Very Kind Of Them #40

On December 10 I had a chance to sit down with Kang Yonggi of Reuters to talk about the outlook for Japan after the 14 December 2014 elections. The video link:

Future of Abenomics rides on Sunday's snap election

At the time, I was afraid Abe & Company would hit the 300 seat level, making them complacent and arrogant.

As we know they failed to hit the target, empowering Japan's pacifists. Dreams potentially thwarted, Abe & Co. are almost certain to plunge into economic issues to the exclusion of all else.

Très Gentil De Leur Part #38 Et #39

Very kind of Daniel Eskenazi of Le Temps and Philippe Mesmer of Le Monde to quote me in their stories on the lead up to the 14 December 2014 House of Representatives elections:

- Malgré son impopularité, Shinzo Abe devrait remporter les élections (Paywall)

- Au Japon, les enjeux cachés des législatives

Merci mes amis.

Very Kind Of Them #38 - Special Pre-Election Edition

Were I to indulge in sincerely grateful hyperbole, I would say that I'm speechless, Justin McCurry. (Link)

But I have a voice, and my limited self-knowledge compels me to shout, "No, no. I actually know very, very little. If I know any one of great value, it is to keep up with what the hard-working, smart folks are writing."

If you want to know about Japan as it is, right now, on the eve of The Election Proving Nothing, find the latest writing by:

T.B., The Economist

Aurelia Mulgan George, various publications (for example)

Yuka Hayashi, The Wall Street Journal

Eric Johnston, The Japan Times

Yuri Kageyama, The Japan Times

Elaine Lies, Reuters

Ben McClanahan, Financial Times

D.M., The Economist

Jacob Schlesinger, The Wall Street Journal

Toko Sekiguchi, The Wall Street Journal

Linda Sieg, Reuters

Jonathan Soble, The New York Times

Corey Wallace, various publications (for example)

and this is just the start, not even beginning on the freelancers, and only in English.

Thanks be for all of you, for all that you have been doing, all this time.

Very Kind Of Them #35

David Pilling delivers a huge thumbs up to the post of December 6. (Link）

Best not tell Professor Noah Smith of Stonybrook. He asked over Twitter what alternatives Japan had. I told him Abenomics done in an integrated way.

As for the article, I disagree with Professor Gerald Curtis (see him at the FCCJ on December 15) who says the two party system has fallen apart. I see a great deal of hope down the line, in two years' to three year's time.

Live Blogging The FCCJ Press Conference OF Tokyo Governor Masuzoe Yoichi

Note the empty chairs on both sides...

15:30 Introductory remarks, laughing, explaining what he has been doing in regards the Chinese poaching fo jewelry coral, and then it hits you - Holy crap Governor Masuzoe is holding his press conference in English WITHOUT A TRANSLATOR PRESENT. It is just the governor and David McNeill up there on the rostrum.

15:40 Reading from prepared remarks - and surprisingly, or not so, his English pronunciation is better when extemporizing or riffing on the prepared remarks than when he is reading.

OK, enough of the incredible bravery of the governor of Tokyo giving a press conference in what is his third language.


15:42 Brings up the possibility of regulations banning smoking in restaurants.

15:44 Talks about his visits to London and Moscow in city-to-city diplomacy. Great times with London's Boris.

15:45 Now the biggie - turning Tokyo into a more important financial center.

- one stop, English-language subsidiary registration for foreign cos

- more international schools, hospitals

Talks about the importance of foreign workers, notes the incredibly high percentage of foreign workers in London (real London envy/admiration from the git-go of this press conference)

15:48 Supplementary Tokyo assembly budget will subsidize Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles to the tune of 1 million yen per vehicle. Tokyo will subsidize the building of 80 fueling stations.

15:52 Wild rhetorical flourishes to wind up the prepared remarks, calling the Olympics the last best way of reviving Japan.

15:56 Fireworks as a Japanese blogger (?) accuses the Governor of shady political financial declarations. Re of Masuzoe's eyes stand out as he cuts the questioner off, saying that all the questions on this subject have been answered at his Japanese press conference. Young man continues to try but Mazuzoe cuts him down. McNeill has to ask the young man to sit down.

16:00 Asked about 24 hour ATMs, asks questioner to consider the possibility of cashless, Internet banking. (In truth, probably in 6 year's time, we may be using cash a longtime).

16:06 Woman asking about the expansion of the size of the road expansion and whether it is not budget busting? (in Japanese)

Mazuzoe taks of a political leader is prioritization. If one does not create packages of policies, rather than an item here, an item there.

(Moderator should have the right to check the intentions of the questioners. Some folks show up just to complain...)

16:12 Casinos? Masuzoe does not say he is against them but he wants a deepened, national discussion.

16:14 The cost of the Olympics, materials and labor costs have indeed gone up.

As regards Fukushima, he receives no special information from the government. However, Tokyo will go from 6% renewables to 20% renewables in X years. Damn, how many was it.

16:25 Governor enthusiastically answers my question on Tokyo's responsibilities to share its good fortune and enrich the other prefectures as well. He argues that the relationship between Tokyo and the other prefectures must not be zero sum but instead win-win. His caveat is that Tokyo cannot be the only engine: Osaka, Fukuoka, Osaka must pull together with Tokyo (interesting implications for the shu-sized administrative unit plan, which would tend to divide the major cities and set them to competing with one another).

Very Kind Of Them #31 And #32

It was nice to have a long exchange with Elaine Kurtenbach on the dissolution and the delay in the consumption tax. It was even nicer that she found something in our interaction worth sharing. (Link

Rather humbling is it for this electronic scratch pad's having received the attention of Andy Sharp, who found my assigning Prime Minister Abe Shinzo an "A" for effort and content worthy of mention. (Link)

Irony Bites - The Yomiuri Shimbun Edition

Everyone makes mistakes oh yes they do
Your sister and your brother
And your dad and mother too
Big people, small people
Matter of fact all people
Everyone makes mistakes so why can't you?

- Sesame Street, "Everyone Makes Mistakes"

Last month Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's largest circulation daily newspaper and a staunch ally, nay, the house organ of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's administration, severely criticized its main rival The Asahi Shimbun following the Asahi's admission last month that a number of its articles on the comfort women published in the 1990s contained unprovable and likely false information:

After a review of its reports on the so-called comfort women issue, which has become a huge thorn in the side of Japan-South Korea ties, The Asahi Shimbun has admitted its mistakes in the reports—albeit partially—and retracted some of the contents.

The retractions allude to reports on remarks by Seiji Yoshida, who claimed to have forcibly taken away local women from Jeju Island, South Korea, to make them serve as comfort women. During World War II, Yoshida was said to be the former head of the mobilization department of the Shimonoseki Branch of Romu Hokoku-kai, an organization in charge of recruiting laborers.

In September 1982, the newspaper reported—without verification—the remarks of Yoshida, who claimed to have "hunted up 200 young Korean women in Jeju Island."

Misperceptions about Japan

The report added fuel to anti-Japan sentiment in South Korea, and also became a basis of misperception of Japan spreading through the world. In its Tuesday morning edition, the Asahi concluded—for the first time—that Yoshida's remarks were baseless, and finally retracted the newspaper's reports regarding the remarks.

We cannot help but point out the correction should have been made at a much earlier stage. Doubts about Yoshida’s remarks have been raised as early as 1992. The newspaper’s negligence in allowing the issue to linger for more than 20 years is deplorable.

(Link)

The Yomiuri's criticism, sharp and unforgiving, is still restrained as compared to the enervated glee of the Fuji Sankei Group's Sankei Shimbun and the legions of Japan Keyboard Defense Korps members like economics blogger Ikeda Nobuo and National Fundamental head honcho Sakurai Yoshiko -- who have simply gone overboard in their demands for retribution against the Asahi for its errors.

The Yomiuri's restraint in its mirth over the Asahi's too credulous reporting demonstrates an inadvertent wisdom in the editorial office -- because this week, it was the Yomiuri that swallowed a fish tale, hook, line and sinker.

In a pair of exclusive reports, the Yomiuri reported that prime minister Abe Shinzo was going to appoint Takaichi Sanae as minister of economics, trade and industry -- which prompted me to tweet:

Yomiuri report suggests Takaichi Sanae will be METI minister. Hmm...is there a revisionist view of industrial policy? http://t.co/6Q4iHdB3Vj
— Michael Thomas Cucek (@MichaelTCucek) September 1, 2014

and that Obuchi Yuko would be the new secretary-general of the Liberal Democratic Party, which prompted me to rant:

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.

(Link)


Well...it turns out that both of these exclusives did not only sounded bogus, they were bogus -- which prompted the Yomiuri to print an extraordinary postscript to its Friday story on Obuchi's becoming secretary-general having been a longtime and thwarted dream of the prime minister:

The Yomiuri Shimbun's Political News Department has operated a dedicated team over the past month or so to cover matters related to Wednesday’s Cabinet reshuffle and shakeup of top LDP executives. Our coverage has been based on the work of as many as 30 reporters who gathered information on developments by contacting members of the LDP and the Prime Minister’s Office, among other sources, and thoroughly and comprehensively scrutinizing the information available.

Yomiuri articles that reported Abe as considering appointing Obuchi to the LDP secretary general post and Sanae Takaichi as likely to become economy, trade and industry minister may have misled our readers.

When covering political circumstances that change constantly, we will make further efforts to offer fast and accurate reports based on diversified information-gathering and careful news judgment.

(Link)

"May have misled our readers"?

Is this not the point where one is supposed to say, "We blew it!"?

Or do the editors at the Yomiuri need a little more time?

After The Asahi Shimbun Retractions

"It's an old habit....I spent my whole life trying not to be careless....Women and children can afford to be careless but not men."

Vito Corleone, The Godfather (1972)

Now replace "men" with "liberals" and "women and children" with "conservatives and libertarians" and you have a pretty accurate picture of the world we live in.

After decades of resistance, The Asahi Shimbun three days ago began the painful process of retracting a series of articles it had published over the years containing the undocumentable and likely false statements of a former civilian labor recruiter. The late Yoshida Seiji had claimed he had organized a forcible round up of 200 women on the island of Cheju-do for service as prostitutes in "comfort stations" for the Imperial Japanese Army. Unfortunately for the Asahi and news organizations quoting the Asahi on the story, investigations into the accuracy of Yoshida's claims found no evidence of their being true.

Conservative publications and commentators have been going to town on The Asahi Shibun's about face (Link). The humiliation of the right's "Class A War Criminal" as regards the comfort women and the Kono Statement has stimulated some...oh let us say "opportunistic" leaders of certain parties...to demand Diet investigation of the Asahi's reversal. (Link and Link J video)

The overdue repudiation of Yoshida's claims has of course hurt the cause of those urging an East Asian entente on the comfort women issue. Yoshida's claims and their debunking have focused attention in Japan on the issue of whether the comfort women were recruited "forcibly in the narrow sense" --, i.e. kidnapped by government employees or their direct agents -- leaving underexamined the larger issue of the impossible-to-defend trafficking of women from colonized or occupied areas to provide sexual services to soldiers, sailors and officers at or near Imperial Army and Imperial Navy installations. It is an absurd assertion of Japanese revisionist circles that the only reason the comfort women issue has existed as an element of international relations has been The Asahi Shimbun's printing of articles on the subject. The idiotic domestic debate on "coercion in the narrow sense" has, of course, made the Japanese government and people look like a creepy bunch of sniveling, moon-eyed automatons obsessed with the avoidance of blame or the appearance of remorse.

When latest matsuri sawagi of hooting, hollering and "I told you so" dies down, of course, Japanese of all stripes will find that the Asahi's retractions matter not one jot in the way the world perceives the issue (Link). The world outside Japan's borders focuses, unsurprisingly, on coercion in the broader sense, which is:

Recruitment of non-national women or boys to provide sexual services for an occupying or colonial government's employees, whether through cash inducements, deceit or abduction, whether by government personnel or agents, in colonized or occupied territories, is a coerced act, no matter the legal status of prostitution in the occupying country.

That brutal reality, one of the many brutal, horrifying realities of the way the Japanese Imperial forces operated, has not changed in the aftermath of the Asahi's publication of retractions of some of its stories.

Later - Did not see this until now but it seems the good folks at JapanRealTime clicked in with a report yesterday. (Link)

Very Kind Of Them #21, #22 and #23

I have been in remiss in thanking those who have mentioned me in print or on the radio.

Dr. Noah Smith of Stonybrook, with whom I have bitter collisions on Twitter, was kind enough to note this humble site in an essay for Bloomberg published one month ago;

Click - "Japan's Abe Is the World's Best Leader"

I am not quite as enthusiastic about Abe Shinzo his plans as Dr. Smith. Still we both agree he is a whirl of activity in a sea of turgid counterparts.

The Economist, a publication that has been exceedingly kind to me in the past, mentioned me as a rare fan of the Third Arrow reform announcement of last month:

Click - "The battle for Japan"

My caveat to my quote is similar: all is relative. As compared to what other governments are proposing to do, most of which is a fat load of nothing, Abe's "thousand needles" reform proposals look grand.

On the concept Jesper Koll espouses -- that the most recent bundle of 240+ proposals is like a venture capital portfolio; some policy changes bad, most washouts, a few really great -- a worry. If this throwing darts at a dartboard mentality inhabits the minds of those running the reform program, then they need to have explained to them the difference between a venture capital fund, which is taking investment and trying to forge it into a businesses, and government, which is taking revenues extracted forcibly and using them to try to build a safety net for the taxpayers.

Only those who have a plane tickets and a passports out of a country, in case things go haywire, should ever be considered an act of government just one slice of a portfolio investment.

Finally, and this is a surprise, Alex Marshall of the BBC sends an audio letter from Tokyo based upon my heretofore-decidedly-unsuccessful neologism "dumbwalking" (in Japanese, sumafo aruki):

Click - "Dumb Walking in Japan"

With the pleathora of warnings now appearing on the subways about the many ways smart phones make you a dumb walker, the proliferating letters to the editors of newspapers about the phenomenon and the news networks now compiling "death by smart phone" statistics (currently overshadowed by the national panic over traffic accidents caused by folks high on so-called "extra-legal herbs" - dappo haabu - Link J) I can hardly claim title to the individual most uptight about the consequences of the 100% rise in the use of smart phones in the last 18 months.


Image: Ring Tailed Lemurs (Lemur catta) at the Food and Agriculture Museum, Setagaya City, Tokyo Metropolitan District.

Lemurs? At the Ag Museum?

Yep. Probably more lemurs than even in the Aye-Aye Forest at Ueno Zoo. (Link - J video)

Fuji Sankei Sort Of Joins The Crowd On Collective Security

After the Yomiuri Shimbun pollsters stopped asking a triple option question regarding Japan's participation in collective self defense (CSD), replacing the previous options of

- Yes, Japan should do so fully
- Yes, Japan should, but only to the minimum extent possible, and
- No, Japan should not

with a straightforward Yes-or-No, the Fuji Sankei Group (Fuji Terebi and the Sankei Shimbun) became the last media organization still giving those wishing to not appear virulently selfish a false option of an undefined, vanishing responsibility to come to the defense of others.

Over the weekend, the Fuji Sankei Group came in from the cold, sort of, having its pollsters ask the one CSD question in a binary way.

The Abe Cabinet has reinterpreted the Constitution, delivering a Cabinet Decision approving the exercise of the right of collective self defense in a limited way. What do you think of this?

Approve 34%

Oppose 59%

Don't Know/Don't Care 7%

This looks a lot like the results found by all the other news organizations, with greater than 50% of the voters disapproving of the Abe Cabinet's actions as regards CSD.

However, the Fuji Sankei poll fails to disambiguate whether the voters are expressing displeasure with

a) the decision to approve CSD or

b) the Abe Cabinet's approval through the constitutionally suspect method of reinterpretation.

Other polling organizations have been separating the the two issues. They have generally found greater than 60% of those polled angry with the method while a smaller majority are upset with Japan's taking up the exercise of the CSD right.

While Fuji's fluffing (or fudging) of the question keeps Abe government opponents from claiming that "every poll shows the majority of the voters opposed to CSD," the general conclusion is clear: the Abe Cabinet or the CSD debate troika (in Mikuriya Takashi's conception) of Abe Shinzo, Komura Masahiko and Ishiba Shigeru have failed to make the case for the government's most radical effort to alter Japan's security architecture. Not event the Yomiuri's and the Sankei's sympathies with Abe's program could engineer a massaging of the polling results into even weak support for the government's actions.

So yes, Abe and Friends won the fight over Japan's exercise of the right of collective self defense -- but alienating a majority of voters in the process.

When, if ever, an opposition party works out a political program incepting the better parts of Abenomics, adding some truly sincere and mathed-up structural reform proposals, together with a greater respect for the intelligence of the average voter, that party could give the LDP some serious competition at the ballot box.

Cramming Collective Security Down Their Throats

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo (from his seat, as Okada Katsuya, who has the floor, is about to change the subject) - “You just don't understand, do you?"

Okada Katsuya - "I don't understand? I think it is you, Mr. Prime Minister who do not understand. You are rude, using that phrase. Saying,'you don’t understand' is rude. When we look over the official record we will clearly see who is the rude one-- who is the one who does not understand. We will take this up some other time. You are the prime minister of the whole country and all its citizens. I wish to offer to you most humbly my thought that when no one is asking you to speak, your shouting out a heckling expression is not something that as a prime minister you ought to be doing."

After weeks of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide trying to cool apprehensions about the government's plans to force a decision on collective self-defense, with the Dynamic Duo speaking nonchalantly about oh, maybe an agreement sometime in time for the Fall extraordinary Diet session (Link) Liberal Democratic Party Vice President Komura Masahiko came down like a hammer on Sunday, saying he wants a Cabinet Decision on CSD by the end of this Diet session -- i.e., in less than three weeks. (Link -J)

Why the sudden sense of urgency and impatience? Is Komura indicating a change in Abe Cabinet strategy? Or was he just shooting off his mouth -- and knowing the dapper former Foreign Minister Komura's character, this would be unusual -- because he was giving his speech in his and the prime minister's militant homeland of Yamaguchi? (Link)

Possibly.

I would rather think the answer to the question "What's happened?" would be "Wednesday."

Wednesday, May 28, 2014, to be exact.

On that day, last week, in the House of Representatives Budget Committee, Prime Minister Abe tried for the first time to explain or defend his government's plans as regards the recommendations in the "Report of the Advisory Panel on Reconstruction of the Legal Basis for Security," commonly known as the Yanai Commission Report. (Link)

While great for television -- the above exchange being one of the testier and more entertaining moments -- the session was pretty grim for the government and the LDP. "Train wreck," "fiasco" and "flaming heap of parrot droppings" are just some of the phrases that come to mind regarding Abe's and Cabinet Legislation Bureau chief Yokobatake Yusuke's performances.

The editors of the Mainichi were appalled at the Prime Minister's inability to answer questions in a straightforward way (Link). The editors of The Asahi Shimbun were -- this will surprise no one -- incoherent as to what they were expecting (Link). The editors of The Japan Times were in need of editors (Link). The editors of the Sankei Shimbun, interestingly, urged lawmakers to get a move on with ratifying the government's 15 scenarios wherein CSD should be constitutional, this in order for Japan to be more in line with international norms (Link - J)*. The editors of Pravda-by-the-Palace, a.k.a., the Yomiuri Shimbun, warned -- and I am not making this up -- that the debate on the reinterpretation of the Constitution for the purposes of sanctioning the exercise of the right of collective self-defense could lead to the break up of the Democratic Party of Japan. (Link)

Nobody, in other words, was cheering.

If there is a sense of panic inside the LDP, it is merited. As in the case of the Special Secrets Act, the longer the Yanai proposals getted batted about in committee and in the media, the worse the Abe Cabinet's plans look. It would behoove the government to move, as it did with the secrets act, to cut off debate with some farcical claim that speed is of the essence and further examination of the scenarios would leave Japan unprotected at a time of great clashing of wills in East Asia. (Link)

However, moving as Komura says he wants would provoke an unnecessary collision with the New Komeito, ending with the collapse of the ruling coalition. The sudden chaos would overwhelm the government's all important third try, after two damp squibs, to launch a set of Third Arrow structural reforms -- ones in which international investors and the international news organizations can finally place their faith.

Even for a man of action and turmoil from Choshu like Abe Shinzo, Komura's gambit should seem overwrought and unwise.

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

* An instance of what Tobias Harris refers to as "a momentary lapse into reason."

Very Kind Of Them #19

Ben McClannahan of the Financial Times and I talked for a while about the phenomenon and scapegoat Horie Takafumi.

Mr. McClannahan was kind enough to include a quote from out conversation in his article.
(Link)

Hell Freezes Over: Tamogami Toshio At Asahi Shimbun Event

Tomorrow, on Constitution Day, at a conference organized by The Asahi Shimbun's employees union on war and the Constitution, General Tamogami Toshio will be one of the featured speakers.

Let me say that again.

Tomorrow,

on Constitution Day,

at a conference organized by The Asahi Shimbun's employees union

on war and the Constitution,

General Tamogami Toshio (Retired)

will be one of the featured speakers.

You don't believe me? Look at the image above. Click on it if you want to see it in a larger size.

I called the number on the poster. It is the number of the employees's union. The event will take place tomorrow.

This is so wrong in so many ways one can only think that Hell hath truly frozen over.

And In Other News

I cannot say I am a huge fan of Martin Fackler's everything-including-the-kitchen-sink take on the travesty of Momii Katsuto becoming the president of NHK (Link). I much prefer Jonathan Soble's article on the ongoing collapse of the national public broadcaster's reputation. (Link)

To be frank, worrying out loud now about the deterioration of independence of the NHK news department seems almost coy. After years of simultaneously stolid and enervated reporting, NHK News loosened up and show some of its latent capabilities during the brief summer of the Democratic Party of Japan's turn as the party in power, pulling out of the vault some stories it had long shelved and allowing its reporters to take some liberties.

When it became clear that Abe Shinzo was returning to the premiership, however, NHK newscasts quickly became all but unwatchable. Not for obvious pro-government pieces but for the glaring lack of pieces critical of government.

"Amaterasu! Not another heart-warming tale of plucky Tohoku tsunami survivors trying to cope with the loss of their hometowns followed by cute animal tricks videos culled from the Internet. Aaarggh, switch me one of the commercial channels, quick."

The disastrous and highly visible train wrecks of Momii and Abe's choice for the NHK Board of Governors Hyakuta Naoki (click here to see Michael Penn's awesome photograph of Hyakuta at the problematic rally for Tokyo gubernatorial candidate Tamogami Toshio) are at least taking place in the public arena. Discussion of NHK News's retreat into quiet, problematic self-censorhip (How can one reliably quantify the stories and facets of the news a network has not reported? Long-time viewers and admirers can see the changes happening, but how to prove the existence of absences?) is relegated to the whispering of presumed fools and ideologues.

Far more serious for the serious news hound than NHK's managerial troubles is Tokyo Broadcasting's abandonment in March of the "Asa Zuba!" morning talk show newscast (Link). A new morning program, whose format remains a secret, with a pretty young thing from Nihon Terebi as the main co-anchor, will be replacing what has been, even in founder's Mino Monta's absence, the most consistently progressive, skeptical and entertaining newscast on television.

Tamogami Toshio Live, Live (And Freaking Me Out)

Working journalist MP is tweeting from inside the Foreign Correspondent's Club of Japan Tamogami Toshio press conference. Sitting down in a random spot, he finds that his table companions are:

Nishiyama Yujiro - a former candidate for governor, whose proposals included disaster drills with all 13 million residents of Tokyo participating simultaneously -- stopping their cars, blocking all access to the Internet. See him try to explain this idea in what was to be his free NHK broadcast gubernatorial election video. (Link - J video)

Motegi Hiromichi - arch-conservative commentator, author of such works as Do Not Be Afraid Of Radiation! and Elementary Schools Do Not Need English!. Watch him explain how the U.S. caused World War II (Link - J) at an event where current FCCJ member and former the Times, FT and NYT bureau chief Henry Stokes was also a featured speaker.

Nishimura Koyu - Advertising writer turned polemicist. Most recent work an article appearing on the website of the Society for the Dissemination of Historical Truth entitled, "The Truth of the 'Comfort Women' Intelligence Warfare." (Link)

Oh, MP was also surprised to see Dewi Sukarno in the Tamogami entourage

Why do the things that I predict have to come true?


Later - Also as predicted, MP reports that Tamogami supporter Nishiyama, claiming to be a journalist, grabs microphone to ask The General a question.

Now The Home Wrecker

The Yomiuri Shimbun, ever ignorant of a newspaper's role being that of a reporter of news, not a creator, is playing anti-matchmaker again in the long-running drama Jiko renritsu seiken with its recurring question, "How long can the Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito keep pretending they are not really made for each other?"

In the latest episode, the New Komeito, according to the Yomiuri、is "on pins and needles" (piri piri) over Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's overtures toward the Your Party and elements of the opposition. Abe is offering a policy agreement linkup (seisaku kyogi) to the Your Party and elements of the Japan Restoration Party in four areas: reinterpretation of constitutional restrictions on collective defense, actual constitutional revision, East Asian diplomacy and elimination of the power of local school boards. The New Komeito, which has stuck with the LDP through good times and bad, has very definite views on these items which are not entirely in line with those of Abe and his coterie. The New Komeito also has a definite sense of the sequencing of policy agreements: first the members of the coalition agree amongst themselves on the policies, then they approach the opposition or non-aligned parties and MPs with an offer of cooperation. (Link - J)

The link up of the New Komeito and the LDP after years of mutual animosity was one of the miracles of the 1990s, second in its shock value only to the eviscerating (for the Socialist Party) LDP-Socialist Party coalition, which for all time exposed the LDP's raw and bottomless appetite for power. The coalition has been extremely good for both the New Komeito and the LDP, the former for the protection it gives to The Corporation, the latter for the 7~8 million sure votes for LDP candidates in the Diet district and local elections. The loyalty of the New Komeito voters saved the LDP from utter annihilation in the August 2009 House of Representatives election, with approximately one quarter of all votes for LDP district candidates coming from New Komeito voters. The NK really took on the chin in 2009 too: all of its members holding district seats, the party's top leaders, were turned out.

However, the temptation for the LDP to dump the New Komeito after nearly two decades of cohabitation seems too strong to resist. With just the remaining members of the Your Party as partners, the LDP would have majorities in the Houses of Representatives and House of Councillors. With all or part of the JRP in a three party cohabitation (what I call the "Hawks-Hawks-Hawks Coalition" as opposed to the current "Hawks and Doves Coalition") the new policy cooperation arrangement would have a gigantic supermajority in the House of Representatives and a solid majority in the House of Councillors. Not the 162 seats Abe needs in the House of Councillors to pass revisions of the Constitution -- but more than enough seats to pass just about anything else tickling the fancy of the PM and his many advisers and hangers-on.

Abe and his minister of education Shimamura Hakubun cannot and probably never for a moment forget the New Komeito's spiking of Abe's first attempt to impose a more patriotic regimen and regime upon the nation's schools back in 2007. The New Komeito's rejection and rewriting of the first ever revisions of the 1946 Education Act left a bleeding hole in the side of the first Abe Cabinet -- not the first wound the first Abe Cabinet had inflicted upon it, certainly, but one of the most painful.

Ever since that experience Abe has probably been convinced that the coalition with the New Komeito was a marriage of convenience only. Pretty much everyone with a sense of Abe's mindset probably agrees it is now a highly inconvenient marriage for him.

The Yomiuri should nevertheless just stand back and let nature take its course, rather than cheering for the LDP-New Komeito break up.

Let us keep this seemly, folks.

While were are on the subject of keeping things seemly, Temple University Japan's Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies has uploaded the video of my January 9 talk to its You Tube channel. Please check it out (Link) to see if I indeed follow my own advice.


Later - If the above image mystifies, please read Yuka Hayashi's interview.

Later still - The Economist has checked in with an extended look at the subject, with The Corporation mentioned by name. (Link)

Original image courtesy: Nikkan Gendai

The Official Secrets Bill - The New York Times Gets In The Act

Here.

While the ideological cant of the gaiatsu is not unappreciated, a quibble about the title: to my knowledge pretty much all secrecy legislation is illiberal.

Koike Yuriko Sets The House Secrecy Debate On Fire

Former Minister of Defense (briefly), former Chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party General Council and head of the LDP’s Communication Division Koike Yuriko has a reputation as a savvy media manipulator. A former television newscaster, she holds a degree in sociology from Cairo University. Thanks to her Arabic and English skills, she is a fixture in international circles. Publishing in English via Project Syndicate, she has disseminated anti-Democratic Party of Japan and pro-Abe Shinzo propaganda worldwide underneath the radar of the local representatives of the foreign press.

Despite a warm and inviting appearance, Koike holds hardline views on security and is seen as very much a kindred spirit of the prime minister's. Part of her hard defense posture may have developed out of her interaction with and study of the U.S. security community.

Part, however, arises from her political instability. She flitted during the first years of her political career from one political party to another, finally landing in the LDP. Her colleagues have labeled her a wataridori-- i.e., "a migratory bird" -- and were not complimenting her in doing so. She gained prominence under the sponsorship of maverick Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro, becoming the most visible and valuable of his "assassins." Under his encouragement, she moved from her fairly safe Hyogo district to challenge and eventually defeat postal rebel Kobayashi Koki in his Tokyo fiefdom.

Without roots in her district, her patron departed from active politics, her choosing to lean ever harder into militancy has made eminent sense. Her hardline views on defense, together with her earlier mobility prompted me to label her "the Iron Butterfly."

Yesterday, in Diet session examining the Official Secrets bill, the Iron Butterfly crash landed in spectacular fashion:

"Japan is a country stupefied by peace which has pretty much lost any appreciation of top secrets...Every day the newspapers are without fail printing at what o’clock, how many minutes, who it was that went in to see the prime minister and when they left. Doesn’t this transcend the [Public's] Right To Know?"

(Link - J)

The Prime Minister's Schedule (Shusho dosei, also called Shusho no ichi nichi) is an institution of Japanese life. Printed unobtrusively in every day's newspaper (page 6 on the bottom of my own daily paper this morning) it details, with extraordinary thoroughness, the prime minister's schedule of the previous day. With most of the machinations of Japanese government enwreathed in bureaucratic fog and shielded by the press clubs, the Prime Minister's Schedule has been one of the few means the public has had of getting even a glimpse of whatever the hell is going on.

From a security standpoint, Koike's objection to this time-honored practice would make sense if the Prime Minister's Schedule revealed the prime minister's intended movements. However, the Prime Minister's Schedule (I am not going to use an acronym, for obvious reasons) only details whom the PM met the day before. Since Japan has a defense-only military posture, foregoing warfare as a means of solving international political disputes, and the government generally does not engage in nefarious activities, there is little reason for the PM to hide the identities of the person he is meeting.

And the Prime Minister's Schedule already hides the identities of some of the persons the PM is meeting. Very often, only one or two names are listed, followed by a ra) ("and folks like that..."). It is almost certain that the PM's handlers only need to go over to whichever member of the press club is keeping the schedule that day and say, "Look, of those whom you just saw going in, can you keep quiet about Mr. X and Ms. Y? Thanks."

When the head of the LDP's press relations division takes aim at a small but important traditional news media window into the PM's actions, using the loaded terms kimitsu ("top secrets") and heiwa boke ("stupefied by peace") she sets off a red flashing light for a news media already deeply sceptical of if not adamantly opposed (Link) to the Official Secrets bill. If one wanted to create an atmosphere reinforcing the warnings of the critics of the bill, who have been claiming that the reach of the bill is unlimited, then attacking one of the new media's cherished prerogatives is a good way to start.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide, in with his usual diffidence, has said that the government has no plans to follow up on Koike's suggestion. "What the various news organizations are making public knowledge regarding the Prime Minister’s movements, these are not within expectations of what would be items of special secrecy under the Special Official Secrets Law."

Suga was trying to tamp down concerns. However, his use of sotei ("expectations"), a term strongly associated in the public mind with the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster (and the cynical question "you say what happened was outside of expectations but it really wasn't, was it? And the worst did happen, didn't it?”) indicates a deteriorating awareness of the press and the public's growing opposition to the Official Secrets bill. (Link - J and Link - J).

The news media has been extremely circumspect or even supportive during these first 10 charmed months of the Abe administration. The quiet, acquiescent press environment has indeed been one of the most striking differences between Abe's first term as prime minister and the current term.

Blunderbuss threats to press freedom -- the submission of the Official Secrets Bill and extraordinarily ideological moves against the management of national broadcaster NHK (Abe wants to appoint who to the management committee? The author who every so often interviews Abe for the revisionist magazine WiLL and the PM's childhood home tutor? Oh, you have to be joking -- Link - J) are testing the ceasefire. It may be that the Abe crowd is feeling its oats, believing that coalition majorities in both Houses of the Diet making it impervious to whatever an independent press thinks anymore.

Later - In addition to the translated Mainichi editorial linked to above, The Japan Times has editorialized against the official secrets bill. (Link)


Later still - The Mainichi Shimbun has published an English-language translation of its take on the story. (Link)

The July 21, 2013 Election - Those Damn Internets

This summer's House of Councillors election will be Japan's first full-fledged online and social media election. The rules on Internet communications have been loosened, albeit not banished (One example of a legacy rule, reinterpreted for the new age? How does "during the campaign, while it is not illegal to forward an email from a candidate, it is illegal to print out that email on paper and hand distribute the paper printout" strike you?) For example, the first face-to-face (and possibly only) debate between the party leaders took place not in a terrestrial broadcast studio or at the National Press Club, but on a glitzy and demeaning stage provided by the Nico Nico Douga streaming site. (Link - J)

We have travelled very far from the dignified, controlled political presentations of even just a few years ago.

Three consequences of the new, Net-based campaign:

1) It will be both easier and harder to track the campaigns of individual candidates and their supporters.

More of what the candidate is doing and saying will be available for everyone to peruse at near zero cost.

However, with the plethora of videos, blog posts and tweets means there will be all the more political dross to wade through.

2) Japan’s mainstream media, print and broadcast, will be fighting a desperate and futile battle to pull politics back into their orbits.
NHK tried its best during its morning’s newscast to highlight purported abuses of net communications and how they may have affected election outcomes in South Korea, where Web participation is higher and the barriers on Web campaigning are lower.

The problem -- and it is a huge one for the major news media conglomerates, who have heretofore retained their vitality and relevance in Japan -- is that prime minister Abe Shinzo is enamored of communicating through the Internet. The Net has allowed Abe to be himself (whining that no one pays attention to him; thundering at any who dare criticize him) with neither the presentation of his ideas nor his attitude being challenged by those damn, pesky, back-stabbing journalists.

Speaking of which (being enamored of the Net, not back-stabbing journalists) the PM has moved beyond the confines of Facebook and is now striding the halls of LinkedIn.

3) As with any new toy, there is little awareness of the limits or levels of safe play. The July 2013 elections will likely be the coarsest, most heated and most dispiriting in history, despite the outcome being largely decided (the latest Yomiuri public opinion poll results are accessible here) and the lack of divisive national issues. Already this year there have been a number of kerfuffles over government and political figures losing their all sense of decorum in social media. (For one example of twittery, see - Link) 

The levels of abuse and ranting in this upcoming campaign (which officially kicks off on the 4th) will likely change the views many hold of this blessed land's politics, yours truly not excepted.

Yours, Now And Forever

I grimaced when I read the first half of the below editorial. The editors of The Yomiuri Shimbun are right: the Democratic Party of Japan and its leader Kaieda Banri have failed to revise their talking points and sharpen their rhetoric to reflect the new politico-economic environment:

Don't Kaieda and DPJ know how to say anything other than 'No'?

There was a stark contrast between Prime Minster Shinzo Abe and Democratic Party of Japan President Banri Kaieda during their debate in the Diet. Backed by the recent surge of stock prices and a high public approval rate, Abe looked confident--even relaxed--while Kaieda's attacks on him made no impact.

As long as the leader of the largest opposition party continues such a lackluster performance, Diet debates will have no vigor.

On Wednesday, Abe and opposition party leaders had their first debate under the second Abe Cabinet.

Kaieda emphasized the projected side-effects of Abenomics. He said the Abe administration's massive monetary easing would hurt people, especially those living on pensions, by raising the cost of living. He also expressed concern about the government's ongoing discussions on deregulation that could pave the way to increased job cuts at companies.

Abe responded by saying that the amount of pension benefits will go up as commodity prices rise, and stressed that inflation will eventually lead to wage increases.

"We have created 40,000 jobs in the past three months, something the DPJ-led administrations never achieved," Abe said.

Present counterproposals

Since the launch of the Abe administration, the excessive appreciation of the yen has been rectified, and stock prices have been hovering at high levels.

If Kaieda does nothing more than harp on his concerns about Abenomics, we can never expect constructive Diet debates. We expect the DPJ president to express his own views on how to end deflation and spur growth. In other words, Kaieda should present concrete counterproposals.

It was Abe who brought up the issue of the bill to rezone electoral districts in the House of Representatives by eliminating five single-seat constituencies without adding any. It seemed the prime minister was trying to take the upper hand in debating the topic. Abe, who is seeking to pass the bill ahead of other electoral reform measures, asked for Kaieda's cooperation.

Abe said: "The public has been demanding that we rectify disparities in the value of votes. As members of the legislature, don't we have the responsibility to meet this demand?"

Kaieda refused to go along, saying that the main promise [between the DPJ and the LDP] on electoral system reforms was to slash the number of seats. However, we have to say his remarks totally miss the point.

In November, a lower house electoral reform bill to eliminate five single-seat constituencies was enacted, and we have to remind Kaieda that the DPJ agreed on passing it. However, now the party opposes the rezoning bill, which would prepare an environment for the realization of the first bill, insisting that more drastic reform is necessary. It is apparent that the ruling parties would never agree to such an unreasonable demand from the DPJ.

The DPJ, saying that eliminating five single-seat constituencies is insufficient to rectify vote-value disparities, has submitted a bill to cut lower house seats by 30 in single-seat constituencies and 50 in proportional representation blocs. However, other opposition parties refused to go along with the DPJ's proposal.

Parties' divergent interests

The ruling parties have submitted the rezoning bill to a related lower house special committee. However, in protest of the move, the DPJ, Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party), Your Party, the People's Life Party and the Social Democratic Party refused to participate in Diet deliberations on Wednesday.

(Link)

While I am no fan of the prime minister's policies, the points the Yomiuri's editors are making are sound. Kaieda and the DPJ are not playing politics at Abe's and the LDP's level. They are stuck recycling stale rhetoric from a decade ago. Looking at the most recent round of polls, the DPJ is perilously close to falling into secondary status alongside the Your Party of Watanabe Yoshimi.

However, Pravda-by-the Palace being the publication that it is, its editors could not complete an editorial without serving up a slice of sycophantic nonsense so preposterously thick as to crush their argument:

Such actions cannot be expected to work, and only give the impression to the public that the opposition parties are putting party interests before all else and ignoring the issue of rectifying vote-value disparities.

Because we all remember how ferociously The Yomiuri Shimbun criticized the LDP for its constant saying of "No" to anything the DPJ-led governments proposed; how the paper was up in arms about unrectified voting disparities giving unnatural permanent majorities to the LDP; and how the editors have never stopped haranguing the members of the LDP for their putting their own and their party's interests above those of the nation.

Because The Yomiuri Shimbun is an independent news organization, correct?

The same publication that a week ago published a story describing with glee the difficulties DPJ members of the Tokyo Metropolitan assembly face because they are unable find issues separating them from TMD Governor Inose Naoki -- the corollary being that the DPJ, being congenitally appreciative of good governance and unable to oppose just for opposition's sake, finds itself fighting for its survival with one hand tied behind its back. (Link)

Oh, to heck with it. The editorial board of the Yomiuri should save time-- theirs and ours -- and just fill the "From the Editor" space every day with a big "I ❤ You LDP, Now and Forever!"

Image courtesy: Chugoku Shimbun