EDITORIAL: Underpeforming Diet

A supplementary budget for additional economic stimulus spending in the current fiscal year passed the Diet Friday.

The enactment of the extra budget, however, was quickly followed by the passage in the Upper House of censure motions against Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku and Land Minister Sumio Mabuchi.

If the opposition camp takes this opportunity to begin a boycott of Diet sessions, many important bills will die an ill-deserved death. In that case, the fresh spending plan will be almost the only achievement made by the nation's legislature during the 64-day session.

The Diet's performance in the current extraordinary session has been disastrous, in terms of both the number of bills it has enacted and the quality of debate.

While there are many important policy challenges to be addressed, we rarely hear Diet debate worth our attention. The debate on North Korea's shelling of a South Korean island was symptomatic of the problem.

In sessions devoted to the issue in the Upper and Lower houses, the opposition parties criticized in unison the government's delayed response to the attack.

Some seven hours passed before the government issued a statement condemning North Korea's artillery strikes. There is no denying that the government's response was tardy, but there are other more important issues that should be discussed.

North Korea fired artillery shells at private houses. The country possesses nuclear arms and missiles capable of striking any part of Japan. This is not someone else's problem.

The attack has raised serious questions concerning Japan's national security. How should Japan cooperate with the United States and South Korea to win China's support for joint efforts to deter Pyongyang from more provocative acts?

Should war break out between the two Koreas, how can Japanese nationals in South Korea be rescued? What kind of measures to protect confidential information must be taken in order to share relevant information with other countries? How can Japan help map out a plan to build peace on the Korean Peninsula?

It is disappointing that, even in such a serious security situation, the Diet cannot engage with the issues from a broad perspective.

The same is true of the Diet's response to collisions in early September between a Chinese trawler and Japan Coast Guard vessels off the disputed Senkaku Islands.

It was distressing to see the Diet deliberations about the incident focused on the leak of video footage showing the collisions, and the government's decision not to release the videos. Instead, the Diet should have focused on how Japan should deal with a rising China and East Asia's new realities.

A raft of serious challenges concerning the people's economic well-being and state's finances also confront Japan. There is absolutely no room for partisan politicking.

The censure motions against the two Cabinet members had all the hallmarks of old-fashioned stonewalling. Calling for the resignation of the minister in charge over the leak of a video is too simplistic. It is certainly not appropriate for the chief cabinet secretary to call the Self-Defense Force an "apparatus for violence." But an apology should be enough to atone for the gaffe.

The opposition camp would do a serious disservice to the public if it kept introducing censure motions against ruling party lawmakers, irrespective of the seriousness of the issues involved and, when the lawmakers refused to resign, boycotting Diet sessions simply to drive the government into a corner.

Fruitful bipartisan debate over security issues like North Korea's artillery attack is often difficult because the opposition parties have no access to key information. In such cases, a closed-door meeting between the two camps to share that information would help make debate more constructive.

Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi liked to refer to the old saying, "Fight over important affairs, don't care about trifles."

This phrase can be used, and was in fact used, as an excuse to dodge responsibility. But it is appropriate when applied the very poor level of Diet debate in recent weeks.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Nov. 27