February 2, 2007; Volume 03, Number 05
of the
Japan Considered Podcast
[Listen to the audio file by clicking here]
Clink Links Below for Today's Topics
Good Morning! From Beautiful Spring Valley in the Midlands of South Carolina. Today is Friday, February 2nd, 2007. And you are listening to Volume 03, Number 05, of the Japan Considered Podcast.
I’m Robert Angel, creator and maintainer of the Japan Considered Project, and creator and host of this podcast. Thanks for dropping by. Each week at this time I select a few items from the news from Japan, and consider their longer-term significance for Japan’s domestic politics or conduct of international relations.
This isn’t a comprehensive news show. Plenty of places to get that sort of information around already. One of the best is the very reliable “News on Japan” website. It’s been available for a few years now, and seems to be attracting advertisers. That’s a good indication it may be around for a while longer. Its creators provide links to other English language news sources, all divided up conveniently by topic or subject matter, including politics and development. I’ll put a link in the show notes and transcript for those of you who don’t already rely on it. Click Here
It’s incredible just how much free on-line news we are able to access these days – in English. Quite a change from the past. Though, of course, the Japanese language sites offer a far richer menu, and much more background. I spend way too much time each day going through both English and Japanese sites, in preparation for these weekly programs. A politics junky’s dream! But it does take time.
Speaking of which, it’s been a busy, if somewhat bizarre, week in Political Japan. So we’d better get right to it. This week we’ll consider what has become the “ongoing saga” of the Abe Administration’s efforts to get Japan’s attentive public to recognize all of their hard work. In the process, we’ll take note of the passage today of the supplementary budget bill through the Lower House without the participation of the Opposition parties in the debate. Then, I’ll introduce you to one of the very best Japan Studies websites available on the internet, with comments from the site’s creator and maintainer, Dr. Kristina Troost, head of Duke University’s International and Area Studies Library, and Librarian for Japan and Korea. So, let’s get right to it.
Abe Cabinet Public Approval Ratings Downward Slide
A few of you wrote in to comment on my harsh assessment last week of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s performance as prime minister. Thanks for the notes, and for the thoughts. Yes, I was a bit negative about Mr. Abe’s political performance on the last program. And, yes, I do believe he’s doing his best to accomplish substantive government objectives. Rather than focus his efforts on the more “theatrical” aspects of being prime minister.
But. Quoting Finley Peter Dunne’s perceptive 19th century innkeeper, Mr. Dooley, “Politics ain’t beanbag”! There’s more to being prime minister of Japan than doing the right thing. And then expecting everyone to applaud. Or in any other democratic country, for that matter! Indeed, one could reasonably argue that in any political system whose leaders depend upon the support of the attentive public, it’s more important for prime ministers to persuade their attentive publics that they’re “Doing the Right Thing” than to actually “Do it”! That is, perceptions are at least as important as reality in democratic politics. At least, in the short- to medium-term. And failure in the short- to medium-term, means there’s no long-term to worry about.
Any political conservative assuming the Japanese premiership must arrive at the Kantei gates with the understanding that he and his political agenda will be opposed by much of the mainstream press, by the Academic Tenurate, by senior members of his own Party, and even – though less significantly – by the Opposition parties. That’s a given! That newly arrived prime minister also must realize that many of his closest advisers believe Japan and the world would be far better off had they themselves become prime minister rather than the incumbent. And who, throughout the premiership of the “interloper,” will be angling to assure that the same mistake doesn’t happen the next time around.
Central political executives naturally attract such politically ambitious people! It would be impossible to run the office without them. But it’s the responsibility of the prime minister to channel the ambitions of those people into promotion of his own agenda. And to prevent their ambitions from becoming a distraction, or drag on his program.
Insert your own favorite political cliché here. All of this is obvious to any student of democratic electoral politics. Obvious, yes. But outside observers might be excused from concluding that the significance of this ageless truth has been lost on the Abe Administration. They still appear to be focusing all of their efforts on “doing the right thing,” with confidence Japan’s attentive public will recognize their hard work and eventually reward them with support. Indeed, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe himself has said as much during statements to the press and in his speeches.
Well, it’s one thing to say that. But it’s another to abide by the principle, and ignore what I’ve called the “public communications” side of the job! In spite of the Administration’s political accomplishments, Cabinet public approval ratings continue to fall. And to fall alarmingly! Even after last week’s Diet policy speeches.
True, as several of you have pointed out, there’s a considerable gap between the actual numbers reported by those media outlets more hostile to the Abe Cabinet in their reporting, and those media outlets more neutral, or even favorable, in theirs. But all of them – without exception – report dramatic declines in their own surveys. With “lack of leadership” explaining much of that decline. Even the conservatively inclined Sankei Shimbun reported at the end of January that the Abe Cabinet’s disapproval ratings exceeded its approval ratings for the first time, citing a late January Fuji News Network poll.
It appears to me that the Abe Cabinet is allowing the Opposition – that’s Opposition writ large, not just the opposition parties – to determine the agenda of Japan’s public political discourse. It’s inevitable, of course, that unfortunate things will happen. Documents suggesting political funding violations will be discovered and forwarded to the media. Cabinet members and other senior political leaders aligned with the incumbent prime minister will make inappropriate, damaging statements. These all are inevitable. Recall former Prime Minister Koizumi’s tribulations over the antics of his first foreign minister, Makiko Tanaka. Problems with public pension contribution payments, and so on. Every cabinet has them.
If this is all the media has to report… Or, if this is the most interesting thing the media has to report, they’re Bound to report it! “Government continues to behave nicely” is a story line unlikely to appeal to most political news editors! The truth is, “news” is a manufactured product. Probably has its own SITC code somewhere in the files.
And the Kantei is the ideal factory too “manufacture” it. The prime minister, cabinet members, and their senior supporting administrative staff – the Central Political Executive, in other words – have access to a powerful microphone and amplifier just down the hall. The Kantei Press Corps. Eager to report something dramatic, or, as they’d put it, something “newsworthy.” Sooo, go down the hall and give them something dramatic! Or newsworthy.
Perhaps, as a number of you have suggested, Shinzo Abe simply isn’t a good actor. Not skilled in “theatrical politics.” And that seems to be true. But if it IS true, then as a prime minister greatly dependent upon his public approval ratings to remain effective and even to stay in office, Prime Minister Abe better find someone who IS good at it. And make sure they’re being allowed to do their job.
In fact, as we noted some time back on this program, Prime Minister Abe has exactly that sort of person already in the Kantei. Indeed, Hiroshige Sekou was appointed as one of his five prime ministerial special advisers with exactly that mandate. But we hear little of Mr. Sekou these days. Beyond color reports on Mrs. Abe in the foreign media. Given Sekou’s training, background, and track record in the LDP it’s hard to imagine that he wouldn’t recognize the problem. And that he would prove incapable of dealing with it, if allowed to do so.
Just recently, another quite effective public communicator was added to the Kantei staff. Yoshimi Watanabe. Immediately after his arrival, Watanabe suggested to the press that he might be called upon to use his public communications skills to help the Kantei get its message out to the public more effectively. Well, he’s pretty good at public communications, as evidenced by his frequent appearances on TV news shows. But since then, he seems to have dropped out of public view. I’ve seen him appear only once since on a Sunday TV news show.
Opposition Boycotts Diet Budget Debate Over Yanagisawa Statement
Japan’s Lower House of Parliament today passed a supplementary budget bill. The Bill was passed by Members of the LDP and New Komeito parties alone, since the DJP and other Opposition parties had decided to boycott the debate. This was the first time since 2004 that budget bill debate had been boycotted by the Opposition. Then the issue was whether or not Japan should send Japanese troops to Iraq! This time the boycott was in protest of an offensive comment made by Health and Welfare Minister Hakuo Yanagisawa.
Yanagisawa made his comment last Saturday, during a speech to LDP prefectural assembly members in Matsue City. While discussing the importance of Japan’s declining birth rates, Yanagisawa described Japanese mothers as “birth-giving machines.” A terrible choice of terms, certain to give genuine offense, on the one hand. And certain to stimulate anti-Cabinet news coverage on the other. Talk about manufacturing something dramatic for the press corps!
Yanagisawa recognized his error immediately, and apologized during the talk for his choice of terms. But the damage had been done. Since then, criticism of Yanagisawa’s offensive comment has dominated Japan’s domestic political news. With demands that he resign his cabinet post, or that Prime Minister Abe remove him. Both Yanagisawa and Abe have apologized repeatedly for the comment. But Abe has refused to ask Yanagisawa to resign from the Cabinet because of it.
This issue is well worth watching, I think. First, it provides an opportunity to test the effectiveness of Ichiro Ozawa’s frequent threat to resurrect the old Socialist Party’s parliamentary boycott tactic. We’ve discussed this before on this program. Will his decision to boycott help to further isolate the Abe Cabinet from Japan’s attentive public by highlighting the problem? Or, will Japan’s attentive public consider Ozawa’s DJP and other opposition parties irresponsible and opportunistic for not participating in parliamentary discussion of such an important bill? Ozawa, obviously, has bet on the former possibility. But the jury’s still out, so to speak.
Also, eruption of this issue provides us with yet another opportunity to observe how the Abe Kantei copes with a political problem of this sort. Such public gaffes are inevitable in any Cabinet. Mistakes are bound to be made. The Abe Cabinet’s track record to date, beginning with Professor Homma showing up in Tok yo public housing with a lady other than his wife, has not been good. We’ll have to see if they’ve learned anything from this one.
I’m not suggesting that dealing with the Yanagisawa problem will be easy. We can see now the problems caused by retaining him. And the decision to sack him would have serious repercussions within the LDP itself. The departure of yet another Abe appointee under a cloud wouldn’t look good. But something has to be done. For the past few days, speculation has swirled through Japan’s political press of plans to form a second Abe Cabinet. Perhaps sooner rather than later. This would be difficult now, given the parliamentary calendar. But not impossible. Key incumbent members could be retained, while dispatching those who have proven to be problematic. Of course, that’s nothing more than speculation, and perhaps rumor. Probably no more substantial than the speculation and rumors that Koizumi after a few months of rest is preparing once again to assume the LDP presidency and premiership. Maybe. But not something yet one should bet the farm on. I’ll keep you posted.
Dr. Kristina Troost’s Remarkable Japan Studies Website at Duke University [Click bold text for links to referenced pages]
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of talking with Dr. Kris Troost, head of Duke University’s International and Area Studies Library, and Librarian for Japan and Korea, to re-record her contribution to the newer communications technologies Round-Table we participated in week before last in Nashville, Tennessee. Yes, that one. The one I was supposed to have recorded during the meeting! Oh well.
At the end of Kris’s comments, I asked her, out of the blue to the incredible website she has created as part of the Duke University Libraries website. Since preparing to call her, I’d spent a few pleasurable hours browsing the site. I urge you to visit the site. But a caution. Do so only after your day’s work is done. otherwise you may get caught up in the project and not emerge for several hours. That goes doubly for the ‘visuals’ section she describes. She’s found links to incredible visual resources. They’re endlessly fascinating. Early Meiji photographs. Hyper-link annotated thirteenth century scrolls. The works!
So, let’s have Kris, the creator and maintainer, describe this remarkable resource in her own words.
Welcome to the Program, Kris. Thanks for your time today. Please give us some background on your Japan studies resources website.
Kris Troost: I have an extensive website for Japanese studies resources. On the very first page of it, there is a link to electronic resources that are available for free, which I took as a handout to the conference. It’s actually what I would suggest people start with. It’s electronic resources available for free, called on the website, “Guide for Japanese Electronic Resources.” It has all the links there. And it has the most important electronic resources.
The website was created initially because I was teaching a class for graduate students. The class was conceived of as very broadly interdisciplinary. Everybody needs to know how to find book, and how to find articles, and how to figure out how a name is read. And, of course, the class was taught initially before there were any electronic databases. It was heavily print-based.
So, there are those sorts of reference sources and names and people. But I expect the graduate students I teach, who can come from political science, or history, or literature, or anthropology, or art history, actually to need to know the core resources in all of those fields. It doesn’t matter whether as an historian you need to be able to look up a law in Japan, or you’re an anthropologist. You still need to be able to find the text of a law. So, there’s a section on law. There’s a section on art history.
Someone recently asked me about this class. I replied, “My art historians need statistics too. They need to know where to go to find statistics.” So, teaching them what the key statistical resources are, and how you can get beyond what’s in the Nihon Tokei Nenkan, and find more detailed statistics on whatever you’re looking for, was exciting for them. It’s not just economists and sociologists who are looking for data.
For instance, in history, when I teach that class, I ask them to look at a range of journals and see which journals might actually have articles that would touch on their subject area. Some journals will be completely irrelevant to them. But others will continually be relevant to them. So, that’s part of what’s on the website.
Then there’s this whole section called “Web Resources,” which is a challenge to figure out how to describe. But it tries to link to institutions in Japan and the United States that are interested in supporting Japan. There’s information on what is called practical information for travel, work, study, and life in Japan. It tells you about study abroad programs, even for high school students who might want to go on YFU or Rotary. It provides information about scholarly list serves, conferences, programs.
I’m beginning to wonder if this is still useful to maintain. Because so much of it is available if you do a Google search. But at the same time, it’s not all pulled together in the same way it is here.
One of the other things that I have spent a certain amount of time collecting are visual resources. While there are some good aggregator web sites in Japan that you can search, there also are some unique websites that have a lot of visual resources of their own, and may or may not be included in the aggregator websites. So, I have created a section for that.
The Ohara Shaken Poster Exhibition. The posters are wonderful. If you were searching just for images they might not necessarily come up, and certainly wouldn’t come up under photographs, if you search for photographs.
So, it’s a hodgepodge. But it’s certainly the easiest way for me to find information, since I know what’s in it.
Thanks again, Kris, for that tour of the site. I’ll put a few links in the Program transcript to facilitate browsing.
To close, here’s a clip for you from the incredible original Seldom Scene. From their Act One CD, recorded for Rebel in 1972. This is from “What am I doing Hanging Round.” John Duffey’s unmistakable tenor, backed by the rest of the band. And then Ben Eldridge’s banjo. How can a mathematician play like that? Well, he’s still doing it! Enjoy.
Goodbye all. Until next week.
