My opinion this week(132):

DPJ Presidential Election

  Two major parties, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Democratic
Party of Japan, are going to make top leaders election in coming fall. 
I personally have a great interest in both of them, for they are  the
election which will provide a big influence for the future of Japan 
and Japanese politics. There exists various points to be discussed as
also to the Presidential Election of LDP. But Mr. Obuchi's reelection
for the Party top seems to definite. So I would put it aside for a 
while and would like to talk about the latter, the election of DPJ at
this time.

　 At the start of the election, Mr. Naoto Kan, the President, declared
to run for the election early last week. And contrary to the prediction 
of internal and external sources of the party, Mr. Yukio Hatoyama, Deputy 
Secretary General of the Democratic Party, who had supported Mr. Kan in 
the past years, declared also to run for the election. And Mr. Takahiro
Yokomichi, Chairman of the DPJ Executive Council, announced to run for
the election following to Mr. Hatoyama's announcement. 

  DPJ is the No.2 public political party of Japan, and I believe that
there is no problem at all,  although  two or three candidates declared
to run for the election. I don't understand why that is the problem as
many mass media worried about it.  Without waiting for the result and 
observing the process of the election, it is strange to  see many reports
of mass media that mention about possible split of party based on the fact
that three leading men run for the election.

  It seems that Mr. Kan had never expected that Mr. Hatoyama participated
in the race opposing to his earlier stance.  Mr. Hatoyama, who intended
to continue to support Mr. Kan for his Presidency, had changed his mind 
and decided to run for the election by himself based on the fact that
Mr. Kan had been loosing the popularity inside and outside of party and
on the increasing voice for him to run for the election by himself. The
major reason for his decision is the difference in policies of Mr. Kan
and himself. That's is  quite understandable.

  Needless to say, in any of such election as to the selection of leaders
of any parties. the most important point is to debate basic policies of 
each candidates. Two important factors for the election  are the quality
of leadership of candidates and policies to be executed by the party 
based on his leadership  Contrary to this basic principle, it is true 
that some serious debate on policies have been overlooked in various 
presidential election in the past. This is true with the LDP, the biggest
ruling party, and also and especially true with the DPJ, the members of
which consist of various old concerns such as Liberal Democratic Party,
Socialist Party and Democratic Socialist Party and so forth. Their basic
principle on politics, policies and political methodologies were and
still are quite different each other.  

  In this respect, it is quite meaningful for three men to clarify the
difference in their policies in the coming presidential election. And
it is strange to see that many mass media reported this as possible split
of the party and intensifying confrontation inside of the party. After
such debating process and election, if that happen, that's fine .  If the
party would be split up because of the big difference on policies remain 
as they are regardless such election process. 

  It is wrong that the issue have been discussed from the human relation
and some emotional viewpoints only. There are some obvious difference on
policies of two candidates i.e. Mr. Kan and Mr. Hatoyama relating the
reform of constitution and economic policies at the moment. That must be
clarified at least. 

　 We still see some of those immature  process of Japanese politics in
the past years. But this is I understand a necessary step that is 
unavoidable for Japanese politics to establish a democratic system in 
coming years. 

1999/9/4
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion this week(133):

Lack of mind for safety

  Summer vacation is over and September 1 is the Disaster Proof Day. A 
number of training preparing for the possible natural disasters had been 
conducted at all over Japan. Newspapers and TV stations reported them. Well, 
people in general seem not to have much interest in them including myself.
We happened to see a big earthquake occurred in Turkey at about same time. 
The earthquake surely reminded us all the big earthquake happened four 
years ago in Kobe. But I wonder if we really remember them as such a big 
calamity as they were?  It seems that we have almost forgot their seriousness
as a matter of fact. 

  So many lives have been lost at the river in Kanagawa while they enjoyed
camping in the middle of August. The accident happened due to the fact that
people camped in the riverbank where camping was not allowed. People also 
neglected the warning from the Weather Forecast Station that it would rain 
heavily on that day. On the contrary to the past case , there  were almost
no criticism against the police authority although such serious accidents
happened as a result. We are very sorry for the fact that so many lives 
had been lost. But it was a big lesson for all of us that that kind of 
calamity would happen again if we would not pay enough attention for 
such natural phenomenon. It is fine to try to enjoy outdoor life and 
camping but we must have enough knowledge and preparation to enjoy them
based on necessary knowledge for risk involved and responsibility we should 
take by ourselves.

  Mr. Izaya Bendasan, a famous social critics once says: "Japanese believe
that water and safety are free of charge." He means safety here by the safety
in terms of national defense. Japanese basically lack the sense of risk
for national defense. Japanese strongly believe that no enemy would ever
attack Japan. Japanese had got some shocks with the fact that North Korea
launched a ballistic missile and their ships invaded Japanese territory. 
But they basically believe that any enemies including North Korea would 
never make any direct attack to this country. This is a risk sense of 
Japanese.  

  Japanese lack the sense of risk for national defense and for natural
disaster, for sure. But in addition, it seems that they lack the sense of
risk for various occasions in our daily life stages. Here we show some
examples.

  A four year boy died of the serious injures happened recently. A sharp
chop stick injured his brain for he felled down while he was walking eating
sugar cake stick with the chopsticks. Mass media criticized mistakes made
by the hospital which took care of the child. But is that all? Is that all
problems here? 

  We see a number of accidents happened in the warmed cars. Young mother 
left her infant children in the car in a hot sun shine while air 
conditioners were kept running with all windows tightly closed. And the 
engine of cars stopped occasionally. 

  I have also seen so many dangerous scene as to car driving. Young fathers 
or mothers drive cars by letting their small children standing at the front
seat with their left using portable phone. I am scared to die seeing young 
mother take two children at the front and back of bicycle loading a  heavy
shopping bag in the handle.

  Well. Japan may be an exceptionally safe country. People almost have no
worry about a defense of the country and a little care on the natural disaster
of various kinds. Before we reemphasize the importance of the safety, it may
be very important to recognize the fact that there are so many danger 
basically involved which  which might generally happen in our ordinal daily
life. We should pay more attention on them first.

1999/9/11
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion this week(134):

Independence of East Timor

  In East Timor of Indonesia, a large scale disturbance and carnage are going
on. At the voting done at the end of August for independence referendum, 
residents of East Timor supported their independence unanimously. But the
group which is against the independence started attacking people who are for
independence and killed many people by guns. Many of volunteers who were
staying there to watch polling and many members of UN were obliged to
evacuate from the province.

　 UN and major members of the Security Councils of UN insisted to
dispatch UN peace keeping force to recover the safety and security of
the province. Indonesian Government announced that they would maintain
peace by their own military force, but serious disturbances continued for
a while. It was obvious that they were not quite eager to maintain peace
in the territory where they are going to be independent from the nation. 
In addition, accepting a military force outside from the country means
a big loss of their dignity as an independent country. Nevertheless, they
finally expressed their intention to accept UN peace keeping force(Multi-
national Force), due to a continued big pressure from international society.

  Whenever such international disputes occur. it is US that starts taking
initiative to solve the case. They also made a kind of aggressive statement
at this time  saying that the international society should dispatch a 
military force there to keep security and peace of the province. US also
expressed to take some economic sanctions if Indonesia would not accept 
international military force. Many participating countries for APEC which
had just started in Oakland, New Zealand, expressed the support to this
basic direction.

  Contrary to such aggressive attitude of U.S, Japan's postures against to 
this kind of international disputes have been a kind of very indecisive
in the past. This is also true at this time. While Japan basically stated
the support for US. the Government authority explained Japan's basic stance
saying that it is the Indonesian Government which should take initiative
in this issue. There seems to be no strong pressure from Japan to Indonesia,
regardless the expectation from international society based on the fact 
that Japan is the biggest donor of economic aids to Indonesia. Well, the
issue has come to an end. Indonesia finally accepted UN's peace keeping 
force to East Timor. 

　I would like to point out this now. If Japan want to be a regular member
of the Security Council of UN, I believe that Japan should have stood at the
front stage to solve such case as East Timor. What UN should do at this time
is very clear. Sending UN force there is quite reasonable from any point of
views. But Japan's stance in participating in such operation is not quite
positive at all as in the past cases.
　
  While this dispute was drawing much attention internationally, two election
campaigns, i.e. the election of the President of Liberal Democratic Parry and
of the Democratic Party were major political news domestically. And it seems
that this international news had never been any key policy issues at all in 
those elections. According to my opinion, this issue is closely related with
any of such critical issues which are debated among candidates of those 
election such as the constitution of the country, issue of national defense 
and the relation with UN in coming years. I would present here a great concern
and doubt based on the fact that none of those candidate mention any thing 
about their opinions on this important international issue.

1999/9/18
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion this week(135):

Conversion of national universities into independent corporations

　As a part of administrative reform plans, the Government proposed a plan
to convert national universities into independent public corporations. But
JANU(Japan Association of National Universities) objected the plan saying
that the financial and organizational standing of national universities would
be weakened if public corporations simply try to seek efficiency, although
they admit the necessity of administrative reform.

   What a strange objection it is? Why don't those top leaders of national uni-
versities understand the basic principle of competition which are also true
with academic world as well as with any business corporations. They have just
got used to guarantees for position of professors or any kind, although they
virtually had no academic contribution for many years. Such system with no
no competition have never existed in business worlds. 

　 Those national universities are the places where no such concept of 
competition exist at all. There virtually exists no check for the level 
of academic outputs and fruits. Without any check for the quality of class
lessons, a number of excellent students are delivered one after another 
and a huge amount of money is provided to them  every years. Once appointed,
those professors at universities have scarcely had any severe evaluation and
assessment on their performance by students or outside worlds.
  
  While there were so many young students  who want to go to universities, 
such status quo system worked fine. But today we see some considerable
reduction of young people who want to study at colleges. Number of students
who wish to go to colleges have decreased to a great extent not only in
national universities but also in private universities. The education 
market has changed from seller's market for colleges to buyer's market for
students. 

  In addition, financial conditions of national universities have worsened
without any exception. They cannot rely only on the Government any more
as in the past to meet the situation. It is also natural that the big wave
of administrative reform have started to hit the educational world and
reduction of expenses and number of people who are working in national
universities including teaching stuffs have become a main theme of the 
administrative reform . In order to attain such purpose, it has been proposed
that all national universities are to be converted into independent public
corporations based on the competitive criteria of efficiency.

  The principle of efficiency in the management of universities is very
clear. The point is how each universities are able to produce quality
academic products and create excellent students efficiently. The second
point is that evaluation for such outputs will be made by market and not
by a personal judgment of professors.

  In the case of private enterprise, competition principle is very obvious
one. Whether or not any private firms can continue to survive  depends on
the quality of goods and services they provide for the market. The same
principle of competition and efficiency would be applied to all national 
universities from now on. Why don't they understand such basic concept?

  On September 20th, Mr. Arima, the Minister of Education, expressed the
Ministry's decision to accept this conversion idea changing their negative
attitude against this before. Although JANU is still quite negative against
the policy, they are also obliged to accept it sooner or later. They have
been under control of the Ministry of Education for many years.

  Syunjyu, column of Nikkei Shinbun of September 21st, commented on this
issue casting doubt on their weak stance for this conversion idea. The
column said : "Why aren't they more positive enough to become 100 % 
privatized corporation rather than public corporation? That is the way
for them to live in more competitive society."  I agree with it.

1999/9/25
Tadashi HAYASE