Here’s something that might raise some eyebrows among commentators speculating on the fortunes of the Abe government. According to an FNN poll conducted over the weekend, “nobody” is currently suited to being the Prime Minister of Japan. Of those names put forward in the poll, Ishiba Shigeru gained the most support with just 20.4% of respondents, while PM Abe himself was at 19.7%. Rising star of the LDP Koizumi Shinjirō received just 9.0% of votes, Tokyo Mayor Koike Yuriko garnered 8.9%, Foreign Minister Kishida Fumio took just 5.3%, and bringing up the rear was former Osaka City Mayor Hashimoto Tōru with 3.9%. By way of comparison, 21.6% of respondents said that no-one was suited to being PM at present, which, given the poll indications earlier in the week, demonstrates the degree to which PM Abe’s reputation has taken a hit as a result of the Kake Gakuen and Moritomo Gakuen scandals and the performance of his cabinet ministers. 

PM Abe’s appearance before special sessions of the Lower and Upper House Budget Committees on Monday and Tuesday were meant to provide an opportunity for greater clarification of PM Abe’s knowledge of his office’s involvement with Kake Gakuen, although the result was less than convincing.

For those not in the know (to summarise this article from NHK), Kake Gakuen is the name of an educational institution located in Okayama Prefecture which administers both its home campus along with the Okayama University of Science and the Chiba Institute of Science, along with affiliated high schools and specialist colleges. In January last year, Okayama University of Science made a decision to build a new veterinarian school in the city of Imabari, located in Ehime Prefecture. Imabari had been designated by the federal government as a “special strategic zone” and exempt from many of the usual government regulations applied to the construction of new facilities.

In November last year, a meeting of the National Strategic Zone Committee gave its approval for the construction of a new veterinarian college in Imabari City. When Imabari City announced the development contract for the veterinarian college, only one name was put forward – Kake Gakuen – which was subsequently chosen to build the new facility. 

It subsequently emerged that the President of Kake Gakuen, Kake Kōtarō, is a good friend of PM Abe - both of them met as exchange students in the US in their youth.  This revelation raised suspicions in the mind of opposition parties and the media that perhaps there was more to the Kake Gakuen decision than meets the eye, and perhaps there was a conflict of interest or at least a bit of quid pro quo going on between Kake Gakuen and the federal government.

PM Abe claims that he knew nothing of the decision to develop the veterinarian college until January 20th this year, long after the decision had been made. He also insists that Kake Kōtarō is no more than a friend and that no favours have been pulled for Kake Gakuen. The problem with this explanation is that the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (which is in charge of approvals for new educational facilities) was involved in discussions with the PM’s Cabinet Office from September through to October last year concerning the Imabari college. One of the memos from these meetings stated that they (meaning MEXT) had heard that the PM wanted the approval process confirmed “in the shortest time possible”. Another memo from MEXT also stated that the Cabinet Office had requested speeding up the process “at the highest level”, and that Special Minister Yamamoto Kozo had said that he wanted it “done correctly”.

All of those witnesses who appeared in the special session on Monday denied receiving any directions from PM Abe to favour the Kake Gakuen, and PM Abe reiterated his defence that he knew nothing of the matter until it was brought up back in January (although he did admit that his previous explanation of his relations with Kake Gakuen was lacking in detail). This hasn’t placated the opposition parties, however, who point to the evidence that the PM must have known about the existence of the proposed college and that he had substantial contact with Kake Kōtarō before a decision on the college was made.

As long as this issue continues to dog the Abe government the likelihood of any poll recovery is a long way off.  If support for the government has plummeted so quickly, some deep-seated reservations about the direction of government policy have been lingering within the population for some time and that the current dilemmas have provided the impetus to bring these concerns to the fore.  It’s going to be a rough late summer, no matter how one looks at it.

In a week in which Australian politics has witnessed the resignation from Parliament of two Greens Party senators after discovering that they were dual citizens (a state of affairs banned under Australia’s Constitution, which only allows for Australian citizenship for any MP or senator), news from Japan has brought to light the situation of Democratic Party leader Renho, who herself has admitted to holding dual Japanese and Taiwanese citizenship and who on Tuesday fronted the media in Tokyo to reveal part of her family register.

During the press conference, Renho clarified that in 1985, when she was 17 years old, reforms to Japan’s citizenship laws meant that she acquired Japanese citizenship. At the time she believed that her father had completed the paperwork that permanently renounced her Taiwanese citizenship, yet a subsequent investigation of her citizenship found that this was not the case and that she was still registered as a citizen in Taiwan. When news of this state of affairs was raised by the media in 2016, Renho herself made enquiries to Taiwanese officials and discovered the truth of her situation. In September last year Renho made a public announcement confirming that she had renounced her Taiwanese citizenship,  although she did not reveal the documentation confirming this at the time, citing privacy reasons.

However, the question of Renho’s citizenship was taken up by elements of the media in Japan and the issue continued to hound her during public appearances when it was brought up in the lead-up to the Tokyo metropolitan election. The insinuation that Renho had somehow sought to disguise her dual citizenship, that she was in some way a “security risk” and that as long as she did not publicly reveal the documentation proving she was no longer a Taiwanese citizen that she could not be trusted may have contributed to the Democratic Party’s poor showing in the election. The questions of “loyalty” and the future of the Democratic Party thus came to a head on Tuesday during Renho’s press conference, where her Koseki (family register) record proving her sole Japanese citizenship was revealed for all to see.

During the press conference, Renho stated that it would be the last time that she would be revealing such information in public. The fact that she felt compelled to go public with such proof was in part a response to questions over her position as Democratic Party leader, and to silence intra-party and right-wing criticism of her for not taking such a step earlier. Before the press conference, citizen rights and minority representatives tried to convince Renho to avoid making such a gesture, fearing that it would set a bad precedent for members of other social groups who have experienced discrimination in the past based on their personal information (particularly those belonging to the burakumin class).  Yet as long as the issue continued to be raised it would negatively impact upon Renho’s ability to lead her own party and challenge the otherwise dominant position of the LDP in national politics.  

In the wake of controversy surrounding the involvement of PM and Akie Abe in right-wing educational institutions, verbal gaffes by members of the LDP and the LDP’s loss to the Residents’ First Party in the Tokyo metropolitan election, the Yomiuri Shimbun published an opinion poll on Monday which showed that support for (the second) Abe government has dropped to its lowest level ever, with satisfaction now registering at 36% while dissatisfaction has risen to an all-time high of 52%. Given this state of affairs, and in an attempt to change the discussions taking place in the media on the fortunes of the federal LDP, PM Abe, during a press conference　held in Stockholm which he was visiting following the G20 in Hamburg, declared that a re-shuffle of ministerial positions will take place on August 3rd (Thursday).  Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga and Finance Minister and Deputy PM Taro Aso are expected to retain their positions, however Defence Minister Tomomi Inada is almost certain to be replaced, given her propensity for statements at odds with government policy and electoral protocol.

This latter point was emphasized in a Nikkan Gendai article published late last week concerning the decision by the US to postpone the annual 2+2 defence and foreign affairs dialogue between the US and Japan. The meeting was originally scheduled to take place on Friday this week, however (according to official reports) the fact that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson would be accompanying US President Donald Trump on a visit to France led to the bilateral dialogue with Japan being postponed.  This is highly unusual, given the emphasis that Japan has placed on maintaining strong relations with the US on defence and security issues, and Secretary Tillerson, along with Defence Secretary James Mattis, have both paid visits to Japan in recent months to stress the closeness of bilateral relations with Japan and the need for co-operation between both countries on regional and global issues.

According to the Nikkan Gendai, the reason for the postponement lay in a response given by Defence Minister Inada to a question made during the House of Councillors Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee meeting on June 15. In her response, Minister Inada stated that unless specific co-operation and arrangements based on such co-operation are made with the US, then the conditions for the return of Futenma airbase to Japanese control will not be met and no return will take place (Inada later clarified her remarks by saying that in no way did she envisage Futenma remaining in US hands after the Henoko base had been completed).  

Inada’s response caused a furor within the Okinawan prefectural government, for it was the first time that a defence minister had stated in public that “Futenma will not be returned (to Japanese control)”.  According to Professor Hiromori Maedomari of Okinawa International University, this statement by Defence Minister Inada may have inadvertently leaked details of a secret agreement between the US and Japan, and that even though the Japanese government was busy building a new base at Henoko, ultimately Futenma might not be returned to Japanese (meaning Okinawan) control.

The agreement between the US and Japan for the return of Futenma air base (made in April of 2013) contains eight clauses, although only one of those has so far been achieved (the transfer of KC-130 refuelling aircraft to Iwakuni air base).  Hence there is considerable concern within Okinawa that the federal government may not proceed with the return of the airbase, a situation at odds with the message they have heard from the federal government since 2013 and which ostensibly provided the reason for the development of Henoko base in northern Okinawa (which met with fierce opposition from local residents and where protests continue to this day).  This state of affairs would obviously not be conducive to bilateral talks, especially if the US were asked about the existence of any agreement to retain Futenma, hence the decision to postpone talks until the matter is sorted out seems the least painful way to deal with lingering questions about the base and what both governments do or do not know about its future.  

Last weekend the Tokyo metropolitan assembly election produced a stunning result for the Tomin (Residents) First Party under the leadership of Koike Yuriko. Of the 127 seats in the assembly, Tomin First secured 49, and together with the Kōmeitō (who ordinarily would have aligned themselves with the LDP) and their 30 seats, secured the majority 79 seats, 15 more than that required to form government. The election was also a disaster for the incumbent LDP, falling to a record low of just 23 seats. At a time when dissatisfaction against the LDP has been rising as a result of school funding scandals, the behavior of certain federal LDP members, the Abe government’s introduction of anti-conspiracy legislation and its continued efforts to re-interpret the Constitution, Tokyo residents delivered a very stark message to the LDP that its current course could not continue without serious ramifications at the federal level. It should be noted that it was the victory of opposition parties in the 2009 Tokyo metropolitan election that eventually led to the establishment of a DPJ government under Hatoyama Yukio, a bitter but important lesson for the LDP executive and one that threatens to be repeated.

The first to fall on his sword in the aftermath of the election was LDP Tokyo Metropolitan Branch Chairman Shimomura Hakubun, a close confidant of PM Shinzo Abe and the person responsible for conducting the LDP campaign (during a television interview following the election, Shimomura alluded to comments by Defence Minister Inada and how these may have contributed to the LDP defeat, although he did not lay the blame entirely at Inada’s feet. Others, however, have pointed to a rally attended by PM Abe in Akihabara the day before voting commenced, in which PM Abe, assailed by shouts for him to resign, harangued part of the crowd by first pointing at them and then shouting “There’s no way that we will lose to those people”. Critics later claimed that PM Abe was provoking division when he should be seeking to persuade the citizenry of benefits of his policies).

Perhaps the only party that came out worse for wear from the election than the LDP was the DP, winning just 5 seats. Such a result would ordinarily be fatal for a political party, yet in the current climate expectations are that it won’t have too much of an impact on the DP’s popularity. Indeed the DP may be in for a poll bounce once the Diet resumes and further questions are put to the LDP about PM Abe and the LDP’s links to right-wing educational institutions. In the meantime DP Metropolitan Chairman Matsubara Jin submitted his resignation from that post, and there have been calls for party leader Renho and party secretary, former PM Noda Yoshihiko, to resign, however they have resisted such pressure so far.

So the question now is what does this mean for the Abe government? In the short term it will almost certainly conduct a cabinet reshuffle. The Asahi Shinbun has been examining the appearance fees collected by four members of the LDP who might emerge as a successor to Abe (and who, as a result of Abe’s past popularity, had found it difficult to grab the media’s attention): Ishiba Shigeru, Defence Minister Inada, Foreign Minister Kishida Fumio, and the LDP Agriculture and Forestry Committee chairman Koizumi Shinjirō. However talk of successors is very much speculative, given that Abe is almost assured of being re-elected as party leader in the inter-LDP elections coming up in September. In the meantime the LDP will be doing a fair amount of hansei (反省, often translated as reflection), as we may have just witnessed the first cracks in what was the LDP’s otherwise dominant position in Japanese national politics.

The Hagakure. For many, these words mean very little (unless they happen to have seen Jim Jarmusch's “Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai”, which introduced this work to a broad audience despite the setting of the film in modern day American society). For the world of pre-modern Japan (or more specifically the mid Edo period onwards), the “Hagakure” contained an image of what a warrior should be, how he should behave, and what was expected from him. Yet what was the purpose of this book, for whom was it written, and what did it hope to achieve? While these questions have been addressed in countless academic works, I have found a convenient explanation in a book titled “Gakkō dewa narawanai Edo jidai” (学校では習わない江戸時代) by Yamamoto Hirofumi (published 2000). What follows is a translation of the chapter in Yamamoto's book dealing with the “Hagakure”, which hopefully will shed a bit more light on this influential work of pre-modern Japanese literature.
The “light and shadow” of the way of the warrior (bushidō) as portrayed in the “Hagakure”

Until the discovery of the Yoshinogari ruins, the one historical artefact that made Saga prefecture famous was the “Hagakure”. Even now, people from Saga prefecture take particular pride in what might be termed the “Hagakure spirit”. The Hagakure was written by a samurai of Saga province, Tashiro Matazaemon Tsuramoto, who paid visits to a retired retainer of the province by the name of Yamamoto Jinaemon Tsunetomo (born in 1659), and recorded what Yamamoto told him. Never was a work so suited to the times in which it was written. The basic teaching of the Hagakure is “The way of the warrior is to be prepared for death”. In other words, the way of the warrior means not to fear death, or else be prepared to die for the sake of loyalty. Whether this is true or not is beside the point, and is not that strange in itself, however why did the Hagakure concentrate on “death”? This emphasis is in part a reflection of the character of the book's narrator, Yamamoto Tsunetomo, and other questions that the times dictated. (pg.34)

A way of acting without embarrassing oneself

Tsunetomo, upon the death of the provincial ruler Nabeshima Mitsushige in 1700 (Genroku 13), took the tonsure (became a lay priest) and went into retirement. The Bakufu had already banned the practice of “junshi” (committing suicide upon the death of one's master). On the death of Mitsushige's father Katsushige, 28 samurai of Saga province had followed their master into the afterlife, yet following the death of Mitsushige none chose that path. Rather, Tsunetomo became the only one of his peers to take the tonsure and retire, for which he was held in veneration by those around him. To a young Tashiro Tsuramoto, Tsunetomo said the following…

“The warriors of today all seem to be lax in their behaviour. The reason for this is lies in the fact that if you ask them “what is the way of the warrior?”, none can give you an immediate answer”.

When Tsuramoto's expression conveyed surprise at this response, Tsunetomo continued…

“The way of the warrior is to be prepared for death”.

People prefer life to death; they do not want to die. And the more they want to live, the more cowardly their behaviour becomes, the more they embarrass themselves and in the end they are forced to committ seppuku (ritual suicide). However, those who act while being prepared to die are resolute in their decisions, and even if they find themselves in difficulty they take appropriate action. That was Tsunetomo's lesson. (pg.35)

Almost one hundred years had passed since the end of the era of the warring states. Warriors, rather than dying on the battlefield, had come to prefer dying on a tatami mat. Yet a warriors' logic and behaviour were supposed to be those of fighters. They would get themselves caught up in meaningless fights and die as a result, or else they would be ordered to commit seppuku on the slightest of pretexts. In a time such as this, “the way of the warrior is the way of death” had a ring to it that certainly seemed true. (pg.36)

Yet if you read the entire “Hagakure”, you realise that Tsunetomo was not merely recommending that a warrior embrace death. Instead he spends a lot of his time explaining how a warrior should behave so that he does not embarrass himself. For example, Tsunetomo places a lot of emphasis on spur-of-the moment situations. If you are asked to overpower someone you meet while on the road and you are unable to do so, if you shout “what a hopeless case, are you going to run away?” at your opponent you will keep your dignity. If you are insulted by someone while in your lord's household and your opponent draws his sword, do not draw your sword, but instead send word to the watchman of the following: “Inform our lord, that in deference to the household, of how great my patience is in bearing this insult”. If you do this ahead of time, then you will not be branded a coward.(pg.36)

The contradiction of issuing a reproach (towards one's lord)

Issuing a reproach towards one's lord in order to correct their mistake was, according to Tsunetomo, not something that a lowly ranked samurai should do. This was instead to be performed by an advisor. If you had something you wanted to tell your lord, you first had to approach one of the lord's advisors and tell him your concerns. In Tsunetomo's view, it was preferable that one shut one's mouth and perform one's duty until one became an advisor. Yet for warriors, if they thought their lord was making a mistake, then it was surely preferable to issue a reproach given that one was risking one's life. Even if it wasn't one's place, it was not something that you could entrust to another person to say on your behalf. (pg.36)

Of course, a reproach is not something you can do half-heartedly, yet by “acting as though one were already dead”, aren't you already doing something half-heartedly? Tsunetomo's way of thinking was thus very convenient for one's lord.

So the idea that the “way of the warrior is the way of death” means that a warrior is supposed to give up on logic and choose the path in which there is a high probability that he will die. So even if you die without achieving your aim, at least you have not shamed yourself. These are, admittedly, quite careless words. The “carelessness” or irresponsibility of the Hagakure, or adopting a position whereby you cease thinking about your actions, was highly praised during the Second World War. And of course it was. In a war in which thinking about your actions would lead to questions, soldiers who didn't think and who would “quickly die and be done with” became a necessity. (pg.37)

So the “Hagakure war of the warrior”, which dictated that one should accept the above philosophy without questioning its validity and that those lower on the social scale should just follow along, was very convenient for those higher on the social ladder. And yet the original purpose of “bushidō” was not that contained in the Hagakure. (pg.37)