Unworthy for Critic

The reason why China criticized Yasukuni visit of Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, was mainly about revitalization of militarism and right-wing movement in Japan. Well, isn’t it a typical militarism for a country to increase military budget by over ten percent in four consecutive years and make it four times bigger than ten years ago? The administration of Xi Jinping is unilaterally enhancing its military power. China, planting deep concern in Asian countries, has no right to denounce Abe in terms of militarism.

On the opening day of Chinese National People’s Congress, the government released its defense budget of 2014, which amounted to 808 billion Chinese Yuan, or $131 billion, marking high increase of 12.2%. Chinese Prime Minister, Li Keqiang, reported that the purpose of its military surge was “to ordinarily prepare for battle and to enhance control over defense for border and territorial air and sea.” He added criticism on Abe with determination of “defending result of victory in the World War II and post-war order.”

China’s promotion to “great marine power” disperses concern to the world. The Quadrennial Defense Review of the United States revealed its warning toward China. “In the coming years, countries such as China will continue seeking to counter U.S. strengths using anti-access and area-denial (A2/AD) approaches and by employing other new cyber and space control technologies,” said the review.

Chief Cabinet Secretary of Japan, Yoshihide Suga, told that China’s defense policy or its lack of transparency is a great concern of international society. Japan’s Defense Minister, Itsunori Onodera, expressed “crucial interest” on the rise of Chinese military budget. “I cannot understand why the growth rate of military budget overtook that of gross domestic products,” Onodera remarked.

If it were for securing Chinese territory, it has already been successful on it. China settled border dispute against Russia. What it has been doing was asserting its sovereignty in South China Sea with saber-rattling manner and intimidation with constant violations of Japan’s territorial sea around Senkaku Islands. China’s behavior is nothing but a destabilization of the order in Asia-Pacific region in revisionist way.

The only way for Japan to counter Chinese assertion is tightening the alliance with U.S. In short of recognizing itself as a member of international society and too much focusing on its own “dream,” China is alienating itself by seeking its selfish goal.

Losing Options in Diplomacy

Current standoff between the West and Russia over Crimea cast a great shadow on Japanese diplomacy. While Japan is a member of developed Western economies, the relationship with Russia is the most working bilateral diplomacy for Japan so far. Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, has been boasting the friendship with the Russian President, Vladimir Putin. Lack of choices, which is a natural result of his revisionist policy, annoys Abe in dealing with crisis in Ukraine.

Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yoshihide Suga, revealed that he was watching the situation in Ukraine with “serious concern” in the press conference on Tuesday. “We strongly require all the parties to avoid use of force with utmost restraint and to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine,” he said. Japan joined a statement of Group of Seven, which condemned Russia of its support for pro-Russia Crimean government.

On the other hand, Japanese government showed utmost consideration to Russian President. The serious concern expressed by Foreign Minister, Fumio Kishida, was not aimed to Putin, but to the Senate of Russian Parliament that had endorsed Russia’s military option in Ukraine. It is said that the comment was a reflection of Abe’s support for Putin to maintain current momentum of preferable “personal” relationship with him.

With tightly frozen relationship with China and South Korea, unexpected disappointment from the United States, and sober attitude of the Europe, Abe’s diplomacy has been shrunk to the extent of some business programs with emerging economies such as India or Turkey. Now, Putin is one of the closest leaders among the world major powers. Abe expects to make a progress over the issue of the Northern Territory, when Putin is visiting Japan this fall.

With the condemnation of G7, Japan’s standpoint on Ukraine crisis had to be closer to the West, making Putin annoyed. Ministry of Foreign Affairs is worried about the impact of possible military showdown between Russia and Ukraine. Japan will in fact have to join the concerted denounce of United Nations on Russia, if Putin takes further military action in securing Crimea.

If Abe’s diplomacy were stable enough, he does not have to consider Putin’s isolation so much. It was Abe who reduced the options on this serious violation of Ukrainian sovereignty by his reckless behavior, such as visiting Yasukuni Shrine and revising the Kono Statement on comfort women, which unnecessarily stimulated nationalism in China and South Korea. This leader of Japan still keeps on eroding its national interest.

Another Passion of Anne

The first target of despotism is knowledge. Emperor Shi Huang burnt books irrelevant to his belief. Nazis also put fire on “anti-German” books. Now, a number of books written by a girl, who had been a victim of holocaust, were broken by someone in libraries in Japan. It was likely that the criminal upheld the deed of Nazis in wartime Germany. Israeli government is worried about the phenomenon in Japan. Increasing enemies outside, right-wing movements in Japan goes straightforward to isolationism, which covered this nation right before the World War II.

Public libraries in western Tokyo found many broken books written by Anne Frank, a young woman victim of holocaust and left diaries of her last days, or related to her late February. The broken books amounted to over two hundreds. The pages were torn apart and missing. Regardless true intention of the criminal, public saw a sense of frustration against sympathetic sentiment for the inhumane massacre done by insane administration once existed in Germany.

Israeli Embassy in Tokyo offered new books of Anne Frank to those libraries. Reporting anxiety in his home country, a minister of the Embassy told that the criminal was a coward. To those libraries, there also came presents of Anne’s books from anonymous person called Chiune Sugihara, a diplomat in Japan’s Consulate in wartime Lithuania who issued a number of visas to Polish people escaped from Nazis persecution.

There is no clear sign of the government to investigate the case as a matter of law enforcement. Abe administration is keeping its soft attitude to right wing movements, including “hate speech” demonstrations held by racists against the Koreans and Chinese. On the other hand, Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, raises his voice against teachers’ unions, denouncing them to be distorting education. He is as if saying that “Right is ok because I like it, but left is wrong because I hate it.” This is current leadership in Japan.

The incidents in libraries reflected shortened temper of Japanese public. Those frustrated people have no answer for a question “How long do we have to apologize to the world about what our ancestors did in last war?” Meanwhile, most of them have frustration on their poor position in Japanese society. Division between the rich and poor distilled strong resentment on current structure of their society, ignoring the fact that is what bureaucrats aimed to create to distinguish the rulers from those ruled.

Israel is an old friend of Japan. A lot of Israeli folk songs are sung in music class of elementary schools in Japan. The Japanese need to raise voices of denouncing insane book breakers in Tokyo.

Olympic Infrastructure

One of the greatest significance of Tokyo Olympic Games 1964 was putting a period of the end of post-war era in Japan. To show how Japan was reconstructed, the government developed various infrastructures, including national stadium, metropolitan highway and sports arenas. After the Olympic games, those facilities became symbols of the event and broadly used by the public. Now, the plan of rebuilding new national stadium for Olympic 2020 is drifting, mainly because its value after the event is still not clear.

The National Stadium in Tokyo was the main facility for Tokyo Olympic 1964, where opening and closing ceremonies were held. The government decided to scrap and rebuild the stadium for 2020, with the cost of ¥169 billion. The capacity of audience will increase from 54,000 to 80,000. On the top of the building, removable ceiling will be settled for all-weather purpose.

The national government asked Tokyo Metropolitan Government contribution of ¥50 billion for maintenance around new stadium. However, Tokyo government was frustrated with irrelevantly high burden on local government. Without detailed architecture plan of the building, the national government determined the beginning of construction to be on October 2015.

An organization belongs to Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology presented an estimation of future income. It predicted great amount of income overtaking spending, which expected payments of private corporations for ads in rooms of the stadium, and charges on international conventions, sports events and music concerts.

However, the balance of income and spending of the facility after 2020 is highly skeptical. It is unlikely for the stadium to find any soccer team that chooses that expensive stadium for their home stadium. There will not be sufficient effects for music concert in the stadium. Local government will have to pay for a part of maintenance efforts, regardless the balance.

Rebuilding of the National Stadium was decided even before Tokyo was selected for 2020. The politics dominated by Liberal Democratic Party had been looking at the Olympic Game mainly as a big business chance for their supporters. Although Japan candidacy emphasized “compact Olympic” or “environment conscious,” the national government is looking forward to renovating transportation system of Tokyo metropolitan area, including highway system already vulnerable to earthquake. Those construction policies may cause further accumulation of national debt.

Slow Progress for Habitation

A large number of people in the Pacific coast of Tohoku area, who lost their houses taken by tsunami three years ago, still live in temporary houses being unable to find the alternatives. There are mismatches between demand and supply for permanent houses, called reconstruction residences, as a result of too slow progress of the efforts by bureaucrats. They do not realize the saying, “Timing is everything.”

Temporary houses are too small to live for years. Average of floor space is 300 square feet, for two rooms, one for kitchen and dining and another for bedroom. Ministry of Reconstruction has been preparing for permanent houses for them in each devastated cities and towns in Tohoku. Its effort was very slow for some reasons.

Basic problem is scarcity of lands. After tsunami washed the land for residence, there remain a few spaces to build new houses. Reconstruction efforts needed to develop plain lands by scraping top of the hills. If some lands owned by individual were found, public offices need to get approval from those owners to buy them. The problem was that those owners had been missed, because they had died, moved to somewhere else or even unidentified.

Although local governments wanted to buy the lands out without approval of the missed owners and with possible compensation for them after appearance, bureaucrats never tried to allow it. They argued that property rights, even with no identified owner, were the supreme determined in the constitution, while ignoring human rights to live in peace. The true reason, however, is that they do not want to complicate the legislative structure by adding new exception. Moreover, bureaucrats are highly reluctant to vest new authority on local governments, because they believe that the central government must control local governments.

Consequently, local governments spent months for looking for landowners, other months for making plans and other months for paperwork to submit documents to the central government. While governments were busy for chores inside bureaucracy, needs of people shifted eventually. Some found other place to build their own houses, and others decided to move to their home of sons and daughters. Some passed away.

Mismatch was created by those time factors, stemmed from narrow-minded works of bureaucrats. After permanent houses were built, ten to twenty percent of rooms are still vacant. In spite of those failure, bureaucrats keep on building new reconstruction residences everywhere in Tohoku. For them, it will be a success, if those rooms will be filled in next century. Above are the reasons why bureaucrats lost their credibility, which sealed their fate as losers.

Letter of Resignation

Another strange behavior of the Chairman of Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK), Katsuto Momii, was revealed. On the first day of his chairmanship, he required each of ten council members to submit letters of resignation with date blanked. That meant that the chairman could fire, by fulfilling the date, any members anytime he liked. Although Momii defended himself, asserting that it was a common exercise in private organization, that kind of arbitrary control on council members on public broadcasting corporation would not be tolerated in terms of democracy at least. This is a man unfit for the chair.

In the Committee of Internal Affairs of the House of Representatives on Tuesday, ten council members testified that they had been ordered to submit the letters and obeyed it. Momii explained his order as ordinary governance of a leader in his testimony at Budget Committee of the House on Wednesday. Well, it seems to be his ordinary behavior to generalize his idea, as he did say “Comfort women existed in every country.” Is he really right, anyway?

The President of Japan Post, also former Chairman of Toshiba Corporation, Taizo Nishimuro, denied such a habit in private corporations in Japan. “I don’t think that such behavior is general in private sectors,” told Nishimuro. Momii’s common sense seems to be Japan’s nonsense.

Former NHK Chairman once collected letters of resignation from council members. Shigeo Fukuchi wrapped up the letters in 2008, and some of the members stepped down soon after that. But it was to take responsibility of insider trade suspicion on NHK reporters then. According to Broadcasting Act, council members of NHK are appointed or discharged by the Chairman with consent of Governors. But if Chairman had letters of resignation, he does not have to get governors’ consent. Momii gathered the letter with no reason except exercising oppressive power on council members.

The episode tells Momii’s strange personality. Momii relied on the documents to cover up his inability of building consensus in a large organization. It was an effusion of his short temper when he said he would “tighten nuts and bolts of NHK.” Workers who were paralleled with parts of construction embraced strong anxiety to their new leader. Confession of council members was voluntary rebellion against despotism in a corporation. Momii did not realize that NHK had traditionally been regarded as a highly political organization.

Reorganization Waits

While the government led by Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, looks very stable in terms of high popularity, there rises speculation of reorganization of the Cabinet this summer. With prediction of economic slow down after adopting new consumption tax rate in April, Abe has good reasons to enhance his political power by showing his leadership in the Cabinet. However, reshuffling the list of ministers may also cause eclipse of the administration.

Making good contrast from current unstable administrations, Abe Cabinet has experienced no change from the beginning on December 2012. Some ministers received criticisms on inability of appropriate statement in discussion of the Diet. But, they did not lead to resignations, helped by high popularity of the Prime Minister. Now, Abe is in need of regain power for long-term ambitions.

Reorganization of cabinet is often done with change of leaders of leading party. The biggest point would be how to treat the Secretary General of Liberal Democratic Party, Shigeru Ishiba. Ishiba ran for presidential election of the party in 2012, when Abe won the race. For Abe, Ishiba has been a potential enemy who might be challenging him at some point in the future.

The best way to control the rival is to embrace him in the Cabinet. One possibility is treating Ishiba with important post, such as Foreign Minister or Defense Minister. The best figure for successor of Ishiba is Yoshihide Suga, current Chief Cabinet Secretary, who has been showing firm loyalty to Abe and contributed in stabilizing the Cabinet.

Minister of Economic Revitalization in charge of Trans-Pacific Partnership, Akira Amari, is likely to step out of the Cabinet. Amari once offered Abe stepping down, claiming cancer disease. Young ministers are another possibilities for leaving. Minister of Consumers Issue, Masako Mori, was attacked in her explanation of Designated Secrecy Act in the Diet last fall. Her lack of experience jeopardized the promotion of the act. Minister of Governmental Reform, Tomoko Inada, a right-wing extremist, has been another target of opposition parties.

There are growing frustration in LDP against consecutive problems Abe invited. Visiting Yasukuni Shrine, no improvement in relations with China and South Korea may cause Abe’s losing grip in the party. On the other hand, mishandling of reorganization brings negative impact on the administration, as former Premier, Ryutaro Hashimoto, tumbled down with adoption of a lawmaker who experienced guilty in trial of Lockheed scandal. Difficult decision is waiting for Abe at the end of this Diet session.