The White Peril 白禍

The Yomiuri reports that new Minister of Foreign Affairs Nobutaka Machimura believes* the constitution should be amended in order for Japan to become a permanent member of the UNSC:

"The Constitution should be amended to clearly position Japan's international peace-building activities," Machimura said at the Foreign Ministry. "The Constitution should be reformed because it is better to ensure that no confusion will arise when Japan fulfills its duties as a permanent member (because of a possible conflict between constitutional principles and the position)," he added.

Last week, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi announced Japan would seek a permanent seat in the U.N. Security Council. Koizumi said the nation would be able to become a permanent member without amending the Constitution.

Interesting. It's hard to tell whether that could be a rift-making issue or Machimura is just giving voice to something Koizumi actually wants, too, behind the soothing public talk. The Nikkei print edition--it may be on the web, but I'm too lazy to look it up and happen to have it on top of the recycling pile--ran parallel front-page interviews last Friday with two business leaders on the hot-button constitutional issues. Kakutaro Kitashiro, the chair of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives, said when asked about the amendment issue:

Having no military power is a policy that doesn't square with today's international circumstances. Even a secondary school student must sense the mismatch with Article 9 [the article of the constitution that renounces militarism]. Amending the constitution is preferable to just expanding its interpretation.

I'm partial--and not just for Japan--to that sort of thinking, too. Simply loosening the interpretation of Article 9 might seem like a more tactful way for Japan to smooth its way toward open super-powerdom, but there is no way in hell the rest of Asia will be convinced not to have a conniption anyway. Koizumi would probably have to bulldoze the Yasukuni Shrine, not just stop visiting it, to mollify the PRC on that one. But a clearly-worded amendment that gives the government leave to participate in ongoing conflicts but not to launch attacks might, conceivably, play well with others who could join together to lean on China a bit. (Nothing changes, but this time, it would be a good cause. I think the petitions of India, Germany, and Brazil make sense, too.)

Speaking of bargaining with allies, the proposed US troop realignment is still a sticking point (this is from the Yomiuri article again):

Japan has asked that the United States maintain effective deterrence through the Japan-U.S. security alliance in the area surrounding Japan, while reducing the burden on local governments where U.S. military bases are located.

It's not just the non-combat deployment of SDF personnel that has made things touchy with the public; a helicopter crashed in Okinawa two months ago, and the USMC's clampdown on the wreckage was widely perceived as high-handed. The "burden on local governments" referred to above is a bit elliptical, but it probably refers to that sort of thing--the strained relations between US soldiers and the Japanese who live near their bases, I mean, not our helicopters constantly falling out of the sky. Machimura has plenty to pay attention to.
* Like all links to the Yomiuri, this one will expire in a few days; if I forget to search for the Google cache and relink it, feel free to e-mail me.

Another Mitsubishi Fuso vehicle has had clutch failure--though this time there was no accident. The shaft detached and caused the dumptruck involved to stop in the middle of the highway, though. It was a 1984 model and, thankfully, I suppose, had a clutch that was already under recall (thankfully because it means they haven't discovered yet another defective part).

*****

For obvious reasons, Hitomi Soga and her family have gotten much of the attention. But there are other touching stories among the repatriated abductees from North Korea. Kaoru Hasuike will be allowed by the law department of Chuo University to return to his studies. Hasuike is 46; he was abducted while a junior home in Niigata Prefecture on vacation in 1978. He hasn't decided whether to go back to classes or do distance learning--understandably, there are significant readjustments he's still making.

*****

More darkly, two death row inmates were executed today; one was Mamoru Takuma, who went on a stabbing rampage in an elementary school near Osaka in 2001, killing 8 children. As they always do when Japan carries out an execution, human rights groups (and the Japan Federation of Bar Associations) are understandably protesting the lack of transparency in Japanese capital punishment. This Reuters story outlines things pretty well. Japanese executions take place when they're least likely to dominate the news cycle, and there's no prior warning. I'm not familiar enough with the way it all works to know whether the ability to appeal is really significantly curtailed; the part about not letting the families of those to be executed know until the same day does seem pretty harsh.

Of course, the reporter can't resist ending this way:

Capital punishment has aroused little debate among Japanese, who are shown by polls to strongly support the death penalty, and occasional efforts to suspend or abolish it have made little headway.

But with Japan and the United States among a handful of advanced nations where the death penalty is carried out, questions are being raised and international pressure increased.

Unless I'm remembering wrong, a woman Minister of Justice, Ritsuko Nagao, was the one who signed the highest number of execution orders in a single year in recent history. I think it was six inmates in 1996, but I'm not finding confirmation. This was after a long stretch in which executions had been few and far between in Japan. Lately, I think two or three a year has been the norm.

It does not seem frivolous on 11 September to update the story of Hitomi Soga, a now-repatriated Japanese abductee to North Korea, and her husband Charles Jenkins, accused deserter from the US Army during the Korean War. Japan has a mutual-extradition treaty with the US, so there was a long series of negotiations over whether he would bring their two daughters to Japan so that the four of them could restart their lives here. Ultimately, the family was reunited in Indonesia and came to Japan to have Jenkins, who is said to be ill, admitted to one of the major research hospitals.

Japanese public sentiment is pulling hard for Jenkins to be permitted to settle with his wife in her hometown. The Japanese government, accordingly, pressed the US to show clemency. I don't know how much that has affected Jenkins's treatment--he just turned himself in--but I do know that it's hard to imagine the following scenario surrounding an accused military deserter almost anywhere else in the world:

Details are not yet clear, but according to the US Army, pay calculated at the rate for an officer of Jenkins' rank and years of service would amount to base pay of $2200 per month. Adding in housing and living allowances would bring the total to $3270.

[I'm snipping out the section that explains that he's been advanced some cash already and will not be asked to repay any money even if found guilty.]

[I]n Camp Zama, where Soga and Jenkins's family would be able to live together, there are, in addition to barracks, family housing, a school, and recreational facilities. Jenkins would also be free to use the 18-hole golf course and fishing pond.

Yeah, America's the real world center of barbarous, unforgiving inhumanity, huh?

I haven't had much to add to everyone else's comments about the sort of people who would keep hundreds of children captive for days, with no water, in midsummer, and then bring the roof down on their heads. It does dominate the thoughts, though, especially in combination with other news this week.

South Korea has been doing lab tests with uranium enrichment. The results were apparently a small amount that was "close to" weapons grade. Now, if there's going to be a headline that reads "----- May Be Close to Developing Nukes," I'd much prefer that the ----- be South Korea over some of the alternatives. (Additionally, the experiment was done four years ago, and the IAEA inspectors found no evidence it had been expanded upon since then.) And despite the clear potential for diplomatic problems that would result from the ROK's developing nuclear weapons, with the DPRK less than a two-hour drive from Seoul, who could possibly blame it for wanting to do so?

I wonder, does North Korea get much play in the US media? Here, it's in the news all the time. Some of the reasons for that are obvious: It's nearby, so the potential for patrol boat skirmishes and things is high, and there's some Japan-North Korea trade. But what you most memorably see (I'm talking over the last five years or so) on television are human interest stories about refugees. For a while there, it seemed as if there were a new Japanese wife of a North Korean escaping back here through China every Thursday. Often, she would tell the reporter, her voice and face distorted to protect her identity, about eating potatoes when there was no rice--a shocking deprivation to East Asians. And that was before the appalling Japanese abductee story broke and began dominating news coverage. Recently, the focus has also been more on diplomatic talks, particularly now that the six-way nattering over the DPRK's nuclear program is doing the on-again-off-again thing.

And that leads to the other exposure you get to North Korea here: excerpts from its news broadcasts, usually when some higher-up has made an anti-Japanese remark or some trade issue or summit has been reported on. The North Korean TV technology is so antiquated it has to be seen to be believed. The microphones have that dead sound the local news from an unaffiliated station had in the '80's. There's only one camera angle. And this creepy girl in traditional Korean costume (whose job is to grin like a lunatic and deliver fulsome praise about Kim Jong-il) often appears against a blue screen. And I mean just a blue screen, as if they'd forgotten to put in the background footage. In a humorous-but-not-funny way, it reminds you what riches we have: the lamest music video by the most faceless new pop-product non-talent in our world gets production values that are many times better than the broadcasts North Korea uses to remind citizens that they live in the perfect society.

I was going to say that this is all some comfort because, you know, if the DPRK can't get it together to make a decent news broadcast, they probably can't contrive something as tricky as nuclear warheads that detonate. But that's ridiculous, because if there's one thing all these types care about and will put every last resource into doing successfully, it's wrecking things. The reasoning runs, If your way doesn't produce a prosperous society that nurtures its citizens, don't bother changing; just blow the opposition and their artifacts up (and don't forget to torture the children while you're at it) until there's nothing left to stand as a rebuke to it. There's no fate bad enough for such people, but the Russian authorities had the right idea in making them dead, even if it's determined that they acted precipitously.

I haven't had much to add to everyone else's comments about the sort of people who would keep hundreds of children captive for days, with no water, in midsummer, and then bring the roof down on their heads. It does dominate the thoughts, though, especially in combination with other news this week.

South Korea has been doing lab tests with uranium enrichment. The results were apparently a small amount that was "close to" weapons grade. Now, if there's going to be a headline that reads "----- May Be Close to Developing Nukes," I'd much prefer that the ----- be South Korea over some of the alternatives. (Additionally, the experiment was done four years ago, and the IAEA inspectors found no evidence it had been expanded upon since then.) And despite the clear potential for diplomatic problems that would result from the ROK's developing nuclear weapons, with the DPRK less than a two-hour drive from Seoul, who could possibly blame it for wanting to do so?

I wonder, does North Korea get much play in the US media? Here, it's in the news all the time. Some of the reasons for that are obvious: It's nearby, so the potential for patrol boat skirmishes and things is high, and there's some Japan-North Korea trade. But what you most memorably see (I'm talking over the last five years or so) on television are human interest stories about refugees. For a while there, it seemed as if there were a new Japanese wife of a North Korean escaping back here through China every Thursday. Often, she would tell the reporter, her voice and face distorted to protect her identity, about eating potatoes when there was no rice--a shocking deprivation to East Asians. And that was before the appalling Japanese abductee story broke and began dominating news coverage. Recently, the focus has also been more on diplomatic talks, particularly now that the six-way nattering over the DPRK's nuclear program is doing the on-again-off-again thing.

And that leads to the other exposure you get to North Korea here: excerpts from its news broadcasts, usually when some higher-up has made an anti-Japanese remark or some trade issue or summit has been reported on. The North Korean TV technology is so antiquated it has to be seen to be believed. The microphones have that dead sound the local news from an unaffiliated station had in the '80's. There's only one camera angle. And this creepy girl in traditional Korean costume (whose job is to grin like a lunatic and deliver fulsome praise about Kim Jong-il) often appears against a blue screen. And I mean just a blue screen, as if they'd forgotten to put in the background footage. In a humorous-but-not-funny way, it reminds you what riches we have: the lamest music video by the most faceless new pop-product non-talent in our world gets production values that are many times better than the broadcasts North Korea uses to remind citizens that they live in the perfect society.

I was going to say that this is all some comfort because, you know, if the DPRK can't get it together to make a decent news broadcast, they probably can't contrive something as tricky as nuclear warheads that detonate. But that's ridiculous, because if there's one thing all these types care about and will put every last resource into doing successfully, it's wrecking things. The reasoning runs, If your way doesn't produce a prosperous society that nurtures its citizens, don't bother changing; just blow the opposition and their artifacts up (and don't forget to torture the children while you're at it) until there's nothing left to stand as a rebuke to it. There's no fate bad enough for such people, but the Russian authorities had the right idea in making them dead, even if it's determined that they acted precipitously.