It's been a few years since a Japanese PM showed some spine, even if it's to a bunch of reporters. New PM, Naoto Kan's nickname is "Ira-Kan", which is sort of an abbreviation for "Irritable Kan". He made his statement on becoming PM earlier:
"Our country's outstanding public debt is huge," the centre-left leader said in his first policy address since taking office Tuesday. "Our public finances have become the worst of any developed country."
After decades of stimulus spending and feeble tax receipts, Japan's public debt is now nearly double its gross domestic product, forcing the government to issue ever more bonds to pay for hefty outlays.
"It is difficult to continue our fiscal policies by heavily relying on the issuance of government bonds," said Kan, the former finance minister.
"Like the confusion in the eurozone triggered by Greece, there is a risk of collapse if we leave the increase of the public debt untouched and then lose the trust of the bond markets."
Kan has in the past advocated increasing Japan's sales tax, although he has not specified plans that may prove unpopular with voters ahead of upper house elections planned for July 11.
"It is unavoidable to launch a full reform of the tax system," he said, also calling for the establishment of a bipartisan panel "to review fiscal rehabilitation and engage in constructive debate together".
"If we maintain the current level of issuance of new bonds, outstanding debt will surpass 200 percent of GDP in a few years," he said.
Mr. Kan was then accused of running away from a challenge by the opposition Liberal Democrats when he refused to extend the Diet's meeting period.
Here's the article:
なぜそんな批判が出ているんですか？」「全部聞いてました？」―。菅直人首相は１１日夜、記者団の問いに逆質問を連発、声は荒らげないものの、短気ですぐ怒る“イラ菅”の片りんをのぞかせた。
記者団が「会期を大幅延長しないことに野党が『逃げるな』と批判している」と聞いたのに対し「党首討論も大いにやりたい。逃げるようなことをしていないのに『逃げるな』と言われること自体よく分からない」と不快感をにじませた。
さらに「所信表明演説に具体的な数字が少なかった」との指摘には「もっと大変なことを言った。皆さんには踏み込んだ内容だと理解されると思って、分かりやすく言ったつもりだ」と「理解できないのか」と言わんばかりに反論した。
What's cool about that is that he returned fire to the reporter asking "Weren't you listening?" and then said, "I do want a leader's debate. It's hard to comprehend this accusation of running away when I'm not doing anything of the sort." When pointed out that there werne't numbers mentioned in the statement, he also returned fire saying, "I thought I said something a lot more grave. I thought you would understand it as having a more profound content", implying "don't you understand?"
You can just see the offended little journalist. Screw him, I say.
It's good to see a PM who can shoot back at the venal political reportage in Japan. Mr. Koizumi had spine, but never made the toughest decisions. In that sense he was more style than substance. The 4 men who filled the role since then - Messers Abe, Fukuda, Asou and Hatoyama - have all been awful, passive, gormless and clueless PMs. They've also come from families that have made being politicians a family business. All of them came to power with a sense of entitlement and none of them seemed to want to fundamentally contribute to what was necessary. It's hard to say what they thought they were contributing but in many ways, they simply ran the country on autopilot or in the case of Mr. Hatoyama, unlicensed, hands off the wheel and looking out the window.
Stretching the driving metaphor, I don't know if Mr. Kan can really steer Japan back from the brink. He has to radically raise the consumption tax and restructure taxation as a whole; that is to say, inflict serious pain on the public, but his party is hampered by the election promise the previous PM made whereby the Democrats would not raise the Consumption tax for 4 years. It might be too late by then. However, if he could bust through the mold and the traditions and the trappings of Japanese politics, and actually do the painful yet necessary reforms, I doubt people who would come to write him in history would mind that he was known as an irritable bastard.
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