mytest
Hi Blog. Debito.org is currently on vacation while I am getting my next novel published, but this recent issue is germane enough to this blog that I’ll at least put the issue up and let people comment.
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From the Japan Times (excerpt):
Monday, March 7, 2011
Maehara quits Cabinet over donations
Foreign minister leaves Kan in lurch before Group of Eight meet
By Masami Ito
Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara announced his resignation Sunday to take responsibility for illegally accepting donations from a foreign national, further damaging the already shaky Cabinet of Prime Minister Naoto Kan…
Last Friday, Maehara admitted receiving ¥50,000 in donations from a South Korean permanent resident of Japan who lives in Kyoto. But according to the Liberal Democratic Party, which brought up the issue during a Diet committee last Friday, the donations total ¥200,000 over the past four years.
Maehara said at the press conference that total donations from the person came to at least ¥250,000 over five years.
The Political Funds Control Law stipulates that it is illegal for politicians to accept contributions from non-Japanese residents and foreign companies. If found guilty, the politician could potentially face up to three years imprisonment or a fine of up to ¥500,000, and also have his or her voting rights suspended.
According to Maehara, the donor owns a Korean barbecue restaurant in the neighborhood where he moved to while in junior high school in Yamashina, Kyoto Prefecture.
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Full article at http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110307a1.html
Other articles with new angles and information are welcome. Please enclose entire text in Comments Section for the record.
COMMENT: As we’ve discussed on The Community:
A writes: Does anyone else get the impression from the media coverage of (now ex-) foreign minister Maehara’s dealings that the crime was not accepting money, but accepting money from foreigners?
D writes: Don’t most countries forbid donations from foreigners to politicians and political campaigns? Which, on the surface, seems pretty reasonable, given the danger of having foreign countries influence internal politics. That the woman in question was probably zainichi(?) raises the usual criticisms of why Koreans born in Japan are still considered “foreign”. But that seems like a separate issue this time. Yes, maybe she should be Japanese. Whether she is or isn’t, though, a law forbidding foreign investment into local politics seems pretty bog standard.
M writes: As a comparison, it is *illegal* to do this in America:
http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/foreign.shtml
J writes: Not sure exactly what point you are trying to make, the page lists all sorts of activities, but specifically states that green card holders are exempt, which seems to be the closest analogue of the current case. FWIW, I think that in order for an individual to make a donation in the UK, they have to be on the electoral roll (which eg would rule me out, though I might also be ineligible due to non-residency).
B writes: [to Debito] I know you’re busy with your book, but I would love to read your thoughts about the situation with Foreign Minister Maehara and this rule/law about not allowing politicians to receive foreigners (even a Zainichi Korean). For one, it clearly demonstrates that foreigners with special status are STILL considered foreigners regardless, and two should draw attention to the fact that this rule is meant to prevent foreigners living in Japan from gaining political power through an activity like political (and in Maehara’s case possibly even a personal) donations–something that every politician relies on, no matter the country. I hope you’ll put up something on your site.
There you go. Does not Mindan also financially contribute to Japan’s political process? Arudou Debito
13 comments on “Foreign Minister Maehara resigns due to donations from a “foreigner” (a Zainichi, that is)”
Quote from the Korean woman herself says it all:
“Our relationship is one between two human beings,” the woman said. “He is not one who would try and check whether I was Japanese or zainichi. He would never do something so impudent. That would prompt the question, ‘How long do you intend to discriminate against zainichi?'”
From this Asahi Shimbun article: http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201103070090.html
Korean apologizes to Maehara for ‘causing trouble’
2011/03/08
A Korean woman whose political donations led Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara to resign over the weekend tearfully apologized for her action, saying she was unaware her gesture of support would cause such trouble.
The woman, a South Korean national who operates a Korean barbecue restaurant in Kyoto, received a call to her cellphone from Maehara himself a little before 9 p.m. Sunday.
“He (Maehara) has to quit because of me,” the woman said, wiping tears from her eyes with a dishcloth. She said Maehara called to let her know he was resigning and repeatedly apologized for causing her trouble.
“I’m sorry that I have caused you trouble, too,” the woman told Maehara. “Don’t let this get you down.”
It was the second time the woman had received a call from Maehara in recent days.
Around 4 p.m. on Friday, Maehara called her soon after the issue was raised during an Upper House Budget Committee session. He told the woman that the scandal would unfortunately “cause trouble” for her.
“I wasn’t aware that ‘zainichi’ (resident foreigners in Japan) aren’t allowed to donate,” the woman said. “If I had known, I wouldn’t have done so.”
The donations, totaling 250,000 yen ($3,000) over five years, were made using her Japanese name. Many ethnic Koreans living in Japan assume Japanese aliases.
The woman said she has known Maehara since the lawmaker was a second-year junior high school student, when he moved into her neighborhood.
His father had died, and she said that Maehara “was always struggling in poverty. Even after he became a lawmaker, he always befriended me, and I always considered him like a son.”
“Our relationship is one between two human beings,” the woman said. “He is not one who would try and check whether I was Japanese or zainichi. He would never do something so impudent. That would prompt the question, ‘How long do you intend to discriminate against zainichi?'”
The woman ruled out the idea that Maehara had approached her to gain information about North Korea-related issues and vowed that she would never again make a political donation.
Maehara first won a seat in the Kyoto prefectural assembly in 1991 and turned to national politics in 1993.
ENDS
Given this…
A) 前原外相辞任：政治不全が止まらない＝政治部編集委員・古賀攻
http://mainichi.jp/select/seiji/news/20110307ddm002010085000c.html
…we have this:
B) 在日韓国人： 外国人だから献金はだめ。
Now given this…
C) 帰化人
…does this follow:
D) 日本人だから献金はＯＫ。
???
Have any of you naturalized folks made a political contribution lately? If so, can anyone comment on the validity (or invalidity) of statement (D)???
-JK
— I wonder if a Zainichi becoming a member of one of Japan’s political parties (LDP, DPJ) would count.
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(Mainichi Japan) March 7, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/perspectives/column/news/20110307p2a00m0na003000c.html
Maehara resignation another sign Japanese politics is badly broken
The public’s lingering ambivalence regarding Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara’s resignation can be attributed to the utter improbability of the brouhaha making any contributions toward straightening out the tangled mess that Japanese politics has become.
The scandal erupted when it emerged that Maehara had been receiving 50,000 yen annually from a 72-year-old South Korean resident of Kyoto in violation of the Political Funds Control Law. The benefactor runs a small barbecue restaurant, and has known Maehara since he was in his second year of junior high school.
What are we to make of the gap in significance between the facts surrounding the donations and the foreign minister’s resignation because of them?
One former prime minister and a member of the opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) said that it was the fact that the political funds law had not been honored — and not the specific circumstances of the donations — that was the problem.
“The donation amount is not the issue here,” he said. “That a figure such as the foreign minister had not taken a law banning politicians from accepting donations from foreign nationals seriously is the issue.”
There is no question that Maehara’s blunder must be criticized. Small donations can amount to a lot if collected from large numbers of people. Considering that the Political Funds Control Law was laid down in the spirit of preventing the will of specific foreign countries from influencing domestic politics, foreign ministers must be careful — perhaps even more than other politicians — to abide by such rules.
What should not be overlooked, however, is that Maehara’s donation scandal suddenly surfaced at a time of political gridlock, in which forcing a choice between resignation and keeping one’s post seems to be the ultimate mission of the Japanese political world.
It is obvious that the LDP, which unearthed the latest scandal, has an ulterior motive: to crush Maehara, rumored to be a prospective successor to Kan, before he gains momentum, and to push Prime Minister Kan to dissolve the lower house. Kan will find himself cornered, no matter how determined he may presently be to stay on task, if Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Ritsuo Hosokawa — who recently bumbled over a ministry directive regarding social security — is also driven to resignation, setting off a resignation “domino effect.”
Meanwhile, it appears that one reason Maehara resigned relatively soon after his violation of the political funds law became public was his judgment that doing so would help him maintain his chances of becoming prime minister more so than would waiting until the drama had played out over an extended period of time. He left much business unfinished, including the upcoming G8 meeting of foreign ministers that is set to begin on March 14, and a meeting of Japanese, Chinese and South Korean foreign ministers scheduled for March 19. Kan lacked any zeal to fight to keep Maehara at his post, betraying a general sense of incompetence within the Kan administration.
While the ruling and opposition parties carry out their domestic political rivalry, politics continues to lose its original function — namely to govern Japan and serve its people — leaving Japan behind the rest of the globalized world. Prolonged political paralysis only serves to hurt Japan’s national interests and the interests of the Japanese people. (By Ko Koga, Senior Writer, Political News Department)
ENDS
前原外相辞任：政治不全が止まらない＝政治部編集委員・古賀攻
毎日新聞 2011年3月7日 東京朝刊
辞任した前原誠司外相をめぐって割り切れなさが残るのは、この騒動がもつれにもつれた日本の政治の立て直しに何ら貢献しそうにないからだ。
年５万円の献金主が京都に住む在日韓国人の女性だったことから、政治資金規正法の問題が生じた。７２歳になる女性は小さな焼き肉店の経営者で、前原氏が中学２年生だったころからの知り合いだという。
その事実関係と、外交責任者の引責辞任という出来事とのギャップをどう考えればよいのだろうか。
自民党の首相経験者は「額の多寡は問題ではない。外相ともあろう者が、外国人からの献金禁止を深刻に考えていなかったことが問題だ」と語る。
確かに前原氏の脇の甘さは指弾されるべきだろう。個々の献金額は小さくても、同じ条件で多数の人から献金を集めるケースだってあり得る。特定国の意思が国内政治に反映されることを防止するという規正法の精神に照らせば、外相の地位にある者は一般の政治家以上に厳しく身を律する必要がある。
しかし、見過ごせないのは、八方ふさがりの状況下で前原氏の献金問題が急浮上し、進退の決着だけがゴールのように動いてしまう政界のありようだ。
今回の事案を掘り起こした自民党側に、前原氏が「ポスト菅直人」に躍り上がる芽をつぶし、菅首相による衆院解散へ引き込む思惑があるのは明らかだ。年金問題で不手際があった細川律夫厚生労働相とともに「ドミノ辞任」に突き進めば、いくら強気の首相でも後がなくなる。
一方、前原氏が比較的早期に辞意を固めた背景には、引き際を誤って転倒するよりも、首相候補の地位を保った方が得策という、やはり内向きの計算がうかがえる。今月１４日から主要８カ国（Ｇ８）外相会議、１９日からは日中韓外相会談が控えているが、それらを投げ出しての辞任だ。菅首相にも強引に続投させる気迫はなく、政権全体に無力感が漂う。
こうして与野党が「政治的内戦」を繰り返しているうちに、政治が本来なすべき機能は損なわれ、日本はグローバル化した世界の潮流についていけなくなる。政治不全が止まらず、日々傷ついているのは、国益そして国民益だ。
ENDS
Maehara solidified a fan in me with this scandal. I’ll have to naturalize and contribute.
Here is what I don’t get: If they have known each other for such a long time, why did he still call her a “foreigner”? This is magnified by the fact that he is a Foreign Minister. I mean, sure, the Zainichi aren’t ethnically 100% Japanese, but that’s like calling a Italian-American a foreigner because of his Italian heritage. Really shocking behavior from a man who should know better.
Here´s the Japanese version of the woman´s declarations Jjobseeker mentions. Really sad they single somebody that belongs here like that, just for a nationality difference.
Chuo Nippo, March 8 2011
http://japanese.joins.com/article/article.php?aid=138013&servcode=A00§code=A00
前原外相に献金した女性「選挙権もなく政治資金も出せないとは…」
前原誠司外相に献金して問題となった在日同胞のチャン・オクプンさんは、「外国人も公務員になる時代なのに外国人が献金してはいけないとは夢にも思わなかった」として自身の献金で前原外相が辞任することになったことを悔やんだ。
慶尚北道醴泉（キョンサンブクド・イェチョン）出身で韓国籍を維持しているチャンさんは、前原外相が１２歳の時に父親と死別し１５歳の時にチャンさん夫婦が経営する飲食店の近所に引っ越してきてから親しくなったという。チャンさんは韓国と日本のメディアとのインタビューを通じ、「前原外相は私の二男と同い年で、店に立ち寄った時には私を“お母さん”と呼んだ」と話した。
その後、前原氏が政治家になるとすぐに小さな気持ちだが支援したいと考えていたところ、「５年前に前原氏の広報物の中に寄付金を送る口座用紙が入っており、通名で送金した」と話した。また、「このお金は正直なところ政治資金とは思わなかった。家族ぐるみで親密に過ごしながら韓国人か日本人かを問うことなく慶弔時ごとに助け合う仲だ」と強調した。さらに、「外国人の寄付だと不法資金だというが、いつまでこのように在日韓国人が差別を受けなければならないか」と反問した。
チャンさんは京都市山科区で焼き肉店を３８年前から経営している。「これまで飲食店をしながら日本人と同じように税金を払っているが、選挙権もなく政治資金も出せないとは。こういう差別はなくならなければならない」と強調した。
前原外相が辞任した６日にはチャンさんの店に日本の右翼勢力とみられる人たちから脅迫電話が時々かかってきたという。７日の店は連絡が途絶えた状態だった。
Allen said this:
“that’s like calling a Italian-American a foreigner because of his Italian heritage”
Err, not quite. Italian-Americans have US citizenship. I do get your point, Zainichi DON’T have Japanese citizenship, but they SHOULD.
Allen
Because she is legally a foreigner. She does not have Japanese citizenship.
Ethnic Koreans who have naturalized are considered to be Japanese under the law. Those that have not are considered foreigners. That is why the number of so-called Koreans in Japan keeps dropping, because their children are marrying Japanese and choosing Japanese nationality over one of a country they have never been to.
I do think though that this would have been a perfect opportunity to bring up the debate about awarding citizenship automatically upon birth as this is just ridiculous that Japan has this problem after more than 60 years.
@Allen. No, it’s nothing like your “Italian-American” example. The Italian-American holds an American passport and is therefore not a foreigner in the US (though they would be as far as I’m concerned, as I’m English). The woman in question doesn’t have a Japanese passport and is therefore a foreigner. Ethnicity doesn’t enter into it.
Yikes, well, thanks for clearing it up you guys. I’ll look a little more before I leap.
I didn’t realize that Korean residents of Japan could not become naturalized Japanese citizens. Is that correct? But one paper I read said they could become public servants. Is that correct? Are ethnic Koreans treated legally different than other non-Japanese? Could you clear this up please?
— No, not kanrishoku, and yes.
Jay
They can become naturalized Japanese citizens. They just choose not to for various reasons. One of the reasons being that they originally had Japanese citizenship and the government stripped it from them. Many of them scoff at the notion of them having to apply for something that they once had as a so-called god given right as members of the empire which they were born and raised to support.
Ethnic koreans born in Japan are treated different legally from other non-japanese. For example, many ethnic Koreans never buy a re-entry pass, and immigration never turns them away. As well they shouldn’t. An ethnic Korean would also probably not get into trouble for not carrying their Gaijin card.
Most Japanese have trouble coming to terms with ethnic koreans (zainichi) because they are pretty much indistinguishable from Japanese in that they look, talk, and act just like anyone else.
I can guarantee you that you come across a few zainichi everyday and not even notice it.
Unknown said:
“I can guarantee you that you come across a few zainichi everyday and not even notice it.”
As a good example of this, my Japanese wife’s ex-husband is a zainichi and she did not know it for a few years into their relationship.
So how much money is this? 1 yen for every voter in Maehara’s district more or less? Does the voter really care? Does the LDP really think the voters of Maehara’s district can be bought for this much money?
The DPJ and Kan need some guts. Maehara has shown he has some.