Australia's July elections are all domestic policy

Australian election offers few choices on foreign policy

by Russell Trood, Director of the Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University.

East Asia Forum, June 12, 2016

Australians will go to a federal election on 2 July 2016. At first glance the 19 seats in the House of Representatives that the Labor Party — the current Opposition — needs to win to take government seems a heroic undertaking. Yet, if the early polls are any indication, this may not be too far beyond its reach.

There are several dimensions to the 2016 election that add to the mystery of the result. The leaders of Australia’s mainstream political parties have only held their positions for a relatively short period of time. Neither has led his party through the gruelling demands of a federal election. And this year the election campaign period will go for around two months, nearly twice as long as usual.

But perhaps the greatest challenge is that this is a ‘double dissolution’ election — meaning that all 150 seats in the House of Representatives and 76 in the Senate will be up for grabs. It is the first time in nearly 30 years that Australians have experienced a double dissolution election. Predicting the result will be especially difficult.

To form government the winning party will need to secure a majority of seats on the floor of the House, but to be confident of providing stable, effective government and to pass its legislative agenda, it will also need to have a reliable coalition of supportive senators in the Upper House. This has been wanting in recent Australian parliaments and partly explains the rationale for a double dissolution election.

That said, this will likely be a very orthodox election with domestic political issues dominating the agenda over any significant international or foreign policy change. The Labor Party is making its pitch on increasing education funding, sustaining Australia’s high-class health care system and protecting the social security interests of its low-to-middle-class constituency. For Bill Shorten, the Opposition leader and former president of Australia’s trade union movement, this is the heartland of Australian politics.

In contrast, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s national economic plan of ‘jobs and growth’ draws on his more eclectic life experience, including as an international businessman. Since becoming prime minister in September last year, Turnbull has consistently emphasised the great economic opportunities offered to Australians by the transitions (and disruptions) now taking place in the global economy. He has stressed that there has never been more exciting time to live in a world of change and transition where enterprise and innovation can flourish and underpin significant domestic economic gains.

Against this background, it is unlikely that the election will provide much guidance on the future direction of Australian foreign policy. There is already a high degree of consensus, at least among Australia’s mainstream political elites, about foreign policy priorities. These include sustaining and deepening Australia’s security relationship with the United States, engaging with the Indo-Pacific, countering radical extremist terrorism and protecting homeland security.

During his three years as opposition leader, Shorten has done little to embellish this agenda, being content to respond to international issues as they emerge. And while the election will demand a more comprehensive statement of policy, it will likely be well within the parameters of the liberal internationalism that has long been the cornerstone of Labor’s foreign policy.

By contrast, the Turnbull government has already clearly marked its foreign policy ambitions. It will seek deeper engagement with the global economy through comprehensive free trade agreements and partnerships with Indonesia and India. Turnbull will also press hard, though perhaps unsuccessfully, for the Trans-Pacific Partnership to become a reality. Perhaps most notably, and with a significantly higher degree of emphasis from previous statements on the subject, the Turnbull government’s recent Defence White Paper gives high priority to working with all countries to ‘build a rules based global order’ which incorporates agreed rules of international law and regional security arrangements.

Once settled, the victor will have to face up to the pressing issues on Australia’s foreign policy horizon. In Japan, the Abe government was widely reported to have been disappointed, if not stunned, when Australia failed to award the contract for the development and manufacture of its new generation of conventional submarines to the Japanese contender. The decision raised doubts in Japan as to whether Canberra was seriously interested in developing a deeper strategic partnership. The answer is almost certainly yes, but rebuilding trust and confidence will demand some assiduous diplomatic attention.

Likely to be of a more enduring difficulty for Canberra is China’s determined push to expand its maritime boundaries in the South China Sea. Australia shares widespread regional concerns about the destabilising consequences of these actions. But Canberra is wary of being drawn into confrontation with Beijing and will need to strike a finely tuned policy balance — especially with the United States — which protects its own national security interests.

Finally, Australia has to address the Papua New Guinea Supreme Court’s decision to close the refugee detention centre on Manus Island. The decision punches a large hole in Canberra’s elaborately conceived regime to deter people smugglers and asylum seekers from looking to Australia. The issue resonates deeply within the Australian body politic and is highly controversial among wide sections of the community. The bipartisan consensus between the government and Labor on the issue is a further complication. Labor is struggling to hold together a febrile internal policy consensus against left wing opposition. The government will certainly exploit this split within Labor to its political advantage.

At the start of the campaign, opinion polls indicated that the election could hardly be closer, with one predicting a Labor victory of 51 per cent to the Coalition’s 49 per cent, while another reversed these results. Over the coming weeks, the polls will no doubt fluctuate as Australian voters wrestle with the choice they have to make on 2 July. At this stage it is almost impossible to say that either side can be confident it has a clear path to success.

The failing of Abenomics

Abenomics’ failure and the curse of ‘Japanization’

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

THE JAPAN TIMES, JUNE 11, 2016

The word “Japanization” refers to Japan’s prolonged stagnation — a malady that was on everyone’s mind at the recent G-7 summit. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made the right call in postponing the planned tax hike, but the feeble opposition can be forgiven for pouncing on his abrupt volte-face, which is a tacit admission that Abenomics is a colossal failure in terms of overcoming Japanization. There really is no way to sugarcoat the bad news about the negligible impact of Abe’s eponymous “three arrows” of monetary easing, fiscal spending and will-o’-the wisp structural reforms.

This year’s anemic first-quarter economic results showed that Japan only narrowly averted a technical recession. This might explain Abe’s dubious excuse for why recovery has been chimerical, i.e., “The world economy ate my homework,” as he tries to duck responsibility for not delivering the revival he promised in 2012.

Only Abe-philes insist that the jury is still out on Abenomics. A Kyodo poll in May found that two-thirds of the public is disappointed in the program’s paltry results. It’s a better response than that reported by NHK in its series of polls over the past year that showed 75-80 percent have not benefited from Abenomics. The economy remains moribund, wages and household income are stagnant, deflationary pressures remain strong and structural reforms are thin on the ground. Despite the Bank of Japan’s best efforts to stoke inflation, that too remains unrealized.

Instead of being a virtuous circle of rising corporate profits, wages and domestic consumption, Abenomics is sputtering. Abe’s advisers used to explain that the main reason for low consumption was the deflationary expectations of consumers, causing them to postpone spending, but now it’s clear that the slack demand is not only a psychological problem.

People’s consumption has not risen because household income is stagnant and perceptions of risk have increased. Wages have not risen and job growth is concentrated in nonregular jobs where pay on average is 40 percent lower than it is for full-time jobs.

The rapid growth of the “precariat” (precarious proletariat) working nonregular jobs — now about 40 percent of the entire workforce — is also contributing to deflation. The precariat doesn’t spend much because it doesn’t earn much. Just over 10 million of them are defined as the working poor, who earn less than ¥2 million a year. This structural shift in the labor paradigm is accentuating inequalities and subsidizing the core workforce of full-timers who enjoy job security, seniority wages and bonuses.

Abenomics is known as “welfare for the wealthy” because it boosts the fortunes of the rich and neglects the vulnerable. Japan suffers from growing welfare rolls and increasing single-parent poverty, with about 15 percent of children raised in relative poverty. So there are good reasons to hope Abe hasn’t hornswoggled the public, but sadly that seems to be the case.

Recently I caught up with William Pesek, executive editor of Barron’s Asia and author of Japanization: What the World Can Learn from Japan’s Lost Decades (2015). The book is a timely and astute analysis of why other nations are at risk of stagnating, and what policies they need to adopt to avoid Japanization.

Pesek realized from the outset that Abenomics is a hustle, more about politics than economic revival. He stands out from the many cheerleaders who took all of Abe’s pronouncements about the economy at face value while averting their eyes from all the missed targets and lackluster results.

“I still believe strongly that Japanization is a global risk,” Pesek warns, “and that countries as economically disparate as the U.S., China and India are hurtling down their own lost-decade-like paths.

“Abe’s catchy marketing campaign wowed a media establishment accustomed to predictable methods of reform and half-hearted efforts to achieve them,” says Pesek. “Abe brought the circus to town.”

Problematically, however, “There’s only one arrow to Abenomics: monetary easing. Raising sales taxes sent arrow two into the ground long ago. And if you really believe arrow three exists, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.”

Pesek’s pessimism is now widely shared. A Reuters poll conducted in May found that 70 percent of firms polled see no easing of deflation, up from 48 percent in January, and 79 percent expect further deflationary pressure this year and next.

Pesek thinks the competitive devaluation of the yen has been counterproductive. It will set Japan back in the long run, he says, “because executives have fewer incentives to innovate, restructure and raise their games.”

And “womenomics”? “To those who say ‘Abe has championed female empowerment,’ I say ‘Nikkei 225.’ Not one of these companies is run by a Japanese woman.” Pesek adds, “Let’s really empower women with quotas for parliamentary seats and corporate boards, and free and plentiful child care options.”

In Pesek’s view, Abe is “a cautionary tale of a leader who has majorities in both houses of parliament, a mandate from a public hungry for change, a specific revival plan with broad support and high-approval ratings, and did nothing with it to raise living standards or Japan’s global clout.”

What should Japan do? Forget the Trans-Pacific Partnership, says Pesek, which is really a “corporate land grab with little hope of raising wages or creating jobs.” Instead, he suggests the implementation of a tax holiday for startup companies that “includes a pass from the labyrinthine red-tape matrix. Forget talk of special-enterprise zones and make the entire economy one.” He believes the government should also “pony up several hundred million dollars to jump-start the venture-capital boom that passed Japan by.” He also sees great potential in renewable energy, suggesting more aggressive tax and regulatory incentives.

“This nation is a proud pioneer in energy innovation and efficiency, and opportunities abound as China, India and Indonesia literally choke on rapid growth. There’s something truly poetic about the only nation devastated by nuclear weapons finding alternatives not just for the reactors Japanese came to fear after 3/11 and Fukushima, but fossil fuels in general.”

Alas, Abe has prioritized “transforming national security, revving up nuclear reactors and silencing the media. Goosing the Nikkei stock average has been to distract attention from his unpopular right-wing agenda.”

Pesek believes Abenomics is “nothing but a sugar high for investors and trading houses,” and one that “failed to boost productivity and competitiveness.

“If Abe spent as much time orchestrating his economic upgrades as Obama’s itinerary, Japan might not be hurtling toward another recession,” Pesek laments. “His mandate is Japan’s economy, not stage-managing the past.”

Monday in Washington, June 20, 2016

A CONVERSATION WITH MICHAEL FROMAN. 6/20, 8:00-9:00am, Webcast. Sponsor: Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Speakers: Michael Froman, U.S. Trade Representative; Merit E. Janow, Dean, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University. Members only.

HINDU AMERICA FOUNDATION (HAF) INAUGURAL POLICY CONFERENCE. 6/20, 8:30am-3:30pm, Lunch, Refreshments. Sponsor: Hindu American Foundation (HAF). Speakers: Vanita Gupta, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice; Dr. Bharath Gopalaswamy, Director, South Asia Center, Atlantic Council; Farahnaz Ispahani, Human Rights Advocate, Former Member of the Parliament of Pakistan; Caroline Darmody, Legislative Assistant, Office of Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-MA); Maggie Garrett, Legal Counsel, Americans United for Separation of Church & State; Michael Lieberman, Esq., Washington Counsel, Anti-Defamation League; Paul Monteiro, Director, Community Relations Service, U.S. Department of Justice; Moderators: Samir Kalra, Esq., Senior Director, Human Rights Fellow, HAF; Suhag Shukla, Esq., Executive Director, Legal Counsel, HAF.

TERRORISM, WOMEN, ANDVIOLENT EXTREMISM: POLICIES AND PROGRAMMING. 6/20, 9:30-11:30am, Breakfast. Sponsor: Women in International Security (WIIS). Speakers: Ambassador Claudia Fritsche, Embassy of Liechtenstein in Washington, DC; Susan Markham, Senior Coordinator for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment, USAID; Trisha Ripley, Senior CVE Officer, National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC); Irfan Saeed, Director for Countering Violent Extremism, U.S. Department of State; Vera Zakem, Research Scientist and Director of Global Development, CNA; Moderator: Jeannette Gaudry Haynie, Senior Fellow, WIIS. By invitation only.

NATIONAL SECURITY INHERITANCE: SETTING THE NEXT PRESIDENT'S AGENDA. 6/20, 9:30am-5:30pm. Sponsor: Center for a New American Security (CNAS). Speakers include: Vice President Joseph R. Biden; Ashton Carter, U.S. Secretary of Defense; Deborah Lee James, Secretary of the U.S. Air Force; Admiral John Richardson, Chief Of Naval Operations; Hon. Michèle Flournoy, Co-Founder, CEO, CNAS; Senator Jack Reed (D-RI); Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC); Richard Fontaine, President, CNAS; David Ignatius, Columnist, Washington Post; Karen Deyoung, Associate Editor, Washington Post; Fred Hiatt, Editorial Page Editor, Washington Post; Jerry Hendrix, Defense Strategies and Assessments Program Director, CNAS.

THE SOUTH CHINA SEA ARBITRATION: ANTICIPATING THE NEXT MOVES AND COUNTERMOVES. 6/20, 10:00am-Noon. Sponsor: Asia Program, CSIS. Speakers: Gregory B. Poling, Director, Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative and Fellow, Southeast Asia Program, CSIS; Ernest Z. Bower, Non-Resident Senior Advisor and Chair, Southeast Asia Program Advisory Board, CSIS; Amy Searight, Senior Advisor and Director, Southeast Asia Program, CSIS; Andrew Shearer, Senior Advisor on Asia Pacific Security, CSIS; Moderator: Michael J. Green, Senior Vice President for Asia and Japan Chair, CSIS.

SYMPOSIUM ON ENDING TOO BIG TO FAIL. 6/20, 10:30am-1:30pm, Webcast. Sponsor: Peterson Institute (PIIE). Speakers: William R. Cline, Senior Fellow, PIIE; Giovanni Dell'Ariccia, Deputy Director, Research Department, IMF; Douglas Elliott, Partner, Finance and Risk and Public Policy Practices, Oliver Wyman; Neel Kashkari, President, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis; Bertrand Badré, Former Group Chief Financial Officer, Société Générale, Crédit Agricole; Adam S. Posen, President, PIIE; Moderator: Ron J. Feldman, Executive Vice President, Senior Policy Advisor, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. By invitation only.

CELEBRATING WOMEN LEADERS:COMBATING TERRORISM, REGIONAL CONFLICTS, AND MIGRATION CHALLENGES IN THE MIDDLEEAST AND AFRICA. 6/20, Noon, Lunch. Sponsor: Women’s Foreign Policy Group. Speakers: Ambassador Anne W. Patterson, Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs; Anne C. Richard, Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (Tentative); Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of African Affairs; Moderator: Karen DeYoung, Associate Editor, Senior National Security Correspondent, Washington Post. Fee.

A CONVERSATION WITH JASON FURMAN. 6/20, 12:30-1:30pm, Webcast. Sponsor: Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Speaker: Jason Furman, Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers; Moderator: David M. Rubenstein, Cofounder, Co-Chief Executive Officer, Carlyle Group, Vice Chairman, CFR. Members only.

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U.S. STRATEGIC CHALLENGES IN A POST-OBAMA WORLD: A CONVERSATION WITH SENATOR TOM COTTON. 6/20, 1:00-2:00pm, Webcast. Sponsor: Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Speaker: Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR); Moderator: Ayman Mohyeldin, Anchor, MSNBC, Foreign Correspondent, NBC News. Members only.

TRANSATLANTIC PERSPECTIVES ON RELIGION AND FOREIGN POLICY. 6/20, 2:00-3:30pm. Sponsors: Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs, GTU; Cambridge Institute on Religion & International Studies, University of Cambridge's Clare College. Speakers: Merete Bilde, Policy Advisor, European External Action Service, European Union; Christian Heldt, Deputy Head Of Mission, German Embassy to the Holy See in Rome; Jean-Christophe Peaucelle, Adviser, Religious Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France; Moderator: Timothy Shah, Associate Director, Religious Freedom Project, Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs, Associate Professor, Practice of Religion and Global Politics, Government Department, Georgetown University.

ROLE OF INTELLIGENCE IN AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY. 6/20, 4:00-5:30pm. Sponsor: Institute of World Politics. Speaker: John Sano, Former Deputy Director, National Clandestine Service, CIA.

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UN RESOLUTION 1325 IN PEACEKEEPING: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES. 6/20, 4:30-5:30pm. Sponsor: Elliott School, GW. Speakers: Donald Daniel, Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University; Chantal de Jonge Oudraat, President, Women in International Security; Moderator: Aisling Swaine, Associate Professor, Elliott School, GWU.

DOUGLAS MACARTHUR: AMERICAN WARRIOR. 6/20, 5:30-7:30pm. Sponsor: Hudson. Speakers: Author Arthur Herman, Senior Fellow, Hudson; Christopher DeMuth, Distinguished Fellow, Hudson, Former President, AEI.

STUDY IN CHINA: SCHWARZMAN SCHOLARSHIP INFO SESSION. 6/20, 6:00-7:30pm. Sponsor: US-Asia Institute. Speaker: Robert Garris, Global Director of Admissions, Schwarzman Scholars.

STATE CAPITALISM: HOW THE RETURN OF STATISM IS TRANSFORMING THE WORLD. 6/20, 6:00-7:00pm, Webcast. Sponsor: Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Speaker: Author Joshua Kurlantzick, Senior Fellow for Southeast Asia, CFR; Moderator: Richard N. Haass, President, CFR. Members only.

Monday in Washington, June 13, 2016

COMMANDANT’S MID-TERM REPORT ON THE COAST GUARD. 6/13, 10:00-11:00am. Sponsors: International Security Program, CSIS; U.S. Naval Institute (USNI). Speaker: Paul F. Zukunft, Admiral, 25th Commandant of U.S. Coast Guard; Moderator: Kathleen Hicks, Senior Vice President, Henry A. Kissinger Chair, Director, International Security Program, CSIS.

THAILAND AT THE AMERICA'S SMALL BUSINESS SUMMIT 2016. 6/13, 10:00-11:30am. Sponsors: International Affairs Division-Southeast Asia, U.S. Chamber of Commerce; Royal Thai Embassy. Speakers include: H.E. Pisan Manawapat, Ambassador of Thailand to the United States; Dr. Wimonkan Kosumas, Deputy Director General, Office of Small and Medium Enterprises Promotion; TBD; Moderator: Tami Overby, Senior Vice President, Asia, U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

CHINA’S POLICY TOWARD THE KOREAN PENINSULA. 6/13, Noon-4:00pm, Lunch. Sponsor: East Asia Program, Stimson. Speakers:. Yu Tiejun, Associate Professor, School of International Studies, Peking University; Ren Yuanzhe, Associate Professor, Department of Diplomacy and Foreign Affairs Management, China University of Foreign Affairs; Wang Junsheng, Associate Professor and Executive Director, Department of China’s Regional Strategy, National Institute of International Strategy, China Academy of Social Sciences; Woo Jung-Yeop, Research Fellow, Asan Institute for Policy Studies; Tom Byrne, President, Korea Society; Andrew Yeo, Associate Professor of Politics, Catholic University of America; Alan Romberg, Distinguished Fellow and Director of the East Asia Program, Stimson; Moderators: Yun Sun, Senior Associate, East Asia Program, Stimson; Katharine H.S. Moon, SK-Korea Foundation Chair in Korean Studies and Senior Fellow, Center for East Asia Policy Studies, Brookings.

DEFENSE BUDGETING AND NATIONAL SECURITY. 6/13, 2:30-3:00pm. Sponsor: IISS-Americas. Speaker: Deborah Lee James, Secretary of the U.S. Air Force; Moderator: Mark Fitzpatrick, Executive Director, IISS-Americas.

AFGHANISTAN: FIGHTING THE TALIBAN. 6/13, 2:30-4:00pm. Sponsor: Hudson. Speakers: Ambassador Hamdullah Mohib, Ambassador of Afghanistan; Ambassador Husain Haqqani, Senior Fellow, Director, South and Central Asia, Hudson, Former Ambassador of Pakistan; Mohammad Taqi, Columnist, South Asia Blog, Hudson.

INNOVATION FOR DEVELOPMENT: WHY ARE WE NOT GETTING TO SCALE? 6/13, 4:00-5:00pm. Sponsor: Center for Global Development (CGD). Speakers: Ann Mei Chang, Chief Innovation Officer, Executive Director of the U.S. Global Development Lab, US Agency for International Development; Michael Faye, Co-founder and Executive Chairman, GiveDirectly; Sonal Shah, Founding Executive Director, Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation, Georgetown University; Charles Kenny, Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development.

Monday in Washington, June 6, 2016

GLOBAL NUCLEAR CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS FOR THE NEXT U.S. PRESIDENT: ACA ANNUAL MEETING. 6/6, 9:00am-2:30pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: Arms Control Association (ACA). Speakers include: Benjamin Rhodes, Deputy National Security Advisor to the President; Setsuko Thurlow, Hiroshima Survivor, Anti-Nuclear Activist; Ambassador Susan Burk, head of U.S. delegation to the 2010 NPT Review Conference; Toby Dalton, Co-director of the Carnegie Endowment Nuclear Policy Program; Zia Mian, Director of the Project on Peace and Security in South Asia at the Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University; Joel Wit, Visiting Scholar at the U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS; Hans Kristensen, Director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists;  Andrew Weber, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense Programs; Amy Woolf, Specialist in Nuclear Weapons Policy at the Congressional Research Service; and Mark F. Cancian, Senior Advisor with the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Location: Carnegie Endowment, 1779 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Root Room. Contact:

http://www.armscontrol.org/events/2016-06-06/June-6-Annual-Meeting-Global-Nuclear-Challenges-and-Solutions-for-the-Next-US-President fee.

NEGATIVE INTEREST RATES: LESSONS LEARNED...SO FAR. 6/6, 9:30am-3:15pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: Brookings Institution. Speaker: Seth Carpenter, Head of U.S. Research, Rokos Capital Management LLP. Location: Brookings, 1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Falk Auditorium. Contact: http://www.brookings.edu/events/2016/06/06-negative-interest-rates-lessons-learned

U.S.-INDIA ECONOMIC TIES AND THE FINAL MODI-OBAMA SUMMIT. 6/6, 10:00-11:30am, Washington, DC. Sponsors: Wadhwani Chair in U.S.-India Policy Studies, CSIS; Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). Speakers: Naushad Forbes, President, CII, Co-Chairman, Forbes Marshall; Shobana Kamineni, Designated, CII, Executive Vice-Chairperson, Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Limited; Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII; Moderator: Richard M. Rossow, Senior Follow, Wasdhwani Chair in U.S.-India Policy Studies. Location: CSIS, 1616 Rhode Island Ave., NW, 1^st Floor Conference Center. Contact: IndiaChair@csis.org

OPERATION PROVIDE COMFORT: LESSONS LEARNED FOR TODAY’S CRISES. 6/6, 1:45-3:15pm, Lunch, Washington, DC. Sponsor: Middle East Institute. Speakers: Sarhang Hamasaeed, Senior Program Officer, Middle East & Africa, U.S. Institute for Peace; James Jeffrey, Philip Solondz Distinguished Fellow, Washington Institute for Near East Policy; Denise Natali, Distinguished Research Fellow, National Defense University; Moderator: Paul Salem, Vice President for Policy and Research, Middle East Institute. Location: National Press Club, 529 14^th St., NW, 13^th floor. Contact: http://www.mei.edu/events/operation-provide-comfort-reflections-and-lessons-today

THE EVOLUTION OF THE NUCLEAR ORDER: A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE: REPORT RELEASE. 6/6, 3:00-5:00, Washington, DC. Sponsor: Nuclear Policy Program, Carnegie. Speakers: Debak Das is pursuing his PhD in political science in Cornell University’s Department of Government; Mariana Nascimento Plum is a research coordinator at the Brazilian Army Strategic Studies Center; Tong Zhao is an associate in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy in Beijing; Adam M. Scheinman, special representative of the president for Nuclear Nonproliferation in the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation at the U.S. Department of State; Dalton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Togzhan Kassenova, Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Location: Carnegie Endowment, 1779 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Root Room. Contact: http://carnegieendowment.org/2016/06/06/evolution-of-nuclear-order-global-perspective/izga

Ignorance of Japanese politics and history begets

Obama bows at Hiroshima

Why Obama Is Shinzo Abe’s Enabler

 Mr. Obama has advanced the politically fraught and historically unsupportable notion that Japan has been the victim of its painful past, not the beneficiary of its difficult lessons.


By Dreux Richard, author of the forthcoming Every Human Intention: Japan in the New Century

New York Times, MAY 31, 2016

TSURUGA, Japan — Visiting Hiroshima last Friday, President Obama warned that overcoming the perils of global conflict and nuclear weapons will require a “moral revolution” sustained by “the radical and necessary notion that we are part of a single human family.” He omitted to mention that this notion has been the constitutional basis of Japan’s foreign policy since 1947. Future historians may conclude that Mr. Obama’s visit to Hiroshima provided a spectacle to help remilitarize the world’s wealthiest, most populous pacifist country.

Since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s election in 2012, the Obama administration has relied on Japan to help escalate America’s military presence in Asia. The Abe administration has expanded Japan’s commitment to maintaining U.S. bases, relaxed restrictions on bilateral arms trading, and negotiated a framework for joint operations that makes America responsible for maintaining a regional balance of power that protects Japanese interests.

This restructuring of the U.S.-Japan alliance depends on the continued progress of Mr. Abe’s legacy project: removing language from Japan’s Constitution that forbids the use of force to settle international disputes. The Abe administration has been able to shed the prevailing interpretation of this article, widely understood to prohibit the international deployment of Japanese troops, but the language itself continues to restrict the scope of Japan’s military operations, including activities integral to the defense agreement Mr. Abe and Mr. Obama struck last year.

Eliminating these restrictions is ostensibly in the interest of peace, because the alternative to a rearmed Japan is an unchecked — and nuclear-armed — China. But this assessment leaves no room for the possibility that Japan’s military, among the best equipped in the world, has exerted a moderating influence on the region precisely because the Constitution has protected it from misadventure.

In supporting Mr. Abe’s effort to restore Japan’s ability to join and wage wars, Mr. Obama has chosen the wrong strategic partner. The next U.S. president will inherit an East Asia policy vulnerable to the uncertainties of Japan’s transition away from pacifism. Since 2012, Mr. Abe’s foreign policy decisions have harmed Japan’s relationships with its neighbors, including the U.S. ally South Korea. Several of his political appointees have proven scandal-prone in matters of diplomacy.

And Japan might not accept America’s strategic dictates. Firm supporters of Mr. Abe’s agenda see their efforts as the casting off of the final remnants of the American occupation, so that Japan can reclaim its own superpower status. In the ideological terrain of contemporary Japanese politics, the accommodation of American interests is chiefly opportunistic, and the underlying motive is often retrograde nationalism. Mr. Abe’s push to revise the Constitution has coincided with cabinet-level attempts to renegotiate history: Whether so-called comfort women used by Japanese soldiers during World War II were “sex slaves” or if their work was a form of indentured servitude; and how many Chinese civilians died in the Nanking Massacre in 1937.

For Japanese voters, these debates formed the political and social context of Mr. Obama’s visit. Questions of war memory dominated press coverage. According to a 2015 survey by Pew Research, 56 percent of Americans believe the atomic bombings were necessary; 14 percent of Japanese agree. By delivering an appeal for disarmament in a nation whose pacifist Constitution his Asian pivot has helped to controvert, Mr. Obama has risked lending credibility to the dangerous notion beneath Abe’s rhetoric: that Japan can best retain its identity as a peace-loving culture by embracing the restoration of its martial role in international affairs.

If it were the will of the Japanese electorate to adopt the Abe doctrine, then the question of how Mr. Obama’s visit has contributed to its legitimization would be academic. But nearly none of Abe’s policies, including revision of the pacifist Constitution, poll well. He nonetheless enjoys reliably favorable approval ratings, attributed by the center-right media to his carefully-cultivated public persona and by the left to calculated manipulation of the national psyche.

Mr. Abe’s attempts to claim Japan’s collective memory have been less than democratic. He has been at war with the press since he took office, and has been especially zealous about destabilizing the country’s foremost daily newspaper, the Asahi Shimbun, chief antagonist of his most hawkish positions. He has responded to multiple Supreme Court decisions requiring reform of the nation’s broken electoral system with a plan calculated to delay changes for as long as possible, a manipulation intended to give him time to build an opposition-proof majority in Parliament, and to create the illusion of an overwhelming mandate to remove pacifist language from the Constitution.

For Mr. Abe, Mr. Obama’s visit also provided a distraction from an initial wave of policy failures related to his American pivot. Early attempts to expand Japan’s arms export business have produced tepid results; and in anticipation of rearmament, the branches of Japan’s military have engaged in a wasteful struggle for funding — U.S. arms dealers have responded by price- gouging the Japanese government.

In Hiroshima, Mr. Obama praised the U.S.-Japan alliance, saying it has taught both countries to cherish peace. He did not reflect on the 69 years of Japanese pacifism that have kept Japan out of war while the United States has waged several. By neglecting them, in a speech that touched so many old wounds, Mr. Obama has advanced the politically fraught and historically unsupportable notion that Japan has been the victim of its painful past, not the beneficiary of its difficult lessons.

What the President cannot ignore when going to Hiroshima

Memories of Changi

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

TS Eliot, from The Hollow Men

Remembering More Than Hiroshima
We must not forget the lives lost and trauma incurred by Allied forces during the Pacific War. 

By LESTER TENNEY
Wall Street Journal, May 11, 2016 12:15 p.m. ET

A black man was the first American soldier to die in World War II. An unexploded bomb from a Mitsubishi “Betty” split U.S. Army Pvt. Robert Brooks in two on December 8, 1941, as he ran to the machine gun on his half-track at Clark Field in the Philippines. Like me, he was a member of the 192nd Tank Battalion preparing to fight the invading Imperial Japanese forces. It is fitting that our first black president will soon stand at Hiroshima, where the Pacific War began its end.

Pvt. Brooks’s sacrifice and those of thousands of American and Allied forces who fought and died for freedom in the Pacific must never be forgotten. What Hiroshima represents is more than the effects of a nuclear weapon. It is the culmination of a war started by Imperial Japan and conducted with gross inhumanity, a war in which more civilians died than combatants.

It would be wrong for the president to pivot away from this history and use his visit solely to discuss aspirations for a world without nuclear weapons. Hiroshima highlights mankind’s tragic ability to wreak terrible destruction, and this destruction was not caused exclusively by atomic bombs. Sand-filled bamboo sticks, bayonets, plague-inflected fleas, starvation and rape—methods of warfare used by Japan—are also destructive.

When President Harry Truman announced the bombing of Nagasaki, which ended the war, he recognized “the tragic significance of the atomic bomb.” However, he went on to explain “we have used it against those who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved, beaten and executed American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare. We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans.”

As a former American POW of Japan, I am particularly sensitive to these words. Truman was looking out for me and more than 27,000 other American POWs in Asia. Until then, we felt forgotten and ignored. The “Europe first” policy of Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill abandoned us to fight without resupply or reinforcement on the Philippines at the start of World War II. We became POWs for more than three bitter years.

We endured four unforgiving months of tank warfare in the tropical heat on Bataan against an enemy with superior training, equipment and provisions. Surrendered by our commanders, nearly 80,000 of us American and Filipino troops were forced on the Bataan Death March. The surviving 68,000 arrived at Camp O’Donnell, a prison camp that saw up to 300 die daily.
The camp commandant ranted at us that we were lower than dogs and better off dead, as we would always be enemies of Japan. I must say that many times I had to agree.

After a period in the camp, many of us went by “hell ship” to Japan to become slave laborers. In my case, it was in a dilapidated Mitsui coal mine. My friend from Janesville, Wis., Capt. Fred Bruni, had a different experience. He and 150 men from the camp were sent to Palawan Island to build an airfield. Upon completion, all the men were set afire and machine-gunned by the Kempeitai.

We POWs have tried to preserve this history despite U.S. and Japanese government efforts to suppress it. Upon liberation, most of us were forced to sign gag orders not to discuss the horrors of our imprisonment. The U.S. government’s policy was to pacify Japan in part by curbing memories of its war atrocities. Central to the 1952 San Francisco Peace Treaty is an article foreclosing any further compensation of victims, thus again preventing the recall of Imperial Japan’s past crimes and abuses.

At home, an underfunded Veterans Administration refused to give us full disability and ignored or misunderstood the aftereffects of vitamin deficiency, tropical diseases and trauma. It took two acts of Congress before we received any compensation for our imprisonment and only at a rate of $1.50 per day for lost meals.

The U.S. government abandoned the Pacific War’s history. This has made efforts to hold Japanese companies accountable for their brutal use of POW slaves nearly impossible. It is taboo to associate high-speed rails, luxury automobiles or Washington’s metro cars with companies that once abused Americans. Among the nearly 60 well-known companies such as Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, Kawasaki and Nippon Sharyo, only the Mitsubishi Materials Company, which used POWs in four of its mines, has apologized.

In recent years the Japanese government has finally begun to make amends to American POWs. They offered an official apology in 2009. At the Obama administration’s urging, they established in 2010 a reconciliation program for former POWs to visit Japan. Unfortunately the program will end this year without any follow-up for descendants or the public.

But history is critical to how we understand ourselves. No one knew Pvt. Brooks’s race until the Army wanted to honor him. When news of his death reached Fort Knox, the chief of the armored force, Gen. Jacob Devers, decided that a parade ground should be named in his memory, because the first American tanker to die in World War II should not be forgotten.

When it was discovered that Pvt. Brooks’s parents were black tenant farmers from Sadieville, Ky., the general was asked if he wanted to reconsider. “No,” he answered, “it did not matter whether or not Robert was black, what mattered was that he had given his life for his country.” As Gen. Devers said at the Brooks Field dedication ceremony, “In death there is no grade or rank. And in this greatest democracy the world has ever known, neither riches nor poverty, neither creed nor race, draws a line of demarcation in this hour of national crisis.”

Mr. Obama wants to use his visit to Hiroshima to highlight the perils of nuclear war. But this is not the only lesson. Our service as veterans of the Pacific War needs to be remembered and not abandoned to some tumid oratory. The president’s visit to Hiroshima will be hollow, a gesture without motion, if the Pacific War’s full history is not maintained. Hiroshima does not and cannot exist outside the context of the Asia-Pacific War and all its dead.

Mr. Tenney, 95, was a member of the 192nd Tank Battalion, Company B that defended the Philippines in World War II. He lives in San Diego.

Monday in Washington, May 16, 2016

EXAMINING THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA REGION’S ECONOMIC AND TRADE POLICIES. 5/16, 10:45am-2:00pm. Sponsor: Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE). Speakers: Karim El Mokri, Senior Economist, OCP Policy Center; Abelaaziz Ait Ali, Economist, OCP Policy Center; Theodore Moran, Nonresident Senior Fellow, PIIE.

THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE CYBER STRATEGY: AN ASSESSMENT. 5/16, 11:00am-1:00pm. Sponsor: George Washington University (GWU). Speakers: Congressman James R. Langevin (D-RI), Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, House Armed Services Committee; Michael Papay, Vice President and Chief Innovation Security Officer, Northrop Grumman Corporation; Charles Snyder, Senior Advisor for Cyber Policy, Office of the Secretary of Defense, Department of Defense; Maj. Gen. Christopher P. Weggeman, Director, Plans and Policy (J5), U.S. Cyber Command; Mark Young, IronNet Cybersecurity and CCHS Senior Fellow.

THE LURE AND PITFALLS OF MIRVS: FROM THE FIRST TO THE SECOND NUCLEAR AGE. 5/16, 11:00am-2:30pm. Sponsor: Stimson Center. Speakers: Alexey Arbatov, Chair at Carnegie Moscow Center’s Nonproliferation Program; Brendan Rittenhouse Green, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Cincinnati; Lynn Davis, Senior Fellow, RAND Corporation; Jeffrey G. Lewis, Director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program, Middlebury Institute; Michael Chase, Senior political Scientist, RAND Corporation; Jaganath Sankaran, Research Scholar, CSIS; Mansoor Ahmed, Stanton Nuclear Security junior Faculty Fellow; editor Michael Krepon, Co-Founder, Stimson Center.

ON THE NEW ARAB WARS: UPRISINGS AND ANARCHY IN THE MIDDLE EAST. 5/16, Noon-1:30pm. Sponsor: Carnegie Endowment. Speakers: Marc Lynch, Nonresident Senior Associate, Middle East Program, Carnegie; William J. Burns, President, Carnegie; Michele Dunne, Director and Senior Associate, Middle East Program, Carnegie.

ENHANCING THE U.S.-KOREA SECURITY ALLIANCE AND ECONOMIC PARTNERSHIP. 5/16, 2:00-4:30pm. Sponsors: Korean-American Club (Hanmi Club); Korea Economic Institute (KEI). Speakers: Donald Manzullo, President and CEO, KEI; David Pong, Chairman, Hanmi Club; Ahn Ho-young, Ambassador, Republic of Korea; James Goldgeier, Dean, School of International Service, American University; Hyun Oh-seok, Chair Professor, Korea National Diplomatic Academy; Lee Sang-seok, Vice Chairman, Hankook Ilbo and Korea Times; Kang Chan-ho, Editorial Writer, Joong-ang Ilbo; James Miller, President, Adaptive Strategies, LLC; Matthew P. Goodman, Chair in Political Economy, CSIS; Yang Young-eun, Anchor, KBS News; Yoon Kyung-ho, Editorial Writer, Maekyung Daily.

THE SYKES-PICOT AGREEMENT AT 100: RETHINKING THE MAP OF THE MODERN MIDDLE EAST. 5/16, 2:00-4:30pm. Sponsor: American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Speakers: Elliott Abrams, Council on Foreign Relations; Ryan Crocker, Former Ambassador to Iraq and Syria; Adeed Dawisha, Miami University; Olivier Decottignies, Washington Institute for Near East Policy; Martin Indyk, Brookings; Robert Kagan, Brookings; Danielle Pletka, AEI; Michael Rubin, AEI; Dan Yergin, HIS.

MANAGING COMPLEXITY: ECONOMIC POLICY COOPERATION AFTER THE CRISIS. 5/16, 3:00-4:30pm. Sponsor: Brookings Institution. Speakers: Co-Editor Tamim Bayoumi, Visiting Senior Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics; Kermal Dervis, Vice President and Director, Global Economy and Development; Fred Bergsten, Senior Fellow and Director Emeritus, Peterson Institute; Heidi Crebo-Rediker, Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations; Vito Gaspar, Director, Financial Affairs Department, IMF.

TPP: A STRATEGIC IMPERATIVE – A CONVERSATION WITH ADMIRAL MICHAEL MULLEN. 5/16, 5:00pm. Sponsor: Atlantic Council. Speakers: Adm. Michael Mullen, 17th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr., Chairman, Atlantic Council.

Monday in Washington, May 9, 2016

STEM EDUCATION AND FUTURE GENERATIONS OF AMERICAN INVENTORS, TECHNOLOGISTS, AND EXPLORERS. 5/9, 10:00-11:30am, Washington, DC. Sponsor: Brookings Institution. Speakers, Charles Bolden, Administrator, NASA; Dean Kamen, Founder, FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology).

SUPPORTING BURMA’S TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY: THE ROLE OF DIPLOMACY AND DEVELOPMENT. 5/9, 11:15am-12:45pm. Sponsor: United States Institute of Peace (USIP). Speakers: Jonathan Stivers, Assistant Administrator of the Bureau for Asia, USAID; Chris Milligan, Former Mission Director for Burma, USAID; Amb. Derek Mitchell, Former Ambassador to Burma; Patrick Murphy, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Southeast Asia.

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RESTRICTING DATA FLOWS: WHEN IS IT LEGITIMATE POLICY, AND WHEN IS IT UNJUSTIFIED PROTECTIONISM? 5/9, Noon-1:30pm. Sponsor: Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). Speakers: Robert Atkinson, President, ITIF; Susan Aaronson, Research Professor of International Affairs, George Washington University.

GLOBAL INEQUALITY: A NEW APPROACH FOR THE AGE OF GLOBALIZATION. 5/9, Noon-2:00pm. Sponsor: Peterson Institute for International Economics. Speakers: author, Branko Milanovic (City University of New York); Caroline Freund and Steve Weisman of the Institute will comment on issues raised by Milanovic, drawing on their own recent books, Rich People Poor Countries and The Great Tradeoff: Confronting Moral Conflicts in the Era of Globalization, respectively.

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THE RISE OF THE MILITARY WELFARE STATE. 5/9, 4:00-5:30pm. Sponsor: Washington History Seminar. Wilson Center. Speaker: author, Jennifer Mittelstadt, Fellow, Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University.

HAS THE FEDERAL RESERVE GONE TOO FAR? A DISCUSSION OF THE FED’S EVOLUTION SINCE 1913. 5/9, 5:30-7:00pm. Sponsor: American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Speakers: Kevin A. Hassett, AEI; Peter Conti-Brown, University of Pennsylvania; Allan Meltzer, School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University; Alex J. Pollock, R Street Institute.

Monday in Washington, May 2, 2016

2016 GLOBAL STRATEGY FORUM. 5/2, 8:30am-5:30pm. Sponsor: Atlantic Council. Speakers Include: Robert Work, Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Defense; Max Brooks, Senior Fellow, Scowcroft Center; Arati Prabhakar, Director, Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, U.S. Department of Defense; Kori Schake, Research Fellow, Hoover Institution; David Rothkopf, CEO and Editor, Foreign Policy Group.

GETTING TO YES WITH CHINA IN CYBERSPACE: IS IT POSSIBLE? 5/2, Noon–1:00pm. Sponsor: RAND. Speakers: Scott W. Harold, associate director of the Center for Asia Pacific Policy; Martin C. Libicki, senior management scientist at the RAND Corporation. Related publication: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1335.html

POLITICAL AND SECURITY CRISES IN AFGHANISTAN; THE FUTURE OF THE NATIONAL UNITY GOVERNMENT. 5/2, Noon-1:30pm. Sponsor: Middle East Institute. Speakers: Ali Jalali, Former Interior Minister of Afghanistan; Michael Kugelman, Senior Associate for South Asia, Wilson Center; Omar Samad, Former Ambassador-Designate to NATO, Belgium and the EU; Scott Smith, Member of the UN Standby Mediation Team.

THE IMF’S APRIL 2016 GLOBAL FINANCIAL STABILITY REPORT: WHAT POLICIES COULD NORMALIZE MARKETS? 5/2, 12:30-2:00pm. Sponsor: Dean’s Forum, Johns Hopkins University. Speakers: Jose Vinals, Financial Counselor, IMF; Douglas Elliott, Partner, Oliver Wyman.

HISTORY WRITING OF COMFORT WOMEN ISSUES. 5/2, 2:00-5:00PM. Sponsor: Washington Coalition for Comfort Women Issues. Speakers: Dr. Tomomi Yamaguchi, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Montana State University (The “History Wars” and the “Comfort Woman” Issue: Revisionism and the Right-Wing in Contemporary Japan); Dr. Bonnie B.C. Oh, retired, Distinguished Professor of Korean Studies of Georgetown University (Comfort Women Testimonies as Oral History); Dr. Elizabeth W. Son, Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Theatre at Northwestern University (Performing “Comfort Women” Histories in Redressive Theatre); Moderators: Dr. Jungsil Lee (President of WCCW) and Dr. Jisoo M. Kim (GWU).

TAKING A STAND TOGETHER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN NORTH KOREA. 5/2, 2:30-4:00pm. Sponsor: CSIS. Speakers: Katsunobu Kato, Minister in Charge of the Abduction Issue, Abe Cabinet; Jung-Hoon Lee, Ambassador for Human Rights of the Republic of Korea; Robert R. King, Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Issues, U.S. Department of State; Victor Cha, Senior Advisor and Korea Chair, CSIS.

STATE OF THE RACE. 5/2, 2:45pm. Sponsor: Politico. Speakers: Mike DuHaime, Partner, Mercury; Stephanie Cutter, Partner, Precision Strategies; Kevin Madden, Partner, Hamilton Price Strategies; April Ryan, White House Correspondent and Washington Bureau Chief, American Urban Radio Networks.

RUSSIA ECONOMIC REPORT, APRIL 2016: THE LONG ROAD TO RECOVERY. 5/2, 5:00-6:20pm. Sponsor: Georgetown University (GU). Speaker: Birgit Hansl, World Bank’s Program Leader and Lead Economist for Russian Federation in the Europe and Central Asia Region.

Japan’s Double Standard on Freedoms and Rule of Law

PM Shinzo Abe is maintaining a double standard on democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

By Aurelia George Mulgan
First Appeared in The Diplomat, April 20, 2016

A number of domestic and international developments have revealed a glaring disconnect between the Japanese government’s preaching and its practice on the issue of universal values.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe proudly declared a values-based diplomacy for Japan in both his first (2006-07) and second administrations (2012-), emphasizing universal values such as democracy, human rights and the rule of law. In January 2013, not long after the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) regained power, he outlined the basic principles on which his government’s diplomacy would be based. One of these fundamental principles was the concept of “universal values.” A month later, he publicly repeated this commitment to “diplomacy that places emphasis on universal values.”

As a diplomatic tool, rhetoric such as “democracy, human rights and the rule of law” justifies the Abe government’s continuing alignment with Japan’s long-standing democratic allies and with other semi-democracies in Asia that share his strong reservations about China’s unpeaceful rise. It also pointedly excludes China by definition from any putative coalition of democratically aligned states.

On the other hand, several recent actions and policies of the Abe administration, particularly in the domestic domain, suggest that the prime minister’s declarations of a commitment to universal values are primarily a diplomatic device for international consumption. They do not represent a guide to the government’s stance at home on a number of key issues. Quite the contrary, the prime minister’s record clearly shows that his government is taking Japan in an authoritarian direction that is unprecedented in the postwar era. What is more, these steps seriously question Abe’s commitment to universal values.

Among a series of deleterious developments, the Abe administration’s record in dealing with the media demonstrates that it is falling well short of observing first principles of democratic accountability. Amongst the most egregious examples of media-muzzling are attempts to silence media critics, including creating an atmosphere of fear and intimidation amongst journalists and other commentators who dare to question the government’s and ruling party’s policies, personnel and actions. In addition to the administration’s explicit actions to control the message, the 2013 State Secrets Law compounds the threat to freedom of news reporting by hanging over journalists’ heads like the sword of Damocles.

In the education sector, the Abe government has censored school textbooks, ensuring that the latest versions for students follow the government’s uniform line on history and territorial issues. The bottom of this slippery slope will land Japanese students in the same position as those in China, for whom only official accounts of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre are available and who are taught that the Dalai Lama is a terrorist.

The Abe government has also heavied universities to rid themselves of humanities and social science departments, arguably, amongst other things, to discourage the training of students’ critical thinking skills, thus silencing another potential source of criticism of the government.

Yet another and possibly the most disturbing example is the proposed content of the LDP’s May 2012 draft revisions to the 1947 Constitution. In glaring contrast to the human rights Abe cites internationally as “universal,” the draft explicitly rejects this notion. It states that human rights derive from a country’s history, culture, and traditions, and are, therefore, qualified to the extent that they are influenced by these factors. Indeed, the maintenance of so-called “public order” is elevated over all individual rights, raising the question, “public order” as defined by whom? Presumably “the government of the day.” Instead of universal human rights, Japanese citizens will be given “duties and obligations” (unspecified) – no doubt, once again, to be defined by public authorities. At the same time, the prime minister has undermined the rule of law by claiming in the Diet to be the ultimate source of authority regarding interpretation of the Constitution, an act for which he will be judged by the electorate. In short, the meaning of the constitution is what the prime minister says it is, which would potentially remove the Japanese constitution’s safeguards against the rise of authoritarianism.

Last but not least is the Abe government’s flouting of the ruling of the highest court of the UN, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Japan’s whale hunt in the Southern Ocean. In March 2014, ICJ ruled that Japan’s Antarctic whale hunts were unscientific and ordered it to stop hunting. Only three months after this ruling, in June 2014, Prime Minister Abe told the Japanese parliament that he wanted to aim for the resumption of commercial whaling by conducting whaling research. He thus personally endorsed the resumption of commercial whaling, which Japan had been conducting on spurious scientific grounds under the politicized term “research whaling” (chōsa hogei) used ubiquitously by Japanese authorities and in the media.

Japan has since resumed lethal research whaling under the much publicized heading of NEWREP-A and stated that it will not accept the jurisdiction of the ICJ on marine living resources, reflecting a clear double standard in its stance on the rule of law internationally. Nor does Japan recognize the Australian Antarctic Territory’s EEZ, or its Whale Sanctuary, or the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

The reality is that Japanese whaling is neither scientific nor commercial. It is a government-subsidized and sponsored industry conducted for the benefit of the Japanese whaling industry-cum-lobby and is certainly not for the benefit of Japanese consumers. This lobby is headed by the semi-governmental Institute of Cetacean Research, charged with propagandizing the virtues of whaling and an affiliated organ (gaikaku dantai) of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF). Apart from providing plum positions for retired bureaucrats, many such groups play key roles in the ancillary apparatus of government intervention by undertaking regulatory and/or allocatory functions as well as participating directly in markets.

Whaling is defended against international attack on spurious cultural grounds, traditionally the last defense of the protectionists. The Japanese government tried the same defense of its rice industry at the Uruguay Round of the GATT, proselytizing the notion of rice as quintessentially a cultural good in Japan. Here it was considerably more successful, extracting a concession that allowed rice to be spared from tariffication under the 1994 Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture (URAA).