Exporting Trouble in Democracy

Japan is not a country with rich natural resources as well as in land. That may be why the Japanese are serious about obtaining as much share of a pie as possible. For an outdoor party under cherry blossom with office colleagues, young businessmen occupy unnecessarily a huge space for their colleagues. They will be applauded, or even rewarded with more salary, by their boss. This loyalty is important for a Japanese to broaden the field of his life in this highly competitive society. Embarrassingly, he sometimes causes trouble with foreign people.

One article written by a German correspondent in Tokyo invited broad criticism on bureaucracy in Shinzo Abe administration. A correspondent of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Carston Germis, revealed hidden approach of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan to the editorial staff for accusing Germis’s articles critical on Abe administration in his article on monthly magazine of Foreign Correspondent Club of Japan.

Japanese Consul General in Frankfurt visited a senior foreign policy editor in FAZ and complained about Germis’s article on Abe’s historical revisionism and raised an argument that China was taking advantage of those criticisms on Abe. “Pulling out a folder of my clippings, he extended condolences for my need to write pro-China propaganda, since he understood that it was probably necessary for me to get my visa application approved,” wrote Germis

Germis clearly denied that motivation with reasons that he had not needed to get visa from China. There was no evidence that the Consul General had provided with correct information. It is possible that the Japanese diplomat has undermined Japan’s national interest by planting foreign nations a sense of deteriorated democracy in Japan stemming from his inappropriate approach to foreign media.

It is not rare that Japanese diplomats are active in explaining Japanese viewpoints even as lobbyists. In Southern California, Consul General in Los Angeles keeps on telling local officers that Japanese government did not involved in recruiting comfort women, protesting against powerful lobbying of Korean-Americans around. But, Germis asserts that approaches of Japanese bureaucrats to foreign media have really been increasing in Abe administration.

It is apparent that Abe administration is promoting policies of putting national government over the people, as seen in oppression on Okinawa. Bureaucrats must be needed for that promotion. They are aware of their broader role in it. To achieve more field for their activity, more power in Japanese government and higher position in the hierarchy of Japanese society, bureaucrats show loyalty to Abe’s political agenda and work hard without any requirement from politics, even trampling democracy.