The White Peril 白禍

The corruption scandal at the JDA (the Japan Defense Agency this time, not the Japan Dental Association--keep those scandals straight!) is coming to a head:

Japan Defense Agency chief Fukushiro Nukaga announced on a TBS television program the morning of 1 February that he was planning to dissolve the Defense Facilities Administration Agency because of collusion scandals revolving around its procurement and construction practices. The new approach will be to review the DFAA's organizational structure with an eye for its integration with the [rest of] the JDA.

Nukaga stated, "The plan is to dissolve the body and make suitable adjustments. Given the extent of the goings-on, it has become clear that collusion is embedded in the structure of the organization. A dissolution is what the public expects, furthermore, it's the decision I want to make, too."

The JDA stuff has ranged from inflated aircraft repair/parts procurement costs to cagily jiggering payments for use of facilities in Okinawa to illegal tracking of personal information, but the most recent flap is over bid rigging for climate control installation and construction projects. At this late date, no one pretends to be too shocked at revelations of collusion. Actually getting rid of an entity that's not doing it's job, however, is a pretty novel proposition. It didn't help much in the Great Ministerial Chinese Fire Drill of 2001, but if Nukaga--who can be wonderfully stubborn when he wants to be--is serious, the administrative structure for Japan's defense could really see meaningful streamlining. Not a moment too soon, either.

It came out yesterday that the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries had not held to a cabinet-level resolution to do site inspections of US meat-processing facilities before reopening Japan to beef imports. Naturally, the revelation constituted a signal for everyone who's ever walked past a government facility to deliver an opinion on the safety concerns thus raised. The one of most interest came, of course, from the opposition leader:

Around noon on 30 January, Democratic Party of Japan leader Seiji Maehara responded to questions from the press corp in the Diet Building about Agriculture Minister Shoichi Nakagawa's failure to conduct site inspections before deciding whether to reopen Japan to imports of US-produced beef. About Nakagawa's statement that "I did not act in accordance with the diet resolution, so I take responsibility," Maehara stated, "It's only fitting for him to resign. And it shouldn't stop there--responsibility must be extended to the entire cabinet."

Shinzo Abe weighed in also:

Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe spoke at a lower house budget committee meeting on 30 January, delivering the government's official (unified) position revolving around the issue of the failure to conduct site inspections that were to have been carried out before the reopening of Japan to imports of US-produced beef: "The decision to resume imports has not conflicted with the government's original response."

...

In the afternoon, he emended his statement to "(After the issuing of the government's response paper), we judged that the efficacy of [procedures to] preserve safety had been secured through cooperation between Japan and the US. There has been no deviation from the response paper's main point that we need to secure the safety of the food supply." That evening, he retreated from his statement that morning, stating, "I have not said that [Nakagawa's actions] violated the cabinet resolution." He did not respond to calls for Nakagawa's resignation from the opposition parties.

Leaving aside whether the original cabinet resolution was excessively finicking and paranoid, it's pretty clear that Nakagawa and his team failed to follow it by not performing site inspections. It's not clear yet whether enough people will get worked up to force him to resign.

There's been more news about the Yamaha Motor flap:

Yamaha Motor Co. sold a top-of-the-line unmanned helicopter to a Chinese company that was established in 1993 by high-ranking officers of the People's Liberation Army, sources said over the weekend.

Yamaha is also suspected of having received several tens of millions of yen in rebates from another Chinese company that bought the helicopters, said the sources close to the police investigation into the alleged illegal exports.

Investigators now expect Yamaha will face charges of violating the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Control Law for the unapproved exports.

The PLA-linked company to which Yamaha sold the unmanned helicopter is Poly Technologies Inc., based in Beijing.

...

The vice chairman and president of China Poly Group is He Ping, the husband of Deng Rong, the youngest daughter of the late paramount Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping.

It's not what you know....

*******

Though the new Japan Post holding company has just started operations, Nippon Express (Nittsu) is already planning its strategic response to the privatization (or "privatization"):

As a defensive move against the operations of the new Japan Post public corporation, Nippon Express will become the first private provider to deliver personal correspondence on a nationwide scale. The new service will target documents with a delivery cost of ¥1000 or higher; parcels will be picked up from the user's address and delivered by the next day. Nationwide delivery of personal correspondence is now monopolized by the Japan Post registered mail service, but Nittsu will provide delivery at lower cost in certain regions.

*******

Japan is modifying its approach to angling for a permanent UN Security Council membership:

Japan's new proposal has taken into account the United States' position that Security Council membership should not be expanded by more than six seats, to a maximum 21 from the current 15, including the five permanent members--Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.

The proposal calls for a country seeking permanent membership on the council to receive a seat if it can win the backing of two-thirds of the U.N. General Assembly in a vote, the officials said.

Under the plan, such permanent members, however, would not be given veto power, the ministry said.

The government is considering presenting the proposal at the United Nations this spring. Whether other countries concerned will support the plan is not known, they said.

The new draft seeks to have the present Security Council framework comprising the five permanent members and 10 nonpermanent ones increased by six to make the council a 21-member body.

According to the plan, a maximum of six countries--two each from Asia and Africa, and one each from Latin America and Europe--should be allowed to join the existing five permanent members.

Japan contributes almost a fifth of the UN's general budget.

I fear that to some American readers, the Asahi's "NHK's aim to become BBC of Japan, duck Takenaka's control" headline will give the wrong impression. Here's how the accompanying article starts:

Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK), choked by scandals, a sharp drop in viewer fees and wariness of tighter government control, has unveiled a new management plan that tears pages from the BBC's book of operating.

The new three-year plan not only de-emphasizes NHK's old policy of expansion, but also stresses independence and stronger corporate self-governance.

That is apparently aimed at deflecting recent government moves to wield more control over the public broadcaster.

In December last year, Heizo Takenaka, minister of internal affairs and communications, set up an advisory panel to review NHK's operations.

Before you snigger, "More like the BBC?!" let's remember a few things. Like the BBC, NHK began as a government entity; unlike the BBC, it's still a government entity. [Whoops--thanks, Toby. I was sure the BBC had undergone that neither-here-nor-there semi-public-corporation thing--a la Japan Post, whose new corporation just started operations, BTW--but no.] No, it still hasn't been privatized; instead it's stuck in Japan's public-corporation limbo. That means there's been nothing over the line about the Koizumi administration's talk of reforming it. At the same time, it's perfectly reasonable for the board of governors to want to be able to operate as it sees fit. From the above link to the NHK's English website (corresponding Japanese here), this is its own wishful line about the way it functions:

NHK is financed by the receiving fee paid by each household that owns a television set. This system enables the Corporation to maintain independence from any governmental and private organization, and ensures that the opinions of viewers and listeners are assigned top priority.

Everyone in Japan knows that that's a crock. Plenty of households manage not to pay NHK fees (mostly by simply bringing a television into the house without letting NHK know, rather than in the process of righteously opposing its misconduct), its news service plays along with the chummy press club game as much as that of any other major broadcaster or publication in Japan, and viewers and listeners have been making a beeline for other broadcasters that give them what they actually want to watch and hear.

So in theory, it sounds like a great idea for NHK to undertake reform from within. Vice President Taeko Nagai, in an interview with the Asahi, "said NHK can learn a lot from the BBC, which puts priority on high-quality programs ranging from news to drama to comedy." Fair enough. NHK's historical dramas and documentary shows are frequently first-rate, but it certainly broadcasts plenty of junk. (Whether excising that junk would be in line with better serving consumer demand is an impolitic question that I will humbly receive the favor of not answering here.)

Additionally, the resignation of its last board president exactly a year ago, mostly over embezzlement but also over the possibility that LDP higher-ups (including current star Shinzo Abe) pressed the producer of a mock trial program about Japan's use of comfort women during the occupation of Asia to soften its contents. To be fair, that wasn't the first time NHK reports and "documentaries" were shown to have been cagily edited or even outright staged, and in other cases, NHK acted on its own volition.

In any case, the government views NHK as a public body with responsibility to Kasumigaseki, and NHK views itself as a government-funded semi-independent body striving toward (dare we say it?) BBC levels of objectivity and independence. Unfortunately, NHK wants to have its freedom of the press and eat citizens' money, too:

[Nagai] also indicated NHK's system of mandatory viewer fees should be maintained, because there are many high-quality programs that can only be provided by public broadcasters like NHK or the BBC.

Conveniently--and in this sense readers won't be getting the wrong impression at all--the arguments that have been made about the BBC apply pretty much equally to NHK: if it plans to wow us with all that high-quality programming and is serious about serving the public's needs, won't it be able to survive even if it's competing with other broadcasters? At least, wouldn't that be the case for its news service (which is the division in most obvious danger of being corrupted by too-close ties with the government)? NHK doesn't think so. I mean, it really doesn't think so.

Other elements of the new plan include offering services that play to NHK's strengths as a public broadcaster: strengthening news reports and disaster bulletins, and creating broadcasts catering to specific regions.

As for scrambling NHK programs for households that do not pay, a move recommended in some quarters, the plan insists it should be avoided.

It said steps will be taken to urge people to pay, and, as a last resort, preparations would be made to sue anyone who does not sign a contract.

I think that's pretty much what they are, indeed, going to have to be prepared to do.

The bar where Atsushi and I were first introduced is one of those places with lots of shelves and niches full of stuff. The owner has a thing for Chinese culture, so you've got your gongs and your dragons and your red and gold things. He also brought in some books. Guys frequently take down and page through the ones about your zodiac sign or gay places to go in Singapore and stuff. Being a big dork, I frequently took down the one called 水生無脊椎動物 (suisei musekitsui doubutsu: "aquatic invertebrates," which title appears on the cover as Aquatic Invertebrates of the World) and looked at color drawings of the various varieties of starfish and cross sections of sea cucumbers. This drew such comments as "Sean, you're the only gay man on the planet who would sit at a bar and read a book called Aquatic Invertebrates of the World" and...well, that was pretty much the comment everyone made, actually. Until Atsushi. His comment was "Hmmm...," which with him frequently counts as a full sentence, as I would discover later.

You're thinking this is yet another post with no point, but you are WRONG. Knowing the Japanese word for invertebrate means you know the character for spinal cord, and that means you can understand why Japan decided to reinstate its ban on US beef again today, after spinal cord was found in a shipment. The usual statements have been made. No more gyudon from Yoshinoya (again) until things are sorted out.

Man, three-hour flights are short. You take off, they give you crap for breakfast, you doze a little, and all of a sudden Kunimoto, Your Chief Cabin Attendant, is all blaring, "ご案内いたします。Seatbelts FASTENED, seats and trays UP, bags STOWED, and don't even be THINKING about getting up to pee!" I'm hardly complaining, but it was all bewilderingly abrupt.

I haven't gotten a chance to really catch up on news--they had yesterday morning's Nikkei on the plane, but for those who can't stand missing a single volley in the diplomatic wars around here:

At noon on 17 January, Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizumi attacked a statement by South Korean Foreign Minister Ki-Mun Ban. Ban had expressed the point of view that the conducting of head-of-state visits [between the two countries] will be thorny as long as the Japanese Prime Minister makes pilgrimages to the Yasukuni Shrine. Koizumi said, "We can meet at any time. Even if there are one or two differences of opinion and standoffs, communication and dialogue are necessary. I cannot understand the policy of refusing meetings because of a difference over a single issue." He was responding to a question from the press corps at the Prime Minister's residence.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, addressing a press conference after a cabinet meeting the same day, stated, "Our position as the nation of Japan is that we are always ready to talk."

So no change.

The Minister of Finance has an announcement to make:

Minister of Finance Sadakazu Tanigaki stated emphatically, in a lecture delivered in Tokyo on the afternoon of 16 January, that the current Japanese economy "has, I think, finally repeated the [recovery] process fifteen years after the Bubble burst and rebounded powerfully." As factors, he cited "the complete victory over the non-performing bond problem. Also, there's the fact that from the enterprise side, businesses have brought excesses in personnel, debt, and facilities under control. The resulting process has also been finished by which the robustness of performance in enterprise has come around to [improve] household finance and individual consumption."

Whether all those "completely"s deserve to be there could be questioned, and obviously this segment tactfully omits any mention of government spending. And, of course, the new thing to spaz about is that the Japanese population has started, in recorded terms, decreasing faster than was expected. But Tanigaki is right that street-level confidence does seem to be up. One anecdotal and qualitative but interesting measure that I trust I'm not the only one to notice over the last few weeks: end-of-year partying by companies was noticeably more lavish than it had been since 1997 or so. For the first time in years, there was trouble getting a cab in Shinjuku at 2:30 a.m. during the last week and a half of December, and the crowds pouring out of restaurants and bars were much later and livelier.

I try not to get all neurotic about linking to every article that refers to one of my pet issues, so usually I don't do anything with the short blurbs of which the Nikkei posts a lot. Sometimes little stories are telling, though:

Minister of Foreign Affairs Taro Aso addressed a press conference after a 13 January cabinet meeting, stating clearly that "There hasn't been a single moment when I've thought that the Yasukuni Shrine pilgrimage issue should be a point of contention" in relation to the LDP party presidential election in September.

In response to Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizumi's declaration that it "will be a major element in whether [a candidate] can win (the presidential election)," Aso stated, "I don't think there's anyone who has quite that much confidence (in the election). What will be a major factor (in the election) is whether [a candidate] has the kind of language that can speak directly to the citizenry."

Of course, they could both be right: Yasukuni may not be brought up explicitly often, but its presence as an issue could be felt in the background of debates over how Japan should deal with the friction that arises with its neighbors. Of course, Aso has a few reasons to downplay the Yasukuni issue. For one thing, he's on record as having dismissed Chinese and Korean protests over the pilgrimages as, essentially, their own odd little hangups. To be fair, as comes out in the interview linked in that last sentence, his reasoning isn't quite as cavalier as it might seem--his point, that Japan's offering reasons for continued pilgrimages by politicians only helps keep the discussion going around in circles, is not without basis. At the same time, it also seems reasonable to conjecture that the shrine might not be such a bone of contention were the textbook issue not there to amplify it. For another thing, he himself is one of the top contenders for LDP presidency post-Koizumi. Making a big deal out of the issue on which his pronouncements as foreign minister have been most controversial is hardly in his best interest.

Today's lead Nikkei editorial is headlined "Toward small government: Give us serious ministry re-reform." Being an editorial, it doesn't stake out any new territory, but it lays out most of the essential problems:

A movement has appeared from within the government and the LDP, seeking re-reform of the central ministries and agencies. The current system has now passed through exactly five years since the restructuring of January 2001, so this is a good opportunity to examine whether it is functioning in a way that meets the goals first set out for it. There is still no small degree of waste and inefficiency in the central ministries and agencies. Politicians who want [to be key players in] post-Koizumi policy should articulate a bold vision of ministerial re-restructuing oriented toward [achieving] "small government."

...

In autumn of last year, the government settled on an objective of decreasing the raw number of federal civil servants by 5% in the next 5 years. In order to achieve that goal, some rather large-scale reforms are going to be necessary.

The ruling coalition is taking the tack of submitting its proposal to elevate the Japan Defense Agency to ministry level at this year's regular Diet session. This change in status is long overdue. Prime Minister Koizumi had already raised the possibility of forming a Ministry of Information and Communications. Consolidating this strategically crucial area--jurisdiction over which is now divided between the Ministry of Interior Affairs and the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry--is a promising approach.

To slim down the government, taking reductions in federal subsidies a step further will be indispensable. Through the Koizumi administration's Trinity Reforms, subsidies have already been reduced by 4 trillion yen, but even with the proportion of federal subsidy money toward compulsory education funding dropped from 1/2 to 1/3, the amount of paper-pushing to be performed by the federal ministries and agencies will not decrease. The second phase of Trinity Reforms must be orchestrated by [someone who] can aim for fearless abolishments of subsidies.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport and the Ministry of Health, Education, and Welfare remain gargantuan entities. By straightening out the subsidy system and structuring work more rationally, it should be possible to slim down even their regional branch offices. It will be necessary to put even the satellite agencies of the central federal ministries--take the Social Insurance Agency--under the knife of clean-up and reconfiguration. At the same time, the organizations and personnel that deal well with an administrative style of checks and verifications must be retained. Before it raises the consumption tax, the role of [a post-Koizumi] government will be to show the public that it has become, in concrete ways, a fine-tuned small government.

One of the problems is that Japanese post-War social structures, unlike its car and furniture industries, don't value modularity. People learned little in college, but it didn't matter because their training rotations when they entered their chosen company or public sector employer lasted a good year or two and gave them the skill sets they needed to negotiate its elaborate and idiosyncratic filigree of procedures. Switching jobs was frowned upon; you stayed with the same company for a lifetime and became an expert in its ways, the way an old tea master amasses an intimate knowledge of the esoteric practices of his school. Buying, selling, lending money, and glad-handing generally took place within one's own supply chain. Put all of that together, and you have...well, the problems Japan's grappling with right now. When making knowledge and skills transferrable isn't a priority, you get duplication of effort and multiple reinventions of the wheel. When you say "Japan," outsiders think Sony and Toyota, but in reality, efficient organizations that can compete on a global scale are a minority in the economy here, even after the painful downsizings since the bursting of the Bubble.

It's understandable that you don't have legions of minor civil servants standing up to say, "Well, gee, my job's kinda redundant. I guess I'll see whether they've got any openings at Nippon Lever," for the good of the state. But it's also understandable why people at the top, who are supposed to be able to have a more clear-eyed view, have trouble figuring out how to change things effectively. Japan Inc. was engineered to work as one gigantic, archipelago-spanning machine; its systems weren't supposed to have to be adaptable. Reform, though necessary, is going to continue to be painful as long as the many people who have a stake in keeping things as they are are still entrenched.

Prime Minister Koizumi's neighborliness was on display this morning, as was his diffidence:

Regarding the PRC and ROK, the Prime Minister said that they have taken advantage of pilgrimages by Japanese government officials to chill relations with Japan: "Foreign governments are interfering in what is for us a matter of the heart. I cannot comprehend their posture that this is a diplomatic issue; there can be none of this closing off of avenues of discussion," he said, criticizing the positions of both nations for using the Yasukuni Shrine pilgimages as a reason to cease head-of-state visits.

He also revealed that "an understanding of the crucial importance of the Japan-US alliance and international cooperation" would be a condition for post-Koizumi [power within the LDP]. He indicated that his successor as prime minister would be expected to continue with not only his structural reforms but also his approach to diplomacy.

At the same time, he pointed out that "it is extremely important for top leaders to gain the support of the citizenry. At the same time, they must gain the cooperation and trust of the members of the Diet. We have reached the era in which both are vital," and revealed that he thinks the selection of a prime minister by leaders of an intra-party alliance undesirable.

Party politics since the War has often meant that, while voters obviously selected members of the Diet, much real power even in that body lay with unelected LDP officers.

The ROK foreign minister has weighed in already:

South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Ki-mun Ban addressed a press conference on 4 January, voicing opposition to Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizumi's statement on the same day criticizing the PRC and ROK for refusing to conduct head-of-state visits with Japan because of the Yasukuni Shrine pilgrimage issue: "We want the leaders of the Japanese government to listen to the point of view of neighboring nations and come to a correct perception of history."

Foreign Minister Ban sought effort from the Japan side, citing the Yasukuni Shrine issue, the Takeshima (Kor.: Tokuto) Island territorial dispute, and the history textbook issue: "The most important thing from the standpoint of maintaining ROK-Japan relations and cooperation in the Northeast Asia region is for the Japanese government to exert itself to adopt an posture in which it has a correct perception of history and can gain the trust and respect of neighboring nations."

DPJ leader Seiji Maehara chimed in, at least as far as the Yasukuni Shrine issue goes, at a press conference in Mie Prefecture: "[The Prime Minister] is losing opportunities to improve relations with other countries. It's irresponsible."

Added at 17:00: The Mainichi also has an English report of the Koizumi speech (including this line that wasn't in the Nikkei: "The United States is the only nation in the world that sees an attack on Japan as an attack on itself") and a report on the US government's thoughts on Japan's interactions with its neighbors:

The United States has asked Japan to reconsider its policies on Asia because of concerns about deteriorating Sino-Japanese relationships after Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine, diplomatic sources have said.

U.S. President George W. Bush also asked Chinese President Hu Jintao during their summit meeting in Beijing in November last year to discuss issues of history with Japan in connection with the Yasukuni problem, U.S. sources who accompanied the president on his Asian tour said. In reply, President Hu simply said the U.S. presence in Asia was important for China.

Bush and other top U.S. politicians are apparently afraid that Japan will become isolated in Asia as Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine, where Japan's Class A war criminals are worshipped, continue to antagonize and infuriate China and South Korea.