Japan Institute for National Fundamentals

　　　　　It may be unconceivable that a U.S. president would call major cabinet members to the White House, request lectures from Japanese prime minister’s brains on tax and other economic policies and lead media to cover the meeting. In Japan, however, such scene takes place actually.
　　　　　On May 19, TV news footage showed that Christina Romer, a former chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers to U.S. President Barack Obama and a professor at the University of California in Berkeley, and her husband were invited to the Prime Minister’s Office and gave opinions to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and major cabinet ministers.

Japan is vulnerable to foreign authorities?
　　　　　The latest gathering was the seventh meeting of the so-called International Finance and Economy Assessment Council. Details of the meetings have been closed to the press. Information control has seemingly been toughened since Paul Krugman, a Nobel economics prize winner and a professor at the City University of New York, leaked the discussion of the third such meeting.
　　　　　On the night of May 19, NHK News said the prime minister would decide whether to implement a planned consumption tax hike as the meetings with economists are over. As a matter of course, the Prime Minister’s Office would say that the meetings represented a study session toward the May 26-27 summit of Group of Seven industrial countries and had nothing to do with the consumption tax decision. For study purposes, however, relevant cabinet ministers may privately meet with experts or send bureaucrats overseas and receive reports from them.
　　　　　The meetings of the International Finance and Economy Assessment Council, which have no effect of sparking up debate widely as the discussions are closed, may inevitably be viewed as a mechanism to take advantage of the authority of foreign experts to guide public opinions. There may be no other industrial country where the government leaders listen to lectures by foreign scholars before TV cameras. Japan could be mistaken overseas as a country vulnerable to the authority of foreign countries or Nobel Prize winners. Even a word of “colonial mentality” vulnerable to the authority, though being a bad expression, comes to mind.

Prime Minister should reaffirm his mission
　　　　　Why didn’t Prime Minister Abe scold bureaucrats who devised the study session for leading him to do such stupid thing? Cabinet ministers can also be blamed. Why didn’t they complain that the Prime Minister’s Office was bringing disgrace on the prime minister and Japan?
　　　　　Since he was a young lawmaker in his 40s, Prime Minister Abe has struggled to normalize Japan’s politics and restore the country’s honor without being daunted by the authority or will of Liberal Democratic Party leaders. He is a politician opposite to any colonial mentality. Why has the Abe administration committed such a blunder? The study session may symbolize Prime Minister Abe who occasionally falls under the influence of some bureaucrats, though having great philosophies.
　　　　　Even excellent bureaucrats include those who are surprisingly insensitive to Japan’s honor. The mission of the Abe administration may be to invigorate the Japanese economy with his Abenomics and achieve structural reforms to create a situation where foreign countries would race to request lectures by Japan. The administration should not waste taxpayers’ money on a performance of listening to lectures by foreign economists.

Yoichi Shimada is Planning Committee Member, Japan Institute for National Fundamentals, and Professor at Fukui Prefectural University.