J Update

The Supreme Court in Republic of Korea dismissed appeals of Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in the case of demanding compensation for the damage by the coercive labor in the wartime, which had been brought by former Korean workers. The court order, which demanded two Japanese companies compensation to the victims, was finally reconfirmed. The government of Japan criticized the decision of ROK Supreme Court as unacceptable. Is that it?   Agreement on the Settlement of Problem between Japan and ROK  in 1965 declared that any claims were settled. “The Contracting Parties confirm that problem concerning property, rights, and interests of the two Contracting Parties and their nationals --- is settled completely and finally,” describes Article 2 of the agreement. The government of Japan has been keeping its position that all the disputes of Korean people over the compensation in the wartime were settled by the agreement.   ROK Supreme Court drew a new interpretatio...

The Special Investigation Department of Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office arrested a member of the House of Representatives, former State Minister of Justice, Mito Kakizawa, with suspicion of violating Public Office Election Act on Thursday. Kakizawa reportedly involved in distributing bribe in February to the members of the local assembly in Koto Metropolitan District of Tokyo related to its mayoral election. Dependence on money and traditional structure of internal competition of Liberal Democratic Party are in the background. A son of former LDP Representative, Koji Kakizawa, Mito Kakizawa started his political career as a member of Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly, affiliated with Democratic Party of Japan, in 2001. He ran for HR election in 2009 and secured a seat as a proportional representative of Your Party. Kakizawa changed his affiliation to several opposition parties, including Innovation Party, and joined LDP in 2021.   Kakizawa lost twice out of five elections in Tok...

Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, Tetsuo Saito, issued on Thursday a proxy approval to Ministry of Defense for improving soft ground off the coast of Henoko, Nago city, Okinawa, to build a new base for United States Force. Governor of Okinawa, Denny Tamaki, on whom the authority to approve the construction is vested, opposed to the decision of central government, arguing it would distort local autonomy. Kishida administration succeeds authoritative style of execution of Shinzo Abe, which lays local government under central power.   The government of Japan started the landfill in Henoko in 2013, when the governor, Hirokazu Nakaima, approved it. Next governor, Takeshi Onaga, overturned in 2015 the approval of Nakaima, and Tamaki succeeded Onaga’s policy, backed by overwhelming support from the people in Okinawa.   Tamaki refused the approval on changing design of landfill in 2021, after the central government found the land off the coast of Henoko had been too soft...

  Tokyo District Court decided that the arresting and indicting the president of a manufacturing company were illegal and ordered Tokyo Metropolitan Government and the government of Japan to pay ¥160 million of compensation. The court found that the suspicion on the company had been baseless and caused by insufficient investigation. The case represents excessive rigidity of law enforcement and public prosecutors in Japan, which independently act with monopolized power of investigation.   Masaaki Ohkawara, the president of a precision machinery company Ohkawara Kakohki, and his advisor, Shizuo Aijima, were arrested in 2020 by Tokyo Metropolitan Police and indicted by Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office with suspicion of illegal export of spray dryers, which could be developed into biological weapons, to China and Republic of Korea. The police and prosecutors thought the export had not been approved by Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and against Foreign Exchange and...

The experts’ conference on the issue of Science Council of Japan summarized an intermediate report which recommended the government to reform the council into a special corporation. This is the consequence of eccentric action of the government frustrated with academic criticisms against the administration. It is regrettable for the government to finish its efforts to execute policies with academic endorsements. Established in 1948, SCJ has been playing a role to advise the government as a national academy. Article 2 of  Science Council of Japan Act  defines its purpose as reflecting improvement of science on execution of policies, activity of industries and people’s life. The law puts SCJ under oversight of Prime Minister and demands the government to cover all the cost for SCJ.   The reform of SCJ has been discussed after Yoshihide Suga administration rejected the recommendation of six scholars, all of whom had been approved by the general assembly of SCJ, for new member...

The Supreme Public Prosecutors Office admitted on Monday that the investigation by the public prosecutors in Special Investigation Division of Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office on the major bribery case in the election of House of Councillors in Hiroshima district in 2019 was inappropriate. SPPO found that a prosecutor in charge of interview to a member of Hiroshima City Assembly, who was suspected as receiving bribery, indicated non-indictment to draw a confession. A part of excessive investigation in a closed room of the public prosecutors office was revealed.   Former member of House of Representatives, Katsuyuki Kawai, distributed bribes to the assembly members of Hiroshima city for the election campaign of his wife, Anri Kawai. One of the assemble members, Tsuneyasu Kido, who received ¥300 thousand from Kawai, argued that he had been forced by a prosecutor to admit the bribery on the basis of non-indictment. Kido revealed his recorded dialogue with the prosecutor. ...

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the president of ruling Liberal Democratic Party, replaced two LDP board members with Abe faction, both of whom were suspected as involved in the slush fund scandal. Although the other factions are the targets of investigation as well, the management of political money in Abe faction appears to be further malicious than the others. News reports are focusing on who is going to be indicted by the public prosecutors.   The chairman of Policy Research Council, Koichi Hagiuda, and the chairman of Diet Affairs Committee, Tsuyoshi Takagi, submitted their resignation to Kishida, when Kishida decided to replace four Ministers with Abe faction. Having already decided to replace Hagiuda and Takagi, Kishida waited for a week not let the replacement affect the efforts to finish the bill of budget for FY 2024.   Kishida appointed former Minister of Education, Kisaburo Tokai, to new chairman of LDP Policy Research Council. A veteran who is familiar to the educat...

Fumio Kishida administration made a Cabinet decision on Friday for revising the principles on arms transfer, enabling the government to export lethal weapons for the first time. National Security Council loosened the regulations for exporting the weapons produced in Japan with the license from foreign enterprises. While the government took a distance from constitutional pacifism regarding with instability of international relations, it is doubtful that the decisions are endorsed by public support.   Japan has been careful in exporting arms not to encourage international conflicts in the post-war era. Former Prime Minister Eisaku Sato announced  Three Principles on Arms Exports  in 1967, which prohibited exports of arms to 1) communist bloc countries, 2) countries subject to arms exports embargo under U.N. Security Council’s resolutions, and 3) countries involved in or likely to be involved in international conflicts. Japan, as a peace-loving country, also announced in 197...

Fumio Kishida administration made on Friday a Cabinet decision on the budget bill for FY 2024, which spendings amounted ¥112.7 trillion. Although it was reduced from the previous bill for FY 2023, the bill marked the second largest ever, lacking necessary efforts to reduce governmental spendings. FY 2024 bill does not have sufficient effect to reduce the huge amount of deficit. The bill will not be making a momentum to revitalize Kishida administration, which is suffering from the slush fund scandals in Liberal Democratic Party. A report of governmental council, Basic Policy of Economic and Fiscal Management and Reform 2023, recommended Kishida administration to get rid of emergency budgetary posture brought by the infections of COVID-19. Receiving that requirement, the FY 2024 budget bill reduced “reserve” by ¥4 trillion, which caused reduction of total amount of the spendings for the first time since FY 2012. Reserve, one of the symbols of emergency budget, has been criticized as the...

Japanese carmaker Daihatsu Motor Co., Ltd, a subsidiary of Toyota, announced on Wednesday that it had been committing 174 kinds of cheating in its safety tests for over three decades. Daihatsu halted all the car shipment in Japan and overseas and the government exercised investigation into Daihatsu. Toyota is also regarded as responsible for the long-time inappropriate practices. There is a structural problem in Japan’s manufacturing behind the case. When a carmaker develops a new type of car, it needs to pass the examination of National Traffic Safety and Environment Laboratory, which is one of the independent administrative agencies. Daihatsu has been passing the examination with false or fabricated data starting from as early as 1989. Those facts were found in the investigation of an independent committee in Daihatsu.   The committee found the inappropriate practices in 64 types of cars and 3 types of engines. The cheating included 143 cases of submitting false data in the docum...

Bank of Japan decided at the Monetary Policy Meeting on Tuesday that it would maintain its large-scale monetary easing policy. While there had been a speculation in the market that the bank would move forward to the exit of the monetary easing, the bank showed a slow progress to the goal. Realizing that the exit would still be far away, Japanese yen declined against U.S. dollar.   The bank decided to apply a negative short-term policy interest rate of minus 0.1% and to purchase a necessary amount of Japanese government bonds without setting an upper limit so that 10-year JGB yields would remain at around 0%. Regarding the upper bound of 1.0% for 10-year JGB yields as a reference in its market operations, and in order to encourage the formation of a yield curve that is consistent with the guideline for market operations, the bank announced that it would continue with large-scale JGB purchases. That policy changed nothing of the previous decision in late October.   Concerning hi...

The Special Investigation Division of Tokyo Public Prosecutors Office made investigative searches in the offices of Abe faction (Seiwa-kai) and Nikai faction (Shisui-kai) on Monday. Both factions are suspected to have distributed secret slush funds to its members. While Prime Minister Fumio Kishida had replaced his cabinet members with Abe faction, he announced that the ministers with Nikai faction would stay. This is a logic of politics in Liberal Democratic Party which is hard to understand for the public. The prosecutors entered into the buildings, in which each of two factions’ office is, in Monday morning, and investigated in the offices until the afternoon. It was very unusual scene that the prosecutors made such a major investigation on the political power center, generating negative images on the politics in Japan distorted by illegal money.   According to the reports, Abe faction is suspected to have distributed ¥500 million of slush fund raised by selling ticket fundraisi...

How much is the cost of accident in severe accident in Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in 2011? Correct answer is yet determined. Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry calculated that the cost for compensation to the suffers and for cleaning up contaminated land will be ¥23.4 trillion, adding ¥1.9 trillion to the previous estimation. The owner of the plant, Tokyo Electric Power Company, cannot stand without helps from the government, which means that the taxpayers keep on paying for TEPCO’s historical failure twelve years ago. This is the third time for the government to review the total cost of the accident. It first estimated that it would be ¥6 trillion in 2011, and changed it to ¥11 trillion in 2013. Then it jumped up to ¥21.5 trillion in 2016, which included ¥13.5 trillion for the compensation and decontamination and ¥8 trillion for decommission of crippled reactors. While the cost for decommission is paid by TEPCO, compensation and decontamination have been made with fina...

The government of Japan hosted a special summit meeting with ASEAN in Tokyo. The leaders agreed on the Joint Vision Statement, which shared “fundamental principles in promoting peace, stability and prosperity in the region. Although Japan hopes to establish rule-based order in Asia to counter the advance of China, the structure of ASEAN countries is too diverse to be united. The meeting was held to commemorate 50 th  year of ASEAN-Japan friendship and cooperation. As Fukuda Doctrine in 1977 aimed to heart-to-heart relationship between the two parties, Japan tried to reach the region with economic cooperation and development. With remarkable economic growth, ASEAN is now catching up Japan in GDP: $3.5 trillion in 2022 slightly behind of Japan’s $4.2 trillion. The joint statement is getting close to the declaration for equal partnership between them, based on a concept of “co-creation.”   The joint statement describes that “ASEAN and Japan will strengthen the comprehensive strat...

Fumio Kishida administration decided to raise the payment for medical service suppliers by 0.88% in FY 2024. While the administration is enthusiastic in raising wage of workers, the reform of national spendings to keep budgetary resource for key policies will be left behind. Kishida took the middle between those issues conflicting each other. The total amount of annual spendings for medical care is ¥45 trillion (in 2021), which is equivalent to the total of medical service fee. About 50 % of it is paid by health insurance, 40% is covered by national spendings and 10% is direct payment by the patients. The medical service fee consists of “main body,” which is spent for wage of the workers in medical institutions, and medicine prices.   Main body of the medical service fee is reviewed once in two years and medicine prices are changed every year through negotiation between Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare and Ministry of Finance. In the review for FY 2022, the main body rose by 0...

  Nearly 200 countries agreed on promoting transition of energy from fossil fuel to the renewables after two-week negotiation in COP28 climate summit held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Wednesday. Although the parties recognized the necessity to reach a consensus to cap the emission of greenhouse gasses, skepticisms between the developed and developing countries, or fossil fuel producers and renewable energy promoters, prevented them from achieving an ambitious goal. The COP summit in the world hottest year was ended up with compromises after sharp opposition among the parties. The parties for the first time involved in the Global Stocktake, a framework which was established in COP 26 in 2021 to assess the commitment to Paris Agreement 2015 for implementing the goal of containing global warming within 2°C above the preindustrial level.   As an  outcome of the first Global Stocktake , the parties recognized that limiting global warming requires reduction of greenhouse ...

The Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito on Thursday agreed on the tax reform for FY 2024. To implement Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s request of comprehensive tax cut to return the surplus of tax revenue to the taxpayers in October, the leading coalition decided to accumulate ¥3.5 trillion for it. The package is aimed to support other important policies of Kishida administration, including the measures dealing with low birth rate and wage increase, in the middle of money scandals which is significantly eroding political basis of Kishida. For the comprehensive tax cut starting June 2024, the coalition requested the government to introduce ¥30 thousand reduction of income tax for a person and ¥10 thousand of resident tax. For a family with four people, it means ¥160 thousand of tax reduction. The high-income taxpayers over annual ¥20 million will be excluded from the recipients of the tax cut.   Kishida is enhancing support for the families with children for his policy goal to raise...

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Thursday replaced four Ministers affiliated to Abe faction in Liberal Democratic Party, which was suspected to have been distributing secret money to its members. Two LDP board members submitted Kishida of their resignation, representing frustration in Abe faction about being victimized in the scandal of LDP. There appeared a deep rift in the party. Kishida did not explain how he would take responsibility for the scandal as the president of LDP. Even after decoupling Abe people, Kishida administration is still in jeopardy. Kishida replaced Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno, who were reportedly received over ¥10 million of secret money for the sales of fundraising party tickets, with Yoshimasa Hayashi, former Minister for Foreign Affairs in Kishida Cabinet and one of the colleagues of Kishida faction.   Asahi Shimbun   reported that Kishida firstly offered the post to former Minister of Defense Yasukazu Hamada, but Hamada declined it. For ...

Fukushima Regional Court sentenced on Tuesday two years in prison, suspended for four years, to three former members of Japan Self-Defense Force, who were indicted as having committed sexual assault on their former colleague and the plaintiff Rina Gonoi. The court found forced indecency of the three, regardless their intention. Although JSDF is taking measures not to make that kind of incident happen again, there are a number of unknown sufferers from sexual assaults or harassments in the organization. Gender makes a security problem for Self-Defense Force.   According to the sentence, each of three defendants laid down Gonoi on the bed, forcibly spread her legs and pressed their bottom part of abdomen with clothes in the room of barracks in Hokkaido in August 2021. They were drinking alcohol with other colleagues. Gonoi reported the offense of them to the police section in JSDF and the section sent the document to public prosecutors, but the prosecutors avoided indicting those thr...