Roy Berman – Page 32 – Mutantfrog Travelogue

Surprising drug classification

I haven’t been posting lately due to a variety of reasons, most of all are my move back to the US this coming Sunday, and the absolutely wretched chest cold/cold-like disease that has floored me well enough so that my packing and other preparations for moving leave me utterly without energy.

Which brings me to my discovery of the day- that many brands of over the counter (i.e. non-prescription) cough medicine in Japan contain codeine. I find this rather surprising considering the general strictness of pharma regulations in this country, such as the rule that even drugs as mild as aspirin cannot be sold except in a pharmacy, which means that if you have a headache late at night the only medicine you’ll find in the corner convenience store that can help you is going to be whiskey.

In a related bit of trivia, I was bit puzzled to learn that due to a quirk in the Taiwanese legal code, ketamine has become the new drug of choice there for teenagers. According to the Taiwanese (Republic Of China) narcotics control law, ketamine is classified as a “minor” or category 3 drug, which means that possession is only a ticketing and not criminal offense. Oddly, cannabis (marijuana) is a category 2 drug, along with cocaine, morphine, and about 150 presumably dangerous chemicals I’ve never heard of-despite that fact that the aforementioned category 3 ketamine can actually be fatal in large doses (although rarely.)

Incidentally, cannabis is fairly strictly banned in Japan as well, following the 1948 passage of the Cannabis Control Act, which is said to be based on the corresponding American law. I have read in a couple of places that cannabis consumption was in fact a part of Japanese religious practice until quite recently-which considering the existence of names like 麻生 and 麻美 seems quite believable-many people in Japan actually believe the Reefer Madness version of reality. Still, while I don’t expect a more rational drug related policy in any of the three countries I have lived in (US, Japan, Taiwan), at least the availability of over the counter cough syrup with harmlessly small doses of codeine is a bright spot of common sense.

Japan Times, Foreign Office organ?

In an 1937 article from the journal Far Eastern Survey, I saw The Japan Times described as a “Foreign Office organ.” There is no mention on the Japan Times’ own history timeline they had ever been anything other than an independent media organization, but a quick Google search turned up this article on the very topic from the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan. The following paragraph summarizes the questions discussed in this article.

Here’s what we need to know about The Japan Times: How close was the paper to official Japan, and to what extent did it serve as a mouthpiece of the Japanese government (in itself neither unusual nor categorically inadvisable at times of international tension)? Closely connected to these questions is a third: Were The Japan Times’ acquisitions in October and December 1940 of Japan’s two best-known English-language newspapers, The Japan Advertiser and The Japan Chronicle, motivated purely by the desire for total media control and the need to speak with one voice through one conduit to the Western world, or were other plans afoot? A fourth, more speculative, question is whether The Japan Times could have served a more temperate purpose during the crisis in U.S.-Japan negotiations in 1940-41.

The author discusses the perennial problem of where to draw the line between journalists’ access to government officials and inappropriate cooperation or agreement with them – an issue recently being discussed with great frequency in the United States following various scandals – and concludes that “the reputation of The Japan Times as an official mouthpiece may well have been earned in its early years, but it was less deserved in early Showa, when most other newspapers not only took their lead from government sources but zealously exceeded official enthusiasm for expansion in East Asia and for the cause of ‘Holy War.’ ” This statement includes the period of time – 1937 – in which the reference I discussed at the beginning of the post was published.

On the other hand, the Japan Times’ acquisition of the two rival English language
newspapers in October and December of 1940 was likely orchestrated by Foreign Minister Matsuoka Yosuke, so as “to have an organ close to the Foreign Office in which their opposition to the Military Party could be expressed.”

However, Matsuoka’s access to the Japan Times, and hence his ability to promulgate pro-diplomacy messages to the foreign media through Japan’s sole surviving English language newspaper was eliminated in July 1941, when “the second Konoe Cabinet resigned in order to form a third Cabinet for the express purpose of jettisoning Matsuoka.” (Matsuoka had been trying to persuade the cabinet to abandon the Soviet-Japanese neutrality agreement and join Germany’s declaration of war against the Soviet Union. This would also have complicated the ongoing negotiations with the United States for the purpose of avoiding war between the two countries, in which Matsuoka was attempting to trade a withdrawal from continental China in exchange for recognition of Manchukuo and a guarantee of safety for trade routes of resources through the South Pacific.) This left publisher Go Satoshi to pen editorials which ended up inflaming relations between Japan and the Allied powers, although it is unclear whether this was at the behest of the subsequent Foreign Ministers or not.

The article concludes that “The Japan Times (until Matsuoka’s fall from grace) made a doomed but valiant effort to set up a rational, internationalist alternative to the bellicose rumblings emanating from the General Staff and the Foreign Ministry,” but also brings attention to the fact that after Matsuoka’s departure the paper’s editorials, written by Go, contributed to the climate of mistrust that led to the breakdown of negotiations, which eventually caused Japan’s attack against Pearl Harbor. While the Japan Times of today (which in my experience has a generally liberal and pro-internationalist slant) should hardly be criticized for the ways in which it was used as a vehicle of propaganda during wartime under an imperialist regime, I imagine that the readers of this blog will be as interested as I was to learn a bit about the history of a newspaper whose articles all of us read with regularity. Now I am curious to know if the Japan Times’ close relations with the Foreign Ministry continued after the war, and how the country’s primary English language news source may have been used by the occupying American authorities and post-occupation government of Japan.

On a tangential note, Matsuoka Yosuke was arrested and indicted as a class-A war criminal by the Tokyo Tribunal, but died of tuberculosis before the verdict was read, without his ever having actually appeared in court. Based on the brief biographies of Matsuoka that I have read, I’m not entirely sure on what grounds he was charged. It may have been related to his orchestration of the alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, although Japan was not yet engaged in war against any allied powers by the end of Matsuoka’s term of office. He also advocated war against the Soviet Union, but was ignored and in effect fired for that position. However reprehensible his attempts to promote Japanese-Soviet war may have been, it seems a little bit peculiar to prosecute someone for a policy which was never taken up by the government or military. It also seems possible that his efforts to avoid war between Japan and the US may have been a possible argument in his defense, which due to his premature death was never made. I would be very curious to know exactly what the charges against him were.

Update: I forgot to mention that Matsuoka is also one of the 14 class-A war criminal suspects controversially enshrined in Yasukuni. Apparently Emperor Hirohito mentioned him by name as one of those who should not have been enshrined, and whose listing caused the Emperor to cease visiting the shrine.

In the news

Although I did end up doing a post yesterday on the Kokaryo case, I’m sure you’ve all noticed that I have been on a vacation from the blog for about a month. To catch up a little bit, here are a few headlines of interest to my themes on this blog that have been kicking around my desktop for the past couple of days. I normally don’t like to do the “here’s a bunch of links” format, but putting them here is as much for my own future reference as for everyone else’s enjoyment.

The Japan Times has a FAQ about the new National Assessment of Academic Ability exam, given to all sixth year elementary and third year junior high school students in Japan. Of special relevance to some recent discussions on this blog over Japan’s adaptation to foreigners is this sentence. “Foreign students who take classes with Japanese nationals at Japanese schools are also required to take the test, but are allowed to receive support from interpreters.
In September of 2005 I posted about Osaka’s Kongo Gumi (金剛組) construction firm, which was then probably the world’s oldest continually operated company, having remained a family firm ever since its founding in A.D. 578, over 1410 years ago. Sadly, Kongo Gumi is now no more. Read the tale of how a decline in construction by their traditional Buddhist temple clients and excessive borrowing during the bubble period in an ill-advised attempt to expand into other areas of construction led to the bankruptcy of the world’s oldest company. They technically still operate as a subsidiary of Takamatsu Construction, but it’s just not the same without the 40th head of the Kongo family as CEO. According to Wikipedia’s list of the world’s oldest companies, this now leaves formerly second place Hoshi Ryokan, formerly just the world’s oldest hotel, as the world’s oldest independently operated company. Founded in 717, they are nearly 140 years younger than the former Kongo Gumi.
Historian and journalist David Halberstam has died in a car crash, at the age of 73. I mention it because several months ago I read his excellent book The Reckoning, on the history of the American and Japanese automobile industries from the very beginning to the mid 1980s when it was published, focusing largely on the stories of individual personalities in Ford and Nissan-the number two car companies of respectively the US and Japan, as well as some key bureaucrats in the case of Japan. This is recommended reading for people who are interested in learning generally how Japanese industry developed, thrived on technology transferred from abroad, to specifically why Japanese car companies and Toyota in particular are now leading the market. I strongly believe it should be on the short list for people interested in these topics, along with such better known books as Charlmers Johnson’s MITI and the Japanese Miracle, particularly for the chapters in which Halberstam explains precisely how Nissan management created a company union, crushed the independent labor movement within their company, and created the harmonious management/union structure we see throughout Japan, which the misinformed believe to be a symptom of Japan’se traditionally harmonious culture.

Kokaryo update

Back on February 1st I wrote a post on the battle over the “Kokaryo” (光華寮) Chinese students dormitory in Kyoto, between the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China. Those who don’t remember the details of the case or need a refresher should read my initial post on the subject and/or some of the linked news articles.

Since my initial report the case, which 40 years after filing was apparently the longest running lawsuit in Japan, has ended-at least in its current form. While the outcome of the case was exactly what the PRC wanted for diplomatic reasons, it was still not technically a complete success in terms of the primary substance of the lawsuit.

Note that Yomiuri Shimbun’s March 28 headline, “Top court rules China, not Taiwan, owns dorm” is factually incorrect. In fact, the court ruled that because the lawsuit was originally filed by “China” and that recognition of “China” has shifted from the Republic of China (Taiwan) government to the People’s Republic of China (Mainland China), not Taiwan but the PRC is now the plaintiff. The original lawsuit was filed by “China” as represented by the ROC (Taiwanese) authorities against the Chinese (mainlander) dorm residents, whom the ROC wanted to evict due to their support of the PRC. While the defendant was technically the individual students, they were supported by the PRC government, and the case essentially became ROC vs. PRC vying for control of the dorm, even though the original motion that started the trial was calling for an eviction order of the mainland Chinese students from the dorm. Because the original lawsuit was filed by “China,” the court’s judgment that “China” was now represented by the PRC and not the ROC meant that in essence the People’s Republic of China was now playing both sides of the field, and as the plaintiff they had the right to decide not to continue prosecuting the case. In fact, it seems that the court never ruled on the primary issue of property rights one way or the other, and technically their decision allowed the plaintiff to continue to pursue the case by having it returned to the Kyoto district court, which they naturally did not do.

As PRC Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Jiang Yu said in a January 26 news article, “The Guanghualiao [note: “Guanghualiao” is the Chinese pronunciation of “Kokaryo”] case is not merely a property case, but a political case concerning China’s legitimate rights.” While China has always insisted that this is a political case and has publicly demanded satisfaction from the Japanese government, Japan has always pleaded separation of powers, and insisted that it was both illegal and impossible to intervene in the court system for diplomatic and political reasons. However, some observers find both the timing and verdict of the case suspicious. Coming on the heels of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s highly publicized and politically significant official visit to Japan, cynics might suspect that the Japanese government did in fact “encourage” the court to resume the long-stalled case, and adjudicate it in China’s favor as a subtle diplomatic gift to counterbalance moves by the Japanese administration over the last few years to strengthen diplomatic and military ties with Japan.

Despite the high court’s decision that the PRC was in fact the plaintiff in this case, which has effectively nullified all of the previous judgment’s in Taiwan’s favor, there is still a chance for Taiwan to prevail in their property rights claim. The April 4 Taipei Times reported that Taiwanese authorities were looking into how to continue the case, despite having lost the standing to pursue the lawsuit as originally filed on behalf of the Republic of China. “We will continue our fight, considering the possibility of a fresh civil lawsuit or other legal means,” said their attorney Noriyasu Kaneko. According to an April 21 Kyoto Shimbun article (apparently not available online), Taiwan is in fact planning to file a new motion in the Kyoto court asserting their property rights as a “body” and attempting to sidestep the entire hornet’s nest of “one China” and diplomatic recognition. While this case has been a victory for China and a potential danger for Taiwan’s property rights abroad, it is also worth noting that the original premise of the case, that the ROC is the proper representative of “China” is a decades old doctrine that is effectively disavowed by the current Taiwanese administration anyway. Although I doubt that there has been anyone in Taiwan celebrating this verdict, it can also be looked at as the collapse of yet another piece of the “One China” diplomatic fiction. Now that Taiwan no longer has to pursue this Chiang Kai-shek era lawsuit based on the obsolete premise that they are the “One China,” there is at least some sliver of hope that they can turn around and use the new lawsuit to reassert their rights as a body separate from China.

Brief update

I’ve quit my deadly-dull office job in the Kyoto area and will be heading back to the US on May 27 where I will either just do freelance translation work at home or find some sort of job in Manhattan, while I try and find a graduate school that will take me.

On Wednesday (April 11) I will be heading over to Tokyo for a week and a bit, so if anyone reading this has any absolutely must-see places in Tokyo, or wants to meet up, please let me know.

Welcome back part 2

OK, after the false re-start a couple of days ago I have finally re-wiped everything and reinstalled from scratch, and finally figured out the correct way to import the old database with ALL Asian language text intact. We had some good discussion going on the “welcome back” thread over the past few days, so as I promised I’ll just post the archive of that below, so everyone can re-read their own comments for fun long into the future.

Continue reading Welcome back part 2

Micro micro broadcasting

Buried in the second half of a Japan Times story about Japan’s dogged pursuit of resolution over the North Korean abduction issues was the following.

A Japanese citizens group is one step closer to getting approval to air Japanese-language programs intended for Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea.

The International Telecommunication Union, a Geneva-based body set up to standardize and regulate international radio and telecommunications, informed the government Monday that it is prepared to allocate a shortwave frequency band to the group, sources said.

Seriously? They want to actually broadcast programs specially prepared for a population which is at most 8 people, but which North Korea claims is actually zero? Personally, I have always suspected that North Korea was being entirely truthful when they said that the remaining abductees are all dead, but that they are probably trying to cover up the circumstances of their deaths, whether by suicide, execution, starvation, or whatever unpleasant means it was.

But even if North Korea was lying and the 8 are still alive, this is still an absolutely mind-stunningly dumb plan. First of all, there is the fact that short-wave radios are entirely banned in Korea-the only radios permitted for non governmental use can only be tuned to government preset stations, which presumably does not include “Japan Abductee News.” And think about the staggering inefficiency of this plan. How much effort exactly do they propose to spend on preparing radio broadcasts that have a virtually zero chance of getting to the intended audience, which let us remember is only eight people to begin with! I can sort of understand the enormous efforts to actually retrieve or at least discover the fates of kidnapped citizens, but why send out messages that a: probably no one will here and b: even if they did, no-one back in Japan would ever know that they had heard it.

C.P.U.S.A.

Just on the heels of my post the other day on the virtually ignored doings of Japan’s modern left-wing terrorist wannabees, an article in today’s New York Times informs us that the Communist Party USA still technically exists. In fact, the existence of this formerly very active organization is so marginal that their official website even seems to be down. And even worse for them, their Manhattan offices are being rented out to someone else. The good news, however (for the record, I consider the demise of the CPUSA merely “interesting” and neither good nor bad) is that in the process of cleaning out their offices, they are donating their entire 12,000 carton document archive to New York University. And for those readers who need a Japan connection, according to the article, one of the more curious documents found in the yet un-cataloged archive so far is “a letter from W. E. B Du Bois in 1939 denying he took money from Japan for propagandizing on its behalf.”

Blog software goofiness

We’ve been having some shaky operation here at Mutantfrog over the past week or two. Currently everything seems to be operating normally, but anyone encountering error messages, or having trouble getting their comments to appear, should send us a message.

Who blew up what now?

I was just wondering why there are is so much news being created by the Japanese right wing, while the hard core left wingers never even seem to make the paper. Since the Red Army organization was eradicated in the late 80s, Japan has seen several incidents of terrorism and pseudo-terrorism (assassination, sarin gas incidents, death threats, arson, etc.) committed by right wing extremists and religious wackos that live in a universe entirely distinct from the political spectrum, but left wing activity seems to be mainly limited to retirees having picnics. Hence my surprise when I noticed this article, which is actually from a month ago, and yet I somehow failed to notice.

Japanese leftist group claims responsibility for blast near US base

A Japanese extreme left-wing group has claimed responsibility for a small explosion near a US army base outside Tokyo ahead of US Vice President Dick Cheney’s visit to Japan.

The group, calling itself the Revolutionary Army, said in a statement to media organisations here that the blast was an “angry blow of an iron hammer” at Washington’s plan to increase US troops in Iraq.

“It is an preemptive attack to stop Vice President Cheney’s visit to Japan,” the statement added, attacking moves to strengthen the US-Japan military alliance.

Cheney is scheduled to arrive here next Tuesday on a three-day visit during which he is expected to tour the US naval base in nearby Yokosuka.

The Metropolitan Police Department said Saturday they thought the group was a faction of a militant left-wing group called Kakurokyo (The Revolutionary Workers’ Council), known for a series of attacks using crude home-made incendiary devices in protest at the US military presence in Iraq.

[…]

This is the first I recall hearing about any left wing bombing attacks in Japan in recent years, but it is certainly more believable than the “Al-qaeda in Japan” theory that US officials suggested. Of course, the fact that kakurokyo took credit for the attack helps.
Below is an actual wanted poster for members of the Kakurokyo (革労協), from the Nagano police department.

As is typical with these extremist groups (left wing or right wing) there appears to be a confusing array of factions, counter factions, splinter groups and rival claimants to the same, but this wikipedia article on at least some of the people calling themselves kakuryokyo (specifically the “liberation faction”) actually does list some crimes over the past few years of which they are accused. According to the article, there were a total of 8 explosive related attacks, beginning in April of 2002, when they planted a timed explosive device in a train of the Keisei network. There have also been 7 crude missile attacks on US military bases in Japan, beginning with one in 2002, three in 2003, two in 2004, and then in 2007 the one mentioned in the Yahoo news article linked to above.

The early attack incidents are discussed in slightly more detail in this 2003 Ministry of Justice white paper, which for some reason creepily includes discussion of these criminals with attempts by peaceful anti-war groups to increase collaboration with peaceful left wing anti war groups in other countries, such as US based A.N.S.W.E.R. and the UK Stop the War Coalition.

The same MOJ document ends with a discussion of the “continuing threat” of the Japanese Red Army, which it says former supports of have formed the group “Movement Solidarity,” who are responsible for the formation of JAPAC, the Japan-Palestine Project Center. According to this report, “Movement Solidarity” had held a JAPAC conference at which former Red Army members said that they would “Maintain the meaning of the ‘Battle of Lod’ in the joint Palestinian struggle, carry on that sacrificial spirit, and continue with all their power to hammer out the direction of joint Palestinian activities relevant today, as strengthening the bonds of solidarity with the people.” The “Battle of Lod” refers to what is more commonly known as the 1972 Lod Airport Massacre, in which three Japanese Red Army members engaged in a suicide attack in support of the Palestinian cause. Some people believe that this attack was inspired by the Japanese kamikaze suicide squads of World War II, and that it in turn inspired Palestinian suicide bombing, that has now became a widespread feature in guerrilla insurgencies throughout the Middle East region and beyond.

The report also mentions that several Red Army are still wanted by the police (as of 2003, but I do not believe the situation has changed), and that one Bando Kunio had been reported as hiding out in Negros Island in the Philippines.

On a related note, Red Army member Yu Kakumura, who was arrested in 1986 carrying pipe bombs in his car while driving on the New Jersey turnpike is reportedly schedule to be released April 18 of this year. According to this decision of the Tenth Circuit US Court of Appeals on October 31, 2006 in response to a motion filed by Kakumura’s attorney:

He filed an application for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241 challenging the method by which the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) calculates and awards good conduct time (GCT). Under the BOP’s method, Kikumura’s release date would be April 18, 2007. Employing the method Kikumura advocates, he would be released from prison on November 17, 2006, as he is a model prisoner and has received the maximum amount of GCT that he could earn.

The request for early release for “good conduct time” was denied, which implies that he will be released on this coming April 18.