Is the Unification Church issue a problem of separation of church and state? - Abnormal public opinion that condemns people just by saying hello.
2022-08-26
Category:Japan
I'm participating in the ranking.Please click and cheer for me.
The problem that started with the murder of the former prime minister
The issue of the Unification Church has become somewhat incomprehensible in Japan. It is said that the mother of the person responsible for the incident in which former Prime Minister Abe was shot and killed was a member of the Unification Church, and that her past misfortunes related to this were the motive behind the incident. Former Prime Minister Abe reportedly gave a speech at the Unification Church. However, this is still just a statement before the trial. I don't even know if that's the real motive.
There is no law that says no to politicians getting involved in religion
Politicians are often asked to attend and give speeches at meetings of various organizations. It can also be said that this is part of political activity. Some people refer to the constitutional principle of separation of church and state, but when interpreted as a law that prohibits the state from providing benefits to specific religious groups, it can be interpreted as a law that prohibits individual politicians from drinking alcohol, regardless of which religious group they greet at. It's not something I already know.
What are the benefits of a specific religion from the country
Facilitation by the state refers to the provision of advantageous systems and benefits to specific religious groups by law. Even if they say hello at the Unification Church, they will probably also visit Yasukuni Shrine, and if the Dalai Lama of Tibetan Buddhism visits Japan, will the Japanese Prime Minister meet him? He will probably meet the Pope when he visits Japan. Does this violate the principle of separation of church and state? We just met.
Incoherent media tone
The problem with the Unification Church is simply a question of how to regulate large donations to religious organizations that violate public order and morals, as well as forced requests, and is far from an issue of the separation of church and state.
I'm participating in the ranking.Please click and cheer for me.
[related article]
What are the purposes and practical benefits of the annexation of Japan and Korea? Japanese security perspective at the time
There are two main reasons why Japan annexed the Korean Peninsula. The reason that South Korea claims that it is for exploitation is completely untrue because the management of the Korean Peninsula was in the red. In other words, the amount of Japanese tax money that was spent on the Korean Peninsula was probably greater. Would you call this exploitation? Japan annexed the Korean Peninsula primarily for the purpose of defending Russia and building infrastructure from Manchuria to Busan.
It is clear that Russia's purpose is to use the Trans-Siberian Railway to colonize the Korean Peninsula and Manchuria, and in reality Russia is acquiring interests in northeastern Asia one after another. The reason why Japan carried out the Triple Intervention on the Liaodong Peninsula, which it acquired after the Sino-Japanese War, was because it did not want to hand over its Manchurian interests and because it did not want Japan to control the ports and shipping routes on the Liaodong Peninsula. The Baltic Fleet is not needed at all to colonize the continent or the Korean peninsula. The places you go by boat are places that can only be reached by boat. It's Japan, and there's another one. It's Taiwan. In other words, Russia was targeting the Japanese archipelago, the Korean Peninsula, and the Manchuria region, including Taiwan, which Japan had acquired in the Sino-Japanese War.
In 1891, Tsar Alexander III of Russia issued a royal order to build a railway that would penetrate all of Russia, and it became clear that it was not just a railway construction, but that the Trans-Siberian Railway could be constructed from both the start and end points. It was also clear that Vladivostok, which was just a stone's throw away from the Korean peninsula, would be connected to the Russian capital. The Baltic Fleet is coming there. Japan succeeded in destroying the Baltic Fleet off the coast of Tsushima, the narrowest sea area, but what would happen if it were to pass through? If Russia acquires the Korean Peninsula one after another and builds a military port in Busan, the Japanese archipelago will be just a stone's throw away. In this form, the Korean Peninsula would have surrounded the Japanese archipelago in a circular shape, and Japan would have had no chance against Russia, which had great national power.
With the defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, the Romanov dynasty lost power, and Lenin took advantage of this to launch the Russian Revolution during World War I. This was in 1917, 12 years after the Russo-Japanese War. Still, Japan will have to be wary of the possibility that Russia will rebuild its system and send a fleet. If the Korean Peninsula becomes Japan due to the annexation of Japan and South Korea, the Russian fleet passing through the Sea of Japan will be caught in a pincer attack all the way to Vladivostok, and the situation in the Sea of Japan will be completely advantageous to Japan. Masu. In other words, Japan surrounded the Sea of Japan.
As a result of the Russo-Japanese War, Japan acquired the railway between Harbin and Port Arthur, which later became the South Manchurian Railway, under the Treaty of Portsmouth. And Russia's interests in Manchuria were largely rejected.
After Korea became an independent nation after the Sino-Japanese War, Japan obtained the right to build a railway on the Korean Peninsula, and built a railway across the peninsula to Busan. After the Russo-Japanese War, the Harbin-Lushun railway obtained in Manchuria was expanded and connected to the railway on the Korean Peninsula. In other words, Japan built a huge infrastructure that connects the Manchurian region to Busan, which is just a stone's throw from Japan. This will ensure infrastructure by sea and land from Dalian and by rail. In other words, victory in the Russo-Japanese War meant that the Sea of Japan was surrounded in both name and reality, making it an exclusive maritime area, and connecting it with southern Manchuria by railway. will be sold to Manchukuo. In other words, Japan obtained the Korean Peninsula and Manchuria, which Russia had been trying to obtain.
This was a result of Japan's large expansion from the perspective of Japan's security against Russia, and in the past there was a critical situation in which Tsushima might become the line of defense, but now the line of defense is now more than 1000 km away. This means that it has also moved northward.
At that time, the Korean peninsula was in constant political instability and conflict, and the country's finances were in a state of collapse as it had failed to issue its own currency. Diplomatically, Japan has sold various interests to Russia due to financial issues, and the fact that the Korean Peninsula is in doubt from the perspective of Japan's security.
Japan's security was also in doubt. This was due to the size of Russia's national power at the time, and if the Russian fleet were to succeed in moving north through the Sea of Japan, Japan would be in a hopeless situation.
Conversely, by placing Manchuria and the Korean Peninsula under control, Japan's security became rock solid. For this reason, Russia was geopolitically inferior to Japan, and even when World War II broke out, the Soviet Union signed a Japan-Soviet Nonaggression Pact. If Japan were to invade the Far East while fighting the Nazis in Europe, Russia would be left alone. In this sense, one of the reasons why the management of the Korean Peninsula was in the red is that it required various investments such as building railways and developing infrastructure from Manchuria to Japan. The administration of the Korean Peninsula was financially in the red, but what if we considered it in conjunction with Manchuria?
Let's compare it with the longitudinal railway under Taiwan's rule. Even if you look at it this way, the railways on the Korean Peninsula cover more areas. This may be due to the difference in population of the Korean peninsula, which had a population of 13.13 million compared to 2.6 million at the beginning of Taiwan's rule, and the fact that the central part of Taiwan is mountainous. While the railway was completed, it seems that the Korean peninsula had a very different role as a railway that ran from Manchuria to Japan. To this day, Korean railways still use the Korean Government-General's Office railway line that was built at this time. Regarding Taiwan, it is also based on the Taiwan Governor-General Railway.
North Korea actually still uses this line, and since the South Manchurian Railway was converted to China, it naturally connects to China. When Kim Jong-un visits China, he travels by train, but he is actually using the benefits of the Korean Government-General's Office Railway.
In today's world, it is completely understandable to think that the annexation of Japan and Korea was a failure. Perhaps this is because South Korea is a country that has experienced many frustrating things for Japan, such as the occupation of Takeshima and the subsequent anti-Japanese movements. If you look at history, there is no doubt that this was caused by the annexation of Japan and Korea. On the other hand, the Manchurian region was rich in resources such as coal, oil, iron, and aluminum, and was used to produce agricultural fertilizers and machine tools. If Russia were to cut off the land route to transport this to Japan, Japan would end up there.
Speaking of what Japan failed at, it was actually in the post-war period. The restoration of diplomatic relations in 1965 was based on the conclus
Former Prime Minister Aso plans to visit South Korea and meet with President Yoon - A person who has been monitoring Japan - Korea issues from within the Cabinet
Mr. Aso visits South Korea
Mr. Aso has been observing Japan-Korea relations for a long time from within the Cabinet
The handover on the Korean side is in disarray
What will Mr. Aso offer to the South Korean regime
Former Prime Minister Aso is visiting South Korea, but the Japanese government has said that it is part of parliamentary diplomacy and not as Prime Minister Kishida's special envoy. What did Mr. Aso come to Korea for?
Mr. Aso was the prime minister who concluded the Japan-Korea currency swap during the 2008 Korean currency crisis, which occurred during the Lehman shock in the United States. After rebuilding the economy, the Lee Myung-bak administration said that Japan's aid was unnecessary. Mr. Aso subsequently served as deputy prime minister from the second Abe administration to the Suga administration. During that time, he was involved in various Japan-Korea issues, including Lee Myung-bak's landing on Takeshima, the comfort women agreement, the suspension of the Japan-Korea currency swap, the radar irradiation incident, the forced labor judgment, the comfort women judgment, and the white country issue, in his capacity as vice prime minister. Become the person you were. Like former Prime Minister Abe, he will probably be the only person who has looked at a series of issues as a cabinet member.
Meanwhile, in South Korea, the government changed from Lee Myung-bak to Park Geun-hye, and after impeachment, came the Moon Jae-in government, which removed all people who were said to be pro-Japanese from diplomatic relations. After that, he launched a series of anti-Japanese movements, leading to the current Yun Seok-Yue administration. In other words, on the South Korean side, there is no continuity in Japan-Korea relations, the handover is probably fragmentary, and it is highly likely that they do not understand anything other than symbolic concerns.
It would not be surprising if Japan-Korea relations contain a variety of other problems in addition to those that have been made public. If the problems that have come to light are just the tip of the iceberg, Mr. Aso is probably the person who knows the various problems and background behind them. In other words, it is highly likely that the meaning and content of the comprehensive solution that South Korea calls and the comprehensive solution that Japan thinks of are different.
National debt is not the people's debt - The country is not a company - Breakdown of government bond holdings that still do not penetrate public opinion.
The image at the beginning shows the breakdown of Japanese government bond holdings. I sometimes see people say that national debt is the nation's debt or that it is the same as corporate debt, but national debt is the government's debt, not the people's debt. Even if a country is compared to a company, companies do not borrow money from their employees. Debt comes from outside the company, and in this case, it involves purchasing Japanese government bonds from overseas. If most of the debt is overseas, it is natural that the company will default if it cannot be repaid. Purchases of Japanese government bonds from overseas account for 7.3%.
If you really want to say that it is the same as a company, would you say that purchases in Japan are borrowed and borrowed within the company or within the group company? Yoichi Takahashi considers the Bank of Japan to be the same as a subsidiary of the government, and explains that it is the same in terms of consolidation, regardless of whether interest is charged. The Bank of Japan holds 53.2% of Japanese government bonds. He is well known for introducing BS to show that the country holds government assets equivalent to the government's debts (excluding the holdings of the Bank of Japan). The total amount of government assets ranks first in the world, exceeding both the United States and China. Below is the balance sheet (BS) of Japan.
Furthermore, Japanese government bonds are mainly traded in yen, which means that there is no change in value based on foreign currencies. In the case of foreign currency transactions, if the value of your home currency plummets, the face value of your debt will rise accordingly. Suppose your country's currency drops to half its value. Alternatively, if the foreign currency used when trading government bonds doubles, the debt will also double, but since the transaction is in Japanese yen, there will be no effect at all. In an extreme case, former Prime Minister Aso said that repayment would be possible by increasing the number of yen bids. In this case, there will be inflation and the value of the yen will fall, but the theory is that the debt can be repaid because it is the face value of the yen. This was actually said by Taro Aso, a former Prime Minister and former Minister of Finance.
Secondly, the Japanese government is also the world's No. 1 creditor country. In other words, they have foreign bonds and foreign assets. The fact that we are currently talking about national debt as a problem is actually making a fuss about only the debt part, and in fact, Japan has the most foreign assets in the world. This assumes that the government bonds are denominated in yen as mentioned earlier, and if more yen is printed, the value of the yen will fall and the yen will become weaker. If you do this, overseas assets purchased in dollars or euros will increase in value when converted to yen, so the difference will be a large income. Even with the current depreciation of the yen, a large profit margin was generated due to the increase in the valuation of overseas assets.
Representative Sanae Takaichi has advocated the ``Japanese Economic Resilience Plan,'' which calls for a temporary freeze on primary balance (PB) regulations and calls for industrial investment through the issuance of government bonds. She says that even if inflation were caused by printing more yen, it would not have a big impact if the inflation rate was less than 2%. Currently, the yen is depreciating due to the difference in interest rates due to the Fed's interest rate hikes, but the original goal is to induce a depreciation of the yen through the issuance of government bonds and increase the number of bonds, strengthen international competitiveness, and increase wages and tax revenues through rising prices. If the manufacturing industry returns to Japan due to the weak yen, GDP and tax revenue will increase, and government debt can be reduced. For now, this is just the effect of a weaker yen due to interest rate differences, but we are already seeing significant results.
In other words, those who claim that government debt is bad have the completely opposite idea. What ruined Japan after the bursting of the bubble was rather the primary balance discipline, the inability to focus on single-year income and expenditures and to make long-term investments. Japan tightened its finances in the most critical economic situation. If it is the same as a company, when the company is in crisis, the company's safe is closed like a shell, and for the past 30 years, the company has been operating in a state of poverty and not being able to make long-term investments. This is the so-called curse of PB by the Ministry of Finance.
Abe's state funeral reminded him of the greatness of the deceased - the breakaway from the post - war regime has truly begun.
People who have remained at the center of conversation
This is the end of the anti-Abe faction
Escape from the post-war regime
Former Prime Minister Abe's state funeral was held on the 27th. Looking back on this issue now, I was convinced today that this was also former Prime Minister Abe. At the same time, I felt sad, wondering if I was really saying goodbye to former Prime Minister Abe.
After Mr. Abe was shot, there was an uproar over whether or not to hold a state funeral, but the tone of the crazy people who opposed a state funeral was exactly the same as the one that was being waged during Mr. Abe's time as prime minister. Ta. Ironically, it may be thanks to the ridiculous anti-Abe people that even after Mr. Abe's murder, we still had the opportunity to support former Prime Minister Abe until today. However, what were their achievements?
Personally, if I think about former Prime Minister Abe's most important accomplishment, it is that he brought all of the Japanese people to the entrance or exit of the task of breaking away from the post-war regime.
He was probably the first Japanese prime minister to firmly declare that the Japan-Korea issue is over. What was the meaning of the joint visits to Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima with Mr. Obama? What prompted the reorganization and proposed the Quad framework for the purpose of the U.S. Seventh Fleet's existence is already a shift to a new Asia-Pacific regime. What does UN reform mean? The United Nations is the postwar regime itself. He even took on the challenge of making that change.
What the Japanese people have regained is their pride as Japanese people rather than the economy. That's thanks to Shinzo Abe.
Speech at the banquet of Emperor Showa, who addressed the post - war food crisis and conveyed his gratitude for the food aid, on his visit to the United States.
Emperor Showa who gave his life
Request food aid in exchange for imperial treasures
Food aid realized
Emperor invited to the White House
Emperor Showa who gave his life
When Emperor Showa visited MacArthur's office, he asked MacArthur to help the Japanese people in exchange for his own life. MacArthur later wrote, ``I was convinced that the man in front of me was the best gentleman in Japan.''
In the winter of 1945, Japan experienced a serious food crisis after the war, and Emperor Showa told Kenzo Matsumura, the Minister of Education, ``It is said that there are quite a few items belonging to the Imperial Household that have international value.'' Therefore, I ordered the director of the Imperial Museum to investigate and create a catalog.I would like to give this to America as compensation and use it as food to stave off starvation for the people for just one day. "Take the sea urchins with you," he ordered.
Matsumura was perplexed, but at the strong will of Emperor Showa, he delivered the inventory to MacArthur, who was surprised and said, ``I would not even honor it by taking away the treasures of the imperial family and offering them food in return.'' '' and said that after returning the inventory, they would take steps to provide food aid from the United States.
In 1975, Emperor Showa was invited to the White House by former President Ford as a state guest. American public opinion had little interest in the Japanese Emperor's visit to the United States, and it was never reported, but everyone could have imagined that the Showa Emperor would naturally hold a grudge against the United States. At his White House dinner, His Majesty the Emperor gave the following address:
``I have long desired to visit your country for many years, and if my wish were to come true, I would like to convey the following to your people. I would like to personally express my gratitude to your people for the warm kindness and assistance you extended to us in rebuilding our country immediately after that unfortunate war, which we deeply regret. I expressed my gratitude.
Furthermore, ``The number of people in both countries who are unaware of the recent war is about to exceed the majority.However, even if times change in the future, I believe that the generosity and goodwill of your people will be handed down among the Japanese people for a long time.'' '', the venue erupted with loud applause.
After that, the story quickly spread throughout the United States, and for six days in a row, the front pages of newspapers reported on the visit of the Japanese Emperor to the United States. This event took place 30 years after the end of the war.