The Grand Illusion

Dr. Noah Smith has been one of the great defenders of Abenomics, that amorphous mass of Keynesian stimulus, Friedmanesque monetary policy and Nice Words About Structural Reform, particularly changes in work-life balance allowing women greater access to executive and management positions.

Dr. Smith, however, seems to have undergone a change of heart about the economics of the prime minister. Either that or he has a particular onus against one particular recent seemingly huge announcement: a 28 trillion yen stimulus package, the details of which will be examined in the Diet this Fall (the overal plan received Cabinet approval this week).

Japan's New Stimulus Is Just the Same Old Thing
Bloomberg

Japanese growth is still sluggish. Consumers aren't consuming much, and businesses aren't investing. The government doesn't have many options to remedy this, and the Bank of Japan, which has sent both long-term and short-term interest rates into negative territory, has basically no more room to maneuver.

The dreaded Zero Lower Bound is starting to bite. The BOJ is buying more stocks, but this too has its limits -- eventually companies become de facto nationalized, as the government becomes the majority shareholder. That's scary both because it would affect corporate governance, and because it would be politically unpopular. It's also unclear how much of an economic boost the stock-purchasing program has given the country anyway. The BOJ could resort to policies like a higher inflation target or the much-discussed "helicopter money" approach, but so far it has been afraid to take these steps.

With the BOJ seemingly out of the game, demand-side macroeconomic policy is up to the parliament. So this week the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe proposed a new fiscal stimulus package. It is moderately sized: about $45 billion in U.S. dollars this year, and about $60 billion in low-interest loans, to be followed by slightly less next year.

That move might win a few halfhearted cheers from Japan's battered consumers, but it's unlikely to have much of an effect...

(Click here to read more)

Later today (inshallah) Langley Esquire will be posting to YouTube a conversation Timothy Langley and I had yesterday on exactly the same subject.

(For the Langley Esquire YouTube channel, click here)

What should be setting everyone's teeth on edge about both the stimulus package and Abe's recent Cabinet picks, aside from the knowledge that both are in-your-face I-got-mine-suckers giveaways to cronies, is that with majorities in both houses of the Diet, a prostrate opposition, an emasculated bureaucracy, a totally compromised bond market, increasingly compromised equities markets and no rival power centers within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, the Abe government has failed to pass a single fundamental structural reform of consequence. No other G7 or OECD leader enjoys the freedom and dominance of Abe Shinzo and his LDP. Abe & Friends nevertheless remain timid and/or clueless.

Amaterasu Omikami, save this blessed land from these poseurs and legacy turkeys.

Flaming Cabinet Pick Threat Level: DISCO INFERNO

「パンチより　パンツが先に　入閣し」 　　　　#パンツ高木 川柳 pic.twitter.com/a26W1pUTi4

— ﾋﾙｺ 蛭義 (@damdamj) October 15, 2015

Panchi yori
Pantsu ga saki ni
nyukaku shi

Before "The Punch"
It is "The Pants" ("the underpants")
Who got in the Cabinet first!

- Tweeted senryu by @damdamj, retweeted by Senator Yamamoto Taro

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

Most of the time the push-off replies "No Comment" and "I will not dignify that question with an answer" are the politician's friends.

There are some questions, though, which a politician has to answer with a direct "Yes" or "No" and let the chips fall as they may.

This afternoon, newly minted Minister of Reconstruction Takagi Tsuyoshi, shown below seated beside the Prime Minister at today's 14th meeting of the Reconstruction Promotion Council (this is a just-released tweet from the Prime Minister's Residence) was confronted by one such question. Rather than surrender to the inevitable, he reached into the grab bag of push-off answers and let fly with one of the politer of the formulaic phrases:

「今日はそういった場所ではございませんので、お答えを控えさせていただく」 (Link - J)

"Today we are not at a place where we should be talking of such things so I should like to forego responding to your question at this time."


Minister Takagi Tsuyoshi

Unfortunately for Minister Takagi, the question being yelled at him at the Prime Minister's Residence was in regards certain allegations of misconduct of a rather peculiar kind. These allegations have been prominent in the headlines of the scandal sheets and the weekly magazines this week.

What was the question?

"Minister Takagi, it is true you were arrested 30 years ago for breaking into a young woman's home and stealing her underwear?"

Hope as one might, plead for delay as one might, there is no wiggle room here, so to speak.

This was really a "Yes" or "No" moment for Takagi.

Blew it he did.

By choosing to evade the question, he has instead opened the floodgates for what is a rising tide of ridicule.

Will the brand new minister's increasingly likely resignation damage the Abe administration? No, not significantly.

Will the resignation of a minister only 10 days after his installation increase pressure on Prime Minister Abe to reverse his present course and instead schedule an Extraordinary Diet Session for sometime in the last two months of this year? Possibly.

As for the above senryu it is a play on the words panchi ("punch") and pantsu ("underpants") which are separated by a single space in the table of the kana syllabary. "The Punch" referred to is the fist of Liberal Democratic Party Senator and former Ground Self Defense Forces Colonel Sato Masahisa in the face of Democratic Party of Japan Senator Konishi Yukihiro, a misleading image made infamous by The New York Times. (Link)

Colonel Sato, despite being one of the Prime Minister's favorite Senators and invaluable in the campaign to push (literally, in the final showdown) the security legislation through the House of Councillors, was not rewarded for his service with a cabinet post.

Snap Back - This Month's NHK Poll Numbers

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo presiding over the special economic zones advisory commission on 3 March 2015. Image courtesy the Prime Minister's Residence.


If Abe Shinzo is looking for reassurance on the public's continued confidence in his leadership (I would suspect that after December's romp in the House of Representatives election he might not) then yesterday's release of the results of NHK's weekend polling results would leave him feeling bereft.

Support for the Cabinet March 6-8 (February 6-8)

Support 46% (54%)

Do Not Support 37% (29%)

Down and up 8% represent major movements in both numbers. These big moves in public sentiment may be one offs, reflecting public disgust with "money and politics" scandals seared into recent memory by the resignation last month of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Nishikawa. Sadly most of the attention of Nagata-cho residents seems to have already moved from campaign finance scandal to Shukan Shincho's photos of Nakagawa Shoi'ichi's widow Yuko (Hokkaido #11 and currently Parliamentary Vice Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries) on-the-street snogging with the younger and married Kado Hirofumi (Kinki proportional - no jokes here please).

It's the scandal du jour.  Well, it was actually du soir -- indeed the very night that Nishikawa turned in his resignation...but I digress.

More likely, however, the numbers reflect a return to reality for the Abe administration. Looking back, they are not very different from the support/do not support numbers of the Abe government in July of last year, before the Cabinet reshuffle and November, before the calling of a snap election. In between, the Cabinet's numbers have been goosed upward by positive feelings about the large number of women appointed to the Cabinet in the reshuffle and by what was likely a mild "rally round the flag" effect as a result of the hostage crisis.

Just what Prime Minister can do now to bump up his Cabinet's numbers is anyone's guess.

The survey (Link - J video) also shows a rare switch in the ranking of issues the public wants the government to tackle. The usual top answer is keiki taisaku "countermeasures against the deterioration in the economy." Tops this month, however, is the perennial #2 answer, "Fixing the social welfare system." These findings, however, came before Monday's release of revised figures for the Q4 2014 GDP growth to 1.5% annualized from 2.2%, with the resulting calendar year 2014 GDP growth figures negative. (Link)

Later - NHK's surprisingly low numbers put Abe back in a race again, between himself and bad news. The outlook is largely positive for him in the short run, if negative for the country. Beyond the June end of the Diet session (a question mark there - committee work is so behind schedule most folks in the know say the session will be extended well into July) the outlook for the PM is not so sanguine.

Abe and his appointees have pulled every economic lever: extreme quantitative easing, fiscal profligacy and shifting the nation's pension assets from Japan government bonds to Japanese equities. The Bank of Japan under Abe-selected Kuroda Haruhiko has gummed up the JGB market so thoroughly that the prices of bonds no longer contain any information. The GPIF and the Post Office are doing their dangest to achieve a similar result in equities markets. Soon, if not already, the price of a share in a listed Japanese company will say nothing about the capital stock, labor force, management, technology or special advantages of that company. Instead the price will only reflect only what government and government-linked investment behemoths are willing to pay for the shares, right now.

Despite the Abe government's every effort to game the system, the public has not responded. Neither the puffed up indicators of a coming prosperity nor the government's promises are reassuring. The voters currently does not have much of a choice as to alternate visions keeping Japan a player on the world stage. However, unless the economy turns, the stagnation-despite-steroids will set the eyes of the electorate to searching for another leader.

Senryu For 6 Sept 2014

17-syllable poems on politics and social affairs published on the editorial page of the Tokyo Shimbun on Saturday, September 6, 2014:

大臣に
女５人と
囃し立て

In response to five women
Becoming ministers
Sudden cheering

- Matsuda Masaru, Saeki City

In a poll conducted on September 3-4, the Yomiuri Shimbun found that support for the Cabinet among women voters rose 18 points, from 45% to 63%, in the aftermath of the announcement of a new cabinet line up including five women as ministers.

That same poll found that 67% of the voters "appreciated" (hyoka) the increase in the number of women in the Cabinet from two to five. By contrast, 25% of voters did not appreciate it, presumably because these voters felt the increase was mere electoral pandering.

So Mr. Matsuda is either reflecting the enthusiasm or the cynicism of one segment of the voting public or the other. It is up to the reader to decide which.

軍国を
「うつくしいくに」って
読むのかい

So the words "Military State"
should be pronounced
"A Beautiful Country"?

-- Hakeshita Koba, Yokohama City

Last week the Defense Ministry submitted the largest budget request in its history, with highly visible requests for an extra Aegis destroyer, an extra submarine and Global Hawk surveillance drones, among other hardware. (Link)

The poem, however, probably is alluding to more that just the defense ministry budget request, which, when compared to the growth in military spending in the region, is a risible increase. Instead, the author (Hakeshita Koba - the pronunciation is a guess - it may be a nom de plume) is probably also making reference to the July 1 Cabinet Decision on collective self defense, the loosening of restrictions on arms exports and last year's passage of the Special Secrets Act. The sarcastic suggestion that the kanji for "military state" (gunkoku) should be pronounced "Beautiful Country" (utsukushii kuni) is a reference to Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's book Toward A Beautiful Country (Utsukushii kuni e -- a sympathetic review of which can be found here) wherein the PM waxes nostalgic about the majesty of the pre-1945 Japanese state and its people.

The practice of having idiosyncratic pronunciations of kanji is widespread in the arts. An example of a similar duplicitously deviant pronunciation of a provocative kanji compound can be found in Shiina Ringo's theme song for NHK's broadcasts of the World Cup - a song which sparked quite a kerfuffle due to its seemingly World Cup inappropriate pugnacious punk patriotism.

In the song Shiina (above photo) sings, "Hurrah, Hurrah, for the blue skies of Japan" (Hure, Hure, Nippon bare). "Blue skies" is an allusion to both the actual sky over Japan and "The Samurai Blue," the nickname of the men's national soccer team (with France's "Les Bleus" and Italy's "Di Azurri" the blue category seems kind of crowded). In the printed lyrics of the song, however, the expression pronounced "Hurrah!" is written "Banzai!" (万歳!) in kanji -- an upfront patriotic and historically problematic expression. (Link - You Tube Video - J)

As luck would have it, the men's team crashed out of the tournament early. The public was spared full renditions of NHK's theme song -- and an extension of the controversy over its lyrics -- during the latter weeks of the tournament.


Later - For those who only know Shiina Ringo from her Kurt Cobain phase (YouTube video) here is something a little more recent...and in something of a different mode. (Youtube - video)

To be fair to the NHK execs hired Shiina to provide the theme song, they really had no idea which of her personae would show up.


Photo image: Shiina Ringo promotional photo for the World Cup
Photo courtesy: unrecorded

Very Kind Of Them #25

Last night Channel News Asia had me on via Skype, commenting together with Wilson Center scholar Goto Shihoko on the potential ramifications of the new Cabinet and Liberal Democratic Party line ups.

Our section begins at the 15:15 mark of the below broadcast segment:

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/video/japan-s-cabinet-reshuffle/1346816.html

If you watch the full broadcast from the beginning, you will get to see one the rarest of phenomena: absolute silence from chief Abe English speech writer and Kantei message agent Taniguchi Tomohiko.

Quantifying The Shift Within The Shift

On Twitter, Eric Slavin of Stars & Stripes has asked whether the Cabinet reshuffle, particularly the inception of five women into the Cabinet has changed the Cabinet's approval ratings among women. The answer from the Yomiuri Shimbun's polling (not yet on line; may never be) is, "Yes" -- and in a big way. According to the Yomiuri, support for the previous Cabinet, measured on August 1-3, was 51%, with with 58% of men and only 45% of women supporting the then Cabinet. Polling conducted over September 3-4 as regards the new cabinet found total support at 64%, with 66% of men supporting the Cabinet (+8 pts) but a nearly equal and whopping 63% of women now supporting the Cabinet (+18 pts).

Eighteen points overnight is movement, baby.

Even larger, according to the Yomiuri, was the shift in the number of middle-aged persons showing renewed or first time support for the Cabinet. In August, 48% of persons in the 40-50 years of age bracket supported the cabinet. Yesterday, 67% voters in that age bracket said they supported the Cabinet, a 19 point shift. Voters 60 years of age and above also found something to like, with the support ratio in that age bracket going from 52% to 64% (interesting less than middle-aged folk) -- a shift upward of 12 points.

Interesting but perhaps not surprising because it was insanely high already, support for the Cabinet among the very youngest voters, those in between the ages of 20 and 30, did not budge a millimeter: 59% in August, 59% now.

That last figure -- showing the Abe Cabinet with inordinately stable and high levels of support among the youngest class of voters (indeed in August younger voters were the ones who were the most faithful to Abe) -- spell disaster for the opposition parties, who by definition have to run on a message of change. The very young voters, the supposedly most volatile and impressionable of cohorts, have found their messenger of change -- and according to the Yomiuri's polling results, it is Abe Shinzo.


Later - Apologies for the plethora of typos in the first release.

Now That's Revisionism!

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

Ending East Asia's History Wars

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

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

[snip]

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

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

(Link)

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

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

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

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

Sense And Sensibility In the Cabinet Reshuffle Narrative, Part II

This is Part II of my look at the new Cabinet and LDP leadership line ups, announced this morning and this afternoon. Part I can be found here.



Economic Revitalization (State Minister) - Amari Akira
CONTINUING Amari has been the most forceful and consistent advocate of all aspects of Abenomics. The point man on Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations, he may be ceding some of the responsibilities to Nishikawa Koya, the Liberal Democratic Party committee chairman on TPP, who is slated to join the cabinet as agricultural minister.

Amari fought a successful battle against tongue cancer this year, scarcely taking any time off from his tasks. If he is now at full strength he will be in a position to carry the Abenomics agenda further -- and the economic reform movement needs guidance, at the very least.

Health, Welfare and Labour (MHLW) - Shiozaki Yasuhisa
News of this appointment arose very late and comes as a bit of a surprise, even though Shiozaki is widely seen as one of the politicians Abe relies upon for policy advice. When Shiozaki was left out of the Cabinet after Abe's return to power, many wondered what he had done to be so out of favor. That Shiozaki had been chief cabinet secretary to the most spectacularly failing cabinet in history, at least until Hatoyama Yukio's no doubt contributed to his being left on the sidelines.

Shiozaki sudden emergence from obscurity over the last few days has been remarkable, especially in light of reports that Abe was struggling to find spots in his cabinet for the 60+ LDP members of the Diet who have at least 5 House of Representatives elections of 3 House of Councillors elections under their belts without ever having been ministers. These "left behind" (taiki) senior Diet members have been all on their best behavior hoping to win a seat in the next cabinet. Disappointing them carries risks that they will throw their support behind whoever challenges Abe in September's party presidential election.

According to news reports, the primary reason Abe is appointing Shiozaki, a former Bank of Japan official (Link), to the post of Health Minister is to scare the Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF) into raising the risk profile (a.k.a. - buying shares) of its investments. (Link - J)

Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) - Nishikawa Koya
Hayashi Yoshimasa had the temerity to run for the LDP presidency against Abe Shinzo in 2012. For his quixotic and wildly unsuccessful effort, Abe awarded Hayashi the ungainly and ultimately soul crushing MAFF portfolio.

In his leadership of the LDP's committee in charge of the TPP, Nishikawa has been a thorn in the side of the government, or at least has made an insufficient effort to push the government's line within the party. For his efforts, Abe will be awarding him the MAFF portfolio.

Sense a pattern here?

Defense (MOD) and Defense Legislation - Eto Akinori
Eto has been Senior Vice Minister of Defense three times. He is more than ready to grasp the brass ring of MOD. However, with Ishiba Shigeru's refusal to accept the post of state minister in charge of legislation supporting the Cabinet Decision on collective self defense, Eto will be discharging the responsibilities of what until a few days ago were considered two full-time ministerial positions.

Good luck dude.

Law - Matsushima Midori (W)
Matsushita is a cheerleader for the LDP. Really. She started the baton-twirling club at Tokyo University, where she majored in economics. She is the chairman of the national baton twirling association (She also has, and I am not making this up, a Level II certification as a Rajio Taiso Instructor). She was an economics and politics journalist for the currently beleaguered The Asahi Shimbun (read this article for the Asahi's latest stumble) for 15 years before turning to politics.

Why is Matsushita the right person for this post? Law used to be where the PM would stick the oldest, most decrepit member of the Cabinet. Now, with Hatoyama Yukio Kunio and Tanigaki Sadakazu as recent alumni (the holders of the #1 and #2 spots in the ranking of the number of executions ordered since the electoral reforms of 1993) Law now seems the factional/gender/elections balance posting.

Environment - Mochizuki Yoshio
Mochizuki's is an odd case. He has 6 elections to the Diet but has already had two stints as a cabinet minister, both times as minister of MLIT. Mochizuki was also a parliamentary secretary of the environment over a decade ago and has been associated with the movement to make Mt. Fuji a World Heritage site. In between those two extremes his loyalties lie.

Reconstruction (State Minister) - Wataru Takeshita
Takeshita Wataru is the half-brother of the late prime minister Takeshita Noboru. He is the brother-in-law of Ozawa Ichiro. He serves as representative of what is one one of the most parasitic of the parasitic (i.e., government construction contract dependent) prefectures. Abe is putting Takeshita in charge of the Tohoku's revival from the devastation of the 3/11 triple disaster. Iwate Prefecture, Ozawa's kingdom, is arguably the most affected of the three prefectures most devastated by the disaster.

You do the math. Abe clearly did.

National Public Safety Commission and Abductees (State Minister) - Yamatani Eriko (W)
Yamatani made the flight from Democratic Party of Japan madonna to LDP firebrand poster child so fast almost no one remembers how she got from there to here. She has not been all abductees, all the time (she has an interest in "reforming" education identical to Shimomura Hakubun's) but she has sure made it seem that way. Now she has them all to her very own, just in time for the much anticipated and already behind schedule report from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea on what it knows about hundreds of purported abductees and other Japanese living in North Korea. Her appointment to the leadership of the national police, replicating the work assignment of her predecessor Furuya Keiji, represents a leap of faith on Abe's part.


Rural Revitalization (State Minister) - Ishiba Shigeru
For the LDP's #2 man to take a state minister post is incredibly peculiar, even more than former party president Tanigaki Sadakazu's descending the ladder to replace Ishiba at secretary-general. Clearly neither status nor expertise clearly affected Ishiba's choice to accept this portfolio; he turned down the defense legislation posting, the seemingly natural policy home of a "defense otaku" as he styles himself.

Ishiba's service in this newly created post seems a private bet between himself and Abe. Ishiba sees the post as a way of maintaing his popularity and influence in the local LDP chapters (Ishiba defeated Abe in the first round of the 2012 presidential election based on his greater appeal in the local party apparat), maintaining the relationships he fostered during his time as party secretary-general. Abe probably sees the post as a way of entangling Ishiba in the chronic, insoluble problems of the rural areas, making him the scapegoat when the government fails to implement any viable policies - because there really aren't any.

We shall which gentleman's bet pays off.

Woment's Empowerment, Administrative Reform - Arimura Haruko (W)
This appointment makes more than a modicum of sense. Arimura was earning her second master's degree from Aoyama Gakuin (her first is from SIT, in Vermont) while working full time at McDonald's Japan and then running for a seat in the House of Councillors (before gasping, note the seat was a party list proportional seat).

Arimura is a direct lineal descendant of one of the assassins of Ii Naosuke (a rather extreme form of administrative reform) and also a descendant of the Hero of Tsushima, Togo Heihachiro.

Trendy Stuff, Okinawa and the Northern Territories (State Minister) - Yamaguchi Shin'ichi
This grab bag of all kinds of topics hot (including the Cool Japan Initiative) and not used to be Inada Tomomi's bailiwick. The nice thing one can say about Yamaguchi's appointment is that at least this embarrassing collection is not pinned like a brooch on any of the new women members of the cabinet.

--

What kind of Cabinet and LDP secretariat is this? A Cabinet and Secretariat for ruling Japan until the end of the current House of Representatives term in December 2016? A line bright, competent faces for display purposes only prior to a dissolution of the Diet and a snap election?

Let us say that one cannot say. The assignments, particularly in terms of factional balance, speak of stability, as does the intake into the Cabinet, Japan's face to the world (however unrepresentatives that face) of 8 newcomers and 5 women.

Stability may only last until August 2015. Depending on how the economy is performing and how jagged the passage of the legislation needed to enable the Cabinet Decision on collective self defense, Abe and his core lieutenants might either be loafing out on the golf course or scrambling from one LDP parliamentarian's district and offices to the next, begging dissatisfied or scared members of the Diet for support for Abe's reelection as president of the LDP.

What is done, though, is done...and I am done for the day.


Later - This one leapt out at met during the newscast listing all of the new ministers's titles and should have leapt out at me earlier: Arimura's main responsibility will be running the Consumer Affairs Agency. She is a former McDonald's Japan management track employee. Beyond perfect. Bravo Mssrs. Abe and Suga. Bravo.


Screenshot courtesy: NHK News

Sense And Sensibility In The Cabinet Reshuffle Narrative, Part I

No, I do not reference Jane Austen below. Primarily because I cannot. I have never read any of Austen's works and I likely never will.



Early (it's 4:30 a.m. local time) news reports are providing the last pieces of the puzzle of Abe Shinzo's reshuffle of his cabinet. Minister of Law* and former Liberal Democratic Party president Tanigaki Sadakazu will take over as LDP Secretary-General. LDP Policy Research Council (PARC) council chair Takaichi Sanae, who yesterday was rumored to be the new minister of economics, trade and industry (METI) will instead be taking over at internal affairs and communications (MIC). The youthful Obuchi Yuko, whom the Yomiuri Shimbun two days ago assured us was on the fast track to the new secretary-general post (Link), will instead be named METI minister. (Link - J)

These latest announcements make a great deal of sense. Perhaps not in terms of policy but definitely in terms of individual temperament and the balancing of the prime minister's numerous priorities in leading both the state and the party.

So, after what seems to have been 10,000 leaks, what are the current projections for the revamped (commentators have asked whether after so many shifts of personnel the word "reshuffled" is appropriate) second Abe cabinet and LDP secretariat? And what can one say about the postings?

First, the top LDP posts, which are to announced later this morning, with women officer holders indicated by a (W).

Secretary-General: Tanigaki Sakakazu
Provides the solution to
a) the need for a non-Machimura faction member in the top 3 (prime minister/party president, chief cabinet secretary, party secretary-general) power positions
b) the need for a high-ranking, seasonsed secretary-general (Tanigaki has been LDP party president and finance minister)
c) the need for someone who will not use the secretary-general position as an instrument of personal advancement (Tanigaki is never going to be party president again and has no implementable political agenda)

PARC Chair - Inada Tomomi (W)
By switching Inada out of the Cabinet and Takaichi in, Abe replaces one revisionist highly qualified professional woman prone to indiscriminate spouting of katakana English management jargon and high tech terms for another.

Chair of the General Council - Nikai Toshihiro
Nikai has been masterful in the all-important post of chairman of the House of Representatives Budget Committee, where all of the government's main business is debated and discussed. He has been marching the government's business through the committee all while giving the powerless minority a chance to make its case or poke holes in the government's positions. Such competence and fairness is, of course, inexcusable -- so Nikai is being moved to the LDP's General Council, which has devolved into the party internal complaints department.

Little mention has been made in the press of a new chair for the LDP's election strategy committee, the party's next highest ranking post. NHK is saying this morning that the inoffensive and managerial METI minister Motegi Toshimitsu will be sliding over into the post. If that turns out to be yet another failed trial balloon, Kawamura Takeo will remain where he is, maintaining continuity in planning for a snap House of Representatives election, if Abe deems one necessary. (Shisaku archive)

In the afternoon, Abe will hand out his cabinet posts. The line up so far is:

Chief Cabinet Secretary - Suga Yoshihide
CONTINUING - because Abe cannot find anyone better for the CCS position, even if he tried, which he will not.

Finance (MOF)- Aso Taro
CONTINUING - because Aso's serving in the minister's post is the least offensive way of diminishing to nearly zero the Finance Ministry's influence on government proceedings. It is is best for Abe to keep Aso near at hand and burdened down, for Aso has been unfaithful in the past. Setting him loose poses dangers for Abe in terms of LDP unity.

Foreign (MOFA) - Kishida Fumio
CONTINUING - Abe needed to sweep the faction leaders out of his cabinet to make room for junior members of the factions. However, he has found it hard to get rid of Kishida, who has both been a fine representative of Japan on the international stage and who has never openly differed with the prime minister on any issue. So Kishida stays.

Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) - Ota Akihiro
CONTINUING - The New Komeito used to demand the health, welfare and labor post because it seemed the best faucet from which to shower benefits upon New Komeito voters and potential New Komeitor voters. Then the party discovered the fiscal charms of MLIT. The LDP's partner has coveted the post ever since...and who can blame the NK for wanting to keep it?

Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) - Shimomura Hakubun
CONTINUING -Shimomura is the lone member of the cabinet who can claim to have grown up in dire poverty. He is the least wealthy of the cabinet members and will likely remain so after the revamp. Shimomura's story is an inspiring one of pulling oneself through study, scholarships and hard work -- which makes him Abe's perfect sledgehammer for whatever independence and liberality may linger in Japan's education system. Shimomura was kept on leash during these first two years of Abe 2.0. He is likely to be let loose now to run rampant on Japan's supposedly "masochistic" education culture.

METI - Obuchi Yuko (W)
Though most reports identify Obuchi-sensei as a former state minister for population and gender equality, her most recent government post was the not insignificant one of Senior Vice Minister of Finance (Dec 2012 to Aug 2013)

MIC - Takaichi Sanae (W)
With Takaichi taking over for Shindo Yoshitaka, one possibly has to call MIC the "ministry posting for those Diet members who pay frequent, ostentatious visits to Yasukuni"


[to be continued - MTC]


Screenshot courtesy: NHK

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* The official English translation of Homusho is "Ministry of Justice." However, as anyone who has ever dealt with the nation's judicial system can tell you, "justice" is just about the worst description possible of the outcomes of Japanese juridical practice.

A Bogus Cabinet Reshuffle?

The big news this week is Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's planned reshuffle of his Cabinet on Wednesday. The cabinet lineup is looking rather long in the tooth; it is indeed the longest-lasting unreformed lineup in history (Link). It has had to weather some rather nasty fights -- the initiation of construction of the Futenma replacement facility at Henoko, the constant grind of bad news out of Fukushima Daiichi, the forcible passages of the Special Secrets Act and the Cabinet decision on collective self defense -- and looks a bit ragged for all its continuing popularity as measured against the support numbers of previous Cabinets. There is also a huge cohort of mid-career Liberal Democratic Party members who have never served in a cabinet post (not surprising: there was a change in government in 2009). Finally, Prime Minister Abe Shinzo feels compelled to matching his rhetoric on greater opportunities for women in public life with action, increasing the number of women in his cabinet from two to perhaps six (the pool of candidates is too small to go any higher).

Given the importance of the atmospherics, rather than the policy preferences of the various candidates for office, in the selection process, the buildup to this cabinet reshuffle has been inadroit. No, let us not be coy. It has been a farce...and it is not getting any better.

Abe mulling Obuchi as LDP's No. 2
Yomiuri Shimbun

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is considering appointing junior lawmaker Yuko Obuchi as secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party as he is set to reshuffle his Cabinet and party executive lineup, party sources said.

The prime minister hopes to form an internal consensus about his idea of granting Obuchi, 40, a House of Representatives member, the second most important position in the LDP, by confirming the wishes of the leadership of the LDP’s Nukaga faction to which she belongs, according to the sources.

[Snip]

Obuchi is the second daughter of the late former Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi. If her appointment is realized, she will be the youngest LDP member and first woman to take the post of party secretary general.

The sources said Abe aims to demonstrate his stance of proactively promoting women and create an image of the LDP renovating itself.

By gaining support from the public with these steps, Abe aims to overcome political battles over the security legislation and the next unified local elections...

(Link to article)

The last time I looked, and that was today, Secretary-General of the Liberal Democratic Party is a serious, serious job. It requires an intense understanding of policy, party financial and personnel matters. It is a lightning rod, having to deal with intra-party resentment, political feuds, local versus national politics and demands for funds. It is also a very public post, with the secretary-general frequently having to interact with the news media as the party's top representative.

A nightmare, in other words.

Into this spot Abe purportedly wants to slot a five-term (5 terms is the usual minimum number of elections for consideration for a first cabinet posting) House of Representatives member, a legacy member with but a single stint in a minor, invented cabinet post, as not just the first woman but the youngest person ever to serve as secretary-general of the only party in Japan which really matters.

Right.

I know that the Fukuda, now Machimura, Faction -- Prime Minister Abe's and Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide's faction -- is fundamentally at odds with the Tanaka, now Nukaga, Faction. However, even as an act of exquisite historical spite, the appointment of Obuchi as the LDP's Secretary-General is beyond the pale. Everyone likes Obuchi-san; no one is frightened of her or feels intimidated by her. One does not have to read Machiavelli to realize how the drama will end.

Indeed, the entire process of selecting this new Cabinet and LDP party officer lineup has been surreal.

First, the process of sculpting a new administration and party leadership, which was supposed interspersed and intertwined with rounds of golf, was completely overwhelmed by the landslides of Hiroshima. Abe had to commute from his vacation home to the Kantei, where he could do exacly nothing about the number of those who died and the on-again, off-again rescue and recovery efforts.

Second, the seemingly all-important replacement of Ishiba Shigeru as Secretary-General spun out of Team Abe's control. Even a child could see there was zero chance that Ishiba would accept the thankless made-up job of minister of revising legislation to implement of the July 1 Cabinet Decision on collective self-defense. When economic developments and ugly, incoherent, lurching management of nuclear reactor restarts, the Special Secrets Act (due to go into effect in December) and collective self defense have darkened the outlook for Abe, the incentives for Ishiba all point to turning down the offer and preparing for a run at the LDP presidency next fall. That run to replace Abe as LDP leader is still alive and indeed chances for it are improved by Ishiba's supposed turnaround on Friday. At a highly anticipated "summit meeting" between Ishiba and Abe at the Prime Minister's Residence Ishiba agreed to consider accepting a cabinet position other than the military legislation one (Link). The breadth of the grin on Ishiba's face as he spoke to reporters at the Kantei showed it was the prime minister who was in the desperate, sweating wheeler-dealer role and Ishiba in the role of magnanimous and harmonious party magnate...

...all of which absolutely no sense because whoever is serving in the post of secretary-general will be responsible for success or failure of LDP candidates in three incredibly difficult and highly visible elections: the Fukushima gubernatorial contest, the Okinawa gubernatorial contest and the April 2015 unified local elections. The chances of the LDP's candidates prevailing in all three races are basically nil. The question facing the party's secretary-general is how to minimize the losses.

To whit: why forcibly replace Ishiba, when events are likely to usher in his disgrace and resignation?

UNLESS, of course (and I am indebted to my friend T.K. for this line of reasoning) the cabinet reshuffle is just a front, a slapping up of freshly painted, smiling faces for an abbreviated Diet session where the only work done is the decision to proceed with the rise of the consumption tax from the current 8% to 10%, followed by a Diet dissolution. The consequent House of Representatives election would then be billed as a virtual referendum on the tax decision and the first two years of Abe 2.0.

If that is the game afoot then a lot -- the muted Obuchi appointment, the desperate need to get Ishiba out of the way -- starts to make sense. The LDP is likely to get its butt handed to it in local elections over the next few months due situations (the continuing environmental disaster at Fukushima Daiichi; the presence of U.S. Forces on Okinawa; rural economic decay) beyond any immediate solution. So why let the calendar and chronic problems rule the party, when the prime minister/LDP president can just derail the train of events? Why not change the subject, in a big way? Why wait, when the opposition parties which have few institutional supporters and zero inspiring leaders, are unready to defend even the few seats they control in the House?

So what we are to see on September 3 is not perhaps not so much a bogus cabinet reshuffle as a mendacious one -- tactically mendacious, as I am fond of saying.

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)

Who Is Up For A Yasukuni Visit Today?

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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


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

Prime Minister Abe Returns

"Mr. Prime Minister, given how well both your teams did in the just-concluded World Cup, is this shot not kind of, you know, weird -- not to mention, wide?"

Yesterday just before 10 a.m., Prime Minister Abe returned to Tokyo from his week-long trip to Latin America and the Caribbean. He had an audience with the Emperor informing his Majesty of his safe return (why does no one question the preservation of this Victorian relic, the requirement that every minister stop off at the Palace to tell the Emperor that he/she is leaving the country and, upon his/her return, go to the Palace to check in? How about just notifying His Majesty via Facebook?).

After the 15 minutes with His Majesty, Abe went to the Diet Member's Building #1 to the dentist's office therein to have some work done on his teeth.

What is unbelievable about this schedule?

That after the visit to the dentist's office, Prime Minister Abe and Mrs. Abe went home to their private home in Tomigaya AND THE PM TOOK THE AFTERNOON OFF.

For anyone who peruses the PM's hyperactive-to-the-point-of-almost-parody daily schedules, the news that he came back on a Monday and proceeded to do basically nothing both astounds and instill fear.

Is the PM OK? Could he not have convened a meeting of yet another important-sounding obscure economic reform panel? Receive a visit from the Chiba Kiwi Fruit Marketing Association Kiwi Festival queens? (Link)

Perhaps the otherwise unoccupied hours gave the PM time to reflect upon some eternal truths he has seemed to have been ignoring of late:

- if I ever listen to what my fellow Liberal Democratic Party members are telling me to do, my term in office will be abbreviated and the LDP will go down to ignominious electoral defeat only three years after winning an unassailable victory. To live long and prosper I must remember Koizumi Jun'ichiro's contempt for LDP conventional wisdom!

- if I reward my friends for their loyalty, they will repay me with either incompetence, larceny, treachery or all three combined. I have a terrible taste in friends.

- I have to tell domestic audiences that I am sincere when I

a) hand out Cabinet posts in September based on faction affiliation

b) ram through the Diet an emergency spending plan to boost rural development just in time for the mid-April local elections (Link)

c) say I learned the lesson of the Shiga gubernatorial election and will redouble my efforts to guarantee LDP candidates win the upcoming Fukushima and Okinawa gubernatorial contests

and signal to international audiences that I am doing all of these things for utterly insincere and cynical reasons and so please ignore them, they are not the real Abe Shinzo -- otherwise one side or the other will drop me like a piece of Shanghai-processed chicken.

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

Photo image of Team Abe in Brazil courtesy: Abe Shinzo official Facebook page.

The Two New Ministers For Mr. Abe

On Friday Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, on an official visit to Papua New Guinea, told accompanying reporters of his plan to name a State Minister for Regional Revitalization (chiho soseiso). This comes in addition to his previously voiced intent to appoint a special minister in charge of shepherding the raft of legislation needed to realize the Abe Cabinet's decision to declare the heretofore unconstitutional exercise of the right of collective self-defense constitutional. (Link)

Appointing a minister in charge of revitalizing the regions seems like overkill, seeing as how the function of most of the district members of the Diet has been the extraction of revenues and contracts from the government (i.e., from the taxes on the surpluses created by the densely populated urban prefectures) for redeployment to the areas in chronic, decades-long demographic and economic decline. The slow recovery of housing and businesses in the annihilated areas of the Tohoku has been largely due to politicians being unable to honestly answer the question, "What is the point of resurrecting communities that were dying well prior to the waves washing everything away?" -- because to do so would generate the follow-up, "And how does that make the Tohoku different from so many other areas in Japan?@

Despite the existing, institutionalized transfers of wealth from the the haves to the shouldn't bes, the government feels it needs to at least seem to care about the decay in the parasite prefectures. In large part this is due to commentariat being in a frenzy over the so-called Masuda Report, published by the former Minister of Internal Affairs Masuda Hiroya (Link - J) and his Nippon Sosei Kaigi ("Japan Rebirth Society," bizarrely translated as the "Japan Policy Council"). The Masuda Report claims that the depopulation of the rural areas, heretofore seen as debilitating, will indeed be calamitous. According the projections in the report, hundreds of currently struggling municipalities collapsing by 2040. The key to the new, more alarming projections is the accelerated movement by women of childbearing age to urban areas, both robbing the rural communities of their "baby-making machines" (a phrase for which Yanagisawa Hakuo was too blithely criticized, given that he was speaking metaphorically) and moving them to prefectures where live-births-per-woman are hover at or around one.

Today's 7:00 a.m. NHK newscast, for example, had a conference on the Masuda Report as its main story, this two months after the Report came out.

The other reasons why the PM, the LDP and the New Komeito are worying about appearing to neglect the nation's non-urban areas are the 2015 unified local elections. These elections, no longer unified due to the LDP's self-serving neglect of the county's laws on terms-in-office, will be taking place in April of next year. Though the outcomes are mostly determined by local issues and local patronage networks, the unified local elections will nevertheless be viewed as referenda upon the Cabinet and the ruling coalition. With the Cabinet's poll ratings in decline due to the Abe entourage's poor management on of the public relations push for key reforms to Japan's security and economic structures, local members of the LDP and the New Komeito must be expressing some concern, if not outright impatience, with the national branches of the ruling parties. With Abenomics not having, nor likely to have, any visible impact on the non-urban areas except higher taxes and fees, the local LDP bigwigs are probably issuing ultimata on the order of "Give us something and someone to talk about or we are dead meat in April next year."

The creation of two new ministerial positions will have downsides. The Abe government has heretofore said it will not increase the number of ministerial positions, currently tacked at 22. Adding two new jobs, none of which overlap with the main job descriptions of the current Cabinet, means that some pet LDP causes will have to be abandoned. The need for technically adept and savvy folks in the two posts means that there will be only two fewer Cabinet positions to the political riff-raff the factions will try to foist on Abe and his advisors. The rural revitalization position will come into being without staff members to guide the political and economic adjustments necessary. Rather, it will seem as if the minister will be left on his/her own, wandering the hall of Kasumigaseki looking for underemployed ministry bureaucrats willing to sacrifice a portion of their careers and cleverness to a lost cause without guide stars.

Who also will Prime Minister Abe pick to fill these two new positions? One hears talk of Abe confidants wanting LDP Secretary-General Ishiba Shigeru to take the security legislation portfolio. He has the requisite gravitas and knowledge of security affairs. One also hears of Ishiba allies and loyalists screaming that Ishiba will never (and should never) accept a mere State Minister's posting -- especially one where the office holder will likely become the most hated person in Japan.

As for the rural revitalization position, who would want to be shackled to and issue which all the Emperor's horsemen and the all the Emperor's men have failed to remediate, despite forty years of trying? Masuda, himself, maybe. However, his having served as the General Affairs minister in a Democratic Party of Japan-led Cabinet probably makes him ineligble.

LDP Vice-President Komura Masahiko, the architect so-to-speak of the government's rationalization of the approval of the exercise of the right of collective self-defense, is the most likely appointee, this despite his having served in the exalted post of Minister of Foreign Affairs. Another possibility is a hard power respecting Democrat like Maehara Seiji or Nakashima Akihisa whose service in an LDP-led Cabinet would both give the process the sheen of bi-partisanship and terminate their association with the DPJ.

Of course, deciding after the fact that one needs special ministers to take care of issues you had not really thought through before coming to a conclusion on an issue is not a sign of seriousness. Instead, it sends the message that you are making things up on the fly,

Filling Mr. Abe's New Cabinet

With the record for the longest-lasting lineup in history firmly under its obi, the constipated release of two excruciatingly unsatisfying plans for change (Third Arrow structural economic reforms and reinterpretation of the constitutional ban on collective self-defense) making its days darker, ministers making apologies to the citizens for having voiced inconvenient truths (Link), the first significant death (Link) and languishing poll numbers(Link) Abe Cabinet 2.0 is starting to look stale. Prime Minister Abe delivered what sounded pretty much like a nationally televised hail and farewell speech last night -- sweeping through and over what the current Diet session and the Cabinet have achieved, giving no inkling of what is on the agenda for the autumn Extraordinary Diet Session.

The Yomiuri Shimbun yesterday predicted that the Prime Minister will shuffle his Cabinet in the beginning of September (Link) -- which, based on the PM's press conference, sounds about right. Today the paper has printed an article on the thicket of numbers Abe and his close confidants will have to hack through on the way to that new Cabinet.

First is the faction strength numbers. Now, the factions are not what they were in terms of the grooming of candidates and guides for the approximate number of cabinet seats apportioned from each faction's list of eligible candidates. Still, the Prime Minister has to at least pay some grudging respect to the legacy of the factions -- meaning that each faction will supply at least one member of the Cabinet, with the second place Nukaga Faction, the historical rival of the Prime Minister's Machimura Faction, at least two seats. As for Machimura, he has demanded that the faction honor its most senior underachiever -- a sad sack member with 8 elections to the Diet without ever serving in the Cabinet -- with a cabinet post.

Liberal Democratic Party Factions, number of members

Machimura Faction 92
Nukaga Faction 54
Kishida Faction 44
Aso Faction 38
Nikai Faction 29
Ishihara (Nobuteru) Faction 14
Oshima Faction 13
NO FACTION 127

That last number, 127 members still unaffiliated 18 months after an election, indicates of how far the factions have fallen as institutions. Until the Postal Reform election of 2005, only a handful of Liberal Democratic Party members were independent-minded or obnoxious enough to resist being recruited into a faction. Today, the non-faction faction is far and away the largest faction.

For the Yomiuri, the top candidates for Cabinet posts are party members with at least 5 elections to the House of Representatives (the old standard was 6 elections) or 3 elections to the House of Councillors -- and no previous Cabinet service. Unfortunately for Mr. Abe and his circle of advisers, the interregnum of three Democratic Party of Japan-led cabinets has created a huge backlog in the list of these purportedly worthy candidates. Currently 59 (43 HoR, 16 HoC) Diet members meet the Yomiuri standard -- a major headache for the PM, who wants to keep the number of Cabinet members fixed at 18. With the Chief Cabinet Secretary spot reserved for its current placeholder Suga Yoshihide, the number of Cabinet posts in play is really only 17.

A lot of broken dreams on tap here.

Abe has a few standards of his own he will want to enforce. He will want to have a larger cohort of women in his next Cabinet in order to preserve the appearance of his support for greater women's empowerment. He has raft of heavyweight candidates to chose from: Koike Yuriko, Noda Seiko, Takaichi Sanae are the first to come to mind. Unfortunately all of them have previous Cabinet service -- meaning that appointing them will make no dent in the ranks of the unfledged candidates.

Abe will also want to employ some of his friends and fellow travelers. Takaichi fits the bill in this department. So does of Shisaku favorite Seko Hiroshige -- who has the requisite number of elections to the Diet but heretofore no (Why is this in no way surprising?) Cabinet appointments on his resume.

Abe and his confidants have a long hot summer of thinking ahead of them. The process of selecting a new cabinet will probably involve, if anything, a lot of golf games under a blazing hot sun.

Look for a toasted Abe announcing a new cabinet lineup ahead of the opening of the Extraordinary Session, with a brand new State Minister for Regional Revitalization post enlivening the festivities.


Later - Yomiuri's English-language The Japan News has an article out making many of these points. (Link)

How Da Ya Think He Does It?

Extra, extra!
Read all about it!
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- The Who, Tommy (1969)

Open sore in the Cabinet, Minister of Law Tanaka Keishu (Link), was seen last night being driven in official car back to his condominium inside the Diet Members' Residences, a brigade of photographers and reporters in hot pursuit.

According to the Ministry, Tanaka will be attending today's regularly scheduled Cabinet meeting, after his missing the Friday Cabinet meeting due to pains in the chest and exhaustion...and missing his double summons to the House of Councillors Oversight Committee the day before. Tanaka will then hold a press conference, presumably announcing his resignation for...oh whatever it will be.

Not a bad little daily schedule for a vewy, vewy sick old man.

Would you not have wanted to have been in the physician's examining room yesterday?

"You're EKG is normal. Your blood pressure is high but looking at your chart, within the range of your usual levels. Blood sugar is normal. Considering we found nothing out of the ordinary on Friday, I am pronouncing you to be in reasonable health, given your age and lifestyle. We need your bed for someone coming out of the ICU so I am recommending you for immediate discharge. Oh, and one more thing...you are an incredibly ugly little toad...and that's on the outside."

Later - Days too late for the action to have anything but a perfunctory meaning, Tanaka has handed in his letter of resignation. (Link -J)

Now the questions are "Why was he selected to be Minister of Law?" and "How did he manage to avoid exposure all these years, only to be outed after he became a minister?"

That latter question begs real questions of the purposes and goals of The Fourth Estate in this blessed land.

A Photo Says It All - October 9, 2012

"I fully accept your surrender. Your sins are forgiven. Enter in peace."

At a Tokyo hotel, Yonemura Hiromasa (75), Chairman of the Nippon Keidanren, shakes hands with Liberal Democratic Party President Abe Shinzo (55) prior to a 9 a.m. meeting to discuss policy with the new secretariat of the LDP.

Yonekura has yet to pay even a social call on the new secretariat of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan.

Photo credit: Hokkaido Shimbun

Very Kind Of Them #6

The East Asian Forum has published an essay of mine on the reshuffle of the Cabinet (Link).

A few of my snarkier observations were wisely excised by the wonderful editors of the EAF. Unwisely, I will post them here.

Re: The consumption tax

Once the proposed hike in the consumption tax is complete, the tax rate will still be below European value added taxes and in line with Australia's and New Zealand's goods and services taxes. It will be unpopular because it is regressive and reaches out to tap the many elements of society who, though one subterfuge or another, manage to avoid or evade income taxes.

Re: Okada Katsuya

Known by his critics as "The Taliban" for his unswerving views, Okada reportedly refused the position of chief cabinet secretary when Noda formed his first cabinet on September 2 of last year. Okada purportedly preferred to stay out of the limelight in preparation for a challenge for the post of party leader at the next party leadership election, scheduled for September this year. Okada's unpopularity with middle-ranking members of the DPJ, who remember how he led the party to ignominious defeat in the 2005 House of Representatives election, also played a part in his decision to sit back and cool his heels for a while.

Re: Matsubara Jin

The appointment of Jin Matsubara, one of the rare foreign policy and security hawks in the DPJ, should probably be seen a sop to the families of those abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s. The families of the abductees and their supporters have felt that the DPJ has given them short shrift, as the during the 2 1/2 years the DPJ has been in power the abductees portfolio has changed hands seven times.

The appointment of hardliner Matsubara to the main homeland security and the abductees positions makes it unlikely that Japan will make a meaningful contribution to discussions among regional actors of new strategies of dealing with the DPRK in the aftermath of the passing of Kim Jong-il and his replacement by his son Jong-un. Instead, Japanese insistence on a "final resolution" of the abductees issue will continue to be throwing sand into the gears of any proposed shift in policies.

Re: Hirano Hirofumi

As for the appointment of Hirofumi Hirano, it is bald attempt on the part of prime minister Noda to curry favor with the group of DPJ parliamentarians loyal to former prime minister Yukio Hatoyama. Hirano put in a disgraceful performance as chief cabinet secretary during the Hatoyama Cabinet and was ineffective as a negotiator with his opposition counterparts during his recent stint as parliamentary affairs chairman.

Re: Ozawa Ichiro and the Kizuna Party

The two ministers who had to be replaced after being censured, Yasuo Ichikawa and Kenji Yamaoka, are close associates of Ichiro Ozawa, the DPJ's problematic former leader and major power broker. Ozawa, who is both under party disciplinary sanction and criminal indictment, still managed to attract 109 Diet members, most of them members of the DPJ, to an anti-consumption tax study group session he led immediately after the main DPJ party convention on January 16.

Rumors that Ozawa loyalists might turn against prime minister Noda in a no-confidence vote this spring or even form a new party in the near future gained considerably more credibility in the last days of December when nine members of the DPJ with strong bonds to Ozawa left the party and founded Kizuna, a new, anti-consumption tax, anti-Trans Pacific Partnership party.