The White Peril 白禍

Not all of Prime Minister Koizumi's gestures of respect for Japanese military dead are controversial. This morning he attended a memorial service for fallen SDF personnel:

Addressing those assembled at a memorial service held at the Japan Defense Agency for Self-Defense Force personnel who have fallen in the line of duty, Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizumi stated, "This precious sacrifice by the spirits [of our soldiers] has not been made for nothing; we will continue to construct a system that allows us to complete the exalted mission [they undertook]."

The memorial was for sixteen or so SDF trainees who were killed in training accidents; there have been no combat operations since the war, of course. Koizumi's statement was pretty content free today--in political terms, I mean; there's nothing weightless about honoring dead soldiers--but it's always good to pay attention to these things because things that slip into set-piece speeches can sometimes give you a glimpse of what the administration is thinking. Where to take the SDF from here has been a big issue over the last few years. The US supports moves to make it more like a standing army, with the legal ability to participate in defense operations with allies. North Korea likes to test missiles over our heads. China's economic growth has been accompanied by increased unrest and schizo behavior by the CCP. Japan wants permanent membership on the UN Security Council. And that doesn't even factor in Japan's place on the Islamofascist terror hit list, for the transgression of being a developed and free country.

The current proposal by the LDP's committee on constitutional revision is to change the SDF to the SDA: 自衛軍 (jieigun: self-defense army). You can never translate these things perfectly, but a 軍 is more menacing-sounding than a 隊. Koizumi appears not to have said much of anything about how his administration views the SDF's "mission" this morning, but it's clearly changing.

Condoleezza Rice has explicitly declared that the US supports Japan in its efforts to resolve the abductee issue:

On the evening of 28 October (29 October JST), Minister of Foreign Affairs Nobutaka Machimura met with US Secretary of State [Condoleezza] Rice at the Ministry of Interior Affairs. They agreed in their perception that there must be a review of US and Japan's contributions to the United Nations, which combined exceed 40% [of total member contributions]. They also reaffirmed that they would present a united front in working toward the denuclearization of North Korea. Machimura indicated that, regarding the Japan-DPRK summit to be opened on 3 November, it is Japan's plan to make the Japanese abductee issue its highest priority in discussion; Rice stated [that Japan had America's] "support on all fronts."

Rice also restated that the US supports Japan's bid for permanent membership on the UN Security Council, though the Bush administration has been known to advise the Koizumi cabinet to throttle back at times. There seems to have been no mention of the beef import ban.

I was going to comment directly at Riding Sun, but I started to run long and didn't want to look like a blowhard. Well, also, my thoughts turned kind of gay (from where? you may well ask), and I didn't want to hijack what was an essentially straight thread before it got started.

The question is a perennial one:

As I've noted before, foreign men who come to Japan often find themselves much more popular with the local ladies than they might have been in their native country.

...


More than ethnic preferences, income levels, or any other factor, I suspect it's Japanese women's desire to "opt out" of their country's smothering salaryman-wife straitjacket that keeps non-Japanese guys in demand.

That's part of it, but I don't think it's all of it, or else you wouldn't see the same things in gay life. And do you ever! The things a perceptive commenter noted below the original post give a fuller picture, I think. Much of it can be boiled down to the fact that Japanese women can't really read Western cultural signals. "Doesn't that gorgeous, animated, articulate woman in the Escada suit and perfect makeup realize that the man she's with is a complete loser?" Well, no, obviously she doesn't. (cf. Rainbow Surfer Dude's wonderfully deadpan item 2: "Less need to be 'interesting' since the language barrier pushes down the upper limit of conversational complexity.")

Also...this conversation comes up not infrequently with friends of mine. A little while ago, several of us foreigners--in a group that included Japanese guys who date foreigners exclusively--were talking about why our relationships with Japanese men had tended to be with those who did not usually date non-Japanese. One of the Japanese guys present asked rather astringently what was wrong with preferring foreign men.

Obviously, nothing is, fundamentally. It's just that many gaisen Japanese, especially those who only want to speak English with you all the time, like the idea of dating a man who's always going to feel kind of baffled and clueless in Japan and need to be, you know, taken care of. I suspect, from the way I've seen many couples interact, that the same holds true for a fair number of foreigner-dating Japanese women--and I don't think that contradicts what Gaijin Biker wrote about their not wanting to be sentenced to a life of nothing but household drudgery. You can expect your mate to pitch in around the house and still want to be the one who calls the shots and is always one step ahead in terms of planning your lives together.

Added on 28 October: Thanks to Bilious Young Fogey for the link, though I must say that parenthetical makes me feel kind of square.

I was going to comment directly at Riding Sun, but I started to run long and didn't want to look like a blowhard. Well, also, my thoughts turned kind of gay (from where? you may well ask), and I didn't want to hijack what was an essentially straight thread before it got started.

The question is a perennial one:

As I've noted before, foreign men who come to Japan often find themselves much more popular with the local ladies than they might have been in their native country.

...


More than ethnic preferences, income levels, or any other factor, I suspect it's Japanese women's desire to "opt out" of their country's smothering salaryman-wife straitjacket that keeps non-Japanese guys in demand.

That's part of it, but I don't think it's all of it, or else you wouldn't see the same things in gay life. And do you ever! The things a perceptive commenter noted below the original post give a fuller picture, I think. Much of it can be boiled down to the fact that Japanese women can't really read Western cultural signals. "Doesn't that gorgeous, animated, articulate woman in the Escada suit and perfect makeup realize that the man she's with is a complete loser?" Well, no, obviously she doesn't. (cf. Rainbow Surfer Dude's wonderfully deadpan item 2: "Less need to be 'interesting' since the language barrier pushes down the upper limit of conversational complexity.")

Also...this conversation comes up not infrequently with friends of mine. A little while ago, several of us foreigners--in a group that included Japanese guys who date foreigners exclusively--were talking about why our relationships with Japanese men had tended to be with those who did not usually date non-Japanese. One of the Japanese guys present asked rather astringently what was wrong with preferring foreign men.

Obviously, nothing is, fundamentally. It's just that many gaisen Japanese, especially those who only want to speak English with you all the time, like the idea of dating a man who's always going to feel kind of baffled and clueless in Japan and need to be, you know, taken care of. I suspect, from the way I've seen many couples interact, that the same holds true for a fair number of foreigner-dating Japanese women--and I don't think that contradicts what Gaijin Biker wrote about their not wanting to be sentenced to a life of nothing but household drudgery. You can expect your mate to pitch in around the house and still want to be the one who calls the shots and is always one step ahead in terms of planning your lives together.

Added on 28 October: Thanks to Bilious Young Fogey for the link, though I must say that parenthetical makes me feel kind of square.

The Nikkei says that the Koizumi administration is purposefully taking a combination of hard and soft approaches to its delicate relationship with the PRC.

The government--aiming to work out a resolution to problems with Japan-China relations, which have worsened since Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizumi's latest pilgrimage to the Yasukuni Shrine--has adopted a framework within which it can use both hard and soft responses. This approach has strengthened its unified front [with the PRC] on North Koreas nuclear disarmament. On the other hand, regarding the problem of Japan's United Nations member contributions, the government's approach has also involved moves to decrease the percent that comes from Japan, which opens the possibility that the contribution expected from the PRC would rise. This backdrop for this approach was a judgment that, given a reality in which relations between the two countries have become progressively more multipolar, including economic relations, there is no need to lean only in the direction of soft approaches.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Nobutaka Machimura was emphatic in an appearance on a 23 October Fuji Television program: "I'm surprised that everyone has succumbed to the most pessimistic arguments about this recent Yasukuni pilgrimage [by the Prime Minister]. They're clearly way too pessimistic. Do people really think that Japan's international stature would decline so abruptly?" Furthermore, he stated, "We haven't reestablished visits between our heads of state, but traffic on the economic and cultural fronts is brisk."

How do you solve a problem like China? You probably don't. The CCP is engaged in frequent games of chicken with China's own restless citizens, fomenting their discontent just enough for them to let off steam at Japan without having things get out of hand. The Koizumi administration's approach often seems haphazard, but trying to keep as many tools at the ready as possible is probably the only wise policy. Of course, the right tool still has to be used at the right time.

This story from the Asahi English edition doesn't have much detail, but it's a helpful reminder that, even in First World countries, major earthquakes cause disruptions that last long after the news cameras leave:

A year ago Sunday the Niigata Chuetsu Earthquake hit, leaving 51 people dead and thousands injured. One year later, more than 9,100 victims still live in temporary housing.

Many are battling financial and other difficulties and have yet to complete rebuilding work. About 1,000 households have abandoned such plans or say they have no prospect yet of rebuilding their homes that were lost in the Oct. 23, 2004, temblor.

With a second snowy winter looming, an estimated 400 households in the former Yamakoshi village, now part of Nagaoka city, and other communities in Niigata Prefecture are still subject to evacuation orders or advisories.

The English story combines information from these two stories. The Yomiuri conducted a poll and found that 44% of those still living in temporary housing have no plans to rebuild their houses. Most of the people affected are from a relatively small, particularly hard-hit area in Niigata Prefecture.

For its part, the Mainichi surveyed municipalities affected by last year's series of quakes. (Most articles talk about a single "earthquake," but there were actually three or four strong ones in rapid succession.)

The Kawaguchi Municipal Government that came under fire for failing to incorporate earthquake countermeasures in its disaster prevention plan admitted that it has not yet begun reviewing it.

"Multiple divisions must be involved in reviewing the plan. It's impossible for local governments that have fewer officials to quickly review their disaster prevention plan even if it's necessary," an official of the town's general affairs division said.

Nine municipalities are now storing water in case of a devastating disaster, an increase from four in the pre-quake period. Fourteen municipalities have stockpiled emergency food, as compared with 10 before the Niigata quake.

However, only seven municipalities, or 25 percent, have stockpiled both water and emergency food.

Only four municipalities have set up a system under which they provide subsidies to local residents to examine whether and how far their houses are quake-resistant and two others are prepared to provide subsidies to residents to make their houses quake-proof. Many of the municipalities that have no such subsidy systems cite their severe financial situations.

Only six of them have introduced satellite mobile phones and other communication devices in case their areas are isolated from surrounding areas.

Niigata Prefecture is not an earthquake hot zone in Japanese terms. However, as we saw last year, the low probability of a devastating quake is offset by the fact that many people live in remote villages on landslide-prone ground that makes destruction likely and rescue operations difficult. When a quake does eventually hit, people are in big trouble.

The NHK special turned out to be nothing all that revelatory, though it had the small virtue of laying out some of the major issues succinctly.

One of the new career models was represented by a woman in her 20s who lives in a small, spare apartment and gets by on temp jobs. Her point of view was that there isn't stability in a standard job with a single employer anymore anyway, so if she's going to live with the constant threat of disruption, she may as well be taking jobs that interest her while she's doing it. A former hotshot Tokyo graphic artist who quit his job, decamped with his wife for Okinawa, and now spends a lot of time fishing and, IIRC, takes freelance jobs when needed was featured as an example of another trend. (Atsushi, who's the same age, was gratified to see this guy pushed forward to exemplify trends in employment among young people.) There were a few high school students with scary post-Amuro-chan fake bakes, piercings, dyed 'n fried hair, and black and white makeup who said that they didn't see why they shouldn't do what they liked with their lives.

In the opposite corner, we had a bunch of middle-aged people. Some of them were sympathetic to the impulses of wild, free youth and figured the youngsters on parade would eventually settle down like those in generations before them. Others made the stock complaint that those who scale down their career ambitions are incapable of toughing it out through short-term hardship in order to reach a worthy long-term goal.

Atsushi and I cut out to go to dinner midway through the program, so it's possible that the five or six people who were serving as bland MCs did get around to asking interesting questions, but it certainly didn't happen while we were watching. No one saw fit to connect the dots between the middle-aged businessmen and the woman who subsisted on temp jobs, for example, and ask whether traditional (bearing in mind that that word refers to organizations that were mostly founded after the war) companies are, now that they can't offer lifetime employment, changing their work environments to make sure they stay attractive to young job seekers with other options. No one pointed out the entrepreneurs in the group and asked the disaffected high school students whether they'd thought about founding service-industry businesses that could satisfy their arty bent and attract talented peers of theirs with similar views of the relationship between work and play.

Of course, there's always the chance that these issues came up after Atsushi and I stopped watching. I doubt it, though. If they had, NHK would have found itself broadcasting an actual exchange of ideas, with awkward differences of opinion that went beyond those that viewers were already prepared to deal with. That's not usually in the program.

Prime Minister Koizumi has announced that Heizo Takenaka, the driving force behind the banking cleanup and Japan Post privatization, will retain his position after the cabinet reshuffling at the beginning of next month. Kazuo Kitagawa, the Minister of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport, will also retain his position. (Whether that's connected to the privatization of the Japan Highway Public Corporation and other transportation bodies is not clear from the Nikkei article.)

...

One of NHK's social commentary shows is doing an installment on the future of Japan's youth, featuring an array of eyecatching fringe types. Whether anything illuminating will emerge remains to be seen. Atsushi (he's home for the weekend again) and I are a little dubious about the resolute freakshow aspect. Many of the teenagers being interviewed hang out in Shibuya, which is not exactly noted for attracting the studious rank-and-file.

Perhaps if I spent more time reading the WaPo's coverage of Japanese culture stuff, I would have known that Anthony Faiola, who was the irritant behind this flip-out of mine a few weeks ago, is a repeat offender. (Is Faiola supposed to be a Japan specialist? I got the impression that he was based in China.) This from Japundit about a more recent example:

It’s sort of an interesting enough article - Faiola reports that many Japanese women suffer from a stress disorder called RHS due to the unwanted presence of their retired husbands - but it’s hardly news, especially from a reporter who specializes on Japan topics for the Washington Post. And the issue has been reported on in the English language media in Japan for years.

As well, the entire “love letters and wooing words under pink cherry blossoms” stuff is a little suspect, too. The entire idea of marrying for romantic love is a recent affectation imported from the West. Arranged marriages were the norm for today’s 65-year-old cohort, as were strict ideas about the roles and responsibilities for each partner in the marriage.

Kind of makes you wish the Post and all the other papers out there could find stringers who actually understand Japan and write stories that dig a little deeper, and go beyond stereotypes.

That's the thing that's so annoying: a lot of these reporters probably have a healthy journalistic skepticism, but if they don't know anything about Japan, their warning bells don't go off when they should; they end up swallowing clichés the way a cormorant swallows fish.

...

I just looked at one of the WaPo staff pages. Faiola is based in Tokyo. Sheesh. At least his reporting was just dull this time, as opposed to very likely inaccurate.

The LDP's constitutional revision committee confirmed today that its proposals will, in fact, include an item that redesignates the Self-Defense Force (自衛隊) as the Self-Defense Army (自衛軍). Of course, the English there doesn't match up exactly, but the new title makes the SDF sound more like a substantial standing army and less like a modest squad that can be called in if there happens to be a need:

When the committee leaders met with the Prime Minister and former Prime Minister [Yoshiro] Mori on 14 October, they concurred on guidelines: (1) the philosophical underpinnings of Article 9, which decrees that Japan "renounces war," would be strictly maintained, (2) it would be stipulated in Article 9 Item ii that Japan maintains a self-defense army with the goals of defense of the homeland and of international cooperative efforts, and (3) in the revised text of Article 9, laws for "basic security," "international cooperation," and "emergency circumstances" would be established without explicit mention of a right to participate in collective self-defense operations.

It will be interesting to see what Japan's neighbors make of that, though the Bush administration will doubtless be happy.

The LDP's constitutional revision committee confirmed today that its proposals will, in fact, include an item that redesignates the Self-Defense Force (自衛隊) as the Self-Defense Army (自衛軍). Of course, the English there doesn't match up exactly, but the new title makes the SDF sound more like a substantial standing army and less like a modest squad that can be called in if there happens to be a need:

When the committee leaders met with the Prime Minister and former Prime Minister [Yoshiro] Mori on 14 October, they concurred on guidelines: (1) the philosophical underpinnings of Article 9, which decrees that Japan "renounces war," would be strictly maintained, (2) it would be stipulated in Article 9 Item ii that Japan maintains a self-defense army with the goals of defense of the homeland and of international cooperative efforts, and (3) in the revised text of Article 9, laws for "basic security," "international cooperation," and "emergency circumstances" would be established without explicit mention of a right to participate in collective self-defense operations.

It will be interesting to see what Japan's neighbors make of that, though the Bush administration will doubtless be happy.

This morning I apparently posted in the single nanosecond between Prime Minister Koizumi's paying of respects at the Yasukuni Shrine and the resulting Asiawide condemnation (both links are to the Mainichi):

Critics, especially in China and the Koreas, say that the shrine glorifies Japanese militarism, but Koizumi says that he is only mourning the country's war dead.

China in particular has taken a hard line with regard to Koizumi's Yasukuni visits, halting all meetings between the heads of government in both countries since he began attending the shrine.

Koizumi had said he would visit the shrine to attend its autumn festival, which runs from Monday to Friday.

What Koizumi is thinking when at the shrine is an open question. Whether the shrine glorifies Japanese militarism is somewhat easier to assess. The Asahi has a quotation from a PRC official I hadn't seen elsewhere:

"The Chinese government will staunchly oppose Prime Minister Koizumi's repeated visits to Yasukuni Shrine where the Class-A war criminals are enshrined--regardless of how the visits are made," said Wang Yi, the Chinese ambassador to Japan. "The fact that the prime minister has done such a thing on the day when the Shenzhou 6 made a successful return to Earth is a challenge to all Chinese people. The prime minister should accept historical responsibility for destroying China-Japan relations."

South Korean Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Ban Ki Moon summoned Japanese Ambassador to South Korea Shotaro Oshima in Seoul. Ban said the South Korean government felt "deep regret and disappointment" over Koizumi's actions.The leaders of China and South Korea have repeatedly called on Koizumi to refrain from visiting Yasukuni this year, the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II.

I'm not entirely sure what the Shenzhou 6 has to do with anything. Japan has a history of botched rocket launches, but the ambassador doesn't seem to be getting in even a veiled dig about that.

What's likely to happen is that Korea will do its grit-its-teeth-and-bear-it thing, and China will do its still-no-official-head-of-state-visits thing while continuing to try to use Japan as a target for domestic restlessness that's actually at least partially directed at the CCP. Today's visit didn't happen at a moment that was any more strategic than any other of late--there's no specific tricky development in the dispute over oil and gas deposits in the East China Sea, say, or trade relations. But as always, today's visit will be a convenient thing to bring out later as an indication that Japan cannot be trusted to have dealt with its misdeeds during the occupation of Asia.

Prime Minister Koizumi visited the Yasukuni Shrine this morning for its autumn festival. It was the fifth visit for him since 2001. I don't think there's been enough time for the rest of Asia to flip out; even the Nikkei story is barely two lines long.

Japan Post privatization was approved by the House of Councillors today:

The Japan Post privatization bills were approved and enacted by a majority, mostly from the ruling coalition, in a session of the upper house on 14 October. The final vote was 134 in favor, 100 opposed. On 1 October 2007, the Japan Post Public Corporation will be privatized and spun off into four companies: one for postal service, one for postal savings, one for postal insurance, and one for window services.

The US and Japan are still in negotiations over the Futenma USMC base in Okinawa and (of course) the ban on beef imports. Thomas Schieffer, Howard Baker's colorless successor as US ambassador to Japan, appears to be trying to apply pressure:

Japan has proposed holding a "two plus two" top level security meeting on Oct. 29 over the issue and expects the two countries to compile an interim report on the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan before U.S. President George W. Bush's expected visit in November.

Schieffer said the Futenma issue should be resolved before discussing these matters, while stressing that they should be left to the two countries' negotiators.

"I think the purpose of the interim agreement is to announce something that is substantive," he said. "We wouldn't want to have a meeting just for a meeting's sake."

He called ongoing bilateral talks on the U.S. military's realignment plans strategic negotiations.

"What we have been continuing to try to stress throughout the negotiations...are strategic elements in the alliance," Schieffer said. "What we also want to do is look at what those forces would be and what they will need to be capable of doing in the future in order to be effective."

Schieffer also expressed strong dissatisfaction with Japan's ban on U.S. beef imports due to concerns over mad cow disease.

"I'm afraid it has done real damage to the American-Japanese relationship, because it has reminded people of some of the trade frictions that existed between our two countries in the 1980s," he said. "I hope that the issue resolves as soon as possible, because if this continues to go on, I think that the United States Congress is going to impose sanctions on Japan."

"I hope that the matter will be largely resolved, if not completely [by the time of Bush's visit]," he said.

Well, the beef import ban is excessive given what scientists know about BSE; I'm not sure that comparisons with Japan's outright protectionist trade barriers of two decades ago really work. In any case, the Japanese government appears to be relenting on the issue of where to move Futenma's helicopter operations, which to judge from reports will make restructuring easier for the armed forces.

The Nikkei reports on yet another initiative to curb government spending:

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications will establish an index of how much tax and other revenue prefectural and municipal governments are allocating to debt repayment and will introduce a system to limit regional bond generation (the issuing of new bonds) by those entities saddled with heavy liabilities. The regional government entities will be divided into three groups based on the proportion of their financial resources that goes to repayment of bonds; those deemed to be in financial health will be able issue bonds freely with the recognition of the federal government, and those whose figures are poor will be put under restrictions. The idea is to increase the number of regional government entities that can plug in to their economic strengths and finance themselves without relying on the federal government.

Printing bonds like poetry slam fliers to cover bad debt is as endemic a post-war Japanese pastime as, say, pachinko. Under the new plan, regional government bodies in poor fiscal health will still be able to issue bonds, but they'll be on their own when it comes to looking to the market for capital and to backing them.

No surprise here, but the Japan Post privatization bill package has passed the House of Representatives:

On Tuesday morning, the Lower House special committee on postal privatization held deliberations on the bills presented by the government and those submitted by Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan), the main opposition party. After receiving approval at committee level, the government-proposed bills were immediately sent to the Lower House plenary session for voting in the afternoon. Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition partner New Komeito supported the bills. Minshuto, along with the Japanese Communist Party, the Social Democratic Party and the newly established People's New Party and New party Nippon, opposed the bills.

Of the total of 480 lawmakers in the Lower House, 17 are former LDP lawmakers who voted against the bills in the previous Lower House plenary session in July. Some now belong to the two new parties or are independent.Of those independent lawmakers, some, including former posts minister Seiko Noda, voted for the bills.

See also this Yomiuri article on the shifting meaning of being a faction leader within the LDP. Of course, we're still in the midst of the special Diet session, but it's not surprising that the ripple effects from the Koizumi-led election victory in the summer are already discernible.

The LDP's draft of suggested constitutional revisions will include this for the preamble:

[The draft] adopts an active posture toward international contribution and states, "We sincerely seek world peace, and will cooperate together with other nations in order to realize that end." The proposal expresses [Japan's] position concerning patriotism and self-defense this way: "We will preserve the independence of the nation through the efforts of citizens who love their country."

The proposed revisions also refer to Japan's unique "history and culture" in ways unspecified by the Nikkei article.

The Ministry of Justice is updating its policy on the furikome scams:

The Legislative Council (the Minister of Justice's advisory panel) has submitted to Minister of Justice Chieko Minamino an outline for the establishment of a new system by which the government will confiscate or seize holdings from organized crime rings running the "Pay up!" scam and distribute them to victims. The Ministry of Justice aims to submit a revised proposal quickly. Under existing law, victims have no recourse but to seek their own reparations, and there have been many cases in which they've cried themselves to sleep. It is hoped that assessing [how to provide] relief to victims will become easier through the legal revisions.

I'm glad they're making it easier for people to get their money back, though I have to say that anyone who gets a scam call at this late date and doesn't check it out thoroughly is insane.

Kaoru Yosano on Japan's plan to reduce contributions to the UN:

There is nothing wrong with Japan's reduction in financial contributions to the United Nations, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's top policymaker said Wednesday.

"I don't have the exact figure with me, but Japan covers roughly 17 or 18 percent of total contributions made by all U.N. member countries. So it's not that strange at all that the share is cut by a few percentage points," Kaoru Yosano, the LDP's Policy Research Council chairman, said in his speech at the Yomiuri International Economic Society in Tokyo.

Actually, Japan covers 19.47 percent of total contributions, or 37.1 billion yen, second only to the United States.

Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura made a proposal to hold a review of member countries' contributions last month in his speech at the U.N. General Assembly, seeking to lower Japan's spending.

Rough going is expected for such a review as some prominent countries, including China and Russia, likely will be asked to increase their shares.

But Yosano's remarks Wednesday reflect a widely shared frustration among Japan's political and business circles that Japan is asked for a too large contribution while not being given significant roles to play in the U.N. framework.

Almost one fifth of the total. And the US kicks in more. Of course, China's not going to be eager to kick in more. (The Mainichi, BTW, just conducted a new poll, the shocking results of which are that a lot of Japanese people are unhappy with China.)

Yosano also discusses the proposed revisions to Article 9 of the constitution.

The Nikkei reports:

The exchange of opinions between the Japanese and US governments revolving around where to relocate the facilities at the Futenma [USMC] Base in Okinawa, a focal point of the restructuring of US military presence in Japan, is heating up. Negotiations that were initially quiet on the surface have developed into a state in which each side responds with a ringing declaration of its own position. The Japanese government sent Japan Defense Agency [policy] head Kazuo Ofuru to the US on 4 October and is looking for an opening by which to work its way out of the current deadlock, but there is a deep divide between the Japan-side proposal to move operations to the Camp Schwab exercise grounds (the on-land proposal) and the US-side proposal to reclaim shallows for the purpose (the off-shore proposal).

"The US is pushing its off-shore proposal, but we've said, 'It will be very difficult to build [the base] on sea; let's go with a land base.' A plan for the same sort of base has also been rejected by voters in Nago [City]."

Takemasa Moriya, Deputy Minister of Defense, revealed to a 3 October press conference that he was very dissatisfied with the US response.

The Futenma facilities in question house helicopter operations, which are a touchy subject on both sides these past few years.

Moriya, BTW, is an interesting character. He's the highest-level pure bureaucrat at the Japan Defense Agency. (The cabinet ministers themselves, of course, are selected by the Prime Minister and approved by the ruling party, so they tend to come from outside.) He's very powerful, and he doesn't mince words--you learn to stop and pay attention when one of his soundbites comes on NHK, because what he says is usually as reliable an indicator as you get of what Japan's military strategists are thinking. Or at least what they want the Japanese public and the rest of the world to think they're thinking.

One of the obvious solutions to Japan-China energy competition, on its face at least, would be for the two countries to cooperate. The problem, besides deep-running historical enmity, is that no one can agree on what the terms of cooperation should be. But the governments are at least gesturing in the direction of giving it the old college try:

At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the morning of 1 October, the Japan and PRC governments opened their second day of high-level talks revolving around development of gas fields in the East China Sea. The Japan side proposed joint development of natural gas fields along the Japan-China boundary line (the center line [along the ocean floor]), on the conditions that China cease [independent] development of the fields and share information about maritime subterranean natural resources. The China side responded that its intention is to give the idea "serious investigation" and provide an answer within the month, when the second round of talks are hosted in Beijing.

This is the first time Japan has officially proposed such cooperation. Its request for information about the PRC's undersea resource development program was greeted with a curt refusal yesterday. As always, we'll have to wait and see.