Takahiro Miyao's Radio Institute of Global Communications: No. 23, September 4, 2005
Takahiro MIYAO (Professor, GLOCOM)
Partial transcript and translation from Prof. Miyao's Radio Program, posted here with permission of Radio Nikkei
| Takahiro Miyao's Radio Institute of Global Communications: No. 23 |
| Radio Nikkei daiichi hoso ; BS Radio Nikkei 300 ch. |
| Broadcast time: | September 4 (Sunday) 19:00-19:30 |
| Recording place: | Recorded in Radio Nikkei's Studio |
| Program: | 1. Introduction
2. Virtual Discussion
3. Trend Research
4. Concluding Remarks |
| Audio: |
Radio Program  (Windows Media Player)
(Mainly in Japanese but some parts in English)
Asia Station Web site (in Japanese) |
Introduction
Hello, everyone. Weatherwise, a long hot summer seems to be over soon, but politically election campaigns are now heating up all over Japan and will continue to be hot at least until the general election date, that is September 11. Today, I will first take up a timely article entitled "Is Koizumi a 'conviction politician'?" written by Mr. Masahiko Ishizuka, councilor of the Foreign Press Center. Then we will have an interview with Mr. Kinji Iwahashi, President of Aspi Corporation, who is now with me in this studio and will talk about his involvement in community development in one of the nicest districts of Tokyo, namely, Daikanyama area. It should be quite interesting, so please stay tuned.
Virtual Discussion
Today we will take up a very timely article "Is Koizumi a 'conviction politician'?" contributed by Mr. Masahiko Ishizuka, councilor of the Foreign Press Center. In this article, Mr. Ishizuka says that Koizumi is much like Thatcher, who did not seek consensus, instead inviting people to follow her if they believed in her vision. A political leader of her type would find it difficult to progress in Japanese politics, but Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi appears proving a rare exception in this regard. Skeptics say he is no more than a narrow-sighted demagogue. His failure to provide detailed explanations on any issue, including his most important project of postal privatization and the Yasukuni Shrine visits seems to be his major shortcoming. If Koizumi is to be credited with being a genuine conviction politician, he needs to show the intellectual and philosophical foundation of his convictions as Thatcher did.
I think Mr. Ishizuka makes a good point, but maybe a little too demanding of a Prime Minister in the context of Japanese politics, because not many Japanese voters seem to be interested in politicians' intellectual or philosophical basis or beliefs. A probably more important is detailed explanations of policies to be adopted by politicians once they are elected, that is the so-called "manifestos."
Trend Research
Today, we will have an interview with Mr. Kinji Iwahashi, President of Aspi Corporation, who is now with me in this studio and will talk about his involvement in community development in one of the nicest districts of Tokyo, namely, Daikanyama area.
(A summary of the interview with Mr. Iwahashi can be seen in the September issue of our Newsletter:: http://www.glocom.org/newsletters/newsletter_20050831.pdf)
Concluding Remarks:
If you have any comment on today's program, please contact us through our Radio Nikkei hompage (www.radionikkei.jp/joho). Actually you can hear our past broadcast program through our homepage. I hope you enjoyed today's program. Our next program will be on the first October, that is, October 2. See you then.
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