Abe Administration Stalls

It became the greatest quake for Shinzo Abe administration since beginning of the second term. Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Yuko Obuchi, stepped down as taking responsibility of inappropriate management of political money on Monday. A few hours later, Minister of Justice, Midori Matsushima, submitted her letter of resignation to Abe. She had been accused of her distribution of fans in her summer rallies. It was the first time since 1993 that two ministers simultaneously resigned. Legend of this teflon administration came to an end.

Suspect vested on two ministers was the same; illegal donation of politician to supporter. Obuchi’s supporters’ organization was doubted to have given accommodative compensation for the participants in watching kabuki show in Tokyo. Matsushima has distributed fans, on which hear name, picture and policies appeared, to the participants of summer rally in Tokyo.

The reason why the both ministers resigned was not about their failure in political activities, but in helping Prime Minister. While Obuchi admitted her inability of explaining the account management, Matsushima rejected recognizing the illegality of her activity. Matsushima reportedly insisted on her job, before Abe decided to demand her resignation.

The most damaged was not one of the two ministers, but Prime Minister. Abe told his aide that it had not been a problem with resignation, if they happened as single scandal of each. There was a chain reaction behind the scene. Matsushima’s activity was relatively minor in terms of amount of related money. But it would be serious problem, if she had been indicted as Minister of Justice, because the post was the top of prosecutors. It was intolerable for the bureaucrats to let their boss indicted.

Then, Obuchi’s scandal was too great in terms of the amount of money to be ignored. In the tradition of demanding the highest ethics to politicians in Japan, Abe could not leave those negative elements in his administration. He thought the resignations of both ministers needed to be at one time to reduce the impact. Some of his aides praised the damage control as a lesson of the first Abe administration, in which five ministers had resigned in a year.

However, Abe looked like disappointed. “It was my responsibility to have picked them. I apologize to the people,” said Abe in his press gaggle. While he will try to regain power for his agenda, it is possible that negative elements will keep on appearing in this fall. The opposite parties are targeting another money scandal of Minister of Defense. Consumption tax hike has another negative impact. Abduction issue has no positive progress so far. The administration looks like sinking in a quagmire.

Unleashed Women Ministers

Ignoring impact on diplomatic relationship with neighbor countries, three Ministers in Shinzo Abe Cabinet visited to Yasukuni Shrine, taking opportunity of Fall Festival on Saturday. Strangely enough, all those ministers were woman. Vigorous woman project, which Abe took as a policy for reshuffled cabinet starting September, turned out to be encouraging women to be active on conservative agenda. Before women are contributing further growth of Japanese economy, they may undermine actual economy by worsening relationship with major economies around Japan.

Three female ministers were Sanae Takaichi, Minister of Interior, Eriko Yamatani, Minister on Abduction Issue, and Haruko Arimura, Minister on Vigorous Woman. Takaichi explained her visit as thanking and commemorating for the people devoted their lives for national policy and existence of the country. “I thanked for the devotion of their precious lives,” also told Yamatani. Arimura emphasized, “It is the people who determine how they face the ones who went to battlefield and lost their lives.”

All of them asserted that it would not be an issue of diplomacy. Takaichi told that dedicating true wishes should be done by personal sentiment and not be a matter of diplomacy. Unfortunately for Takaichi and other ministers, visiting Yasukuni had become a diplomatic and political problem before she did that. It was not about her lack of knowledge, but intensive ignorance of history.

Abe said to have allowed them to visit Yasukuni with an assessment that China would not be against it so much. Not visiting Yasukuni, he paid respect to the Shrine by sending ritual goods for Fall Festival. Abe seemed to have thought that those activities by him and his ministers would not stimulate Xi Jinping administration.

Against his expectation, Chinese responded to Abe’s activity, criticizing it as “Cannot help regret. Japanese political leaders need to recognize it as a deed denying international order.” Chinese government requested Japanese Embassy in Beijing not to make further visit to Yasukuni other than three ministers. Chinese media denounced the visit by ministers as adoring former aggressors or disturbing improvement of bilateral relationship.

It was possible that both governments had shared a recognition not to make the relationship worse, even if ministers would visit Yasukuni. The disturbing thing was a fact that those female ministers had firmly been controlled by conservative powers. There will be no progress after the meeting of both top leaders next month in this sober situation between Japan and China.

Worrying Demographic Concentration

Ambiguous pessimism is covering residents all over Japan. A demographic research run by Cabinet Office revealed equivocal uneasiness of living local area in Japan. Concentration of population in Tokyo is not only worried by urban people, who suffered from friction between neighbors, but also by local people, losing human resource for the future of community. Knowing the distorted distribution of wealth, Shinzo Abe administration is still lagging behind of catching up necessary measures for the long-argued demographic problem.

The research found that 48.3% of responders thought demographic concentration in Tokyo not to be preferable, while 15.7% answered to maintain status quo. The responders who had misgivings for the future of their community amounted to 46.8%. While 58.0% of local people were worried about their future, only 34.3% of Tokyo residents were so. It showed that people in Tokyo were relatively feel sufficient on their lives.

The reason of anxiety among local residents mostly stemmed from want of more infrastructure. 55.7% were worried about shortage of young people, who would be the driving power of development. 48.0% predicted retreat of shopping stores would have great impact, while 38.4% required more facilities for medication and nursery in local communities. Manpower, economic facility and medical support must be indispensable for living ordinary life.

Lack of necessary infrastructure casts a shadow on appropriate redistribution of population. 59.4% of all did not like to move from urban community to local area. The higher their age got, the more they became reluctant to do that. 64% was against the idea of compact city, which would concentrate houses and infrastructure in local area.

The tendency shown by the research needed to be included in the policy of creation of local community. The most important factor to move to local community was medical facility with 51.1% of the answer, toppling cheap real estate, shopping center or richness in cultural events.

The most pessimistic answer for the government was that 66.0% answered that they thought the future of Japan would be dark, while 33.2% predicted it to be bright. It is natural for the people to think that Tokyo is good place to live, as long as the bureaucrats, having power to design future communities, do never move to local area. The first thing for the leaders to do is moving voluntarily.

Scandal Reminding Cold Pizza

A daughter of former Prime Minister who was dubbed cold pizza precipitated in sudden money scandal in the same way her father and his colleagues had been doubted for many times. Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Yuko Obuchi, is suspected to have been responsible for inappropriate accounting of her political money. What is strange is Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, is sober on protecting her, compared to his defensive attitude for other ministers.

The organization for managing her political money had been spending the money for a fashion boutique in Tokyo, which was run by her brother-in-law, for thirty-eight times between 2009 and 2012. Political Money Regulation Act mandates politicians to report every spending of ten thousand yen or more, and purpose of spending is limited to something necessary for maintaining political organization or for organizational activities of politician. Her spending is doubted whether it was necessary for her political activity.

Her organization also invited her supporters from Gunma Prefecture to Tokyo to watch kabuki show between 2010 and 2011. While participants paid ¥7.42 million for participation fee, it was ¥33.84 million that were registered as the total expenditure. If the organization had compensated for the margin, it may violate Public Officers Election Act. Even if it had not, the failure in reporting would cause violation of Political Money Regulation Act. It is possible that Obuchi is violating a law anyway.

It should be a fatal scandal for a minister in Abe administration. Some senior officials of Liberal Democratic Party realized Obuchi’s money management would be developing to be resignation. Although it is normal for resignation of minister in scandal to be considered by him or herself, Abe is considering literal firing this time. He will consult with Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yoshihide Suga, after returning back from international conference in Italy.

Obuchi succeeded political organization from her father. Sharing the same political stream from Kakuei Tanaka, who were trapped in Lockheed Scandal, Obuchi group has traditionally been seen as dirty in money. The reason why the political group Abe affiliates with has been strict on money was to distinguish themselves from Obuchi group. Most people predict Obichi’s resignation to be damage for Abe, Abe himself might be willing to cut Obuchi off. As Obuchi has been future candidate for first woman prime minister, Abe might be pick new dandelion in green loan.

METI Blocks Renewable

Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and its Subcommittee on Energy started discussion for reviewing the system for purchasing renewable energy, which has been encouraged after the disaster in First Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. Nuclear village of in Japan including METI has strongly been reluctant to promote renewable energy to defend nuclear energy. This time, it introduced an argument that renewable energy will be produced too much. Why Japan cannot utilize renewable energy with amount of two times greater than before the accident, while European countries uses it over ten times more than a decade ago? That is because METI blocks it.

Electricity suppliers started rejecting purchase of renewable energy from individual producers against the principle of a law legislated after the disaster. Main reason was electricity produced by solar generation would be too much to maintain supply network. It is hard to imagine for a country definitely in need of alternative energy to erode capability of producing renewable energy. It is highly ridiculous contradiction.

Some argue that the scheme of purchasing renewable energy has fundamentally been inappropriate from the beginning. The system was engineered not to be able to accept abrupt increase of renewable energy, namely solar, while it encourages broad prevalence of it on the other hand. Having heavily invested on nuclear energy, power companies have firmly been lazy in reinforcing supply network, making a cause for rejecting renewable energy.

METI is responsible for all those happened. It must have been METI’s job to urge the power companies to improve the system, if they were reluctant. The reason why the ministry did not do that was because stake was too high on nuclear energy for them. As a country devastated by a great war for seeking energy in Southeast Asia, energy directly connects national interest. As long as METI deals with energy policy, it can be a ministry dealing with national interest, keeping its status high in hierarchy of bureaucracy. If not, they will be dropped.

METI is recognized as one of three major ministries in Kasumigaseki, paralleled with Ministries of Finance and Foreign Affairs. MOF and MOFA are dominated by the graduates from Law Division of Tokyo University, while METI is led by school of Economy or Engineering of the same university. After all, survival of METI is a trivial struggle between divisions in Tokyo University, which narrow-minded bureaucrats insist so much. The people need to realize this cost of bureaucracy. They will at least have to pay for highly expensive utility fee caused by ineffective power supply system.

Reluctant Friendship

For some strategic reasons, the top leaders of Japan and China is going to meet, shake hands, talk a while and get back to routine works in Beijing next month. Even how most people in both countries expect improved relationship of them, that’s it. The key is how many issues on opposite side will each leader be ignored. However, domestic pressure may disturb their efforts. The two nations will keep on feeling uneasiness with exchange of denouncement.

Mainichi Shimbun reported that the both governments are negotiating on the outcome of bilateral leaders talk, which will be “keep on talking on Senkaku Islands with a certain long term.” On Senkaku, Japan maintains its standpoint that the islands are inherit territory of Japan and no territorial issue exists, while China asserts its sovereignty on the islands and requires Japan to recognize the dispute. It is obvious that they will not reach an agreement on that complicated issue with one meeting.

According to Japanese government officials, both sides are seeking a basic agreement on the lines of assertion of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that Senkaku is Japan’s inherit territory, that he recognizes China’s unique assertion and that both sides look to reach a deal in a certain period of time. However, both leaders will not deliver a document such as a joint statement.

They have another complicated issue called Yasukuni. China has been requiring Abe to promise not visiting that war shrine anymore. Abe side is considering declaration for  succeeding of Murayama Statement of 1995, which apologized Japan’s colonization and aggression. However, the hawkish prime minister is highly reluctant to abandon future revisit to the shrine, because of the strong demand from his political supporters.

But it is the Chinese leader who suffered from higher pressure from the bottom of his political basis than Abe. Whenever the government showed appeasement to the small island country, nationalists got excited and threatened the administration. Under the circumstance of consecutive democratic upsurges, as seen in Hongkong, it is unlikely for Xi Jinping to make half-way compromise on Senkaku and Yasukuni.

So, what is the significance of the leaders’ meeting? That will be showing to the world their ability to perform as if in normal relationship. Unnecessary instability between Japan and China is harming national interest of United States, the indispensable ally of Japan and the great stakeholder for China, which has to be involved in volatility in Middle East and Ukraine. Without any true motivation to improve the relationship, both leaders are playing a soap opera to the world audience.

Fooling People

Shinzo Abe administration made a cabinet decision on operational standard for Designated Secrecy Act, which was one of the most controversial legislation under Abe. The law will be activated in December 10^th. Even after collecting public comments, the amendment was limited to minor change. The legislation is deeply suspected to violate human rights for freedom by concealing important information from people’s eyes. This is another step of Japan to approach authoritarian regime, seen in Russia or China, taking distance from consolidated democracy in North America and Europe.

The law determines security secrets as designated secrets and poses ten years in prison or shorter on public workers or related private workers. It listed fifty-five secrets categorized into four fields; defense, diplomacy, preventing espionage activities and preventing terrorism. Resisters of secret are limited to ten governmental organizations including National Security Conference, Cabinet Secretariat or Ministry of Defense.

Independent Archive Officer checks legitimacy of designated secrets. Although the officer can request submission of designated secrets to ministers in charge, the minister can reject it, if necessary. Is there any minister who opens the secret that he or she once hid? The law simply fools the people. If the government were serious about preserving people’s right, the officer needs to be someone independent from the government.

What is the baseline for determining the secret? The answer is collecting information by self-defense force or preserving peace and security in international society. It is too unclear for sovereign people to know what is the secret of the government and what is not. This can not be a democracy at all.

The law also violates human rights of public workers. The workers who deal with designated secret will be checked the history of crime and mental disease. Medical doctors on mental disease argued that there was no relation between leaking secret and mental disease, but it was dismissed.

The government collected 23,820 comments from the public, only 27 of which were applied. The amendment included revising of the provisions five years later. According to Mainichi Shimbun, one hundred thirty congresses of cities and towns all over Japan have passed resolution opposing the law. Most local governments worry violation of the Constitution, which guarantees people’s sovereignty, respecting basic human rights and pacifism. Prime Minister Abe has shown no attitude to listen to those voices. Although he asserts the law needs for maintaining Japan-U.S. alliance, the democracy in Japan is escaping from American democracy.