In this edition of TPR News, we look at the passage of Mike Honda’s comfort women resolution to the full House of Representatives, the candidacy of Alberto Fujimori for Japan’s Upper House elections, the reaction to North Korean missile tests this week, the life of former Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, who passed away this week, a range of economic reports, and the ongoing hunt for the murderer of Lindsay Ann Hawker

Politics

On Wednesday, the International Relations Committee of the US House of Representatives voted 39-2 to pass a resolution sponsored by Representative Mike Honda (D-CA) which calls for Japan to “formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner” for forcing an estimated 200,000 women into sexual slavery during World War II. The resolution now moves on to debate in the full House, where a vote could take place in mid-July. Speaking in Tokyo on Wednesday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki said, “Our government stance has been clarified on many occasions, including (during) our Prime Minister’s visit to the United States in April…I don’t think we want to add more than that..”

Honda himself acknowledged the fact that the Democratic rise to power in Congress contributed to the passage of the resolution, telling reporters, “The Democrats are now in power after twelve years…That was the opportunity to really pump up the effort…Republicans were more receptive to Japanese influence. Japanese leadership had a lot of influence. They spent a lot of money.”

In an unsigned editorial published on Wednesday, the Yomiuri wrote:

The Japanese government should try to correct the United States’ misinterpretation of history in order to remove a source of future trouble, while at the same time working to block passage of the resolution by the House of Representatives plenary session…The resolution was made without verifying the facts and smacks of cheap rhetoric. It makes us doubt the wisdom of U.S. lawmakers.

On Wednesday, former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori announced that he would run for a seat in next month’s Upper House election, with the backing of the People’s New Party (Kokumin Shinto). During an interview with the Yomiuri Shimbun, Fujimori said, “As the People’s New Party highly evaluated my achievements as [Peruvian] president in fighting terrorism and poverty, I’d like to use my experience for Japan’s benefit.” Fujimori has expressed interest in pursuing the North Korean abduction issue.

According to the most recent Yomiuri Shimbun poll, support for the Abe Cabinet has moved up slightly, by 1.5 percentage points to 34.4 percent. The percentage of respondents who disapprove of the Cabinet decreased by 1.9 percent to 51.8 percent. Perhaps most surprising, 24 percent of respondents to the Yomiuri poll said that they would be supporting the Democratic Party of Japan in next month’s election, with 22 percent expressing support for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

On Wednesday, North Korea apparently test fired three short range ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan. On Thursday, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe accused North Korea of violating the United Nations Security Council resolution which calls for North Korea to put an end to its ballistic missile programs. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki would not comment on whether or not the test launch violated the terms of the 2002 Pyongyang Declaration, saying, “In general, (the declaration) covers ballistic missiles that directly concern our country’s safety.”

Also on Wednesday, the Sankei Shimbun reported that the Maritime Self-Defense Force plans to transfer officers with foreign spouses away from posts with access to military secrets after sensitive data was leaked through an officer with a Chinese wife. There has been no link established between the leaking of the information and any role that may have been played by the officer’s wife.

On Thursday, former Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa passed away at his home in Tokyo. He was 87. Miyazawa served as the 78th Prime Minister of Japan from October 1991 to August 1993. Under his leadership, Japan’s Self-Defense Forces participated in United Nations peacekeeping activities for the first time, in Cambodia. Miyazawa stepped down after the Diet passed a no confidence resolution against his Cabinet, in an expression of dismay over his proposed legislation for political reform. He served in the Lower House for 50 years, from 1953 to 2003, and played a role in the negotiation of the San Francisco Treaty with the United States.

In 1988, Miyazawa was involved in the Recruit-Cosmos insider stock trading scandal, along with then-LDP General Secretary Shintaro Abe, former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, future Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi and former Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita. Although Abe’s career was effectively ruined by the scandal, both Miyazawa and Obuchi went on to become Prime Ministers.

From 1999 to 2001 Miyazawa served as Finance Minister, under Obuchi and Yoshiro Mori. In the wake of the Asian financial crisis in 1997, he proposed the so-called Miyazawa Plan, which would have involved having Japan contribute as much as $100 billion in aid to other Asian nations. The plan was passed over in favor of relief efforts charted out by the International Monetary Fund. Miyazawa stepped down from his post when Junicho Koizumi became Prime Minister, symbolizing the end of Japan’s policy of large-scale government spending on public works.

Business and the Economy

A slew of economic reports were released toward the end of this week. First, the Statistics Bureau reported that in May, Japan’s Consumer Price Index had fallen 0.1 percent. Speaking on the data, Economic and Fiscal Policy Minister Hiroko Ota repeated her opinion that the Japanese economy has not yet left deflation fully behind.

Also according to the Statistics Bureau, Japan’s unemployment rate held steady at a nine-year low of 3.8 percent. The report found that in May, 64.99 million people were employed in Japan, up by 510,000 from a year ago.

Household spending rose in May, by 0.4% over a year ago. A report from the statistics bureau showed that in May, the average household income in Japan was 431,013 yen (+1.0% from a year ago). The average monthly household spending per household with two or more people was at 293,231 yen. The rise in spending was mainly driven by increases in medical and education costs.

Retail sales rose in May for the first time in eight months. Bloomberg quotes Hiroshi Shiraishi, an economist at Lehman Brothers Japan, as saying:

We find it difficult to envisage a sustained robust expansion in consumption, particularly given that the tax burden of households will likely increase…It’s not a huge tax increase but with wages going nowhere, it doesn’t do consumer confidence any good.

Tax cuts put in place during the Koizumi administration have been slowly rolled back, with the final rollback set to happen this month. Bloomberg also points out that wages in Japan decreased for the fifth consecutive month in April, after having risen only 0.3 percent, or less than 10,000 yen in 2006. Average annual salaries dropped about 10 percent between 1997 and 2005.

On Thursday, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry reported that Japan’s industrial production had fallen in May by 0.4 percent, showing a decline for the third consecutive month. Many economists had predicted a rise.

On Wednesday, the Bank of Japan reported that its Corporate Services Price Index rose 1.4 percent in May. This is the tenth consecutive increase in the index, and last month’s pace of growth was the highest seen since July 1992 (when the consumption-tax fueled rise of 1997 is factored out). The increase was driven by a rise in transportation prices, which was attributed to exports of coal and iron ore to China.

And finally, former Sony CEO Nobuyuki Idei has been hired as a director of Chinese search engine company Baidu. In an interview with Kyodo News on Monday, Idei had this to say:

Sadly, Japan was unable to lead the information technology industry…At present, there is no world-class brand from Japan that does Net business. There is no new Sony on the Net…By using IT more and more, I hope one day there will be a new world-class company from Japan.

The announcement that he would be joining Baidu was made on Tuesday.

The Lindsay Ann Hawker Case

Tatsuya Ichihashi, the suspected murderer of Lindsay Ann Hawker is still (unacceptably) at large. On Wednesday of this week, the Hawker family arrived in Japan in order to help build awareness of the case. According to an article at Japan Today, the Chiba prefectural police department says that it has followed up on over 800 leads and has questioned 150 people. On Thursday, the National Police Agency announced that it was offering a one million yen reward for information leading to an arrest of a suspect in the case.

Caroline Pover, the CEO of Weekender Inc in Tokyo, has begun a t-shirt campaign with the approval of the Hawker family. The goal is to raise awareness of the case and to publicize images of Tatsuya Ichihashi. For more information, please see here.

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