Where does the money come from? Everywhere you travel in regional Japan there seem to always be new highways under construction

So after all of that rhetoric about abolishing road tolls (高速道路無料化法案), Hatoyama has decided to rethink his plan and only allocate 1/6 of the original budget detailed in their manifesto.  Until last week, I, like 65% of Japanese voters, actually wanted him to scrap the entire plan altogether.  I happened across some insightful interviews with the academics who originally proposed the policy and have since gained some insight into where the concept came from.  How does Hatoyama look at himself in the mirror after promising that Japan will cut green-house gas reductions by 25%?   It turns out that there are significant structural problems with the current toll system and even a few environmental arguments behind scrapping them. Would you believe it?

While I would have structured the policy quite differently myself, I was quite disappointed with myself for being so completely fooled by the LDP propaganda and related rhetoric from the media surrounding the issue.  As Hatoyama said when he scrapped the policy, they were thoroughly defeated by opposition propaganda in selling the concept.  Since I haven’t seen any balanced pieces in the English media either, I thought I would share “the other side” of the argument with you.

The real issues surrounding Japan’s highway tolls are surprisingly similar to those that became the catalyst for the privatisation of the post office.  Especially in the countryside, LDP cronies have bought votes from the construction industry by supporting unnecessary public works projects.  The post office is guilty as 80% of the money deposited in the Post Office bank (195 trillion yen!) is used to buy JGBs (Japanese Government Bonds).  The government then uses the cash obtained from selling the JGBs to fund this endless construction work.  If the buyers of JGBs were normal investors (i.e. economically rational) then they would require the government to spend the cash on economically viable projects and hence force the government into contemplating ROI.  Lucky for the Japanese Government, they have never had to justify the use of its cash (read: irrelevant Keynesian public works projects) to JDB investors as they have always had a “buyer of last resort” in the post office.  Privatizing the post office meant that the government/LDP could no longer manipulate the cash in the Post Office Bank for political purposes.

It cost 50 yen to use the Tokyo Shutoko Expressway back when it was opened in 1962.

So what has this got to do with road tolls?  Let’s go back about 40 years to the end of the 60s, when Japan was starting to catch up with the West.  The government was desperate to improve the efficiency of domestic logistics and began to build a highway connecting Tokyo and Kobe.  Welcome the first ever toll road in Japan.  In order to convince the populous, the government promised that they would remove the toll within 30 years as they would have repaid the entire loan necessary for the construction of the road.  Thirty years equates to 1992 for Nagoya-Kobe (名神高速, meishin kosoku) and 1999 for Tokyo-Nagoya (東名高速, toumei kosoku).

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to work out that we are still paying tolls today despite passing those deadlines over ten years ago. Because Kakuei Tanaka (田中角栄), the Prime Minister in 1972, realized that he could use the cash generated from these two profitable highways to subsidize uneconomic road construction in the countryside (read: LDP stronghold).  He hired Dentsu (電通) to come up with the catch phrase “Revamp the Archipelago” (nihon retto kaizo ron, 日本列島改造論) in order to hide what was actually referred to as the “Sharing Around The Cash” system (ryokin puru sei, 料金プール制).  Now, thanks to Tanaka, the government has a whopping 2.5 trillion yen of cash every year to build bridges to nowhere in their regional sandpits.

Japan's annual budget for road construction runs rings around other countries in this international comparison

The debt that Japan borrowed from the World Bank to build these toll roads was fully repaid in 1990 – ten years faster than they had predicted!  However, for some reason (read: the LDP policy to “buy a vote with a road”) the public corporation managing Japan’s roads (高速道路機構, kosoku doro kiko) still has a whopping 30 trillion yen of debt.  Better yet, they also have plans (implemented by the LDP) to shoulder a further 20 trillion yen of debt between now and 2050 to build more roads in remote places.  Oh my Buddha!  Will someone please tell them that Japan has enough roads already (see chart showing Japan’s disproportionately large annual spend on roads). Think how many roads you could build with 20 trillion yen!

Getting rid of highway tolls means that making the plans to borrow another 20 trillion yen to build meaningless roads infeasible.  More to the point, it means getting rid of another 2.5 trillion yen that the LDP wants to use to line the pockets of regional construction companies should they ever get back into power.  That is why Ichiro Ozawa (小沢一郎, the real brains behind the Hatoyama government) was so keen to push through this legislation.  (Ironically, the same rationale should argue that it doesn’t make sense for the DPJ to halt the privatisation process of the Post Office but that is another story).  Even if the DPJ does back pedal on the size of the discounts it is vital that they abolish this system.

Perhaps a smarter solution to the problem would have been to merely change the name of the tax and dedicate the same 2.5 trillion yen to environmental issues.  I think you could make a similar argument for their recently rethought attempts to cut the current 0.6 trillion yen “temporary” tax on gasoline (ガソリン税の暫定税率の廃止, gasorin zei no zantei zeiritu no haishi) that has been in place since 1974.  Let’s not forget that a socialist party should be all about high taxes and high public spending.  The DPJ seem to think that they can achieve high public spending with reduced taxes.  I’m not so sure how sustainable that is.

The vast majority of Japan's huge network of express-ways aren't being used

The other problem with both the gasoline tax and toll roads is how it impacts greenhouse gas emissions.  Interestingly, Yasuyo Yamazaki (山崎養世), ex-Goldman Sachs Asset Management CEO and the man who first proposed cutting Japan’s road tolls, claims that it could actually cut green house emissions!?  Honmakaina I hear you shout!  Here are the skin and bones of his theory:

• Currently 65% of Japan’s highways are severely underutilised and only 5% are subject to congestion.  The primary reason for this is that they are so expensive.  (At an average of 25 yen per km, a car traveling at 100km/hr would be paying 2,500 yen per hour!)  Free highways will mean that this infrastructure doesn’t go to waste.
• Engine idling at traffic lights is the biggest culprit when it comes to auto CO2 emissions.  A shift of traffic from the highly congested local roads (with lots of traffic lights) to the existing highways (without traffic lights) should reduce CO2 emissions by as much as 3 million tonnes.
• The underutilised land in service areas and parking areas across the nation is said to be worth about 10 trillion yen.  With more traffic, the value of the real-estate should be substantially higher and hence create significant opportunities for profit through redevelopment.
• Economic projections by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (国土交通省, kokudokotsusho ß why is the name so much simpler in Japanese?) suggest that the economic impact of cutting tolls could be as high as 7.8 trillion yen.  The biggest beneficiaries would be trucking companies that use the nationwide infrastructure daily and ideally their clients should too as the trucking companies subsequently lower their prices.  (Note from the editor: Given that the annual revenue from tolls is only 2.5 trillion yen I guess they are assuming a Keynesian multiplier of 3! Hmmm…)
• Many people who don’t have cars and live in big cities argue for a user-pays approach to funding Japan’s highways.  The irony is that we are all paying these tolls indirectly every time we buy meat, fruit and vegetables that were produced in other parts of the country.  Free tolls should mean lower grocery bills, especially for people living in big cities.  (This is included in the 7.8 trillion yen figure mentioned above and one of the key reasons why the Keynsian multiplier is assumed to be quite large)

The biggest flaw in this argument is that auto traffic has an uncanny ability to grow indefinitely until it meets the capacity of roads available.  Just read Ben Elton’s “Grid Lock.”    Removing the tolls will just see an increase in auto traffic greater than Japan has ever seen before.  This of course would be a huge boon to Toyota and the other Japanese auto-makers.  Maybe that is another hidden motivation for the government as they try to turn around the floundering economy.

Their current proposal for changing the policy would be to only scrap the tolls on rural highways and even then to introduce pricing ceilings for daily use: 5,000 yen for trucks and 1,000 yen for cars.  If they really believed in the Keynesian multiplier effect of the cost saved in cutting infrastructure costs then surely they would be charging cars 2,000 yen and making trucks free?  This would be hard to push by voters, yes, but true to the original thesis behind the policy.  You do remember why you proposed the policy, right Yukio?

At the end of the day Japan just cannot afford to scrap existing tax revenues – especially less controversial ones.  With a whopping 200% of its GDP in gross government debt (the highest amongst G20 by a factor of almost 2x), Japan needs all of the extra income it can earn to pad its coffers.  Despite being a left-wing party, there are plenty of ex-bankers within the DPJ.  They get it and they realise the huge sacrifice they are making in scrapping road tolls.  The fact that they refuse to scrap it completely shows you just how powerful that cash was in buying votes for the LDP.  Even if they redirected the money earned from tolls to welfare, they must assume that the LDP will reverse any changes as soon as they take power again.  Abolishing tolls seems to be all about abolishing any chance for the LDP to ever reinstate another “sharing around the cash” system.

Has this article changed your view?  If so, let us know in the comments section below.

Mieko Tanaka (right) was handpicked by Ichiro Ozawa to take on Yoshiro Mori, the former PM and LDP big wig in Ishikawa 2

I don’t know about you but in my family it is a tradition to gather together with lots of friends on election night and follow the opening of votes.  That’s right: “Election Party Night” and it is on again this Sunday.  So just in case you are only a “social watcher” of politics, I decided to put together a few of my notes on the election so that a few more people can enjoy following what could be a historic election for Japan.  If you know your Japanese politics pretty well then feel free to skip the first 2~3 paragraphs and get into the meat.

The LDP won the last lower house election (2005) after Koizumi dissolved parliament to win support for his key policy of privatizing the post office.  Voter turnout was huge (for Japan) and the LDP won 296 out of the 480 seats in the lower house.  (327 including Komeito)  The Democrats didn’t even win a quarter of the seats (113/480).

This time around the tide has changed and the Democrats will be focusing on two magic numbers.  The first is 241 seats, enough for a simple majority of the lower house.  The second is 373 seats.  373 seats would mean that combined with their 109 current seats in the upper house, the Democrats would have 2/3 of all votes in a combined sitting of parliament.  In otherwords, they no longer need to worry about cooperating with any of the quacky minority parties who hold the casting vote in the upper house at the moment.  If the upper house knocks back any of their legislation they can just have a combined sitting of the two houses and force any legislation that they like through.  (The LDP+Komeito coalition have 103/242 seats in the Upper house.  The Commies have 7/242, The Socialists have 5/242 and The People’s New Party have 4/242.)

The first place to look on election night is to see how the leaders of each party are faring.  It is always a bad sign if the leader of any party looks likely to lose their seat.  And you never know what might happen in a year like this.

• LDP (http://www.jimin.jp/index.html) 自民党 Taro Aso (麻生太郎)　⇒ Fukuoka 8 福岡8. Aso won with 55.4% of the votes last time.  Yamamoto, the 37 year old new face that the Democrats are fielding is probably fighting an uphill battle even if Aso’s kanji reading skills are worse than mine.
• Democrats (http://www.dpj.or.jp/english/) 民主党 Yukio Hatoyama (鳩山由紀夫)⇒  Hokkaido 9 北海道９区.  Last time Hatoyama won 48.6% of the vote.  The LDP are fielding a 38 year old called Kawabata who used to work for Nintendo.  Nice try but it’s time for seiken kotai!
• Komeito (http://www.komei.or.jp/) 公明党 Akihiro Ota (太田 昭宏) ⇒ Tokyo 12東京12区 This is Kita-ku and parts of Adachi-ku.  Ota has got his work set out for him.  Even last time he only won 41.9% of the vote.  Originally there were rumours of the Democrats sending Ozawa Ichiro down here this year but instead they went for Ai Suzuki (鈴木愛) (http://www.aoki-ai.com/).  Opinion polls suggest that Suzuki could win a handsome scalp on behalf of the Democrats.
• Communists (http://www.jcp.or.jp/) 日本共産党 Kazuo Shii (志位和夫) ⇒ South Kanto (南関東). Last time the commies got 6.85% (down from 7.39% the election before) of the vote in this block which was enough to get one of their candidates through with a seat.  They’ll be at least hoping for this much again!
• SDP 社民党 (http://www5.sdp.or.jp/) Yasumasa Shigeno (重野安正) Unfortunately their party leader is safe in the upper house so this guy is the next best thing (party secretary general) ⇒　Oita 2　（大分2区）This will be an interesting one to watch.  The sitting candidate, Seishiro Eto, is from the LDP and looking for his 9^th straight victory.  Last time he won 50.3% of the vote.  The Democrats have chosen not to field a candidate and let the Socialists fight their battle.  Bimyo.  My money is on the LDP here (although last time Shigeno snuck in by votes in the hirei (proportional-representation constituency) system)

People’s New Party (http://www.kokumin.or.jp/) 国民新党 Tamisuke Watanuki (gotta love pronouncing his first name with a thick American accent!) 綿貫民輔 ⇒ Hokuriku Shinetsu Block (北陸信越ブロック) .  The party won 6.9% of the vote in this block last time which was just enough to get in 1/3 candidate.  Besides Watanuki there is another post office crony with a weird name called Sorime (反り目) next in line on their hirei list.  How does being an ex post-office manager make him a pollie?  I will be interested to see how much voting power the post office can still muster.

• New Party Nippon (http://www.love-nippon.com/english.htm) 新党日本 Yasuo Tanaka 田中康夫　⇒ Hyogo 8 兵庫8区.  As a backup he’s also standing in the hirei against our happy friend Okawa (see below).  This will be a ripper in a strange way.  No LDP and no Democrats.  Hatoyama came to Tanaka’s press conference when he announced that he was shifting from Nagano to Hyogo.  Tanaka is very charismatic and so should put up a good fight against the Tetsuzo Shibazaki, the Komeito candidate.  Shibazaki is a former secretary general and still is a big wig within the Komeito.  Shibazaki has held the seat for the last 7 elections (winning it with 45% of the vote last time).  It’s a shame that the DSP and the Communists are running candidates as they could cannibalize Tanaka’s votes.  Too close to be called.
• Your Party (http://www.your-party.jp/) みんなの党 Yoshimi Watanabe (渡辺喜美) 　⇒ Tochigi 3 栃木3区.  I really like this guy.  He has flare and charisma (in a funny sort of way) and says what he thinks.  Even though the LDP rumoured to stand someone against him as an act of revenge for his well publicized split from the party in January they didn’t.  Neither did the Democrats… or anyone infact, except for the Happiness Realization Party.  Watanabe won a stomping 63% of the vote last time (with real opposition) but he will truly romp home this year.  Good on him!
• Happiness Realization Party (http://www.hr-party.info/) 幸福実現党 　Ryuho Okawa (大川隆法) 　⇒ Kinki Block　近畿ブロック.  Smart strategy from Okawa to not only target the hirei but to choose a constituency like Kinki with lots of seats up for grabs.  More room for a marginal political cult party to sneak in across the line here I think.

While most people’s gut reaction will be to count the number of purple hearts on the LDP campaign list, I’m going to be focusing more on how the People’s New Party perform.  While the Democrats are likely to win power I really don’t want to see a situation where they have to exchange wedding vows with the People’s New Party in order to form government.  The other key members for the People’s New Party and their electorates are:

• Hiroshima 6広島6区 (Remember the seat that Horiemon stood in last time) Shizuka Kamei (亀井静香) – deputy representative.  This will be one seat that I would be more than happy to see in LDP hands.  They are serious and their candidate, Toshifumi Kojima, has strong local roots being a former prefectural government member.  Last time around Kamei beat Horie pretty easily 50% to 31%.  The Democrats won 25% of the vote that year.  If the Democrat votes flow straight to Kamei then he should be safe but we can only hope.
• Shimane 2島根2区 Hisaoki Kamei (亀井久興)– party secretary general.  Last time Kamei had to sneak in with hirei votes and it should be the case again this time.  His opponent is Wataru Takeshita, the younger brother of former PM, Noboru Takeshita.  It will be hard to do worse than last time (29%) against Takeshita (51%).  Even in a wave of anti-LDP voting you would have to think that the power of the Takeshita name is one of the few pillars in the LDP.  (After all it is Shimane – have you ever been there?  Shimane is probably the only prefecture in Japan this year with a high chance of only returning LDP members to parliament.)

For a bit of fun, let’s say you want to follow how the Happiness Realization party are going.  After all they are one of the few parties with an English homepage! (Even the LDP hasn’t got one)  Some of their bigger names are:z

• 

  memo to self: if i was trying to add credibility to the campaign, I don't think I would have chosen Dr. Nakamatsu

  Tokyo Block 東京ブロック.  80 candidates standing for the 17 seats available in this hirei block.  A lot of competition but maybe enough famous faces to pull at least one through.

  • Zuisho Motochikawa (本地川瑞祥) – Deputy party leader
  • Doctor Nakamatsu (ドクター中松) –  Honorary Party Leader
  • Jun’nosuke Kawaguchi (河口純之助) – former base player for the Blue Hearts
  • Fumiya Sato (さとうふみや) – famous manga writer (漫画家) (There were originally rumors that she would go up against Aso in his own electorate as he is known as a manga otaku but I guess they decided that she was too valuable to waste on a safe seat.)
• Tokyo 7 東京7区 Kazuya Daimon (大門一也) – Songwriter who wrote music for Hiromi Go and Hikaru Genji (oh and apparently he wrote the Happy Science “theme song”).  Tokyo 7 is Shibuya and Nakano. Unfortunately for Daimon, the focus here is going to be between Akira Nagazuma (Democrats) and Fumiaki Matsumoto (LDP).  This has historically been a very tight battle between the two of them.  Matsumoto was able to sneak back into power last election with the help of Koizumi winning 48% of the vote (up from 35%). Nagazuma has made a real name for himself in the past year or so by highlighting the government’s disaster at managing the pension system so should sneak home comfortably.
• Kanagawa 14 神奈川14区 Masashi Ishikawa 石川雅士 – The head of the New York branch of Happy Science.  Just amazed that there is a New York branch… and also that he is allowed to stand for parliament if he doesn’t live in Japan.  So he chose a seat with an LDP sitting member called Akama and a Communist candidate called Akama.  I assume they aren’t husband and wife.  If it were anywhere else in the country then the LDP Akama would probably have been safe but with the degree of support for the Democrats in Kanto at the moment, it could mean a victory Motomura Kentaro (Democrats).

You might have noticed that on August 15 they announced that they would withdraw a handful of candidates in order not to take votes away from the LDP in marginal seats.  Their rationale was that “anything is better than the Democrats” and that “they have many believers who are active politicians”.  I have spent a lot of time studying these electorates for two good reasons.  (1) The party clearly sat down directly with the LDP and given a list of the most marginal seats and told to stay away.  What better insight could we hope for on the fears of the LDP? NB. Indeed recent polling states that nearly every one of them is too close to call (2) If number one isn’t correct then the names are more than likely to be a short list of a bunch of closet cool-aid drinkers who probably can’t “come out” until after the election is over.

• 

  It's like playing old maid (ババ抜き) in Hokkaido 11.

  Hokkaido 11北海道１１区 Shoichi Nakagawa 中川昭一 (LDP) – our favorite drugged up former minister who tried to sit on the statue of Laoco ö n in the Vatican after the 2009 G7 meeting.  Nakagawa won 50% of the vote last time to beat his Democrat country-party, Tomohiro Ishikawa.  You would normally think that after Nakagawa’s “show” at the G7 that Ishikawa would be feeling pretty comfortable… except Ishikawa is a former secretary of Ozawa Ichiro’s.  Remember the scandal involving illegal campaign donations from Nishimatsu Construction.  Well, I wouldn’t want to be a former secretary of Ozawa’s standing for parliament… unless of course my opponent was Nakagawa.  This is clearly the Obihiro circus. Too close to call.

• Kanagawa 1 神奈川１区 Jun Matsumoto松本純 (LDP).  Matsumoto romped home last time around with 57% of the vote.  It will be interesting to see how much the electorate associates him with his close friend, Aso. Like so many of the first time Democrats, Mieko Nakabayashi doesn’t have much political experience but is an associate professor in management at a women’s college.  I’d probably vote for Ryoko Kozai of the Communists for her background in supporting families with small children but I’m guessing the locals might not do the same.  Too close to call.
• Kanagawa 2 神奈川２区 Yoshihide Suga菅義偉 (LDP) – one of the most powerful men in the LDP at the moment.  Also won strongly with 57% of the vote last time.  Said to have been the Rasputin behind both Abe and Aso and infamously responsible for many of Aso’s policy failures but maybe the locals don’t read between the lines and just love the fact that he is up there pulling the strings.  I certainly wouldn’t reelect him.  Kazuya Mimura (ex-METI worker and cousin of Ryoko Hirosue’s広末涼子) of the Democrats might struggle with Suga.  Too close to call.
• Tokyo 3 東京３区 Hirotaka Ishihara 石原宏高 (LDP).  Shinagawa and parts of Ota.  I knew of Shintaro (Tokyo Governor) and Nobuteru (LDP) but I didn’t know that there was a third Ishihara in the family.  Hirotaka is the little brother of Nobuteru and the son of Shintaro.  If he takes after Nobuteru then he might stand a fighting chance but if the recent Tokyo elections are a guide then he should be signing up with Hello-Work (ハローワーク).  Jin Matsubara looking slightly stronger from the Democrats at the moment.
• Tokyo 10 東京10区 Yuriko Koike 小池百合子 (LDP).  Toshima and parts of Nerima.  I was quite surprised to see Koike on this list of potential dangerous seats.  She shoed it in as one of Koizumi’s Children last time (49.5% of the vote) and is seen to be a potential leader of the LDP.  Her key opponent is Takako Ebata (Democrats) who is a former associate professor from the University of Tokyo.  Three candidates standing for this seat and all are female.  Will be interesting to follow.  Too close to call.
• Osaka 17 大阪17区 Shingo Nishimura西村真悟 (Kaikaku Club http://www.kaikakuclub.jp/) – I note he is a member of the “let’s all go together and visit Yasukuni Shrine club” (みんなで靖国神社に参拝する国会議員の会) which is probably the only reason why Happiness are supporting him.  Nishimura is the only member of the lower house amongst the 5 sitting members in Kaikaku Club so he should have chosen a more conservative seat than Sakai City.  I doubt that the Happiness vote will be enough to push him through.  Polling is suggesting that Megumu Tsuji (Democrats) will win, followed by Nobuko Okashita (LDP) and Nishimura trailing a long way behind.
• Fukui 1 福井１区 Tomomi Inada 稲田朋美  (LDP) – In case you were looking for more controversy, Inada is the politician who tried to stop the screening of the movie Yasukuni and has been recorded on tape as stating that the rape of Nanking never really happened.  She only won this seat by 0.2% last time (33.0%) against Ryuzo Sasaki (32.8%) of the Democrats.  If Sasaki doesn’t get in this time then I won’t be visiting Fukui again.  (Although I’m starting to get an idea of the kind of politician that the Happiness Realization Party support!!!)
• Gifu 5 岐阜５区 Keiji Furuya 古屋圭司  (LDP).  Furuya is still looking like a strong contender for his seat.  Furuya won his seat last time (41% of vote) as an independent after Koizumi expelled him over his stand against the privatization of the post office.  It will be an uphill battle for Yoshinobu Achiha but interestingly they are the only two candidates so it should at least be a clear distribution of voter preferences.
• Yamaguchi 4 山口４区 Shinzo Abe 安倍晋三  (LDP).  In some ways I’m surprised that this guy is still in politics.  I guess it is easier to be a backbencher than the PM.  The Democrats don’t seem to serious with Takako Tokura so I’m not sure what motivated this name to be on the list over other ex-PMs.  Maybe that hints at a certain religious “belief” that can’t be made public until he retires.  Abe won 72.5% of the vote last time!
• Fukuoka 7福岡７区 Makoto Koga 古賀誠 (LDP) – You’ve got to love the irony.  Ozawa Ichiro hand picked Kuniyoshi Noda, a former secretary of Koga’s, to stand against him for the Democrats.  Better yet, Noda is looking like a decent chance of pulling it off.  Koga is actually rumoured to be a member of Mahikari (真光), yet another weird Japanese cult!  I guess this proves that Okawa does have the ability to hear the word of all religious leaders in his dreams…

I realize this is getting long so in the interest of being brief let me end with another list of “too close to call” electorates for your watchlist on Sunday night:

• Gunma 4 Fukuda (LDP) vs. Goto (Democrats)
• Shizuoka 1 Kamikawa (LDP) vs Makino (Democrats)
• Gifu 4 Kaneko (LDP) vs. Imai (Democrats)
• Wakayama 3  Nikai (LDP) vs. Tamaki (Democrats)
• Tottori 1 Ishiba (LDP) vs. Okuda (Democrats)
• Yamanashi 2 Horiuchi (LDP) vs Sakaguchi (Democrats)
• Miyazaki 1 Could be anyone’s game (5 way battle)

We’d love to hear any new rumours on voting trends in the comments section below.  If you don’t have any, why not tell us about how you plan to spend this Sunday night?

Ryuho Okawa (大川 隆法) is the founder of the Happy Science religious organization and the Happiness Realization Party political party in Japan

It’s more than likely that you’ve heard their trucks driving around near you because the Happiness Realization Party (幸福実現党) are fielding a candidate in every one of the 300 single-seat electoral districts (小選挙区, shosenkyoku) and if that wasn’t enough they are also providing a list of a whopping 45 candidates for the proportional-representation constituency (比例区, hireiku).*1 While their “uguisujo” (鶯嬢, noisy hired help shouting out politicians names from vans) don’t mention it directly, the Happiness Realization Party are actually a close affiliate of the shinkoshukyu (新興宗教, slightly controversial religion) known as “Happy Science”. The patriarch of the religion is a relatively young fellow called Ryuho Okawa (大川隆法) and until recently his wife, Kyoko (大川きょう子), was the head of the political party.

*1 While I can understand the logic of fielding a candidate in every electorate, surely they party faithful were smoking a little bit much pot when they thought there was any hope of 45 candidates getting through in the hireiku.

The religious group is known for its rich members and huge average donation size. The election seems to be no exception. Happy Science have put their foot on the pedal and demanded that without at least 10 statues of “El Cantare” and 2 “bodhisattvas” per electorate then they won’t be able to field a candidate.

Opened in December 2001. Tokyo-Shoshinkan is a magnificent temple built in a prestigious area of Tokyo by the religious group Happy Science

In reality you probably need between 25~35 million yen per candidate to run a basic campaign and cover costs like posters, rent for a campaign office etc. Given that Happy Science are asking for a minimum of 50 million yen per candidate they are clearly budgeting for an aggressive marketing campaign as well. You can get a feel for it on their Youtube channel. Surprisingly for a party with little history, many of their policies are quite creative and some are quite well thought out. (I suppose I should have expected that given that Ohkawa is a graduate of Tokyo University Law (東京大学法学部) and the Grad School of the City University of New York where he studied FX).

Some of their policies include:

• Stimulate spending by scrapping consumption tax, gift tax and also inheritance tax for people who look after their parents in their old age
• Increasing the Japanese population to 300 million (including 100 million immigrants) in order to achieve 4% annualised GDP growth.
• Change the constitution to state clearly Japan’s right to a (slightly offensive) self-defensive force in order to “stop” North Korea. Where necessary Japan should ‘rent’ nuclear weapons from America or Russia and they fund any military expansion by creating a ‘defence fund’ where they offer economic returns to investors.
• Link all of Japan with a linear motor car and encourage North Korea (after achieving peace by assassinating Kim) and China to help build an underwater tunnel so that we can link Japan with the rest of Asia and ultimately the rest of the world with the same train network.
• Remove the ban in the constitution on mixing religion and politics (政教分離原則, seikyobunrigensoku).

I find the final point to be a very interesting topic for debate. Why shouldn’t there be a link between politics and religion? When I asked the question to my local candidate she actually had a pretty good come back. “Look at America. Look at France.” She said, “Can you tell me that Christianity is not a large part of their political power?” I think she is actually right. Why is it “fair” for the Japanese to put up with a constitution and political system forced upon them by General MacArthur (he himself a devout Christian) that denies them of the freedom to vote for a religious politician (especially when Americans have the right to and actively exercise it). When I pushed her a little further (bringing up the ‘problems’ of such a political system that were evident in the second world war), rather than getting defensive she was quick to point out that the problem was within Shinto (神道, the Japanese national religion at the time) and not the concept itself (naruhodo).

I guess the next question is whether or not it makes sense to be comparing Christian political leaders of the Western World with Okawa-san at Happy Science. After all he does claim that he is the incarnation of El Cantare, a 9th degree spirit who was originally sent to the Earth from Venus 600 million years ago. Better yet, he claims that he is a channeller for many religious leaders of the past and so was sent to the Earth to continue the preaching of Jesus, Hermes, Buddha, Confucius and – amongst others – Kim Jong Il.

At it’s peak in the mid 90s, Happy Science was said to have over 10 million members. Perhaps even more interesting is that it is said to have a higher average donation size than other religions and appeal especially to rich people. They fund their extravagant temples around the world (Japan, New York, London, Seoul, etc) they have been known to speculate in volatile shares and also sell numerous religious paraphernalia at egregious prices (up to 1 million yen for pendants, emblems, small statues etc). Their members believe that if they pray hard (and donate) enough that they will be able to achieve personal goals so the sale of kigan (祈願, prayers) (a little like the Ema in shinto. makes a good sign business. Unlike Shinto though, the Happy Science people cut to the chase and offer you kigan for things you really want:

• わが社株高騰祈願 (The shares of my company go up prayer)
• 社長出世祈願 (I become the president of my company prayer)
• 感染症予防祈願 (I don’t catch any diseases prayer)
• 英会話ベラベラ祈願 (Totally fluent in English prayer)
• 天才児養成祈願 (my child turns into a genius prayer)

Keieinyumon - By Ryuho Ogawa

If nothing else, you’ve got to credit the Happiness Realization Party for the timing of their political run. If there is ever going to be an election where people are willing to vote for someone other than the LDP then this is the year. The voter turnout is likely to be higher this year than it has for decades. That means (for a change) that the pollies elected this year will be closer to a fair representation of what Japanese citizens really want. If there are enough wallys out there to vote in one of their candidates then why shouldn’t that segment of Japanese society (and their kool-aid) be represented in parliament?

Price of cheese in Japan to rise 30% if politicians don't clean up their act

Yes it is getting to the stage where I am very tempted to run to my local supermarket and start buying cheese in bulk to get me through the rest of 2009! Why? Because if the parliament doesn’t get in order, focus its intended agenda for March, then it is highly likely that the tariffs on 415 different imported goods could go up by as much as 50%!

How could that be if there has been no debate in the cabinet about raising tariffs. That’s a pretty good point. The culprit is not in new legislation set to be passed, it is in old legislation that is about to end. Remember the fiasco surrounding petrol prices this time last year when the opposition party refused to let the LDP force through a renewal of their ‘temporary’ tax cut on oil imports? Well this is a similar situation. It seems that the Japanese government – in all their wisdom – designed their tariffs law (called kanzeiteiritsuho, 関税定率法) so that any reductions that Japan had agreed to under WTO would only have a shelf life of 12 months and that if the government didn’t approve the existing tariff cuts every 12 months then they would automatically shoot back to the higher levels that they had before Japan signed onto WTO tariff cuts. What ridiculous logic. Can anyone tell me how that came about?

Even though it doesn’t feel like it when you go shopping at your local Seijo Ishii (成城石井), right now cheese imports have no tariffs on them at all in Japan. However, if the government is too busy with Ozawa’s illegal slush funds from construction companies then from April 1 Cheese could all of a sudden be slapped with a fixed 30% tariff. That is a lot if you eat real cheese (not that torokeru (melty?) stuff they put on pizzas here).

Some other key items on the list of 415 imports include beef, malt, tobacco and alcohol. How many other vices could they be targeting? Remember, it is a recession. And where would you be in a recession without vices? So maybe it makes sense to stock up on a few steaks, fags, beer, and a lot of whiskey – not to mention the cheese!

Yuri Fujikawa's Sexy Photo Book Cover - 藤川ゆり写真集

In America, former movie stars make good Presidents. In the East, it seems, it works the other way: it takes a politician to become a popular porn star. If you’re lucky enough, you might have seen some photos of the hottest property in Japanese politics, Yuri Fujikawa (藤川ゆり) showing off her cleavage at a beach in her hometown of Hachinohe, 八戸 (not to be confused with the real porn star, of the same name! Warning – NSFW link).

For those that are not up on their Aomori geography, Hachinohe is a smallish town in the east coast of Aomori prefecture at the tip of Honshu. It’s biggest year round tourist attraction is its rather dull fish market (Hasshoku Centre, 八食センター), usually full of local elderly folks, and US Marines from the nearby Misawa Airforce Base (presumably because there is nothing else for them to do in their time off). Anyway, I digress – the point is, that Hachinohe is an extremely quiet, down-to-earth, and above all conservative community. Throw into that mix a young (hot) representative who just released a gravure DVD and a sexy photo shoot book, and you have some fiery topics of conversation for the population of sleepy old Hachinohe (and far beyond!).

Anyway, before we go on any further, here is the first part of Yuri Fujikawa’s DVD (You can watch the full DVD at the bottom of this article!):

Click here to view the embedded video.

I was mentally preparing to write an editorial piece complaining about the new lows that Japanese politics has stopped to, but maybe it’s not quite as bad as it appears. After all, she does have a bit in common with the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger and even Ronald Regan.

Yuri Fujikawa in the Hachinohe Parliament

What is more important to a politician than grass roots support? As even a joshikosei (女子高生) can see with the current nejire kokkai (hung parliament, ねじれ国会) it is very clear that a political party can’t instigate real change without a firm majority. Likewise for individual candidates. Without a solid margin between you and your closest competitor, politicians are forced to parade populist policies to the electorate in order to win votes. What we really need are politicians who have the balls to announce controversial, ground breaking policies and they can’t do that if they’re constantly worried about the next election. When Fujikawa was elected to the local parliament in Hachinohe (八戸) she won double the votes of her nearest rival in the Komeito (6962 vs 3665) and drew the biggest voting turnout (56%) in the town for 12 years despite it being a rainy day. That is what I call a mandate. How is that any different to our old friends, Ronnie or Shuwa-chan (シュワちゃん, what the Japanese call Arnie)? Let’s take this and run with it for a moment (and please don’t bring any parallels with Sarah Palin and her beauty contest).

To tell you the truth, I was just starting to find Japanese politics interesting again. The big thanks go to our current charismatic PM, Taro Aso. First they portrayed him as uneducated when he misread some Kanji (hell, I do that all the time). Then they portrayed him as being insensitive as he publicly trashed both the medical community and pensioners which I might point out happen to be two key sources of votes for the LDP (yeah!).

Fujikawa on the campaign trail

Bet lets put aside the face value of his comments (although I must say I tend to agree with some of them) and focus on what was going on inside his brain. This is a man who is being honest with the public. Making controversial statements is a helluva lot better than consistently lying to voters with unrealistic promises around election time. Remember this is also a politician who openly admitted he was a Manga Otaku. Sure, I think that’s a little weird but who cares. He’s not hiding anything in the closet.

The kind of politician who is willing to speak out against large groups of his own supporters, is the same kind who will have the balls to announce an unpopular policy for the good of the nation (like raising the consumption tax in three years time). Aso’s problem though is that he doesn’t have enough support. He’s missing the Fujikawa mandate. Unfortunately that is going to rob us (Japan) of a politician willing to make tough decisions. In fact it has already started. The moment that Aso’s popularity fell below 40%, his mandate disappeared. The Dons of the LDP started rebuffing – one by one, each of Aso’s decent proposals – the consumption tax, tobacco tax, etc etc. Oh, and you guessed it, the only thing they let him hang on to was the evil ばらまき (baramaki, blatant handing out of cash to electorates in order to win votes) in a desperate attempt to try and win votes when the parliament is dissolved early next year. Japan can’t afford to rob the the 埋蔵金 (maizokin, the reserves previous governments had made in order to repay government debt as it reaches maturity in the future) grave. Stand up, Aso. Put on your bikini! And film a sexy DVD in the beaches of Aomori… for the people of Japan!

Yuri Fujikawa In front of Hachinohe Shiyakusho

For those of you who haven’t been keeping up with the chatter on 2-channel, Yuri Fujikawa (official homepage, official blog) is a 28 year old female member of the Hachinohe (八戸) local government. She’s officially an independent but is a member of the Liberal Democratic Club (自由民主クラブ, jiyuminshukurabu) and officially campaigned with Abe in the upper house election in 2007 so it’s fair to say has a reasonable amount of LDP in her blood. In Japan’s true “tall poppy syndrome” style, she’s been criticized as being “too pretty” to be a politician. Who cares? No-one said that about Koizumi when his good looks attracted a lot of young female voters to vote for the first time. Fujikawa alienated the local pollies who had supported her Dad when she suddenly released a gravure DVD and photo book (写真集) to promote the town. Come on! The town is filled with conservative old fogies and colloquially referred to as a bee’s fart (蜂の屁, hachinohe) – it needs a bit of publicity – Good on her!

The key point here is whether or not Fujikawa is contributing to her local electorate or not. And I don’t mean by cheering up recently risutora-ed (リストラ, fired) local salary-men with shots of her cleavage (although undoubtedly a welcome side effect). As far as I can tell, she’s using her new found popularity to raise citizens’ awareness of local issues and push through policies to turn Hachinohe into on of Japan’s most environmentally forward thinking towns. Other issues that Fujikawa is pushing include as local health care, aged care and disaster prevention. No qualms there from me. She’s also been quite outspoken on the issue of the expected negative economic impact of extending then Shinkansen past Hachinohe.

While it is a little less obvious, she seems to have taken an interest in food and recently appeared at a cooking demonstration for the local consumer group, Tampoponokai (dandelion club, たんぽぽの会). Contrary to rumor, I believe that she was wearing clothes beneath the apron at the time.

Much to the chagrin of her denouncers, even if Fujikawa wasn’t contributing to policy, she’s still probably doing her electorate a favor. After all, look at the huge impact that Sonomanma Higashi (そのまんま東) has had on Miyazaki Prefecture’s economy. All he did was effectively use his popularity to appear on nationwide TV and publicize his hometown. It’s a shame that Japan still isn’t advanced enough to appreciate a female doing the same thing.

And to me, the biggest irony is that the DVD footage isn’t even that sexy. It’s clearly been a while between innings for the old fogies in Hachinohe if they think that it is erotically provocative. I doubt that many of the Chinese newspaper reporters that have been making a big fuss (here and here) have shelled out the 4,000 yen to see it either. There are rumors going around that she appeared on a TV Asahi show before she was elected where women fight Sumo battles in the snow in their bikinis (雪上ビキニ相撲). Now that would be provocative. Here are some screen grabs of her in the snow in her bikini, but if anyone has the footage please leave us a link below in the comments section – we’d love to see it.

So, what do you think of her? Here is the full footage of her DVD. Does it turn you on? Would you pay 4000 yen for it? Would you vote for her?

Yuri Fujikawa DVD – Part 2:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Yuri Fujikawa DVD – Part 3:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Yuri Fujikawa DVD – Part 4:

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Yuri Fujikawa DVD – Part 5:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Yuri Fujikawa DVD – Part 6:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Yuri Fujikawa DVD – Part 7:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Yuri Fujikawa DVD – Part 8:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Yuri Fujikawa DVD – Part 9:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Yuri Fujikawa DVD – Part 10:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Yuri Fujikawa DVD – Part 11:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Yuri Fujikawa DVD – Part 12:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Yuri Fujikawa DVD – Part 13:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Yuri Fujikawa DVD – Part 14:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Yuri Fujikawa DVD – Part 15:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Yuri Fujikawa DVD – Part 16:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Yuri Fujikawa DVD – Part 17:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Yuri Fujikawa DVD – Part 18:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Yuri Fujikawa DVD – Part 19:

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Yuri Fujikawa DVD – Part 20:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Aso: Just what is he worth? Stippy investigates how Japan's politicians (legally) hide their true wealth from the public, and pay incredibly low taxes on their real estate in the process

For a start, in Japan there is no need to disclose any bank deposits that are on call. With Japanese interest rates as they are, something like 60% of all deposits in the banking system are on call so it’s likely that our friendly politicians also have a reasonable amount of cash stashed away in perfectly legal domestic bank accounts that we don’t know about. Furthermore if they are smart enough to cancel their teiki yokins (term deposits) a day before the first day that they are sworn in and shift the cash to their futsu koza (Savings Account) then we will be none the wiser. I’m assuming that the main reason for disclosing cash balances is to look for sudden and large changes which might smell of bribery, so with interest rates in Japan being almost the same for term deposits and savings accounts, there should be no reason why one has to be disclosed, and the other not. Seems like a gaping loophole that has been left open on purpose to me. Given the large expenditure associated with most political behaviors, I doubt if we would really notice with a once a year snap shot anyway, but clearly we have absolutely no transparency without seeing all deposit information. Who on earth came up with this rule? It is astounding.

And then there is land. For those of you who didn’t read it, you might be interested to read that Aso is the biggest land owner in the cabinet. He has a total of over 25,000m2 of land dotted across the country in four locations (five if you include his wife’s rental property in Setagayaku). Will he will really be representing the average Japanese battler. But what caught my interest this time was where he owns the land and how much he’s claiming it is worth. While I’m not an expert on his rice paddies in Fukuoka, I do know a little about central Tokyo real-estate. Does this man really own 2,215m2 of real-estate in Shibuya? That is over 700 tsubo (this being the Japanese way to measue land area, where one tsubo – or “坪” – is about 3.3 square meters)!! For people who haven’t been looking at Tokyo real-estate recently, I can tell you that anything over 150m2 is unusual in central Tokyo and people usually drop their jaws when they hear that to own property near the station at Den’enchofu (田園調布) you have to own a minimum of 100 tsubo (330 m2. Yes, the law says that you cant own a block of land smaller than this withing thre reaches of the station!) We’re talking 7 times the “very rich” factor.

Let’s just assume that the newspaper was correct and he does own 700 tsubo of land in Shibuya. According to a source of mine (and a bunch of police offices suddenly standing guard outside his property since he became PM) I’m lead to believe that Aso’s property isn’t just anywhere in Shibuya, it’s in Shoto (松涛)! Shoto is the area to the West of NHK between Shibuya and Harajuku which is known to boast some of the most expensive residential property prices in the country. If you have a spare 600 million yen, you might want to check out Mikitani-san’s old apartment (ala Rakuten fame) there which is up for sale at the moment near the New Zealand embassy. Yes, you did read right. 600 million yen for an apartment. So I wonder how much Aso’s plot of land is worth – after all that’s what this disclosure is all about isn’t it? Well according to the Nikkei, this huge block of land is worth a whopping 290 million yen. That’s only a touch over 41 men (410,000 yen) per tsubo. Please tell me where I can buy some land anywhere in Tokyo for that price! To put that in to perspective, a quick search on yahoo 不動産 (Yahoo! Japan’s real-estate section) (include a link?) suggests that the going price for houses in that general vicinity is closer to 800 men (8,000,000 yen) per tsubo. Land in Shoto could be worth even more because it is so rare to hit the market. Taking this conservative value, Aso’s land should be worth closer to 5.5 billion yen (that’s about $60 million USD depending on what day you decide to check xe.com).

This is a photo of Aso’s residence. If you click on it, you can scroll around, and check out his ‘hood on Google. He lives right next door to the Embassy of New Zealand (maybe that’s why his land is so cheap!):

Prime Minister Aso's house - We value it at 5.5 billion yen, but the PM says it's worth only 290 million. Now that's disclosure!

He’s really doing Japan a service with his friendly disclosure. I wonder if the average citizen realizes how vastly these property values are understated? Then again, maybe they don’t even care. Apparently the rationale behind the number is that this is the figure used in calculations for the annual property tax that he pays to the government. (固定資産税の課税標準価額). Surely that makes this scam even worse? Not only are they grossly understanding his net worth in such a way that most people in Japan would have little to no understanding of, this also means that he gets away with paying tax calculated on a real-estate value which is only a fraction of what it is really worth. While I’m generally opposed to taxes on real-estate like this in spirit, I can’t see how the PM can justify calculating his tax based on a value of his house which is approximately twenty times understated. I thought Japanese had a socialist taxation system but clearly they aren’t taxing the land owners enough.

To rub salt into the wounds of this disclosure property, his property in downtown Shibuya seems to be deceptively understated also. Taking the value at its face, he clearly lives in a dog house (albeit a 200+ tsubo dog house). The “disclosure” article notes that the building on this property is only worth 9 million yen. Given that it usually costs between 50~100 men (500,000-1,000,000 yen) per tsubo to build an ordinary house then we’re out by a factor of 15~20x. That of course is assuming that his house is of the same quality that you and I would order if we built a house. Has anyone seen what sort of house this Aso lives in? You can get the general picture from the image above, but it is huge! (Not a “mansion” on Japanese standards, but a real mansion!) I’m assuming that the rules allow you to just disclose the fully depreciated value of any buildings and that his house is over 20 years old, but I haven’t been able to confirm this.

If you were hoping to get some stock picking ideas from their share portfolios then you’ll probably be disappointed. Most of the politicians just seemed to own shares in their own family holding companies (“~興産”) and boring blue chips. The most commonly owned stock was NTT (3 pollies), followed by Hitachi, JAL and Nomura (each owned by 2 pollies). Notably no one owned shares in Livedoor which I only mention as one person still seemed stuck with shares in Seibu Rail (西武ホールディングズ), another major Japanese company to be delisted for fraud a few years ago. Most of the other information isn’t of much help although I did get a bit of fun out of comparing car fleets amongst them. While I know that Toyota do make good cars, they felt a little over represented with 10 of the new cabinet members driving one (versus 3x Nissan, 2x Merc (Sato and Hatoyama) and 1x Audi (Aso)). Perhaps Aichi prefecture has more of an impact on Nagatacho than we thought.

It has been almost two weeks since Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe suddenly resigned from office. A press conference was called suddenly, and everyone left the room more confused than when they went in. Abe was silent for over a week, and has only just come out earlier this week, saying effectively that his timing to step down was rubbish, and he for the first time apologised deeply to the nation. In the week after he quit, Abe admitted to hospital for extreme stress and fatigue. But what were the real reasons for his sudden and irresponsible departure, and what happened over his last couple of weeks?

Abe was known is Japanese political circles to be a good guy, with good intentions and a pure heart, the type who will always look after his friends. Coming from a well-known political family, hopes for Abe, the youngest PM for over 60 years, were high when he started the job just over a year ago. However in swift fashion his popularity sunk to (almost) Bush-esque lows, at just 29% the day before he resigned, and he was facing calls from his peers of being immature and incapable of leading the country. Unfortunately it is both Abe’s family history, and his misdemeanours from the past which appear to have come back to haunt him and contributed to his demise.

The first scandal to come to light were reports of a 20 year long relationship the married Abe had with a women in Fukuoka. Abe’s wife read scathing reports about his unfaithfulness, and Abe’s child to this woman through the media, which deepened the rift between a marriage already gone cold. Similarly, this news broke after one of Abe’s most trusted aides drank too much and was showing off to a hostess in a Ginza club, giving away all of Abe’s personal secrets. Even before this however, the Abe family marriage was already in difficult times, and husband and wife would go through long periods of complete silence, having to put in special effort to hold hands for the cameras when getting off the Prime Ministerial jet.

It is also now being reported that Abe was facing severe issues with the Japanese tax office over tax evasion. This is a complicated and dark tale around the whereabouts of assets which Abe inherited from father Shintaro Abe totalling over $100 million in cash and long-term bonds. This is wrapped into a complicated historical story where in the late 1950′s, large pools of money were grouped for political purposes exploiting loopholes around declaration, leading to confusion as to exactly where the funds and the responsibility for them now lies. Shintaro Abe’s long-term friend and closest political ally Shin Kanemaru, known at the time as “the Don of Japanese politics”, was arrested in 1993 for not declaring a large number of long-term bonds he held. The police subsequently raided his house, and found $10s of millions of further assets, including blocks of pure gold believed to have been a gift from Kim Il-Sung, the last dictator of North Korea. Kanemaru stated that these funds were to create a new political party, no doubt with his mate Shintaro Abe. The rumour-mill says that PM Abe had been sent a list of specific questions regarding these funds, and that if he did not answer them before 2pm on September 12, he would face the consequences. Abe resigned at that time.

A week before he resigned, Abe attended the APEC conference in Sydney. According to his aides, Abe was also having various health issues and had difficulties on the trip. Around this time, Abe’s mother Yoko Kishi, who was the daughter of Nobusuke Kishi, PM of Japan from 1957 to 1960, was also admitted into hospital. This increased Abe’s despair, and he was hardly eating by this stage. After returning to Japan, he was taking various medicines, and despite taking sleeping pills, was not able to sleep at all. He would be seen pacing around the PM’s residence at all hours of the night. In the ensuing session in the Diet on the Anti-Terrorism bill, he was said to look “like a dead fish”, and to his opponents long speeches, he would only reply lifelessly for around 15 seconds before sitting down again. His remaining supporters were by this time very worried, and said that he looked even worse than after he took the recent beating from DPJ. The leader of the DPJ Ozawa commented, “I have been in the political world for almost 40 years, and I’ve never seen a politician who has resigned like this.”

His personal, health, and possible tax problems were surely hurting him, his counterparts in the Diet, such as Aso and Mori, were gathering troops and support away from the “Abe-Family”, which Aso himself had helped to create near the beginning of Abe’s reign. Unfortunately by this stage, Abe’s aides were extremely concerned as he just didn’t seem to care about his increasing irrelevance. Not only after he announced his surprise resignation.

What really happened with Abe? Did he really just suffer from 機能性胃腸症、or was it in fact 気のせい胃腸症? And is Japan better off with Fukuda in charge? (There is a great overview on Fukuda’s positions courtesy of Japan Inc here.)

Could the LDP actually lose control of the Upper house in the upcoming election on July 29? While it isn’t a no-brainer that the Democrats steal the majority from beneath Abe’s feet, it is looking more and more likely the way the latest opinion polls are lining up. For those of you who aren’t on top of the current Japanese political situation, half of the Upper House (参議院, sangiin) is up for re-election later this month. Every three years, half of the house comes up for re-election meaning the average member has a term of 6 years. Because the 2001 election was at the height of Koizumi’s popularism, the LDP (his party) overwhelmed the Democrats (the opposition) by 2:1 (66 vs 32 to be precise). However, by the time 2004 came around, the LDP was losing some of its honeymoon-shine and actually won less seats than the Democrats for the first time in history (49:50). So what does that mean? While the Democrat heavy senators elected in 2004 will not be up for re-election, in order to retain its current control on the Upper House, the LDP will have to stage a battle as good as in 2001.

In fact, if they can’t score 64 seats between them and the Komeito, then the Democrats could easily take control of the Upper House this time around. Now that would be interesting. (Komeito currently has 13 members up for re-election. If you assume that their votes are relatively safe due to their connections “upstairs”, then the LDP needs to win 51+ seats – or two more than they did in 2004!)

Even though we Gaijin can’t vote anyway, I always find it fascinating following the process and asking myself the hypothetical question of who I would vote for if I did have the right to vote (sanseiken, 参政権) in Japan. Finally now (how many decades has it taken?), Japanese politicians are starting to realise that they have to speak about their thoughts on policy and we are seeing more and more manifestos coming from the leading parties. But do you really know what each party is supporting? I found a great website this week that helps you compare your political philosophy with that of the key parties. I highly recommend it. As a long-term hater of the LDP, I was quite surprised to see that I was apparently most closely aligned with the New Party Nippon (Shinto Nippon, 新党日本).

The page has been designed by the creative guys at Mainichi Newspaper who went and surveyed 90% of the candidates standing for election in the upcoming elections. After answering 22 simple questions they compare your Philosophy with each of the parties. It’s pretty fascinating. The biggest drawback (surprise, surprise) is that it is all in Japanese. Because I was desperate to hear what the stippy readership thought of it (why bother asking Japanese friends), I decided to translate the entire question list. I’m not a professional translator so there are probably mistakes galore but if you’ve got a spare 5 minutes then I encourage you to print out the list and click the appropriate numbers for each question. If nothing else, your opinion might be reflected in upcoming Mainichi Newspaper articles, which has got to be a positive. Even if you can’t be bothered with the survey, the list of 22 questions does give you a pretty good idea about the issues that Japanese politicians are debating these days. We’d love to hear your views about them to.

HERE IS THE LINK TO THE ACTUAL SURVEY

To begin click on small green button in the middle that says スタート in white katakana, and go through the survey, while referring to the English questions below if you can’t read the Japanese.

Finally click on your sex (first circle is Male, second one is female) and then chose your age group in the pull down box before clicking on the green button in the middle that says “結果を見る”The displayed table shows the % that your view agrees with each other main political parties. In order from top to bottom:

Which party does Mainichi think you support? Did any of the questions above strike you as ridiculous? Help stippy help Japan by giving us your result, and your thoughts on current Japanese policy in the comments below.

Japan reaches for “Planned-Rearming”

Japan has drawn world attention recently due to efforts aimed at increasing her defensive and offensive military strength. Two of the strongest opponents are South Korea and China. In part due to a poor history stemming from WWII and Japan’s strong connection with America, these countries view an armed Japan as a real threat. They often cite history of the war atrocities that Japan can not be trusted with such power, where as Japan stands to reason her military build-up is only a response to the changing political climate that surrounds the island.

While the history of WWII is precedence, it is not an accurate reflection of the current times in Japan. Despite the blind eye Japan turns towards her past violence, there is little evidence to support the fear that history will repeat itself. The youth of Japan remain largely ignorant of the events leading up to WWII and the propaganda the fuelled the war. Whereas the youth of China and South Korean are constantly reminded of how ‘they’ were harmed by the Japanese, failing to mark the drastic differences between the state fifty years ago and the government that controls now.

Putting things into perspective, one might turn towards more modern times and take a closer look at the motives of China and South Korea keep the status quo. According to Foxnews.com “China announced in March it would boost military spending by 17.8 percent in 2007 to $44.94 billion, the biggest jump in more than a decade. But analysts believe the true figure is several times higher.” The annual Military expenditure of the PRC is 3.8% of China’s total GDP (reported) compare this with Japan’s .8% and it’s easy to argue for Japan’s military expansion goal. South Korea’s expenditure rate is 2.7% (2006) over three times that of Japan, however, South Korea’s GPD remains disproportionally low compared against Japan’s. South Korea’s motive might be entrusted between a North Korean, Japan and South Korean love-hate triangle. For as long as Japan stands weak, then South Korea has grounds to made treaties and keep peace with the North. Should the North feel threatened by Japan, they in turn would threaten South Korea, a major bargaining power provided in influence of China and the US.

The stronghold argument for Japan is balance of power. Japan compares her non-nuclear arsenal against that of China’s 150, North Korea’s 5 and South Korea’s enriched Uranium (IAEA’s report 2004). While there is speculation that the US houses mid-range nuclear weapons on bases within Japan, it is clean Japan has no control of the deployment or action of these. I ask of you, the reader, what makes a better argument; history of actions more than 60 years ago or the current state of being? Should Japan start building now, the most they could obtain is slightly defensive status against the unfathomed powers that rise around them. (This article was inspired by a noteworthy picture on Japanprobe: here)

What name will I get?

Although Japan is clearly far behind the west in Women’s lib, the emergence of Doi Takako in the 90s and several female politicians in Koizumi’s cabinet has helped push along the plight of the average Japanese woman. But sometimes there is more to these posts than meets the eye.

Over the past two years, Noda Seiko (one of the old school LDP politicians recently who was targeted by Koizumi’s famous 刺客 assassins) has pushed forward debate about 夫婦別姓 (fufubessei, the right of a husband and wife to have different surnames). The topic has received so much coverage in the press that many Japanese believe that a Japanese woman is now legally allowed to retain a different name to her husband post marriage. Although public sentiment supporting such a change in the law has been above 50% since 2000, ironically, we couldn’t be further from the truth today.

Historically, Japanese couples have been given the choice of which surname they want to keep. It is by no means compulsory to take the husband’s name and in fact, the number of Masuo-gensho （マスオ現象） and gyakutama stories you hear about, makes me think that perhaps accepting one’s wife’s surname is probably much more common than in the West. While there are many women who continue to use their maiden name at work for ease of use, this practice is referred to as a通称名 (tsushomei, pseudonym). To do this legally, one most go to the local ward/city office and register your maiden name as a 通称名. You still can’t use it in official government documents but you can use it on business cards etc. just as an actress might have a 芸名 (geimei, stage name).

So what is wrong with using a 通称? Why don’t you ask Takaichi Sanae’s (高市早苗) husband. When Takaichi decided to stand for parliament 20 years ago she politely asked her husband to divorce her. After building her grass-roots reputation with her maiden name, making a bid for parliament seemed too risky under a completely new name. Remember that, in Japan, you must correctly write the candidate’s entire name on the ballot paper in order to officially lodge your vote. One wrong stroke on a Kanji – such as the difference between 大田 and 太田 is enough to make your vote informal (that is why so many politicians register their names in Hiragana). Apparently she had tried her best to use a 通称名 but ran into too many barriers.

After going through the rigmarole of divorcing her husband on paper, Takaichi was one of the key proponents along with Noda Seiko for trying to legalize fufubessei (夫婦別姓法案). But perhaps she tried too hard? In the new Abe administration, Takaichi has been granted the newly created equal opportunity portfolio (男女共同参画担当大臣, Danjo Kyodo Sankaku Tanto Daijin). Mysteriously, after being made a minister in the new cabinet, Takaichi has gone suddenly quiet about her Fufubessei mission. The PM has not been afraid to comment in public scathingly about the idea:

QUOTE

「わが国がやるべきことは別姓導入でなく家族制度の立て直しだ。」

“Japan should spend time worrying about the state of the family and not Fufubessei.”

With the support of outspoken Nagase Jin’en, (長勢甚遠) the minister for justice 法相, Abe seems to have been able to “buy” Takaichi with a sexy sounding portfolio. It wouldn’t surprise me if the issue doesn’t surface until Abe is out of government. I’m not saying that Japan is wrong in focusing on the state of families in Japan (in fact I support that), but I do think these two issues are mutually exclusive. I wonder what other interest groups Abe has been buying off in this way. It certainly doesn’t strike me as a great way to win the trust of the people in his first days of government.