he goes to Yasukuni or not. The collapse of the Japan Restoration Party means there is no more threat to the LDP from the right.

If Abe goes to Yasukuni there will be anti-Japanese riots in China. Xi Jinping will never come to Japan for a summit. Ship intrusions into the area around the Senkakus will skyrocket.

To which I can only respond, "And how will all these outcomes not fulfill the predictions regarding Chinese behavior that Abe and his fellow travelers have been making since...forever?"

In addition to the self serving opportunism of instigating exactly the kind of hysteria and overreaction in China the revisionist right has prophesied, Abe has purely personal reasons for going to Yasukuni in August. The first is psychohistorical: he has never forgiven himself for failing to go in August 2007. Second, since their accessions to power, Xi Jinping has made not the least sacrifice of political capital in order to reach out to Abe. Unlike Park Geun-hye, who has to be seen giving Abe the cold shoulder in order to bury talk of her father's service to Japan, Xi is free to extend the hand of friendship to Abe. For reasons of either cowardice or prejudice, Xi has done nothing.

He will do nothing.

A terrible error.

Abe has been wearing a mask of affability these past six months in line with the needs of his party in the run up to the House of Councillors election. Once past the election, Abe will let down the facade of buoyant happiness, reverting to his usual state of umbrage. We have already seen flashes of resentment creep out from behind the mask, the anger he feels toward anyone showing him disrespect, in Abe's Facebook attacks on anti-Trans Pacific Partnership demonstrators, Tanaka Hitoshi and Hosono Goshi. Once past the election, Abe's brittle edginess, shared by many in his Cabinet, will no longer need to be hidden away.

So many of the projects dear to the revisionists are closed to Abe. Garrison the Senkakus? Suicidal, stupid. Revise Article 96, Article 9 and the rest of the Constitution? Not enough votes in the House of Councillors for the necessary 2/3rds majority.

Going to Yasukuni is the default dream realization -- and Abe will revert to it once the election is over and done. Provocative, spiteful will the visit be, yet not threatening except in rhetorical terms.

After Abe takes the plunge world opinion will fault him for his lack of sensitivity and inability to appreciate the fragility of Japan's position in East Asia.

World opinion will, however be drawing a bead at the wrong target. Those lacking in sense and sensitivity are in Beijing. Those afraid of an objective accounting for the past are there too.

Can one fault the Chinese for failing to understand Japan? Not really. Power and wealth have muddled brains. A global fear of losing access to the China bounty has clipped tongues.

At the end of the day, at the very end, the interests of East Asia's princeling leaders are best served by conflict between the nations. Marginal territorial and history disputes are helpful distractions, turning the attention of citizens away from such questions as "Are the children and grandchildren of past leaders really the best persons for these jobs?" and "What is there in this aristocracy thing for me and my family, anyway?"

Worthwhile Reads #2 - On Abe And The Revisionists

And did we tell you the name of the game, boy?
We call it 'Riding the Gravy Train' - yeah...

Pink Floyd, "Have a Cigar" (1975)

Two good essays from yesterday on Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and the potential limitations on his freedom of action on the issues purportedly dear to him and his Friends:

Brad Glosserman, PacNet

Abe's dilemmas

Karl Gufstasson, East Asia Forum

Japanese Prime Minister Abe's U-turn on the Murayama Statement

Both essays hint at what appears to be a change in the way Abe Shinzo and his Cabinet operate. Both Abe and the Liberal Democratic Party squeaked into power in the LDP presidential and December House of Representatives elections, meaning that both faced pressures to produce results in the immediate term. However, for various reasons (the most convincing one I have heard: "the Japanese people are just tired of being in a bent over in a defensive crouch"), the man and the party have a mad surplus of political capital in the bank (Cabinet support, Party support). The July 21 (?) House of Councillors election will be a coronation.

Relieved of worries about July, Abe & Company can be insincere in every direction. They do not have to pander to a core constituency; they do not have to assemble a coalition of disparate forces. Instead they can play upon the neediness of particular interest groups by making what are head fakes toward their hot button issues, feigning commitment to a position, stirring up a fire storm of protest in response, then beating a hasty retreat. Tobias Harris has highlighted this stimulus-response-retreat pattern for the specific case of constitutional reform. However, the this-has-to-be-done/wow-why-are-folks-so-angry/oh-I-guess-it-can-wait model seems applicable to almost any policy initiative and constituency.

In terms of the red meat revisionist issues of Yasukuni visits, revising Article 9, war responsibility, the sanctioned brothel system and garrisoning the Senkakus, Abe and his Cabinet have the luxury of limiting themselves to gestures, signs and code words, signaling to their revisionist followers of their purported true beliefs, while going through desultory pantomimes of being held back by Japan's internal and external foes.

Of course, by making intermittent, sulphurous and maudlin shows of addressing an issue -- such as, let us say, securing the transfers of the remains of the deceased abductees and freedom of travel for the surviving relatives still in North Korea -- but never actually achieving the stated goals (or by constantly moving the goal posts further, which is effectively the same thing) -- the politician's gravy train rolls on.

Surprise, Surprise

In October of last year I published a post arguing that the government of Japan must never admit a dispute exists over the sovereignty of the Senkakus. Open that door and one will next have to deal with China's claims on Okinawa.

In private conversation and comments, I received much grief for my assertions as regards Chinese aims and arguments.

As of this weekend the domino theory of Chinese tactics and perhaps Chinese strategy seems...not so extreme?

China Refuses to Confirm Okinawa Island Belongs to Japanese
Bloomberg News

China refused to confirm that Okinawa belongs to Japan after two Chinese scholars suggested re-examining the ownership of the archipelago that includes the island, adding to tensions over a separate territorial dispute.

Agreements between allied forces during World War II mean the ownership of the Ryukyu Islands may be in question, the researchers said in a commentary in the People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s main newspaper. Asked if China considers Okinawa part of Japan, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said scholars have long studied the history of the Ryukyus and Okinawa.

“It may be time to revisit the unresolved historical issue of the Ryukyu Islands,” Zhang Haipeng and Li Guoqiang of the China Academy of Social Sciences wrote in the commentary.

A move to reconsider ownership of the Ryukyus would add to strains as China and Japan assert their claims over a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea. The Japanese government’s decision last year to purchase those islands, called Diaoyu in Chinese and Senkaku in Japanese, sparked protests across China and harmed a $340 billion annual trade relationship that has yet to recover...

(Link)

For the record, I also take umbrage at being labeled anti-China...as if a person with any degree of sense could be against an entire country...

Patriotic Water Games

The Asahi Shimbun is reporting that eight Chinese maritime constabulary forces ships have crossed into Japanese territorial waters, the largest fleet of ships simultaneously engaging in provocative border crossings since the Noda government purchased the privately held islands of the tiny archipelago. (Link - J)

Great, just what is needed to keep everything calm in the backwash from the weekend visits to Yasukuni by members of the Abe Cabinet. (Link)

Just the way to steer clear of incidents at sea possibly involving a flotilla of right wing activists, also sullying the waters putting up a show of force near the Senkakus. (Link)

So much for the feelers being extended toward establishment a Sino-Japanese entente on a deescalation of tensions over the islands.


Later - Elaine Kurtzenbach and Mari Yamaguchi do an excellent job in tying all the bits together. (Link)

Image courtesy: NHK

Things I Know Will Not Happen But I Still Wish Would

- NHK News providing access to even a fraction of its back catalog so that I might determine the exact day when the network's news announcers made the switch from pronouncing the name of the country as "Nihon" in favor of the current, enervating "Nippon."

- Spike reversing his decision to stop writing about his wanderings through down-at-the-heels Japan. (Link)

- Commentators ceasing to worry about how a misunderstanding in between the maritime constabulary forces (I must thank Alessio Patalano for that wonderful locution) of China and Japan could lead to an exchange of gunfire and a military crisis -- and starting to worry instead how the leaderships of China and Japan are using the Senkakus as springboards for their own careers, the needs and interests of their citizens be damned -- i.e., make plain that from the viewpoint of fostering or preserving democracy and prosperity in the region, the prophesied "Senkakus crisis" is already upon us.

- Folks who write up articles and reports about this blessed land doing a little thinking about their sources of anecdotes and comments, along the lines of "if I am talking to a smarter-than-average person about the way his/her society and government work, shouldn't I worry that what I am hearing is not what works but instead how things are supposed to work?"

Call it the yutosei problem, if you need a label for the idea.

Anthropologists have to worry all the time about whether or not what they are hearing from native informants is just a narrative the informant is selling or even worse believes is true.

The antidote is not that difficult to find: just tell the story you heard from Informant #1 to Informant #2, and then ask Informant #2, with the benefit of anonymity if he/she needs it, "OK, now what did Informant #1 get wrong?"

- People reading the new sections of Abe Shinzo's repackaged and expanded Toward a Beautiful Country, now entitled Toward a New Country, in order to get a taste of Abe Shinzo Thought in all its incurious, knee-jerk weirdness and without the filter of his fabulous media management machine he has acquired from Amaterasu-knows-where.

- Commentators about Japan's entering into Trans Pacific Partnership discussions not talking about the recalcitrance of Japanese farmers and starting to talk about the recalcitrance of U.S. light truck manufacturer executives and workers. At least Japanese farmers have the traditional rural environment and culture fig leaves to hide behind.

- Folks making more noise about the role that narratives of national weakness play in driving the countries in the region toward conflict. How is it possible that every single state in the region has a leadership promising greatness through strength and the pressuring of other countries in the region to understand the errors of their past policies and attitudes?

[For those who saw the "in terms of feminine totems of cults of past national weakness, Yokota Megumi is to Japanese political activists as the comfort women are to South Korean political activists" test answer, 100 points. For those who saw "Japan revisionists and Abe Shinzo promise solutions to the abductees problems, Dokdo/Takeshima dispute and the Southern Kuriles/Northern Territories claims because they know that there are no solutions to these issues, only endless opportunities to opine about how Japan must be strong again," 200 points. For those who asked, "How incredibly bad and illegitimate can the Chinese government be that it must beat its breast and swear to reestablish the supposed pre-Opium War borders of the Qing Empire as its own?" -- a seat in the front row.]

Abe Shinzo yesterday crowed about how persons his age (so full of vim!) are now in charge of China and South Korea and how the trio of himself, Xi Jinping and Park Geun-hye can, though vigorous (shikkari to) communication of their respective positions, work for the prosperity and peace of the region (Link - J). How he managed to avoid throwing in an even more nonsensical "and we all three are in no way are caught up fighting dead political battles and the legacies left us by our parents and grandparents" escapes me.

Fair And Balanced

Reckless, provocative, incompetent, amateurish!

Uh....no. (Link)

Against the baying of the Hallelujah Chorus, the Democratic Party of Japan never stood a half-a-chance...