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February 17, 2006
Yasukuni, Yomiuri, & Asahi
Fine summary of all things Yasukuni in the latest issue of the Economist. Nothing new or groundbraking, but this bit caught my attention:
... [O]pposition to a rising mood of nationalism is coming from an unlikely source from within the conservative establishment itself: the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's -- indeed the world's -- biggest-circulation newspaper. Under Tsuneo Watanabe, the group's 79-year-old chairman and an éminence grise within the political establishment, the Yomiuri came to be the flag-waver for a more assertive Japan, one that argued for a revision of the pacifist constitution foisted on Japan by General Douglas MacArthur in 1947, and that bristled at any foreign criticism of the Yasukuni shrine.
Recently, however, Mr Watanabe has ordered the Yomiuri Shimbun to change its tune. Yasukuni, he now says, is the source of all Japan's problems with its neighbours; the Yomiuri and its more liberal rival, the Asahi Shimbun, have joined forces to push for a state alternative to the shrine, where the war dead can be honoured with less controversy. The LDP, however, has turned this idea down.
In particular, Mr Watanabe reserves his bile for Mr Koizumi—partly, perhaps, out of personal pique that the prime minister does not hang on his every word, as predecessors did. Equating Tojo with Hitler, Mr Watanabe told the New York Times last week that “Mr Koizumi worships at a shrine that glorifies militarism. This person Koizumi doesn't know history or philosophy, doesn't study, doesn't have any culture. That's why he says stupid things, like, ‘what's wrong about worshipping at Yasukuni?' Or, ‘China and Korea are the only countries that criticise Yasukuni.' This stems from his ignorance.” The Yomiuri is now running a series of articles examining Japan's wartime record, and promises to come up with a “verdict” by August. It is unlikely, though, to lay the past to rest. [emphasis mine]
The notion that two of Japan's largest and most establishment-linked newspapers would attack Koizumi so aggressively over Yasukuni strikes me as peculiar. I'm inclined to agree with the Economist's correspondent here in that this is more of a spat among old-school Japanese elite, and that Watanabe is upset at Koizumi's success in challenging the conservative LDP way of doing things.
The idea of a state-sponsored alternative to Yasukuni is not new, however, nor is it a likely solution. National monuments cannot simply be replaced by government fiat and be expected to win widespread acceptance overnight. If the Bush administration created a new version of the Washington Monument and told everyone that it was just as good as the original, would tourists buy it?
No, the most interesting bit of the Economist's fine summary is this bit about the revolt of Japanese big media. While Watanabe's motives may be based more on personal insult than on genuine conviction, I think any effort to challange authority or to question conventional wisdom in Japan is a good thing. Oddly, it is such qualities that endear Koizumi to so many. If Watanabe really is repelled by Koizumi's threat to the old LDP order in Japan, he has an ironically Koizumi-esque way of showing it.
Posted by Daniel Widome at 01:12 AM to Asia
