The White Peril 白禍

The lead editorial in the Nikkei this morning is headlined "How should Japan contribute to 'demand within Asia'?"

In getting the global economic crisis under control, Asia, which is called the growth center of the 21st Century, looms large. In a 21 May lecture, Prime Minister Taro Aso called for the expansion of "demand within Asia"; how can Japan fulfill a leading role in doing so? The challenges posed and responsibilities thrust upon it are weighty.

The prime minister took as his topic "Toward an Asia that surmounts the economic crisis and soars again," and he stressed that there is a need to shift the Asian economy from the export-driven structure it's had up to now into a structure driven by internal demand. Where that is concerned, the diverse nations and territories of Asia are not likely to dissent.

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A supplementary-budget proposal for FY 2009 that undertakes additional economic measures on a scale that exceeds the previous maximum of JPY 15 trillion is not under deliberation in the House of Councillors. It's necessary to start taking financial action, but annual expenditures that it's not unrealistic to expect to be tied to money politics will not contribute to an increase in Japan's ability to grow. There's a need to move forward in parallel with structural reforms, such as deregulation, as well.

On the other hand, we will have to accept more from Asian nations and territories--not just imports but also human resources. Pain will accompany the opening of agricultural markets and things, but there's no way to get around it.

In connection with the stability and expansion of Asian financial markets, the prime minister stated, "we want to make the 'yen' something that different countries can use for financing in times of crisis." The idea is to provide emergency loans of Japanese yen to countries that have insufficient foreign currency, but it can also be considered an intention to "internationalize the yen."

In Asia, China has pushed for an economy built on the yuan with trade negotiations with neighboring nations and territories such as ASEAN. These are activities with a view toward a "yuan currency sphere."

China is the 3rd-largest economy in GDP after the United States and Japan. There's a high probability that it will pull ahead of Japan in one or two years. Still, the hurdles to internationalization for the yuan are higher than for the yen.

The prime minister has issued invitations to heads of state of five nations in the Mekong River Basin, such as Thailand and Vietnam, and also announced that he will hold the first "Japan-Mekong Summit" within the year. The nations of the Mekong Basin, which border China, are of major geographic importance.

It is important for Japan to strengthen its tie-ups with and trust from Asian nations and territories and to show some ability to develop a concept for the expansion of demand within Asia. That will also have an effect on the renaissance of the Japanese economy.

I quote the editorial at some length not because it says anything new but because it doesn't. Take away the figures specific to the budget and to China, and this sounds like just about every editorial on the Japanese economy in the last fifteen years: Asia is becoming more important, we need to liberalize our markets and make nice with the neighbors, and that means not being so closed off. The current crisis does change things, and it will be interesting, if that's the word, to follow possible damage to the dollar as the world currency.

But I'm not so sure the yen is a good candidate for a replacement, even in Asia. I've always found it interesting that we in the West are so bent on explaining Japan; in my experience, people from other places in Asia are far more willing to conclude that Japan is just plain weird and leave it at that. Perhaps part of the reason is that they already understand Buddhism and Confucianism and therefore don't get hung up on trying out novel ways of applying them to the Japanese--I don't know. In any case, countries in Asia know they need Japan and have a lot to gain from tapping into its industrial capacity, but they seem to recognize the Japanese political and economic systems as real headaches for outsiders beyond a certain point. And the Nikkei can wag its finger about the necessary but difficult process of making Japan more open to foreigners, but to this point, somehow talk of "internationalization" has rarely resulted in meaningful action. If nothing else, it should be interesting to see how Beijing reacts to Aso's Mekong Basin thing.

I'm apparently getting slack, because I didn't look out for this aspect of the Aso-Obama meeting, which had been toyed with a bit beforehand:

It turns out that North Korea and the global financial crisis were not the only topics on Prime Minister Taro Aso's mind during summit talks Tuesday in Washington with President Barack Obama.

He also tried to sell the U.S. leader on Shinkansen technology; Obama's reaction to the pitch was also keenly awaited back in Japan.

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Aso's pitch to Obama likely came after lobbying by Japanese railway companies eager to join in a plan being pushed by California for the United States' first high-speed rail system. It is estimated to cost 3 trillion yen to construct the system, with plans calling for partial operations starting in 2020.

Yoshiyuki Kasai, chairman of Central Japan Railway Co. (JR Tokai), attended an international conference on the environment in Los Angeles in January.

He played up the advantages of the Shinkansen, saying "among high-speed trains, Japan's bullet trains emit a small volume of carbon dioxide and the trains also cause comparatively little noise and vibration."

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism is setting up a group to promote bullet train exports that will include members from trading companies and JR Tokai and East Japan Railway Co. (JR East).

A specialist from the ministry's Railway Bureau will be permanently based in the United States.

California's provisional high-speed rail plan is, I have no doubt, as porky as any other such proposal, but at least it's a region in which HSR actually makes sense. Like the Northeast Corridor, the SAN-SAN belt is long and narrow but short enough for it to be reasonable to expect plenty of people to make a trade-off between air speed and rail thrift. (Not sure what happens when you factor in the subsidies.) So, of course, is Japan--especially if you're not going all the way from Sapporo to Fukuoka, which most people aren't.

The bullet train in Japan really is a boon, and so is its newer cousin in Taiwan, which opened two years ago after a string of bidding and construction hiccups. It would be a bad idea for the US to go overboard on the boffo ground transportation projects, though...especially if federal money means Amtrak could be involved.

The lead editorial in the Nikkei munches over whether and why Prime Minister Aso was dissed on his state visit to Washington:

Prime Minister Taro Aso became the first foreign head of state to visit the White House during the Obama administration. It was the worst possible timing from the vantage point of public opinion vis-a-vis America, overlapping with President Obama's first address to congress and [coming when] interest within the US was low.

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After the meeting, the plan was for both heads of state to announce the content of their conversation to the press corps, but even that didn't happen. The prime minister appeared before the press corps; however, the president didn't show his face, and instead the White House presented a simple statement of twenty-one lines.

The opening of the statement was "Today, President Obama conducted a detailed conference with the prime minister of Japan revolving around cooperation between the two nations in the areas of the global economic crisis and other matters." Really? He thought of himself as hosting "the prime minister of Japan" rather than Prime Minister Aso?

President Obama, during the photo session before the meeting, stated, "US-Japan friendship is of extreme importance, which is the reason that I asked the prime minister to be the first top-ranking foreign official to visit the Oval Office."

However, if one looks at the visit overall, it wasn't really consistent with the gravity of protocol toward the first foreign head of state to make a visit.

The administrations are different, so exact comparisons cannot be made, but during the Bush administration, both Prime Ministers Jun'ichiro Koizumi and Shinzo Abe went to Camp David for their first visits. Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda stayed at Blair House (the state guesthouse). Prime Minister Aso stayed at a hotel in Washington.

In matters of meetings betweent heads of state, the content is crucial, and it isn't appropriate to exaggerate peripheral problems. However, this time around, both the US and Japan underscored the protocol significance of being the first visitor. In the world of diplomacy, if we take protocol to be important also, it comparisons with precedent must be made.

Foreign relations influence domestic politics. Prime Minister Aso, who's in uncomfortable territory where domestic politics is concerned, may have sought an early visit to the US in hopes that the effect would be to buoy him decisively. That the US accepted has been said to be the result of being mindful of China.

On the other hand, domestic politics also influence foreign relations. They give Aso a respectful welcome as the prime minister of Japan, but that doesn't mean they wish to build an individual relationship [as] fellow politicians--and if you look hard at the reality of Japanese domestic politics, for the moment it wouldn't seem unreasonable if that were President Obama's thinking.

The lead editorial in the Nikkei today opposes protectionism, both in general and in specific (that is, U.S. and Japan) cases:

If a certain country sets policies that benefit only its domestic enterprises, there is the possibility that its trading partners will incline toward similar protectionist measures as a countermove. If this vicious cycle is left uncontrolled, it is possible that the WTO's non-discrimination principle, which places importance on equal competition between domestic and foreign entities, will exist in name only.

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The United States is not the only country suffering. Global demand has contracted, and both developed and developing countries both are contending with the same sorts of under-performing organizations and manufacturers domestically. It will be no strange thing if other countries are hesitating over criticizing America because they think tomorrow it could be their hide.

Latent in all this is the danger that protectionist barriers will go up. If we shut our eyes tight against one another's actions, cases that are essentially outside the applicability of the WTO conventions will keep piling up as faits accomplis. Even [staying carefully] outside the line demarcating governmental provisions that could conflict with the WTO conventions, there's plenty of room to exercise grey-area judgments related to subsidies, technology barriers, quarantining, and import procedures.

Japan, of course, has its own not-so-nice history with protectionism, so the Nikkei could have warned more against economic drag rather than just focusing on retaliatory measures by trading partners.

Kasumigaseki, perhaps even more than Washington, is full of the sort of people who have been thrillingly sure, since the moment they won the Scissors and Paste Monitor of the Year award in kindergarten, that they were destined to boss their fellow citizens around for their own good.

天下り (amakudari: lit., "descent from heaven," used the way we say, "revolving door") is one of the first words you learn when studying Japanese politics. The system is one of the reasons very smart, capable people are willing to join the civil service for less money than they would make in the private sector: their reward later in their careers is to take over "advisory" positions in semi-governmental organizations related to the ministries or bureaux they once worked for, using their connections and insider knowledge to everyone's benefit.

Except that of the taxpayers, naturally. The amakudari system keeps regulatory power within a closed circle of insiders who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, however inimical to innovation that may make them. And, of course, it encourages back-scratching and sweetheart deals on the public-interest projects under the control of the ministries and semi-public corporations involved.

The Asahi has a news article that lays out the essentials:

Prime Minister Taro Aso on Tuesday moved up the planned abolishment of mediations by ministries in finding cushy post-retirement jobs for bureaucrats. But he left intact a new personnel center that opposition parties say will continue the harshly criticized practice of amakudari in a different form.

Aso said he plans to issue an edict to ban, by the end of this year, ministries from setting up opportunities for amakudari, in which retired bureaucrats land jobs in industries once under their jurisdiction, and watari, the practice of retired officials hopping from one job to another in those industries.

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Under revisions made in 2007 to the national civil service law, amakudari mediations by ministries will be abolished by December 2011.

The lead editorial in the Nikkei today urges Tokyo to expedite the process of barring ministries from serving as HR brokers for these sorts of deals, declaring that the Aso administration and the Diet have a responsibility to push through reform over the objections of the federal bureaucrats. Prime Minister Aso has stated that he doesn't plan to approve any deal-brokering for watari from here on, and a proposed new edict would ban it.

The new Public-Private Human Resource Exhcange Center (or however it's officially Anglicized) will not succeed in separating the moneychangers from the temple, to be sure, but the intention is to put revolving-door deals under some sort of centralized scrutiny, which may help somewhat. Of course, it may succeed in nothing but adding an extra layer of rubber-stampers to the amakudari process; that will depend partially on the personnel actually selected to run these things, which is still being discussed.

Today's lead editorial in the Nikkei is headlined "Accounting improprieties by regional governments cause trouble with separation of powers."

After the Board of Audit conducted a nationwide investigation of 12 prefectures, it came to light that federal subsidies exceeding 500 million yen had been used improperly. Cases in which slush funds were eked out through fabricated orders to suppliers were also discovered. Each entity should, at the same time as it returns the misappopriated portion of funds to the federal government, do its own thorough investigation that includes how the slush funds were used.

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The accounting improprieties indicated by the Board of Audit are largely of two types. One was the MO of "deposit," in which orders for purchasees of office supplies and things were fraudulently generated, and the capital accumulated in the account of the relevant supplier. Because subsidy money left over must be returned to Tokyo, the method was to move it into suppliers' accounts at the end of the fiscal year, and from the next year on, to make payments from that account when goods were actually purchased.

Another was the allocation of subsidies. There were cases in which temporary employees hired for the work of allocating subsidy money were rotated to other jobs, and funds for their business travel were obtained from subsidies that were unrelated to it.

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Increasing the transparency of administration and use of public funds is one of the minimum conditions for moving forward with regional separation of powers. Even those entities that were not subjects of the current investigation should do their own investigations and clear out all the corruption ["drain out all the pus," in the evocative Japanese phrasing--SRK].

That accounting improprieties were left unattended in each prefecture until the Board of Audit pointed them out is also a problem. Even if we allow that the tricks used were clever, what on earth were the prefectural assemblies and the auditing committees, which were supposed to verify budgeting and book-closing, doing? We call on everyone from the employees of the regional entities to the audit committees to do some hard soul-searching.

Aichi Prefecture apparently took (the biggest slice of) the cake, with diverted subsidies and dodgy expenditures totaling 130 million yen. Bear in mind that only a quarter of Japan's prefectures were studied, too.

The "separation of powers" part is, of course, the long-standing argument over what and how much Tokyo should be giving back to prefectural (and municipal) governments. I can see the point that giving more power to regional governments that are busy creating slush funds is a bad idea. On the other hand, the sense of assurance that Tokyo is far, far away and not looking too hard makes it easier to get crafty. And pouring so much tax and revenue from around Japan into one federal pool makes the resulting funds seem to come from big, abstract Tokyo rather than living, breathing taxpayers in local officials' own communities. It's inexcusable that they regard the subsidy system as an open tap, but it's not really hard to see how they get that way.

Japan is taking another step to change its xenophobic image:

Japan plans to accept more refugees in response to growing criticism that the nation gives money to help refugees but shuts its doors when they seek shelter, sources said.

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Japan joined the U.N. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees in 1981.

However, the number of people granted official refugee status here pales in comparison with other industrialized nations.

For example, Japan gave official refugee status to 41 people in 2007. In the same year, 14 nations, including the United States and European countries, accepted about 75,000 refugees from Myanmar, Iraq and other areas.

Lest any Japanese readers worry that the place will be flooded with foreigners, note that the plan is rather modest: "Japan will become the first Asian nation to introduce the program, and will accept about 30 refugees, possibly people from Myanmar (Burma) who are now in Thailand, in fiscal 2010 at the earliest, the sources said."

While the federal government cannot figure out how to appoint a new Governor General of the Bank of Japan, it's had no trouble filling another important position:

In a bid to help boost Japan's international prestige and disseminate its culture, cartoon character Doraemon was inaugurated Wednesday as the official cultural ambassador for Japanese anime.

Cartoon character Doraemon is a catlike robot from the 22nd century and is considered a Japanese cultural icon.

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"Please work hard to let people around the world learn more about Japan and encourage people to foster friendships with each other," Komura said.

Doraemon replied by saying: "It's an honor to do such an important job. I'll work as hard as I can."

Perhaps his first assignment will be to go back in time to the day this plan was hatched, draw a cluebar out of his 4th-dimensional pocket, and whack some bureaucrats with it. Hard.

I'm not sure the English Mainichi editorial on the ongoing failure to get a new Governor General of the Bank of Japan approved is the best, but I like the graphic. The Xes need only boxes around them to look like the strikes on Family Feud back in the '70s.

Efforts to fill the Bank of Japan governor's position have gone back to square one, and the post remains vacant. The Bank of Japan stands at the core of Japan's economic management, and its movements are watched closely overseas. Now, it has nobody at the helm. And politicians are to blame for creating such a situation.

The House of Councillors failed to approve the appointment of Koji Tanami, head of the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, following the rejection of earlier nominee, former BOJ Deputy Gov. Toshiro Muto. Both men formerly served as Administrative Vice-Minister of the Finance Ministry.

The government has appointed as deputy governors former BOJ executives Kiyohiko Nishimura and Masaaki Shirakawa, who is also a Kyoto University professor, with the latter to serve as the interim bank chief until a permanent posting is made.

There's a meeting of G7 central bank governors in April. The Mainichi hopes, plaintively, that the BOJ has an actual chief by then.

No surprise here: the DPJ is making good on its threat to oppose the Muto nomination:

The leadership of the Democratic Party of Japan met on 11 March and resolved not to agree to the the government's nomination of Bank of Japan Deputy Governor Toshiro Muto as its new governor. Regarding nominees for new deputy governors, it will oppose University of Tokyo Professor Takatoshi Ito but not University of Kyoto Professor Masaaki Shirakawa.

Now that the ruling coalition doesn't control the upper house, it can't get its nominees through the Diet without the agreement of the DPJ. The DPJ argument against Muto--that he's a career bureaucrat who will compromise the central bank's independence--isn't one to be taken lightly. Muto was once Vice-Minister of Finance...meaning that he had risen through the ranks of appointed officials to become the official with the most real power in the ministry (more than the Minister of Finance himself, who's appointed by the current administration from on high and lacks the deep-rooted connections with ministry insiders). Japan has a lot of public debt, so the fear is that Muto will be too likely to keep interest rates down to gladden the hearts of federal bureaucrats by helping finance the (large) public debt. And word is that Muto is less committed, at least in the short term, to raising rates than Toshihiko Fukui, whom he'd be succeeding.

At the same time, I have yet to hear whether the DPJ has any bright ideas about who should get the job, and more bickering right now just gives foreign investors more reason--as if more were needed--to think Tokyo is seriously flaky and unreliable.

Apropos of nothing: I don't know much about the deputy governor nominees, but Wikipedia says that Ito is a disciple of Kenneth Arrow, who presumably directed his dissertation at Harvard.

Back in Tokyo for a half-week stay to attend to a few things before going back for my last few weeks in Taipei. This time, it's the clear weather that's following me around, which is nice. Not even I, with my English genes and sense of dramatic melancholy, like rain and overcast skies that don't stop for weeks at a time.

Japan appears not to have undergone any major changes, though I have to say I loved this item from the other way (which I was too busy to post about at the time):

Cutting bureaucratic fat may be a lot tougher than anticipated.

A government advisory panel's proposal to reduce branch offices of central ministries and agencies is expected to meet with fierce opposition.

While terms such as branch office and regional bureau may conjure up images of "outposts" of central government ministries, those venues are considered by entrenched bureaucrats as comprising the "core" of their ministries.

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Past developments do not bode for fast progress. Last year, the decentralization committee asked for suggestions on possible mergers of branch offices.

Not a single central ministry came up with a positive proposal.

"Tougher than anticipated"? Asking central ministries whether they have any bright ideas about how to shrink their own territory and limit their own authority? The degree of ingenuousness on display here is touching. Every battle over restructuring federal ministries--from the game of musical chairs finalized in 2001 to the Koizumi administration's "trinity reforms"--has amply demonstrated that bureaucrats do not willingly look for ways to give themselves less power. And they know how to work the system to get their way, largely because they pretty much are the system.

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It's confirmed that Toshiro Muto is the candidate whose name has been submitted to committee as the next head of the Bank of Japan. (Toshihiko Fukui's chances for a second term were scotched by his involvement in the Murakami Fund/Livedoor maelstrom.)

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I'm starting to get the new Janet album, which makes me happy. It's been a while since a celeb put out an album that actually grew on me instead of provoking an immediate and unshifting love it/hate it/enh reaction. The single seems to have gone nowhere except in dance clubs, of course.

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Happy belated birthday to Rondi, who was born on 5 March.

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Happy on-time birthday to Lynn Swann, Taylor Dayne, and Tammy Faye (wherever she is), who were born on 7 March like me. This is apparently the day Apple was granted the patent for the iPod two years ago, too, which is very cool.

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Eric has a good post about maneuvering in the Pennsylvania primaries. I agree that those who think goosing Clinton's campaign in order to help McCain along later are playing with fire:

Unless that is, I do something about it, and fast. The way I see it, Hillary is going to win this state, and the forces of Rush Limbaugh are going to do their damnedest to increase her margin of victory. This, it is believed, will help John McCain. Not only do I disagree with this approach, but I distrust it. Almost without exception, Limbaugh and the other major Hillary promoters hate John McCain and make no secret of it. So I am deeply suspicious of their claim that they are "helping" John McCain by helping Hillary at the polls.

I think this might very well have the opposite effect. Yesterday's election results demonstrated the fragility of Obama's house of cards, because the Obamamania is already starting to wear off. I predicted that in the long term, he would be the weaker of the two candidates for this very reason, and that he, not Hillary, would be the easier of the two for McCain to beat.

Divisiveness in the Democratic Party seems to be building just fine without trying to foment it...with the side effect of reinforcing HRC's renewed viability. I don't think I'm misunderstanding the argument, but I really don't think it's a good idea.

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Remember when Janet used to sing songs like "He Doesn't Know I'm Alive"? As often happens, the release of the new album has reminded me how much I love her old stuff, so I've been on a real Janet kick, and I was just thinking, you know, if she did a song with a similar storyline today, she'd be all like "He doesn't even know that I'm alive...so I hired a private detective to find out his address, put on my studded lilac pleather catsuit, got into my SUV, plowed it through the facade of his McMansion, stepped grandly out into his now open-air foyer, and introduced myself as Miss Janet Robo-Damita." I mean, rhyming and stuff, of course.

I guess that's not as interesting as it seemed a few minutes ago. Uh, have a good weekend, everyone.

The Nikkei has this wry little look at what the last day of work in 2007 was like in Kasumigaseki:

2007: a year in which issues from food frauds to the leakage of public pension records and corruption scandals revolving around the defense administration attracted attention. On 28 December, the last business day of the year, federal ministries and agencies in Kasumigaseki, Tokyo, and elsewhere welcomed the end of a year spent frantically dealing with all kinds of problems and moving offices. While an air of relief at long last has spread over the place, workers with harried expressions could be overheard muttering, "Let's hope next year, at least, is quiet."

There's the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries, shaken by the need to respond to revelation after revelation of fraudulent food packaging and with its minister's suicide and the subsequent dramatic changing of the guard.

Of course, there are plenty more scandals to incorporate into our splashy year-in-review segments: the court battle over damages for hepatitis C infectees (initiated by the old ones, not the most recent ones...or the old ones we're just recently finding out about, of course--keep them straight!) possibly most prominent among them. But there's also the latest textbook scandal (over how to present the role of the Japanese armed forces in mass suicides among Okinawan civilians during the Battle of Okinawa). And, uh, Prime Minister Abe, you know, resigned.

And the Ministry of Defense still isn't sure how it's going to defend us against extraterrestrials.

Any surprise everyone's looking forward to next year? Can't hardly wait.

That this announcement is not getting much attention is very suggestive:

At a 19 December meeting, Minister of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport Tetsuzo Fuyushiba and Minister of Interior Affairs Hiroya Masuda agreed to establish a new Tourism Agency in October 2008. The agency will be external to the MLIT. It will be geared toward attaining the goal of bringing the number of foreign travelers who visit Japan up to 10 million by 2010. This is the first new federal organization established at "agency" level since the Financial Services Agency in July 2000. Because the Marine Accident Inquiry Agency will be abolished, among other mergers and cuts in organizations, the total number of agencies in the government will not change.

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The MLIT [justified] its budgetary application this way: "The establishment [of this new agency] will be indispensable in light of our goal of building Japan up as a tourist destination."

It's encouraging that the government is recognizing that Japan has been left (far) behind as the tourism sector has developed. A book could be written on how that happened--Alex Kerr has a whole chapter on it in Dogs and Demons. Japan has all the raw materials to be an industry powerhouse: an established global brand identity in both esoteric high culture and funky pop culture, a first-world standard of living, highly developed transportation infrastructure. It's expensive, but so are plenty of other favorite destinations for travelers. And for Americans and Europeans, it's certainly no harder to get to than Bali or Thailand.

And yet, there's plenty about the place that's forbidding and, I suspect, signals to people that it's not the place to come to relax. Japanese people are very helpful to tourists who stop and ask for directions on the street and such, but almost no one really speaks English, let alone French, German, Spanish, or Mandarin. That's true even in the big hotels and resorts. Friends of mine who work in hotel management can go on for hours about how difficult it is to get staff who can communicate effectively with guests and respond flexibly to their needs.

Speaking of being flexible, Japan famously isn't. That helps make the country safe and clean, but it can also make adventure difficult, even in interesting city neighborhoods. Establishments that don't want foreign customers tend to turn them curtly away at the door or, sometimes, allow them to enter and then just fail to serve them until they leave. (It wouldn't make the motivation any less obnoxious, but least a polite "I'm sorry, but we're just not set up to accommodate non-Japanese guests" would soften things a bit.) Resort design is intruded on by plasticky fixtures, and countryside views are intruded on by pylons and blocky buildings.

Enjoying Japan takes effort, and it leaves people a little worn out by the end of their stay. I have only fragmentary anecdotal evidence for this, but I suspect that when people go home from Japan and chat about it with their friends, what they convey is "Fascinating place! But being there felt so odd" rather than "Fascinating place! You really must go sometime!" People who come once don't have enough incentive to come back, and people who haven't been somehow always find reasons to visit other places first.

Of course, none of this matters intrinsically. Not being able to speak English is not a moral failing. The problem is that the noises the federal government is making indicate that Japan wants to get in on the lucrative tourism game, and I'm not sure that better ad campaigns in foreign countries address the real issues. But the move probably means more jobs for bureaucrats, which is always a good thing!

Japan's Central Council for Education (CCE) is about to release an unsual report: one that backtracks on major proposed policy change that would have provided "breathing room" in education. (That's essentially a euphemism for not keeping students spent with study and other organized activities from dawn through midnight, which is often what happens when private cram school is tacked onto regular public school.)

Rearranging public school curricula and instruction to make cram school redundant sounds like a great idea. Unfortunately, when you look at the actual planks in the platform, you can see how trouble resulted:

However, wave upon wave of criticism was leveled at the policy when the main guidelines were implemented. Due to the decrease in the number of classroom hours, "Students' fundamental study skills suffered" and "The gaps among individual children's motivation to learn widened."

The CCE report will cite the following points as failings it has identified: (1) The government had not been able to convey to instructors what "life force" referred to and why it was necessary. (2) The platform cited "cultivation of the ability to learn and think for oneself" as symbolic of "life force." However, this signaled such respect for children's autonomy that there was an increasing tendency on the part of instructors to hesitate to provide guidance. (3) The platform set up time for comprehensive learning, but how that was defined was not clearly communicated. (4) Classroom time was cut so drastically that there was no longer sufficient time for the acquisition of basic knowledge, and thinking and expressive skills were not cultivated. (5) The new guidelines were not based on the decreased ability of family and community to provide education.

Airy, nice-sounding abstractions that couldn't be implemented effectively because they weren't grounded in concrete requirements--sound familiar? One thing it's important to bear in mind is that that whole "life force" thing, which sounds as insubstantial as "self-esteem" when rendered into English, is by no means a New Age joke in Japan, where suicide among the young is high and researchers are constantly reporting that they meet a lot of exhausted and listless children. "Comprehensive learning" is also more than chic theory in an education system that has been known for feeding students lots of discrete facts but teaching them little in the way of how to synthesize them and weigh new evidence.

It isn't clear from the Yomiuri article how the CCE plans to move forward. It's stated, without elaboration, toward the end of the article that the council plans to retain the "life force" guidelines while specifying more clearly how it's to be guaranteed that classroom hours and moral/ethical education will be sufficient. It remains to be seen whether the revised guidelines will help teachers find the sweet spot between being authoritative and fostering inquisitiveness.

Added on 31 October: The Yomiuri English edition actually had a version of the article cited above. There's a follow-up today on the concrete proposed changes, too.

The Fukuda administration's approval figures remain respectable, according to a Yomiuri poll. The figures seem plausible, as do the reasons offered:

Compared with 85.5 percent approval for former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Cabinet, 71.9 percent for former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa's Cabinet, and 70 percent for the Cabinet of Fukuda's predecessor, Shinzo Abe, the approval rating was the fourth highest since the interview surveys--conducted within the honeymoon period of the inauguration of a new cabinet--began with a survey of support for the Masayoshi Ohira Cabinet in 1978.

The interview survey was conducted at 250 locations across the country on 3,000 eligible voters, with 1,812, or 60.4 percent, of respondents giving valid answers.

By gender, 63 percent of female respondents supported Fukuda while 54 percent of male respondents backed him. Forty-four percent of the respondents, the largest number, cited the "feeling of reassurance" the Cabinet gave them as the reason they supported Fukuda. On how long the Fukuda Cabinet should continue, 32 percent of respondents, the greatest number, said as long as possible, followed by 25 percent who said two to three years and 9 percent who said the Cabinet members should step down as soon as possible.

Koizumi shook things up. Abe screwed things up. Voters aren't unaware that they have to undergo more pain to deal with the most pressing social and economic issues, but their "please, not just yet..." attitude is not surprising. Fukuda's soothing, avuncular style fits right in.

People still break down along party lines over the refueling mission:

Forty-nine percent of pollees said the Maritime Self-Defense Force should continue its refueling operation in the Indian Ocean as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, while 37 percent opposed its doing so.

By political party, 69 percent of supporters of the Liberal Democratic Party backed the mission and 22 percent opposed it.

Of those who support the opposition Democratic Party of Japan, 32 percent were in favor of the operation and 59 percent were against it. Of unaffiliated voters, 39 percent of respondents supported it and 42 percent opposed it.

...

The DPJ is playing up its fight with the government and ruling coalition parties by sticking to its policy of opposing the continuation of the MSDF's refueling operation, but the survey might have an impact on the party's handling of the issue.

Meanwhile, Fukuda scored higher points than DPJ leader Ichiro Ozawa in leadership, political philosophy and goals, clarity and approachability.

A narrow majority of pollees said the opposition should make compromises with the coalition, which makes perfect sense in policy terms, since the DPJ et al. haven't offered a platform that distinguishes them much from the ruling coalition. They're against extending the refueling mission and (like everyone who happens to be out of power) very much morally affronted by all the corruption visible everywhere. But most of the other differences are in the details, many of which shouldn't be hard to trade horses over.

So the composition of Fukuda's cabinet is nearly the same as that of Abe's most recent one. (Two ministers who supported Taro Aso for prime minister were apparently surprised to be retained.) The approval rating for the new cabinet is 53%.

No, make that 59%.

Oops! I mean, 58%.

Whatever. It looks as if a majority-and-change of voters approve of the new Fukuda administration, though that may change once it's had a chance to start doing things. (And to look at it from another angle, 74% of eligible voters think the lower house should be dissolved at some point within the year.)

Most of us foreign bloggers who write about Japanese politics pay a lot of attention to foreign policy, for obvious reasons. But domestic policy is a potential cause for worry, too, in ways that could eventually affect the balance of power in East Asia.

There's been a lot of talk that the recent economic recovery has disproportionally benefited urban areas and [ominous radio soap opera organ music] "big business." Fukuda and Aso both made a point of talking about assistance to rural areas, which have traditionally been a crucial part of the LDP voting base. I can't find the Japanese report I originally saw, but the AP noted one of Fukuda's statements before the election:

"I'll seriously consider the rural problems and will listen to the voices of the residents," Fukuda, 71, said as he walked through a shopping arcade near a local train station. "I see a lot of shops that had been closed down. We must take care of the problem."

Reforms in recent years have allowed the economy's steady expansion after long years of stagnation, but critics say the benefits are limited to big corporations and are not reaching small business and rural towns.

Dissatisfaction over the slow economic recovery among rural voters was also considered a major cause for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's loss in the July elections for the upper house of parliament.

I'm not sure that rural areas can realistically recover without undergoing even more pain in the short term. During the era of economic hypergrowth, Japan did not encourage its workers to expect shocks and be adaptable. Small, depopulating towns have done a terrible job of capitalizing on opportunities for tourism and niche-market manufacturing. (In that sense, they're following the leads of the major cities, with their ridiculous high-tech "new city" boondoggles, but at least the metro agglomerations have wealth-creating enterprises to counterbalance them.) The laws governing urban planning and large-scale retail stores have morphed over the years, and there's more regulatory control in the hands of local governments; but the fact remains that the poorest parts of Japan are places where the potential for cheap distribution is least capitalized on. Not that big corporations are benefiting solely because of greater efficiency and quality control; they know how to leverage their longstanding relationships with the bureaucrats that effectively regulate them to their benefit, too.

Japan is still stuck in the mindset of trying to predict and then micromanage the future. That may provide a comforting sense of stability in the short term, and it enables politicians to unveil grand plans that show they're "getting things done," but it's a recipe for disaster when the world changes in unanticipated ways. Me, what I anticipate is more rhetoric and economy-distorting subsidies.

No surprise here: Yasuo Fukuda will be the new LDP president. He's the same age (71) as his father, Takeo Fukuda, was when he became prime minister. Oddly for such an insider-driven country, he'll be the first child to succeed a parent to the position. (There are other children of former prime ministers active in politics, of course--Makiko Tanaka springs readily to mind.) My good friend and politics junkie Jun'ichiro commented the other day that Fukuda is a good technocrat but may not be a leader. I can see that. I'd have liked it if we could have had Taro Aso's foreign policy approach without his power lust and general jerkitude. Unfortunately, you have to take candidates as they are.

I like confrontation, so Fukuda's make-nice approach is not one I warm to easily, but I think it may actually work in the LDP's favor for the next few months. He's apparently planning to keep most key ministers in the cabinet, so there won't be another upheaval. And looking outside, the DPJ is open about wanting war (between the ruling and opposition coalitions, I mean), so if Fukuda comes on all friendly, it could make the opposition look petty and mean. Not the best image to have if you want a dissolution of the lower house of the Diet to work in your favor.

BTW, Will Wilkinson has a long post up about research into the moral dimensions of politics. One of his throwaway examples caught my attention:

Haidt's early research on moralized disgust shows that its cultural manifestations vary. The Japanese apparently find it disgusting to fail their station and its duties.

Well, I don't know that I would refer to that as a cultural "manifestation" of disgust, exactly. I think it's more accurate to say that the Japanese are acculturated in such a way as to attach reflexive, visceral disgust to dereliction of duty. Doing what you're told...being what you're told...is drilled into people to the point that it becomes second nature, so they tend to flinch with child-like "that's yucky!" horror when someone harshes the wa. (Many foreigners are driven bonkers by the Japanese tendency, when asked to do something that doesn't follow the usual rules, to grimace, pull the chin inward, and suck in the breath as if confronted with a slug in the salad.) From that vantage point, it's interesting to think about how the commentators reacted to Prime Minister Abe's sudden resignation. Faces registered shock but also revulsion. Of course, that's just my interpretation based on what I happened to see on television. But I really don't think I'm projecting.

Since we all know that polls are the last word in reliability, Yasuo Fukuda supporters can take comfort in last week's Asahi poll. 53% of voters polled preferred Fukuda as the new Prime Minister, while 21% supported Taro Aso.

Of course, that poll was taken on 15 and 16 September, and a lot can change in the run-up to an election. Fukuda and Aso appeared at Shibuya Station on Sunday to lay out their policy positions for the public, now that they're the only two remaining contenders for Prime Minister this coming weekend. The Asahi probably has the best overall summary. Both took care to play to the LDP's rural voting base by promising to address economic inequalities between urban and non-urban areas. (Aso assured voters that he did not support unbridled market liberalization and competition--as if we needed to be told that.)

They also addressed foreign policy:

Disturbed by the serious souring of Japan's relationships with China and South Korea during the Koizumi era, Fukuda was trying to mend the ties. Abe's visits to the two countries soon after he came to power have changed the atmosphere between Japan and these countries. But Fukuda appears to be hoping to bring fundamental changes to these important relations.

Aso vowed to promote the "arc of freedom and prosperity" initiative he proposed as Abe's foreign minister. This initiative is based on the idea of supporting countries that share such basic values as freedom and democracy. But his vision of the "arc" doesn't include China and is therefore criticized as an attempt to create a network of countries around China to contain the expansion of its regional influence.

Aso seems to be advocating a dual approach to dealing with China that combines dialogue with diplomatic maneuvering to put a brake on its influence.

There's a transcript of a lecture Aso gave about his "arc" vision here. It might be noted that he doesn't mention post-Soviet Russia as part of the "arc of freedom and prosperity" either, and in a way it comes off as a more pointed omission than China, because he discusses the democratization and EU membership of the Baltic States and the need for greater stability in Georgia and Ukraine.

The objective is for us to help democracy take root in a region that we envision as an 'arc of freedom and prosperity,' extending from the Baltic Sea to the Black and Caspian Seas.

Hmmm...any ideas what we might be arcing around? (He does mention the importance of improved relations with both the PRC and Russia at the beginning.)

North Korea, of course, is one of the biggest issues. The issue of the Japanese abductees is always in play here, and voters liked Aso’s firm line. Fukuda promises to take a more flexible approach:

In Osaka, both candidates addressed the North Korea abductee issue. Fukuda stated, “I want to be the one to solve this problem,” and his indicated that he had resolved to effect normalization of Japan-DPRK relations through dialogue. Aso stated emphatically, “Without pressure, no dialogue will get off the ground.”

Abe’s approach was to patch things up with economic heavy-hitters China and South Korea while taking a hard line toward economic empty set North Korea. It was popular. The abductee issue tends to be back-burnered in favor of nukes at the six-party talks, so Japan has essentially resigned itself to trying to resolve the problem with catch-as-catch-can support from its allies. But I’m not sure there is a resolution. The DPRK has been jerking around the families of abductees (notably poor Megumi Yokota’s parents) for years now. Maybe there is no approach that’s going to get Japan the information it wants.

It wasn’t just Fukuda’s position on the DPRK that came off as dithery; his delivery was shaky, too. Aso was more confident; on the other hand, he hides his lust for power about as well as Hillary Clinton does, and his glee at being in the running for the top spot was possibly a bit too naked. But there are plenty of points that could be scored and lost this week. And as the Asahi notes, neither of them really explained how he planned to work with the newly strengthened opposition parties. For now, Fukuda still has the support of all the major factions.

Wow. Shinzo Abe can't win for losing. Japan's opposition parties have been calling vociferously for his resignation for months. Yesterday he announced his resignation...and they're criticizing him for it.

Democratic Party of Japan President Ichiro Ozawa criticized Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for his abrupt resignation announcement on Wednesday.

"[Abe] had been scheduled to answer questions from party representatives about his policy speech at the Diet today, but he suddenly announced his resignation," Ozawa said at a press conference, adding that it was the first time in his political career of 40 years that he had witnessed a prime minister resigning within days of delivering a policy speech in the Diet. "To tell you the truth, I've no idea what was going through Prime Minister Abe's mind before he made the announcement."

Ozawa denied media reports that he had repeatedly rejected requests from Abe to hold talks with him. Ozawa said the first request from Abe came Wednesday morning through Liberal Democratic Party Diet Affairs Committee Chairman Tadamori Oshima to DPJ Diet Affairs Committee Chairman Kenji Yamaoka.

Well, it was pretty abrupt. I remember reading the report yesterday and thinking, What was it that made him decide this today? This morning he announced that he's going into the hospital to have gastrointestinal problems diagnosed, but commentators are divided over whether that was as big a factor as it's made out to be. Abe has exhausted all his political capital for the moment, but he's young. It's been rumored for ages that LDP higher-ups had been urging Abe to step down while he still had some dignity and could make a new bid for the prime minister's slot after a few more years of seasoning.

Who knows? Maybe that could still work. But as I see it, Abe has one major problem that no amount of experience is likely to correct: he lacks charisma. Utterly. Koizumi was the sort of man who commanded attention. If you were cooking or reading with the television on in the background, you stopped what you were doing and looked up when he started speaking. He was a natural focal point, in a way that went deeper than his haircut and Elvis fixation and all that stuff. When he staked his job on the passage of the Japan Post privatization bills, it was a serious showdown. His sternness and conviction had dimension and heft. You felt it, even when he was making compromises left and right in practice.

By contrast, when Abe staked his job on the passage of the extension of the anti-terrorism law, it was hard to get worked up (and I say that as a WOT-supporting American). Abe is clearly a skillful operator when it comes to negotiating with other politicians and playing them off one another--one does not become Prime Minister of Japan otherwise--but only to a certain point. That final promotion to political head of state brought the Peter Principle into play with a vengeance. The issues Abe's administration has had to contend with--evolving Japanese nationalism, relations with China and the Koreas, the extension of the MSDF mission, tankerloads of corruption scandals--require an alpha wolf. Even in consensus-loving Japan, people get the heebs when it seems as if there's no one in charge in the cabinet. Abe simply doesn't project authority.

On Wednesday, even Liberal Democratic Party Diet members close to Abe sternly criticized him after his resignation sent shock waves through the party.

"I'm disappointed in him as he's tossed out his administration," one of them said.

"How does he see the responsibilities of a prime minister?" another asked.

At a press conference in Sydney on Sunday after the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, Abe indicated that he would devote his energies to extending the refueling mission by the Maritime Self-Defense Force in the Indian Ocean, even at the cost of his job.

He gave the impression that he was determined to do his best to fulfill his international pledge of extending the MSDF mission by holding firm to his post.

In reality, however, those who took the prime minister at his word were mistaken.

One temporary advantage his successor will have is that he will have a ready excuse for seeming unprepared and needing a little time to find his balance. The opposition won big in the recent upper house election, but that wasn't the result of affection for the DPJ as much as it was the result of disgust with the LDP. Unfortunately, I'm not sure there are any LDP players in the running who can project moxie as leaders while making the compromises necessitated by the new balance of power in the Diet. I've always liked Yasuo Fukuda, who like Abe is a former Chief Cabinet Secretary. He also has experience in foreign affairs and came off as tough and clear-headed when delivering the Koizumi cabinet's policy statements to the press. He resigned amid the Social Insurance payment scandals of a few years ago, but there don't seem to be any contenders for power who are unsullied by scandal these days. We'll see soon enough who gets the nod.

Added on 14 September: Speaking of no-charisma public figures, Ann Althouse links to this whinefest by Demi Moore about how she can't get good parts because Hollywood doesn't know what to do with older women:

The 44-year-old told a magazine: "It's been a challenging few years, being the age I am. Almost to the point where I felt like, well, they don't know what to do with me. I am not 20. Not 30.

"There aren't that many good roles for women over 40. A lot of them don't have much substance, other than being someone's mother or wife."

Moore refurbished herself into a wrinkle-and-flab-free android--check out the two photos, and notice how spookily vinyl-ish she looks in the more recent one--but didn't address her failure to translate the bubbly, mischievous charm she projected during her Brat Pack days into adult terms.

The Minister of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries has resigned:

Before the election, calls had been growing from opposition parties for Akagi to either prove how the funds were used or resign. Some within the ruling coalition also grumbled that Akagi could become a liability in the campaign.

However, Abe refused to dismiss the farm minister, saying he does not intend to make the Akagi issue a problem.

...

With Akagi now out of the Cabinet, more questions may be raised about Abe's leadership ability and judge of character.

Abe appointed Akagi farm minister in June, after his predecessor, Toshikatsu Matsuoka, killed himself amid a similar scandal involving expenses for a rent-free office in the Diet members' building.

At least Akagi has apparently been able to escape with his life.

Polls opened for the House of Councillors (upper house) election this morning. The run-up has been contentious in a rather boring way, with cabinet members suffering from the usual misappropriation scandals and foot-in-mouth syndrome but none of the sense of momentousness of the Koizumi-era show-downs. I miss that guy. Even the Nikkei reports come off somewhat listless:

Issues such as pensions and "politics and money" are the points of contention in the twenty-first upper house election, for which voting began on the morning of 29 July. Ballot counting will begin today.

The focus is on whether the ruling or opposition coalition will capture the majority in the upper house. The results of the election will have a major influence on the overall political future of the Abe cabinet. The direction of the results is expected to be clear by late tonight.

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 16.93% of the electorate had voted by 11 a.m., exceeding by 0.21 percentage points the comparable figure for the last election in 2004.

Nevertheless, this could be a turning point. The DPJ-led opposition is not pushing a policy platform that differs all that much from that of the LDP this time around. It's focusing instead on accusing the LDP of fat cat syndrome--corruption and lack of transparency.

The office of agriculture/forestry/fisheries minister Norihiko Akagi obligingly ensured there would be a fresh LDP scandal blanketing the media this election weekend:

Farm minister Norihiko Akagi flew back from Beijing on Friday and landed in yet another political fund scandal--this one involving photocopied receipts to doubly book spending by his two political organizations.

The new irregularities were uncovered by The Asahi Shimbun, which obtained copies of Akagi's political fund reports from Ibaraki Prefecture under the information disclosure system.

...

Akagi has been under fire for huge and dubious office expenses reported by the support group based in his parents' home.

His mother at one time said the group rarely met at the home, and that she covered the utility bills.

Added later: What they're showing so far is 29 wins for the LDP and Shin-Komeito combined and 54 for the DPJ, Communist Party of Japan, and Social Democratic Party of Japan combined. Abe has said that he plans to think carefully about reshuffling his cabinet as a move to "take responsibility." JNN, one of the networks I've been flipping through, has been flashing viewer e-mails across the top of the screen. The running themes, not surprisingly, are "this is what the LDP gets!" and "we'll be watching you, DPJ!"

The Asahi ran a story yesterday that concludes that Japan's "lost generation" (those who came of age in the years following the bursting of the Bubble) is showing itself ready to assume the role in politics it's been avoiding. Based on the people profiled, I'm not so sure that's a good thing:

After she graduated from university in 1998, Yamamoto decided she wanted no part in "mass consumer society." Instead, she rented a 20-hectare farm in Niigata Prefecture and set about making a living through organic farming.

She barely managed and had to supplement her income by working part-time as a waitress at a nearby onsen. After two years, she gave up the farm and her job to volunteer her time and energy to local nonprofit activities.

She started by joining protests against the planned construction of a nuclear plant in the village of Maki. In 2003, she joined the village assembly. During this period, Yamamoto occasionally found odd jobs which paid little more than 200,000 yen a year.

While campaigning in a shopping district in downtown Niigata on July 15, Yamamoto emphasized that she understands what it's like to be young and poor.

...

As part of her campaign platform she pledges to correct the income and benefit disparity between full-time and part-time workers.

There's a certain droll logic to the idea that becoming a politician is the obvious next step for someone who's spent her adult life avoiding work that has market value and generates wealth. However, being newly engaged with the political system is not the same as having learned anything useful about policy. There's young and poor because you can't find any steady work, and then there's young and poor because you turn up your nose at the possibility of working in "mass consumer society."

Promising to "correct" disparities implies that it's a good idea for the government to continue the Japan Inc.-era practice of knob-twiddling with prices and wages--exactly the sort of behavior that helped the Bubble to inflate and burst in the first place. Perhaps, despite her overall failure as a farmer, Yamamoto managed to grow a money tree that she can use to make up the difference between freeters' value to the economy and what she thinks they should be paid. If not, the major problems remain bureaucratic drag and the contraction of the population, neither of which is addressed by the Diet hopefuls quoted by the Asahi.

The Asahi's editors approve of the new government anti-suicide laws (English version here):

Until now, it was common to dismiss suicide as a "problem for the individual." By contrast, the new basic law clearly designates suicide having "varying social factors" in its background. The policies this time around also situate suicide [in the context of being] a "death to which people are driven" and "a major loss for society as a whole."

Fine so far. Given that suicide really is a national problem, a federal program to provide hotlines and crisis centers doesn't seem like a bad use of money, at least in theory.

Unfortunately, if hardly atypically, the Asahi wiffs when it comes to confronting the "social factors" that need to be addressed. It goes by age group.

The guidelines stress the importance of helping young people with their personal development and mental-health management. But in addition, it is vital that they are taught more firmly from an early age to respect life.

...

Middle-aged and older men continue to be high suicide risks. This applies not only to men in their 60s with growing health concerns, but also to men in their 40s and 50s who are still in their prime.

Long working hours should be shortened to relieve stress. There should be help for people who have lost their jobs or filed for bankruptcy. Immediate treatment should be available at the earliest detection of depression. These measures are all in the guidelines, and they certainly are of help to prevent suicides.

The last sentence of the first paragraph cited above is a model of obtuseness. Rearing children in an environment with firm, reassuringly clear rules that still make room for their personalities to develop is not something you can do by just barking cheerily at them to respect life. Many, if not most, suicides among children in Japan are related to school pressure and bullying. Things are improving somewhat, but it's still common for teachers and school administrators to condone bullying; the response to complaints by the parents of victims tends to be, in effect, that it's their kid's problem for being so weird.

Once children grow into adults and take their place in the workforce, the pressures simply change form. Long work days in Japan are not associated with high output. (If offices simply learned to use their time more productively--rather than having workers spend their days generating redundant documents, attending meetings that proceed with all the celerity of a glacier gouging out a valley, and chasing down stamps of approval--working hours would shorten themselves.) Most people who commit suicide over work-related stress are probably tired from being at the office too much, yes; but I imagine that for most of them, the the constant feeling of being under observation and attendant pressure to stay in line are probably far greater factors.

I don't think Judeo-Christian theology accurately represents where we came from and where we go after death, but it must be said that it does offer individuals meaning and purpose outside themselves and beyond the reach of job and family stresses. That's not to say that Japan doesn't have a rich spiritual tradition of its own; it does. But in the post-war effort to regain a sense of national dignity by building up the economy, study and work became ends that seem, for many people, to have eclipsed other concerns. And now that economic growth is no longer a year-by-year given, it's no surprise that a lot of people are having trouble figuring out how to center themselves psychologically.

The West has its own problems with conformism, certainly; and plenty of Jewish and nominally Christian people commit suicide. Nevertheless, Japanese children do not really learn that it's okay to trust their own judgment when it differs from that of the collective, as long as they're following a reliable set of generally applicable moral principles. I'm not sure whether the mental health system, even with the cooperation of both public and private sectors, is going to be capable of helping individuals invest their lives with meaning.

Hmm.... This sounds oddly familiar:

The National Police Agency revealed on 13 June that 10,000 files that included police information appear to have been leaked from an employee's private PC over the Internet via the filesharing software Wini. It is possible that depositions and affidavits regarding police cases were included; the content and nature of the leaked data are being thoroughly investigated.

According to the current investigation, the employee (26) was a chief patrol officer in a regional division of the Kitazawa office. A PC he was using at home became infected with a virus, and approximately 9000 document files and 1000 photographic files that had been saved on it appear to have been leaked through Wini. The chief patrol officer explained of the leaked data, "I received it from the head of the patrol department of the regional division."

If you're thinking, Uh, gee, hasn't something like that happened before? the answer is, Why, yes, it has.

I'm surprised we haven't heard this sort of thing much more frequently before now:

The decision by four apparent North Korean defectors to brave 900 kilometers of open water in a small wooden boat to reach Japan suggests a level of desperation not seen before.

And it may signal that North Koreans are seeking out new routes to escape from the repressive regime in Pyongyang.

China traditionally was the route of choice. But after Beijing began to crack down out of consideration for its ties with North Korea, defectors started turning up all over Asia.

...

The arrival Saturday of four defectors at Fukaura port in Aomori Prefecture could well be an isolated case.

"It may just be random occurrence rather than an entirely new route," said a South Korean government official.

Possibly. But it wouldn't be difficult to believe that the PRC's tightening of border controls has convinced many would-be defectors that almost any alternative is better. There was that widely-linked Times Online story last year, detailing at least one "repatriation" of a refugee:

The [PRC] soldiers, who later told family members of the incident, marched the woman, who was about 30, to the mid-point of the bridge. North Korean guards were waiting. They signed papers for receipt of the woman, who kept her dignity until that moment. Then, in front of the Chinese troops, one seized her and another speared her hand -- the soft part between thumb and forefinger -- with the point of a sharpened steel cable, which he twisted into a leash.

'She screamed just like a pig when we kill it at home in the village,' the soldier later told his relative. 'Then they dragged her away.'

Of course, that's a third-hand account, so it's not certain whether every detail is accurate. It's certainly not hard to believe that the DPRK is making an extra effort to make an example of those who are returned after trying to escape.