I enjoyed all of the Muneo posts. My disagreement with Paul Midford has to do with thinking up "reasons" ex post facto. Reasons are not necessarily causes. But this is a long methodogical argument.

I agree with several that it is the Foreign Ministry and more than Tanaka that is behind much of Suzuki's problems. Tanaka is not good at this game. She is better when the TV cameras are on. What is going on now within the Foreign Ministry is a purging of Suzuki's influence. People close to Suzuki are out which means that people who have grudges against him, including people he has punched out, are now in control. No conspiracy theory necessary.

Suzuki's basic problem, however, is not a matter of friends and enemies. The substance of the revelations make him a massive political liability, both inside the LDP and with the public. This list of people who have received money from Suzuki may well serve the same purpose as the list of people who received money from Recruit in 1989-90, i.e., about 10,000 votes. People are already giving him the money back, trying to limit the damage, as they did with Recruit.

I read somewhere that Suzuki had twice been voted the most corrupt politician in all Japan. It was an informal poll but was taken before any of these revelations hit the presses. Many of the charges are familiar, taking kickbacks etc., and he only did more of what many did. If these were the only charges, he would still have some friends. Now only Nonaka is saying anything nice about him in public.

Corrupt politicians around the world are re-elected and two excuses play a big role. (1) "He did bad things but his intentions were good." (2) "He did bad things and I disagree with his purposes but at least he was sincere." Two charges, if true, render these excuses inapplicable to Suzuki.

First, he damaged Japan's national interest. His dealings with Russia and Africa have worked against Japan's stated foreign policy and made Suzuki an international embarassment. Especially in Africa, Suzuki has been charged with using ODA for his own purposes and has been criticized by an African nation for distributing ODA in order to create mafia-like organizations in their country. He did bad things for bad reasons.

Second, the charge that lost him the most friends is the one Paul Midford points out: that he was not sincere about his "life's work", the return of the northern islands. One of the leaks (from seven years ago) has Suzuki saying that there is no reason for Japan to really want the northern islands back. This is the charge he spent the most time denying and occasioned the tears. If this is true, his political career is over.

This is not just a case of an unlucky politician who happened to get caught. That may apply to Kato but not to Suzuki.

Two other points. Tanaka played an indispensable role in starting the clean up of the Foreign Ministry. Kawaguchi appears to be doing a good job but the necessary condition was Tanaka's refusal to play the game as it is normally played. In order to be an effective Foreign Minister, you need the cooperation of the bureaucrats. In order to get the cooperation of the bureaucrats, you must not rock the boat, especially about personnel issues. Tanaka decided not to be an effective Foreign Minister but to shake things up. Her first move, an immediate unannounced audit, was the key. Her persistent unwillingness to compromise was also a necessary condition for what followed. The changes at the Foreign Ministry may be reversed but they are not merely cosmetic or simply a changing of the faction in charge. I wonder what would have happened if she had been appointed head of MITI.

One of the things that has puzzled me for a long while is why Japanese politicians get away with such obvious lies. I now have a hypothesis.

Japanese law sets extremely high standards of proof. The flimsiest of excuses must be accepted, at least publicly, if it could not be disproved in court. In several cases, the probability that Suzuki is telling the truth is infintesimal but it is still not possible to call him a liar in the Diet or on TV. Once the prosecution has gathered enough evidence for a conviction, however, the wise move is to admit everything and throw yourself on the mercy of the court. We thus see a common pattern of "these charges have absolutely no foundation" switching to "I admit everything and am sorry" taking place overnight. The governor of Tokushima has just played out this drama.

This is not only Japanese law, it is a standard cultural repetoire. The Japanese media tend to assume that anyone charged is guility and lying and will soon admit the truth. It happens all the time. The system has several advantages over American style legalism but, like any system, also has drawbacks. Three stand out in my mind. First, cover ups are easy because information is scarce. Second, floating baseless rumors is an effective strategy. Third, the falsely accused have little recourse.

I think that the two most positive trends in Japanese politics today are the increasing importance of TV performances and the increasinly leakiness of the bureaucracy. Neither is necessarily a good thing, but both serve to increase the information available to the public.

SReed