The government is considering upgrading the Ministry of Justice's Immigration Bureau into an immigration control agency.
The move comes amid the government's planned introduction of a new residency status for foreign workers across five fields suffering from an acute labor shortage, namely the construction, agriculture, nursing care, shipbuilding and lodging industries, starting April 2019.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe instructed the Justice Ministry to serve as a coordinator to make the necessary preparations for the expected inflow of foreign workers with the introduction of the new visa status. Upgrading the Immigration Bureau is seen as part of this response.
New workers from abroad are expected to exceed 500,000 people by around 2025. That number is double that of the approximately 250,000 technical intern trainees from developing countries who work at factories and farms. The new residency status will surely open the door wide for workers doing such jobs to come to Japan.
In the long run, however, this is an issue that comes down to designing the future of Japan with its rapidly shrinking population. How do we both maintain the workforce and energize society at the same time? This important question has hardly been sufficiently examined within the government.
This means that a major policy turnaround of accepting a large number of unskilled workers from overseas was determined without any substantial discussion. Revamping the immigration organization alone will not necessarily make the process of acceptance go smoothly. Upgrading a bureau to an agency will generally expand the authority of the office, but the problems we must overcome lie beyond the coverage of simple immigration administration.
The biggest challenge is creating an environment where foreigners can work with a sense of security. Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa has told reporters that the government will work to improve living conditions for such workers by providing services such as multilingual counseling and Japanese language education. But these measures alone are not enough.
For example, if a foreign resident who has completed the maximum five years of the technical intern trainee program obtains the new five-year residency status, he or she will stay in Japan for a total of 10 years. A social welfare system including medical and pension services designed for such people are necessary for a stay in Japan of that length.
The government as a whole should discuss and devise relevant policies, and the health and education ministries should also actively take part in the process.
Until now, immigration administration focused mainly on maintaining public order, including measures such as rounding up illegal residents and deporting them. With the planned organizational expansion to an immigration agency, some people argue that such control measures should be further strengthened.
But the government also emphasized the ideal of "inclusive society" when it introduced the plan to accept more foreign workers. Based on that ideal, we should aim for the creation of society where people can work and live together safely.

Seventy-three years have passed since the end of World War II, and a third postwar era is set to begin in May of next year, after the eras of Showa -- which straddled before and after the war -- and Heisei, which ushered in in 1989.
Nevertheless, Aug. 15 will remain our point of reference because the day serves as a time to review the system of our country Japan from its foundations.
One of the questions posed about Japan is a national tendency of irresponsibility. The mindset was once described by political scholar Masao Maruyama as "completely lacking the strong self-consciousness about causing such a large-scale war."
Prewar Japan demanded absolute loyalty from its people, but those at the core of the state were busy protecting the institutions under their control and trying to respond to the reality of war.
The Center for Military History attached to the National Institute for Defense Studies keeps a set of documents called the "Ichigayadai dossier." They are pasted on Japanese paper and some were burned and are difficult to decipher.
These are the remains of papers that the Japanese Imperial Army ordered to be destroyed before and after the end of the war. Those records were discovered in an excavation study of the Ground Self-Defense Force's Camp Ichigaya in Tokyo, where major army facilities stood before the war and where now the Ministry of Defense is located. The Tokyo Metropolitan Archaeological Center conducted the survey originally on the underground ruins of the main compound of the Owari feudal domain of the Edo period (1603-1868) based in present-day Aichi Prefecture.
The records include original papers submitted by Hideki Tojo, who was the prime minister when Japan launched the Pacific War, to Emperor Showa seeking his approval, and the result of an investigation by the military police headquarters on domestic reactions to the July 1945 Potsdam Declaration by the United States, Britain and China that demanded Japan's unconditional surrender. A "special emergency telegram" sent from Hiroshima shortly after the U.S. atomic bombing of the city is also a major item among the files.
It is a well-known fact that the army, the navy and the home ministry started a systematic burning of their secret documents shortly after Japan's acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration was decided. According to "The Complete History of the Greater East Asia War" authored by former Japanese Imperial armed forces officers on the Pacific War, "the black smoke of book burning" continued to billow from the afternoon of Aug. 14, 1945, through Aug. 16.
Despite the massive scale of burning, no records are left on who made the decision to do so. Orders for the action were apparently destroyed along with those secret documents. A trace of this arrangement can be found in a telegram received by a Japanese Imperial Army unit in the southern main island of Kyushu. It reads: "Burn documents that are deemed important. This telegram too must be burned right after reception."
The destruction orders were apparently issued in preparation for the coming trials of war criminals. It is not difficult to imagine that one of the intentions of the orders was to do away with records that could work to the disadvantage of Emperor Showa. In Germany, where the Nazi government surrendered to the Allied forces earlier than Japan in May 1945, preparations were already underway for the Nuremberg trials where Nazi war criminals were prosecuted.
As those secret documents were destroyed, the line of responsibility connecting military bureaucrats in the execution of the 15-year war that started with the Manchurian Incident of 1931, was cut into pieces, making it difficult to reconstruct who did what and why.
After the war ended, bureaucrats, who had been regarded as "officials of the Emperor," now became "servants of the people." Nevertheless, we were forced to witness a situation recently as if we were thrown back to the past. Financial Ministry officials falsified and discarded public documents.
Bureaucrats' motivation to commit those acts apparently included a hope to curry favor with those in power, and to protect themselves. Finance Minister Taro Aso, however, distanced himself from the officials he was supposed to oversee, and declared, "It would be easy if we understand why they did it but we don't."
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, irritated by accusations pressed on him over those cases by the opposition camp, insisted that a ministry probe proved that he and his wife had nothing to do with favoritism scandals behind the tampering and disposal of those Finance Ministry documents.
It appears that the chain of irresponsibility continues to exist inside the government.
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East started its proceedings in May 1946 to try Class-A war criminals of Japan. As expected, the massive burning of important documents adversely affected the trials, leading to a substantial shortage of evidence.
Professor Yoshinobu Higurashi of Teikyo University wrote in his book "Tokyo Saiban" (Tokyo Trial), the proceedings at the tribunal took longer "because issues that can be solved with the submission of a single public document had to be proved with long affidavits and testimonies."
The lack of records invited debate based on ideologies, not historical facts. Those on the right in Japan claim that the Tokyo Trial is based on a historic view tainted with self-degradation, but they do not say how to settle on responsibilities for the war.
A country that does not share facts or examine the past will not have a common recognition about its history. Hidehiro Okada, a historian who passed away in May last year, argued that if a civilization with a cultural factor called history confronts another without it, the civilization with history will always prevail. In his book "Sekaishi no Tanjo" (The birth of world history), Okada explained the reason in this thought-provoking way: "In a civilization without history, the only way to live is to live in the present. One can only take chances."
Those in power often justify their actions by saying they will wait for the judgment of history. The argument is convincing only when a substantial body of precise records exists.

The governments of Japan and China signed their Treaty of Peace and Friendship four decades ago, on Aug. 12, 1978. The bilateral accord came into force on Oct. 23 that year.
The treaty expresses hope for contributions to peace and stability in Asia and in the world based on peace and friendship between the two countries.
Over the past four decades, Tokyo and Beijing have deepened economic ties and human exchanges, but have experienced a slowdown and deterioration of their political relationship due to tensions over historic perceptions and national security policies.
The treaty was introduced six years after the normalization of bilateral ties in 1972. It drastically changed the international order in Asia under the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Negotiation of the treaty was difficult, but differences were overcome, largely due to diplomatic efforts by Japanese lawmakers.
In the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), those who were opposed to the treaty and sympathetic toward Taiwan, which China regards as a renegade province, had the upper hand, and then Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda, who was promoting an "omnidirectional foreign policy," lacked wiggle room because of his considerations for the Soviet Union's stance.
These circumstances prompted pro-Beijing LDP lawmakers, members of the suprapartisan Japan-China Friendship Parliamentarians' Union, and senior Komeito officials to engage in shuttle diplomacy to gauge the Chinese side's position.
Back then, Japan's diplomatic stance toward China was apparently still being formed. But the active exchanges joined not only by politicians but also by business figures resulted in a wide array of human connections.
The bilateral relationship worsened after Japan nationalized the disputed Senkaku Islands in 2012. The relationship has since improved but is merely returning to a "normal orbit," as Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has stated.
The political relationship between the two countries remains deadlocked because of the thorny issues of the Senkaku Islands and Taiwan, as well as China's maritime advances and Japanese politicians' visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine.
Now Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is scheduled to visit China in October, and Chinese President Xi Jinping is envisioned to visit Japan for the first time in June next year. It is possible that President Xi will make a state visit and meet with the new Emperor.
It is important to strengthen ties through mutual visits by top officials. But the thinning out of human connections between Tokyo and Beijing due to the retirement of Japanese politicians close to China remains a concern. A similar situation exists with regard to Japan's bilateral ties with the United States and South Korea.
The Abe administration has let Japan's relationships with neighbors such as China and South Korea decline, but has spared the U.S. administration of President Donald Trump of strong criticism over his country's strengthening of its nuclear arsenal and protectionist trade policies.
The Cabinet is responsible for foreign policy. Excessive intervention in diplomatic affairs by lawmakers would cause problems. But at the same time, the Diet has a responsibility to monitor the administration's execution of foreign policy through the ratification of treaties and other means.
Multilayered diplomacy complementing the government's foreign policy is needed to solve deep-rooted problems and develop international relations.

Okinawa Gov. Takeshi Onaga, a conservative who raised the banner of the "All Okinawa" movement transcending conservative and liberal camps in opposing construction of a new U.S. military base off the coast of Henoko in the city of Nago in the central part of the southernmost prefecture, has passed away.
Onaga was a heavyweight conservative who served for a long time as a prefectural assembly member, mayor of the city of Naha and a municipal legislator in a political environment where conservatives and liberals have vied for power since before Okinawa's return to Japan from American rule in 1972.
Conservatives place importance on local traditions and culture while avoiding rapid changes. Okinawan conservatives accepted the reality of the presence of American bases, and attempted to promote the local economy to differentiate themselves from liberals opposing those bases and the bilateral security treaty between Japan and the United States. However, the central government's failure to keep its course on the planned relocation of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma irritated conservatives. The administration of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama from the former Democratic Party of Japan promised to relocate the base outside Okinawa, but scrapped the pledge by the time he left power in June 2010 after a nine-month stint.
The administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, meanwhile, has maintained strong-arm tactics and insists that the base relocation to Henoko is the only option.
Prime Minister Abe has used a number of catchphrases such as "departure from the postwar regime" and "recovering Japan," but for Okinawa, the postwar regime is embodied in its extremely heavy burden of hosting U.S. bases, rooted in former occupation by the American military.
Does the Japan referred to by the premier include Okinawa? This has been the suspicion local residents have held against the central government and the Liberal Democratic Party, a conservative force leading the ruling coalition in the National Diet. And this mistrust moved Onaga to oppose the Henoko relocation plan.
The confrontation between conservatives and liberals was accordingly transformed into "all Okinawa" support for Onaga by "Okinawan identity," which the governor emphasized time and again.
As the prefectural government's 21st century vision indicates, Okinawa is seeking to be economically independent by becoming a hub of international exchange in the Asia-Pacific region.
Okinawa is bent on removing its economy from dependence on American bases. But Tokyo, despite its obligation to support Okinawa's initiative, has pressed a package of base relocation and economic support on Okinawa. Accepting such a maneuver by the national government is against Okinawan identity.
When Gov. Onaga met with Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga after assuming the governorship, he attacked the central government's position as "corruption of politics."
However, the options available to the prefecture were quite limited. The governor died amid his move to retract permission given for the reclamation of the sea off the coast of Henoko for the relocation of the U.S. base, and his death has deeply shaken people who are opposed to the base project. Predicting the results of the upcoming gubernatorial election, which will be held as early as September, is no easy task.
As a conservative politician who was born and raised under the U.S. occupation, Onaga challenged the contradiction marked by Okinawa's burden of hosting U.S. bases. While he has passed away, settlement of the issue is no closer than before.

It is appalling that such massive blatant wrongdoing had been committed under the name of entrance examinations at Tokyo Medical University.
A group of lawyers appointed by the medical school announced the results of their investigation into the university's backdoor admission of some applicants. Their report confirmed that the university did accept the son of a former senior education ministry official as alleged by prosecutors, and manipulated the scores of some female applicants and male test-takers who had failed in at least four earlier attempts to enter the facility so that they would not pass the examination. Some children of alumni and people linked to the school were given favorable treatment.
In the second, essay part of the two-tier entrance exam, first-time male applicants or men in their second to fourth attempts were given 10 to 20 extra points, while women and applicants who had four or more failed tries were not given such padding.
Applicants linked to the school were given extra points in the first part of the test. Up to 49 points were added to the scores of six test-takers in this spring's exam.
Illogical reasons behind the school's action to turn down applicants included: women leave their jobs when they give birth or raise children and applicants with many failed attempts tend to have trouble in their academic performance. Meanwhile, alumni's children were accepted in a bid to collect more donations.
The university's former chairman of the board of regents and former president made the decisions to manipulate the scores. The two allegedly received money from some parents of children who were admitted through the backdoor. The malicious action committed in the entrance examination, the most important event for a university, is indicative of the pathology of the school's administration.
According to the lawyers' probe, score manipulations were carried out since 2006, and covered the entrance examination of applicants recommended by their educational institutions.
Why have such illicit actions been allowed to happen? Ineffective governance appears to be the reason.
Essentially, the chairman was supposed to be responsible for the management of the university, and the president had the responsibility and authority for the academic part of the facility including entrance examinations. Striking a balance between the two was the key to a proper school management. But the university's ex-chairman was a former president, and dominated both the academic and management portions of the school's administration.
The board of regents had a problem in allowing the former chairman and others to continue with their unruly actions. Thirteen of the 16 regents were graduates of or people linked to the university, and there was said to be an atmosphere blocking confrontation against top management.
These malfunctions inside the university permitted the illicit entrance examinations to happen again and again. The way the university was run was totally self-centered.
The lawyers said their investigation is over, but it did not reveal the full picture of the affair.
Applicants who were turned down through the university rigging the entrance examinations are now leading different lives. The school says it is considering accepting them, but the facility must do more to take full responsibility for the scandal.

Hiroshima marked the 73rd anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city on Aug. 6, 1945. Nagasaki will do the same on Aug. 9. These days serve as a reminder about the terrible effects of the atomic bombings that killed and injured hundreds of thousands of human beings, and the preciousness of peace.
The number of hibakusha, or people exposed to radiation caused by the atomic bombings, is declining year by year. According to the health ministry, there was 155,000 hibakusha as of March this year, and 90,000 hibakusha died during the past decade. The number of survivors directly exposed to radiation in the cities of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and their surrounding areas is now under 100,000 for the first time. Their average age is now 82 and they are aging.
Keiko Ogura, 81, who became a hibakusha when she was eight in Hiroshima, has been telling her story in English to foreign visitors. She offers her testimonies at international conferences and overseas events. "A day will come when only mementos are left. I testify everyday thinking this is the last day." She said.
As hibakusha numbers decline, education that carries on their voices becomes more important.
Japan's two atomic-bombed cities are enthusiastic about peace education. The city of Hiroshima has a 12-year-long peace education program covering elementary to high school students. The city of Nagasaki launched classes this year that focus on dialogue between hibakusha and students, not just on listening to the tales of survivors.
The importance of learning about peace is the same for children around Japan. One can feel what war is like by standing in Hiroshima or Nagasaki and listening to what hibakusha have to say.
However, according to the Hiroshima Municipal Government, the number of students visiting the city on school excursions dropped to some 320,000, less than 60 percent of the peak of the mid-1980s.
It is vital to prevent visits to those cities from becoming a onetime experience. Wars not only kill or injure people, but also destroy cities and nature, create refugees and make societies poor. Discussing how to stop war in classes is a possible way to build on those visits.
It is the responsibility of the government to make the world aware of the horrors of nuclear weapons. But the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe turned its back on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which was adopted last year at the United Nations in New York. Tokyo did so in consideration of the position of Washington, which provides a nuclear umbrella over Japan. The administration says it is going to be a bridge between nuclear weapons states and countries without them, but no concrete results have emerged so far.
An international nongovernmental organization won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for its contribution to the passage of the nuclear weapons ban treaty. Japan will lose its leverage as the only country that suffered from atomic bombings if it cannot clear suspicions that its posture toward the elimination of nuclear weapons is moving backward.

How will the ceremonies marking the abdication of Emperor Akihito and subsequent accession of Crown Prince Naruhito to the throne be conducted? The government office overseeing all preparations for these events has been launched, while a committee tasked with deciding the details of the ceremonies will be established in the autumn.
We call on these bodies to carry out their discussions with consistency with the Constitution in mind, while also keeping the events simple in accordance with the tenor of the present era.
The government decided in April this year to carry out ceremonies for not just the abdication -- the first in Japan's constitutional era -- but also the accession as constitutional functions of the emperor. Meanwhile, it was also decided that when the new Emperor carries out the Daijosai, a ceremony in which new rice is offered to imperial ancestors and to the deities of heaven and earth, it will not be designated as a constitutional function due to its religious nature. As was the case after Emperor Akihito's enthronement, the Daijosai will be performed as an Imperial Household function.
The cost of the Daijosai is born by the Imperial Household, but as this is funded by the government, ultimately the ceremony will be covered by the public purse. There remain deep-rooted questions about this from the viewpoint of the separation of religion and state mandated by the Constitution.
From this perspective, there also remain problems with ceremonies categorized as constitutional functions of the emperor. The "Sokuirei seiden no gi," a ceremony to announce the accession, features the prime minister responding to the words of the newly enthroned emperor. The ceremony puts one in mind of a monarch speaking to a retainer, and many experts have criticized it as inconsistent with the principle of the sovereignty of the people enshrined in the Constitution. Deeper debate on this issue is needed, as well as a proper explanation to the people of Japan.
Public expenditures related to the enthronement of Emperor Akihito hit some 12.3 billion yen, and the cost drew plenty of criticism. The Daijokyu, a palace built just for the Daijosai, was demolished after the ceremony, and many of the materials for the structure were disposed of as well. For the coming ceremony, we call on organizers to economize as much as possible, including reusing materials.
It is also important to consider how to simplify to the greatest extent possible the "Kyoen no gi," a ceremony to celebrate the accession of the new emperor. For Emperor Akihito's enthronement, some 3,000 people were invited to the event, which spanned four days and included seven banquets. Considering the troubled state of government finances, as well as reducing the burden on the new emperor and empress, simplifying this ceremony is the obvious course.
When the government consulted experts on ceremonies related to the Imperial succession, some suggested the events be "conducted in harmony with ideas common both inside and outside Japan." The administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, however, pays excessive heed to its more conservative elements, and its stance of simply pressing ahead with discussions will not suffice.
Unlike the previous succession upon the death of Emperor Showa, this time the government has the time to consider all the angles of this issue. Nevertheless, the Abe administration is sticking to past precedent as the baseline for its planning. One glaring example of this is the plan to exclude female members of the Imperial Family from important ceremonies.
It has been pointed out that coordination between the prime minister's office and the Imperial Household Agency on points such as the schedule for the succession remains insufficient. For the sake of all the ceremonies proceeding smoothly, both sides should step up their efforts to cooperate.
The Imperial system has adapted to meet the needs of the era. There should be no hesitancy to make sure the Imperial abdication and accession ceremonies are conducted in the same spirit.

The Japan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) has clearly stated for the first time that Japan will try to reduce its plutonium stockpiles. The new policy, incorporated in the commission's revised guidelines, is a reflection of Japan's principle of not holding plutonium without specific purpose of use -- a stance maintained from its standpoint of nuclear nonproliferation.
Reasserting Japan's position at this juncture is important, as awareness about nuclear security is on the rise and the Japan-U.S. agreement on nuclear cooperation has been extended automatically. However, the first revisions since 2003 are half-baked and do not show a path toward a real reduction. Such measures will not be able to win international trust.
Plutonium is a product of the nuclear fuel cycle. The cycle was conceived out of concerns about uranium depletion, but now there is uranium aplenty. Moreover, fast-breeder reactors, which stood at the core of the cycle, have been found to be difficult to put into actual use and are not viable economically. The United States, Britain, Germany and others have already given up on such projects.
Japan, however has stuck with its nuclear fuel cycle, and to maintain it, the government lets power utilities use plutonium in mixed oxide (MOX) fuel as a stop-gap measure. But this arrangement has faced turbulence in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. As a result, the country has been left with stockpiles of about 47 metric tons of plutonium in Japan and overseas.
If a reprocessing plant for spent nuclear fuel that Japan is building in the northern prefecture of Aomori starts operation as planned, its domestic plutonium stockpile is bound to increase. Plutonium can be used to produce nuclear weapons, and it is understandable that Japan's neighbors and the United States have voiced concerns about increases in the amount of the material.
The revised guidelines state that operations at the reprocessing plant will be limited to the level needed to produce enough plutonium for MOX consumption. They also encourage power companies to cooperate in the reduction of overseas stockpiles.
However, the guidelines do not state that reduction is more important than reprocessing, and operation of the reprocessing plant has gone unquestioned. This arrangement is not going to reduce stockpiles.
For a real reduction of plutonium stockpiles, the government should take drastic measures such as freezing operation of the reprocessing plant or discarding plutonium in deep, secure underground locations. Handing over Japan's overseas stockpiles to countries now storing them is an option that merits discussion.
Japan must review the meaning of continuing with reprocessing and its nuclear fuel cycle.
The argument of seeking greater MOX consumption to reduce plutonium stockpiles is preposterous. Plutonium-based fuels are more expensive than uranium fuel. They also create concerns about nuclear proliferation. How to deal with the spent fuel is a tough question to answer, too.
Japan should not delay its departure from the nuclear fuel cycle any longer.

Japan's minimum hourly wage, which applies to all workers nationwide regardless of contract type, is set to be raised by 3 percent in fiscal 2018 -- the third consecutive year of increases. The minimum wage will go up by 26 yen, the largest single hike in history.
The government has set a goal of increasing the minimum wage to 1,000 yen. At the current pace of increases, it will likely top that amount in Tokyo as early as fiscal 2019.
Japan's worker shortage remains serious. The government has drawn up a plan to invite 10,000 nursing care workers from Vietnam. However, the minimum wage in South Korea is higher than that in Japan in real terms. Many cities in China have also drastically raised their minimum wages in recent years.
Since the aging of society has progressed in much of Asia, it would be difficult for Japan to solicit nursing care workers from overseas if the country's minimum wage was to be kept at the current level. Japan's international labor market competitiveness is insufficient.
Japan's minimum wage is only about 40 percent of the average wage of full-time employees, well below the approximately 60 percent in France and around 50 percent in Britain and Germany, and is among the lowest of OECD member countries.
A bill to reform the way people work, which was enacted during the regular Diet session that closed on July 22, set a cap on overtime to rectify many Japanese employees' long work hours. There are many non-regular employees who are paid just above the minimum wage, and some of them must hold down multiple jobs to make ends meet. To reduce long work hours for non-regular employees, it is indispensable to raise the minimum wage further.
A wide gap in the minimum wage between regions should also be addressed. Japan rates the 47 prefectures by four ranks from A to D based on their regional economic climate and other factors, while most other countries set a uniform nationwide minimum wage. Following the latest decision, the minimum wage in A-ranked Tokyo will reach 985 yen, but the amount in Okinawa and other prefectures in the D category will be 760 yen. The gap in the minimum wage between the highest- and lowest-ranked prefectures has rather widened from last fiscal year.
Gaps in workers' wages reflect differences in the scales of companies they work for as well as industry type and job category rather than regional economic conditions such as consumer prices.
If there is to be a 200 yen or more gap in hourly wages between regions for the same job category, for example, it would only encourage workers to move from areas with low minimum wages to regions with higher minimum wages.
According to a survey conducted by the Japanese Trade Union Confederation, commonly known as Rengo, average household income is gradually improving, but there are still many people who are concerned about their future livelihood. Under the circumstances, gradual increases in household income have not led to a recovery in consumer spending.
The government should further raise the minimum wage and narrow regional differences in pay levels. Broadening the sector of society paying taxes and social security premiums will help stabilize Japan's social security system.

Six former members of the AUM Shinrikyo cult, who were on death row over the deadly sarin gas attack on Tokyo's subway system in 1995 and other crimes, were executed on July 26. The move completes the punishment of all relevant convicts, including former AUM leader Shoko Asahara, whose real name was Chizuo Matsumoto.
But this is not the time to forget about the AUM cases. The cult intended to topple the state, and carried out a chemical terror attack using a nerve agent. Why were such large-scale acts of terror planned and carried out? The question has not received a full answer.
There are many unresolved components in AUM-related cases. The statute of limitations was reached over the shooting of the National Police Agency chief leading an investigation into the cult. A former police officer, who was a follower of the cult, was arrested in the case, but he was not indicted. Reasons behind such failures in AUM-related investigations have not been sufficiently examined.
The truth was sought in criminal trials on the subway attack and other cases. But the evidence presented in courts is limited. Painting a complete picture about what happened based on trial records is no easy task.
A variety of organizations, such as police, the prosecution, the Public Security Intelligence Agency and the Self-Defense Forces, must have independently collected information, but little has trickled out into the public domain.
The AUM cases claimed 27 lives and injured more than 6,000 people. These are unprecedented crimes. The government must consolidate all relevant information and produce a report as lessons learned for future generations. Records held by the private sector, including the subway operator Teito Rapid Transit Authority (now Tokyo Metro), should be incorporated into the report as supporting documents.
A think tank in the United States compiled a report on the sarin subway incident seven years ago. It examined how AUM developed biological and chemical weapons. For the report, a former chief of the U.S. Navy and others conducted more than 20 interviews with former AUM cultists who were hanged this July, among others. They made a detailed analysis on how AUM, despite repeated mistakes, came to acquire chemical weapons, and made their findings public.
Such an effort is required as a means of counterterrorism, which is looming as one of the most important issues ahead of the upcoming Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics in 2020. Lessons learned in response to AUM cases must be reflected in such preparations.
When producing a report, the government must also explain why the two sets of executions were carried out in July, hanging an unprecedented number of 13 death row inmates in a short period of time. And the report must shed light on the internal discussions that took place regarding how to proceed with the hangings.