The White Peril 白禍

The Iranian foreign minister met with Prime Minister Koizumi today:

On 28 February, Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizumi met with Iranian Foreign Minister Mottaki at the Prime Minister's residence. About the issue of Iran's nuclear program, Koizumi stated, "We would like you to do whatever you must to win the trust of the global community," requesting an immediate cessation of Iran's experiments with uranium enrichment and activities related to nuclear development. Mottaki responded, "We have a right to the peaceable use of nuclear power" and rejected the idea of ceasing nuclear development.

...

LDP Secretary General Shinzo Abe, also on 28 February, stated emphatically to a press conference, "We seek Iran's cessation of uranium enrichment and complete fulfillment of the terms laid down by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board so that it may avoid being isolated from the global community."

No surprises, no revelations--as expected. Japan has affirmed that it's on the side of (blech) the global community, and Iran seems not to have taken Japan's position as a sign of enmity.

FWIW, the part I didn't bother translating states that Speaker of the House Yohei Kono requested that Iran accept the proposal from this weekend for a joint initiative with Russia, whereby the uranium enrichment Iran needs would be attended to there.

Okay, I'm willing to go after critics of Japan's whaling industry research program when they get opportunistic and start slinging around WWII analogies, but come on here:

The government wants the public to eat more whale meat to reduce the bloated stockpile and to prevent a rise in international criticism against Japan's "research whaling" program.

The excess stock stems from Japan's expanded catch of whales in the name of research, coupled with sluggish demand among consumers for the meat.

Fisheries Agency officials say the mounting stockpile could fuel anti-whaling nations' arguments that Japan should reduce the number of whales it hunts or terminate the whaling program altogether.

The Fisheries Agency, which does not want to cut back on its research whaling, will develop new sales channels and reduce prices to lift consumption of whale meat, the officials said.

"There are still a large number of consumers who want to eat whale meat," said an agency official. "If we only improve how to sell the product, the stock will rapidly decrease."

According to agency officials, whale meat is difficult to sell at major supermarket chains because those stores deal only with products of a certain quantity.

The whale meat supply, although growing, is still smaller than those of other marine products.

If Japan wants to argue that the IWC has been taken over by hard-core environmentalists who will find ways to keep the moratorium on commercial whaling in place even if whales overrun the planet, fine. That wouldn't be hard to believe. If it's going to exploit some loophole that allows whales to be culled for research, and do so in order to make a point by being perfectly upfront about the fact that it's hunting whales, also...well, not fine, perhaps, but possibly a gesture that makes a point that can't be made any other way.

However, the idea that it's Japanese consumers' job to eat more whale meat to cover the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries's ass when it overhunts is just nuts. If all those whales were necessary for research, then the fact that people aren't eating them may be kind of too bad, but it's incidental. If the idea is to keep the Japanese from being deprived of a traditional marine product, then it's clearly working, but there's no point in oversupply. And there's no reason Japan shouldn't take criticism for misusing a natural resource that isn't obtained within its own territory.

The proposal to elevate the Japan Defense Agency to ministry level will not be presented to the Diet during this session:

Within the government and the ruling coalition, there is a growing perception that it is necessary to conduct more extensive inquiries into the collusion scandal revolving around procurement at the Defense Facilities Administration Agency and to see the matter through to discussion in the Diet.

Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizumi made a statement about the bill to elevate the JDA to ministerial status at noon on 13 February: "We're cooperating in the LDP and the Komeito and want to keep an eye on the situation. It's not a discussion to have in haste or in a panic." He indicated that he is not adamant about submitting the bill during this Diet session. He was responding to a question from the press corp at the Prime Minister's residence. Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe also related at a morning press conference that "we want to continue to examine, as the government, how the collaboration between the ruling parties should be organized."

Defense certainly warrants a body at the highest level of government operations, but I can see the point that the last thing Japan needs is yet another ministry that engages in bid-rigging and revolving-door shenanigans.

Discussion in the Diet is beginning over how to reform the health-care system. Japanese society, in case you've just emerged from two decades in a cave and haven't seen this topic beaten to death yet, is aging. The cost structures of the social welfare programs need to be changed, but as with everything else, there are a lot of people who make out well by the current system and will resist changing it. Many of them are powerful middle-aged bureaucrats who are themselves approaching old age rapidly.

The [Koizumi] government, in a cabinet session on the morning of 10 February, approved a health care system reform bill the primary goal of which is to hold down health care costs, which have been increasing as society ages. The bill will be submitted to the Diet within the day. The bill incorporates such proposals as a phased-in increase, to begin in October, in the health care fees paid by the elderly and the restructuring of [national] health insurance.

If the bill is enacted, cash register payments [that is, the amount you pay on the way out of the doctor's office, assessed as a percentage of the total tab] for high-income persons of at least 70 years of age will increase. You're designated high-income if your annual household income is over about US $55000. Of course, the bill doesn't seem to address systemic inefficiencies that encourage over-subscription--notably the practice of drawing out treatment for a relatively simple problem over several visits, after the fashion of a novel published serially. Or the effects of overweening bureaucracy.

A case of earthquake resistance fakery not perpetrated by Aneha (story so far as I've kept track) has surfaced:

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport disclosed on 8 February that it had confirmed a case of fraud related to structural calculations for three apartment complexes in Fukuoka City; the calculations had been contracted out to a design firm that was not part of Aneha Architecture and Design. The firm in question is Something (Fukuoka Prefecture; closed for business in 2002), and the construction firm for all affected buildings was Kimura Construction (Yashiro City, Kumamoto Prefecture; now in bankruptcy proceedings). This is the first case of such fraud that has come to light that did not involve former first-class architect Hideji Aneha.

*******

Princess Kiko, the wife of the current Emperor and Empress's second son Fumihito, is pregnant with her third child. The Nikkei seems to think it newsworthy that the British press is going bananas over the news--maybe there's some sort of constitutional monarchy kinship thing going here? Anyway, the news feeds into the controversy over possible female succession that's been percolating here:

News of a new member of the imperial family comes as the government is moving to revise the Imperial House Law to allow females and their descendants to ascend the Chrysanthemum throne.

However, conservative Diet members, especially those in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, oppose Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's stated intention to pass the revision during the current Diet session.

No boy has been born in the imperial family since Fumihito in 1965.

If the emperor's next grandchild is a boy, he would be third in line to the throne under the current Imperial House Law.

The English Asahi has another article specifically about the move to change the rules of successsion here. Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako, his much put-upon wife, have managed to produce a daughter, but she's ineligible to become empress.

*******

I was hoping there would be something deliciously inflammatory to report from the Japan-DPRK summit this week. (Well, stopping short of "We're sending missiles to Tokyo, Insular Devils!") No such luck. The talks ended today. The result? Negotiations must continue. Oh, okay:

Japan and North Korea concluded their five-day schedule of talks on 8 February with a general meeting at a hotel in Beijing. Japan once again conveyed that its fundamental approach is that "until the issues of the 1970s abductions of Japanese citizens and of the DPRK's nuclear program and long-range missiles are resolved, there will be no normalization of relations." There was no progress in concrete terms. Both parties affirmed that parallel talks will continue on three major themes: normalization of relations, Japanese abductees, and North Korea's nuclear and missile programs.

Japan doubts the DPRK's sincerity. The DPRK returns the compliment.

*******

As always, they may (or may not) be contemplating increasing the consumption tax (or at least changing it in what might possibly be deemed a non-negative, non-zero direction). Yeah, I know--blah, blah, blah. What's semi-interesting is that the DPJ seems to have wheeled Katsuya Okada out of the morgue to comment:

The Prime Minister indicated that he is of the opinion that continuing reforms will be necessary even after [current] goals will have been achieved, stating, "It cannot be said that once the primary balance is in the black, financial restructuring is finished." Okada proposed corrections, stating, "We must [first] think about what our next goals will be," and ending with, "Those in positions of authority at that point in time will have to think about them."

That part of the back-and-forth, while not very interesting in and of itself, is important because Koizumi has made it clear that he expects his followers (called the "Post-Koizumi" government, in what has become a tediously over-repeated locution) to continue his program of reforms, by implication, to his liking. No one, either within the ruling coalition or in the opposition, is certain right now how well Koizumi will actually be able to use his present power to exert influence on future administrations.

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.