For the last several years, South Korean ultra-nationalists have been lobbying publishing companies and governments around the world, demanding that “East Sea” replace or be written alongside “Sea of Japan” in maps and books. They are angry about how people in other countries call the sea to the east of Korea by a
“pro-Japanese” name.

Although there are mountains of historical evidence that show widespread international use of the name predates Japan’s opening to the world in the 1850′s, these Korean ultra-nationalists insist that Japanese imperialists are responsible for the name.

As an alternative, they suggest that the entire world adopt the translation of their Korea-centric term for the sea: “East Sea.”

Their misinformation campaign appears to have gained some ground in areas of the United States with large ethnic Korean populations. Several days ago, they tried to trick the state of Virginia into requiring the use of “East Sea” in its textbooks. Luckily, the State Senate rejected their plan.

As reported by Korea’s Arirang News:

The Senate’s Education and Health Committee voted down the legislation 7 to 8, brought to a vote by Democrat Dave Marsden representing a constituency with a large Korean-American community.

The bill was strongly opposed by Republicans who called the measure “micromanagement” and raised concerns over possible strife and disorder that could arise from the legislation.

Korea argues that historically the more common name for the body of water between Korea and Japan is “East Sea” and NOT the “Sea of Japan.”

If you live in Virginia and would like to express your displeasure with Senator David Marsden’s blatant pandering to foreign ultra-nationalists, contact him via Twitter, Facebook, or his website.

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The video has already been taken down, but caused much consternation when it was discovered early in the morning on Jan. 30.

According to Nishida’s representatives, it is believed that someone hacked into Nishida’s YouTube account — which the Diet member uses to post videos related to his political activities on his website — and posted the obscene material.

Screencaps and backup videos are available via 2channel aggregate blogs (maybe NSFW – although women appear to be fully-clothed).

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Remember Kevin Maher, who lost his position in 2011 as director of the U.S. State Department’s Office of Japan Affairs after American students told the Japanese media that he had called Okinawans “masters of manipulation and extortion” who were “too lazy” to farm fruit?

Now that he’s no longer employed by the U.S. government, Maher has been strongly denying the accuracy of media reports about his remarks and criticizing both the Japanese government and the Obama administration. He’s released a book in Japanese, called “The Japan That Can’t Decide“(決断できない日本), and it’s supposedly been selling pretty well.

He’s also found an audience in America. Here is a video (1 hour 35 minutes) of Maher giving a speech about the main ideas of his book at the Heritage Foundation, one of America’s most influential right-wing think tanks:

At the beginning of the speech, Maher gives his side of the story about the students and his remarks about Okinawa. He states that the media reports were based on notes taken long after his actual speech and implies that the students had political motives. He also says that the State Department offered him a position in Australia after his dismissal from service in Japan, but he refused to accept “hush money” from them. He wanted the freedom to speak freely to the public.

A Heritage Foundation blog post has summarized his critical views of Japanese politics:

Japanese officials have become so fraught with indecision, he said, that Japan is mired in a perennial policy stalemate. Maher identified several reasons for this situation, including a consensus-building parliamentary system that empowers small minorities to block major decisions, a loss of confidence among politicians resulting from Japan’s lost decades of economic stagnation, and an aversion to taking risks and assuming responsibility.

Maher blamed Japan’s consensus-building approach and emphasis on domestic political concerns for the ongoing stalemate over the planned U.S. military realignment on Okinawa, particularly the Marine Corps Futenma Replacement Facility. Japan has passed the buck on implementing the previously agreed-upon plan of relocating Futenma’s air assets to Camp Schwab, transferring 8,000 Marines to Guam, and reducing the burden on the local population.

Maher emphasized that Japan’s populace and political leadership must take security issues more seriously—a weakness underscored by the meager 1 percent of GDP spent on defense. Maher condemned proposals to relocate Futenma’s helicopters off Okinawa, noting that Marine Corps units must constantly train with integrated air, ground, and logistics assets. In his words, “if they don’t train together, they die, and we will not sacrifice Marines’ lives for Japan’s domestic political concerns.” Japan must simply wake up to its security environment and understand why U.S. Marines on Okinawa are essential to peace and security in the Pacific.

The AFP also had a story about him, in which focus was placed on his view of the Kan Administration’s weak response to the Fukushima crisis:

Maher said that the US government was privately terrified over the unfolding crisis. He accused Japan’s then prime minister, Naoto Kan, of evading responsibility and trying to pass the problem over to the plant’s operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Co.

“I remember sitting on a task force many a time thinking, ‘Who the hell is in control in Japan?’ The government’s not doing anything. Kan made one trip and flew up and got in the way and came back,” Maher said.

Maher said that he watched in horror as he saw television footage of a sole helicopter dropping water on the stricken plant.

“Is that the best Japan can do?” Maher said. “Frankly what happened is the US government called in the Japanese ambassador and said, look, you have to take this stuff seriously. We don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Maher said that the United States was even looking at whether it would have to evacuate some 100,000 Americans, although it soon became clear that Tokyo was not in harm’s way.

Maher thinks that in the early days of the crisis, there was nobody at the government level who wanted to take responsibility for the Fukushima crisis. The Kan Administration wanted it to be “Tepco’s problem” instead of the government’s problem. This was “irresponsible” behavior. After about March 16th, the crisis management increased greatly.

Some of the points he makes in the speech:

• The scandal about his alleged remarks took place was top news the day before the earthquake/tsunami. After March 11th, newspapers on the mainland devoted their attention to the gigantic disaster. But the Okinawan press supposedly thought Maher’s scandal was more important, and gave it more attention than the disaster.
• The Okinawa base issue is just like the issue of hold-out houses in the middle of Narita Airport: Japanese politicians try and fail at consensus-building, so a small minority can spoil policies that should help the entire country.
• When Japan Airlines Flight 123 crashed in 1985, Japanese SDF helicopters could not send down rescue crews because it was dark and they lacked night vision equipment. The American military offered assistance, but were rejected. As a result, injured survivors died while rescuers waited until sunrise. Maher thinks that bureaucrats turned down the American offer because they thought that it would take too long to build a consensus for its approval.
• Because Japan’s crisis management system relies on consensus-building, it basically has no effective means to deal with a crisis. (He doesn’t know how one would translate the idea of OBE into Japanese.)
• Japan needs to understand that “not deciding is deciding.”
• The real problem is that politicians do not want to take responsibility for tough decisions. If you build consensus before making a decision, everyone is responsible for it. But if you have to decide something without consensus, you’ve got to take responsibility.
• People in America who tell the Japanese to “put aside” the North Korea abductee issue are wrong. If American citizens were kidnapped by Cuba, America would probably go to war. How can you tell Japan to just ignore such a problem?
• Japan and America should not ignore the fact that China is a “totalitarian dictatorship.” China is a “real threat” to Japan.
• The Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force should aquire nuclear-powered submarines to counter China’s growing naval strength.
• Japan needs to face security issues head-on and make the difficult decisions that need to be made. This involves explaining the necessity to the Japanese public.
• The relocation of Futenma Air Station to Henoko is the best solution available. Unfortunately, it will probably not be implemented. (But the security relationship between America and Japan is still functioning well. )
• Keeping Futenma’s helicopters near the other Marine bases on Okinawa is vital for their training. And adequate training is a matter of life and death to the marines. Unlike the Japanese, they face the realistic possibility of being sent to a war zone. (Unnamed Democrats criticized him after he said this to Hatoyama’s advisors in 2010.)
• Noda has the potential to be a stronger leader than Hatoyama or Kan. But it is difficult to look forward and predict how things will turn out.
• Japan needs to restart most of its nuclear reactors. Otherwise, electricity shortages will seriously damage the economy.
• The population is declining because many people aren’t optimistic about the future of Japan.
• He isn’t criticizing traditional Japanese culture. Japanese politicians in the 1950′s and 1960′s knew how to make decisions. Japan’s current problems are brought on by a lack of confidence, possibly due to economic stagnation.
• “The Japanese people deserve better politics.”

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When Yoshihiko Noda became Prime Minister of Japan in August of 2011, I made a blog post noting how many English language articles and tweets failed to properly spell his first name. For people unfamiliar with Japanese names, it can be hard to remember the second “hi” in the middle of Yoshihiko. Without that extra syllable, Noda’s first name becomes a female first name.

Nearly every article these days manages to spell his name correctly, but there are still a few every week that refer “Yoshiko Noda.” Here are some I spotted recently on Google News:

Patti Domm of CNBC (December 27, 2011):

“The two countries announced Sunday that they would start direct trading their currencies, instead of using the dollar as intermediary. The move is part of a financial agreement between the two countries following meetings between Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiko Noda and Chinese President Hu Jintao.”

Tania Branigan and Justin McCurry of the Guardian (December 20, 2011):

“In Japan, the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper said prime minister Yoshiko Noda had ordered government officials to improve measures to collect information on North Korea’s moves, sharing it with the US, South Korea and China, and to be fully prepared for unpredictable circumstances.”

The Voice of Russia (December 20, 2011):

“In a telephone linkup on Monday Prime Minister Yoshiko Noda and President Barack Obama pledged to press for a nuclear-free North Korea and prevent Kim’s demise from having a negative impact on the much-needed stability on the divided peninsula.”

Sharla Torre Monvel-Cohen of Guam Buildup News (December 12, 2011):

“In a political move that some expect will weaken Prime Minister Yoshiko Noda‘s leadership and further complicate progress on a controversial plan to build a U.S. air base on Okinawa’s remote eastern coast, Japan’s Upper House approved censure motions against two members of his cabinet.”

And finally, even the English language newspapers in Japan have done it. Here is a quote from Takao Yamada of the Mainichi Shimbun (December 25, 2011):

But the government’s planned timing of this process — spring and summer of next year — coincides with a critical time for Prime Minister Yoshiko Noda‘s cherished consumption tax bill. Can the government handle two such massive issues at once?

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The Sankei Shimbun recently published the results of an online poll that asked Japanese people to select who they thought would be great or terrible leaders.

I have translated the ranking into English and added Wikipedia links for reference:

Who would you consider an ideal leader?

1. Sakamoto Ryoma
2. Oda Nobunaga
3. Tokugawa Ieyasu
4. Junichiro Koizumi
5. Toru Hashimoto
6. Konosuke Matsushita
7. Masayoshi Son
8. Takeshi Kitano
9. Kakuei Tanaka
10. George Tokoro
11. Hiromitsu Ochiai
12. Isoroku Yamamoto
13. Steve Jobs
14. Shintaro Ishihara
15. Toyotomi Hideyoshi

Who do you not want as a leader?

1. Yukio Hatoyama
2. Naoto Kan
3. Ichiro Ozawa
4. Tsuneo Watanabe
5. Yoshihiko Noda
6. Oda Nobunaga
7. Adolf Hitler
8. Politicians
9. N/A
10. N/A
11. Recent Prime Ministers (of Japan)
12. N/A
13. Kim Jong-il

The Sankei is a right-leaning newspaper, and the results may reflect the political views of its readership. Nonetheless, the people on the ideal list also enjoy mainstream popularity in Japan. Sakamoto Ryoma and Oda Nobunaga can also be found at the top of TBS television’s 2007 History’s 100 Most Influential People” ranking and its 2006 “Favorite 100 Historical Figures” ranking.

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North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il has died. The Japanese government has reacted by holding some national security meetings:

As the central government’s information gathering operations moved into top gear, the Japanese leader held a telephone conversation with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, the foreign ministry said.

Japan will also be in close contact with China and the United States concerning the issue, government officials said.

A series of emergency meetings between Noda and his key security advisers convened Monday, following Noda’s receipt of the news.

The Japanese government’s response has been one of caution. Prime Minister Noda doesn’t want to do anything that might cause trouble, so he’s just saying he hopes that the situation remains peaceful. Will North Korea be stable under the leadership of the young Kim Jong-Un? Will the new regime be more receptive to Japan’s demands for information about abducted citizens? Nobody is really sure what will happen next.

It has also been a hot topic for users on Japan’s largest bulletin board site, 2channel. Here are a few ASCII art images that have been posted on threads about the news story. As you might guess, their reaction was a little bit different from the official government response.

Beer mugs raised in celebration of Kim Jong-Il’s Demise:

Somebody’s holding a festival:

A Tamori-like character finds that his studio audience is very happy about Kim Jong-il’s death:

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Earlier this month, I posted about a public opinion poll showing that 82% of Japanese people had friendly feelings towards the United States. That poll did not ask many questions, so it was hard to determine the exact meaning of the answers.

The Yomiuri has since released the results of its own annual poll, finding that Japanese people greatly appreciated America’s disaster relief mission in Tohoku. However, the poll also found that there are many Japanese who think that the Okinawa military base issue is hurting their country’s relationship with the United States:

The percentage of Japanese who said Japan-U.S relations were “good” or “very good” was 35 percent, while the percentage of those who called relations “poor” or “very poor” was 41 percent. The figures went up by 2 percentage points and 1 percentage point from last year, respectively.

The percentage of respondents who said they trust the United States “very much” or “somewhat” was 47 percent, down 5 points from 2010. Forty-two percent said they do not trust the country “very much” or “at all,” up 5 points from last year.

Eighty-two percent of Japanese respondents think the lack of progress on relocating the U.S. Marine Corps’ Futenma Air Station in Okinawa Prefecture has had a negative impact on the bilateral relationship, up 3 percentage points from last year. This result may suggest that Japanese people’s anxiety over the Japan-U.S. alliance is preventing their feelings toward the United States from improving.

Americans seemed pretty positive about their nation’s relationship with Japan, probably because about 60% of them don’t know about the Futenma dispute.

Read the rest here.

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A South Korean civic group has erected a bronze statue of a comfort woman in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul:

A civic group demanding that the Japanese government apologize to and compensate Korean “comfort women,” who were forced to provide sexual services to Japanese soldiers before and during World War II, erected a bronze monument symbolizing the victims in front of the Japanese Embassy here on Dec. 14.

The monument, referred to as a “peace statue,” was unveiled during an official ceremony on Dec. 14, a day that also marked the group’s 1,000th protest in front of the Japanese Embassy, held every Wednesday since January 1992.

The statue sits directly across the street from the gate to the Japanese embassy. There is an empty chair beside it, allowing tourist to have their picture taken with the comfort woman.

As you can see from the embedded news clip from Japanese TV, this has received a considerable amount of attention in Japan. In addition to clips of South Korean protesters demanding more compensation for surviving comfort women, it shows footage of Japanese people holding protests in Tokyo. Japanese police kept apart two groups of protesters: one in favor of more compensation for comfort women, and one opposing the statue.

When the Japanese news anchors discuss the issue at the end of the clip, they call on Prime Minister Noda bring up the issue of the statue during an upcoming meeting with South Korea’s President Lee Myung-bak. The statue could hurt Japan’s image and encourage an incorrect understanding of the comfort women issue.

The Japanese government has already officially objected to the statue, citing the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, a treaty that both Japan and Korea have signed. Article 22 of the Convention states that host countries must impair the “dignity” of foreign embassies:

2. The receiving State is under a special duty to take all appropriate steps to protect the premises of the mission against any intrusion or damage and to prevent any disturbance of the peace of the
mission or impairment of its dignity.

The South Korean government brushed aside official Japanese complaints about the plan to erect the statue, and now that it’s complete, it seems doubtful that they will change their minds.

Background Information on Japan’s Official Response to the Comfort Women Issue

The issue of war reparations was addressed during the negotiations of the 1965 Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea. The South Korean government accepted a huge sum of money from Japan, stating that it would take care of the distribution of reparations to individual Korean victims of Japanese imperialism. The South Korean government agreed that its citizens would no longer have the legal right to demand compensation payments from the Japanese government.

Unfortunately for the victims, the South Korean government hid the reparations agreement from its citizens and used the money for other purposes. For decades, South Koreans believed that Japan had not properly paid reparations to their country. The South Korean government eventually admitted the truth in 2005:

In January 2005, the South Korean government disclosed 1,200 pages of diplomatic documents that recorded the proceeding of the treaty. The documents, kept secret for 40 years, recorded that South Korea agreed to demand no compensations, either at the government or individual level, after receiving $800 million in grants and soft loans from Japan as compensation for its 1910–45 colonial rule in the treaty.
The documents also recorded that the Korean government demanded a total of 364 million dollars in compensation for the 1.03 million Koreans conscripted into the workforce and the military during the colonial period, at a rate of 200 dollars per survivor, 1,650 dollars per death and 2,000 dollars per injured person.However, the South Korean government used most of the grants for economic development, failing to provide adequate compensation to victims by paying only 300,000 won per death in compensating victims of forced labor between 1975 and 1977. Instead, the government spent most of the money establishing social infrastructures, founding POSCO, building Gyeongbu Expressway and the Soyang Dam with the technology transfer from Japanese companies.

The documents also reveal that the South Korean government claimed that it would handle individual compensation to its citizens who suffered during Japan’s colonial rule while rejecting Japan’s proposal to directly compensate individual victims and receiving the whole amount of grants on the behalf of victims.(emphasis added)

Despite this evidence, many Koreans insist to this day that Japan never paid any form of compensation to their country. They have also dismissed or ignored the Japanese government’s numerous apologies to victims of imperialism.

When the comfort women issue gained international attention in the 1990′s, the Japanese government decided that it was a special case. Despite the fact that the previous treaty had legally settled the reparations issue, measures were taken to aid former comfort women. Directly paying reparations would violate the 1965 agreement, so the Japanese government instead established the Asian Women’s Fund to raise funds and deliver compensation payments.

As noted on the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s homepage, the official response to the issue included apologies and the distribution of billions of yen in reparations to surviving comfort women:

Recognizing that the issue known as “comfort women” was a grave affront to the honor and dignity of a large number of women, the Government of Japan, together with the people of Japan, seriously discussed what could be done for expressing their sincere apologies and remorse to the former “comfort women.” As a result, the Asian Women’s Fund (AWF) was established on July 19, 1995 in order to extend atonement from Japanese people to the former “comfort women.” Having decided to provide necessary assistance for the AWF by a Cabinet decision in August 1995, the Government of Japan, with a view to fulfilling its moral responsibility, had been providing all possible assistance for the AWF, including bearing the total operational costs of the AWF, assisting its fund-raising and providing the necessary funds to implement its activities (approximately 4.8 billion yen from the AWF’s founding through fiscal year of 2005), in order for the AWF to attain its goals.

The AWF closed its doors in 2006, after having spent a decade searching for surviving comfort women and delivering compensation and apologies to those willing to accept them. Sadly, many former comfort women rejected the apologies and compensation. This was because Korean nationalists had convinced them that a foundation established and funded by the Japanese government was “unofficial,” and thus the AWF’s work did not amount to a “sincere” effort by Japan. The civic group that erected the bronze statue is made up of people who hold such a view of the AWF.

Update: Here are two important points that should probably be addressed.

• “Korea wasn’t a democratic country in 1965” – Apparently, some people think that the entire 1965 agreement should be scrapped because Park Chung-hee was not a democratically elected ruler. Unfortunately, that’s not how diplomacy works. Japan had no control over the form of government in South Korea, and it had to deal with the South Korea that existed at that time. Compensation payments were necessary to normalize relations, and Japan had to agree to pay that money to the South Korean government before the treaty could be signed. Waiting decades to see if South Korea would ever democratize was not a realistic option. And it isn’t fair to expect that Japan should repay that money because the South Korean government didn’t properly execute the domestic end of the agreement. [ It's also strange to think that Japan should be held accountable for the actions of its pre-1945 undemocratic regime, but that Korea should ignore the actions of its previous undemocratic regime.]
• “Why doesn’t Japan just make a direct payment of compensation to the women?” – Since the end of World War II, Japan has used bilateral agreements to settle reparations issues with all of the countries that suffered due to Japanese imperialism. Billions of yen were paid to the national governments of countries. The agreements made individual compensation a legal matter between the people of those countries and the governments of those countries. These kinds of state level agreements are widely recognized throughout the world, and are far more common than agreements that leave open the possibility of compensation lawsuits from individuals. If Japan were to void its agreement with South Korea by paying direct individual compensation to the former comfort women, it would in effect void all the other postwar reparations agreements. Reparations that were already legally settled and already paid at the state level would have to be re-paid at the individual level. The Asian Women’s Fund allowed Japan to avoid the legal mess of voiding treaties, while still being able to satisfying a desire to pay special compensation to the surviving comfort women. (To learn more about Japan’s state level compensation policy, check out Japan’s Contested War Memories by Philip Seaton and flip to page 59.)

This summary of the apology/compensation issue is not meant to belittle or insult the former comfort women. Their suffering was great, and they deserve compensation and apologies. This post was meant to provide a calm and rational look at how the postwar Japanese government has already taken very real actions in response to the situation – including very real apologies and very real monetary compensation.

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People have surmised that it was the mayor’s idea to move the city website to Facebook. Could you tell us a little bit about why you’ve taken this measure?

Our website was quite old. It was slow to update, and there was no bidirectionality or cooperation. In short, we were working with stone tools, which is fine if you’re living in the Stone Age, but in our age of speed it’s impossible to deal with stone tools.

I think the difference between the Web and paper is the possibility for bidirectionality with users. Nevertheless, it’d be impossible to make all the city employees communicate in HTML, and if you make a city bulletin board it becomes a rough situation like “2channel”.  In other words, we were unable to guarantee good bidirectionality on the city website thus far, and users were unable to share their information with us reliably.

When did you begin thinking about this?

It was about 10 years ago. That was around the time I learned about the trashy stuff people post on 2channel. At that time, I was working for the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the national government. I started about 5 threads, and all of them got flamed in the most ridiculous way.

For example, I was transferred to Takatsuki in Osaka, and decided to invite people to Kansai University. I succeeded at that, but I also got amazingly hate-filled replies. Which would have been okay if I had known who was writing them, but they were anonymous! So, I thought “this is really no good”.  It wasn’t constructive at all, just the proverbial “bathroom graffiti”.

Based on my personal experience, I thought that after all, a web site needs to have a real-name system. Furthermore, without bidirectionality, we won’t get a good range of opinions, and it’ll be mottai nai. For example, when you’ve got two people arguing about something, with bidirectionality others can enter the conversation.

I was thinking about this for many years, and when Twitter got popular, I decided, “This must be it.” But Twitter has no real-name system and in the end noise got into the signal. Just as I was deciding, “This isn’t it after all,” Facebook got its boost [from the movie The Social Network, which premiered in Japan in late 2010 --A].

When I started using Facebook, I had only 100 friends, but my own contributions got excellent responses. And of course these responses weren’t just praise for me, but also people saying, “I think it would be better if you do it this way”, “look at the data I’m linking here”, and so forth. I got very involved in the discussions, and started thinking it could have real practical value for city administration.

Essentially, Facebook is the biggest site with a real-name registration system. The system I was wishing for 10 years ago when I got flamed on 2channel has finally arrived. This is why I moved the city website to Facebook.

[...]

Aren’t there a lot people being left behind by this technological evolution?

Oh, certainly. I don’t expect 70 to 80 year olds to get on Facebook for my sake.

But I feel like even that is changing these days. If you ask me how a 70-year-old in my city is meant to acquaint himself with Facebook, I would say that just like with vehicles, those who can’t drive for themselves can “carpool”. Rather than learning the keyboard for themselves, they can look on and contribute with the help of family members who can use Facebook.

Up until now people didn’t even know about the vehicle called Facebook, so they weren’t familiar with this process. But now everyone recognizes the usefulness of this tool. Like with a driver’s license, there are some people who won’t ever get one, but they can still carpool. I think that should be good enough.

The interview also discusses Hiwatashi’s F&B Goods initiative to sell products made in Takeo through the Internet. About this, he says:

In the past, just talking about business for a moment, it was an age when big cities had the advantage. But with social networking, these days it’s an age when if you’re really making something good, you can sell it.  Administration usually lags behind technology and has its demerits, but I want to make use of the reliability of government to promote a trustworthy “social business network”.

Contributor Bio: Avery teaches English somewhere near Takeo. When he is not translating things, he is probably visiting haikyo or researching weird footnotes in Japanese history. He can be reached on Twitter at @ahm.

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A poll has found that 82% of the Japanese public has a positive/friendly feelings towards the United States:

While the United States has consistently scored highly in the Cabinet Office’s annual poll of attitudes toward foreign countries, the latest result was the highest since the survey began in 1978. Only 16 percent of respondents reported not having a friendly attitude toward the United States, the lowest such result ever.

Some of the credit for this rise can be attributed to Operation Tomodachi, the massive disaster relief mission that the United States military launched after the March 11th earthquake and tsunami hit Tohoku. The American military is continuing to provide assistance to disaster victims, and has been getting positive Japanese media coverage all along the way.

As this graph shows, there was also a small increase in friendly feelings towards China (but not enough to recover from the damage caused by aggressive Chinese actions in 2010):

It looks like few people love Russia, probably because of the Kuril Islands dispute.

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Back in August, Manbe-kun, the mascot of the Hokkaido town of Oshamambe stirred up controversy through his Twitter account. The tweets took place during the week marking the anniversary of Japan’s defeat in World War II, a time when many documentaries highlighting the horror and suffering of the war are aired on Japanese TV. It seems that Manbe-kun saw one of these documentaries, and decided to tweet about it.

Here are some translations:

“I watched a TV documentary. Japan back then was just like North Korea today!”

“No matter how you look at it, Japan’s war of aggression started it all. Thank you!”

“Three million Japanese people died. Japan caused the deaths of 20 million people in Asia.”

The tweets pretty much follow the official government and mainstream view of the war in Japan, where public opinion polls have consistently shown that only a small minority of the population does not think that Japan waged a war of aggression.

Nevertheless, it was considered controversial for a town mascot to make such strong statements. Nobody elected him as a political representative of the town’s historical views. The town received a lot of complaints, so they banned Manbe-kun from using his Twitter account and made him take a break from his official duties.

Here’s a news report from 3 months after the incident. It shows Manbe-kun’s first public appearance since the scandal:

When asked to comment about finally being allowed to appear in public again, Manbe-kun expressed no particular feelings about the issue. Looks like they’ve trained him to act like a proper mascot character…

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Japan is going to send a Ground Self-Defense Force unit to participate in the UN Peacekeeping effort in South Sudan. Because of Japan’s legal limitations on the use of military force, the soldiers will not be allowed to properly defend themselves. According to the Asahi Shimbun, a unit of Rwandan soldiers may be assigned the duty of babysitting the Japanese.

One doesn’t have to be a right-wing nationalist to consider that a bit embarrassing.

A recent Yomiuri editorial called on the government to revise the law:

One of Japan’s five peacekeeping operation principles strictly limits SDF personnel’s use of weapons. Even though military clashes have occurred recently near the new nation’s northern border with Sudan between government forces and the rebel militia, the Japanese government’s position is that the current standard will pose no problem since the security situation in and around Juba, several hundred kilometers from the region of conflict, is relatively stable.

However, it is highly likely GSDF activities in South Sudan will last for a long period. Assuming changes in the security situation, the government must relax the current standard for weapons use, which is limited to self-defense and emergency evacuation purposes, to enable the GSDF members to use arms for the purpose of performing their duties, for instance.

Members of the Democratic Party of japan Policy Research Committee are discussing what japan’s PKO activities should be like. We hope the party will come up with a forward-looking conclusion.

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Yesterday, the Japanese government intervened in the currency market in an attempt to stop the yen’s continuing rise versus the dollar. The intervention managed to push the value from about 75 yen to the dollar to about 79 yen to the dollar. If the value of the dollar doesn’t drop again, this will be good news for Japanese exporters.

Finance Minister Jun Azumi said in Tokyo he will “continue to intervene until I am satisfied,” after yen sales yesterday that Credit Suisse Group AG analysts estimated may have exceeded $50 billion. The intervention was the first since August, when Japan spent 4.51 trillion yen ($57 billion) seeking to stem the currency’s surge to a postwar high against the dollar.

However, it may not be enough. There are outside forces that can cancel out the billions that Japan spent in this latest intervention. One of these forces is the Chinese government, and it seems that some people suspect that China is deliberately trying to drive up the value of the yen (article is from September):

As the yen hovered near a 15-year high against the US dollar yesterday, Japanese Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda called for talks with China over its recent yen buying spree, which has helped drive the Japanese currency higher, making Japanese goods less competitive with China’s.

“I don’t know the true intention” of China regarding its growing appetite for yen-denominated bonds, Mr Noda said before parliament’s upper house. He promised that Tokyo would “closely co-operate,” with Beijing on the subject. “We are paying close attention” Mr Noda said.

As this news report from ANN shows, Japan’s intervention in August was canceled out within a single day. If yesterday’s intervention is to have lasting results, the Japanese government may have to repeatedly intervene and purchase billions of dollars, especially if it has to counteract large Chinese purchases of yen.

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The cabinet minister in charge of disaster management said something disastrously idiotic:

Tatsuo Hirano, the minister for disaster management, made his controversial comment at a meeting with Democratic Party of Japan colleagues in the town of Nihonmatsu in the north-eastern Fukushima prefecture. According to reports by Fuji TV, Mr Hirano told the gathering: “There were those who moved to safety and thought ‘we’ll be safe here’. Then there were -idiots like my old classmate who didn’t take shelter. He’s dead now.”

Afterwards, he delivered a half-assed apology to the media:

“I had long wondered why my friend didn’t escape and I let my personal opinion slip out,” he told local media. “I apologize if my remarks upset anyone.”

The way in which he delivered the remarks was particularly bad. Instead of acting serious when talking about people dying in the tsunami, he seemed to be amused.

One would think that Cabinet Ministers would be particularly careful in choosing the words they used in public speeches, especially considering the fact that the fate of Ryu Matsumoto, who had to resign from the same post in July after acting like a jerk in Miyagi prefecture. And let’s not forget former Trade Minister Yoshio Hachiro, who resigned in September after making jokes about radiation.

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It seems that there have been a couple self-styled “Occupy Tokyo” protests, based on the larger left-wing “Occupy New York” / “Occupy Wall Street” / “Occupy Washington” / “Occupy London” protests. Here are a couple videos from YouTube:

If the videos are any indication, the turnout was incredibly small. In one video, it almost looks like there are more journalists than protesters. Prior to the actual demonstration, there seemed to be a lot of excitement about it on Twitter, mostly from left-leaning English-speakers. They’re probably disappointed, but maybe they’ll find a way to put a positive spin on this.

According to videos and the Wall Street Journal, it was a ragtag group of people who support various different causes. Some of the people are chanting against Zaibatsu (large corporations), others are carrying anti-nuclear signs, and there were even some Free Tibet people:

The biggest signs railed against nuclear power in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi accident. Several people, one wearing a giant panda costume, protested Japan’s monetary assistance to China.

“We’re here to try to spread awareness of how Japanese taxpayers’ money is being used through overseas aid to support a Chinese government that suppresses the rights of Tibetans, Uighurs and others,” said 29-year-old Hirose Tomoyuki, who described himself as a “normal salaryman” who works on the side for the nonprofit Japan Uygur Association.

Several older Japanese men held signs supporting Democratic Party of Japan heavyweight Ichiro Ozawa, who recently went on trial for alleged falsification of political funds reports.

“The problems Japan faces are essentially political, and Ozawa has stood strong for changing Japan’s political structure,” said Tomiyoshi Yamamoto, an aerospace engineer in his 60s. Mr. Yamamoto said he sees growing inequality in Japan and worries the country follows the U.S. too closely in defense and other areas.

He said he liked the nominal link between Saturday’s protests and those in the U.S. because “these issues can’t be solved by one country alone.”

Here’s an estimate on the size:

One of the organizers, Chie Matsumoto, accepted messages of solidarity via Skype and other web-based communication links from demonstrators in New York, California and South Korea. Speaking to fellow demonstrators in the United States, she said there were 100 people participating in the park demonstration.

A Ustream feed of the demonstration had been viewed by 39 people as of 1330 local time.

That’s pretty sad. Anti-China and Anti-Fuji TV demonstrations have drawn more than ten times as many participants.

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The American media has discovered a Wikileaked American State Department cable describing the preparations for President Barack Obama’s 2009 visit to Japan. It includes a passage that states that the Japanese government requested that Obama not make an apology visit to Hiroshima:

On the President’s upcoming visit to Japan in November, he recommended keeping the program relatively simple and centered around the Tokyo metropolitan area, adding that it would be premature to include a visit to Hiroshima.

[...]

——————————————— ——

POTUS VISIT TO JAPAN: TOO EARLY FOR HIROSHIMA VISIT

——————————————— ——

¶5. (C) VFM Yabunaka pointed out that the Japanese public will have high expectations toward President Obama’s visit to Japan in November, as the President enjoys an historic level of popularity among the Japanese people. Anti-nuclear groups, in particular, will speculate whether the President would visit Hiroshima in light of his April 5 Prague speech on non-proliferation. He underscored, however, that both governments must temper the public’s expectations on such issues, as the idea of President Obama visiting Hiroshima to apologize for the atomic bombing during World War II is a “non-starter.” While a simple visit to Hiroshima without fanfare is sufficiently symbolic to convey the right message, it is premature to include such program in the November visit. Yabunaka recommended that the visit in November center mostly in Tokyo, with calls on the Emperor and Prime Minister, as well as some form of public program, such as speeches, an engagement at a university, or a town hall-like meeting with local residents. Highlighting the busy political calendar in the coming weeks, including the election of the new Prime Minister, launching of the new Cabinet, and the Prime Minister’s participation in the UN General Assembly and the Pittsburgh G-20 Summit, Yabunaka noted that both sides should begin working quickly on the President’s November visit. The Ambassador conveyed an

TOKYO 00002033 003.2 OF 003

informal invitation for the new Prime Minister to attend the Pittsburgh Summit, adding that an official invitation will follow once the Prime Minister is elected.

It isn’t clear if Obama or the United States government actually proposed such a Hiroshima visit. However, as this clip from Rush Limbaugh shows, America’s right-wingers are assuming that this is yet another example of how Obama is disgracing America:

When Obama did visit, he did not go to Hiroshima. But he did bow when he met the Emperor in Tokyo, which is apparently something worth complaining about.

The American ambassador to Japan did attend the Hiroshima anniversary ceremony in 2010, which was seen by some American nationalists as an “unsaid apology” to Japan.

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Aso Taro is doing something he could never do back when he was Prime Minister: visiting Taiwan.

Here he is visiting an elementary school along with other Japanese lawmakers (including the young Koizumi):

The elementary school had been destroyed by an earthquake in 1999 and rebuilt thanks to donations from Japan. After the March 11th earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, its students launched a fundraising effort that eventually send about 1.9 million yen in donations for relief efforts.

The main purpose of Aso’s visit is to attend the Republic of China’s centennial celebration. Other foreign dignitaries, such as former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield and Linda Chavez-Thompson, vice chairperson of the Democratic National Committee, will be there too.

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Prime Minister Noda met with American President Barack Obama on Wednesday. It was Noda’s first time to meet with Obama. For Obama, it was the fourth Japanese Prime Minister he has met since becoming President.

They discussed the usual issues:

Meeting Wednesday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, both leaders hailed the Japan-U.S. alliance, which Noda described as the pillar of Japanese foreign policy. They agreed their countries must focus on economic growth.

Noda said his belief that the alliance is crucial has become “even more unwavering” since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, with Japan receiving “great support” from the United States.

From Obama’s perspective, it may have seemed like a waste of time. Why pretend to have a discussion, when the PM will be gone within a year anyway? Some of the previous Japanese PM’s were out of office before they even had an opportunity to meet the American president more than once.

The Wall Street Journal has compared the situation to speed dating:

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A video clip of an anti-nuclear protester being arrested by Japanese police has received many views on YouTube. Here is a high quality version of the clip [turn on captions for English subtitles]

The clip was apparently filmed during a demonstration that took place in Tokyo on September 11th. As anti-nuclear people marched, a small group of Zaitokukai right wingers held a protest against the anti-nuclear protest. (In other video clips, we can see that police erected a barrier between the two opposing sides, and officers were trying to prevent any physical contact between them.)

We are shown the aftermath of a confrontation between the two sides. Police are restraining and then arresting two protesters in faux radiation suits. All the while, the Zaitokukai members are shouting encouragement, even telling the police to “shoot the criminals.” According to the video uploader (a member of the anti-nuclear camp), it is an “unlawful arrest” of “innocent nonviolent protestors.”

It is alleged that the two protesters were physically attacked:

The French protestor and his Japanese wife were reportedly kicked in the stomach by the hate-group while they were being restrained by the police, yet the police did nothing.

Unfortunately, the video only shows what happened after the alleged kicking, so we can’t be sure if it actually happened. Nor is is possible to confirm that police saw the kicking and decided to do nothing about it.

Instead, we have footage of the two protesters physically resisting as police try to make them move away from the Zaitokukai extremists. The taller protester, who is presumably the Frenchman, is trying to push his way through the police. He wants to force his way towards the Zaitokukai group, and police are trying to make him to rejoin the other anti-nuclear demonstrators.

After some pushing and shoving, they finally seem to give up and begin to walk away. A few pedestrians obscure the camera shot, and when we can see the protesters again, they are being forced to the ground and the Frenchman is arrested. He is taken away, but his wife stays in the street, being physically restrained by police officers while she shouts questions about why they arrested an anti-nuclear protester.

The uploader of the video believes that the police should be arresting the people who were shouting threatening words:

They are shouting abusive language with megaphones at a nonviolent French anti-nuclear protestor and his Japanese wife, and encouraging the police to “shoot and kill” them. These two nonviolent protestors actually get arrested by the Japanese police, while this abusive, extremist hate-group shouting abusive and threatening language with megaphones in a threatening manner is not even as much touched by the police. They walk free, while the innocent nonviolent protestors are arrested by the police.

The uploader believes that the rightists’ shouts encouraging the police to “shoot the criminals” or “throw the criminals into the nuclear reactor” should be considered illegal threats:

Threats and intimidation are illegal under the Japanese law, Article 222.

第222条

1. 生命、身体、自由、名誉又は財産に対し害を加える旨を告知して人を脅迫した者は、2年以下の懲役又は30万円以下の罰金に処する。
2. 親族の生命、身体、自由、名誉又は財産に対し害を加える旨を告知して人を脅迫した者も、前項と同様とする。

A person announcing or threatening to kill a person could be fined for under 2 years in prison time or under 300,000 yen in fines. Yet there is no news that the people who were threatening to kill the protestors have been arrested by the police.

The uploader claims that the police don’t arrest the Zaitokukai members because they are corrupt and sympathize with their extreme fascist views:

CORRUPTION IN JAPAN is very real and the ultranationalist-friendly Japanese police tend to side with such extremists and ultranationalists. Innocent people are arrested for seemingly no reason other than for ideological biases, while the real violent hate-criminals are let go and ignored by the police.

FOREIGNERS THINKING OF VISITING JAPAN should be vigilant, lest they receive violent threats, harrassments and treatments from violent hate-groups such as this group that are not targeted by the police and possibly get arrested for no reason by the corrupt Japanese police.

WE HAVE THE RIGHT to peacefully protest and peacefully co-exist whereever we live without being harrased and violently threatened by extremist hate-groups, especially in democratic, developed nations such as Japan.

As far as I am aware, the only cases of Zaitokukai or right-winger violence against foreigners have taken place when foreigners have tried to confront and argue with the rightists. There have been no attacks on tourists. Although complaints about police treatment of foreigners tend to come up from time to time, random unjustified arrests of tourists have not taken place.

As is always the case with Zaitokukai demonstrations, they are shouting really disgusting and ugly things. They are indeed a hate group, and their speech is hateful. But should they be arrested for expressing their views?

In some countries, there are strictly-enforced laws against hate speech, incitement to violence, and threatening language. Japan, like the United States, seems to have gone down a different road, one that places greater importance on free speech and free expression. This means that fascists, racists, history-deniers, and religious extremists are allowed to say extremely ugly things in public.

If the Zaitokukai demonstrators had kicked the woman, I think she should definitely demand that assault charges be filed against the attackers. However, as someone who believes in American-style protections of freedom of speech, I don’t think that anyone should be arrested for shouting the ugly phrases that were recorded in this YouTube video.

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A little over one year has passed since a Chinese trawler rammed two Japanese coast guard ships in the waters around the Senkaku islands.

Here’s a short TV news report that aired on the anniversary:

They talk to former Chief Mate Masaharu Isshiki, the Japanese Coast Guard officer who leaked the video clip onto the internet. Isshiki expressed his dissatisfaction with the Japanese government’s weak response to the incident (printed in greater detail in the Sankei Shimbun). He wonders why has there been no clear and public answer to Chinese demands for an apology and compensation. On the topic of the leak, he said that he used Youtube because it allowed him leak the raw video to a place where anyone could watch it and judge for themselves.

Isshiki lost his job because of the leak. Back in China, the trawler captain who rammed the Japanese coast guard ships was treated as a hero. (But the Mainichi has reported that Chinese authorities have banned the “hero” captain from going to sea again.)

The situation near the Senkaku islands remains tense. In the last six months, Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force needed to scramble fighter jets 99 times in response to Chinese military aircraft that approached Japanese airspace near the islands.

At the end of the clip, news anchor Taro Kimura comments on how the Senkaku incident should be viewed within the context of China’s other maritime disputes with neighbors. Around the same time the Senkaku issue flaired up, China was also taking a very provocative stance towards territorial disputes in the South China Sea. The disputes have raised concerns from the United States.

Related Link: An editorial in yesterday’s Japan Times looked back on the incident and recommended that the Japanese government maintain a strong stance about his sovereignty over the islands. Reviewing the history of the dispute, it was noted that China had clearly violated Japanese territorial waters:

It must be pointed out that the Senkaku Islands have been integral part of Japanese territories since Japan declared the islands to be part of Okinawa Prefecture in January 1895 after confirming that they were not ruled by what was then China’s Qing Dynasty.

The Senkakus were not among the islands — Taiwan and the Penghus — that China had ceded to Japan under the Shimonoseki Treaty signed by Japan and China after the Sino-Japanese War (1894-95). The treaty took effect in May 1895.

After the islands’ incorporation into Japanese territories, Japanese nationals built a wharf and a factory to process dried bonito on the islands. They became uninhabited in 1940.

Under the San Francisco Peace Treaty of September 1951, the Senkaku Islands were placed under U.S. administrative power as part of Japan’s Nansei Islands. China at that time raised no objection to this provision.

It must be remembered that China and Taiwan did not start making sovereignty claims over the Senkaku Islands until the existence of offshore resources, including oil, was confirmed in the sea near the islands around 1970.

Before the resources came to light, China’s maps and the Chinese government recognized the islands as part of the Ryukyu Islands (Okinawa Prefecture).

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On Thursday, Prime Minister Noda made an official visit to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Accompanying him was Trade minister Yoshio Hachiro.

Hachiro was in a joking mood that day, and seems to have thought it would be a good idea to act like a idiotic child instead of an cabinet minister:

Hachiro made as if he was going to rub his jacket against a member of the press corps, while making a remark to the effect, “I will infect you with radiation,” according to witnesses.

As the target of the ill-concieved joke was a member of the press corps, the incident was soon reported by the media. Here’s his lame explanation:

After the news of his stunt broke, Hachiro said: “My memory isn’t clear” and admitted approaching a reporter for a reason he didn’t elaborate on.

The next day, Hachiro received a lot of criticism for making the following statement about the empty towns in the evacuation zone around the plant:

“To my dismay, there were no people in city centers or towns and villages around the plant. They were like towns of death,” Hachiro said Friday, following a Cabinet meeting.

The last bit is a literal translation of “死の町.” Other news sources, such as Reuters, have preferred to translate it as “ghost towns,” although it doesn’t sound as strong that way. Opposition lawmakers very strongly attacked Hachiro, claiming that such harsh words would crush the hopes of disaster survivors.

Hachiro quickly issued a public apology:

“I sincerely regret that the expression has caused some misunderstanding among people in the disaster area and I want to retract the expression,” he told another news conference. “I am extremely sorry.

“I wanted to say that we will strongly enforce decontamination measures so that evacuated people can return to their towns.”

Update: The apology wasn’t enough. Hachiro has announced his resignation.

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Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has received a special gift from Hokkaido:

It’s a snowman! It was sent by the town of Abira, to encourage Noda, who used a snowman metaphor in his election victory speech:

“Managing a government is like pushing a snowball up a hill in order to make a snowman,” Noda said. “We cannot have any more infighting, as this is like the snowball falling back down the hill and just getting heavier.”

“We must pull together to push the snowball back up the hill for the sake of the public. Together, with all of you, I will work so that the people of Japan will not regret choosing us as the ruling party of Japan,” said Noda.

It’s also great publicity for the town. Abira has branded itself as Japan’s best snowman town, and for the last 25 years, its local tourism association has been selling mail order snowmen (4,000 to 5,000 yen each). The town also has a “Snowman” post office, decked out with a snowman-shaped mailbox and a giant rooftop snowman:

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After only a few days in office, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda is facing a unpleasant scandal. Somebody has discovered that Noda’s political funds management organization received at least 158,000 yen in illegal donations from a South Korean citizen:

The man acknowledged during an interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun he was a South Korean resident in Japan and made donations to Noda.

He said he has been serving as an executive of a chapter of the Korean Residents Union in Japan since before he made the donations.

“Mr. Noda should’ve known I was a foreign national,” he said. “But maybe he didn’t notice I made the donations.” The man made the donations under a Japanese name.

The donations took place between 2001 and 2003. There is only a 3 year statute of limitations on the law banning political donations from foreign nationals, so no legal action can be taken against Noda.

It is very similar to the scandal that forced Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara to resign back in March. Maehara had been considered a front-runner to become PM, but his problems with foreign donors probably contributed to his election failure.

Update: More recent news reports now state that there were donations of about 300,000 yen from at least two South Korean citizens.

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Few people expected that Yoshihiko Noda would win Monday’s DPJ election and become Prime Minister of Japan, so when the first English news reports about Noda’s victory appeared, few contained much about his political views or his past. He was virtually unknown, so most of the reports contained vague and general statements about how he had pledged to work hard at tackling the various problems facing post-disaster Japan.

In South Korea and China, however, Noda was not unknown. Just a couple weeks ago, Noda’s public views about pre-1945 history had incited anger from Japan’s nationalist neighbors. The Chinese media expressed concern about Noda’s historical views and his “hawk” stance towards China. Korean newspaper headlines about his election victory stressed Noda’s “extreme right-wing” views.

Some information on his views about war criminals, from a Kyodo Article:

Noda, who will likely run for president of the Democratic Party of Japan and thereby prime minister, reiterated Monday his view that Japan’s A-class war criminals are not war criminals, and thus there is no merit in asking a prime minister not to visit Yasukuni Shrine, which honors, along with the nation’s war dead, several convicted Class-A war criminals.

And from the Asahi Japan Watch:

In October 2005, when the Democratic Party of Japan was still in the opposition, Noda submitted a written question to the government in which he wrote, “The honor of all ‘war criminals’ has been recovered in a legal sense. In other words, those people who have been referred to as ‘Class-A war criminals’ are not war criminals.”

At the Aug. 15 news conference, Noda was asked if there had been any change in his beliefs on the issue.

“There is no fundamental change in my thinking,” Noda said.

He was also asked about the appropriateness of prime ministers visiting Yasukuni Shrine, which memorializes 14 Class-A war criminals as well as the war dead.

While saying such a decision was up to the individual who becomes prime minister, Noda did not say what he would do if he takes over from Kan on the grounds that was a hypothetical question.

The Economist’s Banyan column has commented on Noda’s legal viewpoint:

Some legal commentators have made a similar point in the past, arguing that Japanese law does not recognise the verdicts of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, which convicted them. Legal hair-splitting aside however, Japan’s government accepted the verdicts as part of the 1952 San Francisco peace treaty, Article 11 of which begins: “Japan accepts the judgments of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and of other Allied War Crimes Courts both within and outside Japan, and will carry out the sentences imposed thereby upon Japanese nationals imprisoned in Japan.”

The bizarre part of Mr Noda’s argument is that he says the San Francisco treaty “restored the honour” of all Japan’s war criminals. When he made this point to Junichiro Koizumi in 2005, in response to the then-prime minister’s controversial visit to Yasukuni, even Mr Koizumi said he did not know what Mr Noda was talking about.

Observers in China and Korea are expecting that Noda’s election will cause a deterioration of their countries’ somewhat good relations with Japan. However, Noda is already backing away from his previous statements. He’ll probably follow the example set by every other recent Prime Minister, reiterating Japan’s official apologies and accepting the verdict of the war crimes trials.

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Japan has a new Prime Minister, but it seems that quite a few English language newspapers are confused about the correct spelling of Yoshihiko Noda’s first name:

They have left out the “hi” in “Yoshihiko.” The resulting “Yoshiko” is a common first name for women in Japan.

A few of the papers, such as the Financial Times and the Australian, have actually managed to discover their errors and correct the spelling in their articles. The Christian Science Monitor and Asia Sentinel still have “Yoshiko” Noda in their articles.

The errors have also been shown on Japanese TV. About three minutes and twenty seconds into this video clip, we can hear an American journalist asking an Obama Administration spokesperson to comment on the election of “Yoshiko” Noda. The Japanese TV network provides a subtitles that fail to include the journalist’s error.

Why so many errors? It could be that some of these news organizations employ journalists who are unfamiliar with Japanese names. Perhaps a few of them actually knew the correct spelling of Noda’s first name, but were too rushed to go back and check what they’d written. After all, it’s just Japan: they’ll be getting another Prime Minister within a year anyway, so who cares if they misspell the name of this guy….right?

A list of news articles & tweets about “Yoshiko” Noda:

• Asia Sentinel (Todd Crowell)
• The Australian (Rick Wallace)
• The Christian Science Monitor (Gavin Blair)
• CNN (Saeed Ahmed)
• The Financial Times
• NASDAQ ( Kathy Lien of FX360.com and GFT)
• The Wall Street Journal (George Nishiyama and Hiroyuki Kachi)

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The Democratic Party of Japan held an election today, and Yoshihiko Noda has been picked to replace Prime Minister Naoto Kan. Noda was Finance Minister in the Kan cabinet, and was known his criticism of ex-DPJ Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa. (Noda’s main opponent in this election, Banri Kaieda, had campaigned on a pro-Ozawa stance.)

Noda’s job will not be easy, and it might be unrealistic to expect him to break Japan’s pattern of short-lived Prime Ministers:

Japan’s next leader — the country’s sixth in five years — faces huge challenges including a resurgent yen that threatens exports, forging a new energy policy while ending the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl, and finding funds to rebuild from a devastating March tsunami as well as to pay for the ballooning social welfare costs of a fast-ageing society.

The obstacles to governing, including a divided parliament and internal party bickering, have raised concerns that the next premier, to be selected in a Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) vote on Monday, will end up being another short-lived leader. “Unfortunately, chances are that whoever wins, we’ll be going through the same debate in 12 months,” said Jesper Koll, director of equities research at JPMorgan in Tokyo.

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Kevin Maher lost his position as director of the U.S. State Department’s Office of Japan Affairs after the the media reported some disparaging remarks he made about Okinawans during a speech to American students. Now that his diplomatic career is over, he’s back in Japan to promote his new book and repeat his denials about the accuracy of the quotes:

The disparaging remarks Maher allegedly made about Okinawa residents were based on notes students made during the meeting that were subsequently obtained by Japanese media.

As news of Maher’s alleged comments made headlines, the State Department scrambled to limit the fallout, saying the remarks did not represent the U.S. government’s views.

Maher was removed from his post March 10, the day before the Great East Japan Earthquake, but was immediately called in to help lead the State Department’s disaster-relief task force.

Maher called for the facts behind the article to be reinvestigated, saying the American University students who gave Ishiyama the notes were on close terms with the reporter, and even stayed at his Tokyo home when they visited Japan in late December.

He also noted that a followup Kyodo article claimed the students gave Ishiyama the notes in mid-February — about 2½ months after Maher’s controversial briefing.

“The main point is, for a journalist to host someone like that and then have them write something and claim that it’s an objective record of something that was said almost three months earlier just doesn’t have credibility, it violates journalistic standards,” Maher told The Japan Times after the news conference.

Shortly after the March 11th earthquake, the ROK Drop blog reported about Maher’s service during the disaster relief efforts. In the comment thread of the post, somebody claiming to be a relative of Kevin Maher wrote that the whole episode was part of a scheme David Vine of American University, an “activist” professor who opposes the existence of overseas American military bases:

His 30 career of service to Japanese-American relations was trashed because an anti-base professor convinced his students to compile “notes” weeks after the actual speech, then take those “notes” to the Japanese press. There is one particularly idiot kid named Tory Miyagi who became the spokesman for the group to get his 15 minutes of fame. The professor from American University has said that all American military bases not on American soil should be shut down. A real moron.

[...]

…the day of the earthquake he had his retirement papers to turn in.His immediate boss defended him, but the next level went into defense mode, not allowing him to defend himself publicly. He could have retired 6 years ago and gotten a much better paying job in the private sector. I doubt that the State Department will let him deal with Japan again in an official capacity. It’s ironic that the Japanese called him racist and his wife is Japanese. He has worked closely with the military on the Okinawa issue and he had to put up with tons of abuse when he was Consul General there.

[...]

Kevin had his reputation trashed by an activist professor, who manipulated his students, and who stayed at the home of the editor of the newspaper who originally published the “transcripts” of Kevin’s speech. That “transcript” was prepared by 4 of the 14 students with the assistance of the Japanese editor and the professor. Kevin has recently resigned and will now be free to defend himself publicly, something he wasn’t allowed to do by the state department, which caved to one editor, one professor, and some students who thought it would be cool to be in the media. I believe Kevin will be in Japan in a couple of weeks to help with the earthquake recovery as a private citizen.

And the same person left this comment on an article by Vine in the Eurasia Review:

David Vine is an anti-base activist and peacenik who used his students to generate press for himself. He is a master of self promotion who appalling used his students to compile a “memo” which he presented to the Japanese press as facts. He has no recording of the speech, yet he continues to claim he can remember verbatim everything that was said based on his “notes” which just amazingly coincide with his opinions about base issues in Okinawa. His agenda and his motives are obvious as are his lack of respect for basic rules of evidence, proof, and attribution. I could attend one of his lectures, create a document containing anything that suited my beliefs, and release it to the press as facts and call his denials “unbelievable” and have just as much credibility as he does in this situation. He and his “memo” are a joke.

As these are just comments on the internet, it’s hard to tell if the comments were really written by a member of Maher’s family. Whoever it is, he/she is taking a very active role in trying to defend Maher’s reputation.

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Today is the anniversary of Japan’s defeat in World War II. It is seen as a day of reflection, on which many Japanese people pray for all those who died in the conflict.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan and all of his Cabinet Ministers decided not to visit the controversial Yasukuni Shrine. This came as a surprise to nobody, since Kan didn’t visit last year and has made statements in the past announcing that he would not visit the shrine. The Cabinet was expected to follow his lead.

Instead, they have put their focus the Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery and the Memorial Ceremony for the War Dead at the Nippon Budokan:

A quote from Prime Minister’s official site:

The Government of Japan will hold a Memorial Ceremony for the War Dead at Nippon Budokan Hall to commemorate more than three million people who lost their lives in the war, in the presence of Their Majesties The Emperor and Empress of Japan and with the attendance of representatives of bereaved family members and representatives from all the sectors of society.

This ceremony is held by the Government of Japan, so as to reflect that the peace and prosperity that Japan enjoys today are founded on the ultimate sacrifices of those who lost their lives against their will in the war, thinking about their homeland and worrying about their families. The ceremony is intended for all the people of Japan to deeply offer their heartfelt prayers to the war dead and to renew our pledge to achieve everlasting peace.

Meanwhile, 52 lawmakers visited the Yasukuni Shrine. According to the Sankei Shimbun, most were members of opposition parties: 31 from the Liberal Democratic Party (including Sadakazu Tanigaki), 1 from the People’s New Party, and 4 from the Sunrise Part of Japan. There were also 14 from the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, including Yuichiro Hata and Kazuhiro Haraguchi.

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Today was the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Prime Minister Kan attended this morning’s memorial ceremony, along with representatives from 68 countries. The United States was represented by James Zumwalt, deputy chief of mission at its embassy in Tokyo:

The attendance of Zumwalt appears to be aimed at demonstrating the resolve of the U.S. to work toward a world free of nuclear weapons at a time when the administration of President Barack Obama is facing criticism from atomic bomb survivors for conducting a string of subcritical nuclear tests, observers said.

Zumwalt’s attendance also appears to be aimed at calling attention to the strengthened friendship between Japan and the United States following the active participation of U.S. military forces in Operation Tomodachi to help the victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, they said.

It is a very noticeable downgrade from last year – when the United States sent Ambassador John Roos to attend the ceremony. Why did he skip this year’s ceremony?

A press release on the U.S. Embassy’s homepage states that Roos did not attend because of a “previously scheduled” overseas trip:

U.S. Ambassador John V. Roos, who attended last year’s Peace Memorial Ceremony, will be out of the country on previously scheduled travel at the time of the ceremony. Ambassador Roos sends his deep respect to Mayor Kazumi Matsui and to the people of Hiroshima as they commemorate the 66th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.

A check of Roos’ Twitter account reveals that he was in Japan as recently as August 3rd, when he handed out the trophy to the winners of a horse race:

So the trip was scheduled to allow Roos to attend a ceremony at a horse race, but he couldn’t stay in Japan a few more days and attend the far more important ceremony at Hiroshima. Those are some pretty strange priorities…

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Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Banri Kaieda breaks down into tears after opposition lawmakers demand that he resign:

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has been criticized for its handling of the nuclear crisis. The Ministy is now in deep shit after it came to light that its Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency had been encouraging power companies to engage in shady practices that might steer public opinion towards support of nuclear energy:

Chubu Electric Power Co said it had been asked by the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) in 2007 to ensure that a sufficient number of favorable views was represented at a symposium in Shizuoka prefecture, south of Tokyo.

The ministry surveyed the six of Japan’s nine power companies to have held public forums in the past five years.

While Chubu eventually decided not to plant questions at the forum, it said it complied with the watchdog’s request to pad the event with its own staff and others posing as participants.

“I deeply regret the misleading actions which could be interpreted as trying to influence public debate on nuclear power at a government-sponsored event,” Chubu President Akihisa Mizuno said.

The revelation comes after Kyushu Electric Power Company in southern Japan admitted that a manager asked employees of its affiliates to send email messages in favor of nuclear power to a TV program covering a public forum.

Trade and energy minister Banri Kaieda, whose ministry oversees NISA, would only say the government will “thoroughly look into past actions,” drawing ire from some citizens’ groups.

It’s only natural that the power companies would want to mobilize employees and pro-nuclear people to participate in such public events, as anti-nuclear organizations would be doing likewise. Public symposiums, town hall meetings, and call-in television shows are often just for very opinionated people to express their views: normal people, who has better things to do with their time, almost never participate. However, the national government’s nuclear safety agency has no place in such activities.

Members of the opposition LDP (whose party was in charge of the country back in 2007), have gone on the attack against Kaieda. The video clip of Kaieda crying was from a Diet session on Friday:

“As head of METI, I feel very sorry if there has been manipulation by the government for a certain opinion to be expressed,” Kaieda said.

Kaieda has faced increasing pressure as he has tried to navigate between growing hostility over the use of nuclear power and the need to avoid crippling power shortages.

At one point in parliament, he was visibly upset, with tears in his eyes, when an opposition lawmaker said he should resign.

It is not normal for a cabinet minister to cry in public when faced with harsh criticism. Kaieda may or may not be to blame for some of the recent problems, but it looks like he’s under so much stress that it could be having an effect on his job performance.

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This video, which allegedly shows how the Japanese government is “killing its own people” with radiation, is going viral:

It was filmed at a July 19th meeting in Fukushima city, where government bureaucrats were supposed to explain the possible effects of radiation on health and answer questions from concerned citizens. Akira Satou, director of a Local Nuclear Emergency Response Team, seems to be the main government spokesman at the meeting.

English-speaking bloggers and twitter users have posted links to this video, expressing concern about “arrogance” and “disgraceful” behavior of Mr. Satou and the Japanese government. It is unfortunate that so many of them seem to have ignored the questionable nature of the video.

Its ridiculously biased title (“Japanese government killing its own people in Fukushima”) should have been enough to tip off most people. It’s also fairly obvious that the video has been heavily edited. It’s about 3 minutes of a meeting that was presumably much longer. Satou may have tried to answer some questions, but whoever edited the video didn’t seem to care much about including the government’s answers. We are only shown scenes that make it look like the government look cold and arrogant.

The video also contains a couple translation errors that compliment its fearful and sensational tone. For example, one of the subtitles reads:

“Well, you are free to evacuate at your own risk if you want to. If people live in a safe place, the government asks them to stay there.”

When the bureaucrat is actually saying something along the lines of, “”You can leave whenever you want to, the government is not requiring anyone to stay.”

Similarly, the uploader translates a general question about “Where is it safe?” as the more dramatic “Where on Earth is safe?”

The most dramatic part of the video is at the end, when one woman chases Satou and demands that he accept a bottle of urine:

She claims it is a child’s urine and it needs to be tested for radiation. The bottle is big, containing far more urine than would be necessary for any scientific test, and far more than any single child could plausibly excrete in a single trip to the bathroom.

Understandably, the bureaucrat refuses to accept the bottle of urine. Urine tests, which are already being carried out by authorities, are not under his jurisdiction. Nevertheless, angry citizens continue to scream about how he is “running away” from their reasonable questions and demands. How dare he not accept random bottles of piss? Who the hell does he think he is?!!

While it is easy to sympathize with the citizens, many who have been living under extreme stress for the last few months, it is nonetheless important to stand back and take a rational look at the situation. Simply put, most of the demands they make in this video are unrealistic and unreasonable.

Mr. Satou is a mid-level bureaucrat. He clearly didn’t have the authority to authorize new mass evacuations or discuss the merits of the Soviet Union. And he wasn’t there to collect urine. He was only qualified to answer questions that pertained to his limited field of expertise.

The people in the video apparently believe the evacuation zone should include Fukushima city, which has a population of nearly 300,000 people. One man wonders why the Soviet Union was able to evacuate a similar number of people, suggesting that the Japanese response has been weaker than the Soviet response. We are shown footage of Satou waiting for the audience members to stop screaming, but the video cuts away before we know if he tried to answer the question (leaving viewers with the impression that the government is “stonewalling” or “arrogantly ignoring” legitimate questions).

In asking why “a free nation” like Japan couldn’t replicate the policy of the Soviet Union, the audience member answered his own question. The forced evacuation of such a large city would be no problem for a Soviet-style totalitarian regime: they could just order it and it would be done, with all criticism of the decision being censored and suppressed. However, democratic countries cannot easily force thousands of citizens to abandon their homes. If the Japanese government were to force a costly evacuation of Fukushima city, it would need strong evidence to convince citizens that the decision was justified. Because the available data shows that radiation in the area isn’t high enough to present a significant threat to human health, the evacuation of Fukushima city is not going to happen.

The government certainly has a responsibility to warn and protect citizens from deadly pollution or radiation. Evacuations did take place, initially in areas that were in the immediate vicinity of the nuclear plant, and later in areas where significantly high levels of radiation were measured. Tests in other areas – such as Fukushima city – have found lower and less serious levels of radiation. The people in the video demanding that the government guarantee their “right to avoid radiation exposure and live a healthy life” have concluded that they are in danger and require a government-funded evacuation. Their conclusion seems to be based on misunderstanding and fear, rather than actual evidence of significant danger.

The situation in Fukushima is no laughing matter, and citizens should be putting pressure on the government to improve its handling of the crisis and clean-up. However, it would probably be best if citizens focused on making reasonable demands instead of unrealistic cries for evacuation and hysterical piss bottle theatrics.

Relevant Links: As has been widely reported in the Japanese media, authorities are already conducting health checks in Fukushima, and they intend to monitor the health of every single resident of the prefecture and provide free lifetime thyroid tests for children. So far, tests by the government and NGOs have found miniscule amounts of radiation in some residents’ urine, but nothing at a dangerous level.

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On July 22nd, Anders Behring Breivik (Andrew Berwick) allegedly carried out a bombing and shooting attack that killed over 90 people in Norway. His motivations can be found in his manifesto, which consists of 1,516 pages of right-wing rambling.

Skimming through the document, one can find numerous references to Japan. Apparently, Breivik had read a few Wikipedia entries about Japan and concluded that it was a conservative monocultural paradise. Below are a few interesting excerpts from his rants.

As one of the goals for his “Knights Templar” organization, he lists:

Societal goal: the Japanese, South Korean model (a monocultural but highly developed and progressive society), the model they once adopted from Europe.

[...]

What kind of society/political platform are we seeking to build/restore. What does a cultural conservative/nationalist/monocultural society constitute?

The closest similarity you will find and a good comparison is especially the Japanese and South Korean societies and to a certain degree the Taiwanese model. These three models contain a majority of all the political principles we seek to restore. They represent many of the European classical conservative principles of the 1950’s (culturally) with modern twists; in other words a monocultural, scientifically advanced, economically progressive society with an exceptional level of welfare but which will not accept multiculturalism or Cultural Marxist principles. Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are today the most peaceful societies due to their monocultural model. Crime is more or less non-existent and you can travel freely everywhere without the constant fear of getting raped, ravaged, robbed or killed. They have embraced many positive aspects of globalism but have rejected many of the negative aspects. The fundaments of the patriarchal structures and family values are very strong in these three countries as the wave of feminism lacked several catalyst components (which made it a lot less potent) due to the rejection of multiculturalist/cultural Marxist thought during the 60s and 70s. Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are today our role models for the conservative movement. They are peaceful and anti-imperialistic just like we have aspirations to be.

He also looks to Japan for an example of valuing racial purity:

It is a well known fact that an overwhelming number of ethnic groups consider racial/ethnic purity to be the very center of their cultural identity. Those familiar with Taiwanese, South Korean and Japanese culture can attest to that. Racial/ethnic purity IS and always has been extremely important to the Japanese and South Koreans (in addition to Europeans and Arabs), in fact so much that attitudes concerning these matters are completely dominating without these principles being actually written down. This is also the case in more or less every single non-cultural Marxist country. Non-cultural Marxist countries are commonly known for their societal patriarchal structures compared to cultural Marxist countries where the matriarchal structures are dominating (Europe, ex-USSR, US and to a certain degree Latin America).

He thinks Japan has rejected multiculturalism and embraced nationalism:

”Western”, modern countries that never adopted multiculturalism – Japan, South Korea and Taiwan

Japan’s and South Korea’s post-World War II forty-year economic growth surge without immigration has always been an embarrassment to the immigration and multiculturalism enthusiasts. In 1990, the then-Designated Enthusiast Economist Julian Simon was reduced to admitting: “How Japan gets along I don’t know. But we may have to recognise that some countries are unique in their characteristics.”

Western Europe have had a long and close friendship with these countries post WW2. They have not initialised media campaigns portraying these countries as Nazis, boycotted them economically or threatened them with invasion if they don’t start implementing multiculturalism. It’s therefore quite contradictory to how Western Europe ridicule, harass and persecute any and all individuals and groups in their own countries who support monoculturalism.

[...]

A common misconception is that nationalism results in backwardness and halts progress, science and any form of development. The Marxists or capitalist globalists will say that you cannot stop or avoid globalism/multiculturalism which is of course nothing more than propaganda. Japan and South Korea proves very well that this statement is wrong. Both nations are monocultural and at the same time very developed and are considered two of the most successful countries.

[...]

…monocultural and highly developed countries such as Japan and South Korea prove that a well organised school system (see school systems for the future) will allow each country to develop enough professionals from their country without having to import from third world countries. The current trend of poaching highly educated foreign nationals is nothing more than a negative spiral which delays essential school reforms. Instead of accepting a dysfunctional school system by importing foreign nationals we intend to reform the system quite drastically. This will also involve copying Japanese and South Korean (old European) doctrines. These policies are actually our own as it is a blue print of the English system which was in effect in the 1950s.

His admiration of Japan goes so far that he declares it one of the most functional countries in the world:

Good fences make good neighbors

As I have stated on several occasions, the currently most functional countries in the world are Japan and South Korea. They have managed to preserve all the positive aspects of European culture and tradition, methods and processes they imported and embraced after WW2 and the Korea War. They believe in cultural monoculturalism mixed with a free market democracy. And here lies the truth about European Revolutionary Conservatives as well. We believe in cultural monoculturalism and to a large degree ethnocentrism because we know that is the only proven way of preserving social cohesion levels is required to facilitate a welfare state. Without social cohesion, no welfare state. We believe that good borders makes good neighbours. We believe in democracy, but we believe that the fundamental requirement for a democracy and a welfare state requires social cohesion and a non-reformable cultural conservative framework. And as history and the above examples shows in a crystal clear manner; you cannot have social cohesion in a multicultural society. The US illustrates this quite well. The reason there is not a decent welfare system in the US is because of lack of social cohesion. The European Christian middle class will simply refuse to subsidize the welfare of Africans, Latinos and Asians.

Some of his observations about Japan are not entirely inaccurate, but it appears that the Japan he admires is mostly a creation of his own imagination. Had he actually visited Japan, he probably would have been shocked to learn that mainstream Japan is pretty un-nationalistic. His statements about Japan’s education system and economy are also a bit skewed. (But hey, what do you expect from a crazy person?)

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Despite the obvious unconstitutionality of these demands, lawsuits of this kind are still being filed. The latest came from a group that included an 86-year-old Kim Hui-jong, a former “civilian worker” in the Japanese Imperial Navy who survived the war but somehow ended up enshrined at Yasukuni:

Learning the embarrassing news that his tablet was enshrined at Yasukuni with millions of Japanese war dead in 2006, he launched his legal battle the year after, the first such case for a living man, with the help of several South Korean civic groups. In his preparations, he visited Japan three times and held a press conference there in spite of his delicate health.

“When I visited the Yasukuni Shrine, I asked officials there to show me my tablet. But they barred me from even entering the temple,” he said. “I was so furious that I wanted to blow the shrine up.”

The former draftee also expressed regret at lukewarm responses from the South Korean government, as well as the lack of “any plausible reasons” explaining Japan’s response.

When the lawsuit was predictably rejected by a Japanese court, one of Kim’s lawyers had the following to say:

“The ruling is the worst ever, and I feel ashamed as a Japanese citizen,” an attorney for the plaintiffs said. “Judges seem to have no idea about what Japan should repent of, while putting priority only on the freedom of religion.”　

The attorney seems to have no idea about the importance of freedom of religion.

The court “only” put priority on freedom of religion because the lawsuit demanded that the government violate constitutionally protected rights. If the court had ruled in favor of the Mr. Kim, it would have been an illegal and unconstitutional ruling.

Update: The original article wasn’t very clear about why Yasukuni refused Mr. Kim’s request. It made it sound like Yasukuni was stubbornly insisting that Mr. Kim still be counted among the war dead.

In fact, the situation is quite different. An article in the Japanese edition of the Chosun Ilbo contains the following passage:

靖国神社は合祀者名簿で、キムさんたちの名前の横に「生存確認」と付記したが、名簿自体の修正は拒否した。これについて同地裁は「教義上、極めて神聖な名簿を訂正するのは困難だ」との理由を挙げ、請求を棄却した。

It says that the shrine actually wrote “confirmed alive” next to Kim’s name after discovering that he had not died in the war. However, for unspecified doctrinal reasons, that is the limit of what can be done to the “holy” list. They refused to completely remove his name.

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Last month, Korean Air’s new A380 airliner took a publicity “test flight” over the Liancourt Rocks, islets that are claimed by both Japan and South Korea.

From an official Japanese government standpoint, the test flight was conducted over Japanese territorial airspace. However, the area has been under South Korea’s effective control since its military seized and occupied the rocks in the 1950′s.

Japanese Foreign Ministry responded to Korean Air’s action by asking its diplomats to refrain from using the airline for one month:

Given the short duration of the “boycott” and fact that Japanese diplomats almost always fly on Japanese airlines, it was a very weak response.

Nonetheless, the South Korean government and media seems to be making a big stink out of it, beating their nationalistic drums with stories about how Japan is boycotting their airline. Apparently the South Korean government is even threatening “countermeasures” against Japan, which could include a Korean boycott of Japanese airlines.

It seems that this is has been some pretty good PR for Korean Air. The Japanese Foreign Ministry’s one-month of restraint would have had almost zero impact on the airline’s profits. The test flight itself probably received very little attention when it first took place. Now, thanks to the Korean backlash against Japan’s puny boycott, Korean Air is getting all kinds of positive media coverage in its own country. Meanwhile, the vast majority of Japanese people don’t know or care about what’s going on, and many will continue traveling via Korean Air.

Related story: The Korea Times & Korea’s Northeast Asia History Foundation have awarded prize money to foreign students who wrote essays supporting Korea’s territorial claim to the islets.

[hat tip to ROK Drop]

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Disaster Reconstruction Minister Ryu Matsumoto resigned yesterday because of public anger over his rude treatment of the governor of Miyagi prefecture (English subtitled video uploaded by kukekku):

“Regarding the maritime industry, you said you wanted to concentrate (fishing ports damaged by the disasters) from one-third to one-fifth, so you at the prefectural office should get a consensus on that. Otherwise, we won’t do anything. You’d better get these things done right.”

“(The governor) entered (the meeting room) after I did, but when you are receiving guests, you must enter the room first and then call in the guests. Listen to me, that is what they do in the Self-Defense Forces (to which Murai once belonged) where they understand the respect that should be shown to those who are senior. Do you understand? You had better shape up.”

“That last comment is off-the-record. Do you all understand? If any of you write about it, that will be the end of your company.” (To reporters covering the meeting)

The English language translation cannot capture the full rudeness of the remarks, which were delivered in the style of a boss chewing out an incompetent subordinate. Matsumoto’s anger about having to wait for the governor was also unreasonable. The governor arrived at the scheduled time: Matsumoto had arrived earlier than expected.

The threat to reporters was the icing on the cake. And what a lovely cake it was – YouTube clips of the incident received hundreds of thousands of views, and every Japanese TV network played the clip over and over on their news broadcasts.

Apparently it happened because of his blood type:

“I’m a type B (blood type) and can have the tendency to be simplistic and straightforward at times,” he said. “My intentions don’t always come across perfectly. My wife called me earlier to point that out. I think I need to reflect on that.”

For more information about this scandal, check out the posts over at Shisaku and Ampontan.

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Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara shares some controversial opinions about the future of Japan:

• If it wants other nations to treat it like an adult, Japan needs nuclear weapons.
• Japan needs a military regime. Otherwise, it will become the vassal state of another country.
• Japan needs military conscription.

The video of his remarks has received over 66,000 views, making it one of the top-viewed videos on YouTube Japan today.

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The banner declares that Studio Ghibli wants to make movies without relying on energy generated by nuclear power plants.

The staff drew the message and illustration on the banner after Miyazaki proposed that they should “express a candid feeling,” according to the animation studio.

According to Google.co.jp trend data for June 17th, Miyazaki’s anti-nuclear views were a very hot topic. “Studio Ghibli” (スタジオジブリ) was the 10th most popular search term, while “Prometheus’ fire” (プロメテウスの火) was #1. The latter term comes from some anti-nuclear remarks Miyazaki made in March.

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Former Prime Minister Taro Aso has been acting as an “anime ambassador” for Japan. Here he is delivering a sound bite about the gibberish language of Pokémon:

Aso observes that Pokémon only speak a language of “kyu-kyu-kyu” sounds, yet the entire world understands what they’re saying.

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A Japanese TV program asked foreign tourists to comment on Japan’s confusing political situation:

The clip also mentions how a German newspaper accidentally ran a cartoon of former Prime Minister Taro Aso instead of current Prime Minister Naoto Kan.

They go around an airport with photos of Japan’s last six Prime Ministers, asking 30 foreigners to identify Japan’s current Prime Minister. Most fail to answer correctly. The #1 answer was Junichiro Koizumi, who served as Prime Minister from 2001 to 2006.

The second most popular answer was the correct answer: Naoto Kan. However, at least one person who knew that Kan was the current PM could not recognize Kan’s photograph. The third most popular answer was, “I don’t know.”

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Yesterday morning, Prime Minister Naoto Kan announced his resignation. Although he didn’t specify the exact date on which the resignation would take place, it was widely believed that he’d be leaving within a few months. The resignation announcement was apparently a compromise between Kan and his opponents within the DPJ. After saying he was going to quit, the anti-Kan group within the DPJ decided to vote against yesterday’s no-confidence motion. Kan “survived” the no-confidence vote by telling everyone he was going to be quitting soon.

Yesterday evening, Kan made an announcement saying that he would not be resigning this year. If he were to resign, he would be doing so sometime next year, after the Fukushima nuclear reactors were completely cooled down. Some who had decided to drop their support for the no-confidence motion were very surprised:

Former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who brokered the deal, said that Kan had agreed to go by the end of June, while Kan said at a press conference late Thursday that the work required him to stay at least through the end of the year.

Hatoyama shot back Friday morning, saying that Kan was a “con artist” if he tried to stay on.

“Right before the no-confidence vote, he says he will resign, and then once it’s voted down, he says he won’t. The prime minister should not be behaving like a con artist…If he is such a person, I should have supported the no-confidence vote,” Hatoyama told reporters Friday morning.

You can read 2channel netizen reactions to Kan’s un-announcement of resignation at Itai News. A lot of the comments brand Kan a liar, but others seem happy that he’s not giving up.

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Prime Minister Naoto Kan has tried to stop the passage of a no-confidence motion by preemptively announcing his eventual resignation:

Today’s motion could attract enough support within his Democratic Party of Japan to pass, requiring Kan either to call new elections or resign within ten days. Rising discontent over his handling of the March earthquake that precipitated the worst nuclear disaster in 25 years has emboldened opposition lawmakers to force the vote.

“I’d like to pass on my responsibility to a younger generation once we reach a certain stage in tackling the disaster and I’ve fulfilled my role,” Kan said in a nationally televised meeting of DPJ lawmakers ahead of today’s vote. “Until then I want to fulfill my responsibility with you. I ask you to unite and reject the motion.”

Kan said that he’ll submit wait for the end of the current post-earthquake crisis. With things going the way they are now, that could be months. Opposition lawmakers and anti-Kan DPJ members may not be satisfied with the move, and could pass the no-confidence motion anyway.

If he is able to cling to office for another week, Kan will become the first post-Koizumi Prime Minister to actually stay in office for more than one year. (Update: The no-confidence motion was voted down. Kan will stick around for a little longer.)

Useful Link: Tobias Harris of Observing Japan has spoken to CNBC about Kan’s situation. Watch the video here.

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Prime Minister Kan has delivered a lol-worthy gaffe during a political debate in the Diet today (40 seconds into this video clip):

As he launched into a rebuttal of a scathing review by Mr. Tanigaki of the prime minister’s administration, Mr. Kan said – on live nationwide TV — “First of all, we heard from Prime Minister Tanigaki…oh excuse me…” Mr. Kan had fumbled Mr. Tanigaki’s party president title with his own: the word for Prime Minster in Japanese, souri, is apparently too similar to sousai, which means president, on such hectic occasions.

Cue riotous bellows from the gallery of LDP lawmakers, likely to put a motion of no confidence in Mr. Kan’s government before parliament for a vote Thursday.

“Prime Minister Tanigaki” is now trending on Twitter in Japan. Another trending term is “submitting letter of resignation,” referring to the pro-Ozawa cabinet ministers who have resigned ahead of tomorrow’s no-confidence motion.

Here’s a news graphic that shows the expected vote (as of yesterday):

If the motion clears the Lower House, the Cabinet must either resign or dissolve the chamber and hold a general election.

Most of the opposition parties were set to support the motion, but passage will require around 80 more lawmakers to jump on board.

It was believed that around 40 Ozawa followers were set to support it, including 16 DPJ lawmakers such as Koichiro Watanabe, who launched a revolt against Kan back in February.

But even if the motion is shot down, Kan’s political leadership will be in tatters if dozens of DPJ members abstain from voting or support the motion. And his political base would be shaky at best with his party split in half.

According to the latest estimate from the Asahi Shimbun, between 40 and 60 DPJ lawmakers will either abstain from voting or vote in favor of the no-confidence motion. Kan may survive, but it could be a close-run thing.

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Instead of Japan’s current Prime Minister, they’ve accidentally included Taro Aso, who was PM from September 2008 to September 2009. The Wall Street Journal notes that the portrait is based on an image from a 2009 G8 Summit, but the artist went through the trouble of altering the image to update the American and British leaders:

While the drawing, which was published May 26, was poking fun at German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s isolation from the rest of the G-8 club, it seems Japan unwittingly got caught in the joke. It appears that the drawing was in part based on a photo of the world leaders at the G-8 summit in Italy in July 2009 (see above photo) when Mr. Aso was still at the helm. But the other world leaders in the drawing are properly updated, for example, a jovial David Cameron flanks Mr. Aso rather than Gordon Brown, the U.K. prime minister at the time.

Over at Itai News, there is a selection of Japanese netizen comments. Some netizens reacted by posting photos of Prime Minister Naoto Kan that seem to confirm his obscurity on the international stage:

Somebody even photoshopped an isolated Kan onto the German newspaper:

The newspaper’s mistake is easy to understand, when you think about the lack of memorable/important Japanese leaders in recent years. The problem is highlighted by this visual timeline of Japan’s many short-lived and easily forgotten Prime Ministers:

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Ever since the Japanese government announced it would be signing the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, the treaty and the issues it addresses have received a considerable amount of attention from the Japanese media. Here is one report, which aired yesterday evening on FTV (quick summary below the video):

The report begins with images of Japanese women who are “wanted by the FBI” because they brought their children to Japan. All of the women were once married to American men, and all of them took the child to Japan without the consent of American courts or their ex-husbands.

To learn about such situations, they interview Brian Prager, an American whose Japanese wife took their son to Japan for a “3 week vacation” in June 2010. They never returned. Prager later received a divorce documents from his wife, who claimed that he had physically abused their son. Prager vehemently denies the accusation. He thinks that Japanese government’s refusal to help foreign fathers reclaim their abducted children is “state-sponsored child abuse.”

Throughout the interview, Prager seemed to be on the verge of tears. At one point, he broke down and wept.

To explain why foreign fathers like Prager are so frustrated, FTV had its artists create graphics depicting the differences between post-divorce child custody agreements in Japan and Western countries. In the West, it is common for courts to grand shared custody to divorced parents. In Japan, one parent having sole custody is the norm.

FTV contacted Prager’s Japanese wife to hear her side of the story. They received documents claiming that Prager would abuse the child in ways that caused pain but left no visible physical marks. For example, he would strongly flick their son’s forehead with his finger. She says she took their son to a doctor, who concluded that the boy was suffering from mental trauma due to child abuse. She also alleges that Prager had wanted her to have an abortion when she was pregnant, and had refused to help her pay for the medical expenses for their child’s birth. For these reasons, she cannot allow the boy to see his father or return to America.

Mikiko Otani, a Japanese attorney, explains that the Hague Convention has some flaws:

• If the wife or children were facing domestic abuse, they would not be freely allowed to flee to Japan.
• If the wife was unable to financially support herself after a divorce, she would not be allowed to return to Japan with her children.

Japanese women who have faced domestic violence and cannot prove it in a foreign court flee to Japan with their children, knowing that they might be judged a kidnapper as a result.

(In the past, Otani has represented Japanese women in legal battles over child custody. Her methods and views have earned her a place on CRN Japan’s blacklist.)

However, the Hague Convention isn’t just about forcing Japanese parents to return children to other countries. There are also Japanese parents who have had their children abducted by foreign ex-spouses.

Miyo Watanabe is one such case:

She married her ex-husband who had been working at a U.S. military base in Japan in 1989. After their daughter was born, the three moved to the United States in 1995.

The ex-husband was arrested after he physically abused Watanabe in the open.

A domestic violence consulting office advised Watanabe to return to Japan, which she did with her daughter.

Ten years later, the ex-husband contacted Watanabe and said he wanted to see his daughter. Watanabe sent her daughter to the United States for what was to have been a two-week visit, but she suddenly became unable to contact her.

Watanabe later learned that her ex-husband had moved and took along their daughter, even though she did not want to go.

Without her knowledge, the ex-husband won custody after going to a local court. The ex-husband has warned Watanabe that if she tried to take back her daughter, she would be found a criminal. Her daughter continues to live in the United States with her father.

Watanabe said, “I hope with the joining of the treaty people who enter into international marriages will not experience the same unhappiness that I have gone through.”

In her FTV interview, Watanabe describes how she was eventually able to visit her daughter. Her daughter apparently wanted to return to Japan, but Watanabe was not prepared to illegally “abduct” her child.

At the end of the report, the news anchors discuss the Hague Convention. It is noted that the main participants in the Convention are Western countries. All G8 members except for Japan and Russia have signed it. Both Japan and Russia are now moving towards joining the Convention.

News anchor Yuko Ando expresses the view that child custody should be determined by courts in the country of the child’s birth. Taro Kimura says it is a complicated problem, involving differences between Western and Japanese societal views. He seems to be in favor of abiding by international rules, but also thinks that people should consider such matters before entering into international marriages.

[A note about privacy: In Japan, it is common for TV networks to blur the faces of people in photographs and video clips. Not doing so could result in lawsuits over violations of privacy. In this report, the faces of Japanese women and children who live in Japan are censored to protect their privacy. ]

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Back in April, it was reported that the famous boar-riding “Rodeo Monkey” would no longer ride through the Fukuchiyama Zoo in Kyoto prefecture. It was sad news for fans of cute monkey cowboys.

But fear not, now there’s a new rodeo in Japan! Somebody’s found a wild monkey in Kochi prefecture that also likes to ride boards (cue the rodeo music, ATV!):

The riding takes place at a boar farm. When the human farmer puts out food for the boars, a wild monkey sneaks into the pen and steals some vegetables. The monkey also likes to jump around and ride the boars. It might be his way of asserting dominance over the other animals.

FTV also ran a story about the new monkey. As part of their report, they visited the Fukuchiyama Zoo to see what was up with the previous rodeo team:

Because the baby boar at the Fukuchiyama Zoo has grown to a large size, it’s no longer safe to allow the monkey and boar to freely roam about the zoo. The boar is now kept in a fenced enclosure, and the monkey is allowed to hang out there, often riding on the boar’s back.

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The U.S. military has placed a new fence around the area where it plans to build a new runway as part of the relocation plan for Marine Corps Air Station Futenma. This clip from ATV shows anti-base protesters hanging banners on the new fence:

Related links: Earlier this month, Asahi Shimbun published several articles about the Futenma issue, using classified information it had obtained from Wikileaks. The English version is in three parts, and there was also an editorial:

• THE TRUTH BEHIND JAPAN-U.S. TIES (1): DPJ government never committed to Futenma alternatives
• THE TRUTH BEHIND JAPAN-U.S. TIES (2): U.S. used ‘China card’ to thwart Futenma alternatives
• THE TRUTH BEHIND JAPAN-U.S. TIES (3): Numbers inflated in Marine relocation plan to increase political impact
• EDITORIAL: Leaked documents reveal shocking Japan-U.S. diplomacy

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The Sankei Shimbun reports that a citizens’ group has filed a lawsuit against the Fukuoka prefectural government over the use of public funds to support North Korean schools.

Last year, Fukuoka Prefecture gave 8 million yen ($99,000) of public funds to three private North Korean schools. The funds were budgeted as “educational promotion” money [教育振興費].

The lawsuit was filed by the Fukuoka chapter of the Association of the Families of Victims Kidnapped by North Korea (AFVKN), a group with little sympathy for supporters of Kim Jong-Il’s murderous regime.

The AFVKN believes that the payment was a violation of Japan’s Fundamental Law of Education. The North Korean schools have a DPRK-approved curriculum that teaches students loyalty to the Workers’ Party of Korea. The lawsuit argues that it would be illegal to use public funds to support schools that teach children to support a single political party. Because of this, the lawsuit demands that the government policy be revoked and the funds be returned.

For those who are not familiar with the existence of North Korean schools in Japan, here is a short excerpt from the Wikipedia entry about the Pro-DPRK resident’s association in Japan (Chongryon):

All lessons, and all conversations within the school are conducted in Korean. They teach a strong pro-North Korean ideology and allegiance to Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il. They are not classified as regular schools under Japanese law as they do not follow the national curriculum.

Their militant stance is increasingly coming under criticism from pupils, parents and the public alike. The number of pupils receiving ethnic education from Chongryon-affiliated schools has declined sharply in recent years, down to about 15,000 in 2004 from a high of 46,000 in the early 1970s, with many, if not most, Zainichi now opting to send their children to mainstream Japanese schools. As of March 2010, there were 12 Chosen high schools with an enrollment of about 2,000 students.

The schools were initially funded by North Korea, but this money has now dried up. Today funding comes partly from local Japanese authorities, but many schools are facing financial difficulties. The Japanese government has refused Chongryon’s requests that it fund Korean schools, citing Article 89 of the Japanese Constitution, according to which use of public funds for education by “schemes not under public control” is prohibited. Chongryon calls this an act of racial discrimination. Funding from local authorities usually takes place in the form of special benefits paid to the families of pupils, as opposed to paying the schools directly, in order to avoid a blatant breach of Article 89.

The Sankei article mentions that Fukuoka paid the money to the incorporated educational institution (学校法人) that manages the North Korean schools, so the policy may have been a departure from the indirect means mentioned in the Wikipedia article.

Regardless of whether payments are direct or indirect, it is abhorrent to see local governments using public funds to prop up pro-DPRK schools. Illegal or not, such payments should stop.

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U.S. Senators Carl Levin (D-Mich.), John McCain (R-Ariz.), and Jim Webb (D-Va.) have issued a statement declaring that the 2006 U.S.-Japan realignment agreement is “unrealistic, unworkable, and unaffordable.” That includes the controversial relocation of Okinawa’s U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma:

Moving the Marines off Okinawa was the linchpin of a 2006 U.S.-Japan agreement to lessen the impact of the U.S. military presence on Okinawa, where U.S. bases take up approximately 20 percent of the island’s land. The pact also included the plan to shutter Futenma and build a runway at Camp Schwab, in Okinawa’s less populated north, which Webb derided Wednesday as unfeasible.

“This would be a massive, multi-billion dollar undertaking, requiring extensive landfill, destruction and relocation of many existing facilities, and in a best-case scenario, several years of effort – some estimate that the process could take as long as ten years,” Webb wrote on his official website.

The senators instead called for the military to relocate Futenma’s current Marine air operations to the nearby Kadena Air Base, which is owned by the Air Force.

Although the Pentagon and the White House disagree with the Senators, the Asahi notes that their statements could make the relocation more difficult:

The Armed Services Committee has authority over the Pentagon’s budget and the senators’ recommendations carry considerable weight. It will likely make more difficult implementation of the Japan-U.S. agreement reached in May 2010 to relocate Futenma to Nago.

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The Japanese government began an official Cool Biz campaign yesterday, but as this video shows, the Prime Minister and most of the members of his cabinet did not follow through with the suggested change in business attire:

With energy conservation in mind, the Japanese government had decided to set air conditioners at degrees Celsius instead of the normal 25 degrees. To help survive the heat, neckties were to removed in favor of Cool Biz summer wear.

Yesterday marked the beginning of the Cool Biz campaign. Only 7 of the 17 cabinet ministers ditched their neckties. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano wore no tie, but Prime Minister Kan wore a suit and tie.

Because the weather was rather cool yesterday ( 21 degrees Celsius ), there was no need to turn on the air conditioners in the Diet building. Cool Biz attire wasn’t exactly necessary, so most seem to have stuck to their normal suits.

Related Article: The Asahi reports that retailers are expecting to sell a lot of Cool Biz products this summer.

In what has been dubbed the “power-conserving biz” campaign, many companies plan to conserve energy during the peak summer period in light of expected power shortages caused by the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

Air conditioning is one of their first targets.

In recent years, the “Cool Biz” campaign to cut down on electricity usage created a trend among the public to wear lighter clothes in the office.

Although some formal wear retailers fear a decline in profits amid the summer heat, retailers of casual clothing expect a spike in sales of “power-conserving biz” clothing.

Uniqlo Co. on April 21 set up a special store in JR Ikebukuro Station for “power conserving biz” items, including Sara Fine and Silky Dry undershirts, both of which absorb sweat and dry quickly.

The clothing giant expects to sell about 36 million of these undershirts, double from a year ago.

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The Yomiuri reports that 2010 saw a very big increase in the number of times Japan’s Self-Defense Forces needed to scramble fighters to intercept foreign military aircraft near Japanese airspace. As the graph shows, it has reached a high not seen since 1991:

ASDF jets were scrambled to ward off planes from China 96 times, an increase of about 2.5 times from the previous fiscal year, and Russian aircraft on 264 occasions, an increase of 30 percent.

According to the ministry’s Joint Staff Office, Russian aircraft accounted for 68 percent of the total number and Chinese planes 25 percent. Taiwan jets comprised 2 percent, or seven instances, while planes of other nationalities together made up 5 percent, or 19 incidents.

Last fiscal year, there were no instances of North Korean aircraft approaching Japanese airspace, although the ASDF scrambled on eight occasions against that country’s jets in fiscal 2009.

The ministry said no foreign aircraft actually violated Japanese airspace in fiscal 2010.

The article implies that the increase is because of the DPJ and a perceived decline in U.S.-Japan relations:

The increase in sorties to ward off foreign aircraft approaching the nation’s airspace appears to correlate with the Democratic Party of Japan’s 2009 ascent to power and subsequent tensions in the Japan-U.S. defense relationship.

A Defense Ministry senior official said, “[Foreign countries] might have been testing Japan’s defense capability as they regarded Japan-U.S. relations as weakened.”

The increased flights were also probably linked to the Chinese anger after the Senkaku boat incident and Russia’s increasing emphasis on its ownership of the Southern Kuril islands.

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It’s no secret that Japan has some of the loudest advertising, propaganda, preaching, and political campaigns around. Most foreigners, not to mention more than a few Japanese, would like to see the loud speakers crushed into dust. But we all put up with it, because this is Japan, and people put up over here, by gum. But not one brave man. Yes, call it reckless, but I am championing the drunken actions of one Englishman who just wasn’t going to take it any more.

According to Itai News, one Edward Jones was recently arrested for grabbing a mike from a politician at a train station and yelled about how Japanese elections are loud and annoying. He allegedly had just finished a few drinks with friends. After his display, he was hauled off to jail.

Itai News’s comments are also filled with Japanese netizens voicing approval for Jones’s actions.
Here is a select few that I felt able to translate:

よくやった
Well done!

許した
I forgive him.

許そうまじでうるさい
Let’s forgive him, they really are loud.

ほんとウルセェ
They are bleeding annoying.

gjgjgj
Good Job! Good Job! Good Job!

無罪
He’s sinless (innocent).

選挙は本当に日本の恥部だよ
Elections really are the secret shame of Japan.

ジョーンズさんに1票
One vote for Jones!

日本の選挙って合理的じゃないよな。
騒音カーで名前叫ぶより、アメリカみたいにテレビとかで政策討論させた方がいい。
Japanese elections don’t make any sense.
Instead of shouting their names from sound trucks, they should have American-style televised policy debates.

[via Hiko]

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Prime Minister Kan visited evacuees at shelters in Fukushima yesterday, perhaps hoping to show the public that the national government was working hard to deal with the ongoing nuclear crisis. Unfortunately for Kan, some evacuees were not in the mood to shut up and give the government a pleasant photo op:

One evacuee told him, “We have really been patient here,” while another evacuee said, “We are at our limit.” Kan deeply bowed to them and said, “The situation at the nuclear plant never leaves my mind, and I have been doing my best to take care of it.”

Kan first visited the Tamura city gymnasium where residents, mainly of Okuma, have been taking shelter. When he was about to leave the evacuation center after spending about 10 minutes there, some evacuees angrily shouted out, “Leaving already?” One evacuee told the prime minister, “You should try living here.” “If you’re going to visit evacuation centers, you should talk to everyone there,” said another.

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Shintaro Ishihara was re-elected to a 4th term as governor of Tokyo:

Ishihara, a 78-year-old novelist-turned-politician, defeated high-profile challengers including former House of Councillors member Akira Koike; Miki Watanabe, founder of izakaya pub chain operator Watami Co.; and former Miyazaki Gov. Hideo Higashikokubaru.

Ishihara ran as an independent but was effectively supported by the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito. The Democratic Party of Japan did not field a candidate due to recent poor public approval ratings for Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who is DPJ president. Watanabe, 51, was backed by Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly members of the DPJ.

The Japanese Communist Party endorsed Koike, 50. Seven other candidates also ran.

After he was assured of winning Sunday night, Ishihara said he would continue to enhance antidisaster measures during his fourth term, and suggested people should stop playing pachinko to conserve electricity.

Ishihara is known for his tendency to offend people, whether they be anime fans, Francophones, homosexuals, or immigrants. Recently, he made some remarks about the March 11th earthquake and tsunami being “divine punishment” for the selfishness of the Japanese people.

None of his past remarks seem to have stopped him from winning the election by a wide margin. The earthquake may have even helped him win, since it distracted the media’s attention from the election and allowed him to appear on TV looking like he was a strong leader during a serious crisis.

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A couple days ago on the TBS news program “Jouhou 7 Days News Caster,” comedian/director Takeshi Kitano delivered a monologue in which he commented on how Japanese lawmakers switched from suits to work clothes after the March 11th earthquake [via Itai News]:

Takeshi thinks it is ridiculous. Why are lawmakers dressing up like they are going to do manual labor? If they dress up like that, shouldn’t they be out in Tohoku helping clean up? He sees it all as a stupid performance.

Below are a few photos of Japanese politicians playing dress-up in Tokyo after the big earthquake.

Renho, Minister for Administrative Reforms, wears work clothes as she inspects on food availability at a convenience store in Tokyo:

Opposition party lawmakers dress up in work clothes (Yoshimi Watanabe and Mizuho Fukushima wear normal clothes instead):

Ritsuo Hosokawa, Minister of Health, Labor, and Welfare, wears a work jacket while giving a press conference:

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, whose use of work clothes is probably more understandable than others, since he has been working his ass off for days without much sleep:

Prime Minister Kan talks to reporters in Tokyo:

Kan was scheduled to visit the disaster-struck areas today, but concerns about “bad weather” made him cancel the trip. I guess those work clothes aren’t durable enough to withstand a little bit of rain.

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The U.S. government has replaced Kevin Maher, the State Department Japan Desk Head who allegedly made remarks calling Okinawans ““masters of manipulation and extortion” who were “too lazy” to farm fruit:

The U.S. embassy in Tokyo released a statement saying Kevin Maher, former director of the State Department’s Office of Japan Affairs has been replaced by longtime diplomat Rust Deming.

News of Maher’s resignation overshadowed Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell’s two-day visit to Tokyo.

In a meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto, Campbell offered yet another apology for Maher’s comments.

“These in no way reflect the attitudes of warmth and gratitude and friendship that the United States has for the people of Okinawa,” he said. “We are deeply apologetic for this controversy.”

In case some were wondering how the story was covered on Japanese TV, here’s a clip from yesterday evening’s NTV “News Every”:

In the report, a voice actor reads Japanese translations of Maher’s most offensive comments, seemingly making an effort to sound as arrogant as possible.

To respond to Maher’s claim that the quotations were not accurate, they interview Tori Miyagi, one of the American University students who was there when Maher made his remarks about Okinawa. Miyagi insists that Maher did say shocking and offensive things about the Japanese people. (According to his Twitter profile, Miyagi identifies himself as Okinawan. )

NTV draws on file footage of Maher’s time as consul general. It includes a gem in which the camera pans from a crowd of anti-base protesters to Maher, who is doing his best to ignore them. Former Ginowan Mayor Yoichi Iha states that he got the impression that Maher had always ignored the concerns of Okinawans.

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