In this edition of TPR News, we look at Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s approval ratings, further financial misdeeds coming from Nagatacho, Takafumi Horie’s guilty verdict, wage hikes at the nation’s automakers, and the difficulty of predicting when the cherry trees will bloom.

Politics

For the first time since he took office last September, the Asahi Shimbun is reporting a rise in Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s approval ratings. According to the poll, which was reported on March 14, Abe’s approval rating now stands at 38%, up one percentage point from a month earlier. The Prime Minister’s disapproval rating also nudged up by one point, hitting 41%.Of those surveyed, 54% said that they did not approve of the Cabinet’s economic policies, with 22% approving. As for educational reform, 43% said that they disapproved of the current course of action, with 37% expressing support.

Earlier in the week, national broadcaster NHK released a poll taken from March 9-11 demonstrating similar results, this time showing a three percentage point increase in Abe’s approval ratings alongside a four point drop in his disapproval ratings. On the other hand, a Kyodo News survey conducted over March 10 and 11 showed Abe’s approval rating falling slightly to 39.9% and his disapproval rating also retreating back to 42.2%.

Reuters points out that the survey numbers are the first released since, “Abe said there was no evidence that Japan’s government or army had forced women to work in military brothels during World War Two.” It bears mentioning, however, that last Sunday, as the polls were being taken, Abe appeared on NHK television and stressed that he would abide by the 1993 Kono Statement regarding the so-called ‘Comfort Women,’ an event which Reuters described as having taken place on Monday. In the same article, Reuters has described the dates of the polls in Japan time, but the date of Abe’s NHK appearance in their own time zone, when the two events in actuality were concurrent.

In reference to plans for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to carry out a study into the wartime practice of recruiting ‘Comfort Women,’ on March 12, LDP Secretary General Hidenao Nakagawa said, “There are no such plans. I have not heard of any.” However, on March 9, Prime Minister Abe told reporters in Tokyo:

I heard the party is going to study and investigate the issue. As for the government, we will cooperate in providing documents as requested by the party.

Nakagawa’s statement appears to be an attempt by the ruling party to move away from LDP groups that desire to push the issue. Former Education Minister Nariaki Nakayama heads this loose affiliation of party members, and on Thurday he told Reuters:

We plan to start the new study by the end of the month. We need to speak out, otherwise we would be admitting to what others are saying…The government conducted a study before the [1993] apology was issued, but there were no documents then to show there was coercion by the government.

Nakayama asserted that the 1993 Kono statement was made to appease South Korea ahead of a visit to the country by then-Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa. This observer wonders if Nakayama is implying that Abe’s backpeddling on the issue and Nakagawa’s attempt to distance the Cabinet from Nakayama’s group is an attempt to appease Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao ahead of his visit on April 11.

Speaking at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo on Wednesday, comedian-turned politician Miyazaki Governor Hideo Higashikokubaru stated:

It is very difficult to confirm as a historical fact that the ‘comfort women’ actually existed. My position is that it is hard to make a comment (on the issue) unless the history is verified. Both cases of existence and nonexistence (of coercion) should be verified objectively.

Higashikokubaru is better known by his stage name, Sonomanma Higashi.

While there was a time when all it took for a politician to be trendy was a large tab in a Ginza hostess bar or a tux with pinstriped pants, it now takes some financial maneuvering.

Joining a growing list of primarily LDP members, including a fair number of Cabinet ministers, DPJ lawmaker Hiroshi Nakai admitted his political fund reported 19.86 million yen used by his Kowa-kai over six years for vehicles, phone bills, and other expenses as utility bills, which Diet members do not have to pay for their Diet offices.
Predictably, Nakai claims his underlings misreported the expenditures to save themselves effort and that he himself did not know what was going on.

The admission comes at an awkward time for the DPJ, which is trying to put pressure on Agriculture minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka for doing essentially the same thing. The biggest difference is that Matsuoka insists he is being pursued arbitrarily and did nothing wrong., despite evidence to the contrary. DPJ President Ichiro Ozawa told Acting President Naoto Kan and Secretary General Yukio Hatoyama that Nakai needed to come clean and apologize. Hatoyama told reporters that the difference between Nakai and Matsuoka was that Nakai had admitted wrongdoing, whereas Matsuoka continued to lie.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has supported Matsuoka, as well as Education Minister Bunmei Ibuki and a handful of other LDP members guilty of the same thing, has said that Nakai’s actions were a problem.

Despite calling the US invasion of Iraq a mistake and saying Japan hadn’t supported the invasion, Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma favored a two-year extension to the SDF’s mission in Iraq, which currently consists primarily of ASDF forces supplying US troops, just as his bosses higher up in the LDP did. The LDP supported such a long extension in the belief that the US would not be out of Iraq before then. The SDF’s current mandate runs out on July 31st.

An Asahi Shimbun poll showed that 69% of voters opposed such an extension.

Business

In handing down a two and a half year sentence to former Livedoor CEO Takafumi Horie, presiding judge Toshiyuki Kosaka of the Tokyo District Court said:

This is a crime that is extremely malicious in nature and has damaged the fairness of the securities market…He illegally boosted his company’s share price by announcing fake business performances. [The crimes] could not possibly have been conducted without his instructions and approval…This is a crime that deceived ordinary investors for the sole purpose of pursuing business profits

Horie’s defense team immediately filed an appeal.

After an All Nippon Airways Bombardier DHC-8 turboprop failed to have its front landing gear deploy on a routine flight from Osaka to Kochi, resulting in an emergency landing in which no one was hurt, the Transport Ministry ordered emergency inspections for all 36 Bombardier DHC-8s aircraft currently in use by Japanese carriers, citing possible problems with the aircraft’s landing gear, according to ministry official Yasuo Ishii. There have been 77 incidents involving DHC-8 aircraft in Japan since 2003.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport has announced that the problem with the plane’s landing gear was caused by a dislodged bolt, which was apparently missing when the aircraft was inspected by ministry officials after the incident.

By Thursday morning, however, the Bombardier’s were back in commission, with the first plane arriving from Osaka to Kochi at 8:04am and carrying about 30% of capacity. Kochi’s airport had been shut down for 24 hours following the incident. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport has issued some degree of information on the incident in Japanese, but nothing yet in English.

On Wednesday, it was reported that the Toyota Motor Corp., Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. have all agreed to pay higher bonuses and raise average base salaries in the next business year as the companies forecast record sales.

Toyota will increase its workers’ average monthly base pay by 1,000 yen ($8.55 at today’s rate), or about 6.25 yen per hour. Honda is set to increase monthly base pay by 900 yen ($7.69), or 5.63 yen per hour, and Nissan workers will be bringing home an average of 6,700 yen more per month next year ($57.26, or 41.88 more yen per hour).

Average base salaries at the three automakers were already well above the national average: Toyota’s average monthly base will nudge up to 350,580 yen and Nissan’s to 355,400. According to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare’s December 2006 data, average national wages (not including cash from bonuses) stood at 273,175 yen.

Although the raises in base pay may not amount to much, Toyota has agreed to pay an average annual bonus of 2.58 million yen ($22,051) per employee, an increase of 8.9% over last year. Nissan’s average annual bonus will be at 2.13 million yen ($18,205), and Honda’s workers will on average see 2.46 million yen ($21,026) in bonuses.

Good news for those about to graduate and enter the workforce: According to a report released Tuesday by Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, 87.7% of students graduating this spring from universities who intended to find work had successfully done so by February 1st. This number is 1.9% higher than last year’s figure. The ministry also found that the number of high school students who plan to work after graduation and had already found jobs had climbed by 2.8% compared to last year, to 88.1%.

The report cited the recovering economy as well as strong worker demand among businesses seeing baby boomers retire in large numbers. The ministry did not, however, find that the benefits were equally spread among geographical locations: only 64.7% of graduates in Okinawa Prefecture and 66.6% in Hokkaido Prefecture had successfully found work.

Society

According to a survey published this week by the Japan Family Planning Association, a record 39.7 percent of Japanese citizens ages 16-49 have not had sex for over a month. This figure is up five percentage points from the results of the same study two years ago. 34.6 percent of married couples reported not having had sex during the last month. According to the Associated Press:

Japan came last in a 29-country study of sexual satisfaction published by the University of Chicago last year, with a mere 25.7 percent of lovers expressing satisfaction in bed.

The country was also in last place among 41 nations in a 2005 poll by condom manufacturer Durex, with people having sex just 45 times a year compared to a global average of 103.

The results of such surveys must worry those who are concerned with the nation’s continually declining birth rate. Dr. Kunio Kitamura, the family planning association’s director, blames stress from busy working lives as leading to the lack of sexual activity.

The blossoming of the cherry trees, or sakura, in Japan is an annual event celebrated by virtually the entire nation. In Tokyo, junior office workers often head to one of the more famous parks in Tokyo around lunchtime to stake out one of the best spots for eating and drinking with co-workers after work is finished. Offices empty a bit early when the cherry blossoms are out, and families and friends gather on the weekends, enjoying the hanami season, sometimes just a bit too much.

The essential task of determining just when the trees will blossom is entrusted to the Japan Meteorological Association. Each year, it issues a prediction of when the cherry trees will blossom nationwide, and this year’s national sakura blooming chart may be viewed here.

The trouble this year? The Japan Meteorological Association was three days off in its prediction for the Tokyo area, and has now said that the trees will blossom on March 18th rather than on the 15th, as originally projected. Officials from the JMA appeared at a press conference on Wednesday afternoon and apologized to the nation, bowing as low as any recent perpetrator of corporate malfeasance. The press conference was carried on nationwide television and was amongst the lead items on many national broadcasts.

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