☆☆◎●EDITORIALSThe public’s disquiet over the pension messturned to disgust with the ruling coalition’s
crude display of power in the Diet on thestrength of its majority. Another notable resultof this survey is that non-affiliated voters haveswollen to 53 percent. Last September, whenthe Abe Cabinet came into being, they accounted for only about 40 percent of respondents. But their numbers continued toclimb gradually so that they are now in the
majority. This is a big change from the Koizumi era. At that time, non-affiliated voters supported the LDP after Koizumi dissolved theLower House in August 2005 to call a snap
election on the single issue of postal privatization. Voters clearly are harshly evaluating
Abe’s nine-month performance as prime minister.
On the other side of the coin, the main opposition Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan)
is in pathetic shape, supported by a mere 16
percent in the Asahi poll. This ought not tobe since it was Minshuto that uncovered thepension debacle. However, 45 percent of the
Asahi pollees disapproved of the party’s handling of pension-related problems. Minshuto
ought to be truly alarmed by its inability tochannel the public’s disaffection with the Cabinet to its own advantage.
In reaction to the Cabinet’s dismal approval
ratings, some LDP executives are now sayingthat the outcome of the Upper House election will amount to nothing more than the
public’s “intermediate appraisal” of the Abeadministration. We believe they are deluding
themselves, unwilling to face the prospect that
Abe could well fall from power. Growing public anger suggests the election results will not
represent a mere “intermediate appraisal” buta final judgment on the Abe Cabinet itself.
Abe is not sitting quiet. He said recently,“Who is more appropriate as prime minister,(Ichiro) Ozawa or I?” As for Ozawa, the Minshuto is staking his political career on thiselection. We are heartened that politiciansand voters alike are beginning to take politics more seriously.
—The Asahi Shimbun, July 3

Shareholders meetings
Checks by shareholders on management is vital.
At this year’s shareholders meetings, dozensof activist shareholders like foreign investment funds and aggressive corporate investors
who build up stakes and seek alliance withthe target firms made various proposals. But
most of their proposals, including those fordividend hikes and director appointments,
were rejected. With the unusually stormy
shareholder meeting season now over, themanagement of all the companies that faced
high-profile battles with shareholders is celebrating an overwhelming victory.
Bull-Dog Sauce Co., which has become thetarget of a hostile takeover bid by U.S. private equity firm Steel Partners Ltd., managed
to secure support for its takeover defense
from nearly 90 percent of the shareholders.
Bull-Dog’s anti-takeover tactic is to issue warrants—securities allowing the holders to buy
shares—to all shareholders, but with a ban
on exercising the right by Steel Partners. But
Bull-Dog promises to buy Steel Partners’ warrants for 2.3 billion yen, an amount reflecting
the market value of the securities. This step
will lower Steel’s stake sharply.
Steel asked the Tokyo District Court to issue an injunction against this measure, but
the court rejected the request four days afterBull-Dog’s shareholder meeting approved thedefense. The court declared the proposed
measure legal, saying it was approved overwhelmingly at a shareholder meeting. The
step cannot be adjudged to be discriminating
against a specific shareholder since it would
compensate Steel for the warrants that are
not exercisable, according to the ruling.
On the same day the court decision was
handed down, the management of Tokyo
Broadcasting System Inc. was fighting a battle with Rakuten Inc., the leading online shopping mall operator with a nearly 20 percent
stake in the TV broadcaster. TBS’s management team was trying to get its anti-takeoverplan approved at its shareholder meeting,while Rakuten was drumming up support for
its proposal to appoint outside directors of
its choice. Here too, the management won
hands-down, getting nearly 80 percent of thevotes.
These activist shareholders were defeatedbecause they failed to offer a convincing vision for how their involvement in the man-agement through a higher equity stake would
contribute to the company’s future growth.
Steel never talked about how it would manage Bull-Dog if its tender offer came through.
Rakuten talked vaguely about “a fusion between the Internet and media,” but offered
few specifics to win over other shareholders
to its side. Much of the support for management in these tussles came from so-called stable shareholders—mainly business partners
and other corporate allies of the companies.
But the votes of individual shareholders ultimately determined the outcomes.
The approval of management proposals atshareholder meetings, however, doesn’t mean
complete support for the management teams.
Many shareholders voted against the investment funds simply because they found thefunds’ proposals unconvincing. They may votein favor of a challenging fund next time.
In fact, the management side didn’t win in
all cases. Fujifilm Holdings Corp., for instance,
failed to win shareholder support to its proposal to increase the number of shares it canissue as a takeover defense step. In February,Tokyo Kohtetsu Co.’s proposal to become awholly owned subsidiary of Osaka Steel Co.
fell through in the face of opposition fromthe funds and individual shareholders whostayed in line with the funds.
How will the management intend to ensurethat their companies will continue growing
without being overwhelmed by waves of international competition and technological innovations? Top executives must offer theirstrategic visions and business plans and makeconstant efforts to tell their ideas to shareholders.
In the past, the traditional practice of crossshareholdings among companies often worked
to insulate management from rigorous scrutiny by shareholders. But things have begun tochange. We hope changes observed at thisyear’s shareholder meetings will lead to moredemocratic checks on corporate managementby shareholders.
Troubling from this point of view is a growing trend among Japanese firms toward turning again to the old practice ofcross-shareholdings as a means to protect
themselves from hostile takeover bids. This
represents a huge step backward. Companies

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25‘Comfort women’ issue likely to haunt Japan

Voters may cast final judgment on Abe in election.

P

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

POINT OF VIEW/ Robert DujarricCabinet support rate
rime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Cabinet
has been courting abysmal public approval ratings for some time. Finally,
the figure fell to below 30 percent in
the latest Asahi Shimbun poll. The
Cabinet of Junichiro Koizumi always
managed to stay above the 30-percent mark, but the one headed by YoshiroMori, Koizumi’s predecessor, did not. Thismeans the Abe Cabinet is the first in six years
since the Mori Cabinet to have an approval
rating of less than 30 percent.
With the Upper House election less thanfour weeks away Abe must find it deeply troubling that his support rate has sunk to the“danger zone”—below 30 percent—at this critical juncture. In the latest Asahi poll, 28 percent of respondents said they support the Abe
Cabinet. This Cabinet’s approval ratings began sliding in late May when the problem of
missing pension premium payment records
came to light, coupled with the suicide ofToshikatsu Matsuoka amid accusations of financial impropriety on the part of the farm
minister. But even then, the Cabinet managed
to stay above the 30-percent mark.
Other media polls have also pointed to the
Cabinet’s diminishing popularity. The reasonsfor this state of affairs are not hard to guess.
Late last week, the ruling coalition overrode
opposition protests and pulled an all-nighterin the Diet to steamroll bills—those for splitting up the Social Insurance Agency and a
special exemption from the statute of limitations for pension benefit payouts of people
whose records have not been maintained. In
addition, the ruling coalition rammed througha job placement law to help retiring government employees find new jobs. It also revised
the Political Fund Control Law.
Abe must have felt confident that these“achievements” could earn him public approval. However, the public’s reaction wasjust the opposite. In the Asahi survey, 59 percent disapproved of the government’s handling of the pension debacle, and 49 percent
said the government had done nothing to allay their concerns.

The Asahi Shimbun

Opinion

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Special to The Asahi Shimbun

On June 26, the House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee
voted by an overwhelming margin to
support a resolution urging Japan to“formally acknowledge, apologize, andaccept historical responsibility in aclear and unequivocal manner for its
military’s coercion of young women
into sexual slavery” during World War
II.
Though this document, which is likely to be approved by the House, is nonbinding it has clearly displeased Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe’s administration
while generating anxiety about the stateof Japan-U.S. relations.
In many ways, it is understandable
that Tokyo should feel unhappy. Since
it recovered its independence in 1952,
Japan has been a model citizen of theworld. It has never even threatened acountry with aggression while creating a free and prosperous society athome. Unlike Turkey, locked into denial of the Armenian genocide andRussia, whose KGB-trained ruler refuses to express regret for Soviet atrocities, Japan has publicly and frequently
apologized for the evils of the Showa
Era.
Moreover, Japanese can point at the
hypocrisy of American politicians, whomostly sat silently while their government legitimized torture in the wake of
9/11, berating the Japanese for the sinsof their ancestors.
Unfortunately, Japan’s government

may have shown contrition for the war
crimes, but frequent statements, including by the prime minister, either
making obtuse differences between
broad and narrow coercion, or minimizing the extent of war crimes seriously undermined the credibility of its
apologies.
An advertisement entitled “The
Facts” published on June 14 in The
Washington Post and signed by lawmakers of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the opposition
Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan),as well as by former diplomat Hisahiko
Okazaki, one of Abe’s best-known advisers, had a particularly negative impact.
By denying the existence of organized comfort women and claiming that“many of the women” made moremoney thanks to prostitution than officers or even generals, it handed vital ammunition to the supporters of
the resolution.
Some argue that America should notconcern itself with Japan’s history. But
Tokyo’s attitude toward the war affects its relations between Japan and
China and South Korea.
Therefore, Japan’s management of
its past has important consequences
for Washington. Anti-Japanese feelings, which are inflamed every time aJapanese politician denies the existenceof the comfort women, make it harder for the United States to manage itsdifficult relationship with Seoul. America’s “stakeholder” concept of China’s

interaction with theworld demands agood Sino-Japaneserelationship, whichis hampered by the“history issue” (including, to be fair,
China’s anti-Japanese textbooks).
Therefore, it is Robert Dujarricclear that Japan’s
handling of the “history issue” is relevant to American interests in Asia. The question is how
the United States can best assist Japan
in managing the politics of its past in
ways that are most effective. There
are broadly three possible courses ofaction.
The first one is to do nothing. According to this line of thought, the history issue and its symbols, such as the
Yasukuni Shrine, are sensitive questions that touch the heart of Japanesenational identity and the role of theimperial family. American pressure on
Japan risks being counter-productive,
by fueling anti-Americanism and fostering a nationalist reaction against
kowtowing to American and Asianpressure.
The second one is for the UnitedStates to act behind the scenes. During
the controversies over former Prime
Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s pilgrimages at Yasukuni, senior American officials reportedly let their Japanesecounterparts know that these visitswere detrimental to U.S. and Japaneseinterests.
It may be that these warnings helped
convince Abe to refrain from worshiping at Yasukuni but they do notseem to have prevented him frommaking self-destructive statements
about comfort women.
The third option, illustrated by the
proposed House Resolution, is to publicly censure Japan. Opponents of thisstrategy warn that it can only worsen the problem. Supporters, however, will point out that once the State
Department listed Japan as a country
that was not doing enough to fight human trafficking, the Japanese government started to enact stricter
legislation to prevent this modern formof slavery (which is surely not uniqueto Japan).
At this point, it is too early to knowwhat impact the House Resolution will
have if Congress votes to adopt it. Optimists will argue that since other alternatives have failed, it is time to try
a new one.
Pessimists, however, will fear that it
will be ineffective and at worse will
strengthen the negationist elements
within Japanese society. Much will depend not only on the Japanese reaction but also on whether Congressman
Mike Honda’s initiative will increaseawareness of this issue in the UnitedStates itself.
Robert Dujarric heads the Institute ofContemporary Japanese Studies (ICJS)at Temple University Japan Campus.

POINT OF VIEW/ Edi Suhardi and Sinta Satriana

Civilian partnership integral in police reform
As it approaches its 61st anniversary Sunday, the Indonesian National Police faces mounting publicpressure to improve its performanceand profile. This pressure has surfaced
despite achievements in boosting security in the country and successes incountering terrorism. There is no
doubt the police force needs to clean
up its act from within.
It will be an uphill battle with anumber of formidable challenges inchanging its organizational structure.
The magnitude of reform the police
force is going through is one of thereasons why change has been slow.
Several important issues need addressing including recruitment procedures and education (HRD), corrupt
practices and a political transformation that would put power in civilian
hands. Due to these three being intertwined, the reforms require a holistic approach. The many acts ofbribery the public has seen have devastated the reputation of the force.
This in turn has hampering the police force from obtaining the best candidates.
Police officers whose actual entry
involves bribery will certainly seek areturn for their “investment” throughvarious abuses of power. Law offenders, including traffic violators and theculprits behind the Bank BNI mega

scam, are certainly the main beneficiaries of a corrupt force.
Related to recruitment is education.
Police personnel are predominantly
non-commissioned officers who undergo five-month’s training.
This seemingly inadequate focus on
mental and physical training is perhaps the reason behind the shootingthat killed the deputy Semarang police chief as well as many othertragedies involving police officers.
Changing the police force’s mindset from military (attack and defend)
to civilian (serve and protect) followed
the separation of the National Police
from the Indonesian Military in 2000.
Now the police are facing another
tough challenge as a civilian institution. Community policing is aimed at
empowering the society from inside, abrand new concept in Indonesia.
The government has taken various
measures to help reform the police,
including the establishment of a National Police Commission (Kompolnas). It was envisioned as an
instrument to advance police reform,
but the impact so far remains minimal.
Kompolnas, as stipulated in Law No.
2/2002, is defined as an independent
commission working under and answering to the president. Its duties include assisting the president determine

the direction of relevant policies aswell as forwarding recommendations
to the president regarding appointments and dismissals of the National
Police chief.
Kompolnas can become involved infuture police recruitment by engaging
society and the media in the process.
Other authorities include formulation of recommendations to the president on budgeting, human resource
development, development of police
infrastructure, providing advice on improvement of police professionalism
and independence, and accommodating public complaints about police performance.
The Kompolnas stands a greatchance of becoming a catalyst of police reform in those three areas.
There are reasons for the public to
expect to see a strong and professional
police force considering the legal andpolitical support given by the president.
This is evident in the unique composition of the commission, which
consists of three members of cabinet
and six other members who are either
police experts or public figures.
This certainly holds the key to acomprehensive coordination between
different stakeholders of police reform.
In order to realize its full potential

as a reform catalyst, it is imperative
for this independent body to be revamped, particularly in its capacity tohandle the public’s complaints, as expectations in this area are considered
the highest.
An internal operating procedure
should be implemented to enable theCommission to work in a participatory fashion. This system should include
a strong backstopping team, professional human resources, networks andassociation with NGOs and a goodsystem to handle public aspirations.
Relationships with NGOs or universities should be involved at a regional level and if necessary should
form representative bodies to accommodate citizens’ requests and complaints.
The central government must transform its political commitment into
concrete support by providing funds
and facilities to enable the Commission to work optimally.
A reshaped Indonesian National Police will be reflected in the institutional and personnel integrity as it
performs its dual functions as a law
enforcement body and a protector ofall.
The Jakarta Post

The writers work for the Partnershipfor Governance Reform in Indonesia.

Spiralling military budget bodes badly for Thailand
The Thai government released details of its proposed budget for the
next fiscal year beginning on Oct 1,
and it has raised serious concerns. The
budget is to rise to 1.66 trillion baht
(6.41 trillion yen), more than 10 percent of which will have to be borrowed at a time the economy is
weakening.
Most attention has rightly focusedon military spending. That is to rise
to 143 billion baht. The most astounding fact about this figure is thatin less than two years, the military has
increased spending by 66 percent.
The military naturally needs and isentitled to a proper budget. The armed
forces protect the country, and sacrifice at great personal cost to themselves and families. But the trust andrespect must work both ways. All cit-

izens must be assured that their taxes
are properly employed by the government and the military establishment. There are many unansweredquestions about whether the military ismaking essential purchases, or acquiring more means to cling to power.
The huge increase in the military
budget awaits such a justification.
The violence in the South has compelled a military response, of course.
But the explanation with the latest
budget said that the funding for theSouth will largely come out of a 17.6
billion baht fund for counter-insurgency efforts until 2011. Military budgets in the past decade have taken a hit
in the long, slow recovery from the1997 financial crisis. Yet, it is both inevitable and unavoidable that so many
people are asking why the budgets

since the Sept 19 coup have containedsuch dramatic increases in funding.
The military and the government it
appointed should know there is strong
suspicion across the country that thegenerals are padding the military budget. Since the military took power lastyear, top officers have moved to takeor to retake power in fields they had
long relinquished. State enterprises
have essentially been put under military control just as they were in thedarkest days of army dictators.
The most attention-getting militaryconquest lately has been at the TOT
Plc, whose post-coup chairman is Gen.
Saprang Kalayanamitr, the deputy secretary-general of the Council for National Security (CNS) and assistantarmy commander. He has turned the
spotlight on what is supposed to be atelecommunications company. For now
at least, he has demanded that the TOTfund an 800-million-baht off-the-books
purchase of equipment suspected to
be for high-tech wire-tapping.
Far from the “normal procedure” of
a “small sum” that the general claims,
the wheeling and dealing behind closed
doors is troubling. Fired TOT president Vuthiphong Priebjrivat only told
the truth after he had been fired. How
many other such deals are there?
The growing budget and the evenfaster-growing military spending aretroubling. The CNS has not demonstrated spending responsibility. The
budget is ample proof of the need for
an elected administration able to put
the country on a planned and accountable footing.
—Bangkok Post editorial, July 2

VOX POPULI, VOX DEI

Kyuma should know bombs aren’t inevitable
The phrase shiyoganai (it can’t behelped) is used when one feels there
is nothing one can do about a situation. It usually applies to extraordinary natural phenomena, like anearthquake or a typhoon.
Or in a less serious example, “It can’t
be helped/ Rainy days can’t be helped”
are the lyrics to Minoru Betsuyaku’s
hit song, “Ame ga Sora kara Fureba”(When rain falls from the sky), composed by Hitoshi Komuro. This usage
is also fine.
But Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma, himself a native of Nagasaki, over
the weekend used that phrase in reference to the 1945 atomic bombingof Nagasaki: “I now have come to accept in my mind that in order to end
the war, it could not be helped thatan atomic bomb was dropped,” hesaid. “That might have been one alternative.”
Later, Kyuma apologized, saying“My explanation was poor.” Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe warned him
about making comments that cause
misunderstanding among the public.
But the problem is not about his
phrasing. What is being questioned isthe defense minister’s insensitivity to
one of the most atrocious indiscriminate mass killings in human history.
The United States justified its ac-

tions by saying the two atomic bombs
hastened Japan’s surrender and saved
many lives. Kyuma also believes thatis why Hokkaido escaped being occupied by the Soviet Union. But such
plausible-sounding explanations
should be taken with a grain of salt.
If we are stick to dry, strategic arguments, we will lose our compassion
for the people who suffered underthose mushroom clouds.
Takashi Nagai, a doctor, survived
the Nagasaki atomic bombing, but hecontinued to help rescue other victims. In the rubble of his destroyed
home, Nagai found his wife’s body,with a rosary melted around her. Mi-

dori was 37 when she died. He picked
up her charred remains, which werestill warm, and put them in a bucket.
“In my arms, my wife made acrackling sound in the lime phosphate. To me, it sounded like she wassaying, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’” according to his book “Rozario no
Kusari” (A rosary chain).
Nuclear weapons do not fall fromthe sky of their own accord. People
make them, and people release themon other people’s orders.
So why can people not stop them?
There is simply no way bombs “cannot be helped.”—The Asahi Shimbun, July 3