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Society

On Thursday, the Diet’s House of Representatives (the lower house) passed an education reform bill that would revise Japan’s 1947 Fundamental Law on Education for the first time. The law, which is has been dubbed the “Patriotism Bill’ by the Washington Post, is intended to boost students’ awareness of culture and tradition as well as foster a love for country.

The vote was boycotted by members of Japan’s opposition parties, who do not think that enough time has been given to review and debate the bill. Many are also upset that the LDP has apparently rigged ‘town-hall’ style meetings by planting questions and paying attendees to ask planted questions or make favorable comments. The LDP has counter-argued that no was was paid to ask specific questions; rather, meeting attendees were paid 5,000 yen each to be introduced by the MC.

For further reading on the revision to Japan’s Fundamental Law of Education, the Japan Times has published a question and answer-style piece entitled “What do you know about revising the law of education?”

Also at the Japan Times, Eric Prideaux and Akemi Nakamura take a look at the bill’s ramifications in a piece entitled, “Education Bill Shifts Power to State.”

On Friday, the Ministry of Education announced that it had received five more letters from students intending to commit suicide over being bullied at school. The ministry has now received 27 such letters in the past few weeks. Officials are withholding details of the letters, as they name specific schools and could thus reveal the identities of their authors.

China and Japan have agreed to launch a joint study of history. Meeting at the APEC summit in Hanoi, Taro Aso, Japan’s foreign minister, and Li Li Zhaoxing, his Chinese counterpart, said on Thursday that they hope the commission will be able to release its results to the public as a report before the end of 2008. They agreed that a 20 member panel, with ten experts from each country, should hold its first meeting before the end of this year.

Politics

On Saturday, prime minister Shinzo Abe met US president George W. Bush at the APEC forum in Hanoi. It was Abe’s first meeting with Bush since taking over as prime minister in September. Bush and Abe reportedly broke the ice by talking about baseball. According to reports, the two leaders did not discuss currency exchange rates, despite a request by US automakers for Bush to talk to Abe about the issue. The yen has slipped 6% against the dollar over the past six months.

The two leaders did, however, agree to speed up the two countries’ cooperation on building a ballistic missile defense system, with Abe saying, “…we will instruct our foreign and defense ministers to study this matter…Strengthening our alliance is good not only for Japan and its neighbors but also for the entire world.”

With Russian president Vladimir Putnin, Abe discussed seeking a “mutually acceptable resolution ” to territorial disputes that have dogged bilateral relations for decades. Such disputes have prevented Japan and Russia from signing an agreement to end the second world war. Abe was also expected to request that Russia return a crab-fishing boat to Japan that was seized by Russian authorities in August.

On Sunday, Okinawans headed to the polls to elect a new governor. The candidates included Hirokazu Nakaima, who is backed by the Liberal Democratic Party and is somewhat supportive of Tokyo and Washington’s plans to relocate the Marine Corps’ Futenma Air Station to a sparsely-populated area of the island. Keiko Itokazu, an opposition-backed former lawmaker, wants the air base to be moved off the island altogether.

Japan and the US are set to step up the pace on building a missile defense system. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Japan’s Foreign Minister Taro Aso discussed the issue as they met during the APEC summit in Hanoi. Following North Korea’s missile test launches in July, the US shipped patriot missile batteries to Japan and the US Navy deployed the USS Shiloh, a destroyer with advanced missile defense systems, to Yokosuka Naval base, the home of the Navy’s 7th Fleet, outside Tokyo.

Also this week, Japan published a list of goods that may not be exported to North Korea. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki announced the list, which includes 24 luxury items such as cigarettes, liquor, perfume and motorcycles, believed to be purschsed and used by senior North Korean officials. He said the Cabinet also approved the ban on materials and equipment that could be used for weapons programs in North Korea.

Business and Economy

Misleading headline of the week award: Japan’s newspapers reported that the economy grew at an annualized 2% pace from July to September. This figure was arrived at by extrapolating .5% quarterly growth over a full calendar year.

Profits at Japan’s major banks have been flat in the first half of this year, although net profits have only fallen slightly. Although banks have cut their ratio of non-performing loans by two thirds since 2002, new loan growth decreased for the third consecutive month.

The Bank of Japan has decided not to make any changes in the nation’s interest rates at this time. The bank is still waiting for an increase in consumer spending, though most analysts note that such an upswing may not come until wages begin to rise.

Corporate bankruptcies are up 7.8% over last year in Japan. 889 companies went bust in October, according to Teikoku Databank Ltd., a private credit research company.

Despite the bleak news on banks and bankruptcies, Japan’s workers are set to receive all-time high bonuses this winter. The average bonus is estimated to weigh in at 868,932 yen. Consumer spending, however, is not expected to pick up based on this news. Hiroshi Shirashi, an economist with Lehman Brothers in Japan, put it bluntly: “A higher bonus is good but what we really need to see is a pickup in core wages.” From 1997 to 2005, the average salary in Japan fell by 400,000 yen. So far this year, wages have increased by about 10,000 yen on average.

KDDI is set to launch a digital radio service for its AU brand of mobile phones. The service, set to be launched on December 1, will allow users to download and purchase individual songs. Since number portability was introduced to Japan on October 24, KDDI has gained approximately 200,000 subscribers, at the expense of competitors NTT DocoMo and Softbank Mobile, formerly known as Vodafone.

On Wednesday, a fleet of Japanese whaling ships set sail as part of their annual Antarctic hunt. The fleet intends to return to Japan in April with a catch of 860 whales: 850 Minke and 10 Fin whales. Many across the world protested, including the the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a US government agency involved in the issue, which stated that “many nations believe (Japan’s research whaling) is a loophole for banned commercial whaling.”

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