Author: Adamu

Is the DPJ just the LDP with a cooler logo?

Marxy made a good comment on my last post:

Anyone weirded out that Japan’s opposition party is all ex-LDP members who are out of the majority? I am sure the official policies are different, but seems more like a reorganization of sports teams than ideological conflict.

Sure it looks like a rearranging of chairs since most of the party’s leaders herald from the former Tanaka faction of the LDP. But actualyl the DPJ is made up of more diverse groups since politics in Japan continues to be dominated by building up relations with interest groups (outright bribing of voters is pretty well nipped in the bud as of now). But I think that the current election climate and the media/public’s expectations are forcing the parties to compete for public support.

Party President Ichiro Ozawa, Supreme Adviser and ex-PM Tsutomu Hata, Diet Affairs Chairman Kozo Watanabe, Secretary General Yukio Hatoyama, and former president Katsuya Okada all hailed from ex-Tanaka/Takeshita faction, rebelled against LDP after PM Shin Kanemaru was arrested for receiving 500 million yen from Sagawa Kyubin, whose credit was abused by the yakuza to take out loans, went in a million directions forming new parties (mainly conservative Shinshinto and liberal Shinto Sakigake) before most of the small breakaway parties combined into the DPJ.

But it’s not *all* ex-Tanaka faction!

Seiji Maehara – Joined Nihon Shinto (a “progressive party” started separately from the LDP by Morihiro Hosokawa, a former Tanaka faction upper house member)

Naoto Kan – formerly of minor left-wing party Socialist Democratic Federation, joined Shinto Sakigake (a 1993 breakaway of the LDP led by younger liberal minded Diet members such as Hatoyama) before winding up in DPJ.

And then there are the intra-DPJ factions. While factions supporting former LDP members are most powerful, there is also a good number of factions based on former membership in leftist parties.

The mix makes for a center-left ex-LDP led but still somewhat divided party that can result in some watered down policy positions such as their weak response to the postal privatization issue (DPJ was hemmed in by ties to labor unions) and constitutional revision (large range of opinion within the party).

So, a political party that’s run by a conservative and divided internally along factional lines? Sounds a lot like the LDP right? But what you have to consider is that the DPJ was formed in the aftermath of the 1955 system. Accordingly, the politicians involved inherited themselves (career, politicians with stable and often inherited support bases), blocks of interest groups (labor unions, professional associations, religious groups, etc), and the social/economic state that the 1955 system left Japan in.

After confidence in the LDP crumbled in 1993 and a non-LDP cabinet came in, the election rules were changed to make it possible for an opposition party to take over and also for elections to be won on a combination of interest groups getting out the vote AND campaigning on the issues as opposed to interest groups alone. The idea (credited to Ozawa no less) was to allow for a two-party system since people weren’t going along with the one party state, presumably. The spectacular stumbling of the 8-party opposition coalition led to the resurgence of LDP coalition governments, however, and put the 2 party vision on hold until the DPJ rose in status.

The hodgepodge makeup of both parties reflects the conflicting election strategies they need to take. The horsetrading that brings in wildly different politicians under the same fold is necessary to build a large number of entrenched supporters. But at the same time the party needs to pull in the unaffiliated voters with strong policy proposals. Right now I think both parties are better at the former than the latter.

The media of course like the idea of two clearly denominated sides fighting for the right to govern. And as a result the editorial tone when talking about the DPJ tends to focus on the question “what does the DPJ have to do to win?” rather than “does the DPJ deserve to win?”

So slowly both the LDP and opposition have had to find ways to deal with the growth in public interest in the election process that the rule change brought about. In 2003 or so it was Manifestos that helped the DPJ, and in 2005 it was Koizumi’s sophisticated PR techniques that wooed voters. The DPJ is going all out to make itself look smarter and better able to govern than the LDP this July and I believe that is what the election will turn on.

Will Abe last past July? Depends on the DPJ

Two disparate sources provide some good perspective on Abe’s upcoming premiership:

  • Morgan Stanley’s Robert Alan Feldman lays out the possibly dangerous prospects of an Abe government based on the concerns of domestic and foreign investors. Domestic investors, as can be expected, have the most informed opinion and are most concerned about the following: Regardless of his campaign promises, Abe will likely not have Koizumi’s political wherewithal to push reform efforts, for the most basic reason: “Unlike Koizumi, Abe is not a maverick. Abe has yet to prove to the satisfaction of investors that he will say no to vested interests, instead of saying that he will say no.” It also won’t help that Abe is boring (lacks “Koizumi’s sound-bite style” which is effective in selling policies to the people). Second, the Abe government might not last long if his party does poorly in next July’s upper house elections. Two major issues that have a good chance of hurting the LDP are worsened relations with China (pretty likely), or if Abe caves in to demands for increased pork spending in the rural areas (also likely… Feldman sees this as sure to backfire since more spending in this era of disastrous fiscal debt might not do much for the rural voters but will almost certainly anger urban unaffiliated voters which have proven a decisive voting bloc recently). The fall of the Abe cabinet could result in the “frightening scenario” of “a return to the revolving door prime ministers of the 1990s” which was perhaps one of the biggest reasons behind that decade or so of stagnation. Unfortunately, Feldman’s conclusion seems only to support the most frightening scenario since his recommendations are unlikely to be followed: “In the end, I believe that both foreign and domestic investors need to see clarity of message, strong personnel choices, concrete policy agendas with legislative deadlines, and a focus on issues that will help Japan continue allocate resources efficiently.”
  • Kikko (of Kikko’s Blog fame) gives us an idea of how the media works with those in power to convince the public to accept Abe, a potentially controversial candidate for prime minister due to his hardline stances on China etc. She rejects the idea that the public supports Abe, a claim repeated over and over by the Japanese media. Public opinion polls used to prove this popularity she claims are complete fabrications. As a counterpoint, she sites a Yahoo poll that has the public supporting Foreign Minister Taro Aso, with Abe coming in a distant third. According to Kikko, there’s no way the Japanese public could support Abe, a man “riddled with suspicion” who is accused of ties to the Yakuza, the Unification Church (which he recently sent a letter of congratulations to a mass marriage conducted by the church in Japan… Kikko’s big beef with the Moonies is their practice of aggressively selling overpriced goods with “spiritual value”), who abuses his power to help his wife meet Korean actresses, who allegedly helped the Ushio Corporation, which is run by the father of Abe’s sister-in-law, invest in the Murakami Fund (started by a former Finance bureaucrat who is now alleged to have used his political and business contacts to engage in massive insider trading), who lied about studying abroad (claimed to have studied politics for 2 years at USC but actually took 6 courses over 3 semesters, 3 of them ESL classes), and who supports building not only offensive war capability but also nuclear capability for Japan’s military. In her assessment, the major media, especially the Yomiuri Shimbun (she calls them an “LDP PR rag”), are simply lining up to flatter the next leader so they can continue their close ties. She notes that domestic coverage of Abe tends to leave out his international image, as reported in Newsweek and Time, as a potential political weakling and dangerous provocateur of China.

    • The event to watch will be the July election. If Abe really screws up, then he might be in trouble. The question is, though: How can he screw up?

    I have to wonder how important the China issue will be. China is less keen to use the Yasukuni card these days (as noted by Robert Angel at Japan Considered) since they’ve seen they aren’t really getting anywhere with it. Abe, for his part, has never promised he’d go. There are certainly other ways for him to destroy relations with China, but for now things actually seem to be improving. And anyway, people actually seem to support Abe when he takes strong stances against Japan’s neighbors.

    And structural reform has gotten a huge amount of bad press since the Sept 2005 election. Horie and Murakami were strung up as poster children for the dark side of the new Japan, a scandal involving faked earthquake safety documents was blamed on Koizumi-style deregulation, and a national debate over the breakdown of income equality is making further reform look less sexy by the day. Abe’s platform so far is to push growth policies ahead of reform, led by a program to offer “second chances” to companies that have failed. As the Asahi reports, the bureaucrats have listened to his proposal (or was it the other way around?) and have “brazenly” come up with “second chance” programs that would actually increase respective ministries’ budget outlays. He still talks the talk about fiscal reform, but the stars are aligning against it and it’s doubtful he’ll try anything that would risk good relations within the LDP before July.

    So if Abe is likely to remain strong on the biggest issues, then how can he screw up? What Feldman never mentioned was that for Abe’s LDP to lose the election the electorate would have to cast its vote for the opposition DPJ, making that party’s election strategy a key factor. The party recently reelected president Ichiro Ozawa and is attempting to present a united front leading into July.

    Ozawa has taken the unusual tactic of trying to convince some of the anti-postal privatization LDP members who were ousted from their old party to join the DPJ camp. Some of those former lower house members were extremely influential in their home districts, making them attractive candidates since they are electable. As a result, the LDP has had to consider taking them back themselves since they want to avoid losing their slim majority in the Upper House. The DPJ wants these people because they can win elections some of the directly-elected seats that represent Japan’s 47 prefectures. Ozawa believes that if he can win a majority of the 73 such seats that are up for grabs then his party can take control of the upper house, so getting a shoo-in candidate makes the party’s job that much easier.

    On the issues, the DPJ has been pushing policies to close the “wealth gap” and emphasizing the close links between the LDP and the bureaucracy, claiming that the latter is controlling the former and watering down attempts to slash spending through such initiatives as privatizing government-run organizations, moves that the DPJ supports.

    Given Abe’s popularity, especially in national security, it might be tough for the DPJ, which has been weak on international issues, to convince the electorate to support them in a time when North Korea scares the bejeezus out of people. Additionally, the DPJ remains divided on the constitutional revision issue, which Abe is set to give priority early on in his term. If they aren’t able to effectively participate in the debate, the the DPJ may once again look too incompetent to be elected.

    Heizo Takenaka to leave politics after Koizumi steps down, but who could possibly replace him?!

    pha1.jpg
    Japan Times reports on Takenaka’s announcement, which came at a post-cabinet meeting press conference:

    Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Heizo Takenaka said Friday he will retire from politics when outgoing Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi steps down Sept. 26.

    Takenaka, a 55-year-old professor-turned-lawmaker, said he decided to quit politics because his job had been to assist Koizumi’s economic reforms.

    But what I didn’t see reported in English was news of who will take Takenaka’s proportional representation seat in the Diet. You see, members of the upper house who were elected by PR don’t represent a specific district, so there’s no runoff to replace people who quit or die. Whatever party the person leaving belonged to gets to select the replacement.

    In this case the LDP had a Ms. Shinobu Kandori at the top of their waiting list from when she ran in 2004. Kandori (41) is a former Judo star who went on to become a veteran and former CEO of Japan’s Lady’s Legend Pro Wrestling. Sometimes knows as “the strongest man in ladies’ wrestling”, her accomplishments in the ring include the distinction of being among the few female wrestlers to defeat a male wrestler (eat your heart out Andy Kaufman!) in an effort to break down the barriers between men’s and ladies’ wrestling. She was also a participant in the first-ever women’s version of anything-goes kickboxing called L-1. Outside the ring, she made waves by becoming the first female freelance pro wrestler, choosing to negotiate matches from outside the company. Her profile on her agent’s website lists her main hobby as gambling.

    A Jan 2002 interview places Kandori’s legendary 1986 wrestling debut against Jackie Sato as the event that destroyed the image of female wrestlers as objects of adoration (“idols”) (Ed: corrected translation). Known for her brutality in the squared circle, Kandori specializes in chain deathmatches and no-holds-barred fights. Her theme song is “All We Are” by female-led hair metal band Warlock (watch and listen here on Youtube!). She considers herself a pioneer for women in wrestling, which her record no doubt backs up. Few before her in ladies wrestling had the muscular body of a Judo champ, which allowed her to try some new things like fighting men. Her goal as a leader of ladies wrestling was to make the sport more organized and to raise standards of who can become a wrestler.

    But now she’s got some big shoes to fill. Her official blog doesn’t have much on it yet since the announcement just came out yesterday, but I wouldn’t count on seeing any more pictures of her chugging tomato juice from now on:

    10009617193.jpg

    In case you were wondering what she’ll be bringing to her new job as a public servant, Wikipedia has an indication: Her unsuccessful political campaign in 2004 earned her criticism after she bluntly stated that she “honestly, like, [doesn’t] get this Iraq issue.” She also reportedly never made her mandatory social security payments, claiming that as a pro wrestler she never learned how to live in normal society. “The system is just too hard to understand,” she explained. “We have to change it.”

    Thing is, the LDP actually sought Kandori out to exploit her fame (much like they tried to do with Horie), so in part she can’t be blamed for making such inappropriate comments. She’s just being honest, and if that’s good enough for the LDP, then it’s up to the voters to decide whether she deserves a Diet seat, right? Well, sort of. They voted her out, but now she’s back in on a technicality.

    But just in case you thought Ms. Kandori lacked ideas, take a look at this brilliant campaign tactic from 2004:

    million man arm wrestling.jpg
    Translation: “Lend me your strength! It’s the million-person arm wrestling campaign”

    Yes, the woman who once destroyed the door of Korakuen Hall’s green room in a fit of anger will join the ranks of Atsushi Onita (profiled before on this blog and whose official Diet secretary got in trouble earlier this year for kicking a rival wrestler in the face… and he apparently has beef with 26-yo Taizo Sugimura, another LDP Diet member of questionable merit) and the legendary Antonio Inoki.

    Something tells me she won’t be offered any of Takenaka’s cabinet posts, but she might make a more pretty good Gender Equality minister.

    UPDATE: Her other nickname is “Mr. Ladies’ Wrestling.” See that fact and a sweet action pose here.

    ‘Peeping’ Economist Arrested Anew In Groping Case

    From Nikkei:

    TOKYO (Kyodo)–Economist Kazuhide Uekusa, once a well-known TV commentator who was convicted of public indecency by trying to look up a 17-year-old girl’s skirt at a Tokyo railway station in 2004, has been arrested on suspicion of molesting a 17-year-old female high school student on a train in Tokyo, police said Thursday.

    …

    On the train, the girl, a second-year high school student from Kanagawa Prefecture, raised her voice and said, ”Stop it,” and she and two other passengers seized Uekusa and handed him over to policemen who were alerted and waiting at Keikyu Kamata station.

    In April 2004, Uekusa was arrested and indicted for trying to look up a girl’s skirt on an escalator of the Japan Railways Shinagawa Station in Tokyo by using a small mirror. He was a professor at Waseda University at the time.

    He pleaded not guilty but did not appeal after the court convicted him and fined him 500,000 yen. His mirror was confiscated as part of the punishment.

    Homesick for the Easy Living of Fairfax County

    Hanging out in Washington can be a drag when you’re in a long distance relationship. Considering only the safe northwestern corner of the District (and that’s all anyone considers, really), the bars, clubs, disco bowling alleys, and $30-a-plate restaurants are built with college students, new graduates, and yuppies in mind. In contrast, Northern Virginia, where I lived from December of last year until June, could offer a suburban paradise of good restaurants and solitary thrills that entertained me during the 10 months or so of quiet stagnation that I spent between Shoko’s departure and our reunification at the end of July. As long as I had a car, I could easily brave the sometimes offensively bad traffic and spend a Saturday picking up groceries at the Korean supermarket, playing Dance Dance Revolution at the mall, and returning to my apartment with dinner from any number of good fast food or carry out places. Five Guys, Chipotle, Krispy Kreme Donuts, hispanic grilled chicken places, or some of the good Vietnamese, Korean and Indian places that have popped up in the area.

    This recent Washington Post article reminds me of that time. Though intended as a look at the restaurant business in the Washington area from an economist’s perspective (timely enough as pop economics is all the rage these days) somehow the piece reads as a wonderful nostalgia piece for anyone who has recently left Washington’s “exurbia.”

    The top 10 Blogs in Japan

    Back in February I took a look at the top blogs in the Japanese blogosphere based on Technorati ranking. But I happened to glance at the standings again recently, and things have changed. While many of popular blogs are still in the top 20, there are a lot of new contenders. Here’s the new top 10 (as of August 23):

    1. Akiba Blog – cutesy anime stuff from Akihabara (“Akiba” for short), Tokyo’s electronics district. Seems to specialize in erotic action figures.
    2. Shoko-tan’s Blog – celebrity blog, up from #6 last time.
    3. Ouch News – Posts stories from Japan’s news and then reprints relevant commentary from 2ch, Japan’s massive anonymous forum site. This is actually a pretty good site for those who don’t feel like sifting through all the anti-Korean comments.
    4. Gigazine – tech, fast food, convenience store drinks, etc.
    5. WTF LOLOLOLOLLOLLLLLL!!!!! – Comedy site that also picks up the best from 2ch. Recent post: “Mr. Amazon, this doesn’t look good…” Links to a strange “Amateur Train Rape” (NOT SAFE FOR WORK) DVD sold on amazon, with uncensored genitals on the cover (illegal in Japan).
    6. Kotaro’s Blog – Flash games, animations, videos, etc.
    7. New Akiba Dot Com – More cutesy Akihabara stuff, less porn. As you may have noticed, Akihabara is now known almost more for otaku culture than electronics these days.
    8. Kaori Manabe – celebrity blog, down from #2 last time.
    9. PingMag – The Tokyo-based magazine about “Design and Making Things” – the title sums it up pretty well. There’s also an English version.
    10. Mumur’s Blog – Politics blog “Supporting” DPJ senior official and Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly member from Edogawa District Akihiro Hatsushika. He is apparently famous for telling people “You’re messed up in the head so you should go to the hospital.” More on this a little later.

    Kikko Comments on Earthsea

    Fans of Ghibli Studios and the Earthsea novels are surely interested in how Ghibli’s interpretation turned out. Not so good, it looks like, judging from some reports and the original author’s reaction. From the general sound of things, it seems that Goro wasn’t up to the task after all. That’s unfortunate.

    But I’m not here to talk about that. My interest is in the blog post that Kikko, Japan’s mysterious and popular (but no longer top) political blogger, wrote on the film. The bulk of the post is a translation of Le Guin’s official reaction to the movie, but she prefaces that with a conversation between two young women that she supposedly overheard on the train. Below is a translation of just the conversation:

    A: Oh no! At this rate, I’ll fall right to sleep!
    B: Oh? Are you not getting enough sleep, Kyoko?
    A: Hm, every night it’s too hot…If I sleep with the A/C on, my skin gets dry and so does my throat!
    B: Well, then you should just go see Earthsea!
    A: Why’s that?
    B: I went to see it last week with Marie and Chika, but I fell asleep a half hour after it began because it was so boring…and when I came to the end credits were rolling!
    A: It’s that boring?
    B: I didn’t see almost any of it, but Marie and Chika said they couldn’t stand it and fell asleep about halfway through…so it looks like at least the first hour is boring enough to make you sleepy…
    A: But, the TV and everything is saying it’s a “big hit in theaters!” right?
    B: Really? Since I was let down by Howl’s Moving Castle, I had hope this time would be better, but this was way more boring than Howl…It’s like, rather than tell the story with animation, the characters just explain the story in order with long monologues…so I gradually started to feel sleepy, then eventually closed my eyes and just listened to the lines, and then just fell asleep.
    A: Oh, I see.
    B: Like, since all the lines are long and in a monotonous explanatory tone, it makes you feel like you’re being forced to listen to a lecture by Oishi the Section Chief.
    A: Really??? Haha…

    (emphasis added)

    Kikko’s comments that follow the above conversation criticize the mass media for caving in to pressure from promotional agencies such as Dentsu by lavishing unearned kind words on movies and other products even when they are clearly terrible as in the case of Earthsea.

    As poignant as Kikko’s sentiments may be, I have a hard time believing that Kikko actually overheard such a conveniently-worded conversation. She claims not to have seen the movie (typical of her other lengthy articles about Japanese anime) yet but has no problem using a supposedly overheard conversation to back up criticism of the media and badmouth a movie she hasn’t even seen. If that’s true then it’s irresponsible, and if not then, well, she’s being just as dishonest as Dentsu and the mass media, isn’t she?

    Since an article posted on her site broke a major development in the faked earthquake safety data scandal last year (and in the several stories she’s had pertinent information on since), wide and well-founded speculation has spread that the purported writer of this blog (a “hair and makeup artist” in Tokyo) does not really exist, or at least that there is something less than forthcoming about the source of the blog’s content. One theory (as noted in a “Kikko Watching” wiki) is that the site serves as the repository of one or more news reporters that use it to reveal information that can’t make it past editors in the major publications. This is the theory I’m going with, so check back in a few months or so when the truth is finally known to see if I was right.

    Whatever the source of the articles on Kikko’s blog, the site has been extremely entertaining and illuminating as it often contains information and analysis that is simply not available elsewhere. However, there are many many other instances where I am left shocked at the claims Kikko’s site makes. For example, her repeated claim that weapons of mass destruction were and are being used by the US military in Iraq are not backed up by any credible evidence whatsoever, and sources she does cite for other issues have turned out to be fake. And then there are the suspicious quotes and anecdotes, one of which I have translated above.

    Clearly any blog’s comments cannot be taken as gospel truth, especially when coming from one as mysterious as Kikko’s. But the scandal over Kikko makes me wonder: when the newspaper can’t even tell you when a film sucks, perhaps it’s preferable to hear the truth from a frank and knowledgeable fraud than swallow lies from the opaque and manipulative establishment.

    Jon Benet Murderer Arrested

    The Thai press (at least the English-language kind) is abuzz over the arrest of Jon Benet Ramsey’s alleged killer. He lived pretty close to one of my friends, apparently. But as for my take (not that anyone asked), The Onion sums things up rather nicely:

    “An accused murdering sex-offender goes into hiding, and no one thinks to check out Thailand?”

    In other news, the man apparently tried to get a sex change while in Thailand. They’re cheap here at around US$1600, so maybe he just had some extra cash lying around and wanted to see what would happen.

    Yasukuni Won’t talk to Asahi over Unauthorized Disclosure of Shrine’s Properties

    Remember that piece saying that Yasukuni was in financial trouble? Well, turns out the shrine itself wasn’t too happy about it:

    Yasukuni Shrine on Tuesday blocked Asahi Shimbun journalists from covering Junichiro Koizumi’s last visit to the site as prime minister on the 61st anniversary of the end of World War II.

    The ban on Asahi reporters and photographers in the Shinto shrine’s precincts is in protest over a map of shrine holdings printed over the weekend by the daily.

    The ban will remain in effect for an indefinite period, shrine officials said.

    While one could argue that one less news agency covering major events in Japan could be beneficial (see what happened when the BOJ ended quantitative easing), it’s hard to see where this is coming from. The properties are a matter of public record, so it only makes sense that a story on the financial situation of a controversial shrine that, incidentally, may be nationalized if Foreign Minister Taro Aso has his way, would include information about the shrine’s holdings.

    Anyway, I am not close to this issue. But I do have some questions:

  • For a news source to give the silent treatment to a news agency whose reporting it doesn’t like isn’t new, but perhaps Yasukuni is used to a more obsequious press that wouldn’t bother to inform readers of the actual facts behind the government’s proposals?
  • All major national newspapers, with the exception of Sankei, openly call for the PM and his successor to stop going). However, it is rumored that Asahi Shimbun has close ties to China and the Japanese left. And its editorials tend to be harder on the PM’s Yasukuni visits than other newspapers. Could the shrine (whose owners and major patrons do view it as the central national war memorial) and Asahi already have a bitter relationship? Does Asahi have a vendetta against Yasukuni?
  • The above question is premised on the fact that the Asahi Shimbun, as with other major newspapers, is not reknowned for its crack investigative journalism. Most reports are directed by government agenda-setting (see this latest “expose” on exploited foreign exchange students that looks as if it could have been written by the Ministry of Justice) and use scant outside sources (a by-product of the reporters’ club system and newspapers’ special privileges protecting them from competition).
  • Asahi has been reeling from scandals such as a faked memo that allegedly indicated that some of the postal rebels were going to form a new party. The scandals spurred the paper to launch a full-scale PR campaign as well as internal inquiries to reform the paper’s investigative journalism policy. Could the improved online access to more and longer articles from the newspaper, along with more expose-style pieces be the results of these new policies?