Report: Japan to throw billions down rat hole

RECENT NEWS REPORTS say that Japan’s government is about to chuck $US 5 billion in the gutter.

Well, that’s not what they really said, but in this instance, one plus one plus one results in a sum of minus 5 billion instead of three.

How does that add up?

One

Despite the Hatoyama government’s implicit pledge to rethink the U.S.-Japan alliance, it is acceding to United States pressure to provide aid to Afghanistan commensurate with its “international status”.

“Japan said Tuesday that it would dramatically increase its nonmilitary aid to Afghanistan, pledging $5 billion for a range of projects that includes building schools and highways, training police officers, clearing land mines and rehabilitating former Taliban fighters.”

But, some might object, that sounds pretty good. Of course it sounds good. That’s exactly the point. The idea is for it to sound and look like a wonderful gesture, both to the current American administration and to the Japanese media. The former will stop twisting Japan’s arm for the next couple of months, and the latter will trumpet the promise of funds as if it showed the country were a serious actor in foreign affairs. By this time next week, however, they’ll have forgotten about it forever.

And if what happened to the previous aid happens to this tranche, they’ll forget they even knew about it to begin with.

Plus one

Afghanistan is so corrupt that an enormous amount of foreign aid winds up in the wrong pockets, as President Hamid Karzai tacitly admitted on an American television program.

“Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in an interview airing on Monday he is taking steps to root out corruption in his government, but he also said foreign money was making the problem worse. In addition to what he called ‘the usual corruption in any government,’ Karzai said he is dealing with a kind of corruption that is foreign to his country….Without providing specific examples, Karzai listed contractual mechanisms, a lack of transparency in awarding contracts and corruption in implementing projects among the ‘new’ and more serious corruption problem.”

Note that even though whatever passes for political loyalty in that part of the world has been most easily obtained for cash on the barrelhead since time began, Mr. Karzai wants to shift the blame on the foreigners. That’s an odd position to take for a man who wouldn’t be where he is today—the de facto Mayor of Kabul—if it weren’t for foreigners.

But what sort of corruption is he so delicately referring to?

Plus one

As Max Boot points out in Commentary’s blog, Contentions:

“Indeed, aid projects have become one of the Taliban’s primary sources of income — they collect extortion payments to let the projects proceed. That should cause the international community — foreign governments, international organizations like the UN, and numerous NGOs — to rethink some of their assumptions.”

It won’t cause the Hatoyama Government to rethink its assumptions, Mr. Boot.

They’re more interested in symbolic, albeit expensive, action that pacifies the Americans for the present and allows them to preen at home and at high-level conferences abroad rather than concern themselves with the efficacy of the action itself. Indeed, if the past is a guide, they may well be indifferent to whether the aid will have any positive benefits.

And let’s not forget the need to placate the handful of lifestyle leftists that constitute the Social Democratic Party of Japan. The ruling DPJ needs to keep the rump Socialists in the coalition corral as long as it lacks an outright majority in the upper house. This is yet another example of how tiny minorities in a parliamentary system can prevent a government from functioning normally.

Here’s another way to add one plus one plus one:

1. Only someone whose outlook on life is as juvenile as that of Hatoyama Yukio, Japan’s boy prime minister…
2. And only two little bon-bons–the British call them chinless wonders—such as Mr. Hatoyama and Foreign Minister Okada Katsuya, neither of whom have ever done a lick of work in their lives thanks to their families’ immense wealth, and neither of whom have ever demonstrated any knowledge or experience of what actually happens in the world outside the hushed and gilded rooms they’ve inhabited since birth…
3. And a Japanese foreign ministry only too willing to follow the long-established tradition of buying its way out of serious international commitments, created by generations of a Japanese political class with neither the guts nor the inclination to expend any political capital on creating a national consensus to give the rest of the world a clear yes or no…

…Would be capable of coming up with this rich-boy-plays-statesman scheme to waste the people’s wealth and think the recipients might benefit as a result.

Why should they care whether they burn someone else’s money? They’ve never had to make any of their own to begin with.

Now really—would someone with an outlook grounded in the experience of adulthood seriously think that vocational training for the Taliban had a realistic possibility of success? That training the Afghan police force will stop religious fanatics ready and willing to die? That land mines won’t be replanted after being bought with extortion money, and new schools won’t be blown up, particularly if girls try to attend?

Of course, I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt by assuming that their motives are pure. It’s also entirely possible that their pledge is just another dose of nose medicine (hanagusuri, a bribe or hush money) for the Americans. Besides, if the Americans are so anxious to build turnpikes for the Toyota pick-ups the Taliban use as troop carriers, they should try banging the tin cup at UN headquarters. They’re the ones that authorized the NATO mission to begin with.

Be that as it may, whatever the motives of the current Japanese government, the cash will still wind up in the equivalent of a sewer.

Before a sewer can be repaired, the muck has to be cleaned out first. But what would Messrs. Hatoyama and Okada know about getting their hands dirty?

Get the number of that fish!

WHAT DO YOU GET when you combine the Japanese love of new technology and gadgets with their insistence on food freshness and concerns caused by recent incidents of falsely labeled food products, particularly those from overseas?

Maritime mug shot

Several possibilities come to mind, but one is now undergoing trials conducted by the Nagasaki Prefectural Institute of Fisheries and the Yokohama-based National Research Institute of Fisheries Science. The two groups are working with a Nagasaki fishing cooperative to test the viability of a system in which tags with QR codes are placed on individual fish to allow consumers to trace the region where it was caught, the cooperative that caught it, the network used to distribute it, and the date it was shipped. It’s the first system of this type in Japan, and one of the innovations for this particular application is that the tags don’t require a special reader.

Here’s how it works: Consumers use their cell phones to photograph the QR code on the tag attached to the fish head, connect to the Internet, access a site jointly operated by the Japan Fisheries Association (link at right sidebar) and the Fishing Boat and System Engineering Association, and get the fish story firsthand. In fact, consumers don’t need even need a cell phone camera—they can get the same information by using their PCs to input the tag number at the website.

The fish being used for the trials is a type of horse mackerel (aji in Japanese) caught in the strait between the Goto Islands and Nagasaki Prefecture. Reports say this fish was selected because it’s easier to trace from catch to shipment, though the reports didn’t say why. Each of the 150 fish in the initial trial shipment weighs at least 250 grams (8.8 ounces). They will be sold for about JPY 1,000 apiece (about $US 11.11) within four or five days at Tokyo department stores, which are about 966 kilometers (600 miles) away from the point of shipment.

The two groups conducting the trial say the system could benefit consumers because it will enable them to quickly check fish quality and freshness. That’s not always easy to determine with the naked eye, and some Japanese distribution routes are complicated. The consumer will also know just where the fish was caught.

The fishing co-ops hope it promotes this particular kind of fish and boosts slack fish prices. The trials are also being used to determine the amount of work required to tag each fish and the amount of additional distribution costs. The system will go into full-scale operation if it functions smoothly and if the producers and the consumers are comfortable with it.

Here’s the website that will be used for the system, for those who read Japanese.

Now I ask you: Did you ever think you’d see the day when you could use your own telephone while shopping at a retail outlet to check the freshness of a fish on display in a bin?

And now for a look at a Japanese textbook

ONE OF THE FLAWS inherent in giving the public sector responsibility for education is that school instruction can be too easily used as a vehicle for political indoctrination, regardless of the country or the political system. That problem is just as intractable in the democracies of the Anglosphere as it is in Northeast Asia, where the democratic is mixed with the despotic.

In this part of the world, Ground Zero for educational controversies is textbook content. For example, the modern history textbooks for second- and third-year high school students in South Korea now in use were developed and written during the administration of the late President Roh Moo-hyon, and several have been criticized for being sympathetic to North Korea. The previous post touches on the near-taboo in that country of allowing textbooks to mention that the 35-year Japanese colonization/occupation/merger with Korea also had, to a certain extent, a beneficial impact on the lives of the general public. Former South Korean Foreign Minister Han Sung-moo was stripped of his position as professor emeritus at Korea University for daring to write an article suggesting that an honest reappraisal of Japan-Korea relations during that period was in order.

There is also a long tradition in Japan of hijacking public school textbooks to indoctrinate the nation’s youth. During first half of the 20th century, texts were used to glorify militarism to such an extent that even word problems in arithmetic used examples of soldiers and tanks rather than apples and oranges to provide instruction.

Japan’s neighbors, particularly South Korea, have closely monitored the country’s textbooks during the postwar period. The Japanese treatment of events on the Korean Peninsula in history textbooks became an issue in South Korea starting in the early 1970s. Korean demands of Japanese publishers for the modification of schoolbooks came to a head in 1982. On 5 August that year, a South Korean committee organized to examine the Japanese history curriculum completed its analysis of 16 new textbooks. The committee published a Japanese-language booklet cataloguing its objections to 167 citations in 24 categories and distributed it in this country. Mindan (The Korean Residents Union in Japan, a group closer to the South than the North) handled distribution of the booklet in Japan through its affiliated organizations.

As a result, the government of then-Prime Minister Suzuki Zenko had the Ministry of Education revise its standards for textbook certification to add what has become known as the Neighboring Nation Clause, which is still in effect today. It states:

“Consideration from the perspective of international understanding and international cooperation is required for the treatment of modern and recent historical matters involving neighboring Asian countries.”

The adoption and application of this clause has not resulted in a lessening of overseas complaints about Japanese textbooks, however. Rather, the focus of the complaints has shifted to the treatment of such topics as the Nanjing Massacre and comfort women. Indeed, it has become apparent that some elements in South Korea will not be satisfied unless they share in the complete oversight of Japanese history textbook publication. One can imagine their response were groups in Japan to demand the same influence over South Korean history texts.

All the textbooks under fire from overseas were written when the Japanese government was under the control of the largely center-right Liberal Democratic Party. After decades of controversy, one might think that officials of the Democratic Party of Japan, which leads the coalition now in control of the government, would be wary of overtly political content in textbooks. But that is not the case. Said Acting DPJ President Koshi’ishi Azuma in January:

“It is not possible to be politically neutral in education…We will change education through politics.”

Though these sentiments come close to calling for a violation of Japanese law, Mr. Koshi’ishi has made several similar comments over the past year. He has made it clear that he thinks political indoctrination is one of the roles of education. What sort of indoctrination? The DPJ acting president has long been affiliated with the Japanese Teachers’ Union (see right sidebar for link). Many members of that union may be even more militant, left-wing, and anxious to eliminate real educational achievement than their brothers and sisters in the teachers’ unions in the Anglosphere.

The DPJ hasn’t been in control of the government long enough to replace or modify the primary textbooks currently in use in public schools. But their allies in the JTU have published their own supplemental textbooks for use in the home, which they advertised on their website until very recently. One was a text offered for parents to use with their primary school-aged children for the study of arithmetic. The Japanese language link to that text was still live until September last year. Since then, however, the JTU has reworked their website and removed the overtly radical sections, perhaps to prevent their use in the campaign for the lower house election that was held in August.

Those eliminated sections can still be found floating around in the Internet ether, however, and here’s a link to one of the chapters in that arithmetic text. The lesson in this chapter is how to calculate the number or amount of something in a defined unit, i.e., population density per square kilometer. The introduction to the chapter says the following:

“In this chapter, we will use the multiplication and division methods we learned to study the American military base at Kadena and Kadena-cho in Okinawa. This will also include a study of geography, history, and peace. So let’s enjoy those parts of the lesson as we broaden our knowledge of multiplication and division.”

The Kadena Air Force Base is the home of the U.S. Air Force’s 18th wing and a hub for American air power in the Pacific. It is not located solely in Kadena-cho, but also covers parts of Chatan-cho and Okinawa City. Okinawans have long been involved in efforts to either move the base or restrict night flights due to the noise. The Hatoyama administration has recently gotten stuck in a controversy over another base at Futenma, squeezed from one side by the Japanese Left, members of its own coalition, and Okinawa residents, and squeezed from the other side by the U.S. government.

The first two questions in the JTU text contain explanations of how to calculate population density. Here is Question 3.

“The town of Kadena-cho is in the center of the main island of Okinawa Prefecture, which is the southernmost part of Japan. As of 1 October 2003, the population of the town was 13,766, and its area was 15 square kilometers. Let’s use what we’ve learned in the first two questions to calculate the town’s population density.”

The answer is 918 people per square kilometer.

There follows a box insert with a smiley face that says:

“It’s easy to understand from the answers to Questions 2 and 3 that Kadena-cho is much more crowded than the rest of Japan. But the real population density of Kadena-cho is very different. Why is that? The answer is related to historical and social factors. We’ll uncover that secret in Chapter 2.”

Here’s the big secret in Chapter 2:

Q4:
There is a place in Kadena-cho that the residents are absolutely not allowed to enter. Do you know where that is?
A:
The American military base at Kadena.

Next comes a boxed note called “Mini-Knowledge 1”:

“There is land in the town surrounded by a fence. That’s the Kadena base that came up in the answer. This land belongs to the people of Kadena, but it’s been decided that they cannot freely enter this land. The residents require a passport to enter. If they try to enter without permission, the American military police will arrest them.”

Subsequent questions and answers reveal that the base occupies 83% of the town’s area, which is used as the basis for the calculation of the town’s real population density of 5,398 people per square kilometer.

Finally, the boxed note of “Mini-Knowledge 2” has this instruction for the children:

“Fifty-nine years ago, the residents could freely enter or leave any part of Kadena-cho. But many American soldiers invaded Okinawa in April 1945 during the Second World War (here, literally the Pacific War), and occupied Kadena-cho. After the war, all the residents were held at far-away concentration camps, and the Americans arbitrarily installed a fence around the area to create a large military base (That’s the Kadena Base!)
The war has been over for 59 years now, but the land has not been returned to the people, and they still can’t enter that area. The Pacific War occurred a long time ago, so now most people probably think we are a peaceful nation. But we can’t say that the war in Okinawa is over at all.
What would you think if the town where you lived were like Kadena?”

Whether or not the Kadena base should be moved, or whether the population density of the town is intolerable, is not the point. Rather, it is that the JTU, which wants all American forces out of Japan, has eagerly adopted the educational practices of Imperial Japan—and China and North Korea—and uses textbooks for the political indoctrination of children.

It is clear that when the JTU complains about politics in Japanese schools, their real concern is not whether politics may have crept into the instruction, but rather the nature of that political instruction itself.

For an even greater irony, note again this section: “The war has been over for 59 years now…The Pacific War occurred a long time ago, so now most people probably think we are a peaceful nation.”

I could have written that passage myself (and in fact have written many like it at this site). Yet JTU members are the first in the country to get enuretic at the mere idea that Japanese troops should be equipped with defensive weapons and sent overseas to participate in UN peacekeeping missions. If anyone dares suggest that Article 9 of the Constitution should be amended to allow for legitimate self-defense, the laundry bill from their soiled underwear rivals the GNP of a minor island nation in the South Pacific.

Let’s be frank: This attitude is nothing less than an expression of the utmost contempt for their fellow countrymen. It is as if they think Japan is a nation of violent, abusive alcoholics that would fall off the wagon and start another rampage throughout East Asia if allowed a snack of one liqueur-flavored confection.

Or is it that they pine for a political alignment with North Korea and China, assuming they can stomach the market reforms of today’s China?

You think I exaggerate? Mr. Koshi’ishi was a member of the JTU when Makieda Motofumi was chairman. Mr. Makieda is the author of チュチェの国朝鮮を訪ねて (Visiting Joseon, the Country of Juche), in which he praised the North Korean educational system. It contains this passage:

“There are no thieves in this country. Thievery occurs in those places where there is a prejudice toward wealth. There is no need for thievery in this country. Since there is no thievery and no murder, there are also no police. There are only public safety personnel standing at the corners and intersections to direct traffic and deal with any injuries.”

He’s also written:

“After my visit to North Korea, whenever I’m asked whom I think is the most respected person in the world, I immediately bring up the name of Chairman Kim Il-sung. That’s because I have met him personally. I believe that he is loved by the people of his country, and is worthy to be revered by them as a father….Kim Jong-il is the duplicate of his father, and he can be trusted without reservation.”

Makieda Motofumi received a medal from North Korea in 1991.

He is also president of the Japan-China Skilled Workers Exchange Center of Japan, which he established in 1986. Mr. Makieda visited China in that capacity in 2007. He has also served as the Chairman of the Japan Committee for Supporting the Independent and Peaceful Reunification of Korea. As the head of that organization, he has said that “to promote Japan-DPRK friendship it is important for Japan to liquidate its past and establish good-neighbor and friendly relations with the DPRK”, according to the North Korean news agency.

One Japanese proverb that corresponds to the English language “Birds of a feather…” is Shu ni majiwareba akaku naru, or “Mix with vermillion and turn red.” Perhaps that’s even more appropriate in this case.

It should be no mystery why the members of the JTU become incensed when they are required to stand and sing the national anthem twice a year at school functions.

Neither should it be a mystery why many Japanese held their nose when they cast their vote for the DPJ in the lower house election. The only real mystery is why the South Koreans and Chinese get upset about history education in Japan when the classrooms are infested with people such as these.

Let’s hope the damage can be kept to a minimum during the DPJ’s turn at the helm.

Afterwords:
Meanwhile, in the West, Roy Thomas in his book Japan: The Blighted Blossom, called Mr. Makieda “a liberal and humanist” who views education “as a force for social change”.

Thanks to Aki for the link and the info.

A textbook from the South Korean New Right

RECENT ACTIVITY in the Comments section has prompted me to present a summary of a longer article sent to me some months ago by Prof. Shimojo. It is not part of his recent series of short essays, but it is worth reading for the information it presents. Here is my very quick translation.

*****
A Textbook from the South Korean New Right

In March last year, the Textbook Forum of South Korea, consisting primarily of economists, published the Proposed Textbook of South Korean Recent and Modern History. This textbook has attracted attention both inside the country and overseas because its view of recent South Korean history is not based on the theory of Japan’s colonization of Korea as an illegal seizure of territory. Rather, it offers (to a certain extent) a positive evaluation of Japan’s role in the modernization of the country. For that reason, it is viewed in some quarters as a Korean version of the New History Textbook published in Japan. That is why it was subjected to a concentrated attack by the Left.

At just that time, a new conservative government took power in South Korea that emphasized a practical relationship with Japan rather than the issues of the past. The publication of this textbook portends the advent of a new period for the historical problems of Japanese-Korean relations. Therefore, let us consider how best to deal with those historical problems as we refer to this textbook of the New Right.

The creation of the Textbook Forum

The preface of the proposed textbook states that the Textbook Forum was created in 2005. On 16 March that year, Shimane Prefecture passed an ordinance establishing Takeshima Day, which inflamed nationalist passions in South Korea. It was also a period in which historical issues were brought to the forefront. Then-President Roh Moo-hyon made historical problems a matter of national policy and established the Presidential Commission on True History for Peace in Northeast Asia. That resulted in the emergence of a narrow-minded nationalism in South Korea, and the forces of the Left gained strength. This trend was accelerated by a special law passed by the Roh Administration in 2004 that enabled the investigation of collaborators with the Japanese during the colonization period. Thus began a period of research into the past.

At the same time, Shimane Prefecture passed an ordinance declaring Takeshima Day and commemorated the 100th anniversary of the incorporation of the islets into the prefecture. Opposition to these moves erupted in South Korea. The backdrop to this opposition was the South Korean historical view, formed in the 1950s, that Takeshima represented the first territory sacrificed in Japan’s invasion of the Korean Peninsula. However, then Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon (now UN Secretary-General) took the stance that the Takeshima issue was of greater importance than the bilateral Japanese-Korean relationship itself. President Roh also declared that the claim of sovereignty over Dokdo (Takeshima) constituted a “second invasion”. Thus, historical issues became a matter of South Korean foreign policy.

This further inflamed nationalist sentiment in South Korea, for which Prof. Emeritus Han Sung-joo of Korea University paid with his reputation. At that time, Prof. Han had written an article for the April 2005 issue of Seiron titled, “The Stupidity of the Condemnation of the Japan-Friendly Faction, Stemming from Communist and Left-Wing Thought”. In the article, he argued for a reexamination of the merger between Japan and Korea. The university stripped him of his title, and his vilification as a pro-Japanese professor spread to campuses throughout the nation. The previous year, in 2004, Prof. Lee Yeong-hun, a central figure in the Textbook Forum, published The Latter Joseon Period Reexamined from the Perspective of Quantitative Economic History. That prompted a reevaluation of Japan’s colonization and merger. The Textbook Forum was founded in this environment.

A different approach

In South Korea, the new proposed text was viewed as a Korean version of the New History Textbook. Since the textbook problems of 1982, however, Japan’s Neighboring Nation Clause has permitted interference from China and South Korea. In regard to the Tsukuru-kai’s New History Textbook, the self-restraint in the writing of textbooks has limited efforts to championing the cause of the liberal view of history.

The dispute over textbooks in South Korea, however, originated in the South Korean nationalist view of history that arose during the negotiations for the normalization of diplomatic relations between the two countries, which began in 1952. This is rooted in the intellectual conflict between Left and Right. It was in this context that the Roh Administration employed the issue of historical views as a card in diplomatic relations. In February 2008, the Roh Administration in its final days distributed educational videos both in South Korea and overseas that focused on seven separate issues: the Yasukuni shrine, comfort women, history textbooks, Takeshima, the East Sea, Chinese historical research into its northeastern region, the former Mongolia (which caused an uproar in South Korea), and the border dispute between China and North Korea involving Mt. Changbai. The objective was the Takeshima dispute, however. The aim was to isolate Japan by mobilizing all the historical issues and insisting that the colonization was a Japanese invasion. In 2007, legislatures in the United States, Canada, The Netherlands, and the EU also took up the comfort woman issue after being urged to do so by South Koreans.

Japan, however, views the comfort woman issue as a single issue, and so was unable to respond from a broader perspective. When the problem with history textbooks arose, the Neighboring Nation Clause was adopted. When the issue with comfort women arose, the simplistic response was the Kono Statement. The South Koreans thus extracted commitments from Japan. Both the Koizumi and Abe administrations encouraged the joint study of Japanese-Korean history, but the result could be seen in advance as long as there was a problem with historical views in South Korea.

In this regard, the Textbook Forum’s publication of the Proposed Textbook of South Korean Recent and Modern History represented a different approach—one that did not follow the South Korean historical perspective that viewed history as an invasion by the Japanese.

The Textbook Forum

The Textbook Forum has criticized conventional education in history for its nationalistic view based on a single perspective. The basis for its position is statistics and other data. Prof. Emeritus Park Son-su of the Academy of Korean Studies stated, “The description in the textbook showed that Japan contributed to the improvement and modernization of the Korean colony’s economy, society, and culture.” He was also critical, however, saying “The Japanese colonial government was the worst government, with none other like it in the world.” This is just historical viewpoint speaking, however, and is not historical fact.

In the 1970s, President Park Chug Hee’s Semaul Movement put South Korean agriculture on an independent footing and promoted economic development. President Park used the Japanese colonial administration as his point of reference for this movement. Past textbooks denied those successes, however, because the Park Administration was a military dictatorship, and he was considered friendly toward Japan.

That Park Geun Hye, a presidential candidate of the Grand National Party, is his oldest daughter was another factor in the political use of history. South Korea’s historical disputes are extremely political.

Park Geun Hye praised the Proposed Textbook of South Korean Recent and Modern History, saying, “It highlights the problems with current textbooks.” The South Korean Chamber of Commerce and Industry has presented to the Ministry of Education a proposal to revise the current textbooks. Thus, through the recognition of diverse values, the waves of democratization are beginning to break over South Korean history textbooks.

*****
Afterwords: Long-time readers know I am loathe to use the expression Right Wing or any of its permutations because its meaning became degraded beyond any practical use years ago. I asked Prof. Shimojo about the use of the term New Right, and he answered that the term is used in South Korea itself. Therefore, I used it here.

Shimojo Masao (4): An Jung-geun’s On Peace in East Asia

An Jung-geun’s On Peace in East Asia

Ito Hirobumi, Japan’s first prime minister, was assassinated at a Harbin train station in Manchuria by the Korean An Jung-geun in October 1909. There is a tendency in South Korea to excessively praise An’s essay, On Peace in East Asia, for its resemblance to the concept of an East Asian entity promoted by Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio.

From a historical perspective, On Peace in East Asia, which An finished in 1910, is similar to Prime Minister Hatoyama’s idea in that it is based on a trite concept that ignores reality. The concept of an East Asian entity had already been elucidated in 1880 by Chinese diplomat Huang Zun-xiang in his Joseon Strategy. In the year before the 1894 war between Japan and China, Tarui Tokichi also wrote the Treatise on Unifying (Japan and Korea into the State of) The Great East. The problem, however, was whether the historical conditions were in order in Korea at that time to create such an entity.

Huang Zun-xiang in his Joseon Strategy viewed an alliance of Qing Dynasty China, Korea, and Japan as indispensable for the survival of Korea, located to the south of Russia. But the Joseon ruling class fiercely opposed his strategy, and his concept of an East Asian entity was not realized. Indeed, in Korea, Queen Min (Empress Myeongseong) and her clan wielded arbitrary political power over the peninsula. She sold public positions in the bureaucracy to the highest bidder, which created turmoil in the realm. That turmoil in turn led eventually to the Japanese war with China.

After the Japan-China War, the Liaodong Peninsula in China was ceded to the Japanese. Negotiations with Russia, Germany, and France after the territory came under Japanese control resulted in a stronger Russian influence on the Korean Peninsula. Russia’s “Southern Policy”, about which Huang Zun-xiang expressed concern in his Joseon Strategy, had become a reality.

In 1904, Japan began hostilities with Russia, which had extended its influence into Mongolia. The Korean Lee Ki had a vision of dividing Mongolia into three spheres of influence if it came under Japanese control. According to his vision, giving the eastern part of Mongolia to Japan, the southern part to Korea, and the western part to Qing Dynasty China would prevent an invasion by Russia.

At that time, both China and Korea were ruled by monarchies from the Middle Ages. Only Japan had a constitutional government. Ignoring the differences in social structure and the phases of historical development, and assassinating Ito in the name of On Peace in East Asia, was an act that beggars belief.

- Shimojo Masao

*****

Afterwords: This short essay is an excellent example of a point I sometimes try to make here: relations between Japan, China, and Korea have been so complex for such a long period of time that contemporary conditions do not admit of superficial analysis by outside observers, particularly those unfamiliar with the historical background. Some additional information of interest: An was a converted Catholic, an admirer of the Meiji Tenno (emperor), and was anxious to create an East Asian entity as a defense against the “White Plague”. Contemporary South Korea’s view of Queen Min tends to the hagiographic; her life was used as the basis for a popular musical, in which she was depicted as a tragic heroine and the mother of her country. Also, Russia, France, and Germany intervened after the Japan-China War to persuade Japan to return the Liaodong Peninsula to China. The almost immediate occupation of the peninsula by Russia after its return was a casus belli for the war between Japan and Russia.

Yuta: The Japanese shamans

THE EXISTENCE of shamans, people said to have the ability to communicate with the spirit world and intercede with that plane on our behalf, seems to be a universal human phenomenon with many shared characteristics over different regions. Yet it’s curious that most of us shy away from acknowledging a phenomenon that is so widespread and still exists today. Perhaps that’s because they’re viewed as part of a primitive tradition that most of us would prefer to think we’ve grown beyond. Then again, perhaps it has something to do with the Siberian origins of the word, which literally means, “He who knows”. Those who know too much have always made the rest of us uncomfortable.

Japan has had its own shamanistic tradition throughout the archipelago, though now it lives on the edges of our peripheral vision. But the practice still thrives in Okinawa and the Amami islands, which are part of Kagoshima Prefecture. The shamans there are called yuta, and there are an estimated 5,000 in Okinawa alone.

As is the case with shamans elsewhere, the people who become yuta did not make a conscious decision to do so. In the Ryukyus (the Amami islands are considered part of the northern Ryukyus), the yuta acquired their abilities after being selected by the divine spirits and surviving a serious illness or some other physical danger.

As is also the case in other parts of the world, the yuta in the Ryukyus sometimes serve as physicians. Indeed, there is an Okinawan saying: Half doctor, half yuta. Whether they are involved in medicine or not, however, they usually intercede on human behalf in matters of life and death, or matters that people think are critically important.

The Japanese too have always felt a bid edgy around the yuta. The practice was suppressed when the Satsuma domain of Kagoshima controlled the islands during the 17th century. Local newspapers in Okinawa campaigned against the practice in the late 19th century, and some scholars suggest that was because journalists were anxious to have Japan become part the modern world. It’s also true that the nature of the practice itself, which includes fortune telling, attracted charlatans. Many of the yuta (though not all) are women, and some people tended to lump them together with prostitutes. The Okinawan newspapers occasionally campaigned for a crackdown on their activities, and the sketchy surviving records indicate a handful of them were in fact placed in detention for 20-day periods. Some hold that the small number of arrests was due to the deep-rooted popular belief in the tradition and the resultant lack of public support for the campaigns. But since most of the Okinawan newspapers from that period didn’t survive World War II, it isn’t possible to piece together a clear picture of what actually happened.

Nowadays, the yuta are usually part-timers who pursue other careers for a living. Most of the female practitioners have been married and divorced. They also offer advice on personal problems, including those related to romance and work. Another traditional practice in which they are involved is a sort of exorcism that drives away evil spirits three days after a person has died, for which they are paid.

They also hold annual festivals. The photograph here shows a group of yuta a week ago in Tatsugo-cho, Amami, Kagoshima holding one of those festivals on sacred ground. The group consists of 10 men and women from different parts of the Amami islands and Kagoshima. After first purifying themselves with ocean water, they offered prayers in accordance with an old ritual to summon a goddess from across the sea. The sacred ground on which they are standing is actually a large outcropping of rocks near the ocean, and those are eulalia leaves they are using in the ceremony.

After finishing here, they hiked to a small settlement at the top of a nearby mountain to offer rice, sake, fish, and other foods to the divinities.

Are the yuta the remnants of primitive superstition, or are they actually capable of doing some of the things it is said they can do? From a scientific perspective, experiments in Japan have found the right side of the brain of yuta in a trance to be much more active than normal. From an anecdotal perspective, here’s a brief account from someone who has consulted three yuta:

A yuta was able to divine things about my family ancestry, things that I hadn’t even told my wife, and explain that as the cause of my personal concerns. I was so impressed with the accuracy of the yuta’s reading that it led to my research and ultimately writing my novel.

“He who knows”? Maybe they do know something after all—and maybe that’s why they’re still around and active in the information age.

For the record

THIS PREVIOUS POST on the Japan’s ruling coalition contains a purported exchange between Fukushima Mizuho, the head of the junior partner Social Democrats, and Tahara Soichiro, host of the television program Asa Made (Until Morning). During the exchange, Ms. Fukushima insisted that police should let dangerous criminals escape rather than take any action that would cause injury when trying to apprehend them.

This excerpt is so easy to find on the Japanese-language turf of the Internet that some have described it as “famous”. Just this weekend, however, I discovered that the dialogue might be bogus, which would make it a Japanese urban legend. One blogger/author has been trying to find the original record of the program and cannot do so. Neither can the Asahi TV network, on which the program appeared.

It is perhaps Ms. Fukushima’s radical background, combined with a tendency to fire off comments that are intemperate, loopy, or both, that make it easy to believe she might have said something that dangerous and silly. But too many people are already involved in the nonsense of tarring others with fabricated quotes, so we don’t need to contribute to it here.

On the other hand, her exchange with then-Foreign Minister Nakasone and then-Defense Minister Hamada in the Diet about intercepting a North Korean missile cited in that same post is on the legit. She’s also been known to compare missile defense to hitting a bullet fired from a pistol with a bullet fired from another pistol.

Ms. Fukushima, the Minister of State for Consumer Affairs and Food Safety, Social Affairs, and Gender Equality, has also left a record in print about matters now under her jurisdiction. Specifically, she is responsible for government efforts to deal with Japan’s low birthrate, yet she is also opposed to the “family system”. For example, in her book Kekkon ha Bakuchi De Aru (Marriage is a Gamble), she writes:

“When a child turns 18, I think we should hold a ‘Family Liberation Ceremony’”.

In Fukushima Mizuho no Rakudai Kosodate Noto (Fukushima Mizuho’s Notes from Her Child-Rearing Failure), she adds:

“When children turn 18, I want to tell them, ‘Do as you please’. Start from scratch and think about how to live your own life without interference from anyone else 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. I want to do the same thing myself. In my case, I want to be liberated from having to make them meals and trying to come up with something for them to do on their days off. Banzai!”

In other words, the DPJ-led Government has put in charge of promoting the creation of families a person who dislikes parenthood and thinks children should be given the boot from the family circle as soon as it’s legally possible to do so.

Wait, it gets better.

On her Japanese language blog, she wrote the following on 3 April this year:

“Today’s social structure compels an environment that is heartless toward young people. They are thrown into a society in which the different safety nets have become withered, including government, the family, the community, and the company. Young people are being made to bear the burden when there is no (political) vision for what do after the economic crisis.”

So out of one side of her mouth she shouts a lusty Banzai for kicking the kids out the door at age 18, while out of the other she laments that the family has become weakened as a social safety net.

There’s nothing very mystifying or complicated about all this. Ms. Fukushima comes from the anti-life segment of the Left whose objective is to establish state control over all aspects of the citizens’ behavior, and to be one of those whose hands are on the levers of control. It doesn’t make any difference whether the issue is national defense, a low birthrate, or lichee import quotas. Politicians of a similar breed can be found throughout the West, and have even gained a temporary ascendancy in the United States. She, and they, will say or do anything as a temporary expedient to achieve that objective.

People are making up false quotes and attributing them to her? It’s unfair, but that’s been known to happen to people in the political arena who take stands that many dislike.

In the long run, however, it won’t make much difference. She has an extensive record of bona fide statements that are enough to legitimately brand her as a fringe thinker representing the negative fringe element.

The real problem is that Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio doesn’t see it that way.

Pot dog

HE MAY HAVE BEEN just a working stiff of a canine, but his bosses knew that Lusukasu never dogged it on the job. So, to commemorate his devotion to duty, officials at Nagasaki Customs held a retirement ceremony for the drug detector earlier this month. Instead of a gold watch, which the pooch has no use for, they gave Lusukasu a certificate of appreciation. He’s got no use for that either, but it’s a nice gesture and cheaper to boot.

Lusukasu and his co-workers

Lusukasu became a public servant in 2002 and was assigned to Moji Customs in Kitakyushu. In an unusual move for a dog in his line of work in Japan, he was transferred to Nagasaki in April this year. Was that due to an exceptional sense of smell and greater amounts of contraband being smuggled into the country at points further south? The report didn’t say.

He’s nine years old, which would make him about 60 in human years, or just about the right age for retirement. Plans call for the former narc to take it easy on the island of Amami. Said Hoshino Mitsuhiro, a self-employed businessman who will handle his care and feeding, “After his long years of service, we should let him relax on this southern island”.

Lusukasu’s big score came in April 2008, when he sniffed out 1.5 kilograms of cannabis in a package sent by mail from overseas.

Not to demean the accomplishments of an illustrious career, but he could have stumbled across more weed than that walking down the hall of my college dorm any night of the week!

Afterwords: Sorry for the posting delay. Had a problem with the modem, which threw my work schedule out of whack. It seems to be OK now.

Yankee come home

IT COMES AS NO SURPRISE that Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute–as isolationist as the rest of the Capital L Libertarians–would call for an end to the current military arrangements between Japan and the United States. But he is also perceptive enough to realize that:

America’s alliance with Japan — like most U.S. defense relationships — is outdated…Americans should support a transformation of the alliance…The current relationship remains trapped in a world that no longer exists.

Mr. Bandow therefore concludes:

There should be no more troops based on Japanese soil. No more military units tasked for Japan’s defense. No more security guarantee for Japan.

His suggestion that wealthy allies should foot the bill for their own defense makes sense. He includes South Korea and Europe as well as Japan in that category.

Japan has the world’s second (or third, based on purchasing power parity) largest economy, yet Tokyo remains dependent on America for its security, a minor military player despite having global economic and political interests.

And:

The Marine Expeditionary Force stationed on Okinawa is primarily intended to back up America’s commitment to South Korea. Yet, the South has some 40 times the GDP of North Korea. Seoul should take over responsibility for its own defense….Even more so the Europeans, who possess more than 10 times Russia’s GDP. If they don’t feel at risk, there’s no reason for an American defense guarantee. If they do feel at risk, there’s no reason for them not to do more — a lot more.

He also employs economic considerations in his argument:

The U.S. essentially is borrowing money from China for use to defend Japan from China.

Yet he seems oddly naive about the current state of affairs in East Asia. Another possibility is that he knows exactly what the story is, but his isolationist viewpoint means that he doesn’t care. For example:

There are historical reasons for Tokyo’s stunted international role, but it is time for East Asian countries to work together to dispel the remaining ghosts of Japan’s imperialist past rather than to expect America to continue acting as the defender of the last resort.

In addition to the historical reasons, there is also the messy business of a pacifist constitution that the United States largely wrote. And those remaining ghosts exist only because the governments of Japan’s East Asian neighbors periodically load their populations onto the carnival ride and drive them through the Haunted House again.

Those are also current relationships that remain trapped in a world that no longer exists.

Tokyo should spend whatever it believes to be necessary on its so-called “Self-Defense Force.” Better relations with China and reform in North Korea would lower that number. Japan should assess the risks and act accordingly.

Now he’s just playing games. Japan has bestowed enormous amounts of ODA on China over the years and assiduously built strong business and economic ties with the country. Tokyo hasn’t been a military threat to Beijing for decades. Meanwhile, if the Chinese have no intention of recreating their East Asian hegemony, they’re certainly doing a good imitation of it. Better relations with China depend on China–not new Japanese priorities.

And yes, reform in North Korea would lower that number, and if I hit it big on the winning number of the lottery, I could spend every winter in the Caribbean. Neither is likely to happen anytime soon.

The entire article, which has already appeared in the Korea Times, is here.

You decide!

No one from the private sector will accept the position as president of Japan Post (if President Nishikawa is forced out). After President Nishikawa steps down, it is very likely that his replacement will be either someone who was a career bureaucrat, or someone from the private sector who will compromise with the bureaucracy
- Takenaka Heizo, in the September issue of Voice

THERE WERE SEVERAL REASONS why it was important to privatize Japan Post. First, there is no need for the government of an advanced, developed nation to operate a banking system, an insurance system, and a postal system, much less in competition with that nation’s private sector.

In addition, the funds in the banking and insurance system were controlled by Japan’s Finance Ministry, the bureaucratic entity most likely to arrogate a political role for itself. By law, these funds can only be invested in government bonds. Those investments were the lifeblood of the Iron Triangle of big business, bureaucracy, and government (i.e., the Diet) that ran Japan Inc. That was the source of funds for all the corruption and the Bridges to Nowhere.

The privatization of Japan Post was the most important such step since the Japan National Railway was broken up into regional private sector companies during the Nakasone Administration. Former Prime Minister Koizumi Jun’ichiro dissolved the lower house of the Diet and held a special election specifically to take this issue to the people in 2005. The result was the second-largest majority for the governing party in postwar history. In fact, it was a supermajority that allowed the Government to override any defeats in the upper house. Mr. Koizumi’s support when he left office stood at 70%.

The terminally clueless mudboat wing of his party squandered this advantage, however, and in the following election, in August this year, the opposition DPJ nearly reversed those numbers in the lower house. It was clear that the electorate rejected the LDP because it had turned its back on reforms and minimizing the political influence of the bureaucracy. They wanted the DPJ to continue those reforms.

After little more than a month in office, we can now take it as given that the DPJ is, from several perspectives, a party of charlatans. While some members are just as earnest in their desire for reform as the Koizumians, the party itself is controlled by people for whom power is the real objective. Policy is just something that can be replastered to suit the times, in the words of their political puppeteer Ozawa Ichiro.

The intent of the DPJ has been obvious ever since they formed an alliance with the People’s New Party, which consists solely of reactionaries whose only objective was to reverse Japan Post’s privatization.

Any remaining credibility the DPJ had as serious reformers ended yesterday when Saito Jiro was appointed the new head of Japan Post. As Mr. Takenaka predicted, his background is in the bureaucracy. But not just any ministry—it was the Finance Ministry itself, the Big Swinging Dick of Kasumigaseki. And he was not just any bureaucrat. The Asahi referred to him as “the Don of the bureaucratic alumni”. Mr. Saito once held the position of administrative vice-minister of the Finance Ministry.

That was the same position once held by Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio’s father, Iichiro.

Mr. Saito comes with the added advantage of having had close ties to Ozawa Ichiro since the latter last pulled the strings of the Hosokawa Administration 15 years ago. He was selected by PNP head Kamei Shizuka, who, like all men of low cunning, seems to have been too clever by half.

If nothing else, the selection will give the new government an early lesson in damage control—if it survives the damage. Japanese author, university professor, commentator, and blogger Ikeda Nobuo thinks it’s possible the Cabinet might fall before the Diet is convened, but of course that remains to be seen. A Google news search in Japanese shows there are already more than 500 articles on Mr. Saito’s selection. Every major Japanese newspaper has slammed the pick.

Prime Minister Hatoyama thought it was wonderful, however. He said:

“It’s a very good (selection). A very interesting personnel (choice).”

He seems not to have been intentionally ironical.

Mr. Hatoyama also defended the choice by saying that Mr. Saito had left the bureaucracy 14 years ago. He did not, however, refer to his party’s opposition to Muto Toshiro as the head of the Bank of Japan because of his ties to the Finance Ministry. Mr. Muto had left the bureaucracy only eight years before that.

Referring to that apparent contradiction, Chief Cabinet Minister Hirano Hirofumi said:

“I think any comparison between the two is a little different.”

When pressed by reporters to explain why, he answered,

“I think it’s different. That’s my awareness.”

Fukushima Mizuho, the head of the Social Democratic Party of Japan, a coalition partner, said:

“It was a compromise choice. Rather than whether he was a former bureaucrat, I think they emphasized policy”.

Everyone listening to this statement knew that Ms. Fukushima would have wet her pants in public had the LDP made the same selection.

As usual, the most penetrating observation came from Takenaka Heizo, the man who was more responsible than any for launching Japan Post on the road to full privatization:

(The Hatoyama Cabinet) says it wants to eradicate amakudari (cushy post-retirement jobs in government for retired senior civil servants), but in truth, this is just watari (the repeated hiring of former bureaucrats) under the leadership of the politicians…The idea that they are disassociating themselves from a reliance on the bureaucracy is a falsehood…It is the de facto renationalization of Japan Post”

You get the idea.

I could go on, but as it turns out, I’m going to be away for the weekend and won’t be back until Monday.

Until then, you can take part in the first Ampontan poll, which is shown below. Don’t hesitate to get clicky and make your voice heard. Every vote counts!

See you next week!