The White Peril 白禍

難民

Sean — 2008-07-27T16:07+00:00

Japan is taking another step to change its xenophobic image:

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

...

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

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

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

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

ノー・コメント

Sean — 2008-03-21T08:03+00:00

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

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

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

...

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

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

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

Survey says?

Sean — 2008-03-20T12:03+00:00

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

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

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

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

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

日銀

Sean — 2008-03-11T12:03+00:00

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

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

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

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

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

Can't fight fate

Sean — 2008-03-07T05:03+00:00

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

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

Cutting bureaucratic fat may be a lot tougher than anticipated.

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

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

...

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

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

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

*******

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

*******

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

*******

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

*******

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

*******

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

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

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

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

*******

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

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

Ring in the new!

Sean — 2007-12-28T11:12+00:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

観光庁

Sean — 2007-12-20T05:12+00:00

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

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

...

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

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

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

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

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

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

生きる力

Sean — 2007-10-30T02:10+00:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fukuda cabinet yet to squander public support

Sean — 2007-10-10T03:10+00:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

...

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

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

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

Shopping for voters

Sean — 2007-09-28T05:09+00:00

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

No, make that 59%.

Oops! I mean, 58%.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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