Oh Yeah, Sure, Blame The Assistant

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, In a move that smacks of desperation, Defense Minister Tanaka Naoki sacked his bureaucrat minder Mannami Manabu on Saturday. Replacing Mannami will be Yoshida Takahiro, the minder for former Defense Minister Kitazawa Toshimi. (J)

The move is not entirely cynical. At the time Kitazawa was named defense minister, he was basically a novice at defense issues. Still, with Yoshida's steady hand on the tiller, Kitazawa managed to serve with distinction if not inspiration in two successive Democratic Party of Japan-led cabinets.

Mannami, however, was unable to corral the worst instincts of his two charges, former Defense Minister Ichikawa Yasuo and Tanaka. That the House of Councillors censured Ichikawa for his idiotic remarks and general lack of knowledge was a black mark on Mannami's record.

Tanaka's move, however, smells to high heaven. The news media are speculating that Tanaka has taken cues from his wife, the more famous Makiko, whose tenure at the Foreign Ministry was rife with sudden and wrenching personnel changes. (E)

Just watching Tanaka bumbling, stumbling, umming and ahhing in Diet committee testimony, making, for example, his already much-mocked pledge to give up his coffee habit (E) shows a man so far out of his depth one cannot even see the top of his scalp above the waterline.

You say Iejima, I say Iojima

Should Tanaka soon get the boot, he will leave behind a trinket for geography buffs.

During his embarrassing visit to Okinawa last month, Tanaka paid a social call on Okinawa Governor Nakaima Hirokazu. Tanaka tried to make small talk, telling how his family had come to Okinawa Prefecture to vacation many times, visiting places including Iojima (or Iwojima, as it is more commonly written in English).

Only, of course, Iojima is not in Okinawa Prefecture. The famous battleground is at the tail end of the Ogasawara Islands chain, thousands of kilometers away from Okinawa.

What Minister Tanaka had been trying to say was Iejima, which is part of the Okinawa island chain -- as the minister's staff made clear after the awkward meeting (J).

As it turns out, there is not even an Iojima anymore. According to an announcement of the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan of June 18, 2007, "Iojima" is now officially "Ioto" -- where the character for "island" is to be read in the Chinese, not the Japanese fashion. (J - check out the Powerpointesque explanation with arrows at the bottom of the press release)

Just to be on the safe side of this issue, during Diet questioning from House of Representatives member from Okinawa Teruya Masaaki on February 2, an aide, most likely Mannami, wrote out in kana "i-o-u-to-u" so that Tanaka, should Teruya ask him about his Iejima-Iojima mixup, might respond using the island's official name.

Seeing the passing of the note, the either crestfallen or exasperated Teruya could only blurt out, "Oh c'mon. Don't be instructing him." (J - ibid)

Tanaka Naoki And Censure

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, Yesterday was an another bad day in the House of Representatives Budget Committee for beleaguered Minister of Defense Tanaka Naoki. Opposition questioners summoned him to the microphone an astonishing 50 times over the course of 3 hours. The minister with the next highest number of questions put to him was Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Hirano Hirofumi. He answered only 5 questions. (J)

As his stunning lack of knowledge of even the most basic issues of Japanese security and defense has demonstrated, Tanaka Naoki has no business being Minister of Defense. As he has zero credibility in the Diet and in the public eye, he cannot serve as the chief administrator of his ministry. He also cannot serve as a credible representative of Japan in meetings with his international peers.

However, getting rid of Tanaka is rather difficult. A Democratic Party of Japan-dominated House of Representatives will not pass a no-confidence measure against him. Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko cannot ask Tanaka for his resignation, as it was only three weeks ago that Noda picked Tanaka for his present post. Tanaka could, on his own, resign -- but that is likely to happen only if Tanaka's wife, the formidable Makiko tells him, "That's it honey. You're done."

The other possibility is that Tanaka would resign or be forced to resign after the passage of a motion of censure against him in the House of Councillors. However, the submission of such a motion is unlikely to happen any time soon. While it is true that Tanaka's predecessor, the equally uninformed Ichikawa Yasuo was censured by the House of Councillors and dropped from the cabinet by Prime Minister Noda, the opposition delayed the passage of the motion of censure to the very last day of the extraordinary Diet session. It was simply too delicious to have the unqualified Ichikawa around, waiting for his next blunder. That Ichikawa learned to keep his head down, not extemporize but instead just read his briefing notes and largely stay out of trouble for much of tenure did not spare him from the censure axe.

What was true for Ichikawa is even more true for Tanaka. Like cats keeping alive the mice they have captured in order to play with them before killing them, the opposition loves having Tanaka around, despite the damage his continued presence will have on morale inside the Ministry of Defense and on the international standing of Japan in defense matters.

While on the subject of censure motions, I would like correct a possibly incorrect impression created by this blog post by Sheila Smith of the Council on Foreign Relations. Historically, successful censure motions are exceedingly rare. As the chart on the Wikipedia page for monseki ketsugi shows, a blizzard of censure motions were submitted to the House of Councillors during the DPJ's time in opposition. However, the House of Councillors has passed a motion of censure only seven times since 1956. Of these, the DPJ is responsible for only three of the successful motions, the first against Minister of Defense Nukaga Fukushiro in 1998 (Nukaga resigned), the second against Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo in 2008 (Fukuda stayed in office) and the third against Prime Minister Aso Taro in 2009 (Aso stayed in office).

Three instances in 11 years, with only one minister resigning as a consequence.

By contrast, the LDP-New Komeito alliance has been responsible for the passage of four motions of censure against cabinet ministers in the 17 months since it seized of control of the House of Councillors. In all four cases, the ministers in question did not survive the subsequent reshuffling of the cabinet.

Tanaka, if he does not resign of his own accord, would clearly be the fifth in the line, except, of course, that the opposition has an incentive to censure Prime Minister Noda first for having appointed the flailing Tanaka to his ministerial post.