The White Peril 白禍

This is kind of old news by now for those who have followed the abductee issue, but President Bush met with the families of several abductees and a few North Korean defectors last week:

"It is hard to believe that a country would foster abduction. It's hard for Americans to imagine that a leader of any country would encourage the abduction of a young child," Bush said about the North Korean regime and its leader, Kim Jong Il.

Wearing a blue badge on his suit lapel to express solidarity with the families, Bush called on Pyongyang to return abductees, saying, "If North Korea expects to be respected in the world, that country must respect human rights and human dignity and must allow this mother to hug her child again."

In her press conference later Friday, Sakie Yokota expressed her hope that the U.S. president's first meeting with an abductee's family would encourage other world leaders to unite in pressuring North Korea to resolve the issue.

"I thanked the president for sharing time with us in his busy schedule. He said he was never too busy to find time to talk about human dignity and freedom. I really wish leaders of all countries would share that thought," Yokota said.

Of course, "solidarity" is a rather vague term. To judge by precedent, the abductee issue will be readily backburnered at future meetings with the DPRK once negotiations over nuclear development start getting sticky. That's not to cast aspersions on Bush's sincerity or sympathy; it's just to say that if the Yokotas and others expect a change in diplomatic approach, I'm not so sure they'll get one.

Just in case you need your memory jogged about what a vile hellhole North Korea is, Human Rights Watch gives the genteel version here. Note that while I focus on the thirteen Japanese abductees here, the number of South Korean abductees numbers in the thousands:

According to South Korea's Unification Ministry, a total of 3,790 South Koreans were kidnapped and taken to North Korea between 1953 and 1995, of whom 486 remain detained. Some of the abductees have been used in propaganda broadcasts to South Korea, while others have been used to train North Korean spies. North Korea has rejected repeated requests from families of the South Korean abductees to confirm their existence, to return them, or, in the cases of the dead, to return their remains.

It's not clear that having the US play policeman--a role for which it's usually criticized--will have much effect on the issue. At the same time Washington can hardly prove to be more impotent than, say, the UN:

The North Korea Human Rights Act, which the U.S. adopted in 2004, opens up the possibility for North Korean refugees to be admitted for resettlement in the United States. Thus far, however, little action has been taken, and it is unclear how many refugees could benefit or when. The U.N. Commission on Human Rights adopted a resolution for the third straight year calling on North Korea to respect basic human rights. In November 2005, the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution against North Korea, citing "systemic, widespread and grave violations of human rights."

North Korea has largely shunned talks with U.N. human rights experts, except for a few meetings on children’s and women’s rights. It has not responded to repeated requests by Vitit Muntarbhorn, special rapporteur on North Korea, to engage in dialogue.

Dialogue only works as a problem-solving tool among people who can trust one another to be working from similar principles.

No, guys, I haven't forgotten about you. Remember in March when I said that it was the end of the Japanese financial year and that things should start to get a little less hectic in April?

Right.

In truth, the busy-ness was only part of it. The ugliness of the debates over, say, immigration and the rape allegations at Duke has not exactly provided an incentive to get right in there and contribute. At least, it hasn't provided any incentive to me. So despite the DPJ's much-discussed win last week and the death of urban planning critic Jane Jacobs and other newsworthy stuff, I didn't feel much like posting. I don't think I even remembered to mention that I'd been blogging for exactly two years as of mid-April. (Did I?) Anyway, thanks to those who have kept checking back despite the silence.

The Nikkei lead editorial spot was devoted to a single piece today--no surprise, considering the topic:

On 1 May, the "Corporate Law," with its nearly 1000 articles, goes into effect. It is the new fundamental law that has been set up to bundle Section 2 of the Commercial Law with the Limited Company Law, among others, which up to now stipulated how enterprises may be constituted.

A variety of options have been established to permit companies from start-ups to corporate giants to be created and operated in accordance with their respective statures. That means the large-scale deregulation of entrepreneurial activity. Enterprises will have to take decisive responsibility for themselves and set strategies with a new level of clarity.

A few notes here: Japanese has a good handful of words that can be translated "corporation," depending not only on the kind of organization but also on which aspect of corporation-ness is being emphasized. The most literal equivalent to the Latinate sense of embodiedness in our English terms is 法人 (houjin: "law" + "person"). The strictest equivalent of limited, both in terms of meaning and in terms of use in company names, is 有限会社 (yuugen-gaisha: "limited company"), which is the word used in the name of the law referred to above.

In the era of numerous legal restrictions, they were like so-called "rails" that had been laid down. From here on, [enterprises] will have to decide for themselves which directions to travel. Without being kept in line by government supervision, they will get direct feedback on their business acumen in the results of applying it. Toshitaka Hagiwara, chair of the Nippon Keidanren's Joint Committee on Economic Regulation and chairman of the board of Komatsu, sees the new law this way: "We won't be able to exploit our increased number of options if we don't adopt solid policies based on what will truly profit those with a stake in our organizations, starting with our shareholders."

Making money for shareholders was, of course, approximately priority number 953 in the Japan Inc. era. Expansion was the goal, and with the book value of assets (especially property) increasing so rapidly during the Bubble, it was easy to justify.

Yes, I know that the Bubble burst a decade and a half ago. Unfortunately, the Japan Inc. mindset and ways of doing things still have a hold on too many organizations. Outside a handful of world-famous giants, most companies have only a hazy idea of what competing in global markets would actually require of them. That means that whether the nationwide corporate culture in Japan is really ready to make the most of the its new options is an open question. The new law abolishes minimum capitalizations on public companies and LLCs. It allows terms of up to ten years for directors and allows for the requirement that board members be shareholders. It also eases the dissolution of holding companies and the spinning off of subsidiaries.

It doesn't address other factors, such as the financial sector's continuing poor lending judgment. (Risk assessment and risk management are still underdeveloped here in just about every field. So, for that matter, is the financial sector itself.) And a quite extraordinary number of people--even around my age--still look on their companies as social entities to which they owe loyalty, rather than enterprises to which they contribute productivity. That's not to say they don't work hard. But most people, including those who go on to become CEOs, still don't seem to think in terms of developing their own talents their own way and looking for the organizations (and niches within organizations) where they best fit. The relaxing of regulations on corporate structure is itself a sign of a cultural shift, naturally, but how much of one remains to be seen.

And just to drive home that one-big-happy-family feeling....

Courting the likelihood of another outburst from overseas, 96 members of a suprapartisan lawmakers' group visited war-related Yasukuni Shrine on Friday, the first day of an annual three-day spring rite.

The politicians belong to a group called Minnade Yasukunijinja ni Sanpaisuru Kokkaigiin no Kai, which literally means, "A group of Diet members who visit Yasukuni Shrine together."

The 96 lawmakers who visited Friday included former Liberal Democratic Party Secretary-General Makoto Koga, who currently serves as the head of Nippon Izokukai, an association for bereaved family members of the nation's war dead.

Well, all right, then. (BTW, that name really is a mouthful--皆で靖国神社に参拝する国会議員の会. They must have some eyecatching letterhead.)

You can bet that when the US and the PRC have a high-level meeting, we hear all about it here in Japan. The top story in the Nikkei's evening edition was "Failure to connect on concrete issues at US-China Meeting." The information about the meeting itself was basically the same as what we're seeing in the English-language media:

Hu sat down with President Bush on Thursday for what both sides described as constructive talks despite a lack of movement in differences over the Chinese currency or on how to resolve nuclear disputes with Iran and North Korea.

In a dinner speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups, Hu acknowledged "differences and even frictions" in U.S.-China relations. But the Chinese leader said he and Bush agreed to take steps to move forward to a more constructive and cooperative relationship.

"I certainly look forward to a future China-U.S. relationship that is more stable, more mature and developed on a sounder track," Hu said in a question-and-answer session after his speech.

Prime Minister Koizumi's take has been posted as a quickie:

Prime Minister Koizumi spoke to the press corps around noon on 21 April about the US-China summit, at which no material progress was made on issues such as DPRK nuclear development and yuan revaluation [the original says "revolution"--SRK]: "Nations have their respective ways of thinking. They will not necessarily agree on everything." Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe spoke to a press conference about the valuation of the yuan. "What's desirable is the kind of flexibility that reflects the fundamentals of the Chinese economy," he indicated.

Ooh, speaking of reflecting economic realities, the potential problems with Japan Post privatization are getting more play as the holding company's operations are gathering steam for real. The FTC is not pleased. Japan Post's advantages over entrants into its markets have been discussed in more detail before, but the Asahi's summary homes in on some of the major problems with mail delivery specifically:

The Fair Trade Commission took shots at Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's vaunted postal privatization project, saying the plan in its current form will give the behemoth Japan Post an unfair advantage over private-sector rivals.

In a report released Friday, the anti-monopoly watchdog pointed out a number of items that needed a review, from Japan Post's vast delivery network to parking spaces.

...

But a number of companies that have entered the business are limited to deliveries during certain time frames and at certain fees. That is because companies intending to start regular mail delivery services are required to set up a huge number of postal boxes and ensure uniform services in all corners of the country.

But many companies cannot afford to do so.

The FTC's report said Japan Post will have a huge advantage over private companies if it retains its monopoly over ordinary mail delivery services and enters other fields, such as international deliveries of parcels and other items, as planned.

Under the watered-down postal privatization bills passed last year, Japan Post can operate postal and financial services under a government-funded holding company. The government is to gradually decrease the level of its funding.

The FTC's report said current regulations, such as companies ensuring uniform services all over Japan, must be abolished to allow newcomers to start regular mail deliveries.

The report also said parcel delivery companies and international distributors should be allowed to use, for a fee, Japan Post's postal delivery network, which covers all parts of the country, after privatization.

Japan will freeze some of its aid to the Palestinians as a reaction to the Hamas victory in the elections:

The government, in a move that aligns it with the US and the EU, which have announced cessations in aid, aims to force a reversal of Hamas's policy of armed struggle [with Israel].

The aid cessation will be limited to that which would have gone to new projects to build social capital and infrastructure; the plan is to continue to respond to requests from the Palestinians for humanitarian aid, such as food.

The article mentions Ministry of Foreign Affairs Taro Aso, who usually has something fabulously undiplomatic to say about this kind of thing. No such luck this time, unfortunately.

On a related matter (and for those who've managed not to see it linked yet), Jonathan Rauch's latest National Journal column is reproduced in Reason On-line. It's about what the T in WOT should be understood to mean. His recommendation, which synthesizes approaches in a few new scholarly works:

Jihadism is not a tactic, like terrorism, or a temperament, like radicalism or extremism. It is not a political pathology like Stalinism, a mental pathology like paranoia, or a social pathology like poverty. Rather, it is a religious ideology, and the religion it is associated with is Islam.

...

No single definition prevails, but here is a good one: Jihadism engages in or supports the use of force to expand the rule of Islamic law. In other words, it is violent Islamic imperialism. It stands, as one scholar put it 90 years ago, for "the extension by force of arms of the authority of the Muslim state."

Viewing Jihadism as the enemy could make it easier to confront its religious element squarely without seeming to implicate all of Islam. I'm not sure using the word would work quite as Rauch seems to think--even the much-talked-about moderate Muslims could be somewhat miffed by outsiders who try to tell them what one of the central concepts of their faith should mean. But the term certainly gives more focus to our own side of the struggle than "terror."

It pays to diversify, apparently. Indications are now that Hidetsugu Aneha not only falsified earthquake resistance data for buildings but also fraudulently lent his name and credentials to an unqualified designer...who used them to falsify earthquake resistance data on buildings he designed:

Investigators believe the designer, who did not have an architect's license, asked Aneha to lend his name and used Aneha's seal to stamp construction documents he submitted to the municipal government.

In return for lending his name, Aneha allegedly received about 20 percent of the design fees paid by the real estate company--about 10 million yen--from the designer, the sources said.

Using Aneha's name, the designer drew blueprints for nine buildings, including condos, and five wooden houses. Seismic data for six of them were fabricated, the sources said.

Aneha wasn't the only party to branch out into more than one form of fraud, says the Asahi:

Police on Monday questioned executives of Kimura Construction Co. on suspicion the company, embroiled in the scandal over fake quake-resistance reports, had falsified financial statements for several years.

...

Under the construction industry law, companies that undertake public works projects are required to submit documents that objectively show their business conditions, performances and other factors to the central and prefectural governments.

Those companies are then ranked based on assessments of their financial conditions and other factors. The scale of public works projects those companies can bid on depends on their rankings.

And let's not leave out Huser, the other entity that's seen the greatest gains in infamy since the scandal broke:

According to police and other sources, Ojima had a meeting Oct. 27 last year with Aneha and the president of the private inspection company, eHomes Ltd., at Huser's main office in Tokyo's Marunouchi district.

...

The eHomes president said he could not "issue building inspection certificates for four buildings that had yet to be completed."

But, according to sources, Ojima argued, "I think we can somehow manage the situation by applying anti-quake reinforcing and vibration-control methods."

...

The day after the meeting, Huser accepted payments from residents who bought units in the Grand Stage Fujisawa and started procedures for them to move in.

"When I heard from former architect Aneha that he had 'reduced' figures, I knew he meant he reduced (the buildings') resistance against seismic forces," Ojima told The Asahi Shimbun. "But I never knew that he had reduced those figures by 70 to 80 percent."

The Grand Stage Fujisawa has only 15 percent of the quake-resistance strength required under the Building Standards Law, meaning that it could crumble in a moderately strong earthquake.

The Aneha scandal isn't the only somewhat-encouraging sign of a new interest in accountability. This Mainichi English report says that Mitsubishi Motors, defective vehicles from which have been implicated in a parade of fatal accidents over the last dozen or so years, has been ordered to pay damages to the mother of a woman who was killed by a wheel that came off a moving truck in 2002. It also, unusually even for English articles in the Japanese press, contains background helpful for those who don't live here:

"Mitsubishi Motors can afford to pay 5.5 million yen [US $50 thousand-ish--SRK] without feeling an ounce of pain," Aoki said in a telephone interview. "The legal system must work to provide preventive measures."

Aoki said Japan's system for keeping companies in check was so outdated victims of such accidents are usually awarded even less than the damages in Tuesday's ruling.

Mitsubishi Motors said it will abide by the ruling and apologized to Okamoto's family.

"We will do our utmost as a company to regain trust, strengthen compliance measures and vow to prevent any recurrence," the company said in a statement.

The ideas of consumer rights and corporate responsibility are still new in Japan, a conformist, harmony-loving society in which conflicts are avoided and often settled behind the scenes.

Japan's first product liability law was passed only in 1994, and damage suits are relatively rare. Companies are rarely required to pay more than a token amount. Even when convicted of criminal wrongdoing, executives of companies are generally handed lenient sentences with no prison terms.

Does it get more obscene than covering up defects in vehicles and houses used by trusting people? Well, how about if your racket is to screw them out of their life savings?

Excessive lending has pushed an increasing number of borrowers to bankruptcy or forced them to give up their home or other assets to repay their debts.

The FSA concluded administrative punishments should be imposed against such lending practices after many vicious cases surfaced at Aiful Corp.

The FSA on Friday ordered the major consumer loan company to suspend operations at all 1,900 of its outlets for three to 25 days as punishment for overly aggressive debt-collection tactics and other problems.

The lack of lender liability protection has been an ongoing problem in Japan; given the increase in the percent of aging people who need financial services but don't really understand how they work, the FSA's sense of mission is not a moment too soon.

Atsushi was coming home this weekend, so Friday I'd planned to turn in early. But a dear friend had suddenly decided to pack up and go back to his home country, so it would be one of my last chances to see him, and work had been pretty intense over the last week; so I ended up out for a little while. It turned out to be a wise decision. For the first time in a few weeks, I spent an entire night out with the boys when it was just fun--no tear-wiping or advice-giving. You know how things seem to go in cycles wherein the lives of all the people you know get way complicated all at once? It's not that you can blame anyone (except the fickle, duplicitous guys who tend to be involved in many cases); it's just what happens. Friday night I was able to ramp down from big brother mode a little and just have a matey good time, and it made it much easier not to attack Atsushi with a litany of frustrations the moment he came in the door.

IKEA is opening a store in the Tokyo area--Funabashi, the first city I stayed in when I arrived in Japan nearly ten years ago, actually. Anyway, for publicity, the company has an exhibit of model rooms in installation boxes along one of the boulevards in Aoyama. Atsushi is a total furniture queen. Not a decorating queen, mind you, just furniture itself. He likes to buy it and then kind of plunk it in the apartment where it seems to make sense and forget about it. I'm one of those people who have to try a new piece in every conceivable position before I leave it sit.

Additionally, furniture was one of our major flirtation props when we were first getting together. He'd just bought the apartment and was moving out of a furnished company dorm room, so there was a lot to buy and arrange. It was the most natural thing in the world for me to throw lines like "Call me if you need help with anything; I only live a few stops away, and, you know, American guys are good at DIY stuff." As a literal offer, it was complete malarkey. I'm really not bad with stuff around the house--though living in modular-plastic-box Japan for ten years has made me forget a lot--but he was moving into a brand-new building and having everything delivered and installed by Nippon Express. There wasn't anything to help out with, and we both knew it. But it served as a demonstration of interest, and looking at home furnishings became a staple date activity for us over the first few months. So yesterday was kind of a sweet reminder of that, even if the rooms themselves were, as one might have expected, ridiculously unlivable-looking.

And we got to spend Sunday morning eating breakfast and watching the political yak shows and stuff. This morning's ration of "and stuff" was a fascinating special about public works boondoggles in Hokkaido. It was a Dogs and Demons classic. If none of the information was really new--I mean, I hadn't been aware of what was happening in those specific villages, but redundant roads and dams are old stories in Japan--it was still entertainingly presented.

I especially liked the new federal highway planned to run through a village of 5000 in the north-central region of the island. Not only are there already a tangled skein of little-used federal, prefectural, and municipal roadways criss-crossing the area--seriously, this must be the most readily accessible isolated village in human history--but the new road takes the long way around to its coastal destination. The reporter interviewed several truckers, who chuckled that of course they weren't going to use it because there was already a truck-worthy shortcut to the same city that wasn't a toll road.

Residents of, I think, Sapporo next talked about snow-plowing, which is performed by three separate fleets of public teams. You have your federal team for the federal roads, your prefectural team for the prefectural roads, and your municipal team for the municipal roads. I was only listening with one ear at this point, but the problem seems to be that the local roads people actually need to use to get out of their houses are plowed after the federal snow removal teams have sailed through, scrupulously taking care of their territory only. So there are both redundancies and non-performance problems.

We had to take off when they started talking about the gajillion unnecessary dams and retaining walls that shackle the rivers. The point that was made--again a known one, but presented in detail--was that the Hokkaido prefectural government had submitted to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport a list of projects that should be shifted to local jurisdiction...and was curtly rebuffed (譲渡が困難 was the phrase highlighted in the document, IIRC) because the projects were deemed to be in the national interest. And, the reporter pointed out, it's in the budgetary interest of the MLIT to keep as many projects under its own management as possible.

So...bureaucratic self-centeredness: bad. Mischievous, non-nurturing good time with friends: good. Atsushi here for weekend: good. Atsushi having to go back to Kyushu again: bad. I think I made out well on balance, especially since my street is never under three feet of snow. Hope everyone else had a good weekend, too.

Around January-ish, there were reports that the ruling coalition was haggling over the definition of patriotism in new education legislation. The two parties have reached an agreement:

On 12 April, the LDP and Komeito reached a broad agreement in connection with proposed revisions to the Fundamental Law of Education, which determines the basic concepts that frame education. The parties agreed on a course by which the expression of "patriotism," which had been a focal point [for debate], was that [the educational system] "cultivates an attitude by which, along with loving our nation and homeland, [a student] respects other nations and serves the development of peace for the international community." After an official decision is made on 13 April, the government is on track to submit the proposal to the Diet as early as mid-April.

Why so much ink spilled over this particular negotiation? You never want to freight one of these little episodes with too much Significance; nevertheless, I think the above story does encapsulate some of the broad-brush problems Japan has been encountering in the last decade and a half or so. Is there supposed to be a shift in attitude toward Japan's resident Chinese and Koreans? Would the educational system change in ways that would encourage children not just to "make contact with" other cultures but actually to immerse themselves in them, even at risk of becoming a little less Japanese? And what about the possibility of allowing more immigration? The point here is not to fantasize that thorny issues could be solved or micro-managed through a change of phrasing in a federal education policy. It's just to point out that people pay attention because they know that the question of patriotism in the public schools touches on issues that go far beyond just what teachers and textbooks say in the classrooms.

Added five seconds later: It's also worth noting this part, from the same Nikkei article:

The Fundamental Education Law currently in effect was ratified in 1947. The government and ruling coalition originally looked into revising it based on indications that "it has not responded to changing times."

In this PC era, you respond to changing times by vaguely invoking the "international community," I guess.

The Nikkei had several good editorials over the last few days while I was busy thinking about other things. One on Friday was about the teaching of English in elementary schools:

The debate over whether to make English a compulsory subject in elementary schools has heated up. At a meeting at the end of March, the Foreign Languages Division of the Central Education Commission, the advisory body for the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology [actual official English name, kids--SRK], compiled a report approving the move. For Japan to survive in this age of internationalization, we cannot dodge the necessity of perfecting our English education. We must be forward-thinking with regards to making English compulsory in elementary schools.

...

Post-war English education has been a disaster. The sad situation is that, despite the long time they spend studying it, English isn't something the vast majority of people are actually able to use. One option for addressing that is to set up an environment in which students can get to know English from elementary school on.

However, there are several topics of concern involved in making English compulsory.

One major concern raised is that putting English into the curriculum could require cutting out time spent studying Japanese language and literature to make room for it. Another is that foreign teachers would have to be brought in in order for students to learn real English. The editors see neither of these as insurmountable, since the time dedicated to English would amount to about an hour a week and electronic media can provide audio stimuli without the presence of a native speaker.

Oddly for the Nikkei editors--who are usually wonderfully ready to give bureaucracy a good pummeling at any opportunity--they don't raise what I see as the biggest concern: Given that the Ministry of Education has spent the last half-century non-teaching kids English in junior high and high school, do we really expect it to come up with a program of English for grade school kids that's efficacious at anything but consuming more of the budget?

A paragraph I didn't cite said, "There's no need to conceive of English and Japanese as opponents." But one of the problems, of course, is that English education here has been drained of as much possible "foreignness" as possible. Students in Japanese schools learn English the way they learn math--as a set of formulaic rules to be memorized and adapted to situations that fit certain criteria. In its quest to turn children into good Japanese adults, the Ministry of Education has steadfastly avoided impressing upon them that English is a multi-dimensional language and way of thinking about the world that's different from the Japanese way of thinking. How far the society here should go in cultivating the special Japaneseness of its young is not for me to judge; but the Ministry of Education's guiding principles to date have clearly been real barriers to effective foreign language learning, and all the talk about "internationalization" will be essentially meaningless until that conflict is faced squarely. It's odd to see the normally incisive Nikkei glide over that.

The government has denied that it has yet shared any DNA information about Megumi Yokota's possible husband with the ROK:

Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe made a statement the report in the South Korean press that the Japanese government has confirmed that the person reported to be DPRK abductee Megumi Yokota's husband was also a man who was abducted from South Korea at a press conference following an April 7 cabinet meeting. He denied the reports, saying, "We are moving forward diligently with the DNA evaluation, but at this point in time, the results are not yet in, and in our capacity as the government, we have not specified anything about the person said to be Megumi Yokota's husband." Minister of Foreign Affairs Taro Aso also stated emphatically, "It certainly isn't yet the case that word has officially come from among the professionals--scholars and such--that this is the man, or this isn't the man."

Unlike a lot of diplomatic issues, the abductee problem has an obvious human interest angle, and the Japanese public has responded. One wonders whether the government isn't being so quick to deny that it's helped the ROK because of the loud complaints here at home that it's doing little to find out what happened to the Japanese abductees still not satisfactorily accounted for.

The 6-party talks will, if the negotiations work out, be scheduled to open again some time soon:

The Chinese foreign ministry announced on 6 April that Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Wu Dawei, chair of the 6-party talks revolving around North Korea's nuclear issues, will visit Japan. Representatives to the talks from the DPRK, ROK, and US plan visits to Japan to coincide with an international summit to be convened on 9 April; Russia is also looking into the possibility of participating. That means that all major members, including Japan, will be gathered in Tokyo. Signs are that each of these high officials will be in contact with the others on an individual basis, looking for a way to reopen the 6-party talks, which have been suspended since last November.

It's not possible to tell what will come of this, of course. Precedent says the 6-party talks will, if repoened, be useful more for making the DPRK feel appreciated and respected like a real country with legitimacy and stuff than for resolving things.

Speaking of Chinese diplomats, PRC politicians' remarks about the Yasukuni Shrine pilgrimages keep coming:

Last week's declaration by Chinese President Hu Jintao on Yasukuni Shrine continued to ripple through Japan's political community Tuesday.

Foreign Minister Taro Aso once again had strong words for Hu over the Chinese president's suggestion that he would meet with Japanese leaders on condition that they stop visiting Yasukuni Shrine.

"It sounds like a method similar to saying to Taiwan 'We won't meet with you unless you recognize such-and-such aspect of China,'" Aso said Tuesday. "Their methods go beyond our understanding."

Yeah, listen to you, tough guy. Surely, Taiwan is the last issue Aso wants to be bringing up in the process of ringingly declaring that Japan stands firm in the face of China's irritable demands.

It's now official: Naoto Kan and Ichiro Ozawa will run for the position of Democratic Party of Japan president this coming week:

On the night of 5 April, the DPJ's Ichiro Ozawa and Naoto Kan officially announced in rapid succession at press conferences their intention to stand as candidates in the 7 April election for party leader in the wake of current leader Seiji Maehara's resignation. Ozawa stated emphatically that he has "resolved to throw my political viability into find a solution to our current hardships and realize [the goal of] a DPJ administration [in the Diet]." Kan related that "the DPJ is truly standing at the edge of a cliff. I aim for an administration that will revitalize it."

The vote is expected to be close.

Apparently, Japan and the ROK are teaming up to try to find out the identity of Megumi Yokota's husband:

In February, the Japanese government took blood and other samples from the families of five South Korean abduction victims who were cited as possible husbands of Yokota, and had been testing the DNA of the samples.

In response, South Korean officials said that if the possibility of Yokota's husband being a South Korean abductee arose, it would ask Japan for DNA information from Yokota's daughter, Kim Hye Gyong, and conduct its own verification of the identity of Yokota's husband.

Five South Koreans who disappeared in 1977 and 1978 have been citied as possible husbands of Yokota. South Korea has acknowledged that all five were abducted by North Korean agents.

For Yokota's husband's sake, let's hope his affairs are settled more easily than hers have been. The poor woman's father has been on television so frequently over the last few years that a lot of us news watchers know him by sight now. The reason, of course, is that the DPRK keeps playing games about releasing her remains--who knows whether Pyongyang even knows where they are by this point? Some abductees have returned to more (Hitomi Soga, wife of US Army deserter Charles Jenkins) or less (several others who have returned to quiet lives in the provinces) publicity, but Yokota's case has become a symbol of North Korea's inability just to do something...anything...forthright.

Yes, of course, even while I was taking a break from the blog, I noticed that Seiji Maehara was stepping down as head of the Democratic Party of Japan, thus reducing the number of I'd-do-him politicians in Japan by approximately 100%. The cause was the disastrous handling of the (beyond wearisome) fake e-mail scandal:

DPJ Secretary-General Yukio Hatoyama and other top executives will also resign.

Moreover, Hisayasu Nagata, a DPJ member of the House of Representatives at the center of the scandal, who had stubbornly refused to step down as a legislator, finally agreed Friday to give up his Diet seat. His resignation was accepted by the chamber's speaker, Yohei Kono, later in the day.

"I'm solely to blame for causing this problem to expand. As the party leader, I'd like to take responsibility for that," Maehara told a news conference. "The party should elect a new leader at an early date to fulfill its responsibility as the largest opposition party."

...

Based on an e-mail he had obtained from a former freelance journalist, Nagata falsely accused ruling Liberal Democratic Party Secretary-General Tsutomu Takebe during a Diet session in mid-February of having collusive relations with Livedoor Co. founder Takafumi Horie.

However, the DPJ concluded that his claim was groundless after the e-mail, which suggested Horie had ordered that 30 million yen be sent to Takebe's second son, proved to be fake.

The Livedoor scandal is one of those things you can't be an informed resident of Japan without following, but I've never found it all that engaging. That there was such a flap over an e-mail, however, was an almost too-perfect symbol of the conflict between the smartypants tech-minded Livedoor crew and the scowling suits who are nostalgic for the Japan Inc. era. Maehara's insistence about it did seem odd; perhaps he was taking the opportunity to demonstrate some implacability vis-à-vis Prime Minister Koizumi, who, though he's often not so hot at follow-through, is absolutely brilliant at stagey showdowns.

In any case, as divisive as his stance on defense and his relative youth were, they at least suggested that the DPJ might be moving in the direction of welcoming fresh thinking about the changing realities Japan is operating in. It's hard to be hopeful about that given who his potential successors are, though it's hard to blame DPJ higher-ups who think what's necessary now is a leader with name recognition, a power base, and a clear relation to the DPJ brand.