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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 09 TOKYO 004581 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR E, P, EB, EAP/J, EAP/P, EAP/PD, PA 
WHITE HOUSE/NSC/NEC; JUSTICE FOR STU CHEMTOB IN ANTI-TRUST DIVISION; 
TREASURY/OASIA/IMI/JAPAN; DEPT PASS USTR/PUBLIC AFFAIRS OFFICE; 
SECDEF FOR JCS-J-5/JAPAN, 
DASD/ISA/EAPR/JAPAN; DEPT PASS ELECTRONICALLY TO USDA 
FAS/ITP FOR SCHROETER; PACOM HONOLULU FOR PUBLIC DIPLOMACY ADVISOR; 
CINCPAC FLT/PA/ COMNAVFORJAPAN/PA. 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: OIIP KMDR KPAO PGOV PINR ECON ELAB JA
SUBJECT:  DAILY SUMMARY OF JAPANESE PRESS 08/14/06 
 
 
INDEX: 
 
(1) Ten-member Yasukuni Shrine council (sodaikai) decides budget and 
enshrinements 
 
(2) Yasukuni Shrine -From battle field to where (Part 5): Both 
increasing visitors to Yushukan, prime minister's repeated visits 
drawing young persons' attention 
 
(3) Editorial: Though he has the lead in LDP presidential race, Abe 
urged to pursue serious policy debate 
 
(4) Intelligence capabilities must be sharpened: ex-cabinet 
intelligence chief 
 
(5) Japan-dispatched official anti-Japanese essay 
 
ARTICLES: 
 
(1) Ten-member Yasukuni Shrine council (sodaikai) decides budget and 
enshrinements 
 
NIHON KEIZAI (Page 2) (Full) 
August 13, 2006 
 
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has said that he will visit 
Yasukuni Shrine on Aug. 15. A South Korean ruling parliamentary 
group comprising of ruling party members arrived in Japan on Aug. 12 
to oppose Koizumi's trip to Yasukuni. Special police officers to the 
prime minister checked the precincts of the Shinto shrine. Given the 
situation, this newspaper examines how Yasukuni is managed. 
 
Yasukuni incomes on decline 
 
The income resources of Yasukuni Shrine are contributions from 
corporations and individuals, tamagushi-ryo (cash offering made on 
the occasion of one's visit to the shrine), and money offerings by 
shrine visitors. The annual budget totals less than 2 billion yen. 
The shrine's incomes have been on the decline due to a decrease in 
corporate contributions, as well as in the number of the Japan 
War-Bereaved Families Association members. The shrine says it has 
recently cut its budget. 
 
The council of representatives of shrine parishioners is made up of 
ten members from various circles, including business leaders and 
former senior bureaucrats, according to a shrine source. Since June, 
when Makoto Koga resigned as chairman of the Japan Association of 
the Bereaved Families of the War Dead, the executive board has 
dropped to nine members. The term of a member of the board is only 
three years. The council decides on such important policy issues as 
budgets, audits, management, and approval of new enshrinements. A 
decision is adopted by a unanimous vote. The guji or the chief 
priest of the shrine attends council meetings to serve as chair of 
the meetings, according to a shrine source. Most priests come from 
the former nobility (in prewar Japan). Toshiaki Nanbu is the 9th 
chief priest. He once worked at a major advertising agency (Dentsu). 
He assumed the post in September 2004 at the recommendation of 
Kasumi-kai, an organization comprising of former nobility. 
 
Negative reaction to separation of Class-A war criminals 
 
There are 52 shrines that honor the war dead across the country 
(gokoku-jinja). Since those shrines mainly honor the local war dead, 
 
TOKYO 00004581  002 OF 009 
 
 
some of them have enshrined Class-A war criminals and some have not. 
In the prewar period, the then Internal Affairs Ministry managed 
Yasukuni Shrine and the Imperial Japanese Military and Navy 
controlled the gokoku-jinja. After the war, they became religious 
corporations. The Association of Shinto Shrines (Jinja-honcho) has 
jurisdiction over about 80,000 shrines nationwide, including the 
gokoku-jinja. The association takes in charge of personnel changes 
and financial affairs. However, Yasukuni does not belong to the 
association, since it is positioned as head of the gokoku-jinja. 
Should Yasukuni be stripped of its Shinto affiliation, the Yasukuni 
council will have to decide on how to dissolve the religious 
organization. However, a Shinto source made this skeptical comment: 
"If Yasukuni becomes a non-religious facility, the souls of the dead 
will no longer be recognized. If so, Yasukuni will become just a war 
memorial." If Yasukuni is placed under state control, there will be 
issues regarding the compatibility with the constitutional rule of 
separation of politics and religion such as whether the name of 
Yasukuni and the front guard frame (torii gate) should remain and 
whether Shinto-style worship should be retained. 
 
Yasukuni enshrines now about 2.46 million war dead, including the 14 
Class-A war criminals. The Shinto religion does not allow the souls 
of the war dead once enshrined to be removed from the shrine. Among 
Shinto religion sources, there is a view that removing Class-A war 
criminal would be 100% impossible. 
 
Members of the council of representatives of shrine parishioners 
 
Name 
Tile 
 
Koremasa Anami 
President, Kitakyushu Foundation for the Advancement of Industry 
Science and Technology 
 
Seiji Ishino 
Advisor, Shiseido Co. 
 
Minoru Inoue 
Advisor, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ 
 
Shiro Odamura 
Former Takushoku University president 
 
Hatsuko Shimazu 
Former Imperial family member 
 
Tamotsu Shoya 
Former Small and Medium Enterprise Agency director general 
 
Isao Tokoro 
Professor, Kyoto Sangyo University 
 
Toru Miyoshi q 
Former Supreme Court chief justice 
 
Takuma Yamamoto 
Fujitsu honorary chairman 
 
Makoto Koga (resigned in June) 
Chairman, Japan War-Bereaved Families Association 
 
(2) Yasukuni Shrine -From battle field to where (Part 5): Both 
 
TOKYO 00004581  003 OF 009 
 
 
increasing visitors to Yushukan, prime minister's repeated visits 
drawing young persons' attention 
 
MAINICHI (Page 2) (Slightly abridged) 
August 10, 2006 
 
Since this spring, several American prominent figures have made 
statement critical of Yushukan, the exhibit hall on the site of 
Yasukuni Shrine. 
 
On a TBS TV program on July 12, United States Ambassador to Japan 
Thomas Schieffer stated: 
 
"I am perplexed at the historical views attached to exhibits in 
Yushukan. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has repeatedly said that 
he goes to visit Yasukuni Shrine and not Yushukan. But the 
historical views in Yushukan are unacceptable to us. I think they 
are wrong." 
 
Writing for the July 20 edition of the Sankei Shimbun, Deputy 
Secretary of State Armitage noted: 
 
SIPDIS 
 
'Even if no problem is found with the prime minister visiting 
Yasukuni Shrine, the explanations attached to some showpieces in 
Yushukan on the site of the shrine hurt the feelings of Americans 
and Chinese. They also go against official historical views in 
Japan." 
 
Former chief researcher Taro Nagae, 69, at the Military History 
Office of the National Institute for Defense Studies, is in a 
quandary. When Yushukan was reopened after being renovated in 2002, 
he supervised the editing of the newly added descriptions of 
historical events from the Meiji period (1868-1912) to the wartime 
period. 
 
He was asked to serve as editorial supervisor by his friend, an 
official of Yasukuni Shrine. He assigned the work to 10 members of 
the Military History Society (with about 1,000 members), an academic 
group serving as Secretariat. The work was completed only in about 
three months. 
 
Although Nagae was confident about the descriptions because "they 
are all based on war histories issued by the governments of the US, 
China, and other countries." But he was worried: "I do not want to 
see Japan-US relations impaired. The critical remarks came from 
American key persons. The bilateral relationship could be undermined 
as a result of a misunderstanding. We must take some measures." 
 
Previous Chief Priest of Yasukuni Shrine Yuzaya, who renovated and 
expanded Yushukan at a cost of about 4.9 billion yen, also remarked 
on a TV program on Aug. 7: "In response to the criticism that the 
exhibits have gone too far, we might have to change some items on 
display." Japanese authorities have reacted strongly to criticism 
from China and South Korea. In contrast, they have sensitively 
responded to critical comments dispatched from the US. 
 
Yushukan was created in the early Meiji period as a museum 
displaying military weapons. After the end of World War II, then 
Chief Priest Nagayoshi Matsudaira, who enshrined Class-A war 
criminals, reopened the hall as a financial resource to help the 
management of Yasukuni Shrine. Later, previous Chief Priest Yuzawa 
planned to innovate and expand Yushukan with the aim of attracting 
more young people and foreigners to the hall. Although the plan 
 
TOKYO 00004581  004 OF 009 
 
 
initially met fierce reactions from representatives of shrine 
parishioners claiming: "The planned exhibits are excessively 
modernized and elaborate." But they accepted the plan in the end. 
 
A movie, "Our appreciation and prayers for the souls of the war 
dead," is shown in the hall, emphasizing the historical view that 
the Imperial Japanese Army's wartime conduct was not wrong. The 
movie was produced and edited by the conservative action group 
called Japan Conference. Several executives of the group, including 
its chairman Tatsu Miyashi, a former supreme-court judge, also serve 
as representatives of shrine parishioners. The exhibited items are 
"in accordance with the intention of former Chief Priest Matsudaira, 
who rejected the judgments of the Tokyo Trials," said a former 
senior shrine official. As expected, visitors to the hall continued 
to increase almost every year by the tens of thousands, and the 
number hit a record 360,000 last year. 
 
The number of visitors to Yasukuni Shrine was 6 million in 2002 and 
5 million in 2003. Recently, though, a growing number of people 
visit there, attracted by the renovated Yushukan. On the day marking 
the end of WWII, 205,000 people visited the shrine, three times more 
than that day the year before. The media at home and abroad 
prominently covered this news. 
 
Some members of the group of students who had gathered Yushukan 
established this February a youth group of the association 
supporting Yasukuni Shrine activities (suukei-housan-kai), calling 
itself "Asanagi". The group already has about 300 members, whose 
average age is 30. A male college student (22) who heads the youth 
group explained as follows why he joined the group: Because Prime 
Minister Koizumi's visit to Yasukuni Shrine was prominently featured 
by the mass media, he visited the shrine two days later, and he 
found the shrine to be "wonderful." 
 
The prime minister's continued shrine visits, which he called "a 
matter of the heart," and the renovation of Yushukan resonated and 
worked to amplify the troubled frequency waves at home and abroad. 
With reactions to Yushukan spreading across former Japanese colonies 
and WWII allies, Yasukuni Shrine has become an international issue. 
In the nation, though, the prime minister's shrine visits have 
contributed to drawing young people to Yasukuni Shrine. 
 
(3) Editorial: Though he has the lead in LDP presidential race, Abe 
urged to pursue serious policy debate 
 
NIHON KEIZAI (Page 2) (Full) 
August 13, 2006 
 
Support for Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, the frontrunner in 
the September Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) presidential election, 
is expanding like an avalanche, further boosting his unchallenged 
lead. Fukushiro Nukaga, director general of the Defense Agency, and 
former LDP Secretary General Taku Yamasaki had to give up running in 
the race. The presidential election now appears likely to be a 
landslide. Precisely because this is the situation, Foreign Minister 
Taro Aso and Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki and Abe, in 
particular, should pursue a lofty policy debate in a serious 
manner. 
 
Abe on Aug. 12 stated his candidacy for the election during a town 
meeting held in Shimonoseki City, his home constituency: "I would 
like to do my best with my aspirations. I am resolved to explain my 
hopes and thoughts to the people in early September." When former 
 
TOKYO 00004581  005 OF 009 
 
 
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda, Abe's archrival, gave up 
running in the race, it became certain that Abe would hold a 
commanding lead. 
 
An increasing number of LDP members were increasingly gripped by the 
idea that they had to jump on the bandwagon. However, due in part to 
Abe's unclear stance toward his political management, there still 
remained a wait-and-see atmosphere among those who were anxious 
about his position regarding Asia diplomacy. 
 
Abe has recently revealed two key messages to audiences within and 
outside the party. One is on the Yasukuni Shrine issue, the primary 
concern. He indicated his policy of keeping quiet regarding 
Yasukuni: "I have no intention whatsoever of revealing anything 
about the Yasukuni issue, including whether I will visit it or not." 
It became known that Abe visited the shrine in April. However, China 
and South Korea responded calmly, raising hopes in the LDP that it 
might be possible to find a breakthrough in Japan's Asia diplomacy 
because of Abe's stance. 
 
The other is that he indicated his view of adopting a whole-party 
approach to next year's unified local and Upper House elections. 
Many LDP members have been unhappy about Prime Minister Junichiro 
Koizumi's political method of fanning confrontation, intentionally 
making enemies. However, Abe's whole-party approach has spread a 
sense of relief among LDP members, serving to rapidly expand support 
for him. 
 
Attracting total support for his camp is not entirely a blessing for 
Abe, though. An Abe administration would not be able to solidify its 
power base with a please-everyone all-mainstream approach. Policies 
set by such administration might lack impact. There may be a 
possibility of the current reform policy losing force under the 
cover of the whole-party system and pork-barrel politics coming back 
to life. 
 
In order to eliminate such concerns, it is necessary for Abe to come 
up with a clear-cut policy and pursue a policy debate with Aso and 
Tanigaki in front of the public. He needs to make specific campaign 
pledges regarding fiscal reconstruction, administrative and 
educational reforms, and constitutional revision. A clear-cut policy 
is the best means to solidify his administration's power base. 
 
(4) Intelligence capabilities must be sharpened: ex-cabinet 
intelligence chief 
 
TOKYO SHIMBUN (Page 2) (Full) 
August 10, 2006 
 
-- What's your perspective of the post-Koizumi cabinet's challenges 
from the perspective of crisis management? 
 
Yoshio Omori, former chief of the Cabinet Information Research 
Office: I hope the next prime minister will consider three points. 
First, there are problems with North Korea, including its firing of 
missiles. Second, there are problems with China, including the 
suicide of a Shanghai Consulate General communications official. And 
third, there are problems with the government's intelligence 
capability. 
 
-- How do you evaluate the Japanese government's action taken in 
response to North Korea's missile launches? 
 
 
TOKYO 00004581  006 OF 009 
 
 
Omori: There's one thing that I can appreciate. The government 
realized it and then took action right away. That's very good. 
Actually, when the Miyazawa cabinet was in office, North Korea 
launched a missile. After that missile launch, a foreign government 
told the Japanese government that a Rodong missile was launched. 
 
-- How about the responses of post-Koizumi candidates? 
 
Omori: Some of them are cabinet ministers, and they stated that 
North Korea should refrain from launching missiles. After North 
Korea launched missiles, Japan took the political initiative and 
worked on the United Nations Security Council to adopt a resolution. 
We should appreciate this point. 
 
-- How do you think Japan should address the North Korea issue? 
 
Omori: When it comes to the Koizumi cabinet's North Korea policy, 
its strategy has been inconsistent. Prime Minister Koizumi himself 
visited North Korea and issued the Pyongyang Declaration. But why 
did North Korea launch missiles? Prime Minister Koizumi made two 
visits to North Korea, but there has been no dialogue follow-up. 
Japan has failed to continue dialogue with North Korea while 
pressuring that country. The next prime minister will have to come 
up with a consistent strategy. 
 
-- What do you think is the problem other than strategy? 
 
Omori: Japan knew almost nothing about the abductions and missiles. 
I know that Japan is incapable of gathering intelligence. I'm sorry 
to say that the Koizumi cabinet is not good enough. But if Mr. 
Koizumi had done his best to step up Japan's intelligence-gathering 
capability like he did for postal privatization, things would be 
considerably different. 
 
-- Another question is what to do about Japan's relations with 
China. This also will be a point of contention in the Liberal 
Democratic Party's presidential election. 
 
Omori: The government didn't take any resolute action when a 
Shanghai Consulate General communications official committed suicide 
and when a nuclear-powered Chinese submarine entered Japan's 
territorial waters (in November 2004). There's also the Yasukuni 
Shrine issue. But it's no good to remain indifferent like Mr. 
Koizumi. In such events, Japan should file a strong protest with 
China and should call for China to take measures. That's not 
contradictory with friendship. Japan and China have broken off with 
each other while facing off. That's the problem. 
 
-- For example, what do you think Japan should do? 
 
Omori: Japan should have its own cards to play against China. We 
should thoroughly look into what was behind the suicide and the 
nuclear sub's intrusion. These can be Japan's cards. The government 
only protested. That's not good enough. That's the same as what 
Japan did in the World Cup -- they didn't shoot when they had the 
chance. I hope the next prime minister will take resolute action. 
 
-- The communications official's suicide was not made known to the 
prime minister until it made the news. The government's crisis 
management is questionable. 
 
Omori: We must think of how to raise the quantity of 
intelligence-and how to overcome the barriers of bureaucrats. 
 
TOKYO 00004581  007 OF 009 
 
 
Information is not conveyed to those in need of it. The next prime 
minister will have to create a system that will immediately bring 
anything related to national security (to the prime minister). 
Anyone who is suspected of leaking defense secrets must be subject 
to severe punishment, and such leaks must be reported to the prime 
minister. Otherwise, the government will do the same thing. 
 
-- What do you think Japan should do to improve its 
intelligence-gathering capability? 
 
Omori: First of all, Japan should have enough manpower for 
intelligence activities. Even a good analyst can do nothing without 
something to analyze. North Korea recently fired missiles. However, 
Japan was as usual dependent on the United States for intelligence. 
The next prime minister will have to create a special intelligence 
organization to analyze North Korea's intentions and strategies. The 
government will also need to set up another organization like the 
National Security Council (NSC) (of the United States). 
 
-- You've advocated establishing an external intelligence agency in 
order for Japan to gather and analyze intelligence. 
 
Omori: I wonder if it's all right for us to do nothing in the face 
of damage to our national security and intellectual property. It's 
true that some people are calling this a spy organization, and 
they're also saying that's the same as monitoring people. However, 
we should let the government acquire intelligence-gathering 
functions. There are also international terrorist groups, so we 
should consider this in a positive way. 
 
-- Do you mean Japan will gather foreign confidential information, 
too? 
 
Omori: No, I don't. That's impossible because Japan has not 
conducted training for that. To begin with, we should stop vital 
information from leaking. The Koizumi cabinet has tried to do many 
things but has failed to pull itself together. I want the next prime 
minister to think more about intelligence. 
 
(5) Japan-dispatched official anti-Japanese essay 
 
Commentary by Sankei special correspondent Yoshihisa Komori 
 
SANKEI (Page 5) (Excerpts) 
August 12, 2006 
 
It has become increasingly crucial for Japan to dispatch its 
messages to the world. It has always been important for Japan to 
properly explain its case and to clearly present its views to the 
international community. At a time when China and other countries 
are heightening their criticism of Japan for a "revival of 
militarism" that is quite the opposite of the reality in Japan, it 
is indispensable in terms of Japan's national interests for it to 
rebut such charges. 
 
At this juncture, I thought that the JIIA Commentary, an 
English-edition newsletter that JIIA (Japan Institute of 
International Affairs, which is under the jurisdiction of the 
Foreign Ministry) began this spring was coming out at just the right 
timing to send such a message. Living in Washington, I could receive 
their dispatch by e-mail and read the research on the institute's 
website. The commentary would be regularly sent in the form of 
essays written in English. 
 
TOKYO 00004581  008 OF 009 
 
 
 
However, on reading some of the essays, I was astonished by the 
contents. The essays unilaterally condemned the thinking of the 
government and ruling camp, as well as a majority of views in Japan 
as dangerous, and categorized the attacks on Japan by China and 
other countries as proper. 
 
Look at the title of the essay in the May entry,  "How Japan 
Imagines China and Sees Itself." The essay starts out: ""Japan 
watchers (in foreign countries) increasingly blame the deterioration 
in Sino-Japanese relations on Japan, describing Japan's China 
policies as mindless and provocative, self-righteous and gratuitous. 
But in the country itself, there is scant awareness that Japan is 
perceived (by some countries) as being nationalistic, militaristic, 
or hawkish." 
 
The vast majority of Japan watchers in Washington who are familiar 
also with China see the current tense situation between Japan and 
China as due to "China's confrontational stance" and as "a clash 
between the strategic interests of Japan and China," as well as a 
"China's anti-Japan national policy." Moreover, in the same essay, 
such false claims are made as, "It is internationally perceived that 
Japan is seen as being militaristic."  In a BBC broadcast late last 
year of its international opinion poll, the people of 31 out of 33 
countries chose Japan at the top as "the country that has the best 
influence on the rest of the world." The exceptions on the list were 
China and South Korea. The departure point for JIIA's overseas 
dispatch is a view that is just the opposite of international 
opinion. 
 
The same essay contained the following passages: 
 
"'China is a threat, because it is China.' This seems to be the 
underlying assumption prevailing in Japan's national security 
circles." 
 
"Critics see in Prime Minister Koizumi's stance on Yasukuni a lack 
of repentance for past imperial aggression in Asia, about which 
Japan has long been silent." 
 
Both quotes are absurd remarks that are the opposite of the truth. 
The thrust of the essay rejects moves in the direction of Japan 
becoming an "ordinary country" from the aspect of its national 
security, which can be said to be the majority view in Japan, 
rejecting and denouncing them as dangerous "hawkish nationalism." 
 
The English-language essay is filled with biased words such as 
calling those who support paying homage at Yasukuni Shrine the "cult 
of Yasukuni." The word "cult" is a derogatory term used to mean a 
fanatical religious group such as the Aum Shinrikyo believers in 
Japan. 
 
The essays contains much too many sensational, emotional and 
insulting words of the kind frequently used generally by the Western 
left or by China to bash Japan, such as calling the thinking of 
Japan's pragmatists "ahistorical imagination" and claiming 
"selective amnesia" regarding the war by the Japanese people.  In 
that sense, the essay can be called "anti-Japan." 
 
The Japan Institute of International Affairs or JIIA is a public 
institution that is operated by subsidies from the Japanese 
government. Its current director is Yukio Sato, a former diplomat 
who once served as ambassador to the United Nations. The opinions in 
 
TOKYO 00004581  009 OF 009 
 
 
JIIA's international dispatch could be taken as the official views 
of the Japanese government, ruling parties, and majority of 
Japanese. 
 
Although the English-language essay in question contains a statement 
that "these are the views of the author alone," Director Sato has 
stated that the intention of the JIIA Commentary was to broadly make 
known the "thinking of Japan about Japan itself and toward 
international affairs." Looking at the name of the author of the 
essay, I was even more astounded, and yet at the same time, 
convinced, for the author was Masaru Tamamoto, the English editor at 
JIIA. Tamamoto ASTERISK  is a long-time residence of America and is 
well known as a radical leftist scholar who has often attacked the 
policies of the Japanese government. In a Washington seminar in 
2003, I myself heard him say such comments as, "The abduction issue 
with North Korea has already been resolved, but the Japanese side is 
using it as an excuse to keep a hard-line foreign policy stance"; 
and, "Japan should never dispatch the Self-Defense Forces to Iraq; 
such a dispatch will never occur." 
 
That Tamamoto is not only the author of an essay sent out to the 
world by JIIA, he also is the senior editor there. In the April 
edition, he took up the topic of criticism by Foreign Minister Taro 
and others of the lack of democracy in China, and under the title, 
"Japan discovers democracy," he poked fun at Japan's diplomacy 
toward China now discovering that the country lacks democratic 
values. 
 
What is the reason for entrusting Japan's international messages to 
someone with extreme views who rejects Japan's current diplomacy and 
security foundation? I would like to send on open letter questioning 
Director Sato, attaching this column. 
 
 ( ASTERISK TN: Masaru Tamamoto, editor of the JIIA Commentary, was 
born in Tokyo and educated in Japan, Switzerland, Egypt and the 
United States. He received his B.A. degree in international 
relations from Brown University and his M.A. and Ph.D from Johns 
Hopkins University. At Princeton, he was a MacArthur Foundation 
fellow in international peace and security (1988-89).) Back to Top 
 
SCHIEFFER