Japan ends Indian Ocean mission amid parliamentary deadlock
The Associated Press | October 31, 2007
TOKYO: Japan's defense minister ordered ships supporting U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan to return home Thursday after opposition lawmakers refused to support an extension of the mission, saying it violated the country's pacifist Constitution.
Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda — a strong supporter of Japan's six-year-old mission — vowed to pass legislation that would allow Japan to resume a more limited role to fight terrorism in the region.
Japan, America's top ally in Asia, has refueled coalition warships in the Indian Ocean since 2001, but opposition parties, bolstered by recent election wins, effectively scuttled the mission by raising concerns it was too broad and possibly violated the Constitution.
Legislation had been passed repeatedly to renew the mission, but the latest extension expired Thursday amid a stalemate in Parliament. Japan refueled its final ship on Monday.
The two ships in the mission — a destroyer and a refueler, with 340 troops aboard — were to begin heading for Japan later Thursday. They were expected to take about three weeks to return, navy spokesman Kozo Okuda said.
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Though not expected to seriously affect the U.S.-led coalition's Afghanistan operations, the failure to extend the mission was seen as a major defeat for Fukuda, who took office just over a month ago after his party suffered a setback in parliamentary elections and his predecessor, Shinzo Abe, suddenly resigned.
Officials vowed that Tokyo would soon be able to resume the mission, though opposition leaders were not likely to back down.
"In order to fulfill our responsibility for international efforts toward eradicating terrorism, we do need to continue our refueling mission," Fukuda said in a statement. "The government will do all it can to pass the special bill for the refueling mission so we can restart our mission as soon as possible."
On Tuesday, Fukuda and main opposition party leader Ichiro Ozawa failed to agree on an extension of the mission.
Ozawa's Democratic Party of Japan opposes the mission because it does not have the specific mandate of the United Nations. Critics also say it violates the country's U.S.-drafted Constitution, which forbids Japan from engaging in warfare overseas.
Fukuda has argued that pulling out of the mission would leave Japan sidelined in the fight against global terrorism.
In an effort to placate the opposition, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party is proposing narrowing the mission to refueling ships engaged in anti-terror patrols in the Indian Ocean. Until now, the mission also supported U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan.
The LDP — which controls the more powerful lower chamber of Japan's parliament, or Diet — could muscle through approval of a more limited mission, allowing Japanese ships to eventually return.
During its six-year mission, Japan provided about 480,000 kiloliters (126 million gallons) of fuel to coalition warships in the Indian Ocean, including those from the U.S., Britain and Pakistan, according to the Defense Ministry.
U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer and envoys from coalition countries met with Japanese lawmakers on Wednesday and stressed the importance of Tokyo's refueling mission, however U.S. Defense Department Press Secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters earlier in the week that the halt would not have "any operational impact whatsoever."
Chief Cabinet spokesman Nobutaka Machimura said Japan would continue to play a major role in assisting Afghanistan financially to fight terrorists and improve security.
But analysts said the political disarray in Tokyo could have repercussions with the U.S. alliance.
"I think ending the mission would give the impression to the U.S. that Japan is not fulfilling its responsibility," said Yoshinobu Yamamoto, a political scientist at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo.
Fukuda is to visit the United States later this month.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said his country is concerned about the mission ending, and hoped for a "resumption of Japan's contribution in this area."
Showing posts with label Japan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Japan. Show all posts
Reuters : Bush cites past conflicts to urge staying in Iraq
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Bush cites past conflicts to urge staying in Iraq
By Caren Bohan | August 22, 2007
KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush on Wednesday tried to reinforce his case for perseverance in Iraq by placing the unpopular war in the historical context of the U.S. experience in Japan, South Korea and Vietnam, but critics said he missed the mark.
Speaking to thousand of veterans, many of whom served in Asia, Bush laid the groundwork for a key mid-September report on Iraq that is expected to show some progress on the security front but little in the way of political reconciliation.
Bush said it was in the U.S. interests to continue to work to stabilize Iraq and held out the modern democracies in Japan and South Korea as potential models. He also raised the example of the emergence the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and violence in Vietnam after U.S. troops pulled out to warn of the consequences of leaving Iraq.
"Despite the mistakes that have been made, despite the problems we have encountered, seeing the Iraqis through as they build their democracy is critical to keeping the American people safe from the terrorists who want to attack us," he said.
The comparison Bush drew to Vietnam was a risky argument and one his administration has tended to avoid in the past.
Many Democrats have likened Iraq to Vietnam, calling the war a quagmire that has exacted a big toll in American lives and treasure without furthering U.S. interests.
Bush also used his speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars to insist that he supported Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, despite comments he made a day earlier highlighting frustration with the Iraqi leader's inability to reconcile warring factions there.
"Prime Minister Maliki's a good guy, a good man with a difficult job and I support him," Bush said. "And it's not up to the politicians in Washington, D.C., to say whether he will remain in his position. That's up to the Iraqi people."
Bush said that like World War Two, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, the war in Iraq was an "ideological struggle" as he again depicted the conflict as part of the broader U.S. "war on terror."
"The militarists of Japan and the communists in Korea and Vietnam were driven by a merciless vision for the proper ordering of humanity," Bush said.
"Like our enemies in the past, the terrorists who wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places seek to spread a political vision of their own: a harsh plan for life that crushes freedom, tolerance and dissent," he added.
Pressure is building on Bush over Iraq in the run-up to the release of a report to Congress due by September 15 by U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, and the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus.
That report will evaluate the progress of the troop buildup Bush ordered early this year aimed at reducing the violence there and comes as the Democratic-led Congress steps up its effort to bring about a withdrawal of U.S. troops.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada dismissed Bush's historical comparisons and said the decision to invade Iraq was "one of the worst foreign policy blunders in our history."
Reid pledged Democrats would seek in coming weeks to force a change in Bush's "failed strategy in Iraq."
Sen. John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who unsuccessfully challenged Bush for the presidency in 2004, said Bush's comparison to that war was "irresponsible" and "ignorant."
"It is unfortunate that President Bush would want to invoke a false comparison of Vietnam to Iraq, but not surprising that he would oversimplify the differences and overlook the tragic similarities," said Kerry, who served in Vietnam.
"If the President wants to heed the lessons of Vietnam, he should change course and change course now," he added.
(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria)
© Reuters 2006. All rights reserved.
By Caren Bohan | August 22, 2007
KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush on Wednesday tried to reinforce his case for perseverance in Iraq by placing the unpopular war in the historical context of the U.S. experience in Japan, South Korea and Vietnam, but critics said he missed the mark.
Speaking to thousand of veterans, many of whom served in Asia, Bush laid the groundwork for a key mid-September report on Iraq that is expected to show some progress on the security front but little in the way of political reconciliation.
Bush said it was in the U.S. interests to continue to work to stabilize Iraq and held out the modern democracies in Japan and South Korea as potential models. He also raised the example of the emergence the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and violence in Vietnam after U.S. troops pulled out to warn of the consequences of leaving Iraq.
"Despite the mistakes that have been made, despite the problems we have encountered, seeing the Iraqis through as they build their democracy is critical to keeping the American people safe from the terrorists who want to attack us," he said.
The comparison Bush drew to Vietnam was a risky argument and one his administration has tended to avoid in the past.
Many Democrats have likened Iraq to Vietnam, calling the war a quagmire that has exacted a big toll in American lives and treasure without furthering U.S. interests.
Bush also used his speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars to insist that he supported Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, despite comments he made a day earlier highlighting frustration with the Iraqi leader's inability to reconcile warring factions there.
"Prime Minister Maliki's a good guy, a good man with a difficult job and I support him," Bush said. "And it's not up to the politicians in Washington, D.C., to say whether he will remain in his position. That's up to the Iraqi people."
Bush said that like World War Two, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, the war in Iraq was an "ideological struggle" as he again depicted the conflict as part of the broader U.S. "war on terror."
"The militarists of Japan and the communists in Korea and Vietnam were driven by a merciless vision for the proper ordering of humanity," Bush said.
"Like our enemies in the past, the terrorists who wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places seek to spread a political vision of their own: a harsh plan for life that crushes freedom, tolerance and dissent," he added.
Pressure is building on Bush over Iraq in the run-up to the release of a report to Congress due by September 15 by U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, and the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus.
That report will evaluate the progress of the troop buildup Bush ordered early this year aimed at reducing the violence there and comes as the Democratic-led Congress steps up its effort to bring about a withdrawal of U.S. troops.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada dismissed Bush's historical comparisons and said the decision to invade Iraq was "one of the worst foreign policy blunders in our history."
Reid pledged Democrats would seek in coming weeks to force a change in Bush's "failed strategy in Iraq."
Sen. John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who unsuccessfully challenged Bush for the presidency in 2004, said Bush's comparison to that war was "irresponsible" and "ignorant."
"It is unfortunate that President Bush would want to invoke a false comparison of Vietnam to Iraq, but not surprising that he would oversimplify the differences and overlook the tragic similarities," said Kerry, who served in Vietnam.
"If the President wants to heed the lessons of Vietnam, he should change course and change course now," he added.
(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria)
© Reuters 2006. All rights reserved.
CNN : Bush invokes 'tragedy of Vietnam' against Iraq pullout
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Bush invokes 'tragedy of Vietnam' against Iraq pullout
August 22, 2007
KANSAS CITY, Missouri (CNN) -- President Bush drew parallels between the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the potential costs of pulling out of Iraq in a speech Wednesday.
"Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam War and how we left," Bush told members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, at their convention in Kansas City, Missouri.
"Whatever your position in that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps' and 'killing fields,' " the president said.
The White House billed the speech, as it did with next week's address to the American Legion, as an effort to "provide broader context" for the debate over the upcoming Iraq progress report by Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander, and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad.
Bush also sought to shore up the perception of his support for Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, after voicing some frustration with him on Tuesday.
"Prime Minister Maliki's a good guy, good man with a difficult job and I support him," Bush said. "And it's not up to the politicians in Washington, D.C., to say whether he will remain in his position. Video Watch Bush reiterate his support for al-Maliki »
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, said Bush had drawn the wrong lesson from history:
"America lost the war in Vietnam because our troops were trapped in a distant country we did not understand supporting a government that lacked sufficient legitimacy with its people," Kennedy said in a statement.
Sen. Joe Biden, Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, invoked his own Vietnam analogy in a statement released after the speech:
"It's the president's policies that are pushing us toward another Saigon moment -- with helicopters fleeing the roof of our embassy -- which he says he wants to avoid."
Biden said that Bush continues to cling to the premise that Iraqis will rally behind a strong central government, but he believes that will not happen.
"There's no trust within the Iraqi government; no trust of the government by the Iraqi people; no capacity of that government to deliver security or services; and no prospect that it will build that trust or capacity any time soon," Biden's statement said.
But House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said more Democrats are "bucking their party leaders" in acknowledging progress in Iraq.
"Many rank-and-file Democrats have seen this progress firsthand and are now acknowledging the successes of a strategy they've repeatedly opposed," Boehner said in a statement. "But Democratic leaders, deeply invested in losing the war, would rather move the goalposts and claim that a precipitous withdrawal is the right approach despite the overwhelming evidence of significant progress."
On Tuesday, Bush had expressed frustration with the pace of progress toward political reconciliation in Iraq, saying that if the Iraqi government doesn't "respond to the demands of the people, they will replace the government."
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Wednesday shot back at criticism of his government, including pointed remarks from a U.S. senator who called his administration "nonfunctioning" and urged Iraq's parliament to turn it out of office.
Speaking at a press conference in the Syrian capital of Damascus, al-Maliki characterized such comments as "irresponsible" and said they "overstep the bounds of diplomatic and political courtesy."
Government spokesman Ali Dabbagh told CNN that al-Maliki was referring to comments made Monday by Sen. Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, who called on Iraq's parliament to turn al-Maliki's "nonfunctioning" government out of office when it returns in two weeks.
Levin said al-Maliki's government was "too beholden to religious and sectarian leaders" to reach a political settlement that would end the country's sectarian and insurgent violence.
In his speech, Bush said that withdrawing from Vietnam emboldened today's terrorists by compromising U.S. credibility, citing a quote from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden that the American people would rise against the Iraq war the same way they rose against the war in Vietnam.
"Here at home, some can argue our withdrawal from Vietnam carried no price to American credibility, but the terrorists see things differently," Bush said.
President Bush has frequently asked lawmakers -- and the American people -- to withhold judgment on his troop "surge" in Iraq until the report comes out in September.
It is being closely watched on Capitol Hill, particularly by Republicans nervous about the political fallout from an increasingly unpopular war.
Earlier this month, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he would wait for the report before deciding when a drawdown of the 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq might begin.
Bush's speeches Wednesday and next week are the latest attempts by the White House to try to reframe the debate over Iraq, as public support for the war continues to sag.
A recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll found that almost two-thirds of Americans -- 64 percent -- now oppose the Iraq war, and 72 percent say that even if Petraeus reports progress, it won't change their opinion.
The poll also found a great deal of skepticism about the report; 53 percent said they do not trust Petraeus to give an accurate assessment of the situation in Iraq.
In addition to his analogy to Vietnam, Bush referred to previous conflicts in Asia in talking about the war against terror in Iraq.
"There are many differences between the wars we fought in the Far East and the war on terror we are fighting today," Bush said. "But one important similarity is that at their core, they are all ideological struggles.
"The militarists of Japan and the Communists in Korea and Vietnam were driven by a merciless vision for the proper ordering of humanity. They killed Americans because we stood in the way of their attempt to force this ideology on others."
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Bush said history proved skeptics wrong about Japan's ability to become a free society and will prove those who want to withdraw from Iraq wrong.
"In the aftermath of Japan's surrender, many thought it naive to help the Japanese transform themselves into a democracy. Then, as now, the critics argued that some people were simply not fit for freedom," Bush said. "Today, in defiance of the critics, Japan ... stands as one of the world's great free societies."
August 22, 2007
KANSAS CITY, Missouri (CNN) -- President Bush drew parallels between the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the potential costs of pulling out of Iraq in a speech Wednesday.
"Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam War and how we left," Bush told members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, at their convention in Kansas City, Missouri.
"Whatever your position in that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps' and 'killing fields,' " the president said.
The White House billed the speech, as it did with next week's address to the American Legion, as an effort to "provide broader context" for the debate over the upcoming Iraq progress report by Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander, and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad.
Bush also sought to shore up the perception of his support for Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, after voicing some frustration with him on Tuesday.
"Prime Minister Maliki's a good guy, good man with a difficult job and I support him," Bush said. "And it's not up to the politicians in Washington, D.C., to say whether he will remain in his position. Video Watch Bush reiterate his support for al-Maliki »
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, said Bush had drawn the wrong lesson from history:
"America lost the war in Vietnam because our troops were trapped in a distant country we did not understand supporting a government that lacked sufficient legitimacy with its people," Kennedy said in a statement.
Sen. Joe Biden, Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, invoked his own Vietnam analogy in a statement released after the speech:
"It's the president's policies that are pushing us toward another Saigon moment -- with helicopters fleeing the roof of our embassy -- which he says he wants to avoid."
Biden said that Bush continues to cling to the premise that Iraqis will rally behind a strong central government, but he believes that will not happen.
"There's no trust within the Iraqi government; no trust of the government by the Iraqi people; no capacity of that government to deliver security or services; and no prospect that it will build that trust or capacity any time soon," Biden's statement said.
But House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said more Democrats are "bucking their party leaders" in acknowledging progress in Iraq.
"Many rank-and-file Democrats have seen this progress firsthand and are now acknowledging the successes of a strategy they've repeatedly opposed," Boehner said in a statement. "But Democratic leaders, deeply invested in losing the war, would rather move the goalposts and claim that a precipitous withdrawal is the right approach despite the overwhelming evidence of significant progress."
On Tuesday, Bush had expressed frustration with the pace of progress toward political reconciliation in Iraq, saying that if the Iraqi government doesn't "respond to the demands of the people, they will replace the government."
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Wednesday shot back at criticism of his government, including pointed remarks from a U.S. senator who called his administration "nonfunctioning" and urged Iraq's parliament to turn it out of office.
Speaking at a press conference in the Syrian capital of Damascus, al-Maliki characterized such comments as "irresponsible" and said they "overstep the bounds of diplomatic and political courtesy."
Government spokesman Ali Dabbagh told CNN that al-Maliki was referring to comments made Monday by Sen. Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, who called on Iraq's parliament to turn al-Maliki's "nonfunctioning" government out of office when it returns in two weeks.
Levin said al-Maliki's government was "too beholden to religious and sectarian leaders" to reach a political settlement that would end the country's sectarian and insurgent violence.
In his speech, Bush said that withdrawing from Vietnam emboldened today's terrorists by compromising U.S. credibility, citing a quote from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden that the American people would rise against the Iraq war the same way they rose against the war in Vietnam.
"Here at home, some can argue our withdrawal from Vietnam carried no price to American credibility, but the terrorists see things differently," Bush said.
President Bush has frequently asked lawmakers -- and the American people -- to withhold judgment on his troop "surge" in Iraq until the report comes out in September.
It is being closely watched on Capitol Hill, particularly by Republicans nervous about the political fallout from an increasingly unpopular war.
Earlier this month, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he would wait for the report before deciding when a drawdown of the 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq might begin.
Bush's speeches Wednesday and next week are the latest attempts by the White House to try to reframe the debate over Iraq, as public support for the war continues to sag.
A recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll found that almost two-thirds of Americans -- 64 percent -- now oppose the Iraq war, and 72 percent say that even if Petraeus reports progress, it won't change their opinion.
The poll also found a great deal of skepticism about the report; 53 percent said they do not trust Petraeus to give an accurate assessment of the situation in Iraq.
In addition to his analogy to Vietnam, Bush referred to previous conflicts in Asia in talking about the war against terror in Iraq.
"There are many differences between the wars we fought in the Far East and the war on terror we are fighting today," Bush said. "But one important similarity is that at their core, they are all ideological struggles.
"The militarists of Japan and the Communists in Korea and Vietnam were driven by a merciless vision for the proper ordering of humanity. They killed Americans because we stood in the way of their attempt to force this ideology on others."
advertisement
Bush said history proved skeptics wrong about Japan's ability to become a free society and will prove those who want to withdraw from Iraq wrong.
"In the aftermath of Japan's surrender, many thought it naive to help the Japanese transform themselves into a democracy. Then, as now, the critics argued that some people were simply not fit for freedom," Bush said. "Today, in defiance of the critics, Japan ... stands as one of the world's great free societies."
Japan Times : Negroponte gets pledge
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Negroponte gets pledge
Kyodo News | August 4, 2007
Japan assured visiting U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte on Friday that its policy on extending oil-refueling support for antiterrorism operations in the Indian Ocean remains unchanged despite the ruling camp's House of Councilors election defeat, while the senior U.S. diplomat said failure to extend the mission would be "harmful to international interests."
Negroponte, who is in Tokyo on his way back from a regional meeting in Manila, reiterated Washington's backing for Japan's efforts to press North Korea to resolve Pyongyang's past abductions of Japanese nationals, but also said the best way to settle the issue is by Japan and North Korea holding direct talks.
His visit comes amid Washington's fears that a special law enabling Japanese forces' activities in the Indian Ocean will not be extended beyond the Nov. 1 expiration after the opposition camp won a majority in the Upper House in the July 29 election.
Ichiro Ozawa, leader of the Democratic Party of Japan, the main opposition force, which seized the majority in the poll, has said his party will vote against extending the law.
"In our view, it would be harmful to international interests as a whole if (the military's operations) were to be interrupted, so we hope that it would be possible for them to continue, which as I understand it means that we hope that the law will be extended," Negroponte said in a press conference at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo after holding talks with Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki and other senior Japanese government officials.
Negroponte said U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer and other embassy officials plan to hold talks with members of the opposition parties.
Schieffer, speaking at the same press conference, said he will hold talks with Ozawa next week.
Shiozaki, who also serves as the top government spokesman, said at a press briefing he assured Negroponte that Japan's policy remains unchanged.
Kyodo News | August 4, 2007
Japan assured visiting U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte on Friday that its policy on extending oil-refueling support for antiterrorism operations in the Indian Ocean remains unchanged despite the ruling camp's House of Councilors election defeat, while the senior U.S. diplomat said failure to extend the mission would be "harmful to international interests."
Negroponte, who is in Tokyo on his way back from a regional meeting in Manila, reiterated Washington's backing for Japan's efforts to press North Korea to resolve Pyongyang's past abductions of Japanese nationals, but also said the best way to settle the issue is by Japan and North Korea holding direct talks.
His visit comes amid Washington's fears that a special law enabling Japanese forces' activities in the Indian Ocean will not be extended beyond the Nov. 1 expiration after the opposition camp won a majority in the Upper House in the July 29 election.
Ichiro Ozawa, leader of the Democratic Party of Japan, the main opposition force, which seized the majority in the poll, has said his party will vote against extending the law.
"In our view, it would be harmful to international interests as a whole if (the military's operations) were to be interrupted, so we hope that it would be possible for them to continue, which as I understand it means that we hope that the law will be extended," Negroponte said in a press conference at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo after holding talks with Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki and other senior Japanese government officials.
Negroponte said U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer and other embassy officials plan to hold talks with members of the opposition parties.
Schieffer, speaking at the same press conference, said he will hold talks with Ozawa next week.
Shiozaki, who also serves as the top government spokesman, said at a press briefing he assured Negroponte that Japan's policy remains unchanged.
NYT : Japan’s Leader Attacked by His Own Party
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Japan’s Leader Attacked by His Own Party
By NORIMITSU ONISHI | July 26, 2007
KOCHI, Japan, July 24 — In his campaign for a third term in Japan’s upper house of Parliament, Kohei Tamura has been crisscrossing his district’s verdant mountains, hugging its dark blue coastline and running all the while against the deeply unpopular Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
“I don’t get what ‘a beautiful country’ means,” Mr. Tamura said in a recent speech here, citing Mr. Abe’s defining, though vague, slogan about striving to transform Japan into a beautiful country.
“Here in Kochi, we’ve been reduced to worrying about our next meal,” Mr. Tamura said of his economically depressed district in western Japan. “So when he comes to support us with this pie in the sky ‘Japan, a beautiful country’ and says nothing but random things, I feel he’s making fools of us.”
With Mr. Abe’s future as prime minister hanging by a thread, it is not surprising that he has become the target of criticism in campaigns across Japan for Sunday’s election for the upper house of Parliament. But what is surprising is that the attacks are coming from his own Liberal Democratic Party, from politicians like Mr. Tamura, who are distancing themselves from Mr. Abe for their own survival.
News media polls, analysts and even party members themselves are predicting a big defeat for Mr. Abe’s party and a victory for the opposition Democratic Party. Voters in cities and even in Liberal Democratic rural redoubts like Kochi are expected to punish Mr. Abe’s government for mishandling pension records, several scandals and verbal gaffes by his bumbling ministers.
A big defeat could force the resignation of Mr. Abe, who was wildly popular when he became prime minister last September but now has approval ratings below 30 percent. He has been tone-deaf to the economic anxieties of the average Japanese, and has hewed to an ideologically driven agenda of promoting patriotism in schools, revising the pacifist Constitution and pushing an assertive foreign policy.
“We’re going to lose this election,” Katsuei Hirasawa, a veteran Liberal Democratic member of the lower house of Parliament, said in an interview. “But the key is by how much are we going to lose.”
Even a moderate loss could allow Mr. Abe to remain prime minister because there is no obvious successor, Mr. Hirasawa said. But a big loss would undermine the premise under which the Liberal Democrats chose Mr. Abe, who, at 52, was relatively young and inexperienced but popular for his hawkish stance against North Korea and China.
“If we lose the majority by only a little, I don’t think Mr. Abe should be held responsible,” Mr. Hirasawa said. “But if we lose really big, of course, he should. Mr. Abe was chosen because we thought he could lead us to electoral victories with his popularity. So the conclusion will be that Mr. Abe can’t win elections.”
Apparently to stanch such talk from within, party and government leaders said this week that the election would not be a referendum on Mr. Abe’s performance and that he would remain prime minister no matter what the outcome.
Upper house elections are not “elections involving the selection of a prime minister, so whether Prime Minister Abe resigns or not is a separate matter,” Shoichi Nakagawa, a top Liberal Democratic official, said at a news conference.
Under Japanese law, members of the lower house, which the Liberal Democrats control with a huge majority, select the prime minister. Mr. Abe would not have to step down if his party lost the upper house, but prime ministers have traditionally resigned after such losses because they reflect a lack of popular support and would make it difficult to pass laws in Parliament. In such circumstances, lawmakers have preferred turning to another leader.
Mr. Abe had described himself as the heir to political and economic reforms undertaken by his predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, but he quickly readmitted antireformist lawmakers whom Mr. Koizumi had expelled from the party. His initial approval ratings of 60 percent have declined steadily.
Mr. Abe quickly alienated urban voters seeking change in a system that had long favored rural areas, said Ikuo Kabashima, a professor of politics at the University of Tokyo.
“They saw him as different from Koizumi,” Mr. Kabashima said. “Abe is now more widely seen as an old-fashioned, traditional Liberal Democratic politician.”
While Mr. Koizumi’s economic changes, like reductions in public works, hurt rural areas, he earned rural support with charisma and political skills, Mr. Kabashima said. As the impact of those changes was felt more strongly by an aging, depressed, rural Japan after Mr. Abe took office, he seemed uninterested in the rural economic woes.
“So the situation now is that he has lost support of both urban and rural areas,” Mr. Kabashima said. “Usually, even if the Liberal Democrats lost urban support, they were able to firm up their rural support. That was the Liberal Democrats’ way of doing things until now. If they lose both, they face a big loss.”
Here in Kochi, a rural prefecture in Shikoku, the smallest of Japan’s four main islands, Liberal Democratic victories have been a given.
Until early June, Mr. Tamura, 60, the upper house candidate — whose father and grandfather were also national politicians representing this area — held a double-digit lead over his Democratic Party opponent, Norio Takeuchi, 48. But Mr. Tamura’s lead has faded, and he could lose his seat because of anxiety among voters over the economy, anger over lost pension records and Mr. Abe’s leadership of a cabinet seemingly in disarray, said Masuki Motoki, the Liberal Democrats’ secretary general here.
“This time, it’s not only a headwind, but a hurricane,” Mr. Motoki said, describing the backlash against his party. “Some people are even calling this a tsunami.”
Kimiko Arisawa, 63, a nursing home worker, was visiting a friend’s clothing shop here on Monday. Describing herself as a longtime Liberal Democrat, Ms. Arisawa said that Mr. Abe had disappointed her.
“He says only pretty things, but can’t take care of more basic things,” she said, agreeing with her lawmaker’s criticism of Mr. Abe’s “beautiful country.”
At a rally for Mr. Tamura on Monday evening, Gen Nakatani, a lower house member of the Liberal Democrats, said that Mr. Tamura spoke out for rural Japan and that, of all his party’s candidates, he had “made the most courageous statement.”
After the rally, Mr. Tamura said Mr. Abe enjoyed a good start by improving relations with China and South Korea, which had been damaged under Mr. Koizumi.
“But after that, why things turned out this way, I don’t think anybody understands, to be honest, though there were plenty of scandals and such,” Mr. Tamura said.
Asked whether he regretted so openly criticizing Mr. Abe, Mr. Tamura sounded a little defensive, perhaps because of a reprimand from his party. Mr. Motoki, the party’s secretary general here, said with some relief that Mr. Tamura had stopped attacking Mr. Abe a couple of days earlier in his campaign stops as he sought a six-year term.
But Tuesday morning, as he greeted listeners at a stop in the village of Kitagawa, Mr. Tamura told one elderly woman, “We can’t fill our bellies on a ‘beautiful country.’ ”
By NORIMITSU ONISHI | July 26, 2007
KOCHI, Japan, July 24 — In his campaign for a third term in Japan’s upper house of Parliament, Kohei Tamura has been crisscrossing his district’s verdant mountains, hugging its dark blue coastline and running all the while against the deeply unpopular Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
“I don’t get what ‘a beautiful country’ means,” Mr. Tamura said in a recent speech here, citing Mr. Abe’s defining, though vague, slogan about striving to transform Japan into a beautiful country.
“Here in Kochi, we’ve been reduced to worrying about our next meal,” Mr. Tamura said of his economically depressed district in western Japan. “So when he comes to support us with this pie in the sky ‘Japan, a beautiful country’ and says nothing but random things, I feel he’s making fools of us.”
With Mr. Abe’s future as prime minister hanging by a thread, it is not surprising that he has become the target of criticism in campaigns across Japan for Sunday’s election for the upper house of Parliament. But what is surprising is that the attacks are coming from his own Liberal Democratic Party, from politicians like Mr. Tamura, who are distancing themselves from Mr. Abe for their own survival.
News media polls, analysts and even party members themselves are predicting a big defeat for Mr. Abe’s party and a victory for the opposition Democratic Party. Voters in cities and even in Liberal Democratic rural redoubts like Kochi are expected to punish Mr. Abe’s government for mishandling pension records, several scandals and verbal gaffes by his bumbling ministers.
A big defeat could force the resignation of Mr. Abe, who was wildly popular when he became prime minister last September but now has approval ratings below 30 percent. He has been tone-deaf to the economic anxieties of the average Japanese, and has hewed to an ideologically driven agenda of promoting patriotism in schools, revising the pacifist Constitution and pushing an assertive foreign policy.
“We’re going to lose this election,” Katsuei Hirasawa, a veteran Liberal Democratic member of the lower house of Parliament, said in an interview. “But the key is by how much are we going to lose.”
Even a moderate loss could allow Mr. Abe to remain prime minister because there is no obvious successor, Mr. Hirasawa said. But a big loss would undermine the premise under which the Liberal Democrats chose Mr. Abe, who, at 52, was relatively young and inexperienced but popular for his hawkish stance against North Korea and China.
“If we lose the majority by only a little, I don’t think Mr. Abe should be held responsible,” Mr. Hirasawa said. “But if we lose really big, of course, he should. Mr. Abe was chosen because we thought he could lead us to electoral victories with his popularity. So the conclusion will be that Mr. Abe can’t win elections.”
Apparently to stanch such talk from within, party and government leaders said this week that the election would not be a referendum on Mr. Abe’s performance and that he would remain prime minister no matter what the outcome.
Upper house elections are not “elections involving the selection of a prime minister, so whether Prime Minister Abe resigns or not is a separate matter,” Shoichi Nakagawa, a top Liberal Democratic official, said at a news conference.
Under Japanese law, members of the lower house, which the Liberal Democrats control with a huge majority, select the prime minister. Mr. Abe would not have to step down if his party lost the upper house, but prime ministers have traditionally resigned after such losses because they reflect a lack of popular support and would make it difficult to pass laws in Parliament. In such circumstances, lawmakers have preferred turning to another leader.
Mr. Abe had described himself as the heir to political and economic reforms undertaken by his predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, but he quickly readmitted antireformist lawmakers whom Mr. Koizumi had expelled from the party. His initial approval ratings of 60 percent have declined steadily.
Mr. Abe quickly alienated urban voters seeking change in a system that had long favored rural areas, said Ikuo Kabashima, a professor of politics at the University of Tokyo.
“They saw him as different from Koizumi,” Mr. Kabashima said. “Abe is now more widely seen as an old-fashioned, traditional Liberal Democratic politician.”
While Mr. Koizumi’s economic changes, like reductions in public works, hurt rural areas, he earned rural support with charisma and political skills, Mr. Kabashima said. As the impact of those changes was felt more strongly by an aging, depressed, rural Japan after Mr. Abe took office, he seemed uninterested in the rural economic woes.
“So the situation now is that he has lost support of both urban and rural areas,” Mr. Kabashima said. “Usually, even if the Liberal Democrats lost urban support, they were able to firm up their rural support. That was the Liberal Democrats’ way of doing things until now. If they lose both, they face a big loss.”
Here in Kochi, a rural prefecture in Shikoku, the smallest of Japan’s four main islands, Liberal Democratic victories have been a given.
Until early June, Mr. Tamura, 60, the upper house candidate — whose father and grandfather were also national politicians representing this area — held a double-digit lead over his Democratic Party opponent, Norio Takeuchi, 48. But Mr. Tamura’s lead has faded, and he could lose his seat because of anxiety among voters over the economy, anger over lost pension records and Mr. Abe’s leadership of a cabinet seemingly in disarray, said Masuki Motoki, the Liberal Democrats’ secretary general here.
“This time, it’s not only a headwind, but a hurricane,” Mr. Motoki said, describing the backlash against his party. “Some people are even calling this a tsunami.”
Kimiko Arisawa, 63, a nursing home worker, was visiting a friend’s clothing shop here on Monday. Describing herself as a longtime Liberal Democrat, Ms. Arisawa said that Mr. Abe had disappointed her.
“He says only pretty things, but can’t take care of more basic things,” she said, agreeing with her lawmaker’s criticism of Mr. Abe’s “beautiful country.”
At a rally for Mr. Tamura on Monday evening, Gen Nakatani, a lower house member of the Liberal Democrats, said that Mr. Tamura spoke out for rural Japan and that, of all his party’s candidates, he had “made the most courageous statement.”
After the rally, Mr. Tamura said Mr. Abe enjoyed a good start by improving relations with China and South Korea, which had been damaged under Mr. Koizumi.
“But after that, why things turned out this way, I don’t think anybody understands, to be honest, though there were plenty of scandals and such,” Mr. Tamura said.
Asked whether he regretted so openly criticizing Mr. Abe, Mr. Tamura sounded a little defensive, perhaps because of a reprimand from his party. Mr. Motoki, the party’s secretary general here, said with some relief that Mr. Tamura had stopped attacking Mr. Abe a couple of days earlier in his campaign stops as he sought a six-year term.
But Tuesday morning, as he greeted listeners at a stop in the village of Kitagawa, Mr. Tamura told one elderly woman, “We can’t fill our bellies on a ‘beautiful country.’ ”
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