In this edition of TPR News: Bills, bills. Bills for referenda and bills for pensions. Plus, Mr. Wen goes to Tokyo; amakudari goes nowhere; surprising happenings in the business world; campaigns begin; and a couple of quality of life issues. Oh, and further evidence of Dick Cheney having said something very smart!

Just to round it all out, Tatsuya Ichihashi, the suspected murderer of Miss Lindsay Ann Hawker and, judging by modus operandi, a possible serial killer, has not yet been caught.

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Politics

Japan’s Constitution, written and ratified in 1947, provided for amendments, said that two-thirds of both houses of the Diet would have to approve any amendment, and said a majority of the populace would have to favor any amendment in a nationwide referendum in order for it to pass, but didn’t explain how such a referendum would be carried out. 60 years later, with microphone-tossing, pushing and shoving opposition from the DPJ and its opposition allies, the Communist and Social Democratic Parties, the ruling LDP and New Komeito pushed a bill through the House of Representatives on Friday that lays out some requirements for a national referendum, which would be a crucial step in the Constitutional reform Shinzo Abe so dearly wants. The DPJ said the bill was rammed through with insufficient deliberation.
The bill now moves on to the House of Councillors, where it is expected to pass before the end of the ordinary Diet session in June.

In a step towards compromise with the DPJ, the LDP set the voting age at 18, a step which would require reconsideration of some points of the Juvenile Law, among other civil statutes, and would thus slow down the implementation of the bill. Crucially, the bill does not include a required minimum voter turnout, a clause many obervers say is essential to ensure that the Constitution is not reformed according to the wishes of a tiny minority.

Lawmakers have said the referendum process would be used only for Constitutional amendments. When such an amendment comes before the Diet, it will require a two-thirds majority of both houses, which means the ruling bloc will almost certainly need a good bit of opposition support. Other provisions, such as a ban on involvement in the amendment process for civil servants and teachers, are likely.

Given Mr. Abe’s current approval ratings, he is unlikely to be in office in three years, the rough time frame given for an amendment to come before the public.

Also on Friday, the Cabinet endorsed bills to expand the pension plan for workers in the private sector, or kosei nenkin, to part-timers and to combine kosei nenkin with the pension plan for government employees, or kyosai nenkin. The bills would also raise the pension premiums of public servants from 14.6% of annual income to 18.3%, the rate for private sector workers, by 2018.

This is in line with a separate push by the Prime Minister to abolish the Social Insurance Agency, which was found to have illegally exempted some people from premiums in order to improve collection efforts.

As mentioned a few weeks ago on TPR News, the government’s plan to reduce amakudari consists of the bold step of. . . not calling it “amakudari.” The proposed “public-private personnel-exchange center” is the same thing as the “human resources bank” is the same thing as amakudari. Within three years after the center is established, which is slated for next year, Ministries and Agencies will be barred from arranging jobs for retiring bureaucrats, turning that function over to the new center, with which they will be allowed to consult. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki said the Government could not compromise on two important points: retired bureaucrats employed at the new center will not be allowed to arrange jobs members of the Ministries in which they themselves worked and NPOs and public-interest corporations cannot be on the list of places at which retired bureaucrats can be placed. The LDP hates both of those provisions, especially the former, as it would hinder the current practice of amakudari and efforts to reduce or end the practice will never be allowed to change the practice in any real way.

Last Wednesday’s meeting between visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Mr. Abe proceeded on an amicable note despite Mr. Wen’s having shortened his visit in response to Abe’s insensitive remarks on the comfort women issue and China’s general displeasure with the Abe Government’s conservative or nationalistic tone on wartime issues, specifically an apparent resistance to admissions of wrongdoing on the part of Japan.

Abe started by saying, “I hope your visit serves as a large step toward creating a mutually beneficial strategic relationship,” and the amicable tone continued through agreements on chartering flights between Tokyo’s Haneda ariport and Shanghai, China’s lifting of a ban on imports of Japanese rice, Wen tossing a few pitches with the Ritsumeikan University baseball team, talking to the locals while strolling around Tokyo, and on to his speech in the Diet on Thursday, where he recognized the remorseful statements and apologies issued by the Japanese government over the years and said such attitudes were appreciated by China. With that and a request that the Japanese government act on the promises it has made - presumably meaning that Japanese leaders should not visit Yasukuni and should not downplay Japan’s culpability in public statements - the headline-grabbing historical brouhaha was set aside in favor of more positive and profitable exchanges.

Abe expressed a desire to visit China this year, said he hoped to see Hu Jintao in Japan by early next year, and called for reciprocal visits by Maritime SDF and Chinese Navy vessels.

On more concrete, or at least current, matters, Wen asked Mr. Abe to firmly state Japan’s opposition to Taiwanese independence, mentioned joint development of gas fields under the East China Sea, and expressed solidarity with Japan on the issue of North Korean abductions, although he didn’t say anything about the issue in his speech despite having been asked to by Japanese officials.

In an editorial aside, it’s good to see that historical issues were not allowed to cast a shadow over the meeting, which was also attended by Cabinet Ministers, including Foreign Minister Taro Aso, and his Chinese counterpart Li Zhiaoxing. However, Mr. Abe and his ministers have a solid track record of saying the “right” things to smooth relations with Japan’s neighbors, only to turn around and contradict themselves soon after. Likewise, China’s government can be counted on to use domestic anti-Japanese sentiment stemming from wartime issues to draw attention away from abuses committed by the Communist Party or unrest at home. Wait for the other shoe to drop. If precedent is any guide, it will.

It was revealed this weekend that US Vice President Dick Cheney, during his visit to Japan on February 21st, asked Abe to define a resolution to the abduction issue, but Abe would only say that Japan would decide what a resolution would be.

Knowing what exactly a resolution to the abduction issue would be is important as Japan has refused to participate in offering assistance to North Korea in line with the February 13th agreement reached in the Six-Party Talks until the issue is resolved.

In domestic politics, campaigning for the April 22nd local and municipal elections began on Sunday and 151 city assembly candidates plus 19 mayoral candidates could begin to rest easy having won by default for lack of challengers.

In all, April 22nd will see 96 mayoral elections, 310 municipal assembly elections, for a total of 8,025 seats, including elections for the heads of 13 wards and 21 assembly members here in Tokyo.

The LDP is fielding 670 candidates, the DPJ, 408. Smaller parties are showing their relative strength on the local scene, with the LDP’s coalition partner, the New Komeito running 974 candidates and the Japanese Communist Party running 868.

Business and the Economy

Steel Partners, the American firm thwarted in it’s attempt to take over Sapporo Breweries when shareholders voted in favor of defensive measures, is at it again. This time, Steel Partners is proposing that shareholders in Aderans, a Tokyo-based wig maker, vote to repeal defensive measures the company has in place - something Sapporo did not have. Steel Partners currently holds a 24.68% stake in Aderans.

7-Eleven, Japan’s largest retailer, which, through 7&I Holdings, also runs supermarket Ito Yokado and Denny’s restaurants in Japan, announced a 1.8% drop in operating profit for its stores amid a 1.1% year-on-year drop in convenience store sales across Japan, the chain’s first loss in 27 years.

All Nippon Airways is set to sell thirteen of its hotels - land and buildings - to Morgan Stanley for 281.3 billion yen in what will be one of Japan’s largest-ever real estate transactions. ANA, having turned management of the hotels over to IHG ANA Hotels Group Japan, a joint venture with Britain’s InterContinental Hotels Group, in December, hopes to concentrate its resources and energies on its core business, which is something about tall girls and airplanes.

At an IMF policy-guiding committee meeting on Saturday, Finance Minister Koji Omi argued for sound macroeconomic policy and against adjusting foreign exchange rates in an attempt to correct global trade imbalances, largely centered on the US current account deficit, at $856.66 billion in 2006, up 8.2% from 2005 and at an all-time high for the fifth consecutive year. Omi called attempts to adjust imbalances through adjusting exchange rates “counterproductive.”

For more business and economy news and, more important, for more in-depth coverage of the business and economy of Japan, be sure to check out TPR’s new series: BizCast Japan with Albrecht Stahmer and Ken Worsley and visit our sister site, Japan Economy News.
Society

How much would the government have to pay you to live with noise levels it calls intolerable? How much would you want to live near a military air base?

How about 3,000 yen a month? Not enough? How about 12,000 yen a month, but with really high noise levels?

That’s what 1,559 residents of the area around Ishikawa’s Komatsu Air Self-Defense Force base are set to receive per capita from a high court award of 1.188 billion yen, 374 million yen more than had been previoulsy awarded by the Kanazawa District Court. However, the Nagoya High Court’s Kanazawa Branch rejected the plaintiffs’ request that early morning and late night drills by the ASDF and US Air Force cease, saying it was inappropriate of the plaintiffs to seek an injunction against such drills.

In their anger over the noise, the plaintiffs seem to have overreached a bit by claiming, perhaps validly, but irrelevantly, that the SDF was unconstitutional. That claim was ignored by Judge Eikichi Nagato.

The international Weighted Equivalent Continuous Perceived Noise Level (WECPNL) index says that a reading over 75 constitutes intolerable noise levels. Residents in areas with readings between 75 and 90 will receive 3,000 yen a month. Those in areas with readings over 90 will receive 12,000 yen a month.

Since 1997, the government has spent 253.3 billion yen on a project to reclaim 700 hectares of the Ishaya tidal flats in Nagasaki for farmland and accompanying reservoirs and roads. According to current plans, the Nagasaki Prefecture agricultural promotion public corporation will buy the land from the central government for 5.3 billion yen and rent it to about half of the 73 commercial farmers who have applied for space. However, public funds will still be needed to conduct ongoing agricultural research and maintain the dike surrounding the land.

Once home to over 300 different species, the area has seen its levels of organic pollutants rise by nearly a third since the floodgates were closed in 1997, according to 2005 measurements. Local fishermen have also seen their livelihoods endangered or even destroyed.

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