The head of the Japan Defense Agency is still trying to get Nago residents to agree to a slightly adjusted proposal for relocating the helicopter facilities from Futenma:

JDA chief Fukushiro Nukaga met with Mayor Yoshikazu Shimabukuro of Nago, the site to which US military facilities now at the Futenma base (Ginowan City, Okinawa Prefecture) are slated to be moved, on 4 April. Nukaga once again sought Shimbukuro’s understanding, conveying once again that, while [the government] will not make broad changes to the relocation to the coastline of Camp Schwab that has been agreed upon by Japan and the US, he is of a mind to respond flexibly to proposals for limited changes, such as in the orientation of runways. The focus was on the mayor’s advocating that the runways be shifted more than 400 meters offshore [from their proposed location].

It had been hoped that an agreement would be reached by the end of last month.

On a not-entirely-unrelated note, the Yomiuri took a poll that found that 71% of those who responded believe that the constitution should be revised to clarify the role of the SDF:

Seventy-one percent of people think the Constitution should clarify the existence of the Self-Defense Forces, an organization that protects the nation yet is not mentioned in the supreme law, according to a Yomiuri Shimbun survey.

Fifty-six percent of respondents said the basic law should be revised, marking the ninth straight year since 1998 that a majority of pollees in similar surveys have favored revising the Constitution.

The interview survey was conducted on March 11 and 12 on 3,000 eligible voters in 250 locations across the country, with 1,812, or 60.4 percent, of them responding.

…

However, 32 percent of pollees opposed constitutional revision, the survey said.

Regarding the war-renouncing Article 9, a focal point of the constitutional amendment, 39 percent–the highest figure for five consecutive years–said it should be rewritten because there was a limit to interpreting the article and putting it into practice, the survey said.

Thirty-three percent said the article should be handled as it has been so far, but 21 percent said Article 9 should be strictly upheld and that its spirit should not be watered down through changing interpretations, the survey said.

Twenty-seven percent of respondents said the top law should be revised to allow the country to exercise the right to collective-defense and 23 percent said interpretation of the basic law should be changed to allow for the right to be exercised. This meant 50 percent favored exercising this right, the survey said.

Of course, you can’t cite polls without the usual avalanche of disclaimers, but those results ring true to me. People like the way Article 9 makes Japan’s involvement in NGOs seem more saintly (to those who pay attention to such things), and besides, this is, despite the economic upheavals of the last decade and a half, an extraordinarily prosperous country. Most people have little incentive to approach defense issues with a real sense of urgency. But they know, at the same time, that Japan is a resource-poor country with nearby enemies. There’s almost always some current reminder–a little skirmish between a Japanese and a North Korean ship, news about the expansion of a Chinese military program of some kind–of the delicacy of its position.

It’s interesting that 1998 was the first year the Yomiuri reports having a majority supporting the revision of the constitution. I wonder whether the poll was first conducted that year or, maybe, the DPRK’s missile test over Japan jolted a lot of people. Of course, if the poll is always in the spring, that wouldn’t explain anything, since the test missile was launched in summer.

Yesterday was a busy day in Pyongyang:

In a notice dated 21 March, the permanent committee of North Korea’s eleventh Supreme People’s Assembly (the equivalent of the Diet) announced a resolution to hold its fourth session on 11 April in Pyongyang. The resolution was publicized on the radio on 22 March by means of a Korean Central News Agency release. The focus of the session will be whether to hammer out a new economic policy program based on the results of Kim Jong-il’s January visit to China. The backdrop for the session being the failure of 6-party talks after North Korea’s objection to “financial sanctions” by the United States, [the world] will also be listening closely for any mention of the nuclear issue.

The Supreme People’s Assembly will hold a session to discuss the state budget in spring of next year. Kim Jong-il attended last year’s session, at which a state budget in which an 11.4% increase in spending over the previous year was approved. On the nuclear issue, North Korea has taken the the position that an end to sanctions by the US is the “minimum condition” for a resumption of 6-party talks.

This isn’t exciting news; in a way, what moved me to cite it was its sheer everyday-ness.

You get regular, poker-faced reports in the Japanese media of stuff like the above–as if the Supreme People’s Assembly were in any way, shape, or form actually comparable to the Diet! Japan has a gajillion political parties, a free press, freedom of movement for its citizens, a capitalist economy, and a high standard of living. (I mean, yes, I grouse a lot about the power held by bureaucrats rather than elected officials here, and there are plenty of things that would be more liberalized and transparent if I were running the place. Even so, there’s no comparison.) Everyone knows that the DPRK is run by nut cases and their sane toadies whose idea of fun is shooting test missiles over our heads and who wouldn’t know viable economic policy if it jumped up and bit ’em in the ass. On the other hand, it’s close by. Knowing what’s going on there is important, and frothing over its evil and craziness is not going to move it farther away. So Japanese reporters, and the citizens they report for, note important developments and then get on with business.

When American friends asked me what the Japanese (or at least, those Japanese who pay attention to international business and news stories) thought of the brouhaha over the Dubai Ports World deal, it was hard to put into words. I don’t think it made us look anti-Arab or more generally racist, just kind of skittish and a bit silly.

We’re not used to having enemies near to hand in America. Our only actual borders are with Canada and New Mexico. No one’s worried about Cuba since the Bay of Pigs; and Alaska, despite its proximity to what was the USSR during the Cold War, has a low population and is isolated from the US mainland. We think of our enemies as far away.

But since most deep-seated ethnic and religious rivalries developed over local resources long before communication and transportation technology enabled animosity to be projected quickly over long distances, having hostile neighbors is a fact of life for much, if not most, of the world. Pakistan trades with India; China, Japan, and South Korea trade with each other; Israel trades with several of its Arab neighbors. The driving force, needless to say, is economics and not trust–the Israelis haven’t suddenly forgotten what happened in 1948 in their zeal for selling their plastics. Trade is an economic good in general, and mutually beneficial economic ties also make mutually destructive war a riskier and therefore less likely response to frictions that arise.

The analogy to Dubai isn’t perfect: I realize that with the ports deal, we weren’t talking about whether to import its actual goods. But then, it turned out that we weren’t talking about outsourcing port security to the UAE, either. Ultimately, it wasn’t at all clear what the issue was; the jabber about “lack of transparency” seemed lame, given that none of those issuing it seemed to have been too worried about such matters before.

So I think it was difficult for businesspeople who followed the story to see it as being motivated by much beyond anxiety over the fact that people from around where the terrorists are–you know, over there–might be spending a lot of time at our ports. The UAE, despite having recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan a while back, is a known center of entrepreneurship and a major US ally in the region. So I think that, given that you can practically see the DPRK’s missile silos with binoculars from Honshu’s west coast, the reaction read as a bit on the hysterical side to Japanese people I know.

The arguments over the relocation of US military facilities now housed in Futenma are still developing. Prime Minister Koizumi met with Japan Defense Agency head Fukushiro Nukaga this morning, and talks with the US are slated to begin the day after tomorrow:

The main focus of the talks will be the issue of who will pay for the relocation of Marines currently stationed in Okinawa to Guam. The US has asked Japan to pay 75% of the US $10 billion tab. Japan, the relevant cabinet ministers having agreed that they “cannot accept” such a burden, plans to negotiate for a lower percentage.

Of course, the price tag may be the focus of Thursday’s talks, but it’s not the only bone of contention:

Yoshikazu Shimabukuro, Mayor of Nago City in Okinawa Prefecture, the planned site to which certain US military installations are to be relocated from Futenma [USMC] Air Station as part of negotiations over restructuring, held a meeting in Naha with Okinawa Governor Keiichi Inamine on 21 March. The Mayor expressed his intention to oppose a new, slightly tweaked proposal by LDP Policy Committee Chairman Hidenao Nakagawa; the new plan would move the facilities to the shoreline of Camp Schwab.

Governor Inamine affirmed his own rejection of the tweaked proposal and his support for the Mayor’s stance: “We will persevere together.”

…

At the meeting, the Mayor emphasized that he would not consider negotiations unless there was a large-scale shift of the planned site of relocation offshore in the “shoreline proposal”: “(Area residents have) acceded to (an existing plan, which would create a facility off the Henoko district of Nago), a variation on the ‘offshore proposal.'”

A few months back, residents weren’t keen about any plan at all. The federal government continues to state that it will not accommodate more than minor adjustments to the plan and will keep talking to residents until it gets them to accept it.

Thomas Schieffer, who appears to keep a low profile as US Ambassador to Japan, is in the news today for having visited the beach from which Megumi Yokota was abducted by DPRK agents in 1977:

The ambassador was accompanied on the visit by Yokota’s 73-year-old father Shigeru and others, who explained the kidnapping to him. It was the first abduction scene visit by a high-ranking U.S. government official.

In a news conference after the visit, Schieffer said he was moved by the experience, and that the injustice of the abductions should be solved no matter how many years it took. He added he intended to discuss the issue with U.S. President George W. Bush when he next met him.

…

The visit is seen as lending support to Japan’s stance of seeking a solution to the abductions, following the failure of comprehensive talks between Japan and North Korea in February.

The abductee issue is a big one for Japan (both the government and the public). When there are talks between the DPRK and the US in which Japan is involved, it tends to get backburnered in favor of more attention to, you know, nuclear development and stuff. And Japan and North Korea certainly haven’t solved it between themselves.

Megumi Yokota, BTW, is the abductee whose unknown whereabouts have been reported on most frequently since the issue really gained steam several years ago. The DPRK gave Japan a pile of bones that turned out not to be hers.

This is from the Yomiuri:

Japan and the United States successfully conducted the first test of a jointly developed ballistic missile defense system off Hawaii on Wednesday, the U.S. Defense Department’s Missile Defense Agency said.

The U.S. Standard Missile-3 vehicle, which incorporates a new nose cone developed by Japan, was launched at 10:45 a.m., local time, on Wednesday by the USS Lake Erie, an Aegis-equipped cruiser, near Kauai Island, the agency said.

Within one minute of launching, the new nose cone opened, without the missile having to maneuver, releasing a kinetic warhead targeting an “enemy” missile, according to the agency.

The conventional SM-3 required maneuvering to eject the nose cone before releasing the warhead to hit its target, raising concern the missiles could go off course during such a procedure.

Cool. Japan’s track record with high-profile launchables has been rather spotty over the last several years–and yes, I know that missiles and rockets aren’t the same thing–so the recent successes should be good morale, uh, boosters. (I can’t find it now, but there was a report somewhere the other day that the DPRK had test-fired a short-range missile or two this week.)

There was a demonstration over the weekend against the transfer of current Futenma base facilities to another location in Okinawa:

More than 30,000 people rallied in Japan’s southern Okinawa island Sunday against plans to relocate a U.S. air base to another area on the island, demanding that the facility be moved outside the country, a news report said.

Organizers said an estimated 35,000 people participated in the two-hour rally in the city of Ginowan, site of the U.S. Marine Corps’ Futenma Air Station, Kyodo News agency said.

“The city of Ginowan strongly demands that Futenma … be shut down immediately and relocated outside of Japan,” Ginowan Mayor Yoichi Iha was quoted by Kyodo as saying.

…

The plan to move the base–agreed to by Tokyo and Washington in October–also calls for the transfer of 7,000 Marines from Okinawa over six years to the U.S. territory Guam and the shifting of some operations to other cities on Japan’s main islands.

Okinawa is Japan’s poorest prefecture, and areas surrounding US military installations there (well, and elsewhere, too, but especially in Okinawa) tend to have a love-hate relationship with the bases. Our personnel create entire economies that would disappear if they left; on the other hand, entertainment districts that cater to servicemen have higher incidences of street crime than do surrounding areas, and when there are off-base accidents (as in the crash of a helicopter in Okinawa a few years ago) military commanders can come off high-handed. While I support our military policy, obviously, when it comes to specific accusations of misconduct, it can be difficult to know whom to sympathize with.

Speaking of Okinawa-related characters of dubitable sympathy, I can only assume the translator who came up with the first paragraph of this piece for the Yomiuri was laughing so hard he or she could barely type:

Technical Councillor Mamoru Ikezawa, the former third most senior official at the Defense Facilities Administration Agency, was aware of the agency’s illegal bid-rigging practices, but was unable to stop them–and ended up playing a leading role.

According to informed sources, Ikezawa told agency colleagues that he would put a stop to “illegal practices.” This was an apparent reference to agency projects that included the relocation of facilities of the U.S. Marine Corps’ Iwakuni Air Station in Yamaguchi Prefecture.

Ikezawa, 57, and two other agency officials were arrested in late January and have since been indicted on suspicion of rigging air-conditioning project bids.

Late last month, prosecutors served the three with fresh arrest warrants on suspicion they organized rigged bids for projects at U.S. bases in Yamaguchi and Nagasaki prefectures.

Ikezawa is suspected of putting a higher priority on amakudari–wherein retiring government officials get jobs with private firms or public-service corporations in sectors related to their previous occupations–than on putting an end to bid-rigging.

“Ended up playing a leading role”? Well, yes, I suppose it’s safe to say that means he “was unable to stop them.” I don’t see any reason to doubt that he was sincere enough about his desire to put a stop to collusion and amakudari. However, he made his choice, and I don’t see what point there is to the it’s-the-thought-that-counts qualifications now. (The Japanese version of the article, which doesn’t contain much more information than the English version, is here.)

The US may give some of the Yokota airbase back to Japan. The issue is airspace rather than land:

Each day, about 470 commercial flights in and out of Haneda and Narita airports must take alternate routes to avoid airspace controlled by the U.S. military’s Yokota airbase, according to a calculation by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

Some flights detour around the space and others make steeper ascents than needed.

The number of flights affected will rise to about 650 in 2009 with more traffic at the airports, the study said.

The extra fuel cost is 8 billion yen a year, likely to climb to 10.9 billion yen in 2009.

If a southern section of the airspace were returned to Japan, the extra cost and the flight times could be minimized, the report said.

While Japan’s population isn’t rising, the number of flights in and out of Tokyo is. The closest Japan has had to a civil aviation disaster since the Otsuka crash in 1985 was in 2001, when two JAL jets came within thirty feet of colliding. Tokyo Metro Governor Shintaro Ishihara blamed the strictures on flightpaths imposed by having US military airspace so close to Haneda and Narita, though it must be noted that weird ascent and descent patterns were not exactly the only problem on display:

Transport ministry officials said the post-accident report filed by the DC-10 pilot, Tatsuyuki Akazawa, 45, also indicated the two planes missed each other by a whisker. “Altitude difference little, lateral distance none,” Mr. Akazawa’s report said.

The incident occurred early Wednesday evening. The Boeing Flight 907 was ascending to a cruising altitude of 11,300 meters, while the DC-10 Flight 958 was descending from 11,900 meters to prepare for landing at the New Tokyo International Airport in Narita, Chiba Prefecture, transport ministry officials said.

Both planes were equipped with the Traffic Collision Avoidance System, a computerized device that would alert pilots when they were flying too close to each other.

…

Ministry officials said air traffic communications records kept at the Tokyo Air Traffic Control Center, based in Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture, show that air traffic controllers repeatedly used wrong flight numbers in telling the pilots of the two airplanes to change course.

The official in charge of the two flights, a 26-year-old man in his third year of training as an air traffic controller, first realized that the flight paths of the two planes were too close and initiated warnings to the two pilots under the supervision of a 32-year-old controller who served as his coach.

According to air traffic communications records released by the transport ministry, the male air traffic controller twice ordered the Boeing 747 to lower its attitude and the DC-10 to turn right.

As there was no response, the coach broke into the radio channel and told ” Flight 957″ to immediately lower its altitude.

The record shows that the coach again misspoke the flight number when the Boeing 747 pilot radioed in that there was an alert on the aircraft’s collision avoidance system and he was descending. “Roger, flight 908,” she said, in a message meant for the Boeing flight 907 pilot.

Moments later, the DC-10 flight 958 pilot reported to air traffic control that alert also sounded on his collision avoidance system, and the trainee controller responded, “Roger, flight 908.” “The situation was extremely dangerous,” Mr. Watanabe told air traffic control after the near-fatal collision was averted. Analysts said that had the Boeing not dived to avoid a collision, “the worst ever accident in aviation history” could have occurred.

The Boeing 747 was carrying 411 passengers and 16 crew members, and the DC-10 had 250 passengers and crew members on board.

Poor communication about the collision avoidance system was the major cause of the midair collision over Germany in 2002, though the air traffic controller involved was undone by circumstances and didn’t blurt out non-existent flight numbers.

Speaking of changes in US military facilities, several thousand Marines may or may not be moved out of Okinawa as part of the Futenma restructuring plan. They would be relocated to Guam.

Japan Defense Agency head Fukushiro Nukaga speaks:

A special lower house budgetary committee deliberatory session revolving around collusion in construction projects for the Defense Facilities Administrative Agency was held the morning of 22 February. Defense Agency leader Fukushiro Nukaga, on being given news of the rearrest of a former top agency official, stated, “we are thoroghly investigating the problems in both administrative and organizational terms, and making a fresh start is the responsibility of the DFAA leader and my mission.” He denied anew that either he himself or DFAA head Iwao Kitahara would resign.

Nukaga stated that Kitahara has assumed the job of chair of the investigative committee that has been established in the DFAA, and indicated that there is no immediate plan for Kitahara to be reassigned.

Kitahara is of special interest to those who follow US-Japan military ties because, for one thing, he used to be DFAA chief in Okinawa and, partly because of that and partly because he’s now the general secretary, he’s been one of the chief negotiators in the drive to restructure US military facilities in that prefecture (especially, of course, Futenma). To what extent he allowed the culture of collusion to continue to flourish at the DFAA is an open question–he was clearly good at rising through the ranks, but on the other hand he’s only been in the driver’s seat for a year or so. It doesn’t seem unreasonable, on the face of it, for Nukaga to decide that the imminent clean-up is, as he says, Kitahara’s proper job.

A case of earthquake resistance fakery not perpetrated by Aneha (story so far as I’ve kept track) has surfaced:

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport disclosed on 8 February that it had confirmed a case of fraud related to structural calculations for three apartment complexes in Fukuoka City; the calculations had been contracted out to a design firm that was not part of Aneha Architecture and Design. The firm in question is Something (Fukuoka Prefecture; closed for business in 2002), and the construction firm for all affected buildings was Kimura Construction (Yashiro City, Kumamoto Prefecture; now in bankruptcy proceedings). This is the first case of such fraud that has come to light that did not involve former first-class architect Hideji Aneha.

*******

Princess Kiko, the wife of the current Emperor and Empress’s second son Fumihito, is pregnant with her third child. The Nikkei seems to think it newsworthy that the British press is going bananas over the news–maybe there’s some sort of constitutional monarchy kinship thing going here? Anyway, the news feeds into the controversy over possible female succession that’s been percolating here:

News of a new member of the imperial family comes as the government is moving to revise the Imperial House Law to allow females and their descendants to ascend the Chrysanthemum throne.

However, conservative Diet members, especially those in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, oppose Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s stated intention to pass the revision during the current Diet session.

No boy has been born in the imperial family since Fumihito in 1965.

If the emperor’s next grandchild is a boy, he would be third in line to the throne under the current Imperial House Law.

The English Asahi has another article specifically about the move to change the rules of successsion here. Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako, his much put-upon wife, have managed to produce a daughter, but she’s ineligible to become empress.

*******

I was hoping there would be something deliciously inflammatory to report from the Japan-DPRK summit this week. (Well, stopping short of “We’re sending missiles to Tokyo, Insular Devils!”) No such luck. The talks ended today. The result? Negotiations must continue. Oh, okay:

Japan and North Korea concluded their five-day schedule of talks on 8 February with a general meeting at a hotel in Beijing. Japan once again conveyed that its fundamental approach is that “until the issues of the 1970s abductions of Japanese citizens and of the DPRK’s nuclear program and long-range missiles are resolved, there will be no normalization of relations.” There was no progress in concrete terms. Both parties affirmed that parallel talks will continue on three major themes: normalization of relations, Japanese abductees, and North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.

Japan doubts the DPRK’s sincerity. The DPRK returns the compliment.

*******

As always, they may (or may not) be contemplating increasing the consumption tax (or at least changing it in what might possibly be deemed a non-negative, non-zero direction). Yeah, I know–blah, blah, blah. What’s semi-interesting is that the DPJ seems to have wheeled Katsuya Okada out of the morgue to comment:

The Prime Minister indicated that he is of the opinion that continuing reforms will be necessary even after [current] goals will have been achieved, stating, “It cannot be said that once the primary balance is in the black, financial restructuring is finished.” Okada proposed corrections, stating, “We must [first] think about what our next goals will be,” and ending with, “Those in positions of authority at that point in time will have to think about them.”

That part of the back-and-forth, while not very interesting in and of itself, is important because Koizumi has made it clear that he expects his followers (called the “Post-Koizumi” government, in what has become a tediously over-repeated locution) to continue his program of reforms, by implication, to his liking. No one, either within the ruling coalition or in the opposition, is certain right now how well Koizumi will actually be able to use his present power to exert influence on future administrations.

There’s been more news about the Yamaha Motor flap:

Yamaha Motor Co. sold a top-of-the-line unmanned helicopter to a Chinese company that was established in 1993 by high-ranking officers of the People’s Liberation Army, sources said over the weekend.

Yamaha is also suspected of having received several tens of millions of yen in rebates from another Chinese company that bought the helicopters, said the sources close to the police investigation into the alleged illegal exports.

Investigators now expect Yamaha will face charges of violating the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Control Law for the unapproved exports.

The PLA-linked company to which Yamaha sold the unmanned helicopter is Poly Technologies Inc., based in Beijing.

…

The vice chairman and president of China Poly Group is He Ping, the husband of Deng Rong, the youngest daughter of the late paramount Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping.

It’s not what you know….

*******

Though the new Japan Post holding company has just started operations, Nippon Express (Nittsu) is already planning its strategic response to the privatization (or “privatization”):

As a defensive move against the operations of the new Japan Post public corporation, Nippon Express will become the first private provider to deliver personal correspondence on a nationwide scale. The new service will target documents with a delivery cost of ¥1000 or higher; parcels will be picked up from the user’s address and delivered by the next day. Nationwide delivery of personal correspondence is now monopolized by the Japan Post registered mail service, but Nittsu will provide delivery at lower cost in certain regions.

*******

Japan is modifying its approach to angling for a permanent UN Security Council membership:

Japan’s new proposal has taken into account the United States’ position that Security Council membership should not be expanded by more than six seats, to a maximum 21 from the current 15, including the five permanent members–Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.

The proposal calls for a country seeking permanent membership on the council to receive a seat if it can win the backing of two-thirds of the U.N. General Assembly in a vote, the officials said.

Under the plan, such permanent members, however, would not be given veto power, the ministry said.

The government is considering presenting the proposal at the United Nations this spring. Whether other countries concerned will support the plan is not known, they said.

The new draft seeks to have the present Security Council framework comprising the five permanent members and 10 nonpermanent ones increased by six to make the council a 21-member body.

According to the plan, a maximum of six countries–two each from Asia and Africa, and one each from Latin America and Europe–should be allowed to join the existing five permanent members.

Japan contributes almost a fifth of the UN’s general budget.