After my previous post on the real political reasons for Prime Minister Junichiro’s visits to the Yasukuni shrine, some readers may be wondering, “is this guy really a maverick?” I think the examples below will show that by Japanese standards, he’s practically James Dean.

First is a translation of a brief article I found on the Sankei website a few weeks ago but never got around to posting until now.

Prime Minister, ‘No Necktie Proclamation’

Prime Minister Junnichiro Koizumi on the 29th at a meeting of the Global Warming Countermeasures Promotion Headquarters in his official residence made a proclamation declaring “No necktie, no jacket. He also called upon to cabinet ministers to join him in incorporating it into environmental problem.

The PM stressed to the press corps that from now on, “If ministers in public offices do not also go necktieless then it will be difficult for their inferiors to do so.” He sought approval saying, “I will also go no-necktie and no-jacket, and I would like everyone to play along. Won’t it be better for everyone?”

Regarding the no-necktie, no-jacket style, Environmental Minister Yuriko Oike said “If this concerns you so much, why don’t we just have a fashion show?” It seems that this summer the fashion sense of the Prime Minster and the cabinet will be coming into question.

From Kyodo news, March 29.

Japan Today’s always entertaining Pop-vox feature has some ‘man on the street’ opinions on this issue.

Next, here is a genuinely amazing picture of Koizumi, courtesy of the Shanghai Star. Can you name another politican who would dress up as Willy Wonka to teach children about bicycle safety?

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, wearing a suit with woven-in reflective material, rides a bicycle in front of Japanese schoolchildren at a government-sponsored traffic safety campaign event at a Tokyo elementary school on April 9. Koizumi visited the school to talk to children about the importance of traffic safety.

Curzon at Coming Anarchy also found this picture of Koizumi establishing relations with Indonesia from the ground-up.

Next, courtesy of Masa, we have a scan of the Shukan Gendai magazine’s ‘scoop’ photos of “The woman that Koizumi loved!”

alt=”Koizumi’s geisha” />

Masa can of course explain the situation far better than I ever could.

Not only Clinton, but also Japanese prime minister, Koizumi also like to fuck. It’s absolutely true. following picture is Koizumi’s foremaer fcuking Geisha girl friend picture I took on the street and picked up by “Shukan Gendai” that is Japanese leading serious weekly magazine.
this geisha girl was really fucked by Prime minister Koizumi repeatedlly.

Finally, we have a very special message from Koizumi, direct to you. Ladies, try not to swoon.

On April 25 at about 9:20am a message was left by an employee of the’Aimesse Yamanashi’ Yamanashi prefectural industrial relations hall in Kofu city, Ozu-cho at the South Kofu police station stating that “the Sino-Japanese commemorative frienship tree in our grounds has been cut down.”

The commemorative tree was 12 centimeters across and 5 meters tall. It had been cut with a saw-like implement approximately 30 centimeters from the base.

The tree was a 17 year old maple, planted on May 25 1995 to commemorate 10 years of ‘friendship city’ relations between Kofu and Sichuan, China. There had also been a commemorative stone plaque by the tree, but it had been defaced with red spray-paint and knocked over.

Translated from Asahi newspaper, April 25 2005

From TBS (video available at the site):

In Shanghai, where anti-Japanese demonstrations have been occurring for weeks, the recently-opened Japanese-style ramen (the Japanese name for Chinese noodle soup) stores are enjoying healthy business. One, a ramen store , specializing in Japanese flavors such as tonkotsu (hogbone) and salt flavor, opened very close to the Japanese Consul General in Shanghai. The store, owned by Osaka Ohsho Co., owners and operators of the famous Gyoza No Ohsho chain, is their first expansion into China.

However, the infamous anti-Japanese protests occurred when they tentatively opened their doors preceding their Grand Opening festivities.

“After hearing that some other Japanese restaurants had been damaged, we hurried to postpone our Grand Opening,” said Mr. Fujioka Hisashi, a manager at the restaurant.

Since then, they have been doing business while avoiding promotional activities, but the curious people of Shanghai, always craving new things, have made the new restaurant busy through word of mouth.

“The only trouble was on the day of the demonstration, and it’s disarmingly normal ever since,”Said Fujioka.

The youth of Shanghai display their anti-Japanese feelings at the demostrations April 16, but at the same time you can’t deny the reality that people in Shanghai are strongly enamored of Japanese fashion and food, showing that you can’t just look at one side to explain the complicated Sino-Japanese relationship.

I noticed that we were being linked to by this slightly curious post on a forum devoted to the Chinese Military.

Full of Japanese insisting that Jap nats are as much lunatic fringe as certain members on this forum.

I sincerely do not believe that Koizumi, if he did not have to do it for the political advantage in the Japanese representative democracy, would go to that particular shrine if he had the choice. It’s not worth ruining relations with China and Korea, and if Japan wants to become a normal country it has to at least stop it with the shrine visits: it can argue that it has given sufficient reparations for its abuses during WW2 and its occupation of China and Korea, but certainly there is no sense in the war criminal shrine.

First of all, why in hell would he think that we’re Japanese? I can’t imagine anything that would suggest that even remotely.

Second, in response to the idea that Koizumi is forced to engage in the Yasukuni shrine visits because of domestic political concerns and not his own beliefs. I agree that this is the case, but not in the way that the poster suggests.

The important thing to remember is that while Japan is a country with a democratically elected parliament, their head of government is a prime minister chose by the elected parliament, and not directly chosen by the people. What this means is that Koizumi does not have to appeal directly to any voters outside of his home territory of Kanagawa prefecture district 11 (Yokosuka and Miura Cities). He is prime minister due to the fact that he is the president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and when he engages in activity best described as ‘pandering to his base’, i.e. the Yasukuni visits, he is pandering not to the general electorate of Japan as say a US President must, but to the LDP Diet members that actually selected him as Prime Minister.

Let me clarify some more. The LDP, despite the name, is in fact the most conservative of all the major political parties in Japan. Koizumi is actually a member of the most liberal faction of the LDP (the LDP is divided into formally organized factions, something like sub-parties that band together for political strength). Ever since he rose to prominence in the party he has been a controversial figure, a driving force for economic structural reform and various significant liberalizations in Japan’s domestic policy. How exactly did a young, divorced geisha-dating, liberal reformer get to be the president of the conservative right-wing virtually unchallenged for half a century Liberal Democratic Party? Yasukuni.

The visits to Yasukuni are Koizumi’s deal with the devil. To secure the support of enough of the arch-conservative power bosses within the party, to get himself into the position from which he would have a chance to even attempt to reform the stagnant and sometimes corrupt Japanese economic machine he had to give them something in return. When he won the presidency of the LDP, he had already lost twice before and it probably looked to him as if he would never be able to succeed without making a concession. What he promised them was that in exchange for cooperation, he would make annual pilgrimages to Yasukuni.

He may very well have been morally opposed to the visits, and he was probably smart enough to realize the potential damage to diplocatic ties with former colonies, but as a politician he decided that domestic reform was a higher priority. Having made that promise, his only choices are to continue the visits or all his entire career to self-distruct. After a significantly weaker showing in the most recent major Diet election the LDP is getting worried, his massively important postal privatization plan almost stalled completely, and time is running out for him to make his mark.

Something that is implicit from all I’ve said above, but I have not yet quite stated explicitly, is that although Prime Minister Koizumi’s annual visits to Yasukuni are required by domestic political concerns, they still do not necessarily reflect any widespread demand for him to do so. He was forced into it to secure the support of a minority faction of his own party, to give him the majority within the party that he needed to become president of the party and then Prime Minister.

I don’t honestly know how much support there is within Japan for the Yasukuni visits, or how strong the nationalist right-wingers have become. From what I have seen, and from what I have heard from people who were in Japan long before I was even born, it does seem that the nationalists have gotten more vocal recently, but are still very, very far from having anything that you could call a popular mandate. I believe that it would be a tragedy for radicals to rise to power again in Japan, and I hope that ultimately the more sensible moderates will prevail. Some people seem to think the radical right-wingers have already won, but I am just trying to explain that this is far from the case. They are only becoming more organized and more vocal, and hopefully the quiet opposition is nothing but a slow response.

Koizumi apologizes once again to former colonies at an Asia/Africa development and aid summit in Jakarta BBC report

Addressing delegates, Mr Koizumi said: “In the past Japan through its colonial rule and aggression caused tremendous damage and suffering for the people of many countries, particularly those of Asian nations.

Yomiuri also reports quotes him as saying

「経済大国になっても軍事大国にはならず、いかなる問題も武力によらず平和的に解決するとの立場を堅持している」
Despite becoming an economic superpower, Japan will not become a military superpower, and whatever problems arise will adhere to the position of peaceful resolution without calling upon violence.

Perhaps Mister Koizumi will be able to make peace with China with the help of his new friends.

Here is Prime Minister Koizumi with Japan’s twin mascots for human rights. The characters are ‘cleverly’ given names that both sound like real Japanese names and appropriate words. Mamoru Jinken (translates to ‘protecting human rights’) on the left and Ayumi Jinken (steps towards human rights)on the right.

Call out Gouranga be happy
Gouranga Gouranga Gouranga ….
That which brings the highest happiness!!

Japan Times report:

These fascist wannabes are the same guys who hire yakuza wannabes to drive around in silly trucks and forced a manga publisher to withdraw a piece of historical fiction that depicted the Nanjing Massacre. I really hope that the far more reasonable majority has the guts to stop paying attention to these morons.

On April 12, a man called a broadcasting company in Fukuoka saying there would be an explosion at the Chinese Consulate General in the city later in the day, Fukuoka police said.

The caller said he had planted 10 kg of explosives that would go off at 7 p.m., police said.

The consulate the same day also received a razor along with a letter of protest over the anti-Japan demonstrations in China, and a razor blade was also sent to another consulate in the city of Nagasaki, the Chinese Embassy said.

Police searched the consulate’s premises and found no explosives, and are investigating the case as a malicious hoax.

On Friday, an envelope containing harmless starch-like white powder was sent to the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo in an apparent anthrax threat, police said over the weekend.

Also that day, a mailbox doorplate and intercom at the Tokyo residence of Chinese Ambassador Wang Yi were found sprayed with red paint.

It is customary in Japan for employers to pay transportation fees for their workers. Don’t tell anyone, but it is equally customary for workers to use this system to scam their oppressors, with the most popular method being to lie about one’s route (e.g.: Claim to take the expensive JR but in fact commute by a cheap private railway. Combine this with the 50% children’s discount for maximum damage). Now, it seems like even local governments are in on the act:

(4/19/05) The Ministry of Internal Affairs announced the results of a special survey on April 19 thats finds 274 municipalities in 31 prefectures are paying commuting benefits to city workers who walk to their jobs. National public servants do not receive such stipends for walking to work, and must commute at least more than 2km one way if they do use some mode of transportation. 244 of the municipalities were paying benefits to people living within 2km of their workplace as well (WTF alert: but 30 weren’t?!).

The Ministry stated, “We demand that the payment of local public servants conforms to the standards of their national counterparts, and paying commuting benefits for people who walk is improper,” seeking speedy review from local governments.

The survey results are current as of Jan. 1 of this year, and were taken after the “hospitality” scandals (fraudulent overtime etc.) among Osaka’s public servants. Aichi Prefecture was the worst, with 38 municipalities. Fukuoka followed with 28, and Saitaima was 3rd with 23. As a whole, there were most in Western Japan, and there were no such incidents found in Hokkaido or the Tohoku (Northeast) region.

The highest monthly benefit payment (for workers living within 2km of their workplaces) was in Hekinan, Aichi, with 5750 yen. Most payments were 1000-4000 yen, and the smallest was Kitakyushu city with 100 yen per month.

In Hekinan, workers received commuting benefits on 8 levels based on distance without regard to mode of transportation, with workers living within 1km receiving 4950 yen per month and those within 2km receiving 5750 yen. Only 14 people actually walk to work in Hekinan, with most employees electing to drive (as of April 1). The city explained, “We based our system on our surrounding areas and the way we’ve done things up to now,” but in response to the criticism has reduced its payments to 2500 yen for workers within 1km and 5000 yen for those within 2km.