Monday, July 29, 2013

Experts' View of the Military Takeover in Egypt

     Earlier in this month, when the military put President Morsi in custody in Egypt, this writer, though an outsider, wrote in these columns that it was wrong for the army to do so.  On 25 July, two Middle East specialists of Japan have published their views on the takeover in a Japanese newspaper.  What follows is the summary of these views.
     One of them is of the view that the collapse of the Morsi government is the result of the people's nation-wide movement.  As many as 23 million have signed the demand for Morsi's resignation.  The Western media call it a "military coup", but it would be more appropriate to say that the national movement on a gigantic scale has caused the collapse.
     The anti-Morsi movement gathered momentum as the poverty and unemployment among the people was left unrelieved, a Constitution of an undemocratic character was imposed upon the people, and there was a repression of the women's and workers' movement.  It was a regime which tends to strangle the freedom of press and association in the name of a religion.
     The other one has expressed a rather different view.  Here, the military takeover was characterized as a "coup in haste", though it was welcomed by many people.  Some ways and means of resolving the crisis peacefully, on the basis of the 23 million signatures, might well have been found out.
     The army got aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood immediately after the revolution two and a half years ago.  But as the Brotherhood tried to put their men in the army, police and bureaucracy, and the general public became dissatisfied with the President and began to demand democratization,  the army then became their allies this time.  But 30% of the people are still supporting the Brotherhood, which is capable of securing the largest number of seats in the next general elections.  The greater difficulty is how to place the army under the civilian control.
     The difference between the two may be subtle, but is very much worth exploring.  Meanwhile this writer would abide by what he humbly wrote on 4 July.         

Saturday, July 27, 2013

Korean Ceasefire, Sixty Years On

     Exactly sixty years ago, today, 27 July 1953, the Korean War Ceasefire was signed by the UN, in this case alias the US, DPRK(North Korea) and China, putting an end to the three-year bloody war covering the whole of the Korean Peninsula.  The ROK(South Korea) refused to sign, which means that technically there is still war, not even truce, between the two Koreas.  The ROK may be well advised to sign it even at this late hour, and think about the future on that basis.  It may be difficult, however, to do so given that the DPRK is celebrating at this moment the occasion as the day of their great victory.
     The BBC has in the past day or two broadcast an interview of several Chinese men and women who participated in the fighting in 1950-53.  Some of them gave their age when they went to Korea as sixteen.  One of them said that in just one aerial bombing by the US as many as 800 of his fellow soldiers were blown off.  If China had not sent their army the DPRK might not have been in existence since then. One also wonders if the enormous casualties China suffered had not had an effect on her population composition.
     As for the US, the great majority of their casualties occurred after they crossed the 38th Parallel in their "roll back" policy, which put them in contact with the Chinese Army in a couple of months' time.  China had repeatedly warned the US through India, and, as the US continued to move northward, ultimately began to engage them on full scale toward the end of November 1950.
     This is not to say, and I am not prepared to say, that China acted only in a self-defensive manner.  Bruce Cumings, an American scholar on Korea, writes, 'we still know too little to determine the respective North Korean, Soviet, and Chinese roles in initiating the June fighting'(Korea's Place in the Sun, 1997, p.263), although the biographer of Zhou Enlai writes that 'He(Zhou) had not expected it(the Korean War)' (Han Suyin, Eldest Son, 1994, p.223).  But, as Cumings says on the same page, there is no doubt that 'Kim Il Sung bears the grave responsibility for raising the civil conflict in Korea to the level of general war.
     What has been the impact of the Korean War on Japan?  Upon the North Korean invasion, starting on 25 June 1950, the US decided to intervene.  Was there any possibility of making it a "Police Action", not only in name but in substance also?  As is debated on the US response to the 9/11?  Or, more, was it not possible to leave it to the Koreans alone, treating it as an ordinary civil war?  Let us not discuss these and related problems here.  But let me assume that the US was determined to hold the ROK in her camp, in view of the Soviet and the then emerging Chinese powers, in other words in the Cold War situation.
     And Japan also.  She was still under the US occupation.  The moment the four divisions stationed in Japan were moved to Korea, the US ordered, in the form of a letter of advice from MacArthur to the Prime Minister, the founding of a Reserve Police Force of 75,000.  This was against the letter and the spirit of Article 9 of the Constitution, promulgated only three years before.  But we were not in a position to debate it.  It greatly encouraged the right wing in the country.  The Reserve Police was soon developed into the Self-Defense Force which is an Armed Force all but in name.
     Would it be a waste of time to think if the SDF would still be there if there had not been the Korean War?  And what about the Japan-US Security Treaty?  No, I do not think so, as this hypothetical question would help clarify what Japan's position has been, and still is, in East Asia. I believe that it would have been much more difficult to rearm Japan, and keep it as a de facto US protectorate in this way, if there had been no Korean War.  Therefore Kim Il Sung's responsibility is all the more greater.  But we will have to look at the process of the division of the Korean Peninsula, and to ask what Japan's responsibility for the division has been.  As far as we are concerned, this is one way of how we should spend this 60th anniversary.  
       

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Japan's Upper House Elections, 21 July 2013

     On 21 July, last Sunday, a typical summer day in this country, hot, sunny and humid, elections to the Upper House(House of Councillors) were held, and 53% of the electors went to cast their vote(including those who had voted prior to this day).  The House consists of 242 members, and half of it, 121, are elected every three years.  48 of them are elected on the basis of party-wise proportional votes, and the rest, 73, come from Prefectural constituencies.  Each of the 47 Prefectures has got its quota according to its population, ranging from Tokyo's five, Osaka's and Kanagawa's four each to as many as 31 single-member Prefectures.
     Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and his LDP(Liberal Democratic Party), who had been in office on the basis of the majority in the Lower House, tried to convince the voters saying that it would stabilize politics if they could also get the majority in the Upper House.  In so doing, they stressed that during the six months of their government the share prices went up by 50%, and the export increased by the devaluation of the Yen.  They were not as keen to discuss the controversial issues like the reopening of the nuclear power plants, Constitutional amendments, joining the TPP, or ways and means of improving relations with our neighbours, which were likely to generate anxiety among the voters.  Even on the issue of the economic recovery, they tended to avoid discussing the impending hike in the consumption tax, or the stagnant employment and wage-level situation.  They have tried to assure the voters that the profit which the big enterprises seem to be amassing at present is going to trickle down to the not-so-well-to-do in due course("Abenomics").
     What were the results?  It ended up in the LDP's complete victory.  They got 65, and if we add the number of members whose term will come three years later, their total strength comes up to 115.  If the Komei Party, their coalition partner, is also taken into account, their combined strength is 135 out of the total of 242, holding the absolute majority.
     The elections have shown that there are effectively six parties in all to be reckoned with in Japan's politics, including the above two government parties.  Out of the four in the opposition, the Democratic Party, which was the government party until six month back and had held the majority in the Upper House till now, has met a devastating defeat, getting only 17 and totalling 59 in all.  No one is in a position to say anything definite on the Restoration Party and Your Party, who have so much depended on just one personality each.
     That leaves the Communist Party of Japan.  It is a very interesting entity.  It is, as I described on the occasion of their great advance in the recent Tokyo Assembly Elections on 23 June, four weeks ago, the only functioning party of that name in all the capitalist countries.  This time also, they have increased their seats from three to eight, making it eleven altogether.  Still a very small number.  But when they say that the LDP-CPJ is the main axis of political confrontation in today's Japan, nobody can deny that it contains much truth.
     The Asahi  newspaper carried an interesting opinion poll on 24 July, conducted immediately after the elections.  It shows that almost as many look at the LDP policy with greater anxiety than expectation as those who do so with greater expectation than anxiety.  Only 17% think that the LDP won for its own sake, and 66% say it is because the opposition parties were not attractive. On the  whole the respondents felt that the Abenomics would not bring higher wages and more employment.  They were against the reopening of the nuclear plants, the hike in the consumption tax, and negative on amending the Constitution.
     Would it not be more proper, then, to call the LDP government a minority government?      
        

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Early on 4 July in Egypt

     As the pictures from Cairo as of the early morning, 4 July, local time, are coming in, I have to hurriedly sum up my ideas about what is happening there just now.
     The military issued an ultimatum to the President, and on meeting his refusal, put him in custody, and took over the political power.  This was an extra-constitutional behaviour on the part of the military, and as such clearly constitutes a coup, no matter what the Army would choose to call it.
     In that sense, I fully agree with the supporters of the President who are saying "Where is the democracy, where are our votes?".  The act certainly nullify the fruits of the "Arab Spring".
     Therefore the only way out is for the military to release the President, as quickly as possible, and go back to the barracks.
     Needless to say, there is a grave question here.  What then would happen to the demands of the opponents, who have gathered at the now world-famous Tahirir Square these days?  Should they have kept quiet before the elected President?  Suppose, in their eyes, the elected President has gone beyond what so many people could have endured, by way of his steep tendency to go the way of Islamic governance, and his allegedly authoritarian way, taking into confidence only the leadership of his Muslim Brotherhood?
     Judging from the way there was jubilation in Cairo, crackers and so on, it is obvious that they will find it impossible to accept the unconditional return of the President.  So they will nine out of ten reopen the protest movement.
     It is my view that let them do so.  In so doing let them disobey the law, the President, the whole administration.  Today the country is so divided, the situation has become so worsened by the behaviour of the President, that there will be no other possibility in sight, unless and until the President and the Brotherhood alter their way to listen to different views.  But no violence, let me repeat, no violence at all, should be used between the two sections into which the nation has divided.  The only other way would be a dreadful and unending Civil War.  Remember the Partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 and the accompanying enormous cruelties and bloodshed.
     But the military take-over is definitely wrong for the future of democracy in this country.  Today's events have once again proved the danger of keeping a large army when there is apparently no outside threat.  Immediately on the revival of the economic situation, Egypt should think of ways and means of reducing the size and the budget of her military.  Even unilaterally.  At the same time the US should stop providing such a large amount of military aid to Egypt.  And to Israel, too.  The US is very slow in understanding that she is no longer a world leader.