LDP releases YouTube-only attack ad against DPJ

Leading up to Japan’s Lower House election on August 30, the ruling LDP has come out with an interesting animated attack ad against main rival DPJ:

The scene: a fancy restaurant overlooking the Diet building. A young Yukio Hatoyama lookalike is proposing to the girl of his dreams. He asks, “won’t you switch to me?” (僕に交代してみませんか?) and promises that if she chooses him, she can have everything she ever wanted – free childcare, free education, no more expressway tolls, the works.

Unimpressed, the woman asks, “Do you have the money for that?”

His reply: “I’ll consider the details once we’re married!”

The scene goes black, and we see the slogan:

“Can you entrust your life to confidence without any basis in reality?”
(根拠のない自信に人生を預けられますか?)
“The Liberal Democratic Party – We have a basis.”
(根拠がある。自民党)

Trust me, it sounds better in Japanese.

Frankly, this is a well-made and impressive ad, much like the American attack ads from the 2008 presidential elections. It casts the DPJ as irresponsible, frames the choice using a clear and apt analogy, and presents the LDP as the viable alternative.

I can easily see it becoming a viral hit as it’s already making the rounds of 2ch and at least one “alpha” blogger. As of this writing the video has merely 70,000 views, though that already makes it the most viewed LDP video ever in just three days since it was posted.

I am a little conflicted here – I want to say there’s not much potential for Youtube to be a decisive factor in the upcoming Lower House election given that the majority of the voters are elderly and thus not Youtube viewers. But these ads might not be so much about getting out the youth vote for the LDP as much as dampening any good feelings people might have about the DPJ. That way more of the youth vote might stay home, thus mitigating LDP losses.

The DPJ does not appear to have any similar attack ads. Their focus seems to be more on defining the DPJ as the party of responsibility that can solve Japan’s various problems.

Their attempts at “animation” could use some improvement if they want the otaku vote:

(videos via Hiroshi Yamaguchi)

LIVE BLOGGING of the Abe questioning

Japan’s new PM Shinzo Abe is in the Diet today answering questions fomr Diet members on his policies. You can watch the proceedings now here (in Japanese). Abe just said to the effect:

There was a question on the enshrinement of Class A War Criminals at Yasukuni Shrine. On the topic of Class A War Criminals, there are many opinions on each side so I don’t think it would be appropriate for the Japanese government to comment one way or the other on the matter.

Pardon my ignorance, but doesn’t the Japanese government generally respect the results of the Tokyo tribunals? I’m interested to see what the press has to say (if anything) on Abe’s comment. More likely, they will comment on what he said next, which is that he still refuses to comment on whether he himself plans to visit the shrine.

UPDATE: The video of the questioning is now available.

Here’s what he said:

There was a question on the responsibility as national leaders of the so-called “Class-A war criminals.” Regarding the responsibility for the last great war, there is a variety of opinions, so I feel that it may be inappropriate to make detailed, sweeping comments as a government [on this issue]. Whatever the case, our nation accepted the judgments of the Tokyo tribunals based on Article 11 of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, so I believe that in state to state relationships, the Government of Japan is in no position to raise any objections regarding this judgment.

His explanation is almost an exactly lifted from the foreign ministry’s explanation of the issue:

The Government of Japan acknowledges that there are various arguments regarding this judgment. However, Japan has accepted the judgment of the IMTFE under Article 11 of the San Francisco Peace Treaty. Therefore, in state to state relationship, the Government of Japan believes that it is in no position to raise any objections regarding this judgment.

Isn’t that cheating? I thought this was a man with strong opinions!

One other interesting development during the questioning: Abe screwed up, if only a little bit. DPJ member Takaaki Matsumoto asked the PM whether Abe’s reference in his Friday inaugural policy speech to “research” what situations would allow for collective defense by Japan meant that the “quite detailed” constitutional interpretations by previous governments would be changed. In response, Abe repeated what he said last week: He will research into what kinds of circumstances would allow Japan to exercise collective defense, founded on previous constitutional interpretations and Diet debates, and “focusing on actual situations that could occur.” According to Abe, there is a need to look into this issue due to “increased expectations” of Japan so that the U.S. Japan alliance can “operate more efficiently.”

However, minutes later, Abe came back and “supplemented” his response by saying that at this stage he was simply stating a “summary of his views” on the matter and that he intends to “duly consider” the matter of collective defense. This essentially backtracks his earlier, more concrete statement that he would research the issue.

Matsumoto, an opposition lawmaker who has never held a cabinet post, then found himself in the unlikely position lecturing the youngest (and one of the least experienced) postwar prime minister on how to run his cabinet: “I think that there might be a need for you to reread your statements on the…collective defense issue at the cabinet and get them organized.”

Not sure why Abe tried to delete his previous remarks, but perhaps he is trying to avoid making headlines about his efforts to rewrite the constitution ahead of his Oct. 8 summit meeting with the Chinese premier.

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.

    Our Japanese fails us

    I’m back from my trip with Lord Curzon and will be posting some pictures in the coming days. This tidbit, however, just couldn’t wait:

    On Wednesday, rather than take a bus around the peninsula to catch our ferry to Hakodate, we decided to hitchhike straight through the mountains. This turned out to be pretty strenuous, as nobody was going all the way to our destination, so we had to thumb five rides and do a lot of walking in between.

    The last car to pick us up was an aging four-door occupied by three thuggish-looking guys with buzz cuts. As we zoomed up the coast, headed for the very northern tip of Honshu, the driver opened up the conversation something like this:

    DRIVER: Where you guys from?
    CURZON: America.
    DRIVER: Ha ha! Oh! You heard about Koizumi going to Yasukuni?
    CURZON: (knowing smile) Oh, yes.
    DRIVER: (more nervously) Heh heh… (awkward silence)

    After they dropped us off at the ferry terminal, I remarked to Curzon: “It’s a pity we don’t know how to say ‘fuck yeah!’ in Japanese.”

    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?
  • Support the Reemerging State Shinto – Visit Yasukuni!

    Yasukuni Shrine, Japan’s controversial unofficial war memorial, is in financial trouble, says the Asahi Shimbun. Apparently, the drop in major donations spurred by the disappearance of the war generation has run headfirst into plans for a revamping of its war-nostalgia museum in preparation for its 130th anniversary. Let’s look at the numbers:

    Total cost for renovating the museum: 8.3 billion yen
    Annual budget: 1.8 billion, down 5% from last year and almost half of the 1985 budget of 3.2 billion yen. So they’re dipping into the endowment, it looks like.

    In terms of revenue, Teikoku Databank shows that Yasukuni only reported 235 million yen (parking fees, rent for the gift shop and building, and entrance fees for the museum), down from 400 million yen in 1996 (NOTE: edited from original post). It’s the 3rd highest earner of all Shinto shrines, but only makes 1/5 of the top earner, Meiji Jingu. At this rate, the shrine is currently moving forward with rationalizations such as not replacing retired workers, outsourcing some operations, and getting estimates from multiple contractors and auctioning out construction/repairs.

    Obviously, this development will have an effect on the recent reemergence of proposals to nationalize the shrine. Although the Asahi warns that “it is doubtful that Yasukuni will agree to dissolve itself” it’s not like a bankrupt Yasukuni (or its backers in the war bereaved association) could really say no to national patronage if it means saving the expensive but apparently effective museum.

    Aso’s plan to de-Shintoize Yasukuni

    Foreign Minister Taro Aso, who is still trying to become the next prime minister despite not having a snowball’s chance in hell, has a new plan to save Japan. He reckons that by taking the gods out of Yasukuni, the Emperor will be able to visit and none of those pesky lawsuits will have any standing. The English report:

    Aso, known as a diplomatic hawk who has offended China and South Korea with remarks in the past, said his plan was not aimed at mollifying foreign countries. Instead, he hopes to resolve a domestic debate that flares up whenever a Japanese leader visits the shrine and has prevented the emperor from going there since 14 “Class A” war criminals were added to the lists of those honored at the shrine in 1978.

    “It’s about expressing our respect and gratitude for those who died for their country and praying for the peace of the souls of those who died…without all this fuss,” Aso told a news conference.

    “The tens of thousands of soldiers who died crying ‘Long Life to the Emperor’ filled those words with deep emotion,” Aso said in a statement outlining his idea. “So I strongly pray that the emperor can visit Yasukuni.”

    Yomiuri Shimbun’s blurb says that the strategy to pull this off goes roughly as follows:

    1. Dissolve the religious foundation that administers Yasukuni and set up a new private foundation (zaidan hojin) to run the shrine.
    2. By special act of the Diet, establish a special corporation to administer Yasukuni.
    3. Most amusingly, change the shrine’s official name to 靖国社 – removing the character for “god” in the word “shrine.”

    Adding to the craziness of this scheme, Yomiuri mentions at the end of its article that Aso wants this process implemented for all of the “gokoku jinja”—a group of 52 shrines scattered across Japan enshrining those from the area who died at war–“regional Yasukunis,” so to speak.

    Needless to say, if you can’t de-enshrine war criminals, it’s gonna be tough to de-Shintoize Yasukuni (and, for that matter, 52 other shrines).

    Just in case you’re worried, Aso still does not have enough support to run and hasn’t officially announced his candidacy yet. UPDATE 8/10: I spoke too soon. Muddafugga gots his twenty. Looks like he’s announcing later this month.

    Hirohito’s Yasukuni issues, and whether they mean anything today

    A memo drafted by the late Emperor Hirohito’s secretary in 1988 indicates that Hirohito purposefully stopped his visits to Yasukuni Shrine after Class A war criminals were added to its list in 1978. Hirohito had visited the shrine eight times between 1945 and 1978, but mysteriously stopped after that, and nobody was ever sure exactly why (although the implication was obvious enough).

    After this news broke on Thursday, both Koizumi and potential successor Shinzo Abe stated that they would not change their personal Yasukuni policies, Koizumi characterizing it as an “issue of the heart” and Abe questioning the authoritativeness of the “personal” memo.

    This might have seemed like a boon for Yasuo Fukuda, the only major contender for Koizumi’s throne to clearly oppose visiting Yasukuni, but then, just to make things more ridiculous, he decided not to run on Friday night. This makes the race a pretty one-sided game for Abe: while Taku Yamasaki and Koichi Kato continue to lead the opposition to Koizumi and Abe within the LDP, their support is not nearly broad enough at this point to stop Abe from winning the party election in September.

    So do Hirohito’s opinions mean anything in today’s Japan? Well, they can certainly be used as ammunition for the anti-Koizumi guns, but they’re certainly not enough to pierce his armor. And if Abe’s current behavior is any indication, it will take better ammunition to bring him down as well.

    Koizumi Continues to Flout His Own Constitution!

    Koizumi Yarmulke.jpg
    Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi respectfully places his hand on the Wailing Wall, one of Judaism’s most sacred sites, in Jerusalem on Thursday during a trip to the Middle East that takes him to Israel, the Palestinian territory and Jordan. (AP)
    (From Nikkei)

    Who will stop Koizumi from continuing these perverse, random acts of worship?!

    Koizumi Rocks out, sort of

    koizumi600.jpg

    Japan’s Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi went to Graceland with Bush today. The visit was described on NPR as a “gift” to the Prime Minister in appreciation of his unwavering support for the US.

    Well, Koizumi must have liked it, because he was about as animated as he gets today – he even broke into song briefly, a move that clearly creeped out the president a little bit. Perhaps it was the PM’s choice of words – “Wise men say only fools rush in” – could this have been a subtle barb at Bush’s pre-emptive war doctrine?

    You can watch Koizumi sing here on the UK’s Channel 4 along with some other little tidbits about Japan and Britain’s Elvis-mania.

    UPDATE: NYT has more singing! Plus anti-whaling Elvis impersonaters!