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      Taro Kono, Japan's Most Popular Prime Minister Candidate, Far From a Shoo-In

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      Taro Kono has by far the highest poll numbers of any candidate to lead the governing Liberal Democrats. But party elders don’t think so highly of him.TOKYO — If popularity were the deciding factor, there would be a clear front-runner to become the next prime minister of Japan.Polls have found that the public favors Taro Kono, the cabinet minister overseeing Japan’s coronavirus vaccine rollout, by at least two to one in the race to lead the governing Liberal Democratic Party — which, in effect, is the race to become prime minister. His Twitter following of 2.4 million dwarfs those of his three rivals combined.But in the back rooms where Japanese political decisions are made, Mr. Kono, 58, is not nearly as well liked. His reputation as the Liberal Democrats’ most outspoken nonconformist and his left-leaning views on social issues put him out of step with the party’s conservative elders.Those people will have considerable sway on Wednesday as the Liberal Democrats choose a successor to Yoshihide Suga, the unpopular current prime minister and party leader, who said this month that he would step aside. Whoever takes his place will lead the party into a general election that must be held by the end of November.In past party leadership elections, unity has made the winner a foregone conclusion. But this time, the political horse trading has sometimes seemed at odds with popular sentiment, even as the public has expressed dissatisfaction with the party’s leadership on the pandemic and the economy. That disconnect partly reflects complacency among the Liberal Democrats, who have been in power for all but a few years since 1955 and seem confident that they will win the general election no matter who they choose.“Right now, their thinking is that they can’t lose to the opposition,” said Masato Kamikubo, a professor of political science at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto. Yoshihide Suga, center, said this month that he would step aside as prime minister and the Liberal Democrats’ leader.Pool photo by Kim Kyung-HoonMr. Kono differs from his rivals in style as well as substance. Unlike a long string of stodgy Liberal Democratic politicians who seemed to have little interest in inspiring the public, he assiduously courts popular opinion.After Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, made him foreign minister in 2017, Mr. Kono developed an avid Twitter following in both Japanese and English, with playful posts about food, his prowess with Japanese children’s toys and meetings with cartoon mascots.As the minister in charge of vaccines, he has sometimes responded personally to Twitter users’ questions. Fumie Sakamoto, an infection control manager at St. Luke’s International Hospital in Tokyo, said she believed his personal touch may have helped ease public fears about the vaccines.“He’s always been willing to communicate about vaccination in a positive and easy-to-understand manner,” Ms. Sakamoto said. After a slow start in the first half of the year, more than half of the population in Japan is now fully vaccinated, putting it ahead of the United States and many other countries around the Pacific Rim.But other issues have put Mr. Kono on the wrong side of his party’s power brokers.He has repeatedly voiced his opposition to nuclear power, a sacred cow for the Liberal Democrats. He now supports same-sex marriage and a proposal to change a law requiring married couples to share a surname for legal purposes — positions that are popular with the public but opposed by the party’s influential right wing.Mr. Kono, center left, at a Tokyo vaccination site. As the minister overseeing Japan’s Covid-19 vaccine rollout, he has engaged directly with Twitter users.Yuri Kageyama/Associated PressMr. Abe, who resigned last year because of ill health, has backed Sanae Takaichi, 60, a hard-line conservative, for the leadership. Ms. Takaichi, who would be Japan’s first female prime minister, has strong backing from the right wing of the party, but her poll numbers are low. Another woman in the leadership race, Seiko Noda, 61, has little support from either the public or the party.Many Liberal Democratic members of Parliament consider Fumio Kishida, 64, a moderate with tepid support in the polls, to be the safest choice, according to media tallies of lawmakers.Mr. Kono, whose father and grandfather were both Liberal Democratic lawmakers, has long made it clear that he wants to be prime minister. But he did not follow a traditional route to power. He left a place at one of Japan’s most prestigious private universities, Keio, to study at Georgetown in Washington instead.Mr. Kono’s polished English and extensive travel experience as foreign minister would make him a welcome choice for prime minister among Japan’s allies, political analysts said. “For Washington, he would be the most comfortable person,” said Shihoko Goto, a senior associate for Northeast Asia at the Wilson Center in Washington.On China, Mr. Kono does not invoke the kind of hawkish rhetoric that Ms. Takaichi and Mr. Kishida have been using during the campaign, but he would be likely to maintain the party’s policies on military cooperation with the United States, Australia and India. Sanae Takaichi has low poll numbers, but former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and other conservatives support her for the leadership.Kazuhiro Nogi/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesGiven his work on diplomatic and military issues — Mr. Kono also served as Mr. Abe’s defense minister — he is “probably the best-prepared person for the prime ministership in that sense,” said Narushige Michishita, vice president of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo. But some say his confidence has led to arrogance and even impetuosity. Last year, as defense minister, he decided with little consultation to cancel a plan to buy an American missile defense system, angering Japanese military leaders who heard about the decision after the fact.“Maybe he’s too American,” said Kunihiko Miyake, a former diplomat who has been an adviser to Mr. Suga. “He’s very direct, honest, sometimes blunt,” Mr. Miyake added. “And sometimes so self-righteous that nobody can catch up or nobody feels willing to help.”Mr. Kono, who declined to be interviewed for this article, has a reputation for being short-tempered with Japanese bureaucrats. He recently crusaded against the fax machines that are still used in government offices, making waves by taking on one of the shibboleths of the bureaucracy.In an interview with the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s largest daily newspaper, Mr. Kono acknowledged that he might need to speak more carefully. “However, I do not intend to mince words when it comes to pointing out the fallacies of bureaucratic thinking that is not attuned to reality,” he said.On Twitter, he has also become rather notorious as the Japanese politician most likely to block his critics — so much so that he spawned a hashtag, #IwasblockedbyKonoTaro, in Japanese. When asked about the practice in an interview with TBS, a broadcaster, he defended it.“I don’t feel the need to have a conversation with people I don’t know who slander me,” he said.A nuclear plant in Mihama, Japan. Mr. Kono has spoken out against nuclear power, but he supports restarting long-idled plants as part of a plan to reduce carbon emissions.Kyodo News, via Associated PressMasahiko Abe, a professor of English and American literature at the University of Tokyo, said he was blocked by Mr. Kono after suggesting that the minister did not understand the government’s policy on university entrance exams.“I don’t mind that he’s sometimes aggressive and even arrogant from time to time,” Mr. Abe said. But, he added, “If he says anything wrong, I think we have the right to correct him.”People who have worked with Mr. Kono said he believed that policy debates were more productive if they were rigorous. “The reason why he understands the discussion is because he is demanding,” said Mika Ohbayashi, a director at the Renewable Energy Institute, a research and advocacy group, who served on a climate change advisory panel with Mr. Kono.As a candidate for the leadership, Mr. Kono has calibrated some of his past positions. Despite his opposition to nuclear power, he said he supported the restart of Japan’s nuclear plants — the vast majority of which have been idled since the triple meltdown in Fukushima 10 years ago — as part of a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.“He is looking at his liabilities and he is trying to figure out how he can cement support within the party,” said Mireya Solís, co-director of the Center for East Asia Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution. Hikari Hida contributed reporting. More

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      Why Japan's Liberal Democratic Party Is Likely to Stay in Power

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      The country has free elections, opposition parties and, lately, public discontent. So why are the Liberal Democrats nearly assured to remain in power?TOKYO — When people think of preordained elections these days, they tend to look to Russia or Iran or Hong Kong. But in Japan, a parliamentary democracy and the world’s third-largest economy, the same party has governed for all but four years since 1955, and most expect it to win the general election due by the end of November.So on Wednesday, when the Liberal Democratic Party chooses a successor to Yoshihide Suga, the unpopular prime minister and party chief, it will almost certainly anoint the prime minister who will lead Japan into the new year.But why, in a country with free elections, where voters have expressed dissatisfaction over the government’s handling of the coronavirus and the Olympics, can the Liberal Democratic Party remain so confident of victory?They’re good at shape-shifting.The Liberal Democrats try to be all things to all people. The party formed in 1955, three years after the end of the postwar American occupation of Japan. Yet the United States had a hand in its gestation.Supporters cheering after the Liberal Democratic Party was formed in a merger in Tokyo in 1955.The Asahi Shimbun, via Getty ImagesFearing that Japan, which had a growing left-wing labor movement, might be lured into the Communist orbit, the C.I.A. urged several rival conservative factions to come together. “They didn’t necessarily like each other or get along, but they were engineered into one mega-party,” said Nick Kapur, an associate professor of history at Rutgers University.The new Liberal Democratic Party oversaw Japan’s rapid growth during the 1960s and 1970s, which helped to solidify its power. And over the decades, it has morphed into a big tent, as reflected in the candidates seeking the party’s top position this week.Sanae Takaichi, 60, is a hard-line conservative. Fumio Kishida, 64, is a moderate who talks about a “new capitalism.” Seiko Noda, 61, supports greater rights for women and other groups. Taro Kono, 58, eventually wants to phase out the nuclear power industry.Such variation helps explain the Liberal Democrats’ longevity. If voters tire of one version of the party, it pivots in another direction. Party leaders have also shrewdly co-opted policy ideas from the opposition.Mieko Nakabayashi, a professor of social sciences at Waseda University in Tokyo, likens the party to Amazon. “You can find anything to buy, and they will deliver it to your house,” she said. “Therefore people do not need any opposition party to buy something else.”The opposition is weak.A dozen years ago, the opposition Democratic Party of Japan rode to a landslide victory. It was only the second time that the Liberal Democrats had lost. But it turned out that voters were not ready for so much change.Yukio Hatoyama, the Democratic Party leader, during elections in 2009.Hiroko Masuike for The New York TimesThe new government said it would break up the “iron triangle” between the Liberal Democrats, the bureaucracy and vested interests. While voters recognized problems with that arrangement, “they in general appreciate the competent bureaucracy,” said Shinju Fujihira, executive director of the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University.The Democrats’ promise to close an American base on Okinawa also proved difficult to fulfill. They waffled on a plan to raise a consumption tax, and they pushed for a strong yen and cuts in infrastructure spending, policies that hindered economic growth.Then came the nuclear meltdown at Fukushima in 2011, triggered by an earthquake and tsunami. The government’s mishandling of the disaster sealed the public’s impression of a bungling party, and the opposition has struggled to recover ever since.In recent years, the Democratic Party has split and new opposition parties have formed, making it harder for any one of them to capture voters’ attention.The opposition’s brief time in power “left a major scar,” said Mireya Solis, co-director of the Center for East Asia Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution. The Liberal Democrats don’t win alone.Since 1999, the Liberal Democrats have partnered with another party, Komeito, that has helped to keep them in power.Komeito is the political arm of a religious movement, Soka Gakkai, that was founded in the 1960s and can regularly deliver a bloc of votes.Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, right, with Natsuo Yamaguchi, the Komeito Party leader, at the party’s convention in Tokyo last year.Jiji Press/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn Japan’s bifurcated election system, voters select an individual candidate in some districts and choose a party’s list of candidates in others. The Liberal Democrats and Komeito strategically choose where they back candidates, effectively swapping votes.The parties make an odd pairing: Mainstream Liberal Democratic policy is hawkish about bolstering Japan’s military capabilities, while Komeito is much less so.But Komeito knows the partnership has pragmatic benefits.“In order to maintain power, if you continue to insist on only your own ideologies, it would not work,” said Hisashi Inatsu, a Komeito member of Parliament from Hokkaido who said the Liberal Democratic Party had backed him in three elections. There may also be financial incentives for such vote-swapping. Amy Catalinac, an assistant professor of politics at New York University, has analyzed districts where the parties coordinate closely.“What we found out is that the L.D.P. and Komeito are using pork to reward places where supporters are switching votes to the other party as instructed,” she said, using the colloquial term for government spending targeted to local constituencies.Apathy helps.In many ways, the Liberal Democrats benefit from voter apathy. When the party suffered its rare loss in 2009, voter turnout was 69 percent. When it returned to power in 2012, less than 60 percent of voters had showed up. Independents don’t see much point in voting. “They’re not going to be mobilized if the opposition doesn’t have something to offer them,” said Richard Samuels, a Japan specialist who directs the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Inertia is potent in a country where the trains run on time, everyone has access to health care and, now, an initially slow Covid-19 vaccine rollout has started to surpass those of other wealthy countries.“It’s not that great right now, but it could have been worse,” said Shihoko Goto, a senior associate for Northeast Asia at the Wilson Center in Washington. “‘Stay the course’ doesn’t seem that unattractive to many people.”Makiko Inoue and HIkari Hida contributed research. More

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      Sanae Takaich Hopes to Be Japan’s First Female Leader

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      If Sanae Takaichi wins, it would be a milestone for the country. But some feminists hope it doesn’t happen.TOKYO — Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, often talked about creating a society in which women could “shine.”Now, a year after he resigned because of ill health, Mr. Abe is backing a woman, Sanae Takaichi, to lead the governing Liberal Democratic Party. If party members elect her this month, she will almost certainly become Japan’s first female prime minister.Ms. Takaichi, 60, is considered a long shot. If she beats the odds, it will be a significant milestone for Japan, where women make up less than 15 percent of Parliament and only two of the current cabinet’s 21 ministers are female.But Ms. Takaichi, a hard-line conservative, is a divisive figure among Japanese who want politicians to do more to empower women. She rarely talks about gender equality, and she supports some policies, such as a law requiring married couples to share a surname, that feminists say diminish women’s rights.“For her to be up there on a pedestal as a shining example of a different, improved, changed society for Japanese women would be the worst possible thing that could happen,” said Noriko Hama, an economics professor at Doshisha University Business School in Kyoto.The Liberal Democrats will hold their leadership vote on Sept. 29. Yoshihide Suga, the unpopular current prime minister and party leader, said this month that he would step aside.Whoever party members choose is highly likely to be named the new prime minister by Parliament. He or she will then lead the party into a general election that must be held by the end of November. The Liberal Democrats, who have governed Japan for almost all of the postwar period, are heavily favored to win that election.Ms. Takaichi, who was first elected to Parliament in 1993 from Nara Prefecture in western Japan, has been a staunch ally of Mr. Abe’s since 2006, when he began his first, brief stint as prime minister, and through his return to power in 2012. She served repeatedly in his cabinet, where her portfolios included — ironically, in some feminists’ view — gender equality.Ms. Takaichi, left, with then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, center, and the rest of his first cabinet in 2006. Kazuhiro Nogi/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesUnlike Mr. Abe, Ms. Takaichi has said little about the gender gap, though she has called for tax deductions for child care and doing more to support women’s health.But on many other far-right policies, she echoes Mr. Abe. She supports amending the pacifist Constitution, a contentious position in a country wary of military aggression. In a campaign speech Friday, she vowed to “protect the national sovereignty and honor at all costs.” (She did not comment for this article.)Like Mr. Abe and other conservatives, Ms. Takaichi argues that Japanese atrocities during World War II have been overstated and objects to further official apologies for them. She regularly visits Yasukuni Shrine, a memorial in Tokyo honoring Japan’s war dead — including Class A war criminals from the World War II era — that is a flash point for historical sensitivities in China and South Korea.On social issues, Ms. Takaichi opposes same-sex marriage and legal changes that would allow women to reign as emperor. And she opposes changing the century-old law requiring married couples to share a surname for legal purposes, an issue often seen as a litmus test among conservative power brokers.She has said that revising the law could lead to divorce or extramarital affairs. Ms. Takaichi, who is divorced, used her birth surname professionally during her marriage.Political analysts say Mr. Abe, who still wields considerable influence in the party, has calculated that Ms. Takaichi’s gender will overshadow her lack of policies supporting women. “Abe is just pretending to respect and proactively promote women,” said Naoto Nonaka, a professor of politics at Gakushuin University in Tokyo.Ms. Takaichi visiting the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which honors Japan’s war dead, in 2014. Yoshikazu Tsuno/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Abe is widely seen as having fallen short on his promises to advance women in society. In the World Economic Forum’s annual analysis of gender gaps, Japan, which has the world’s third-largest economy, ranks 120th out of 156 countries. Women still struggle to gain traction in Japanese politics, particularly at the national level. Yuriko Koike, the governor of Tokyo, founded a party in 2017 in an attempt to disrupt a national election that year, but Mr. Abe led the Liberal Democrats to victory, while Ms. Koike’s party drew only lukewarm support.Another woman in the Liberal Democrats’ leadership race, Seiko Noda, 61, has explicitly promoted gender equality, as well as rights for older people and those with disabilities. But she barely secured enough signatures from party lawmakers to qualify as a candidate.The Liberal Democrats’ far-right wing has held sway for a decade, and analysts said women in particular had to tack right to rise in the party. “In order to compensate for this disadvantage of being a woman, you have to show over-loyalty to the conservatives,” said Mari Miura, a professor of political science at Sophia University in Tokyo. “And that means you have to be hawkish and anti-feminist.”Gender aside, Ms. Takaichi is an unusual leadership candidate because she does not come from a prominent political family. The top contenders, Taro Kono, 58, and Fumio Kishida, 64, are both sons and grandsons of members of Parliament. Mr. Abe’s grandfather was also a prime minister.Ms. Takaichi’s mother was a police officer in Nara, and her father worked for a car company affiliated with Toyota. In a memoir, Ms. Takaichi wrote that she had been admitted to two prominent private universities, Waseda and Keio, but that her parents wanted to save the tuition money for her younger brother.Instead, she attended Kobe University, a state school, where she played drums in a band and drove a motorcycle. After graduation, she spent a year in the United States, interning with then-Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder of Colorado, a Democrat.From left, Taro Kono, Fumio Kishida, Ms. Takaichi and Seiko Noda, all candidates to lead the Liberal Democratic Party, at a debate in Tokyo on Saturday.Pool photo by Eugene Hoshiko“I was amazed that she was so interested in how the U.S. government worked,” Ms. Schroeder wrote in an email. “A lot of Americans aren’t interested in that! She was very dedicated and dug into any project she was given.”Ms. Takaichi, who has often cited Margaret Thatcher as a role model, decided her best path to power was to align with Mr. Abe. “Her candidacy became viable in a way that it wouldn’t have been without” him, said Tobias Harris, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington and a specialist in Japanese politics.She has never strayed far from her mentor’s agenda. Ms. Takaichi has even unveiled an economic platform that she calls “Sanaenomics,” an obvious reference to Mr. Abe’s so-called Abenomics. It includes monetary easing and strong fiscal investment, two principles that he promoted.Ms. Takaichi raised eyebrows in 2014 when she posed for photos with Kazunari Yamada, a Holocaust denier who leads the fringe National Socialist Japanese Workers party. Years earlier, she had endorsed a book by a Liberal Democrat that praised Hitler’s campaign tactics.Taku Yamamoto, Ms. Takaichi’s ex-husband and a fellow lawmaker in the party, said being photographed with someone was not a sign of an alliance. “We politicians accept anyone who wants to take a picture with us,” he said, adding, “I have had my photo taken with members of the Communist Party.”References to Nazi Germany are not as politically explosive in Japan and other Asian countries as they can be in the West. “The issue seems very distant in Japan regarding the Holocaust,” said Kiyoka Tokumasu, 20, a student studying education and international affairs at International Christian University in Tokyo.Ms. Tokumasu said she knew little about Ms. Takaichi’s positions but would welcome a female prime minister.“Having a high-profile woman represent a country where the politicians are predominantly male will create a ripple effect,” Ms. Tokumasu said. “Hopefully, while she’s in her role, we can influence her to support more laws and ideologies that create a more gender-equal world.”Hisako Ueno contributed reporting. 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      in US Politics

      South Korea’s balancing act will test Biden’s plan to get tough with China

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      When the South Korean president goes to Washington DC on Friday, his discussions with Joe Biden about China will test the limits of the US president’s rhetoric to “work with [its] allies to hold China accountable”. It will also exhibit the dilemma faced by middle-sized powers such as South Korea.The White House spokesperson, Jen Psaki, said last month that Moon Jae-in’s visit “will highlight the ironclad alliance between the United States and [South Korea], and the broad and deep ties between our governments, people and economies”.But observers of the relationship think that, despite the talk of a strong alliance, it is unlikely South Korea will even go as far as its neighbouring Japan in showing a united front with Washington on the approach to China.Shortly after the Japanese prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, visited Biden in the US capital last month, a joint statement issued by the two leaders underscored “the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan strait” and encouraged “the peaceful resolution of cross-strait issues”.It was the first time since 1969 that Washington and Tokyo had referred to Taiwan in a written statement, a move that some saw as a manifestation of the US’s unity with one of its most significant allies in the region.Analysts said such a public position on an extremely sensitive subject was unlikely to be found in Moon’s discussion with Biden this week, even though a recent Pew poll showed that 75% of South Koreans feel “somewhat” or “very unfavourable” towards China.Japan and South Korea confront a common dilemma when it comes to China. They are both key US allies, but both trade heavily with China, said Haruko Satoh of the Osaka School of International Public Policy in Japan, who studies Korea and Japan in the evolving China-US relations.“[But] if the US-China competition is a given, Japan is more of a balancing power in these new dynamics because of its size of population and economy. By contrast, Korea is a much more vulnerable player, especially considering how dependent South Korea is on China’s vast market,” she said.For South Korea and Japan, China and then the US are the top two export markets. But Seoul’s economy is even more heavily dependent on Beijing, accounting for nearly 26% of South Korea’s exports last year, followed by the US at 14.5%. Japan exported 22% of its goods to China last year, with 18.5% to the US.“When it comes to China, South Korea takes a two-pronged approach that pleases both Beijing and Washington,” said Ramon Pacheco Pardo, the KF-VUB Korea chair at the Brussels School of Governance.“But the bottom line of Moon’s approach is that he is not going to criticise China so publicly as other US allies have done,” said Pacheco Pardo. “In some ways it shows Biden the limits to how much his allies are willing to be openly critical of China on things such as human rights.”Ahead of Moon’s visit, his government announced that South Korea would “partially” join the US-led quadrilateral security dialogue (Quad) by cooperating with the forum on coronavirus vaccines, climate change and new technologies. It is noticeable that the security aspect of this involvement is missing.Beijing has repeatedly accused Quad of a US-led clique that reflects Washington’s “cold war mentality”. It has also urged Seoul to clarify its position on it. A ruling party official told Korean press that the US had been asking Seoul to join, “but we think we can cooperate with the Quad countries on a case-by-case basis in fields where we have a contribution to make”.This half-in, half-out approach has so far proved less direct and confrontational to China – and to some extent more effective, according to Pacheco Pardo. It also reflects old lessons from the past that still cast a shadow over South Korea’s China policy.Five years ago, when Seoul agreed to host the US anti-missile system Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (Thaad), China came up with a host of measures in what analysts believed was economic retaliation. Beijing saw the ultimate target of Thaad as China itself.One of South Korea’s biggest companies, Lotte, had several of its stores in China shut down overnight for agreeing a land swap deal with the South Korean government for the deployment of Thaad. Online and offline boycotts ensued by Chinese consumers. Chinese tourists – who once flooded the streets of Seoul and Jeju Island – disappeared.Tellingly, Washington provided little support to Seoul on this matter. “South Korean policymakers felt abandoned at the time. They will now think that if previous US administrations didn’t support South Korea under such circumstances, why would the current Biden administration do so when it happens again?” said Pacheco Pardo.John Nilsson-Wright, a Korea Foundation Korea fellow at the London-based thinktank Chatham House, said: “That is precisely why it’s harder for Seoul to push a security line against China if Beijing holds the bigger sway in market access.”Shortly after the Thaad saga, South Korea’s then foreign minister, Kang Kyung-wha, laid out three “noes” in parliament. Two of them were no additional deployment of Thaad, and no forming a military alliance with the US and Japan.Of course, the issue of North Korea and China’s role in it also sways Moon’s thinking. But there is another reason that could explain his approach to the US and China, according to Nilsson-Wright.“Like many countries, South Korea has also been asking itself: what if a ‘Trump 2.0’ turns up in the next few years? This would then put South Korea in an even more awkward position having been caught in the middle.” More

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      Biden picks ex-Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel as US ambassador to Japan

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      Joe Biden has picked the former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel to be his ambassador to Japan.The selection ends months of speculation over whether Barack Obama’s first chief of staff, a former congressman and longtime Democratic operative, would be nominated to an administration role.In the first days of the Biden presidency Emanuel, 61, was mentioned as a possible secretary of transportation. Biden ended up picking Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who ran strongly in the Democratic presidential primary.Some progressives view Emanuel as a major antagonist within the party. He is often criticized among liberals, for example, for his handling of a shooting of an African American teenager during his time in Chicago.Emanuel served two terms as mayor but opted not to run a third time, in the face of a potentially brutal campaign.His selection as ambassador was first reported by the Financial Times. The Guardian confirmed it on Tuesday.The selection, which will be officially announced later this month, is one of a number of appointments Biden plans to make in full ambassadorial roles. There has been grumbling among Democratic donors that the president has not followed in a longstanding tradition of appointing major donors to plush diplomatic posts.Biden has reportedly eyed major American political figures for diplomatic jobs. In April, for example, Axios reported that he plans to pick Cindy McCain, the wife of the late Republican senator and presidential nominee John McCain, to be ambassador to the United Nations World Food Programme.Biden reportedly plans to nominate Ken Salazar, a former cabinet secretary and senator from Colorado, as ambassador to Mexico. More

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      in World Politics

      Japan’s Art of Forgetfulness

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      What choices are available to a nation that, in its quest for modernization, foolishly built a nuclear reactor in a seismically active tsunami zone? The Royal Society reported in 2015 that the disastrous fate of Fukushima in 2011 resulted from a “cascade of engineering and regulatory failures.” This included not only multiple design errors and miscalculations of the geological risks, but also “methodological mistakes that nobody experienced in tsunami engineering should have made.” The report concluded that the “Fukushima accident was preventable, if international best practices and standards had been followed.”

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      A full 10 years later, after dealing with the aftermath in a reasonably efficient manner, Japan has one major task left. It must find a way of disposing of more than a million tons of contaminated water from the powerplant’s three decommissioned reactors. To the chagrin not only of neighboring countries including China and South Korea but also environmental groups and even Japan’s own fishing industry, the Japanese government has made the controversial decision to close the book on Fukushima by dumping the water into the ocean.

      According to Al Jazeera, the Japanese government claims to have taken this decision on the basis of its newfound concern with the “international best practices and standards” the Royal Society referred to in its report. The government released this statement on April 13: “On the premise of strict compliance with regulatory standards that have been established, we select oceanic release.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Oceanic release:

      An act stirred by the temptation to believe that whatever you can discreetly dump into the ocean will be so diluted by the mass of moving water that within weeks or months, even if it is public knowledge, no one will actually remember that the deed was done or blame those who did it

      Contextual Note

      In his explanation of the government’s decision, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga appealed to the fabled capacity of the Japanese to accept the inevitable. “Releasing the … treated water,” he said, “is an unavoidable task to decommission the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant and reconstruct the Fukushima area.” As a politician, not only does he feel it is his humble duty to put the errors of the past behind him, but he knows it is always effective to focus on potential positive outcomes — in this case, the reconstruction of the non-nuclear reconstruction of the affected area. Averted readers should know that when a politician from any nation calls something “unavoidable,” the most sensible reaction is to suppose that what they really mean by “unavoidable” is what we judge to be the most convenient and economic way for us to dismiss such an annoying issue.

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      Polls in Japan show little support for the government. Le Monde reports that a poll conducted by NHK, the Japanese broadcaster, found that 51% of those polled opposed the plan, with only 18% supporting it. The Chinese called the plan “extremely irresponsible.” South Korea seconded the Chinese, deeming it “totally unacceptable.” Protesters in Seoul accused Japan of engaging in “nuclear terrorism,” echoing the Iranian government’s complaint this week following Israel’s brazen sabotage of the nuclear facility at Natanz in Iran. Even Taiwan — more fearful of China than of contaminated waters — expressed its concern, though much more timidly. 

      These reactions contrast with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s tweet in which he thanks “Japan for its transparent efforts in its decision to dispose of the treated water from the Fukushima Daiichi site.” Transparent? China complained that the Japanese made their decision “without fully consulting with neighboring countries and the international community.” Is that what Blinken sees as a “transparent” effort? Or does he mean that because the operation will only be carried out in two years’ time, announcing it today is an example of transparency? After all, the US tends to act first and explain later and rarely worries about transparency.

      Then there is another consideration the Japanese government would be wise to ponder. Dumping the still polluted water into the Pacific means that sooner rather than later the West Coast of the US will be affected. At some point in the future, could this have dire consequences for Japanese Americans who risk being assaulted for spreading “Fukushima cancer” just as Chinese Americans have been attacked for releasing the “Wuhan flu”?

      Historical Note

      The Japanese language has a common expression: Shouganai. One specialist of Japanese offers this explanation of the expression: “The best way I can translate ‘Shouganai’ is ‘It can’t be helped,’” comparing it with the well-known French expression, “C’est la vie.” The author confesses to using the Japanese “phrase almost daily.” Italian Americans from New York might prefer to compare it with their favorite all-purpose phrase for dismissing any subject they don’t want to discuss: “Forget about it.” Every culture has its own way of accepting what is written off as a fatality that cannot be constructively addressed.

      Pushing the explanation of the Japanese phrase further, the author insists that despite always being used in reference to negative events, Shouganai is “actually a pretty positive way to look at the world.” It signifies a basic feeling at the core of Japanese culture, that it’s “better to not get hung up on things outside of your control.” In contrast, US culture encourages making every effort — including at times extreme violence — to demonstrate one is in control.

      Since the end of the Second World War, the Japanese government has developed the art of not getting hung up on disagreeable past events from the past, such as the fate of the Chinese and Korean sex slaves they euphemized with the name “comfort women” at a time in their history when they believed they could dominate all of Asia. After their six-week-long massacre known as the Rape of Nanking, sensing the risk of bad PR the knowledge of the brutal campaign of massacre and violent rape might produce, the emperor decided to step in. The answer was less murder and more rape, but better organized and subject to the kind of discipline and social rituals with which Japanese culture feels comfortable. The treatment of the comfort women was unspeakably cruel and inhuman, but the Japanese military had the good sense to manage it as a stable institution rather than allowing rape to play out according to the random whims of marauding soldiers.

      The website History explains the pattern of denial associated with this episode: “For decades, the history of the ‘comfort women’ went undocumented and unnoticed. When the issue was discussed in Japan, it was denied by officials who insisted that ‘comfort stations’ had never existed.” Whether those same officials were saying Shouganai in private while they systematically refused to admit anything in public will never be known. Even today, the Japanese government continues to deny some of the most obvious facts about the “comfort women.”

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      The Fukushima catastrophe lacks the deeply human moral dimension associated with the crimes perpetrated by Japanese imperialism in the early 20th century. The scandal relating to the fact that the nuclear catastrophe was preventable had more to do with professional negligence and government incompetence than moral failings, cruel personal behavior and abusive policies, though the frontier between conscious and neglectful abuses will always be difficult to define. The tendency to deny and then forget is common to both.

      On the purely moral plane, were either of these human disasters in any way comparable with US President Harry Truman’s decision to drop — without warning — not one but two atomic bombs on urban civilian targets at the end of World War II? The immediate difference between the attitudes of the two nations is that the Japanese showed some sense of shame, however hypocritical, following the Rape of Nanking. Their consistent denial of the true history of comfort women also indicates a degree of implicit shame. It’s as much a question of not losing face as it is of aggressive denial.

      In contrast, the American government never attempted to disguise its fulsome pride in an achievement that — following its cultural logic summed up in the expression, “a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do” — put an end to a world war. Could it have been done differently? Of course. But for most Americans, the positive result canceled all the useless scruples one might have concerning the gravity of the damage done.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More