In this edition of TPR News: Prime Minister Shinzo Abe tells his cabinet to watch their mouths, constitutional reform is on the agenda, William Pesek makes some interesting comments with regards to comparing Mr Abe to a former US President, several major economic indicators suggest hard times lie ahead for the Japanese worker, a look at mobile phone company advertising campaigns, and a brief foray into some of the English-language blog coverage on Japan…

Politics

At a regular cabinet meeting this week, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has told his peers to watch their mouths with public comments. Abe’s exhortation comes on the heels of Health, Labour and Welfare Minister Hakuho Yanigasawa’s comment that women are, “birthing machines” and Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma’s remarks that the US-led war on Iraq was started over the belief that Iraq had nuclear weapons. Abe, keenly aware that support for his administration continues to dwindle, has tellingly not asked for the resignation of either minister.

DPJ Chief Ozawa Ichiro increased the pressure on Abe by asking, Monday, why the Prime Minister put Constitutional reform ahead of helping people on his list of priorities. While Abe said he could do both at once, Ozawa invoked the specter of July’s House of Councillors elections, saying:

What should politicians do now? Amend the Constitution or improve people’s lives? . . .

We should discuss the issue in this Diet session thoroughly, and ask the people for their judgment in the coming Upper House election on which is more important.

With the current ordinary Diet session seen as a run-up to the July elections, both parties are doing their best to appear to be productive - Ozawa calling Abe to the carpet and introducing a pension reform plan that he claimed could increase revenues by 11 trillion yen without raising consumption taxes and Abe countering by questioning the feasibility af Abe’s plan and laying out his own goals: educational and constitutional reform and improving people’s lives. Once again, details were lacking.

Immediately after his comments caused a massive uproar with the US media, State Department and Department of Defense, Defense Minister Kyuma blamed the incident on bad translations of his words. He claimed that his use of the past tense has been mistranslated and that he had said, “weapons of mass destruction,” and not, “nuclear weapons.” However, TPR recorded and broadcast Minister Kyuma’s original statement, in which he clearly used the Japanese word for nuclear weapons (核兵器かくへいき - kakuheiki) in reference to US President’s George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq as if there had been nuclear weapons; his reemphasizing of his use of the past tense doesn’t change anything. Who has been fooled by his attempt to change his comments remains to be seen.

Once again hoping to use the Six-Party Talks to pursue the North Korean abduction issuse, Japan has high hopes for a working group set to convene when the Talks resume in Beijing on February 8th. Beijing had proposed five working groups, one of which would be focused on removing obstacles to normal relations between Japan and North Korea. Some critics, though, including TPR, have expressed concern that pursuing the abduction issue through the medium of the Six-Party Talks could retard progress on more pressing issues, such as denuclearization.

William Pesek has put together some very interesting food for thought in a commentary piece entitled, “Why Abe Won’t Be Japan’s Answer to Ronald Reagan.” Although this observer is not sure exactly where comparisons between Mr. Abe and President Reagan might have been engendered, Pesek makes the excellent point that it makes little sense to compare “The Great Communicator” with a man who seemingly cannot speak beyond campaign slogans such as, “Building a beautiful nation, Japan.” Pesek astutely points out the negative aspects of President Regan’s policies while providing a balanced comparison of the two fiscally conservative leaders. Pesek asserts that:

National pride can’t be taught in the schools of an open society any more than Abe’s reminder that the economy is growing again will get households to spend more…Politicians in Tokyo need to boost optimism among young Japanese and improve the nation’s outlook.

Business and the Economy

Speaking of household spending, data released on January 30 showed a twelfth consecutive month of year-on-year decline in Japan’s household spending. December 2006 figures were 1.9% lower than December of 2005. On the day before the data was announced, Finance Minister Hiroko Ota said that mild winter weather has likely played a part in weak spending. Ota’s comments followed Monday’s announcement that retail spending had dropped 0.2% from November to December.

On Wednesday, Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare released its December Labor Force survey. Data from the survey showed that the average wage in Japan had declined 0.6% versus December of 2005. After wages fell about 10 percent between 1997 and 2005, in 2006 they rose 0.2%. According to Bloomberg, in 2006, “Workers brought home an extra 5,500 yen ($45) in total pay in 2006, about enough to buy a case of beer.” In October, Bank of Japan Governor Toshihiko Fukui said that Japan’s decline in consumer spending was “puzzling.”

In positive news for the economy, core consumer prices rose 0.1% in 2006, marking the first increase in eight years and sparking some hope that the economy may be on its way out of deflation for good. Earlier this week, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry released its report on industrial production, which showed a higher than expected 0.7% increase, although the Ministry expects that figure to decline again in January.

Japan’s leading mobile service provider, NTT DoCoMo, is reporting a 28.4% drop in profits for the most recent quarter. DoCoMo has faced stiff competition from rivals Softbank and KDDI’s AUえーゆー brand since number portability was introduced last October. While Softbank has attracted attention with its new handsets and commercials featuring Cameron Diaz (watch below) and Brad Pitt, AUえーゆー has gained the greatest share of new subscribers since number portability took effect.

(More videos of Cameron Diaz and Brad Pitt pitching cell phones for Softbank in Japan)

DoCoMo’s, “Are you DoCoMo?” campaign, however, does not seem to be faring nearly as well. The following is one of a series of TV commercial spots that the company has run over the past few months:

It should be noted that all three firms use Dentsu as their primary advertising agency, as Marxy pointed out back in December, in an article on his thought-provoking neomarxisme blog.

Finally, earlier this week, Japan’s three largest banking institutions, collectively known as the ‘mega banks,’ each reported over 20% drops in profit for the third quarter. At the largest, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, numbers were down 42%. Mizuho Financial Group, the second largest of the three, posted a 23% slide in profits and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group’s figures fell by 26%. An analyst from Fitch Ratings in Tokyo commented:

The banking business reflects the wider economy, which isn’t too healthy. The banks are suffering from low interest rates and little demand for loans.

Given the weak economic indicators mentioned earlier in this section, it seems unlikely that the banks will be seeing much in the way of higher interest rates any time soon.

Society

We have four brief items to bring you in society news this week, with links for suggested further reading. First, Japan is now home to the world’s oldest person. Yone Minagawa, 114 of Fukuoka Prefecture in Kyushu, reacted to news that she was now the world’s oldest living person by saying, “Who, me? My goodness, I’m really grateful.” Congratulations Ms Yone.

Allegations of match-fixing have continued to swirl around the sumo world, with current Yokozuna (grand champion) Asashoryu at the center. In an impromptu television interview outside his training stable aired last night, your correspondent heard him say, “This week has been very difficult…This is just untrue…it’s too hard on me.”

At his site, debito.org, social activist Debito Arudo has reported on a currently-selling comic called Gaijin Hanzai Fairu, or Foreigner Criminal Files. For a taste of this distasteful publication, please follow the link to Debito’s website.

In another, more recent story at previously mentioned blog site neomarxisme, marxy discusses the recent scandal surrounding a television program that lied about claims that eating natto would cause one to lose weight. For more information and good reading, please head over to his site.

The Last Word

Unfortunately, this week there is no last word, at least in the usual sense of one of my piss and vinegar fueled rants. Instead, as Trans-Pacific Radio finishes its fifth month of existence, we would like to take a chance to thank everyone for listening, reading, commenting, linking to us and spreading the word. It means a lot to us.

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