Richard Lloyd Parry of The Times had a blog post about two years ago,

http://timesonline.typepad.com/times_tokyo_weblog/2006/05/is_japan_headin.html

I have nothing against Underwood challenging Aso,but using basically the same material like recycling,I have to wonder about the journalistic literacy of the editors who printed these articles.(especially JT)

Regarding Aso hating “the commoners”,it usually these “commoners” who love the celebrity.I don’t think the public hates him as much as the media hates his elitism,which is a bit ironical because lots of media people are the graduates of top universities and belong to upper middle class by their income gain.

Anyway,Aso isn’t exactly a noble breed.Norhtern Kyusyu is a rough land with many gilded instant millionaire.(I’m half Kyusyuan)Aso’s grand father,Shigeru was born between Sasebo prostitute and labor acitivist and then politician Takeuchi Tsuna.Shogeru was then send to adoption to Yokohama trader named Yoshida Kenzo and become Yoshida Shigeru and the rest is history.

One of the articles you linked to was from Robyn Lim, and we fully agree on whether or not this person is an expert on Japan.

Anyway, back to Aso. What his family did during the war may or may not be relevant now – to tell the truth, I just don’t care beyond the extent that I wonder how it influences his worldview – and you know that I think he did a fabulous job as foreign minister. We knew the man would be PM someday and what disturbs me most is the cluelessness/insecurity in his eyes and the perpetual scowl on his face, as though he’s always thinking 庶民大嫌い。

Japan’s neighbors always had strength and tools to scrutinize Japan in various ways since 1945.
“Growing sophistication of the international community” is a diplomatic expression of China and Korea using Amerian lobby group to revive certain history related issues that has been settled between bilateral relations.

I would also want to point out the obvious hypocrisy in this game,that Japan only gets seat as suspect where there are no defense attorney in the trial and never gets a seat as judge to accuse wrong of others.

“Amb Zoellick’s suggestion that China become an international stakeholder was also meant as a mild rebuke to Japan.”

Zoellick sure chosed weird ways to express his feelings.Anyone who studied Japan’s China policy knows that making China.a reliable partner has been the policy objective since 1974.Anyway that was the rhetric of Tokyo to lift the economic sanction to Beijing after Tienanmen massacre.

” There is more to being a modern democracy than saying that you are one.”

I think you ponder that a bit here too.
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002427.php

And my opinion was,this is the politicization of history at worst.

Tamogami’s essay is nothing to do with the civilian control nor militarism nor right wing. Tamogami’s essay is about mere history and his opinion is nothing unique to me and some people.

A similar essay, “The needless US Pacific War with Japan – Courtesy of Stalin and FDR” , is posted at
http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/1000pacificwar.htm
by Mr. Michael E. Kreca on October 9, 2000. It is recommended to read the Kreca’s essay.

There is no IF in history. But, I dare say that if Manchukuo established in 1932 by Japan was acknowledged by the West, particularly, by the U.S.A., there would have been no Pacific war, no communist China, no Korean War and no Vietnam War. Although　Manchukuo was a puppet state of Japan, Japan got some right about the territory of Manchukuo resulting from Japan-Russia war in 1905. The aims of establishment of Manchukuo by Japan were defense against communism invasion from Russia and the prosperities for five ethnic groups including the Manchu, the Han Chinese, the Mongols, the Koreans and the Japanese.

The territory of Manchukuo did not originally belong to the Han Chinese (94% of the population of China are now said to be the Han Chinese) but was the homeland of the Qing Dynasty. The Qing Dynasty did not allow the Han Chinese who were concurred by the Qing Dynasty to migrate to the sacred homeland of the Manchu, for early time. The Qing Dynasty did not allow Han Chinese to migrate to Tibet either.

Now, Tibet, Manchuria and almost all other parts of the Qing Dynast territories belong to the communist China. The U.S.A has to deal with the strong communist China about some issues, for example, Taiwan, in the future.

One check on Japan, which should not be forgotten, it the growing sophistication of the international community in monitoring political and human rights abuses. It has only been in the last 20 years or less that international organizations and Japan’s neighbors have had the strength and tools to scrutinize Japan. The result has been no only condemnations of Japan’s views on history but of its legal system, treatment of minorities, disregard of womens’ rights, sheltering of human traffickers and child pornographers, and more.

Amb Zoellick’s suggestion that China become an international stakeholder was also meant as a mild rebuke to Japan. There is more to being a modern democracy than saying that you are one. International accountability is fast becoming a check upon insular thinking. I ponder this a bit here: http://china-japan-reconciliation.blogspot.com/2008/10/accountability-of-democracies.html#links

For some people this is the matter of great concern and it looks like for Bill Underwood,Aso Taro is his Moby Dick.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20060517rl.html

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20070529zg.html

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20081028zg.html

http://www.counterpunch.org/reed06202006.html

Recently I picked up a copy of Japanese translation of Eamon Fingleton’s “In the Jaws of the Dragon: America’s Fate in an Era of Chinese Hegemony (2008)” Weird thing about the book is eventhough this is taking the form of China bashing,somehow every chapter ends in accusation to Japanese(e.g Japanese are investing in China to make Chinese more economically competitive! and so on and so on)

Anyway,in this book,Fingleton devotes entire chapter attacking Japanese treatment of POW and hacking whoelse but Ian Buruma for not mentioning the reparation movement by the Dutch POWs in his “Wages of Guilt”and Fingleton accused Buruma for becoming a mouth piece of Japanese government.

Funny that most of these “debt of honor”argument on POW tends to ignore the fact that the issue was settled in San Francisco treaty in 1951 and it’s effectiveness has been confirmed by the former allied government in multiple occasions.
Whether they admits this or not,but these western revisionists are the negative of Japanese revisionist like Tamogami in the sense that they ignore the post-war legal procedure of ending World War 2.

“It shows that Aso’s historical views are generally on the same side as Tamogami and Motoya,”

While I denounce the rhetric of these western Aso hunters,this I agree.

There’s a late night TV show called “Syukan Asahi Journaｌ　週刊アサ秘ジャーナル”hosted by comic duo Asakusa Kid interviewing various residents of Nagatacho in a quasi-variety show format.Aso Taro appeared on this show multiple times and when I watched the show about couple years ago,Aso was showing Asakusa Kid his bookshelf in his office at Giin Kaikan.
And there they were,along with dozens of Golgo13 and weekly manga magazines like Big Comic Superior,There were Chang/Haliday’s “Mao,the Unknown History”,a title from Ko Bunyu and professor of Mongol and Manchu study,Okada Hidehiro岡田英弘’s China hating best seller”この厄介な国、中国”.
Aso was talking in all innocence when showing these books.And that was the moment when I thought this is one guy who shouldn’t be the head of the government.But,boy.He became foreign minister and then the PM…..

I bet my a sheet of my Fukuzawa Yukichi for all of these same books are lining on the bookshleves of our dear general.

Speaking of that- I actually noticed that some time today Asahi actually pulled the original article – entitled “Hotel group CEO ‘helped’ Tamogami win controversial essay contest.” and replaced it with what seems to be an identical one, aside from the title, which is now “Was Tamogami’s essay win justified?”
Notice that the link in my above comment is now dead. The altered article can be found at: http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200812020061.html

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200812010170.html

Incidentally, the English article is a bit more specific in places, stating that Motoya “was not a judge in the process” but fails to reconcile that statement with the fact that he was awarding scores. It also mentions Watanabe’s presence on the panel, but says nothing more about him.

I didn’t find the stuff about the Aso company’s past with forced labor directly relevant to Tamogami, although mentioning it would have some place in a longer and more detailed treatment of the entire debate over historical revisionism, but I did think that mentioning his oversight of the revisionist official corporate history was an interesting side-note to Motoya’s use of APA as a platform. The huge difference of course is that Aso Concrete does not seem (at least according to the FEER article) to have ever sought publicity for their history. It shows that Aso’s historical views are generally on the same side as Tamogami and Motoya, but of course it is important to say that he has not been particularly active in this area, and of course deserves credit for allowing Tamogami’s prompt dismissal (even if allowing him the dismissal fee was a questionable choice).

I do not think that Yamamoto is taking an accusatory tone and would have translated this quote very differently. It’s more like “If this essay contest is seen as [being run for the purpose of] awarding the prize money to Tamogami, I guess there is no getting around that.”
「田母神氏に賞金を贈るための懸賞論文と見られても仕方がない」

And Komatsusaki’s quote is more like this: “Thinking about it now, since Motoya knew about Tamogami’s entry from the beginning, he could have put it on top if he wanted to.”
「今思えば、元谷代表は初めから田母神氏の応募を知っていたのだから、トップにしようと思えばできたはずだ」

Note that neither of them is making a direct accusation or making any conclusive claims, apart from Yamamoto’s comment about the scoring and Komatsusaki’s about the fact that Motoya knew about Tamogami’s entry. Motoya and these people are clearly acquaintances. Already, the mere fact that they are going on record criticizing the operation of this contest is probably putting pressure on their relationship. If the Asahi had misquoted Yamamoto and claimed that he was going on record accusing Motoya of fraud, that could result in a defamation suit.

That article on the evil, evil Aso company reminds me of the writers who use school shootings to push for tighter gun controls. They have a narrow interest in mind and exploit current events to insert their agendas into the discussion. What in the world does the Aso corporate history have to do with anything? All it does is weave in a tenuous connection to war apologies, which is really the least of our worries in this issue.

Saying that Aso and Tamogami are on the “same side” is like saying Ann Coulter and Barack Obama are on the same side because they both believe in a strong standing US military. Aso is a centrist and believer in the democratic system, much more than the knee-jerk extremist Tamogami. He’s got decades of experience working within the current system and while he might favor incremental steps toward constitutional revision, the reinterpretation of the constitution to allow collective self-defense and a more proactive Japanese defense policy, these positions fall within the framework of the US-Japan alliance, not anything approaching Tamogami’s anti-US demagoguery. Lumping them all together isn’t helpful in the slightest, though it might make for satisfying copy in the FEER.

There are a number of journalists who write brief, pithy articles full of innuendo about this or that right-winger being the true harbinger of resurgent ultra-nationalism. It’s almost a template. But the template obscures more than it reveals, and to me that is unacceptable.