Garren's blog

23rd February: Nationalists, charlatans, and legacies

23^rd February

The Senkaku worries rumble on, like an upset stomach being fed cabbage water and pale ale, with somewhat alarmist scenario writers tempered by the moderating views of pacific sages: we are either on the verge of Asian/world war, or else these are mere teething pains with babies fighting over the comforter. Here are three examples, not terribly deep or striking, from each camp, and from the same publication:

http://thediplomat.com/2013/02/10/7-reasons-china-and-japan-wont-go-to-war/?all=true

http://thediplomat.com/2013/02/22/6-ways-to-prevent-a-conflict-between-tokyo-and-beijing/?all=true

http://thediplomat.com/china-power/a-frightening-prospect-war-in-the-east-china-sea/

The Economist attempts to be more balanced and insightful, and basically does a decent job, but in being balanced it and several other publications somewhat miss the salient points of recent developments. The islands are Japanese, have been since modern records began, and their status cannot be traced to the expansionist nature of Imperial Japan (unlike Takeshima/Dokdo), nor to the murky end of the Second World War (which hasn’t ended between Japan and Russia, and hence the continuing dispute over four northern islands off Hokkaido). They are Japanese, and China was fairly happy to accept that until the 1990s. While Abe’s nationalism is unhelpful and undignified, it did not create or provoke this current situation, although Ishihara’s purchase attempt acted as a catalyst by impelling Japanese government action and raising the stakes. PM Noda did not create the problem, he dealt with a poor situation in the way he considered most appropriate, and there were certainly few alternatives available to him.

This crisis is due to increased Chinese nationalism, both organically occurring within a society freed from (only) some of the bounds of state censorship, and state sponsored though education policies and more direct Chinese Communist Party activity. This is not to reject the notion that most Chinese would like the islands to be Chinese, maybe they do, but that the issue has only really arisen in recent years due to state sponsorship of the issue. A number of China experts have also pointed out that those most active in island ‘reclamation’ movement are of the age groups that is of the early 30s-early 40s, when state nationalist education had its first flowering in the ‘freer’ society, with few advocates before or after this narrow age range and seam of national fervour.

Abe’s nationalism is rather muted in contrast to that of China, although the Ministry of Education’s efforts to include Japan-centric positions on the territorial disputes to the exclusion of all other views are savoury sweet meat to Japan’s neighbours and critics. Japan has continued to remind neighbours and the wider world of the other two territorial issues that it has to deal with but with little fervour, although in recent years Korea, and to a lesser degree Russia, have played the nationalist card to drum up domestic political support on these issues. Russia has attempted negotiation at stages, mainly in the 1990s, while Korea has strongly rejected Japanese claims to Takeshima, and it is the RoK which has the longest track-record of sustained, intense nationalism on such a territorial issue. Perhaps as the often invaded, recently colonised country trapped between two greater powers and a hostile cousin this position is understandable, however unpleasant nationalism tends to be as national policy. Waving a flag at the Olympics with one’s family and friends has a completely different value to teachers waving flags in front of schoolchildren in their classrooms.

The one change under Abe has been to send a representative to Shimane Prefecture’s ‘Takeshima Day’ event on 22^nd February with many Asian media represented at the ceremony, but one Korean gentleman ejected, apparently for attempting to hand out fliers saying there are various viewpoints on the sovereignty issue, so dialogue is required. By such actions, the organisers of such events show themselves to be people of feebly narrow minds and terminally limited respect for the views of others, and not only ill-equipped to find a peaceful solution to such a problem but simply ignorant of the need to even search for one. Abe backed away from full official recognition of the event, despite his electoral bluster in December, but his reasoning was based upon ‘make one enemy of your neighbours at a time’ rather than on a truly fraternal view of the democracy on the Korean peninsula.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20130222_29.html　

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20130222_31.html　

http://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2013022200738　

Meanwhile, as the Shimane folk were banging their gongs and demanding their islands back, like their younger equivalents in China, an ex-PM, Mori Yoshiro, was in Moscow dispensing his wisdom and doing his bit to reduce tension and possible engineer the beginnings of a settlement to the island dispute with Russia. That Mori is the man to do this may seem rather odd, for he is a proto-nationalist of the LDP, the man who claimed Japan was a ‘sacred country’ in language perfectly suited to the late 1930s militarists extolling the virtues of Japanese rule in China, but the LDP has many such oddballs. Suzuki Muneo, unique among ex-LDP bigwigs in having had an underground Japanese rap group sample his conversational punch-line for a dance track chorus (“Ya-ya-Yabbai-yo, Yabbai-yo!”), had a 19 year career in the LDP during which time he became a self-professed “expert” on Russia. He did everything he could to promote Japan-Russian relations, to the extent that he essentially attempted to displace the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to bully the Ministry’s personnel into acting as his de facto support staff, and had funds allocated to projects that he controlled, named (after himself), and with seemingly limitless power to act in his Hokkaido domain. That his brief but scorching flight came to an inglorious end was not surprising. He was found guilty of accepting bribes (his assistant went to gaol for soliciting those bribes), not declaring the income, and perjury, spent a year in prison, BUT is still in politics, still a Diet member, and still claiming to be an expert on Russian affairs despite having been a proven liar in court. With such great people on the case is it any wonder that there is no peace treaty between Japan and Russia, and the island issue drags on, with the former island inhabitants dying off and their descendants left with few champions other than the Muneo-like charlatans of the fringe?

In fairness to Mori, he made the sensible case (often rejected by the former inhabitants and the government) that Russia might offer to return two islands (as they had previously), and Japan should accept this offer as the best case of an amicable settlement whereby both countries win. Despite his obvious limitations, Mori appears to be sincere in his efforts. If only there were such statements being made on other territorial disputes.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20130223_01.html

 

In the flare up over the Senkaku islands it is easy to forget that Japan has several major domestic problems outstanding. The issue of ‘Abenomics’, attempting to end deflation, lower the yen, and boost consumption and growth are all very nice, and many seem to support the effects if not the prescribed means to achieve them. However, there are some rather obvious and troublesome results. Japan has outsourced a great deal of manufacturing over the past two decades, as the yen has risen (and then fallen), and while Made in Japan is still a measure of quality and excellence these days it is far more likely to be Assembled in Japan, with many components in Japan manufactured products being sourced from China, Korea, and South-East Asia. The dropping yen, down from highs of less than 80yen to the dollar six months ago to 94-95yen recently, has pushed up import prices of such components, as well as energy costs.

The irony of the latter point is that now Japan’s atomic power company is selling uranium to reduce debts. Since only one nuclear power plant is in operation, and many other are not only offline but several are facing complete scrapping there is so little demand for the product that the raw material provides that the company’s debt is being reduced by selling the fuel. And things are about to get worse, as several studies have indicated that a number of plants built in the heyday of atomic positivism were rather rushed through with limited consideration for the law or safety. Indeed, who would have thought such a thing possible (in a country composed of volcanic fault lines with a seemingly endemically corrupt politico-industry-academic community combine), but it seems that several plants are sited over active fault lines (illegal), although the definition of active is ‘having been the subject of movement in the past 135,000years’, which for some LDP backbenchers may not be the case. In the worst case an entire nuclear plant will probably have to be scrapped, due to being built on a fault line, and yet Japan has no policy, technology, or location for processing such a reactor and making it safe.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/02/21/national/japan-atomic-power-takes-rare-step-of-selling-uranium-to-pay-off-loans/#at_pco=cfd-1.0　

With the second anniversary of the 3.11 triple crisis approaching it may seem staggering that so little has been done to work out some of these major nuclear problems, but they are vast and have extreme long term consequences. The failure to begin significant rebuilding work in Tohoku almost two years on is almost reaching the point of national shame, yet the news is full of Abenomics, Senkaku islands, Chinese radar, and the upcoming summer elections by which the LDP can probably control both houses with huge majorities and set forth with their plan to rewrite the constitution and Japan’s image in the world. Rewriting seems to have been prioritized over rebuilding, and in a sense that equates to creating a new identity for Japan. Whether it is the form of identity Japanese would wish to see as the legacy of the Heisei period is dubious.

5th February: Look Out, Locked On!

5thFebruary

Look out, Locked on

Well, it had to happen sometime, but it seems that someone has escalated the troubles that China and Japan face in the East China Sea. No-one has been hurt, and no weapons have been used, other than a psychological weapon. A Chinese frigate, of the Type 053H3 (NATO codename Jiangwei II), apparently locked its fire-control radar onto a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) destroyer, the Yuudachi of the Murasame-class for some considerable time, while the vessels were 3km apart in the East China Sea. The ships are of comparable age, the Chinese one slightly newer, but the Japanese vessel is twice the size and more advanced. The information was released by the Defense Minister, Onodera, this evening who stood, made a statement, and answered journalists questions, in a manner which was both surprising for his seeming competence, and for how little was actually said. He refused to state where this took place, even the approximate distance from the Senkaku Islands. He also released the news that a similar incident occurred on 19^th January, when a JMSDF helicopter was ‘locked on’ by a Chinese naval frigate. He said, “Beaming of radar for firing is very abnormal, and it could have put us in a very grave situation if things went wrong.” He said the delay in announcing the news was for the MSDF and MOD to conduct analysis of the recordings of the radar ‘lock on’, and for the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) to become involved and contact their Chinese counterparts.

These incidents are worrying and confusing, for the running ‘battles’ (of wits and patience) thus far have been between the Japan Coastguard and the range of Chinese maritime agencies that have interests in the Senkakus (short of the PLAN, Chinese Navy). So why weren’t JCG ships and their Chinese equivalents involved? Did the Chinese Captain possibly ‘lock-on’ in order to warn of the Japanese ship-chopper? Maybe he didn’t know the Japanese for ‘go away’, or the English version, or possibly his flag signals for ‘Plague Ship-Keep Clear’ were in the laundry? Who knows, but the NHK News broadcast at 7pm was extended, and we were given an insight into several aspects of the story by the long coverage. One is just how little Japanese journalists appear to know of military affairs, and therefore the general level of presumption of ignorance among the general public, which is probably well-deserved. Another relates to the comments of a former JMSDF officer and defence attaché staff member in Beijing, Ohara san, who explained not only about Fire Control Radar, but also the forms of communications he would have with his naval counterparts in the Chinese national defence ministry. He said that his level (Lt-Cdr and Commander) would talk quite openly and informally about issues, but from Captain/Colonel level there would be a very stiff official version. He also said that in his view the reason why the Chinese Foreign Ministry wasn’t making any comments on this issue was that the Navy and Defence Ministry probably wouldn’t have told it anything, and therefore it knew far less than MoFA.

This is apparently the first such incident with the PLAN, although there were many such incidents with the Soviet Navy during the Cold War. It could be a captain who made a poor choice. One hopes so.

http://www.sinodefence.com/navy/surface/type053h3-jiangwei-ii.asp

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20130205_34.html

http://sankei.jp.msn.com/politics/news/130205/plc13020518340021-n1.htm (Japanese)

http://www.asahi.com/politics/update/0205/TKY201302050360.html (Japanese)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21337444

 

The news also comes on the heels of Japanese government news that it is establishing an office to publicise its territorial issues. This may seem like a smart idea, given the ability of China and Korea to project their anti-Japanese agenda upon the media, but on the other hand it may well prove to be a very bitter draught that they’ve brewed. The reason is what exactly constitutes a territorial dispute? The Japanese are adamant that there IS a dispute with Korea over Takeshima, which the Koreans deny (it’s Korean, there’s a flag, Coastguard station, get over it), but most certainly there IS NOT a dispute over the Senkaku Islands (it’s Japanese, there’s a flag, Coastguard ships on station, get over it). How they well marry these contradictions, or manage to ignore one while professing the other isn’t very clear.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20130205_28.html

3rd February: Aiming Low

3^rd February 2013

Aiming Low

The new age of Abe has witnessed a series of milestones over the past week. The new administration was swept into power due to dissatisfaction with the general competence of the DPJ-led government, and particularly with the government’s seemingly powerlessness to lift the economy out of the doldrums of deflation. There was also a perception that a sterner policy was required towards China, and to a lesser degree North Korea, for Japan to finally stand up to the neighbourhood bullies. The government has attempted to illustrate its competence by a series of confidence building measures at home and abroad, with Abe, Aso, and others making sure to have their faces seen and hands shaken hither and thither, and seems to have made some sort of impression, with the PM himself having recently visited Tohoku, Okinawa, and South-East Asia. His next big trip is to the US to talk with President Obama about how nasty to be to China, and how positive to be towards the TPP trade bloc negotiations.

The milestones have not been consistent. On the plus side has been the highest levels seen for the Dollar and Pound in more than two years, with several manufacturers predicting a whole new world for Japanese exporters. This is due to an odd phenomenon known as either ‘confidence building’ or ‘chicken’: tell the financial markets you are going to do something, take action, have an effect, and if they believe you, then they will move that way before you actually need to act. Abe promised to spend big to lower the value of the yen, so now he doesn’t need to spend. Whether the fall, and the concurrent rise in the stock markets, will continue isn’t clear, but the ‘Abe impact’ is very clear and should be recognised.

On the minus side though, 2012 saw the first drop in gross regular employees’ salaries including bonuses below the 10million yen mark (about $107,000, or 68,500pounds) for more than 20 years. This is deflation in action, as salaries have been falling from the high of 1997, and winter bonuses in 2012 dropped for the first time in three years, a major factor as bonus payments often constitute between a third and a half of earned income for Japanese regular employees. While the income amounts seem high (and exceed the limits of middle-ranking academics), taxes and insurance premiums are set to rise, and tax payers get comparatively little for their contributions, with charges made for school and college education, medical treatment, and most services, making Japan a midway point between the tendency for state welfare systems in Europe and the generally laissez faire approach of the United States. The fact that deflation has accompanied these salary drops has made life for those in regular employment relatively comfortable, but the devaluing of the yen will further increase energy costs, and Abe’s aim is to drive out deflation, with the potential short-term effect upon personal budgets. Those that will suffer most if these efforts proceed will be the non-regular workers of Japan, those on fixed term contracts, part-time workers, and the irregular ranks of ‘freeters’ who work when they can at what they can. With the PM set to cut welfare payments at the same time as attacking deflation there are a lot of people at the bottom who are due for a bumpy ride. http://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2013013100858　

 Another milestone was reached when the budget submission requests were released. ODA budgets were to be cut for the 14^th year in a row, while the defence budget was to be increased for the first time in 11 years. The ODA cut issue is ongoing, with the high yen making Japan the second largest ODA contributor in total, and the government making the claim that the money is being targeted more effectively, as all governments claim. However, the Japanese are making a significant effort to target Burma and certain African nations, to both aid developing societies’ stability and prosperity and to aid Japan’s belated efforts to ‘think strategically’ in its aid in competition with an aggressively ambitious Chinese aid effort.

The defence budget rise was posted from December’s election campaign, but the rather hubristic approach of the LDP, particularly its leader Abe, to this has resulted in the actual increase, just under 0.8%, seem rather churlish. If there is a dire need that Abe insisted there was then why not more? Indeed, when the figures released (in Japanese http://www.mod.go.jp/j/yosan/2013/yosan.pdf ) are examined, the changes are minor, yet some are seemingly contradictory for the PM’s rhetoric.
The defence budget for 2012 (under the DPJ) was 4645.3billion yen, a 0.4% cut compared to the 2011 budget, and part of the trend of cuts since 1998. The 2013 request of 4680.4billion yen equals an increase of 0.755%. Now, there are still cuts in the defence budgets, with the GSDF having a 4.5% cut, ASDF 1.9% cut, and MSDF 1% increase, with an overall 2.2% cut for the three services! One assumes that Abe hasn't shouted about that too loudly while waving his flag. This is set against big increases for the National Institute for Defense Studies (NIDS) the MOD think-tank (15.2% inc.), weapons technology  (56.2% inc) and other research, and the Joint Staff Office (3.9%), while the Defence Intelligence Headquarters got a 1.4% increase, and the JSDF Medical School was up over 9%.

The MOD are estimating cuts in personnel and food costs, while a more than 9% increase in general costs associated with activities (which usually refers to fuel). The increases for 2013 on fuel are only very slight though, a 5.6billion yen increase, while 16.3bllion extra will be spent on equipment, and 68.3billion on a new electronic accounting system. Spending on JSDF bases will drop very slightly (excluding SACO payments to support US Forces Japan).
As ever with Abe there is what he says he is and what he actually is. Talk and walk quietly and carry a big stick has been displaced by talk loudly and tiptoe along. He and the LDP policy people might well state that this is their strategy, to make China take notice and reconsider their provocative actions (talking loudly) but also not actually inflaming an already tense situation (tiptoeing). However, the Chinese are very good at subtle messages, and in Chinese approaches the maxim is 'everything counts', therefore 'everything is part of strategy', so really there is no reason to shout quite so loudly; they can hear you. The real target is naturally the Japanese population, and the election to the upper house in the summer. Abe wants to wipe his slate clean by delivering the most impressive LDP working majority in parliament since Koizumi.
Will the budget contribute more to Japan's defence? That completely depends upon what the detailed plans are, and this budget tells us a little but not a lot. The cut of 70 GSDF personnel is among nursing students, but the increases in the MSDF and ASDF personnel aren't clear, although there are hints that they relate to monitoring the situation around the Senkakus. The MSDF have been undermanned for years, but that is their own fault, as they've commissioned too many ships for their personnel to handle.
The budget specifies 11 Type 96 APCs, 45 LAVs (like small armoured Humvees or Landrovers), and four amphibious tracked vehicles of unspecified type, as well as one medium helicopter for service in the south-west islands, but that is no different from the standing DPJ plan, and likely to add very little real capability, but simply indicates a trend previously noted. 8million yen to investigate Tilt-rotor aircraft (Osprey) is much the same. 49 LAV were bought last year, as were Type 96 APC and helicopters, and these were not for Senkaku-related duties use, and the same will almost certainly be true for the 2013 additions.

We see the continuation of old school ‘industrial military’ thinking. 14 Type-10 tanks, almost a billion yen each, just under $11million. Four land-based anti-ship missile systems, 2billion yen each. Two more AEGIS destroyers, rather than two logistics support vessels, which would be much cheaper to build and man, and would enhance total fleet capability far more than another two very complex, difficult to man 'up front' combat units. All head and no tail makes for a very oddly unbalanced dog. The new school is represented by more money (and possibly people) for cyber warfare defence, and in intelligence analysis. There is also more money devoted to radar and signals installations, almost all presumably for the south-west, and all of that seems very sensible given recent and not so recent developments.
So, what does it all mean? Well, nice but...
One presumes that the real story is yet to come, in the review of the review that will report later in the year, presumably after the election. That will pave the way (presuming an LDP victory) for more dramatic changes and probable spending increases, and I'm sure that Mitsubishi Corp. will be very happy with that. Nothing yet has been said about the real changes to the JSDF much stated by Abe, in name, in manpower, in configuration, in the size, shape, and use of reserves, little on overseas deployments. This week has seen the PM make his first statement of the year on changing the constitution (not yet), the ban on collective self-defence (think about it for a while, the US don’t want it in a hurry it seems), and making the JSDF a Japanese Military (pending). Therefore although Abe and chums are talking loudly about the importance of this budget it is more as an exercise in domestic house-keeping, while the actual changes to the fabric of the building will come later. The real defence review will come beyond the summer election, after the LDP have had a chance to work out exactly what their policy is.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20130107a1.html

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20130203_07.html
http://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2013012900792

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/02/03/national/u-s-to-abe-collective-self-defense-off-agenda/#at_pco=cfd-1.0

The PM has even made some comment on the 1993 war apology this week, and the issue of ‘comfort women’, the many thousands of women tricked or compelled to act as prostitutes or sex-slaves for Imperial Japanese forces. His comments came in a  House of Representatives plenary session, when he said he would not be directly involved in a possible revision to a 1993 statement on the issue by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Kono Yohei, and then said the current Cab Sec (Suga) should deal with it, and moved on as quickly as possible. In the 1993 statement, Japan recognized the involvement of the imperial military in managing the women. As Jiji news reported on 31^st January, “In the leadership election campaign for the Liberal Democratic Party last September, Abe said Japan should replace the statement because no evidence has been found to back up the claim that the military of the time forced women into wartime brothels.” Sincerity is a wonderful thing.

http://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2013013100990

And The Japan Times published an extract from its archives of 1938 that reminds us all of the mindset that denieｄ Japan’s unsavoury historical incidents:

“For the manifestation and enhancement of the “Japan Spirit” abroad, however, there is something to be done beforehand in this part of the world — the Orient. That is to reconstruct and rehabilitate the stricken Asian continent. We must first strengthen cooperation among Japan, Manchukuo and China, bound together as they are with a common civilization, establish a basic principle of sufficing one another from the standpoints of national defense and industries, check others’ malicious activities in the Orient and eventually build a new land for co-existence and co-prosperity among the three countries.

It is exceedingly regrettable, however, that China under the Nanking regime has not only betrayed the other two in that great task but has also resorted to a policy of anti-Japanese resistance.

Such being the situation, Japan was compelled to take arms against it. This is the origin of the current Sino-Japanese hostilities. Japan’s enemy, therefore, is not the Chinese people but the Government under General Chiang Kai-shek, who is dead to all sense of the shame of selling his country to others.

Japan must continue its fight in China till it can stabilize the foundation of that nation.

As for the Japanese people, they must be prepared to endure whatever sacrifice the country demands.”

Yes indeed. Those terrible Chinese sabotaged Japan’s sincere aspirations by resisting the invasion of their country. The paper added a wonderful end piece:

Ryutaro Nagai, Communications Minister (the writer), “who had served as a Diet member since 1920, died on Dec. 4, 1944, during the Tokyo air raid.”

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/01/19/national/man-survives-train-fall-redistribution-of-resources-japans-mission-gsdf-adopts-local-guns-chandelier-falls/#.UQvZWfJe2kw

A minor milestone was the searching of a company here in Fujisawa City, in connection with the incidents that had grounded the Boeing 787 fleet worldwide. Yes, are on the map at last! The reason? Kanto Aircraft Instrument Company, the only functioning part-remnant in Fujisawa of the legacy of the Imperial Japanese Navy, is a world leader in heat-movement and other detection and control systems, and provides the instrumentation for the batteries that have malfunctioned in the 787. The good news is that it seems their equipment is fine, and they are not at fault. The company exists on the south-west corner of the site of the former Fujisawa Naval Air Station between Fujisawa Honmachi and Zengyo, with most of the former airfield now taken up by the Ebara Company, some tennis courts, a gym, and a wholesale area. The site was chosen as it was the pre-war Fujisawa Country and Golf Club, where rich Japanese and Americans would come to play golf and hang out on the highland plateau with a lovely view of Mount Fuji to the west and Enoshima and Sagami Bay to the south. It was used for training pilots, navigators, and signals technicians during the war, and was the planned site for suicidal air attacks upon the huge US fleet that was due to invade the Sagami Bay area in 1945 or 1946. Luckily, that never happened, and the aviation business, initially building light aircraft, shrank to the degree that the only outward signs for most Fujisawa citizens is a bus stop called ‘Kanto Aviation’.

Some might think the general ignorance of local history is a crying shame, such as the City Hall being the site of the former IJN Fujisawa District HQ, and perhaps the degree of ignorance is regrettable, but it is far preferable to any false glorification. I know the Prime Minister isn’t reading this, but at least I can write as though he is, and dream of a better world.

24th January: Flying High, Flying Low and the Algerian Tragedy

24^th January

Flying High, Flying Low

The Abe government has continued its battle against badness everywhere that it sees it, including in the Japanese economy. The vice-supremo in this battle is none other than former-Olympian, playboy, Catholic, and all-round odd bloke Aso Taro. Last Friday, when Abe was away visiting people in South-East Asia to agree on how much they didn’t like China, Aso held a meeting with those at the apex of the Japanese fiscal management mountain, and afterwards held a press conference, which was astonishing. What was said, in terms of the problems identified, was shocking enough, with the creation of inflation being seen as some chimerical panacea of well-being rather than as the rather dangerous device to rid the country of endemic deflation. For anyone who lived through the stag-flation of the 1970s, when many countries experienced rapid inflation and stagnant growth, this would seem odd, but since Aso is the oldest member of the cabinet one would have thought he would have had a tad more empathy with those who fear such a recurrence.

However, empathy isn’t his strong suit. This week our Taro has come out with the gem that those aged citizens suffering from fatal illnesses should have their health insurance support withdrawn by the government, to help them end their suffering, and save money for others. One hopes that he will be volunteering to forego his state benefits as well, to end his suffering in the cabinet and free up the airwaves and state coffers for others more able to contribute to Japan’s future, but it seems unlikely. http://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2013012100681

http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1133350/aso-says-japanese-elderly-should-hurry-and-die

Although Aso can be criticized for such gaffes, on which his record is remarkable even for a rich-boy hereditary politician who even denied that the family firm had employed Allied POWs as virtual slave labour during the war, what was even more remarkable about his press conference on 18^th January was its delivery. Known for talking out of the corner of his slightly crooked mouth, Aso sat slumped in his chair, slurring his way through an explanation, which the great man prides himself on being ‘unprepared’, as in not read from a script unlike most Japanese politicians. In this sense he is ‘a natural’. He may not have made the connection between his natural ‘free-bird’ style and his occasional ‘turkey’ incidents, but his last performance seemed to be due to either extreme exhaustion during the meeting, an extension of that meeting into entertainment that left the members ‘tired and emotional’, or some illness. One wishes him well, but if he is unwell, let us hope that the family fortune can sustain him rather than having to depend upon state health insurance that is only a flicked switch away from extinction.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/5875003/Japans-unpopular-PM-Taro-Aso-leaves-a-legacy-of-gaffes.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7765681.stm

 

Algeria

This evening Chief Cabinet Secretary Suwa confirmed that ten Japanese have now died, including senior managers and directors of the Japanese gas company JGC in the terrorist attack on the gas facility in southern Algeria. The people of many countries have been affected by this well-planned attack, possibly linked with French and international efforts to prevent Islamic forces in neighbouring Mali from taking control of the majority of the country. One of the odder results of this for Japan has been the raising of the issue by the LDP, through the Defense Minister Onodera Itsunori, for dispatching JSDF armed units overseas to ‘deal with’ such hostage situations. http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T130120003552.htm

The initial reactions were to evacuate Japanese nationals from areas of danger, a natural thought, and one well within the capabilities and legal framework of the JSDF. This has since escalated into talk of dispatching anti-terrorist armed forces in order to assist with rescue efforts, and has been made to sound even more ominous by PM Abe’s insistence that everything possible must be done to ensure the Japanese hostages safe return. Abe was engaged in an oddly intimate telephone huddle with PM Cameron of Britain over this issue, possibly considering the dispatch of British forces to carry out such a task, but since no such dispatch was made it is safe to assume that the wisdom and/or utility of such a move was called into question. http://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2013012400935

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20130124_34.html

So, just what would the JSDF be tasked with in such a situation? Medical or translation services? Surely civilians would do a better job, more quickly. Intelligence? The JSDF has nothing at all to offer in that regards, as it has little or no overseas intelligence gathering capacity, and very little linguistic ability beyond some English. Hardware? Again, not much on offer that isn’t available locally, more quickly, easily, and cheaply. Japan can currently dispatch diplomats to the area, offer any assistance, and its VIP 747 aircraft to retrieve the survivors and bodies of the victims, as it has done, and this seems highly appropriate. It seems also though that Abe and his chums are rather keener to beat their breasts and announce their strength and power than to think through the issues in a very careful manner. And as we know, those that shout loudest about their strength are very often those that protest too much, methinks (and Queen Gertrude, from Hamlet), like a Jack Russell barking into the night for the fear of wolves. Just a few of the issues involved:

1 Constitution- “Forever forgo the right of belligerency”. That isn't going to be easy to square with a robust overseas anti-terrorist capability.

2 Law- Under the International Peace Cooperation Law (IPCL), which is the basis for most overseas JSDF overseas deployments, there are five conditions by which force dispatches must abide. Consent of host nation is one, neutrality of the JSDF in any conflict is another, and withdrawal if faced by a breakdown of a peace agreement or a situation of impending conflict is the final one. This was the stated reason for the withdrawal of the small PKO contingent from UNDOF in the Golan Heights this month. These conditions would be a tough match with a robust overseas anti-terrorist capability, and would the Algerians really want lots of armed Japanese around who understand no French, Arabic, or the local conditions?

3 Extraction Force (EF)- Such a force could/would be seen as a way of enacting that final condition of safe withdrawal from a dangerous environment. The GSDF Central Readiness Force (CRF) is the de facto EF but there is little evidence of preparation for such a role, and GSDF doctrine doesn't seem to envisage such a possibility. They are also greatly hindered by the range and capabilities of ASDF air-lift. C-130 load-range capabilities don't offer much outside of Asia, unless you are not in a hurry (as the Honduras post-Hurricane Mitch deployment saw, C-130s flying via Guam, Hawaii, California, Texas etc. taking five days minimum to arrive in country). ASDF 767 and 747 aircraft offer very limited large load capabilities and are tied to large, well-resourced airports/bases, even if they are not required for other duties (767 are dual use, also required for air-refuelling of F-15s, over the Senkakus?).

4 Civil-Military Cooperation- JSDF have great skills here, as seen after 3.11, and in PKO, but that isn't the same as the networking required on intelligence for counter-terror operations, requiring police-military operational and intelligence integration.  The MOD and Japanese politicians seem to have a fear of military intelligence going back to the bad old days of the 1930s/40s, but without vertical and horizontal inter-agency/international networking any military capability will be pretty much redundant.

It would seem the present government want to show that they mean business, but have started off by withdrawing forces from Golan and Haiti, in accordance with the previous DPJ administration, have made no real change in policy on the Senkakus, and seem determined to change the tenor of rhetoric more than anything substantive, although they dream of changing the ‘peace clause’ Article 9 of the constitution. The development of an anti-terror special forces capability might be their ‘innovation’, but it seems unlikely to be one of any great significance in such crises as found in Algeria.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T130123004449.htm

There have been interesting developments at the MOD, however, with that nice Mr. Onodera having commented on ex-DPJ PM Hatoyama Yukio and his visit to China. Odd subject it seems, but worth looking at. Yukio was in China as a private individual, given the Ministry of Foreign Affairs knowing-nod to attempt to begin the fence mending process with China, and with his background of ‘fraternal Asian relations’ policy in 2009, he was the perfect choice for an insubstantial PR exercise in warm handshakes and nice noises. He said that Japan was nasty to China during the war, and he was sorry, and most Japanese were too, and in this he was right. Then he said that it was also sad that there was a dispute between China and Japan over the Senkaku Islands, and that he hoped for a rapid settlement of this dispute. Spot the problem?

Min. Onodera spotted the problem right away. He reportedly branded Hatoyama a ‘traitor’. Hatoyama commented that, “The Japanese government says there are no territorial disputes. But if you look at history, there is a dispute.” Onodera responded, “If his remarks have been politically used by China, I'm unhappy... At that moment, the word of 'traitor' arose in my mind.” However, while Onodera may well be over-reacting to that point, and it is important for Japan denies there is a dispute, just as Korea denies a dispute over Takeshima/Dokdo, and yet Japan fails to connect its frustration with Korea to the frustration of China with Japan, there is a sub-narrative ongoing in the LDP. That is the profound apology offered by Hatoyama for the slaughter in Nanjing in 1937 by Japanese imperial forces, and how many in the LDP detest such apologies, as signs of weakness, and also as, in their eyes, historical inaccuracies. While they have a point about the Chinese authorities denying their own domestic atrocities, denying Japanese atrocities in China is a losing hand in international relations, and one which indicates that many younger LDP members have learned nothing from their country’s long and prosperous peace. The failure to deal with their own history hobbles Japan’s leaders in every other aspect of policy, and the effects of China’s anger over the Senkakus upon the Japanese economy illustrates how moral and pragmatic matters are inextricably linked. Without a ‘Willy Brandt moment’ Japan will continue to harm itself.  http://edition.cnn.com/2013/01/18/world/asia/japan-hatoyama-china/index.html

The most comprehensive repudiation of this LDP sect is found in The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 11, Issue 1, No. 1, “Abe Shinzo, a Far-Right Denier of History”, by Narusawa Muneo (Translated and edited by Satoko Oka Norimatsu and David McNeill): http://japanfocus.org/-Narusawa-Muneo/3879?utm_source=January+21%2C+2013&utm_campaign=China%27s+Connectivity+Revolution&utm_medium=email

Confronting the massive China issue, the territory issues, and the vast range of history legacy issues requires real strength and stamina. But it is far easier to shout loudly about one’s own strength and send a few troops overseas.

 

Big Bird Down

The saga of the Boeing 787 trundles on, with ANA experiencing an emergency landing of an aircraft at Takamatsu, and evacuation by slides, due to the persistent problem found in ANA and JAL 787s with the large lithium-ion batteries. Those batteries are manufactured in Japan, but seem to have suffered catastrophic failure, which given the nature of the fly-by-wire aircraft is a tad worrying, and compounds the problems found with a cracked windscreen, fuel leaks, and other issues in the past month. All 787s have been grounded and deliveries suspended.

 

Economy

Japan’s trade deficit in 2012 hit a new record high of just under 7trillion yen. This can be seen partly as a result of the need to import oil and gas to make up for the loss of nuclear power generation, but that isn’t the worst part. The darker side is that Japanese electrical and electronic export earnings over the last six years have dropped by more than 60%. Japan’s TV makers used to lead the world, now Sony is the third TV producer in the world, well behind Samsung and LG, and many other makers have shifted production overseas, Sharp is on the edge of bankruptcy, and car makers have decided that the domestic market simply won’t do. The Nissan chairman, Shiga, stated on NHK news this evening that Nissan needed to retain its Made in Japan identity, and needs to sell its products as part of its ‘koto zukuri’ approach: selling a way of life, a narrative, a concept, rather than simply an object. This is fine and dandy, but he also decided to stop small car production in Japan and import from Thailand. Who wouldn’t? But the consequences of this will be felt in ever increasing ways over the next few years, and it seems that Abe and friends haven’t quite realised this irrepressible matter just yet. The trident of ‘Abe-nomics’ has been:

1 Massive stimulus package, fiscal stimulus, for one year.

2 Fiscal easing, through printing more money, driving up inflation, and reducing the value of the yen (making Japanese government borrowing cheaper and potentially impoverishing the elderly who live on savings).

3 Fiscal and broader economic reform, now revitalization, once restructuring, to change the nature of the Japanese economy.

Now, 1 is very easy, as the LDP has decades of experience of throwing money in the direction of their constituents for the next year (funnily enough, there is an important election in six months). Every other time this has been tried, including by Abe and Aso in 2006 and 2009 it flopped, as it has pretty much every other time since the bubble popped more than 20 years ago.

2 is also very easy, but doing it without destroying the currency, economy, and wealth of the populace isn’t easy, and it seems that Abe wants it done quickly, with minimal opposition from the Bank of Japan chairman, a dead-man walking.

3 is tricky. Abe has established a committee on this, a collection of very wise men with lots of experience in dealing with economic issues, but there are only a couple of wee problems. They are part-timers, not dedicated staff. They have no powers, and only the remit given to them by Abe. Abe won’t make any decisions on key issues in case of upsetting people, so nuclear power, TPP etc. will remain clouds on the horizon. Abe will also do little or nothing to upset farmers, industrialists, the old, and those LDP folks with any stake in ‘old economy’ matters that are simply not sustainable (practically every LDP Diet member). So, it would seem that the scope for fiscal and economic reform will be very limited.

The best source of critical thinking on Abe-nomics and all that it doesn’t and does entail can be found in the ever-amazing blog of Michael Cucek. http://shisaku.blogspot.co.uk/

 

Glowing on the grill

And the nuclear issues never go away, but merely sit on the back burner, glowing and smouldering. The latest include a decision to actually closely check the health of nuclear clear-up workers, something that nobody has bothered doing over the past 22 months, and the discovery of fish off the Dai-ichi nuclear power plant that exceed the safe dose of radioactive material by more than 2,000times.

“254,000 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium has been measured in a spotbelly rockfish caught in the port of Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power station late last month, TEPCO said Friday.

   The cesium level is 2,540 times higher than the government-set limit for food and the highest found in fish since the accident at the northeastern Japan plant in March 2011, according to TEPCO.

   The previous record figure for fish was 25,800 becquerels detected in a fat greenling caught off Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, in August last year.”

http://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2013011801052 　

And still there is no solution being proposed for Japan’s fuel cycle problem: what to do with waste fuel, such as that hanging so precariously over the top of the wrecked Dai-ichi reactors, without a plan for waste storage or domestic recycling?

As The Japan Times reported this month:

“Our nuclear policy was a fiction,” former National Policy Minister Seiji Maehara told a Diet panel in November. “We have been aware of the two crucial problems. One is the fuel cycle: The fast-breeder is not ready. The other is the back-end (waste disposal) issue,” he said. “They had never been resolved, but we pushed for the nuclear programs anyway,” Maehara said.

“Some compare it to building an apartment without a toilet”, added the JT.

Or else the assumption is that that great swath of Japan that isn’t major city, and has few votes and little money, will be happy or accepting of acting as Japan’s nuclear septic tank in the future, although Professor Imada Takatoshi, Tokyo Technical University, insists “There is too much risk to keep highly radioactive waste 300 meters underground anywhere in Japan for thousands or tens of thousands of years.” http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20130107a3.html

Worry not though, Abe is a strong leader who will come up with a policy.

3rd January: New Year, New Serpents, Less People

A new year and so much to look forward to in the year of the snake.

There will be a lot more room in Japan, now that the population has fallen by the greatest amount in one year since 1947, when such records began, falling by an estimated 212,000, and with the lowest number of births recorded. There will also be less people around if the new cabinet has its way, with the number of prisoners on death row having reached a new high of 133, with last year being the first in 19 years when no executions were undertaken, although the new LDP-led government is expected to have fewer qualms than the previous DPJ about further reducing Japan’s population.

http://www.todayonline.com/World/EDC130102-0000034/Record-decline-in-Japan-population

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20130101b3.html

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T121230002278.htm

The economy is expected to rebound and resurge and recover and re-everything else. This is because the new government has said it is going to make that happen, although how long people will actually believe this wishful thinking isn’t clear. What is clear, however, is the degree to which novelty and statements can make immediate impressions. The previous government over three years attempted to reduce the value of the yen with very little effect, and yet the new cabinet has seen a reduction in its value by more than 5% in just a couple of weeks. The main point is that the LDP promised to spend huge amounts of public money to reduce the yen, and the markets took the hint to get out and sell up while the value was still high, with the result that Abe can keep his money in his pocket (the value of it having dropped) if he has any sense. This doesn’t amount to a major dent in deflation, which was his main aim, but it is an important first step. One only hopes the LDP don’t get carried away and spend the yen-discounting fund anyway, and reduce the level of the yen so much that Japan ends up in a twin death spiral of deflation in the economy and devaluation of the currency. But surely our dear leaders have more sense than that. Private think-tanks are forecasting growth for 2013, so that can only be a thing to look forward to with some relish.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20130101_27.html

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nb20130102a1.html

Odd things seem to be happening though in other parts of government. The LDP seem to have come up with a harebrained scheme to help private business. It appears to involve the state buying industrial capacity that is no longer required due to falling demand (factories, refineries etc.), at above market values, and then leasing these back to the same companies when demand picks up again. So, that involves bureaucrats and politicians negotiating with professional business people over values and sales. Hmmm. One wonders which side will come out the winners in such deals? Another grand wheeze is to increase the number of launches of Japan’s space programme, especially aimed at attracting foreign orders for launches.  Since Japan has been so amazingly unsuccessful in this market so far, could this be the case of throwing good money after bad, or is it an essential expression of faith in domestic technology? And the difference between the North Korean and Japanese satellite launches? A UN resolution.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20130102_09.html

There are rumblings in the MOD as well that the government could buy the highly controversial MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft for the GSDF, despite widespread public opposition to its deployment by the USMC in Okinawa, due to noise, flight-safety and other concerns. Certainly the Osprey has had its problems, but these aside, why the Japanese would see the need for such an aircraft when there is no clear need for such an augmentation of airlift capabilities isn’t at all clear. It can fly faster and further than helicopters, which is handy. It is difficult and expensive to operate, and has a smaller load-carrying capability than large helicopters such as the CH-47 Chinook, of which the JSDF is the largest operator outside the US, and CH-53. One wonders whether the MOD has been thinking of the Senkakus, but if so then Chinooks would appear to offer a better and more flexible option, require a smaller landing area, and where the difference of speed over the 200km distance from Okinawa would equate to the Osprey having only a 30 minutes advantage. With shrinking defence budgets and escalating equipment costs can this be justified? Or would such an order have an equal political element to the deal for F-35 fighters announced in the summer? A Yomiuri Shimbun report on 23^rd December made things even less clear, stating that “On Dec. 13, a Chinese airplane intruded into airspace near the Senkaku Islands, prompting some LDP members to insist on the need to obtain Osprey aircraft for the SDF as deterrence against China.” Surely air intrusions would demand a better airborne warning and control system for the ASDF, and possibly better provision of fighter (and by extension tanker) aircraft. Quite what a troop carrying rotor aircraft would do to prevent a twin-prop Chinese civilian maritime patrol aircraft from overflying Japanese islands is not at all clear. http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T121222002926.htm

On which note, it is hoped that 2013 sees a reduction in the number of intrusions by Chinese sea and air craft into Japanese controlled areas. This largely depends on how the two governments conduct their affairs, including in matters completely unrelated to the islands and fishing. The largest single issue could actually end up being the presence of Abe at a religious site in Tokyo in the summer holidays. Yes, good old Yasukuni Shrine is a possible site for generating diplomatic sparks that could re-ignite all manner of dormant fires in East Asia. Having stated his deep regret at not having worshipped at the shrine on 15^th August during his previous premiership, he seems determined to make amends this time, and even dropped in for a prayer in October 2012. Perhaps he has actually learned something from his old mentor Koizumi, who was the only PM to make such visits continuously during his time in office. If so, he has misread the lesson. Koizumi made the commitment in order to make sure his political position in the LDP could not be attacked from the right, thus securing his ground to attack the corrupt conservative practices of his own party, the LDP. Abe is making no such reforms, is already the right-wing of his own party, and thus he would be making such a move simply for the satisfaction of his own tortured soul. The price for this act of worship for the souls of some of Japan’s fallen in wars since the 19^th century, including a number of high profile war criminals but not millions of other Japanese veterans who are interred elsewhere, might well be a great worsening of relations with the new government in China, and that in Korea. Let us hope that young Shinzo finds something else to occupy his time. Perhaps a collection could be organised to purchase him a highly complex and time-consuming model kit of the battleship Yamato.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20121218a2.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/18/world/asia/japan-opposition-leader-shinzo-abe-visits-war-shrine-a-possible-message-to-neighbors.html?_r=0

 

2013 also sees the welcome return to Japan of many JSDF members. They have returned after UN PKO service in the Golan Heights and Haiti, where they repeatedly demonstrated their professionalism and diligence. So, a happy ending for a happy new year. Yes and no. The reasons they have come home are a little odd. Haiti was seen as an open-ended commitment too far, both as the GSDF is short of engineering forces give its domestic commitments and the new mission in South Sudan from 2012, and as the strain on the ASDF to support the mission with inadequate strategic airlift capability was seen as unsustainable. In a brief aside, the ASDF have only ever bought six strategic airlift aircraft in 58 years. The first were two 747s, used for VIP transport, and only used once for JSDF overseas deployments, to Haiti! The next four are 767s, and are ‘swing capability’ aircraft, which means they can be used as either air-tankers or as cargo aircraft, which is lovely. The only trouble for UN PKO is that the ASDF would much rather refuel its fighters, especially when trying to intercept Chinese and Russian aircraft, rather than fly engineers to a poor country. Can’t do both. Oh, and Ospreys would be completely irrelevant: note to Shinzo!

The Golan mission, UNDOF, was probably the best Japanese PKO, in terms of contribution to mission, total mission cost performance, Japanese cost performance, and integration of JSDF personnel. They were withdrawn as the Syrians tried to annoy the Israelis and UN by lobbing the odd mortar bomb and shell near the UNDOF bases. So, Japan demonstrates its international burden sharing by pulling the folks home, and ending more than 16 years of excellent work on a sad and sour note. While the DPJ, LDP, MOD, and JSDF will point to the International Peace Cooperation Law and the provisions that forces must be withdrawn if the ceasefire breaks down, this is indeed the legal provision. However, the JSDF did not prematurely withdraw from Cambodia (a Japanese policeman killed and four injured in an ambush, and a Japanese civilian murdered), or Iraq (mortars fired at the JSDF base and operational areas, two Japanese diplomats murdered) in the face of far worse outbreaks of violence. It seems that an excuse was used to conclude an open-ended commitment that few politicians felt real commitment to anymore. Let us hope that Japan does not require any international burden sharing anytime soon. Maybe this is way to bolster the number of people in Japan?

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20130101b4.html

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T121230002566.htm

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T121226001785.htm

And in minor news, the new foreign minister, Kishida, has been greeted with a Lord Derby-esque reaction from officials. The famous Lord assembled a cabinet in 1852 which lasted only a few months and was known as the ‘Who? Who?’ cabinet, so obscure were most of its members. The MoFA staff are similarly at a loss as to what to expect from their new leader.

And in even more minor news (since the election), Japan’s energy policy is about to be reversed, nuclear power stations will be restarted, although those proven beyond doubt to be sitting on fault lines may take a little longer, and popular fears of both the safety of nuclear power, and of the competence of Japanese ‘experts’ to safely manage the technology, will be swept away in the name of economic progress. Yes, the LDP wishes to keep the atom close to its heart, and far from Tokyo, despite the proof that nuclear power is far more expensive than any other option, and with no finite solution or costing for waste disposal.

 

In the bits and bobs section, there are several homepages that have attracted interest at the beginning of 2013.

For those who are local and have no social lives, there is the Japan Met Office data from the Tsujidou monitoring station. Yes, an hourly update of the day’s weather, and of yesterday’s. This data is gathered from a spot less than 300meters from my house, so is possibly the most accurate measurement that could be imagined. And imagine I can, with the glee that only the sad and lonely can derive from realising that not only did the temperature today never dip below 10C after dawn, but that the dawn of 2013, which saw me and thousands of others on Tsujidou beach, was just above freezing (0.3C). Yes, the pulse is racing eh? Hello?

http://www.jma.go.jp/en/amedas_h/today-46141.html?areaCode=000&groupCode=32

There is also the local Fujisawa sustainable smart town, being developed on the site of the old Panasonic TV factory by the company and the city, which promises a very interesting urban experiment. The only slight fly in the idyllic ointment is that the location is less than a 30 minute walk from my home, and although the surrounding area is very nice and very convenient, the land is between a very busy railway line, that has freight trains rumbling by which I can even hear at my house when the wind is from the north, and a busy road, upon which the Hakkone-Tokyo Ekiden relay road race was held today, with the return leg tomorrow. My university team finished 12^th, so a big effort is needed tomorrow, but the point is that the road is quite large and busy, especially with trucks.

http://inhabitat.com/fujisawa-sustainable-smart-town-update-new-photos-of-what-homes-in-this-advanced-eco-city-may-look-like/fujisawa-sustainable-smart2/

http://panasonic.co.jp/corp/news/official.data/data.dir/en110526-3/en110526-3.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/fujisawa-sustainable-smart-town-future-model

Also, these sites which are simply hilarious, supporting gay marriage, the adventures of Kim Jong Un, and a parody of Gangnam style as ‘Mitt Romney Style’.

Romney: http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6830834/mitt-romney-style-gangnam-style-parody

The adventures of Kim Jong Un: http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6740023/the-adventures-of-kim-jong-un

Kim Jong Un vs Psy: http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6847475/the-adventures-of-kim-jong-un-kim-jong-un-vs-psy

Gay Men will marry your girlfriends: http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6846855/gay-men-will-marry-your-girlfriends 

 

May we all have a happy and peaceful new year.

 

27th December: Passing parties, new-old leaders, eternal shores

 27^th December

New parties come, new parties go, old leaders are new leaders, but the sea still laps on the island shores.

Kamei Shizuka, a politician very difficult to pigeonhole or even describe without reference to such words as ‘curmudgeonly’ and ‘constipated’, has announced that he will resign from the Tomorrow Party of Japan, which he only joined a few weeks ago. His reason was that “the current situation does not allow him to carve out the future of Japan.” Uncle Napoleon obviously sees his destiny in grand terms, although the more prosaic “I only joined this mess as a convenient banner under which I might survive a bumpy electoral experience, but it failed, so I’m off to look for another way back to a job that suits my ego and salary demands” would perhaps be regarded as a tad ungracious. Kamei, former leader of the People’s New Party, and former elder in the LDP, would probably like to be invited back into his old fold, but this seems unlikely, as he offers little and would demand much. http://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2012122600409

Another Bonaparte looking on wistfully from Elba and imagining himself returning to glory is Ozawa Ichiro, who has announced his departure from the same party, together with 14 members who arrived in such high expectations a few weeks ago from their own People’s Life First Party. These departures mean that Tomorrow Party will be left with only one Diet member, Abe Tomoko, who will become its parliamentary head (of herself) after the proposition that Ozawa become head was rejected by the Party hierarchy who have always suspected that his interest in them was to hijack the party for his own ends, possibly as a ferry from his island back to the mainland and further glory. http://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2012122700002 This blog has a soft spot for Ms. Abe, as not only has she never been knowingly outsmiled, but she is a good soul, representing Fujisawa City, Kanagawa and the surrounding district for many years, and making her face known in the community and paying attention to local concerns (even to that of a ragged British resident denied the vote in his own constituency). She is a paediatrician and has always placed health, welfare, and human concerns to the fore in her political campaigns. However, one suspects that she will be very lonely, as the left has been decimated, and such concerns are scarcely at the heart of the new LDP (and, lest the world forgets, Komeito coalition) government. http://www.abetomoko.jp/

http://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2012122700513

The final result of the election is startling in so many ways. The LDP and New Komieto have secured more than two-thirds of the seats in the lower-house, so can effectively overcome any opposition in the upper house, if party discipline can be relied upon, which is admittedly a large doubt. However, the state of the nation is not one of joyful unity. Only 59.3% of eligible voters actually voted, with the young being notably uninspired by the choices before them. The areas of lowest turnout resulted in the greatest proportion of votes for the LDP, with Hokkaido and Aichi Prefecture illustrating the DPJ’s problems, as low turnouts resulted in decimation there by the LDP.

One of the most accurate and succinct critiques of the election, as opposed to the result can be found in the wonderful blog of Michael Cucek:

"On December 15, 2012, all the major newspapers published editorials on Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko's dissolution of the Diet. The Yomiuri Shimbun, the enemy of the DPJ, declared unwavering support for the dissolution whilst outlining in detail how the election would be illegal. The Nihon Keizai Shimbun somehow found the illegality of the election less important than Prime Minister Noda's having missed the LDP's August 8 deadline for a dissolution. The Sankei Shimbun endorsed the dissolution without a mention of the legal and constitutional issues at all.

The most crushing, however, was the The Asahi Shimbun editorial. In what can only be seen as a concerted effort to complete an alignment with the most famous lines of William Butler Yeats' "The Second Coming" – "The best lack all conviction, while the worst. Are full of passionate intensity. "— The Asahi Shimbun acknowledged the illegality of the upcoming election only to endorse the dissolution as "something one just had to live with" (yamu o enai suru mono)."

http://shisaku.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/no-country-for-gentlefolk.html

This is related to two Supreme Court decisions concerning upper and lower house elections that stated that the proportion of the difference between votes cast and their actual value in determining seats was so great that immediate reforms were required under the constitution. So, the results of the latest elections would be, one might presume, unconstitutional. However, no one seems all that bothered, and is yet another sign of a troubled democratic process. But people are bothered by the results, and here they are, with the results of the votes in the proportional section:

LDP 16,624,457 votes/ 27.8% of the vote/ resulting in 57 PR seats awarded
Japan Restoration Party (JRP) Ishin no Kai 12,262,228 / 20.5%/ 40
DPJ 9,628,653 / 15.5%/ 30
New Komeito 7,116,474 / 11.9%/ 22
Your Party 5,245,586 / 8.8%/ 14
JCP 3,689,159 / 6.2%/ 8
Tomorrow 3,423,915 / 5.7%/ 7
SDP 1,420,790 / 2.4% / 1

Now, the PR or ‘list’ vote is separate from the constituency seat vote, and the PR votes are arranged in ‘blocks’ such as by prefecture (Aichi, Hokkaido), although some are split a little differently. While they are supposed to ‘rebalance’ votes within these blocks to make the results ‘fairer’ this doesn’t always happen.

Of the constituencies:

LDP 237 seats/ 43% of the votes

New Komeito 9/ 1.5%

DPJ 27/ 22.8%

Japan Restoration Party (JRP) Ishin no Kai 14/ 11.6%

Your Party 4/ 4.7%

Tomorrow Party 2/ 5%

Japan Communist Party 0/ 7.9%

SDP 1/ 0.76%

 This may seem very dull (and it is to most people, hence the problems with a democratic process when people aren’t interested in details), but it is clear even on a preliminary examination that the LDP averaged about 36.5% of both votes, and yet received over 60% of Diet seats, while the Communists received 8 seats (1.7%) for their 7% of the vote. The Japan Restoration Party of Ishihara received 54 seats in total, while it should have received 77 if a true proportion of its vote were represented, and the DPJ would similarly have won 91~92 seats rather than 57. Hence the crushing defeat of the government and landslide victory of the LDP is a little less sound than might have first seemed. New Komieto actually lost support compared to the 2009 election.

However, several elements are clear from the result. The Japanese people were not obsessed by rebuilding Tohoku, phasing out nuclear power, or boosting welfare provisions. It was all about the economy, and the result led to the Tokyo Stock Exchange surging, and the yen falling (a good sign, that the markets took Abe’s policies on forcefully reducing the yen’s value seriously). The ‘old left’ agenda of the JCP, SDP, and Tomorrow Party was washed way, and left the rump looking extremely irrelevant. This was the worst election result for the left since 1945.

A Bloomberg article sums up one of the oddities of the results rather nicely. It picks up the story that former PM Aso Taro, one of the least capable of a poor bunch of LDP premiers, has returned to the cabinet in his seventies, and been given a number of cabinet responsibilities. He will act as deputy prime minister, the finance minister, and the financial services minister, and his main claim to qualifying for these incredibly important roles is his status as the little rich boy who inherited the family mining and concrete business. It may be a complete coincidence, but he was also a great advocate of hard, pork-barrel, concrete and iron infrastructure projects of dubious utility, and his position at the heart of an LDP charge upon deflation with concrete washing across the land will be an interesting test of public patience and judicial oversight. I wonder what the Japanese expression is for ‘conflict of interest’? Riekisouhan? Hmm.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-26/aso-named-japan-s-next-finance-chief-as-abe-primes-fiscal-pump.html

While party heavy weights have been placed in legal and economic portfolios, some of the greatest discussion involved the foreign and defence positions. Many names were mentioned, with former environment and foreign minister Kawaguchi Yoriko popular among other notables for the MoFA position. However, the final choices were Kishida Fumio for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, former minister in charge of issues related to Okinawa (based upon Abe’s view that the delayed relocation of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma within Okinawa is vital for the US-Japan alliance), and Onodera Itsunori at the Ministry of Defense, former senior vice-foreign minister under Abe in 2007. Both are relatively junior and inexperienced, and it seems that Abe is placing his weight behind both ministers, possibly with the aim of his views dominating over all others. It is also notable that neither minister appears to have any China-related experience, considering the notable role that China’s Senkaku policies had in the election campaign. As The Japan Times noted, the nationalism of Abe was rapidly displaced by realism on the economy, with his references to visiting the Yasukuni Shrine having become so vague it is unlikely that even he can understand them, the Senkaku issue having almost fallen from the agenda of government in the short-term, and Abe’s plans for a Takeshima Day having been taken from the backburner and placed in the deep freeze. All of which makes one wonder whether Abe is just a plain liar (saying he will do something, with little or no intention of doing so), was naive (after his career that would seem unlikely), or just a typical Japanese politician who says whatever he thinks will get him elected and expects that nobody actually takes these things seriously. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20121227a2.html

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20121226_26.html　

 An unusual comment emerged immediately after the election results, and by a non-politician, regarding the Senkaku issue. Former Japan Ambassador to China, Niwa Uichiro, who left his post on 18^th December 2012, was criticised in June 2012 for an interview with The Financial Times when he denounced then-Tokyo Gov. Ishihara’s plan to purchase three of the Senkaku islets, and the consequent purchase by the central government. He has continued his criticism of both Japanese and Chinese policy related to the Senkakus, and has depicted the squabble as being opaque to outsiders. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20121226f2.html

One might take his comments and relate them to the Japanese election.

Michishita Narushige, an old friend, sound fellow, and programme director at the Graduate Research Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) in Tokyo (next to that new, fancy art museum in Roppongi), apparently believes that Abe sees the moment as ripe for taking action to change the security policies of Japan, and how Japan acts and is perceived in Asia. He may well be right, but the problem for many in Japan is less about the utility or propriety of such changes themselves but about the people who are proposing to make them. Those who wink and nod in the direction of Yasukuni are distrusted in East Asia, but those who wrap themselves in the flag and notions of ‘beautiful Japan’ while spewing anti-Chinese and anti-Korean rhetoric are the least likely to improve Japan’s standing, even if they attempt to do so behind the fairly impressive facade of the JSDF. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20121226f1.html

And the incursions continue, with another flight by the tiny and most inoffensive twin-prop Y-12 aircraft near the Senkakus, and two more flights by the same aircraft that have not violated Japanese airspace, and more Chinese patrol ships managing to stay just outside of Japanese waters, resulting in the usual pattern of Japanese measured responses. The JCG is highly capable and well-versed in monitoring and possibly intercepting ships, while the ASDF has failed to get a scramble up in time to intercept any of the aircraft, although there must be questions regarding how hard it is really trying. As this blog has previously noted, air interception is tricky enough, but when you’ve found the other aircraft, what do you do next? Those questions all await Abe and his chums. Good luck to them, and that is meant most sincerely, as mistakes in this area could have rather significant ramifications.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20121227_01.html

16th December 2012: New Dear Leader, Deputy as Leader, Dearly Needing a Leader

 

16^th December

New Dear Leader.

Yes, the election results are dripping and flooding in and the picture they paint is not exactly one to warm the heart or settle the stomach. The LDP and its leader, Abe Shinzo, have won a landslide, one the of the greatest landslides in the party’s history, and will be enough to provide the new PM with a strong mandate for his particular mixed manifesto of radical proposals every bit as out of character with the party as his predecessor and mentor Koizumi. With 240 seats required for a majority in the lower house of the Diet, the LDP had 221, and their coalition prospective partners Komeito 24 at 9:51pm, less than two hours after polls closed, with 143 seats still to be declared, and with the ‘ruling’ DPJ on 35, and Ishin no Kai 34. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20121216/k10014224231000.html　

The result is a massive victory for Abe, the man who, quite literally, lacked the stomach for power last time round, resigning due to ill health, with a dodgy stomach exacerbated both by his trip to Delhi and his poor Prime Ministerial performances. It is also a massive indictment of the DPJ, and even for the other parties that promised to recast Japanese politics and yet failed to ignite passion, garner support, or provide substance. There must be sympathy for Noda, however, as he appeared to be playing with a losing hand and yet conducted himself with dignity and intelligence, and seemed, in the humble opinion of this blog, to be the best of all the potential premiership candidates. The situation was probably best represented by one of my fine Keio PhD students who voted early for the DPJ. He had wanted to punish their three years of misrule, particularly the floundering of Hatoyama for the first year of the DPJ’s rule, and his grossly inept approach to the Okinawa base issues, whereby he managed to annoy the US, Okinawans, Tokyo officials, and everyone else, while actually changing nothing. Like the best fire-starters his efforts were the maximum of friction and flame and yet without any of the comfort of achievement. The student’s vote for the DPJ was based upon a strong dislike of Abe, even though agreeing with many LDP policies, and a respect for Noda.

The popular vote dropped to less than 50%, more than 7% less than in 2009, and further emphasis that although this vote will go down as a terribly interesting one for political researchers and Japan-watchers, the public did not see this as being as crucial as 1993 or 2009.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20121216/t10014223941000.html　

The fine work of Ishi in Tokyo will be continued by his stalwart deputy Inose, who has been elected as Tokyo Governor. While slightly less objectionable than Ishi and his pals, Inose is very much the old boss’s boy, and few changes are expected. Although the Tokyo Metropolitan Government blinkometer will certainly be consuming less power. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20121216_20.html　

 

This election has been odd in one other way, apart from the choice of 13 parties on offer. It has had the highest profile in electoral debates for security issues of any poll since probably 1970. Even the election of July 1993, that came amid the first ever JSDF PKO to Cambodia and Mozambique, and the first after the Gulf War, did not feature such an array of security issues as December 2012. Not only did the DPRK fire their lovely big satellite launcher (also known as a ballistic missile), and actually put something into orbit (somewhere between a communications satellite and an old washing machine with a Kim Jong Un sticker on the side), but they managed to make China, Korea, the US, and Japan all agree very briefly about something: that it didn’t help anyone. It seems as though the North Korean leadership wishes to unite everyone against them, and thus facilitates Asia-Pacific harmony by providing the axis around which all others can rotate in frustrated fury. It is a public service that seems to go unrewarded. This blog is very glad that a satellite was launched, as it makes the whole thing seem more useful than it probably was, and it also didn’t result in any debris landing on anyone, nor the Koreans or Japanese shooting anything down. It has raised the possibility, though, of a DPRK capacity to reach the US mainland, and all of the horror-filled scenarios that missile defence advocates can imagine that bringing.

The JSDF were stood down late on Wednesday 12^th December morning, after the 9:49am launch. The J-alert system seems to have worked, in a fashion, although it was criticized for being a tad tardy, and the JSDF could prove that they were ready for any eventuality. The fact that it took them eight days to get into position to be ready does rather make one wonder about their readiness for ‘any eventuality’ as surely a dictatorship with a missile capability and an active nuclear weapon programme cannot be relied upon to provide more than a week’s notice and an exact address for a threatened strike. Or maybe the Japanese simply have to admit (at least to themselves) that the DPRK isn’t quite the crackpot bastion of evildoers that they are often portrayed to be, and that they are another form of rational actor to be dealt with. One wonders whether Abe is the man to make such a fundamental rethink.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20121214_24.html　

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T121212005115.htm　

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T121213004268.htm　

 

In other security news, there was a very interesting development that took us back to the summer of 1976. Do you remember? St. Francis RC primary school playground melted and provided us kids with countless high quality ‘moggies’ within which to flick our alleys. (Lost? A moggie is/was an indentation in the ground, a shallow crater, used as the collection point during a game of marbles, which in Teesside parlance during the Callaghan government were referred to as alleys.) The Montreal Olympics, Charlie’s Angels on the telly (too late for us to watch without some devious plans and subterfuges), and the soundtrack of The Bay City Rollers, Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, and Abba’s Dancing Queenwere drowned out and capped off by the roar of Lt. Belenko’s MiG-25 Foxbat fighter aircraft circling Hakodate Airport, trying to attract the attention of the ASDF, which made the worst attempt at air interception since King Harold thought he could catch a Norman arrow at Hastings. Belenko landed, defected, and the Japanese realized they had to take a serious look at their air defences.

Why the thoughts of a time when flares and Eurovision winners were considered good? Because this week has seen the first recorded invasion/intrusion of the air space around the Senkaku Islands by China. The fact that nothing landed, and that the plane in question was slightly larger than a family car, a Y-12 unarmed twin-prop craft, belonging to the Chinese State Oceanic Administration, is less important than that it was spotted by the Japan Coastguard (busy chasing Chinese ships), and the ASDF informed. Since the closest ASDF radar station is 200km away on Miyakojima there was little the force could do, although they scrambled eight F-15 fighters from Okinawa to no effect. The ASDF announced that they would try and get airborne early warning aircraft based in Okinawa before their planned move in 2015, and generally ‘improve the air defences’, but with aircraft and radar bases so far away, and intrusive aircraft far more difficult and dangerous to control than ships, this could be a wily escalation tactic of China’s, which a Beijing source said was required to defend Chinese territory. Or it could be an honest mistake. Well, possibly. One suspects that new PM Abe sees himself as just the strong, dynamic, mandate-reinforced leader-cum-superhero to deal with this issue. Let’s hope he has the stomach for the resulting turbulence.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20121214_03.html　

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T121213004661.htm　

http://mainichi.jp/select/news/20121215k0000m010103000c.html　

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20707760　

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20121214_23.html

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20121214_30.html　

8th December 2012: Anniversaries, Memories, and Assassins

8^th December 

It isn’t often that a major news story is broken with the headline ‘No deaths, few injuries, a major sense of anti-climax’ but that was the case today. The story refers to yesterday’s very large earthquake (magnitude 7.3) off the coast of Tohoku, further out and of a far lesser strength than the quake of March 2011, but still very strongly felt over hundreds of kilometres that had trains stopping, sirens wailing, and people not waiting to be told to evacuate to high ground, just running as fast as they could. The official announcement was that a maximum wave of 1 meter height was expected but the actual waves were smaller, and although these may seem piffling, the fact that they were due at high tide, with coastal defences still largely unrepaired, and many coastal communities now sitting lower than they were two years ago rather indicates the scale of the fears. All TV broadcasts switched to the tsunami warnings and reruns of images of offices and shops shaking during the quake, which indicates the extent of the concern. Those interviewed from the areas affected by the 3.11 tsunami are obviously still suffering from the trauma of last year. Nothing odd there.

What is odd is how this has rapidly become a political issue in the election just a week away. Not that the welfare of the poor people in Tohoku is ever allowed to creep into electoral discourse, but the LDP and New Komeito are using this as a stick with which to beat the DPJ government of PM Noda, in combination with the major news story of the past week, the collapse of a tunnel interior ceiling in Yamanashi that killed nine people. That incident appears to have been due to poor maintenance on a tunnel over 30 years old, with a certain amount of economy with the truth by the highway operator regarding safety checks. This is political as the LDP in particular is vaulting upon the hobbyhorse that it rode for much of the post-war period: exalting the beneficial effects for Japan of infrastructure projects. Yes, concrete is king again for Mr. Abe and his chums, and he sees this as being a massive win-win approach. He would win by boosting the economy with a huge injection of (borrowed) investment, win by the popularity of the boost in jobs and consumption (that he imagines will result), and win by Japan’s infrastructure being revitalised. The implicit (or possibly complicit) ‘win’ would undoubtedly be a massive increase in support from those major construction companies that bankrolled the LDP throughout the Cold War, and lined many a politician’s sleeve (the old Japanese expression for trousering a brown envelope is sode no shita or ‘in the bottom of the sleeve’ indicating the ability for kimono wearers of old to move their arm across a table and in one elegant movement envelope a pile of money within the folds of their garment). Yes, win-win. There are only a few minor flies in this winning ointment though. Japan is broke, the largest public debtor in the world. Public works programmes in the 1990s did amazingly little to boost consumption. The sorts of projects that Abe and Co. Envisage seem to have nothing or at least little directly, to do with rebuilding Tohoku. And, finally, the LDP track record on public works projects left Japan with an ageing mass of hard infrastructure, of sometimes dubious efficacy (bridges to nowhere, vast tunnels with little traffic, shinkansen lines that lose money), while the party became as bloated with funds as the Ministry of Land, Transport, and Infrastructure. Like some banana republic, the minister usually retired from the job after an 18 month stint with a massively enhanced pension plan.

And yet, no-one seems to have mentioned the lack of coastal defences more than 18 months after 3.11, or the people living in prefabricated housing boxes for the second winter, or the roads and railways and other local services that still remain cut off. In fact, the only time Tohoku residents seem to become a political issue is when people panic about nuclear power or another tidal wave. For the rest of the time they are like 30 year old steel blots holding up a tunnel ceiling: unnoticed, unchecked, uncared for. Until the next crisis. http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T121207004634.htm 

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/society.html

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20121208x2.html

The blog of 17^th October included a small matter of a woman leading a family cabal of do-badders who seemingly managed to hijack innocent people’s lives and insert their toxic ways into otherwise normal life patterns. They used and abused their positions and victims and then drove them to their deaths. Sumida Miyoko is the leader and this woman in her sixties and six of her followers, all relatives, have been arrested with charges of murder and abandoning six victims’ bodies. In other news a nice woman who worked in a bar borrowed money from two men, a couple of very ordinary blokes, a truck driver and a small electrical store owner, and didn’t want to pay the money back. Quite natural. Who would want to repay 4million yen (or about 30,000pounds/$48,000) if they could possibly help it? So she didn’t. Instead she invited each of them out to a picnic, one by the sea, and another by a river, gave them food and drink laced with sleeping pills, and launched them into the water. Ueta Miyuki has been sentenced to hang. The only trouble being there is no direct evidence, and the conviction relies on placing her with the deceased upon the sole word of her former ‘male roommate’, whatever that might mean. She was convicted by the relatively new jury (lay judge) system, which seems to have been far less squeamish about capital punishment than many judges.  http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20121205b3.html

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20121205a9.html

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T121205004321.htm

And this is not the only case of questionable evidence of assassinations. PM Noda has been widely rumoured to be under attack, but not by a ninja or terrorist, but a former supporter turned rebel and would be ‘assassin’, and the PM is seemingly worried. He only held his seat (No.4, Chiba) by about 900 votes in 2005, and lost it by less than 200 votes in 1996, and most voters are commuters who work in Tokyo and are very sensitive to issues locally in Chiba, next door in Tokyo, and nationally, as they are often ‘foreigners’ to either place. The ‘assassin’ is Miyake Yukiko, a woman who was one of Noda’s DPJ colleagues until defecting with Ozawa in July due to tax increase plans, and an MP who owes her status to being elected as a ‘party list’ candidate for the DPJ, rather than winning her own constituency. Now, her sole job is to stop Noda being re-elected. This is the press story, but it may be a long shot, as PM’s don’t usually lose their seats. However, we are living in very strange times, and PM Noda has been spending a lot of time on top of a white van, in white gloves, making speeches in front of his local station, with ‘yoroshiku onegai shimasu’ being shouted a great deal. Maybe he too fears the female assassin.

Not to worry though, as Japan is still the king on the throne in one major industry that shows few signs of suffering a drop in demand or of going down the tube. In major export news, it seems that Toto is king, and his throne is the Washlet: the cheek-warming, odour-vaporizing, sound-masking, bum-washing, all-singing and dancing regal repose of the toilet world. Yes, Toto is a global player and aiming to bring posterior prosperity to the rest of the world, but they have a problem. Only 14% of their sales are due to exports, and now a Swiss competitor company has joined the fray, although how appealing it will be to have one’s nether regions cleaned by a wooden pop-out, chiming bird isn’t clear. However, now Toto is looking overseas and aiming high. In a sense. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nb20121205a2.html

Important import news, and Japan will take delivery of reprocessed nuclear fuel from Britain. Nothing new there, except that the fuel will be stored in Aomori, before long term storage, but the location of that hasn’t been decided yet, after almost 50 years of deliberation. Maybe they can just keep it right above an old reactor, hopefully one built on a fault line or by an historically tsunami-prone coastline, then everything will surely be fine. Won’t it?　http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20121205b2.html

And on the 71^st anniversary (in Japan time) of the attack on Pearl Harbour, Japan is cast in a slightly different role, as the self-proclaimed defender facing the least surprising attack possible. The JSDF on land, at sea, and in the air is poised to detect, track, and possibly destroy a North Korean missile or satellite launcher, which in anybody’s terms would be the most provocative use of Japanese military force since 1945. Shooting down a space vehicle of another country is rather controversial anyway, but the fact that the DPRK launch is widely seen as being in breach of UN sanctions, is possibly linked with the nuclear programme seen as still underway to develop an effective delivery warhead, and the leader, Kim Jong Un, is still finding his grip on the reins of power would appear to suggest that Japan is taking a risk. Not, of course, if the launch is as successful as the last one in April, when it was airborne for seconds before disintegrating, but last time the Japanese inability to detect and track the launch was extremely worrying, and the J-alert warning system was left looking suspiciously like a chocolate fireguard. With PAC3 missiles dispatched to various southern and western islands by the GSDF, the MSDF having dispatched three AEGIS destroyers to the waters north of the islands, and the ASDF standing by with early warning aircraft, there should be no excuses. Especially not as the North Koreans have given official notice of the launch, and the target area for the vehicle to splash-down. One rather wonders how Tokyo would react to the DPRK (or China) shooting down a Japanese satellite launcher? Perhaps there would be a loud popping sound from the metropolis, as Mr. Ishihara exploded. Oh well, one can always stare at the starry sky and dream.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20121208_09.html

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20121207a5.html

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T121207004631.htm

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20121208_15.html

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T121207004500.htm　

26th November: So many tongues, so few mouths

26^th November 

So many wagging tongues and yet so few mouths. Yes, in Japanese election news the Japan Restoration Party (JRP Nihon Ishin no Kai) noted for the comedy stooge trio of Hashi, Ishi, and Hira has announced that it will probably not be able to field enough candidates for even half of the 480 seats in the lower house election next month. By the end of last week they only had 142 candidates in position. PM Noda’s decision to call the election before the ‘third force’ could get itself organised might well have proven a benefit to himself and to the main opposition LDP, although polls provide a mixed picture. The latest Kyodo poll (small sample, random telephone dialling) shows a small rise in support for the JRP, and small drops in support for the DPJ and LDP, placing the DP in the lead, with the JRP now in second place, displacing the DPJ to third. The other parties remain largely unchanged, and at the very low end of voters’ thoughts. Hashimoto wants Your Party to join his party, but Watanabe Yoshimi of Your Party is reluctant as he doesn’t really know what the JRP stands for, even if like the rest of us he knows more of what it stands against. One of the oddest poll findings was that more than 96% said they would definitely or at least try their hardest to go and vote. Since the usual voter turnout in Japan from the seminal elections of 1993 up to those of 2009, both ending up in the institutional governing party, the LDP, being ejected from power, has been just under 60% to just under 70%, the polls must be wondered at for their accuracy of actual intent and actual final result. Koizumi’s resounding victory in 2003 saw the lowest figure, and the highest rate of invalid ballots (over 3%), while the highest post-war figure was 77% in 1958. Britain, by comparison exceeded 80% in 1950 and 1951, and was 77.8% in 1992, a famous election, for my brother went to bed happily sure of a Labour victory, and went out to work at 5am, only realizing during his 10am tea break that the Tories of John Major had won. The horror of seeing a Daily Mail victory headline held by a smug Tory in the Marks and Spencer staff canteen was one that haunted him for years. For real democracy, try Malta, where the voter turnout hasn’t dipped below 90% since the 1960s, higher even than countries such as Belgium where voting is compulsory. There is a lesson in there, but I can’t quite work out what it is. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20121125a2.html http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20121126a8.html http://www.idea.int/vt/countryview.cfm?CountryCode=JP

This evening’s news brought the latest NHK poll, which had a sample twice that of Kyodo. 61% stated they would definitely vote, with 49% saying they wanted neither Noda nor Abe as the next PM, and a slight majority of the remainder preferring Abe. JRP support was less than half that found in the Kyodo poll at only 4.2%, with the DPJ at 16.6%, and the LDP at 24.3%, with New Komeito on 4.3%, and the Communists being the next ranked at 2.8%. Ozawa’s Life First Party, demanding an end to nuclear power, was at 0.9%. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20121126_29.html

Meanwhile, Abe of the LDP is proud of his manifesto, which he presented in front of a huge photo of the cover. Since the cover is basically a close-up photo of his face we were treated to Abe, holding Abe, in front of giant Abe. Sensory overload, and tad a alarming that the party thinks his visage is their best sales point. His stand on most issues is to shout long and hard that he is strong (despite resigning as PM due to ill-health, and one suspects unpopularity), especially on economic and security issues. He has said he will intervene to drop interest rates, boost growth, and has set an inflation target which is an aspirational increase of 2%, to counter the long-term deflation. He has also said he’ll recognise the right of Japan to exercise collective self-defence (a reinterpretation of the constitution), change the constitution to allow for the JSDF to become the Japan National Army (even though most people think that changing the constitution will be a very long, slow, and difficult process with numerous domestic and foreign controversies), and be strong as only a strong man can towards China. There is a split in views on all this. War with China in a month, or six months. However, that is unkind, as inevitably this tub thumping, as with his last elevation to the premiership will be followed by hand-wringing vacillation and caution, which is eminently preferable. Almost anything, in fact, is preferable to his former electoral campaign based upon ‘utsukushii nippon’ or ‘beautiful Japan’, by which he emphasized standing up for the national anthem and raising the national flag rather than reducing the uglification of the land by concrete diktat. http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T121122004525.htm

Meanwhile, with Abe’s strong stance towards China, although it is difficult to imagine what he intends to do, other than build a holiday home on the Senkaku Islands, a project I would happily contribute towards if he would promise to spend at least half of the year there. His feeling, however, is not uncommon now in Japan. While in the early 1990s the view of China in Japan was extraordinarily positive despite dictatorship, the Cultural Revolution, and the Tiananmen Square massacre, the situation has changed over the past two decades. Economic growth and perceptions of Chinese nationals’ crimes in Japan contributed to this process, but increasingly belligerent Chinese government approaches towards Taiwan in the 1990s, the countries bordering the South China Sea, and Japan, particularly concerning the Senkakus and East China Sea Exclusive Economic Zone demarcation and natural resource exploitation issues. A Cabinet Office survey has found that over 80% of Japanese hold a negative view of China, a large jump in negative feelings from last year, with negative views of Korea almost doubling from the previous survey, to 59%. Despite the continuing boom in all things Korean, from music to food and fashion, the issue of Takeshima, or rather the issue of the Korean government wearing its nationalist credentials so brazenly upon its sleeve is proving off-putting. Likewise, Korean views of Abe (not to mention Ishihara and his pals), are rather negative, particularly given their reluctance to recognise any form of Japanese culpability for the Pacific War, colonisation of Korea, and issues thereby arising, primarily the ‘comfort women’ issue. Despite US military crimes and other incidents in Okinawa the numbers of those with a positive view of the States increased to 84.5%. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20121125a4.html http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/world/T121122004511.htm

One point that seems to have been rather under-reported in Japanese media has been the first flight trials from the first Chinese aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, bought as a rusted hulk from Ukraine, upgraded and rebuilt into a combat vessel with which China can gain carrier operations experience. The speed with which the PLAN have been able to begin flight trials with their J-15 fighter aircraft (a partial knock-off copy of a Sukhoi 33), and the potential capabilities of the J-15 are proving to be rather surprising. The vessel, and aircraft, or a long way from being fully operational, but progress seems to be being rapidly made. This article has some wonderful photos. http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/11/25/china-lands-fighter-jet-on-new-aircraft-carrier-in-show-of-force/

And if the Japan election is proving a little confusing, with the plethora of ‘third force’ parties, from Green Wind or Green Breeze to New Party Nippon, there now seems t be a ‘fourth wave’, with Shiga Governor Kada Yukiko, a former professor of environmental sociology (no, not sure either) and one time socialist, has indicated she will form a new political party. It will be aimed at relinquishing Japan’s nuclear power policies as soon as possible. Why is she the 4^th rather than 3^rd wave? It seems she wishes to unify all anti-nuclear forces under one banner, rather than have them scattered among all of the other minor (and some major) parties. This is a logical continuation of recent moves towards obvious policy positions rather than factional and filial allegiances, although it seems unlikely that Ozawa, Kamei, and other old guard converts to anti-nuclear populism will wish to subsume their egos throw in their lots with an old lefty, lady prof. So, amid all of the campaigning and the noise and speeches, there are few who are actually articulating cogent policy on this, or most other, issues. So many wagging tongues and yet so few mouths with a message. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20121126_26.html 

19th November: Yelling in the Street and other Election News

19^th November

The blog is getting a bit busy these days. Nothing for two weeks, and now two posts in two days. Anyone would think I had no social life or something, whereas only yesterday I had a big argument in the street with a lad and almost came to blows, as I yelled at him for a very long (sweary) time about his inability to see that he almost killed himself, and me, by pulling out into the road on his BMX, with earphones embedded, and skateboard hanging from his backpack. He simply called me ‘noisy’ and shrugged, and the confrontation reached the point that I was extremely close to swinging for him. Luckily that didn’t happen though. So, don’t worry, I’m getting out and meeting people, and what could be a better introduction for election politics, nuclear safety, and the Middle East?

Well, the election is in full swing here in Japan, and the picture is looking rather more blurred with each passing day. Support for PM Noda rose slightly and that for LDP main opposition leader Abe dropped slightly, with Abe ahead by 7% in the latest NHK poll, and disapproval of the cabinet rising to 61%. However, interestingly, most voters appear ambivalent, and there has been no immediate rise in support for the ever expanding number of minor parties fighting to become a ‘third force’. The Japan Restoration Party, the amalgam of Hashimoto of Osaka, Ishihara of Tokyo, and Hiranuma of the Meiji period, managed approximately 4% support, so it might be an uphill fight for an election victory. Most of the other parties managed 1-2%, with only New Komeito exceeding 4%. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20121119_28.html

One minor party leader, Ozawa Ichiro was smiling today though. Despite his People’s Life First (otherwise as known as Ozawa Ego First) Party managing only a couple of percentage points in the NHK poll, he has already won the latest in a long series of legal disputes with prosecutors, with his recent not guilty verdict concerning illegal fundraising related to a land sale transaction in 2005 being allowed to stand without an appeal. He has been in and out of the dock since the late 1980s and the Recruit Scandal, and has never been found guilty. His defence has always been much the same: ‘I don’t know, I don’t remember, I wasn’t in immediate control of the funds.’ He goes through a fair number of aides, who appear to occasionally deal with slightly soiled funding and yet remain far enough from their boss to avoid any dirt spoiling his suit. One wonders whether any of the ‘third forcers’ would deal with him in the post-election situation? http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20121119_32.html

There was, amazingly, yet another party launched today which features Kamei Shizuka, former Post and Telecoms Minister who left the LDP after losing out in a huff-fest with former PM Koizumi, set up his own party (People’s New Party), then joined the DPJ in coalition, only for his party to then hoist him overboard when he threatened to leave the coalition. He has today formed a new party with former Agriculture Minister Yamaguchi who was one of three further members to resign today from the DPJ, with the catchy title of ‘Anti-TPP, Discard Nuclear Power, Freeze the Planned Rise in the Consumption Tax Party’. So, one wonders what are the key policies that they will fight on?

http://www.asahi.com/politics/update/1119/TKY201211190290.html?ref=reca (in Japanese)

When the issues are considered, it seems that most parties are identifying these three key issues: TPP, nuclear power, and the consumption tax increase (planned to increase from 5% to 10% in stages up to 2014). They are bending over backwards and bending the logical consequences of their own statements in order to appeal to voters. However, they would do well to pass a glance over the NHK poll figures, where by far the greatest voter concern seems to be upon the economy, followed by the social security system, related to the VAT issue. Since these are the most difficult to demonstrate a difference with the government they seem to be poor ground for the main challengers and ‘third forcers’. Although Abe has tried, but with a very mixed response to his suggestion that he would be ‘assertive’ and make sure the Bank of Japan lowered interest rates and pumped money into the economy to rid Japan of deflation. Sounds nice, until you realise Japan has practically zero interest rates, pump prime measures have had very little effect over the past two decades, and Japan has the world’s largest public debt. As a famous book more than 30 years ago once stated, ‘Japan as Number One: Lessons for America’. It is doubtful if Ezra Vogel had the present situation in mind.

On the key issues, views on nuclear power are basically that over 40% of people wish to see it phased out by about 2030, with the TPP fairly evenly dividing opinions. However, the tax rise is the one which really splits opinion, as the NHK report notes: “On a plan to double the consumption tax to 10 percent within 3 years, 33 percent said they support a hike. 34 percent said they are against it, and 30 percent were undecided.” This is rather extraordinary, for in most countries a planned tax hike on all spending would be massively unpopular, for both selfish reasons and due to the regressive nature of such taxes (whereby the poor usually end up paying a greater proportion of their income in taxes than the rich). That opinion is so evenly divided indicates the Japanese public are perhaps a tad more sensible than their politicians credit them with, and a lot more sensible than their representatives.

A depressing side to the poll is what is missing. Very little indication that nuclear clear-up and safety issues are major factors in national (as opposed to local) politics, or the disgraceful situation of people and communities having made next to no progress in reconstruction over the past year. Most coastal communities seem to be trying to make progress despite the government, with very little achieved. There are also amazing facts that rarely make the headlines regarding the nuclear disaster and its continuing effects.

TEPCO didn’t release certain radiation information to the public. It didn’t keep it secret, but simply didn’t publish it, and that data showed massive peaks in radiation during the first five days of the crisis in March 2011. The data was sat upon for 19 months. Then the news came out last week that river and lake fish in Fukushima were recorded as being ‘100 times’ the safe level of radiation. This seemed very odd, and further investigation revealed those headlines were incorrect. The highest level found so far was a pair of young fish in a river 20km from the Dai-ichi plant, which contained 258 times the safe level of caesium, and salmon from a river slightly closer to the plant were measured at 187 times the safe level. While radiation levels for ayu sweetfish and others have dropped, those fish in less rapidly flowing rovers closer to the plant and of certain species have not dropped from levels found in 2011. While it is relatively easy to ban the sale of such fish, and limit angling, the effects upon the natural eco-system are far more difficult to gauge. There are two reasons for the difficulty. The first is due to the naturally wild nature of nature: things eat other things and we don’t know what or where. That is fairly straight forward. The other point is much more mysterious. Since the world’s second most disastrous nuclear accident, the Japanese ministry responsible has conducted only two surveys of river and lake fish to check their contamination: one in the summer of 2011, and one this summer, for which we are only now reading the results. This would seem to be slackness and a lack of concern beyond imagination, but there is no connection being made in any election campaign. Who the devil cares about some poor people living in the north? Do they have fully formed opinions on the TPP or the most appropriate level of consumption tax? If not, they don’t seem to count for very much. If only Ozawa had bought some land in the area, surely it would feature at least once in the news. http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201211130032

And another thing that hasn’t featured much in the news lately: UNDOF. What-off? Yes, UNDOF. War is about to break out in the Middle East, but we are used to that. Syria has been fighting with itself since March 2011, and for almost a year the situation seems to have been pretty desperate. President Assad appears to have few scruples about killing his own people, and few about killing those of other nations, and if all that wasn’t bad enough, militants/terrorists/heroes in Gaza, Palestine launched rockets against Israel, some of them reaching far enough into the country to make the government feel as though it were forced to respond with dramatic power. The net result thus far has been over 700 rockets fired into Israel, some close to an Israeli nuclear plant, others recently as far as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Three Israelis have been killed in the attacks with at least another five injured.

The other side is the attack by Israel to kill the head of Hamas’ military in Gaza, Ahmed Jabari, by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) on 14^th November in Operation Pillar of Defense, one of those most inappropriately named military operations. The aim was, supposedly, to reduce rocket attacks on Israel, but the obvious result was for the range and number of rockets to greatly increase. This then, inevitably, led to an IDF response of bombing that so far has killed 91 Palestinians, including the 11 month old baby son of a BBC production crew member, and injured many more. Israel has called up 75,000 IDF reservists and people are half expecting a ground invasion of Gaza, which would surely prove to be just as bloody as every other IDF operation into Gaza and Lebanon.

And UNDOF? There are 44 Japanese troops carrying out engineering and logistical work for the UN Disengagement Observer Force on the Golan Heights. UNDOF has been one of those unsung successes of the UN that few know about, conducting low-level monitoring, communications, and dispute diffusion tasks in one of the most hotly disputed areas of the region since 1974. Japan has sent troops since 1996, its longest ever overseas commitment. Now, with war in the area, Syria happy to try and link his struggle against ‘terrorists’ with anything else, such as a struggle for Palestine against Israel, is making life difficult for UNDOF. And the Japanese government response to this? “The government sees no immediate threat”. And surely in this election campaign there shall be no immediate note made of any foreign news other than some barren islands that Mr. Ishihara so dearly loves.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T121113004570.htm

http://www.economist.com/blogs/pomegranate/2012/11/israel-and-gaza-0?fsrc=nlw|newe|11-16-2012|4172743|37680338|