Where does a national emergency exist in the United States now?
U.S. President Donald Trump declared a national emergency on Feb. 15 in order to build a wall along the border with Mexico, while at the same time indicated he would sign a budget bill agreed in Congress to avoid another partial shutdown of the federal government.
The bill allocated some $1.3 billion for the construction of "barriers," but the president, who demanded 5.7 billion to build "the wall," was not satisfied, as the project is arguably one of the biggest promises he made to voters.
So he decided to use his presidential power, based on the National Emergency Act of 1976, to spend more on the wall. This action cannot evade criticism as makeshift and high-handed.
Authority over budgetary matters belongs to Congress under the U.S. Constitution. It is against democratic rules for President Trump to use the immense power of his office to ignore the budget bill agreed on by both the ruling Republican and opposition Democratic parties. The reasons he cited for declaring a national emergency are far from convincing.
A national emergency was declared in 2001 after the 9/11 terror attacks on the U.S., and in 2009 to counter an influenza epidemic. Such declarations are not rare, but one has to wonder if Trump's statement that the declaration was necessary to prevent the inflow of illegal immigrants and drugs has true urgency and legitimacy.
The Democrats pointed out that the president is abusing his power, saying that what is going on along the U.S. border with Mexico is not a national emergency. This opinion makes more sense.
Perhaps the president made the move out of consideration for the 2020 presidential election. But why does he have to pursue the construction of "the wall" so single-mindedly? One has to worry anew about the xenophobic tendencies of President Trump.
U.S. society now has two opposing movements: One seeking unity beyond ethnic, religious or gender differences, and the other trying to remove things that are different. The latter includes contempt for African Americans and women, and prejudice and discrimination against Muslims.
President Trump shares this exclusionary tendency, and his attitude toward immigrants is particularly harsh. "The wall" is arguably a symbol of Trumpism. But is it not a "national emergency" for the United States, which has achieved its tremendous prosperity through the inflow of immigrants, to push ahead with the noxious logic of exclusionism?
U.S. ally Israel has built a wall to seal off Palestinian residential areas. The structure was found illegal by the International Court of Justice and others. President Trump's wall does not have such illegality, but the two structures share the suffocating aim of excluding others.
As xenophobic populism is becoming conspicuous in Europe, the impact of the U.S. move toward the construction of "the wall" will not be small.
We call on President Trump to think again.

After top Japanese swimmer Rikako Ikee announced she was suffering from leukemia, calls of support flooded in from within Japan and abroad. But amid this support, the minister in charge of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics made a comment that was nothing short of inconsiderate.
In response to the news about the Olympic hopeful's illness on Feb. 12, Yoshitaka Sakurada told reporters, "I'm really disappointed," and added, "I'm worried that the swell (for the Games) might go down a bit."
Sakurada did also say he wanted Ikee "to focus on receiving treatment and fully recover." Nevertheless, expressing his "disappointment" when the 18-year-old athlete was waiting for detailed medical tests is nothing but thoughtless.
What was Sakurada disappointed about? Judging from his other statements such as "She is a potential gold medalist" and "She is someone Japan should be proud of," he was disappointed because Ikee's chance of winning a medal had decreased. And he made those remarks after the swimmer herself had expressed eagerness to return to the pool in the future.
Does he think that athletes are just pawns producing a swell for the games? From his comments one could certainly imagine so.
For politicians, words are critical. They should always think how their words will be perceived. Sakurada apologized and retracted his statements on Feb. 13, but that is not the end of the story.
Since his assumption of his post last fall, Sakurada has repeatedly made awkward and confused replies to questions during Diet sessions. And despite his other responsibility of ensuring the nation's cybersecurity, the minister lacked knowledge in that particular area, and many questioned his qualification to serve in the portfolio. In recent news conferences, he has frequently failed to field questions and depended on advice from bureaucrats beside him.
Perhaps it is difficult for him to continue as a Cabinet minister.
In the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Masahiro Imamura, a former minister in charge of reconstruction following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, was fired in 2017 after he said it was a "good thing" that the massive quake hit the Tohoku region in northeastern Japan. However, other gaffes by Cabinet members have been swept under the carpet as those politicians excused themselves by saying that their remarks were "misunderstood."
Earlier in this month, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Taro Aso drew fire for implying that Japan's low birth rate and aging are problems caused by "those who don't have children." Aso has made gaffes time and again because the administration never had him face up to his responsibility.
Does Prime Minister Abe really think that Sakurada is fit for the job?

Illicit activities associated with government statistics are emerging one after another, and efforts to correct these problems by relevant ministries are lacking.
Statistics form part of the foundation of a modern country. Their collection methods in Japan, however, have been wrong for many years with no serious efforts to find and correct the violations. This is a serious situation.
In the case of the Monthly Labor Survey conducted by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, the first of the statistics found with problems, the collection method was changed without necessary permission, and was adjusted secretly after about 15 years.
Yasuyuki Onishi, former director-general in charge of statistics policy at the labor ministry, told the House of Representatives Budget Committee that he first learned of the problem on Dec. 13, 2018. Upon hearing this remark, one has no choice but to think that irresponsibility is prevalent in the ministry.
Behind this illicit act lies the government's attitude of making light of statistics. The number of central government bureaucrats in charge of statistics halved to around 1,900 during the past decade, as run-of-the-mill jobs have been easier to ax.
The government designates 56 surveys as "fundamental statics" that provide vital information for policymaking. However, these pieces of data are collected by nine government ministries and agencies, such as the Vital Statistics demographic survey by the health ministry, the Census of Manufactures by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and the Labor Force Survey by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. Moreover, many of the senior officials in charge of managing such statistical surveys are not experts on the subject, and their oversight is not necessarily effective.
The internal affairs ministry's Statistics Commission is supposed to check if those polls are conducted properly, but it is obvious that the panel was not functioning properly. For just one organization of a single ministry to watch over multiple ministries and agencies is no easy task.
Many leading countries see compiling statistics as a fundamental mission. In Britain, the Office for National Statistics, which reports to the parliament, produces most of the main statistics. This arrangement was made based on discussions about the independence of statistical organizations from the administrative branch, which date back to around 2000. In the United States, as many as 9,000 officials are involved in the making of the main surveys alone.
In response to the labor data scandals, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he would implement "comprehensive countermeasures." What is needed is not just finding out why the wrongdoing occurred, but also reviewing the weight given to statistics. The government should consider integrating statistics making missions into a single independent agency to be monitored by a third-party organization. Getting rid of divided statistics production would be effective in making the process more efficient through the introduction of innovative data collection and analysis methods.
Japan made fatal mistakes during World War II by making light of objective numbers. The government should give more serious consideration to warnings about illicit statistics.

A national rally seeking the return of four Northern Territories islands from Russia was held in Tokyo on Feb. 7.
That day marked when the Treaty of Commerce, Navigation and Delimitation between Japan and Russia was signed in 1855 and a border between the two countries was drawn north of Etorofu Island, one of the islands off the northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido, which have been under Russian occupation since the end of World War II. The Japanese government designated the day as "The Day of Northern Territories" in 1981 and has organized rallies every year since.
This year, however, a special atmosphere was in the air at the event site. This was because many participants felt that we are at a crossroads of seeking a full return of the islands, or settling for a return of two of the islands as a compromise.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made his usual speech about "settling the territorial dispute and signing a peace treaty with Russia." He avoided expressions such as "integral part of Japan's sovereign territory" or "the attribution of the four northern islands." After the premier left the venue, a representative of former island residents stated in their speech that calls for the return of the four islands "have disappeared" to an applauding audience.
--- Unclear interpretation of San Francisco Peace Treaty
The crossroads became visible after Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed in Singapore in November 2018 that they will accelerate peace treaty negotiations based on the Japan-Russia Joint Declaration of 1956, which states that the smaller two of the islands, Habomai and Shikotan, would be handed over to Japan after the conclusion of a peace treaty between Tokyo and Moscow.
An examination of post-war territorial disputes involving Japan shows that the Japanese government stance has wavered between the two options over the Northern Territories.
Japan signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty in September 1951. The accord states that Japan "renounces all right, title and claim to the Kurile Islands." During the Diet session that ratified the treaty, government officials explained that the Kurile Islands include the islands of Kunashiri and Etorofu -- the two largest islands of the Northern Territories. This view was adopted by the administration of Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida.
Yoshida's successor, Ichiro Hatoyama, and his Cabinet started peace treaty negotiations with the Soviet Union, and introduced a new unified view of the government in February 1956 that those two larger islands were not part of the Kurile Islands. This about-face came amid pressure from the Liberal Democratic Party and the United States in the middle of the Cold War between the West and the East.
The Hatoyama Cabinet, however, compromised with the return of Habomai and Shikotan in a bid to gain the support of the Soviet Union for Japan's participation in the United Nations, and the return of Japanese detainees in Siberia. That was the essence of the 1956 joint declaration. The statement has no reference to Kunashiri or Etorofu.
It is natural for people to observe that Prime Minister Abe has pivoted toward the two-island option of seeking the return of Habomai and Shikotan. Now we would like to consider the merits and demerits of a settlement with the return of the two islands with the history of the territorial dispute in mind.
Recently, the United States has lost some of its global leadership under its "America First" doctrine, and is competing against a rising China. Confusion in the Middle East is affecting Japan's efforts to secure enough oil and natural gas.
Strengthening Japan's relationship with Russia would stabilize the surrounding regions. Tokyo would have more diplomatic options as it maintains its alliance with Washington, checking China's expansion into the oceans. Closer ties with Russia, which has large natural gas outputs, would improve Japan's energy security.
If Japan becomes closer to Russia, Europe and the U.S., which have seen ties with Moscow sour over Russia's annexation of Crimea, would question Japan's diplomatic stance. Russia has recovered from the attrition of the Cold War and now intends to show off its regained power. If Japan promised Russia that no U.S. troops would be deployed to the returned islands, such a move would be seen as a sign that Tokyo has abandoned its sovereignty over national security. A compromise in the territorial issue may damage Japan's international prestige.
After comparing all these factors and determining that a compromise has more merits than demerits, we may need to proceed in that direction. However, one has to be concerned by the ongoing negotiation process between Japan and Russia since November last year.
Japan's position on the Northern Territories is that the Soviet Union invaded the islands in the last days of World War II in violation of the bilateral neutrality treaty and is occupying them illegally.
Russia, however, stresses that the islands became Soviet territory as an outcome of World War II, and that if Japan doesn't accept that, then there will be no solution to the territorial issue.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated that Japan should not even use the name "Northern Territories." As if to comply, Tokyo has recently refrained from using the phrase "illegally occupied," and has presented no rebuttal to Lavrov's statement. In light of this, we cannot conclude that negotiations are proceeding on equal terms.
The problem is that Japan has not been able to hammer out a strategy to counter Moscow as it brings differences in historical perceptions to the negotiation table.
Though Abe may have steered toward the return of two islands, it is possible that Putin could separate negotiations on the territorial issue and place priority on establishing a peace treaty with Japan. Judging from the negotiations so far, it appears that Japan is giving up ground.
However, if a peace treaty alone is advanced without nailing down to whom the four islands belong, then Japan will lose leverage to move territorial negotiations forward, and it will become difficult for Japan to secure the return of even two of the islands.
It is dangerous for Japan to continue to pitch forward like this. It must calmly analyze the situation, and forge a renewed strategy.

The "spring offensive" for wage negotiations between businesses and labor unions for this year started off with a meeting of top officials from both sides on Feb. 5.
The powerful business group Japan Business Federation (Keidanren) is striving to move away from specific pay-raise goals indicated by the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in past negotiations. This year's focus is on whether more companies, especially small- and medium-sized corporations or employers of non-regular workers, will increase overall salaries substantially. Wage talk negotiators have a tough job ahead of them.
Both labor unions and employers agree that pay raises are necessary. But they differ substantially on how to achieve the goal.
Keidanren intends to shift from its traditional position of seeking base wage rises across the board to offering "comprehensive improvements" in working conditions including flexible work hours. Behind this approach lie the business lobby's concerns about a possible slowdown of the global economy due to the U.S.-China trade war and its desire to evade an increase of overhead expenses from pay raises.
The Japanese Labor Union Confederation (Rengo), Japan's largest labor union federation, is seeking around a 4 percent raise while focusing on correcting disparities among workers. The alliance encourages member unions to negotiate specific amounts of monthly salaries they desire, because realizing across-the-board base pay raises does not narrow the existing pay gap between workers for major corporations and those with small- and medium-sized employers.
For the difference to shrink, smaller companies need to achieve greater overall salary hikes than before. Almost 70 percent of Japanese workers are hired by small firms. Wage increases should spread beyond a limited number of major corporations with good business performances so that greater domestic consumption would shore up the economy.
Substantial monthly pay raises are vital to prevent a business decline after the planned hike of the consumption tax from 8 percent to 10 percent in October.
For several years now, corporate profits have been reaching record levels. Corporations had total savings of 446 trillion yen in fiscal 2017, up 40 trillion yen from the previous year. Smaller companies have also accumulated more internal reserves than in the past.
In contrast, the labor share of national income, which shows the ratio of personnel costs against earnings, remains at a 43-year low -- the result of an increase in the number of non-regular workers with lower pay levels. Now is the time to change the framework of curbing employees' salaries while increasing corporate savings.
Improving the treatment of non-regular workers, who make up 40 percent of the nation's workforce, is also an important issue.
The introduction of more foreign workers from April is considered by some as a means to lower the wages of part-time workers. Labor unions and employers should cooperate to set a standard for raising wages and improving working conditions for irregular workers.

The government cancelled its approval of the training program at Mitsubishi Motors Corp. for Philippine technical intern trainees after the major auto maker was found to have made the trainees work along car assembly lines for years although they were accepted to carry out welding training. As punishment, the company has been prohibited from accepting foreign trainees for five years.
Such misconduct is heinous, and many trainees had to go home or transfer to other companies. The automaker deserves the tough punishment.
This case has yet again revealed the structural problem of the technical intern trainee program. Under the current arrangement, a management organization is supposed to accept trainees, place them in companies and guide and monitor such firms.
But many management bodies are run with money from those companies or their industries. This relationship makes it difficult for those management bodies to play their designed roles.
Under the new immigration law to be implemented in April, a body called a "registration support organization" will play a similar role as management organizations, for foreign workers to be accepted under new residency statuses.
The government must learn lessons from the Mitsubishi Motors case by investigating if the management organization properly played its intended role.
The violation of the training program emerged because the Organization for Technical Intern Training inspected the company. The organization was established based on the 2017 Technical Intern Training Act. But the organization has limited human resources, and cannot inspect every suspected violation. Japan now has more than 300,000 technical trainees, and the latest case is likely to be just the tip of the iceberg.
The government intends to maintain the training program as a source of candidates for new residency statuses for foreign workers to be introduced in April. The current training program faced tough criticism during the last extraordinary session of the Diet for its low pay and long working hours. In the latest punishment, the government apparently wanted to emphasize its tough posture against violators by exposing a case involving a major corporation.
However, the original purpose of the trainee program to transfer Japan's technical expertise to developing companies remains in name only, and the whole system is used to make up for labor shortages. This is the undeniable reality. We renew our demand that the government abolish the trainee program and consolidate residency statuses for menial workers.

The Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between Japan and the European Union (EU) has taken effect. The two economies account for around 30 percent of global GDP, surpassing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade zone that came into existence in late 2018. We want this enormous new free trade sphere to lead efforts to rebuild the international order, which has been in confusion due to American highhandedness.
The EPA abolishes tariffs on a wide range of products, benefitting both Japan and Europe. Japanese consumers will be able to buy European wines and cheeses cheaper. The agreement will provide a tailwind for Japanese car exports to Europe. The government estimates that the accord will expand the economy by over 5 trillion yen. Efforts should be made to spread the benefits across Japan while paying attention to impacts on farmers.
The agreement will serve as a seawall against protectionist pressure in upcoming trade talks between Japan and the United States. Japan lowered agricultural tariffs under the TPP. Now tariffs on European farm products have been lowered, putting American competitors, who are outside the TPP, at a disadvantage. It is possible that U.S. negotiators will refrain from making unilateral demands out of a desire for an early settlement.
The agreement is also important for the EU, which has been shaken by negotiations on Britain's departure from the union and the rise of anti-EU political parties.
The EU estimates that its exports to Japan will grow by more than 30 percent. With the spread of benefits from the free-trade accord, people may recognize once more the significance of economic integration. Such a development may help strengthen the union.
The accord is important for the international community, too.
The global economy is on the verge of tipping into decline because of the trade war between the U.S. and China. Improving the Japanese and European economies with the free-trade agreement will contribute to worldwide stability.
The combined economic output of the TPP and the EPA participants reaches almost 40 percent of the global total. These multinational frameworks spanning the Pacific and Europe can play a vital role in rebuilding the free-trade system after the revision of the U.S.-Canada-Mexico North American Free Trade Agreement with protectionist twists.
Japan and Europe place importance on multinational cooperation on security and global environmental issues. The postwar international order has been supported by the United States, Europe and Japan, but with Washington assuming an America First posture, Tokyo and Brussels have greater roles to play. Japan's distance with Europe had been greater compared to that with the U.S., a military ally, but the EPA can be the foundation to deepen collaboration between Japan and the EU.
Next week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a leading European figure, will visit Japan to meet Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The two leaders are expected to confirm the importance of cooperation under the new economic agreement.
Japan will host a summit of the Group of 20 major countries and regions in June. The prime minister is responsible for leading international cooperation by coordinating closely with countries such as Germany.

If continuous economic expansion is not accompanied by sufficient wage growth, it cannot make people feel that it's real.
The government on Jan. 29 expressed a view that the Japanese economy has expanded for six years and two months in a row, marking the longest postwar growth period since December 2012.
A long-term economic upturn itself is something desirable. The current expansion began when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Cabinet were sworn in, and stock prices and employment have improved.
The question is how much have people been able to feel the prosperity through the expansion?
Many of the new jobs created are low paying irregular employment in sectors facing labor shortages. The wage hike last year was revised downward after the government's labor data corruption scandal was found and corrected. The average salary per person, including full-time employees, has gone down by approximately 3 percent when adjusted for price changes, from the level before the boom began.
Consumption is stagnating, and the growth rate is low. During the current expansion, the Japanese economy has grown by only 1.2 percent per year in real terms on average. The figure is lower than the 1.6 percent growth recorded during the expansion from 2002 through 2008, which was the previous low since the end of World War II.
The Japanese economy has been supported during this growth phase by steady economies overseas, including the United States, and exporting companies have enjoyed the largest share of this boom. Thanks to the qualitative and quantitative monetary easing of a "different dimension" by the Bank of Japan, the yen has been week and is driving exports, bringing good profits to companies.
The total retained earnings by companies in Japan reached a record 446 trillion yen in fiscal 2017, up more than 160 trillion yen from the level marked before the introduction of the "Abenomics" economic policy mix. In contrast, the wage share, which indicates the ratio of national income allocated for salaries, remained at 66 percent, the lowest figure in 43 years.
Japan now faces major aging and depopulation issues. Companies are reluctant to raise wages because they don't want to expand their operations in a domestic market that is going to shrink.
What is needed is a response reflecting the maturity of the Japanese economy. During the period of high economic growth after the war, wages continued to increase naturally. Now, special efforts must be made to redistribute profits earned by companies to people so that the economy can be stronger.
Overseas economies may shrink due to the trade war between the U.S. and China. With the planned hike in the consumption tax in October, it is more important than ever to make the foundations of the economy resilient.
We want corporations to make active efforts to raise pay levels in the annual "spring offensive" wage negotiations. Investing in people should contribute to corporate expansion.
The government should also create an environment conducive to pay raises. It needs to support companies to improve their productivities through the promotion of artificial intelligence and deregulation.

The Bank of Japan (BOJ) is between a rock and a hard place over its quantitative and qualitative monetary easing policy almost six years after its introduction. The central bank can neither take a step toward normalization, nor carry out additional easing.
Last week, the BOJ announced its quarterly outlook for economic activities and prices, lowering its inflation forecast for fiscal 2019 to 0.9 percent, down 0.5 of a percentage point from its estimate in October 2018. In April last year, the BOJ foresaw the figure to be 1.8 percent, meaning that it is cutting down the forecast at every review.
The main reason cited by the central bank for the downward revision was a plunge in oil prices, saying that it was a temporary situation. However, the bank's forecast for the consumer price index hike is 1.4 percent for fiscal 2020, down again from the bank's goal of 2 percent. Many BOJ Policy Board members, who made the prediction, recognize that the inflation rate would go down further.
When a central bank changes its inflation forecast downward successively or drastically, it usually tries to shore up prices by monetary easing. The BOJ, however, does not intend to take such action.
Meanwhile, the opportunity to exit from quantitative and qualitative monetary easing seems to have been missed.
The inflation rate is far lower than 2 percent, but it is not deflation. The government is apparently poised to announce its view that Japan's current economic expansion is the longest after World War II.
Preparations should have been started much earlier to return the monetary policy from crisis mode to normal mode. However, turning around such drastic monetary easing would bring confusion to the market, even though temporarily. This factor has prevented such preparations.
The problem now is that the international economic boom, which has helped the Japanese economy to grow, is declining because of the trade row between the United States and China, and a slowdown in the Chinese economy. The hurdle for normalizing the monetary policy is expected to grow higher.
However, maintaining the current easing policy or strengthening it would bring serious side effects. The negative interest rates of the past three years have already taken a toll on the profit level of financial institutions and the management of pension funds.
BOJ Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda claims that the momentum toward the price stabilization goal of 2 percent inflation is still being maintained, but his statement is far from convincing after repeated cuts in inflation forecasts. The central bank should face up to the reality of lost trust in its policies.

The government's explanation on how to accept more foreign workers still lacks detail, though the measure is being promoted as a national policy.
In out-of-session meetings of the committees on judicial affairs of the Diet's two chambers on Jan. 23, testimonies given by government officials left us with growing concerns about the country's preparedness to accept more overseas workers from April as planned. Particularly worrisome was their responses to questions on the "comprehensive measures" designed to make our society more inclusive. The package contains 126 programs to support newcomers to Japan in areas such as medicine, residence services and social security.
An opposition member asked about the number and cost of programs that local governments are expected to shoulder. The head of Justice Ministry's Immigration Bureau did not respond with clear numbers, and Justice Minister Takashi Yamashita only stated that he "would like to communicate and share information with local governments." As those measures cost money, prefectures and municipalities have a strong interest in them. The testimonies from top officials of the lead agency on this issue are far from comforting.
When the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act was revised in 1990 to accept more South Americans of Japanese descent, the central government farmed out most of the support programs for those newcomers to local governments, including Japanese-language education and housing assistance. Local governments are mindful of this history and worry that Tokyo will do the same thing again.
The centerpiece of the "comprehensive measures" is the introduction of one-stop consultation centers for foreign residents at 100 municipalities across Japan. This plan, too, is not free from concern.
Under the current arrangement, local governments will set up those centers, and the central government will provide financial assistance. It is understandable to allow prefectures and municipalities to call the shots as they can better respond to local needs.
However, providing multilingual consultations at those centers, a goal envisioned by the central government, is no easy task. Local governments that have already struggled to provide education and medical services in multiple languages emphasize the difficulty of finding people with necessary skills, such as interpreters.
During the Diet hearings, officials repeated many times that the central government will help. If they intend to just throw money at the issue and let the local governments do the hard work, that's not helping. The central government must lead to solve challenges when national bureaucrats have far greater resources than their local counterparts.
House of Representatives Speaker Tadamori Oshima said in a lecture late last year that the government's method of using Justice Ministry orders to set the details of the immigration system changes to accept more foreign workers is "a bit rough." He added that the government is "held accountable to explain" its plans. The recess hearings were held after he made these complaints, but the government officials' statements at those hearings are far from convincing.
We want the Diet to continue exercising diligent oversight on the administrative branch's handling of issues that have been put on the back burner.