My opinion of this week(589):
The last cabinet of Liberal Democratic Party of Japan
Fukuda Yasuo, an indecisive Prime Minister, reshuffled finally his cabinet and
executive members of Liberal Democratic Party on Friday. The most important
point of rushuffle is the apointment of Tarou Asou, No.2 man in the party, for
secretary general of LDP. The morning issue of Asahi Newspaper on Saterday hit
the headling saying the reshuffule is obvisous shift for coming general
election. The headline goes with my general observation,
Top opposition front, Democratic Party of Japan seems to welcome the
appointment of Taro Asou for the secretary general for they have been afraid
that Prime Minister Fukuda would be replaced by Asou Tarou as next candidate
of Prime Minister if Yasuo Fukuda resigned in one way or the other. DPJ would
be in more difficult position in general election provided that Asou Tarou
who is very popular among general public succeeded Yasuo Fukuda. The
appointment of Taro Asou as the secretary general of LDP at this time denied
that possibility. The general election would be made by the hand of Yasuo
Fukuda, whoes cabit is facing to very low popular rate at the moment.
The most characteristic features of reshuffle at this time is very distinctive
balance taken to avoid various discontents from a number of factions in the
party. All of former executive members of the party, such Bunmei Ibuki,
Sadakau Tanigaki, Toshihiro Nikai and so forth has been appointed to several
important cabinet members. There are only little dissatisfaction heard from
inside of the party.
Another features is appointment of Koaru Yosano for State minister for economic,
fiscal policy, who is a strong advocator of the necessity of finance reform of
this country. His appointment is to avoid the criticism from inside and outside
of the party that Fukuda Cabinet is getting out from financial reform line
facing to many serious financial difficulties in the field of social
securities and other fields directory concerned with life of people.
Nobutaka Machimura, Cabinet Secretary General, stressed the point at press
conference that the ressufle made at this time is to proceed a number of
important pilicies for the life of peple and not to made for preparing coming
general election. But his saying sounded in vain.
How can the new administration attain many of those difficult polices under
the curent political environment? Prime Minister Fukuda still underestimates
the power of House of Coucils. The censure resolution aganst Fukuda Cabinet
was voted in June at the House of Councils. It is very possible the House of
Council will deny any quesition and answer session with him in the diet debate.
It is expected that Koumeitou Party will not agree to pass some important bills
again at House of Representative by 2/3 of majority vote although the bill
would be turned down at the House of Councils as in the past. It is because
Koumeitou Party now realize how such action will get severe criticism from
general public in the election.
Fukuda Cabinet is now a lame duck from any point of views. The new cabinet
may recover several popular rate points for just a while, but they will
face to a very difficult situation once new diet session start sometime in
September as I stated above.
I just wonder why Japanese mass media and general public are so generous
about such stance of Fukuda Cabinet. I have kept saying this for many times
since the born of Fukuda Cabinet. Both two terms of Abe Cabinet and Fukuda
Cabinet got no vote of confidense since the general election three years ago.
The ruling fronts lost their majority at the House of Concils last summer.
It is very obvious that Prime Minister Fukuda should dissolve the House of
Representative at the soonest possible time. It is only a way to avoid further
political chaos in this country.
2008/8/2
Tadashi HAYASE
My opinion of this week(590):
The sixth safety for people
At Beijing's request, the Fukuda administration did not inform the public
about a poisoning outbreak in China involving frozen "gyoza" dumplings,
Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said in the press interview. China's
Foreign Ministry informed the fact to Japanese Embassy in Beijing in
early July that several Chinese people fell ill after eating gyoza made
by Tianyang Food in question.
"There's nothing wrong with what we did. We did not open the fact until
today to corporate China to investigate the case", Komura declared
Thursday in a press interview. According to Komura, Beijing asked Japanese
government not to disclose the matter on grounds an investigation was under
way and that revealing the information would hinder it.
He continued to say that Japanese government appreciate this notice from
Chinese government.
I cannot agree with Koumura's explanation and stance of Prime Minister
Fukuda on this issue. Why did they not disclose the fact? Is it to avoid
hindrance to make through investigation about the case? No, I don't think
so. Chinese government must have avoided to provide the bad effects for
Olympics to be held soon. If the case was disclosed before starting Olympics,
that would provide another big blow for the image of Beijing Olympics because
mass media in the world would report the seriousness of food safety of this
country.
I cannot say much about such stance of Chinese government. China is still
such a communist country that keep some things in secret which are usually
opened for general public in democratic country. Is Japan a communist country
or democratic country? The answer is obvious. There is no reason why such
important information is not to kept in secret for some unreasonable reason.
When the second Fukuda cabinet started, Prime Minister Fukuda named his
cabinet "five safety & security giving cabinet". I would like to suggest Fukuda
to add one more factor of safety to those five. The sixth safety is to keep
any secret of neighbors to fulfill their satisfaction.
I am kidding myself, of course. But Prime Minister Fukuda and Foreign Minister
Koumura are practicing this bad jokes by themselves. Their top priority is not
the safety of people of their own country but the protection of China's
interest to avoid any bad images for the success of Beijing Olympics.
The Beijing Olympics started last night, although I watched TV a little bit,
the opening ceremony was really great and fantastic. China is a such a big and
great country. People in the world must have been impressed with it.
I dare not to say that's fine. At seven O'clock TV news of NHK last night
Fukuda will meet Hu Jintaog, the president of China and discuss gyoza
dumplings case before or after the opening ceremony. That's all about the
case. No other serious arguments were heard from any other mass media. It
seems that no other foreign media reported the case so far as I know.
The matter will be picked up later more seriously in Japanese political
world later on when diet session starts in late August or early September.But
the timing is so bad. I cannot personally wipe out a serious sense of
distrust against China government and more crucial distrust especially
against Fukuda cabinet on this issue.
2008/8/9
Tadashi HAYASE
My opinion of this week(591):
Excitement of gold medal won by Japanese women's softball team
In one of the biggest upsets in Olympic history, Japan downed the United States 3-1
Thursday night to win its first gold medal in softball. I was watching live
TV game at first. But I never expect Japanese team can win over US team at last.
US team were so strong and Japanese team had already been defeated by US in
preliminary games. US team have got gold metals in all Olympics game since
women's softball game started in Olympics.
What's more, Yukiko Ueno, ace pitcher, pitched over 310 balls in two games
in previous day. She must have been tired very much. It looked very difficult
for her to protect loosing some big runs from powerful US hitting capacity.
It was just all of my personal and emotional observation any way.
I talked to myself watching TV. "Silver medal is good enough. Japanese women
soft ball team have done really a good job in this Beijing Olympics game." I
could not endure to watch the scene that Yukiko Ueno was knocked out by US
team. I switched off TV and went into sleep in early night hour. That is my
ordinal sleeping pattern at any rate.
I waked up very early morning on Friday and started my daily routine to
check various net news. I was so exited to find the news that reported
the victory of Japanese team over US. I could not help clapping in front of
PC. Great! Wonderful! I was so excited about the news. The excitement
was filled all over the country on Friday early in the morning. I repeated
to watch the TV scene over and over again.
Two gold medals won by Kousuke Kitajima was another big excitement, of course
But the excitement at this time was much bigger in every sense of word.
Olympics game will be over tomorrow and Japanese team will be able to come
back to Japan with a great pride owing to this victory. But I am not just
talking about whether it is a victory or loss.
I was impressed with the comment made by the manager of US Softball team.
He said and I quote: " I took off my cap for Japanese team and congratulate
them for such a fine job. We tried to do our best but Japanese team played
much better. Small but tactful works are always necessary to win in any
games. We cannot attain such works in this game. Sometimes we win, sometimes
we loose. That happens in any sports."
'' That happens in any works in our life .'' I want to rephrase the message
this way. It's a great lesson to be learned for any one. There is no absolute
victory or no absolute loss in any scene of our life. Sometimes we succeed
and sometimes we loose in any games in any works.
I personally feel something wrong with such an excessive excitement about the
result of Olympics games. All mass media talked too much about the number of
medals each countries got in Olympic. Winners are always great heroes and
heroines. Losers are not blamed but tend to be forgotten.
But I don't think that is not the way it is. Winners are to be praised.
Looser are to be comforted and encouraged to challenge again. Let's applaud
all players, winners or losers, when they come back to Japan.
2008/8/23
Tadashi HAYASE
>
My opinion of this week(592)
Two Democratic Parties
Denver convention to appoint the candidate for the presidential
election in November has finished by nominating Senator Barack Obama
. Obama accepted the nomination making a splendid speech to close the
convention in which 80,000 party members got together. The whole process
was such a long and hard one. The battle by Obama and Clinton groups have
been very hard and severe.
The whole process displayed a big cracks in the party. But Senator Hillary
Clinton appealed to unify the party by saying "No What, No How, No McCain".
Her speech was very impressive. There was a kind of big crack between Obama
group and Clinton group but her speech must have removed a big portion of
such crack.
Such dramatic scene in election campaign was not first time at all. I
watched same kind of dramas in many election campaigns to select candidates
from two major parties and to elect president oneself. Two or some more groups
fight really hard during elections including some strong personal attacks
against opponents. But when the election ends, losers stop saying any more
criticisms against winners and congratulate winners for their victory.
It is a long established and traditional rule in US and in many other
democratic countries in the world. It seems that such a good and favorable
tradition has not been embedded in Japanese society yet unfortunately.
In Japan, the selection of the president of Democratic Party of Japan is
under way. The president will be selected at the Party convention to be
held on September 21. Ichirou Ozawa will be reelected to the President in
the convention without any votes by diet members and party representatives
from all districts of the country.
There exists some strong criticism against such selection process even
inside and outside of party. Tarou Asou, general secretary of Liberal
Democratic Party criticized that such way of selection without any
vote is not democratic at all. A number of mass media made same kind
of criticism about it.
I personally think that such an important position is to be selected
through election to present debates by at least two candidates on some
important manifests of the party in front of people of Japan. Lawmaker
Yoshihiko Noda tried to stand for the election but he finally gave up
for he could not gather sign of 20 supporters. There exists some strong
feeling in the party that any of such election will provide minus effects
which creates some impression of lacking unity of the party. I understand
such worry to a great extent as well.
It is true that Japanese people dislike any of such severe debates and
arguments even on any policy matters . They are more emotional than
logical. This is unfortunately true with mass media. While they say the
importance of election by votes, they tends to stress the disparity in
the opinion inside of DPJ in the party.
There exists a clear and opened selection rule and process of the president
of the party and the executive committees of the party never tried to avoid
election and to stop anyone to stand for the candidate. No one including
opponents parties and mass media cannot say any criticism about the decision
process of the President of DPJ at this time.
The reason for such election process derives from the fact that stage of
development of democracy in this country has not reached to the level of
that in the US.
The fact that there have been no change of powers by any major political
parties in the past 60 years after the War in Japanese politics is very
serious problem of this country. Liberal Democratic Party has monopolized
the power throughout those long years. I believe that this is the whole
reason and background why Japanese politics today is in such a lame duck
situation.
The development of Japanese democracy can be attained only by the overall
victory and change of power by DPJ in coming general election. In other
word, it is must for Japanese politics to establish two parties system
as soon as possible. The selection process of President of DPJ is just
a trifling matter as a matter of fact from this total needs for Japanese
politics today.
2008/8/30
Tadashi HAYASE
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