The Wisdom of The Hague’s South China Sea Decision

The verdict is persuasive and an important addition to international law.

By Jerome A. Cohen, professor and director of the U.S.-Asia Law Institute at NYU Law School, WALL STREET JOURNAL, July 19, 2016

The July 12 arbitration award in the Philippines case against China under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos) isn’t only significant for East Asia and maritime law. It will also have implications for public international law and the peaceful settlement of international disputes generally.

Until now, arbitration hasn’t enjoyed much prominence in international relations. Cannon fire, even from water cannons, makes headlines. The tragic, albeit accidental, death of a single foreign fisherman produces more television coverage.

Even important arbitration awards, such as the 2014 Unclos tribunal’s decision to award 80% of the disputed area in the Bay of Bengal to Bangladesh rather than India, barely receive international media coverage at all. This helps China to argue that arbitration, like international court adjudication, is inconsistent with Asian values and not an accepted mode of peacefully settling disputes.

The seat of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Vredespaleis (Peace Palace) in The Hague, Netherlands. Photo: European Pressphoto Agency

China’s argument is refuted by the U.N. Charter and many treaties ratified by Asian countries, including China, requiring compulsory arbitration or adjudication. Moreover, as Singapore’s Ambassador Tommy Koh, who played an important role in the 1982 adoption of Unclos, has emphasized, a surprising number of Asian countries have chosen third-party decisions to resolve disputes.

Diplomats tend to play down international legal decisions. When in October 2012 I urged East Asian states to use arbitration or adjudication to help settle their territorial and maritime disputes, some diplomats dismissed the idea as unrealistic. I was therefore excited when, a month later, Japan’s departing Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba challenged China to sue Japan before the International Court of Justice to determine sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands. Yet the Abe government has only hinted at following Mr. Gemba’s initiative.

It took the stunning Philippine arbitration case against China brought in 2013 to illustrate the value that international legal institutions can have for weak countries with no other defense against overwhelming power. The skillfully crafted Philippine legal briefs won my admiration.

Although rejected not only by China but also Taiwan, the tribunal’s elaborately researched and scrupulously reasoned responses proved just as impressive. They were even more so given the difficulties imposed by China’s nonparticipation and the tribunal’s mistaken refusal to permit Taiwan’s participation, out of exaggerated deference to Beijing’s “one China” policy.

Learned books will soon analyze the complex jurisdictional and substantive issues discussed. Here one can only mention the decision that has drawn the most immediate fire from both Chinas: the determination that the Spratly islands aren’t entitled to the 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone and continental shelf.

Unclos Article 121 grants an EEZ to all islands except “rocks which cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of their own.” The words of this confusing but crucial exception aren’t self-defining. They were a compromise among Unclos drafters who, unable to agree upon a more precise formulation, left these vague terms to be given concrete meaning case by case.

Despite Taiwan’s formal exclusion from the proceedings, the Chinese (Taiwan) Society of International Law managed to submit a strong “friend of the court” brief. It tried to demonstrate that Itu Aba (Taiping Dao), the largest of the Spratlys and the only one occupied by Taiwan, is a fully entitled island that doesn’t fall within Article 121’s exception.

But the tribunal decided that islands that lack a history of supporting settled human communities without substantial outside aid shouldn’t enjoy the enormous special rights to maritime and seabed resources that EEZ/continental-shelf status confers. To do otherwise, the tribunal declared, would violate the underlying purpose of Article 121 “to prevent States from claiming for themselves potentially immense maritime space . . . to the detriment of other coastal States and/or the common heritage of mankind.”

The tribunal conducted an extraordinarily exhaustive and frank examination of the language and drafting history of Unclos and previous law-of-the-sea negotiations. It also considered the limited extent to which practice and earlier decisions had shed light on the issue, relevant Asian historical developments, the region’s geography and geology, and the practical consequences of narrowly or broadly defining the exception.

Although initially sympathetic to Taiwan’s brief, I found the tribunal’s bold, lengthy and informative application of Article 121 more persuasive and a much-needed authoritative addition to the law of the sea. It embodies the admonition of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties that international agreements must be interpreted in light of their major purposes. The tribunal erred in not allowing Taiwan adequate opportunity to state its case, but its decision on the merits was surely wise.

2016 Republican Platform

Rightwing, anti-Comfort Woman/Korean activist
Yoko Mada loves Donald Trump

U.S. Leadership in the Asian Pacific

From the Republican Platform 2016, page 48

We are a Pacific nation with economic, military, and cultural ties to all the countries of the oceanic rim and treaty alliances with Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, and Thailand. With them, we look toward the establishment of human rights for the people of North Korea. We urge the government of China to recognize the inevitability of change in the Kim family’s slave state and, for everyone’s safety against nuclear disaster, to hasten positive change on the Korean peninsula. The United States will continue to demand the complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program with full accounting of its proliferation activities. We also pledge to counter any threats from the North Korean regime.

We salute the people of Taiwan, with whom we share the values of democracy, human rights, a free market economy, and the rule of law. Our relations will continue to be based upon the provisions of the Taiwan Relations Act, and we affirm the Six Assurances given to Taiwan in 1982 by President Reagan. We oppose any unilateral steps by either side to alter the status quo in the Taiwan Straits on the principle that all issues regarding the island’s future must be resolved peacefully, through dialogue, and be agreeable to the people of Taiwan. If China were to violate those principles, the United States, in accord with the Taiwan Relations Act, will help Taiwan defend itself. We praise efforts by the new government in Taipei to continue constructive relations across the Taiwan Strait and call on China to reciprocate. As a loyal friend of America, Taiwan has merited our strong support, including free trade agreement status, the timely sale of defensive arms including technology to build diesel submarines, and full participation in the World Health Organization, International Civil Aviation Organization, and other multilateral institutions.

China’s behavior has negated the optimistic language of our last platform concerning our future relations with China. The liberalizing policies of recent decades have been abruptly reversed, dissent brutally crushed, religious persecution heightened, the internet crippled, a barbaric population control two-child policy of forced abortions and forced sterilizations continued, and the cult of Mao revived.

Critics of the regime have been kidnapped by its agents in foreign countries. To distract the populace from its increasing economic problems and, more importantly, to expand its military might, the government asserts a preposterous claim to the entire South China Sea and continues to dredge ports and create landing fields in contested waters where none have existed before, ever nearer to U.S. territories and our allies, while building a navy far out of proportion to defensive purposes. The complacency of the Obama regime has emboldened the Chinese government and military to issue threats of intimidation throughout the South China Sea, not to mention parading their new missile, “the Guam Killer,” down the main streets of Beijing, a direct shot at Guam as America’s first line of defense. Meanwhile, cultural genocide continues in Tibet and Xinjiang, the promised autonomy of Hong Kong is eroded, the currency is manipulated, our technology is stolen, and intellectual property and copyrights are mocked in an economy based on piracy. In business terms, this is not competition; it is a hostile takeover. For any American company to abet those offenses, especially governmental censorship and tracking of dissenters, is a disgrace.

The return to Maoism by China’s current rulers is not reason to disengage with the Chinese people or their institutions. We welcome students, tourists, and investors, who can see for themselves our vibrant American democracy and how real democracy works. We caution, however, against academic or cultural operations under the control of the Chinese government and call upon American colleges to dissociate themselves from this increasing threat to academic freedom and honest research.

Most of the nations of Southeast Asia have set aside crippling ideologies and sought material progress in free enterprise and democracy. We congratulate the people of Burma on their emergence from authoritarian rule and urge their respect for the rights of their country’s minority populations. Our improved relations with Vietnam — including arms sales — must advance efforts to obtain an accounting for, and repatriation of the remains of, Americans who gave their lives in the cause of Vietnamese freedom. We cannot overlook the continued repression of fundamental rights and religious freedom, as well as retribution against ethnic minorities and others who assisted U.S. forces during the conflict there.

India is our geopolitical ally and a strategic trading partner. The dynamism of its people and the endurance of their democratic institutions are earning their country a position of leadership not only in Asia but throughout the world. We encourage the Indian government to permit expanded foreign investment and trade, the key to rising living standards for those left out of their country’s energetic economy. For all of India’s religious communities, we urge protection against violence and discrimination. Republicans note with pride the contributions to our country that are made by our fellow citizens of Indian ancestry.

Conflicts in the Middle East have created special political and military challenges for the people of Pakistan. Our working relationship is a necessary, though sometimes difficult, benefit to both, and we look toward the strengthening of historic ties that have frayed under the weight of international conflict. This process cannot progress as long as any citizen of Pakistan can be punished for helping the War on Terror. Pakistanis, Afghans, and Americans have a common interest in ridding the region of the Taliban and securing Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. That goal has been undermined by the current Administration’s feckless treatment of troop commitments and blatant disregard of advice from commanders on the ground, particularly with regard to Afghanistan. A Republican president will work with all regional leaders to restore mutual trust while insisting upon progress against corruption and the narcotic trade that fuels insurgency.

China: more hegemon than bogeyman?

click book to order

BY Jeff Kingston director of Asian Studies, Temple University Japan and APP member

THE JAPAN TIMES JULY 16, 2016

Jeffrey Wasserstrom’s perceptive new book, Eight Juxtapositions: China Through Imperfect Analogies, presents some unlikely comparisons that are designed to challenge perceptions about China. Wasserstrom, a professor of history at the University of California, Irvine, acknowledges flaws in his analogies — which include an exploration of the similarities between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Pope Francis — but makes a persuasive case that they are useful in making sense of contemporary China. He draws eyebrow-raising parallels between Japan in Manchuria and China in Tibet, and links these incursions with America’s delusional intervention in Iraq — a comparison that sheds new light on a debacle that plunged the Middle East into its current maelstrom.

The way Washington flouted the U.N. in the Iraq invasion and selectively adheres to international law provides useful perspective on the pundits and officials now sanctimoniously denouncing China for its hegemonic ambitions in Asia. The U.S. opted out of the International Criminal Court, probably reflecting concerns in the administration of George W. Bush that some members might be held accountable for war crimes.

It is also worth recalling that Australia won its 2014 case in the International Court of Justice, when it challenged the legality of Japan’s research whaling in the Antarctic Ocean. But, since then, Japan has shrugged off that ruling and resumed the practice. There are plenty of sinners at the altar of international law.

Much has been made of the recent decision by an international arbitration court that comprehensively rejected China’s historic claims of control over the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. It was the right call, but will it constrain China? Probably not.

The ruling is binding and carries region-wide implications, but there is no enforcement mechanism or any suggestions about how China and its Asian maritime neighbors can resolve the dispute. The best outcome of the ruling would be for Beijing and the other claimants to begin negotiations about reaching mutually acceptable settlements. That could happen, but its important for all sides to dial down the rhetoric — and intimidation.

America dispatched two of its carrier strike groups to the South China Sea on the eve of the ruling, but this is a counterproductive gesture. China will not be seen to kowtow to the U.S. Washington wants to reassure its Asian friends that it has a dog in this fight, but what can such bellicose posturing achieve? It increases the risk of a miscalculation that could spiral out of control. America doesn’t take a position on sovereignty over the disputed islands, so it surely wants to avoid going to war over them. The naval grandstanding risks exposing the weakness of the U.S. position.

After all the smoke clears, and praetorian posturing abates, Beijing must make a decision: Is it ready to become a rogue state by imposing its territorial claims with old-fashioned gunboat diplomacy?

Lets examine the July 6 speech given in Washington by former Chinese state councilor Dai Bingguo about Beijing’s regional intentions. He spoke of “finding truth from facts,” a sure sign in Chinese that listeners can expect some tremendous whoppers to follow, in this case regarding Beijing’s claims in the South China Sea. He also said bilateral relations should be based on mutual respect and equality, before denying Beijing’s desire “to make the South China Sea an Asian Caribbean Sea and impose the Monroe Doctrine to exclude the U.S. from Asia.” Interesting analogy. A Chinese version of the U.S. Monroe Doctrine is exactly what Washington worries about — it is unaccustomed to being hoisted with its own petard.

Back in 1823, under President James Monroe, the U.S. basically declared the Americas off-limits to European powers, grandfathering their existing colonies but asserting that it would henceforth decide what went on in the region.

One reason Asia might be chary about a Chinese Monroe Doctrine is the 1904 Roosevelt Corollary. President Theodore Roosevelt expanded the Monroe Doctrine, insisting that America had the right to intervene in the internal affairs of any of its regional neighbors if it saw fit to do so. Subsequently, Washington has found numerous pretexts to repeatedly intervene in the Americas, brandishing its values while often sabotaging democracy and routinely taking the side of despots who violated human rights.

Roosevelt’s famous adage “Speak softly and carry a big stick” chimes disconcertingly with the admonition of former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping: “Coolly observe, calmly deal with things, hold your position, hide your capacities, bide your time, accomplish things where possible.”

But President Xi is decidedly brasher about what China wants. The nation will not shilly-shally about modifying the status quo to its advantage. China’s rapid economic growth has facilitated a sweeping military modernization, one that is transforming the geostrategic landscape in Asia. Tokyo and Washington are alarmed about this development, but other nations in the region have evaded addressing it.

Most likely the “Xi corollary” will embrace more subtle methods. Rather than a policy of military intervention, this may be a militarized and monetized diplomacy where China brandishes hard power while averting confrontation with the U.S. military — an effective salami-slicing strategy. It’s unlikely China will provoke an all-out clash, but it will play the long game by poking and prodding in a bid to show that it will not back down, while shaking regional faith in America’s capacity and long-term commitment.

Carrots are being dangled, too: The new China-led Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank will funnel loans to regional counterparts, enabling Beijing to translate its financial resources into tangible leverage in Asia. Moreover, China’s booming market makes it an irresistible magnet for economies across the globe, again conferring considerable clout and influence that looms especially large in the region.

Xi is trying to assert a new normal in Asia — a more muscular Chinese presence — but he has overplayed the nation’s hand. The backlash in Asia may seem guarded, but Beijing’s stance smacks of “American exceptionalism” — a misguided belief that might makes right.

The rejection of China’s claims over the disputed Spratly Islands has stoked China’s overweening pride, its sense of victimhood and historical resentments that draw on the wellspring of national humiliation from when it was prey to the depredations of Western and Japanese imperialism.

This is why China is not eager to become a “responsible stakeholder” in an international system it views as fundamentally hostile to the nation regaining it rightful place at the helm of Asia. Power is transforming China and feeding its appetite for revanchism. And, like America, it is not programmed to take no for an answer.

China seems insistent on writing the rules for a Sino-centric Asia, apparently yearning for the days when vassal states cowered at its feet. But this nostalgia clashes with 21st-century realities. Having experienced the humiliations of imperialism, surely it should know better.

Monday in Washington, July 18, 2016

This is the week of the Republican National Convention. Washington is now on full elections mode. Click on the link for coverage.

RESILIENT FINANCIAL MARKETS – SHAPING THE RULES TOGETHER. 7/18, 1:00pm, Lunch. Sponsor: EuroGrowth Initiative, Atlantic Council. Speaker: Hon. Valdis Dombrovskis, Vice President for the Euro and Social Dialogue, European Commission.

click to order

AFTER COPENHAGEN, WHAT NEXT FOR WOMEN AND GIRLS? 7/18, 2:00-4:00pm. Sponsor: Maternal Health Initiative, Wilson Center (WWC). Speakers: Alix Bacon, President, Midwives Association of British Columbia; Dr. Marlene Joannie Bewa, Executive Director, Young Beninese Leaders Association; Roger-Mark De Souza, Director of Population, Environmental Security, and Resilience, WWC; Dr. Mary Nambao, Deputy Director, Mother Health, Ministry of Health in Zambia; Susan Papp, Director of Policy and Advocacy, Women Deliver.

NAVAL WARFARE: THE STRATEGIC INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER. 7/18, 4:00-5:00pm. Sponsor: Institute of World Politics (IWP). Speaker: Dr. Mackubin T. Owens, Professor, Dean, Academic Affairs, IWP.

ZIONISM: THE BIRTH AND TRANSFORMATION OF AN IDEAL. 7/18, 5:30-6:30pm, Reception. Sponsor: Middle East Institute. Speaker: Author Milton Viorst, Former Middle East Correspondent, The New Yorker; Moderator: Matt Duss, President, Foundation for Middle East Peace.

Books Discussed In Washington this week

The following books will be discussed in public programs in 

Washington, DC in the following weeks. Click on each book to order.

Monday in Washington, July 11, 2016

A WINDOW INTO INDIA'S INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT: ADISCUSSION WITH MINISTER NITIN GADKARI. 7/11, 10:00-11:00am. Sponsor: South Asia Center, Atlantic Council. Speakers: Barry Pavel, Vice President, Arnold Kanter Chair, Director, Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, Atlantic Council; Nitin Gadkari, Minister for Road Transport, Highways and Shipping, Government of India; Moderator: Dr. Bharath Gopalaswamy, Director, South Asia Center, Atlantic Council.

THE END OF WHITE CHRISTIAN AMERICA. 7/11, 10:00-11:30am. Sponsor: Brookings. Speakers: Author Robert P. Jones, CEO, Public Religion Research Institute; E.J. Dionne, Jr., Senior Fellow, Governance Studies, W. Averell Harriman Chair, Brookings; William A. Galston, Senior Fellow, Governance Studies, Ezra K. Zilkha Chair in Governance Studies, Brookings.

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WORTH DEFERRING: A SINO-JAPANESE PLUTONIUM PRODUCTION RACE. 7/11, 11:30am-1:15pm. Sponsors: Foreign Policy Initiative; Arms Control Association. Speakers: Gordon Oehler, Former Director, Nonproliferation Center, CIA; Henry Sokolski, Executive Director, Nonproliferation Policy Education Center; Mark Holt, Specialist in Energy Policy, Congressional Research Service; Moderator: Kingston Reif, Director for Disarmament and Threat Reduction Policy, Arms Control Association.

HOW TO DEFEAT TERRORISM IN IRAQ. 7/11, 1:00-2:30pm. Sponsor: Institute of World Politics (IWP). Speaker: Sheikh Jamal al-Dhari, President, Co-Founder, Peace Ambassadors for Iraq (PAFI).

CHINA’S ECONOMIC BUBBLE: GOVERNMENT GUARANTEES ANDGROWING RISKS. 7/11, 1:30-2:45pm. Sponsor: John L. Thornton China Center, Brookings. Speakers: Cheng Li, Director, Senior Fellow, John L. Thornton China Center, Brookings; Ning Zhu, Deputy Dean, Professor, Finance, Shanghai Jiaotong University; Moderator: David Dollar, Senior Fellow, John L. Thornton China Center, Brookings.

ORLANDO, THE MIDDLE EAST, AND THE U.S. ELECTION. 7/11, 2:00-3:30pm. Sponsor: Brookings. Speakers: Shibley Telhami, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Center for Middle East Policy, U.S. Relations with the Islamic World, Brookings; William A. Galston, Senior Fellow, Governance Studies, Ezra K. Zilkha Chair in Governance Studies, Brookings; Moderator: Tamara Cofman Wittes, Director, Center for Middle East Policy, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Center for Middle East Policy.

SURVIVAL MIGRATION: NEW MODELS TO ADDRESS THE GLOBAL CRISIS OF MIGRATION AND DEVELOPMENT. 7/11, 2:30-4:00pm. Sponsor: Center for Global Development (CGD). Speakers: Michael Clemens, Senior Fellow, CGD, Research Fellow, IZA-Institute for the Study of Labor; Marta Foresti, Director, Governance, Security and Livelihoods, Overseas Development Institute; Sayre Nyce, Executive Director, Talent Beyond Boundaries; Ratna Omidvar, Honourable Senator, Senate of Canada (Ontario), Distinguished Visiting Professor, Global Diversity Exchange (GDX), Ted Rogers School of Management, Ryerson University.

NEXT STEPS IN PACIFIC ALLIANCE INTEGRATION. 7/11, 4:00-5:30pm. Sponsor: Latin American Program, Wilson Center (WWC). Speakers: Ambassador Juan Gabriel Valdés, Chilean Ambassador to the United States; Ambassador Luis Miguel Castilla, Peruvian Ambassador to the United States; Ambassador Juan Carlos Pinzón, Colombian Ambassador to the United States; Kenneth Smith-Ramos, Director, Trade and NAFTA Office, Embassy of Mexico in Washington DC; Antoni Estevadeordal, Manager, Integration and Trade Sector, Inter-American Development Bank; Meghan Greene, Research Assistant, Latin American Program, WWC; Moderator: Cynthia J. Arnson, Director, Latin American Program, WWC.

SHOULD THE U.S. BE FOR OR AGAINST NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION? THE CASE OF U.S. ALLIES IN ASIA. 7/11, 4:30pm. Sponsor: Institute of World Politics (IWP). Speakers: Doug Bandow, Senior Fellow, Cato Institute; Richard Weitz, Director, Center for Military Analysis, Hudson Institute; Moderator: Paul Coyer, Research Professor, IWP.

What are Shinzo Abe’s real three arrows?

looking old and worn and so 19th C

They are constitutional revision, security autonomy and Emperor worship. 

BY JEFF KINGSTON, director of Asian Studies, Temple University Japan.

SPECIAL TO THE JAPAN TIMES, JUL 2, 2016

In his campaign for the upcoming Upper House elections, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is pussyfooting around his plans to revise the Constitution. He is keeping his cards close to his chest because polls have shown that voters oppose constitutional change. Instead, Abe is calling on voters to keep the faith with Abenomics, despite widespread consensus that it has been a dismal flop and has failed to revive the Japanese economy or improve household welfare.

The cat is well and truly out of the bag regarding this failure — on June 27, NHK announced that only 6 percent of voters polled think Abenomics is working well while only 26 percent favor constitutional revisions, and only 11 percent think it a priority. Even two-thirds of newbie voters aged 18-19 know Abenomics is a no-hoper according to a Kyodo poll taken in June. It gets worse: 70 percent of women voters in this cohort don’t expect much from Abenomics, taking the shine off his “womenomics” grandstanding. The good news for Abe is that these young voters are only marginally more interested in the elections than other voters, with just 56 percent expressing an intention to vote. So much for an enthusiastic response from the newly enfranchised!

Apparently Abe’s campaign strategy is based on trying to keep the voter-participation rate low, and on that score he has a good track record, driving it down to just over 50 percent in the last election in 2014. The reason he doesn’t want to upset the applecart of apathy is that low turnout gives the Liberal Democratic Party an advantage: His core constituencies turn out to vote and will do so again in large numbers now that they smell blood, in the form of the prospects of a two-thirds majority in both houses and the possibility of constitutional revision. The fact that almost half of all eligible voters don’t vote means that Abe’s LDP has been winning elections with less than 25 percent of the potential vote.

So this explains why Abe is focusing on his discredited Abenomics program, the “three arrows” of radical monetary easing, fiscal stimulus and structural reforms. Who cares that representatives of leading industrial nations trashed it when they visited for the G-7 summit in May? They pointed out that the program really involves only one arrow: massive monetary easing. These leaders and virtually every sentient observer know that Abenomics is sputtering and is focused on monetary policy alone. A June Kyodo poll of all Upper House candidates running in the July 10 elections, including LDP candidates, reveals that 64.7 percent believe that Abenomics has not delivered, having failed to improve the economy. Business leaders are even more downbeat. If the LDP’s own candidates andmost voters are skeptical about Abenomics, why run a campaign on it?

The reason is that Abe needs to deflect attention away from the LDP’s plans to revise the Constitution. But those plans are hidden in plain sight and deserve more attention because the more the public knows about them, the more they might realize that thumbing their collective noses at the elections will hand Abe a historic opportunity to achieve his long-standing goal of overturning the postwar order. Voter disinterest is precisely what Abe is praying for so that he can rid the Constitution of pesky Western values such as civil liberties. He seeks to empower the state vis-a-vis citizens and eliminate the war-renouncing Article 9 that he and his supporters see as emasculating Japan, keeping the nation subordinate to the U.S.

Those who want to revise Article 9 are not all ultra-nationalist security hawks eager to make Japan the Great Britain of Asia. Many other pro-revision advocates point out the yawning gap between the apparent prohibitions on maintaining armed forces and the existence of Japan’s well-equipped armed forces — the country now has a larger navy than the U.K. Some argue that this breach discredits the Constitution and that Abe’s reinterpretation, which would allow for Japan to engage in collective self-defense, further subverts it. So, some argue, if Article 9 is essentially already being ignored and the threat of conflict in Asia has become more real, why do a majority of Japanese oppose revision?

Japanese pacifism draws on the trauma of World War II and the deep scars it left on the nation — memories that have been passed down through families, displayed at museums, taught at schools, shown in documentaries and commemorated at annual rites such as those in Okinawa, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Citizens worry that the “Abe Doctrine” will endanger the country, and that beefing up the alliance with the U.S. may lead Japan into a war at Washington’s behest, rather than safeguarding the country’s national security.

Japan is basically a one-party system, and there is little reason to believe that the Diet would act as resolutely as the British Parliament did a few years back in scuttling Prime Minister David Cameron’s plan to provide military support to the U.S. in Syria. Under Abe, the premiership has only grown in power, and his national security council and new secrecy and security legislation have strengthened his hand in a system where checks and balances are already weak. Japanese citizens are wary of entrusting Abe or any leader with too much discretionary power, but it is a fait accompli that they can do little about in elections, given the imbalance of power between the LDP and other parties.

Hence, Article 9 is seen by many to have residual symbolic power, manifesting pacifist sentiments as a collective norm. Across Japan, this idealism is also represented by the multitudes of demonstrators who gathered outside the Diet last summer to denounce Abe’s security legislation. Students Emergency Action for Liberal Democracy (SEALDs) organized popular protests against the secrecy and security legislation and has been involved in coordinating opposition parties for the Upper House elections. They decry the intensifying crisis in constitutional government and the LDP’s bait-and-switch campaign strategy aimed at bamboozling voters.

If the LDP wins big, Japan Conference (Nippon Kaigi), the nation’s largest and most influential right-wing organization, will lobby Abe’s Cabinet to deliver on their shared vision. The consonance of interest between Abe and Japan Conference is clear in that a majority of his Cabinet ministers are members. It has clout in the Diet where 39 percent of all legislators — 281 in total — are members. This will enable it to press ahead with their real goals: constitutional revision, security autonomy and Emperor worship. These are the three arrows that Abe really cares about.

Why is Japan media not covering the July 10 elections?

Election coverage in Japan's media has been surprisingly light. NHK barely covers it. Is it citizen disinterest, boring candidates, a sense of despair, or encouraged by the LDP wanting voters to stay home? Below a Tokyo-based journalist tries to think through the problem and finds that most Japan believe voting will change nothing. And they just don't care.

How long can Japan’s old mens’ club last?
BY PHILIP BRASOR

SPECIAL TO THE JAPAN TIMES, JUL 9, 2016

Media coverage of the House of Councillors election campaign has been even more lacking in substance than usual. On July 2, Tokyo Shimbun noted how “low-key” the coverage has been on TV.

After the excitement of the money scandal surrounding former Tokyo Gov. Yoichi Masuzoe, ratings prospects for election-related news items were dim. The morning shows hardly mentioned it, and even legitimate news programs pushed reports to the end. A former NHK producer told Tokyo Shimbun that, given how the ruling Liberal Democratic Party is using the election to secure a two-thirds majority in the Diet to change the Constitution, it’s essential for the media to talk about it, but, in fact, TV seems to be “avoiding the subject” out of fear of angering the LDP. As a result, LDP president and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is, in effect, ruling the airwaves, said the producer.

This disinterest created a vaccuum that has been filled by analyses, in some media, of what the lack of concern reveals about the state of Japanese democracy. Some have made much of the fact that while the representation of women in the Diet has remained basically the same since they were given the vote right after World War II, the rest of the world has advanced in terms of greater gender parity. Japan is at the bottom of the international order when it comes to women in government, and though the ruling coalition has set a goal of ensuring women occupy 30 percent of “leadership positions” by 2020, there is little hope that today’s election will get the government any closer to that target.

NHK’s “Jiron Koron” editorial series provided a detailed explanation of how this situation came about, and why it is likely to persist. Other countries have increased political participation of women through mandatory quotas, while Japan’s goals have never been enforceable. In many cases, especially in Europe, mandatory quotas have also led to an increase in the number of women in private-sector executive positions, usually because corporations followed the lead of their governments.

Laws promoting more women in business have been passed in Japan, but none to promote women in politics, thus taking a tack opposite to what has become conventional wisdom. At present there is a bipartisan bill in the Diet that urges parties to set quotas for women candidates, who will then be given priority in proportional races. However, without making these quotas mandatory, it will be almost impossible to persuade male career politicians to risk their livelihoods for the sake of a political “ideal.”

The persistence of this obstacle was explained by University of Tokyo professor Masaki Taniguchi in the Asahi Shimbun. Taniguchi sent questionnaires to all the candidates in today’s election, and received replies from 357, who prioritized their top three policies from a list of 16. Seventy percent of female candidates placed policies regarding “education” and “child-rearing” in their top three. Only 50 percent of the male candidates did.

The survey also asked what could be done to solve the problem of Japan’s low birthrate. Candidates from almost all the parties said that a “balance” was needed between work and child-rearing through schemes such as building more day care facilities, as opposed to the other possible answer: “Support parents who raise children at home.” The exception was LDP candidates. While 90 percent of women LDP politicians said “balance,” only 50 percent of the men did, with the other half opting to not answer the question at all. The seriousness with which the ruling bloc addresses issues important to women is reflected in the number of candidates they fielded. Overall, 25 percent of the people running are women, but for the LDP and coalition partner Komeito, the portions are 16.4 percent and 12.5 percent, respectively.

As NHK’s presenter, Yumiko Samukawa, implied, the LDP’s cavalier treatment of half the population is not simply unfair, it is anti-democratic. Japan needs female lawmakers, she said, because the problems Japan faces are those that directly affect women with regard to the roles they are still expected to fill in Japanese society. Those who have a stake in a problem will be more intent to solve it.

The other development this election highlights is the political apathy of young people. For the first time, 18- and 19-year-olds can vote in a national election, though it doesn’t seem likely they will. The turnout of newly enfranchised teens for the recent mayoral contest in the city of Ukiha, Fukuoka Prefecture, was only 38 percent, well below the general turnout of 56 percent. One 19-year-old explained to the Tokyo Shimbun that he didn’t vote because he knew “it wouldn’t count for anything.”

In his Asahi Shimbun column, sociologist Eiji Oguma surveyed recent magazine articles pertaining to this topic and found that the traditional conservative-progressive axis means something different to people under 50. Whereas older generations may identify with a particular ideology, younger ones tend to think in terms of “organizational power.” “Conservative” to them doesn’t describe right-of-center viewpoints, but rather parties who have a dedicated following. Young people recognize that these parties’ organizational power is more important than their governing capabilities, and thus feel alienated because they don’t belong. Some of the writers Oguma cites draw a parallel between Japanese youth and the British voters who opted out of the European Union, not to mention the supporters of U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump. The difference is that young Japanese people aren’t expressing anger at the neoliberal elite who exploited their parents. They just don’t care.

In order to care, people have to believe that their interests have a possibility of being addressed, and that goes for women as well as young people. TV producers don’t see any point in covering the election because, ratings-wise, there’s nothing in it for them, which, in their minds, means there’s nothing in it for viewers.

Why China's Central Bank is not independent

Zhou Xiaochuan, the Governor of the People's Bank of China (PBoC) delivered the IMF's Michel Camdessus Central Banking Lecture on June 24, 2016. The annual lecture, initiated in 2014, is to highlight the Fund's commitment to collaboration with member countries' central banks and provides a forum to discuss topical issues in central banking.

Zhou spoke on Managing Multi-Objective Monetary Policy: From the Perspective of Transitioning Chinese Economy addressing the lack of independence of PBoC.

His main points were:

....if a central bank has multiple objectives, it may be harder to be immune from the political reality. The reason is that, on the one hand, multiple objectives require more coordination and joint efforts with other government agencies and regulators, and on the other hand, functions such as macro-prudential and financial regulation by themselves are sensitive mandates for central banks.

For central banks with a single objective, it is relatively easy to be independent. However, if a central bank has multiple objectives, it may be harder to be immune from the political reality.

...balance of payments largely affected the central bank’s monetary policy, money supply and price stability objective. Therefore, the PBoC must pay attention to balance of payments, and needs to assume accordingly roles such as managing the exchange rate, foreign exchange market, foreign exchange reserves, gold reserves, and balance of payments statistics. 

To put it in a nutshell, the PBoC has multiple objectives, which not only include such four annual objectives as ensuring price stability, boosting economic growth, promoting employment, and broadly maintaining balance of payments, but also cover two dynamic objectives, namely, financial reform and opening up, and financial market development. The choice of a multi-objective central bank has to do with China’s circumstances as a transition economy.

Japan's Upper House elections explained - Komeito loses

Tokyo on Fire:Japan News & Politics

Is the go-to discussion of Japanese politics. The weekly or more often videos give clear and informed analysis of Japanese politics without US-Japan Alliance "correctness" or wishfulness.



Japan faces realignment after upper house election

By Michael Cucek, who is featured above is an adjunct professor political science and history at Waseda University and Temple University Japan and an APP member, This essay first appeared in the East Asia Forum, 3 July 2016

On 10 July Japanese voters will go to the polls in the triennial upper house election. The candidates will be all-too-familiar faces; the party leaders wooden; and policy menus unpalatable. The contest is for only half the seats and voters are expected to either vote for the political status quo or not vote at all.

The outcome of the election will have little effect on the Abe government’s ability to pass the legislation. The ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Komeito holds a two-thirds majority in the lower house, with the ability to override the upper house.

A great deal of attention has been paid both domestically and internationally to the chances of the ruling coalition securing 162 seats, and with that two-thirds majority in both houses the ability to amend the Constitution.

Abe and the LDP have been courting like-minded revisionist conservative parties, particularly the regionally popular ‘Initiatives from Osaka’ (Osaka Ishin No Kai) party. These parties could control anywhere from 12 to 20 seats post-election. When added to the seats held by the coalition, the seats of these revisionists could push the coalition beyond the 162 barrier.

Aware of the maths involved and the futility of trying to hold back the LDP and Komeito in the 96 seats filled by proportional voting, the opposition is trying a new and desperate tactic: joining forces to defeat the ruling coalition in the rural, underpopulated single-seat districts. Taking the fight to the supposedly impregnable core of the LDP’s power base, four opposition parties — the Democratic Party (DP), the Japan Communist Party (JCP), and the micro-sized Democratic Socialist Party and People’s Life Party — are supporting joint candidates in the 32 single-seat districts up for election.

This is an unprecedented show of unity of purpose, particularly for the JCP. Previously the JCP has stubbornly played the role of spoiler in district elections, running its own hopeless candidates, bleeding around 10 per cent of the vote from more viable anti-LDP candidates.

But the 2016 electoral alliance between the DP and the JCP has caused considerable confusion. The DP insists that the relationship with the JCP is temporary and opportunistic. The four parties have developed a short list of common policy positions, agreeing, for example, to oppose the inclusion of nuclear power in the nation’s base load calculations, the move of the Futenma Air Station to Henoko, the Abe government’s security legislation institutionalising a reinterpretation of the Constitution permitting forms of collective self-defence, and the ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

DP executives insist that these measures, including the party’s about face on the TPP, do not alter the party’s long-term orientation. But Abe and LDP leaders have taken the liberty to spice up their own campaign speeches with warnings of a Communist takeover of Japan’s main opposition party.

The hubbub around the DP–JCP alliance has diverted attention away from the challenge to the unity of the ruling LDP–Komeito coalition. It is this challenge that will likely have the greatest effect on policy.

Komeito is a status quo, conservative, anti-militarist party. Its members are unenthusiastic about constitutional revision, particularly revision of the Article 9 peace clause. Komeito’s leadership already expends a great deal of energy explaining to the party faithful the benefits of cooperating with the mildly revisionist LDP. Justifying a relationship with rightists and ultra-rightists would break Komeito’s connection with its supporters. For the Komeito leadership, the prospect of the coalition and its allies ending up with more than 162 seats is a nightmare.

The LDP relies on Komeito for its majorities in both houses. Komeito voters supply anywhere from 5 per cent to 20 per cent of the votes an LDP candidate receives in single-seat districts. In return, the Komeito earns significant influence over its much larger coalition partner. This influence makes it possible for the Komeito leadership to justify the coalition to its voters.

The results of the 2016 election seem destined to upset this balance. If Komeito voters do as they have done since the establishment of the coalition in 1999, they will vote Komeito in the proportional vote and multi-member districts, and they will vote for the LDP candidate in the single-member districts. With this help the LDP looks likely to win at least 56 seats giving it a total of 122 seats in the upper house necessary for a majority. In such a scenario, the LDP would be able to form government alone for the first time since 1989, and Komeito voters will thus have been complicit in their own disempowerment.

A possible solution to the dilemma — have the Komeito faithful betray the LDP in the single-seat districts, preventing the LDP from gaining its majority — is out of the question. Given Komeito voters’ hatred of the JCP, the chances of them voting for a candidate co-sponsored by the JCP are zero.

What happens if the LDP has majorities in both houses is anyone’s guess. It will certainly not kick Komeito out of government — many of the LDP’s lower house members are dependent on Komeito voters for easy victories. But Komeito will likely find it difficult to justify its continued participation in a coalition where it has lost most of its leverage. If so, the 2016 election may be seen to have been one of immense historical significance.

Is Japan's Rightwing vulnerable to foreign pressure? Unlikely

Can foreign media pressure force changes in Japan?

BY PHILIP BRASOR
SPECIAL TO THE JAPAN TIMES, JUN 25, 2016

Former Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara’s first-person “biography” of late Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, “Tensai” (“Genius”), remains atop best-seller lists. It is interesting to note that when Tanaka was alive Ishihara berated him as a crude opportunist. The years have obviously tempered his view, or perhaps Ishihara’s own political career helped him appreciate how an uneducated hick without connections could become the most powerful man in Japan.

The incident that caused Tanaka’s downfall, the 1970s Lockheed bribery scandal, received greater coverage overseas than it did in Japan, and one of Ishihara’s favorite themes as a public figure has been how Japan should resist foreign pressure and assert its position as a world power. Takashi Tachibana was the journalist most instrumental in exposing Tanaka’s money politics, but it was foreign press attention that made the former prime minister’s actions impossible to ignore — even in Japan.

A similar situation surrounds the rise of the right-wing lobbying group Japan Conference (Nippon Kaigi), which has received close scrutiny by the likes of the U.K. newsweekly The Economist, Australia’s ABC News and other prominent foreign media over the past year. The Japanese press has shown less interest.

In April, freelance journalist Osamu Aoki talked about “grass roots conservative movements” on TBS radio, and mentioned the overseas fascination with Nippon Kaigi, which counts among its 38,000 members Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, half his Cabinet and a good portion of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Local reporters tend to think of Japan Conference as a cult, and thus some have characterized the foreign opinion that Abe and his government are “under the thumb of Japan Conference,” as Aoki put it, as being akin to conspiracy theory. Nevertheless, citing how the foreign press helped advance the prosecution of Tanaka, Aoki says Japan Conference could be another big story the Japanese press is missing “even though it’s right there under its nose,” and so he plans to publish a book on the organization next month.

If Aoki is hoping for a scoop, he’s too late. In April, a writer named Tamotsu Sugano published “Nippon Kaigi no Kenkyu” (“Nippon Kaigi Research”) which sold 126,000 copies in less than two months. The book purports to be the most detailed study of the group ever written, but its popularity is chiefly due to Japan Conference’s reaction. The organization’s founder, Yuzo Kabashima, wrote to Sugano’s publisher, Fusosha, asking it not to print the book. Fusosha ignored the request. Weekly magazine Shukan Post then called present and past members of Japan Conference asking why they hated the book so much. Most refused to comment. One professor who belongs to another nationalist organization told the magazine that Sugano’s report is “beyond the pale,” a “pile of lies” based on anonymous sources. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he is quoted as saying. “Whatever I say will benefit the book.” That seems to be exactly what happened.

Interviewed on the web news channel DemocraTV, Sugano admitted that he is ideologically right-of-center and did not write his book “to be critical” of Japan Conference. He just noticed that the mainstream press was not covering the group. The book is based mainly on a series of articles he wrote for the Japanese Harvard Business Review, which attracted no attention from Japan Conference when they were originally posted online. “Japan Conference members are old men and women who don’t use the internet,” he said. When the book was slated for print publication, Japan Conference finally took notice, but it thought Fusosha was a right-leaning imprint and could thus be easily persuaded. Sugano says Fusosha publishes anything “that can make money for them.” Their biggest-selling book in the same format is a study slamming the nuclear power industry, hardly a conservative position.

Sugano chronicles the group’s origins in the early ’70s. Several founding members belonged to the student wing of the religious group Seicho no Ie at the time, and its main purpose was to counterbalance the leftist student movement. After graduation, this group established its own right-wing organization, Nihon Seinen Kyogikai, which eventually merged with another like-minded group in 1977. This organization morphed into Nippon Kaigi in 1997.

Japan Conference’s formidable organizational skills have influenced government policy, especially with regard to the legality of the national anthem and flag, the definition of the “Japanese family,” the direction of education and the Constitution, which they want to change. But Japan Conference is not “conservative” in Sugano’s eyes. Its interests are purely reactionary in that they were formulated in response to left-wing interests.

So he interrogates its motives. Six lofty goals are listed on Japan Conference’s website. The first is to uphold Japan’s “beautiful traditions,” which he interprets as reestablishing a strict social hierarchy under the Emperor. Japan Conference says it wants to create an education system that “fosters a Japanese sensibility,” which Sugano says means getting rid of the teachers union, Nikkyoso, the Japanese right’s bete noire. Japan Conference aspires to contribute to world peace, which means elevating the Self-Defense Forces to the position of a national military and, according to Sugano, “bullying peace-loving liberals.”

The author believes none of these ideas merit deep thought. Except for the Self-Defense Forces’ change, most citizens would probably find them regressive. In fact, that’s the reason Seicho no Ie, which now boasts 520,000 followers, has come out against the LDP in next month’s election. Because of Sugano’s book, the religious group felt compelled to explain that it rejected politics in the ’80s, and told Shukan Post that it doesn’t support the present administration or Japan Conference, which is “stuck in the past.”

Sugano doesn’t think Japan Conference is as powerful as foreign media make them out to be, and he may be underestimating them. This lobbying group’s effectiveness lies in its ability to remain cloaked in anodyne sentiments. Sugano’s book reveals it still longs for a Japan that didn’t lose World War II — a country that doesn’t exist.