July 27, 2007; Volume 03, Number 26
of the
Japan Considered Podcast
[Listen to the audio file by clicking here]
Clink Links Below for Today's Topics
| Introduction |
| Domestic Political News |
| Two Critical Issues |
| The Political Significance of SIA Pension Record Mismanagement |
| Public Resentment of Enduring Political Corruption |
| Concluding Comments |
Good Morning from the beautiful Finger Lakes Region of New York State. Today is Friday, July 27th, 2007. And you are listening to Volume 03, Number 26, of the Japan Considered Podcast.
I’m Robert Angel. Creator and maintainer of the Japan Considered Project. And creator and host of this podcast. Coming to you today from the Japan Considered Mobile Studio, at the northernmost point of this Great Northern Sojourn. This northern part of the Allegany Mountains, in Northernmost Appalachia, is where I was born and raised. Spectacularly beautiful landscape. But serious economic problems, that make life difficult these days for much of the population.
The long trip up here has taken me in and out of WiFi internet access along the way. Mostly out! But WiFi access is better than it was, even a year ago. More and more public libraries, cafes – even commercial campgrounds – offer free or inexpensive access now. A good thing. Maybe before long it will be as common as cell phone service. Let’s hope. That sure would make accessing news from Japan and uploading program files easier while on the road. Let alone its effect on populations living in non-urban areas.
I’ve been able to access political and international news from Japan fairly well. Almost as well as at home or the University. If sporadically. But the connections available haven’t been solid enough to upload audio files, or to service the Japan Considered website. Hopefully, this current connection will take the load.
I won’t describe the trip up here. Just too much to tell! Though I am giving thought to adding a “Mobile Studio Tour” section to the Website. Where those of you interested could click on over to see some photos, and a description of the scenery along the way.
Driving up US Route One on Sunday the thought occurred that America’s highways provide travelers with two kinds of scenery: Natural scenery and Social scenery. Travelers hoping to see exclusively one or the other are sure to be disappointed. Better to recognize and appreciate both. US-1 provides both in abundance. I heartily recommend it for both Natural and Social scenery. The drives through Virginia too were spectacular. Especially the Blue Ridge Parkway and Virginia’s Skyline Drive. Just hard to imagine without being there. Yesterday morning, when leaving the campsite up here, I was greeted by the sight of a medium-sized black bear ambling across the road. Not 200 feet from the gate. No chance to take a picture. But quite a sight to see!
Political news from Japan since the last program has been painfully predictable. The political parties and individual candidates continue their campaigns for the July 29th Upper House Election. Japan’s news media, Punditocracy, and Tenurate continue their commentary and predictions of the results. Each time I’ve checked in, the polls and predictions for the Abe Cabinet and ruling coalition have been more and more gloomy. So, this morning, the Friday before the election, I was surprised to find that Abe’s public approval ratings had not dropped into the negative range, or at least held at Zero!
And it continues to decline. Encouraged, of course, by the way the anti-Abe media and pundits have framed and reported their polls. And reports of more and more “scandals” and “misstatements.”
This predictable pattern of news coverage has been as damaging to the credibility of the media as it has been to the Abe Cabinet’s public approval ratings. Since much of the media coverage – “news coverage,” not just the opinion pages – has become so blatantly “political.” That is, as much intended to influence the outcome of the election as to report what’s actually happening.
Nothing wrong with that, I guess. As long as the media outlets are frank about their partisan political objectives. But that’s not always so. Much of Japan’s attentive public seems to see through the veil of impartiality. But casual foreign observers may well be misled. Especially if they rely on only one or two of the more prominent English language outlets. Not good.
As if to symbolize the thumping the Cabinet’s been taking in the political press, Abe’s newly appointed Minister of Agriculture, Norihiko Akagi, held a press conference last Tuesday, the 17th, with bandages covering his face. At first I assumed this was a prank. That Akagi was poking fun at the press corps for the battering they’ve been giving the Cabinet since soon after its creation last year. But, it turned out to be something else altogether. Akagi has given no explanation so far, though speculation is rampant.
Since our last program, Japan has endured a severe typhoon. And an even more severe earthquake in Niigata Prefecture. Japan’s political press naturally has reported on the likely effect of both on the July 29th election. Most significantly, the news that the Niigata earthquake resulted in release of some nuclear contamination into the environment. An important topic. One hopefully that won’t be ignored simply because it has become a political football just prior to this election.
But on the whole, I don’t feel that my unreliable WiFi internet access has caused me to miss very much of significance concerning Japan’s domestic politics. The reporting and analysis from Japan has been so predictable it’s become almost tiresome to download it. More polls showing declining public approval of the Abe Cabinet. More “mis-statements” of Cabinet members. The latest, Foreign Minister Taro Aso’s off-hand comment about Alzheimer’s patients ability to recognize differences in rice prices. And, more reports of questionable management of political funds. The reports this time concern Agriculture Minister Norihiko Akagi. Chief Cabinet Secretary Shiozaki. And even a tabloid blurb late this week on Yuriko Koike’s office expense reporting. In other words, more, and more, and more, of the same.
As I’ve said over and over, I’m not in the prediction business. Political or otherwise. It doesn’t seem worth the trouble. When we can just wait a few more days and learn what actually happened. Rather than what the prognosticators think will happen. And risk being misled by political activists hoping with their commentary to influence the election’s outcome. Rather than give us straightforward information about what’s actually happening. Maybe these predictions are of some value for those speculating in stocks. Or those hoping to be employed by the successful candidates. Have to know which one to campaign for, doncha know. But beyond that …. Well. I’ll just let others worry about that.
But, after reading and watching months of election coverage, and related political news, I remain convinced that Japan’s attentive public – the potential voters – are most concerned about two related issues. The first quite specific, and the second more general.
The first is the government’s failure to properly supervise the Social Insurance Agency. Allowing them to lose track of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of pension payment records. A problem that’s gone on for decades!
The second is the more general issue of political funding. More on political funding problems after we consider the first, more specific, issue of SIA’s mis-management of pension payment records.
The Political Significance of SIA Pension Record Mismanagement
We considered this issue during the last program. As most observers expected, it has endured. And remains at, or near, the top of all lists of public concerns in the polls. DPJ member, Akira Nagatsuma, has been pursuing this problem for a long time. And has done a remarkable job of drawing public attention to an issue that directly affects the economic well-being of many Japanese. As we discussed on the last program, problems of SIA mismanagement have been known for years. A simple Japanese language web search brings up concern over problems with the Agency from as far back as the 1960s.
So, it’s not as if the Social Insurance Agency problems were a dark secret, known only to a few. Much like the issue of political funding we’ll consider next, anyone who cared to look could easily find it documented in the public record.
This raises some interesting political questions. Why is this issue being given so much attention now? Just before the election? Well, that question’s pretty easy to answer. Election campaign planners for the DPJ decided that giving Nagatsuma’s hard work more publicity would disadvantage the ruling coalition during the election. And that seems to have proven true. Nearly all public opinion polls have found that Japan’s potential voters blame the Abe Cabinet for not handling the SIA pension records scandal more effectively.
To be fair to the Abe Cabinet, they eventually recognized the potential of this issue. And did their best to counter the adverse publicity. Announcing formation of oversight committees. National and regional. Making public commitments to discover every missing record so no pensioner would be disadvantaged. Yet, these efforts by the Abe Cabinet appear to have fallen short. The issue, as of today, the Friday before the election, continues to cut against them. And to cut sharply.
But there’s an even more interesting question about the timing of this current wave of publicity. That is why it’s taken so long for such an important, politically explosive, issue to receive the public attention it’s now receiving.
SIA management problems, as we discussed on the last program, have been well known for some time. Even more specific problems of the management of pension funds, and pension records, were public information. Reported by Japan’s news media from time to time. As the record shows. So, why hasn’t this problem been front-page news for months? Even for years! Forcing someone to do something about it, or face the political consequences!
I suspect the answer to this puzzling question can be found by considering the allocation of responsibility for the Social Insurance Agency’s many problems. There’s plenty of blame to go around. Enough to taint both the ruling coalition parties. And the Opposition parties. Therefore, both sides have been reluctant to “politicize” the issue in the past. Fearing their efforts would blow back on them, in the process.
Clearly, the ruling coalition parties, especially the LDP, has been responsible for failing to exercise political oversight of SIA’s operations. Health and Welfare minister after minister has chosen not to “kick the hornet’s nest,” so to speak. After being informed of serious problems in SIA’s management of pension records and funds. Prime Minister Koizumi even appointed a private-sector director, in the hope of avoiding criticism for SIA misadventures just before the last election. But follow-through has been inadequate. Sooo, fear of well-justified public criticism for decades of ignoring SIA’s problems probably explains the LDP’s reluctance to politicize or publicize the issue. LDP Ministers were in charge! They were responsible!
That leaves the Opposition parties. Especially the DPJ. Akira Nagatsuma’s own Party! Why hasn’t the DPJ given this politically explosive issue more publicity? Long before the 2007 Upper House election? Nagatsuma has been working on it for some time now. Well, the DPJ has been as reluctant as the LDP to kick the SIA hornet’s nest. And for a similar reason. Fear that widespread, front-page, disclosure of the problems of SIA might reflect badly on the government employees unions that represent SIA’s working-level employees.
Government employee unions that have become the most important component of the Japanese Trade Union Confederation, or Rengo, as it’s known in Japanese. While Rengo has become an increasingly important support organization for the DPJ. And an important component of the DPJ’s strategy to break the ruling coalition’s majority status in the Upper House. Especially since that well-known trade unionist, Ichiro Ozawa, assumed leadership of the Party.
Both the DPJ and Rengo fear that giving greater publicity to SIA’s problems might expose the specifics of contracts negotiated by Rengo’s government workers union for SIA’s clerical employees. Down to the number of keystrokes any data entry employee is required to make each day! And the effect of those contracts on SIA’s exercise of its responsibility to keep track of those pension records.
There’s more. SIA is a prominent target of the Abe Cabinet’s program of privatization. This has been in the works for some time. The labor unions representing SIA’s clerical employees naturally are bitterly opposed to such privatization. They only have to remember what happened to Sohyo after Prime Minister Nakasone pushed through his plan to break up JNR, the Japan National Railway.
So, Rengo and its unions oppose SIA’s privatization. Prevention of that privatization, or at least its delay, is toward the top of their list of priorities. It would be dangerous to risk an operation that might lead to exposure of information that could be used by the Cabinet to strengthen their argument for privatization. So, for the DPJ, as well as the ruling coalition, the SIA pension records scandal is very much a two-edged sword. To coin a phrase. And this may explain why the DPJ hasn’t used Nagatsuma’s information before.
But, if that answers the second question, it raises yet another! Once the missing pension records issue was politicized by the DPJ, and the anti-Abe Cabinet media, why hasn’t the Abe Cabinet pursued the responsibility of the government employees labor union more aggressively? There’ve been a few such comments by Prime Minister Abe, and other ruling coalition spokesmen. But nothing very effective. Once the issue was out in the open. Once the LDP was being blamed for failing to exercise appropriate political oversight. Why didn’t the Abe Cabinet drop the other shoe? And do so in ways designed to penetrate anti-Abe Cabinet media resistance? Press releases, and a comment here and there to the Kantei Press Corps, are just not enough.
That question I simply don’t have an answer for. Even a speculative answer! Could it be that Rengo relationships are more complex than they appear? That powerful LDP Zokuists also oppose direct criticism of SIA’s labor unions? And that they have influence adequate to prevent it? I just don’t know. But it seems odd ….
Which again, raises the question of how Japan’s voters ultimately will respond to the SIA missing pension records scandal. Will they vent their frustration with the LDP, and its failure to exercise the political oversight they’ve been elected to exercise? By voting for DPJ candidates? That’s certainly possible. But, the Ozawa-led DPJ’s dependence on Rengo and its labor unions is widely recognized by Japan’s attentive public. Given that recognition, will voters on Sunday select DPJ candidates, expecting the DPJ to take decisive action to correct SIA’s problems? Hmmm. That seems improbable.
Perhaps the whole thing will boil down to whether Japan’s voters on Sunday are more interested in punishing the LDP. Or more interested in forcing improvements in the operation of the government agency that holds their pension funds in trust. Given the record of both Parties, neither option seems very appealing.
Public Resentment of Enduring Political Corruption
Of course, as important as the SIA mismanagement issue is for Japan’s potential voters, many other factors will combine to determine the actual votes cast. Other economic issues, for example. Especially problems of regional inequality. And, to some extent, the perception of a growing economic divide in Japanese society. Not as significant as all the publicity it has received in the past few months. But a factor nonetheless. That may prove decisive for unaffiliated voters who otherwise wouldn’t bother to go to the polls on Sunday.
But even more important, I believe, is public resentment over Japan’s enduring pattern of blatant, widely recognized, violations of political funding laws and regulations. Japan’s attentive public has just tired of it. Has been tired of it for some time. As we saw during the early 1990s, when the majority of Japan’s communications media, punditocracy, and tenurate, were demanding “seiji kaikaku,” or “political reform.” And, with some success!
As we’ve discussed on past programs, Japan has experienced wave after wave of sensational political funding scandals. Since virtually the beginning of electoral politics there. Each time, political journalists and pundits express shock and amazement that such heinous practices have been tolerated. And roundly condemn the perpetrators named. Demanding the incumbent government institute “reforms” to protect the public’s interests. Like clockworks, incumbent governments have further tightened existing restrictions on the collection and expenditure of political funds. And have imposed stricter disclosure requirements.
This has happened over and over. With two results. Both unintended. And neither doing much to alleviate the problem. First, the laws and regulations governing the donation, collection, and expenditure of political funds in Japan have been made increasingly strict. Unrealistically strict. Leading to widespread violations by candidates for public office. They’ve been forced to choose between obeying the letter and spirit of the law, or winning an election. The candidates’ dilemma has been recognized by Japan’s political press. And perhaps this accounts for the reluctance of political journalists and editors to publish every violation they learn of. Well, that, and possibly the press club system. But that doesn’t mean the violations have been forgotten.
The second result of these successive waves of political funding scandals and subsequent “reforms” has been growing public cynicism over the process. A public sense of futility, or inevitability. Cynicism that has adversely affected the public credibility of Japan’s elected government officials. Not a good thing.
Preparing for past programs, I’ve looked for reports of opinion polls that have asked Japan’s public directly what they think about this subject. And haven’t found one. No direct “Do you believe that: none, some, most, or all, candidates for public office in Japan accept and spend political funds in violation of the law?” sort of a question. Yet there is reliable evidence that potential voters in Japan are concerned about the issue. Nearly every poll I’ve seen asking Japan’s public to name the issues they consider important has listed misuse of political funding right up near the top.
So cynical public toleration of the situation doesn’t mean Japan’s attentive public approves or accepts such goings-on. And, Japan’s voters have responded enthusiastically to campaigns and candidates who look as if they might actually do something about it. Genuine political reformers, in other words. When they appear.
Take, for example, the significant reforms implemented during the early 1990s. Eliminating the notorious multi-member, single-vote Lower House electoral districts. And providing significant public funding to political parties for campaign activities. These measures were enthusiastically received by Japan’s voting public. They generated great interest and high expectations for a time. More recently, Junichiro Koizumi’s commitment to “reform” the LDP’s system of factions and special-interest Zoku had the same effect. Including his attack on the postal system prior to the 2005 Lower House election.
Japan’s political campaign strategists have recognized the public’s concern over shady political funding. Which explains the eruption of such disclosures before each election. The current wave happens to focus on charges that incumbent politicians have manipulated reporting of office expenditures to disguise misuse of the funds they’ve collected.
And, respecting tradition, late last month, the LDP and New Komeito passed yet another “reform” measure. This one a law that tightens reporting requirements for expenditures made by political fund management organizations. This effort was criticized as ineffective from the time of its proposal. Since it only required receipts for expenditures of more than 50,000 yen. And because it only imposed those restrictions on political fund management organizations. In short, the late July effort was seen simply as one of a long line of political expediencies. It’s unlikely to impress much of anyone, let along Japan’s potential voters.
Sooo, if Japan’s potential voters are genuinely concerned about problems of political funding, and the potential damage they pose to the general interest, how is this second important issue likely to affect the outcome of Sunday’s election? Again, hard to say. But it seems to me that neither the LDP nor the DPJ have much to gain directly from the issue. The LDP appears to be vulnerable to damage through votes cast for other parties in protest of their behavior. But that doesn’t mean the anti-LDP vote cast for a DPJ candidate represents public confidence in that candidate. Or in the DPJ.
Ozawa’s DPJ may suffer some anti-labor union backlash. Though it’s likely that Ozawa’s strategy of relying more heavily on prefectural and local labor organization in this election will become a net electoral plus.
Media reports of opinion polls have repeatedly described voter interest in this election as high. But it’s hard to understand why that might be. Neither the LDP nor the DPJ has run a positive campaign. The DPJ, as noted a moment ago, has tried to mobilize the old Socialist Party electoral base. And has attacked the wrong-doing of the LDP. But even the anti-Abe Cabinet media hasn’t been able to get very excited about their specific proposals. Their campaign Manifesto this time around reflects clearly the policy objectives of Rengo. And that’s far from an innovative, reformist approach.
The LDP under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has run what charitably might be described as a cautious campaign. Abe certainly won’t be criticized as a Young Wild-Eyed Reformer. Quite the opposite! He had, following Koizumi, a great opportunity to do so. But he seems to have rejected that option. Probably out of concern for the solidarity of the LDP. Which, if we can believe the majority of the predictions made, will prove to be a serious strategic error. Too bad Abe didn’t maintain confidence in Japan’s voting public.
So there you have it. The best I can do from the road. Sorry about the external noise. The Mobile Studio just isn’t as quiet as my study at home, or university office. Thanks for listening. Or reading, if you went to the transcript on the Japan Considered Project website. At www.JapanConsidered.com. Next week we’ll take a look at the actual results of the election, and try to dope out what actually happened. The Japanese political media will be full of explanations, I’m sure. Most of them efforts to justify the predictions they made before the vote. Some, hopefully, useful. As always, continue to send your comments and suggestions for the program to me at RobertCAngel@gmail.com. I read them all and respond directly to as many as possible. No bluegrass this time. Sorry about that. And after a long drive straight through bluegrass’s Crooked Road in Virginia.
So, Goodbye all. Until next time.
