Whaling, Gas Tax, Gyoza, and Executions: TPR News for Sunday, February 3, 2008
In this edition of TPR News: Australia heightens the rhetoric against Japanese whaling; Fukuda’s advisory panel backs off on barring politicians from consorting with bureaucrats; the gas tax debate heats up; Osaka has Japan’s youngest governor; car sales are up; incomes are down; poisoned gyoza! Posioned gyoza!; and Japan hangs three.
TPR is proud to support the Black Stripe Theater’s presentation of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross, February 22nd to 24th at Theatre Iwato.
Politics
In the Japanese press, throwing a stink bomb and boarding a ship makes one a terrorist. In the Australian press, being detained after making non-lethal attacks on a ship and illegally boarding it, makes that same person a hostage.
While both Japan and Australia say the issue will not harm their otherwise cordial relationship, the acrimony surrounding Japan’s whaling in the Southern Ocean, near Antarctica, continued to rise as Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith made his first visit to Japan since the government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd took power. Australia has said it would dispatch a Customs vessel to the Southern Ocean to monitor the hunt, which Australia vociferously opposes, and Japan, in response to increased pressure from environmental groups, has decided to have its Coast Guard protect its whaling fleet.
Smith said Australia was considering international legal action against Japan to halt its Antarctic whaling.
As part of the largest assistance package to Iraq after that of the United States, the Japan Bank of International Cooperation will provide the Iraqi government with 182.7 billion yen in loans, part of the 537 billion yen Japan pledged to Iraq in 2003. The loans will fund eight civil engineering and infrastructure projects.
In domestic politics, an advisory panel to Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda backed off from its planned recommendation that bureaucrats be forbidden to contact Diet members and instead proposed that such contact be regulated and that the government revamp the bureaucracy “within five years.”
Collusion and influence peddling are seen to be widespread problems in the government and close contact between bureaucrats and sitting Diet members was called the “root of all evil” by some panel members. However, Diet members in the ruling coalition, rather obviously, vigorously opposed such a ban and, instead, got a watered-down set of rules governing under what circumstances bureaucrats and politicians could meet.
The panel also proposed a restructuring of the current two-track employment system in the bureaucracy, which has career and non-career tracks, to classify bureaucrats as comprehensive, specialist, or general employees under a Cabinet personnel agency, which would integrate the management of the bureaucracy. The Cabinet personnel agency would be created by a bill to be proposed in the 2009 Diet session. The new three track system is designed to promote flexibility in hiring, transfers among agencies, and promotions. While it appears that the new comprehensive track would be similar to the current career track, there would be limits placed on the number of people from each track who could be promoted to certain managerial positions.
A “state strategy staff” that would bring in outside experts as well as bureaucrats to assist the Cabinet was also proposed.
The ordinary Diet session’s hot debate, that over a bill to extend a temporary gasoline tax, continues to approach the boiling point. The gas tax was originally put in place over thirty years ago and is used to provide extra revenue for road projects. The LDP-led ruling coalition wants to keep the higher rates, the DPJ-led opposition camp wants to let them expire, as shceduled, on March 31st. On Tuesday, shortly after passing a supplementary budget bill, the ruling coalition submitted a stopgap bill to the House of Representatives, in which it has a supermajority, to temporarily extend the gas tax for two months, to May 31st. Earlier in the day, prior to the stopgap bill’s submission, some members of the DPJ had vowed to engage in “physical resistance” were the bill submitted.
While there were a few good scenes of outraged lawmakers raising their voices in the Diet to call the ruling coalition undemocratic, members of the opposition snatching papers away from ruling coalition members, and a bit of chaos as lawmakers entered and exited the chamber, compromise won the day. Lower House Speaker Yohei Kono, of the LDP, and Upper House President Satsuki Eda, of the DPJ, met and agreed to accelerate discussion on the budget and other financial proposals with an eye to reaching decisions on them before the end of the fiscal year on March 31st, which is what Prime Minister Fukuda had asked for lest the opposition should see the ruling camp use its supermajority to force a bill through the Diet for the second time in 2008. In exchange for an agreement to discuss the gas tax, the opposition saw the stopgap bill pulled.
The compromise was only the third time in pastwar Japan that the heads of both houses of the Diet had mediated a dispute between political parties in the Diet.
The ruling camp was worried that the expiration of the tax prior to the passage of a new tax would result in “confusion” as the tax would effectively be repealed, then reinstated a few months later - a situation that wouldn’t look good for them.
On Monday, LDP-backed lawyer and TV star Toru Hashimoto defeated DPJ-backed engineering professor Sadatoshi Kumagai in the first head-to-head gubernatorial race between the main ruling and opposition parties in Osaka since 1975. Hashimoto’s win made him the youngest-ever governor in Japan, at 38, unseating the previous record-holder, 40-year-old Masanao Ozaki of Kouchi, who was elected last month. Hashimoto voiwed fiscal austerity, saying he would not allow the issuance of prefectural bonds and would force the prefecture to make do with what it had. As Osaka carries a heavy debt burden and issues over 200 billion yen worth of bonds annually and refinanced 350 billion yen in bonds over the four years up to 2007 to delay repayment, such belt-tightening would be no small matter.
Hashimoto has said he would make up for the shortfall by reducing personnel costs, which already has public employees worried, as that means salary cuts, and has supervisors, who already have a difficult time recruiting good prospects, worried that they simply won’t be able to attract the people they need.
Hashimoto, though, has also proposed plans to beautify schools and provide hot lunches, which will be difficult for the prefectural governor as public schools are usually administered by municipalities.
The young governor, though, has one characteristic important to politicians: the ability to turn a phrase. Among his gems is the opining that Japanese men who hire Chinese prostitutes are “providing a kind of Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) to China.”
And here’s the editorial bit:
So, that puts two of the country’s three largest cities in the hands of celebrities that are complete assholes - don’t forget about Tokyo’s Shintaro Ishihara. And while he doesn’t preside over a megalopolis, let us not forget serviced-by-minors Governor Hideo Higashikokubaru of Miyazaki. Higashikokubaru’s famous enough that his election and image provided an Higashikokubaru-centered economic boomlet. Ishihara, despite his racism, xenophobia, sexism, agism, chauvinism, and general lack of understanding of the world around him has had a few good ideas. Ideas that are now unfortunately overshadowed by his insistence on trying to procure the 2016 Olympics for Tokyo, which is a bad idea. Hashimoto has compared Osaka to a bankrupt company, an analogy that works to an extent. The problem is that a prefectural government is not a company. Osaka has been able to amass debts no company could have amassed and has responsibilities and duties it has to discharge regardless of financial status. Furthermore, a company in as much debt as Osaka would not be well advised to hire a lawyer whose main qualification is having been a talking head on TV to run the show. Call me a skeptic, but I wouldn’t bet on Hashimoto being able to fulfill many of his pledges. Planting grass in schoolyards is a great, achievable idea, though. Kids in the second-richest nation on Earth shouldn’t have to play in dirt and concrete.
Business and the Economy
Household spending was up 2.2% in December, according to the Statistics Bureau. Spending in the “Culture and Recreation” and “Housing” categories led the rise, while spending on “Clothing and Footwear” and “Medical Care” showed declines in February.
While spending rose, average household incomes fell by 2.7% in December. Disposable income was reported at down 3.6% from a year ago. For a full writeup on both household spending and incomes in December, please visit Japan Economy News.
Also in December, Japan’s unemployment rate stayed fixed at 3.8%, despite many forecasters having predicted a rise. While the number of jobs in construction and manufacturing continues to fall, the wholesale and retail sector as well as the medical and welfare service sector posted large gains in the number of new hires.
For the full year of 2007, Japan’s unemployment rate averaged 3.9%, which is the lowest figure seen since 1997, when Japan’s unemployment stood at 3.4%. Despite this good news, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare is reporting that the number of jobs available per applicant has been declining over the past two months.
According to data released by video game industry watcher Enterbrain, Nintendo’s Wii gaming console has opened a wide lead in sales over rival Sony’s PlayStation 3 platform. After the PlayStation 3 outsold the Wii in November, Nintendo has hit back with a vengeance, releasing new software and hardware that has provided a strong boost in sales. Since hitting the shelves ten weeks ago, Nintendo’s “Wii Fit” exercise hardware has sold over 1.2 million units. Enterbrain reported that in the four weeks ending January 27, Nintendo moved 479,931 units of the Wii versus Sony’s 165,719 PlayStation 3 shipments.
In 2007, sales of passenger cars, trucks and buses in Japan fell by 7.6%, showing a decline for the fourth consecutive year and reaching their lowest point since 1972. The Toyota Corolla was the nation’s best selling passenger model for the fifth consecutive year, though in December and January it was outsold by Honda’s Fit. When minicars were included in the statistics, Suzuki’s Wagon R was Japan’s best selling vehicle last year, with 226,725 units sold.
In 2007, the Corolla was followed by Toyota’s Vitz, Honda’s Fit, Toyota’s Passo and Nissan’s Serena in terms of sales.
In January, however, new auto sales increased by 3.7%. Sales of passenger cars and buses increased, while truck sales were down 14.5%. Sales of minicars fell for the 10th straight month in January.
Society
On Wednesday, reports of at least ten people having fallen ill from eating “poisoned” gyoza hit the mainstream news shows. The people ate an an organophosphate called methamidophos, legal as a pesticide in China, but not approved in Japan. The investigation and furor surrounds a family in Chiba’s Inage Ward who fell ill on January 22nd after eating gyoza made by Tianyang Food of Shijiazhuang, Hebei province, imported by JT Foods, a subsidiary of Japan Tobacco, and sold at Co-op supermarkets. Concentrations of the chemical in question are as high as 400 times the level permissible by Japanese standards, leading investigators to believe that the pesticide was not left over from inadequate processing and cleaning, but was placed there intentionally. Furthering this belief was a three-millimeter
hole found in one package of the products in question eaten by a Hyogo that fell ill on January 5th - at least three weeks before a recall of possibly dangerous products began and the public was notified. Co-op began pulling the tainted products from the shelves a day before the news broke.
By Friday, at least 1,088 people in 38 prefectures had reported falling ill due to eating contaminated gyoza and other processed food products made by Tianyang Food, whose products have been pulled from the shelves of supermarkets across Japan.
Just to thicken the plot and drive home the point that it’s all about money, the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission is looking into possible insider trading at Japan Tobacco prior to the company’s public announcement of a recall.
The Prime Minister, on Friday, asked all Ministers to do their utmost to deal with the problem of poisoned gyoza, which made for some unintentionally humorous newspaper headlines on Saturday morning.
For a rundown of what this TV darling of a scandal means, take a gander at MTC’s post on it on Shisaku.
Takashi Mochida, aged 65, in Tokyo, Masahiko Matsubara, 63, in Osaka, and Keishi Nago, 37, in Fukuoka were hanged on Friday, the second trio to be executed since Japan began disclosing the names of executed prisoners late last year, bringing the number of prisoners on death row to 104. The disclosure of names is part of a slow trend of releasing more information about executions. The Justice Ministry only began disclosing the number of prisoners executed on the days of their executions in 1998. Prior to that, only the total number of executions was released in an annual report.
Mochida had been convicted of the revenge killing of a woman he had raped and who had testified against him; Matsubara had been convicted of raping, strangling, and robbing two women; and Nago had been convicted of stabbing and killing his sister-in-law and niece and seriously wounding his nephew.
Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama, a steadfast supporter of capital punishment, has been pushing to carry out death setences as soon as possible after review of the cases is complete. Despite Japan’s move towards greater transparency in captial cases, the country still draws strong criticism for not publicly setting execution dates and for only releasing information related to executions after the fact.
Said Council of Europe Secretary General Terry Davis, “This is apalling. There are no civilized ways to execute a human being, but there are varying degrees of inhumanity. The Japanese procedure is as inhumane as it gets.”
Japan’s heavy reliance on often coerced confessions, almost certain convictions in criminal cases that go to trial, and secretive interrogation and criminal investigation procedures also frequently draw criticism from other developed countries, human rights groups, and legal activists.
In defense of Japan’s system of capital punishment, Justice Minister Hatoyama had an enlightening quote in an interview with Weekly Asahi in October of last year:
As the Japanese place so much importance on the value of life, it is thought that one should pay with one’s own life for taking the life of another. You see, the Western nations are civilizations based on power and war. So, conversely, things are moving against the death penalty. This is an important point to understand. The so-called civilizations of power and war are the opposite of us. From incipient stages, their conception of the value of life is weaker than the Japanese. Therefore, they are moving toward abolition of the death penalty.
It is important that this discourse on civilizations be understood.
Related Posts:
- Seijigiri #41: The Budget is Passed, and Fukuda is Feeling the Pressure
- On Whaling in Japan
- A New Agriculture Minister, Pensions, Exports, Whaling and Miss Universe Riyo Mori: TPR News for June 3, 2007
- USMC Rape in Okinawa, Voting Changes, and Gyoza: TPR News for Friday, February 15, 2008
- TPR News: Monday, November 20, 2006 - Fundamental Law of Education and a joint China-Japan history study
