FOUR FOREIGN MINISTERS OF JAPAN IN 2002
This Sunday, namely yesterday, I read a book I had signed out from a nearby public library the other day.
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In early December 1999, Mr. Akitaka Saiki, a high ranking bureaucrat of Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, called Mr. Masaru Sato.
Mr. Saiki in his office specially installed in the Prime Minister’s Office told the specialist of the same ministry Mr. Sato that the then Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi wanted to talk with him immediately.
Accordingly the telephone line was switched to connect Mr. Sato to the late Mr. Obuchi.
The then Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi himself asked Mr. Sato some questions on Russia.
The late Mr. Obuchi wanted to know whether Mr. Vladimir Putin would succeed Boris Yeltsin.
Mr. Sato answered that it depended on how Mr. Putin would deal with the Chechen War.
The then Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi told the notable specialist on Russia Mr. Sato that he expected Mr. Sato to continue to watch Russian situations, adding that the prime minister himself would get more information from “Jews.”
Mr. Masaru Sato wrote in his famous book published in 2005 that he had thought that as Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi had watched Mr. Sato’s appearance in an NHK TV program on Russia broadcast the other day, the late Mr. Obuchi must have wanted to talk with him directly, since Mr. Sato used to make briefing on Russian situations to Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi in those days though Mr. Sato was technically not an authorized elite member of the Foreign Ministry like Mr. Saiki but a specialist.
It is not only Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi that Mr. Sato used to make briefing on Russia in those years but also Mr. Muneo Suzuki, a lawmaker of the LDP, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary, and close associate of the prime minister.
http://www.shinchosha.co.jp/book/475201/
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Today, namely in 2008, Mr. Akitaka Saiki is undertaking higher responsibility in Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, especially in Japan’s efforts to take back its citizens outrageously abducted by North Korea in these decades.
Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi died, however, so suddenly in 2000.
Mr. Masaru Sato was arrested in 2002 and accordingly indicted for some alleged acts of corruption as if politically victimized; and the case is yet to be finally decided in a higher court; but today Mr. Sato has big reputation as a journalist, though he still keeps an official status in the Ministry
Mr. Muneo Suzuki was arrested in 2002 and accordingly indicted for some alleged acts of corruption as if politically victimized; and the case is yet to be finally decided in a higher court; but today Mr. Suzuki is still a lawmaker, though after tough comeback elections, of a small independent party.
It is during Mr. Koizumi’s premiership (from 2001 to 2006) that Mr. Suzkuki and Mr. Sato suddenly started to be forced to contend against their adverse fates, though it is Mr. Yoshiro Mori that had succeeded the tragic prime minister Keizo Obuchi in May 2000.
In those days, namely in early 2002, it was said that there were four Foreign Ministers in Japan:
The then Foreign Minister Ms. Makiko Tanaka; the LDP lawmaker most influential on the Ministry Mr. Muneo Suzkuki; then North Korean-issue haunted Prime Minister Mr. Jyunichiro Koizumi; and the then Chief Cabinet Secretary Mr. Yasuo Fukuda (who is the oldest among the four but assumed office of Prime Minister from 2007 to 2008).
Ms. Makiko Tanaka was forced to resign as Foreign Minister a few months before the arrests of Mr. Suzuki and Mr. Sato for the reason of inappropriate governance of the Foreign Ministry, and later also forced to resign as a lawmaker due to inappropriate financial management of her office, as if politically victimized, though she now keeps a seat in the Diet again as an independent lawmaker after a tough comeback election, since she is the daughter of a legendary prime minister of 1970's the late Mr. Kakuei Tanaka who was an arch rival of the late Mr. Takeo Fukuda, the late father of Mr. Yasuo Fukuda.
Mr. Jyunichiro Koizumi recently announced his intention to resign as a lawmaker, so that his son will take over his father’s seat in the Lower House on the next general election.
Mr. Yasuo Fukuda stepped down from premiership several days ago as the new Prime Minister was elected in the Diet.
Indeed, former Prime Minister Mr. Yasuo Fukuda should be evaluated rather as behind-the-scenes Foreign Minister in the Koizumi Administration in 2002, in my humble view.
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If the then Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi had not died of a sudden disease in May 2000, there must not have been the Koizumi Administration at least in 2001 and 2002.
It is because the late Mr. Keizo Obuchi was the leader of the then largest faction within the Liberal Democratic Party, while Mr. Koizumi was No.2 of a rival faction where Mr. Yasuo Fukuda and Mr. Shinzo Abe also belonged as future Prime Minister, respectively.
Truly, the then Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi fell to a fatal illness during the night time after a tough meeting with Mr. Ichiro Ozawa, the then head of a major allied party of the LDP, in eraly April 2000.
Today, it is expected that Mr. Ichiro Ozawa, the head of Democratic Party of Japan since 2006, will take over the regime from the LDP after the next general election.
But, as you see, Japanese politics is still under the shadow of 2000.
Politicians and parties concerned might finally pull through this shadow when Mr. Ichiro Ozawa assumes the premiership through the coming general election, as he is an alleged old friend of the tragic, late Mr. Keizo Obuchi but also strong ally of Ms. Makiko Tanaka, once an enemy of Keizo Obuchi but still one of notable female parliament members of Japan.
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In addition, I still remember that on one Spring day in April 2000 I saw one or two rainbows while walking in my residential area. It was very rare. Then I think I heard the news from the media that Prime Minister Obuchi was taken to sudden but serious illness which led to his death a month later.
And then TV stations started to repeatedly present how the late Mr. Obuchi looked immediately after the tough meeting with Mr. Ozawa, since it showed some symptoms.
Truly Mr. Ozawa had kept a low-key presence after the death of the then Prime Minister Obuchi until he was elected as the head of DPJ in 2006.
Indeed it has passed eight years. A daughter of Keizo Obuchi is now a minister of the Aso Cabinet. The husband of Mrs. Tanaka, an Upper House lawmaker, has at last left the LDP like his wife did a few years ago. Mr. Ozawa may now have a moral right to become Prime Minister of Japan if he should win the coming general election.
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Now, you had better think about which has a moral right more to be qualified as U.S. President, Mr. Barack Obama or Mr. John McCain, since it has passed seven years since the 9/11 Terror and 40 years since the Tet offensive in the Vietnam War.
Joh 9:28 Then they reviled him, and said, Thou art his disciple; but we are Moses' disciples.
Joh 9:29 We know that God spake unto Moses: as for this fellow, we know not from whence he is.
Joh 9:30 The man answered and said unto them, Why herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes.
Joh 9:31 Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth.