Thin skinned to a fault?2015/04/29 09:59

A ripple has occurred within the Japanese blogosphere after locally 
well-known liberal commentator and Kobe College emeritus professor
original article was written by ex Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 
Tokyo correspondent Carsten Germis, and had appeared in Number 1 Shimbun 
the monthly journal of the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan (to his 
discredit Uchida does not quote the source of his translation).  As of 
writing reTweets stood at 4,928, Facebook Likes 10K and the FCCJ has 
uploaded its own Japanese translation of the Germis piece on its website.  
The ripple has been sufficiently large for the liberal Asahi Shimbun (with 
7M+ plus paid readership the second largest Japanese daily) to weigh in 
 
The Germis piece details his and FAZ' multiple encounters with the 
apparently increasingly thin skinned administration of Shinzo Abe, 
while the Asahi article includes interviews of the two antagonists, the
FAZ and the Japanese consul general in Frankfurt who went to FAZ 
to complain about its article on Japan.
 
A quick question that springs to mind after reading the Germis and 
the Asahi articles is why the Japanese consul general went ahead to 
the FAZ to verbally lodge his complaint (apparently in perfect 
German), when he must have known that his complaint could potentially 
appear on FAZ' page and embarrass him and his government. 

The overwhelming possibility is that he took action because he was 
ordered to do so by his superiors at the Japanese Embassy in Berlin, 
who in turn were instructed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs (a very 
normal chain of command), who in turn took his cues from the Cabinet 
Office, whose head is ultimately the Prime Minister of Japan. 

It is however surprising that the Cabinet Office was not aware of the
risks of a direct confrontation with the FAZ.  Surely the PR firms in 
the Office's employ must have counseled more subtle ways to address 
the government's concerns.  But the Office must have gone ahead with
the blunt approach anyway.  Why? 

Was that because when push comes to shove, the incident could be 
swept under the rug by a statement by the government to the effect 
that this was an unfortunate initiative taken by a minor official which
would henceforth never be repeated (alas the front line guys always 
end up as fall guys)?

Takao Toshikawa a journalist who runs a well known local politics 
newsletter Inside Line has on several occasions observed that Shinzo 
Abe has good personal chemistry with Presidents Putin, Erdogan and 
Elbegdorj (Mongolia) all famously sharing an authoritarian streak.  If 
Abe's own authoritarian streak renders his minions' initiatives to 
anticipation and action on the whims of their master only, and makes
them fear seeking permission to speak freely, or if the confrontation 
with the FAZ was indeed made on orders from the very top, then 
Japan is truly and unfortunately headed for a rather dim future.

On the other hand if it was the bureaucrats' way of telling the PM 
that you don't do things this way in the civilized world, that would be
quite a stunt pulled by these faceless men and women -- but that 
IMHO is reading too much between the lines.

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