My opinion of this week(257):

Koizumi's poor decision

 I planned to write about the dispute between Foreign Minister Tanaka and
Deputy Secretary General of Foreign Ministry concerning two NGOs' 
participation to Afghan Reconstruction Meeting in Tokyo. The issue have
ended up with resignation of three concerned people including two above
and Muneo Suzuki, Lawmaker of LDP who is said to influence to have the
Ministry to stop participation of two NGOs to the meeting. Many things 
have already been discussed on the happening, but I want to comment
just a few very important points as necessary. 
　
 At news conference after his decision on dismissal of three personnel's,
Prime Minister Koizumi admitted his mistakes on the judgement about the
case with the following comments.

 "I think it is just a kind of small issue inside of the Foreign
Ministry. But it became a big issue of the Diet. That is a difficult
part of politics. There always exists darkness just a few inch ahead
as far as political world is concerned. "

 Then, he continued to say :" The popular vote for our cabinet will
decline because of this. But I will go on to conduct structural reform."
 
  Since his appointment to Prime Minister, I personally agreed with his
assertion on structural reform. I have written the support for the
need of reform in many ways. At the same time, I have casted　a
doubt about his stance and the process of performing the reform.
He has repeated a number of compromise with the pressure groups of
ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Many reform plans have just been
postponed due to his rather weak stance on the reform. 

 The above comment at the news conference just represent the summary
 of　his weak stance on the reform. 

  The issue happened at this time between Tanaka and Nogami is not
just an issue of inside of the Foreign Ministry as Koizumi mentioned.
That is the basic issue of the organization and the total issue of
governance of the state. It is Foreign Minister Tanaka raised that
basic and very important issue. It is Prime Minister Koizumi who
tried to make it only a small issue.

  Some confusion raised at Diet is not quite serious. Some delay
of discussion about second supplementary budget for year 2001 is
not a big problem. It is important for Diet to clarify the fact
behind these two NGOs issue. The dismissal of three personnel's
is not the answer to the critical question raised at this time.

 New reports said Koizumi admitted his mistakes on his judgment
on this issue. But the problem is not whether or not he made mistakes
in his judgment. The problem is with his stance and his basic
process as to how he proceed many of structural reforms which he
insisted to conduct. Although his strong assertion on the reform,
he has repeated a number of compromise with pressure groups of 
ruling LDP prolonging many of reform plans. 

 Such result at this time can be predicted in a way from the 
beginning. Koizumi insisted that he would continue his reforms 
although the popular vote for his cabinet declines. I personally
got tired of hearing the word. He could never attain the reform as
far as he stays with ruling LDP at this time.

 I wish some new administrations will replace Koizumi cabinet as
soon as possible. That is only hope for the reform.

2002/2/2
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion of this week(258)

Change of power

I was quite disappointed with policy speech made by Prime Minister on
February 4 at the Diet. I believe many people must have felt the same
way. I had a great interest about what he would say about his decision
on dismissal of Foreign Minister Tanaka. He virtually made no comments
at all about it. The popular vote for his cabinet has declined almost 
by 30% after his decision. How did he think about it?

People of Japan sent a very important message that Koizumi made a wrong
decision about the dismissal of Tanaka. Why did he not make any comments
about it? That is not a small issue happened in inside of one ministry 
office as Koizumi said . He dismissed  the one most important comrade
who supported him advocating the importance of structural and political
reform. The issue is never just a small issue limited to one ministry
office.

I think it natural that majority of people thought that Koizumi's decision
was wrong. But at the same time, I think it strange that he still has 
almost 50% popular rate to his cabinet. One of the main reason for the 
high rate is that there are no oppositions parties that are competent 
enough to govern power although they do not necessarily fully support
Koizumi cabinet. 

I believe that that way of thinking is wrong. It is true that I myself
have some doubt about administrative competency of opposition parties
such as Democratic Party, Liberal Party, Communist Parties, etc. What more
those opposition parties have not been united at all to resist powerful
Koizumi cabinet since last April. 

But situation has changed greatly due to the happening at this time.
I do hope that they should unite into one big opposition group to take
power to replace Koizumi  Cabinet. 

In Japan, there is only  a little case of the change of powers in the
past history after the war. There were many cabinets but they have  
basically been composed by Liberal Democratic Party and their 
coalitions. I think that is the reason why Japanese politics and 
society has been in a very stagnant situation for long time. 
 
In order to improve that situation, I think change of power should happen
more frequently, at least once in every five years or so. There should
be more competition even in politics among two or three major parties.
Competitions about policies and result between political parties will
activate Japanese politics and society in the long run.

Japanese people are asked to be brave enough to let opposition parties to
take power rather than just waiting for what Koizumi will do next.

2002/2/9
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion of this week(259):

A large-boned reform plan

  The new Foreign Minister Kawaguch announned a grand (a large-boned)reform
plan of the Ministry. But the plan was criticized strongly by opposition
parties.The plan did not mention anything about secret fund abused broadly
inside of the Ministry. The reason why Former Minister Tanaka was so
popular among people is that she was very eager to clarify the issue of
secret money. Poeple know that she faced a strong resistance from the
bureucrats in the ministry.

  Kawaguchi refused to inherit some important issues from Tanaka with
the reason that her predesser is theoretically Prime Minister Koizumi 
rather than Tanaka. It is a kind of quibble saying indeed. We doubt she
did not want to have any commmitment about that issue of secret fund. 

  Why Kawaguchi did not showed any plans to clarify the issue of secret
fund? Wasn't it one most important and basic part of reform? How can 
Kawaguchi call it a large-bonned plan without including that key parts? 

 I really don't like this word "a large-bonned plan". When did many of
government people start using such word? The word was firstly used by
Economic Council of the Cabinet when they present economy reform plans
several months ago. Any reform plans , whatever they may be. should be
very basic and strong, i.e. large-bonned. 

I don't agree the way they use that kind of pompous and exaggerated
word in many of such stages of politics these days. The reform plan
of Foreign Ministry seems not to be a large-bonned one but only a slim
one. 

2002/2/16
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion of this week (260):

Purchase of bad debt with book value

We understand that elimination of bad debt for many city banks is the most
important measures to vitalize Japanese economy now. There are many arguments
how to solve the bad debt issues including injecting public fund into banks
again.

I was surprised to see one of such proposal made by leaders of ruling 
parties recently. Mr. Noda, President of Conservative Party proposed 
that the Government should purchase bad debt of banks with book values
rather than market values at the moment. Mr.Yamasaki, Secretary General
of Liberal Democratic Party thought that it is very good idea. He proposed
the idea to the government and policy groups of the ruling parties. The
idea was not accepted and denied by many as a matter of fact. 

The reason why city banks have so much bad debt right now is obvious.
They bought so much of real estate with very high price in bubble days.
The market price of of those real estate fall down very low. That is 
the source of all trouble. Why must the government purchase such 
invaluable asset with book values in bubble days? Such action is much
worse than injection of public fund to banks.   

Yamasaki withdrew the idea at once facing disagreement from the government
sources and ruling parties. But he came back again with a revised idea
that is the purchase price is to be "substantial book value". I really
don't understand the difference between the original idea and revised
idea but the revised one is very close to the book value any way. 

Japanese economy is now facing so called March financial crisis. In order
to avoid the crisis, some drastic and fundamental measures are necessary.
But for the sake of saving banks, so many easy actions are going to be
taken including injection of public fund and such measures like this.
Why are banks so well protected? 

Banks must make all efforts by themselves first as many Japanese private
firms have done so far. The responsibility of management should be pursued
more severely than before.

The idea of purchase of bad debt with book value is out of question. We
will agree that injection of public fund to banks may be necessary in
some cases to avoid total crisis of money market. If that happens, however,
all management of the banks which are in such condition should retire 
from the front.

Tadashi HAYASE
2002/2/23