What’s Potsdam Declaration?

Careless gaffe made by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe cast a fundamental doubt to the public on his historical knowledge. In the discussion with the leader of Japan Communist Party, Kazuo Shii, at Question Time in the Diet, Abe revealed that he had not read through the details of Potsdam Declaration. The declaration was a crucial document about post-war conditions that Japan had to accept to end World War II. Critics accuse Abe of his irrelevancy as a historical revisionist, because he does not know what history he wants to revise.

In the discussion, Shii asked Abe of recognition on the historical event over accepting unconditional surrender. “Post-war Japan started with acceptance of Potsdam Declaration in 1945. The declaration determines that the war waged by Japan was wrong war. Don’t you approve that recognition?” asked Shii. Abe rejected to directly reply to him, saying “Since I have not read the part of the declaration, I would refrain from commenting on it.”

Right after the discussion, Abe’s answer was regarded as a political strategy not discussing an issue on the basis of his opponent’s presentation. But, Shii kept on accusing Abe of his lack of historical knowledge after the debate.

Shii questioned Abe’s qualification as Prime Minister of Japan, presenting Potsdam Declaration as the origin of post-war democracy of Japan. In his press conference the day after, Shii gave another shot, saying “Having confusion on historical events, Abe might really have not read the declaration.” Shii found an article of magazine in 2005, when Abe had been Secretary General of Liberal Democratic Party. “Potsdam Declaration was hurled to Japan by America, in an is-it-enough? way, after it gave Japan devastation by dropping two atomic bombs,” Shii quoted Abe’s comment in the article.

One can find a crucial contradiction in Abe’s comment. Yes, Potsdam Declaration was proposed to Japan before United States dropped atomic bombs. After embracing the declaration, government of Japan accepted law enforcement on A-Class war criminals through Tokyo War Tribunal and made clear distinction of post-war democracy from pre-war despotism.

As shown, Abe’s historical revisionism has a lot of contradictions. While his economic policy looks like reaching some achievements, the people would not pay attention to his strange views on history. Once his economic stalemate appears, his words will immediately lose power of magic.

Concern on Volatile Foreign Exchange

Decline of Japanese yen eventually harms Japanese economy, which is stepping into crucial moment of regaining power for stable growth. While small or mid-size businesses and individual consumption are two keys for its revival, cheap yen adds unexpected cost on productive activity of manufacturers and prevents consumers from purchasing goods. Having doubted on possible manipulation, the government of Japan has exercised no effective measures to cool enthusiastic market down.

New York Foreign Exchange marked ¥124.40 for $1 on Thursday. That was the lowest value of Japanese yen against U.S. dollar for there twelve years. Market dealers have been buying USD, responding to the expectation of ending U.S. monetary easing later this year. With steep down of Japanese yen for five consecutive days, its value was reduced ¥5 within a month.

Manufacturers basically welcome current trend. “It is definitely a following wind for us manufacturers,” told Fumihiko Ike, President of Car Industry Association. Cheap yen actually renders Toyota, Honda or Nissan, competitiveness with lower price than other makers in Europe or America in foreign markets.

Companies dealing with tourism also welcome cheap yen. Travelers from Asian nations appear everywhere in Tokyo or other cities. Retailers expect “explosive purchase of Chinese tourists who buy souvenir to their relatives in China. Monthly foreign travelers t Japan in April exceeded 1.7 millions for the first time. Hotels have been securing firm interests even they discounted room price.

But major companies that already shifted their factories to oveseas have not received the benefit of volatile foreign exchange. “One yen of decline worth seven billions yens of operational profit” said public affairs section of Sony.

Machine factory has also been affected. “Cost for raw materials such as aluminum and utility price had negative impact on our balance,” said the manager of a machine parts producer. Being unable to withstand costly procurement, a major bread bakery, Yamazaki, decided to raise the price of 168 commodities by 2.6% in average. It is not unusual that a customer disputes to a clerk about the price on their purchase with misunderstanding on unexpectedly high price.

Economists predict further decline of Japanese yen along with deliberation of Federal Bureau of Reserve on its turn to monetary tightening. But some are worrying about excessive hike of U.S. dollar with erosion of current growth. Fragile revival of Japan with weak asset investment and individual consumption will soon be affected by U.S. economy.

War for Oil

Through detailed discussion over new security legislatures in the Diet, true intention of Shinzo Abe administration is eventually revealed. It is getting clear that Abe is willing to use military force without hesitation to secure petroleum transported from Persian Gulf. In other words, Japan is changing its legal structure to wage a war for oil. Well, one may remember Japan seven decades ago, which started war against United States to secure petroleum in Indonesia.

A legislator with Democratic Party of Japan, Yu-ichi Goto, directly referred to the possibility of war for oil in the discussion in Special Committee in the House of Representatives on Thursday. “Isn’t this a legislation to wage a war for seeking oil? It is very close to the situation of Pacific War,” told Goto, based on the notion that Japanese Imperial Navy advanced to South China Sea to take petroleum, while United States was dealing with sudden attack in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

As usual, Abe answered to Goto with unpersuasive rhetoric. “The condition for deploying Self-defense Force would not be cleared simply with blockade of the import of petroleum. There can be no war for oil,” told Abe.

However, the reason why Abe requires new legislature to send JSDF to Hormuz Strait is not for contributing to international effort to maintain security in the region, but because for protecting Japanese people’s life, liberty or pursuit of happiness. Minister of Defense, Gen Nakatani, explained that he would send Japanese troops to the strait, if important consequences, such as freezing to death, could be assumed by the blockade of energy supply. Freezing to death in Twenty-first century Japan?

Waging a war is an only option in their mind for the leaders of Abe administration. According to the government, Japan depends on petroleum from Middle East for eighty percent of all. A normal political leader would be looking for alternative sources, if current source might be exhausted. But, this administration is lazy in securing alternative region for providing with oil.

Reasonable choice must be developing renewable energy, as long as increasing nuclear energy is unrealistic after severe accident in Fukushima. But, this administration heavily relying on the old establishment apparently hates renewable energy.

War is an only answer for them. By paving a way to unleash Self-defense Force, Abe believes that he can regain his family’s honor to the people, which was lost in the movement against renewing Japan-U.S. Security Treaty in the time of his grandfather was sharply accused. The world must immediately respond to it.

Processing Incomplete

Tokyo Electric Power Company announced that it had completed processing highly contaminated water being accumulated in broken First Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant on Wednesday. What kind of “complete” did they mean? It was simply a decline of contamination level of the water, and the processing was not finished at all. They need to keep on dealing with that unmanageable product from the exploded nuclear plant. It is still hard to persuade the world to convince Japan’s handling of severe nuclear accident.

Contaminated water has been produced in the process of cooling nuclear fuel rod, melted down in the accident in Fukushima. The water possessed high level radiation as much as hundreds of millions Becquerel. After processing through a multi-nuclide removal facility, or ALPS for some reason, TEPCO appealed that radiation level was lowered.

According to TEPCO’s explanation, 440 thousand out of whole 620 thousand tons of contaminated water was purified to the level of hundreds Bq. The rest of 180 thousand tons of water will be remaining after extraction of few kinds of radioactive contents such as strontium with radiation of tens of millions Bq. Whether or not its radioactive level were reduced, quantity of contaminated water to deal with would not be reduced at all.

To the plant, 300 tons of underground water is flowing in every day. It is turning to contaminated water, which needs to be stocked in the tanks. Accumulating trend of contaminated water has not been improved.

Correct expression of the situation must be “Well, we have been succeeding in reducing radiation level of the contaminated water.” Possible reason why TEPCO used “complete” was because their president promised that they would complete the processing of the water by the end of 2014, after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced to the world that the contaminated water in Fukushima had been completely under control in his speech to win Tokyo Olympic. For some people in Japan, making lie is tolerated, if it were for showing loyalty to someone.

Their disguise to the world undermines credibility of Japan. South Korea laid tighter regulation of banning import of fishery products from eight prefectures around Fukushima, because of concerns on radiation. The government of Japan stepped into the process of indicting South Korea to World Trade Organization. But it is not a smart choice of Japan. The action does not wipe the skepticism out. And if Japan loses, it will be a huge embarrassment.

South China Sea, Hormuz Strait and North Korea

The discussion over new security legislature started in the House of Representatives on Tuesday. Overall questions from the opposites were about what Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expected Japanese Self-defense Force to do in foreign territories. As far as Abe’s answer was concerned, new legislatures were designed to make JSDF possible to use force in South China Sea, Persian Gulf and North Korea.

Abe has been trying to persuade the public by emphasizing necessity for new legal mandate for dealing with current change of international security environment. In the discussion at the plenary meeting of the House, Abe referred to China as an element for tighter security readiness in addition to North Korea. He raised “China’s promotion and activities in East and South China Sea” as an example of the environmental change.

Introduction of new concept called “situation of important influence” was to get rid of limitation of JSDF’s operation to the area around Japan. Recognizing confrontation in South China Sea as immediate threat to Japan, Abe administration assumes to deploy JSDF to the region as support for concerted effort to deal with Chinese advance to the Pacific Ocean. Abe is becoming non-hesitant on taking advantage of “China threat” for his political agenda.

With expansion of JSDF’s activity, the legislature will allow JSDF going to Hormuz Strait for removing floating mines. To justify such operation, Abe employed strange reasoning that Japan would be in serious crisis for its existence when transportation of crude oil would be blocked in Persian Gulf. He insists that he will send JSDF to Hormuz Strait to protect people’s right for life, liberty or pursuit of happiness. But what he is really doing is simply support U.S. Force in the region, accepting request from U.S.

Minister of Defense, Gen Nakatani, admitted a possibility of striking missile arsenal, if Japan would realize immediate threat from there. The reasoning of it is also based on a concept of protecting people’s lives. The most likely nation that may launch missile toward Japan is apparently North Korea. However, that concept will fundamentally overturn the traditional definition of JSDF, which has been regarded as military organization not for offense but only for defending Japan.

Japan’s attitude has already stimulated China. The White Paper of Chinese Military acknowledges possible military collision in South China Sea. It is clear that arms race is ongoing in East Asian region. Although the responsibility is on the side of China, Japan looks to be willing to joining it. United States welcomes it, because it cannot handle the situation in East Asia by itself. Japan does not realize that and heavily relying on U.S. military capability. If China miscalculate it, tragic consequence will be brought.

Behind Hospitality to Pro-China Delegation

To balance the relationship with China, Chairman of General Council in Liberal Democratic Party, Toshihiro Nikai, visited Beijing, leading large delegation of three thousand business leaders on tourism. Surprisingly enough, Chinese government welcomed Nikai with extraordinarily warm hospitality. This was not about improving bilateral relationship with Japan. It should be recognized as an effort to drive a wedge between Japan and United States.

Before leaving Japan on Wednesday, Nikai was not sure how high the class of Chinese officials he would be able to meet in Beijing. It was few hours before when he realized that Chinese President Xi Jinping would attend the dinner and make a speech to the delegation.

Xi’s speech had certain significance in terms of expressing his willingness to improve relationship with Japan. “In my home town Xi’an, there were a number of Japanese envoys or students and one of them, Nakamaro Abe, cultivated deep friendship with Chinese prominent poets like Li Bai or Wan Wei,” told Xi to the Japanese delegation in a room of People’s Congress. Quoting the name of Abe, though it was a name of official envoy from Japan in eighth century, indicated Xi’s willingness to return to a principle strategic mutual reciprocity between the two nations.

Reference to ancient Japan-China relationship was obviously an attempt to emphasize unusually long history of both nations. Hospitality to the leaders of private sectors did not contradict traditional principle of Chinese Communist Party that people in Japan were also victims of Japanese militarism. To internal frustration against Japan, Chinese government is planning to have a ceremony to cerebrate victory against Japan and fascism. Dualism between internal policy and diplomacy is still active in Chinese regime.

It is possible for Beijing to have thought that improving the relationship with Japan can work for frustrating United States. In the time that U.S. is getting nervous on Chinese land fill in Spratly Islands in South China Sea, closer relationship between Japan and China would make Japan more self-restraint in supporting U.S. That may be the expectation of China.

Prime Minister Abe has not made his standpoint clear on having better relationship with China. Now, he focuses on passing the security bills to reinforce alliance with U.S. But, being caught up in the confrontation of two great powers is the worst scenario for the existence of Japan. Like Poland, removal from world map is nightmare for Japan.

Nuclear Myths Accused

International Atomic Energy Agency distributed a draft of final report on severe accident in First Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant to its member states, according to news reports. The draft accused Tokyo Electric Power Company and the Japanese government of its laziness in taking necessary measures against possible accident. It will be an important alert to the people who want to forget the great impacts of nuclear accident on a nation.

The draft of IAEA report raised a crucial mistake taken by Japanese government. The agency sent a mission to Japan in 2007 to investigate safety measures in nuclear power plants in Japan. The delegation found that Japan had no legal regulation for considering severe accident that would exceed architectural standard. The agency recommended Japan to apply probabilistic safety assessment, which would assume every possibility of severe accident caused by failure of devices, to assessment for safety of nuclear power plants.

Japan ignored the recommendation. The draft found that Japan did not have fundamental measures for a case in which emergency electric source would be broken down by being soaked into tsunami seawater. The regulation authority, though Japan had no true regulation authority before Fukushima accident, did not demand power company decennial review on measures for earthquake or tsunami. The agency is going to conclude that Japan did not follow international standard for nuclear safety.

TEPCO actually had an assessment that tsunami with fifteen meters high would be rushing to First Fukushima Plant, if an earthquake with magnitude 8.3 in offshore of Fukushima had occur. But the company did nothing for it. The draft accused lack of readiness of the government that had been lazy in making evacuation plan for the residents, and TEPCO with no efficient skill to deal with nuclear emergency.

The most important finding of the draft was existence of myth about nuclear technology in “nuclear village” of Japan. “In Japan, a prejudice that nuclear power plants were designed with technological firmness and perfectly protected has been reinforced for decades. As its result, an accident happened in First Fukushima Plant beyond assumption of power company, regulation authority and the government,” the draft accused Japan.

It is important for the Japanese people to remember that the accident was man made, as an investment committee of the Diet indicated in its report. The government and power companies cannot be trusted, because they have failed once and are learning no lesson from it. If the world does not want further nuclear pollution, IAEA needs to deliver stronger measures to regulate to Japan.

Following Family Agenda

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe achieved another goal of his personal agenda: being Prime Minister for longer than his Grand Father, Nobusuke Kishi. Abe’s days as Prime Minister exceeded Kishi’s record of 1,241 days, raising Abe to the sixth position among former Premiers with long tenure. Beyond decades, Abe seeks as same political agenda as his grand father.

Kishi was one of the A-class war criminals, who committed to the leadership of wartime administrations as Minister of Commerce and Industry in Hideki Tojo Cabinet. Regarded as not participating in the decision of opening war against United States and encouraged dismissal of Tojo Cabinet by opposing war continuation, Kishi was released from a war prison in Sugamo, Tokyo in 1948.

Kishi restarted his political career after when purge against past war criminals was lifted with San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1951. Amendment for independent constitution or   independent rearmament was the core of his political agenda, driven by firm resentment of defeat to wartime United Nations. Restoring values of Japan before surrender was his ideological goal, which affected to the political viewpoints of his grandson.

For Kishi, Japan’s war against major Western nations was not about aggression. “I cannot stand with calling Great East Asian War an aggressive war,” told Kishi in his time in the prison. As if following it, Abe insists on not including the word of “aggression” in his statement for seventieth anniversary from the end of war this summer.

Current renewal of Japan-U.S. security guidelines was also based on the same conviction of his grandfather: rebuilding independent military. Kishi took a major step to Japan-U.S. alliance by redefining the security treaty, inviting broad opposition among the leftists and college students. Abe tried to persuade the public, being afraid of approaching U.S.’s war, by quoting Kishi’s decision. “Even with the controversial redefinition, we have not been involved in war of U.S.,” told Abe, ignoring involvement to the Cold War, the strike on Afghanistan or Iraq War.

For China, Kishi was one of the traumatic aggressors who promoted building Manchu State in the northeast China during the war. Kishi was an actual architect of Manchu State with his idea of governance with highly controlled industrial policy. There is no basic reason for the Chinese to have positive sentiment to Kishi’s grandson. While it was all right for them as long as Abe was saying that he would seek strategic mutual reciprocity, rearmament of Japan with integrated strategy with U.S. against China cannot be tolerable for the emerging dragon in East Asia.

We Weren’t Wrong

Four months ago, video footage on YouTube, which required huge ransom for two Japanese men captured by Islamic terrorists, precipitated Japanese people into horror. That was the moment when the Japanese realized that they had become designated targets of Islamic terrorists. After failure of rescuing effort, Shinzo Abe administration embarked on verification of whether the measures they took had been correct. The conclusion of the government-led committee was “nothing was wrong.”

The report of the committee divided the process of dealing with the incident three periods. The first period was from last August when the first Japanese hostage was missed in Syria to December 3^rd when the wife of the second hostage received e-mail from Islamic State. During the time, the report recognized that the government tried to persuade the second hostage not to visit Syria to rescue the first hostage.

The second period was from December 3^rd to January 20^th when IS uploaded the video of two hostages. The report found no problem in Abe’s policy speech in Cairo on January 17^th that announced $200 million of support to the countries fighting Islamic State of Iraq and Levant. While the government could not deny a possibility of kidnapping by IS, the report recognized the importance of delivering humanitarian support to Middle East.

For the third period after the video was uploaded, the report avoided blaming the government not making direct deal with kidnappers. It concluded that the government did its best taking advantage of every channel with tribal leaders in Arab world.

In the video, the kidnappers referred to Abe’s Cairo speech as hostility against IS. It was obvious that the speech gave the terrorists crucial momentum for blackmailing the Japanese. The reason why the report has no evaluation on that point was because the committee was mostly consisted by bureaucrats with Ministry of Foreign Affairs, National Police Agency or Cabinet Office, although few experts on the regional issues were involved in. The verification has not objectively been done by the third party.

The report recommended more efforts to collect information and regulation of traveling abroad to unsecure region. The bureaucrats always take advantage of their failure for expansion of their organizational power, as seen in the reconstruction from Great East Japan Earthquake. They got further power to regulate people in foreign travel and control information inconvenient to them.

Siding Unlawful Aggressor

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is still insisting on improving the relationship with Russia, which has been criticized by a group of Western countries on internationally unlawful annexation of Crimea, Ukraine. He does not care about frustration of United States, which accuses Russian aggression on Ukraine. In the timing of right after reinforcing the alliance with U.S., Abe’s sympathy for Russia is hard to be understood.

Yomiuri Shimbun reported a hidden story about Japan-U.S. summit in Washington last month, in which Abe rejected a recommendation of President Barack Obama to take careful action toward Russia. According to the report, Obama asked firm integrated measures of Group Seven of developed counties against Russia. Abe insisted on keeping dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying “For Japan, relationship with neighbor countries like Russia or China is also important. If China and Russia cooperate each other and their confrontation against Japan and U.S. gets serious, East Asia will be unstable.” Whether Obama recommended Abe to improve the relationship with China first is unsure.

Abe asked Putin to officially visit Japan this year at a summit meeting last year. But it will be difficult for him to obtain any achievement at the meeting in the situation that most Western countries are accusing Russia of its military aggression to a candidate for member of European Union. Taking opportunity of visiting Japan by one of the allies of Putin, Speaker of Russian Congress Sergey Naryshkin, Abe delivered a message of his determination for solving territorial problem over Northern Territory of Japan. Abe is obviously enthusiastic in maintaining dialogue with Putin.

However, Russia seems to be ignoring Abe’s active approach to Russia. In an interview to a Russian newspaper, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Labrov labeled Japan as “only one country in the world that questions the result of World War II.” Russian government is planning to have a major ceremony to commemorate winning the war in Northern Territory this September. While sending message to Abe to prepare for the official visit, Putin is unilaterally deteriorating the relationship with Japan.

The problem has been coming from Abe’s naïve recognition on international politics. Abe is seeing Japan-Russia relation not in the context of politics among major powers that won World War II, but through narrow bilateral relationship. His attitude indicates his ambition to make Japan-Russia relation a diplomatic card in Japan-U.S. alliance. But his ambition would never justify appeasement to a rogue aggressor on sovereignty of a nation. It is extremely difficult for Japan to develop independent diplomacy in this highly complicated relation among nations.

Cowardice in Explanation

Question Time, an opportunity for the opposite leaders to ask about policies of Prime Minister, was held on Wednesday for the first time in current session of National Diet. Frustrated with unilateral maneuver of the leading parties with extremely few chances to question, the opposite leaders grilled Shinzo Abe on his determining agenda, new security legislatures. Trying to defend his standpoint, Abe kept on escaping from detailing about what kind of consequence the legislatures would bring.

President of Democratic Party of Japan, Katsuya Okada, asked about how Abe would assess the risk on men and women of Self-defense Force in logistic support for multi-national coalition on foreign land, which would be allowed by new legislatures. Most people in Japan are actually worried about possible sacrifice in Self-defense Force by broadening their role in international peace and security.

What Abe focused on was not about the risk, but inconvenience of current legislature. In the logistic support for Operation Iraqi Freedom, Japanese government decided that SDF would be deployed only to “non-combatant area.” “After actual operations,” Abe told in the discussion in Diet, “we realized that defying a place as non-combatant was difficult. So, we needed to deploy first, and if the place would become dangerous, the force must retreat.” He defied the question about risk management.

Okada added a question about the area SDF would be deployed as an exercise of collective self-defense right. Great difference from exercise of individual self-defense will be that SDF can be deployed to foreign territory. Okada tried to reconfirm whether Abe recognized that difference.

Abe’s explanation was nothing more than general definition of SDF activities. “Japanese Self-defense Force is not basically supposed to be deployed to foreign land,” told Abe. Yes, it is true. But true meaning of new legislature is making foreign deployment possible, if new three conditions are fulfilled. The conditions are apparent danger of overturning Japan’s existence, no alternative to deal with it and minimum use of force. He was obviously afraid of criticisms on expanding operation of SDF.

As the national top leader, Abe needed to address ambiguity on new security legislatures. Because he believed in the overwhelming power of his party in the Diet, Abe tried to skip complicated discussion over the issue. As its consequence, the people in Japan cannot reach full understanding on what kind of risk their country is facing. Making the people blind on an important policy does not implement promise of democracy.

Lobbying over World Heritage

Lobbying of Japan in Unite Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization for nominating Japanese industrial relics to World Heritage provoked outstanding resistance of South Korea and China. A group of old facilities for the nomination included factories where the Koreans or Chinese brought from the continent had been forced heavy labor. These anti-Japanese governments rejected to go through those historical facts. Negative attitude of Japanese top political leader in accepting inconvenient historical events affected to diplomacy over preservation of culture.

Earlier this month, South Korea responded to the recommendation of UNESCO for registering twenty-three old industrial facilities to World Cultural Heritage. Government of Republic of Korea argued that fifty-seven thousand of Koreans were mobilized for forced labor in seven facilities, including coalmines or iron works, out of the twenty-three. “Registration ignoring problems bothers basic concept of World Heritage, which protects universal values of human being,” told officials of ROK. South Korean Parliament passed a resolution that blamed Japan of nominating wrong facilities for World Heritage.

China joined that anti-Japan lobbying. Recognizing this year as an opportunity for appealing its war-winning status seventy years ago, China has been active in diplomacy related to historical interpretation of Japan. Although it is not a member of the consultation committee, China demanded UNESCO responsible measures in registration of World Heritage. Current tendency in China, in which old workers and their families under Japanese administration require compensation to Japanese government or private corporation, encourages the government to take bold steps toward undermining diplomatic standpoint of Japan.

Japanese government has been dealing with their opposition through counter-lobbying. Diplomats are approaching members of the committee for further understanding. Picking the resolution in South Korean Parliament that meanwhile criticized speech of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at U.S. Senate and Congress, Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yoshihide Suga, condemned South Korea as “rude.”

Counter actions by South Korea and China stemmed from Abe’s designated ignorance of history before and after World War II. Abe is still reluctant to admit Japan’s aggression to Asian countries and involvement of Japanese Imperial Army in recruiting comfort women. As long as he maintains negative attitude in facing historical fact, historical appeal of Japan will definitely face resistance of those neighbor nations, eroding Japan’s national interest.

Urging Reconciliation

United States Secretary of State, John Kerry, made a visit to three major countries in Northeast Asia except Japan earlier this week. In Seoul, Kerry unequivocally requested Japan reconfirmation of traditional standpoint on the view to history related to World War II, namely comfort woman issue. Weeks after reinforcing relationship with Japan, U.S. embarked on diplomatic effort to neighbor countries of the troublemaking ally.

In the joint press conference with South Korean Foreign Minister, Yun Byung-se, Kerry had to address historical issue between ROK and Japan. “We continue to emphasize the importance of approaching historical issues in a manner that can promote healing and reconciliation,” told Kerry to a question about lack of communication over wartime atrocity between Korea and Japan. His line was basically neutral, hoping moderate discussion between Japan and Korea.

However, Kerry intensively stepped into evaluation on this issue. “With respect to the powerful and important part of reconciliation that comes from the events of World War II, particularly the trafficking of women for sexual purposes by the Japanese military during that war, we have said many times that that was a terrible, egregious violation of human rights,” told Kerry.

His comment challenged recognition of Shinzo Abe administration on this issue in an important way. Abe administration has not completely admitted that human trafficking as done by Japanese military. Kerry implicitly urged Abe to maintain the line of Kono Statement, which admitted involvement of Japanese military in building “comforting facilities.” “And the apologies that have been extended by previous Prime Minister Murayama and former Chief Cabinet Secretary Kono marked a very important step forward, a chapter really, in Japan trying to improve relations with its neighbors” added Kerry. It is obvious that U.S. firmly stands by South Korea on this issue.

Yun explained existence of separation over the historical issue in Park Geun-hye administration. “Her administration has been strict in terms of the historical matters,” told Yun. And he indicated that South Korea could separate historical issues from the rest of the matters.

Japan maintains its open standpoint for unconditional resumption of Japan-South Korea dialogue between top leaders. Although Abe announced that he would keep the line of Kono Statement in the joint press conference with U.S. President Barack Obama, the Koreans do not trust him because statements of Japanese political leaders have been revised many times. Denial of historical viewpoint brings serious consequence.

Osaka Capital Failed

Democracy defeated despotism with a slight margin. In the referendum over introducing new government system in Osaka, or Osaka Capital Initiative, votes for opposition overtook the supporters by 0.7 percentage point. Prominent leader of the initiative as Mayor of Osaka City, Toru Hashimoto, announced his retirement from political world. His failure was not something attributed to misunderstandings of the voters, but a consequence of hasted reform ignoring fundamental democracy.

Osaka Capital Initiative is a plan to dismantle Osaka City and make it integrated to Osaka Prefectural Government, in which Osaka City will be divided into five autonomic districts. While the reason for the initiative has been to get rid of dual governance by both city and prefecture, the opposites criticized possible deterioration of public service, such as medical support or nursery, being brought by the integration.

But, the original plan was not only about city and prefecture. It assumed greater integration of Kansai area. But, City of Sakai, another key city in Osaka Prefecture, rejected the plan, being afraid of ending its history as commercial city maintained for some centuries. Cities in Osaka Prefecture except Osaka City were also negative to be involved in the plan. It is fair to say that the initiative was already dying. Hashimoto tried to revitalize his personal agenda by shrunk version of integration between city and prefectural Osaka.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is supposedly disappointed with the result. He expected victory of Hashimoto for his constitutional amendment. Hashimoto could have been expected to support it with his colleagues in Japan Innovation Party. All Abe wanted was not new system of autonomy in Osaka, but votes in both Houses of National Diet. Schedule for constitutional amendment will be reconsidered after Hashimoto’s resignation.

Democratic Party of Japan expects further cooperation in policies with Innovation Party. DPJ wants more votes in the Diet to confront the big leading coalition by LDP and Komeito. Unusual coalition with LDP, Komeito and Communist Party in Osaka encouraged DPJ to seek new structure of party cooperation. But, it is obvious that the structure in Osaka only on the issue of Osaka Capital Initiative will not applied to every policy issues in Tokyo.

After all, the referendum in Osaka asked the voters whether they would accept radical reform by Hashimoto. Although the initiative was not complete plan, Hashimoto asked the voters blank ballots for his populist politics. Obviously, it was not something democracy supposed to be. People in Osaka showed their power at the last moment.

Lifetime Dispatched Workers

One of the biggest partisan issues for coming months in National Diet is amendment of Dispatched Workers Law. For leading parties, the law is needed to be more useful for employers. But, opposite parties have been criticizing it as fixation of unstable status of the workers. The administration failed to pass the bill twice, faced by solid opposition. This issue will be a litmus test for the Diet whether minority can challenge the great leading coalition.

Current Dispatched Workers Law mandates employers not to hire dispatched temporary workers, except twenty-six designated experts, over three years. When a dispatched worker reaches the limit of three years, the employer needs to consider changing status of the worker to regular employment. Employer cannot employ a worker in the status of dispatched forever.

The amendment abolishes the twenty-six exemptions and applies three-year limit to all workers. Although it looks like an improvement for all workers, bureaucrats inserted invisible merit for employers. In amended Dispatched Workers Law, an employer will be able to hire dispatched worker forever, if he or she introduces new dispatched worker every three years. At the time of three years limit, a dispatched worker may be replaced with new dispatched worker.

Opposite parties, including Democratic Party of Japan, Communists and Social Democrats, criticize the amendment as “lifetime dispatching law.” They claim that the law will increase young workers who have to work as “dispatched” with no opportunity to have stable regular job.

Dispatched working became the biggest problem under LDP administration in the first decade of twenty-first century. With introduction of new liberalism by Prime Minister Jun-ichiro Koizumi, separation between workers with regular employment and dispatched workers became wider. In many offices, discrimination based on workers’ status was prevalent. Power harassment in the offices became a typical violation of human rights in Japan. Frustration over labor policy led to collapse of LDP administration.

In last two sessions of the Diet, Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare made minor mistakes in building perfect structure of new labor dispatching. Opposite parties could kill the bill in spite of their numeral inferiority. In the situation when Shinzo Abe administration puts top priority on security legislation, it is unclear whether the government can keep political momentum for the labor issue. If Abe uses majority power in every controversial issue, people will be more skeptical on his handling in politics.

Buying Gold Medals

A bill for establishing Sports Agency in Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, or MEXT, passed National Diet. The new governmental organization will begin its work in this October. The typical purpose of it is to obtain twenty to thirty-three gold medals in Tokyo Olympic in 2020. Shinzo Abe administration seems to like to have national goal in every aspect of its governance.

Policies over sports have been divided with bureaucratic sectionalism. Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism has been responsible for building sport facilities like stadium or arena, while Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare focuses on sports for disabled people. Professional sports are supervised by Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry from the viewpoint of commercial business. MEXT was recognized as in charge of sports in schools. “We recognize Sports Agency as the control tower for sport policies. Not only supporting top athletes, we hope to contribute to people’s life,” told Minister for Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Hakubun Shimomura.

The government seems to be making U.K. Sports, a governmental organization in United Kingdom which succeeded in increasing gold medals in London Olympic from nineteen to twenty-nine. By intensively distributing budget for sports, Japanese Sports Agency will govern all the organizations related to sports. Currently, budget for sports is only a third of it for Cultural Agency.

One of the groups that opposed establishing Sports Agency was Japan Olympic Committee, which had been responsible for training athletes for Olympic games. Sports Agency could not get full authority to distribute money for training, because JOC blocked it by lobbying to Minister of Finance, Taro Aso, the chairman of legislators’ association for sports. Budget for training will be shared by Sports Agency and JOC. It is an ordinary struggle for sharing tax money.

So, is it possible for Japan to achieve such a goal to increase gold medals? Gold medals for Japan in London Olympic in 2012 was only seven. The agency has “strategic” plan for Tokyo Olympic to concentrate its money to hopeful sports including marathon, swimming, gymnastics and table tennis. The agency expects those sports to get gold medals. Men’s soccer was dropped from those hopeful sports, while women’s soccer was picked.

After all, it is based on a concept of buying gold medals through intensive distribution of governmental money. Is it an overestimation that the administration is enhancing nationalism through intensive policy on Olympic sports?

Filled with Rhetoric

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made a cabinet decision on a set of legislatures for enhanced security on Thursday. They included new International Peace Supporting Act and amendments for existing ten laws related to security. While Abe insisted on their necessity for Japanese citizens surrounded by “unusual security situation,” he could not show the way for reliable model of securing Japan. Explanation of Abe was not sufficient for convincing the Japanese people in their future.

Abe began his press conference after the cabinet decision with the words of determination for eternal peace. “Seventy years ago, we Japanese made a resolution. ‘We must not repeat devastation of war,’” told Abe in his justification for his conservative political agenda. It was his resistance against harsh criticisms from the leftists who called the legislation “war waging laws.”

It is undeniable that Japan would be approaching someone’s war with those legislations. One of the laws allows Japan exercising collective self-defense in a situation that threatens Japan’s existence. Although the government assumes a case, in which U.S. vessels patrolling around Japan was attacked, it is theoretically possible that Japan will join an international military operation in Persian Gulf to secure tankers transporting crude oil to Japan. They may interpret that Japan’s existence is dependent on oil from Middle East.

Seamless preparation and measures for every kind of events are key concepts for the legislatures. “It is time when no country can protect itself by itself. Threats easily go beyond the borders,” Abe stressed in the conference. It is always true and nothing new. Isolation does not prevent a country from others’ aggression. Threats passed the borders even in the time of World War I. That makes no sense as a reason why Japan needs to reinterpret its constitution to exercise collective self-defense.

Abe also emphasized crisis of Japan-U.S. alliance. “When U.S. military receives attack in their patrol around Japan, Japan can do nothing for it. This has been Japan’s standpoint,” told Abe. It was incorrect. Japan could be supporting U.S. as long as it is an activity for exercising individual self-defense. Even how much Abe compliments, U.S. will never be involved in a war over territorial administration of Senkaku, anyway.

Men and women will reach danger more than ever with these laws. “They are having hard practices. They swore that they would not regard danger,” Abe reiterates. He looks to be saying that’s why he does not hesitate in making laws for use of force. Life is too light before this prime minister.

Targeting Social Security

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ordered Council on Economy and Fiscal Policy to make a plan for fiscal soundness by the end of next month. The council is going to set an interim target for reducing the deficit of fiscal primary balance lower than 1% of gross domestic project in 2018, which they hope to help ultimately balance it in 2020. Everyone agrees that key to success is how much national spending for social security can be cut.

The basic plan of the council named three years from 2016 to 2018 “concentrated reform period,” during which deficit of primary balance would be reduced from 3.3% to 1%. While it already counted on great amount of income by raising consumption tax rate from 8% to 10% in April 2017, no further hike of the tax could not be expected, because it would be unlikely in terms of impact of on people’s life. Even with new tax rate, annual fiscal deficit in 2020 is calculated to be ¥9.4 trillion.

Cutting expenditure therefore is definitely needed to achieve the goal. Cutting budget for social security, which is assumed to be increasing ¥1 trillion every year, is regarded to be crucial in the discussion of economists. The council made a point that reducing medical cost by systemic reform of medical service, including further introduction of generic medicine, will help national fiscal policy.

That’s it, so far. Politicians are skeptical in reducing financial medical support for aged people. A committee on this issue in Liberal Democratic Party did not set actual goal for degrading social security, because the policy directly connects to their election. In this crucial time for Japan’s credibility in world economy, the lawmakers with the party still insist on obtaining great share for infrastructure construction budget, which limit for fiscal improvement is obvious.

Basic scenario of the council is that Japanese economy will see 2% of real growth and 3% of nominal growth in GDP coming years. Over ¥9 trillion of deficit is supposed to be offset by further growth in the future. No evidence supports that optimistic scenario. It is likely that further consumption tax hike will not only bring additional income, but will discourage people’s consumption to the extent Japanese economy will suffer from its negative impact.

Abe administration is chasing three rabbits at one time: economic revitalization, international credit on Japan’s fiscal structure and maintaining political popularity for LDP with obsolete stimulus policies. No one around him accuses his unusual optimism.