Matsuri da! (122): The air’s apparent

THIS is going to stump everybody, including the Japanese readers: What is the object shown in the following photograph?

Here’s a hint, but it won’t help at all: Those are five-meter-square stainless steel sheets.

The answer? It’s a Shinto shrine in Asahi-machi, Yamagata.

In fact, that’s a photograph of the Kuki shrine’s main sanctuary, the site in all shrines which houses the shintai, the sacred object in which the spirit of the deity resides. The deity in Shinto is described as the yaoyorozu no kami, or the 800 myriads of divinities, which some (but not all) interpret as being different aspects of the One. Therefore, the presence of the divinity is manifest in every aspect of life.

Some deities are divinized ancestors or famous figures of the past. (That’s the point behind the often misunderstood concept of the Emperor as a “living god” until 1945, or the enshrinement of the spirits of the war dead in Yasukuni.) Natural phenomena are deities: the wind, sun, moon, water, mountains, trees, and rocks (including those that are phallic- and yonic-shaped). Man-made objects can be divinities: mirrors, swords, polished stones (tama), bells, clothes, dishes, and, after Buddhism began to exert an influence, paintings and statues. Mirrors have been used in Shinto worship since ancient times, so the creation of what is essentially a large mirror isn’t as odd as it might seem at first glance.

The deity worshipped at this shrine is air. That’s why it’s called the Air Shrine (unless you can think of a better translation for 空気神社).

On the approach to this site, one passes through monuments to earth, fire, wood, metal, and water, the five elements that created the cosmos.

As you might expect, Asahi-machi is located in a glorious natural setting — the somewhere in what city slickers would call the middle of nowhere — and the primary occupation of the residents is rice and fruit cultivation. Before he died in 1986, Shirakawa Chiyo, one of the older Asahi-machi natives, offered the opinion that the town should build a shrine in which air was the tutelary deity as a way to give thanks for the clean air that was a blessing to them all.

Nothing came of Mr. Shirakawa’s idea when he was alive, but it began to get serious consideration a year after he died in 1987, when the town launched a municipal development campaign. Because this is a religious institution, the money to build it had to come from private citizen/sector donations. Even though the Japanese are extraordinarily ecumenical, that wasn’t an easy sell. Still, they collected the money they needed and finished the shrine the following year.

Yeah, they pray there.

The idea behind the use of stainless steel for the air shrine was that it would reflect natural views of the surrounding area throughout the year from different perspectives. This would help people reflect on the existence of air.

Yeah, they have festivals there too.

The townsfolk designated 5 June as the local Air Day, which coincides with World Environment Day. They hold the Air Festival every year on the Saturday closest to Air Day. The main sanctuary is open to the public for viewing the divinity and pausing for reflections suitable for the spirit of the occasion. There’s also a performance by the miko of kagura, or Shinto Dance, which is traditional at shrine festivals. That’s shown in the photo above.

Oh yeah, there’s even a video:

And to conclude here’s a question theological but not rhetorical — Is the sound of the wind on that video the voice of the divinity?

The Kobot

WHEN the Segway hit the market 10 years ago next week, some people viewed it as a revolutionary product with the transformational potential of the Internet. Rather than transforming anything, however, after a decade down the road the device has become a SWPL toy for a certain type of status-seeking urbanite who wants to differentiate himself from the bicycle crowd. They’re the same sort of folks who go out of their way to pay through the nose for a mug of designer coffee at a trendy shop rather than a regular cup of Joe.

The adult two-wheeler hasn’t even got that far in Japan, where only about a thousand have been sold. Here, they’re used exclusively by corporate employees on larger tracts of private property, such as production plants or theme parks. The Nagasaki resort Huis ten Bosch, for example, has 10 of them.

Those looking for an intermediate alternative to the automobile and the bicycle might be interested in test driving a new transportation device jointly developed by the robot manufacturer tmsuk (yes, that’s how they spell it) and pharmaceutical/industrial equipment manufacturer Kyowa. It’s called the Kobot, and they’re touting it as the next-generation electric personal vehicle. The public will get a chance to see it up close for the first time when it’s exhibited in this year’s Tokyo Motor Show, which opens in the first week of December.

The two companies have a vision for the Kobot similar to that people once had for the Segway. They see it as a car that will change the shape of the future – the shape of vehicles, the shape of transportation, and the relationship between people and their cars. Indeed, the car itself is capable of changing shape. One of the three models can be folded in a manner similar to a cellphone to reduce its size by about 25% for storage.

As you can see from the photo, it is compact and shaped somewhat like a bean, or at least that’s what the promo material says. At present, there are two one-person models and one two-person model. Kyowa/tmsuk are projecting speeds of 45-80 kilometers per hour, and they’re working to give it the capability of traveling for up to 100 kilometers on one charge.

In addition to use by a single owner, the developers anticipate the increasing popularity in Japan of car-sharing schemes in condos and other urban neighborhoods will create another niche for the vehicle. If things fall into place, it could be commercialized and placed on the market next fall.

If that happens, perhaps they could use this as a tip for their TV ads.

Turn out the lights

A year ago, (Kan Naoto) wanted to quickly build a society that wasn’t dependent on fossil fuels. When you add to that a society which isn’t dependent on nuclear energy, how are we supposed to obtain energy?
- Sengoku Yoshito, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary, on 28 July

IN AN INTERVIEW published last week in the weekly Shukan Asahi, Prime Minister Kan Naoto had this to say about the world’s third-largest economy:

Put in the extreme, we must be able to maintain the survival of the nation even if the energy supply is halved from its present amount.

Yes, that’s the prime minister of Japan speaking.

And people thought Hatoyama Yukio was from outer space.

Now why would Japan wake up one day to a nightmare in which its energy supply is halved? National leaders have to be prepared for every contingency, but Kim Tubby III in Pyeongyang will not be ordering a surgically precise missile attack on the power plants on the far shores of the Sea of Japan anytime soon. The North Koreans would sooner eat the Dogs of War than unleash them.

But Kan Naoto does have a dream, and part of that dream is to end the country’s reliance on nuclear and fossil fuel power generation in Japan. He’d replace that, to the extent it’s replaceable, with the wind power that he “loves”, according to his blog posts of several years ago. He’s also cooked up a cockamamie crony capitalism scheme with Son Masayoshi to cover all the currently unutilized farmland with solar panels and harvest sun power.

But even if the prime minister’s contingency plan resembles the ramblings of a barstool philosopher from the nihilist left, other people are starting to formulate plans of their own premised on a powerless Japan. They can’t afford not to.

Yosano Kaoru, the Minister of State for Economic and Fiscal Policy, said this about keeping the nuclear plants idled:

It can easily be envisioned this will have an effect on the Japanese economy.

It can just as easily be envisioned what Mr. Yosano would have said if he wasn’t biting his tongue as a member of the Cabinet.

Yonekura Hiromasa, the chairman of Keidanren (the Japan Business Federation) predicted that more than 40% of the country’s large corporations would leave Japan if nuclear power generation were ended. Some would suggest that Mr. Yonekura exaggerates because Keidanren represents what the Democratic Party of Japan likes to call Big Capital, and what the rest of the world calls Big Business. In fact, he may be understating the problem.

Earlier this week, the Kyodo news agency released the results of their questionnaire survey of 105 major companies. The survey found that 55 firms, or more than half, said they were accelerating plans to move operations overseas as a way to strengthen the corporate foundation. The general reason they cited was a bad business climate, but the specific reasons were the lack of sufficient electricity over the long term, the high yen, and low stock prices.

Another 47 replied that they’d stay in Japan for the long haul, 17 said they had no other option but to consider such a move, and two said they’d already done it.

An article in the 5 August edition of the weekly Shukan Post provided more specifics.

* Mitsui Mining and Smelting

The company announced in June that it will build a new production line for its primary products, materials used for smartphones, in Malaysia. Their plant in Saitama was idled for a month due to rolling blackouts. They have a market share exceeding 90% for electrolytic copper foil for smartphone use. The company told the magazine that they operate 24 hours a day, so even a two-hour production stoppage has a serious effect.

* Hoya

This major lens manufacturer will build a plant in China’s Shangdong Province for making industrial glass. They plan to begin operation there in December. The company said that a stable power supply was indispensable for melting the glass materials, and that the potential lack of a dependable power supply was the factor that pushed them in that direction.

* Renesas Electronics

The semiconductor giant is considering outsourcing all its production to Taiwan and Singapore.

* U-shin

The auto parts manufacturer has decided to shift all its production from Japan to China.

* Prime Minister Kan called for a 10% reduction in power consumption from all companies in the region supplied by Kansai Electric Power, though it was unaffected by the Tohoku earthquake. Motor manufacturer Nidec of Kyoto realized this would have an impact on their reliability testing, so they’ll move their testing facilities overseas.

* Mitsubishi Chemical has annual revenue of roughly JPY one trillion, and their electric power costs account for 3-4% of that total. This year, however, increases in the already high rates will bump that to 5%. Thus their power bill will climb to more than JPY 10 billion, equivalent to more than one-third of their operating profit.

* The Institute of Energy Economics Japan reported that industrial power fees will rise 36% year-on-year if thermal plants are used to offset the power loss from nuclear plants. The institute adds that if the energy bill Mr. Kan is pushing as a condition for his political withdrawal passes and the mandated costs for purchasing natural energy are transferred to fees, it will further boost the bills to a level 70% above current totals.

* This has the potential to wipe out entire industries. The Japan Soda Industry Association (industrial sodas) says power costs account for 40% of the production costs for the 25 companies and 30 plants in the country. An increase in power costs of just one yen adds JPY 3.8 billion to their production costs.

*****
Why does Mr. Kan dream of everyone else’s nightmare? To cite one reason, this founding member of the Socialist Democratic Federation, who later jumped to larger parties to enhance his political viability, has never cottoned to the bare fact that socialist plans for wealth redistribution require a robust free-market non-socialist economy.

Another is Ikeda Nobuo’s theory that smashing the state is the only objective remaining from Mr. Kan’s pinkoid youth, now that history has dessicated his Italian Communist Party-inspired fantasies. Indeed, as we’ve seen before, he remains a stout devotee of the ideas of Prof. Matsushita Keiichi, which means he dislikes the idea of nation-states altogether. What he does like is community government by NGOs, which in turn would be under the thumb of coordinated by global institutions.

Former Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro wrote an op-ed published in the Yomiuri Shimbun this week that makes it plain he understands exactly what Mr. Kan was up to (as does the rest of the political class, I suspect). Mr. Nakasone’s critique of the Kan philosophy left the larger issue unstated, however, while dealing with more immediate matters, perhaps to keep the grass where the goats can get at it. Here’s an excerpt in English.

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The citizen-centered government (市民主義) championed by the prime minister is a concept of government with local citizen activities at its core. It is a political concept that lacks the spirit to accept the challenge of the future with a sense of ideals…the primary focus of this citizen-centered government is a narrow one, perhaps with a view to pandering and winning elections. Its weakness is the absence of a sense of continuity as a nation with history and culture.

The limits have been exposed of the citizen-centered government of Prime Minister Kan, which incorporates no view of the state. The duty of a Diet member is to be entrusted with the conduct of the affairs of state. Each state has its own distinctive history and traditions, and all states establish their individuality in the world…Those states and ethnic groups must contribute to the prosperity of the world. The citizens who live in a state have no existence isolated from the history or traditions of the state.

The politicians responsible for the affairs of state who declare that their focus is only on citizen activities are derelict in their primary duty because they hold cheaply the state and the people which are its support. There is nothing wrong with using the word citizen in the sense of people who value the region in which they live, but Prime Minister Kan’s words and deeds, unaccompanied by a background of history and culture, lack appeal. A prime minister carries a nation’s history and culture.

The Kan administration has clarified the meaning of citizen-centered government (which should be seen as a so-called historical experiment) in a form that ignores the flow of history of the Japanese people and the state. It has been shown to be insufficient in the extreme as a governing principle of the state. The next government must put this lesson to use.

(N.B.: Mr. Nakasone’s word selection reflects the distinction in Japanese between “national citizen” and the more general “citizen”. The latter implies the resident of a municipality.)

*****
Theories can have consequences, and the consequences of the theories of the lizard-eyed left, in Japan as well as elsewhere, are such that one is left wondering about their emotional equilibrium.

Once in positions of power, these folks always contrive a way to shield themselves from the consequences of their theories. The rest of us would have to live in their world or make decisions accordingly. Financial analyst and blogger Fujisawa Kazuki wrote this week about what his decision might be:

What would I do in the event that Japan idled all its nuclear power plants? It would be time to stiffen my resolve and move.

Mr. Kan wants to conceive of ways to maintain the nation’s survival with only 50% of the energy. He has to be aware that the nation which survived would be an entity far inferior to the Japan of today.

People should be excused for thinking that is the rest of Kan Naoto’s dream.

Afterwords:

It’s not just Japanese private sector corporations that are concerned:

Pharmaceutical and chemical giant Bayer on Saturday issued a warning that it my leave Germany because of rising electricity prices linked to Germany’s decision to end its nuclear energy program.

Bayer employs 35,000 people in Germany, but CEO Marijn Dekkers told the German weekly business magazine Wirtschaftswoche that energy prices posed a genuine threat to the company’s manufacturing operations in the country.

—–
Nevin wrote in recently to ask if Kan Naoto was really all that bad. Here are some additional data points to help answer that question.

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Matsumoto Ken’ichi, a Cabinet Secretariat advisor, gave an interview published in today’s Sankei Shimbun that helps explain the delay in the Tohoku recovery.

Mr. Matsumoto said that Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Sengoku Yoshito directed a team that formulated his own proposal for a reconstruction vision, which was finished in March. He says that Prime Minister Kan initially liked it, but wound up “crushing” it.

Mr. Kan later created his own council to draft a redevelopment vision, which was submitted on 25 June (three months later), but in Mr. Matsumoto’s words:

Not one aspect of their proposal exceeded anything in our proposal.

The reason? Kan Naoto didn’t want Mr. Sengoku to get the credit. Explained Mr. Matsumoto:

The prime minister wanted the spotlight on himself and the applause for a job well done. He essentially ignored the people.

Now no one is applauding him for a job well done. Who says there’s no justice in the world?

Mr. Matsumoto added that he argued against a universal tax increase to fund the recovery because it wouldn’t be fair to take funds out of the Tohoku region. He suggested long-term bonds instead. Replied Mr. Kan:

I wonder if the Finance Ministry would go along with that.

The prime minister insisted on a universal tax.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press interviewed retired American diplomat Kevin Maher, who coordinated U.S. assistance after the earthquake. Said Mr. Maher:

Early in the Fukushima nuclear crisis, U.S. officials felt that nobody in Japan’s government was taking charge, and Washington considered evacuating American troops in a worst-case scenario, a retired U.S. envoy said Thursday.

As we’ve since learned, Mr. Kan and his Cabinet did take charge, but the American misperception was understandable. When they take charge, it just looks as if no one’s in charge.

*****
If a no-nuke, wind/solar energy policy is adopted, this will be the last song they play on the radio before the station shuts down.

The plant party

THE Nagata-cho Deep Throat column in the 13 August edition of the weekly Shukan Gendai reports that Prime Minister Kan Naoto spoke at a meeting with the bureaucrats from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications in late July and said the following:

By all means, I will see through the cleanup of the nuclear accident and the recovery. I also want to form a new political party. It will be called the Plant Party. (植物党)

That story’s got to be true if only because no one would dare make something like that up and try to fob it off on anybody. One staff member in the Kantei said no one had any idea what the Plant Party was about, but suggested the concept might be based on coexistence with nature and sustainable energy.

The anonymous author of the column (there are probably several) speculated that Mr. Kan was spinning a scenario in which he would leave the DPJ after they ousted him from the party presidency and supported a successful no-confidence motion to remove him from the premiership. The idea seems to be that he would then dissolve the Diet and call a general election. Mr. Kan assumed he would have to form a new party because the DPJ might not officially support him in that election.

One DPJ Diet member affiliated with the Hatoyama group told the magazine the following:

The prime minister has recently immersed himself in the books of environmental activist C.W. Nicol (originally Welsh but now a Japanese citizen). He’s also been spending a lot of time talking to Tama University Professor Tasaka Hiroshi, a Cabinet Secretariat advisor who is somehow involved with religion. The idea for a Plant Party probably came from that.

The columnist concludes the article by suggesting that the prime minister’s animal instincts function only during a political crisis when his position is at stake.

I’ve been comparing Kan Naoto with Barack Obama lately, but perhaps Al Gore is the better comp after factoring in the element of the whacked-out sidewalk preacher warning that the end of the world is nigh.

If anyone thought I was off base with The Barstool Philosopher post, maybe it’s time you thought again.

Incidentally, Prof. Tasaka’s academic specialty is something called social entrepreneurship, and I’m sure you can identify the contours of that UFO long before it enters earth orbit. A social entrepreneur is defined on the Web as “someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change…(they) assess their success in terms of the impact they have on society. While social entrepreneurs often work through nonprofits and citizen groups, many work in the private and governmental sectors.”

Yes, he has a blog. Yes, I looked at it. Wild horses couldn’t have dragged me away.

Prof. Tasaka likes to write in short sentences that he probably thinks are poetic. I translated one of his entries and kept as many of the original line breaks as possible.

On the evening of 27 March
A turning point came in my life.

The Fukushima nuclear accident
Was caused by the Tohoku earthquake.

I was asked to give advice to the government
As a nuclear power specialist, for measures to deal with the accident.

When I received the prime minister’s request to be an advisor to the Cabinet Secretariat
What I heard, as always
Was “The Voice of Heaven”.

If that doesn’t go a long way toward explaining the dysfunction of the Kan Cabinet and their inability to get cracking on the Tohoku cleanup, you can dip me in chocolate and feed me to the hyenas.

And speaking of plants, where are all those killer tomatoes now that we really need them?

Safe as milk

THE STORY is old enough to have curdled, but it’s news to me. MSNBC-Reuters reported in June:

Scientists at China’s Agricultural University in Beijing announced that they had produced human breast milk from genetically modified dairy cows and expect supplies to be available in supermarkets within three years. Employing technology once used to produce the sheep “Dolly,” researchers created a herd of 300 modified cows, which yielded milk that was reported as “sweeter” and “stronger” than typical cow milk.

Whatever for?

The Brits get more upset about GM foods than the Yanks, so while the American reports were filed in the Weird News section, the British newspapers were Very Concerned. There’s a wealth of detail in the Telegraph article in addition to the justification for the research:

Human milk contains high quantities of key nutrients that can help to boost the immune system of babies and reduce the risk of infections.

The scientists behind the research believe milk from herds of genetically modified cows could provide an alternative to human breast milk and formula milk for babies, which is often criticised as being an inferior substitute.

They hope genetically modified dairy products from herds of similar cows could be sold in supermarkets. The research has the backing of a major biotechnology company.

I’m not opposed to scientific research that pushes everyone’s envelope — I’m a progressive, after all — and there are so many ignorable whining weenies among the environmentalists and other variegated Nature Activists it’s easy to discount whatever it is they’re banging on about this week, but I thought the spokesman for the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals got it right:

“Why do we need this milk – what is it giving us that we haven’t already got.”

Professor Ning Li, the scientist who led the research, unwittingly makes another important point:

“As our daily food, the cow’s milk provided us the basic source of nutrition. But the digestion and absorption problems made it not the perfect food for human being.”

He’s right, and many Health Activists (including the late Jack LaLanne) argue that milk is not intended for human consumption, much less as a daily food. (Disclaimer: I like ice cream and yogurt!) In fact, LaLanne once said:

Milk is for a suckling calf. How many creatures still use milk after they’re weaned? Man.

Most mammals become lactose intolerant as they grow, but it’s thought humans became lactose persistent due to a mutation on a chromosome resulting from the pastoral lifestyle in both Europe and East Africa.

Then again, LaLanne didn’t eat beef either.

Oh, one last thing (to channel Colombo): The China Agricultural University is a state school under the control of the Ministry of Education. Its president is appointed by the Chinese government.

Is this a case of Chinese tax yuan at work, or is the research funded by the premiums Uncle Sam pays to those who purchase his bonds?

*****
Probably the only worthwhile song this group ever did, but then Graham Gouldman was the one who wrote it.

From gray to green

THE CITY OF KITAKYUSHU has long been one of Japan’s major industrial centers. The concentration of industry in the area was the reason the Kokura district was the intended target of the second atomic bomb. Cloud cover on the day of the mission sent the pilots to their backup target of Nagasaki further to the south.

By the 1960s, the city was one of the four largest industrial zones in Japan, and the pollution was horrific. The first time I saw it, through the windows of the Shinkansen in 1988, the smoke and the factories reminded me of Chicago or Gary, Indiana.

But the city had already begun to take steps in the early 70s toward a drastic remedy of its problems, however. Their objective was to become the world capital of sustainable development, and that link describes some of the steps they’ve taken.

The world is taking notice. Yesterday, the OECD announced the selection of Kitakyushu as the first green growth model city in Asia. Noted the Kyodo report:

“It is the fourth city selected for the OECD’s Green Cities Program, following Paris, Chicago and Stockholm.”

The city is also generous with the expertise gained from its experience. People from around the world, particularly those associated with local governments, regularly visit to see what’s been accomplished and what they can learn. Representatives from the city travel throughout Asia, and China in particular, to promote region-to-region ties in the environmental sector. (Of course it’s also good for local business.) A day doesn’t go by without another story appearing in the Nishinippon Shimbun, my local newspaper that covers northern Kyushu, about the city’s efforts.

Those among the all-seeing Western punditocracy ready to declare Japan down for the count might want to glance in the direction of Kitakyushu to discover just what the nation is capable of. These stories are consigned to the back pages or the skipped-over sections of the newspaper or website news aggregators, but they’re often more important in the long run than the ones on the front page.

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Kitakyushu’s name literally means “North Kyushu”, but it’s in the south (west) of Japan.

Crony capitalism nouveau: green and Japanese

ONE OF Japan’s wealthiest men, entrepreneur Son Masayoshi made his mint by distributing software and taking on the NTT monopoly to provide broadband services. His idea to shift Japan from nuclear power to solar power, combined with Prime Minister Kan Naoto’s out-of-the-blue proposal at the recent summit for an impossibly sharp and rapid increase of solar power generation, has again turned him into a media darling while cogenerating suspicions of crony capitalism gone green.

University professor, author, and blogger Ikeda Nobuo wrote an article last week examining the Son scheme. Here’s part of it in English:

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Mr. Son has established the Natural Energy Council to work with local governments for building solar power generating plants, and they’ve already announced the cooperation of 34 of those governments. The governments will provide the land and Softbank (Son’s company) will provide the capital investment. They plan to build 10 solar energy plants nationwide generating 20,000 kW. Softbank has even modified their Articles of Incorporation to include “the power generation business” in the section dealing with their business content.

This enterprise has a serious problem, however. The unit cost of solar power generation is more than JPY 40/kWh, much higher than the unit costs for atomic or thermal power, which are less than JPY 10/kWh, so power companies won’t buy the power generated. Therefore, Mr. Son held a meeting with Prime Minister Kan Naoto on the day before he launched his initiative and extracted the promise that a system would be instituted in which all renewable energy would be purchased at a fixed cost.

This is a mandatory system in which the power companies must purchase the expensive solar power at a price the government determines. There is at present a scheme for purchasing the surplus power generated by homes and companies using solar cells at a price of JPY 42/kWh. The Cabinet approved a bill in March, however, that will require the purchase of all this power. Because that means the generated solar power will be purchased at JPY 42, anyone who can hold the costs below that amount will make a profit.

Meanwhile, the utilities charge about JPY 15 kWh for power consumption, so the new scheme creates a negative margin. But the power companies will pass that differential on to the consumer through a solar power surcharge. In short, those who bear the liability of the higher costs of Softbank’s solar power plants will be those who use electric power. This is tantamount to Softbank receiving subsidies from the government and taxing the user.

The more basic problem is what these solar power plants will resolve. Mr. Son seems to be inclining toward natural energy to shift from nuclear power, but solar power is useless for reducing nuclear power reliance. If all 10 mega-solar power plants are built, they will generate only 200,000 kW, or one-fifth the amount of one nuclear plant. Solar power generation requires 40 times the land area of nuclear power generation. The amount of land required to generate the one million kW of power produced by a nuclear plant would be equal to 1.5 times the land inside JR East’s Yamanote Line in Tokyo. Further, the solar power plants can’t be used on rainy days. It is not possible to rely on them to replace nuclear power.

If the objective is to reduce the reliance on nuclear power, a more effective way would be to increase thermal power. When the costs of waste material disposition and compensation for damages are factored in, the cost of generating nuclear power is not that much different from thermal power. Fuel costs will rise over the short term, but over the long term, cost savings will be achieved for the facilities and reprocessing.

Natural gas is a particularly important type of thermal power. There have been recent advances in the technology for extracting shale gas, and the costs are said to be cheaper than coal. The Middle East has been the major natural gas production region until now, so there was considerable political risk. But the United States is the largest producer of shale gas, and is estimated to have 160 years’ worth of reserves. It has become the view in the energy industry that natural gas will become the mainstay in 10 years’ time at the least.

Gas turbines are said to have poor energy efficiency, but using the combined cycle technology, the residual heat from using gas to operate the turbines can convert water to steam, achieving 1.5 times the conventional efficiency of thermal power. Cogeneration technology, in which the heat used in blast furnaces, for example, is created simultaneously with electric power, is also becoming more sophisticated. Greater innovation is likely to result if companies other than the power utilities become involved.

The power companies, however, control the transmission lines, making it difficult for other companies to get involved. It is the same situation that Mr. Son claimed was unfair competition when NTT monopolized the telecommunications infrastructure. Attempting to compete with them will require an investment of at least JPY 10 billion. None of the so-called independent PPS power companies could even seriously compete with Tokyo Electric and its zaibatsu affiliations and ties to gas companies.

(End translation)
*****
This is yet another demonstration that the fundamental things still apply as time goes by in the eternal intercontinental love match between Big Business and Big Government.

The calls for the separation of the power generation and transmission operations were so numerous and made so much sense that even Kan Naoto has come out in favor of them. Mr. Deregulation.

In an amusing piece of journalism, the Asahi-published weekly magazine Aera suggested that Mr. Kan’s support for this was the motivation behind the recent no confidence motion. They offered neither evidence nor quotes from suspicious anonymous sources (and actually allocated more space quoting named sources talking about the rambling wreck of Tokyo Tech). They said Tokyo Electric made substantial political contributions, which they surely do, but specified none of the people who received them. They also admitted the contributions were not close to the scale of the largesse distributed by construction companies.

Ichigen Koji (6)

一言居士
- A person who has something to say about everything

“After operations at the Hamaoka nuclear power plant were suspended at the prime minister’s ‘request’, a citizens’ campaign to end nuclear power has spread throughout the country. That’s only to be expected. An accident occurred at Reactor #1 at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, which had an earthquake probability of 0.0%, so if earthquake risk is to be used as a standard, all the nuclear power plants in Japan are dangerous.

“The one person who has consistently made clear demands about this issue is Fukushima Mizuho, the head of the Social Democratic Party. She had sought the closure of Hamaoka for some time, and now she’s stepped up her efforts, asserting that ‘All nuclear power plants should be shut down immediately as a way to value life’. That’s exactly right. To be even more consistent, how about calling for the prohibition of all automobiles and airplanes as a way to value life?

“The hysteria that seeks absolute safety, which she represents, is an illness of Japanese society. That is not unrelated to her demand that the temporary seconding of workers be prohibited. In both cases, the demand is only to eliminate the unpleasant phenomenon in front of one’s face and to disregard the results. It is easy to understand the advantages of ending nuclear power, but the resulting rise in electricity rates and decline in economic growth will occur in the future, so it isn’t easy to understand the cause and effect relationship. But when summer comes and there’s an electrical power shortage, all one has to do is go on the attack and blame government blunders or something.”

- Ikeda Nobuo, author, university professor, and blogger

Yet more true facts

THE PREVIOUS POST about misconceptions elsewhere of Japan-South Korea relations reminded me of similar misconceptions overseas about a supposed waning of the spirit of Japanese enterprise. That’s illustrated by the recent rash of ADD-impaired stories presenting Japan shuffling off the world’s stage like some forgotten old duffer with hair growing out of his ears.

Oh, really?

Here’s a sample of stories featuring developments that occurred over the past two months in Kyushu alone. Decide for yourself who’s shuffling and who’s strutting.

* Kitakyushu Hydrogen Town Project

Trials of the Hydrogen Town project in Kitakyushu got underway on 15 January and will run until the end of March. The trials involve using underground piping to send hydrogen to individual residences and commercial facilities, where it will be used in fuel cells to generate electric power and heat water. The hydrogen used is created as byproduct at local steel mills. The project organizers hope to resolve any issues regarding consistent hydrogen supply and its safe use. These will be the first large-scale trials in the world for the use of hydrogen in urban areas.

* Nanosatellite Testing Center Opens at KIT

The Kyushu Institute of Technology opened the Center for Nanosatellite Testing, a facility for conducting trials with artificial satellites no larger than 50 centimeters in diameter and weighing less than 50 kilograms. It is the world’s first facility with the capacity to conduct all the required performance tests for nanosatellites, including the ability to withstand temperature changes and vibrations. These satellites, used primarily for taking photos of Earth, have become increasingly popular in recent years because they are somewhat inexpensive.

* New Development in Cancer Stem Cell Treatment

Dr. Nakayama Keiichi and a team of researchers at Kyushu University’s Medical Institute of Bioregulation discovered that a certain protein will change the state of cancer stem cells, which are impervious to chemotherapy and radiation, into a state that allows them to be attacked. Even when other cancerous cells are removed, the remaining cancer stem cells have the potential to create a recurrence of the disease. Converting the protein into a usable medicine might bring a cure within reach.

* Honda to Conduct Electric Vehicle Trials in Kumamoto

Honda announced it will begin trials of new model electric motorbikes, electric cars, and plug-in hybrids next year at its Kumamoto Prefecture plant. The recharging station used in the trials will employ solar power to generate the electricity. The motorbike trials are slated to begin next spring, while those for automobiles will begin in the latter half of the year.

* Desalinization Certification Plant Built in Kitakyushu

Water Plaza Kitakyushu, Japan’s first desalinization certification plant capable of certifying both the conversion of seawater to fresh water and the purity of reclaimed sewage water, will begin operation in April. The plant was built by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO). The operators hope to disseminate the technology and operational expertise gained from the plant both in Japan and overseas.

* NEECO to Make Energy from Chicken Dung in India

Fukuoka City-based Nishi-Nippon Environmental Energy Co. plans to launch a biomass power generating business in India by the spring of 2012 using chicken dung as fuel. If the enterprise is successful, the company hopes to expand the business throughout India and the rest of Asia. The company is using the expertise gained from operating a similar enterprise in Miyazaki Prefecture, which produces 25% of Japan’s chickens.

* Ecogenomics Sells DNA Chip Technology to China

Bio-venture company Ecogenomics is now selling to Chinese government agencies its DNA chips, which are devices for genetic testing. The adhesion and reaction of bacteria and chemical substances on the DNA chips makes them effective as medicine for pathological conditions. They are also said to be effective for preventing cancer and infectious diseases. The company has its own technology for the comprehensive processes from design to manufacture to create products that meet the individual testing needs of its customers.

While putting this post together, I discovered another example from outside Kyushu, as described today in the Asahi:

Researchers at RIKEN, Yokohama City University and The University of Tokyo have uncovered how gut bifidobacteria protect the body against lethal infection by enhancing the defenses of colonic epithelium. Published in this week’s issue of Nature, the finding provides first-ever clues on the mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects of gut microbiota, promising more effective probiotic therapies for a variety of disorders and diseases.

*****
To find this information, however, one has to read Japanese newspapers.

*****
Chemistry is another popular field in Japan.

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Another way to make lemonade from lemons

THE FOLLOWING ARE some excerpts from an article that appeared in today’s Nishinippon Shimbun.
——
Production of paper diapers for adults is skyrocketing as the population ages, and local governments must consider how to dispose of them as garbage after use. In 2009, paper diaper production was 1.7 times that of 2003. Efforts are spreading nationwide to reuse them as a fuel source to reduce garbage volume, and some local governments in Kyushu have begun recycling them. Potential hurdles to their reuse, however, are the difficulty of separating them from other refuse and the recovery costs.

The municipal government of Hoki-cho, Tottori, teamed with local businesses to begin trial production of solid fuel using a system that processes used paper diapers. If the system is shown to be effective, they envision using it at such facilities as hot spring resorts to heat boilers. Trial calculations suggest the system could result in savings of up to JPY three million annually.

One of the first local governments in Kyushu to become involved is Oki-machi, Fukuoka. They formed ties with the Total Care System company of Fukuoka City, which has a recycling plant for paper diapers in Omuta. The municipality has conducted trials in which the residents collect the diapers separately in special bags and a municipal vehicle stops by to pick them up.

Oki-machi is currently paying a substantial amount of money to neighboring Okawa for the incineration of burnable refuse. Said a municipal official, “Paper diapers account for about 10% of the town’s burnable refuse. Recycling them would lessen the burden on the environment and reduce public expenditures.”

Total Care System also collects used paper diapers from hospitals and long-term care facilities. They treat and process the diapers and recycle them as fireproofing material.

The Japan Hygiene Products Industry Association reports that 5.019 billion paper diapers for adults were produced in 2009, an increase from the 2.996 billion paper diapers in 2003…The association points out, however, that few municipalities dispose of the diapers separately and treat them as burnable garbage…Those local governments with their own incineration facilities find that to be a more efficient and economical method of disposal.

(end translation)

Here’s a Kyodo article on the same subject from April, and another from CNET. Speaking of incontinence, the author of the latter managed to hold in the “Weird Japan” snark for most of his entry, but still wound up wetting himself in the last sentence.

*****
Noborikawa Seijin is 78 years old, but I don’t think he needs special underwear yet. He just released another CD this year.

The beast with a thousand forked tongues

Then the Blatant Beast ran at him with open mouth, huge and horrible; it was all set with a double row of iron teeth, and in it were a thousand tongues of every kind and quality–some were of dogs, that barked day and night; some of cats that yawled; some of bears that growled continually; some of tigers that seemed to grin and snarl at all who passed by; but most of them were tongues of mortal men, who poured forth abuse, not caring where nor when; and among them were mingled here and there the tongues of serpents, with three-forked stings, that spat out poison at all who came within reach, speaking hateful things Of good and bad alike, of high and low, not even sparing kings or kaisers, but either blotting them with infamy or biting them with their baneful teeth.
- Stories from the Faerie Queen, The Beast with a Thousand Tongues

ON FRIDAY, the Japanese Cabinet decided to reintroduce to the current extraordinary session of the Diet the anti-global warming legislation submitted by its predecessor, the Hatoyama administration, during the last session. That bill failed to pass the lower house, but the Kan administration didn’t change a word of it. Among the bill’s provisions are measures to reduce greenhouse gases by 25% of 1990 levels by 2020. It also provides for the imposition of an “environment tax”, carbon trading schemes (i.e., cap and trade), and a system for the purchase of renewable energy purchases at fixed prices. (Get ready for windmills.)

This did not sit well with Japanese business and industrial circles. Keidanren chair Yonekura Hiroaki met with Environment Minister Matsumoto Ryu to tell him the bill was anti-business and a grave threat. He said he preferred environmental measures that wouldn’t diminish the vitality of industry, increase the burden on corporations, and harm economic growth.

In addition, eight industry groups, including the Japan Iron and Steel Federation and the Federation of Electric Power Companies, issued a statement in opposition, saying the bill was “extremely regrettable” considering the harsh impact it would have on the economy and employment.

While what they say is true—the American cap-and-trade legislation would be a real economy killer, just to reduce “global warming” by 0.05 C by the year 2050—objections on these terms play into the hands of the people backing these schemes. It allows them to demonize the opposition by caricaturing them as the greedy fat little bald guys wearing top hats like the character in the Monopoly game. You know, the capitalists who want to get even richer while the rest of us starve and fry and drown in the rising oceans.

Besides, arguments about the economy or employment directed at the politicians of the left now leading Japan’s government are like Buddhist sutras in the ear of a horse, as the expression has it. Mr. Matsumoto is the epitome of the limousine leftist. He’s a former member of the Socialist Party, affiliated with the group farthest to the left in the DPJ, and, because he is part of the family that owns the Matsumoto-gumi Construction Co. of Fukuoka, had the highest income of any Diet member in 2008.

If the people at Keidanren and the industry groups had any sense and were paying attention to the debate on the other side of the world, they’d realize they have a more effective argument. To wit:

It’s all a load of crap.

Instead, they could have quoted MIT’s Richard Lindzen, who says “There has been no warming since 1997 and no statistically significant warming since 1995.”

Or they could have cited Dr. David Evans of Australia, a consultant to the Australian Greenhouse Office from 1999 to 2005, “who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia’s compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector.” Dr. Evans said he devoted six years to carbon accounting.

He’s more conservative than Dr. Lindzen–he says there’s been no global warming since 2001 and temperatures are back to 1980 levels. He thought there once was cause for concern in 1999, and got all jazzed about it:

Soon government and the scientific community were working together and lots of science research jobs were created. We scientists had political support, the ear of government, big budgets…

But:

Since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming.

Or, they could bring up Hal Lewis, a physics professor at University of California Santa Barbara and a member of the Defense Science Board (a group advising the Pentagon).

This week, Dr. Lewis resigned from the American Physical Society (APS) after 67 years. The APS is the world’s second largest organization of physicists, with 48,000 members.

For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.

It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare….I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist. So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it.

Interesting, is it not, that Dr. Evans speaks of government support and big budgets, and Dr. Lewis speaks of the trillions of dollars driving the scam? The EU has provided millions of dollars in research grants over the years for research into climate science, but the only people who receive the money are those who want to demonstrate the dangers of global warming. They’ve cut off funding to scientists who publish findings disputing that thesis.

But what of Big Oil funding the climate skeptics, you might ask? And how much money do you think companies such as BP and Shell are making from carbon-trading transactions, which total tens of trillions of yen annually? Al Gore is close to becoming a billionaire due to the profits his company earns from carbon trading transactions. Big Business loves Big Government.

Mr. Yonekura and the others could have cited the evidence showing that the claim in the 2007 report of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that “up to 40 per cent of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to even a slight reduction in precipitation” due to climate change was not based on peer-reviewed science, as they asserted. Instead, it was based on a single “brief, anonymous and unreferenced note on the exposure of the forest to fire risks, posted in February 1999 and taken down four years later” with no scientific justification whatsoever.

The IPCC report said the World Wildlife Fund was the source. Why did the WWF falsify the facts?

(T)hey have been closely allied in support of a scheme known as REDD (Reduction in Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation of Tropical Forests). Its aim is to turn the CO2 in forest trees into “carbon credits”, saleable on the world market to allow firms to continue emitting CO2. Backed by $80 million from the World Bank, WWF, Woods Hole and IPAM are partners in a consortium, supported by the Brazilian government, to protect and manage a vast area of forest in the Tumucumaque region, in return for which they would have the right to sell its carbon credits. In 2007 Dr Nepstad published a formula which would allow the carbon contained in the entire forest to be valued at $60 billion.

Yet the DPJ-led Japanese government still wants cap and trade, an environment tax, and greenhouse gas reduction. Why are they pushing this legislation? They’re not the ones who’ll be getting gloriously rich.

There might be two reasons. First, as Prof. Shimojo Masao, an occasional contributor to this site, laments, most Japanese politicians aren’t interested in events overseas. It’s entirely possible they don’t know about any of this. But another reason is the more likely explanation. For example–

Al Gore spoke on 7 July 2009 in Oxford at the Smith School World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment. He thought the American cap and trade bill “was a step in the right direction”, and added:

But it is the awareness itself that will drive the change and one of the ways it will drive the change is through global governance.

On 20 November 2000, then French President Jacques Chirac referred to the UN’s Kyoto Protocol during a speech at The Hague:

For the first time, humanity is instituting a genuine instrument of global governance. From the very earliest age, we should make environmental awareness a major theme of education and a major theme of political debate, until respect for the environment comes to be as fundamental as safeguarding our rights and freedoms. By acting together, by building this unprecedented instrument, the first component of an authentic global governance, we are working for dialogue and peace.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon was quoted in the 25 October 2009 New York Times:

A climate deal must include an equitable global governance structure.

The environmental group Friends of the Earth had another aspect in mind during the 2007 U.N. climate conference. Said Emma Brindal, a “climate justice campaigner”:

A climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources.

The Obama administration announced in September 2009 that the U.S. State Department wanted to form a global “Ecological Board of Directors.” That same month, German climate advisor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber proposed to Der Spiegel the “creation of a CO2 budget for every person on planet…regardless whether they live in Berlin or Beijing.”

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the U.S. spoke in China in May 2009 and said that “every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory” to deal with global warming.

They’ve had this in mind for a while. In 1990, former Colorado Sen. Tim Wirth said:

We’ve got to ride the global-warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing – in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.

Prime Minister Kan Naoto and Chief Cabinet Secretary Sengoku Yoshito, to name the two at the top, have been influenced since their university days by Prof. Matsushita Keiichi’s theories about the government of the future. Prof. Matsushita and his acolytes look forward to the disappearance of the nation-state and its replacement with global governance.

They’re not interested in controlling carbon. They’re interested in controlling you.

Afterwords:

More here.

And to get that bad taste out of your mouth:

Japan gets ready for new rare earth sources

NOW KNOWING that China will use natural resources as a political weapon after that country temporarily cut off the shipment of rare earth metals, the Japanese understand it’s time to secure stable supplies elsewhere. There were already portents–China reduced annual exports of the metals from 48,500 tons to 31,310 tons over the past decade while global demand tripled from 40,000 tons to 120,000 tons during the same period. The Chinese also reduced from 75% to 25% the amount of production they export, perhaps to ensure that they alone have a guaranteed supply. Rare earth metals are a critical part of the modern economy because they’re used in an enormous range of products, including iPhones, x-ray machines, missile guidance systems, fiber-optic cables, motors, generators, and hybrid car batteries.

It didn’t take long for the Japanese government to get ready and go to work. On 29 September they moved to accelerate a project for the development of rare earth metals in Kazakhstan, in which Sumitomo Corp. is also involved. On 30 September Minister of Economy, Trade, and Industry Ohata Akihiro met with Keidanren Chairman Yonekura Hiroaki and told him the government would use the supplementary budget for the current fiscal year to fund the search for new sources through public-private partnerships. In turn, Mr. Yonekura urged him to put the high yen to Japan’s advantage to secure resources.

On 1 October the government finalized its policy for ensuring a stable supply of rare earth metals and immediately sent Deputy Minister of Economy, Trade, and Industry Matsushita Tadahiro to Vietnam to step up the pace of a mining project already underway in that country. The Toyota Tsusho trading company had acquired, in partnership with the government, the rights to rare earth deposits at a mine in Dong Pao, 280 kilometers northwest of Hanoi. They plan to start mining in 2012 and retrieve as much as 5,000 tons over 20 years while providing 20% of Japan’s annual demand.

It’s no coincidence that the sole trading company of the Toyota group is the government’s partner in the Vietnam project. The automaker uses 16 kilograms of rare earth metals to produce each Prius, for example—15 kilograms for the battery alone.

As this summary points out, the government has been getting ready for this step for several months:

Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has prepared a bill that will allow state-owned Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp (JOGMEC) to invest in foreign mines in collaboration with private companies and to provide government guarantees to fund projects. The Ministry is hoping this amendment to be passed and enacted during the session so that it will become in force in the first half of the fiscal year 2010 starting April. Bloomberg reported that under the proposed bill, JOGMEC will be able to invest as much as 27.5 billion yen ($308 million) in overseas mines. Under the current law, it can invest only in overseas projects for oil and natural gas.

Finally, on 3 October the Japanese government reached an agreement with Mongolia to develop mines for rare earth metals during Prime Minister Sukhbaatar Batbold’s visit to the country.

Mr. Ohata stated the obvious:

We have reflected on the risk incurred (by our reliance on China) and are working to diversify (our supply).

Meanwhile, China claimed they had to limit exports because their supply would run out in 15 to 20 years. Said Vice Premier Li Keqiang

China has a low per capita amount of resources.

When you have 1.3 billion people, you have a low per capita amount of everything (except vacant apartments, according to some observers), but the spin is plausible on a superficial level. He continued:

It is important to conserve our resources and protect the environment…We have hopes for Japanese technology.

Thus reaching what the Japanese think is the crux of the matter. A Keidanren source speculated that the intention of the original Chinese decision to limit supply (pre-Senkakus incident) was to get soil improvement technology from Japan on the cheap. If that’s the case, one wonders why they would be so clumsy. Japan already provides a substantial amount of environmentally related ODA to China and surely would be amenable to working out a deal in this critical sector. Perhaps the Chinese want all the deals to be on their terms and overplayed their hand.

While the Chinese supply 97% of the rare earth metals currently used, they have only slightly more than 30% of the world’s reserves. They leveraged their low labor costs (and perhaps a relative indifference to the environmental difficulties presented by processing the metals) to monopolize the global market. Now Japan is looking to other countries that will be more grateful for the business and less likely to weaponize it for political brinksmanship. The Americans and the Australians are also getting ready to start mining in Vietnam and Kazakhstan in 2012.

While the negative repercussions of their imperious attempt to achieve resource hegemony may not become manifest for a few years, China will suffer more than just self-inflicted economic wounds when other countries get the business. After the Senkakus incident, they’ve destroyed their credibility as a responsible business and political partner, and that damage will take years to repair. Adjusting the attitude that informed that behavior will take even longer.

Afterwords:

Thanks to 21st Century Schizoid Man for the Japanese-language links. In appreciation, here’s some more rare earth:

Letter bombs (3)

A FEW READERS have written to ask if my dim view of Japan’s current coalition government means that I don’t care for the Westminster parliamentary system. That’s not the problem–there are difficulties with every form of democracy, including the American system that I grew up with, and politicians always make things worse by making things better for them. What I see as the drawbacks to the parliamentary form of government are rules or procedures that aren’t essential to its function.

First, in both Britain and Japan, the political parties choose the candidates and the districts where they will run. The consequence of such a method is that MPs either in government or in opposition will vote in accordance with the instructions of their party leaders rather than in accordance with constituents’ wishes or their own principles. Aren’t politicians supposed to represent the will of the people, and not the decisions of their party’s central committee?

Too often the votes resemble the charades of the Democratic Peoples’ Republics, in which old guys with a chest full of medals staggered to their feet to hold up their party badges. It’s all party line, all the time, and the party leadership punishes those who step out of line, in government and in opposition alike.

A system in which the party members of a voting district choose their own candidates in a primary not conducted with public funds is much preferable. Of course some candidates will run unopposed, and the national party will recruit people to run as their anointed candidates, but on the whole that’s closer to the democratic ideal.

Then there’s the lack of residency requirements for candidates in the Japanese and British systems, which results in parachute candidates, or during the 2005 lower house election in Japan, female “assassins”. (After the Koizumi landslide, the media started whistling out of the other side of its mouth and called them Amazons. But the media would rather ingratiate itself with power than speak truth to it.) Recruiting candidates from outside a district to win a national election ignores the interests of local constituents in favor of party interests.

The difficulties in Japan are exacerbated by proportional representation, an idea that should be frog-marched over to the nearest vacant lot and shot without the option of a blindfold. People whose ideas aren’t appealing enough to win elections should neither be in government nor have input into policy. The British and the Americans get this right with their first-past-the-post/winner-take-all rules.

Further, consider coalition governments formed among oil-and-water combinations, especially when those parties owe their presence in the legislature to proportional representation. Two of the biggest policy failures of the Democratic Party-led coalition have been the Futenma base move and the de facto renationalization of Japan Post and its banking and insurance system. Regardless of what the DPJ might have done on its own, these two policies were driven by coalition partners with an aggregate support rate in the polls of less than 2% nationwide. The move of the Futenma base outside of the country is the signature issue of the Social Democrats, and the Japan Post renationalization is the only reason the People’s New Party exists. They might as well join the Hiranuma/Yosano Sunrise Party now that they’ve accomplished their goal of rolling back the Koizumi reforms, or die like the political mayflies they are.

While the two major parties in Japan want to move away from proportional representation, the British might move in the opposite direction. The Liberal Democrats led by Nick Clegg, the partner of Dave Cameron’s Conservatives in the new coalition government dubbed the Con-Dem coalition by some, want to introduce proportional representation there.

Writing in the Yorkshire Post, Bernard Dineen brilliantly explains the problems. Note the last paragraph in particular.

We had a glimpse last week of the glories of proportional representation. The days of horse-trading, bribery and confusion are precisely what would occur after every General Election under PR.

Say what you like about our first-past-the-post system: it is a thousand times better than the alternative. Transforming Nick Clegg into the most powerful political figure in Britain, after his party had lost both seats and votes in the election, was ludicrous.

We are told our present set-up is unfair to the smaller parties. Is that such a bad thing? Would you really like to see 10 BNP MPs in the House of Commons? Because that is what their total of votes would have entitled them to.

The BNP refers to the British National Party, which until last year restricted its membership to Caucasians.

Some might argue that the BNP or other parties of its ilk should be outlawed, but I’m not interested in walking anywhere near that very slippery slope on general principle, odious as BNP’s policies are. Those who support proportional representation claim the alternative is undemocratic; banning political parties for any reason is even more so. If the mainstream parties had addressed the public’s legitimate concerns about immigration, the BNP wouldn’t have any traction to begin with.

And I don’t buy the argument that toxicity would prevent other parties from forming a coalition with them. We all know somebody would. Few politicians anywhere are so honorable they would refrain from stooping that low if it brought them to power. The situation in Japan is less extreme, but the LDP had a shotgun wedding with the Socialists, and the DPJ with the SDPJ, when both of the smaller parties were considerably more Red than their name indicates. Those are ugly combinations, unless you find merit in the view that favors closer ties with North Korea and insists any problems with that country are all Japan’s fault.

Without proportional representation, the Social Democrats, New Komeito, the Communists, and a few others would evaporate in the Diet. The SDPJ’s leader, Fukushima Mizuho, has never won a Diet seat outright, and the party’s poster girl, Tsujimoto Kiyomi, wouldn’t have won her seat outright last year had the DPJ run a candidate in her district instead of leaving her an open field as part of the deal for a coalition government. What was Mr. Dineen’s phrase again? “Horse-trading, bribery, and confusion”?

A Westminster system with party primaries not funded by the public, residency requirements, and winner-take-all voting is fine with me.

Links

Dana wrote in to ask about Japanese-language sources on-line. This page has links to all the dailies published in Japan, with the exception of newspapers for specific readers, such as farmers or investment brokers.

This is the page for Blogos, a blog aggregator. It reprints the posts individual blogs, primarily from politicians and political and social commentators. I look for those writers I find worthwhile reading, visit their blogs, and link to their RSS feed.

And here’s the page for Agora, a site that contains articles longer than blog posts but shorter than those in monthly magazines.

Polls

Bender offered his opinion about Prime Minster Hatoyama’s problems with the Futenma base move:

Hatoyama and his gang did what the electorate wanted them to do.

Maybe not, B. Here are the numbers from an FNN/Sankei poll conducted in March asking the respondents’ preferences about Futenma:

It should be outside of Japan: 37.5%
It should be off the coast of Camp Schwab in Okinawa in accordance with the original agreement: 21.0%
It’s not necessary to move the base at all: 12.6%
It should be in Japan outside of Okinawa: 12.3%
It should be in Okinawa at a different location: 8.9%
Don’t know: 7.7%

Though a plurality favors moving the base outside the country, a majority of the respondents—almost 56%–thinks the base should stay in Japan somewhere. Also, a greater plurality, more than 42%, thinks the base should stay in Okinawa.

With 75% of the American military presence in Japan shoehorned into the Ryukyus, there’s no question the people of that prefecture have to bear the near-unbearable. But what do you expect when one country allows the country that crushed them in a war to maintain a military presence after the peace treaty and outsources national defense to them 65 years later? An attitude of equal partnership?

Of course the victor will continue to treat the vanquished as footling menials, regardless of the platitudes they mouth about an alliance. As long as the status quo is maintained and Japan doesn’t become self-reliant in national defense, any debates about individual bases will be an exercise in gesture politics. These questions will always be resolved with Japan backing down and paying the tab.

But the consensus for change is unlikely to form in Japan until the public realizes that the Americans are unreliable. Have those in national government drawn the same conclusions as political leaders elsewhere?

Try this from David Warren on the situation on the Korean Peninsula:

The Obama administration has already squandered its predecessor’s legacy. In any paragraph of any Obama speech on foreign affairs, the reader will discover that the new policy is walk softly and throw away the big stick. The recent obscene display of joint anti-American crowing from the leaders of Brazil, Turkey, and Iran, is the sort of thing that could not have happened under previous U.S. administrations. It was a frightening harbinger of things to come.

The willful naïveté reaches fatuous heights in the current U.S. demand that North Korea should find, try, and punish the perpetrators of the torpedo attack. Do they seriously expect the politburo in Pyongyang to put itself on trial for crimes against humanity? Don’t make them laugh.

Does anyone think the Kim Family Regime would have ordered a South Korean naval vessel to be torpedoed if John McCain rather than Barack Obama were president?

An obstacle to consensus is the claim that Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution requires pacifism. That interpretation might not be correct, however. When the new constitution was being written, Douglas MacArthur wanted to include a clause that prohibited Japan’s use of force “for its own security”. One of his aides, Charles Kades, had that clause eliminated because he believed self-preservation was every nation’s right.

That belief is hard-wired into the human race, and to deny it is to deny reality.

But denying reality is the lifestyle option of some politicians, commentators, and media outlets. One minor example: A few years ago, I wrote a comment on another blog that national defense was the most important function of government. Another reader wrote in to object that health and welfare services were more important.

It is not possible to convince those who enjoy believing otherwise that a government’s child allowance payments are pointless if the children and their parents have been incinerated by a Rodong missile, to cite one possible threat. That group can only be marginalized, which requires politicians willing to stand up in public and intercept the missiles aimed their way. But Diogenes needed a lantern to find an honest man; we’d need klieg lights to find a politico unafraid to stand up for principle in the current kultursmog.

*****

Finally, some readers think I’m a one-eyed moron for not taking global warming seriously, even though the only people who can find any seem to be those who are running their own game on the system.

Well, it ain’t just me. As Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research said, as we found out from the Climategate e-mails:

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.

Dan sent in this reply to the other readers:

As law professor Glenn Reynolds has said: “I’ll believe that there’s a crisis when those who insist there’s a crisis start acting like there’s a crisis.” Adding to that, Jay Tea at Wizbang said: When Al Gore leaves his huge mansion, hops on his private jet, then takes an armored SUV to lecture you about how we all have to reduce our carbon footprints and in general end our rampant (consumerism), it’s pretty easy to tell why his eyes are brown.

Dan could also have mentioned Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, head of the now-discredited IPCC, who wasn’t bothered by his carbon footprint when it came time to fly from New York to Delhi for a cricket match and back over the weekend. Why should he, when he and the rest of the global governance crowd are making so much money from the scam?

The indictment against the people who promote AGW would fill a book—now it turns out that some of the “peer-reviewed science” the IPCC cites was written by Guardian journalists working with the World Wildlife Fund—but for two-eyed people to see it requires the removal of their heads from the sand. That would also make it easier to see the people who have no compunction about saying GI give me chocolate using the AGW game to get wealth transfers from the developed world, as Roger L. Simon reports:

Could it be that Singh, Wen Jiabao, etc., just knew the whole thing was nonsense? I don’t know whether Mr. Rachman was in Copenhagen, but I was. I didn’t speak to Singh or Wen or anybody quite that august, but I did speak to a number of third world delegates and it was commonplace among them to admit the AGW was hooey, therefore acknowledging the obvious – that they were there for the money. In fact, I was stunned at how easily they admitted it.

Then again, I have a pre-existing bias against media-driven science scare stories, having been around long enough to remember every item on this list.

There are more notes worthy of your attention, but I’ve been busy with work and they’ll have to wait until next time. Mata nochihodo.

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Beyond understanding

IT’S NEVER EASY to understand the reasons politicians behave the way they do. Sometimes even other politicians have trouble figuring it out. For example, Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio has been flapping like a flag in a stiff wind for more than six months trying to keep his campaign pledge to move Futenma, the U.S. Marine airbase in Okinawa, either outside the prefecture or outside the country.

This weekend, Mr. Hatoyama visited Okinawa to tell the prefectural governor that his new plan for the base is a dead ringer for the existing agreement painstakingly worked out over more than a decade by the preceding Liberal-Democratic Party administrations and the American government.

Fukushima Mizuho, the head of junior coalition partner the Social Democrats, the State Minister in Charge of Consumer Affairs and the Declining Birthrate, and a leftist lawyer specializing in gesture politics, said at a news conference on the 22nd that she’s mystified:

I do not understand at all why priority was given to the agreement between Japan and the United States and not to the agreement of the Okinawan people or to the agreement between the members of the coalition government.

We can let American commentator Charles Krauthammer, speaking in a different context, clear things up for her:

The genius of democracy is the rotation of power, which forces the opposition to be serious.

When it was in the opposition, Mr. Hatoyama’s Democratic Party of Japan was criticized for behaving like a grade school boy with a loaded gun. Once they took office, their gun turned out to have been loaded mostly with blanks, though it’s still an open question whether their budget bullet has struck a vital organ. They’ve now gone back to Square One-A with Futenma, a de facto admission that they realize major policy changes involving treaty partners require prior thought and planning rather than magic beans and a magic wand. Could it be they also realize formulating a national defense policy requires transcending local interests and partisan politics?

Mr. Krauthammer was referring to a similar set of circumstances in regard to another grade schooler with a loaded gun in a different country. Despite vowing to reset George W. Bush’s foreign policy, Barack Obama’s foreign policy is starting to look remarkably similar. Guantanamo is still open, he’s approved a military surge in Afghanistan, expanded the war into Pakistan, increased drone attacks, and largely preserved the Patriot Act, wiretaps, e-mail intercepts, and military tribunals. That has puzzled his supporters on the left.

Just as Mr. Obama seems to have realized that his predecessor had good reasons for doing what he did, now Mr. Hatoyama seems to have figured out—or been told—that there are good reasons for the American military presence in Okinawa, starting with geography.

Another is that Japan’s security guarantors think they need to be prepared for any contingencies that might arise in the region, such as a crisis resulting from, say, a North Korean submarine torpedoing a South Korean naval vessel and killing more than 40 sailors. In fact, the prime minister found that incident convenient to use as one of the justifications for his Futenma decision.

Of course there are also valid arguments for removing the base from Okinawa, or even for the removal of all American military forces from Japan. Yamada Hiroshi, the head of a recently formed political party, published a book this month with a chapter asserting that people should take it upon themselves to defend their own countries–an assertion I agree with. So does former defense minister and current LDP policy chief Ishiba Shigeru, who this weekend said that Japan should have marines of its own to take back any islands that might be seized by a foreign power.

Indeed, the security treaty between the two countries gives Japan the option to tell the Americans to leave at any time as long as they provide one year’s notice. But Ms. Fukushima understands more than she is willing to let on. She’s aware that a Japanese invitation to leave is not going to be extended any time soon, so reliance on the Americans is the only realistic policy for the foreseeable future. She also knows that the Peace Clause of Japan’s Constitution allows her to rail against the American alliance (while talking out of the other side of her mouth to American journalists) without having to take responsibility for her positions. Responsibility is the Hatoyama headache.

There’s a reason I said she was a gesture politician.

The SDPJ was the Socialist Party in a previous incarnation, and their departure from an eight-party ruling coalition in the early 90s was the beginning of the end for the only other non-LDP government since 1955. But as of today, Ms. Fukushima says she plans to stay in the government and argue against the decision from within. Her only gesture will be to refuse to sign the Cabinet decision.

Why not withdraw as a matter of principle—which some in her party favor? Perhaps she’s calculated that absent any changes in party leadership, the DPJ is likely to lose seats in July’s upper house election. Depending on the results, that will either render her party’s presence in a post-election government irrelevant, or, if the numbers are really skintight, give her added leverage. Why should she take a stand on principle when she can enjoy another two months of perks and an elevated platform from a Cabinet portfolio she might never see again?

That’s not so difficult to understand, is it?

These nuts are a little tougher to crack, however.

The LDP takes off

The upper house of the Diet currently has 242 members. On the 21st, fewer than 200 were present for a vote for the first time this year. Nearly 50 MPs didn’t show up, most of whom were from the opposition LDP.

Fukushima Mizuho and friend in the echo chamber

A total of 195 voted up or down on an amendment to the law providing for rules for Independent Administrative Corporations. The LDP was opposed to the measure, but 31 of their Diet contingent weren’t present. The bill passed by 45 votes. It likely would have gone through anyway, but perhaps they could have rustled up a few more opposition strays, or tried to use a closer vote to score some political points.

Instead, they were back home stumping for reelection. If the reason for serving in the Diet is to represent one’s constituents by voting on matters that will become law, why were they absent from the Diet to ask their constituents to send them to the Diet as their representatives, thereby failing to cast an actual Diet vote on a matter that became law?

Consider they also rightly roasted then-DPJ head Ozawa Ichiro over the coals for missing a Diet vote when he led the opposition in January 2008. Mr. Ozawa had put Japan’s international reputation at risk by having his party defeat a measure in the upper house to continue providing fuel to the NATO forces in Afghanistan. He knew full well the LDP could again pass the measure in the lower house with the supermajority it held at the time, so when the second vote came up in the Diet, he had already bugged off for a campaign appearance.

What is it with these guys? You’d think the money and the prestige were more important to them than their job duties.

Solving a non-existent problem

Here’s a Sunday report from Kyodo:

Environment ministers from Japan, China and South Korea adopted Sunday their countries’ first joint action plan to deal with global warming, the problem of yellow dust and other priority environmental issues for the five years through 2014.

I don’t get it. Why do they need an action plan when global warming doesn’t exist? Particularly when the credibility of climate change activists has been shredded?

Kyodo also reported:

(T)he three ministers referred to the initiative to create an East Asian community, promoted by Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, and said cooperation in the environmental area would be a key element to that end.

I don’t get this one, either. Just as it’s finally dawned on some Europeans after watching the PIGS eating at the Euro trough that the EU isn’t really a viable entity, why are the three Northeast Asian countries talking about organizing a pigsty of their own? A free trade agreement is one thing, but an East Asian entity isn’t going to happen unless everyone agrees to let the Chinese play suzerain again.

Here’s another one I don’t get. Environmental cooperation is indeed a critical issue. Chinese air pollution is a health menace throughout the region, as this post describes. In 2007, children in four of Kyushu’s seven prefectures were told to stay indoors rather than inhale the pollution that floated over from China. There’s no disputing that the Chinese need to stop fouling Asia’s nest.

Yet Japan continues to send the country ODA, 30% of which was for environmental measures as of 2007. Meanwhile, China posted GDP growth northward of 12% for the first quarter this year. If the books in Beijing aren’t being cooked—a big if—why is Japan funding environmental measures the Chinese could afford themselves, thereby providing the Chinese the wherewithal to spend the freed-up funds for a military buildup that a national defense argument can’t justify?

Mr. Hatoyama still with us

Japanese pundits began speculating about the date of Prime Minister Hatoyama’s departure from office last December, just three months into his term. Many thought he would step down at the end of this month, particularly with the upper house election coming in July (probably the 11th). Of course he’s been shown the dismal poll numbers, and of course he knows that his party stands a better chance if either he or Secretary-General Ozawa Ichiro—and preferably both—fall on their stage prop swords beforehand. But if Mr. Hatoyama intends to resign, he’s cutting it awfully close. In fact, it’s starting to look as if both he and Mr. Ozawa intend to stick around through the election.

That’s got me flummoxed, but I’m not the only one. Plenty of Japanese are stumped, too. They’re particularly concerned about the Hatoyama state of mind, having given up on Mr. Ozawa behaving with integrity long ago.

During the past few weeks, the prime minister has boggled the minds of more than a few people by:

* Claiming that since the pledge to move Futenma was only a personal campaign promise and not in the party’s platform, it doesn’t count.

* Insisting that he has spent more time dealing with the base issue than any other Japanese politician in history, and that the record will back him up.

* Meeting at the Kantei with the three municipal officers of Tokunoshima, where some in the government wanted to move the Futenma operations, and starting talks by telling them he yearned to visit since his youth because he idolized the famous sumo rikishi Asashio Taro, a native of the island. He also said that he wanted to go to Tokunoshima later this month. They told him not to bother because they didn’t want to meet with him again.

* Responding to a request at a news conference for his views on the possibility that the SDPJ might withdraw from the coalition by saying:

I’ve held many discussions with the SDPJ and Ms. Fukushima, and I intend to make every effort to seek her cooperation in working hereafter as part of the coalition.

When another reporter told him that the SDPJ head said his decision contravened the three-party coalition agreement, Mr. Hatoyama replied:

I’m sorry to have to say this about Ms. Fukushima, but it does not contravene the three-party coalition agreement. The agreement of course states that we would lessen the burden on Okinawa. That’s why, for the past eight months, I have considered the hardships of all Okinawans and worked to lessen their burden as much as possible.

It beats the heck out of me why he forgot to mention that he went around the prefecture during the campaign hollering, “Out of the country, and at a minimum, out of the prefecture.”

It’s gotten so bad so quickly that people are now speculating about the reasons for the disconnect between his statements and reality. Is it due to an overly sheltered childhood owing to his family’s wealth, some wonder, or is he suffering from narcissistic personality disorder? (The Japanese are much less likely to say that sort of thing about political leaders than Americans.) Still others wonder if he’s hanging on just so he can stay in office longer than his predecessor, Aso Taro. (Their respective grandparents were both prime ministers and political rivals.) He’ll have to stick around into August to reach that milestone, however.

It’s beyond understanding. Maybe we can get Ms. Fukushima to return the favor and explain it to us.

UPDATE: J.E. Dyer writing for the Commentary blog Contentions gets one right and one wrong about the Futenma issue. The wrong one first:

The move remains deeply unpopular in Okinawa, but Hatoyama is quite explicit about his reason: his concern for Japanese security in light of the tensions on the Korean peninsula.

That’s the Johnny-come-lately analysis: Those who’ve followed the twists and turns from the beginning know that events in Korea provided a convenient excuse for Mr. Hatoyama to do what he was forced into doing anyway, and which was apparent he was going to do well before this incident.

Here’s the good one:

The alliance with Japan is worth tending better; it might have been possible to achieve this or a similarly advantageous outcome without leaving Japan’s government and the Okinawans feeling cornered and resentful. But our “smart power” administration didn’t even try.

Bingo.

There’s also one that deserved more comment than it received:

Hillary Clinton summoned the Japanese ambassador to lecture him on his government’s obligations under the previous agreement.

One of those obligations being the Japanese requirement to pay for the construction of facilities in Guam to facilitate the transfer of American personnel. Some Americans complain that the rest of the world is getting a free ride on security, but overlook the fact that in this case, a foreign government is footing the bill for a facility for Americans on American territory.

One also wonders when Hillary Clinton is going to start lecturing the ambassadors of NATO countries about their obligations–or is it that some allies are more equal than others?

Shimojo Masao (10): Whaling and the Japanese

IN APRIL 675, the Temmu Tenno (emperor) issued an imperial edict banning the consumption of cows, horses, dogs, monkeys and chickens as food in Japan, a fervently Buddhist country. The custom of meat-eating was not widespread in Japan until the Meiji Restoration of 1868, when the acceptance of Western culture and institutions began. Animal proteins were obtained instead by catching fish in the surrounding seas. The hunting of whales and dolphins, which environmental protection groups in Western countries have made an issue in recent years, was one of the traditional fishing methods. Eating such foods as sushi and sashimi arose in a Japanese food culture based on fishing, and those foods are now recognized as healthful throughout the world.

In contrast, however, the dietary custom of eating fish raw did not arise on the Korean Peninsula and China, though they bordered the same seas. In those countries, the distribution channels for the sustainable consumption of fresh fish were not established, significant fishing industries did not arise, and markets in the consumption regions did not form. The successive dynasties of China built their capitals inland, and the development of distribution systems lagged. A meat-eating culture arose on the Korean Peninsula, where products were bartered in markets that opened once every five days. Sashimi began to be eaten on the Korean Peninsula after the modern period when the region was under Japanese rule. It was also only recently that the general public in China began to eat raw fish in the form of sashimi and sushi.

Thus, the seafood products previously eaten on the Korean Peninsula and in China were dried and/or cured, and sold without regard to their freshness. Such ingredients as shark fin, a popular dish in Chinese cuisine, as well as abalone, sea slugs, and kombu, a processed seaweed, were delicacies brought from far-off Japan. That manner of trade began during the Edo period (1603-1868) and continued thereafter. Shark fin and kombu are products from northeastern Japan and points north. During the Edo period, they were taken by sailing ships known as kitamaebune to Nagasaki by way of the Sea of Japan, and from there exported to China.

This peaceful East Asian world was disrupted by the arrival of foreign ships from Russia, Great Britain, the United States, and other countries. Their objective was two-fold: to seek trade with Japan, and supplies of firewood, water, and food for their whaling vessels. The post-Industrial Revolution countries in the West used whale oil in the lamps illuminating factories, so whaling in the seas near Japan was vital for them.

The uninhabited island known as Matsushima in Japan throughout the Edo period became known as the Liancourt Rocks on Western maps when the French whaling vessel Liancourt discovered it in 1849. Whaling, which had been conducted as a way to secure food in Japan, was conducted among the Western powers as a way to secure whale oil. Eventually, the demands of the Western powers that sought trade with Japan and supplies of firewood, water, and food for their whaling vessels led to the forced opening of the country, backed up by their military might. This was the principal cause of the disruption of the stable East Asian order.

Speaking of whaling, some peculiar logic has arisen in recent years–the thinking that whales and dolphins are special animals for people, and that this is tied in with the concept of environmental protection. That’s a serious contradiction with the culture of whaling in the West in the 19th century. The Academy Award-winning American film The Cove, which secretly filmed the dolphin hunt in Taiji, Wakayama, and condemned that hunt; Sea Shepherd’s violent obstruction of whaling; and other activities closely resemble the one-sided behavior of the Western Powers in the 19th century.

- Shimojo M.

UPDATE: Those reading this post for the first time who would like to read additional information about Korean whaling might find this worthwhile.