With Yoshihide Suga, Nippon Kaigi remains in charge of Japan politics

Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss. Shinzo ABE is replaced by a man six years older, and even more conservative. The cabinet remains basically unchanged, with Taro ASO as number two, and as expected, a majority (14/20) of members affiliated with the neo-fascist lobby Nippon Kaigi, including of course #1 and #2, but also 7 of the 10 new members:

• Nobuo Kishi (Defense), like his brother Shinzo Abe a war crime denier, and a grandson of untried war criminal and former PM Nobusuke Kishi. Sadly, in today's Japan, Nippon Kaigi has a monopoly on the Ministry of Defense, because the lobby is all about restoring Imperial Japan militarism and destroying postwar pacifism, starting with the Constitution (particularly Article 9). Former Defense Minister Taro Kono is now in charge of administrative and regulatory reforms, which probably cover the revision of the constitution that Shinzo Abe failed to deliver)
  
• Ryota Takeda (Minister of General Affairs)
• Kotaro Nogami (Agriculture and Fisheries)
  
• Norihisa Tamura (Health, Labor and Welfare)
  
• Katsuei Hirasawa (Minister of Reconstruction)
• Shinji Inoue (Consumer Administration, Osaka 2025)
• Tetsushi Sakamoto (Regional revitalisation etc)

 Yoshihide Suga's cabinet (2 women*):

. Yoshihide Suga (71) Prime Minister
. Taro Aso (79) Deputy Prime Minister, Finance Minister (idem)
. Ryota Takeda (52) Internal Affairs and Communications Minister
. Yoko Kamikawa* (67) Justice Minister
. Toshimitsu Motegi (64) Foreign Minister (idem)
. Koichi Hagiuda (57) Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Minister (idem)
. Norihisa Tamura (55) Health, Labor and Welfare Minister
. Kotaro Nogami (53) Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister
. Hiroshi Kajiyama (64) Economy, Trade and Industry Minister (idem)
. Kazuyoshi Akaba (62) Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Minister (idem)
. Shinjiro Koizumi (39) Environment Minister (idem)
. Nobuo Kishi (61) Defense Minister
. Katsunobu Kato (64) Chief Cabinet Secretary, Minister in charge of the abduction issue
. Katsuei Hirasawa (75) Reconstruction Minister
. Hachiro Okonogi (55) Chairman of the National Public Safety Commission, Minister in charge of disaster management
. Tetsushi Sakamoto (69) Minister for promoting dynamic engagement of all citizens, Minister in charge of regional revitalization, Minister in charge of measures for declining birthrate
. Yasutoshi Nishimura (57) Minister in charge of economic revitalization, Minister in charge of measures for the novel coronavirus pandemic (idem)
. Taro Kono (57) Minister in charge of administrative reform, Minister in charge of regulatory reform
. Seiko Hashimoto* (55) Minister for the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, Minister in charge of women's empowerment, Minister in charge of gender equality (idem)
. Shinji Inoue (50) Minister for the 2025 World Exposition in Osaka, Minister in charge of consumer administration
. Takuya Hirai (62) Minister in charge of digital reform, Minister in charge of social security and tax number system

Health minister Katsunobu Kato was chosen to succeed Suga as chief Cabinet secretary

Health minister Katsunobu Kato was chosen to succeed Suga as chief Cabinet secretary

Health minister Katsunobu Kato was chosen to succeed Suga as chief Cabinet secretary

Health minister Katsunobu Kato was chosen to succeed Suga as chief Cabinet secretary

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Taro Aso, Japan's Constitution, and Godwin's Law

A couple of years ago, Taro Aso was lambasted for comparing the national opposition to Nazis. On Monday, this serial provocator made a more admirative reference to the Nazis, saying during a lecture that Japan should learn how they altered the Weimar Republic's constitution before anybody knew what was happening (and I spare you the usual promotion of Yasukuni shrine visits - see "S. Korea slams Japan's minister for Nazi remarks" - Yonhap News 20130730).

A former PM and now Shinzo Abe's Vice PM, Taro Aso naturally referred to the changes their neofascist government intends to make to the Japanese constitution*.

I'm using the no-nonsense adjective "neofascist" on purpose, just in case you still doubted in which direction the moral compass of these dangerous guys keeps pointing.

I'll keep pointing at these dangerous guys until someone in Japan decides to say enough is enough, our nation is a peaceful democracy, we must stop them before it's too late.

And everybody should keep pointing at these dangerous guys until Imperial Japan crimes are officially recognized by the Japanese government, and justice delivered.

By the way: today, Busan High Court followed a recent ruling by Seoul High Court ordering Mitsubishi Heavy to compensate Korean victims of  Imperial Japan's forced labor system (see "Another Korean Ruling Tied to Japan’s Wartime Actions" - WSJ's Korea Real Time 20130730).

A couple of years ago, Taro Aso eventually conceded that his own father's business, Aso Cement Company, used POWs in forced labor. But it took the confirmation by the Japanese authorities, and mediatic pressure from Australian or Scottish victims.

These days, justice can't expect much help from the Japanese authorities. It's time for powerful voices to resonate, and I'm glad that a figure like Hayao Miyazaki protested vehemently against Abe and his revisionist plans.

I'd like to see more of this kind of animation from Japan.


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More #Abeignomics: #TaroAso, #Japan vice PM, inspired by #Nazi's discreet constitutional changes!!! bit.ly/12ZNiRh @YonhapNews (twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/362172234183360513)

* see previous episodes ("To better bridge the gap between Japan, Korea, and China, let's measure the gap within Japan", "Shinzo Abe: an offensive Defense White Paper ahead of the elections... and Constitutional Revolution" to name only the most recent), also on Twitter: #abeignomics

---
20130802 UPDATE

Yesterday, Taro Aso was forced to backpedal, but Abe-style (these guys have no reverse in their gearboxes): he said that he didn't "perceive Nazi Germany in a positive light"**. I wonder which euphemism he uses for Imperial Japan. Maybe he can't even see the light, blinded by the rising sun...
http://twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/363104468310564867
* see "Japan's Deputy PM Forced to Retract Nazi Comment" (Chosun Daily 20130802)

Japan: let's wait and (East) see

Japan and Korea have a lot to gain at sharing the same vision of history, developping a relationship based on mutual respect.

And sooner or later, Japan will decide for good or for worse what to do with its own past : face it or erase it. If lately, the trend has definitely been in favor of revisionism (see "Claiming Dokdo as Takeshima equals claiming Seoul as Gyeongseong"), Hatoyama's victory yesterday clearly revives hopes for much sounder relationships between Japan and Korea.

As a cautious but hopeful celebration, I spilled this "white blogule" today :

Land of the rinsing sun ?

As Taro Aso became Prime Minister, he fulfilled a personal ambition to the risk of marring his own name : Japan was bound to face tough times, and his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) bound to struggle at the 2009 elections.

Base case scenario then was a 1993 style victory for the Democratic Party of Japan.

Even if a few DPJ leaders have experienced their own turpitudes over the past year, LDP took very much the expected dive. Taro Aso's era and sense of timing could be summed up by one drunken Finance Minister at a G7 summit, and record high unemployment figures published on the eve of elections.

Forget about the base case scenario : Sunday, DPJ claimed over 300 seats out of 480 at the Lower House.

Hopefully, this worst case scenario for the LDP could turn out to be the best case scenario for Japan.

Because Japan badly needs change. Not change as in "political alternation", but change as in "political and societal shift".

Before becoming a controversial Prime Minister, Taro Aso was a controversial Foreign Minister, pushing all the (extreme) right buttons to please imperialist dieharders, infuriating Chinese and Korean neighbors*, and even dispising Hiromu Nonaka, a LDP rival, for being "burakumin", a person coming from a minority. Nevermind the fact that Korean blood runs through the body of the Emperor himself.

Taro's successor Yukio Hatoyama defends burakus and Japanese of Korean origin. He fights against discrimination at home and for reconciliation with neighbors. He leads a movement in favor of stronger ties between Korea and Japan, and has a vision for both countries as natural partners in the region.

Behind this 62 year-old leader, DPJ sent to the Diet an impressive roster of young people, many of whom women, kicking out of the political landscape a collection of dinosaurs who'd be running for decades a country glued in keiretsu conservatism and bureaucracy.

These elections could mean the end of Post-War Japan and the beginning of something new. Now would be the perfect time to - at last** ! - set the record straight about what happened during and before the said war, and to get rid of the only minority that tarnishes its greatness : a dangerous clique of nostalgist and revisionist fascists.

Japan has a unique opportunity to embrace the new millenium as a great nation at peace with its neighbors, its own past, and its own citizens.


blogules 2009 (also in French : "Le Pays du Soleil Lavant ?")


* see "Taro Aso after Tzipi Livni and before... ?"
** see too many previous blogules about Japan, and why unrepentant Japan shouldn't be allowed to seat as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.