The White Peril 白禍

Another homicide in Japan by a mentally disturbed person in a high-traffic public place:

Police are questioning an 18-year-old boy over the death of a stranger who was pushed in front of an approaching train at JR Okayama Station late Tuesday night.

...

Kariya, a prefectural government worker from Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture, fell on the tracks of the Sanyo Line and was hit by a train bound for Fukuyama, Hiroshima Prefecture.

Kariya died about five hours later of shock caused by blood loss.

"I thought that if I killed somebody, I could go to prison. It didn't matter who it was," police quoted the boy as saying. They added that the suspect did not appear to know Kariya.

Police initially arrested the boy on suspicion of attempted murder. They will seek murder charges now that Kariya has died.

Police quoted the boy as saying that he had gone to the station "hoping to stab someone."

Investigators found a kitchen knife with a 12-centimeter blade inside a shoulder bag the boy was carrying.

Not much more in the Japanese reports, such as this one at the Mainichi.

There are also reports that the 24-year-old who stabbed eight people in Ibaraki Prefecture over the weekend had well-known issues with controlling his temper:

Senior investigative officers said they gasped after seeing the word "death" written in red on the wall of his room. The door of the room, which had several fist-sized dents in it, was skewed, the officers said.

An 18-year-old man, who was at a game center near his home, said he had seen Kanagawa play fighting video games several times and that Kanagawa would pound the game machine or kick chairs when he lost or had not done well.

Another man said that since Kanagawa blew up over trivial matters, he was careful when he talked to him.

According to the investigators, when Kanagawa was a high school student, he was said to have often pounded or kicked things when he was under a lot of stress.

Earlier in the month, Kanagawa had e-mailed from his current mobile phone to an old one such messages as "What I do is what counts," "I'm God," and "I want to finish myself," the officers said.

We watched the blow-by-blow election coverage this weekend, but there was very little suspense: the KMT candidate started trouncing the DPP candidate very early, and his lead never let up.

Now he's made his opening diplomatic salvo:

Fresh from victory as Taiwan's new president, Ma Ying-jeou, has posed what may be a dilemma to the United States - by requesting to make a trip to Washington, which may earn the fury of China if allowed.

US President George W. Bush was among the first to congratulate Ma [Ying-jeou], seen as [more of] a moderate on the China question than outgoing, independence-leading president Chen Shui-bian, whose rule roiled ties with both Beijing and Washington.

But allowing the Harvard-educated lawyer Ma to visit Washington could anger Beijing even though he said he planned to come before his May 20 inauguration, said Brad Glosserman of Pacific Forum, a Hawaii-based think tank.

"Slim and none are the chances of that (trip)," Glosserman said. "It's very clearly an attempt by the president-elect of Taiwan to raise his political profile," he said.

The United States, he added, would not risk angering China, especially at a time when Beijing was grappling with a bloody revolt in Tibet.

...

John Tkacik, once the chief of China analysis in the State Department's bureau of intelligence and research, said he felt Ma's trip would not anger China.

"No, I really do not think so," he said.

"I think China is very pleased with the election of Ma and (Vice President-elect) Vincent Siew and as long as they come before the inauguration and they still have colour of 'unofficiality,' then I think China would put up with it," he said.

Ma was the candidate who, of course, advocated more of an open market with the PRC. He won handily, but not a few Taiwanese are worried about what an influx of Chinese labor and outflow of corporate management could mean for Taiwan.

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This weekend was Japan's most recent incident with a stabby lunatic: a man in Ibaraki Prefecture knifed eight people before being detained. Luckily, only one was wounded fatally.

The suspect, Masahiro Kanagawa, was already wanted in connection with another fatal stabbing of a stranger. The police were looking for him but failed to intercept him:

Kanagawa was put on a nationwide wanted list Friday after his bicycle was found near Miura's home. Police posted about 170 police officers at train stations on the Joban Line and the Tsukuba Express Line starting from the first train runs of the day Sunday.

But they acknowledged that the patrol at Arakawaoki Station failed to catch Kanagawa before the stabbing spree.

"We regret that (our efforts to prevent the second incident) ended in a result like this," Takashi Ishii, a senior officer of the Ibaraki prefectural police said in a news conference at Tsuchiura Police Station on Sunday. "We did our best by taking such measures as placing police officers at train stations and Net cafes."

Police said the reason they didn't spot the suspect was because their picture of him was two years old and he was wearing a knitted hat and silver-rimmed glasses when he arrived at the station.

"It was an unlucky time for us because there were many passengers getting on and off the trains," the officer said.

This is the sort of case, I think, that highlights the difficulties that the detectives investigating the Lindsay Hawker murder are probably facing. Melting into a crowd on a train platform isn't difficult at all. Neither is disguising yourself sufficiently to go unnoticed by people in shops. Kanagawa claims he had actually intended to target people at his old elementary school, the Asahi article says. That would be chilling enough anywhere, but in Japan it resonates especially because of the 2001 stabbing of two dozen children at an Osaka school.

The election here is this tomorrow. Campaigning has to stop by law tonight. Very exciting!

BTW, it's certainly not wrong to translate 国民党 (kuomintang: "Citizens' Party," or what your history books called "the KMT") as "Nationalist Party," but I'm not sure why the NYT does so:

Mainland Chinese officials loathe Taiwan's current president, Chen Shui-bian, and his party, the Democratic Progressive Party, for pursuing greater political separation from the mainland. Beijing has been wary of the party’s candidate, Frank Hsieh, even though Mr. Hsieh has repeatedly voiced much more willingness than Mr. Chen to allow increased Taiwanese investment on the mainland and more cross-strait transportation links.

A victory by Mr. Hsieh could be perceived in Beijing as a high price to have paid for forcefully putting down demonstrations in Tibet.

Mr. Hsieh received an influential endorsement on Thursday. Lee Teng-hui, a former Nationalist president [!] of Taiwan who now favors much greater political independence from the mainland, said that he would vote for Mr. Hsieh.

You wouldn't even know they were talking about the KMT there, would you?

Added on 22 March: So between drinks last night at my friend's birthday party (unconnected to any March babies in my family), I started to wonder how you do translate 国民党. I mean, I always either read about it in Japanese (in which case the characters are used) or hear about it from people connected to Taiwan (who just call it the KMT). Wikipedia says that it can be referred to as the "Chinese Nationalist Party," which makes a lot more sense to me than just plain "Nationalist Party" given its origins.

It's been a year since Englishwoman Lindsay Hawker was murdered. The chief suspect, who escaped capture when police came knocking at his apartment door to question him, still hasn't been found and brought in for questioning. The BBC's Tokyo correspondent has an online report here.

The practice of showing people photographs of a suspect with possible disguises is not unusual here. But why has he not been apprehended?

"When an offender is determined to run and hide," the detective says. "It's hard to find him. Ichihashi didn't have a phone or a credit card, anything that might make him easier to trace."

...

Lindsay Hawker's family have expressed their frustration at the lack of progress in the police investigation, although they say they have no alternative but to keep faith with the Japanese police.

Her friends too are frustrated.

Recently they gathered on a Sunday to hand out fliers appealing to the Japanese people for any information that might lead to the arrest of Tatsuya Ichihashi.

Paul Dingwell, a fellow teacher who knew Lindsay well, says the fact that this man has been able to disappear reflects badly on the Japanese.

"They should feel some kind of guilt that this has happened in their country, to someone who came here to help," he says.

"If someone is hiding him they are just as guilty as he is, if not more."

I was disturbed last year when Hawker's father called her death some kind of national "shame." At the time, of course, her death was a raw wound for her family and friends. Also, I wondered whether the invocation of "shame" might not be a shrewd way of playing off Japanese psychology to make solving Hawker's murder seem especially urgent.

Be that as it may, statements such as "they should feel some kind of guilt that this has happened in their country" are rather nasty in their implications. Every country has criminals, the U.K. most assuredly not excluded. That part about "came here to help" doesn't sit well, either. It feels condescending, somehow. (Wouldn't the English find it creepy if, say, an Indian surgeon were murdered in London and her relatives complained that her death was unjust because she'd only come to England to help?) Plenty of Westerners come to Japan to teach English mostly out of a desire to have an exciting adventure abroad and sock away some money, and they deserve not to be murdered just as surely as does someone who's motivated by a saintly desire to bring correct English to the Japanese.

And it's hard to believe that Hawker's friend thinks disappearing into the landscape in Japan requires some kind of sinister network of assistance. Light plastic surgery that uses surgical wire to nip in the nose or cheeks or to raise the eyelids is cheap, fast, and popular. It doesn't change bone structure, but it would be very easy to use to avoid recognition. Besides, Japan is a country of 127 million people with huge, anonymous metropolitan areas, isolated mountain hamlets, and a very rapid transportation system. I don't think you'd have to be Jason Bourne to figure out how to hide out. Of course, an accomplice would help, but it wouldn't have to be Japanese society in general--just one easily gulled woman with an apartment and a source of income could do it.

I wouldn't have a difficult time believing that the investigation methodology isn't as advanced as what you'd find in London or Miami, but that's because Japanese police just don't have to deal with cases like this one very often. And even at home, murder investigations frequently drag on for years. It's great that Hawker still has friends who are dedicated to helping to find her killer, but I don't think it follows, in this case, that the police force--let alone "Japan" as a generalized, amorphous entity--isn't doing enough.

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.

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.

This is an interesting weekend to have returned to Taiwan from Japan. On Thursday, Nobushige Takamizawa, the head of the Ministry of Defense's Defense Policy Bureau, spoke more candidly than he was supposed to:

In a highly unusual remark for a Japanese official, Nobushige Takamizawa, director general of the Defense Ministry's defense policy bureau, said a contingency over Taiwan would be "a security matter for Japan."

"Because it would be a seriously significant matter for our country, the Self-Defense Forces would obviously step up their alert and surveillance activities before judging whether the contingency is happening in our so-called surrounding area," he told a gathering of ruling party lawmakers.

Of course, if you live in Asia, you get used to hearing over and over from Beijing that Taiwan is an internal matter internalmatterinternalmatterINTERNALmatter. That was the major reason that Minister of Defense Shigeru Ishiwa came before a press conference the next day to spray squid ink:

He apologized that, "If his words were taken at face value, there are parts that would not preclude the possibility of misunderstanding," he said by way of apology.

Taiwan is being watched especially because of the elections to take place this Saturday. I haven't followed politics here very closely--they're covered pretty well by the Japanese press, since Taiwan lies within the geographical area surrounding Japan (not that that makes them significant to Japan, according to Defense Minister Ishiwa, of course). The two countries also have close ties economically. Japan notices when big things happen here. (Besides, politics can be amusingly rambunctious in Taiwan. The most interesting thing Japanese politicians do is yell and pull each other's hair sometimes in the Diet.)

They're predicting a very high turnout for the election:

Hundreds of thousands of people have taken part in rival political rallies across Taiwan.

It was the last chance for big weekend rallies before the island votes for a new president on 22 March.

The events - organised by the two main political parties - were also aimed at expressing public opposition to China's anti-secession law.

...

In its carefully-choreographed event, the governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) asked people to gather at designated points and to walk anti-clockwise, highlighting the party's campaign slogan to "Reverse the Tide" - to turn back their political fortunes and that of their candidate, who has been trailing in opinion polls.

The party's presidential candidate, Frank Hsieh, attacked his rival's plan to establish a cross-strait common market with China, saying it could lead to job losses and other social problems.

He said he and his party stood for the protection of Taiwan's core values - which was important if the island was to avoid the fate of Tibet, which had seen peaceful protests violently put down by the Chinese military in recent days.

I do my best not to take the word of my cab drivers as the voice of the representative citizen. But the consensus among both resident expats and Taiwanese friends I have is that, while Taiwanese voters are wary of handing the presidency to the DPP again, they're also wary of handing it to the KMT, given the broad majority of its coalition in the legislature. The DPP, which pushes officially declared independence from the PRC vocally, was supposedly handing out "I love my country" T-shirts. (The reference was pointedly to Taiwan, not to the whole of China including the mainland.) And the DPP has pushed on worries about a flood of workers from the PRC into Taiwan if strictures on economic exchanges are loosened. Less than a week to go now before voting.

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.

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.

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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.)

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.