TPR News: Friday, December 22, 2006 - IC card for foreigners in Japan, the Honma Maasaki scandal and Taro Aso
BusinessBusiness and local government leaders from Tohoku and Northeastern China are seeking to increase bilateral ties. Both areas have tended to lag behind the rest of their respective countries in terms of economic activity, but, with the Chinese Government’s targeting of the Northeast as an economic growth area, Tohoku sees a chance for growth as an export hub for the seafood and agricultural produce of the Northeast, especially the area around Dalian, and by outsourcing software development.
Tohoku’s efforts are spearheaded by the Tohoku Economic Federation, which has explored options for export to Northeast China, such a new variety of strawberries, soon to be test-marketed in Hong Kong. The group seeks to use its proximity to Northeast China to compete with Fukuoka, which currently promotes itself as the gateway to Asia.
The Seibu Group, including Kokudo and Seibu Railways, has been ordered to pay 200 million yen in back taxes as a result of failing to report 700 million yen spent on items such as the residences of former chairman Tsutsumi Yoshiaki and an acquaintance of his and the maintenance of the tomb of Tsutsumi’s father, Tsutsumi Yasujiro, as salaries and benefits. The company plans to challenge the decision.
Brunei joined Chile, Indonesia, Mexico, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand in reaching a Free-Trade Agreement with Japan, a step which is expected to accelerate Japan’s FTA talks with ASEAN.
In an effort to reduce demand on ambulance services, Tokyo is instituting a new emergency advice number. Concerned that response time had risen to six and a half minutes over the past decade, the fire department has decided to reduce the number of ambulances unnecessarily dispatched, currently 60% of cases. #7119, the new number, will be staffed round-the-clock with registered nurses and retired paramedics, who will be able to advise callers on whether or not they should immediately call 119, go to a hospital on their own, wait till morning, etc. #7119 is intended for callers who are unsure of the severity of their conditions and may have called an ambulance out of confusion.
As part of the Government’s plans to prepare for an increase in the number of foreign 
workers, the Justice Ministry’s Immigration Bureau plans to start issuing IC cards containing basic information, such as name and visa status, to nikkeijin, foreigners of Japanese descent, largely from Peru and Brazil, who have thus far been nearly exempt from immigration restrictions on unskilled laborers. Those with “Special Permanent Resident” status, primarily people from Korea or other former Japanese colonies and their descendants, will be exempt. The IC cards will take the place of municipally-issued Certificates of Alien Registration (commonly known as gaijin cards) and will be updated when the holders register their domiciles with their local governments. A quashed 2005 LDP proposal called for all non-tourist foreigners to be required to carry IC cards as they currently carry gaijin cards. The current plan originated in Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s government council on crime-fighting measures.
The Asahi Shimbun this week ran an interesting set of anecdotes on the conditions of so-called “one-call” day laborers in the age of the cell phone.
Of Japan’s 47 prefectures (including Tokyo and the other major urban centers), ony nine have third-party systems in place for the reporting of governmental malfeasance or crimes, according to a survey carried out by the Asahi Shimbun. Most local and prefectural governments have a reporting system managed by the government itself, which leaves potential whistle-blowers in a tough spot: if they report wrongdoing using their own names, they could face retribution; if they report wrongdoing anonymously, it can be ignored. According to an official from the secretarial section of the Wakayama prefectural government, which was recently embroiled in a bid-rigging scandal that resulted in the resignation of Governor Kimura Yoshiki: “If one is to contact under his or her own name, the name will be inevitably leaked and will be identified in the prefectural government,” anonymous reports would be filed as “rumors.”
“We can’t do anything about it unless there is a third-party.”
The most popular method of implementing a third-party reporting system is to place the responsibility in the hands of a law firm. The survey showed that the number of reports and action on the reports increased in areas with a third-party involved. Here in Tokyo, a government-affiliated, but separate group acts as the third-party, however, it is chaired by the incumbent chief of the General Affairs Bureau. In two prefectures, including Fukushima, whose former Governor, Sato Eisaku, was also implicated in a bid-rigging scandal, there is no whistle-blowing system whatsoever in place.
Those of you traveling over the Holidays will be pleased to hear that Japan has joined the US and EU in requiring airline passengers to put liquids into small containers of no more than 100 milliliters and to put the containers into clear plastic bags of no more than one liter capacity.
Politics
In a probable further blow to Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s popularity ratings and a
substantial blow to his plan to raise tax revenues by stimulating corporate growth instead of increasing consumption taxes, Tax Commission chief Honma Masaaki stepped down for “personal reasons, ” which surely include the allegations that he housed his mistress in his government apartment even as he pushed for the sale of such state-subsidized properties.
Abe appointed the Osaka University economics professor after firing his predecessor, Ishi Hiromitsu, who advocated a politically unsavory hike in the consumption tax. The Prime Minister had supported Honma against the increasing disapproval of both the opposition and his own party, who depicted Honma as untrustworthy. Honma, for his part, said he was dating, but not living with the woman, and was in the process of divorcing his wife, which make explain the unseemly personal situation, but doesn’t explain why the Osaka-based professor, who only occasionally travels to Tokyo, was given access to the heavily-subsidized apartment, for which he paid only 77,000 yen of it’s estimated monthly value of 500,000 yen or why he thought it appropriate to use taxpayer money to pay for his love nest.
In an attempt to shore up voter support ahead of next summer’s House of Councilors election, Abe has broken with tradition by turning down hefty donations from banks. Large banks could easily tarnish the LDP’s image as they received trillions of taxpayer yen to dispose of bad loans in the late 1990s, remain exempt from corporate taxes, and continue to offer negligible interest rates, all the while posting record profits.
Abe surprised even the LDP’s Secretary-General, Nakagawa Hidenao, saying, “As party president, I decided that accepting political donations from major banks would not win the understanding of the people.” Nakagawa had been paving the way for a justification of the party’s acceptance of billions of yen from large banks, saying banks “should be free to give at their own discretion.” The LDP has approximately eight billion yen in debt to large banks and the donations would have effectively forgiven that debt.
“I have started a new group in order to strengthen my resolve to one day seek the party presidency and prime minister’s post,” said Foreign Minister Aso Taro on Tuesday as he announced his plans to start his own faction after the dissolution of the faction of former Prime Minister Kono Yohei. Aso received sixty-nine votes in September’s party presidential election, but only fourteen LDP members showed up to hear his announcement, five short of the number necessary to file candidacy papers.
Which brings us to a brief. . .
Last Word
Fourteen is too many. Aso “Arc of Prosperity” Taro could offer no greater service to his
country than to resign from politics post haste. His primary qualification for the job seems to be his extraordinary family connections - he is the grandson of Yoshida Shigeru, the great-great-grandson of Okubo Toshimichi, the son-in-law of Suzuki Zenko, all former Prime Ministers. He is the brother-in-law of Prince Tomohito of Mikasa, first cousin to Emperor Akihito. He is also the son of Aso Takakichi, whose cement plant Aso ran from 1973 to 1979, when he entered the House of Representatives, never apologizing for his firm’s use of slave labor during World War II.
This was not merely an oversight or a legal concern, Aso is better-known for his unfortunate statements than for any accomplishment (if he has any, please visit www.transpacificradio.com and let us know.) In 2001, he showed his open-mindedness by remarking of Diet member Nonaka Hiromu, a descendant of the former outcaste class under Japan’s near-feudal system, “That burakumin can’t become Prime Minister.” In Aso’s world, where it’s OK to use Koreans as slave labor, that may well be true.
The Foreign Minister who thinks representative democracy ought to work a little more like an aristocracy was only getting started, though. In 2003, Aso observed that Koreans really wanted to change their names to Japanese ones during the colonial period and that Japan had disseminated the Hangul writing system. A little over two years later, he noted that Japan had “one nation, one civilization, one language, one culture and one race,” and was the only such country in the world, which was something to be proud of. Given such unity, one has to wonder why burakumin can’t become Prime Minister. Earlier this year he noted that “our predecessors did a really good thing” in forcing compulsory Japanese education on the Taiwanese.
With his understanding of world affairs and sensitivity to sore spots so firmly on display, one would think that Aso would rest on his laurels. No, sir. Not this man. He had a lot of work to do in potentially jeopardizing Japan’s delicate relations with its neighbors, noting that China had over a billion people, seventeen years of double-digit military budget growth, and nuclear weapons, which constituted a threat to Japan as no one knew what they were going to be used for.
He further smoothed things over with the neigbors by calling for the Emperor to visit Yasukuni shrine.
What a great choice for Foreign Minister! What modern nation could even give this man serious consideration as a leader?
Thankfully, it doesn’t appear that this one is. Earlier this month, not long after Aso showed that he wasn’t losing his chops with age by calling for Japan to lead an “arc of prosperity” in East Asia, the opposition DPJ moved to subject to a vote of no confidence, which failed largely because the DPJ overreached and tried to expand the vote to the Cabinet, which was unwise.
In this age of increasingly savvy politicians and the ascendancy of merit over factional connections, the days of a politician in the mold of Aso are numbered. The only unfortunate thing is that the number is not zero.
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- TPR News Debut: Diabetic dictators, cell phones, bullying and YouTube
- TPR News: Monday, November 6, 2006 - Nakagawa talks nuclear weapons for Japan, Takenaka back to teaching
- TPR News: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 - Cellular phone number portability and Kim Jong Il
- TPR News: Wednesday, December 27, 2006 - Sanctions, Aso, Shiozaki and Japan’s consumer spending
