Weekly Highlights from the Japanese Press No. 14
From the Sankei Shinbun for June 17 through June 23
Weekly Highlights from the Japanese Press No. 14
From the Sankei Shinbun for June 17 through June 23
June 17
During a meeting in Fasano, Italy on June 14, Prime Ministers Meloni and Kishida Fumio initiated negotiations for an Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA) between the armed forces of Italy and Japan. They also agreed to an Action Plan to be completed by 2027 with items spanning seven areas in the fields of foreign policy and national security, including yearly “strategic talks” between the foreign ministries of the two countries, regular talks between foreign policy and defense officials, and further strengthening of cooperation between the two and the UK for the development of next-generation fighters.
The war in Ukraine and abnormal weather, as well as the weakened yen have brought to the fore the weaknesses of Japan’s food national security. There have been attempts to switch to locally produced alternatives by restaurants, convenience store chains, and other makers and sellers of food, but these have not been entirely successful, e.g. in the case of salmon, tuna, and livestock feed, Japan is dependent on imports. According to statistics from 2022, Japan is only able to meet 26% of its livestock feed needs and is reliant on exports for the rest. The recent five-year extension to and revision of the The Special Law on Emergency Measures for the Improved Management of Agricultural Production and Processing that will come into force on July 1 contains provisions for the establishment of special support measures, including reduced taxes and low-interest loans from government financial institutions, for food makers that handle imported ingredients the prices of which have notably increased. At the same time, some companies have been taking advantage of the weakened yen and the popularity of Japanese food abroad to export ingredients like sushi rice, Japanese alcohol, and other such goods.
Sano Keisuke, section chief at Nomura Sōgō Kenkyūjo NRI Singapore, argues that although there have been some moves to use locally produced ingredients, they have been partial, and it is unlikely that a full return to domestic production will come about as a result of this.
According to a lengthy opinion piece penned by Kawai Masahiro, an editor at the Sankei, the major causes of the declining birthrate are 1. A decline in the number of women of childbearing age; 2. The rapid and constant fall in the overall marriage rate; and 3. Economic uncertainty. As ideal fertility for married couples is 2.25 and realized fertility is 1.90, the government policy of increasing support for children that have already been born is mistaken. The government cannot do anything to increase the number of women of childbearing age in the immediate term, but it can and should do something to eliminate the various factors that lead to marriages not forming and children not being born. In the immediate term, the government should seek to slow the rate of population decrease, prevent the collapse of social functions through digitalization and automation, and learn from “wealthy small countries” by developing an area of industry in which it can compete globally. This means the radical restructuring of Japanese society.
June 18
The LDP and the Kōmeitō won a majority of seats in the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly elections held on June 16, defeating the supporters of Governor Tamaki Denny and putting his anti-Henoko base one-issue regime in a difficult position. Many Okinawans are in fact critical of his governorship, and this election is seen as a harsh judgment against him.
Professor at Nihon Daigaku Senzaki Akinaka contributes an opinion column to this issue in which he uses late eighteenth and early nineteenth century kokugaku scholar Motoori Norinaga’s investigation of the essence of Japan to suggest that, although Japan has temporarily been included in a system of alliances that includes the United States and the West more broadly, this is not the historical norm in the region. The regional historical norm is the overwhelming power of China and the peripheral position of Japan, from which the Japanese, while taking in Chinese influences, have always debated what it means to be specifically Japanese.
June 19
In the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly elections Governor Tamaki Denny’s faction was utterly defeated. The LDP and Kōmeitō won 27 seats, giving them an absolute majority, a neutral faction won one seat, and the pro-Tamaki parties, including the Japan Communist Party and the SDP, won only twenty seats.
According to a poll jointly conducted by the Sankei Shinbun and FNN on June 15 and 16, of non-affiliated voters, who make up 47.9% of those polled, 59.9% want Kishida to be replaced after his term ends in September, 28.2% want him to be replaced immediately, and only 9.0% want him to continue after September, while in addition 49.2% want the current ruling coalition to be replaced by the opposition, 33.0% want the current ruling coalition to remain in power, and 17.8% want something else. Of the non-affiliated voters polled, 57.3% said they do not know or have not decided who they will vote for, 11.4% that they will vote for the LDP, and 11.0% that they will vote for the CDP. 23.9% of self-described LDP voters voiced opposition to Kishida’s government, more than double the 9.1% who expressed opposition during polling in October 2021. Of all those polled, only 76.6% said that they would vote for the LDP.
The Okinawa Prefectural Assembly elections held on June 16 mark the first time in sixteen years that the LDP and Kōmeitō have won a majority there, very welcome good news at present, when the LDP has come under fire. In addition to opposing the shifting of the Futenma US airfield to Henoko, Governor Tamaki Denny is known for having failed to mention Chinese violations of Japanese waters during his visit to China in July 2023. With the LDP-Kōmeitō victory, the legal battle to prevent the shifting of the airfield is likely to come to an end, although it is unlikely that the proposed JGSDF base in Uruma will be built, due to opposition from the local LDP chapter.
June 20
One of the editorials for this issue takes issue with the Keidanren’s support for the introduction of voluntary retention of maiden names after marriage. The editors say that this will mean the dissolution of the family name into mere surnames for individuals, raise thorny issues like which surname children should take, and potentially bring about the severing of ancestral links represented by these surnames. They express agreement with the view expressed by the Japan Supreme Court that any national decision taken regarding surnames should be made on the basis of the traditions of the country and the feelings of the people.
On June 18, proposed revisions to the Local Autonomy Act that would give the state the power to issue orders to local governments in times of emergency provided that these orders be subsequently reported to the Diet were passed by the House of Councillors General Affairs Committee.
June 21
On June 19, proposed revisions to the Local Autonomy Act that would give the state the power to issue orders to local governments in times of emergency provided that these orders be subsequently reported to the Diet were passed by the House of Councillors by a majority vote including the LDP, the Kōmeitō, Nippon Ishin no Kai, and the PDP. In order to preserve local autonomy, orders issued under this law will be special decrees that have no legal force subsequent to the emergency. Although the opposition called for the inclusion of a requirement that the state conduct prior discussions with local governments, no such provisions made it into the final bill. All decrees issued under this law will have to be approved by the unanimous vote of the Cabinet prior to implementation.
In a column entitled “Pardon My Extreme Statements,” commentator Ahiru Ruhi uses the recent interview with Korean economist Chu Ikchon1, author of The Final Conclusion to the Anti-Japanese Racist “Comfort Women Problem” in which he argues that claims that the comfort women were “forcibly mobilized” “sex slaves” are “made-up fictions,” as a springboard to attack the broader comfort women narrative. He brings up quotations from former members of the Japanese army who had contact of some kind with them and were typically told by the girls that they were there working temporarily in order to make money for their families, from soldiers and historian Hata Ikuhiko who say that the majority of active duty policemen in the area were Koreans, and uses this to argue that claims of “forced mobilization” and “sexual slavery” are false. He criticizes his opponents for relying exclusively on the words of victims and ignoring those of perpetrators. He also brings up the case of Korean critic Oh Seonhwa, who, after stating during a panel discussion held in Korea in January 1997 that, although she belongs to a generation that received vehement anti-Japanese education, when she was young she was told that women from poor families were sold to pleasure quarters, but never heard the term “comfort women.”
June 22
Se Teruhisa contributes an opinion piece called “What A Conservative Political Party Should Aim For.” He argues that LDP politicians have allowed themselves to be swayed by “globalization” and since the latter half of the 1990s have been prioritizing the demands of global investors and corporations over the voice of the common people. He says that the role of the LDP is to be the receptacle for the normal, average Japanese who want to preserve the traditions, culture, and values of Japan, and says, giving Oren Cass as an example, that there are many conservatives in the West who want to revise the policy of promoting globalization to give more importance to stabilizing the livelihoods of the people.
June 23
On June 21, at a meeting of the LDP Alliance of Diet Members in Support of Constitutional Revision put forth a creative new draft revision. The proposed revision would, alongside previously discussed measures to strengthen the power of the Cabinet and automatically renew terms of Diet members during a crisis, delete Paragraph Two of Article Nine of the constitution, which specifies that Japan shall possess no land, sea, or air forces, and replace it with the following: “Japan shall, for the sake of the protection of the peace and independence of our country, possess a Self-Defense Force.” This is a departure from the 2018 proposal, which would have added a new section to Article 9 clarifying the status of the SDF, without deleting any of the presently existing sections. The new proposal is currently under consideration for submission to the LDP Executive.
From the June 16 issue:
Korean economist and author of The Final Conclusion to the Anti-Japanese Racist “Comfort Women Problem” in which he argues that claims that the comfort women were “forcibly mobilized” “sex slaves” are “made-up fictions” Chu Ikchon gave the Sankei Shinbun an interview in Tokyo on June 14. His basic assertion is that, although it is true that quite a few Korean women from poor households were handed over to middlemen by their parents and forced to sign contracts and work as prostitutes, the claim that large numbers of Korean women were forcibly mobilized by the Japanese military to work as “sex slaves” is false. The claim originates not with Korean activists, but with Japanese researchers like Professor Emeritus at Chūō University Yoshimi Yoshiaki. Chu claims that he used the same documentary evidence that they did to come to different conclusions, and that if they are real scholars, they should answer his objections. Further, he holds that the most important thing is for the comfort women not to be made into an issue in relations between Japan and South Korea.