The White Peril 白禍

Japan's spy satellite development program combines technological research, communications infrastructure, and procurement of components from international sources. It is, therefore, the perfect project to fall prey to just about every weakness in Japanese organizational behavior.

You have a mishmash of government ministries, private corporations, and neither-here-nor-there public corporations in charge, which maximizes the number of people who can put claims on funds without being questioned too closely:

About 5 billion yen that went into the development and manufacture of Japan's first spy satellites was siphoned off by middlemen who added little value, sources said.

...

The three independent institutions involved in the spy satellite procurement are the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) and the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT).

The chartered corporation is the Japan Resources Observation System Organization (JAROS).

...

The former Science and Technology Agency was in charge of the satellite and rocket. The former Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) was given authority over the satellite radar, and the former Posts and Telecommunications Ministry was in charge of data transmissions.

Get it straight--there will be a quiz later.

You have an initiative that sprang from ad hoc worries and that no one bothered to fit into an overall plan or mission:

The Cabinet of then Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi approved acquisition of a spy satellite in November 1998.

The main catalyst for that move was North Korea's launch in August 1998 of a Taepodong missile over the Japanese archipelago.

You have the sub-contracting of work in chains that recede into the infinite distance, sometimes crossing in odd places:

NEDO, for example, commissioned JAROS to do most of its work, such as radar design.

And you have the involvement of the Mitsubishi conglomerate, which just cannot stop getting itself in trouble lately (and frequently in ways that result in fires and explosions at inopportune moments--just what you want in a satellite):

The spy satellites were manufactured by Mitsubishi Electric Corp.

Created ostensibly to provide guidance, the process actually led to some money being used to pay the difference in salaries for Mitsubishi Electric employees loaned out to the intermediaries, sources said.

Further, sources said that those institutions did little of the actual oversight work.

That Japanese link above, BTW, is to a story about soil pollution in Osaka by Mitsubishi Estate and Mitsubishi Materials for housing development; several executives are being investigated.

Notice that there's no mention of the Japan Defense Agency or the SDF anywhere in the article. Presumably, they're the ones that are actually going to be using the satellites? Did they have a say in things? If not, why not? Then again, given the size of the crowd, maybe it's just that no one noticed their absence.

The PRC is once again set to send warships on a diplomatic visit to Japan. That "once again" describes "set" and not "send," since the last view plans for maritime military visits were scotched because of the pilgrimages of high Japanese politicians to the Yasukuni Shrine. The pilgrimages are also the reason that visits between heads of state have been suspended over the last few months, so this new development could mean either that the PRC is softening its stance (possibly because Koizumi did not go to the Yasukuni Shrine over New Year's) or that it recognizes that cold-shouldering Japan is bad policy.

The meeting at which this was decided, by the way, took place between Takemasa Moriya, the Administrative Vice-Minister at the Japanese Defence Agency, and the Vice-General Chief of Staff of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. He has a name, too: "bear + light + what I'm guessing is some kind of tree." I can't seem to find a Japanese source that has the pronunciation given (Yu Kou-kai?), or a Chinese source that Romanizes it.

By the way, I know what 次官 means just fine, but I wasn't sure how it was usually rendered in English. The JDA is an agency, not a ministry, but of course the Prime Minister is considered ultimately in charge. For those who are interested, this is the JDA organizational chart in Japanese, and here it is in English. Moriya is about the fifth level down.
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A Diet panel (lower house) on the constitution has recommended that the SDF be permitted to participate in collective self-defense (with Japan's allies). How that can be permitted given the constitution remains the subject of debate:

With regard to the exercise of the right to collective self-defense, however, the panel's opinions were mixed, with some saying the legal basis for such use should be provided in the Constitution, while others argued such use could be permitted by changing the interpretation of the current Constitution.

In any case, the LDP's coalition partner, the Shin-Komeito, is blocking the introduction of a bill that would change legislation governing the SDF. The bill, if passed, would have made deployments abroad regular duties (as opposed to just extraordinary measures in exigencies) for the SDF.

What is going ahead is the plan to make SDF equipment production and management better:

The Defense Agency has decided to establish multifunctional teams to ensure uniform control of some Self-Defense Forces equipment, such as next-generation, short-range surface-to-air missiles, from the research and development stage right through to disposal, agency officials said.

Following private sector examples, the agency aims to streamline operations by organizing multifunctional teams for each type of equipment, bringing together needed personnel for each team from different divisions in the agency and the SDF as well as from the private sector.

That part about lack of horizontal communication is typical of Japanese organizations. People often forget that the inefficient 70% of the economy that serves the domestic market is carried by the 30% that has to compete on international terms. If the SDF actually succeeds in restructuring to put the highest priority on getting results (which is not a given), it can only be a good thing.

What the SDF is and is not allowed to do is of increasing importance not just because of the WOT but also because of Japan's petition to become a permanent member of the UNSC. Kofi Annan has said that if the reforms that are put through involve expanding the number of permanent seats, two of the six new memberships will be reserved for Asia, of which "one would naturally go to Japan." How natural it would be to have a permanent UNSC member that may not be permitted, under normal circumstances, to participate in collective defense is still a matter for discussion.


Added on 25 March: The Yomiuri has a story this morning that itemizes the limitations on the SDF better than it did yesterday, for those who haven't read them. When it calls these the recommendations of "the government," though, I don't know that that conveys what's actually going on. This is an internal panel of LDP lower house Diet members. As the Asahi reported yesterday, the Shin-Komeito doesn't seem to want to go quite this far right now, and that means that these recommendations may be held in abeyance for some time.

Japan has absorbed the term 不安定の弧, or arc of instability, to refer to the line that runs from North Korea down through to North Africa by way of Southeast Asia. The SDF plans to use imaging satellites to cover it:

The system is expected to draw controversy over increased fears of unified military deployment with the USAF, since sharing capability at the highest command levels will jump significantly.

That's a gentle way of saying that Japan's military use of satellites is still pretty primitive. There are dedicated military transmission channels, but they're sonic, low-speed, and low-capacity. The new satellite system will be of the same commercial type used by television; SDF personnel deployed abroad will be able to transmit images back in real time.

The "fear" mentioned above, of course, is not just that Japan is casting its lot with favorite-target America, but also that the two defense agencies will get so chummy that they go overboard on the information-sharing. The LDP's major partner in its ruling coalition, the New Komeito, is generally dovish and has called for caution. Article 9 of the constitution still hasn't been revised, after all, so the degree to which Japan can legally contribute to "collective self-defense" with its allies remains debatable.

Atsushi arrives for the weekend any minute, so one last bit of news from the Nikkei: Japan, Germany, India, and Brazil have come to an agreement on their joint proposal that permanent membership on the United Nations Security Council be expanded to include them. Some of you may take comfort in the knowledge that airy diplomatic clichés sound just as trite in Japanese as in English, even if they contain truth:

日本は「現在の安保理は国際社会の多様化に対応していない」として常任理事国の拡大を主張。

Japan argued for the expansion of permanent UNSC membership this way: "The current UNSC does not address the diversification of our global society."

Japan and Germany have more specific issues than that, of course. Japan itself is involved in a more general debate over the recognition that the Self-Defense Force is no longer as strictly reactive as it used to be, and the UNSC petition is connected. A permanent member of the Security Council that can't get involved in international disputes would be in a strange position.

Added after lunch: Man, I'd forget my head if it weren't attached. In my haste to edit this down for clarity--yes, I do that sometimes; just imagine what my posts look like when I draft them!--I cut out the interesting part of today's story. The interesting part of today's story is that the four petitioning countries agreed that the reforms should be decided by vote (including all UN member countries, not just those on the UNSC, and certainly not just the permanent members of the UNSC); Germany and India had been balking.

As Japan continues to strengthen its ties with the US, it's naturally moving away from the PRC:

Now that China is no longer considered a developing nation, Tokyo has told Beijing it plans to begin cutting the size of its low-interest yen loans from this fiscal year, aiming to phase them out entirely by fiscal 2008, sources said.

Beijing likely will protest, the sources said.

Some members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party are calling for an immediate end to all official development assistance (ODA) to China.

This would be the rightist wing of the party, which believes (not without justification) that, in financing China, Japan is aiding a trade and military rival.

However, loans will continue to be extended for projects that have already started, and grants and technical aid will be given for training and environmental protection programs.

The decision to turn off the loan tap to China reflects the government's belief that China's economy has taken off and the country has taken its place in the international community, the sources said.

In addition, development in China's coastal cities is now about equal to that of industrialized nations, meaning that China no longer can be regarded as a developing nation, the sources said.

Sources close to both governments said Beijing will press Japan to continue the loans beyond 2008 because provincial authorities across China are pressed for funds to develop their economies. Also, Beijing is unhappy about being told unilaterally by Japan that the ODA well will soon run dry.

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Japanese officials would like to reach agreement on the loan reduction plan this month so that the government can begin implementing cuts soon, the sources said.

But LDP hard-liners want ODA to China stopped right away, sources said. Thus, there likely will be strong opposition to the plan for gradual reductions.

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Criticism in Japan of ODA to China surged following anti-Japanese outbursts at the Asian Cup soccer matches last summer in China. Further straining relations was the November intrusion by a Chinese submarine into Japanese territorial waters.

Tokyo is also finding that ODA no longer carries much diplomatic leverage in talks with Beijing.

Meaty Fly, by the way, has posted twice in the last several days. Japan-China relations are right up his alley--his last post in September was, after all, headlined "Japan to designate China as military threat"--so it's possible that he'll get back to more regular writing. On his blog, I mean.

The Japanese government has put out its guidelines for how to proceed in the event of a military or large-scale terrorist attack. Comfortingly (I'm using that word straight for once), it lays out in detail what's to be done to secure Japan's nuclear power plants and fuel processing centers. Authority rests with the Ministry of Economics, Trade, and Industry and, in connection with research facilities it operates, the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science. Japan, of course, has few natural resources, including hydroelectric potential and fossil fuels. We use a lot of nuclear power.

The prefectures and special metropolitan areas are expected to have their own plans in place by the middle of this year. Municipalities are to have theirs finalized by this coming year.

Idle thought: several months ago, there was talk that Japan was going to be modeling its new security measures on Israel's. I wonder whether it ultimately did; today's Nikkei article doesn't really mention anything about the background of the new policies.