(UPDATED) (OT) Tokyo and Wider Kanto Area Are Snowed Under, New Tokyo Governor Says "What's the Big Deal? It Will Be Over in One Day."

(UPDATE) The national government finally had a teleconference with the Yamanashi prefectural government, in which the governor of Yamanashi asked for the national disaster response assistance, including sending personnel from Ministry of Land and Infrastructure who have expertise in dealing with heavy snow, according to a local Yamanashi newspaper.

Minister Furuya in charge of disaster prevention in the Abe administration instructed the ministries/agencies involved to collect detailed information using social networking websites.

...... (Who needs a national government for that?)

====================

The snow storm on February 14 and 15 seems to have been even more severe than the one the week earlier in Kanto. For a while, residents in prefectures that regularly have heavy snow falls were smiling and bemused at residents in Kanto, particularly in Tokyo, for making a huge fuss about the snow fall that was about 30 centimeters in Tokyo, until everyone started to realize that these large and small cities in Tokyo and wider Kanto area are not designed to expect a snow fall more than 20 centimeters at most.

Particularly hard-hit seems to be Yamanashi Prefecture, located west of Tokyo. Judging from tweets from residents there, the prefectural and municipal governments in Yamanashi are taking the weekend off.

A tweet below by a high school teacher tweeting information he gets from his student says "The road in front of my house [student's house] hasn't been snowplowed. Can't even walk."

【生徒宅より情報】我が家の道は 除雪車が はいってないので 歩けません。#山梨　#大雪 pic.twitter.com/kRnfqoW2jo

— 山口隆之 (@FujizoushiBot) February 16, 2014

The high school teacher also tweets, "There is no emergency response headquarters in the village, no information as to the plans by the government. Here's our situation and we need help."

Yoichi Masuzoe, the newly elected governor of Tokyo thanks to the organized votes from LDP/Komei/Soka Gakkai and hardly anything else, seems to be taking the weekend off also. His last twitter is on February 13. And if this screenshot is true...

お前が1日で終わってくれ！ RT @sa________ku: コレが本当なら、都内の雪災害に対して、都民自らが対処するしかないね。 pic.twitter.com/gMche06DH8

— マリィさんとべぇちゃん (@marieYK) February 16, 2014

Announcer (Seiji Miyane): "Speaking of disaster preparedness, this heavy snow [probably about the one a week ago] can be considered a disaster, don't you think?"
Masuzoe: "This is not a big deal at all. It will be over in a day."

"You should be over in a day" is the comment on the tweet.

If you recall, disaster preparedness was one of the supposedly main issues (unlike nuclear power policies) of the gubernatorial election held on February 9. Modus operandi of Masuzoe seems to be the same as the Kan administration in March 2011, particularly that of then-Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio "There is no immediate effect" Edano.

Close your eyes, and it doesn't exist any more.

And the national government under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe? The twitter account of Prime Minister's Official Residence Emergency Response Information, which has nearly one million followers, made the last update on February 15, announcing the "Disaster Response Volunteer Week" event.

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(OT) Tokyo Gubernatorial Election in One Chart

People have made a great deal out of the "high" percentage of votes among voters between 20 and 30 years old that went to Mr. Toshio Tamogami, ex-Chief of Staff of Self Defense Air Force. But if you look at the absolute number of votes cast by this age group, they were insignificant.

Much more solid showing of Mr. Tamogami in the 30-40 years old and 40-50 years old brackets is more interesting. There, Tamogami almost equally split votes cast with both Utsunomiya and Hosokawa.

Anyway, people in 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s who live in Tokyo (particularly those in their 20s) couldn't be bothered to go to vote on a snowy day in the middle of potentially an extended weekend (if they took Monday off), and we got Mr. Masuzoke, a puppet for the Abe administration whose agendas turned out to have been hinged on this election.

Another way to look at this chart is to eyeball and lump Masuzue and Utsunomiya votes together as "organized votes": Masuzoe - LDP, Komei, Soka Gakkai and Labor Union, and Utsunomiya - Communist Party, Social Democrats, Labor Union. Both Masuzoe and Utsunomiya pretty much maxed out on the votes they could get through the organizations that backed them. Utsunomiya's votes this time were hardly different from what he had gotten in December 2012 gubernatorial election where Inose had won with more than 4.6 million votes.

Hosokawa and Tamogami, over 1.5 million votes between them, got their votes from people with no party affiliation. If the voting rate had been much higher, I suspect they both would have easily gotten double of what they got.

Chart created by @joe0212t, English labels are mine:

Meanwhile, Governor Masuzoe tried his chair in his governor's office, and said "It's just an ordinary chair."

Mr. Hosokawa issued his message to his supporters apologizing that he couldn't beat Mr. Masuzoe.

Mr. Utsunomiya visited the Communist Party headquarters, and together with the party chairman, celebrated his "win" over the two former prime ministers. "Sense of accomplishment," said Mr. Utsunomiya.

Governor Masuzoe is also busy peddling his new book on his Twitter. The topic of the book? Constitutional amendment.

(Are you starting to freak out yet?)

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#Nuclear Japan: Nuclear Plant Operators Breathe a Sigh of Relief on Masuzoe's Win, "He Is Someone We Can Work With"

It's not just TEPCO, which provides electricity in Tokyo, but also other nuclear power plant operators, as Sankei Shinbun hints.

Again, so much for the Tokyo governor race being just a provincial, local race where jobs and social welfare should be the top issues.

The election to choose the head of a prefecture with over 10,000,000 electoral votes may be on par with a national election to choose the head of the state in mid- to small-size European countries.

It is really funny and sad at the same time (or schadenfreude) that all of Japan's mainstream media, including Sankei, started covering the nuclear issues as presented during the Tokyo gubernatorial election campaign, as soon as the election was over at 8PM on February 9, and continues to do so now.

During the election, they made sure they didn't cover the issue, and were very busy downgrading the issue, ridiculing the one candidate who put an enormous emphasis on the issue, and ridiculing his extremely vocal supporter. They didn't even show their faces in the video clips.

During the election, they completely buried the coverage of Hosokawa/Koizumi in their reporting. Now, almost all of them now say it was Hosokawa, with the strong support from Koizumi, that the Abe administration feared.

From the unabashedly pro-nuclear and pro-Abe Sankei Shinbun (2/10/2014; part) on the reaction to the election result from electric power companies:

「建設的な議論ができる人という印象だ」。東京電力幹部は舛添氏をこう評す。舛添氏の勝利に電力業界にも安堵の空気が広がる。「原発ゼロ」を唱える細川元首相が当選すれば、各社が待ち望む原発再稼働が遠のく恐れがあったからだ。

"Our impression is that he is someone whom we can hold a constructive talk," executives at TEPCO commented on Mr. Masuzoe. The electric utility industry breathes a collective sigh of relief on Mr. Masuzoe's victory. It is because there was a chance that the restart of nuclear power plants that all [nuclear power plant] operators have been waiting for might have been further delayed if former Prime Minister Hosokawa, who was calling for "Zero Nuke Plant", had won.

Still, the supporters of the "socialist attorney" who came in the victorious (to him) second in the election are still busy dissing the Hosokawa supporters, or in rare cases telling them, "Let's work together again, let bygones be bygones."

Work, like carrying a banner in one of those festive demonstrations with chants and songs and dances, probably.

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PM Abe Takes Tokyo Governor Race Win by Masuzoe as Endorsement of His Administration, Moves Ahead with Nuke Restart, Constitutional Change

Sure enough, on the heel of a big win by the candidate that his party supported in the Tokyo gubernatorial election, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe moves full on again on restarting the nuclear power plants in Japan and crafting the new national energy policy that puts nuclear power back in the center.

Abe takes Masuzoe's win as strong endorsement of his administration's policies, particularly nuclear policies, just as The Economist and other influential foreign papers predicted (here's Wall Street Journal's take, with a not-so-kind photograph of Masuzoe).

It will be not just the restart of the nuclear power plants in Japan. To those of you who briefly had a glimmer of hope that Japan would finally ditch the fast breeder Monju, my condolences. Abe also wants to quickly pass the budget, modify the Constitution and carry out an educational reform.

All because the LDP/Komei backed Masuzoe won in the Tokyo gubernatorial election.

And who were all those people who insisted that the governorship of Tokyo was just another local, provincial matter with little bearing on the national politics? Whoever you are, my condolences, too.

From Mainichi Shinbun, published after the poll closed on February 9, 2014 (part):

都知事選:首相、主要政策に追い風　エネ計画月内決定

Tokyo gubernatorial election result will act as tailwind for Prime Minister's core policies, energy policies to be decided within this month

東京都知事選で自民、公明両党の支援する舛添要一元厚生労働相（６５）が当選し、安倍晋三首相は今年最初のハードルを越えた。原発再稼働に前向きな安倍政権の姿勢は一定の評価を得たととらえ、国の中長期的なエネルギー政策の指針となる新たな「エネルギー基本計画」を月内にも閣議決定する。さらに２０１４年度予算案を早期に成立させて「経済重視」をアピールしつつ、集団的自衛権の行使を可能にする憲法解釈の変更や教育委員会改革などを進める構えだ。

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe cleared the first hurdle of this year by the win in the Tokyo gubernatorial election by Yoichi Masuzoe, former Minister of Health and Labor who was supported by both LDP and Komen Party. Masuzoe's win is considered as a certain degree of approval of the Abe administration which is in favor of the restart of nuclear power plants, and the new Basic Energy Plan will be approved by a cabinet decision within this month. The Basic Energy Plan serves as guidelines for mid- to long-term national energy policies. Further, Abe will pass the fiscal 2014 budget at the earliest opportunity to appeal his "focus on the economy" as well as modifying the interpretation of the Constitution that will enable Japan to exercise the right to collective defense and carrying out the reform of Board of Education.

首相に近い参院議員の一人は「首相は自民党を捨てた舛添氏をよく思っていないが、『勝てる候補』と割り切った」と首相の心情を代弁する。今年は大型の国政選挙が予定されていないものの、首都・東京で敗れた場合、高い内閣支持率を保ってきた政権の潮目が変わりかねなかったためだ。

One of the Councilors close to the prime minister speaks for Mr. Abe and says "Prime Minister doesn't think highly of Mr. Masuzoe who abandoned Liberal Democratic Party, but decided to see him as "someone who could win the election"." There is no large national election to be held this year, but if [the LDP-backed candidate] had lost in Tokyo, capital of Japan, the tide may have turned against the Abe administration whose approval rating has remained high.

細川護熙元首相と小泉純一郎元首相による「脱原発」の争点化が奏功しなかったことで、政府は、都知事選後に閣議決定を先送りしていたエネルギー基本計画について、原発を「ベース電源」と位置付けた政府素案から大きく修正しない方向だ。ただ、今後の核燃料サイクル政策を巡っては、高速増殖原型炉もんじゅを計画通り進めることに自公両党の批判が強い。自民党の高市早苗政調会長は９日夜、毎日新聞の取材に「相当丁寧に議論していかなければならない」と述べ、政府に慎重な対応を求めた。

Seeing that the efforts by former prime ministers Morihiro Hosokawa and Junichiro Koizumi to turn the "beyond nuclear" movement as an election issue was not successful, the Abe government is not going to vastly modify the government draft plan of the Basic Energy Plan, which defines nuclear power as "basic power supply". The government had deferred the cabinet decision on the Basic Energy Plan until after the Tokyo gubernatorial election. However, there are significant objections from within both LDP and Komen Party to operating the fast breeder Monju as planned, as part of the fuel cycle policy. Sanae Takaichi, Chairman of LDP's Policy Research Council, said in the Mainichi Shinbun interview in the evening of February 9 that [Monju and the fuel cycle policy] would have to be thoroughly discussed, and would require a cautious approach by the government.

Thorough discussion and cautious approach. Just like when they passed the State Secrecy Protection Law. So ditch that thought that Japan finally ditches Monju.

Remember that Abe wanted to run a young female candidate to win the election. When he and his administration saw the attorney who had been defeated very badly by Mr. Inose in the December 2012 election entering the race again, they decided on Mr. Masuzoe, who they were confident could easily beat him (which he did, even if he was a man).

In the National Diet Budget Committee on the next day (February 10), Prime Minister Abe moved quickly with his coalition partner Komei Party (that also supported Mr. Masuzoe) and effectively resurrected nuclear power as "basic power supply". There is no way that "basic power supply" for the nation will be terminated in the near or even the distant future.

And what are those "beyond nuclear" supporters of the "socialist lawyer" (as The Economist puts him) doing?

Gloating on the "win" over the former prime ministers who wanted to immediately ditch nuclear power.

They are promising their followers the "long" struggle toward a nuclear-free future someday. Masuzoe's win seems to have guaranteed them a life work, paid or otherwise. Congratulations for that.

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The Economist Magazine: Masuzoe's Win Means the Abe Administration Will Restart Nuclear Power Plants as Early as This Summer

The magazine says former Prime Minister Hosokawa backed by former Prime Minister Koizumi could have dealt "the biggest blow" to Prime Minister Abe and pro-nuclear LDP, but votes were drawn away by a socialist lawyer Utsunomiya (who came in the distant second). The magazine also predicts Governor Masuzoe will be known to the outside world on the single issue: his misogyny.

That's vastly different from the naïve and happy narratives that are circulating right now inside Japan, one day after the election. Some of the narratives are:

It's just a local election after all, and the governorship is not about overall energy policies but about local, "main street" issues like social welfare and taking care of the socially weak and creating jobs for the young. [As I wrote in the previous post, this view is shared by LDP, right-wing think tanks, Social Dems and Communist Party.]

Nuclear issues should not be on the forefront anyway, and it was Koizumi's gravest mistake to put them forward. Tokyo residents were smarter than Koizumi and knew what the real issues were.

Masuzoe won by a big margin because of his meticulously crafted policies that persuaded Tokyo residents to vote for him, and he will be a great governor to make Tokyo "No.1 city in the world". [Never mind that only a handful of citizens bothered to attend his speeches during the campaign.]

Mr. Utsunomiya has "won" by defeating Hosokawa/Koizumi, and that's great for the anti-nuclear movement by ordinary citizens.

Never mind that Mr. Utsunomiya hardly increased his votes this time from his disastrous previous election result in 2012. For him and Communist Party who backed him, it's a great win because together they defeated the conservative LDP prime minister (Koizumi) who had defeated Communist Party's objections in Koizumi's signature "structural reform" when Koizumi was the Prime Minister in the first half of 2000s.

Hosokawa's votes seem to have entirely come from those who had voted for Naoki Inose in 2012, who was also backed by LDP. Thus the lament from anti-nuclear people who supported Hosokawa this time despite the differences in issues outside nuclear: "If only Mr. Utsunomiya had stepped down." (And if only it hadn't snowed, of course.)

But I digress. Here's The Economist's view of the election (2/9/2014; emphasis is mine):

Tokyo’s gubernatorial election

Powering on


FOR a brief few weeks the millions of Japanese who do not love Shinzo Abe, the prime minister, had reason to hope. The combination of Morihiro Hosokawa and Junichiro Koizumi, two former premiers, entered the race for governor of Tokyo with a resonant campaign cry; to steer Japan rapidly towards zero nuclear power. With Mr Koizumi backing Mr Hosokawa’s candidacy, it seemed possible that he might deliver the biggest blow to Mr Abe and his pro-nuclear Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) since their return to power in December 2012. But on February 9th those hopes melted away as quickly as the snow which had blanketed Tokyo on the eve of the vote. The race was won handily by Yoichi Masuzoe (pictured right, on the campaign trail with Mr Abe, left), a former health minister backed by the LDP, according to projections from NHK, the national broadcaster.

The result’s chief significance is that it clears the way for Mr Abe to press ahead with switching on some of Japan’s idled nuclear reactors, possibly as early as this summer. The crusade by the ever-popular Mr Koizumi, just under three years on from the 2011 catastrophe at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, had unnerved his former party. In the election for the upper house of parliament in July 2013, Tokyo elected two vehemently anti-nuclear MPs, showing the strength of opposition. Yet the anti-nuclear camp remained divided for the governor’s race. A socialist lawyer, Kenji Utsunomiya, who also opposed a return to nuclear, drew away votes from Mr Hosokawa. Turnout was low, owing to the snow.

Mr Koizumi will hardly give up his campaign. He is now likely to ally with figures who can pack a weightier punch than the elderly Mr Hosokawa, who is descended from a line of feudal lords. Hirohiko Izumida, the governor of Niigata prefecture, for example, is another key foe of nuclear restarts. The LDP itself now contains many more people who question the country’s former reliance on nuclear power than in the past. Yet the Tokyo election shows that the anti-nuclear vote is neither overwhelming in size nor easily mobilised, even by a political superstar.

The LDP reluctantly backed Mr Masuzoe amid a dearth of strong candidates; he had walked out of the party in 2010. During the campaign he emphasised local matters such as social welfare and the hosting of the Olympics in 2020. Yet he starts his governorship of the gleaming megalopolis with the outside world focused on one characteristic; his reputation for misogyny. When Tokyo women called on Twitter for a "sex strike" against men voting for Mr Masuzoe, the media tuned in. More than two decades ago, then a political scientist, he told a magazine that women are unfit for high political office because they menstruate.

While Mr Masuzoe’s comment, exhumed from 1989, met with radical counter-action, the rightwing ravings of Toshio Tamogami, another of the four leading candidates, attracted little censure. Mr Tamogami was sacked in 2008 as the chief of Japan’s air force for writing, among other things, that President Franklin D. Roosevelt deliberately tricked Japan into attacking Pearl Harbour. Mr Abe should go once a month to the controversial Yasukuni shrine, he declared during the campaign, until China and South Korea finally get tired of complaining. One of Mr Tamogami’s supporters, Naoki Hyakuta, a member of the board of NHK, this week declared to voters that the Nanjing massacre of Chinese civilians by Japanese soldiers in late 1937 “never happened”. All in all, not an election to be proud of.

Not an election to be proud of. Not indeed.

However, The Economist is wrong if it really thinks Masuzoe's 1989 comment was "met with radical counter-action". Only the tabloid newspapers carried the story, and the mainstream newspapers and TV stations didn't say a word

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(OT) Yoichi Masuzoe Is the New Governor of Tokyo, Thanks to Organized Votes from LDP and Komei/Soka Gakkai; Turnout 3rd Lowest in History

He should also be grateful for the Japan's mainstream media, from increasingly government-PR organ NHK to left-leaning Asahi Shinbun, for not reporting the various scandals that everyone in the media and the political class knew about during the election campaign and for their genuine, heart-felt effort to de-emphasize any nuclear issue to the point of not even showing the faces of the two former prime ministers as they campaigned on the anti-nuclear platform.

Looking at Asahi's site, it doesn't look like the paper will ever report Masuzoe's scandal, although suddenly the anti-nuclear movement is prominently mentioned.

From Asahi's Tokyo Gubernatorial Election page "Who is Mr. Masuzoe?", Masuzoe's prominent remarks as Asahi sees:

"LDP's draft constitution is too right-wing to receive broad support"

"Without redistribution, the gap [between the rich and the poor] will widen"

"What was Koizumi's postal reform?"

"Atomic Energy Agreement [to export nuclear power plant technologies] is OK"

"How does one spend first six years after retirement"

etc., etc., as if Masuzoe is a reasonable statesman.

Asahi, or for that matter, any Japanese mainstream media news outlet, never reported what the foreign press reported, and will never report, now that Masuzoe is installed as the governor, doing the Abe administration's bidding.

One of the most prominent remarks by Masuzoe appeared in UK's The Guardian and other foreign news outlets quoting AFP (2/7/2014):

In 1989, he told a men's magazine that it would not be proper to have women at the highest level of government because their menstrual cycle makes them irrational.

"Women are not normal when they are having a period … You can't possibly let them make critical decisions about the country [during their period] such as whether or not to go to war," he said.

For him to say so must be extremely distressful for one of his ex-wives, Ms. Satsuki Katayama, an LDP politician whose own party supported her ex-husband's candidacy. She reportedly suffered domestic violence during their short marriage, which she once described to a Japanese magazine as "simply terrifying".

Too much testosterone, or too many girlfriends, we don't know.

With the low turnout (46.14% including absentee ballots), there was not much at all that other candidates could do to counter the LDP/Komei/labor union votes, particularly those of Komei/Soka Gakkai (religious organization that founded Komei Party).

The most realistic anti-nuclear candidate was former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa, but he and his supporters were bombarded with "negative" campaigns on the net (particularly social media) by the supporters of another supposedly anti-nuclear candidate, Kenji Utsunomiya, attorney who was backed by Social Democratic Party and Communist Party.

I put "negative" in quotation marks, as tweets I have seen almost always started with "positive" remarks about Hosokawa's candidacy: "It's great that he is running on the "beyond nuclear" platform, blah blah blah, BUT..."

Curiously, the words and sentences after this "BUT" were almost identical to what the Abe administration officials, right-wing think tanks supporting the administration, and mainstream media kept saying throughout the election campaign:

"BUT the governorship of Tokyo is so much more than just a "single issue" of beyond nuclear. There's public welfare, there's unemployment, there's support for working mothers and young people, there's TPP, there's Tokyo Olympic..."

The supporters of Mr. Utsunomiya say they will continue their long struggle toward a nuclear-free society, with the emphasis on "long".

What Hosokawa and Koizumi preached - immediate decision not to use nuclear energy any more - was too "soon", apparently.

As to whether Mr. Masuzoe can keep his governorship, probably. LDP holds 59 seats and Komei 23 in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly. Together, they control 82 seats, or 65% of the total 127 seats in the Assembly. LDP and Komei will make sure Masuzoe's scandals remain non-issues, as long as Masuzoe does not deviate from their agendas.

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(OT) (UPDATED) 27-Centimeter Deep Snow in Tokyo on Gubernatorial Election Day

(UPDATE-4) As soon as voting ended at 8PM, February 9, 2014, "Mr. Yoichi Masuzoe has secured victory" splashed across major news outlets. The sleaze won.

(UPDATE-3) As of 4PM, the voting rate remains well below the previous election, at 24.54%, 11% lower than the previous election, according to Yomiuri Shinbun.

(UPDATE-2) NHK reports that the absentee votes were also 7% less than the last time.

(UPDATE) As of noon on February 9, 2014, the voting rate is 7.86% (men 9.03%, women 6.73%), according to the official Tokyo Metropolitan Election Commission. The same time in the last gubernatorial election, the voting rate was 17.62%.

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That's the heaviest snowfall for Tokyo in 20 years, says Asahi Shinbun (2/9/2014).

So much so that someone took out his pair of ski to coast on slushy snow in central Ginza (photo taken by Nikken Shinbun's photographer):

I hear that there is a strict set of rules in Japan's Public Election Law regarding the Internet-based campaign which was hastily complied in 2012. For example, you cannot use the candidate's name (supposedly full name) you support in your tweet on the election day to urge your followers to vote for him.

The turnout will probably be low, benefiting the candidate backed by LDP/Komei/labor union, despite his money scandal (250 million yen, as opposed to ex-Governor Inose's puny 50 million), domestic violence allegations from several of his many wives and girlfriends, non-payment of child alimony to one of his children out of wedlock, lies about taking care of his aging mother, etc., etc., and the latest scandal of bribing the voters in Tokyo with 2020 Tokyo Olympic badges (not for sale).

If he wins, I have a sense that there may be another Tokyo gubernatorial election in the not-to-distant future. Possibly in less than one year.

As for me, I liked many of the policies (120 of them in fact) by this young entrepreneur candidate, including the one about abolishing the minimum wage:

and I would have voted for the former prime minister wearing the green down jacket below, for his strong, fact-based conviction that Tokyo should move beyond nuclear as one of the largest consumers of electricity in Japan, in order to grow and prosper (but he's not the one who's running):

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(OT) Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow...

From photos posted on Twitter in Japan on February 8, 2014:

Yokohama, Kanagawa (by @Tomynyo)

Akihabara, Tokyo, gubernatorial candidate Toshio Tamogami:

Shibuya, Tokyo, gubernatorial candidate Kazuma Ieiri (left, with a young man from Niigata, says Ieiri):

Ginza, Tokyo, gubernatorial candidate Morihiro Hosokawa and former PM Junichiro Koizumi (one in green down jacket):

Somewhere in Japan, S/M "Snowman" (by @kakikukekocham)

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(OT) NHK Commissioner Says Emperor is "Living God" for the Japanese to Worship and Die For, and Abe Administration OK with Her Personal Opinions

NHK, a (forced) "public-supported" television/radio in Japan, has mostly toed the line of whoever at the top of the political hierarchy in Japan. Still, I thought it was over the top when the new chairman of the NHK Commission expressed his personal conviction and belief in a very public way (press conference and testimony in the National Diet) that Japan didn't commit war crimes, that any military anywhere in the world has had so-called "comfort women" (not again...).

Then I was flabbergasted when I heard about another recently appointed Commissioner who adores the Emperor of Japan as "living god" to whom the Japanese should sacrifice their very lives to preserve "the state of things where the Emperor is the ethical, spiritual, political center uniting people" (that is what 国体 kokutai is, as used in Japan before and during the World War II), and who praises a ultra-right wing yakuza who shot himself in the Asahi Shinbun building in 1993 after praying to the Emperor.

(Time Magazine has an article summarizing the way it is now at NHK under the Abe administration.)

Who's this Commissioner? Ms. Michiko Hasegawa, 67-year-old professor emeritus at Saitama University. She is a Tokyo University graduate (elite), an outspoken proponent of the way we were, so to speak, when women stayed home while their men earned the living, when the government started the war in the name of the Emperor and people went to war to kill and get killed. Ms. Hasegawa was born in March 1946, about 7 months after the imperial Japan surrendered unconditionally.

But what appalled me was not NHK Chairman nor Commissioner Hasegawa. Instead of at least cautioning the Commissioners for their views that are not widely shared by the population, Chief Cabinet Secretary of the Abe Administration said he had no comments on the private views of the Commissioners of the public broadcaster under effective control of the government.

From J-Cast News (2/5/2014), comments from Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga during the Diet session on NHK Commissioner Hasegawa:

「その（長谷川氏について報道されている）部分については承知していなかったが、我が国を代表する哲学者、評論家として活躍している。文化にも精通している。そういう中で政府として国会に提出して一部野党の同意もいただいて決定した。それ以上でもそれ以下でもない」

"I wasn't aware of the particular remarks (of Ms. Hasegawa that are being reported), but she is one of the most prominent philosophers and critics who represent Japan. She is thoroughly versed in cultures. That's why our government submitted her name [as a candidate for NHK Commissioner] to the National Diet, and it was approved with the votes from some opposition parties. Nothing more, nothing less."

「いちいち、経営委員の言動について政府がコメントすることは差し控えたい」

"I'll withhold my comment as the government official on every single word and deed of the Commissioners."

I guess Mr. Suga and his boss Prime Minister Abe have no right to comment anyway. Both of them gave three "banzai" to the bewildered and clearly annoyed emperor and empress on April 28 "Restoration of Sovereignty Day" last year. I wonder how the government celebrates that day.

And all this while NHK pressures commentators who appear on their programs not to talk about nuclear power, particularly about anti-nuclear movement after the Fukushima nuclear accident, during the Tokyo gubernatorial election campaign, which is ending on February 8.

Private broadcasters are no better, with Asahi TV blurring the faces of former prime ministers (Hosokawa and Koizumi) as they spoke to an enormous crowd in Tokyo in their campaigning for the governorship (for Hosokawa) and switching right back to the LDP/Komei candidate, showing full face.

Both the national government and national media have also been busy repeating again and again that the Tokyo governor race is not so much about anti-nuclear (or beyond-nuclear) but much more about jobs, Olympics, welfare, your (small) lives. In fact, nuclear issues shouldn't be in the gubernatorial race anyway, they say, because Tokyo does not have nuclear power plants. Supporters of Mr. Kenji Utsunomiya, left-leaning attorney who is anti-nuclear and backed by Social Democrats and Communist Party, take advantage of this government/media characterization to attack the anti-nuclear former PM duo instead of attacking the other two right-leaning candidates (Masuzoe, Tamogami).

It is snowing heavily in Tokyo on Saturday February 8. If this snow deters many voters on February 9, Mr. Yoichi Masuzoe, backed by LDP/Komei and particularly by Prime Minister Abe, will probably win handily, thanks to organized votes from Komei Party and labor unions who support Masuzoe this time instead of their usual support for left/liberal candidates.

And thanks to NHK and the rest of the media, and fragmented anti-nuclear people.

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(OT) Strange Logic of Some "Beyond Nuclear" Supporters on Tokyo Gubernatorial Election

I have to say these must be the same people who participated in the fluffy "beyond nuclear" demonstrations (more like entertainment festivals) in Tokyo starting in the early summer of 2011, as the Fukushima I NPP nuclear accident was very, very far from being "stabilized" and reports of high levels of radiation contamination in sewer sludge and ashes from garbage incineration were beginning to pour in.

What strange logic? When some supporters of the anti-nuclear candidates start to say things like:

If the combined votes for Mr. Utsunomiya (liberal attorney) and Mr. Hosokawa (former prime minister) exceed the votes for Mr. Masuzoe (TV personality and former Minister of Health, backed by LDP/Komei), we will win!

it seems to me tantamount to either delusion or concession of defeat.

If the combined votes for the two exceed those for Masuzoe, that means it will be Masuzoe who will win, not their candidates. They must mean a "symbolic" win, not the real one.

Meanwhile, 10 or so influential "intellectuals" (文化人) - novelists, journalists - who are mostly in support of Mr. Hosokawa held a press conference yesterday urging the two anti-nuclear candidates to somehow "join efforts" to beat Mr. Masuzoe.

At this point in the election, I don't think there is any legal way for either candidates to drop out, or collaborate with the promise of a prominent position in the administration after the election.

Younger supporters of Mr. Utsunomiya have been rather busy dissing Mr. Hosokawa and Mr. Koizumi in the past few days, often bringing up the money "scandal" of Mr. Hosokawa from 20 years ago which even the very person who had instigated the "scandal" admits it was all made up.

Another "smear" point by Mr. Utsunomiya's supporters is that people in Tokyo don't care about nuclear power. All they care about is "welfare and healthcare", they say, citing the opinion polls. Their candidate does address those issues in details, they say.

What's missing in those details is how he would pay for them, but that's apparently of no concern to the supporters.

The winner of the election looks clear to me for now, unless the turnout is much, much bigger than the normal election. Even then, splitting the votes between the two supposedly anti-nuclear candidates will likely to result in the win for the LDP/Komei backed (i.e. backed by huge organized votes) candidate.

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Tokyo Gubernatorial Candidate and Former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa: "Polar Bears, Seals Dying Because of #Fukushima..."

He also says there was an explosion at the end of December in Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant that proves there was a meltdown, citing Russian news.

I wonder whether anyone is advising Mr. Hosokawa on the Fukushima I NPP nuclear accident at all (or Mr. Hosokawa's news source is just 2ch when it comes to the nuclear accident).

Mr. Hosokawa on a net-based TV on January 22, 2014 (about 18 minutes into the video):

「数日前に私は見たんですけども、ロシアの国防軍が出した極秘資料というものが出てきてね。 それを見たんですが、福島でこないだ暮れに、１２月３１日だったかな、爆発があったという小さな記事が出ましたね。 その数日前から実は水蒸気が上がっていて『何かおかしい』という話があったのを私も確かに覚えているんですけども。 あれは完全にメルトダウンを起こしているということを、いろいろ分析をしていて。 （ロシアが。）それでアメリカはヨウ素を１５０００袋だっかな、既に２月の始めに配るという手筈を始めたということとかですね、それから、いま北極海とかいろんなところでシロクマ、アザラシ、その他の生物の大量死が続出していると、これはまさにその福島の影響であるということとか。いろんなものが出てきているわけです。これはまあ凄い話だと思いましたね。」

"I saw it a couple of days ago, but there was this confidential document issued by Russian National Defense Force. I saw it in there that in Fukushima [I NPP], on December 31 I believe, there was an explosion. I certainly remember, too, that "something was wrong" as the steam had been rising for several days prior. So the （Russian) analysis was that it suffered a complete meltdown. And so the United States arranged for 15,000 bags of potassium iodide to be distributed in early February. Also, polar bears, seals and other animals are dying in large numbers in the Arctic Ocean and other places and it is precisely due to the Fukushima accident. Many pieces of information like these. I thought they were terrible stories.

"Terrible stories" (凄い話) could also be translated as "terrific/fantastic stories". It was fantastic to watch the interviewers simply take what Hosokawa said as if they were incontrovertible "facts".

But in the reality-based world, steam has been seen rising on and off from Reactor 3 at least since July last year; it had probably been there ever since the March 14, 2011 hydrogen explosion that destroyed the operating floor and severely damaged the floors below but became visible only after enough debris had been removed. (See my post on 12/29/2013.)

As to the "explosion" on December 31, 2013, even the ex-ambassador to Switzerland who has been raising numerous alarms about the Fukushima accident, real or imagined, confirms it was just an earthquake (actually two earthquakes, he says) in Ibaraki Prefecture that day.

The "confidential Russian document" that the Ambassador links also has a mention of "radioactive snow" in several states in the US. That is so 2011/2012 winter in Japan, when people freaked out measuring naturally occurring short-life radionuclides in the snow (and rain, for that matter) - bithmus-214 and lead-214 - by using personal survey meters to get only the radiation levels or misreading the peaks of bithmus-214 for cesium-134/137 and lead-214 for iodine-131.

And "meltdown"? Mr. Hosokawa must know that meltdown (core melt) already happened in March 2011 in Reactor 1, Reactor 2 and Reactor 3.

I have no idea where Mr. Hosokawa came up with "15,000 bags" of potassium iodide pills, but it must be the "news" that the US Department of Health and Human Services solicited a bid for 1.4 million potassium iodide pills in December 2013. But the order is most likely part of the on-going program of stocking potassium iodide in preparation for nuclear emergencies. (This is an archive page of HSS announcing 1.7 million doses of liquid potassium iodide in 2005.)

As to the polar bears and seals and a host of other living things (including fish, starfish, etc.), they had been dying of mysterious diseases way before the Fukushima I NPP accident. In 2012, CNN reported that the cause of death of seal pups on the east coast of the US was "a new strain of avian flu" that jumped species. The most recent "scare" story was this one quoting the abstract of a paper presented by University of Alaska researchers, in which the researchers say they tested to see if cesium-134 and cesium-137 were present in the tissue samples. For some unknown reason, in Japan this morphed into "cesium-134 was detected, and therefore the seals were dying of Fukushima radiation!"

If Mr. Hosokawa's anti-nuclear stance is based on the fantastic stories (凄い話) like these, no wonder LDP and the Abe administration are comfortable letting the anti-nuclear ("beyond nuclear") issue be emphasized by the Hosokawa camp in the Tokyo gubernatorial race.

Quote a contrast to Mr. Junichiro Koizumi, who talks numbers and detailed facts about nuclear power and why he is against it now. Alas, he's not running for the governorship.

No matter. The Japanese media, from the NHK (increasingly government mouthpiece) on down, completely ignores the Hosokawa-Koizumi team anyway. The election is on Sunday, February 9, 2014.

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(OT) Tokyo Gubernatorial Race: Guess Who's Leading the Pack

Yoichi Masuzoe (TV personality, former Minister of Health), supported by the Liberal Democratic Party and Komei Party (ruling coalition in the national government): audience in 10s.

Morihiro Hosokawa (former prime minister), supported by former Prime Minister Junichi Koizumi (LDP), Democratic Party of Japan, Social Democrats: audience in 1,000s.

Toshio Tamogami (former Chief of Staff of the Self Defense Air Force), unofficially supported by Shintaro Ishihara: audience in 100s.

Kenji Utsunomiya (attorney - labor law) supported by Japanese Communist Party: audience in 100s - 1000s.

You would think Hosokawa is leading the race, and you would be dead wrong, if so-called opinion polls by the Japanese media are to be believed.

Here's one from anti-nuclear Tokyo Shinbun:

Masuzoe: 25.8%
Hosokawa: 13.3%
Utsunomiya: 6.9%
Tamogami: 6.4%
Undecided: 50%

The Japanese media has already selected Masuzoe as the winner for reasons only known to themselves, no matter how seemingly unpopular he is with Tokyo residents.

Prime Minister Abe and Komei Party President Yamaguchi are going to join Masuzoe on Sunday February 2nd and give speeches in support of Masuzoe. The ostensible reason is to keep Masuzoe and his staff alert, not counting on the "huge lead" he already has. Sponichi (one of the tabloids) reports the likely venue will be the middle of Ginza in Tokyo, where both Masuzoe and Hosokawa with Koizumi are scheduled to speak.

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Tokyo Gubernatorial Race Descending into a Whole Lot of Mess

Farce, you may say.

Titbits from the candidates and their supporters, from Sankei Shinbun (1/14/2014) and Nikkei Shinbun (1/15/2014):

1. Who is more like the "leader"? The one who's not running.

Morihiro Hosokawa, after meeting with ex-LDP PM Koizumi and declaring his candidacy on his birthday:

原発問題は知事として非常にやりがいのある仕事だ

"To deal with nuclear power plant issues is a very worthwhile job for me as a governor."

Junichiro Koizumi, after meeting with ex-PM Hosokawa and being asked why he was supporting Hosokawa:

東京が原発なしでやっていける姿を見せれば、必ず国を変えることができる

"If Tokyo shows it can survive [and prosper] without nuclear power plants, it can definitely change the whole nation."

For Mr. Koizumi (pictured right), January 14 was not Hosokawa's birthday, but the day, in the old lunar calendar (December 14), when 47 samurais took revenge on behalf of their lord who in their minds suffered injustice. Lunar December 14 is not January 14, but that's how Koizumi felt anyway.

Koizumi projects a future vision, while Hosokawa doesn't. The former lasted 5 years as the prime minister, the latter 9 months. Oh well.

2. Who is "anti-nuclear"? Just about everybody now (except for the ex-Chief of Staff of the Air Self Defense Force).

Yoichi Masuzoe and LDP backing him are scrambling to make the nuclear power issue a non-issue in the election. Masuzoe, who has been pro-nuclear, now says:

"I have always been saying zero nuke plant."

meaning he is all for gradually lessen the dependency on nuclear power. Prime Minister Abe chimes in from Ethiopia that he is hoping that the debate will be well-balanced, not just about the nuclear issue. As Mr. Koizumi remains popular and influential within LDP, the Abe administration officials are very reluctant to accuse Koizumi of "treason".


3. Anti-nuclear candidate Kenji Utsunomiya and his supporters in disarray (already)

Clearly, Mr. Utsunomiya and his political backers (Japanese Communist Party and Social Democratic Party) didn't expect the entry of Morihiro Hosokawa in the race with the backing from Junichiro Koizumi, who has been quite vocal in his anti-nuclear message of late.

Social Democrats are trying to back out from supporting him, saying the anti-nuclear faction should rally behind Hosokawa. Social Dems bet too early, I suppose.

Mr. Utsunomiya himself is accusing Mr. Koizumi for forcing a single-issue campaign.

Some people ask, "What about yourself, Mr. Utsunomiya?"


4. Who is for 2020 Tokyo Olympic? Everyone.

Yoichi Masuzoe:

五輪という大きな目標があれば全力で東京を改造することができる

With a big target like Olympics, we can truly transform Tokyo.

Morihiro Hosokawa:

五輪の一部を東北に

Part of the Olympics should be held in Tohoku

Kenji Utsunomiya:

環境に配慮した簡素な五輪

Simple, and environmentally-friendly Olympics

The official start of the election campaign is on January 23, and the election will be held on February 9.

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Anti-Nuclear Former Prime Ministers of Japan May Join Forces, with One Running for the Governor of Tokyo, Says Asahi

(UPDATE) It looks almost official. TV Tokyo reports (1/9/2014) that Hosokawa has decided to run, and Koizumi has already pledged support. TV Tokyo says "Hosokawa and Koizumi are both popular with voters", which is probably true.

=========================

Now it gets somewhat interesting, with two weeks left till the official announcement of candidacy.

Former prime ministers - Morihiro Hosokawa (Japan New Party, 1995-1996) and Junichiro Koizumi (LDP, 2001-2006) may join forces, with Mr. Hosokawa running in the gubernatorial election for Tokyo set to be held on February 9, according to the latest Asahi Shinbun article.

Mr. Hosokawa was the first prime minister since 1955 who was not from Liberal Democratic Party. His coalition later evolved into Democratic Party of Japan. He has taken to pottery after he retired from politics.

Mr. Koizumi retains substantial influence within/out LDP even after he retired from politics, and he has caused a stir among anti-nuclear citizens who look at Koizumi's anti-nuclear stance with great suspicion. Koizumi doesn't seem to care about his critics, though, and continues to openly speak up against nuclear energy.

Hosokawa's potential entry into the gubernatorial race, from Asahi Shinbun (1/9/2014; part):

２３日告示の東京都知事選まで２週間。細川護熙（もりひろ）元首相の名前が急浮上した。舛添要一・元厚生労働相が立候補の意向を示し、自民は支援する方向で調整に入ったが、構図が大きく変わる可能性が出てきた。

Two weeks till the official announcement on January 23 of the Tokyo gubernatorial election, the name of the former prime minister Morihiro Hosokawa has suddenly surfaced as a candidate. As Yoichi Masuzoe, former Minister of Health and Labor, has announced his intention to run with the LDP support, Hosokawa's entry into the race could vastly change the election landscape.

本命の１人となる舛添氏が立候補表明するなかで、「脱原発」を旗印に、細川氏と小泉純一郎元首相の連携が実現すれば、都知事選の台風の目になる。

Mr. Masuzoe is considered to be one of the favorite to win the race. But if the alliance of Mr. Hosokawa and the former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi materializes under the "anti [beyond] - nuclear" slogan, it could become the eye of a storm.

細川氏は政治の世界から引退して約１５年。再び表舞台へ駆り立てている要因は、原発やエネルギー問題への危機感だ。

It's been 15 years since Mr. Hosokawa retired from politics. The main reason he is considering a comeback is his sense of crisis over nuclear power plants and energy issues.

細川氏が立ち上げた日本新党の関係者によると、細川氏は１月上旬、「安倍政権のエネルギー政策は国を過（あやま）つかもしれない。都知事選で有権者に脱原発を訴えることは重要だ。勝ち負けじゃない」と語ったという。

According to a person involved in Japan New Party, which Mr. Hosokawa started [it doesn't exist any more], Mr. Hosokawa told him in early January that "The energy policy of the Abe administration may harm the nation. It is important to appeal anti (beyond) - nuclear to the voters in the Tokyo gubernatorial election. It's not the matter of win or lose."

すでに立候補した場合の準備も進めており、この関係者は「本人の判断次第でいかようにも対応出来るよう、全部準備はしている」と話す。

This person says the preparation is already underway should Hosokawa decide to run. "Depending on his decision, anything is possible. It's been all prepared."

細川氏が立候補するかどうかの大きなカギを握るのが、小泉氏の動向だ。

The key to Hosokawa's candidacy is Mr. Koizumi's intention.

両氏は昨秋に会談し、脱原発で連携していくことを約束していた。関係者は「細川氏が立候補すれば、小泉氏は絶対についてくる。小泉氏と組めば都知事選の構図が一気に変わる」と期待を込める。細川氏も小泉氏の動向を注視しているという。

The two met and spoke last fall, and promised to join forces in anti-nuclear movement. The person involved [in Japan New Party] is hopeful, saying "If Mr. Hosokawa runs, Mr. Koizumi will definitely support him. If Mr. Hosokawa joins forces with Mr. Koizumi, the election landscape will suddenly changes." He says Mr. Hosokawa is watching Mr. Koizumi carefully.

...一方、舛添氏を支援する方向の自民党は警戒感を隠さない。すでに細川氏の動きについて情報収集を開始。党幹部の一人は「細川氏だけなら怖くない。しかし、小泉氏が付けば、核融合を起こしかねない」と漏らす。

... On the other hand, LDP, who will support Mr. Masuzoe, is openly wary. The party has already started gathering information on Mr. Hosokawa's moves. One of the senior party members says, "We're not afraid of Mr. Hosokawa, if he is alone. However, if Mr. Koizumi is behind him, it could lead to a nuclear fusion [meaning "very significant event that could jeopardize their soon-to-be-declared candidate Masuzoe"]."

If it is going to be a choice among Mr. Kenji Utsunomiya (attorney backed by Social Democrats and Communist Party), Mr. Yoichi Masuzoe (scholar-author-TV personality-politician backed by LDP and DPJ) and Mr. Hosokawa (with Mr. Koizumi's backing) and if I am forced to choose, I'll be totally at a loss for whom to vote. Mr. Utsunomiya and his message look too "1990s", Mr. Masuzoe is too slick and sleazy for my liking. Beyond the historical significance, Hosokawa was utterly ineffective as the prime minister who effectively threw out the job in only 9 months.

Hosokawa's ancestor was the lord that governed today's Kumamoto after Kiyomasa Kato, extremely popular lord who was displaced by the Tokugawa administration in the 17th century. Maybe Hosokawa is more fit for governing a prefecture, instead of the entire nation.

Asahi's hope that the anti-nuclear stance will get many votes seems little more than a hope, though. From all indications, the Fukushima nuclear accident is long over in the minds of most Japanese.

If Hosokawa runs in the race, it will be the very first time that a former prime minister of Japan runs for a prefectural office. At least I've never heard of it.

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Candidate for Tokyo Governor, in July 2011: "Radiation in Fukushima Is Not That Dangerous."

Mr. Toshio Tamogami is a military commentator who was also a career military officer and the 26th Chief of Staff, Air Self-Defense Force. He hasn't declared his candidacy officially, but hinted that he would run, on January 2 when he visited Yasukuni Shrine.

In July 2011 at a symposium held in Tokyo, Mr. Tamogami said, according to Sankei Shinbun (8/15/2011, cache):

「危ない危ないと言われるが、実際そんなに福島の放射線は危なくない。原発の上を飛ぶカラスが落ちましたか。原発近くの海で魚がどんどん浮きましたか。危なくないということがだんだん実証されてきている」

"It is said it's dangerous, but in reality, radiation in Fukushima is not that dangerous. Has a crow flying over the [Fukushima I] nuclear plant dropped from the sky? Have you seen fish floating [and dead] in the ocean near the plant? It is gradually being proven that radiation is not dangerous."

Needless to say, but Mr. Tamogami is pro-nuclear according to his wiki entry in Japanese. He is also from Koriyama City in Fukushima Prefecture.

So the major national media in cahoots with the major political parties routed out Mr. Naoki Inose, a writer, over the campaign finance from the governorship of Tokyo, only to get...

Who is running anyway?

Mr. Tamogami for one, and Mr. Kenji Utsunomiya, a liberal attorney who was the distant second in the December 2012 Tokyo gubernatorial race which was won by Mr. Inose by a landslide.

It looks LDP and DPJ are both eying to present their candidates (possibly the same candidate) at the last possible minute, just in case the luck works.

What luck, you ask?

Historically, for some unknown reason, the candidate who declared his candidacy the last almost always won the race. So they are probably holding the announcement until the last minute.

Does anyone care?

Not much, as far as I've seen or heard so far.

The Tokyo gubernatorial election is to be held on February 9, 2014.

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