Maehara should stay

Seiji Maehara is stepping down due to an absolutely ridiculous scandal-of-the-week summarized well by the WSJ Japan blog: “The $2,429 Donation That Brought Down Japan’s Foreign Minister.” Said donation came from a foreigner, which made it illegal.

I say “ridiculous” because the donor in question is a zainichi Korean who has run a yakiniku restaurant in Kyoto for decades; there was likely no way for Maehara’s staff to know whether or not she was a Japanese national. In a sane world, he would simply return her money, apologize and get on with his work. Instead, he succumbed to a peanut gallery of opposition cranks who were simply looking for any line of attack on the Kan government and saw a prime opportunity to imply that Maehara was selling out the country — to a permanent resident, for $2,429. Are you kidding me?

Of course, NHK and most other media outlets are simply reporting that “Maehara accepted donations from foreigners” without mentioning any details of the donations or the foreigners — making it sound like Maehara was getting briefcases full of hundred-dollar bills from Rahm Emmanuel or the evil-looking Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman (at least, those were the first two scenes which I imagined).

39 thoughts on “Maehara should stay”

  1. I’m going to ask my wife to send “one-coin-donation” to that LDP prick Nishida and then tell his office that she is actually a foreigner.

  2. Maehara in a bind here – echoes LDP position on the alliance so this means that lefties who would normally stick their necks out over something like this related to Zainichi, including that large socialist contingent in the DPJ, are happy to be rid of him. On the flip side, LDP doesn’t care if he shares most of their fundamental positions, they just want to use him to crash the party in power. Ugly scumbag politics that someone should be sure to turn back on the LDP when they get a chance. Ozawa needs to keep his head down, but this calls for an Ozawa strategy….

  3. Ace, I had the same thought, but I’m not good enough friends with anyone who has a name that sounds Japanese but is not a citizen.

  4. Well, I guess if you can throw someone out of the party for his alleged involvement in inappropriate funding arrangements, you can’t really make exceptions when inappropriate arrangements are actually proven.

  5. One report I saw mentioned that Maehara (who is from Kyoto – I saw his posters around all the time long before he was a minister) and the woman knew each other since he was in middle school, as a local . I think it is certainly possible that he was never clearly aware that she was in fact an ROK national, as she was born in Japan and many zainichi Koreans of that generation hid their nationality/ethnicity in daily life. Based on the media quotes she is certainly speaking like a Kyoto native, at least.

    http://www.asahi.com/politics/update/0307/OSK201103060149.html

    Regardless, I don’t see why there is an expectation that a politician would notice the origin of such tiny donations, particularly since she claims to have been sending the money for the past few years via post office bank transfer (presumably from cash, anonymously) in which case I’m unclear how the source of the funds would have been discovered at all.

  6. Indeed, Roy. To me, that’s the big distinction between this case and Ozawa’s case (where there is apparently a lot of systematic, and clearly illegal, dealing going on).

  7. Something weird going on with the comments page (weird with the CSS.)

    I have to think that Maehara’s leaving the sinking ship before it goes down with all hands so he can position himself for something better next. Otherwise he’d have returned the money, apologized, and moved on.

  8. It is either that or there really is something else going on with Maehara’s connections or donations that he wants the media to stay away from. In any case, I’d be surprised if he ever became PM now, as so many Americans hope. The guy has shown he doesn’t have the intestinal fortitude to stand up to pressure over even minor mistakes. The Horie email, even though it was more serious, was much the same.

    Anyway, interesting how the JRT bit insinuates that this is all because Japanese people are racist.

  9. There are definitely more serious donation scandals going on than Maehara and his Zainichi Korean neighborhood auntie.

    The Roman Catholic Church in Mexico has been trying to confront its historic ties to drug traffickers. Long dependent on gifts, but often less than discriminating about where they come from, the church is grappling with its role as thousands die in turf wars among rich, and sometimes generous, criminals.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/world/americas/07church.html?hp=&pagewanted=all

  10. But Roy, it is not illegal for the Catholic Church to accept collection plate offerings from criminals. Unless, of course, it could clearly be shown that the funds were the direct result of criminal activities, and the Church new this when receiving the offering, etc.

    It is illegal for a Japanese politician to receive funds from a foreigner. According to what was on the boob tube this a.m., there are criminal penalties as well as administrative ones for a politician that accepts such funds. No minimum amount is specified – it is illegal, period.

    Maehara may or may not have known the woman was a foreigner, but from what he has said of his relationship with her I would be extremely surprised if he didn’t know or at the very least had good reason to suspect she was a Zainichi.

    While I am disappointed he stepped down and handed a “win” to the LDP, it was the right thing for him to do. I doubt we’ve heard the last of him, he’ll have to lay low for a while but I’m sure he’ll be back.

  11. @Joe – just to keep you honest, I don’t know what news outlets you watch but all the ones I watch have been very clear about the amounts of money concerned, and who gave the money to Maehara. They were interviewing the woman (not showing her face or giving her name, but….) on all the news shows last night. No-one is covering up the who, what, when, where, why and how, nor attempting to mislead people into thinking the Dear Leader himself was lining Maehara’s pockets.

  12. All in all, my only conclusion echoes Gen — Maehara is either positioning himself for the future, in which case there’s a possibility that he was involved, or wants to leave the sinking ship while he still can and avoid risk by association with the Kan administration.

  13. Ok so here´s the question

    Why does he cave in? Why doesn´t he (and countless other politicians before) stand his ground and make his point? 200k yen is peanuts indeed.

    Unless as Curzon says its all staged.

  14. “Ace, I had the same thought, but I’m not good enough friends with anyone who has a name that sounds Japanese but is not a citizen.”

    Remember that any non-Japanese resident is allowed to take on a Japanese-sounding tsuushoumei (通称名) to avoid discrimination. Let’s all take on Japanese names and donate these sons of bitches out of parliament.

  15. “But Roy, it is not illegal for the Catholic Church to accept collection plate offerings from criminals. Unless, of course, it could clearly be shown that the funds were the direct result of criminal activities, and the Church new this when receiving the offering, etc.”

    And that is exactly what the Mexican federales are investigating to find out. It very well could be illegal under Mexican law-a topic I know nothing about.

  16. There are also an awful lot of people who have Japanese ancestry and names, but not citizenship. There are also FORMER citizens of Japan who have naturalized elsewhere. Accepting donations from them would also be illegal.

  17. If anyone is actually considering donating, it would be best to consider what, if any, repercussions there may be for you.

    Think about the kid who uploaded the test question, causing harm to Kyoto U.

  18. Good question, SBS. As far as I can tell, it is only a crime to RECEIVE a political donation from a foreigner, not for a foreigner to GIVE a political donation. This is based on my skimming of the 政治資金規正法 at http://www.houko.com/00/01/S23/194.HTM.

    Of course, the politician might still go after the foreigner for fraud…

  19. How could you be accused of fraud if you are never asked to verify your identity in any way? I believe you can donate anonymously by sending cash visa a bank transfer, then keep the receipt to later prove that it was you.

  20. And I imagine that if there was even the tiniest possibility of legal liability for the old woman that would have been mentioned in the news stories, and I haven’t seen anything even hinting at that.

  21. I’m not thinking of the laws concerning political donations specifically but rather criminal/civil liability in general.

    There wouldn’t be liability for the old woman because she didn’t donate with the intent of causing damage to Maehara-kun. What is being discussed here is different, though.

    Albeit through their own negligence of not confirming identity, there would be (malicious) intent to cause a third party to do something illegal, not to mention intent to also cause that party damage.

    Potential civil and criminal liability?

    I agree with Roy though that there wouldn’t be a case for fraud.

  22. “Of course, the politician might still go after the foreigner for fraud…”

    Especially if said foreigner has declared that they will do it on the web.

  23. I believe you can donate anonymously by sending cash visa a bank transfer, then keep the receipt to later prove that it was you.

    I find that hard to believe, though I haven’t checked myself. It’s amazing that politicians would allow this given the penalties for accepting donations from certain types of sources.

  24. Well, in the article I link to above the woman says that for at least the past 4 years she made bank transfers to Maehara’s political account from a post office and that he wouldn’t have known it was her, which implied to me that there was no vetting of any kind-even checking to see if the sender put a name on it.

  25. If Maehara and that zainichi woman has been friends for many years, Maehara must know that she is a Korean national. I have been friends with several restaurant owners who are zainichi Koreans. If any one of them took Japanese citizenship, there would be no chance that he would not tell me such a big news. Maehara decided to resign perhaps because he could not deny that he knew she was a Korean national. Anyway, it is good for him to escape from the sinking ship at this timing.

    Also, it must be noted that pseudonymous or anonymous donation to Japanese politicians is illegal as stipulated in Article 22 of 政治資金規正法.

    第二十二条の六: 何人も、本人の名義以外の名義又は匿名で、政治活動に関する寄附をしてはならない。

    The donor is punished in this case. The sentence is less than a year’s imprisonment or less than 500,000 yen fine as stipulated in Article 26.

  26. @LB – On the news I basically saw the same as Joe. I think maybe one channel mentioned it was from a Zainichi korean, but that was about it. The first reports and most of the reports I have seen in general do not give the amount and simply refer to “resident-foreigner(s)” as the source. This may have changed in the past day or so.

  27. Aki, thanks for posting that law – it clears things up quite a bit!

    I also agree that most likely Maehara knew the woman’s nationality status, but it is also very likely that he suspected it correctly, but was too polite to ever ask. For a woman of that generation (remember she is 72) it can be a touchy subject that many would avoid, particularly in Kyoto.

    @MD I haven’t seen any TV news, but I’m sure I saw mention that the woman was a Zainichi Korean in at least Asahi, Kyoto Shimbun, and the WSJ Japanese site.

  28. Maehara learned his lesson in 2006, when he as DPJ rep let a really ugly situation drag on for weeks, resulting in the resignation (and eventual suicide) of Nagata, and his own resignation.

    My guess is that Maehara has other political donation or tax evasion worries, and needs to get out of the spotlight in order to save, not forward, his own career.

    In related news, Japanese politics is soooooo lame.

  29. It’s lame because it’s been designed that way by the few good American men and women in uniforms.

  30. @MD – odd, because aside from three channels (Asahi, Fuji and IIRC Nihon Terebi, but not NHK, granted) I saw where they sent a reporter to interview the woman ALL channels, including NHK, broadcast the Q&A session on the floor of the Diet where Maehara said “the donor is a Zainichi who runs a yakiniku shop” and enumerated how much he had received from her, plus carried his press conference where he announced his resignation and offered further details of his personal relationship with the woman.

    So this claim:

    NHK and most other media outlets are simply reporting that “Maehara accepted donations from foreigners” without mentioning any details of the donations or the foreigners—making it sound like Maehara was getting briefcases full of hundred-dollar bills from Rahm Emmanuel or the evil-looking Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman

    Is complete and total bull.

  31. Fine, LB, you get a cookie. I was mainly exasperated that had to scroll through a bunch of 売国 discussions on 2ch in order to figure out who this foreign donor was around the time the story broke.

  32. @LB
    Not disagreeing or saying those reports are not around. Merely saying Joe’s comment was not without some warrant. To be honest I only really paid attention when it first came up and it could be pretty understandable that as the story developed those details came out. I believe this was NHK – I’m procrastinating on the whole TV update.

  33. If I mention that I have seen the amount mentioned in almost all reports about this case, do I get a cookie too?

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