JapanInc to Koizumi: 'FORGET THAT YASUKUNI CRAP!'

[Mulboyne]

Washington Post: The Rise of Japan's Thought Police

...On Aug. 12, Yoshihisa Komori, a Washington-based editorialist for the ultra-conservative Sankei Shimbun newspaper, attacked an article by Masaru Tamamoto, the editor of Commentary, an online journal run by the Japan Institute of International Affairs. The article expressed concern about the emergence of Japan's strident new "hawkish nationalism," exemplified by anti-China fear-mongering and official visits to a shrine honoring Japan's war dead. Komori branded the piece "anti-Japanese," and assailed the mainstream author as an "extreme leftist intellectual." But he didn't stop there. Komori demanded that the institute's president, Yukio Satoh, apologize for using taxpayer money to support a writer who dared to question Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's annual visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, in defiance of Chinese protests that it honors war criminals from World War II. Remarkably, Satoh complied. Within 24 hours, he had shut down Commentary and withdrawn all of the past content on the site...Satoh also sent a letter last week to the Sankei editorial board asking for forgiveness and promising a complete overhaul of Commentary's editorial management...more...

This capitulation does seem surprising but the writer's broader point that such intimidation is "working" seems to miss the point that Yasukuni is being more openly discussed and papers and the Asahi and Yomiuri are both writing critically on the subject.

[Mulboyne]

Sheila A Smith and Brad Glosserman have a piece on the same issue:

Open debate under threat in Japan

...But we are also concerned by recent developments. Last week, the Japan Institute for International Affairs (JIIA), a Foreign Ministry-managed think-tank, suspended publication of a commentary series that focused on Japanese foreign policy.

The suspension followed criticism of its contents by prominent journalist Yoshihisa Komori, who took offense at such comments as "Japan-watchers [in foreign countries] increasingly blame the deterioration in Sino-Japanese relations on Japan, describing Japan's China policies as mindless and provocative, self-righteous and gratuitous. But in the country itself, there is scant awareness that Japan is perceived [by some countries] as being nationalistic, militaristic or hawkish," and "Critics see in Prime Minister Koizumi's stance on Yasukuni a lack of repentance for past imperial aggression in Asia, about which Japan has long been silent."

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has, since the 1970s, played a key role in providing English-language materials, written by Japanese, that would otherwise be unavailable to an international audience. It publishes Japan Echo, which compiles and translates into English excerpts of articles in leading Japanese journals such as Bungei Shunju, Chuokoron, and Shokun. It also publishes Gaiko Forum, a journal that focuses exclusively on Japan's foreign policy. Thus JIIA's new initiative is part of a long-standing effort to bring the range of Japanese views and insights to a growing and increasingly interested international audience.

Behind this incident are old feuds, intellectual antagonisms that are reflected in labels such as "progressive left" and "conservative right". These markers of the so-called 1955 system (after the year the Liberal Democratic Party, or LDP, was formed) are used today as accusations to denounce individuals rather than to look at the merits of their arguments. At precisely the time when the debate over ideas in Japan is so fluid, this lingering impulse to shut down the opposition must be resisted. Indeed, what was so encouraging about the JIIA commentary series was that it moved away from the "progressive left-conservative right" dichotomy and brought a fresh analytical perspective to the conversation.

All three protagonists in this story have spent much of their careers abroad, and they have been active participants in shaping the debate on Japan's foreign policy...more...

[Captain Japan]

84 Diet members visit Yasukuni Shrine
Mainichi

Eighty-four Diet members paid a visit to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine on Wednesday as members of a nonpartisan group.

The 84 Diet members -- 75 from the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), three from the People's New Party, one from the Democratic Party of Japan, one from the Shinto Daichi, and four independents -- came to the shrine in Chiyoda-ku during an autumn festival program.

Makoto Koga, a former LDP secretary-general who has insisted that the souls of Class-A war criminals worshipped at the shrine should be separately enshrined, didn't join the visit...more...

[Mulboyne]

Steve Clemons says I-told-you-so.

Japan's Shinzo Abe: History Denier or Visionary Leader?

Last year, I wrote an article in the Washington Post, "The Rise of Japan's Thought Police," [see previous post in this thread] suggesting that Japan's right-wing was harassing important intellectuals, political leaders, business leaders, and other important voices that were engaged in a fair debate about Japan's relations with China and about the future character of Japan's imperial institution. The fact that my piece ran in one of the more important national papers of opinion in the United States meant that the article was going to be read -- both here and abroad.

Right wing bloggers and supporters of Yoshihisa Komori, sort of the Rush Limbaugh of Japanese journalism, gave me quite a drubbing when they could. I had written in part about harassment of a Japanese public/private research institution in Japan and how Komori had successfully wrestled an "apology" out of the Institute's director for material that the Institute ran on the web and that was counter to Japan's official stance vis-a-vis China. This story is more complex and not important to hash out in excruciating detail -- though Komori devoted huge columns in his paper, the Sankei Shimbun, to attacking me in highly strident ways. Everyone involved in the US-Japan game has known that Komori is extremely close to Japan's current prime minister Shinzo Abe, himself an ideologue for historical denial and revived right-wing nationalism in Japan...more...

[TFG]

I am glad the atmosphere here in Japan has been reported abroad in a newspaper with such credibility.
This subject of intimidation of liberals and general rising fascism in Japan was posted by a member quite a few years ago,along with the suggestion that Japan was laying the way for war with NK however the member was heckled by many who are still here on this board.
Perhaps they are rethinking their opinions nowadays, perhaps not though, the blind are always blind.

[Captain Japan]

Today Abe was a no show. Koizumi appeared in the early morning. And here are a few shots I took of some right-wing guys who let me follow them around. The shots with the cops are during this protest that took place outside the shrine in the afternoon.

[Captain Japan]

One more...

[GuyJean]

Nice shots!

Does that first dude's tat say 'Death 4'?.. With his uniform, it looks like he'd commit suicide for Japan.. Doesn't he know that 4 is bad luck?.. Maybe it should be a '2'?..

GJ

[Samurai_Jerk]

[quote="GuyJean"]Nice shots!

Does that first dude's tat say 'Death 4'?.. With his uniform, it looks like he'd commit suicide for Japan.. Doesn't he know that 4 is bad luck?.. Maybe it should be a '2'?.. ]

Yeah, maybe there's a connection between death and the number 4

[Takechanpoo]