Novice Premier Unfortunately

It was reckless governor of Tokyo who threatened Prime Minister to buy Senkaku Islands. Novice PM gave in and paid ransom for national interest in hostage. That was what happened last year.

Then Prime Minister, Yoshihiko Noda, yesterday revealed the reason why he decided to purchase Senkaku Island last year, the action to which China extremely responded with consecutive violation of Japan’s territory. “After the speech of Governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, to buy Senkaku, unnecessary ‘halation’ became likelier. To stably and calmly maintain and administrate the islands, I decided that the government should purchase them,” explained Noda in his speech to a party hosted by Akihisa Nagashima, a former Adviser to PM Noda.

In an interview by Yomiuri Shimbun, Noda revealed a part of the process. After Ishihara’s speech, then PM of China, Wen Jiabao, told Noda about Xinjian Uighur and Senkaku, using words of “core interest” or “serious concern” at the trilateral meeting, including South Korea, in Japan in May 2012. Noda recognized that Wen’s reference to Senkaku was caused by Ishihara’s speech.

Three months later, Noda secretly met with Ishihara in PM’s residence to talk about the issue, and made his mind that the situation had been beyond the point of no return. In the meeting, Noda rejected Ishihara’s request to build a harbor in Senkaku with reasons making no sense. Noda told Ishihara that there would come a lot of fishing boats from China, Hong Kong or Taiwan to avoid storm and also invite many kinds of activists, if a harbor would be built. A crucial point of the conversation was that they were not talking in regard with benefits and erosions of national interest.

Nagashima also describes about the process in his recent book. Right after the meeting of Noda and Ishihara on April 22nd without talking about Senkaku, Noda asked Nagashima how did he think about the issue. “I think it is more reasonable for the government to buy them than for Tokyo government to do that,” Nagashima replied. “Indeed,” told Noda with determination, according to Nagashima.

Those episodes show personality of Noda. He is a person with no review on his decision. He fears more of negative impact of changing his mind than that of insistence on a wrong decision. Once he was persuaded by Ishihara to buy those islands, he dropped an option to persuading Ishihara. A decision of buying Senkaku would not have only been a matter of freedom of economic activity, but an issue directly connected to bilateral relationship with China. Noda had no idea on that point.