Just deserts

Upon a pillory – that al the world may see / A just desert for such impiety.

- Warning Faire Women (1599)

IF it were possible to bestow a person with a medal for services rendered to society, pin the medal to his chest, cover his eyes with a blindfold, stick a final cigarette in his mouth, and stand him against a wall to be executed by firing squad, Public Enemy/Hero #1 would be Julian “Wikileaks” Assange. While his behavior is undoubtedly execrable by any standard, we are also undoubtedly better off for knowing some of the information he was responsible for revealing. Much that information demonstrates the contempt the international political oligarchy has for the people they rule. Some of that information involves the Japan-U.S. security alliance.

Recall that in the summer of 2009, Hatoyama Yukio and the Democratic Party of Japan made the specific promise during their lower house election campaign to tear up the agreement with the Americans and move the Marine air base at Futenma in Okinawa outside of the prefecture “at a minimum”, and ideally outside the country altogether. Negotiations for dealing with the base began after Marines raped a schoolgirl near there in 1995.

To briefly recapitulate: The United States governed Okinawa from 1945 to 1972, even though the Allied occupation ended in 1952. It took 20 more years for the Americans to give Okinawa back.

Cross my heart and hope to die!

It would be entertaining to hear someone deny the argument that they still occupy it. The Ryukyus account for 0.6% of Japan’s land area, but host 75% of American military facilities in the country. Those bases occupy 18% of Okinawa’s land area. Roughly 70% of the people on the country’s four main islands support the military alliance with the United States, compared to only 10% of the Okinawans. (A higher percentage is willing to put up with it for the economic benefits.) More than 50% of Okinawans think the unwillingness of the rest of the country to either reduce their burden or accept American military facilities themselves is a form of discrimination. That makes it the ultimate manifestation in Japan of the Not In My Back Yard phenomenon.

The American military is stationed in the country for Japan’s “defense”, but Futenma is a Marine air base. Marines attack; they don’t defend.

When negotiations began with the Clinton Administration, there was an American promise to return Futenma to Japan (who built the first air base there during the war) in five to seven years. That somehow morphed into a project to build a new airbase in northern Okinawa.

There are four directly elected lower house seats in Okinawa Prefecture. Before the election, two seats were held by the then-ruling LDP, one by the Social Democrats, and one by the People’s New Party. Buoyed by the anti-LDP sentiment nationwide, the Aso government’s use of the Koizumian two-thirds lower house majority to push through the Guam Transfer Agreement, and the DPJ promise to move Futenma, the DPJ snatched those two LDP seats in the 2009 election. They didn’t run any candidates in the other two districts; the incumbents were members of parties that were part of their alliance and which joined the ruling coalition.

Several things became apparent within days after Mr. Hatoyama took office. Among them were that he had no idea what he was doing, neither he nor his party could be trusted to keep any of their campaign promises, and he had no business holding any executive position whatsoever, much less the prime minister of Japan at a turning point in the country’s political and governmental history.

To telescope a long story, two months after he opened the fall session of the Diet with a speech at the end of October 2009, he couldn’t keep his own story straight about his government’s plans for the Futenma base or their negotiations with the Americans. Statements made in the morning became inoperative before the end of the day. He would decide before the end of the year and then he put it off until May. He famously asked Barack Obama to trust him, and people wondered what it was he could be trusted to do. By early January, the Japanese media already assumed that his days as prime minister were numbered. His support numbers were in free fall after he had squandered both his honeymoon period and one of the most golden of opportunities ever available to a new government and its leader.

By May 2010, Mr. Hatoyama confirmed what had been obvious since the beginning of the year when he announced that Futenma would stay in Okinawa as originally planned. He traveled to Okinawa himself to apologize to the governor:

“I tried to do different things, but I came face to face with the difficulty of the actual problem of (moving) everything outside the prefecture.”

Mr. Hatoyama resigned at the end of the month after one of the shortest terms and with one of the lowest support ratings in postwar Japanese history.

The Beans are Spilled

One year ago this month, Wikileaks released American governmental cables sent from Japan to the U.S. about the Futenma discussions. They didn’t generate much comment, even in the English-language media, because the focus of Japan-related news was still the Tohoku disaster of two months before.

That information made Mr. Hatoyama and his government look even worse, as difficult as it is to imagine. Try this account from the Economist:

LESS than a month after a new government took office in Japan in September 2009, American officials talked their Japanese counterparts through a longstanding frustration: stalled plans to build a new airbase for American marines on the southern island of Okinawa. According to confidential minutes of the meeting sent to Washington, DC by the American embassy in Tokyo, leaked by WikiLeaks, Kurt Campbell, an assistant secretary of state, said a new airstrip was necessary because of China’s growing military strength. But that could not be discussed publicly, “for obvious reasons”.

A few months later Mr Campbell went further, according to another cable. Because of potential threats from North Korea, China and elsewhere, America and Japan faced “the most challenging security environment” in 50 years. However, he said the messages to the public often glossed over that reality. Presumably that too was to avoid offending China, even though it would have helped Okinawans to understand why the new facility is deemed so important.

And:

The WikiLeaks cables show that the number of marines and their dependents slated for removal to Guam has been inflated in order to soften opposition. (The 2009) agreement mentions the removal of about 8,000 marines and 9,000 dependents. But an American embassy cable in 2009 says that when the plan was formulated in 2006, “both the 8,000 and 9,000 numbers were deliberately maximised to optimise political value in Japan.” Okinawa officials suspect that the number of Guam-bound marines may be as few as 3,000—if they go at all.

When it came to power in 2009, the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, which had opposed the relocation plan in opposition, came under intense pressure from Washington to push ahead with it. American officials urged the new government not to discuss alternatives in public, warning of a strong American reaction if it did, according to WikiLeaks.

The Eurasia Review Newsletter provided more details in an article by Rajaram Panda. ERN deserves a milder form of the treatment appropriate for Assange: They should be commended for presenting additional information and then kicked in their backsides for entrusting the article to Mr. Panda, who combines a tendency to exaggerate with an ignorance of Japanese politics remarkable even for non-Japanese who write about the country.

The article begins:

In a startling revelation, the US cables posted on the whistleblower website WikiLeaks said that, in 2009, the US had warned the then Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio about Japan’s wavering policies on bilateral ties.

It doesn’t take them long to screw it up:

When Hatoyama took office in September 2009, Japanese people believed that he was a sincere but helpless politician who was unable to fight the influence of the US.

Not one word after the comma in that sentence is true. No one knew how he would deal with American influence, and he gave every indication beforehand that he intended to create some distance in bilateral relations. While it is true that some view him as sincere, it is also true that they view as childishly naive the few policies he’s sincere about.

The revealed documents now show that Hatoyama and the DPJ had lied to the Japanese people during the 2009 election campaign. The DPJ and the Japanese government officials were never committed to relocating the US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma outside of Okinawa Prefecture, as the revealed documents indicate.

That’s true, but only in an interpretative sense. The American arm twisting of the DPJ does not seem to have begun until after the election.

Between 2009 and early 2010, Hatoyama and his officials conveyed to their US counterparts that Japan would seek alternatives to the 2006 Agreement to relocate Futenma to the Henoko district of Nago in Okinawa Prefecture. However, in a secret pact, they said that Japan will honour the 2006 Agreement if the US rejected the proposed alternative.

The Obama administration knew early on that the Hatoyama administration would go along with the 2006 Agreement as long as the US continued to reject any alternative. Hatoyama had secretly said this to the US six months before he decided to break his promise to the people to relocate the base outside Okinawa.

Six months before he announced that he broke his promise was in December 2009, post-election and post-arm twisting.

The US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific affairs, Kurt Campbell, complained in October 2009 that Hatoyama told his Chinese and South Korean counterparts in Beijing that Japan depended on the US too much. Campbell told Japanese Parliamentary Defence Secretary Akihisa Nagashima that such remarks “would create a crisis in US-Japan relations… Imagine the Japanese response if the US government were to say publicly that it wished to devote more attention to China than Japan.”

We don’t have to imagine the Japanese response, because we know what it is — official sycophancy. The U.S. government has been devoting more attention to China than Japan without saying it publicly for the past two decades.

Now they don’t bother to hide it. This week the U.S. government allowed China the exclusive privilege of purchasing U.S. debt directly from the Treasury, without having to buy the bonds through Wall Street brokers and pay their commissions. The Chinese are now the leading American debt underwriters. Japan formerly starred in the role of Number One Sponge and still buys nearly the same amount as China, but they’ve never gotten the star treatment.

As Mark Steyn frequently points out, the Americans will be paying enough interest on the debt held by China to finance the annual outlays for the People’s Liberation Army by 2016. Meanwhile, Japan pays far and away the highest vigorish of any overseas country to support American troops stationed on its territory. This is justified in part by the need to defend Japan from China.

Finally, a contemporary use of the word “bizarre” that isn’t hyperbole.

But that’s unless the Chinese are actually unloading on the secondary market what they buy from the Treasury to satisfy their desire to get out of US debt and into gold while satisfying US demands to buy more of its debt. (There’s another interesting Wikileak in there, too.)

The Japanese people now feel that Hatoyama’s US policy was fraught with duplicity and backroom deals. Being the Land Minister, Maehara was dabbling with foreign affairs and was playing a crucial role in handling Japan’s US policy.

He’s speaking here of Maehara Seiji, who was involved with the discussions. Mr. Panda thinks that Mr. Maehara’s participation was due to his connections with the American government, and were improper because he was the Minister of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport. He is not aware that Maehara Seiji held another Cabinet portfolio at the time — Minister of State for Okinawa and the Northern Territories. It was his business to be involved.

In other words, Mr. Panda doesn’t know the A of the ABCs of Japanese politics/government.

The Obama administration was aware that there was a section of politicians in Japan who sought distance from Washington. Even many Japanese people started to view Japan’s policies as being dictated by the US and described their own country as “America’s baby”. In particular, right-wing nationalists vouched for reducing reliance on the US and argued that Japan must not be afraid to take a confrontational position in foreign policy.

“Started to view”? That view started among many Japanese people on 16 August 1945. And if there is a certified demonstration of lazy thinking/no thinking/no real experience among people writing about Japan, it is their wishful thinking about the effect on modern politics of “right-wing nationalists”, whatever either of those debased terms mean nowadays. The psychopundits either overlook or never saw that the same arguments attributed to those unenlightened and unintelligent dregs of society have been made even more stridently by the left-wing internationalists in Japan. The leading figures of the Democratic Party government are among the country’s most well-known left-wing internationalists.

The Obama administration is believed to be instrumental in Hatoyama’s ouster from office because of the latter’s inept handling of the Futenma base relocation issue.

Not in the US and Japan of Planet Earth. Last rites were already being prepared for Hatoyama Yukio a few months after he took office, for a galaxy of reasons. Futenma was the coup de grace. People are not without their suspicions about American string-pulling in the Japanese government, but the Democratic Party did not want to go into the July 2010 upper house elections led by a man whose support ratings were maxing out at 19% in the polls.

The inept handling of the Futenma base relocation issue? Mr. Hatoyama broke his pre-election promises — which of course the U.S. knew about — to do what the United States wanted to do. This doesn’t make much sense.

Besides, Campbell complained in October 2009 about Hatoyama’s policy towards China and South Korea. At the Nuclear Summit in April 2010 held at Washington, Obama snubbed Hatoyama and weeks later Hatoyama resigned and was replaced by the more US acceptable Kan Naoto. Kan immediately confirmed that the Futenma base issue would proceed according to the US desire. No wonder, when the leaks surfaced, he declined to comment and said that the announcement of information was “not legitimate”.

Kan Naoto is one of the leading left-wing internationalists of the DPJ, though he is also known as a trimmer most interested in power. Japanese arms were almost certainly twisted to cause the DPJ to cry uncle, but the crying had already happened before Mr. Kan’s turn arrived. As deputy prime minister, he had a ringside seat.

It is too soon to assess how the public will digest the dishonesty of the DPJ and how the Japanese government succumbed to the US pressure to follow its line of thinking. The opposition is likely to mount a campaign again calling for Kan’s resignation. Maehara was seen as an agent of the US and the Japanese people are unlikely to forgive him.

It will always be too soon for Mr. Panda to offer analysis about Japan. None of this happened. The opposition mounted a campaign calling for Kan’s resignation, but none of the many compelling reasons had anything to do with the United States. Mr. Maehara has been relegated to the sidelines, not because he was seen as an “agent of the US”, but because he’s viewed as an opportunistic lightweight with an unexplained affinity for North Korea.

Japan-US ties are too complex and its real value cannot be evaluated from this single incident.

Nor can they be evaluated by a drive-by observer lacking field-specific knowledge. The only solution for dealing with people such as Mr. Panda is to persecute them to the fullest extent of the Internet Law of the Jungle.

Finally, here’s how the Ryukyu Shimpo, an Okinawan newspaper, handled with the revelations:

According to U.S. official telegrams disclosed by WikiLeaks, while the DPJ administration was seeking the relocation outside of Okinawa Prefecture of the U.S. Marine Corps now based at Futenma, a staff member of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan suggested to United States government officials that they should not compromise on the Futenma relocation plan. The cable indicates that both governments inflated the numbers involved in U.S. Marine Forces Transfer Plan from Okinawa to Guam. The Roadmap for Realignment Implementation agreed to by both governments in the spring of 2006 states that 8000 Marine Corps personnel and 9000 dependents would move to Guam, but leaked telegrams indicate that these numbers were inflated to optimize their political value.

And:

The cables also include an example of a Japanese career bureaucrat recommending to United States officials that they stay on course with the Roadmap for Futenma relocation after the regime change to the Democratic Party of Japan. At an unofficial lunch meeting October 12, 2009, Director General of Bureau of Defense Policy Shigenobu Takamizawa is reported as warning the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt M. Campbell “against premature demonstration of flexibility in adjusting the realignment package.” The cables also reported that a counselor in charge of political affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan made the basically the same remark to his counterpart of the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo. The cables therefore indicate that career bureaucrats moved to prevent the Hatoyama administration from seeking the relocation of the facilities at Futenma outside of Okinawa.

This is more evidence, by the way, that the Japanese bureaucracy considers itself to be the permanent ruling class of Japan. That exonerates neither Mr. Hatoyama nor the DPJ, however. Another of their campaign promises was to bring the bureaucracy under control, and they have the authority to do so if they choose to use it. But enjoying the perquisites of political status is more attractive than exercising that authority and touching off a de facto civil war that few of them have the ability to contest.

Diplomatic cables from this period show that despite the DPJ’s formal efforts to find a new candidate site for Futenma, the United States from an early stage thought the Hatoyama administration would go along with the 2006 agreement as long as the United States continued to reject any alternatives.

On Dec. 10, the U.S. Embassy inTokyo dispatched a cable that was classified “secret” and for American eyes only.

The cable said, “Five DPJ Cabinet members (Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano, Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada, Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa and Maehara) met on the evening of December 8 and agreed that they could not accept moving forward with the Futenma Relocation Facility (FRF) because of opposition from the DPJ’s coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party.”

According to the document, Maehara explained to Roos that Japan would seek a number of alternatives that might be acceptable to both the United States and the Okinawa people.

But the cable shows that Maehara also said, “If the U.S. does not agree to any alternative to the existing FRF plan, the DPJ would be prepared to go ahead with the current relocation plan and let the coalition break up if necessary after Golden Week (April 29 to May 5 in 2010).”

Thank you, Julian Assange.

But there’s more:

On Dec. 21, 2009, then Vice Foreign Minister Mitoji Yabunaka had a lunch meeting with (US Ambassador) Roos. Their discussion was included in a cable classified as “secret.”

Yabunaka referred to the Dec. 17 meeting in Copenhagen between Hatoyama and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The cable has Yabunaka saying, “Prime Minister Hatoyama confirmed to the secretary in Copenhagen that if the (Japan) review of the FRF alternatives to Henoko did not yield viable proposals, (Japan) would return to the 2006 FRF agreement.”

Immediately after his meeting with Clinton, Hatoyama told reporters accompanying him: “It would be very dangerous to force through (the 2006 agreement). We have begun efforts to think about new alternatives.”

However, the cable has Yabunaka referring to those media reports as “inaccurate.”

And:

On Jan. 26, then Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Yorihisa Matsuno met with embassy officials. A cable classified as “confidential” and titled, “Hatoyama confidante on Futenma, Nago election,” described Matsuno as “Hinting at current Kantei (Prime Minister’s Office) thinking.”

Matsuno is further quoted as saying, “Hatoyama and the Okinawa Working Group will have to consider ‘for form’s sake’ Futenma options outside of Okinawa, but the only realistic options are to move Futenma to Camp Schwab or another ‘existing facility.’”

The cable also has Matsuno saying, “The Camp Schwab landfill option was ‘dead.’”

Turning over a New Loop

A flood of media features timed for the 40th anniversary of the reversion of Okinawa to Japan and the related events washed over news media consumers last week. Hatoyama Yukio went back to Okinawa for the first time since he dined on crow with the Okinawa governor in May 2010, and delivered a speech at a Ginowan hotel.

Here’s how he started the speech:

“I love all Okinawans.”

You’re such a lovely audience!

He continued by whining:

“I wanted to let some air into the (base) issue. I wanted to make some progress during my time in office, somehow.”

Before he appalled the nation:

“I have not been able now to satisfy the emotion of “outside the prefecture, at a minimum”. I can clearly state that one who has not satisfied that emotion does not fully understand the emotions of everyone in Okinawa. I intend to have that belief always.”

Everyone in Japan knew what he meant despite the vacuum-packed circumlocution and euphemism. All the headlines in the print media trumpeted the Hatoyama claim that he still supported moving the base outside the prefecture.

There was remarkably little anger, incidentally. People long ago realized he’s an eternal adolescent (most closely resembling a junior high school girl) with too little sense and too much money who had no business becoming prime minister. They intend to have that belief always.

One of his excuses was that he wasn’t able to do devote all his attention to the issue because he was too busy putting together a budget, despite having thousands of subordinates at his disposal. Nobody believed that, either, coming as it did from a man who preferred to attend galas with his trophy wife, the royalty of showbiz, and the Imperial household rather than attend to the business of government.

There was also the usual externalization of the internal fog:

“My thinking got too far ahead of itself, and I wasn’t able to fully convince many people.

“When I think about it, I wonder if it was an unreasonable course. When I think about it now, that’s what I think.”

Nonaka Hiromu, the chief cabinet secretary under LDP Prime Minister Obuchi Keizo in 2000, attended the same event as Mr. Hatoyama. When it was his turn to speak, he looked directly at the former prime minister and said:

“Men are supposed to have a sense of shame. Did you come so casually to Okinawa to dishonor (literally, hurl mud at) the Okinawans?”

Later interviewed by the Ryukyu Shimpo, he added:

“A person who stands on the dais and dishonors the Okinawans makes my blood boil (literally, steams my guts).”

Mr. Hatoyama was his oblivious self when he too was interviewed by the Ryukyu Shimpo the next day:

“It was natural to raise the issue of moving the base outside the prefecture.”

By this time he had found a new excuse:

“The Defense and Foreign Ministry bureaucracy struggled to decide how to return the base to Henoko (in line with the pre-existing agreement). They introduced the logic through the Americans that it would be inappropriate to take the base outside the prefecture, and only Henoko was acceptable.”

He’s confirming the Wikileaks revelations about Messrs. Takamizawa and Yabunaka above, and indirectly contradicting Mr. Kan’s denial. All he had to do to end the malarkey was put his foot down, but there wasn’t enough time to put him through a series of testosterone injections.

*****

After His Majesty’s Firing Squad in the Kingdom of Just Deserts dispatches Assange, it will be the turn of Hatoyama Yukio to stand blindfolded against the wall for his high political crimes and misdemeanors. Pinned to his lapel will be a medal for the service he rendered his country by using his mother’s money to buy the party that ended single-party rule in Japan.

*****

Meanwhile:

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 51% of Likely U.S. Voters now believe the United States should remove all its troops from Western Europe and let the Europeans defend themselves. Only 29% disagree, but another 20% are undecided.

That number will probably continue to grow and extend to Asia, if it already doesn’t.

*****

Mr. Hatoyama isn’t the only one who wanted to go back to Okinawa. I’ll bet the other guys had more fun, though.

Hashimoto Toru (4): Twitter as a weapon

THE politicians with the greatest impact on their societies are those who understand how to breach the clamorous electronic thicket and speak directly to John Q. Public, both individually and en masse at the same time. They are the ones who part the waves in the carp- and shark-filled waters where they swim, and convert those creatures from predators into remora.

What you are about to read is an example of how Osaka Mayor Hashimoto Toru speaks directly to the Japanese public: Through an almost daily fusillade of messages on Twitter. That doesn’t seem possible, effective, or even interesting in theory, but in practice there are several sparks of genius and creativity to it. It’s much easier to be a Twitter follower than to actively follow a blog. The messages are compact and quickly conveyed. It’s the difference between being given a small confection as you pass through a room instead of seeking out a bakery and buying your own. Each of Mr. Hashimoto’s Tweets is like a pearl on a string; they’re one segment of a larger daily theme that includes two or three topics. They stimulate the desire to read the next, as if one were following a newspaper serial. They can be consumed individually on their own, but the overall structure of a greater narrative appears when they’re read in digest form.

The more you read, the more remarkable it becomes. He’s turned a medium of the trivial and ephemeral into a weapon. He clearly writes the messages himself, and the content of the messages themselves is always clear. This is not focus group-tested oatmeal, or the ersatz inspirational rhetoric framed by Styrofoam Greek columns that is the political equivalent of paintings on velvet. Whether he is speaking of his theory of government or kidney-punching a critic — which sometimes happens in the same Tweet — it is always frank, direct, and infused with a sense of practicality. Opponents won’t have to dig through the records to find words that can be used against him, but he’s transcended that process and rendered it irrelevant. Everybody already knows where he stands.

Since January, he has been the most followed person on Twitter Japan.

Here is a translation of a single day’s output in February. I’ll let the narrative speak for itself and unfold as it did that day, complete with time stamps. To briefly explain to those unfamiliar with the terms used in discussions about government in Japan, “community” here is 共同体, or a community in a broad sense. It can also mean collective or colony, as in an artist’s colony. The term “basic self-governing unit” is also a common term and point of discussion, and refers to a municipality.

*****
Our opinions are sometimes in opposition, but discussions on the telephone resolve them. People often meet face to face as part of One Osaka activities, and we talk and work out our differences then. When I was governor (of Osaka), a prefecture employee told me, “It requires two years of preparation for the Osaka governor and the Osaka mayor to meet.” That is the reality of the prefecture and the city.

posted at 02:07:49

Greenhorn scholars who know nothing of these circumstances continue to say they don’t understand the meaning of the Osaka Metro District concept. Why not just have meetings, is the intellectuals’ comment. No matter who the governor and mayor are, it is extremely difficult to reach an agreement that transcends competing interests between individual independent organizations with authority. That is the reality.

posted at 02:09:56

Osaka Prefecture and the city of Osaka now have a governor and mayor from the same political group. That enables judgments transcending the opposing interests of the prefecture and city. But situations such as these are extremely rare. That’s why the Osaka Metro District concept would create a system of regional government that incorporates greater Osaka and prevents the incompatibility of competing interests.

posted at 02:13:14

Today Governor Matsui and I talked about various things while having some oden. There probably won’t be another governor-mayor relationship like this again. That’s why it’s necessary now to systematize the relationship between the prefecture and the city. Putting that aside, a (newspaper) article has appeared which symbolizes how college professors are dreaming lambs surrounded by fantasy, who never accomplish anything.

posted at 02:15:48

There’s the college professor named Uchida Tatsuru or something. In the Yomiuri Shimbun on the 9th, he says we must aim for communities of a realistic size. He says my Osaka Metro District concept is a growth path behind the times. Then he says the urban model for the 21st century should be something like his aikido dojo with about 150 people.

posted at 02:18:24

This honorable gentleman (N.B.: 御仁, with deliberate sarcasm) cannot distinguish between the communities that create the sustenance for the citizens’ survival and other groupings. There’s no way that 120 million people can eat with just an aikido dojo (structure). The only community that can support an economy to maintain a mature country is regional government. A community whose axis is the mutual support of the residents is the basic self-governing unit.

posted at 02:26:44

Broadly speaking, there are two communities. There is the nation-state, which encompasses all of them. Mr. Uchida completely mixes up regional governments with basic self-governing units. Why does a scholar present such a childish argument? It’s because he only thinks and has never done anything. Mr. Uchida talks about an idealistic theory, and says the basic principle is to provide for every member.

posted at 02:29:02

Then he says I would write off society’s weak and its losers. What is the man talking about? When Mr. Uchida was the special advisor to former Mayor Hiramatsu (Mr. Hashimoto’s predecessor), he seems to have held something like symposiums. But if you ask what concrete policies he implemented, the answer is none. I’m uncomfortable blowing my own horn, but I established a system in which students can attend even private high schools for free.

posted at 02:30:57

As of last year, 4,000 children who had no money and once could only choose public high schools have flowed into private schools. That flow is expected to increase this year. Since I became mayor, I have begun work to implement programs to expand financial assistance for health care expenditures to third-year junior high school students, and to make prenatal checkups free. It’s been hard finding the funding.

posted at 02:33:53

As for how Mr. Uchida has provided for every member, and what sort of policies he’s implemented, he’s one of those scholars who completely leaves that part out. If a person would think of how to provide for the people of the prefecture and implement a policy in this Osaka, it would collide with the necessity to create a unified regional government of the prefecture and city.

posted at 02:35:22

If you would implement an economic policy in the city of Osaka, you run into the wall of the prefectural government and City Hall. But former Mayor Hiramatsu only did about the work of a ward chief. His special advisor was Mr. Uchida, who insists on a community of realistic size with absolutely no understanding of regional government. How will the people of the prefecture eat?

posted at 02:37:34

Apart from the community that creates the means for people to survive, in other words, a regional government…the axis in the community that supports the daily lives of the people, in other words, the basic self-government unit, is the mutual support of the people. Well, that would probably work at the aikido dojo of 150 people he talks about. There is an appropriate size for this basic self-government unit.

posted at 02:40:30

It is the size in which the mayor and city offices can be in close communication with the residents. That is the life of basic self-government units. Now, I’m the mayor of Osaka with 2,600,000 people, and it isn’t possible to be in close communication with the residents. That’s why it has to be divided into an appropriate size (i.e., breaking up the city/prefecture into self-governing wards). When Mr. Uchida was a special advisor, he didn’t accomplish anything, did he?

posted at 02:42:01

Mr. Uchida declares that a narrative linking the community is indispensable. Well, wouldn’t that have been good to do when he was a special advisor? People have to work to eat. The communities of units for working for a living, and the communities of units of self-support…in today’s Japan, there is no arrangement of the communities at all. The centralized authorities and the nation as a whole are just a rough estimate of a community.

posted at 02:44:45

Then in the Mainichi Shimbun on the 12th, he says the image of the leader sought is a paternal type leader. Here we go again with the dreaming lamb. How do we select a leader like that? There are only elections, aren’t there? Well, what is the distance between the leader and his connection with the voters? If you’re talking about having a close connection between the mayor and the people in a city of 2,600,000, it’s not happening.

posted at 02:47:52

It’s not possible, and it’s not possible to have the relationship between a leader and the residents in a community whose axis is mutual support. That’s why the size of the community is important. Can the leader and the residents achieve the father-child relationship of which Mr. Uchida speaks? That’s a conversation for the basic self-governing units. The size limit is probably 300-400,000 people.

posted at 02:49:55

In the Yomiuri Shimbun, Mr. Uchida tells us not to think about government units by size, and in the Mainichi Shimbun, he argues that the relationship between the residents and the leader should be that of father and child. He is the symbol of a person immersed in fantasy. You have to create a governmental unit in which the residents and the leader can create a father-child relationship. It’s not possible for that type of leader to emerge by leaving a local government on its own.

posted at 02:52:24

Mr. Uchida is not aware that governmental units are artificial to start with. Of course something artificially created can be artificially reworked. Mr. Uchida would probably want to roughly maintain the status quo. The leaders of communities can also be broadly divided into two types.

posted at 02:55:46

There is the paternal leader of the basic self-governing unit of which Mr. Uchida speaks, whose axis is human communication. Then there is the corporate executive-type of leader who provides sustenance to the residents, but has little human relationship with the residents. That is the leader of a regional government. The appropriate relationship between the residents and the leader will be determined by the type of administrative unit and its size.

posted at 02:57:28

There is no organization of Japan’s communities today, and that’s why the relationship between the residents/voters and the leaders is not suitable. Therefore, leaders cannot demonstrate leadership. (The) first (step is to) change the mechanisms. Rearrange the communities. Artificially created communities should be artificially reworked. That is the Osaka Metro District concept.

posted at 03:00:08

This is what I sensed by actually conducting the affairs of government. I understood that by serving as a governor, the head of a regional government, and as the mayor of a “specially designated city”, which combines (the functions) of a regional government and a basic self-governing body. A scholar who doesn’t do anything would never understand this. Mr. Uchida was originally a special advisor to former Mayor Hiramatsu. Do at least one thing before you start mouthing off!

posted at 03:02:32

Mr. Uchida rejects the idea of a businessman-type leader as the leader of a community. He has no awareness of the nature of a community, because he’s never done any real work. It isn’t the case that a businessman type can’t function as the leader of a regional government. How about taking a field trip for a day and watch the Osaka mayor and governor at work? The leader of a basic self-governing body is paternal.

posted at 07:35:01

There’s a sloppiness to this aspect of Japan today. Also, Mr. Uchida laments that Japanese organizations are dysfunctional; we have to provide authority and responsibility to leaders. That is the reorganization of population-based organizations itself. The city of Osaka has become a governing mechanism in which paternal leaders cannot arise. That’s why we’ll make the city of Osaka into a suitable basic self-governing body. (N.B.: An aggregation of them)

posted at 07:37:09

We will rework the communit(ies) so that paternal leaders can arise in the city of Osaka. This must be done artificially, through such means as transferring authority. The first step is the solicitation of ward heads. Ward head reform. Transferring authority from the mayor to ward heads. This will cause 24 paternal leaders to be created in the city of Osaka. We will eliminate the role of the mayor of Osaka. The ward head council, the first step toward that, starts today.

posted at 07:39:00

It would have been good if Mr. Uchida had put into practice any idea that would create paternal leaders in the city of Osaka when he was a special advisor. But scholars don’t do anything. They just complain. It is truly a frivolous, irresponsible business.

(end translation)
*****
* Remember, he does this almost every day.

* The terms paternalism and nanny-state are seldom used in Japanese political discourse. Whether Mr. Hashimoto actually believes that basic self-governing units should be paternal, or whether he is deliberately turning Prof. Uchida’s words against him, I’m not sure.

* Uchida Tatsuru is described on Japanese Wikipedia as a “thinker, martial artist, translator, and professor emeritus at Kobe College”. He’s a Tokyo University grad who is an “intellectual liberal” and thinks Article 9 of the Constitution should be maintained, though he admits the legitimacy of self defense. They say that even though he is regarded as a left-winger, he has “conservative aspects”. They are referring to his “criticism of Marxism (not a criticism of Marx), his criticism of the student movement, and his criticism of feminist ideology (not a criticism of feminism)”.

Brings new insight into the terms “liberal” and “conservative”, doesn’t it?

* It’s easy to see why he isn’t the candidate of the suit and tie and sober discussion crowd.

* The anti-intellectual jabs might be due in part to his academic background. He struggled to get into the university he wanted to attend, and studied on his own in Spartan conditions for a year after high school to pass the test to Waseda, which has an excellent academic reputation. He passed the difficult Japanese bar examination two years after he was graduated from university, and opened his own law office two years after that. He practiced civil rather than criminal law.

Undemocratic democrats

The Democratic Party of Japan had been holding meetings since mid-March to reach an internal consensus for a proposal to raise the consumption tax that their government could send to the Diet. Because the party consists of incompatible elements to start with, and there is strong opposition within the party to a tax increase, their consensus-building effort ended in failure. With the DPJ, it always ends in failure for major issues.

The leadership’s solution was to tell the dissenters to shut up and go home.

Most of the dissenters are aligned with Ozawa Ichiro, which means everyone knows they could flounce out of the party tomorrow, and no one knows how many actually would. It would be impossible to remain in power if they bolted, however, so the elements controlling the party contort themselves into asanas to prevent that, though most of them can’t stand Mr. Ozawa personally.

Therefore, they made some changes to the bill (which will be debated further in the Diet) to try to create a consensus, and suggested others.

The most ominous is that party leaders offered to eliminate the clause to continue raising the consumption tax beyond 10%. That means the national pols and the bureaucrats have a blueprint for feeding a big government, administrative state that they aren’t telling the public about, that the battle will continue indefinitely, and that there will be political blood gushing out of the elevators before it’s over.

One change they did include is a pointless clause asking the government to take the steps required to achieve 3% nominal economic growth and 2% real growth. Achieving that growth isn’t a prerequisite for a tax increase, however, which is what the Ozawa side wanted.

The discussions were heated and moved along parallel lines, as the Japanese expression has it. The objective was to come up with something allowing the government to introduce the bill in the Diet before the end of the fiscal year at the end of March. (The government finally did submit it on Friday, the last working day.)

To reach their deadline, DPJ leaders ended the final discussions without a consensus after meeting from 8:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. Their opponents were furious. Some tried to prevent Maehara Seiji, who was conducting the talks, from leaving the room.

The opponents held a news conference to blast their own party and its methods. Some MPs are threatening to vote against it the bill in the Diet. Some resigned from secondary Cabinet positions in protest, though not all did (suggesting that Mr. Ozawa’s influence is still waning). Mr. Maehara insisted the procedures were on the up-and-up, and (owing to the nature of the Westminster system used in Japan) said that all party members had the obligation to hold their badges up in the chamber and vote yes.

Kamei Shizuka, the head of the People’s New Party, which still in the ruling coalition, made good on his threat to walk and took fellow member Kamei Akiko (no relation) with him. Not all the members of his splinter party left the coalition, however.

What we’re watching is the current system as it fractures.

Hashimoto trills

Hashimoto Toru thought this was a suitable topic to include in his Twitter messages for the day. There were 39 in the daily digest, and the first and last were references to his daughter becoming his Twitter follower after she got her first cell phone. Here are the ones related to DPJ conduct:

*****
First, there are the internal party procedures the DPJ used for the consumption tax increase. I wonder why they didn’t decide by majority vote? They should have exhausted the debate by now, so the only way to settle it after that is majority vote. The people with authority make the judgment whether or not debate has been exhausted. That seems to have been left up to policy chief Maehara Seiji. Did he decide by the amount of applause?

posted at 19:21:44

Political parties are now incapable of majority decisions. It would leave an aftertaste if they used that method. That’s why the decisions take the form of a group consensus. That is the principal culprit in (Japanese) democracy’s inability to make a decision. Decide by seeing who has the most votes. Those with fewer votes will comply because it was decided by majority vote. Anyone who doesn’t like that should leave the group.

posted at 19:23:23

Japanese have not received a proper education in this basic rule of democracy. The bad aftertaste remains because they haven’t received that education. Debate should be exhausted. Then, when the time is right, majority vote rules. There’s nothing at all unusual about this iron rule of democracy. But people are incapable of it.

posted at 19:24:44

After I assumed the role of governor, more than 98% of the decisions were made by common agreement following discussion. For the rest of them, however, when we couldn’t come to an agreement no matter how much we discussed it, we had a vote and went with the majority. That’s Hashism! So, how do you decide, you ask. That shows the fragility of Japan, where no distinction is made between politics and governmental administration.

posted at 19:28:46

After an interval of more than an hour:

As soon as the One Osaka group said the consumption tax should be converted to a local tax, both the LDP and the DPJ criticized us: Local governments mustn’t make demands! What will happen to the national revenue sources? We wrote about that in our policy program. We’ll give the regional tax allocations back to the central government. The DPJ’s tax increase strategy is a mistake, and it isn’t even a strategy.

posted at 20:46:04

The DPJ wants to raise the 5% consumption tax. That’s about JPY 12 trillion in revenue. If they want JPY 12 trillion in revenue, they should eliminate the regional tax allocation, in which the national government sends JPY 17 million to the regions. In exchange for giving that up, we would receive all of the consumption tax.

posted at 20:48:39

JPY 3 trillion of the regional tax allocation is the portion from the consumption tax, so the central government would receive a JPY 14 trillion revenue source if we traded. Increasing the consumption tax makes the people the other party (in the arrangement). That’s why people are opposing it, worried about an election. But eliminating the regional tax allocation makes local government the other party. That’s a struggle between administrative bodies. Therefore, logic can be used to prevail.

posted at 20:51:14

He switched to another topic, but returned about 20 minutes later.

The DPJ championed regional sovereignty, but they had no philosophy for making the regions self-sufficient. While they talked about regional sovereignty, they indulged the regions by distributing money. It was the philosophy of listening to the regions’ self-indulgence. Just give the regions the consumption tax and let them be self-sufficient. All they have to do is retrieve the regional tax allocation and chop down the subsidy. That is the road to Japan’s revival.

posted at 21:09:05

(end translation)
*****
One of the complaints about Mr. Hashimoto is that he’s fascistic (there’s no application of Godwin’s Law in Japan). There have been political cartoons with toothbrush moustaches and peaked military hats with crooked symbols. What they mean is that he’s dictatorial. With their exceptional ability at word play, the Japanese have taken to calling his policies and methods Hashism. Note how Mr. Hashimoto co-opts the phrase for his own advantage.

Speaking of dictators, Ozawa Ichiro was struck by the irony of the DPJ leadership’s decision to squash debate:

“They say I’m high-handed and iron-fisted, but the DPJ’s method of conducting party affairs is far more high-handed and iron fisted than mine. They must have a democratic debate worthy of the name Democratic Party, even if it takes time.”

Can’t win them all

The Osaka City Council voted on a bill last week that would put nuclear plant operation to a plebiscite of the residents. Mr. Hashimoto submitted the bill as directly requested by a citizens’ group. The bill lost, as only the Communist Party went along with his group. Both the LDP and the Communist Party submitted amendments to expedite its passage, but they were voted down too. The LDP said the vote should be limited to Japanese citizens, and the DPJ agreed. One Osaka and New Komeito disagreed, however, because they thought this wasn’t a mere expression of public opinion but a bill to determine specific policy. (I’m not sure I understand that logic.) One aspect left unexpressed is the substantial number of zainichi in the region (Japan-born residents with Korean citizenship), and the many zainichi who are New Komeito members/supporters.

Mr. Hashimoto said he would present a stockholder plan to Kansai Electric to distance the utility from nuclear power, in accordance with the citizens who signed the request. The city owns Kansai Electric Power stock.

As to what sort of plan he has in mind, Mr. Hashimoto attended a meeting of the Energy Strategy Council affiliated with the Osaka City government on Sunday and approved a stockholder plan to Kansai Electric to eliminate nuclear power entirely. He explained his reason:

“The only ones who could look at the (Fukushima) accident and remain unaffected are robots or those with little emotion…with the nuclear accident before our eyes, it is excruciating to put a lid on the fear and sense of revulsion of flesh and blood people.”

It’s a good thing no politician is able to win them all.

*****
Finally, another politician was quoted in my local newspaper as saying that the best tactic for the DPJ and the LDP now would be to hold an election quickly and prevent Mr. Hashimoto and One Osaka from settling on a slate of candidates. That’s the second day in a row I’ve seen that theory. While that tactic is understandable, it is a clear intent to subvert the popular will.

That will only make it worse. It’s impossible to say when it will happen, but I suspect the existing political parties in Japan will finally understand the meaning of “terrible swift sword”.

*****
He out-bops the buzzard and the oriole!

On the way down

Tush!
Fear not, my lord, we will not stand to prate;
Talkers are no good doers: be assured
We come to use our hands and not our tongues.
- Shakespeare, The Life and Death of King Richard III

THE soaring support for reform-minded local political parties and groups in Japan, personified by Osaka Mayor Hashimoto Toru, is paralleled by a sharp slide in backing for the ruling Democratic Party of Japan. They too talked the reform talk, but were incapable of walking the walk without pratfalls and belly flops. Any prominent party member could be selected at random to represent their failure, but Maehara Seiji, former Foreign Minister and current DPJ Policy Research Chair would be an excellent candidate for poster boy as any.

The Iu Dake Bancho

Mr. Maehara became prominent as a relative foreign policy hawk and domestic moderate in a party infused with a large element of ex-Socialists, teacher unionistas, and other variegated leftists. After the DPJ was steamrolled in the 2005 lower house election by the Koizumi-led Liberal Democratic Party, they chose Mr. Maehara to replace Okada Katsuya as party president. They just as quickly dumped him the following year after he attempted to manufacture a political crisis based on an e-mail that was found to be bogus.

A harsh critic of then-party President Ozawa Ichiro, he was viewed by some in the LDP as a man they could work with. He showed up for meetings of a short-lived study group created by former Prime Minister Koizumi, who cited him as a potential PM. Though people wondered whether he might form an alliance with disaffected LDP reformers, it never materialized. He knew the DPJ was his shortest route to power and a prominent place on the public stage.

When the DPJ took control of government in 2009, Mr. Maehara was named the Minister of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport. To demonstrate that the party would end the old LDP practice of turning on the money spigot for legal vote buying with pork barrel construction projects, he announced the suspension of work on the Yanba Dam, a controversial project in Gunma. That suspension was controversial itself, however, because many people in the region actually wanted the dam built, and he didn’t waste any time consulting with them before making up his mind. (Among the dam’s intended uses is supplying water to the Tokyo megalopolis.) The final approval to resume construction was recently announced by a successor at MLIT, but not after a substantial amount of time, money (such as penalties for cancelling construction contracts), and party credibility was squandered. Mr. Maehara was loudly against restarting construction until he was for it just before the resumption order was issued.

That and several other incidents marked him a talker instead of a doer. Exhibiting their wicked talent for wordplay, some in the Japanese news media, most notably the Sankei Shimbun, began referring to him as the Iu Dake Bancho (言うだけ番長). In fact, the newspaper coined the term just for him, but played the journo game by pretending that other, unidentified people were saying it. Before long, other identified people were doing just that.

To explain: Bancho was a term for a minor government official centuries ago, but in the 20th century it came to be used to refer to the leader of juvenile delinquent gangs of junior high or high school age. Iu means to speak or to say, and dake means “only”. The phrase was inspired by a comic book series that ran from 1967–1971 called Yuyake Bancho (Sunset Bancho) created by Kajiwara Ikki.

After the moniker appeared again in the paper’s 22 February edition, Maehara Seiji lost the plot. He prohibited Sankei reporters from attending his twice-weekly news conferences and covering in person the party affairs for which he has responsibility.

The Sankei published their side of the story earlier this week. Here it is.

*****
The Sankei Shimbun has used the expression Iu Dake Bancho to refer to the behavior of DPJ Policy Research Committee Chair Maehara Seiji. The phrase is modeled after the comic Yuyake Bancho. We also had in mind the incident with the fake e-mail that occurred in 2006 when he was the DPJ president.

There have been 16 articles in the final editions of this newspaper using that phrase in regard to Mr. Maehara. The first was on 15 September 2011. The passage read, “In the background, there is distrust of Mr. Maehara, who has been referred to as the Iu Dake Bancho. Soon after his appointment (to his current post), he proposed during a visit to the United States a reexamination of the three principles for the export of weapons. That led to criticism within the party that he shouldn’t be allowed to act arbitrarily on his own authority.”

In an article on 30 September, when Mr. Maehara proposed to increase by an additional JPY two trillion the amount in the government’s plan for non-tax-derived income to fund the Tohoku recovery, we wrote “It is possible that if the target amount is not achieved, the inglorious term of Iu Dake Bancho will become permanent.”

When Mr. Maehara was the Minister of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport, he froze construction on the Yanba dam in Gunma. When the decision to resume construction was announced on 24 December, we wrote, “It is unlikely he will be able to refute being mocked as the Iu Dake Bancho, after finally agreeing to the resumption after opposing it until just before it was announced.”

The Yukan Fuji, some weekly magazines, and some regional newspapers have also used the expression in addition to the Sankei Shimbun.

*****
The Sankei didn’t mention that they publish the Yukan Fuji, but they also didn’t mention the phrase had been picked up by the competing Yomiuri Shimbun, nor did they specify Shukan Shincho as one of the weekly magazines.

The newspaper also used the phrase in the headline for an 8 November article that began like this:

“Policy Research Committee Chair Maehara Seiji was not present during the conference of the secretaries-general of the DPJ, LDP, and New Komeito, though he had worked to coordinate policy with the opposition parties until then. The discussion among the three policy chiefs about the period of redemption for reconstruction bonds was difficult, and DPJ Secretary-General Koshiishi Azuma lost his patience and assumed the leading role in the talks. There was a marked difference in negotiating skills between the LDP and New Komeito on the one hand, and Maehara Seiji on the other, who quickly accepted their proposals with little debate. He worked very hard in the three-party conference to rebound from his reputation as the Iu Dake Bancho, but the situation was such that the authority for other ruling party/opposition party discussions in the future, including that for increasing the consumption tax, had to be taken from him.”

The last straw article in the Sankei on the 22nd quoted a senior LDP official as saying, “He will not lose the stigma of being known as the Iu Dake Bancho.” The next day, Mr. Maehara confronted a Sankei Shimbun reporter in the Diet building, said “I want to talk to you,” and escorted him to his office. Here’s the Sankei’s version of that talk:

“Why do you always write Iu Dake Bancho whenever something happens? I want a formal written answer from your newspaper in the name of the chairman. Without that answer, I will not recognize your coverage of the policy discussion meetings…I get a dark feeling just from reading your articles. This is on the level of childish bullying and the ‘violence of the pen’. I won’t recognize you at news conferences or permit your coverage until I get an answer.”

After reporting to his superior, the journalist returned to ask Mr. Maehara to specify in writing what sort of answer he wanted. “I’ll think about it,” was the answer.

If Mr. Maehara thought he was going to get any sympathy, he was mistaken. What little support he received in his own party was subdued. The Asahi Shimbun — whose political views are the polar opposite of the Sankei — wrote:

“All news companies, the Asahi Shimbun included, oppose excluding specific news organizations and demand an explanation. Mr. Maehara avoided a clear statement by refraining from discussing the specific content of reporting.”

One reason for the lack of sympathy was that a lot of people thought the shoe fit. Said a journalist:

“There have been innumerable occasions when Mr. Maehara made a statement that was just talk, such as his suspension of construction for the Yanba Dam. There’s really nothing to be said if people call him Iu Dake Bancho, but to get upset at that heckling isn’t very mature.”

Eguchi Katsuhiko, an upper house member from Your Party, knows Maehara Seiji well because the DPJ policy chief graduated from the Matsushita Institute of Government and Management, which Mr. Eguchi was instrumental in organizing and operating. He said:

“It’s extremely unfortunate. Mr. Maehara looked up to Mr. Matsushita as a teacher, but that’s not how he would have done it. Instead, he would have invited the critic in and listened to him….If he wants to become prime minister, he shouldn’t get so concerned about every bit of criticism.”

LDP Diet member Fukaya Takashi wasn’t sympathetic either:

“False and childish reporting is unforgivable, but it’s not really in error for Mr. Maehara, who has a habit of saying all sorts of things and then finishing in a fog…If you think about citing examples, they’re too numerous to count.”

Mr. Maehara has been interested in exploring an alliance with Hashimoto Toru’s One Osaka party, but his petulance made that less likely to happen. Said new Osaka Gov. Matsui Ichiro:

“Well, he goes back on his word in an instant, so what do you expect people to say? He probably gets angry, but a complete refusal to allow coverage is excessive and unbecoming…If you’re going to say something, it’s a good idea to do it. It’s best not to say things you aren’t going to do.…If he’s got something to say, he should fight back on Twitter, like Mr. Hashimoto.”

Speaking of Hashimoto Toru:

“I don’t understand the reason for it, but if it were me, I’d have the reporter come in and we’d run each other down. If he said something bad about me, I’d give it back to him…I think there’s a certain line (for the content of reporting), but being critical is their job, and without it people in authority would become dangerous.”

A similar incident with Mr. Hashimoto presents a revealing contrast, both in how they dealt with media members who displeased them, and also in how people respond in different ways to the same behavior from different people depending on their perceptions of those people.

On 9 February 2008, then-Osaka Gov. Hashimoto was invited to appear on a live local NHK broadcast with the mayor of Osaka, the former governor of Tottori, and a university professor. He told NHK when he accepted the invitation that he had official business that day in Tokyo, and would be late for the start of the program. He confirmed that they understood more than once. When he showed up 30 minutes after the program started, announcer Fujii Ayako commented, “Well, he’s a little late, he arrived about 30 minutes late.”

In Japan, late is rude unless you have a good reason and let people know in advance. Mr. Hashimoto didn’t care for the comment because he made sure to tell them ahead of time. At a post-program news conference, he also revealed that NHK badgered him to change his work schedule for their benefit. He announced that henceforth, he would no longer appear on NHK programs, though he would respond to their reporters’ questions. Ms. Fujii was reassigned to Tokyo. The incident remains largely unknown.

*****
Some observers think Mr. Maehara is wobbling under the pressure because Noda Yoshihiko may not last much longer as prime minister, and he’s one of few remaining people the party can put forward as a plausible successor. That’s assuming the party stays in power much longer and has the authority to put forward any successor. It’s no longer a secret that Mr. Noda and LDP chief Tanigaki Sadakazu held a secret meeting Saturday, like two mudboats passing in the night. The news media assumes they discussed a deal for a Diet dissolution and lower house election in exchange for an LDP promise to pass the DPJ’s consumption tax increase. Mr. Noda would not survive that election. There’s also speculation the DPJ would use the poll as an excuse to ditch Ozawa Ichiro. The bargain Mr. Sadakazu might be offering is: Get rid of Ozawa, and then we’ll form a tax-increase coalition government with what’s left of the two parties.

I suspect the problem lies elsewhere, however. Maehara Seiji’s ambition to become prime minister is not a new phenomenon, so if his knees were to get wobbly by approaching the throne, they already would have done so. The Sankei isn’t the only target of his petulance, either. He also bounced a reporter from the Hokkaido Shimbun from a recent news conference by telling him, “What you wrote differed from the facts. Please leave at once.”

After the 2009 lower house election, everything was coming up roses for the DPJ. Mr. Maehara was expected to play a prominent role in national politics. That role was likely to include a spell as prime minister. Now, fewer than three years and multiple malfunctions later, the roses are blighted and the public is ready to dig up the bushes. Indeed, former DPJ President Ozawa Ichiro met with some of his younger supporters in the party last week and told them that Hashimoto Toru had stolen their reform thunder. He added, incorrectly, that it was not too late for them to snatch it back.

Maehara Seiji knows he is on the way down without having reached the top. He also knows it might be quite some time before he gets that close to the top again.

Afterwords:

* You can almost smell the DPJ flop sweat. This week they announced they’d be doling out JPY three million apiece to their first term Diet members for “activity money”. Most of them are associated with Ozawa Ichiro’s group, which is opposed to the party’s plan to increase the consumption tax. They’re calling it activity money, but it’s really a bribe to keep them from bolting.

The funds will be distributed to 108 MPs, for an aggregate amount of JPY 324 million yen (almost $US four million).

One wonders how much of that money is derived from the public subsidies to political parties, or, if it isn’t, whether the party would be willing to spend that kind of cash if they hadn’t received the subsidies to begin with.

Americans have a system, by the way, in which people can check a box on their income tax forms to voluntarily contribute $3.00 (from the government) for generic political campaigns, without adding to their taxes. More than 90% leave the box unchecked.

* Former LDP Prime Minister Mori Yoshiro is very anxious to negotiate an election with the DPJ in exchange for a tax increase. Stupid is as stupid does.

*****
Here’s the Yuyake Bancho himself!

The same people you misused on your way up
You might meet up
On your way down.

Yomiuri poll on the popular perception of politics

THE Yomiuri Shimbun conducted a nationwide poll on the 12th and 13th — by direct interview, for a change — of the popular perceptions of today’s politics.

They were asked whether they thought politics in Japan had gotten worse in recent years.

Yes: 76%

The DPJ diehards will be tempted to shift the blame to the opposition for that — until they see the answers to some of the other questions. For example: Is the vote you cast in elections reflected in actual politics?

No: 81%

The last time this question was asked was in February 2008, under a LDP government. The percentage of noes then was 67%. The current percentage is a record high for the Yomiuri surveys.

One result the people hoped for with the change of government in 2009 was a move toward politican-led government (as opposed to bureaucrat-led government). Effecting this change was one of the major DPJ promises. Has the DPJ delivered on that promise?

No: 88%

The public was also asked to cite the most important problems with politics today, and was given the option of multiple answers. Here are the top three responses:

1. Politics is not conducted from the people’s perspective: 45%

2. Decisions on policy take too long: 42%

3. There is no vision for Japan’s future: 33%

“Margin of error” cannot be used to fudge these results. Has there been a more epic failure in postwar Japanese politics than the past two years of Democratic Party governments?

If you give me a week, maybe I can think of one.

Afterwords:

During the past week, former DPJ President and Secretary-General Ozawa Ichiro, former DPJ President (and Foreign Minister) Maehara Seiji, and LPD Secretary-General Ishihara Nobuteru raised the possibility of an early election next year. Mr. Ozawa and Mr. Maehara warned their supporters in the Diet that many of them could lose their seats unless they get on the stick. Mr. Ozawa and Mr. Ishihara suggested that the election would be held on the issue of the tax increase. The former, who opposes higher taxes, suggested that the DPJ might split as a result. The latter suggested that both parties might split as a result, and that two new parties could be created: an anti-tax-increase party, and a pro-tax-increase party.

If an election were to be held on that basis and an anti-tax party won, it might still be too late to stop the initial tax hike. In that scenario, the polling figures for some of the questions above would likely rise even higher.

Meanwhile, People’s New Party head Kamei Shizuka is dissatisfied with the DPJ’s progress on blocking Japan Post privatization, and that’s the only reason his splinter group joined the coalition. He’s also opposed to a tax increase. It’s been widely reported that he’s now approached Tokyo Metro District Gov. Ishihara Shintaro about leading a new, anti-tax “conservative” party. He’s also trying to get younger members of the DPJ and the LDP interested in the idea, as well as Osaka Gov. Hashimoto Toru, who recently resigned to run for mayor of the city of Osaka (that’s a long story).

The elder Ishihara was one of the not-so-silent partners in the formation of the paleo-convervative (in Japanese terms) Sunrise Party with Hiranuma Takeo and Yosano Kaoru. The little viability that party had was in helping media outlets fill space, and that was lost when Mr. Yosano joined the Kan Cabinet as part of the effort to raise taxes.

Always quick with a quip, Your Party President Watanabe Yoshimi observed that such a party would be radically backward-looking, and be indistinguishable from a faction in the old LDP. He added:

If they’re going to apply the term “conservative” to the course of purified socialism, that might create one grouping.

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Takahashi and Hasegawa on the real Japanese prime minister

It isn’t that they can’t see the solution. It is that they can’t see the problem.
- G.K. Chesterton

THE focus of the primary political articles in the 8 October edition of the weekly Shukan Gendai is on the influence of Finance Ministry bureaucrat Katsu Eijiro on the Noda administration. The headline on the front cover just below the logo dubs him “the real prime minister who is manipulating the dojo (fish) Noda”. Following the lead story is a dialogue between Hasegawa Yukihiro, a member of the Tokyo Shimbun editorial board, and Takahashi Yoichi, a former Finance Ministry bureaucrat, official in the Koizumi administration, college professor, and author. They are perhaps the foremost advocates in Japan for curbing the influence of the bureaucracy, and both have been frequently cited here.

Their dialogue is an excellent précis of the issue, both in general and how it involves the Noda administration. The amount of detail in the complete dialogue is overwhelming, so I’ve excerpted the important points in English.

*****
Hasegawa: A look at the personnel appointments of the Noda Yoshihiko administration shows a clear shift to a policy of tax increases. Also, the consensus of opinion is that Katsu Eijiro, the administrative vice-minister for the Finance Ministry, is the producer and scriptwriter for this administration that’s making a beeline to tax increases.

Takahashi: In short, he’s the backstage prime minister (laughs).

Hasegawa: …I’d like to touch on some of the Noda administration personnel appointments. First, priority was clearly given to circumstances in the Democratic Party. Former Foreign Minister Maehara Seiji was named the party’s policy chief, a position that is key for the determination of policy. Former Chief Cabinet Secretary Sengoku Yoshito (N.B.: a Maehara ally) was named as the acting policy chief. Finally, former Finance Ministry bureaucrat and Finance Minister Fujii Hirohisa was appointed the party’s tax policy chief.

The party seems to have been allocated a rather important role during the preliminary spadework of policy formation, but that’s because there are elements within the party that are either opposed to a tax increase or are hesitant about supporting them. The reason for a structure with this depth of personnel is to suppress the anti-tax sentiment (in the party) and achieve a tax increase.

Takahashi: In the normal process of policy determination, the government first creates a proposal, the (ruling) party massages it, and then it is submitted to the Diet. Absent Diet gridlock, the primary emphasis is on either the government or the ruling party.

We have Diet gridlock now, however, and the (primary opposition) LDP is in agreement with higher taxes to begin with. Therefore, for the Finance Ministry, the ideal tax increase proposals will be raised by the government, and they will be leveled down to a certain extent by the party. Then, in the Diet, they’ll get the LDP involved and make the tax increase a reality. The script has already been written. In short, the key is how to weaken the anti-tax elements in the party. That’s why the priority in the selection of the personnel appointments was placed on the party rather than the government.

Hasegawa: They certainly picked some lightweights for the Cabinet considering how much emphasis they placed on the party. There’s Azumi Jun as Finance Minister, who knows very little about financial policy, and there’s the former Finance Ministry bureaucrat, Furukawa Motohisa, as the Minister for National Policy. (N.B.: Also Minister for Economic and Fiscal Policy and Minister for Total Reform of Social Security and Tax) The Finance Ministry can completely control these two. Also key is the appointment of Katsu Eijiro as administrative vice-minister.

Takahashi: That’s right. The Cabinet itself consists of lightweights, but the Finance Ministry bureaucrats that were sent over are all heavyweights….

Hasegawa: Tango Yasutake as a deputy Finance Minister is a dead giveaway of Finance Ministry control….

Takahashi: …Also surprising was that a Finance Ministry bureaucrat (a former division head of mid-level seniority), was appointed as the parliamentary secretary for Ren Ho, the Minister of State for Government Revitalization. Usually, that sort of post is given to the aides of division heads at the end of their career, but the Finance Ministry sent over Yoshii Hiroshi, who joined the ministry in 1988.

Hasegawa: The portfolios of government revitalization and civil service reform given to Ren Ho are important for the bureaucracy, so it’s clear their objective is to keep a lid on it. In addition, she has some star appeal for the DPJ, is a capable speaker, and attracts a lot of attention.

Takahashi: Actually, Mr. Katsu sent Mr. Yoshii over to be her secretary when she was a minister in the Kan Cabinet. He kept his post as her advisor even after she was downgraded to the job of special advisor to the prime minister, and he’s been with her ever since. Mr. Katsu has perceived the value of using Ren Ho and so is keeping her marked.

Hasegawa: 1988 is also the year that Furukawa Motohisa entered the Finance Ministry. Another member of that class is Ito Hideki, the parliamentary secretary for Minister of Financial Services Jimi Shozaburo.

Takahashi: That’s because Mr. Furukawa combines the functions of Cabinet minister and parliamentary secretary (laughs). These three men are a powerful trio. In addition to the normal orientation that all new employees are given when they enter a government ministry, the Finance Ministry has its own three week intensive “boot camp”. This cements the ties between the people who were hired at the same time, which results in a personnel network unlike that at any other ministry.

Hasegawa: Mr. Katsu’s personnel choices were well thought out, weren’t they?

Takahashi:…With Ota Mitsuru of the class of 1983 as the prime minister’s parliamentary secretary, and the number of parliamentary secretaries they’ve had assigned, the Finance Ministry can pretty much run the Cabinet. To be blunt, they don’t care who the ministers are…

*****
Hasegawa: Mr. Katsu has engineered a complete shift toward a tax increase both within the Cabinet and in the ministry…the question is now whether he’ll make a headlong rush toward a tax increase.

Takahashi: That question was already answered by Prime Minister Noda during Question Time in the Diet. He was asked by the opposition whether he should take the issue to the people (in a general election) before increasing the consumption tax. The prime minister answered, “We will ask for their trust before it goes into effect.” That seemed to satisfy both the public and the mass media, but there’s no question that’s a trap laid by the Finance Ministry. “Asking for their trust before the tax is raised” usually means holding a lower house election on that issue, but “asking for their trust before it goes into effect” means they’ll hold the election after the bill for the tax increase has passed and before it is implemented. In other words, they’ll submit and force through an increase in the consumption tax during the regular session of the Diet next year, as is already planned. After that, they will hold an election at what they consider to be a suitable time. That way, because the bill has passed, the consumption tax will be raised whether or not the ruling party wins the election. That is the Katsu/Finance Ministry scenario.

Hasegawa: The tax increase could be stopped by legislation freezing it before it goes into effect.

Takahashi: Not possible. Not possible. If they hold a general election just before taxes are raised, there won’t be enough time to submit a bill freezing the implementation. That sort of schedule management is the forté of the Finance Ministry, and that’s why they sent all those accomplished people over to the Cabinet as parliamentary secretaries. They’ll also have no compunction at all over threatening the politicians by telling them that freezing the tax increase will cause a major disruption in the economy…
…One more thing we shouldn’t forget is the use of the media to brainwash the public.

Hasegawa: The problem of the pet reporters who cozy up to the Finance Ministry bureaucracy. If you dig just a little deeply, you find that the Finance Ministry is really driving the government. A reporter antagonistic to their bureaucrats gets cut out of the loop. That’s why the reporters themselves cozy up to the bureaucrats. Nearly every day you can pick up the newspaper and read stories about the need for all sorts of taxes — income taxes, corporate taxes, inheritance taxes, environmental taxes. The Finance Ministry lobs them fat pitches, and they’re more than happy when they get converted into articles. It isn’t long before the people turn numb, and that creates an atmosphere in which everyone believes tax increases are unavoidable. That’s what’s happening now.

Takahashi: People can only think about things based on the information they’re provided. There are other revenue sources besides higher taxes, but people gradually stop looking in that direction. It really is brainwashing.

Hasegawa: That is the Finance Ministry’s strategy for the masses using the media. And the person driving the Finance Ministry now is Katsu Eijiro.

(end excerpts)

*****
Note that Mr. Takahashi said the script was already written. On the morning of the 12th, Finance Minister Azumi Jun read his lines:

“Next year, the bill for the consumption tax (increase) and the reform for integrating the tax with social security will definitely be introduced together.”

Meanwhile, Deputy Finance Minister Igarashi Fumihiko said in a television interview on the 11th that based on his own calculations, a 17% consumption tax rate would be necessary in the intermediate to long-term. That same rate has already been floated by the Japanese Association of Corporate Executives, one of the country’s major business groups.

In short, the problem of the alliance between Big Government and Big Business is just as serious in Japan as it is in the West, if not more so.

*****
The hucksters of the DPJ campaigned on ending the political dependence on the bureaucracy and not raising taxes for four years.

They’ve been in office now just a few days more than two years.

*****
How many more years are we going to have to let them dog us around?

No, no one is happy

WHEN the two major parties in the United States run insipid, incompetent, and indistinguishable candidates for office, the public and the media sometimes dismiss them as Tweedledum and Tweedledee. That appellation would be insufficient for the five candidates in tomorrow’s Democratic Party presidential election, which will determine Japan’s next prime minister. There is no similar expression for a group of five noodniks. Perhaps Wynken, Blynken, and Nod could be added to the aforementioned Ts.

Some might suggest Groucho, Chico, Harpo, Gummo, and Zeppo as a possibility, but that wouldn’t be a good fit. The five Marx Brothers were legitimately funny. The five DPJ candidates are a joke that no one in Japan is laughing at.

Your Party Secretary General Eda Kenji offers his thoughts on the candidacy of Economy, Trade, and Industry Minister Kaieda Banri, who is backed by former party President Ozawa Ichiro and former Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio. Mr. Kaieda is best known for being left to twist in the wind by Kan Naoto over the issue of restarting idled nuclear reactors, and breaking down in tears in the Diet last month when an opposition pol said “Boo!”

*****
“It is likely this man has neither beliefs nor policies. I wasn’t interested in the progress of the DPJ election, but I just can’t help hearing about it when watching the news. When I heard the details, I couldn’t keep from writing about it.

“Ordinarily, the possibility of this man becoming prime minister would be zero, but he was selected as the figurehead through Mr. Ozawa’s Ultimate Process of Elimination (willingness to listen to instructions + better than the other possibilities). Once he snapped at the post of prime minister that was dangled in front of his eyes, necessity compelled them in the direction of this midget.

“This is not a politician who will ask what should be done after becoming prime minister. He is simply a politician whose ultimate objective itself is to become prime minister. A person of that caliber who has become prime minister through this process does not understand how wretched a prime minister he will be.

“Is it possible for a human being to be this servile? He’s accepted the Ozawa group’s objectives and will reevaluate the Ozawa suspension from party activities, revisit the (recent) three-party agreement, and will not form a coalition government — in other words, he will reject the course of the current party leadership. He once favored participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but now will “carefully consider” it out of clear deference to the farm bloc within the party. He followed the METI bureaucracy line of rejecting out of hand the abandonment of nuclear energy, but he withdrew that rejection after being told to do so by Mr. Hatoyama. He’s just switched from following METI bureaucracy instructions to following Ozawa/Hatoyama instructions.

“A Kaieda administration will be a rewind to the Ozawa power and patronage politics of 20 years ago…the ultimate choice is between Kaieda the Lowest and Maehara the Worst. I can only say that this is a tragedy for today’s Japan.”

*****
The balloting will be held tomorrow, and at this point Mr. Kaieda has the most guaranteed votes based on the number of signatures gathered to support his candidacy. There is speculation in other quarters that he will probably not be able to win an outright majority on the first ballot. The same source also speculates that Maehara Seiji, last week’s flavor of the day, might come in third behind Agriculture Minister Kano Michihiko. If that happens, he thinks, candidates #2 – #5 might form an anti-Ozawa alliance behind Mr. Kano. No one seems to be talking about Noda Yoshihiko any more.

Equally as distasteful as a Kaieda puppet candidacy is the rejection of the three-party agreement that enabled the passage of the second supplementary budget and other bills that greased the skids for Kan Naoto’s departure. Here are two reasons:

1. Japanese politicians of different parties have finally figured out how to negotiate among themselves to get legislation through the upper house when no party/group has an outright majority. In other words, the political process has matured, even though the maturity resulted from the search for a way to neuter Kan Naoto. The rejection of the three-party agreement will put gridlock right back on the agenda.

2. The Ozawan-Hatoyamanians insist on upholding the party’s 2009 political platform. The three-party agreement rolled back some of the legislation that platform produced. Keeping political promises is ordinarily a fine thing to do. When keeping those promises, however, means the outlay of money that doesn’t exist to buy votes legally through the child allowance, free highway tolls, and individual farm household subsidies despite the enormous expenditures required for a national emergency and two straight budgets with deficits that are double tax revenues, it is a criminally insane thing to do.

*****
American Democrats have the amusing habit of playing “Happy Days Are Here Again” at their party conventions every four years (but not, I suspect, in 2012).

Everything about this clip, however, reeks of Japan’s Democrats, including the coalition of two incompatible groups of pirates.

Ichigen koji (50)

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

(Maehara Seiji) has been presenting himself as a conservative, but is that really true? He opposed the bill establishing the national flag and the anthem and supports giving foreigners the right to vote.

He also says he’s made the recovery of the (four Russian-held islands in the) Kuriles his life’s work, but why hasn’t he shown the same passion for Takeshima? His stance toward China and Russia is strong, but is weak toward South Korea and North Korea.

Mr. Maehara is manju starting to spoil, wrapped in an attractive package. The people must not be fooled by the superficial.

- Eguchi Katsuhiko, upper house member of Your Party

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Timing is everything

NOW that was good timing: Around 6:15 a.m. on 24 August, the Japanese Coast Guard confirmed that Chinese fishery patrol boats 31001 and 201 were sailing in the “contiguous zone” adjacent to the Senkaku islets. Both ships later entered Japanese territorial waters and were warned to back off.

The Chinese radioed back that the islands were Chinese territory, and that they were properly conducting official duties in Chinese territory in accordance with The Law. The Japanese Coast Guard told them to get lost, which they did 30 minutes later. Patrol boat 201 returned and stayed seven minutes before leaving for good. Later that day, the Chinese government restated their claim on the Senkakus.

The Chinese have entered the contiguous zone 12 times since one of their fishing boats rammed two Japanese Coast Guard vessels last September. The Coast Guard took the Chinese captain into custody, igniting a diplomatic crisis and causing revulsion among the Japanese public at the Kan Cabinet’s conduct of national defense. Since then, however, Chinese ships had refrained from entering Japanese territorial waters until this week’s gamesmanship.

Such a sense of synchronicity, those Chinese. U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden happened to be in Tokyo at the time to meet outgoing Japanese Prime Minister Kan Naoto on his way home from Beijing. The day before, opposition LDP members of the lower house Committee for Audit and Oversight of Administration announced their desire to take an observation tour of the islets in September, and listened to the government explain the defensive measures taken in the area. The MPs also discussed the potential use of the islets by its private owners (four are leased to the Japanese government).

Official government policy is for no one to go there, however, so the ruling party and the Chinese will endeavor to discourage any legislator junkets to the tropical isles, each in their own distinctive way.

But perhaps the critical event in the chronology was that former Foreign Minister Maehara Seiji announced his candidacy this week for the DPJ party presidency, becoming the favorite to succeed Mr. Kan. The Sankei Shimbun quoted someone it identified only as a person familiar with Japanese-Sino affairs:

It was a reminder to the Japanese that bilateral relations worsened (after the Senkakus incident), when Mr. Maehara was first the Minister of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport, which has jurisdiction over the Coast Guard, and then Foreign Minister.

As an example of how little the Chinese care for Mr. Maehara’s attitude, here’s a reminder of what a deputy foreign minister said last October:

He attacks China on an almost daily basis, and says extreme things that shouldn’t be said.

Well, he got the “extreme” part right. The Japanese foreign minister had said that China’s response to the Japanese detention of the Chinese ship captain was “extremely hysterical”.

The same month, Chinese leadership rejected a proposed summit meeting because Japan had “destroyed the climate required for discussions”, the proper climate being a more suitable display of deference by the vassals bearing gifts as tribute to the suzerain state.

One newspaper under the thumb of the Chinese Communist Party called the foreign minister a “troublemaker”. Said another media outlet: “A rapprochement will be difficult unless Japan replaces its foreign minister.” Indeed, the Chinese response was notable in that it usually ignored the prime minister to attack the foreign minister. Then again, the Japanese tended to ignore the prime minister, too.

One can understand the Chinese concern. After successfully excluding Mr. Maehara from bilateral discussions, making Mr. Kan fly all the way to Brussels to tug on the sleeve of Wen Jiabao in a hotel hallway to get him to listen to a rote reading of a prepared statement while perched on adjoining couches, and forcing the capitulation of the Japanese government, it looks like the troublemaker could wind up in the Kantei.

Then again, their timing had to be impeccable. After all, what self-respecting hegemon can afford to pass up the opportunity to interfere with a neighboring country’s selection of a prime minister, especially a neighbor with territory you want to snatch and grab — and when the Number Two man from the neighbor’s military protector is in town?

*****
Speaking of Good Timing, Jimmy Jones had a hit in the West with that title, and Sakamoto Kyu had a hit with the Japanese remake. Sakamoto, of course, was the singer of Ue wo Muite Aruko, which was sold under the name Sukiyaki in English.

Yeah, I know, it is hard to believe they used to do stuff like that.

Honorifics

The most tragic thing in the world is a man of genius who is not a man of honor.
- George Bernard Shaw

JAPANESE comedian/television personality Shimada Shinsuke held a news conference this week to announce his retirement from show business after it was revealed that he had close personal ties with a high-level gangland boss. (Some reports finger Hashimoto Hirofumi of the Yamaguchi-gumi.) This is what he said at the press conference:

I didn’t think that I did anything illegal, but a violation of the rules is a violation of the rules. I feel a sense of moral responsibility, so I am retiring from show business. I want to continue to pursue my own sense of aesthetics.

After seeing that, Eguchi Katsuhiko, an upper house member from Your Party, tweeted the following:

Politicians won’t resign from the Diet even when they do something illegal. That is irresolute and ugly. Shouldn’t they learn a lesson from Shimada Shinsuke?

Here’s a shot of Mr. Shimada in action:

In other news, former Ozawa Ichiro antagonist Maehara Seiji called on Mr. Ozawa yesterday to kiss his ring ask for his support in the upcoming Democratic Party presidential election. Mr. Maehara, the favorite to win that election and therefore the prime minister apparent, has admitted accepting illegal campaign contributions from foreigners and has been reported as accepting similar contributions from people associated with the yakuza.

Meanwhile, Mr. Ozawa’s DPJ membership is currently suspended because he was indicted for violations of the political funding law. That hasn’t stopped several DPJ presidential candidates from paying court to him, including his enemies. He’s been involved in so many shady operations, he might as well have a pair of sunglasses welded to his head.

To mention one of the most recent, he pulled out the equivalent of several million dollars in cash from a safe at home to give to an aide to purchase real estate for his political funding committee. His is the only political funding committee in Japan with a real estate investment portfolio. Buying real estate with cash isn’t against the law, of course, but neither is having dinner and drinks with the yakuza.

It’s curious. Mr. Shimada’s retirement is causing television networks to sweat — they’ve got to find a way to replace six programs immediately.

But if Mr. Maehara and Mr. Ozawa were to learn a lesson from Mr. Shimada, as Mr. Eguchi suggests, it likely wouldn’t cause the DPJ much grief at all. If the party were to go so far as to toss them out altogether, it might even help them retrieve the popular support they casually tossed in the gutter in the fall of 2009.

Ah, but that won’t happen. That would be doing the right thing.

Afterwords:

Shimada Shinsuke has always been a feisty sort with his own sense of honor. In fact, reports suggest that his agency, the Yoshimoto group, expected a contrite public apology and a hiatus of a few months before he returned to work. He surprised them with his decision to quit altogether.

Then again, he should have known better to begin with.

“Coming, Mother”

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.
- Samuel Adams

THE first paragraph of a story in today’s Nishinippon Shimbun is a portrait of what failure looks like.

The headline is Leadership by the Bureaucracy Intensifies. This is what follows:

“The Finance Ministry notified all Cabinet ministries and agencies on the 23rd of the work procedures that will be the de facto standards for 2012 budget requests. The structure that will be the framework for the new prime minister, in which the scale of expenditures follows that from the previous year, and uniform cuts in discretionary spending to offset increased social welfare outlays are limited to JPY 500-600 million, is a far cry from the policy of politicians formulating the entire budget, as (was once) championed by the Democratic Party of Japan. With the administration of government unsteady as the successor to Prime Minister Kan is determined, the formulation of the budget will proceed along rails laid by the Finance Ministry. There is not the slightest trace of political leadership.”

Such is the abject failure of the Democratic Party of Japan a mere two years after forming their first government. Forget the frivolous debate about their manifesto content — their mandate from the voters was to end this very state of affairs.

Their failure is obvious now to even the casual observer. That will result in yet another enormous budget deficit. No wonder Moody’s downgraded Japanese government debt today.

To be sure, taking on the Japanese Finance Ministry requires staking one’s political life. Your Party Secretary-General Eda Kenji suspects they engineered events that led to the downfall of the Hashimoto administration, of which he was a part. The ministry was displeased that Hashimoto wanted to shift oversight of the financial services industry from them to a new Cabinet ministry or agency.

Former Saga City Mayor and Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries official Kinoshita Toshiyuki once said in an interview:

When the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries hired me 25 years ago, I was told, “Cabinet ministers are performing monkeys. Your job is to skillfully beat the drum and make them dance.” That is the presumption of the civil service. There has been no change to the general rule that the politicians do not become involved in policy formation, a role taken over by the bureaucrats.

What Japan could use right now is a homegrown Samuel Adams. They’ve produced many people of that caliber before. What it seems they’re about to get, however, is a homegrown Henry Aldrich as their new prime minister.

Compare this…

…with this.

An interview with Watanabe Kozo

READER Marellus recently asked if I would handicap the field for the Democratic Party election to replace Kan Naoto as president, and therefore prime minister. I demurred, because (1) I avoid predictions as a rule (the rule being that predictions are usually journalistic space filler), (2) Most predictions are wrong, (3) Most people can’t get the past or the present right, especially about Japan, and (4) Even veteran Japanese politicians and pundits hesitate to make such predictions.

DPJ Supreme Advisor Watanabe Kozo gave an interview to Linda Seig of Reuters on Friday which elucidates not only that problem, but a few others as well, albeit unwittingly. The interview is also worth examining as a snapshot of conditions within the DPJ, but the poohbahs at Reuters used only about 5% of the information for the weekend appearance of this bagatelle, which few outlets picked up. A much longer version appeared in Japanese. Here’s most of that version in English. (Note: Most, but not all, of the ellipses were in the original.)

*****
Q: It seems that Finance Minister Noda is the favorite in the DPJ presidential election.
W: Now Kano (Michihiko, Agriculture Minister) has gotten the upper hand.

Q: Why?
W: It’s extremely regrettable, but Noda is the Finance Minister, so he can no longer oppose a tax increase….With the aging of society, we need to create funding sources for social welfare. There’s also the reconstruction of the Tohoku area after the earthquake and the nuclear accident. It’s common sense that there has to be a tax increase. Embarrassingly enough, many Diet members in the party are opposed to a tax increase (thinking of the election). The Finance Minister is not in an advantageous position.

Q: It seems as if Mr. Noda is toning down his remarks, saying that he would think about the timing of a tax increase.
W: We don’t know yet. It’s not a question of whether a person is unacceptable or acceptable. At first, the atmosphere was such that there was little opposition to Mr. Noda, but that has dissipated. It might be because they are irresponsible, but politicians are a jealous lot. The people who have served more terms than Noda aren’t interesting. But the older veteran MPs have started to support Kano.

Q: What is former party President Ozawa Ichiro up to?
W: Ozawa has about 50-70 votes. He still hasn’t made up his mind. Kaieda, who quarreled with Prime Minister Kan, is actively trying to curry favor with Ozawa and run in the election.

Q: Former Foreign Minister Maehara hasn’t made a definitive statement.
W: He is the most popular among the people. He’d win if there was a direct national election, but he’s still unsure because of problems with financial donations and other issues…Maehara and Noda won’t run against each other. Just one of them will run.

Q: Maehara has a cautious approach to a tax increase and a forward looking approach to ending deflation….In policy terms, he seems to be closer to Mr. Ozawa than Mr. Noda.
W: That doesn’t make any difference. Ozawa isn’t motivated by policy. He’s always looking to protect his authority and grow stronger. He can’t be bothered with people who won’t serve as his retainers. I’m the only person who can get along with him without becoming his retainer, and that’s why the mass media comes to me….Maehara has a philosophy and he’s not the simple sort that will become a retainer. Kano won’t either. He’s sober and subdued, but a fine man. He isn’t motivated merely by personal interest.

L-R: Kan Naoto, Watanabe Kozo, and Ozawa Ichiro pretending that they like each other. Note the amount of liquid remaining in Mr. Kan's glass and the expression on his face.

Q: From the people’s perspective, Mr. Kano is the exact opposite of Mr. Maehara. He’s understated, older, and people don’t understand his policies. I wonder if the party will select a person like that.
W: It’s not the party. Politics is a world of jealousy. He’s less conspicuous than Noda or Maehara, he’s older, and he’s served more than 10 terms, so people won’t get jealous.

Q: Noda and Maehara say a grand coalition is necessary.
W: That’s a misunderstanding. The mass media uses the term grand coalition, but in that sort of arrangement, both parties provide an equal number of ministers and deputy ministers to the Cabinet. What they’re talking about now is cooperation on common areas of policy…There are more than 100 LDP members who lost the last election and who think that a dissolution of the Diet can’t come a moment too soon. A grand coalition won’t emerge from the discussions of party leadership alone.

Q: Will whoever wins the DPJ election stay in office until September 2012?
W: The lower house term has two years left, but the party members will officially take part in an election in September 2012. The idea that’s gained strength is to give the job to Kano, elect a popular politician in September 2012, have them serve a year, and then dissolve the Diet.

Q: Japan will face many problems in the next year. Isn’t it impossible to obtain the cooperation of the LDP, which is seeking a Diet dissolution, without a coalition?
W: Everyone agreed on the second supplementary budget for reconstruction, including the Communist Party. Since then, the LDP has also agreed on Diet legislation for dealing with the destruction. But behavior unrelated to partisan interests is limited to those recovery measures. There will probably be no cooperation for reforming taxes or unifying them with social welfare.

Q: Will conditions for the DPJ election remain fluid?
W: We won’t know until the very end. At this point today, even I don’t know who it will be. But to boil it down, the main candidates are Kano, Noda, and Maehara.

Q: Who of those three…
W: I don’t know….it could turn out to be a two-man race between Kano and Noda or Maehara.

Q: Will there be a political reorganization after the next election?
W: They say the split is anti-Ozawa and pro-Ozawa, but Ozawa doesn’t have any power now. That’s why I don’t think there’ll be a reorganization.

Q: Will the next DPJ president’s administration be a short one?
W: Another election will be held in the fall of 2012. If he (the party president) implements good policies, he could win reelection and continue.

(end interview)

*****
Addendum:

* Since that interview, Maehara Seiji has moved closer to declaring his candidacy. It was reported elsewhere last week that his group/faction within the party was pushing him to run because he is “popular”, and he could therefore dissolve the Diet and win a general election.

That wish-upon-a-star faith in Mr. Maehara’s popularity is an excellent illustration of the vapidity of the generic DPJ pol. His popularity is entirely superficial at this point, akin to picking out the best-looking guy from among a group of PR photos scattered on a table. His performance as party president when the DPJ was in the opposition and in two Cabinet posts suggests that he lacks the gravitas for the two roles he must fulfill: one as national leader and the other as leader of a party that is in a philosophical shambles. (Maehara/Edano group member Sengoku Yoshito will try to hold it together for him, but that was beyond Mr. Sengoku’s abilities for the Kan Cabinet.) His public support could evaporate just as quickly as that of Hatoyama Yukio and Kan Naoto.

* The Western media will describe Mr. Maehara as a “defense hawk”, which he is — in regard to China. In regard to North Korea, his hawkdom quotient is roughly at Jimmy Carter levels. His past dealings with that country might come back to bite him. The nature of those dealings is still unclear, but the opposition is sure to make the effort to clear things up.

* Another excellent example of DPJ party members living in a room full of mirrors is the idea that they could go with the boring Mr. Kano for a year, replace him with someone “popular”, and then win an election. Really, are these people still in short pants?

Sensible policies clearly explained and forthrightly implemented by people who act confidently win elections.

* Mr. Kano was also the agriculture minister in an LDP Cabinet when he was a member of that party, long ago and far away. He is widely considered to be in the pocket of the Agriculture Ministry (a zokugiin, for those familiar with the Japanese term). He is opposed to joining discussions for the TPP, which was one of Kan Naoto’s flavor-of-the-month initiatives.

Despite knowing of that opposition, Mr. Kan retained him in a Cabinet reshuffle that occurred after he made the TPP proposal. The DPJ a reform party? Ha ha ha ha ha!

* A veteran Japanese journalist wrote an opinion piece last week speculating that Ozawa Ichiro might support Sengoku Yoshito (based on vague remarks made by Mr. Ozawa at a fund-raising party).

* Yet again, a politician says that he thinks a tax increase is “common sense”. In the real world, common sense would demand that politicians CUT SPENDING before raising taxes, but we’re as likely to find a politician with common sense living in the real world as was Diogenes to illuminate an honest man with his lantern in broad daylight.

*****
The members of Your Party certainly have a flair for analogy. Describing the prospective field of candidates for the DPJ election, Secretary-General Eda Kenji compared them to a mop-up pitcher in baseball sent in to eat innings and finish up the game after his team no longer had a realistic chance of winning.

Upper house member Eguchi Katsuhiko of the same party compared the election to a battle for promotion among company section chiefs. “Whoever wins will not have the ability to be of use to the people.”

*****
The shared ambition of the DPJ Diet members, with an emphasis on the verb phrase:

Ichigen Koji (22)

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

“Noda, Maehara, and Haraguchi (of the Democratic Party) are all graduates of the Matsushita Institute of Government and Management, but they learned nothing of Matsushita Konosuke’s thought. They were merely enrolled there, or else just passed through the MIGM tunnel. They certainly didn’t study Mr. Matsushita’s political philosophy. Theirs is nothing more than the earnest wish to advance in the big corporation that is the Democratic Party of Japan Co., Ltd. If it were possible, I’d like to ask them what they think Mr. Matsushita’s political philosophy was, or what his view of humanity was. Their answer would probably be, “…”. They have not made the Matsushita philosophy or political philosophy a part of their lives. That’s why I, who was involved for 15 years with the establishment of MIGM, do not want them to publicly state that they are graduates of that institution.”

- Eguchi Katsuhiko

Mr. Eguchi was a close associate of Matsushita Konosuke, the founder of Panasonic. He was elected last year to the upper house of the Diet as a member of Your Party.

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Goodbye hello

大山鳴動して鼠一匹
- The great mountain rumbles and brings forth a mouse (Japanese proverb)

Kan Naoto's impersonation of Foster Brooks

ON THURSDAY 2 June, the opposition no-confidence motion was voted down in the lower house of the Diet at about 3:30 p.m., even though just before lunch it seemed as if it would be carried. Here’s what people had to say about the day’s events.

Before the vote

Prime Minister Kan Naoto spoke with a group of DPJ and LDP Diet members in the Kantei on the night of 1 June:

“I and others of the baby boomer generation will withdraw. We want you to create a new Diet.”

Former Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio, when asked about the possibility he would leave the DPJ:

“Rather, I think we must renew the Democratic Party. It was not my intention to create this sort of Democratic Party.”

Nishioka Takeo, president of the upper house and DPJ veteran who backed the no-confidence motion:

“I think this opportunity today will be a turning point for overcoming the national crisis.”

Former chief cabinet secretary and current deputy chief cabinet secretary Sengoku Yoshito on Ozawa Ichiro, one of the two primary leaders of the rebellion:

“We will not be able to maintain the parliamentary cabinet system with people of that sort, who are out of control.”

Former DPJ president and defense minister Maehara Seiji on the no-confidence motion:

“This is not for the greater good.”

Aisawa Ichiro of the LDP:

“We submitted this motion in the belief that it was the best choice for the state and the people. This will be an important day from the perspective of thinking about the future of Japan and its politics.”

Prof. Kobayashi Yoshiaki of Keio University:

“In view of conditions in the Tohoku region and the Supreme Court decision (on the unconstitutionality of the difference in district sizes), I do not understand why politicians can make the judgment that it is appropriate to dissolve the Diet and hold a general election.”

Miyazaki Gov. Murai Yoshihiro on the motion:

“I hope they avoid it, because it would pointlessly create a political vacuum…there’s a shortage of people in the coastal area, and we can’t even issue a verification of damage. Making us create a new registry of voters would be inhumane…

On Prime Minister Kan’s threat to call an election:

“An election is physically impossible. I’m astonished that even though he’s been to the area and seen the damage for himself, he would say that without taking (the situation) into consideration.”

Before addressing the DPJ Diet members’ meeting at noon, Mr. Hatoyama met with Mr. Kan and talked him into resigning at an unspecified date —- something he was unable to do the previous day. Here’s the full text of the memorandum to which they agreed, as released by the news media:

* To not destroy the DPJ
* To not allow the return to an LDP government
* To have a sense of responsibility for rebuilding the earthquake-damaged area and saving the victims.
1. Establish a basic law for recovery
2. Establish the prospects for formulating the second supplementary budget

Most people think they listed their priorities in the order of importance to them. Everyone noticed right away that the document contains nothing about a resignation.

The two men then addressed the DPJ meeting at around noon, and Mr. Hatoyama announced he was changing his vote. That’s when everyone knew it was all over but the shouting — of which there was quite a bit during the later Diet debate.

Matsuda Kota, Your Party upper house member and the founder of Tully’s Coffee Japan, when he heard the news:

“Prime Minister Kan brought up three points at the DPJ Diet members’ meeting: (1) Expend every effort for rebuilding and recovery (2) Not split the DPJ (3) Not hand over the government to the LDP. Those are not objectives, those are one person’s wishes. Other than (1), none of them make any difference to the people.”

Kumagai Yutaka, LDP upper house member:

“There’s already no prospect (for recovery). That’s why we’re demanding he step down.”

The no-confidence motion was defeated by a vote of 293-152. Seventy DPJ MPs showed up for a meeting with Ozawa Ichiro the night before in an apparent expression of intent to vote for it, but only two did. They were former Agriculture Minister Matsuki Kenko, an Ozawa supporter, and 29-year-old Yokokume Katsuhito. The party intends to kick both of them out, though Mr. Yokokume already quit the party in disgust last week.

A total of 33 MPs weren’t present for the vote, 17 of whom were from the DPJ, including Ozawa Ichiro and Tanaka Makiko, Kakuei’s daughter and former Foreign Minister in the first Koizumi Cabinet. There is some sentiment for booting them out too, but a decision on that has been postponed.

After the vote

Prime Minister Kan:

“Well, that was good.”

LDP President Tanigaki Sadakazu:

“He made absolutely no reference to when the prospect for recovery would be established. This is nothing but a farce.”

Toyama Kiyohiko of New Komeito, whose party voted for the motion:

“Rather than declare he would resign, Prime Minister Kan declared he would stay in office. There’s a problem with the news media reporting.”

Kumagai Yutaka:

“The mass media is showing captions on TV calling it a declaration of resignation, but what is the basis for that?”

Your Party President Watanabe Yoshimi:

“The prime minister didn’t specify when he would resign. Unless a deadline is reached, the incentive will be for him to be to prolong it. We can’t have that sort of irresponsible politics.”

On the last-minute change of mind by Mr. Hatoyama and his former Internal Affairs Minister Haraguchi Kazuhiro, who the day before said he was ready to vote for the motion and leave the party:

“They just created a disturbance to bring down Prime Minister Kan. Their motives were impure.”

When he saw which way the vote would go, Mr. Ozawa told his supporters they were free to vote as they wished:

“We’ve gotten something out of him (Kan Naoto) that we’ve never been able to get before, so it’s probably best to leave (the resignation) up to him.”

Mr. Hatoyama was asked several times when Mr. Kan promised to step down, as some people thought they were just blowing smoke.

“He won’t be staying until the secondary budget is passed, it’s when the prospects are there for the early formulation of the budget. That will happen in mid-June.”

And:

“I reached an agreement with the Prime Minister to step down when the prospects are established for formulating the second supplementary budget. I don’t think it’s that far off. Summer is too long.”

And:

“The content of the second supplementary budget will be decided by about the end of June. In other words, the outlook for its passage will have been established.”

That’s not what DPJ Secretary-General Okada Katsuya said, however:

“Former Prime Minister Hatoyama’s statement about the passage of a second supplementary budget and a basic law for recovery are not conditions for the resignation.”

That’s not what Financial Services Minister Yosano Kaoru said either:

“(Prime Minister Kan) did not use the word “resign”. It’s not as if he reached an agreement with the opposition parties to resign.”

The Asahi Shimbun was confused:

“The prime minister has already said several times that he expects to formulate the second supplementary budget sometime around August, and then submit it to the Diet. He’s also said that he thinks the problems at Fukushima will be resolved by next January at the latest.

Seko Hiroshige, LDP upper house member:

“He’ll resign when there’s an outlook for a response to the earthquake and the nuclear disaster? I think he’ll stay put with the excuse that there’s no outlook in sight.”

Kakizawa Mito, Your Party MP:

“Here’s the reason I can’t trust the Kan Cabinet. No matter how often he says something, he doesn’t do it. Even though he understands, and he’s been warned that a situation will grow serious without a change of approach, he can’t do anything to prevent it. Then, when it happens, he gets angry. That pattern keeps repeating itself. It’s really futile. The damaged region will continue to suffer if a change is not made.”

Maehara Seiji:

“I have extremely mixed feelings about this. Just because the motion was defeated doesn’t mean we’ve settled anything. There’s no change in the problem of the legislation for the special government bonds and other issues. We’re really going to have to rack our brains.”

People outside the political world also had some choice words:

Kurogane Hiroshi, manga artist:

“They talk about the great mountain rumbling and producing a mouse, but this didn’t even produce a mouse. What was this slapstick of the past few days all about? The people have a sense of powerlessness and exhaustion over the DPJ’s lack of ability to conduct the affairs of government. Though they’ve been spiritually beaten, the people who suffered in the disaster have suffered even further by being shown this farce.

“Prime Minister Kan said he would resign, without specifying when he would resign. The people won’t have any expectations for a lame duck prime minister to begin with, and it’s not possible for him to manage Diet affairs. It would have been better to make a change at the top. Mr. Hatoyama, who lent his power to Prime Minister Kan…Mr. Ozawa, who misread the situation…and the LDP, who couldn’t corner that DPJ. If politics of this sort continue, the people will suffer a real misfortune.”

Rengo Chairman Koga Nobuaki, the largest support group for the DPJ:

“The DPJ has not developed into a ruling party of government….Just because the no-confidence motion wasn’t adopted doesn’t mean anyone should raise their hands and shout hallelujah, or say they’re relieved. Unity is not that simple a matter.”

On the motion:

“The act of submitting a no-confidence motion itself at this time means they’re completely divorced from the sense of the people. I am angry at the lack of (good) politics in this situation, and deeply regret it.”

Back to Matsuda Kota:

“I’ve never been as disappointed in Japan’s politicians as I am today. All those Diet members who said they’d support the motion until just a few hours beforehand — how impressive of them to calmly mount the podium and cast their nay votes! More for the party than for the country, more for their faction than for their party, and more for themselves than for their faction.

“Were they afraid of losing their seats in a general election? Were they afraid of being disciplined by the party? Just who was it who shouted that Japan would never recover unless Prime Minister Kan stepped down. If it’s so easy for you to stick your finger up and wait to see which way the wind is blowing, don’t put on airs and tell other people what you think. Don’t make any comments for the TV or mass media. Don’t say anything that would confuse the people.

“This was really pathetic.”

At a post-vote news conference, reporters asked Mr. Haraguchi why he changed his mind in less than 24 hours:

“Going along with an opposition no-confidence motion is the path of evil.”

They also asked him whether he would be a candidate to replace Kan Naoto when the latter stepped down:

“I don’t know whether I have the qualifications, but if I’m asked, I won’t run away.”

Freelance journalist Nitta Tamaki:

“Just what sort of a man is Hatoyama Yukio? He couldn’t do anything when he was prime minister, he talks smooth, and he’s the DPJ’s posturing millionaire.”

On what almost happened instead:

“His brother Kunio can’t figure out Yukio. A few days ago, he asked Masuzoe Yoichi to join them in a new party.”

Mr. Kan at a news conference at 9:00 p.m., on when he would resign. Emphasis mine:

“We must be headed toward recovery and reconstruction, and have the second supplementary budget for 2011 for reconstruction. I said (I would resign) when there are prospects for moving in the direction of building a new society.”

Finally, one of the two DPJ rebels, Yokokume Katsuhito, who left the party last week. He’s wise beyond his years:

“I am extremely appreciative and thankful for the help I received from everyone in the DPJ. But beyond that, I daresay the DPJ has already completed its historical role, and the meaning for its existence has been lost.”

Afterwords:

Even Richard Nixon resigned when it was time to go. Kan Naoto is incapable of even that.

Politicians who think they can contribute to “building a new society” have demonstrated by that statement their unfitness for public office.

Some in the DPJ were pleased at their victory and the large vote margin. That is akin to expressing marvel at one’s particularly large and well-formed bowel movement.

Some still think it’s possible the Hatoyama Brothers will create a new party using their money, Ozawa Ichiro’s retail political skills, and Masuzoe Yoichi, former LDP Health Minister, as prime minister.

*****
“I can stay until it’s time to go.”

Would there be an election?

PRIME MINISTER Kan is threatening to call an election in which his party would surely be decimated if the no-confidence motion passes. The Constitution requires an election if the Cabinet does not resign.

However, the Sankei Shimbun reports that many influential people in the Democratic Party are opposed to the election option, including the Maehara Seiji group (which includes Sengoku Yoshito and Edano Yukio, the former and current chief cabinet secretaries) and the group led by Finance Minister Noda Yoshihiko. They would prefer to cede power for the moment to someone else (and perhaps hope the shoe would wind up on the other foot).

Another factor is the physical difficulties involved in holding an election in the Tohoku region — voter registration rolls in some places were washed away in the tsunami, for example. Still another factor is that the Supreme Court ruled in March that the last lower house election was technically unconstitutional because the differences in the populations of individual Diet districts exceeded acceptable limits. That problem, which would require redistricting, has not been resolved.

Meanwhile, Kamei Shizuka, the head of coalition partner People’s New Party, visited the Kantei this morning and told Mr. Kan he should resign for the good of the nation. The prime minister said he would think about it.

The rhetoric elsewhere is becoming white-hot. An aide to LDP MP Nakagawa Hidenao compared those who would support the current Cabinet because a successful no-confidence motion would create a political vacuum to the Kenpeitai. They were the military police during the first half of the 20th century and the war years who were, in essence, thought police.

Mr. Kan did not help his case by repeating his intention to delay the tabling of the second supplementary budget. Who’s creating that political vacuum again?

UPDATE: Now there’s word that Mr. Kan might tell the conference of DPJ Diet members meeting right now that he will voluntarily put a time limit on his term; i.e., he’ll announce that he’ll resign as of such-and-such a date. The idea is to forestall the passage of the no-confidence motion. (On the other hand, Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano Yukio denied the story: “(The prime minister) has no thoughts of relinquishing on his own his heavy responsibilities, including the response to the Tohoku earthquake.”

A promise to resign might still not be enough. If the opposition passes a non-binding censure motion in the upper house, Nishioka Takeo, the president of that body and a Kan opponent, could refuse to call the house into session, bringing the governnment to a halt until the prime minister leaves.

UPDATE 2

Prime Minister Kan did tell the DPJ Diet members that he would resign, but without setting a specific date — when the Tohoku recovery and Fukushima cleanup has reached a firm footing. Whenever that will be.

That is the promise of a man desperate to retain power, who has added up the numbers of this afternoon’s vote and doesn’t care for the sum. The Western media refuses to see (or more likely, is unaware) that an important element of the opposition to Mr. Kan in Japan is his lack of character.

UPDATE 3

That vague promise seems to have been enough to change Hatoyama Yukio’s mind, and it now looks as if he’ll vote against the no-confidence motion. So much for the idea of redemption.

Who’s calling whose bluff?

A FEW DAYS ago, I wrote that the passage of a no-confidence motion in the lower house of the Diet would require the dissolution of the body and a new general election. That wasn’t entirely accurate, because Article 69 of the Constitution specifies that the Cabinet has to resign en masse unless the prime minister calls an election within 10 days. On that choice could hinge the course of Japanese politics — and post-earthquake society — for the foreseeable future.

No-confidence motions have passed four times under the current Constitution, the last in 1993 for the Miyazawa Cabinet. Each of the rebuked prime ministers has chosen to dissolve the lower house and hold an election. The political media thinks there’s a real possibility this one could pass too, even though it would require a rebellion by an estimated 80 of the 308 members of the ruling party in the lower house. That’s why Prime Minister Kan Naoto is reportedly threatening DPJ MPs that he too will choose an election rather than go quietly into that good night.

The word “threat” is an unusual one to use for a prime minister’s dealings with the nominal allies of his own party, but it’s a bon mot here. A senior member of the opposition LDP told one newspaper their internal polling shows they’d pick up from 100 to 150 seats in an election. That would be a bloodletting on a scale similar to the previous lower house election (and the 2010 American Congressional elections). The lower figure alone would be enough to give the LDP the most seats in the chamber.

Whether or not those numbers are accurate, the polls and polling results for the DPJ have been dismal for some time. Some local members are running for office by running away from their party ID. Therefore, a DPJ member voting for a no-confidence motion might be voting himself out of a job, particularly the first termers who arrived in the 2009 landslide.

That’s why Ozawa Ichiro, now working to bring down the prime minister of his own party, is telling those delegates — many of whom owe their seats to his expenditures of time and money on their behalf — that it’s still not physically possible to hold an election in the earthquake/tsunami damaged Tohoku region. Therefore, he says, Mr. Kan is bluffing; resignation is his only real choice. (There are also reports the DPJ leadership is quietly canvassing local governments in the Tohoku region to see if they can conduct an election.)

That’s also why LDP head Tanigaki Sadakazu told reporters he wasn’t in favor of holding a lower house election, even though his party and New Komeito would be the ones to introduce the no-confidence motion. He’s purposely flashing his cards to the DPJ MPs to signal that their seats are safe with him.

Because this is a parliamentary system and party disloyalty is a hanging offence, both Mr. Kan and party Secretary-General Okada Katsuya have promised to lay their vengeance upon their fellows who vote for the motion, or even play hooky on the day of the vote. (Let’s put aside for now how the party would deal with, say, 70 rebellious members voting for a failed motion. How will they throw them out and survive?)

The prospect of being a party-less Diet member appeals to no one; they’d have to find their own cash spigot instead of feeding at the party trough. That would explain the rumors of the Hatoyama Brothers forming a new party. If money indeed walks, they have enough between them to shoe in golden slippers any pol who wants to walk to a new home.

Who’s next?

But who would replace the prime minister after he was relegated to the ashkan of history? Freelance journalist Itagaki Eiken thinks he has an idea.

Mr. Itagaki once covered the Kantei for the Mainichi Shimbun, so he knows his way around Nagata-cho. He’s also become a semi-shill for Ozawa Ichiro and has a taste for conspiracy theories involving David Rockefeller, so a salt shaker needs to be kept handy when reading his columns.

This time, he’s focused on former Defense Minister Maehara Seiji, who would have been a logical candidate anyway had he not resigned earlier this year, ostensibly over accepting political contributions from a Korean national born and living in Japan. Mr. Itagaki also thinks the Americans have made it known to Tokyo they want to see Mr. Maehara come on the September state visit instead of Mr. Kan. (The former takes a harder line against China and is not averse to amending part of the Constitution’s Peace Clause.)

Before Maehara can become prime minister, however, Mr. Itagaki says he will have to dispose of some political baggage. He cites other examples from the past: Sato Eisaku passed on his geisha mistress to political ally and widower Kanemaru Shin (later known for keeping the LPD’s stash of gold bullion in a safe at home). Nakasone Yasuhiro relinquished his mistress, the proprietress of a nightclub, to a trusted aide.

Outside women do not seem to be Mr. Maehara’s problem. Also, as this previous post notes, the campaign contributions from the zainichi woman were not significant, she was a family friend, and if she uses a Japanese name, aides wouldn’t have known her ethnic background. Many people suspected at the time this was merely a face-saving offering to allow him to resign without more damaging information being revealed. Mr. Itagaki echoes the stories that appeared in weekly magazines about campaign money from gangsters and ties to North Korea. He adds that one story is so explosive it could cause collateral damage to Finance Minister Noda Yoshihiko and Reform Minister Ren Ho, but concludes it’s not too late for Mr. Maehara to tidy up his affairs.

New Komeito Party Head Yamaguchi Natsuo says this is the week the players start calling bluffs and putting their cards on the table. We’ll soon find out who’s holding the aces and how likely it is that nothing can be a real cool hand.

Afterwords:

Yesterday the voters of Mito in Ibaraki elected Takahashi Yasushi mayor. Mr. Takahashi is an independent backed by the LDP. The election was supposed to be held last month, but many city functions are shut down until 30 June to deal with the earthquake damage. Mito managed to hold an election, but the problems in the Tohoku area are more daunting.

My previous post on Maehara Seiji is dated 9 March, two days before the Tohoku quake. Even then, Yamaguchi Natsuo was saying the Kan Cabinet was in “an endless state of collapse”, and Tanigaki Sadakazu was mulling a no-confidence vote. The disaster is the only reason they still have Kan Naoto to kick around some more.

Over the weekend, I ran across a website for an organization overseas purporting to present foreign affairs analysis. (I forget the name.) They claimed that one of the reasons Mr. Kan was in trouble with Japanese voters was a political contribution from a zainichi man he met for a round of golf.

This is bologna made from the worst quality tripe. The prime minister acknowledged the contributions, said he didn’t know the man was Korean (possibly true), and the slight ripple created by the story had smoothed over within days.

In short, they’re peddling air-based preconceived notions about Japan and Japanese society as professional analysis.

Science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon once said that 95% of everything is crap. That’s still a pessimistic exaggeration, but not in regard to the pronouncements about Japan from journalists/academics/think tanks.

*****
Who’s going to draw the bad card?