QUOTE
YASUKUNI SHRINE VISITS
A sign of Japan's decline
By DAVID WALL
Special to The Japan Times
LONDON -- He didn't clap his hands, he did not wear a frock coat and he did not sign the visitors' book as "prime minister." So what?
Until recently I would have described Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi as a clown if he thought that any of this would make difference to the critics -- domestic and foreign -- of his visits to Yasukuni Shrine. He is the prime minister of Japan, and it was as such he went to and worshipped at the shrine where war criminals are honored. Period.
Until the last election, my Japanese friends used to tell me that going to the shrine was the price Koizumi had to pay to get the support of the rightwing factions in the Liberal Democratic Party to allow him to survive as prime minister. Now that argument does not hold -- he confronted the right wing in the recent general election and won. He won a personal majority, which means he is beholden to no one. And he has announced his retirement from the prime minister's job late next year, so he no longer needs to cultivate any factions to secure his future.
So why did he visit Yasukuni Shrine Oct. 17 when he knew that it would have a serious effect on regional relations, upsetting both North and South Korea and, more important, China?
And why has he just appointed rightwing nationalists Shinzo Abe as his chief Cabinet secretary and right-hand man, and Taro Aso as his foreign minister? Both are regular visitors to the shrine and both appointments, to positions where they can be expected to seek to replace Koizumi as prime minister when he goes next year, will further upset the Koreans and Chinese.
Either Koizumi does not care what the Chinese and Koreans think when he visits the shrine or he sets out to upset them, knowing that that is how they will react; they amount to the same. Why would he want to do that?
It could have been an act of revenge for the humiliation he suffered in May when China's deputy prime minister canceled a meeting with him at the end of her trip to Tokyo. The Chinese government let it be known that the meeting was canceled as a response to Koizumi's saying, a week earlier, that he would visit the shrine again despite Chinese President Hu Jintao's having asked him to stop going there. However, as Koizumi probably knew that his saying he would go there again would lead to Hu's action, this cannot be the explanation.
If it was not revenge, and not stupidity, then coming after an Osaka court's ruling that his visits were unconstitutional, the latest visit can only be seen as an arrogant nationalistic statement designed and intended to antagonize the Chinese (and the Koreans, but they are less important). Given the growing economic dependence of Japan on China, this seems a strange route to follow. It is not clear what Koizumi and his rightwing friends think can be achieved by such acts, other than a strengthening of anti-Japanese sentiments in China (and the Koreas).
As China takes over the role of leader of East Asia, peacefully and with the support of other East Asian nations except Japan (a role that Japan tried and failed to take on by force), there is growing resentment among the rightwing in Japan. They make no attempt to hide their contempt for Chinese people, whom they regard as inferior to them in many ways. They resent losing the leadership role in Asia to such people.
China has won the friendship of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations with a generous regional-trade arrangement, offering accelerated benefits for the poorer ASEAN countries. It has included agricultural products in the arrangement. In its separate agreements, Japan, by contrast, has offered nothing to the poorer countries and is negotiating limited bilateral agreements with the richer ASEAN countries. It is not making any concessions on agriculture.
A sign of Japan's decline
By DAVID WALL
Special to The Japan Times
LONDON -- He didn't clap his hands, he did not wear a frock coat and he did not sign the visitors' book as "prime minister." So what?
Until recently I would have described Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi as a clown if he thought that any of this would make difference to the critics -- domestic and foreign -- of his visits to Yasukuni Shrine. He is the prime minister of Japan, and it was as such he went to and worshipped at the shrine where war criminals are honored. Period.
Until the last election, my Japanese friends used to tell me that going to the shrine was the price Koizumi had to pay to get the support of the rightwing factions in the Liberal Democratic Party to allow him to survive as prime minister. Now that argument does not hold -- he confronted the right wing in the recent general election and won. He won a personal majority, which means he is beholden to no one. And he has announced his retirement from the prime minister's job late next year, so he no longer needs to cultivate any factions to secure his future.
So why did he visit Yasukuni Shrine Oct. 17 when he knew that it would have a serious effect on regional relations, upsetting both North and South Korea and, more important, China?
And why has he just appointed rightwing nationalists Shinzo Abe as his chief Cabinet secretary and right-hand man, and Taro Aso as his foreign minister? Both are regular visitors to the shrine and both appointments, to positions where they can be expected to seek to replace Koizumi as prime minister when he goes next year, will further upset the Koreans and Chinese.
Either Koizumi does not care what the Chinese and Koreans think when he visits the shrine or he sets out to upset them, knowing that that is how they will react; they amount to the same. Why would he want to do that?
It could have been an act of revenge for the humiliation he suffered in May when China's deputy prime minister canceled a meeting with him at the end of her trip to Tokyo. The Chinese government let it be known that the meeting was canceled as a response to Koizumi's saying, a week earlier, that he would visit the shrine again despite Chinese President Hu Jintao's having asked him to stop going there. However, as Koizumi probably knew that his saying he would go there again would lead to Hu's action, this cannot be the explanation.
If it was not revenge, and not stupidity, then coming after an Osaka court's ruling that his visits were unconstitutional, the latest visit can only be seen as an arrogant nationalistic statement designed and intended to antagonize the Chinese (and the Koreans, but they are less important). Given the growing economic dependence of Japan on China, this seems a strange route to follow. It is not clear what Koizumi and his rightwing friends think can be achieved by such acts, other than a strengthening of anti-Japanese sentiments in China (and the Koreas).
As China takes over the role of leader of East Asia, peacefully and with the support of other East Asian nations except Japan (a role that Japan tried and failed to take on by force), there is growing resentment among the rightwing in Japan. They make no attempt to hide their contempt for Chinese people, whom they regard as inferior to them in many ways. They resent losing the leadership role in Asia to such people.
China has won the friendship of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations with a generous regional-trade arrangement, offering accelerated benefits for the poorer ASEAN countries. It has included agricultural products in the arrangement. In its separate agreements, Japan, by contrast, has offered nothing to the poorer countries and is negotiating limited bilateral agreements with the richer ASEAN countries. It is not making any concessions on agriculture.
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