Japanese Politics

[Toukairin]

Canada being a threat to the US at 20%? Really?

I know we can be mean on the ice when it comes to hockey, but come on.

[Anh_Minh]

I think you're reading the table wrong. 20% of Canadians think the US is the greatest threat. And 12% of Tunisians.

(... do 12% of Americans even know Tunisia's a real country?)

[SeijiSensei]

The Ever-Evolving Importance of Japan’s Coast Guard

https://thediplomat.com/2019/12/the-...s-coast-guard/

As far back as 2007 my former colleague Dick Samuels called the expansion of the Coast Guard's activities "the most significant and least heralded Japanese military development since the end of the Cold War."

The JCG really does cover every area of Japan’s national security – geographically from China to North Korea, and functionally from countering threats to reassuring the public. Both the upcoming policy change [ending] the use of Chinese-made drones and the creation of the new mobile surveillance unit highlight the multifaceted role the JCG will continue to play in Japan’s defenses.

[SeijiSensei]

Saw this today:

Japan: NHK Poll:

Party Support Rate:

LDP (Conservative): 36.1%
CDP (Centre-left): 5.5%
JCP (Left): 3.0%
Komeito (Centre-right): 2.7%
Ishin (Centre-right): 1.6%
DPFP (Centre-right): 0.9%
...
None of these: 41.4%
Don’t know: 7.4%

Sample size: 1238
Fieldwork: 6-8/12/19

So what kind of the party are the "none of the aboves" looking for? A non-Communist party to the left of the CDP?

Love to see the crosstabs by age. Anyone know the source? I see other stories about the poll, but no link to the actual results. They're probably in Japanese, but that's why we have Google Translate.

[Kuroageha]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

South Koreans name China and Japan as their country's greatest threats.

And this excludes the whole LATAM who sees murrica as a threat.

[SeijiSensei]

BBC documentary on laws governing transgender surgery in Japan:

Mariko Oi investigates what is said to be barbaric and inhumane laws over how people can change gender in Japan. Currently in Japan to change gender, people must be sterilised, have gender reassignment surgery, not have any children under the age of 20 and must be single. The government further state you cannot have gender reassignment surgery if you are on any type of hormone replacement - and you must accept the psychiatric diagnosis of "gender identity disorder". Being forced to accept both the surgery and this diagnosis is a hugely controversial subject for the global transgender community. Mariko Oi meets the campaigners fighting to change this law and the people suffering as a result of it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct02rz

[SeijiSensei]

Martin Luther King, Jr., Day celebrated in Hiroshima

https://www.atlasobscura.com/article...l-in-hiroshima

“Hiroshima is one of the only cities outside North America to honor Martin Luther King Day,” historian Patrick Parr wrote in The Japan Times last year. The relationship highlights a lesser-known part of King’s legacy, as an anti-nuclear activist.

It took 30 more years, and a man named Tadatoshi Akiba, for the ties King established to be tightened. Born in Tokyo in 1942, Akiba traveled to the United States to get his graduate degree and stayed there for 18 years, studying and teaching mathematics. After moving back to Japan, he entered politics, and was elected mayor of Hiroshima in 1999.

In the dozens of speeches he made as a diplomat and leader, [Akiba] often resurrected the words and teachings of Dr. King, drawing parallels between the fight for civil rights and the struggle for disarmament. He borrowed King’s phrasing to explain an early project, in which Hiroshima donated cherry blossoms to the United States in exchange for dogwood trees, saying he “had a dream” of diverse people and trees gathered together.

[SeijiSensei]

Approval rate for Abe cabinet marks sharpest fall in 2 years

Support for Abe's government fell eight points between January and February to 41 percent in the wake of the "sakuga" cronyism scandal and the coronavirus.

The disapproval rate stood at 46.1 percent, up 9.4 points, following criticism of the government's handling of documents related to publicly funded annual cherry blossom viewing parties at the center of another allegation of cronyism.

At issue is the opaque selection process for guests, with the government compiling the list of invitees based on recommendations from Cabinet members, including the prime minister, and ruling party lawmakers.

56 percent of those polled opposed amending the constitution to remove its pacifist restrictions. Also 71 percent expect an unfavorable impact on Japan if Donald Trump is re-elected compared to 17 percent who anticipate a favorable impact. Trump has made noises that he might attend the Olympics in response to an invitation from Abe.

https://japantoday.com/category/poli...all-in-2-years

Meanwhile scandals are only worsening.

https://japantoday.com/category/crim...lty-over-fraud

The former head of a nationalist school operator and his wife ... were convicted of defrauding the central government of 56.4 million yen between March 2016 and February 2017 by overcharging for the construction of an elementary school in Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture, on land purchased from the government, according to the ruling.

They were also indicted for unlawfully receiving around 120 million yen in subsidies from the prefecture and the city of Osaka between fiscal 2011 and fiscal 2016 by inflating the number of teachers at their preschool, though Junko Kagoike was found not guilty on this indictment.

[Toukairin]

Please get that PM fired once and for all.

[Guardian Enzo]

Political apathy is so endemic here that the LDP can pretty much do anything and still never lose a national election. It's happened exactly once since they came to power after the war.

Indeed, while I wholeheartedly support Edano and the CDPJ the only credible threat against Abe probably comes from another wing of the LDP. Koizumi's son Shinjiro is the most likely poster boy. Wouldn't really change anything policy-wise, though.

[Magin]

Something I'm finding interesting in Japanese politics: normally, celebrities and other form sof entertainment stay completely out of politics. Apparently, Abe tried to pull a fast one and many are calling him out on it:

https://unseenjapan.com/celebs-manga...s-abe-protest/

Basically, it boils down to this: the Head Prosecutor has reached the age where he's supposed to step down for retirement- 63. PM Abe tried to slide a revision to it extending the retirement age to 65, and also "as further needed". At surface level, this doesn't seem to be a big deal... until you find out that the Head Prosecutor and Abe seem to be on very close terms, and he's also the one who has arguably been responsible for Abe staying in power despite a multitude of scandals recently. Or in other words, he's been PM Abe's shield and Abe is tried to sneak in a revision that would keep him around. Apparently, this caused quite a big protest.

The other bit of news is that this is from last week, and since then, the next move is that PM Abe and the LDP secretary-general have met and agreed this is a revision that needs to be shelved until further notice, with the Coronavirus situation being more pressing

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/20.../#.XsKJxWj7TIU

[Key Board]

Girl and Panzer's director certainly called him out on that.

Girls und Panzer, Shirobako Director Comments on Politics

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/int...litics/.159564

Japan's prosecution process is pretty infamous.

So much that it inspired a whole video game franchise as a commentary on that. (Ace Attorney/Gyakuten Saiban)
The conviction rate in Japan is what, over 95%?

//

[SeijiSensei]

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20810572

The Japanese courts rely on confessions to a degree uncommon in the West.

The who, what, where and when are not enough: a Japanese judge demands to know why. A detective, then, is obliged to get inside his subject's skull - if he fails to do that, he is not considered to have done his job. In reality the only way to do this is by obtaining a confession.

Lawyer Yoji Ochiai thinks it has something to do with the Japanese psyche.

"People traditionally thought that they shouldn't stand up against authorities so criminals confessed quite easily," he says.

"But in the 21st Century, more people - guilty or not - are exercising their rights and wouldn't simply obey and confess."

"The authorities still try to extract confessions using the same methods and that's why they end up pressuring suspects to confess which may have resulted in untruthful confessions," he added.

Japanese society's emphasis on shame and consideration towards their family also plays a role.

[Guardian Enzo]

Abe is so laughably corrupt that even his supporters laugh about it. And it won’t matter, the LDP will continue to run the country basically unopposed as they have for almost all of the last 75 years.

[Magin]

Well, as I understand it, the reason why they run unopposed all the time is because... their "opponents" really just have the exact policies. I'm coming to the realization that if you think Americans are generally bad with being apathetic towards politics (well, at least until Trump)... the Japanese put that apathy to shame. Nothing seems to change in the politics because of the whole "hammered down" culture, unfortunately.

Then we have the current Governor of Osaka- apparently he's VERY different from the mold of most politicians, and there's already speculation on how long his "uniqueness" will last until politics and bureaucracy batter him down too.

[Guardian Enzo]

That's pretty much wrong on every level.

The current largest opposition party - the CDPJ - is a genuinely progressive, left-of-center party. They oppose militarization, favor gay marriage and increased immigration and taxation on corporations, and are very strongly feminist and pro-environment. The problem is that historically Japanese voters have almost never voted for politicians who espouse those positions, and even as the largest opposition party the CDPJ (which is basically the left half of the basically defunct DPJ, which actually did win an election and run the country for a few years) is a tiny force in the Diet.

Yoshimura Hirofumi and his Nippon Ishi party (founded by his mentor Hashimoto Tarou) are, OTOH, a regional clone of the LDP. Like the governor of Tokyo they're really non-LDP in name only, "independent" for the sake of pursuing regional policies and establishing a regional brand. They're corrupt, oligarchist, nationalist and anti-immigration and environment, just like Abe and the vast bulk of the LDP. They're the sort who generally wind up being touted as "alternatives" to the LDP in Japanese politics - when they're really more of the same.

[Magin]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

That's pretty much wrong on every level.

The current largest opposition party - the CDPJ - is a genuinely progressive, left-of-center party. They oppose militarization, favor gay marriage and increased immigration and taxation on corporations, and are very strongly feminist and pro-environment. The problem is that historically Japanese voters have almost never voted for politicians who espouse those positions, and even as the largest opposition party the CDPJ (which is basically the left half of the basically defunct DPJ, which actually did win an election and run the country for a few years) is a tiny force in the Diet.

You're probably far better versed in Japanese politics than I certainly am... but that bolded part is the key as for why so little changes

Yoshimura Hirofumi and his Nippon Ishi party (founded by his mentor Hashimoto Tarou) are, OTOH, a regional clone of the LDP. Like the governor of Tokyo they're really non-LDP in name only, "independent" for the sake of pursuing regional policies and establishing a regional brand. They're corrupt, oligarchist, nationalist and anti-immigration and environment, just like Abe and the vast bulk of the LDP. They're the sort who generally wind up being touted as "alternatives" to the LDP in Japanese politics - when they're really more of the same.

So i went back through this thread... and you raise a VERY good point. Although the things I found are at this point 2~3 years old, Koike was trying to spearhead an opposition party, and it turns out she's as much of a warhawk as Abe is... so not much change there.

Then when they had the election... well, my earlier comment about "opponents" is summed up in this comment about Abe winning the election:

Originally Posted by Key Board

When you admit that what you want is not that different from your rival, you're just conceding to the incumbent

[Magin]

So you know how they say when it rains, it pours?

Senior Prosecutor to resign over gambling scandal

Yeah... same guy who they were trying to get the law modified for, and now he's out... on his own volition.

[OH&S]

^How the bloody hell did that work out? Was he blackmailed or something?

[Magin]

Aaaaand Boom goes the Dynamite, folks.

Note that I will edit this later if it turns out to be false, but it literally just broke on NHK News that Abe Shinzo is stepping down as PM... for the same reasons he did in 2007, I believe. Namely, health reasons.

Of course, I suspect that his handling of Coronavirus, plus the myriad of scandals in the past few years haven't helped (and his approval ratings being extremely low). My only concern is that whoever becomes the next PM... will just be a PM Abe 2.0, for such is how Japanese politics tend to work.