Another Disputed Island

The project was to maintain Japan’s interest in the sea far south from its mainland. Five were killed and two are still missing in the accident around the southernmost land of Japan. They were workers for a construction to reinforce the small island to survive waves and winds. It reminded of China’s dispute that those islands were too small to call “land.” The accident invoked that unstable situation in East China Sea was not only about Senkaku Island.

The workers were at the operation of sliding a huge footing with piles from the deck of a ship to the sea surface. After the move, the footing would be floating on the sea and piles would support it standing on the sea base. In spite of top constructors in Japan joining the project, the accident happened unexpectedly. While the companies are investigating the reason why the footing fell down, some think that rough waves tore down the architecture with unstable structure.

The project was to protect a coral reef, which had been named Okinotorishima, Japan’s southernmost island on the Pacific Ocean. Located one thousand miles away from Tokyo, the island possesses 420 thousand square kilometers of exclusive economic zone. While the reef has seven square kilometers, constant land without sinking below the sea surface is quite small. Officially registered land has only nine square meters.

That was why the government of Japan started the project to surround the land with concrete buildings to protect the island in 1987. After finding of rare metal in the sea base around the island, Japanese government began to build a new port with a cost of ¥75 billion. When the project is completed, the footing would become a pier for researching ships.

China is appealing the island is not simply an island, but a rock on the ocean, which does not consist of land for EEZ. It is considered to be China’s interest in raw materials around there and further advance in the East China Sea. The Coastguard of Japan confirmed two Chinese ships cruising in the EEZ without notification to Japan last July.

Although the island is unequivocal territory of Japan, the accident spotlighted the existence of dispute over Okinotorishima. Japanese government wanted to finish the project without being acknowledged by the public. Silent effort of maintaining Japan’s sea interest was revealed by an accidental event. In the situation of unstable relationship with China, the government of Japan will need to raise its alert around Okinotorishima. It is setting observation camera on the footing to watch unidentified attempt to land the island, which may invite further dispute on it.

Reinterpretation of Reinterpretation

A basically personal project of Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, to reinterpret the Article IX of the Constitution of Japan is facing political difficulty. Not only leftists in the opposite, legislators in leading parties also began to question Abe’s reasoning of necessity of the reinterpretation. New compromise is further eroding his position. There is growing skepticisms against asserted security requirement.

The reinterpretation is for vesting the government of Japan a right to exercise collective self-defense, when a country closely related to Japan is attacked. Traditional interpretation of the Article IX, which renounced war, has been that Japan could exercise the right of self-defense when there was immediate and illegitimate invasion, when there was no appropriate measure and when it would be limited to the minimum. Collective self-defense has been recognized to exceed the level of minimum necessity, and violates the Constitution.

Challenging that legal understanding, Abe administration has brought a concept of international law. Citing the Charter of United Nations, administration staffs tried to persuade the public saying that collective self-defense right was fundamentally rendered to every nation. They argued that the right could accordingly be exercised, regardless traditional interpretation of the constitution, when security requirement existed. That meant that the right had theoretically no limitation.

Against that reasoning of reinterpretation, some legislators in leading parties cast a question: “Is the definition can be frequently changed by a contemporary political leader?” While the administration stressed that there were a lot of constitutional amendments in the world, lawmakers started acknowledging that those amendments were mostly about minor adjustments and fundamental change had been rare. They realized that Abe’s reinterpretation would be fundamental and conceptual change in the pacifist constitution.

Considering the political disadvantage, the administration embarked on limited version of collective self-defense right. New definition will be that collective self-defense right can be exercised only when the case is directly affecting Japan’s security, and its self-defense force cannot be sent to other nation’s territory of land, sea and air.

That concept is contradicting their theory that the right can unlimitedly be exercised. Moreover, if the area is limited to around Japan, such cases can be dealt with individual self-defense right, which is already allowed in traditional legal interpretation of the constitution. This reinterpretation of reinterpretation of the constitution will invite criticisms that Abe is not seeking actual security advantage, but change for his own legacy.

New Scandal of the Opposite

A weekly magazine reported that the President of Your Party, one of the opponents that stance had gradually been supportive to current administration, accepted ¥800 million right before national elections in 2010 and 2012. The President, Yoshimi Watanabe, is now suspected to have violated a law on regulating money for politics, which requires accurate report of income and outcome to every lawmaker. Since Watanabe has been a close ally of Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, new scandal may affect some of policy arrangements of the administration.

According to reports, Watanabe borrowed from a business person in Tokyo ¥300 million one month before the election of the House of Councillors in 2010 and ¥500 million in previous month of the election of the House of Representatives in 2012. Although Watanabe returned ¥247 million, he still owes ¥500 million or more. According to official report, the amount of his debt from the business man right after the election in 2012 was only ¥250 million, which contradicted the fact.

The business person is the president of well-known cosmetic company called DHC. He sent the magazine a letter revealing his involvement of the money lending to Watanabe. Direct reason why he opened the secret was that Watanabe rejected requests of some lawmakers to leave his party, in which he thought it was irrelevant.

Watanabe made several mistakes in dealing with the problem. He explained that the money was used only for his private purpose. But former governor of Tokyo, Naoki Inose, had stepped down by his money scandal with the same reasoning as Watanabe did. Insisting on separating it from the elections, Watanabe told that he used the money to buy “fortunate rake,” a kind of luck sold in shrine festivals. That ridiculous explanation impressed people of his lack of seriousness. Making matters worse, Watanabe decided to investigate the issue inside the party, which most parties criticized as concealing the facts.

Your Party will be in jeopardy of elimination, because it has been highly dependent on Watanabe’s leadership. With this unjustifiable scandal, the party is going to be unpopular. Most young lawmakers in the party become vulnerable in next election. It is likely that more will leave the party soon.

For Abe, losing an ally in the opposite will affect his policy, namely in reinterpretation of the Constitution for exercising collective self-defense, the issue that Watanabe strongly supported. The impact will, however, be limited, considering small size of Your Party. It may more worrisome for Abe to see the law enforcement office moved against his preference than the fact of losing one of his political supporters.

Evidence Fabricating Police

If workers could create their own job by themselves, it should be the best prescription for joblessness. Japanese police could make such an impossible thing possible. Fabrication can make boring life of policeman exciting and maintain the raison d’être of low enforcement office. For that purpose, the Japanese police system, once told as the world’s most brilliant, totally destructed a man’s life.

Shizuoka District Court on Thursday found a murder case, in which a former pro-boxer had been sentenced to death, needed to be reviewed immediately, because of possible fabrication of evidences of the murder by police. Hakamada was freed from a jail in Tokyo few hours after the decision, surrounded by his supporters with chanting and tears. The prosecutors have not decided whether they will appeal to higher courts.

In 1966, four dead bodies with a number of stabs were found in burnt-down house of executive director of a miso-paste factory in Shimizu city, Shizuoka. The local police determined the case to be murderous robbery and arrested a factory worker, Hakamada, who was in need of money for renting a house. Shizuoka District Court sentenced death penalty and the higher courts dismissed his appeals. Hakamada has been detained in prison for over forty-five years.

The decision of reviewing the case actually meant that the court admitted its misunderstandings. The biggest point was five clothes being regarded as hard evidences. With advanced technology on deoxyribonucleic acid analysis, the stain of blood on a shirt, main evidence of Hakamada’s involvement, did not match Hakamada’s blood. Although the police asserted that those clothes were found in brewing tank of miso-paste after a year and two months later, the way of changing color was different from a result of experiment, the fact which indicated fabrication of evidences.

It is a story only two decades later from the World War II, in which Japanese government totally lost its credibility. To regain governmental power, police needed to accumulate facts of resolving brutal crimes. Because of low technology of crime investigation, police needed to depend on possible motivation and confession. The courts were dependent on police with the same reason. But the biggest problem was lack of a sense of human rights.

Firm belief that put more priority on governance than on human rights still exists among bureaucrats. Even how sufferers are in hardships after the great earthquake and nuclear accident, Tokyo government does care maintenance of governmental power much more. This is the main reason why Japanese democracy is still primitive.

Soap Opera in Asia

Man: “I really love you, sweetie. Believe me. Hey, let me see your smile.”

Woman: “No, you liar. Don’t you ever kidding me. I have another good man, sorry.”

That was a silent conversation exchanged between the leaders of Japan and South Korea, Shinzo Abe and Park Geun-hye, at the first direct meeting in The Hague, Netherland, on Tuesday. It actually produced nothing in terms of their personal relationship. The mediator, President of the United States Barack Obama, was just dismayed.

The trilateral meeting was held at the official residence of U.S. Ambassador to Netherland, taking opportunity of the third Nuclear Security Summit. To set the meeting, Obama sent Secretary of State, John Kerry, to South Korea, urging Park to improve the relationship with Japan. Having received the sign of irritation from U.S., Japan started making diplomatic effort toward the South. After sending a director-general and deputy minister to Seoul, Abe announced a message to Park that he would maintain Murayama and Kono Statemets, which assured recognition of aggression and colonization of Japan and its responsibility of comfort women issue. With those backgrounds, Obama tried to show himself as a conductor of reconciliation of Asian alliance.

Nevertheless, unfortunate to Obama, Abe was a ham. He opened his remarks with unskilled Hangul, which could be translated to “President Park Geun-hye, I am glad to see you.” That was nothing but a simple appeal that meant “I am more sophisticated than you in international relationship, because I can speak to you in your language.” No, prime minister. You were just a puppet on the scenario scripted by diplomatic bureaucrats. Everybody knows that you have no idea to reconsider your conviction in justifying what Japan did in wartime.

Deeply frustrated was Park. She apparently ignored Abe’s Hangul message with no slight smile. If she had shown any easy compromise to Japanese revisionist leader, she would be facing backlash of anti-Japan groups inside. South Korea. Before the meeting, Park met with Chinese President, Xi Jinping, to agree with not tolerating unilateral change of interpretation of post-war history. Xi is a better guy for Park than the macho coalition between Barack and Shinzo.

However, old man said that women’s heart and fall weather was unreadable. Korea and Japan is having new high level of talks, according to Yomiuri Shimbum. They are talking about further reconfirmation of apology on Japan’s aggression and hiring comfort woman. Its result will be the same, anyway.

“Well, I’m sorry. But I’m saying it, because my boss insists.”

“Unbelievable, how can you say it was a real apology?”

“I don’t know.”

“You, bastard.”
Reconciliation needs change of leaderships.

G-Zero Doesn’t Matter

“Group Eight reduced to Gang Seven.” “No, it’s G-Zero world.” Newspapers are delightedly chanting decline of the superpower America and confusion in world order. It is ordinary carelessness of Japanese media. Situation in Europe is strange, as former Prime Minister of Japan mumbled on German-Soviet Non-aggression Pact. Things are not so simple, news guys.

Asahi Shimbun raised a headline, reading “G8 Collapsed, Seeking New Order.” It argued that G7 would not regain power enough to lead the world opinion, reminding of that basic structure of world politics had been shifted to G20. Yomiuri and Mainichi also highlighted elimination of G8 structure. Those papers, however, could not explain any greater significance of the event than an answer in primitive math, one deducted from eight is seven.

Crimea is not as crucial for the United States and European Union as for the Russians. Paralleled with St. Petersburg to the Baltic and Vladivostok to the Pacific, Crimea is a strategically important exit to the sea, or the south, for them. That was why Russia had heavily been investing Sevastopol a great amount of military assets. Realizing the peninsula to be literally included in Russia, the Western nations would be satisfied enough with welcoming Ukraine to their world.

Former Prime Minister, Taro Aso, well described the situation. “The origin of Russia is Dukedom of Kiev. For the Russians, a story like Kiev, separated from Crimea, leaving to Europe can be resembled losing Takamagahara with independence of Miyazaki prefecture,” told him. Takamagahara is a mythical heaven where holy gods are living. Although he was criticized as being compassionate to Russia, he struck basic structure of the problem.

The significance of G7 decision was to have authorized economic sanction toward Russia. U.S. does not care, if some countries in Europe may not follow it. Having a sense of legitimacy on its unilateral sanction, planting possible uncomfortable sentiment on Russian people who experienced disastrous economy in Soviet era, and keeping Ukraine annexed to the West are still advantages for U.S. in Eastern Europe.

Japan has no other choice than following the West, as long as it wants to stay on the side of democracy, human rights and rule of law. But it has a huge political debt in short-sighted diplomacy stemmed from revisionism of Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe. Russia must have been a possible partner to justify Abe’s “positive pacifism,” if bilateral talks for peace treaty would be making progress. Abe lost one of his diplomatic cards with unexpected political turmoil in Europe.

Fabricated Data on Radioactive Materials

Access to public information is guaranteed by the Constitution in Japan. It is commonly named “right to knowing.” For bureaucrats, the right is all about information only convenient to the government.

Mainichi Shimbun scooped on Tuesday that Cabinet Office had been concealing true data of monitoring radioactive materials in Fukushima prefecture. Because quantity of monitored radioactive materials was unexpectedly high, the Office backed off the data last October. In the time when the government was promoting go-home policy for sufferers, bureaucrats thought the impact would be too big to let them go home. By manipulating data, they are manipulating democracy.

The monitoring was exercised by a team for supporting nuclear sufferers of the Office in the area preparing for returning home last September. When the data was collected, the researchers found the data was as high as 2.6 to 6.6 millisievert (mSv) for a year, while governmental safety threshold had been 1 mSv. Although the team was planning to disclose the data last fall, it refrained from doing that in consideration of impact on the public and necessity of explaining to local governments, and trying to say the place was safe. The reason of concealing, however, was as same as hiding data about possible direction of dissemination of radioactive materials collected by SPEEDI monitor right after the disaster in First Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant three years ago.

The team invited more skepticisms by changing rule of the game. Yearly exposition to radioactive materials was calculated with hypothesis that every person would be outside of houses and buildings for eight hours a day. The result of research was also based on that calculation. Nevertheless, the team changed the norm from eight hours to six, and is planning to submit that manipulated result to local governments.

The episode represents some erroneous aspect of bureaucracy. Firstly, bureaucrats work in closed community, in which they can manipulate all the facts. Secondly, they easily ignore a crucial truth, when it opposed their expectation, policy standard and knowledge. Lastly, they fool ordinary people, looking down from the status guaranteed by the government, with notion that all people instantly get crazy, while the elites do not realize their own craziness.

A crucial problem is such bureaucracy is weakening governance of the nation. As long as bureaucrats keep on fooling the people, the people would never believe in bureaucrats. Necessary policies are not go through in that environment. Sufferers trying to go home would not believe in the words from the government which allow them returning back home, even if it is true. Bureaucratic leadership does not work anymore after the great disaster.

Osaka Version of Democracy

In some elementary schools in Japan, chanting during lecture and disturbing diligent classmates are recognized as an effusion of freedom of speech, which is obviously a distortion of democracy. In City of Osaka, spending ¥600 million of tax money for a meaningless mayoral election is recognized as a cost for democracy. People in Osaka, the region with the highest rate of low-income people in need of public financial support, look like generous enough to uphold such an extravagant leader.

Mayor Toru Hashimoto, co-chairman of Japan Restoration Party, took a strange strategy for maintaining his political power. He stepped down as the mayor of Osaka in February and ran again for seeking once abandoned seat. His purpose was to reconfirm support from the people and promote his favorite policy called Osaka Metropolitan Initiative, which would give Osaka a greater executive power paralleled with Tokyo.

For Hashimoto’s disappointment, voters’ turnout hit a new record of low. Three out of four turned their back to the election, in which all major parties except the Restoration refused to raise a candidate. Supporting votes for him dropped by half from three years ago when he was elected as a mayor for the first time. One vote out of ten was invalid, indicating opposition against the election with apparent result. Public apathy to city politics emerged in the conclusion.

While Hashimoto appeals the endorsement of the people on his initiative, nothing will change in terms of political environment. He does not have majority in assemblies both prefecture and city of Osaka, which is necessary for the next step. Liberal Democratic, Democrats, New Komeito and Communists established a coalition opposing Hashimoto, taking advantage of the opportunity of illegitimate election. People are getting tired of such endless struggle in local politics.

All of those came from Hashimoto’s misunderstanding of democracy. As a super-populist, he too much relies on general votes. Every time he faced political impasse with consistent opposition, Hashimoto required endorsement from the public, never trying to persuade his opponents. “Democracy is a kind of tyranny endorsed by election,” he often boasted. He needs to study a primitive principle of double representation, in which governor and congress are in check and balance.

Hashimoto said that he would have another election this year, if his initiative would face another dead end. People in Osaka will have to pay another toll of it. This will be a consequence stemmed from having fun with embracing empty promise of a naïve young political leader.

Revisionist Charge in Business

Although it is not sure that Chinese government tried to take counteraction against the revisionist administration in Japan, a regional court in China for the first time accepted collective charge from former workers against Japanese corporations that accused forced transportation of people to work in mines in Japan. The Japanese government opposed it, appealing that all rights for compensation was cancelled over forty years ago. There is no explanation why China changed its policy not to accept such accusations from the citizens. China looks to be as mean to Japan as possible.

It was late February, two months after Yasukuni visit by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, when thirty-seven sufferers and their families sued mining company of Mitsubishi and Mitsui with accusation of forced labor in Japan during the World War II. After one-month consideration, the court officially accepted it. It is likely that the Xi Jinping administration controlled the action of the court.

In 1952, Chiang Kaishek administration of Taiwan officially abandoned the demand against Japan along with a peace treaty. Communist China also did that with Japan-China Joint Statement in 1972. Since then, Chinese government has been keeping the court from accepting such charges. It has been regarded as consideration of negative impact on relationship with Japan.

For China’s perspective, this would be an action that stemmed from Japan’s revisionist moves, shown in nationalization of Senkaku Islands for instance. “Forced labor is a serious crime and have not resolved appropriately,” told a Chinese official. Once the case stands with allowance of the government, the result will be beneficial to the plaintiffs and against Japanese companies. Japanese government resisted China’s new approach to the issue, with official statement of “All the request for compensation had been resolved.”

Obviously, Xi wanted to shift domestic frustration to Japan. There are a number of potential indictments against Japanese corporations. The Chinese government also calculates diplomatic advantage by cooperating with South Korea, which courts already determined decisions that Japanese corporation needed to compensate wartime forced labor.

However, sentence of guilty against Japanese corporation makes business environment more difficult. It will mean a new step of retreat from a principle of “politically cool and economically hot.” Moreover, China’s aggressive attitude may cause further emergence of anti-China sentiment in Japan. Unilateral charge against Japanese private business would not be beneficial for both nations.

Meeting for Meeting

Highly reluctantly, the President of South Korea, Park Geun-hye, officially accepted an offer from the United States to meet Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe. The motivation was apparently to save the face of U.S. President, Barack Obama. Although the meeting may be a significant improvement in deteriorated relationship between Japan and South Korea, there is no expectation of actual progress in the trilateral alliance. The meeting will be resulted as a meeting.

The meeting was set with U.S. initiative. After delivering a statement that U.S. was disappointed with Abe’s visit to Yasukuni Shrine last December, U.S. has been looking for an opportunity to reestablish positive environment in relationship with Japan and South Korea. Considering the needs to deal with potential problems on missile and nuclear development in North Korea and maritime assertion of China, Obama tried to reshape and reinforce the isosceles triangle of the alliance. U.S. deliberately made diplomatic efforts toward Japan and South Korea sending secretaries of Obama cabinet.

Japan sent Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs to South Korea to talk about possibility of summit meeting between Abe and Park. Few days after the negotiation in Seoul, Abe announced that his administration would support and maintain Kono and Murayama Statements to apologize on the comfort women issue and aggression and colonization in the past. In action for action manner, Park welcomed Abe’s remark for her happiness. Words for defrosting the bilateral relationship were exchanged timely manner.

There still are arguments over the trilateral leaders meeting in South Korea. “Park has shunned a summit with Abe as Japan kept angering South Korea with a series of nationalistic steps and remarks denounced as attempts to glorify its militaristic past and whitewash its wartime atrocities, including the country's sexual enslavement of Korean women during World War II,” reported Yonhap News Agency. Strong resentment against right-leaning Japan will refrain Park from easy compromise.

Diplomatic reconstruction will ease hard criticism against Abe inside Japan. But there comes no change in the situation that Abe administration is on a delicate balance between requirement for maintaining diplomatic stability and domestic expectation from the conservatives. Support for Kono and Murayama Statements must have been a great disappointment for right-wing people around Abe.

The biggest achievement will be a fact that both leaders will actually have met for the first time. U.S. seems to be satisfied with such a result, because the meeting will demonstrate a sense of unification against China, North Korea and even Russia. But those three are well aware of domestic situation in South Korea and Japan described above.

Reason to Resist

Over the annexation of Crimea by Russia, exchange of sanction is escalating between the great powers. Japan is still hesitating strict reaction to Russia’s imperialistic occupation of foreign territory, because its top leader does not want to abandon his one of a few achievements in diplomacy. Regardless its domestic situation of politics, Japan has a good reason to confront that unilateral offense backed by military power.

Also unilateral was Russian invasion to the Northern Territory of Japan in 1945, right after participating in the war breaching Japan-Soviet Neutrality Pact of 1941. After victory against Nazis Germany, Russian Army shifted its war front to the Far East. The Army advanced to the south along with Kuril Islands from Kamchatka Peninsula. When they reached the southernmost islands, the Northern Territory, where the Japanese had been living and the Japanese Army had already ceased war engagement, the Russians confiscated the land and buildings and ousted all the residents within a few years.

For Russians, Southern Kuril Islands were strategically important, because the area is all-season exit to the North Pacific Ocean without freezing of sea surface in the winter. Like Sevastopol in Crimea peninsula, the Northern Territory was necessary outpost to the south, the direction which had always been a basic motivation of Russian expansionism.

Nearly seven decades later, the Japanese refused from the Northern Territory are still struggling to get back to their own home islands. In the public offices in Hokkaido, a great number of documents to prove their ownership of private property are still preserved. As a result of negotiations, they could go to the islands to visit cemetery of their ancestors in the summer. However, some of them are living their lives watching their home islands through the windows of their houses everyday.

Embracing those victims of illegal invasion of Russia, the Government of Japan at least needs to express unequivocal resistance against the occupation of Crimea by Russian Army and accumulation of facts for the annexation. Russian annexation of Crimea will produce a number of Ukrainian refugees just as they had sent the Japanese back to Japan’s main islands right after the World War II. Showing appeasement in consideration with negative impacts on bilateral negotiation over peace treaty will erode Japan’s standpoint, because ignoring Crimean crisis will invite accusation of double standard.

It is necessary for Japanese political leaders to precisely understand the history their nation experienced and to take appropriate measures to maintain their cause to claim the territory.

War on Contaminated Water

Without significant technological breakthrough, contaminated water produced in the process of cooling down the broken reactors in First Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant is still increasing by 400 metric tons a day. Nobody has seen the end state of the effort. Nobody knows whether we can reach a goal. The Japanese are endlessly paying the price of the nuclear accident.

Tokyo Electric Power Company revealed that Advanced Liquid Processing System for purifying contaminated water in the First Fukushima stopped again on Tuesday. ALPS was designed for extracting all sixty-three kinds of radioactive materials, except Tritium, from water contaminated by melted-down nuclear fuel rods and mixed with underground water. TEPCO found that radioactive materials in processed water were diluted only to the level of one tenth from unprocessed status, while ordinary processing was reaching to one hundred thousandth. The company explained that something had been wrong in changing filter earlier this month.

As indicated, the process to maintain broken reactors by cooling them with water is not working well. This only increases contaminated water. To deal with it, TEPCO decided to purify huge amount of water. But the idea has repeatedly been facing unpredicted technological loopholes, the failure which can be resembled incompletion of nuclear recycle project in Japan.

Where “purified water” is going? TEPCO proposed to throw it away to the sea. Fishermen around the plant strongly opposed the idea, anticipating negative impact of the water with Tritium on marine products they would catch.

Meanwhile, unpurified water is still flowing through underground. To block it, TEPCO is building “frozen wall” underground surrounding the site, which requires constant supply of electrical power. The depth of the wall will be about 90 feet. The thickness of crust of the Earth is 90,000 feet. No one has explained how that shallow underground wall on the surface of the crust would work for containing liquidated radioactive materials with unpredictable move.

The strategy is too much relying on technology to avoid further damage on civilization stemming from the unprecedented disaster. The world needs to be fearful about the possibility of total breakdown of the strategy. Again, huge amount of contaminated water is stocked in thousands of tanks, water purification system and underground. The consequence of collapse, which may be brought by another big earthquake, will be unprecedented pollution of seawater. As long as seeing the measures taken by TEPCO, it is inevitable to conclude that leaders of the company are going to leak all the contaminated water to the sea, while they are blinding the world with baseless technological explanations.

Indecisive Sanction

As his close friend gets violent, Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, becomes silent. The Government of Japan announced a series of sanctions against Russia that approved the result of the referendum in Crimea. Regardless the opposition from Western nations, Vladimir Putin immediately declared the annexation of the peninsula to Russia. Strangely enough, Abe believe himself still on the way to a solution in territorial dispute over Northern Territory and peace treaty. The diplomatically blind man does not see Russian imperialism.

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Fumio Kishida, on Tuesday explained reporters Japan’s standpoint on Ukraine crisis. “Russia’s approval of referendum in Crimea violates unification of Ukraine and integration of its sovereignty and territory. Our nation never ignore change of status quo backed by force,” told Kishida. On the other hand, Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yoshihide Suga, stressed achievement in the bilateral relationship with Russia. “We will play a role for solving the problem based on the bilateral relationship with Russia constructed from the beginning of Abe administration,” said Suga.

The government announced sanctions against Russia, which included suspension of the talk for easier issuance of visa and reconsideration of embarking on negotiation over agreements for investment, use of the space and preventing dangerous military activities. Given the annexation of Crimea, further measures will be considered. However, Japan-Russia Investment Forum, prepared by public companies, was taken place in Tokyo on Wednesday. Japan’s sanction against Russia is something wishy-washy.

In August of 1945, Soviet Union invaded the islands located northeast of Hokkaido, unilaterally breaking non-aggression pact with Japan. Since then, Japan has been blaming Soviet and Russia as illegally occupying the islands. That is the basic cause of Northern Territory dispute, which can be paralleled with Crimea crisis. If Japan does not accuse Russia of annexing Crimea in saber-rattling manner, it weakens the standpoint of Japan requiring Russia to return the islands.

Nevertheless, Abe is reluctant to take strong position against Russia, because he thinks that personal relationship with Putin is one of the most working diplomacies in his administration. It will be not funny for Japan to take stricter measures against Russia than what Western countries are doing such as restricting diplomats from entering or freezing assets of Russian companies. But, Japan’s diplomatic cause is eroded by personal benefit of the prime minister.

Effort to Include Young Agers

What would be the first thing for whom reached adult age? One of the most symbolic deeds for an adult in Japan is having alcoholic drinks. How about participating in politics? No. Young people are not so interested in it. That is the point.

The leading parties, Liberal Democrats and New Komeito, and the biggest opposite party, Democratic Party of Japan, agreed with lowering the age for voting in national referendum from twenty to eighteen. To implement the reform, they reconfirmed that voters for elections should in general be changed from twenty to eighteen within two years after the Constitution Amendment Process Act will be activated. That could be a significant step to lowering “age of adult” prescribed in Civil Law.

The reform is not unique in the world. Germany and United Kingdom lowered the age of adult from twenty-one to eighteen four decades ago. It is also eighteen in most states in the United States, but the most of them prohibit alcoholic drink for the age of twenty or the lower. The reason why lowering the age of adult may vary. Some countries do it for increasing military personnel, while others want to let grow their population by admitting young marriages.

The move in Japan is basically for lowering hurdle for amending the constitution. When legislators passed the Constitution Amendment Process Act in 2007, they realized that the voters should be as wide as possible to reflect utmost public opinions. To make it happen, difference of adult age between the act and Civil Law was recognized to be eliminated. In short, they thought that the age of adult needed to be lowered for constitutional amendment.

Constitutional reformers are thinking that participation of young agers will make the amendment easy, because protestors are mainly in old age. While older people believe that peaceful Japan was maintained by peaceful constitution in post-war era, young agers think that current regime preferable to old agers was brought by political structure based on current constitution. For young people, the constitution is getting to be a symbol of old regime. They look very easy to manipulate. The reformers are simply taking advantage of it.

Liberal Democrats, New Komeito and Democrats are widening the wing to other opposition parties, such as Restoration Party or Your Party, to pass the bill in current session of the Diet. That can be an effort to restrain Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, from exerting too strong leadership in the issue of the constitution, in which he tries to reinterpret the Article IX to exercise collective self-defense right.

Unilateral Progress with the North

While the Western world stood against Russia over Crimea situation, Japan had secretly been seeking a breakthrough in relationship with North Korea. With deliberated efforts of the government of Japan, the parents of an abductee met with their grandchild in Ulan Bator, Mongol. Although there was no progress for solution of abduction issue, which is the top priority for Japan as well as missile and nuclear development, the event was expected to be a momentum for resuming official talks between the two nations.

Shigeru and Sakie Yokota visited Ulan Bator for five days last week to meet Kim Eun-gyong, who had been biologically authorized to be a daughter of the couple’s missing daughter Megumi Yokota. The parents released a statement that said “The meeting was amazing experience and a great pleasure for us. We sincerely hope it to work for rescuing all the abductees.”

The Japanese Government had reportedly been accumulating unofficial contacts with North Korea for the meeting. Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, asked the president of Mongol to cooperate with Japan for solving the abduction issue. Japan and North Korea agreed with having the meeting in Mongol not to affect the official standpoints of both.

For Abe, any progress in diplomacy is welcomed right now. Isolated in the world politics with his unilateral interpretation of post-war history, Abe was losing credibility even in the United States. Showing a positive activity for security in Northeast Asia might improve the relationships with the Western world. The meeting was also an appealing point for his nation that he was doing something in diplomacy.

Taking advantage of potential interdependence with Japan, the North grabbed the opportunity to demonstrate its willingness for negotiation. With deteriorating relation with China, Pyongyang looked to be maintaining basic connection with Japan. Since the Supreme Court approved the seizure of the representative office building in Tokyo in 2010, the North had been looking for the place to settle the headquarters for Japanese-Koreans. The North also expected some change in recent tight economic sanctions on them.

The fruit of the meeting is supposed to be the resumption of official level talk between Japan and North Korea. In the low-level meeting expected this week, the two nations are expected to agree on having higher-level meeting soon. However, Japan has always been unilateral in dealing with the North. Japan exercised sanction against the North just before the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution against the North’s missile and nuclear development. Japan’s attitude against the North has not always been consistent with international efforts. It will be a tragedy, even for abductee families, for Japan to be further isolated.

Reward for Lifetime Richness

Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department arrested an engineer who provided a South Korean semiconductor firm with data on compact flash memory of Toshiba. It is easy for everyone to understand the case as ordinary competition over highly progressive technologies in the world. Meanwhile, it indicated that Japan was an uncomfortable country for a top engineer to live in. It is no good for national security for Japan, anyway.

According to the reports, former engineer for analyzing troubles of semiconductors, Yoshitaka Sugita, working for SanDisk that had cooperative relation with Toshiba, stole copies of recent research data of flash memory, which had been one of the top selling products of Toshiba, and handed it to SK Hynix, a rival company of Toshiba-SanDisk syndicate.

The police arrested Sugita with suspicion of violation against False Competition Preventing Act, which prohibited wrong acquisition or exhibition of business secrets with penalty of less than ten years in prison and/or compensation of less than ¥10 million. Sugita admitted the suspicion on him. Outflow of the technology caused significant erosion of market share, which was worth ¥100 million. Toshiba sued Sugita and SK Hynix requiring compensation.

Sugita has not been a prominent engineer for the company. Yomiuri Shimbun reported that SanDisk hired him in 2003 and appointed to a development section in a factory in Yokkaichi, Mie. During his career in the factory for five years, he obtained the right to access technological information of the company. When he quitted the job there and employed by SK Hynix in 2008, he supposedly stole the secret information. After he returned home from South Korea three years later, he told his friend that he had earned enough money to live through the rest of his life.

It is a serious concern for Japanese company of outgoing of technology and human resource. One out of eight companies in Japan experienced outflow of business secrets in these five years. Most of those cases were exercised by employees transferred from one to another. Preventive legislation is not sufficient, because suffered company needs to prove that the information has actually been stolen and used by another company.

This is a matter of satisfaction. If the criminal had been satisfied with the treatment of the company, he would have stayed in SanDisk. Frustration makes a cause of betrayal against employers. The same thing can be said to security policy. Even if the government made a law to protect secrets, it is easy for foreign country to steal it through some frustrated figures. The point is how to be a country worth protecting.

Banner of Segregation

Stupid guys are everywhere. True shame exists in ignoring them.

Above an entrance leading to the seats for the home team in a soccer game at Saitama Stadium last Saturday, someone raised a banner read “Japanese Only,” which accordingly rejected foreign fans. The host team, Urawa Reds, did not remove it until the end of the game. The Chairman of J League, Mitsuru Murai, posed the team a penalty of a no-spectator game later this month. Most Japanese were shocked and embarrassed by such a reckless emergence of discrimination and, moreover, by dishonest response of the host team.

The explanation of Urawa revealed their lack of seriousness. The President of Urawa Reds, Keizo Fuchida, described his recognition of banner as “an intention to appeal that the area was a holy place and he did not want strangers to enter.” Indicating recent troubles between Japanese fans and foreigners in the stadium, Fuchida admitted a sense of consideration for his customers. Urawa stressed that it summoned the man and confirmed his discriminative activities during the game, although he dismissed his discriminative intention.

The response of the team lost some points. Regardless the intention of the man, the team needed to consider the effect of the banner on other people. There was no sign that the team had considered how people feel about such a kind of message. The banner made no difference from the signs that segregated African-Americans in public space in Jim Crow era: “White Only.” An event with that discriminative message is no longer a soccer game, but an evil rally of racists.

If troubles were so frequent between domestic and foreign spectators, the team had to be more careful about such an intimidation. Leaving them uncontrolled leads the soccer league isolated from foreigners, families, women and kids. It also jeopardizes the Japanese soccer fans in foreign countries, exposing them to retaliatory and offensive environment.

Ordinary supporters for Urawa were serious about the event. Some accepted the penalty from the league chairman to be proper, because they felt it as fundamentally embarrassing. Another regretted it as happening in the year of World Cup Soccer in Brazil.

Most Japanese saw the same root as hate speech on the roads. One specialist on discriminative tendency in Japan told that hate expression in cyber space was emerging into the real world. Allowing such deeds directly connects to exclusive and uneasy society, in which even human rights would not be taken for granted.

Dashing Out

Just two days after the third anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake and its consequent accident in the First Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, the regulation agency for nuclear generation announced prioritized examination on the safety of Sendai Nuclear Power Plant in Kagoshima. It is supposed that the two reactors in the plant will resume the operation as early as this summer. It will become the first nuclear power plant in Japan to restart since last September when all the reactors stopped. For the government, immediate economic benefit is more precious than exploring better solution for civilization.

There are seventeen reactors of ten power plants that are waiting for examination for resumption. The Nuclear Regulation Authority chose Sendai among them for proceeding to the next step. The reason why it picked was that estimation for natural disasters, such as earthquake or tsunami, was clearer than others for persuading its geographical suitability. After one month of concentrated examination on it and four months of public comment and town meeting, the examination is likely to be ending. Final green light will be the approval of Governor of Kagoshima.

Some newspapers got excited with the news. Nikkei raised a big headline on the front page, which read “Nuclear Zero Ends in Summer.” Indicating its hope for following restarts, the paper reported the likeliness of additional utility price hike in the area where resumption of nuclear power plant is in delay. It also predicted possible shortage of electricity in the summer. Threatening the weak people in society, olds and medical patients, is ordinary method of “nuclear village” in Japan.

An anti-nuclear newspaper, Tokyo Shimbun, indicated political pressure of leading Liberal Democratic Party on the authority. The party has been requiring the authority “effective and quick’ examinations, according to the paper. Some legislators in the party are even frustrated with the process of public comment for its time spending. The paper also criticized the decision as ignoring incompleteness in preparation for ventilating devices, emergency system and evacuation.

The biggest problem, however, is not about infrastructure, but about way of thinking. There still is no place for nuclear waste, which will be produced from resumed nuclear reactors in Sendai. There are growing experienced politicians, including the Chairman of the House of Representatives, Bunmei Ibuki, to change mind for nuclear zero. Although nuclear power generation is getting obsolete in terms of advanced civilization, people in nuclear village cannot abandon their desire for money and social status.