The Mayor That Can Say No
Last week, former prize-winning novelist and consummate politician Shintaro Ishihara became the mayor of Tokyo. One of his major campaign promises was to transfer Yokota Air Force base, the headquarters for the U.S. Forces Japan, from American possession to Japanese. Then, the day after the election, Ishihara said he was just kidding; it was a "campaign bluff." And also, he promised to stop using derogatory slurs against the Chinese. Tokyo's next mayor is off to a thrilling start.
You might remember Ishihara for the book he wrote in 1989, The Japan that Can Say "No." The essential thesis of the book was that Japan, in its post-war weakness, had grown too accustomed to kowtowing to American demands, and in its new economic (and possibly military) strength, Japan had the right to refuse foreign pressure for more open markets, more transparent government, and a more apologetic tone in terms of its past war history. And, of particular importance, he said that Japan has the right to say no to American "occupation," the military bases spread throughout the country, and concentrated in the southernmost prefecture of Okinawa.
The book was originally co-authored by former Sony president Akio Morita. The two men wrote separate chapters, separately, and while Morita's chapters were a fairly reasonable list of areas in which American and Japanese business and business regulators could learn from each other, Ishihara's chapters were rather strident polemics on why Japan deserved to be more assertive on the world stage. The book was first translated into English informally by the CIA, which was quite interested in Japanese assertiveness in the rising paranoia about who would be superpowers in the post-Cold War order.
The unofficial and secretive translation, according to insider accounts, made the rhetoric seem even more aggressive than it actually was, and leaked quotes to the media reflected that tone. Even before the English version was officially published, its publicity in America was so bad that Morita (already reportedly uneasy about the strident tone of Ishihara's chapters) refused to allow his chapters to appear in the English translation, and refused to have his name associated with it. Ishihara was unapologetic, and in the preface of the English version, he wrote that although he understood Morita's difficult position -- as a businessman, his business reputation was his most valuable asset -- he stood by his own words as written.
The most argumentative sections of Ishihara's book spoke to Japanese military policy, where he argued that Japan should not rely on American force for its defense, and build its own defense force. Ishihara has said plenty of inflammatory things about Japanese military policy in his career. In 1967, he declared "It is necessary (for Japan) to develop nuclear weapons." In his 1989 book, he said "The Cold-War military balance will drastically change if Japan says it will sell semiconductors to the Soviet Union, not to the United States," trying to establish Japan's new import on the world stage. And in a bizarre 1998 magazine interview, he said "It's just a fable, but I think this society would become a little bit more serious if North Korea fired a Rodong-something into Kyoto," referring to the Rodong-Taepo missile North Korea had just tested.
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