A Citizens' Coalition Formed

     Even after the "War Bills" were passed by the Parliament several months ago, the movement to cancel them has not weakened.  Last Sunday, 20 December 2015, was a memorable day in that process.  Five major citizens' groups got together in Tokyo and formed a Citizens' Coalition for the cancellation of the Security Laws and the recovery of the constitutionalism.

     In order to cancel the existing laws, no matter how they may have been passed, it takes a majority in the Parliament.  The next Parliamentary elections are for the Upper House in the middle of 2016, when half of its seats will be elected.  32 of them are from single-member constituencies.  Most of them are in the hands of the LDP-the Government Party, which got the War Bills passed.  If the opposition parties co-operate, they may be able to get many, and if fortunate, all of them, to be in the majority in that House.  That will not enable them to form the alternative Government and get the Laws cancelled, as there is the Lower House which is the crucial battleground.  But the victory in the Upper House will mean a great deal and by itself be a great pressure on the Government to dissolve the present Lower House.

     It is these 32 constituencies that the new coalition is setting its eyes on at the moment. They are not a political party, and as such will not put up their own candidates.  Instead they will organize support to those political parties which pledge to co-operation for the above purpose. There are five of them at present, including the Democratic Party, the Restoration Party, and the Communist Party.  It will take time and a good deal of effort on the part of those parties to agree on a particular candidate and the set of policies he/she is going to pursue if elected, probably with the help of the citizens' coalition, on each of, or at least most of, the 32 constituencies.  If they can, that will surely be a great experiment in our political history.         

Japan-Korea on "Comfort Women"

     Japan's Prime Minister Abe had a nearly two hours' conference with President Park of South Korea at Seoul back on 2 November.  Such a talk had not been held for more than three years, reflecting worsened official relations between the two.  It is not possible to say that the meeting this time marked a step forward to solve the difficult relations.  Still, it was better than no meeting.  No summit between the two neighbouring countries for more than three years, by itself, shows the failure of diplomacy on the part of one or both of them.

     As has been argued in these columns more than once, the point was how to overcome the South Korean claim for the "comfort women".  It is, however, the tip of the iceberg.  The Treaty of restoring relations between the two, concluded in 1965, fifty years ago, under the auspices on the Korean side of none other than President Park, the present one's father, who was keen on rapid and forced industrialization of his country, says that all the claims on the Korean side were finally abandoned by the Treaty.  Not only the claims by the "comfort women", but by all the others, were suppressed by the strong hand of the then President, who had grasped the power by a military coup.  It was the stand of the Japanese Government ever since that the claims of all sorts had therefore been solved.  These words in the Treaty had been very conveniently used by them.

     The conference this time agreed that the "comfort women" question should be solved at an early date, and the high bureaucrats of both sides have got into negotiations.  It is difficult, however, to foresee that Japan would jump over the words of the above Treaty.  It would undermine Abe's rightest constituency which likes to believe that there was no such problem as the "comfort women".  In fact he is reportedly demanded at the conference that the small statue of such women which had been established in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul by the women's supporters be removed.

     It is, however, time that Japan stops adhering to the words of fifty years ago, one way or another.  It would greatly enhance Japan's credibility not only with the Koreans but also in the whole of Asia.  The Treaty has been already denied and ignored by South Korea by, for example, her President's visit to the North, while it says that South Korea is recognized as the only legal state in the Korean Peninsula.  Japan is able to contribute to ease the tensions in East Asia in more ways than one, and certainly one of them would be to give serious consideration to the claims of the people victimized under the Japanese rule like the "comfort women".  If the present Government is not keen on such a programme, it should give way to another which is.                 

A Japanese Gandhi

     My humble work on Mahatma Gandhi of India has just come out in a book from an Indian publisher.  I will talk about it some other time.  Here I will talk about Awagon Shoko(1901, but officially 1903, to 2002), a long-time fighter for land and peace from Okinawa.  I have seen him speak for one hour on his life's mission on the You-Tube a couple of hours ago, when he was at the age of over 90, and have been confirmed in my conviction that if anybody should be called the Gandhi of Japan, he must be it.

     He is from a small island, Iejima, off the main Okinawa island.  Okinawa Prefecture was put under the direct US military rule by the Peace Treaty until it was returned in 1972.  The US was interested in turning the whole Prefecture into their military bases, in view of the emerging Cold War, and explored ways and means to deprive the land-owners of their land.  Awagon's land struggle started in the mid-fifties, when he organized his fellow peasants, negotiated the US and the Japanese authorities.

     One interesting thing he did, which Gandhi himself might well have done also, was to write up a set of eleven items, just like eleven oaths, and get it signed by each and every landowner of Iejima.  Together they constituted rules of non-violence for negotiation.  They demanded that the peasants should sit down on the floor, speak quietly, do not raise their hand above their shoulders.  The underlying spirit was not to hate even the fully armed and menacing US soldiers and to understand their position.  This was as early as 1954.  He said that if he put Jesus Christ in front-he was a Christian, though like Gandhi he believed in the essential identity of all the religions-Jesus did most of the fighting, meaning that he often quoted from the Bible with which to confront the Americans.

     Many ugly measures were taken both by the US and, after 1974, also by the Japanese authorities, including open violence, bribing, imprisonment, discrimination.  A large space of land was taken away, used for bombing exercises, including that of mock atomic bombs.  But Awagon and other 'anti-war landowners', though in decreasing number, did not surrender.  One advice he valued very much was given by a foreign human rights activist who visited Okinawa in 1959, who said that 'if every one was opposed, the land-grabbing could be stopped'.  This was also the essence of Gandhism.  Awagon thought that for that purpose even if he was alone he should be persistent in his demand.  This is also what Gandhi repeatedly said.

     Awagon hardly had school education.  But he read and wrote a lot.  He was of the view that even the peasants should be educated.  He was dreaming of establishing a school for them when the land under the military bases was released.  That day never came in his lifetime.  But this is the kind of a dream the real Gandhi never entertained.  In being a peasant producer he could see ahead of the Mahatma.

           

On the Oregon Shoooting

    There was one more 'public shooting' on 1 October, this time at a community college in Oregon State.  The 26-year old killer, a student there himself, shot dead 9 persons and ended up in killing himself.

     There has been an attempt by Mr. Obama to restrain the holding of weapons from time to time, who said that this is the kind of incident that takes place 'every few months'.  The killer is said to have been in possession of as many as 13 guns.

     Usually, and this time also, there is a strong opposition to such an attempt to control the guns.  And usually, the theoretical basis of such opposition is the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, saying that 'A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed'.  It was an Amendment of 1791.

     I do not want to go into details of the US domestic politics here.  But I wonder if many Americans who are opposed to the restraint on the weapons have read this whole Article.  I am discussing it here because it is not simply someone else's business.  The Amendment says that the weapons are necessary for building up a well-trained militia in time of need.  But the US today is the biggest military power.  She is pressing Japan to build a permanent air and naval base in Okinawa much against the expressed wishes of the locals.  She is capable of bombing an MSF hospital, unarmed, at Kunduz, Afghanistan, which she did, may be by mistake but unpardonable mistake, in the small hours of 4 October.

     If the US citizens have a second thought on carrying guns, it would do a great deal to change the atmosphere of depending on the weapons, thus making a significant step forward to the peace of the world.  We will all be grateful to them.    

People's Liberation Army of China

     China celebrated 3 September 2015, for the first time, as the day of victory over Japan.  On this day seventy years ago, two Japanese, representing the Government and the Military respectively, signed the surrender documents on the USS Missouri off the Japanese coast.

     Not many first-rank leaders of the world attended the ceremony at Tiananmon Square, but Mr. Putin, Ms. Park of South Korea, and Mr. Ban Ki-mun, the UN Secretary-General, were conspicuous by their presence.  The DPRK did not send a high-class delegation, and they were to be seen only at a corner.

     President Xi addressed the selected audience for a little more than ten minutes, and then went on an almost solo inspection of the armed forces waiting outside the Square. After his return to his place the military parade of about 12,000 troops started, to show hundreds of new weapons including ICBMs.  Planes were flying overhead in various formation.

     All that was old news.  Still, while Xi is attending the UN, let me ask a few questions about the People's Liberation Army.  Xi said in his speech that it is the people's army.  That is what its name says.  But really?  The war veterans were certainly shown respect and were among the proud marchers in the parade.  But the ordinary people were not even allowed to have a glimpse of the parade, let alone to be admitted into the Square.  There was no civilian, non-military element in the ceremony.  It was not for the people who were apparently not in a position to enjoy it, not at all.  Is it not how the common people are treated in China now? After all the common, non-military people played an invaluable role in defeating Japan.  It would be impossible to write the history of the war without properly evaluating their role.  If so what was the purpose of the glamorous parade on this day?  One might wonder if it was not for the sake of showing off to the foreign experts for export.  That way China is fast becoming a military power.  But what for?  The tiny territorial questions with Japan and some ASEAN countries would explain it?  On the contrary, these powerful missiles are enough to give enough excuse to the ultra-nationalists ubiquitous in these countries, and also in the US.  News came this morning that China would strengthen her PKO in Africa.  I would strongly hope that she would distinguish democratic forces from others and help only the former.  In the past she has so often aided dictatorial regimes.    

War Veterans Began to Speak

     On 20 September, a public hall in central Tokyo was fully packed to hear some 20 persons, including three women, all veterans of the last war, speak their own experiences of the war.  It was organized by a small private museum, located in Itabashi Ward, Tokyo, intent on collecting first-hand testimonies on the war.  They are inviting the still surviving veterans to speak up, and their slogan is "Let us speak before we die".  They have started the work as the veterans are usually known to keep silent on what they did and saw in the war.  They are aiming at collecting the testimonies of 150,000 war survivors.

     I was not able to be present at the above meeting.  But fortunately I was able to get the printed summaries of what the 22 persons were going to speak on that day.  Their average age is said to be 92. Two of them could not come and it was 20 persons who actually spoke, each for a short time.  Together they fought on almost all the fronts that Japan did during the war.  Some of them were very young then.  The three women were residents of Palau, Okinawa and Tokyo, respectively, who met the US bombing there.

     What impressed me most out of these summaries was the very first one.  Its narrator volunteered to be an airman at the age of 15.  His first appointment was in Inland Japan, but later he was transferred to the Chinese Northeast, was captured by the Russians and engaged in hard labour for two years.  One in every six died thus.  When they were sent back to Japan and reached Nahotoka, a Siberian Port on the way, they dipped their hands in the sea and wept, saying that this sea would take them back to their country.

     But he found his house burnt down by an air-raid.  The one he mourned for most was his elder brother, who was killed by a torpedo at the age of only 18.  He was gone without knowing the era of peace which was very sad, he concluded.

     The museum can be contacted by
                 http://www.jvvap.jp
     Their email is senjyou@notnet.jp  

"Dedicate Your Life to the Country !"

     A number of documentary films on the last war are broadcast in the month of August every year, as it is the month when we surrendered.  Particularly so this year, it being the 70th anniversary.  Here is one of them I saw recently.  A hair-splitting one.

     Suicide bombing is not the monopoly of the political Islamists.  It was started by the Japanese naval air force(we had no independent air force at the time) during the war, particularly when the tide of the war had definitely turned against us, toward the end of 1944, and we were apparently fighting a losing battle.  Mostly(as I understand) it was the fighter planes that tried to crush into the enemy warships armed with a bomb, something a fighter plane was not supposed to carry with it.

     Certainly it was very much of a crazy act, and thousands of lives were lost in vain.  But what about this?  They(the navy) hit upon an idea of manufacturing a two-stage bomber, in the sense that the lower part of it, a kind of a one-seater plane, was to be attached to a usual plane, mostly a two-engine middle-range bomber, as it was too heavy for a fighter to carry.  When the enemy ship came into sight, the lower part was to be cut off from the parent plane and to fly on its own toward the ship.  The hair-splitting part of the project was that the lower part was mostly consisting of explosives, and had no wheels.  The death of the pilot was certain.

     One may wonder if such could have been practicable.  But the film shows that several hundreds of them actually took off, and mostly got shot down into the sea.  The parent planes also were the easy prey of the enemy, as they were flying with heavy loads.

     How would we to describe the death of those hundreds, or thousands?  We have a phrase 'inujini', dying like a dog, meaning to die for a useless purpose.  Many nationalists deny that it was inujini.  They say they dedicated their life to the country.  As a matter of fact they are among those enshrined at the controversial Yasukuni War Shrine, and help give a reason to those like PM Abe to visit the shrine to offer their prayer.

     I believe their death was inujini.  I mean, as they stand now.  But if we learn proper lessons from the war, we can turn it to something else, something more valuable.  Can we?  "Yes, we can."        

Abe's Anniversary Speech

     Not that I had expected to hear many meaningful things from his speech.  But still it was a great disappointment not to hear almost anything substantial from our Prime Minister in the evening of 14 August, to commemorate the 70th Anniversary of Japan's surrender in 1945.  It was not his personal one, but had been approved by the Cabinet.

     To begin with, I was surprised to hear him say that 'The Japan-Russia War gave encouragement to many people under colonial rule from Asia to Africa.'  True, there were favourable references to that War by those nationalists at the time, but they were sooner rather than later to be disillusioned with Japan's imperialist design.  And was it not a War over the Korean Peninsula?

     Abe said very little on the cause of the series of Wars Japan fought in the half century from 1894 to 1945.  On the 15-year War since 1931, he seems to emphasize that it was due to 'the Western countries launching economic blocs by involving colonial economies'.  And 'Japan gradually transformed itself into a challenger to the new international order that the international community sought to establish after tremendous sacrifices(of World War I)'.  Japan also participated in building blocs, and when it did not work well she resorted to military might.

     On the victimization during the War years, he referred to 'women behind the battlefields whose honour and dignity were severely injured'.  This sentence was almost repeated later in the speech.  This was apparently with the "comfort women" in South Korea and elsewhere in mind who have been protesting the Japanese Government for many years by now.  Abe missed a great opportunity here.  If he had made some courageous statement as to the cause of the existence of such women, made some clear apology to them, he could have made a break-through. Probably his rightist constituencies prevented him from doing so, and he himself was not inclined to do such.

     Talking of apologies, he said that 'Japan has repeatedly expressed the feelings of deep remorse and heartfelt apology for its actions during the war...Such position articulated by the previous cabinets will remain unshakable into the future'.  But the case of the above women alone will show that this is not true, and a lot is left to be desired in this field.  Abe spoke several times in his speech on the lessons of history, or facing the history, but he himself is not true to his words.  In the Press Conference, a very short and disappointing one, he repeated what he had said on many occasions that he will leave it to the judgement of history whether the Wars Japan fought were those of aggression.  Apparently he does not think so.  On the next day of the speech, 15 August, two of his Ministers(both women) were among those who offered prayer at Yasukuni, the War Shrine.

     One thing to be noted is that he said 'we shall never again resort to any form of the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes', almost a quotation from the Clause 1 of the Article 9 of our Constitution, although ignoring the Clause 2.  May we hope, even against hope, that he will be true to his words at least here?                

Japan and Korea as seen by a Woman Korean Intellectual

     Koreans of different background would describe Japan, or Japan-Korea relations in different ways.  Here is what a woman intellectual from Korea spoke to the Asahi published on 22 July.

     She was born in the former Manchukuo, the Chinese Northeast under de-facto Japanese rule, in 1929.  Her father came to Japan in 1910, the year Japan incorporated Korea, studied technology there, and became successful as a businessman in Manchukuo as a manufacturer of footwear.  She went to the kindergarten and schools meant for the Japanese ruling classes, and the Japanese language became her virtual mother-tongue.  She used to call her parents in Japanese way, having been accustomed to think primarily in Japanese.  Even now she reads Japanese much faster than Korean, and the interview itself was given in Japanese.

     In her view, Japan since the Meiji period became successful because she had got translated a lot of foreign literature and thought into her language.  In fact, she read Shakespeare in Japanese translation, by Tsubouchi Shouyou, by which she made up her mind to study English literature as her life's work.  (After Tsubouchi's, we have two more complete translation of Shakespeare. However, in terms of import and export, I am afraid we are overwhelmingly import-oriented in the fields of literature and ideas.)

     Her family was back in Seoul when Japan surrendered.  They suffered from the Korean War. She does not discuss Japan's surrender itself, but I would wonder if there had been the War if Japan had surrendered a little early, by, say, ten days, before the Soviet intervention in the War against Japan.  There would have been no atomic bombs also.  If Korea could have remained united then is a different question.

     When the relations were established between the two countries, many of her students went to join the demonstration against it, in 1965.  She herself was in favour of it, as she thought Korea needed economic ties with Japan.  But she also understood how the students felt then.

     She is worried about the move virtually to change the present Constitution in Japan.  She thinks Korea needs to hear more words to appeal to their mind.  She would like the Prime Minister of Japan not to push his neibhbour to the point where relations would worsen.             

Selma, King's victorious battleground

     A few days ago I saw a film called "Selma".  It was a moving film on Martin Luther King Jr., his colleagues, their struggles, and the race relations in the US.  It was not a biography of King, but focused on a rather short period of time when he was at Selma, Alabama, to lead a civil rights struggle in 1965.
   
     In many ways it reminded me of the life of Gandhi.  In 7 March of that year, for example, which turned into a "Bloody Sunday", people tried to march from Selma to Montgomery, of the bus boycott fame of ten years ago, the distance of 80 km, in a non-violent way, to be brutally attacked by the State Troopers, even by the mounted police, at a bridge just outside Selma.  It was reminiscent of Gandhi's "Salt March".  In the latter case the March itself was peaceful, but afterwards when the marchers tried peacefully to occupy a salt depot, they were severely treated by the police.

     Gandhi's method was called by an eminent Indian historian as "Struggle-Truce(negotiations)-Struggle".  King's method may be called the same way, in the sense that he was also not averse to negotiating, even with the President.  Like Gandhi he also, quite naturally, selected moments to attract the attention of the papers, radio and the TV.

     King was not at Selma on the first march.  He led the second, but when the State Troopers withdrew he led the people back to Selma.  This brought about differences.  On the third occasion, however, after President Johnson had to submit a Bill and concluded his speech with the famous "We shall overcome", which must have been sung so often before, the third march led by King finally reached Montgomery, the State Capital.

     I wondered if the impact of the on-going Vietnam War was fully incorporated there in the film.  However, the importance of the voting rights, and that both for the Black community and the segregationists, was overwhelming.















  

26 June : A Bleak Day

     26 June was globally 'a bleak day', to use a phrase from an English broadcast.  A Kuwaiti mosque was blown up.  Tourists were gunned down at a Tunisian resort.  A gas plant was put in danger near Lyon, France.  There was another attack in Somalia.

     All of them have been supposedly made by the so-called 'Jihadists'.  They have made claims for some of them already.  We will, however, not discuss them as such, but look into their possible relation to what is being debated in the Japanese Parliament at this moment.

     The current 'War-Bills', presented by the Abe Government, and the passage of which Abe has committed to the US Congress in his knee-bending speech, are intended to make Japan much easier to participate in, even wage, an armed conflict.  It would make it possible for her to give logistical supply to the US forces at or near the battleground.  It would make her to be a part of the ISAF-type military operations which have been under way in Afghanistan.  It would also allow Japan to use the right of collective self-defense for the sake of, presumably, the US military.  In all these cases, it would greatly tarnish Japan's image as a peace-loving, no war-going nation, the image long entertained by ourselves and by the peoples abroad.

     Coming back to the Jihadist attacks, the 'War-Bills', if enacted, would surely make Japan much more vulnerable to such actions.  They should be immediately withdrawn.  But I am not saying that they should be withdrawn simply because they would put Japan in danger.  They certainly would.  But what is more important is that Japan should adhere to her peace-loving position, and try to think out ways and means, together with other peace-loving countries, how to make the on-going or attempted use of force, especially by the big countries, inactivated.  The above Bills would place an enormous block on that a road.       

Korean War Anniversary

     Three days ago, it was 22 June.  This was a day when many historic events took place.  Napoleon crossed the border to invade Russia in 1812.  Hitler also attacked the Soviet Union in 1941.  More recently and nearer our home, the Foreign Minister of South Korea came to Tokyo on this day in 1965, and gave his signature to the Treaty normalizing the relations between the two countries.  The media in Japan, and in South Korea also, widely covered the fiftieth anniversary of this Treaty.

     But the media, at least in Japan, has scarcely covered the 65th anniversary of the beginning of the Korean War, which falls on this day, 25 June 1950, no less important than the signing of the above Treaty, to the peace and prosperity of the Far East.  The War ended in 1953, but only by an Armistice, and not by a Peace Treaty.  The Armistice was signed by North Korea, China which fought side by side with North Korea, and the US which fought on the South Korean side, but not by South Korea.  In that sense, we have been living in a war situation ever since.

     We will not go into the controversy here of which started the War, as both sides were trigger-happy at the time.  Instead, we would like to propose that each should immediately set up an official Mission in the other's capital, with a seasoned Ambassador-class diplomat as its head, on the understanding that it will be elevated to the Embassy status in two years.  Both the nations will be pressed to make a real endeavour to solve the standing issues between them in these two years, like the nuclear weapons and missiles, economic cooperation, railways connectivity, meeting of the dispersed relatives, and so on.  They should make it sure to send a united team to the Tokyo Olympics to be held in 2020.

     Japan, in the meantime, cannot afford to be idle.  She is responsible for the division of Korea into two, initially by the 38ｔｈ Parallel, by delaying in accepting the Potsdam Declaration.  It is true that the US and the Soviets both brought in their own puppets and gave them wide powers in their respective zones, but that was possible as there was the line drawn already.  Above all Japan should try to set up diplomatic relations with the North. by putting into practice more or less the same measures as mentioned above. 　　         

Myth and Reality on the Droppings of the Bombs

     In the seventieth year of the droppings of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Peter Kuznick, historian from the American University, spoke to the Asahi, a Japanese daily. Here are some excerpts from the original(ajw.asahi.com).

     '...many Americans would have been killed(without the bombs).  That's what they were told at the time.  The American people believed it at the time.  Still, a lot of people believe it, especially the elder generation.  And so, they still believe that Harry Truman(the President who ordered the bombings) was a hero, and that he saved their lives.'

     'I think Truman was hoping that it would speed up the Japanese surrender.  He wanted to get the war over with, if he could, before the Russians got in and got what the U.S. promised them at Yalta, the concessions.'

     '...the Soviet leaders understood the situation better than anybody...they knew that the atomic bombings were not necessary to end the war.  So the reaction among the Soviet leaders, when the U.S. bombed Hiroshima, was that the real target was the Soviet Union.  It wasn't Japan.'

     'He(Truman) said he was going to Potsdam(in July 1945) for one reason:to make sure that Russia was coming into the war...He said that the Japanese would be finished when the Soviets entered the war.'

     This writer is also of the opinion that the Soviet participation was crucial in bringing the war to the end, and not the bombs.  If so, however, why was Truman so keen in bringing in the Russian troops into the war, which would and did enormously strengthen their position in the East?  As to the American casualties he could have delayed the planned landings in the main Japanese islands and prevented bloodshed of his forces.  That way he could also have taken the pride in the role of the atomic bombs in ending the war.      

New Defense Cooperation Guidelines

     One month back, on 27 April, the so-called two and two, namely the Foreign and Defense Ministers, of Japan and the US agreed on the New Defense Cooperation Guidelines.  In many ways the new Guidelines make us wonder if they are putting us in greater danger.

     They say, and repeat over and over again, more than a dozen times, that the alliance between the two will be such that it will be seamless, meaning that it will cover all sorts of situation from the normal times to the emergency.

     Then they say that the US will continue to provide deterrence to Japan through all her capability including nuclear fighting power.  What is surprising is that this is not a unilateral US policy but what Japan has accepted.  It shows Japan believes in the nuclear deterrence.  This is only weeks before the NPT Conference at the UN has ended in failure betraying the hopes of billions.

     They stressed that the alliance must be made global in nature.  It is said that the Japanese SDF could be mobilized to defend Japan against ballistic missiles, and may try to retake Japan's own islands when necessary.  One can easily see that this is basically a military document.

     Furthermore, they say that the SDF will come to the aid of those countries which are in close relations with Japan, when they are attacked in such a way as to endanger the existence of Japan.  It is presumed that the US and Australia are meant by these lines.  This is what is known as the issue of collective self-defense.  The present Abe's Government decided on 1 July 2014 that Japan is able to exercise her 'inherent right of collective self-defense' as is mentioned in Article 51 of the UN Charter.
   
     A collection of Bills, collectively called the War Bills by critics, embodying the above and more, has been presented to the Parliament, and has been discussed from 27 of May.  On the same day Mr. Onaga, Governor of Okinawa Prefecture, left for the US to appeal to the public opinion against the US plan to build a new, huge and permanent air base in his Prefecture.  He is overwhelmingly backed by the public opinion there.   

Abe's Congressional Speech

     Japan's Prime Minister Abe made a 45-minute speech before the joint session of the US Congress at the end of April, 2015.  His defense talks with Obama will be discussed later.  Here we will look into the speech to see how statesman-like it was.

     He duly expressed his 'eternal condolences' to the Americans who lost their lives in the War.  He concluded his speech saying that the two countries will work 'to make the world a better, a much better, place to live', which was good by itself.  On the Asians, however, what he said was too short, and it was not easy to comprehend what he meant by it.  All that he said was 'Our actions brought suffering to the peoples in Asian countries.  We must not avert our eyes from that.  I will uphold the views expressed by the previous prime ministers in this regard'.  He could have talked here why Japan fought one war after another in the half century from 1894 to 1945. He could even said his opinion on the still widely held view that the atomic bombs were necessary to end the War, if at all he had to touch upon the War.

     Apparently he likes to compare himself to his grandfather.  Perhaps that would explain the motives for some of his actions.  He did so twice on this occasion. We are rather surprised to hear, in effect, that Kishi was a believer in democratic ideals.

     He repeatedly talked of peace and prosperity, but not in concrete terms.  We are not told of the details of the ongoing TPP negotiations.  When he says that 'the goal is near', we get very apprehensive.  It is as if he is making use of it to introduce reforms in our economy.  Agriculture is one such sector.  But why is it that agriculture does not pay nowadays?  Why is it that, as Abe says, the agricultural population is aging?  And why there is 'depopulation'?  He may plan the economy in such a way that the birth rate will recover to maintain the labour force, not only in quantitative terms, but a better educated, healthier and more contented labour force.

     Abe devotes roughly a quarter of his speech to strengthening the Japan-US military alliance.  He wants to make it 'seemless'.  He calls it 'credible deterrence for the peace in the region'.  But why stick to these Cold-War concepts?  Deterrence against whom?  Does the speech talk of any political initiative to take on the threat, if there is any?  None.  So the alliance is purely a military doctrine.  From the fact that he does not mention China at all in the speech, it is clear, is it not, that in his mind the alliance is against China.  It is another matter if the US would agree.  The US may not.  That means there will be the second edition of the Nixon shock of 1971.  Peace should be fought for, not by military means, not by the amount of money and the number of soldiers, but by peaceful means.  It is doubtful if Abe sees things that way, and here he is following his grandfather.    

The Emperor's visit to Palao

1.      On 8 and 9 of this month, April 2015, the Emperor and the Empress of Japan paid an overnight visit to Palau.  They were welcomed by the President and his wife of not only Palau, who were the hosts, but also of the Marshal Islands and of Micronesia.  These three were the constituents of the former League of Nations Mandated Territory under the Japanese rule from the end of the First World War till the end of the Second, with Palau as its capital. Conspicuous by absence was the Mariana Islands, also a part of the Mandated Territory but, being under the American rule, are not an independent country.  But the Emperor and the Empress had already paid a visit to Saipan in the Marianas 10 years before, to commemorate the sixtieth year after the end of the War.  It had seen fierce battles during the War.  The US converted those islands into a powerful military base, and it was some of the bombers from Tinian, near Saipan, which dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
2.      This visit was to commemorate the seventieth year.  Judging from their itinerary it seems that their main purpose was to spend some hours on the second day in Pereliu, a small island off Palau, 9 by 3 kms, where the Japanese garrison in trenches and caves fought till the finish for two months from September 1944, with only 34 survivors out of the initial 10,400.  They offered flowers, carried from Japan for this purpose, to the memorial. They also paid a visit to the American memorial, and they bowed deeply toward another island called Angaur nearby where a similar battle was fought.
3.      Some of the survivors, as well as the families of the dead, arranged their own visit simultaneously.  They said, 'War is a dreadful thing, you cannot win, you cannot lose', 'I want to know why we had to fight a war like this', or, 'I am glad that Pereliu has become known like this.'
4.      In the post-War Constitution of Japan, the Emperor has no political importance.  It is, however, significant that he and the Empress have increasingly, although almost imperceptibly, expressed their interest in the question of war and peace.  I am watching the process with great interest.  In his New Year message, 2015, the Emperor even said that we should learn the history of this War well, starting from the 'Manchurian Incident' of 1931, to think about the future of Japan.  It is remarkable that he is thinking in terms of the fifteen-year War, from 1931 to 45, and is trying to grasp it as a whole, which is not what all the historians are doing, let alone the politicians in the Government.  He may be worried that the war memory is gradually fading away.  Also that Japan is on the way to more militarization.  He is not in a position to say all this, and he has not.
5.      His Palau visit may give some a good excuse to visit the Yasukuni War Shrine in the name of commemorating the dead in the War.  In my view, however, it will be more than overcome by the intense, though not permanent, interest in the memory of the furious, and futile, War that the visit has revived among the general public.        

Spokesperson for Okinawa

     Mr. Onaga Takeshi, Governor of Okinawa Prefecture, had a person-to-person talk with Mr. Suga Yoshihide, the Chief Cabinet Secretary of Mr. Abe's Government, on the proposed transfer of the US Air Base at Hutemma to Henoko in the same main Okinawa Island, on 5 April, when Suga visited Okinawa.  It was the first time Onaga had a talk with a key figure of the present Government since his election in last November, suggesting the latter's unwillingness to do so. Onaga, as was mentioned before in these columns, defeated the sitting Governor almost on the single issue of his opposition to the above transfer by a large margin.  Here are some of what he told Suga.

     "Okinawa represents only 0.6 % of Japan's total land space, but 74 % of the US bases are here.  I would like to stress that Okinawa has never offered those bases on her own will.  They have all been forcefully appropriated.  Okinawa was under the US military rule for 27 years, as if to exchange for Japan proper's independence(actually Japan itself was under the occupation for seven years out of those 27), and Japan prospered during that time.  And now, since Hutemma is the most dangerous base in the world, as a former Defence Secretary Ramsfeld said, we are asked to offer some other place as its substitute.  We are asked if we have any other alternative. Is it not degeneration of Japanese politics?

     "Such an attitude on the part of the Government overlaps the authoritarian image of Mr. Carraway, a former US High Commissioner before the return of Okinawa(in office 1961-4), who famously said that the self-government for Okinawa was a myth.  Is it the case of either Hutemma or Henoko? Either A or B?  I have a strong conviction that it is absolutely impossible to build a base at the latter.  But is the Hutemma base going to be there permanently if there can be no base at Henoko?

     "There has been only one issue throughout the last year's elections to the Mayor of Nago(where Henoko is located), Governor, and the year-end General Elections to the Lower House, namely whether to agree to the reclamation for the construction of the new base approved by my predecessor the former Governor. The reason of my victory by 100,000 votes was due to this very issue.

     "In view of the recent development of the weaponry, one or two missiles would put the American bases in danger.  Are we not detaining them here in the name of the deterrence while they themselves want to go away?  And are not those bases being used to deploy the US forces to Asia and the Middle East?

     Opinion polls show that the overwhelming majority in Okinawa are supporting the Governor's stand.  Even then, the US Defence Secretary and his Japanese counterpart have agreed to go ahead with the transfer programme in their talks in Tokyo on 8 April.  No ears to listen!     

Asian Infrastructural Investment Bank

     The idea of the AIIB (Asian Infrastructural Investment Bank) was first floated by China when she talked to Indonesia in 2013.  She is inviting membership since then, and today, 31 March 2015, is the deadline, in the sense that the countries which have applied by today will be participating in the management of the Bank as the founding members.  41 countries, including India, have applied so far, but not the US and Japan.

     Japan thinks that there is already the ADB (Asian Development Bank), based at Manila but practically under the Japanese leadership, with each and every Governor since its inception in 1960 has been from Japan.  China says that it is not enough, in view of the huge demand of fund in the infrastructural sector.

     It is interesting that China says they need an institution for the infrastructural sector because the ADB is mostly for the purpose of poverty alleviation.  It is interesting as Japan's development pattern has been to build large-scale modern infrastructure, leaving the solution of the poverty problem in the hands of the market mechanism, to the trickling-down effects.  I do not think the ADB has gone out of that way very far.  It is the out-dated development pattern of the last century.  But if China says that she will go this way, is she going to leave the solution of the poverty and the growing disparities to the market?  Is such a solution possible at all in this century?  Is it not all the more difficult for India?

     Will Japan, then, almost alone in Asia, remain aloof from the AIIB, which is now almost a movement?  It does not seem to be a wise policy.  Japan should join it.  She is again, once again, looking at the US, and only the US.  But the US Treasury Secretary must be visiting Beijing today, presumably to get to know China's AIIB policy first-hand.  Suppose, just suppose, the US makes up her mind to join it? By the end of today, but by the US time?  That would be the second edition of Henry Kissinger's surprise China visit in 1971, and would be disastrous to Japan.  If at all that happens, Japan should never join the AIIB to protect her honour!       

Nanjing

     On 14 March, about a fortnight ago, I saw two films on Nanjing (Nanking), China, at the time when it was occupied by the Japanese troops.  It was in December 1937.  Even the Pal (Radha Vinod Pal) Judgment at the Tokyo Tribunal, which declared all the defendants not guilty and was as such never read at the Tribunal itself, discussed the three weeks of cruelties which followed the occupation.  So it is well-known, so notorious.

     The first film, Nanking-Nanking, was directed by a young Chinese, and, I am told, was faithful to the historical fact.  But the second one, John Rabe, by a young German director, was, though based on Rabe's own diary and was in the main truthful, a little dramatized here and there.  There was a little difference between what Rabe wrote and what was edited and got published, and the film was based on the latter.  Rabe was the Siemens representative at Nanjing at the time, with a long experience with China.  As is suggested by the title, he is the central figure in the second one.  The second one therefore has got a consistent story centred around him.  He, however, appeared a lot in the first film also.  Both were made in 2009.

     The first one, on the other hand, has got no such central, consistent story.  In fact, it is difficult to talk about it in separation from the second.  So I will write on these two in a mixed way.  It will do since it is not my purpose to compare the two.  They are basically on the same theme, why the Japanese troops did what they did there and then.

     Both the films start from the Japanese assault on the Wall of the city.  In the second, Prince Asaka, a relative of the then Emperor and a Division Commander, was unhappy that his men took as many as 4,000 POWs, and ordered they should be shot, saying he did not want to see them alive the next morning.  There were some conscientious voices from among the invading army in both of the films, and some officer was courageous enough to tell Asaka that it would be against the international law, but was dismissed.  In the first, by the way, a non-commissioned MP officer even committed suicide at the very end, presumably from trauma out of the massacre.

     In the face of the occupation, the European community at Nanjing drew a non-armed Safety Zone in the central part of the city, and elected Rabe the Chairman to manage it, although he was about to go home as his term came to an end.  His election was to a large extent because he was a member of the Nazi, though not a fanatic one.  It was estimated that 100,000 people was the limit the Safety Zone could maintain, but someone said twice that number could be in the case of the Chinese, and the idea was approved. Most of the second and a considerable part of the first are on the activities of Rabe and his associates trying to protect these people in the Zone, and not outright on the massacre itself, as I had expected.  But there is no dearth of those scenes also, especially in the first one.

     Do the films answer the question mentioned above?  

           

Views of Mr. Magosaki Ukeru

     Mr. Magosaki (surname) Ukeru, born in 1943, is a retired diplomat of Japan.  He is very critical of Japan's politics, particularly of diplomacy.  In recent years he wrote one book after another very rapidly to express these views to give a warning to our people.  It is very rare that a bureaucrat of his standing, a former ambassador to several countries, entertains, let alone expresses, such critical views.  They are, moreover, logical, well-based, and worth listening to.

     I have read three of these books, one of them by himself and the other two the record of his dialogue with one of the leaders of Japan's non-governmental Right Wing and a New York Times correspondent with a long experience in Japan, respectively.  What follows is an excerpt of his salient views expressed in these books.

     He says, together with the American correspondent, Mr. Martin Fackler, that the Japanese establishment do not represent the Japanese public opinion to their US counterpart, nor do they seriously try to ascertain the latter's view.  They are dealing only with a handful of the 'Japan Handlers', people like Armitage and Nye, who are often out of the US government and are not in a position to represent the US views.  Sometimes they are making money out of this particular contact.  Fackler has even gone to the extent of listing 28 American names, with annotation, Senators and others, as an appendix to their dialogue whom Japan may well establish contact to their profit. Koreans and the Chinese are making a much wider contact there on their own.  But Japan is taking what a narrow circle of these several people say almost as an order, and trying to please them.  This has greatly distorted the Japan-US relations.

     Concerning the territorial issues Japan is facing, the Kurils, Magosaki says, should be returned to Russia as a whole in accordance to the letters of the Peace Treaty, although this writer is not convinced as these Islands had not be taken as the result of any war by Japan in the past and had been peacefully exchanged with Sakhalin by a treaty of 1875 with Russia, and Russia had no reason to claim that they are their territory.  Did not the Allied countries declare that, although Japan should be deprived of those portions of her territory which she took from her neighbours by aggression, the War itself was not a war for their own territorial expansion?

     He warns that the Senkaku issue should be peacefully solved with China, as, contrary to what is widely believed in Japan, it would be easy for China to inactivate Japan's Self-Defence Forces by their far superior(numerically) force of bombers and missiles capable of destroying the airfields in Japan, and the US forces would not come to the rescue of Japan, as they are not looking at China as their enemy.  He stresses that the record of dialogue has been kept secret by Japan government with China on the Senkaku and with Russia on the Kurils.  He also says that, as there is a treaty with China on fishing, Japan should not have captured their fishing boats invoking Japan's domestic law.

     On the general political situation, he says that those elements within the Conservative forces, particularly the LDP, which had stood for a relatively less armament and more economic growth, have disappeared by now, and those which stand for more armament and more rightest policies even at the expense of socio-economic equality have now centred around Prime Minister Abe and they are the almost only significant elements in the LDP.  He is not satisfied.  Particularly he is very unhappy with the present situation in which the mass media functions under an already strong restraint on the freedom of expression.  The media has become an entrenched vested interest itself. He also feels that under the circumstances there will be a stronger voice in Okinawa for independence, at least for separation from Japan

     Magosaki, Fackler, and the rightest Suzuki Kunio all have got something interesting to say about the imperial household, but we will discuss it some other time.. ,   

Mr. F. Sionil Jose from the Philippines interviewed on Japan

     Sionil Jose, a National Artist of the Philippines, a Magsaysay awardee, is 90 years old.  He was born in 1924.  His interview was published on 27 February on the daily Asahi newspaper in Japanese.  The occasion was the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Manila about this time in 1945.

     He fought the Japanese troops in Luzon in the last months of the War.  The Battle of Manila was fought during that time.  Manila, by the way, was one of the most destructed cities during the Second World War together with Stalingrad and Warsaw, by the land battle.  Sionil was determined at that time to come to Japan and kill as many Japanese as possible by his gun.

     His first visit to Japan was in 1955.  Since then he visited it almost every year.  As he sees it, Japan is safe and comfortable, with a lot of things to see.  Some of his books were written there.  He forgot some stuff in the Metro from time to time, but they were all returned to him.

     He seems to be telling the young generation of his country to learn from the Meiji Restoration in the second half of 19th Century Japan.  He says that it was a great event opening up a closed country.  Then the victory in the Russo-Japanese War at the beginning of 20th Century was not only Japan's but also of the whole of Asia in that it showed that an Asian country isolated for centuries under feudalism was able to modernize itself.  Even the Second World War showed what a small country with a dedicated people could do.

     This writer, however, would not agree.  Japan modernized itself under the motto of the Rich Country, Strong Military.  Many Asian leaders, including Sun Yat-sen of China, looked up to Japan in those days, but they got ultimately disillusioned.  If there was some one who was not interested in this way of modernization, it was Gandhi of India.

     But when Sionil Jose says that in Japan today there is not much of open debate on the questions facing her, the media is hesitant in criticizing the ruling elites, and it is possible that the country is led to some ultra-nationalistic goal, I heartily agree with him.  A person like him is a real friend of us.  Let me conclude by saying that I look forward to meeting him sooner rather than later.    

     

     

Prime Minister Abe Speaks

      Mr. Abe spoke on the main features of his policies in the both Houses of the Japanese Parliament (known as the Diet) on 12 February.  Here are some of these policies, together with my critical comments wherever relevant.

     At the very beginning, he said before going into the details that Japan will perform her responsibility in the international community in fighting terrorism.  He thus put Japan on the side of the willing, effectively though not formally.  He did not elaborate what was terrorism, whom he wanted to fight, and how it came into being in a large measure in the present world.  Terrorism is a word very vague and dangerous to use in the international context.  I have raised five questions on Abe's behaviour, including his language, in connection with the Japanese hostages who were murdered by the ISIL.

     Then, Abe made it clear that he wants to see the TPP negotiations to come to an early conclusion, to lower the corporation tax by 2.5 %, to reopen the nuclear plants which are considered safe, to let the company profit to be related to the rise in wages, and to raise the consumption tax from the present 8 % to ten from April 2017.

     It is clear from them that he is firmly standing on the trickling-down theory which is now labelled out of date, even by the OECD, the alliance of the rich countries, in its recent report. The lower corporation tax and the successive hike in the consumption tax, heavier on the poor people, will assure the income tax in general to be on the high level.  The average monthly wage has come down from its highest in 1997 by as much as \ 55, 000 by now, showing the bankruptcy of the trickling-down theory.  On the reopening of the nuclear plants, Abe is apparently taking the side of the nuclear business industry, as the Fukushima plant is still not able to deal with its contaminated water.

     On the diplomacy and security, Abe sticks to the Japan-US alliance, and says that he will go ahead with the construction of the new US air base at Henoko, Okinawa, in spite of the overwhelming opposition of the residents of Okinawa Prefecture, as represented in several elections toward the end of 2014.

     In the last minute or two of his speech Abe referred to the issue of the Constitutional amendment, without getting into any details.  It did not look nice.  Worse still, he did not say a word on the talk he is supposed to give around 15 August this year in commemoration of the 70 years of the end of the War.                

Delhi Assembly Elections

     Elections to the Delhi Legislative Assembly were held on 7 February, and the result came to be known on 10.  It was a huge surprise.  The Aam Admi Party(AAP) got 67 out of seventy, while the BJP, in spite of its control on the national government with the charismatic Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi, got only three.  The Congress got none, yes, none at all.  Is such a result going to be an exception in the Indian politics, or does it show the shape of things to come?  I do not think anybody will dare to answer right now.

     The Congress obtained only 9 % of the votes polled.  This shows that there is tremendous disappointment among the people with the Congress, or rather with the dynasty that rules it. Rajdeep Sardesai's book, 2014, makes it clear how the mother and the son failed to present any constructive initiative before the electorate at the Lok Sabha elections in May 2014. It will be beyond comprehension if they both do not retire now from the Presidentship and the Vice-Presentship of the Party.  The Party itself had better, at least for the time being, dissolve itself into something of Mahatma Gandhi's Lok Sevak Sangh, of which we have again been reminded just a couple of weeks ago, on 30 January.

     In terms of the votes, the BJP, with its 32 %, has not done so badly.  In the Lok Sabha it polled 31 %,  and got the landslide victory.  Still their defeat is a surprise when the party has got all the seven Parliamentary seats from Delhi.  The only possible explanation is that their policies have not been sufficiently pro-poor.  Also, against the AAP, who represents the anti-corruption mood in the country, the BJP has not been seen as an anti-corruption party.

     Now the AAP, which has got an scary 54 %.  I have seen Mr. Kejriwal on the TV who was by the side of the fasting Anna Hazare in Delhi in August 2011.  Is he able to retain the control on the government this time and go ahead with the anti-corruption programme?  Is he able to build his party in other States also to be the viable force to oppose the BJP with a more pro-poor policy, and to take the place of the Congress?  Everything is uncertain.  But the Indian politics has become suddenly very volatile.  

Japanese Hostages

     Two Japanese have been taken hostages by the IS.  One of them is believed to have been already killed.  The second one has said in his broadcast late last night, Japan time, that he has been given twenty-four hours to live unless a woman terrorist captive by the Jordanian Government is released.

     Here I would like to write several questions concerning Japanese PM Abe's recent Middle East tour which immediately preceded this crisis during which the IS made the first announcement that they would murder the hostages.

    Abe and his entourage left Japan on 16 January.  Their first visit was to Egypt, where Abe gave a speech outlining his Middle East policy on 17.  My first question is why he said that he would give $ 200 million as humanitarian grant-in-aid specifically to those Arab countries fighting the IS.  Abe must have been known about the two hostages in their hands.  Did at least this part of his speech not amount to provocation to the IS?

     After the  speech he conferred with the Egyptian President, the former Army Chief of Staff, who and whose Government are strongly hostile to the Muslim Brotherhood, and said that democratic transition of power was in progress in Egypt.  This was clearly another provocation.

     Then he visited Jordan on 17 and 18, meeting the King on both days, and proceeded to Israel. He conferred with the Israeli Prime Minister on two days, 18 and 19, reportedly on how to cope with the Islamists.  He, incidentally, also met the hawkish US Republican Senator McCain.  My third question is if he did not notice how dangerous it could be for the lives of the hostages to show publicly such intimate relations with the Israeli Government.

     On 20, the next day, while Abe was still in Jerusalem, the first announcement by the IS was broadcast.  Abe denounced it in a press conference in Jerusalem.  He then visited the Palestinian President in the West Bank on the same day, returned to Jerusalem, and came home on 21. Before coming home, however, he put the Vice Foreign Minister, who was in the entourage, in charge of the on-the-spot operation to be based at the Japanese Embassy in Jordan.  Jordan is among the US-led coalition of the willing against the IS.  Is the location appropriate?

     My fifth and final question is, why even now does Abe not try to keep distance from the US? The IS is, after all, a part of the legacy of the Iraq invasion of 2003.  Japan supported that invasion, and even sent a token military contingent.  For this reason alone, it is high time Japan might come away from the US intentions.  At the moment she is moving in the opposite direction. When the murder of the first hostage had been broadcast on 24, Abe phoned up Obama who was in India the next day.  This is hardly the way Japan can make contribution to a peaceful solution of the many-faceted Middle Eastern crisis.              

       

Terror in Paris

     The great terror struck into the mind of the people of Paris and elsewhere, which started with an armed attack on a weekly newspaper on Wednesday, 7 January 2015, has not come to an end.  I would like to join all the others who are mourning the death of the victims.  I would also like to express my solidarity with those who are making a determined condemnation of the violence.

     I would like to make it clear, however, that I am not able to bring myself to support the view that the way the weekly newspaper was publishing under the name of satire should be defended in the name of the freedom of expression.  The freedom of expression should be certainly defended.  As a matter of fact it has been fought for and won by the efforts of the numerous people.  But is it worth the name, the glorious name, of that freedom to publish whatever one wishes to, even if it offends many innocent people?  And knowingly?

     And it is no ordinary minority of people.  There are said to be five to six million Muslims in France alone.  Some of them must be devout followers of the faith, many others must be secular.  However that may be, is France, meaning the ordinary French people, going to live with them in the many years to come or not?  If yes, is it not necessary for the French to come to terms with them by adjusting some of the traditional ideas they have been entertaining?  Even if they do so, it would not amount to the repression of the freedom of expression, which is part of the universal values of the mankind.  But perhaps they would have to modify their interpretation of it if necessary.  What is currently going on is a case in point.

     Many French would ask, why there are so many Muslims they have to cope with in their own country?  But it is the end-result of their own colonial history in the past, and they are reaping what they have sown for a long time.  They would have to take into consideration that many of those immigrants are in a disadvantageous condition.  Moreover, they are facing the rapid rise in recent years of the extreme Right in French politics who should not be there in a country of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.

     There is one more thing I would like to say here.  It is the relationship among the ordinary French, the immigrant Muslims, and the Jewish in France.  The terrorists have also attacked a Jewish supermarket.  Needless to say this was an unprovoked action, and it is likely to enhance hostility among the Jewish toward the Muslims.  It will also damage the position of the Palestinians.  What I would add here is that the Muslim immigrants are also facing the strong pro-Jewish and anti-Muslim prejudice in the Jewish-Muslim spectrum.  Take, for example, what the French Prime Minister said on the street this time.  He said, 'We are all French Jews'.  Beautiful words if seen as the expression of solidarity with the victims.  But why not some words of solidarity with the ordinary, innocent Muslims at the same time, who must be deeply hurt by the terror and are badly in need of those words?                 

Year-end Lower House Elections in Japan, 2014

     A Happy New Year to you all.  Let us hope, and we are entitled to hope, that the world will be more peaceful, with less socio-economic inequality, at the end of the year.

     Japan's Prime Minister Abe dissolved the Lower House of the Parliament much ahead of the end of its term, and the elections were held on 14 December.  We will take up three prominent features out of the results.  But why did he decide to go to the electorate to begin with?

     In short, in this writer's view, he lost confidence in his ability to manage economy.  It had been taken for granted that the economic performance would prove to be poor in the April-June quarter because of the hike in the consumption tax from 5 to 8 % on 1 April.  But contrary to the forecast, the downward trend continued in the July-September quarter, inviting sharper criticism of the "Abenomics".  The share prices continued to go up, but that was the only positive-if we may say so-upward trend in the economy, and its benefit was apparently limited to a very small stratum which includes lots of foreign buyers.  Almost every opinion poll would indicate that the great majority felt that the benefit of Abe's policies had not reached them.  He had been compelled to postpone the next stage of the hike to 10 % scheduled for 1 October 2015.

     The first prominent feature of the election results was that, in spite of all the above, Abe's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), together with its coalition partner, Komei Party, got a little more than two-thirds majority of the 475 seats in the House.  The voting rate was the lowest ever, 53 %.   A poll conducted soon afterwards says that only 11 % replied that it was because Abe's policies were highly valued by the electorate, but an astounding 72 % was of the view that it was because the opposition parties could not present viable counter measures.  The disaffection with the Abenomics was more clearly shown in the near wiping out of some of the opposition parties positioned more to the right of the LDP.  The foreign media called it the winning by default, and they were right.

     Another aspect of this was that, while the LDP got 75 % of the seats in the single-member constituencies, accounting for the majority of the seats, with only 48 % of the votes, they could get only 33 % of the party-wise proportional representation.

     The second feature was that the Communist Party of Japan nearly doubled their votes in the proportional representation to 11 %, and thereby increased its seats dramatically from the mere 8 to 21.  

     The third was the fact that in Okinawa Prefecture, where the main issue was whether to construct a new air base for the US forces stationed in Japan by the US-Japan Security Treaty, the candidates of the opposition alliance defeated the LDP candidates in all the four single-member constituencies.   This was also an epoch-making event, which took place on the heels of the anti-Abe, anti-LDP victory of the opposition alliance in the elections both for the Governor of Okinawa and the Mayor of Naha, its major administrative city, on 16 November, just four weeks previously.

     How will the Japanese politics move on from these points this year 2015?  Has the pattern in Okinawa shown the shape of things to come?  And will Abe and his LDP try to go ahead with their two-thirds majority in the Lower House in the direction of the Constitutional Amendment?