The White Peril 白禍

Given the strike, it seemed prudent to ask the car service to leave extra time to get to JFK from Murray Hill--not that it needed extra prodding--and, naturally, traffic ended up being none too bad. It was rather touching to have taxis slide up to the curb (I waited outside with my stuff to make sure the drive didn't waste time buzzing for me) and be asked by the passenger riding shotgun whether I needed to carpool to the airport. Just try getting a cab in Manhattan if you look as if you're going to the airport at any other time! No glitches getting here and through emigration, though my thoughts as always ran along the lines of Why is it so easy for airport authorities in Asia to figure out how to set up enough tables for you to put your stuff back together after being scanned, while US airports make you take off your jackets and shoes and belt and take out your laptop...and then expect five people to reassemble themselves with a single 3'*3' slab of formica to lean on at the end of the line? Sheesh.

The problems I'm worried about, actually, are at the other end: Japan is expecting to be hammered by snow in Hokkaido and along the Pacific coast, so Atsushi's flight out of Kyushu on Friday could be delayed or canceled. We'll just have to wait and see. In other Japan news, the Building Contractors' Society of Japan is writing a manual to help people spot falsified structural strength calculations. That's nice, but I thought the whole scary point was the that falsifications were transparent and that it was a surprise no one had caught them. (BTW, here's yet more evidence that one of the construction companies, Huser, was warned ahead of time of Aneha's bogus figures. Residents of condominiums it built are asking to have the company declared bankrupt.) And there's more information about Kosuke Ito, the LDP Diet member who went to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport and asked for Huser to be treated gently:

Ito, who once served as director general of the National Land Agency, visited the director of the ministry's construction supervision division with Huser Management Ltd. President Susumu Kojima on Nov. 15, two days before the ministry disclosed the scandal.

"It'd be a problem if the company had to dismantle buildings (constructed based on falsified quake-resistance data)," the bureaucrat quoted President Kojima as telling him.

"Would you please consider his request?" Ito then told the division director.

The director said he rejected the request. "The safety of the residents is the top priority."

Ito denied having asked the bureaucrat for leniency for the Tokyo-based Huser. "People were already living in the condominiums, so the top priority was to ensure safety of the residents as soon as possible. I thought we had no time to lose, so I took him to the ministry on the same day."

...

In September last year, Kojima bought 50 tickets, each priced at 20,000 yen, to a fund-raising party for Ito's political fund-raising organization. Kojima has paid a 160,000 yen membership fee annually to the organization over the past four years.

Speaking of tense relations between government bodies, the Japan and PRC foreign ministers may meet. Or, if precedent is any indication, not.

Can't wait to get back home.

The patronage system in Japan is such that this is basically the first we're hearing of this:

Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizum held an end-of-year party on 20 December, inviting all Diet members newly elected to the lower house in September to the Prime Minister's residence. However, those legislators who are already members of factions that are opposed to the administration's policies were not invited. Within the LDP, some took this as the "flag hoisting for the Koizumi faction"; it is not inconceivable that in the movements of these "Koizumi Kids" will determine where September's general election goes.

Koizumi was originally a member of the Mori faction, then its de facto head, but he withdrew from it in 2001 when he was gearing up for real to run for Prime Minister. His former mentor has frequently expressed shock in public at Koizumi's political tactics--but then, given Mori's record of non-achievement as PM, I don't know that his opinions carry much substantive weight. However, he did, despite his general lack of popularity, play the connections game. Koizumi famously has not (except on certain occasions when his opportunism was blatant), and his ability to form a viable faction of his own has been dubitable. As always with early moves like this, we'll have to wait and see what happens.

Prime Minister Koizumi is putting the most kindly light on Democratic Party of Japan leader Maehara's recent rejection of the idea of fuller cooperation with the ruling coalition:

On 16 December, Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizumi spoke about DPJ leader Seiji Maehara's denial of the possibility of a "broad alliance" with the LDP: "As the head of the opposition party, he had no choice but to say such a thing." Koizumi went further and stated, "The world of politics is difficult to predict even in the short-term. In Germany, such cooperation had been said to be impossible, but it came to pass," suggesting once again that a broad alliance [was feasible]. He was responding to questions from the press corps at the Prime Minister's residence.

Regarding the wave upon wave of criticisms leveled at Maehara at the [DPJ] party convention, Koizumi gave the DPJ leader a shout-out: "Being in a leadership position is tough. I hope Mr. Maehara will see things through and ride out his current difficulties."

That last reference to "Mr. Maehara" may be a noun of direct address, but that doesn't really affect the basic meaning. Maehara has been relatively quiet. You see him quoted frequently, of course--he's the opposition leader, after all--but his comments rarely have the irritability of Katsuya Okada's. Of course, that could mean either that he's shrewdly buying his time or that he realizes how green he is and is steering a middle course out of fear that he'll make a misstep. Or some of both.

BTW, Maehara, one of whose distinguishing characteristics is his higher level of hawkishness than previous DPJ leaders, intimated to the press on a visit to Okinawa that he could be prepared to agree to a special provision to shift land use rights from Naha to Tokyo in order to implement the transfer of US military facilities at Futenma. On the other hand, he's criticized the government's current treatment of the Okinawa government: "When restructuring specific [military] bases, close consultation with--and consent of--regional government entities, is indispensable; but [the approach] this time around was extremely crude. It demonstrated contempt [for Okinawa]." Tension between the capital and the provinces is a fact of life for every large, complex society I'm aware of, and in Japan, things are especially prickly between Tokyo and Okinawa.

Okinawa has its own distinct language and history and sorely resents being treated, as it views things, like the mainland's trash dump. The locals don't like putting up with the off-hours behavior of military personnel and the foreign control of large swaths of land, but they'd be in an economic pickle if we left, and they know it. Regarding US military installations, of course, things aren't black and white. Okinawa is the poorest prefecture in Japan. Having our bases there brings in money and creates jobs. The US could probably learn to cultivate a more friendly manner toward its sub-tropical hosts, but I'm not sure how much good that would do when the far more long-term problem is with the deep rift between Tokyo and Naha.

The ban on US beef imports to Japan has been lifted, thus (one can only fervently hope) freeing our leaders to talk about more important things in meetings. Just for the record, the contents of the first shipment are nearly itemized by the Asahi:

The first shipment of U.S. beef touched down at Narita International Airport early Friday morning, just four days after the government lifted its ban, officials said.

The shipment, containing 4.3 tons of cut beef and 0.3 tons of internal organs, was imported by leading ham and sausage maker Marudai Food Co., based in Osaka. The meat passed through quarantine Friday.

What novel trouble have those rascals in East Asia found to get themselves into while I'm sleeping on the opposite side of the globe? Not much, it appears--the trouble is pretty much as per usual. Of course, ASEAN meetings have a way, by means of throwing enemies into close quarters, of exacerbating friction:

[The recent] series of international meetings, conceived with an eye toward designing a future East Asian cooperative entity, the issues that have become obstacles to regional collaboration between Japan and the PRC, which face off as the area's two major powers, were thrown into sharp relief. After the 14 December closing of the ASEAN Summit session, Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizumi held a press coference in the city of Kuala Lumpur and protested against the refusal of the PRC and ROK to hold official [head-of-state] meetings with Japan because of the Prime Minister's pilgrimages to the Yasukuni Shrine. No mending of relations appears to be in sight.

"Our prayers for peace and our respects for those who fell during wartime are matters of the heart, an issue of psychological liberty. I cannot understand the criticism of our pilgrimages." The Prime Minister's choice of words was nearly the same as it would be inside Japan, but in the context of close observation by journalists from the assembled nations of Asia, he uncharacteristically expanded on "criticism from the PRC."

"I have from the start argued for PRC-Japanese friendship. Even if we're at swords-point on one or two items, that does not affect our ability to continue moving forward in developing our relations," he said, but he betrayed discomfort in his facial expression.

Nothing in the above is particularly new; it just serves to highlight the unwillingness of either Japan or its critics to budge on the Yasukuni issue.

The cabinet has officially voted to extend the SDF deployment in Iraq:

The Cabinet on Thursday approved the extension of the Self-Defense Forces' mission to assist reconstruction in Iraq for a year beyond next Wednesday's deadline.

"We decided to extend the mission for two reasons: Iraq is on its way toward establishing a democratic government, and the U.N. [Security Council] has unanimously decided to extend the deployment of multilateral forces there," Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told a news conference after the Cabinet meeting.

The new basic plan for the SDF's Iraq mission states that the troops' mandate will expire on Dec. 14, 2006. But it also indicates the deployment can be shortened should Australian and British forces providing the Japanese personnel with a security umbrella decide to pull out.

...

Prior to the Cabinet meeting Thursday, Koizumi had a series of meetings with leaders of coalition partner New Komeito and opposition parties to obtain their understanding in extending the Iraqi mission.

Attention-grabbing lead paragraph of the week goes to the English Asahi:

The land ministry Thursday started a series of inspections to determine the extent of incompetence, inadequacies and possible corruption in an industry sector responsible for the safety of people's lives.

One tiny thing to be grateful for is that this is connected to the Aneha scandal and not, you know, some entirely new revelation about a whole different industry:

Twelve inspectors of the ministry's Housing Bureau started searching Japan ERI Co., the nation's largest building inspection company, in Tokyo's Minato Ward, at 9:30 a.m. [The article is dated 9 September.--SRK]

The ministry wants to determine why the company failed to act on a warning in 2004 that former architect Hidetsugu Aneha had faked a structural-strength report for a building in Tokyo.

Japan ERI Co. is not the same company that was warned by an on-site construction manager that reinforcements at the ground level were insufficient, so we have yet another organization to finger for not listening to alarms that had in fact been sounded.

Naturally, some people are taking this opportunity to cast aspersions on privatization:

Some experts say these private-sector companies have a difficult time being objective in their inspections. That is because real estate developers are not only the inspection companies' clients, they are often their shareholders.

And this is different from the government's being in bed with major keiretsu, their banks, and major constructions firms...how, exactly? Obviously, there were problems with monitoring here. Whether they stem from the very fact that the government privatized some of its inspection functions is a very debatable point, especially considering that when the fraud-filled documents did, in fact, hit the desks of government construction agencies, they let them pass through without challenging them. Another good thing to bear in mind is that, while it's not exactly classic amakudari, the inspectors now being targeted for investigation have interesting origins:

"We will completely cooperate with the ministry's inspections," Takahide Suzuki, the Japan ERI president, said in a statement. "By doing so, we want to regain the people's trust in our company."

Japan ERI employs 165 building inspectors, including 102 who had worked in local governments.

Other companies said they do not have the manpower to keep pace with the demand.

"We have no other choice but to employ people who worked as construction superintendents in local governments," an official said.

Just keeps getting better, huh?

There's no report of any substantive agreement, but Minister of Foreign Affairs Taro Aso met with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in Washington yesterday. Japan related its plan to extend the SDF deployment in Iraq and also emphasized that the restructuring of US military facilities here in Japan is running into opposition from the places affected (such as Okinawa). Rumsfeld would like to see China fulfill a constructive role in world society, including transparency about its military spending. Japan affirmed that it would like to expand its own international role and would prefer, really, to avoid being blown up by the DPRK. So everything is as per usual; if there are interesting developments, I assume we'll hear about them.

Minister of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport Kazuo Kitagawa has made an announcement about the Aneha scandal:

Regarding the earthquake resistance falsification scandal, Minister of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport Kazuo Kitagawa announced on 4 December that he is investigating a plan to have federal and prefectural-level government bodies bear the entire burden of paying for the demolition of condominium complexes known to have insufficient earthquake resistance. His reasoning was that "there is also a danger to residents in surrounding buildings, so [the demolition] has a prominent public interest dimension." He related this to the press corps this morning after a television appearance.

Kitagawa explained that the reason for public assistance in this case was that "assessing who bears responsibility among the developers and other parties requires time, and we cannot wait that long."

Some of the affected residents have already organized a group so they can share information and possibly negotiate collectively. Kitagawa isn't kidding about the danger to the neighbors, BTW; the catastrophic 1999 Taiwan earthquake saw several large, modern buildings tip over.

Oh, yeah, and just in case you're not already rattled enough over this whole mess, check this out:

The architecture firm that designed one of the buildings for which disgraced architect Hidetsugu Aneha faked strength reports says it met directly with the building companies to warn them about Aneha in early 2004, but was ignored.

The Kanagawa Prefecture-based design company, and Atlas Sekkei, the architectural firm in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward asked to check Aneha's structural-strength reports, said they spotted irregularities in those reports.

The Kanagawa design firm said it had a meeting with Kumamoto-based Kimura Construction Co. and Tokyo-based consulting firm Sogo Keiei Kenkyujo (Soken) in early 2004 to point out the problems.

But the two firms did nothing. Both Kimura Construction and Soken continued to commission work to Aneha, leading to the construction of a string of defective hotels and condominiums.

The latest revelation directly contradicts what officials at Kimura and Soken have said.

The Nikkei editors on the latest developments in "trinity reforms," short version:

Why are we calling something that will benefit no one "reform"?

Ouch. Here's where that comes from:

In the agreement between the federal government and the ruling coalition, the transfer of funding for facilities and equipment, which had been sought by the regional governments, was partially approved for the first time. Facilities and equipment are the area in which it is easiest for regional governments to demonstrate some ingenuity in planning, so they're part of the point of reform.

At the trinity reform stage, reductions in federal subsidies and transfers of sources of tax money were taken care of, but reform of regional tax grants was left unattended to. Along with measures such as reductions in the number of public employees in regional government bodies, possibility of decreases in grants should be investigated.

The subsidies the federal government provides to regional governments now add up to a burden of approximately ¥20 trillion (US $167 billion). There is no other state that intrudes on regional affairs using such gargantuan amounts of subsidy money. At ¥4 trillion in reductions in this first phase of reform, each federal ministry managed to get away with its systems and structures surviving unchanged in practical terms. This state of affairs does not deserve the name "structural reform." The agreement between the federal government and the ruling coalition was rather vague about how reform would proceed from here on, but they must forge ahead into a second phase of reform that returns the focus to the main task.

The regional governments' complaint, of course, is that even if they get direct access to more money (because tax revenue goes to them directly rather than being routed through Tokyo), that doesn't increase their discretionary power. They're still bound to the rules set up by the federal ministries. In this aging society, that's an especially touchy issue with livelihood protection and child care subsidies. What they fear is that cosmetic cuts in subsidies will give them no more autonomy but a lot more work to do, since they'll have more taxes to assess, collect, and process.

Added after a cup of tea: I might add here, for those who haven't kept track, that the reforms about to implemented are positively revolutionary compared with those that took effect in 2001. That year, a bunch of ministries and agencies were smushed together to form new, larger bodies--the idea being that fewer official entities must make things more efficient, right? So, for example, the former 文部省 (monbushou: "Ministry of Education and Culture") was alloyed with the 科学技術庁 (kagakugijutsuchou: "Science and Technology Agency") to form the 文部科学省 (monbukagakushou: "Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology"--no kidding, that's the official English name).

The Iraqi Prime Minister will visit Japan on 5 December:

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on 1 December that Prime Minister of Iraq [Ibrahim] al-Jaafari is scheduled for a two-day visit to Japan, beginning 2 December, during which he will meet with Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizumi. It is al-Jaafari's first visit to Japan. He is expected to request once again that the deployment of SDF personnel in Iraq be extended. His visit is at Japan's invitation, and [he and Japanese officials] will exchange views about the status of Iraq's reconstruction and support [Japan can offer] from here forward.

This is about the fiftieth time we've seen news that the extension of the SDF deployment has somehow become official, so perhaps the request next week will just be a face-to-face formality.