In this edition of TPR News: US House members get set to vote on the “comfort women” resolution and Japan is not happy; the Prime Minister’s approval ratings continue to fall; the Upper House elections are delayed; Social Insurance Agency officials may have embezzled payments as part of the ongoing mess there; Abe’s fortunes decline; Steel Partners takes Bull Dog to court; scandal at Meat Hope; no punishment for bullies or teachers who bully; and a few choice tidbits from the Japan blogosphere.

Politics

Our top two stories center on Japan’s relationship with America.

On June 26th, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives plans to vote on Rep. Mike Honda’s proposed non-binding resolution calling on the Prime Minister of Japan to formally apologize for the coercion of (mostly Korean) women into sexual servitude during World War II. 140 legislators, from both parties, have pledged support for the bill, which Rep. Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor to have ever served in Congress, said would pass by “a substantial margin” when he announced the hearing last weekend.

(Yes, we know Rep. Lantos’s having survived the Holocaust is irrelevant, but mentioning it serves to remind people of who he is.)

After the resolution passes the Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Honda expects it to come before the full House “sometime in mid-July.” If and when it does, and in the less certain event that it passes the full House, the victory will be a hard won one for Honda and the Korean Women’s advocacy group with whom he has worked. (Some of the affected women are Rep. Honda’s constituents in California.) A resolution on the same issue, proposed over a year ago, received broad bipartisan support, and was scuttled preceding then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s valedictory visit to Washington and Graceland. The resolution was then resubmitted last September, only to be blocked by the then-Republican majority in the House.

(For more background on Rep. Mike Honda’s “comfort women” resolution and the Japan lobby’s role in the affair, listen to Seijigiri #12, from November 16, 2006.)

In response to the Committee’s announcement, Japan’s Ambassador to the United States, Ryozo Kato, said,

It is harmful for Japan-U.S. relations if a factually unfounded resolution is passed. The Japanese government’s position on this is as stated by Prime Minister Abe, when he came to the United States. That is, we have offered and will offer heartfelt apologies for the hardships incurred by former comfort women.

The Ambassador did not specify what, if any, action Japan would take upon passage of the resolution.

In an opinion piece published in Thursday’s Asahi Shimbun, Robert Dujarric, the head of the Institute of Contemporary Japanese Studies at Temple University Japan, said that the departure of “old Japan hands” such as Richard Armitage and Michael Green and the appointment of officials such as Henry Paulson as Treasury Secretary and Robert Zoellick as head of the World Bank, both of whom are more interested in China, has cost Japan important personal connections with the Bush administration and led to Japan being “sidelined” in the Six-Party Talks.

Dr. Dujarric points out the oddity of a country as big and wealthy as Japan relying on intermediaries to reach the US government. He also explains the reasons for this seemingly unnecessary practice and recommends a new course in Japanese relations with Washington that centers around the development of larger group of Japanese officials in Washington who are familiar with American culture and politics, who would be able to deal more effectively and directly with American officials. Give the article a read.

And now we turn to the Prime Minister and his approval ratings. Earlier this month, Jiji Press reported that approval for the Abe administration had dipped to 28.8 percent, which was the lowest figure we’ve seen thus far. On Sunday, Kyodo announced the results of its survey, and the approval rating for the Abe Cabinet had fallen to 33.5 percent, down 2.3 points from earlier this month. The cabinet’s disapproval rating rose 9 points to 57.7 percent. The Kyodo survey also showed the DPJ with greater support numbers than the LDP, with the opposition party just edging out the ruling camp.

Also on Sunday, the Nikkei released its latest polling figures, showing that support for the Abe administration has dipped to 36 percent. This is a 5 point drop since the Nikkei’s previous poll, and the lowest result since he took office last September. Disapproval of the Cabinet rose 8 points to 52 percent. According to the Nikkei, the last time any Prime Minister dipped under the forty percent level was in February 2001, when Yoshiro Mori held the job. Support was greater than disapproval only in the over-70 age bracket. The Nikkei also found that 49 percent of respondents would like to see the LDP lose its majority in next month’s Upper House election.

The election itself has been delayed, due to an extension of the current Diet session. The twelve day extension has pushed the election back one week, to July 29. Toranosuke Katayama, the secretary-general of the LDP’s Upper House caucus, told reporters, “We cannot just scrap important bills, and we have no choice but to prioritize their passage, even if it affects the date of the voting.” Katayama was referring to bills focusing on administrative reform and other matters, which Abe would like to see passed before the end of the current Diet session.

On NHK’s “Sunday Debate” program, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had this to say regarding the upcoming election and the one week delay:

Should I start imagining what will happen if we lose the elections, if we aren’t able to secure more than half of the seats, it will put us in a position where we can’t win. Delaying the date for the elections doesn’t in any way reduce my responsibility. As head, I will bear the ultimate responsibility and I intend to fight the elections with the belief that we need to win in every district.

When he said ‘”responsibility,” the Prime Minister was referring to problems at the Social Insurance Agency, where over 50 million pension payments are in limbo due to the fact that the payee cannot be ascertained.

Abe went on to say that constitutional reform would be high on the election platform, telling NHK, “It will be necessary to declare to the public that we will aim to revise the Constitution three years from now.” In numerous polls, however, the public has identified problems with pensions and other more pressing issues as what they would like to hear about.

To add to the Prime Minister’s woes, the scandal over at the Social Insurance Agency is widening: On Sunday morning the Nikkei reported that Social Insurance Agency Officials have begun a nationwide investigation into the possibility that pension payments have been embezzled by agency and municipal officials. The Board of Audit of Japan has found that from 1989 to 2002, over 110 million yen worth of pension payments have been misappropriated. Seven cases have come to light where officials have taken some of that money for themselves, although they have paid it back in each instance. The Nikkei fears that these seven cases may only be the tip of the iceberg. According to the paper, it is possible that the pension records of some individuals may remain incomplete unless the SIA is able to discover what happened to their payments, and thus some pensioners may see their monthly payments reduced.

What effect might this all have on the LDP? A survey published by the Yomiuri on Friday found the DPJ at 31% suppport and the LDP at 26%. 32% of respondents said they felt no allegiance to any political party.

Even worse for Abe, party members have begun discussing where the “Hashimoto Line” should be drawn. In other words, what is the minimum number of seats the LDP needs to retain in order for Abe to keep his job. On June 16, Mikio Aoki, chairman of the LDP’s caucus in the upper house, said, “The win-loss line is clear–it’s whether the LDP and New Komeito can jointly maintain a majority. We’ll fight this upper house election while trying to clarify who should take responsibility for the result.”

That number would be 64 seats, split between the LDP and coalition partner New Komeito. Many party members, however, believe that 44 seats should be the minimum required for Abe to keep his job. Why 44? In 1998, the LDP took only 44 seats, and then-Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto was forced to resign.

And finally, for those interested in China and issues of military buildup and regional security, the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College has just released a paper entitled “China’s Nuclear Forces: Operations, Training, Doctrine, Command, Control and Campaign Planning” by Dr. Larry M. Wortzel.

Business and the Economy

According to statistics released by Japan’s major stock exchanges, foreign investors owned a record high 28% of listed Japanese companies in fiscal 2006, becoming the largest investor group in Japanese firms for the first time.

Supermarket sales in Japan fell 0.6% in May, for the 17th consecutive year-on-year monthly fall, according to data released today by the Japan Chain Stores Association. Sales have dropped in 38 of the last 39 months. The report also mentions that in relation to the total number of employees at the nation’s supermarkets, the number of part-time workers continues to grow.

Japan Air Lines has apparently decided to speed up some of its restructuring plans. It will apparently cut 4,300 jobs by the end of fiscal 2008, a year earlier than originally planned. It will also begin asking flight attendants to “retire” during this fiscal year, is looking to cut retirement benefits by 10%, and is considering cutting its entire workforce by 10% by the end of fiscal 2009. It has been suggested that JAL is seeking to improve its financial health in order to convince some of its lenders to forgive debts in exchange for shares in the company. JAL’s debt currently stands at at $13.78 billion, and is 75 times greater than its operating profit.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe released his set of economic guidelines for the upcoming year. The plan was generally met with disappointment and criticism from all spectrums of the media. According to Bloomberg, “Koizumi’s former economy czar, Heizo Takenaka, called this year’s initiatives ’slogans,’ not policies.”

Travel company H.I.S. announced record results for the seventh consecutive half, ending April 30, 2007. According to the company’s press release, consolidated net sales increased 13.9% and operating income increased 9.6%. H.I.S credits its success to better marketing despite the fact that the number of Japanese traveling abroad is showing virtually no increase.

On Sunday afternoon, the shareholders of Bull Dog approved the company’s plans for anti-takeover defense measures at its annual shareholders meeting. Steel Partners has asked the Tokyo District Court to issue an injunction against Bull Dog, on the grounds that the anti-takeover plan would violate the principle that all shareholders should be treated equally.

A decision from the Tokyo District Court is expected by the end of this week. If the court decides that Bull Dog can proceed with its anti-takeover plan, Steel Partners will have until July 4 to give up its tender offer. If that does not happen, Bull Dog will issue the equity warrants on July 11.

Although shareholders supported Bull Dog’s management with the vote, management came under fire from several participants. One man pointed out the obvious lack in risk management skills and asserted that the company could have paid higher dividends to investors instead of spending money implementing anti-takeover measures that should have already been in place.

One shareholder, attempting to make a show of support for the company, said that Steel Partners’ aggressive move to take over the company was akin to walking into a house with shoes on.

When you don’t have Meat Hope, what do you have? The Dark Side - regulators - deflated Meat Hope, a comically-named manufacturing company from Tomakomai, Hokkaido, by announcing an investigation related to the company’s admission on Wednesday that it had added pork to beef intended for use in croquettes labelled “100% Beef” or even replaced the beef entirely with pork. Allegations from former employees include accusations of using chicken and rancid meat sterilized and colored with animal blood in addition to pork.

Meat Hope claims the mislabeled meat was sold mostly to Hokkaido Katokichi Co., which manufactured the croquettes (as well as about 20 others types of croquette using Meat Hope products) and sold them primarily to the Japan Consumers’ Co-operative Union, which sold them in it’s Co-op supermarkets under the name “Co-op beef croquettes.”

In an interesting side note, Hokkaido Katokichi exported some beef croquettes for ultimate sale in Muslim countries. At the moment, all parties involved say they don’t think the mislabeled meat was sent to Muslim countries. Readers, raise you hands if you believe that Meat Hope lied about the type of meat it was using only to sell to Katokichi at time that it magically knew Katokichi would be manufacturing croquettes for ultimate sale in Japan. Raise your other hand if you believe that Katokichi, which apparently didn’t know the meat was mislabeled, had a separate assembly line and supplier for products that would ultimately be sold in Muslim countries.

Now bring both hands down hard on top of your own head. Bash yourself for being an idiot.

The scandal is a fine example of everyone behaving in a predictable way. All of those involved the mislabeling have dutifully passed them blame up the chain of command to superiors who pass it up again until it reaches Minoru Tanaka, the handily retired President of Meat Hope (what a title!), who has denied any wrongdoing, instead using the time-tested, passive construction, “Mistakes were made.”

If this is your first Japanese business scandal, you couldn’t ask for a better textbook example of what’s supposed to happen.

Society

Back on February 20th, TPR News reported on the bullying-related suicide of 13-year-old Keisuke Mori, who hanged himself last October after three classmates tried to forcibly remove his pants at school.

Last Monday, a family court in Fukuoka decided the bullies would receive no legal punishment. Judge Tsutomu Sakanushi of the Amagi branch of the Fukuoka Family Court decided the school was to blame for Mori’s death because his homeroom teacher called him a liar and revealed personal information he had received from Mori’s mother to mock Mori and give him a derogatory nickname.

Sakanushi said, “(School officials) had very little awareness of problems stemming from school bullying. A teacher’s careless remarks provoked and encouraged the bullying, and the school was completely negligent of the change in Mori’s behavior.”

This observer would go a little further and say that the school was not negligent, but malicious, which is the word police used to describe the actions of Mori’s attackers. The teacher in question said he picked on Mori because he was an easy target, which leads rather reasonably to the question of why a middle school teacher would feel the need to pick on any student and why a school would employ someone so criminally incompetent.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for the teacher to be punished. It was in Fukuoka a few years ago that a judge decided that a racist teacher who had routinely publicly insulted and physically assaulted a student was wrongfully fired for his actions.

Heaven help the students of Fukuoka, because the courts and teachers there certainly aren’t going to.

From the Blogosphere

Shisaku’s “The Mother of All Defeats” is a must-read post for anyone interested in the implications of the decision to extend the current Diet session by 12 days. As Shisaku points out, “In Tokyo, if there is rain on the 28th, then elections will be held on the makeup date of the Sumida River fireworks display–an event that draws about a million attendees downtown.”

Liberal Japan has been busy this week. One post in particular jumped out to us, concerning the Tokyo District Court’s rejection last week of a lawsuit by 10 high school teachers who were denied post-retirement employment after having refused to sing the national anthem (Kimigayo) during graduation ceremonies in March 2004. In the post, Matt Dioguardi gives his own two cents on the ruling: “Issues like this just can’t be solved so long as education is nationally centralized. While I go so far as to support home education, at a very minimum people in their local area need to decide this, not centralized bureaucrats…” Well put.

Thanks to Debito Arudou for calling our attention to a video on the GOJ online TV network that details new procedures for the fingerprinting and photographing of foreign visitors to Japan, which will take effect by November 2007. The video says that exemptions will be granted in the following cases:

1. Persons under the age of 16
2. Special status permanent residents
3. Those performing actions which would be performed [sic] by those with a status of residence, “diplomat” or “official government business”

According to the video, “Fingerprinting and photographing foreign visitors not only contributes to the security of Japan, but is also for the protection of visiting foreigners, so that they can enjoy a safe stay.”

If you’re continuing to follow the scandals surrounding disgraced English school operator Nova, Let’s Japan posted an examination of recent allegations surrounding the company’s operations, including influence peddling and what looks suspiciously like a case of bid-rigging.

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